Author's Guidelines

AUTHORS GUIDELINES

IJSSM accepts original research, short communications, case studies, review articles and mini review articles in all areas of social sciences and management. The manuscripts would be considered under the specific branches of social sciences, and management. Manuscripts must be prepared according to Authors guideline and submitted along with cover letter and authorization form duly signed by corresponding authors. A separate author’s contribution-form is available on the website which should be completed and submitted during manuscript submission. IJSSM don’t accepts plagiarized manuscript; therefore, read our plagiarism policies. Internationally accepted publication ethics are adopted; therefore, authors are advised to read authors publication ethics and publication malpractice statement which are strictly implemented.

Cover Letter and Authorization Form
During submission of the article, a cover letter and authorization form should be included having Authors full address including email, telephone and fax number etc. It should be clearly mentioned that the article is original research or review. The corresponding author should mention the undertaking that if any animal studies carried was in accordance with their country or institutional ethical committee and also state that the manuscript has not been published elsewhere (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis).
Fill the cover letter and authorization form and send along with your manuscript. Without these forms (Cover letter and authorization form) your manuscript will not be considered for publication.
[Download Cover letter & Authorization Form]

Author's Contribution Form
The contributions of all authors must be described. The authors must submit “Authors’ Contribution form” duly signed by all authors after describing all details given in the form address below questions:
§Who did conceive and design the experiments?
§Who did collect data?
§Who did analyze the data and write the paper?
§Who did revise the article for the final approval of the version to be published?
[Download Authors' Contribution Form]

SUBMISSION PREPARATION CHECKLIST
As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.
üThe submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
üThe submission file is in OpenOffice, Microsoft Word, RTF, or WordPerfect document file format.
üWhere available, URLs for the references have been provided.
üThe 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.
üThe text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines, which is found in About the Journal.
üIf submitting to a peer-reviewed section of the journal, the instructions in Ensuring a Blind Review have been followed.

MANUSCRIPT FORMATTING AND SUBMISSION
Research Article
These articles should clearly describe new and carefully confirmed results and experimental procedure which should be given in required details for others to verify the work. For proper referring and fast publication all manuscript should be grammatically correct.
The manuscript should be prepared in English using “MS Word” with 1.5 cm margin on all sides (Top, Bottom, Left and Right side) of the page. “Times New Roman” font should be used.
Title: Times New Roman 16, Title case ie. First letter of all words capital (Centered).
Names of Author(s): Times New Roman 12 (centered), Bold
Author affiliation (Times New Roman 9 single column Centered) needs to be given below author names in order of appearance. Relation between author listing and affiliation needs to be indicated as superscripted numbers to the right of name in author listing and to the left in affiliation.
Abstract: Times New Roman 9 (single column) Justified, maximum 250 words.
Keywords: 3-6 keywords should be written just after the abstract, which can identify the most important subject of the manuscript. Times New Roman 9 (single column), separated by semi colon (;)
Introduction: A brief and clear description of the purpose of the investigation relating the previous research and essential arguments should be mentioned.
Materials and Methods: This section should be written well defined to understand the steps of investigation done which allows other researcher to reproduce the result.
Results and Discussion: The findings of the manuscripts should be presented with appropriate evidences and discussions in a single heading or may be presented in separate headings depending on the requirement and need of author(s).
Subsection title: Times New Roman 12 Small Caps with 6 pt spacing after the subsection title (paragraph formatting) justified.
New Subsection text begins with 6 pt spacing before the text (paragraph formatting)
Reference citations should be given in ascending alphabetically arranged at the end of the manuscript.
Tables and Figures: Tables need to have title above the table and figures need to have title below the figure. (Times New Roman 10).
Each table and figure should be well descriptive so that can be understood without description in text section accompanied by a legend below it. (Times New Roman 8)
Equations need to be left aligned; equation numbers should be right aligned; equations quoted in manuscript need to conform to this form. (Eqn. 1)
Acknowledgement: At the end of the manuscript before references, author may acknowledge the help of those persons who don’t considered for authorship. The funding agency should be acknowledged in this section.
Conflict of Interest: From January 2020, this journal decided to demand declaration by authors related to any Conflict of Interest upon submission. This information will be available to the Editors. If your manuscript is published, this information will be communicated in a statement in the published paper.
A Conflict of Interest is actual if a relationship exists, or apparent if the possibility for a relationship could be inferred. In either case, it is the responsibility of Journal Editors, Assistant Editors, Editorial Board members, authors and reviewers to declare Conflicts of Interest, actual or apparent.
Full disclosure is required when you submit your paper to this journal. This journal requests the author to add a statement in the end before references. The author(s) may write(s) his/her/their conflicts of interest as any of below sentences;
ØThe author(s) declare(s) that there is(are) no conflict(s) of interest.
ØThe author(s) declare (s) that he/she (they) has (have) no conflict(s) of interest.
ØThe author(s) declare(s) that there is (are) no conflict(s) of interest regarding the publication of this paper.
This is the author’s declaration that guarantees objective and fair research. It implies the research results are not influenced by external factors or misconduct, such as the trade of financial incentives for positive results.
References (Times New Roman 9) should be listed as
For Journal Reference
Shrivastava UP and Kumar A (2011) A Simple and Rapid Plate Assay for the Screening of Indole-3-acetic Acid (IAA) Producing Microorganisms. Int J Appl Biol Pharma Technol 2: 120-123.
Jha PN and Kumar A (2009) Characterization of novel plant growth promoting endophytic bacterium Achromobacter xylosoxidans from wheat plant. Microbial Ecol 58: 179-188. DOI: 10.1007/s00248-009-9485-0
For Chapter in Book Reference
Kumar A, Rai AK, Shrivastava UP, Tyagi MB, and Kumar A (2011) Microcystins, a Novel Class of Toxins from Cyanobacteria. In: Roy BK and Chandary BR (Eds) Plant Genome; Conservation, Manipulation and Diversity. Chapter 11, Narosa, New Delhi, 129-139.
For Book Reference
Benson HJ (1998) Microbiological applications: A laboratory manual in general microbiology. McGraw-Hill College.
For Patent Reference
Aviv H, Friedman D, Bar-Ilan A and Vered M (1996) Submicron emulsions as ocular drug delivery vehicles, U.S. Patent US 5496811.
[Note: “FEMS Microbiology Ecology” format with a little modification can be used to use Reference managers such as Endnote, Mendeley etc.]
DOI for References
Kindly put the DOI of each referred article at the end of each references. Author may take help from the following link to get DOI of the articles after sign up once to get free account. Thereafter, enter the registered email and retrieve the DOI of article according to instructions provided on the site. The link is as follows: http://www.crossref.org/SimpleTextQuery.

