Submission Requirements for Original Research Articles

Your original research article must include a Title Page, an Abstract, Key Words, Acknowledgements, and References Cited sections, in addition to the sub-sections within the Body of the manuscript.

Word Limit: 5000 words (about 7-9 double spaced pages). This does not include a title page, abstract, or references page.

Title Page: This includes the title of your manuscript, the author names, the author affiliations, (e.g., your university), the public contact information for each author, and the Acknowledgements section.

Acknowledgements: Thank the people/organizations and funding sources that have supported the research.

Abstract: This is a brief, comprehensive summary of the contents of the article. This should be one single-spaced paragraph of no more than 250 words in length.

Key Words: This is a list of up to five words or short phrases that are central and specific to your research. We will use these keywords to facilitate the retrieval of your paper from abstracting and indexing databases.

Body of Manuscript:

1. Introduction

Presents the specific problem under investigation and describes the research strategy.
Places the work in a theoretical context, and enables the reader to understand and appreciate its objectives.
States the hypothesis of the research study.

2. Methods

Describes in detail how the study was conducted, including conceptual and operational definitions of the variables used in the study.
Participants (describe the participant group information and history, how they were recruited, informed consent, subject payment, etc.)
Description of testing procedure, equipment and materials used, etc.
Enables readers to evalulate the appropriateness of your methods and reliability and validity of your results.
Is detailed enough to allow other investigators to replicate the study.

3. Results

Report results in a completely objective manner (interpretations belong in the discussion section).
Include observations that run counter to expectation, null results, etc.
Assume the reader has a professional knowledge of statistical methods.
Analysis of data should be appropriate to the research questions being asked.

4. Discussion

Use this section to discuss your interpretation of the results of the project.
Provide an interpretation of results, along with support for all interpretations, using evidence from the experiment combined with previous findings from other published studies.
Should begin with a clear statement of the support or nonsupport for the original hypotheses.
Provide explanations that account for the results.
Offers alternative explanations if reasonable alternatives exist.

5. Conclusion

Use this section to give broad future directions.
Usually no more than 1-2 paragraphs.
Puts research findings into a broader context of the field.
Offers future directions, next possible studies.
Does NOT simply reiterate article findings again.