Author Guidelines
Before your submission, please check that your manuscript has been prepared in accordance to the step-by-step instructions for submitting a manuscript to our online submission system.
Manuscript Format
Your manuscript should be in MS Word format. All manuscripts must be written in clear, comprehensible English. Both British and American English are accepted. Usage of non-English words should be kept to a minimum and all must be italicized with the exception of “e.g.”, “i.e.” and “etc.” If you have concerns about the level of English in your submission, please ensure that it is proofread before submission by a native English speaker or a scientific editing service.
Cover Letter
All submissions should include a cover letter as a separate file. A cover letter should contain a brief explanation of what was previously known, the conceptual advancement with the findings and its significance to broad readership. The cover letter is confidential and will be read only by the editors. It will not be seen by reviewers.
Title
The title should capture the conceptual significance for a broad audience. The title should not be more than 50 words and should be able to give readers an overall view of the paper’s significance. Titles should avoid using uncommon jargons, abbreviations and punctuation.
List of Authors
The names of authors must be spelled out rather than set in initials along with their affiliations. Authors should be listed according to the extent of their contribution, with the major contributor listed first. All corresponding authors should be identified with an asterisk. Affiliations should contain the following core information: department, institution, city, state, postal code, and country. For contact, email address of at least one corresponding author must be included. Please note that all authors must see and approve the final version of the manuscript before submitting.
Abstract
Articles must include an abstract containing a maximum of 200 words. The purpose of abstract is to provide sufficient information for a reader to determine whether or not to proceed to the full text of the article. After the abstract, please give 5–8 key words; please avoid using the same words as those already used in the title.
Text
The text of the manuscript should be in Microsoft Word. The length of the manuscript cannot be more than 50,000 characters (inclusive of spaces) or approximately 7,000 words.
Section Headings
Please number the section headings (e.g. 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.) in boldface. Likewise, use boldface to identify subheadings too but please distinguish it from major headings using numbers (e.g. 1.1, 1.2, 2.1, 2.2, etc.) Further subsections of subheadings should be differentiated with the numbers 1.1.1, 1.1.2, 2.1.1, 2.1.2, etc.
Introduction
Introduction should provide a background that gives a broad readership an overall outlook of the field and the research performed. It tackles a problem and states its importance regarding the significance of the study. Introduction can conclude with a brief statement of the aim of the work and a comment about whether that aim was achieved.
Materials and Methods
This section provides the general experimental design and methodologies used. The aim is to provide enough details for other investigators to fully replicate your results. It is also required to facilitate better understanding of the results obtained. Protocols and procedures for new methods must be included in detail to reproduce the experiments.
Results
This section can be divided into subheadings. This section focuses on the results of the experiments performed.
Discussion
This section should provide the significance of the results and identify the impact of the research in a broader context. It should not be redundant or similar to the content of the results section.
Conclusion
Please use the conclusion section for interpretation only, and not to summarize information already presented in the text or abstract.
Conflict of Interest
All authors are required to declare all activities that have the potential to be deemed as a source of competing interest in relations to their submitted manuscript. Examples of such activities could include personal or work-related relationships, events, etc. Authors who have nothing to declare are encouraged to add "No conflict of interest was reported by all authors" in this section.
Funding and Acknowledgements
Authors should declare all financial and non-financial support that have the potential to be deemed as a source of competing interest in relations to their submitted manuscript in this section. Financial supports are generally in the form of grants, royalties, consulting fees and more. Examples of non-financial support could include the following: externally-supplied equipments/biological sources, writing assistance, administrative support, contributions from non-authors etc.
Appendix
This section is optional and is for all materials (e.g. advanced technical details) that has been excluded from the main text but remain essential to readers in understanding the manuscripts. This section is not for supplementary figures. Authors are advised to refer to the section on ‘Supplementary figures’ for such submissions.
