Author Guidelines
The editorial operation for this journal has been suspended effective 20 March 2019. Accordingly, the publication of this journal has been discontinued and no new submissions can be considered until further notice.
1. General Terms and Conditions
Authenticity and Integrity. All submissions to the Journal of Research Practice (JRP) must be original, unpublished work not under consideration for publication elsewhere. The journal expects all submissions to be authentic writings by the respective authors. Articles resorting to any form of plagiarism will be rejected without completing the review procedure and the authors will not be allowed to resubmit such articles. The journal also expects authors to practise transparency and integrity, declaring any competing interest that could interfere, or be reasonably perceived to interfere, with the objective presentation of facts and arguments. If an undisclosed competing interest comes to light, the matter will be handled in accordance with international best practice in publication ethics.
Copyright. Authors retain the copyright of all material published in JRP. By submitting an article, the authors agree that the right to electronically reproduce and distribute the article has been given to the journal. The full Copyright Notice appears below, on this page.
Optional Copyediting Charge. JRP is able to provide excellent copyediting service without any charge. However, authors are welcome to pay for this service (at the rate of USD 100 or less per article, depending upon their convenience)—payment instructions are given on the Journal Sponsorship page.
Additional useful information can be found here: Information for Authors
2. Publishing in JRP
JRP solicits articles that help in developing our understanding of research as an evolving practice. The journal promotes inquiry into how different ways of doing research or questioning its assumptions and results may improve it or inspire new developments in research. The journal aims to facilitate research education and promote innovative and self-reflective forms of research in multiple fields.
Generally speaking, JRP is not a journal for reporting the results of specific research projects or the state of knowledge in a specific discipline. Instead, it focuses on aspects of research practice, that is, the conditions, conventions, and tools of systematic inquiry and the various ways in which these can come together in different fields of inquiry. Critical discussions of research experiences and challenges are particularly welcome, preferably with a focus on one or several of the core questions associated with the JRP focus areas.
Authors are invited to write about their research experiences, reflecting critically upon the challenges they faced and ways they found (or suggest) for dealing with them. Every JRP article is expected to find readers in multiple fields of inquiry and trigger fresh thinking about some aspects of research practice and research education.
Article Categories. Submissions to JRP are solicited under the following categories:
- Main Article. Full-length articles relating to the publication focus of this journal (Example 1, Example 2)
- Research Design. Articles discussing basic issues and choices in research design (Example 1, Example 2)
- Provocative Idea. Articles communicating fresh ideas on some challenges of doing research (Example 1, Example 2)
- Review. Critical appreciation of published material (Example 1, Example 2) or review of literature on topics relevant to research practice (Example 3, Example 4)
- Viewpoints & Discussion. Authentic and qualified opinions on topics relevant to the journal (Example 1, Example 2)
A Note on Viewpoints & Discussion Articles: These can be short pieces, rather than detailed scholarly analysis of a topic. The purpose is to initiate discussion on a topic that is relevant to researchers in many fields. A "Discussion" article is written in response to a "Viewpoint" article. Of course, a later Discussion article can also respond to the previous Discussion articles pertaining to the same Viewpoint article. The extent of editorial scrutiny and peer review for these articles would be dictated by the nature of the specific submissions.
There are no strict word-limits for any article category, although there is a preference for concise writing. A typical Main Article would have around 6,000 words. Authors may draft a shorter article initially, allowing space to accommodate reviewers' suggestions, if any.
Peer Review. Normally all submissions to the journal will be subjected to a process of double-blind review. The turn-around time for the review process is about 4-6 weeks. The peer-review process is described under Editorial Policies.
3. Language and Tone
Articles must be written in English for a broad and diverse readership consisting of researchers, research managers, research educators, and research students from multiple disciplines, and research-inclined individuals from multiple backgrounds. Any discipline-specific or profession-specific convention or notion should be sufficiently articulated so as to make sense to a wider audience. In this vein, the authors should also be conscious of the multiple cultural and institutional settings within which their writings may be read and interpreted.
Some degree of critical self-reflection by the authors is expected in JRP articles. The writing should show an awareness of the constraints and choices that exist before researchers in particular contexts and the considerations that guide research practice in those contexts.
All articles should be edited by the authors carefully for language and typographical errors. If necessary, the article should be corrected by a language editor before it is submitted to the journal.
4. Title Page and Body Text
Authors should submit articles online, in common word-processing format. Authors should retain a copy of their articles. Submissions should be typed in single spacing. Both British and American spellings are acceptable provided the usage is consistent.
Title Page. All submissions, irrespective of article category, must have a title, a title page, an abstract, and follow all the style guidelines. The first page should be a Title Page and contain these details:
- Submission category (Main Article, Research Design, etc.)
- Submission title
- Author details (each author's name, affiliation, and e-mail address)
- Corresponding author, in case of multiple authors (i.e., name of the author to whom all correspondence must be sent)
- Number of words in the entire document
- Date of submission
The Title Page will be removed by the editor before the article is sent for peer review.
Body Text. The article itself should start on the second page with the article title, followed by an abstract of about 200 words and six to eight index terms suitable for searching purposes (for examples of index terms, see the Focus Areas, Subject Areas, and Keywords from the JRP Concept Hierarchy). The main body of the text can start immediately thereafter, on the same page. Permission to reproduce copyright material in the article must be obtained by the authors before submission.
