International Journal of Health Sciences Education

All submitted manuscripts are read by the editorial staff. To save time for authors and peer-reviewers, only those papers that seem most likely to meet our editorial criteria are sent for formal review. Those papers judged by the editors to be of insufficient general interest or otherwise inappropriate are returned promptly without external review.

Prepare manuscripts according to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th edition). Manuscripts may be copyedited for bias-free language (see Chapter 3 of the Publication Manual). Additional guidance on APA Style is available on the APA Style website.

This document provides details on typesetting and layout requirements pertaining to final manuscript submission to International Journal of Health Sciences Education.

Formatting Requirements

• Submit your article in English.
• Page size must be 8.5 x 11-inches.
• All margins (left, right, top and bottom) must be 1 inch (2.54 cm), including your tables and figures. Margins should be left-justified.
• Single space your text.
• Use a single column layout.
• Font:

1. Main Body—12 pt. Times New Roman
2. Footnotes—10 pt. Times New Roman

• The title page and abstract will be uploaded in a different screen and not in the body of the manuscript.
• When possible, there should be no pages where more than a quarter of the page is empty space.
• Copyedit your manuscript.
• Submit your manuscript, including tables, figures, appendices, etc., as a single file Word file.

Additional Recommendations

Indenting, Line Spacing, and Justification

Do not indent paragraphs.

Do not insert extra space between paragraphs of text with the exception of long quotations, theorems, propositions, special remarks, etc. These should be set off from the surrounding text by additional space above and below.

Don't "widow" or "orphan" text (i.e., ending a page with the first line of a paragraph or beginning a page with the last line of a paragraph).

All text should be left-justified.

Language & Grammar

All submissions must be in English. Except for common foreign words and phrases, the use of foreign words and phrases should be avoided.

Authors should use proper, standard English grammar. The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr. and E. B. White (now in its fourth edition) is the "standard" guide.

Article Length

Articles are limited to 20 pages unless special circumstances exist. The author(s) would need to request permission from the editors to exceed the 20-page limit.

Colored text

Set the font color to black for the majority of the text. We encourage authors to take advantage of the ability to use color in the production of figures, maps, etc., however, you need to appreciate that this will cause some of your reader’s problems when they print the document on a black & white printer. For this reason, you are advised to avoid the use of colors in situations where their translation to black and white would render the material illegible or incomprehensible.

Please ensure that there are no colored mark-ups or comments in the final version, unless they are meant to be part of the final text. (You may need to "accept all changes" in track changes or set your document to "normal" in final markup.)

Emphasized text

Whenever possible use italics to indicate text you wish to emphasize rather than underlining it. Do not use color to emphasize text.

Font faces

Except where special symbols are needed, use Times New Roman.

Font size

The main body of text should be set in 12pt.

Foreign terms

Whenever possible, foreign terms should be set in italics rather than underlined.

Main text

The font for the main body of text must be black in Times New Roman or closest comparable font available.

Headings

Headings (e.g., start of sections) should be distinguished from the main body text. Use the same font face for all headings and indicate the hierarchy by reducing the font size. There should be space above and below headings.

Titles

Whenever possible, titles of books, movies, etc., should be set in italics rather than underlined.

Footnotes

Footnotes should appear at the bottom of the page on which they are referenced rather than at the end of the paper. Footnotes should be in 10 pt. Times New Roman, single spaced, and there should be a footnote separator rule (line). Footnote numbers or symbols in the text must follow, rather than precede, punctuation. Excessively long footnotes are probably better handled in an appendix. All footnotes should be left-justified.

Tables and Figures

Use Word's Insert Table function when you create tables. Do not use spaces or tabs in your table, as this will create problems when the table is typeset and may result in errors.

To the extent possible, tables and figures should appear in the document near where they are referenced in the text. Large tables or figures should be put on pages by themselves. Avoid the use of overly small type in tables. In no case should tables or figures be in a separate document or file. All tables and figures must fit within 1” margins on all sides (top, bottom, left and right) in both portrait and landscape view.

Mathematics

Roman letters used in mathematical expressions as variables should be italicized. Roman letters used as part of multi-letter function names should not be italicized. Whenever possible, subscripts and superscripts should be a smaller font size than the main text.

Short mathematical expressions should be typed inline. Longer expressions should appear as display math. Also expressions using many different levels (e.g., such as the fractions) should be set as display math. Important definitions or concepts can also be set off as display math.

Equations should be numbered sequentially. Whether equation numbers are on the right or left is the choice of the author(s). However, you are expected to be consistent in this.

Symbols and notation in unusual fonts should be avoided. This will not only enhance the clarity of the manuscript, but it will also help insure that it displays correctly on the reader's screen and prints correctly on her printer. When proofing your document under PDF pay particular attention to the rendering of the mathematics, especially symbols and notation drawn from other than standard fonts.

References

Your references should begin on a new page separate from the text of the article; label this page "References" left-justified at the top of the page. Prepare references in accordance with the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th edition). List references in alphabetical order. Each listed reference should be cited in text, and each text citation should be listed in the References section.

Examples of basic reference formats:

• Journal Article:

  APA style dictates that authors are named last name followed by initials; publication year goes between parentheses, followed by a period. The title of the article is in sentence-case, meaning only the first word and proper nouns in the title are capitalized. The periodical title is run in title case, and is followed by the volume number which, with the title, is also italicized. If a DOI has been assigned to the article that you are using, you should include this after the page numbers for the article. If no DOI has been assigned and you are accessing the periodical online, use the URL of the website from which you are retrieving the periodical.

  Author, A. A., Author, B. B., & Author, C. C. (Year). Title of article. Title of Periodical, volume number(issue number), pages. http://dx.doi.org/xx.xxx/yyyyy

• Authored Book:

  Author, A. A. (Year of publication). Title of work: Capital letter also for subtitle. Location: Publisher.

  Note: For "Location," you should always list the city and the state using the two letter postal abbreviation without periods (New York, NY).

• Chapter in an Edited Book:

  Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Year of publication). Title of chapter. In A. A. Editor & B. B. Editor (Eds.), Title of book (pages of chapter). Location: Publisher.

  Note: When you list the pages of the chapter or essay in parentheses after the book title, use "pp." before the numbers: (pp. 1-21). This abbreviation, however, does not appear before the page numbers in periodical references, except for newspapers.