As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.
The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Instructions for authors.
Images are either in PNG format, and the width is at least 2.500 pixels, or in SVG format.
The text is double-spaced; uses a 12-point font; employs italics, rather than underlining (except with URL addresses); and all illustrations, figures, and tables are placed within the text at the appropriate points, rather than at the end.
The submission file is in Microsoft Word document file format (DOCX).
Where available, URLs (download source of an online article) for the references have been provided.
Author Guidelines
Structure – APA Style (7th ed.)
Your paper should be compiled in the following order: title page; abstract; keywords; main text introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion; acknowledgments; declaration of interest statement; references; appendix (as appropriate); table(s) with caption(s) (on individual pages); figures; figure captions (as a list).
Papers will be accepted in English only. If this is not your native tongue please ensure that you consult an appropriate editor before submitting.
Style Guidelines
Please refer to the APA guidelines (7th ed.) when preparing your paper.
Please use double quotation marks, except where “a quotation is ‘within’ a quotation”. Please note that long quotations should be indented without quotation marks. Please reference all direct citations, with relevant page number/s and the Digital Object Identifier (DOI), if available, as the last element of the reference.
Word Limits
Please include a word count for your paper. A typical full article should be no more than 7000 words; this limit does not include tables, figure captions, author notes/endnotes. This limit does include the main text, abstract, footnotes and references. Longer papers can be considered following consultation with the editor.
A typical brief article for this journal should be no more than 4000 words; this limit does not include tables, author notes/endnotes and figure captions; this limit includes the main text, abstract, footnotes and references.
Formatting and Templates
Papers must be submitted in Word format using Times New Roman 12 pt font and double-spaced.
Figures should be high quality and supplied in one of our preferred file formats: PNG or Microsoft Word (DOC or DOCX).
Tables should present new information rather than duplicating what is in the text. Readers should be able to interpret the table without reference to the text. Please supply editable files.
References
Please use APA Style (7th ed) when preparing your paper. When citing online articles, please include the URL (web address of the article).
Checklist: What to Include
Author details. All authors of a manuscript should include their full name and affiliation on the title page of the manuscript. Where available, please also include ORCiD number/s. One author will need to be identified as the corresponding author, specifying their email address for all contact. Authors’ affiliations are the affiliations where the research was conducted. If any of the named co-authors moves affiliation during the peer-review process, the new affiliation can be given as a footnote. Please note that no changes to affiliation can be made after your paper is accepted.
Abstract. Should contain an unstructured abstract of 250 words. Do NOT include references in abstracts.
Keywords. Provide between 1 and 5 keywords at the bottom of the abstract page.
Funding details. Please supply all details required by your funding and grant-awarding bodies or indicate No funding Applicable.
Disclosure statement. This is to acknowledge any financial interest or benefit that has arisen from the direct applications of your research.
Justification of sample size. For all empirical studies we require that authors provide information regarding how the sample size of the study was determined, and that a justification is provided for the adequacy of the sample size, typically based on à priori power calculations.
Ethical standards
Please indicate in your Method section that you have obtained all necessary Ethical clearances and the Code of Conduct used during the progress of this study.
Data sharing policy
Authors are encouraged to share or make open the data supporting the results or analyses presented in their paper where this does not violate the protection of human subjects or other valid privacy or security concerns.
Data availability statement. If there is a publicly available data set associated with the paper, we recommend that an hyperlink, DOI or other persistent identifier associated with the data set(s) be included in the paper.
Data deposition. If you choose to share or make the data underlying the study open, please deposit your data in a recognised data repository at the time of submission. You will be asked to provide the DOI, pre-reserved DOI, or other persistent identifier for the data set.
Using Third-Party Material in your Paper
You must obtain the necessary permission to reuse third-party material in your article. The use of short extracts of text and some other types of material is usually permitted, on a limited basis, for the purposes of criticism and review without securing formal permission. If you wish to include any material in your paper for which you do not hold copyright, and which is not covered by this informal agreement, you will need to obtain written permission from the copyright owner prior to submission and provide a copy of this permission.
Cover Letter
In your cover letter, please acknowledge
that the manuscript has not previously been published elsewhere
neither is it currently under review by any other journal or publisher
that you have read and adhered to Instruction to Authors.
Articles
Please include a word count for your paper. A typical article should be around 7000 words; this limit does not include tables, figure captions, author notes/endnotes. This limit does include the main text, abstract, footnotes and references. Longer papers can be considered following consultation with the editor.
Brief Articles
A typical brief article for this journal should be no more than 4000 words; this limit does not include tables, author notes/endnotes and figure captions; this limit includes the main text, abstract, footnotes and references.
Copyright Notice
This Agreement (the Agreement) is made by and between __________ (Author(s)) and __________ (the Journal).
Author Agreement
By submitting this research article entitled “_____________” ('article') to the Journal published by the J. Murrey Atkins Library at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, the Author(s) certify that:
Warranties:
Author __________ (name) is legally authorized and possesses full power and authority on behalf of my co-authors [list names] to enter into this Agreement.
Author warrants, on behalf of all article authors, that:
The article is original, has not been formally published in any other peer-reviewed journal, is not under consideration for publication by any other journal and does not infringe any existing copyright or any other third party rights;
The named authors (above) are the sole author(s) of the article. Any co-author not signing this Agreement personally has granted full authority to [named author in I.A.] to enter into this agreement of his/her behalf and to grant the following rights to the Journal set forth below.
The article contains nothing that is unlawful, libelous, or which would, if published, constitute a breach of contract.
Copyright
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
Author(s) shall retain copyright to the article but grant the Journal right of first publication (subject to the institutional repository deposit requirement in II.b. below), and the irrevocable right to perpetually disseminate the article as part of the Journal subject to the Creative Commons Attribution License, which allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
Upon publication of the article, Author agrees to deposit a copy of the published version of the manuscript in J. Murrey Atkins Library’s institutional repository, Niner Commons.
Beginning one year after the date of formal publication of the article, Authors may enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work and subject to the Creative Commons Attribution License (e.g., publish it in a book), subject to a proper acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal: This article was originally published in the [the Journal] (Vol., Issue, Year).
III. Indemnification.
Author shall indemnify, defend, and hold harmless the Journal from any and all claims, liabilities, damages, expenses, including attorneys fees and expert costs, penalties, fees, if any arising from enforcement of this Agreement and/or related to claims of infringement of copyrights or proprietary rights allegedly contained in the Article, or resulting from a claim of defamation, obscenity, or invasion of privacy based upon or arising out of the publication of the Article or any other breach of warranty as set forth in No. 1.
Privacy Statement
The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.