Figures
Authors should include all figures into the manuscript and submit it as one file in the OJS system. Reference to the “Instructions for Typesetting Manuscript” is strongly encouraged. Figures include photographs, scanned images, graphs, charts and schematic diagrams. Figures submitted should avoid unnecessary decorative effects (e.g. 3D graphs) as well as be minimally processed (e.g. changes in brightness and contrast applied uniformly for the entire figure). It should also be set against a white background. Please remember to label all figures (e.g. axis etc.) and number them (e.g. Figure 1, Figure 2, etc.) in boldface. Please also add in captions (below the figure) as required and number them (e.g. Figure 1, Figure 2, etc.) in boldface. The caption should describe the entire figure without citing specific panels, followed by a legend defined as description of each panel. Please identify each panel with uppercase letters in parenthesis (e.g. (A), (B), (C), etc.)
The preferred file formats for any separately submitted figure(s) are TIFF or JPEG. All figures should be legible in print form and of optimal resolution. Optimal resolutions preferred are 300 dots per inch for RBG colored, 600 dots per inch for greyscale and 1200 dots per inch for line art. Although there are no file size limitation imposed, authors are highly encouraged to compress their figures to an ideal size without unduly affecting legibility and resolution of figures. This will also speed up the process of uploading in the submission system if necessary.
The Editor-in-Chief and Publisher reserve the right to request from author(s) the high-resolution files and unprocessed data and metadata files should the need arise at any point after manuscript submission for reasons such as production, evaluation or other purposes. The file name should allow for ease in identifying the associated manuscript submitted.
Tables, Lists and Equations
Tables created using Microsoft Word table function are preferred. The tables should include a title underneath. Titles and footnotes/legends should be concise. These must be submitted together with the manuscript. Likewise, lists and equations should be properly aligned and its meaning clear to readers. For listing things within the main body of the manuscript, please use Arabic numerals in parenthesis (e.g. (1), (2), (3), (4), etc.)
Supplementary Information
This section is optional and contains all materials and figures that have been excluded from the entire manuscript. These materials are relevant to the manuscript but remain non-essential to readers’ understanding of the manuscript’s main content. All supplementary information should be submitted as a separate file in Step 4 during submission. Please ensure the names of such files contain ‘suppl. info’. Videos may be included in this section.
In-text citations
Reference citations in the text should be numbered consecutively in superscript square brackets. Some examples:
a) Negotiation research spans many disciplines[3, 4].
b) This result was later contradicted by Becker and Seligman[5].
c) This effect has been widely studied[1–3, 7].
Personal communications and unpublished works can only be used in the main text of the submission and are not to be placed in the Reference section. Authors are advised to limit such usage to the minimum. They should also be easily identifiable by stating the authors and year of such unpublished works or personal communications and the word ‘Unpublished’ in parenthesis. E.g. (Smith J, 2000, Unpublished)
References
This section is compulsory and should be placed at the end of all manuscripts. Do not use footnotes or endnotes as a substitute for a reference list. The list of references should only include works that are cited in the text and that have been published or accepted for publication. Personal communications and unpublished works should be excluded from this section.
References should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text. Identify references in text, tables, and legends by Arabic numerals in parentheses. Authors referenced are listed with their surname followed by their initials. All references should also appear as an in-text citation. References should follow the following pattern: Author(s), title of publication, full journal name in italics followed by year of publication, volume number, issue number in parenthesis and lastly, page range. If the referred article has more than three authors, list only the first three authors and abbreviate the remaining authors to italicized ‘et al.’ (meaning: "and others"). If the DOI is available, please include it after the page range.
Standard journal article
Journal article (print) with one to three authors
•Halpern SD, Ubel PA. Solid-organ transplantation in HIV-infected patients. The New England Journal of Medicine 2002 Jul 25;347(4):284-7.
Journal article (print) with more than three authors
•Rose ME, Huerbin MB, Melick J, et al. Regulation of interstitial excitatory amino acid concentrations after cortical contusion injury. Brain Research 2002;935(1-2):40-6.
