Submission Guidelines

COPE Guidelines:

The Journal ensures the implementation of ethical guidelines envisaged by Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Journal identifies and resolves conflict of interest using journal’s policy thereof. A team from the Advisor Board will handle complaints/grievances by authors, reviewers or any other external and internal party.

Contact Details for Submission

Submissions will be accepted throughout the year with an average review time of 3-5 months. Submissions must be done electronically at http://arss.gscwu.edu.pk in Microsoft Word format (.doc, .docx). Queries can be emailed to editor.arss@gscwu.edu.pk. All submissions are subject to double-blind peer review and should follow the ARSS format.

Publication Charges

ARSS strictly follows guidelines and instructions given by Higher Education Commission (HEC) Pakistan recognized/accredited and funded journals to charge any type of publishing fee. In this lieu, ARSS does not charge any fee or submission/review charges from authors for the submission and publication. ARSS focuses only on high quality peered reviewed publication in its field.

Submission Checklist

You can use this list to carry out a final check of your submission before you send it to the journal for review. Please check the relevant section in this Guide for Authors for more details.

Ensure that the following items are present

One author has been designated as the corresponding author with contact details:

• E-mail address
• Full postal address

All necessary files have been attached:

Manuscript:

• Abstract Include keywords
• All figures (include relevant captions)
• All tables (including titles, description, footnotes)
• Ensure all figure and table citations in the text match the files provided
• Supplemental files (where applicable)

Further Considerations:

• Manuscript has been ‘spell checked’ and ‘grammar checked’
• All references mentioned in the Reference List are cited in the text, and vice versa
• Permission has been obtained for use of copyrighted material from other sources (including the Internet)
• Relevant declarations of interest have been made
• Journal policies detailed in this guide have been reviewed
• Referee suggestions and contact details provided, based on journal requirements

Ethics in Publishing

Please see our information pages on Ethics in publishing and Ethical guidelines for publication.

Declaration of Interest

All authors must disclose any financial and personal relationships with other people or organizations that could inappropriately influence (bias) their work. Examples of potential competing interests include employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent applications/registrations, and grants or other funding. Authors must disclose any interests in two places:

1. A summary declaration of interest statement in the title page file (if double-blind) or the manuscript file (if single-blind). If there are no interests to declare then please state this: ‘Declarations of interest: none’. This summary statement will be ultimately published if the article is accepted.
2. Detailed disclosures as part of a separate Declaration of Interest form, which forms part of the journal’s official records. It is important for potential interests to be declared in both places and that the information matches.

Submission Declaration and Verification

Submission of an article implies that the work described has not been published previously (except in the form of an abstract, a published lecture or academic thesis), that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, that its publication is approved by all authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other language, including electronically without the written consent of the copyright-holder. To verify originality, your article may be checked by the originality detection service as per HEC Pakistan plagiarism policy.

Use of Inclusive Language

Inclusive language acknowledges diversity, conveys respect to all people, is sensitive to differences, and promotes equal opportunities. Articles should make no assumptions about the beliefs or commitments of any reader, should contain nothing which might imply that one individual is superior to another on the grounds of race, sex, culture or any other characteristic, and should use inclusive language throughout. Authors should ensure that writing is free from bias, for instance by using ‘he or she’, ‘his/her’ instead of ‘he’ or ‘his’, and by making use of job titles that are free of stereotyping (e.g. ‘chairperson’ instead of ‘chairman’ and ‘flight attendant’ instead of ‘stewardess’).

Contributors

Each author is required to declare his or her individual contribution to the article: all authors must have materially participated in the research and/or article preparation, so roles for all authors should be described. The statement that all authors have approved the final article should be true and included in the disclosure.

Changes to Authorship

Authors are expected to consider carefully the list and order of authors before submitting their manuscript and provide the definitive list of authors at the time of the original submission. Any addition, deletion or rearrangement of author names in the authorship list should be made only before the manuscript has been accepted and only if approved by the journal Editor. To request such a change, the Editor must receive the following from the corresponding author: (a) the reason for the change in author list and (b) written confirmation (e-mail, letter) from all authors that they agree with the addition, removal or rearrangement. In the case of addition or removal of authors, this includes confirmation from the author being added or removed. Only in exceptional circumstances will the Editor consider the addition, deletion or rearrangement of authors after the manuscript has been accepted. While the Editor considers the request, publication of the manuscript will be suspended. If the manuscript has already been published in an online issue, any requests approved by the Editor will result in a corrigendum.

Copyright

Upon acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to complete a ‘Journal Publishing Agreement’. An e-mail will be sent to the corresponding author confirming receipt of the manuscript together with a ‘Journal Publishing Agreement’ form or a link to the online version of this agreement.

Author Rights

As an author you (or your employer or institution) have certain rights to reuse your work.

Role of the Funding Source

You are requested to identify who provided financial support for the conduct of the research and/or preparation of the article and to briefly describe the role of the sponsor(s), if any, in study design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the article for publication. If the funding source(s) had no such involvement, then this should be stated.

Open Access

Please visit our Ethics and Malpractices page for more information.

Submission

Our online submission form page guides you step-wise through the process of entering your article details and uploading your files. All correspondence, including notification of the Editor’s decision and requests for revision, is sent by e-mail.

Submit Your Article

Please submit your article by sending email at editor.arss@gscwu.edu.pk

Referees

Please submit the names and institutional e-mail addresses of several potential referees. Note that the editor retains the sole right to decide whether or not the suggested reviewers are used.

Double-blind Review

This journal uses double-blind review, which means the identities of the authors are concealed from the reviewers, and vice versa. To facilitate this, please include the following separately:

Title page (with author details): This should include the title, authors’ names, affiliations, acknowledgements and any Declaration of Interest statement, and a complete address for the corresponding author including an e-mail address.

Blinded manuscript (no author details): The main body of the paper (including the references, figures, tables and any acknowledgements) should not include any identifying information, such as the authors’ names or affiliations.

Use of Word Processing Software

It is important that the file be saved in the native format of the word processor used. The text should be in single-column format. Keep the layout of the text as simple as possible. Most formatting codes will be removed and replaced on processing the article. In particular, do not use the word processor’s options to justify text or to hyphenate words. However, do use bold face, italics, subscripts, superscripts etc. When preparing tables, if you are using a table grid, use only one grid for each individual table and not a grid for each row. If no grid is used, use tabs, not spaces, to align columns. The electronic text should be prepared in a way very similar to that of conventional manuscripts. Note that source files of figures, tables and text graphics will be required whether or not you embed your figures in the text. To avoid unnecessary errors, you are strongly advised to use the ‘spell-check’ and ‘grammar-check’ functions of your word processor.