Writing Rules

Submission and Preparation

 

-          The articles submitted should be original, unpublished, and not be in consideration for publication or in the review process elsewhere at the time of submission to the International Journal of Quality in Education (IJQE).

-          All the articles sent to IJQE are subjected to at least two international referees for double-blind reviewing in respect of the criteria of IJQE comprising scientific competency, innovativeness of the article, its contribution to the field,  literature, linguistic adequacy, the appropriateness of the study design, methods, findings, discussions in the study after the initial review of the editor.

-          The submission file is in Open Office, Microsoft Word, RTF, or WordPerfect document file format

-          Where available, URLs for the references have been provided

-          The text is single-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.



AUTHOR GUIDELINES


Files should be in MS Word format only and should be formatted for direct printing. Figures and tables should be embedded and not supplied separately. Please make sure that, as far as possible, you use regular fonts in your documents. Special fonts, such as fonts used in the Far East (Japanese, Chinese, Korean, etc.) may cause problems during processing. To avoid unnecessary errors you are strongly advised to use the ‘spellchecker’ function of MS Word (proofing language: English UK) and to have your work language edited by a professional English language practitioner. Please submit a letter from the practitioner verifying that your work has been professionally edited.



Article Structure 


Articles should be prepared in the following order:


Title: Concise and informative. Titles are often used in information-retrieval systems. Avoid

abbreviations and formulae where possible. The title should not exceed 12 words and should be font size 16.



Abstract: The abstract is a meaningful summary or synopsis of the complete document, written in one paragraph (300 words). It should address all of the following elements: Purpose of the article, methods, results, conclusions, and recommendations / future directions (as applicable).

Abstract Writing Style


• Use specific words, phrases, concepts, and keywords from your article.


• Use precise, clear, descriptive language.


• Write from an objective, rather than evaluative, point of view.


• Define unique terms and acronyms the first time used

.
• Type in font size 8.


• Use complete sentences.


• Use verbs in the active voice


• If the article reports quantitative findings, write in the third person, as traditionally done in

 quantitative studies. If the article reports qualitative findings, write in the first person, as

traditionally done in qualitative studies. 



Keywords: Immediately after the abstract, provide a maximum of five keywords. List these in

 alphabetical order and use font size 8. Use semi-colons between words.


Key Elements of Article:



1. Introduction: This explains the nature and purpose of the article, the theoretical background

relevant to the article’s focus, related research with a clear indication of the gap(s)/limitation(s) in existing knowledge / practice that the article will address, and the practical applications or significance of what the article reports.



2. Methods: This section names and justifies the research design; describes the  participants/sample (e.g., contextualization, demographics, recruitment/selection criteria, and

group assignment), the data collection instruments/ data generation techniques (e.g., task[s] /

method(s), equipment, instruments, including a discussion of their validity and reliability, if appropriate, or trustworthiness in qualitative studies), the procedures employed in the study

such as treatment(s) or the data generation process, and data analysis. Authors must please

align the language of this section with their design (i.e., quantitative and qualitative methods

sections will use different research jargon). Authors must comment explicitly on how their work was ethical.



3. Results /Findings and Discussion: Results/findings should be clear and concise. The discussion should explore the significance of the results of the work, and not repeat them. Authors need to acknowledge their study’s limitations. A combined results and discussion section is often appropriate. Avoid extensive citations and discussion of published literature in the discussion – instead use the literature to show how the results/findings are significant.



4. Conclusion(s) and Recommendations/Future directions: The main conclusions of the study may be presented in a short conclusions section, which may stand alone or form a subsection of the  discussion, or results and discussion, section. Recommendations/Future directions may stand alone or form a subsection of the discussion or results and discussion section. These include meaningful suggestions for further research and/or practical applications flowing from the study’s

 

conclusions.

Acknowledgements (when appropriate): Collate acknowledgements in a separate section at the end of the article before the references and do not, therefore, include them on the title page, as a footnote to the title, or otherwise. List here those individuals who provided help during the research (e.g., language editing, writing assistance, fieldwork, etc.) and sponsors.



References: References are listed in alphabetical order. Each listed reference is cited in text, and each text citation is listed in the References. References should be in line with APA 6 (American Psychological Association) style.



Appendices: If there is more than one appendix, they should be identified as A, B, etc. Formulae and equations in appendices should be given separate numbering: Eq. (A.1), Eq. (A.2), etc.; in a subsequent appendix, Eq. (B.1) and so on.



Key Elements for Discussion Articles: major theme, logical development of the theme, author's point of view, implications, inferences, or conclusions.



Key Elements for Systematic Reviews and/or Meta-syntheses: scope of the review, publication time span, publication origin, types of documents reviewed, author's opinion of the reviewed literature, particularly unique or important research findings, and conclusions about the research trends.



Formatting your document



Articles should be prepared in single column format suitable for direct printing onto A4 sheets of paper (8.3in x 11.7in/210mm x 297mm).

 

The body of the article (Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusion and

 Recommendations, Acknowledgements and References) should be typed in Times New Roman, font size 12. Use 2.0 line spacing. The length of the article - including abstract, tables, and references -must be between 3500 and 6000 words. The article must be written in UK English and must be language edited by a professional English language practitioner prior to submission. Each paragraph should be longer than two sentences.



Write and structure articles according to APA 6 (American Psychological Association). 


Tables: All tables should be numbered with Arabic numerals. Headings should be placed above tables, and centered. Leave one line space between the heading and the table. Only horizontal lines should be used within a table, to distinguish the column headings from the body of the

 

table. Tables must be embedded into the text and not supplied separately. Table contents should be typed in font size 10.



Illustrations: All figures should be numbered with Arabic numerals (1, 2, …n). All photographs, schemas, graphs and diagrams are to be referred to as figures. Line drawings should be good quality scans (minimum of 300 dpi) or true electronic output. Low-quality scans are not acceptable. Figures must be embedded into the text and not supplied separately.



Lettering and symbols should be clearly defined either in the caption or in a legend provided as part of the figure. Figures should be placed at the top or bottom of a column wherever possible, as close as possible to the first reference to them in the article. The figure number and caption should be typed below the illustration, left justified, with subsequent lines indented.

Equations: All equations should be numbered with Arabic numerals (1, 2 ...n).



Style and References



Please adhere to APA 6 (American Psychological Association) style in your article. Guidelines on how to do so can be accessed from the following link:



Submission checklist 



The following list will be useful during the final checking of your article, prior to sending it to the journal for review. Please consult this Guide for Authors for further details of any item.

 

 

Ensure that the following items are present: 


A letter to the editor, specifying that the submission reflects original work that is not under

review elsewhere and how the submission fits the journal’s scope and offers new knowledge. The

letter should also include information regarding which one author has been designated as the

 corresponding author. Contact details for this author must be provided, including: 


• Affiliation (department/school; faculty; university; country)


•Official E-mail address 


• Full postal address 


• Telephone and fax numbers 


All necessary files have been uploaded, and contain: 


• Title page (The full title of the manuscript, the name(s) of the author(s) together with


their affiliations, and the name, address, and e-mail address of the author to whom


correspondence should be sent, as well as date of submission/resubmission.)

 


• Abstract and keywords

 
• Main document


• All figure captions 


• All tables (including title, description, footnotes)

 

 
Further considerations


• Manuscript has been professionally language edited 


• References are in the correct format (i.e., APA 6) for this journal 


• 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 Web)

 

Copyright Notice

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:



Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a 
Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.

  1. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.

  2. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
  3. IJQE will not be responsible for further action on the Plagiarism issue. The author will be solely responsible for the content of their work and for the plagiarism issue