Instructions for Authors

1.1 Types of papers

Journal have no length requirements for manuscripts, but the manuscripts need to contain scientifically sound experiments and provide a substantial amount of new information. The manuscripts should neither be under consideration for publication in another journal nor previously published in another journal. The main article types considered for publication are:

Original Research: The manuscripts include full Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion and Conclusion sections. For related or sequential research work, authors should consider publishing them as one manuscript. The quality and impact of the study will be considered during peer-review.

Reviews: These provide concise and precise updates on the latest progress made in a given area of research. They are often written by leaders in a particular discipline. Reviews are often widely read (for example, by researchers looking for a full introduction to a field) and highly cited. Reviews commonly cite approximately 60 primary research articles.

Editorial: Editorials are submitted exclusively by the host editor(s) of Journals, to convey to the reader the aims and objectives of the research that pertains to the topic, as well as placing it in a broader context. The Editorial should present the contributing articles of the Research Topic but should not be a mere table of contents. As the final contributing article to the Research Topic, Editorials should be submitted once all expected articles have been accepted and published.

1.2 Accepted File Formats

Authors must use the word template IJSSR.docx available on our website to prepare their manuscript. Using the template file will substantially shorten the time to complete copy-editing and publication of accepted manuscripts. Manuscripts must be converted into a single file before submission. If this requirement presents a problem, please contact the Editorial Office (ijssr@univpubl.com). 

2.1 General standards

Front Matter

Title: The title should be concise and informative, and, where possible, state the main results or conclusions in the manuscript. Please do not include abbreviated or short forms of the title

Author information: Author information including name(s), email(s), affiliation(s). The name(s) should be the full first and last names. The PubMed/MEDLINE standard format is used for affiliations: complete address information including city, zip code, state/province, and country. Affiliations of the authors indicated by numbers (not symbols). At least one author should be designated as corresponding author, and his or her email address and other details should be included at the end of the affiliation section

Abstract: Please provide an abstract of 150 to 300 words. As a primary goal, the abstract should render the general significance and conceptual advance of the work clearly accessible to a broad readership. In the abstract, minimize the use of abbreviations and do not cite references, figures or tables.

Keywords: All article types require a minimum of 5 and a maximum of 8 keywords.

Main Text

Introduction: Succinct, with no subheadings.

Materials and Methods: This section may be divided by subheadings and should contain sufficient detail so that when read in conjunction with cited references, all procedures can be repeated. New methods and protocols should be described in detail while well-established methods can be briefly described and appropriately cited.

Results: This section may be divided by subheadings. Footnotes should not be used and must be transferred to the main text. Provide a concise and precise description of the experimental results, their interpretation as well as the experimental conclusions that can be drawn.

Discussion: This section should explore the significance of the results of the work, not repeat them. A combined Results and Discussion section is often appropriate. Avoid extensive citations and an overly discussion of published literature. This section may be combined with Results.

Conclusions: This section is not mandatory but can be added to the manuscript if the discussion is unusually long or complex.

Back Matter

Acknowledgments: Acknowledgments of people, grants, funds, etc. should be placed in a separate section on the title page. The names of funding organizations should be written in full.

Funding: Please describe any sources of funding that have supported the work. The statement should include details of any grants received (please give the name of the funding agency and grant number).

Conflict of interest: This section is required for all papers. If there are no interests to declare, please use the following wording: “The authors declare no conflicts of interest statement” or “The author declares no conflicts of interests”.

References: Reference list is sorted numerically. The reference list should be limited to only those citations essential to the presentation. Please verify the accuracy of all references and check that all references have been cited in the text. Please list all authors’ names if the authors number less than 3 should be provided. For the authors of more than 3, please list the first three authors’ names, than use "et al.". If available, please always include DOIs as full DOI links in your reference list.

Sample reference citation

1. Surname Initial(s), Surname Initial(s), Surname Initial(s), et al. Article title. Title of journal. Year; volume: pages. Doi:xxx

2. Surname Initial(s), Surname Initial(s), Surname Initial(s), et al. Article title. Title of journal. Year; volume: pages. (In Language). Doi:xxx

3. Surname Initial(s), Surname Initial(s), Surname Initial(s), et al. Book Title. Edition - if available. Publisher: City, Country. Year.

4. Surname Initial(s), Surname Initial(s), Surname Initial(s), et al. Title of chapter. In Surname of the editor(s) Initial(s) (ed(s).) Book title Page. Edition. Publisher: City, Country. Year.

5. Surname Initial(s), Surname Initial(s), Surname Initial(s), et al. Title. Year. Available at: URL (Accessed: Day month year).

6. Surname Initial(s), Surname Initial(s), Surname Initial(s), et al. ‘Title of paper’, Title of the conference. Place and date of the conference. Publisher: City, Country. Year of Publication.

7. Title of Site. Available online: URL (accessed on Day Month Year)

Figure and Table Guidelines

File for Figures must be provided during submission in a single zip archive and at a sufficiently high resolution. All Figures and Tables should be inserted into the main text close to their first citation and must be numbered following their number of appearance (Figure 1, Figure 2, Table 1, Table 2, etc.). We encourage authors to use color graphics, which do not add additional charges. All tables should be in editable form.

supplementary files

Additional data and files can be uploaded as "Supplementary Files" during the manuscript submission process. The supplementary files will also be available to the referees as part of the peer-review process and will be published as received from the author without any conversion, editing, or reformatting.

Publication Ethics Statement

We follow the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals.

