Author Guidelines

• This journal will consider Research Article, Review Article, Short Review, and Short Communication; visit the section policy for more details on each article type.
• Author(s) are expected to comply with the best ethical practice in research & publication.
• The author is requested to be aware of the paper publishing process and the required reviewing time under the free publication policy, as well as rapid publication options.

Cover letter Requirement

• Declaration from the corresponding author on behalf of all co-author(s) for its originality and non-simultaneous submission to any other journal.
• An explanation for the suitability of the article in this journal in the view of the journal’s aims and scope.
• Highlights that convey the core findings of the article in 3 bullet points. (Maximum 90 characters per bullet point, including spaces.)
• Suggesting 1 to 3 potential reviewers with their affiliation and working email ID. Referees should be selected from institutions other than those where the author(s) work.

• The first page of the article (Just before the abstract section) should include complete details of each author in the following format (use the same format as given below)-
• Full Name: ………………………………………………………………………………......
• Highest Qualification: ………………………………………………………………………
• Affiliation (Department and College/University): ………………………………………….
• Post/Rank (If a student, provide the course name and course year): ……………………….
• ORCID: If available…………………………………………………………………………
• email id: (fake/wrong/invalid email id may cause article rejection) ……………………

Text formatting requirements

• The manuscript should be in A4 size with a single column layout, normal margin, and the text should be single-spaced, with 11-point, Garamond font.
• All manuscripts must contain the essential elements of the article and divide the article into clearly defined sections, for example, Abstract, Keywords, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusions, Declarations, and References. Further, all Headings/subheadings should be numbered appropriately using the style tag of Microsoft Word (heading 1, heading 2......).
• The abstract should be within 150-250 words. Abstract and conclusion sections should be written with continuous sentences without any subheadings in them, and do not use bullet points/numbered lists. The abstract and conclusion sections should not have any citations within them.
• If your article includes any Supplementary material, this should be uploaded separately as the supplementary file in step 2 of the submission process.
• The final formatting of the published article is different than the submission requirement, as final formatting in the accepted article gets applied by our copyeditor at the copyediting stage. Hence, the author shall follow this guideline for formatting instead of following the pattern of the published article of this journal.

Figures and tables embedded in the text

• All illustrations, figures, and tables should be placed within the text at the appropriate place with a consistent figure/table number and descriptive title (caption).
• Each figure/table should be explained in the text by referring to the corresponding figure/table number.
• Please ensure that the figures are of high resolution and the tables are drawn using the MS Word table tool.

• The author should include at least 50% recent (from the last 2 years) reference citations.
• All references must be numbered consecutively, and citations of references in the text should be identified using numbers in square brackets (e.g., “as explained by AIJR [1]”; “as discussed in many reports [2]-[6]”). 
• All references should be cited within the text; otherwise, these references will be automatically removed. 
• All cited references should be listed after the Declarations section in the IEEE style. For example - 

Main features of citation style are given as-

• The author's name format is "first name (Initial), middle name (Initial), and last name". This differs from other styles where the author's last name is first. 
• The title of an article (or chapter, conference paper, patent, etc.) is in quotation marks. 
• The title of the book or journal is in italics.
• If any reference is not available online, it should be modified/deleted, as we do not support offline references.

Declarations Requirement

• The author should add the following set of declarations at the end of the manuscript-
  Study Limitations: Provide all possible limitations faced in the study that might significantly affect the research outcome. If not applicable, write, none.
• Acknowledgments: If not applicable, write, none
• Funding Source: If no funding source exists, write, none. 
• Competing Interests: The author must add a statement for the potential conflict of interest; refer to the Competing Interests form for more details on competing interests.
• Warning for Hazard: If the work involves chemicals, procedures, or equipment that have any unusual hazards inherent in their use, the author must identify these in the manuscript.
• For Human and Animal-Related Study:
• If the work involves the use of human/animal subjects, each manuscript should also contain the following set of declarations-
• Ethical Approval: Provide the ethical approval authority name with the reference number. If not required, provide an ethical exemption letter of not required. The author should upload a scanned PDF copy of the ethical approval/exemption letter during manuscript submission. Visit this link for more details on the ethical approval policy.
• Informed Consent: Write a statement for the informed consent taken from the patients/participants/respondents to publish this study. The editor may ask to upload the scanned PDF copy if required.
• The author may download the MS Word Template to prepare the manuscript by clicking here.

