Author Guidelines

The JCSIE uses a two-tier double blind review process. Therefore, manuscripts submitted to JCSIE must not include information regarding author identification within the submitted article. References to author’s work should list only Author (s) and year in the citations, but no other identifying information. Manuscripts should be in single-space typewritten text, including references, tables and figures. By submitting a paper author(s) is/are certifying that the work is original, is not being considered for publication elsewhere, has not been accepted for publication or previously published, and is not copyrighted. The journal does not accept manuscripts previously published by or simultaneously submitted to other publication venues.

Abstract:  
All submission must include an abstract of 100 – 200 words. The abstract text for a paper should appear one-line space below the abstract heading, indented 0.5 from the left and right margins. It should be italicized in a 10-point font, Times New Roman. Authors are strongly encouraged to submit their abstract in English and a translated version in another language. The abstract should state the main research problem, research question/s or/and hypothesis/es, a summary of the theoretical or conceptual framework, a summary of the methodological approaches or procedures, major findings, and conclusions. Author(s) should include a list of five to six keywords.

Manuscript Structure

A manuscript submitted to the JCSIE must include an (a) introduction or a problem statement, (b) thesis, or research question/s or/and hypothesis/es, (c) a review of literature, and theoretical or/and conceptual framework, (d) methods or procedures, including data sources and data analysis, (e) results and findings, (f) discussions, (g) conclusion, and (h) references. More specifically,

TITLE: The title should be specific enough to synthesize the main idea or purpose of the article. The title should be between 12 and 20 words.

AUTHOR/S: Do not include your name in the paper, so that it can be blind-reviewed. There will be an opportunity to put your name during the submission process, but not in the main manuscript.

ABSTRACT: The abstract should be one paragraph of 100- 300 words. It should include one or two sentences about the problem statement or justification, the purpose of the article, the research question/s or hypothesis/es, one or two sentences about methods or procedures, one or two sentences about the findings or the results, and one or two sentences about the implications of the findings or results.

INTRODUCTION: Describe the problem addressed by the article or the justification. Why is it interesting? Describe the context (if appropriate!). Provide the purpose of the study, and the main research question/s.

LITERATURE REVIEW AND CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK: Review the literature related to the key concepts in your research question (s).  Describe the conceptual framework of your study. Each concept in the conceptual framework should be a sub-heading.

METHODOLOGY: Explain the procedure that you use to plan, collect information (e.g., source of data, types of resources used, selection criteria, etc), conceptual framework used (if any), and strategies of analyzing/synthesizing the data/information.

FINDINGS, ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSIONS: Describe the findings that provide answer/s to your research question/s. Analyze your findings, possibly, using your conceptual framework. Then, discuss the implications and possibly the limitations of your findings. How do your findings relate to your research question/s or hypothesis/es? Are your findings consistent or not with what previous studies have reported? Explain the consistency or/and inconsistency of your findings with results from previous studies! How do your findings fit into the big picture?

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS: Summarize your study, articulate its relevance, and conclude with perspectives for further studies. Make some recommendations for scholars, policy makers and practitioners (as needed).

REFERENCES (LITERATURE CITED): List all the citations that you referenced in your text, using the APA format, 6^th edition.

Book Review Structure

A book review should include: (a) An introduction of the book (i.e., author, title, date, and place of publication, author’s goal or purpose, and significance of the book), (b) A brief summary of the book, (c) A critical assessment (i.e., appreciation and criticism), and (d) A conclusion.

Submission Length

All manuscript must be submitted electronically in MS word format at: www.jcsie.com. Our user-friendly online manuscript submission and review system offers authors the option to track the review process of manuscripts. The submission length is 5,000 - 10,000 words for original articles, and 1,500 - 2,000 words for book reviews.  Please contact jcsieeditor@jcsie.com with any questions.

Paper Typing: 

• All papers must be typed in Microsoft Word using Times New Roman and a 12-point font.
• All papers must be typed, single-spaced, on regular 8.5″ x 11″ paper, and fully justified.
• Margins should be set to 1-inch top, bottom, left, and right.
• Page number should be centered at the bottom of each page.
• No headers and footers.
• Use italics in place of underlines.
• Indent all paragraphs ½ inch and do not skip lines between paragraphs.
• All major headings should be bold, centered, capitalized, set to 12-point font, and with one space around headings.
• All sub-headings should be bold, left justified with an initial capital for each word (Title case), set to 12-point font.
• Leave one line space above and below each sub-heading.
• Author/s should follow the APA style guide for reference list format and will find more information at: http://www.apastyle.org
• Appendixes should be placed at the end of the manuscript.

Preparation of Figures

Upon submission of an article, authors are supposed to include all figures and tables in the PDF file of the manuscript. Figures and tables should not be submitted in separate files.

If the article is accepted, authors will be asked to provide the source files of the figures. Each figure should be supplied in a separate electronic file. All figures should be cited in the paper in a consecutive order. Figures should be supplied in either vector art formats (Illustrator, EPS, WMF, FreeHand, CorelDraw, PowerPoint, Excel, etc.) or bitmap formats (Photoshop, TIFF, GIF, JPEG, etc.). Bitmap images should be of 300 dpi resolution at least unless the resolution is intentionally set to a lower level for scientific reasons. If a bitmap image has labels, the image and labels should be embedded in separate layers.

Preparation of Tables

Tables should be cited consecutively in the text. Every table must have a descriptive title and if numerical measurements are given, the units should be included in the column heading. Vertical rules should not be used.

Proofs

Corrected proofs must be returned to the publisher within 8 -12 days of receipt. The publisher will do everything possible to ensure prompt publication. It will therefore be appreciated if the manuscripts and figures conform from the outset to the style of the journal.

Information for non-native English speakers

JCSIE suggests that authors whose native language is not English have their manuscript checked by a qualified native English speaker prior to submission, or by a language editing service to ensure that manuscripts meet the required English standard.

Copyright Notice

Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License. Open Access authors retain the copyrights of their papers, and all open access articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided that the original work is properly cited. Author will be required to sign our standard License Agreement before publication.

Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).

Disclosure Policy

A competing interest exists when professional judgment concerning the validity of research is influenced by a secondary interest, such as financial gain. We require that our authors reveal all possible conflicts of interest in their submitted manuscripts.