The editors of this journal enforce a rigorous peer-review process together with strict ethical policies and standards to ensure to add high quality scientific works to the field of scholarly publication. At the same time, the authors of a scientific article bear the responsibility to make certain that their contribution is original, reproducible, and clearly and honestly represented. Maintaining integrity of the research and its presentation is helped by following the rules of good scientific practice, which include:

1.     The manuscript should not be submitted to more than one journal for simultaneous consideration.

2.     The submitted work should be original and should not have been published elsewhere in any form or language.

3.     Results should be presented clearly, honestly, and without fabrication, falsification or inappropriate data manipulation (including image based manipulation).

4.     Your manuscript should not contain any information that has already been published. If you include already published figures or images, please obtain the necessary permission from the copyright holder to publish under the CC-BY license.

5.     If errors and inaccuracies are found by the authors after publication of their paper, they need to be promptly communicated to the editors of this journal so that appropriate actions can be taken.

Borders and Territories: Potential disputes over borders and territories may have particular relevance for authors in describing their research or in an author or editor correspondence address, and should be respected. Content decisions are an editorial matter and where there is a potential or perceived dispute or complaint, the editorial team will attempt to find a resolution that satisfies parties involved. Universal Publishing stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Citation: Articles (e.g., Opinion, Review and Commentary articles) must cite appropriate and relevant literature in support of the claims made. Authors should consider the following guidelines when preparing their manuscript:

Any statement in the manuscript that relies on external sources of information (i.e., not the authors’ own new ideas or findings) should use a citation.

Authors should not copy references from other publications if they have not read the cited work.

Authors should not engage in excessive self-citation of their own or their friends’, peers’, or institution’s work.

Authors should cite sources that have undergone peer-review where possible.

In accordance with COPE guidelines, we expect that “original wording taken directly from publications by other researchers should appear in quotation marks with the appropriate citations.” This condition also applies to an author’s own work. COPE have produced a discussion document on citation manipulation with recommendations for best practice.

Authors should adhere to the practices of their research field and the guidelines of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). According to the ICMJE guidelines, all of the following 4 criteria must be met to be considered an author:

(1). Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis or interpretation of data for the work;

(2). Drafting the work or revising it critically from the view point of important intellectual content;

(3). Final approval of the version to be published; and

(4). Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions raised to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

The individuals who conduct the work are responsible for identifying who meets these criteria and ideally should do so when planning the work, making modifications as appropriate as the work progresses. Individuals who participated only in acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of a research group (i.e. institution leaders who were not actively involved in specific projects), does not justify authorship. These individuals should be included in the Acknowledgements. If authors request removal or addition of an author after manuscript submission or publication, journal editors should seek an explanation and signed statement of agreement for the requested change from all listed authors and from the author to be removed or added.

Journal requires author(s) to recommend at least one potential reviewer when submitting a manuscript. Recommended reviewers should be experts in their fields and should be able to provide an objective assessment of the manuscript. Journal editors will check to make sure there are no conflicts of interest before contacting reviewers, and will not consider those with competing interests. Reviewers are asked to declare any conflicts of interest. The editorial team will respect opposed reviewer requests as long as this does not interfere with the objective and thorough assessment of the submission.

Universal Publishing follows COPE's ethical standards for peer reviewers, adopts a single-blind peer review method, treats all peer reviewers, including authors and reviewers seriously, rigorously, and efficiently, and maximizes the quality of publications.

After receiving the submission, the editor in charge of our publishing house will conduct a preliminary review of the article. The content of the initial review includes the research direction, format, image copyright, innovation and other contents of the article. Articles that meet the requirements of the journal will enter the peer review process. Universal Publishing will invite at least two scholars related to the research content of the article to review the article. After receiving the reviewer's report, editors will select the next step according to the report content. If the content of the report is more positive, we will ask the author to make revisions, generally including major repairs and minor repairs. If the reports are all negative, we will reject the article. If an impartial report is received, we will invite the academic editor to make a judgment, and the journal will further process the article in accordance with the opinion of the academic editor. For all articles sent to the authors for revision, after receiving the revised version sent back by the authors, we will invite the reviewers to review again until the reviewers find the article acceptable, and then invite the academic editor to make the final decision. Please note that we will follow the academic editor's decision; even if the reviewers in the final stage consider the article acceptable, the academic editor may think the article needs to be rejected.

All articles published by Universal Publishing are peer reviewed and assessed by our independent editorial boards, and Universal Publishing staff are not involved in decisions to accept manuscripts. We believe strongly in ensuring that we keep the editorial decision making processes of our publications completely separate from our commercial interests.

As Universal Publishing is an Open Access publishing house, all journals’ papers are published as Open Access articles under the unrestrictive CC-BY license. The authors retain the copyright of the articles.

Universal Publishing is committed to upholding the highest standards of publication ethics and takes publication malpractice and conflicts of interest very seriously. Competing patents, grants, funding, employment, personal relationships and strong ethical beliefs, among other factors can be perceived as conflicts of interest. Authors, reviewers and editors must declare whether there are any competing interests with regard to the publication of a study. Such conflicts must be declared, as they may affect the integrity or reliability of the science in the study, as well as that of otherwise unassociated studies in the same journal. The statements of competing interests for public funding sources, including government agencies, charitable or academic institutions, is best to be included.

Full disclosure of the competing interests is to be made in the cover letter and manuscript at the time of submission, even if the author judges that it has not influenced the work. If no conflict exists, this must also be stated clearly in the manuscript as follows: ‘Conflict of interest: “The authors declare no conflicts of interest statement” or “The author declares no conflicts of interests”’. And all authors should confirm its accuracy. If there is a conflict, please include it in the manuscript as follows: This paper received research grants from Company XX. This study was supported by XX, grant NO. is XXX.