Formatting Information for Authors
Manuscript Preparation Checklist
When submitting a paper to JoS, please include the following and observe the formatting requirements.
- Author details
- Full name of all authors
- ORCID for each author (if applicable)
- Affiliations: department, institution, postal address, country/region
- Corresponding author’s email address
- Manuscript elements
- Abstract: ~150 words
- Keywords
- Citation style: APA 7
- Tables & figures: supply numbered titles and sources for all items
- Tables must be editable (created in the document), not images. The journal does not format tables from scratch.
- If the authors are the source, cite as “Author(s), current year”.
- Author contributions (CRediT-style): e.g.,Person X: conceptualisation, methodology, testing;Person Y: review & editing; …
- Declarations
- Funding declarations
- Data availability (see requirement below)
- Competing interests
- Ethics approval/consent (if applicable)
- Open Access: JoS publishes under CC BY 4.0. See our Open Access page.
Data availability statement:
• Whether and how the supporting data can be accessed
• Repository name and link (if applicable)
• Any restrictions or conditions for access
• A justification if data cannot be shared (e.g., ethical, legal, proprietary)
Declarations
Funding: The authors declare that no funding was received for this research.
Competing Interests: The authors declare no competing interests.
Open Access: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution, and reproduction in any medium or format, provided appropriate credit is given to the original author(s) and the source, a link to the license is provided, and any changes are indicated. Third-party material is included in the article’s Creative Commons license unless otherwise indicated in a credit line. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, permission must be obtained from the copyright holder. License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Final Manuscript Submission
After acceptance, when you submit your final manuscript in the journal’s format, our team will format it to JoS standards. You can see the target layout in this template, and you’re welcome to apply it before submission. A preprint will be posted on our website and later de-linked once the formatted version is published.
Edits: JoS may make minor language edits (e.g., spelling and grammar). Substantive rewriting or reformatting of text, references, tables, figures, or layouts is the author’s responsibility. Tables must be supplied as editable tables (not images); JoS does not recreate tables from scratch.