In order to facilitate blind review, the body text should not contain the author's identifying details. In case the reference list contains items relating to the author, remove these items and add "Some items have been removed to facilitate blind review" at the top of the reference list. Within the article, where these items are cited, replace the citation with "(Author)".
5. Tables and Figures
Figures (diagrams, charts, drawings, or images) and tables (statistical material or tabular comparisons) should be numbered sequentially, such as Figure 2 and Table 4. Figures/tables should be embedded within the main body of the article, where it is most logical to be placed. Each figure/table should have a short caption, at the top in case of tables but at the bottom in case of figures. The original source of the information and explanatory notes, if any, should be cited at the bottom of the table/figure. Computations, if any, should be checked for accuracy. Each table/figure should be mentioned in the body text (e.g., "as shown in Figure 2").
6. References
The APA system should be followed (here are some useful guidelines from Purdue University, United States). The latest edition of the APA manual should be used (useful notes from Massey University, New Zealand on the recent changes in the sixth edition). Exception: Although the APA system recommends the use of DOI to identify online sources, we are exploring alternative means of implementing a persistent identifier system. Until a decision is made in this regard, authors are advised not to use DOI in reference lists.
When citing references within the text, only the surnames of the authors are used with the year of publication, for example, "Bricmont (1996) has clarified some common confusions" or "as another study of bias in research (Hammersley & Gomm, 1997) indicates," and so forth. Page numbers are necessary when directly quoting from a source or paraphrasing its ideas.
A complete reference list should appear at the end of the main text of the article. The reference list should include every work cited in the text, published or unpublished. Please ensure that dates, spellings, and titles used in the text are consistent with those listed in the reference list. The content and form of the reference list should conform to the APA system, as shown in the following examples.
Book: Gibbons, M., Limoges, C., Nowotny, H., Schwartzman, S., Scott, P., & Trow, M. (1994). The new production of knowledge. London, United Kingdom: SAGE.
Article in Edited Volume: Bricmont, J. (1996). Science of chaos or chaos in science? In P. R. Gross, N. Levitt, & M. W. Lewis (Eds.), The flight from science and reason (Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Volume 775, pp. 131-175). New York, NY: The New York Academy of Sciences.
Journal Article: Ormerod, R. J. (1998). Beyond internal OR groups. Journal of Operational Research Society, 49(4), 420-429.
Journal Article (Online): Grobstein, P. (2007). Interdisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity, and beyond: The brain, story sharing, and social organization. Journal of Research Practice, 3(2), Article M21. Retrieved from http://jrp.icaap.org/index.php/jrp/article/view/98/92
Web Page (No Date): Banathy, B. H. (n.d.). The evolution of systems inquiry (Part 1). Retrieved December 1, 2013, from http://www.isss.org/primer/evolve1.htm
Web Page (No Author): JRP Focus Areas. (2013, January 14). Retrieved January 7, 2017, from http://jrp.icaap.org/index.php/jrp/jrp_focus_areas
7. Style Guideline
It would be helpful if contributors were to bear in mind the following points of style.
Justification of Text: Use the unjustified (or left-justified) mode.
Headings: Headings should be short, expressive, and numbered in the decimal format, such as 3.2.1. Set all the headings in Title Case.
Notes: Avoid footnotes. Use endnotes sparingly.
Punctuation: Use a single (not a double) space after a full stop, and after commas, colons, semicolons. Do not put a space before a question mark, or before any other closing quotation mark.
Spelling: Be consistent in your use of either British or American spelling.
Initial Capitalisation: Please keep capitalisation to a minimum. When possible, use lower case for government, church, state, party, volume; north, south, and the like are only capitalised if used as part of a recognised place name, for example, Western Australia, South Africa; use lower case for general terms, for example, western India, south-west of Paris.
Full Stops: Use full stops after abbreviations (p.m., e.g., i.e., etc.) and contractions where the end of the word is cut (p., ed., chap.). Omit the full points in acronyms (USA, BBC, NATO, plc), after contractions that end in the last letter of the word (Dr, Mr, St, edn, Ltd) and after metric units (cm, m, km, kg).
Italics: Indicate italics by using the italic font. Use italics mainly for theoretical terms (first occurrence in a section). Also use italics for titles of books, journals, newspapers, plays, films, poems, and paintings. Extensive use of italics for emphasis should be avoided.
Quotations: Use double quotation marks to introduce a word/phrase used as an ironic comment, as slang, or as an invented expression, only the first time it appears. Also use double quotation marks to set off the title of an article or chapter when it is mentioned in the text (such quotation marks not required in the reference list). Place periods and commas within closing single or double quotation marks. Use double quotation marks for quoted material within the text; single quotation marks should only be used for quotes within quotes. Do not use leader dots at the beginning or end of a quotation unless the sense absolutely demands. When required, used three leader dots, with spaces in-between. Quotations of over 40 words (or quotations that need to be highlighted due to their significance) should be extracted and indented; quotation marks are unnecessary here.
Numerals: In general, spell out numbers under 10, but use numerals for measurements ("3 km") and ages ("8 years old"). Insert a comma for both thousands and tens of thousands (1,000 and 20,000). Always give page numbers and dates in full (pp. 245-253; 1900-1999).
Dates: Set out as follows: 20 January 2004 (no comma) or January 20, 2004, on 25 June, or on the 25th; 1990s (do not spell out, no apostrophe); nineteenth century (not 19th century) and insert hyphen when used adjectivally ("seventeenth-century innovation").
Last updated: 1 Nov 2017