Manuscript Submission
Formatted manuscripts must be in MS Word form (.doc and .docx format) and may be submitted either by online submission system or by email attachment to the Editor-in-Chief at editor.ijssm@gmail.com. Whereas, we prefer online submission system; which is very user friendly and author can check the status of manuscript any time after login.
In the event of any bounce of email(s) sent with paper(s) attached, kindly scan papers for virus. If the inconvenience persists, kindly inform the Editor.

Plagiarism Policy
We don't accept plagiarized manuscripts; therefore, manuscripts submitted to this Journal should be original. Plagiarism includes copying text, ideas, images or data from another source, even from your own publications, without giving any credit to the original source.
To avoid or reduce plagiarism, authors should attempt to paraphrase the information, or summarize the information derived from a variety of sources using own words. Authors are responsible for obtaining copyright permission for reproducing illustrations, tables, figures taken from other authors and/or source. Permission must be placed at the foot of each figure.
If plagiarism is detected during the peer review process, the manuscript may be rejected. If plagiarism is detected after publication, that plagiarized articles will be immediately withdrawn and removed from the website and the concerned authors will be considered ineligible for publication of their articles in this journal for five years. Authors are kindly requested to check for plagiarism before submission of manuscript. Authors, researchers and freelancers can check similarity before submission. We prefer Ithenticate for similarity detection.

Article Processing Charges
Authors are required to pay an article processing fee (not at the time of submission) after peer review and acceptance. The fee contributes to the handling/ editorial/ production costs and hence non-refundable.
     India & Nepal: INR 3500.00 only
     Foreign countries (excluding SAARC countries): USD 160.00 only
     SAARC countries (excluding India & Nepal): USD 80.00 only (after 50% waiver for all in USD 160.00)

Waiver in Publication Charge

Waiver Policy
If author(s) do not have funds to pay such fees, he/she can avail an opportunity of waiver in the Article Publication Charge. After acceptance of manuscript, authors from least developed countries (see list of least developed countries declared by United Nations in 2018) may avail waiver in publication charge up to 75% based on economic conditions and quality of the manuscript; whereas, author(s) seeking waiver should forward his/her application of waiver at the time of manuscript submission.
We consider applications for a fees waiver on a case-by-case basis (for least developed countries). Please contact the editor for more information at editor.ijssm@gmail.com
[see list of least developed countries declared by United Nations in 2018]

Peer Review Process
Normally review process takes more than one month. For peer review process usually two or more, independent reviewers, were selected by the editors. The Reviewers treat the review process as being strictly confidential. Immediately after getting reviewer comments/suggestions manuscripts are sent to authors for improvement of their article. Reviewer are invited by editor-in-chief or editors through request made via email. Reviewers come from national or international territory. Reviewers are assigned to review articles in their own particular field of expertise. The editors make a decision based on the reviewers’ advice.
Authors are welcome to suggest potential reviewers; however, it is the editor’s decision whether or not to honor such requests. All submitted manuscripts are read by the editorial staffs, only those papers that seem most likely to meet editorial criteria are sent for formal review. This journal reserves the right to contact funders, regulatory bodies and the authors’ institutions in cases of suspected research or publishing misconduct.
Reviewers are being requested to answer these questions in scale points of 1 to 5
·The subject addressed worthy of investigation
·The hypothesis is clearly stated
·The most important previous studies have been cited as far as I know
·The information presented is new (or a replication that deserve to be done)
·The research design is suitable
·The methods are described specially enough to be evaluated
·The discussion addresses sources of systematic and random error
·The conclusion is supported by the data
·The summary accurately reflects the content of the paper
[Click here to see complete flow chart of peer review process]

Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement for IJSSM
We follow the Code of Conduct and Best-Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors (Committee on Publication Ethics, 2011). Our publication ethics and publication malpractice statement is mainly based on following statements.
Ethical Guidelines for Journal Publication
International Journal of Social Sciences and Management (IJSSM) (website: www.ijssm.org) is committed to ensure ethics in publication of quality articles and it follows the Code of Conduct defined by the Committee of Publication Ethics (COPE) available at: https://publicationethics.org/core-practices
General Duties and Responsibilities of Editors
Editors should be responsible for everything published in their journals. They should:
·Endeavor to meet the demands of readers and authors.
·Constantly try to improve the standard of journal.
·Ensure the quality & originality of the material they publish.
·Adept for freedom of expression.
·Maintain the integrity of the academic record.
·Rule out business needs from compromising intellectual standards.
·Always be willing to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies when needed.

1. Publication Decisions: Based on the review report, the Editor-in-Chief has complete responsibility and authority to accept, reject, or request modifications to the manuscript. Current legal requirements regarding copyright infringement, and plagiarism should also be considered.
2. Review of Manuscripts: Editor must ensure that the reviewer initially evaluates each manuscript for originality of manuscript. All manuscripts are screened by appropriate software (iThenticate) to find out similarity check.
3. Double blind Review: The editor must ensure that each manuscript submitted to the International Journal of Social Sciences and Management is submitted without the authors’ name in the manuscript. If not, it is duty of editor to delete the names before assigning the reviewer. Secondly, it is the duty of editor to maintain confidentiality of reviewer name to author also.
4. Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest: The editor of this Journal shall not use unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript for his/her own research without written consent of the author.
5. Review on Priority of Time: Editors should aim to ensure timely peer review and publication and should avoid unnecessary delays. Editors should consider how best to share information with authors about any delays that occur.
6. Errata Information: It is the duty of editor to publish errata pages or make corrections when needed.
7. Manuscripts of Editorial Board Member: Editors or board members should not be involved in editorial decisions about their own scholarly work. If chief editor/editor contributes his/her papers; these papers must be reviewed by those reviewers who are not related with editorial board members.
8. Ethical Guidelines: The editor shall ensure that all research material they publish conforms to internationally accepted ethical guidelines of COPE, available at http://publicationethics.org/.
9. Unbiased Behavior: The editor should not reject papers based on suspicions; they should have proof of misconduct to author.

Responsibilities of Reviewers
1.Confidentiality: Reviewers should keep all information regarding papers confidential and treat them as privileged information.
2. Acknowledgement & Citations of Sources: Reviewers must ensure that authors have acknowledged all sources of data used in the research. They must check the copyright and permissions of secondary data used in the manuscript.
3. Supporting Argument: Reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments regarding acceptance, correction and rejection.
4. Plagiarism, Fraud and Other Ethical Concerns: Reviewers should clearly report to the editor if he suspect/find that a manuscript is a substantial copy of another work, citing the previous work in as much detail as possible & other ethical issues.
5. Relevant Work: It is the duty of reviewers to identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors.
6. Conflicts of Interest: Reviewers should not review manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.
7. Promptness: If reviewer feels it is not possible for him/her to complete review of manuscript within given time, then, he/she should information promptly to the editor, so that the manuscript could be sent to another reviewer.

Responsibilities of Authors
1. Publication guidelines: Authors must follow the submission guidelines of the journal available at website https://www.nepjol.info/index.php/IJSSM/about/submissions#authorGuidelines
2. Multiple Submissions: Authors must certify that the manuscript is not currently submitted elsewhere for publication.
3. Original Work: Authors must ensure that they have written entirely original work. Authors must certify that the manuscript has not previously been published elsewhere.
4. Revision of Manuscript: Authors must participate in the revision of manuscript according to suggestions of reviewer after peer review process.
5. Authorship of the Paper: All authors mentioned in the paper must have significantly contributed to the research. It is moral duty of authors to avoid authors without contribution.
6. Authenticity of Data: Authors must identify all sources used in the creation of their manuscript. Authors must state that all data in the paper are real and authentic.
7. Data Access and Retention: Authors should provide raw data related to their manuscript for editorial review and must retain such data.
8. Conflict of Interest: Authors must notify the Editors of any conflicts of interest.
9. Ethical Issues: When appropriate, all authors must cite approval by an ethical approval agency for research on human and/or animal subjects.