Journal article (online) with one to three authors
•Jackson D, Firtko A and Edenborough M. Personal resilience as a strategy for surviving and thriving in the face of workplace adversity: A literature review. Journal of Advanced Nursing 2007; 60(1):1–9. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2648.2007.04412.x.
Journal article (online) with more than three authors
•Hargreave M, Jensen A, Nielsen TSS, et al. Maternal use of fertility drugs and risk of cancer in children—A nationwide population-based cohort study in Denmark. International Journal of Cancer 2015; 136(8): 1931–1939. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ijc.29235.
Book
Book with one to three authors
•Schneider Z, Whitehead D and Elliott D. Nursing and Midwifery Research: Methods and Appraisal for Evidence-based Practice, 3rd ed. Marrickville, NSW: Elsevier Australia; 2007.
Book with more than three authors
•Davis M, Charles L, Curry M J, et al. Challenging Spatial Norms, London: Routledge; 2003.
Chapter or Article in Book
•Meltzer PS, Kallioniemi A, Trent JM. Chromosome alterations in human solid tumors. In: Vogelstein B, Kinzler KW, editors. The genetic basis of human cancer. New York: McGraw-Hill; 2002. p. 93-113.
*Note that the editor’s name is not inverted.
Others
Proceedings of meetings and symposiums, conference papers
•Christensen S, Oppacher F. An analysis of Koza's computational effort statistic for genetic programming. In: Foster JA, Lutton E, Miller J, Ryan C, Tettamanzi AG, editors. Genetic programming. EuroGP 2002: Proceedings of the 5th European Conference on Genetic Programming; 2002 Apr 3-5; Kinsdale, Ireland. Berlin: Springer; 2002. p. 182-91.
Conference proceedings (from electronic database)
•Harnden P, Joffe JK, Jones WG, editors. Germ cell tumours V. Proceedings of the 5th Germ Cell Tumour Conference; 2001 Sep 13-15; Leeds, UK. New York: Springer; 2002.
Online Document with author names
•Este J, Warren C, Connor L, et al. Life in the clickstream: The future of journalism. Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance. 2008; Retrieved from http://www.alliance.org.au/documents/ foj_report_final.pdf
Online Document without author name
•Princeton Writing Program. (n.d.). Developing an argument. Retrieved from http://web.princeton.edu/ sites/ writing/Writing_Center/WCWritingResources.htm
Thesis/Dissertation
•Borkowski MM. Infant sleep and feeding: a telephone survey of Hispanic Americans [dissertation]. Mount Pleasant (MI): Central Michigan University; 2002.
Standards
•Standards Australia Online. Glass in buildings: Selection and installation. AS 1288-2006, amended January 31, 2008. Retrieved from SAI Global database 2006.
Government Report
•National Commission of Audit. Report to the Commonwealth Government, Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service 1996.
Government report (online)s
•Department of Health and Ageing.Ageing and aged care in Australia; 2008. Retrieved from http://www.health.gov.au/internet/ main/publishing.nsf/Content/ageing
Patent
•Rencher W F. Bioadhesive pharmaceutical car- rier. US Patent 5462749 A. 1995.
No author
•Guide to agricultural meteorological practices, 2nd ed. Secretariat of the World Meteorological Organization, Geneva; 1981.
Note: When referencing an entry from a dictionary or an encyclopedia with no author there is no requirement to include the source in the reference list. In these cases, only cite the title and year of the source in-text. For an authored dictionary/encyclopedia, treat the source as an authored book.
Copyright Notice
Authors submitting to USP journals agree to publish their manuscript under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0) where authors agree to allow third parties to share their work (copy, distribute, transmit) and to adapt it, under the condition that the authors are given credit, and that in the event of reuse or distribution, the terms of this license are made clear
Authors retain copyright of their work, with first publication rights (online and print) granted to Universe Scientific Publishing or the owner of the journal in question.
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