Article Processing Charge (APC) & Reviewing Time

• All articles published in the “Journal of Advances in Para Sport Science (APSS)” are fully open access and freely available online, immediately upon publication. This journal offers two publishing models based on reviewing time and author(s) interest as per details given below-
• Normal Publication (Free): In this publishing model, authors (s) do not need to pay any kind of fee, and accepted articles will be published free of charge. In the normal publication model, the first-round review report will be available within 6-10 weeks of the submission date. The second review round may take up to 6 weeks. Normally, there would be only 2 rounds of review, and if a third round is required, it may take up to 4 weeks. Unsatisfactory revision, even after the third round review, will be rejected. There is no submission or any other kind of fee for the article submitted to this journal. All submitted articles will be processed under Normal publication by default if the author(s) do not send an email request or indicate their interest in Rapid Publication through the comment section during submission.
• Rapid Publication (Rapid Review): Author(s) can choose rapid publication model by writing in comments for the Editor section of submission step 1 that they are interested in rapid publication and agree to pay article processing charge after article gets ready for acceptance as per following schedule (Select one of the options)-
• Rapid Review 1: The first round review report will be available within 3 weeks, and the author(s) will need to pay $100 (USD) if ready for acceptance. Second and each subsequent round may take up to 2 weeks, with a maximum of 3 rounds.          
  Rapid Review 2: The first round review report will be available within 12-14 days, and the author(s) will need to pay $500 (USD) if ready for acceptance. Second and each subsequent round may take up to 10 days, with a maximum of 3 rounds.           
  Rapid Review 3: The first round review report will be available within 5-7 days, and the author(s) will need to pay $1000 (USD) if ready for acceptance. Second and each subsequent round may take up to 5 days, with a maximum of 4 rounds. 

• Normally, there would be only 2 review rounds to take a final decision; however, in case of unsatisfactory revision, a final decision will be taken after completing the maximum review rounds as explained above in each option. If the author(s) forget to choose the rapid publication model during submission, then they can email infoapssjournal.com at any later stage by mentioning one of the above options. If the author(s) do not indicate their interest in Rapid publication, the article will be automatically considered under Normal publication.

• Kindly note that all publishing models have the same review process and acceptance criteria; the only difference is the period for reviewing.
• Note: Considering articles under rapid review will depend on the availability of related reviewers, which will be confirmed to the author after they request rapid review. Further, the article under rapid review cannot be withdrawn at any stage of submission/publication. The author will be responsible for the timely response to any queries/comments or an explanation if an extension is required. Not responding to the editor will be considered as author misconduct, which may result in blocking, surcharge, or other misconduct action. APC is not refundable in any circumstances, even if the article gets retracted or removed due to the author's ethical misconduct. 
• The above APC info has been updated on 10/10/2018
• APC for Non-academic R&D divisions 
  Research Articles from the authors belonging to the R&D division of non-academic industries will be processed as follows-
• Regular Publication (Non-academic): In this option author(s) need to pay $500 (USD) after the article is ready for acceptance. For Iranian authors, APC will be Rs 35000/- (INR). In this option, the first-round review report will be available within 3 weeks of the submission date. The second round review may take up to 2 weeks. Normally, there would be only 2 review rounds, and if a third round is required, it may take up to 10 days. Unsatisfactory revision, even after the third round review, will be rejected.
• Rapid Review (Non-academic): The first round review report will be available within 10-14 days, and the author(s) will need to pay $1000 (USD) if ready for acceptance. Second and each subsequent round may take up to 10 days, with a maximum of 3 rounds. 
• The submitting author needs to select one option after the submission, either by emailing us or by replying discussion initiated by us. The article will get processed after selecting an option. 

Research Article

• Research articles should present new experimental studies in an elaboration form that constitutes a significant contribution to knowledge. Kindly follow the author guidelines for manuscript preparation.

Review Article

• Review articles should be balanced with the objective analyses of the current research topics, with descriptions of relevant scientific literature and discussions that are easy to grasp for the audience of any materials-science related discipline. Review articles should provide the authors' insight into future directions and their opinion of the major challenges faced by researchers in the field. They should be around 10-20 double-spaced typed pages. Kindly follow the author guidelines for manuscript preparation.

Short Review

• Journal of Advances in Para Sport Science (APSS) publishes short reviews or mini-reviews for researchers who wish to summarize a field of scientific research and share this work as widely as possible. Short Review papers provide an overview of the main developments on a particular topic, with an emphasis on recent developments, and sketch an outlook on future developments. They should be no longer than 14 double-spaced typed pages and 8 figures.

Short Communication

• Short communications are those that should present new, important findings in a brief form. They should be no longer than six double-spaced typed pages and 4 figures. Kindly follow the author guidelines for manuscript preparation.

Copyright Notice

• Author(s) retain full copyright of their article and grant non-exclusive publishing rights to the Journal of Advances in Para Sport Science (APSS).
• Author(s) can archive pre-print, post-print, and published version/PDF to any open-access, institutional repository, social media, or personal website, provided that the published source must be acknowledged with citation and link to the publisher version.  
  
  

Privacy Statement

• The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.