Instructions / Guidelines for the Author

Instructions to Authors

Submission Guidelines

Please go to the Aims & Scope section to obtain an overview before assessing the suitability of your manuscript for this journal. It is crucial to make sure that issues related to publication ethics, copyright, authorship, figure formats, data, and references format have been properly considered in into account. Obtain approval from all authors for the content of the manuscript before submission. To access the content, readers don’t need to pay anything. Upon article acceptance, authors or their institutions have to pay the Article Processing Charge (APC).

1. Submission

Manuscripts must be written in good English and should be submitted through online submission system. Manuscripts should be submitted as a single MS-Word file including all materials. The recommended word count for articles is within the range of 3000 to 5000 words. This includes all written content, such as the abstract, references, all text within tables, figures, and appendices.

2. Title Page

The first page of the manuscript must contain: the full title; the affiliation and full address of all authors and the corresponding author; the second page must contain an abstract till 150 words.

3. Abstract

The acceptable range for the length of the abstract is between 100 and 150 words. The abstract should to be one paragraph and follow to the style of structured abstracts, but without headings. 1) Introduction: Provide a comprehensive overview of the topic and emphasize the objective of the research. 2) Methods: Please provide a brief description of the primary methods or approaches employed. 3) Findings: Provide a summary of the primary results presented in the article; and 4) Conclusion: Outline the key conclusions or interpretations drawn from the study.

If relevant to your paper, it is suggested that you include the research limitations/implications, practical implications, and social implications in the abstract.

4. Keywords

It is recommended to include between 3 and 6 relevant keywords following the abstract. It is advisable to use keywords that are both relevant to the article and commonly used within the respective subject area.

5. Abbreviations

Any word or words to be abbreviated should be written in full when first mentioned followed by the abbreviation in parenthesis.

6. Preparing Tables and Figures

Tables: It is advised that all columns in a table include by a descriptive heading. In order to simplify the process of copy-editing larger tables, it may be suitable to utilize smaller font sizes, provided that they do not fall below 8 points in size. It is recommended that authors utilize the table feature in Microsoft Word for the purpose of creating tables.

Figures: It is essential that the figures be inserted into the main body of the text and have a resolution of at least 1000 pixels width/height or a resolution of 300 dpi or higher.  The text within the figures is readable and clearly understandable.

7. References and Citation Policy

The American Psychological Association reference style uses the Author-Date format. Refer to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.) for more information. Check the Library Catalogue for call number and location(s). When quoting directly or indirectly from a source, the source must be acknowledged in the text by author name and year of publication. Authors should follow these instructions.

Citation Guide APA (6th Edition)

8. Funding, Acknowledgements, Conflicts of Interest and Data Availability Statement

Funding: It is crucial to provide full disclosure of all funding sources for the study, including grants received to support the research work and any funds allocated for publication expense. It is important to note that certain funding sources may not reimburse article processing charges (APC) unless the funder and grant number are accurately and explicitly stated in the publication.

Please include the statement "This research received no external funding," or "This research was funded by [name of funder] grant number [xxx]" and "The APC was funded by [XXX]" in this section. Kindly ensure that the information provided is accurate and uses the standard spelling of funding agency names.

Acknowledgements: In this section, it is possible to express gratitude for any assistance provided that is not included by the author contribution or funding sections. This may include administrative and technical support, or donations in kind (e.g., materials used for experiments).

Conflicts of Interest: It is necessary for authors to share any personal circumstances or interests that could potentially impact the representation or interpretation of reported research findings. In the event that there are no conflicts of interest, kindly indicate "The authors declare no conflict of interest" in this section. However, if the funding sponsors participated a role in the study’s design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, manuscript writing, or decision to publish the results, it must be disclosed in this section. In the event that no role was played by the funding sponsors, kindly indicate the following statement: "The funding sponsors did not participate in the study’s design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, manuscript writing, and decision to publish the results."

Data Availability Statement: Please provide information in this section regarding where to find of data that supports the reported results. This includes links to publicly archived datasets that were either analyzed or generated during the study. Kindly refer to the recommended Data Availability Statements provided in the specified section. It is advisable to omit this statement in case the study has not presented any data.

9. Ethical Guidelines for the Use of Human Participants in Research

PSSR requires all authors to evaluate whether there is any physical or psychological hazard during the conduct of a research which involves human participants, whether patients, volunteers, or healthy individuals. Such research studies may be classified as basic (experimental), clinical, and epidemiological research, prepared as a cohort study, case-control, or cross-sectional. Investigators are required to make a full disclosure about any such risk or hazard that the human participants may be exposed to. It will be mandatory to obtain informed consent from all such human participants in order to safeguard the welfare and dignity of the participants. Failure to make full disclosure prior to obtaining informed consent might lead to a delay or rejection of the manuscript.

Journal do not make any distinction regarding the nature of participation nor categorize participants based on the type of research. The research may be low risk or high risk, but “every” human participant, irrespective of his or her nature of participation, must give the consent of participations prior to the commencement of research. Hence, informed consent shall be required from all human participants and not with any specific type of research or category of participant.

The demographics should also include number, sex, age range and state of health of the human participants. By state of health, journal means that all participants must be in good physical and mental health, capable to take decisions throughout the tenure of the research. This information about participants’ health is required for all studies with human subjects Though payments to healthy volunteers participating in research are allowable, provided that such payment is to reimburse expenses or compensate for time and inconvenience, and is not at a level that would constitute an inducement for people to take part in studies. Such human research should be conducted only with the approval of the institutional ethical committee. The approval of the institutional ethical committee shall be required for every research submission, irrespective of the participants’ role in the research or whether the participant is paid or not.

10. Appendix:

At the end of paper

11. Reviewer Suggestions

Kindly provide three potential reviewers who have the relevant expertise to review the manuscript during the submission process. The referees may not be approached by the editors. Kindly furnish comprehensive contact details including physical address, website, telephone number, and email address. Kindly provide recommendations for potential reviewers in the cover letter when submitting your manuscript. The suggested referees must not have any ongoing collaborations with the co-authors and should not have co-published any works with them in the past three years. It is recommended that the suggested reviewers are affiliated with institutions other than those of the authors. It is recommended that potential reviewers for the journal be selected from the pool of appropriate Editorial Board members. It is recommended that reviewers be selected from among the authors frequently cited in the paper.