Author Checklist for Manuscript Submission

Social Sciences Directory Author Checklist for Manuscript Submission

Ready to submit your manuscript? Please carefully read our submission checklist below and once you have done so, then submit using our online manuscript submission system. The Open Journal Systems software used in this website is specifically designed to make the submission, review and publication process straightforward. For more information and useful tutorials, click here.

Once you have submitted your paper to Social Sciences Directory using our submission software, your manuscript will undergo a rigorous 'Technical Check' before then entering the Peer Review process.

The checklist below addresses some of the most common reasons why manuscripts might fail this 'Technical Check'. If you follow this checklist while using our Submission software then you will minimize the chances that your manuscript will be returned to you, and you will be helping to speed your manuscript into the review process.

You should not assume that your manuscript has been formally submitted until you have received a notification that it has passed the 'Technical Check' phase.

If you have any problems, then we encourage you to get in touch with us (info [at] socialsciencesdirectory.com) and we will help resolve the issue, as well as using the issue to create a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page that will provide help in the future for you and other users.

Before Starting

  • First, you should ensure that your submission conforms to our various Editorial Policies and meets our Editorial Criteria. 
  • Secondly, you should study our Guidelines for Authors as well as our Guidelines for Figure and Table Preparation.

Authorship

  • All authors, their affiliations and their email addresses must be the same in both the manuscript file and the online submission system.
  • You will be asked to supply information relating to the contribution that is made by every one of the authors.
  • You will be asked to declare any competing interests that any of the authors may have.

Title/Abstract

  • The Title in your manuscript file must be identical to the title on the online submission form and be less than 30 words.
  • The Abstract in the manuscript must be identical to the abstract on the online submission form and be less than 2000 words.

Manuscript File

  • Consult this section of our Guidelines for detailed information about manuscript files.
  • All figures and tables must be called out in the manuscript in their proper order.
  • Your manuscript must be written in intelligible English, and be free of typographical or grammatical errors. Therefore, if English is not your first language, we suggest that you have a native English speaker read your manuscript before submission.

Classifications or Keywords

  • We require that you supply keywords for your Manuscript. This information is used to a) find suitable Academic Editors to handle your paper; b) navigate our website once your paper is published; and c) increase discoverability in catalogues, indexes and repositories. Therefore, it is VERY important that you provide sufficient, accurate classifications for your manuscript otherwise you may experience delays in the processing of your submission, or a lack of 'discoverability' once it is published. 
  • You should supply as many classifications/keywords as are relevant.

Additional Information

Please give careful attention to the items below, which contains a number of very important questions and can cause problems in the submission and editing process. If you are aware of any of these, please provide details under 'Comments For the Editor', or for more information email us (info [at] socialsciencesdirectory.com). 

  • Competing Interests Statement
    • In accordance with our requirements, all potential competing interests must be declared. These include, but are not limited to, employment, consultancy, patents (including details and application numbers), products in development or modified products etc.
    • You must also include the statement "This does not alter our adherence to all the Social Sciences Directory policies on sharing data and materials" (assuming that is the case).
  • Financial Disclosure
    • All funding received for this work must be been stated in full. 
    • If no external funding was received, you must state "No external funding was received for this study."
    • Acronyms must not be used (or they must be expanded in parenthesis).
    • Grant numbers must be provided where possible.
    • The Funders' role must be clearly stated.
    • Include this sentence: "The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript" (assuming that is the case). If this statement is not correct, you must describe the role of any sponsors or funders and amend the aforementioned sentence as needed.
    • If an author is employed by a commercial funder then we would normally expect a role to have been played by that Funder, and for that role to be detailed (but please be aware that if that is the case, this involvement does not necessarily invalidate your submission).
  • Dual Publication
    • If any of the results/data/figures in this manuscript have been published or are under consideration elsewhere, then the relevant data must be identified and you must explain why this does not constitute dual publication. 
    • Note that any previously published figures must be supplied with the permission to reuse them in an open access journal, under the Creative Commons Attribution License that Social Sciences Directory uses.
  • Publication Charges
    • Any reduction in fees requested must be accompanied by a brief explanation in the Publication Fee Waiver box.
    • If an institutional membership discounts has been requested, the corresponding author must be affiliated with this institute.

Some Discipline Specific Requirements

Note—this is not an exhaustive list, but merely details some of the most common problems we encounter with new submissions. Further information can be found in our Guidelines. 

All acronyms and abbreviations must be spelled out.

Supporting Information Files

  • Each supporting information file must be smaller than 10 MB in size.
  • Your supporting information files should be in formats commonly used by your research community.
  • All supporting information files must have a title and legend.
  • If you wish to upload a compressed file and not have it 'unpacked' by our submission software, then you should compress it as 'rar' format (not 'zip' format).

If you have difficulties with your submission, then please email us (info [at] socialsciencesdirectory.com).

 

These guidelines are adapted from the PLoS ONE website (www.plosone.org), published under the Creative Commons Attribution License




Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

 

ISSN: 2049-6869