Author Guidelines

Download a pdf of these guidelines here.

Thank you for choosing to submit your article to the American Journal of Interdisciplinary Sciences. We look forward to reviewing and hopefully publishing the article you've worked so hard on!

Please follow these guidelines when submitting your manuscript to AJIntS. Be aware that author guidelines are subject to change, so please read in full prior to submitting, even if you have previously submitted.

SCOPE
AJIntS is a broadly interdisciplinary journal that publishes peer-reviewed scholarly articles from all academic disciplines.

SUBMISSION RESTRICTION
By submitting your article to AJIntS, you assert that you are not actively seeking to publish it elsewhere. You further assert that you have not previously published this work, in whole or in part, in any other academic journal or by any other means, with the exception of preprints available on preprint archives.

LANGUAGE
AJIntS is only able to accept articles written in English. We do welcome articles from authors whose first language is not English.

FILES
You can submit the main text of your article in any of the following document formats: Word (.doc/.docx), LibreOffice/open (.odt), rich text (.rtf), portable document format (.pdf). Please note that once an article is accepted for publication, final drafts cannot be in .pdf format.

AUTHORSHIP
AJIntS allows for co-first authorship and co-senior authorship. These should be indicated on the submission form.

We do not require adherence to any authorship guidelines nor do we require an author contribution statement. Assignment of authorship is essentially based on an honor system. Enforcement of norms is near impossible. Individuals know whether they have contributed sufficiently to the project to earn authorship status.

WORD LIMITS
AJIntS does not enforce strict word limits. However, please consider the unpaid effort of reviewers and editors. We encourage you to write clearly and succinctly, aiming for quality over quantity. There is a reason there is no word minimum.  

STYLE and FORMATTING
1.) We do not place any restrictions on fonts, generally-speaking, but please keep           things professional-looking.
2.) Please copyedit your article prior to submission. Small grammatical, spelling and punctuation errors will not prevent publication. However, please consider that reviewers already expend a great deal of time and effort without having to correct minor mistakes.  
3.) AJIntS accepts both British ("theatre") and American ("theater") English spellings.
4.) As a broadly interdisciplinary journal, we cannot produce an exhaustive list of stylistic, formatting, spelling, or naming (to include naming of concepts) conventions. Please follow, to the best of your ability, the conventions of your academic discipline.

TITLE PAGE
The first page of your submission should include the title and the names of the authors in the correct order.

IDENTIFYING INFORMATION
Please do not include identifying information about the authors elsewhere in the document (e.g., in the header or footer). Please refer to previous research in the third person if at all possible. Taking these steps helps us maintain double-blind peer review.

CITATIONS
Please use the most recent APA style for in-line citations and for references.             References should be at the end of your document.

FIGURES
AJIntS is exclusively online. Color figures are accepted and encouraged. Large, high-resolution images are preferred for figures. Please make sure images are at least 72dpi.

TABLES
Tables may be submitted in Excel or Word, as .csv or .tsv, or as images. Table design is generally left up to the authors. However, tables subitted as .csv, .tsv or in Excel or Word may be altered.  

STATISTICS
Your choices regarding the use and reporting of statistics should follow the standards of your field. The specifics of what ends up in the final article are negotiated between you, the reviewers and the editor. We trust that you understand how to interpret statistical findings and the strength of conclusions that you can reach based on different levels of significance and power.  

As an interdisciplinary journal, we encourage the mixing of quantitative and qualitative methods.

ETHICS
1.) By submitting to AJIntS, you assert that your study complies with your             institution's code of ethics and has been approved by any and all necessary entities (e.g., instituional review). We reserve the right to stop the review process or to rescind publication and all benefits thereof if we are made aware of ethical violations in your research.
2.) If your research involves animals, including non-human primates or other mammals, by submitting to AJIntS, you assert that your research has been conducted humanely, in accordance with the standards of ethical treatment established at your institution. We reserve the right to stop the review process or to rescind publication and all benefits thereof if we are made aware of inhumane or unethical treatment of animals in your study.

PEER REVIEW
Our peer review process is double-blind. You will not know your reviewer and they will not know the author(s) of the article they are reviewing. However, if you have preregistered your study/hypotheses with OSF or another organization and wish to include this in your article and allow reviewers to refer to the preregistration documents, then double-blind review would be impossible. By submitting to AJIntS, you assert that you understand that we cannot guarantee double-blind review.

In order to submit your article, you will be required to suggest two potential reviewers. You may also request that certain individuals not review your submission.

Once you submit your article, it will recieve an initial review from one of our editors. This initial review is to ensure that your article is publishable in the broadest sense: the work is academic, you are who you claim to be, etc. If your paper passes inital review, it will proceed to peer review. Our peer reviewers fill out a checklist that identifies strengths and weaknesses of the manuscript. During the review process, peer reviewers will ensure that the research reported in the article is, in their opinion, sound: i.e., the project is grounded in relevant literature, the hypotheses are reasonable and testable using the methods employed, the methods are appropriate to test the hypotheses, the conclusions proceed from the results, and the research is undertaken ethically. Each reviewer makes a publication recommendation. The editor reads the reviews and recommendations and renders a decision. Possible decisions are as follows:

Accepted: Your paper is publishable as-is. This is a purely theoretical option.

Accepted - pending revisions: Your paper will be publishable if you make some adjustments to the study or manuscript. These may be minor, as in revising parts of the manuscript for clarity or including certain citations, or they may be major, as in performing an additional analysis or revising an entire section.

Rejected - option to challenge: One or both reviewers has discovered what they believe to be a fatal flaw in your work. However, if you can prove that this flaw is not fatal or successfully argue against their position, the editor may consider adjusting your decision to Accepted pending revisions. For example: Reviewer #1 believes your study of athletic performance is fatally flawed because you failed to control for height in your analyses. Our editor gives you the opportunity to re-run the analyses while controlling for height. Your new analyses show the relationship you reported is unaffected by height.

Rejected - final: Your paper is not publishable. You may not resubmit the paper.

If your paper does not pass the initial review, you will receive the following decision:

Rejected - desk reject: Reasons for a desk rejection include (but are not limited to): the submitted article is not an academic work; the study employs clearly unethical methods; the manuscript is in a language other than English; the manuscript is plagiarized; the manuscript has been previously submitted and rejected after peer review.

It is unlikely anyone who has read this far in the author guidlines will receive a desk reject.

A NOTE ON "REVISE AND RESUBMIT"
AJIntS does not offer the option to "revise and resubmit." The "revise and resubmit" decision is not fundamentally different from "accepted with major revisions" or "rejected - option to challenge", except that it artificially shortens a journal's time to decision while disrupting reviewer continuity. At AJIntS, we believe    

DATA AVAILABILITY
AJIntS does not require authors to make their data publicly available. We understand that many datasets take a great deal of time and effort to acquire. If you do make data available, it is sufficient to state that at they are available to anyone by reasonable request to the author(s).  

AJIntS, its publisher (Future Science Ventures, Inc.), its editors and reviewers make no claim to the accuracy of data used by the authors of articles published in this journal.

COPYRIGHT
By agreeing to publish your article in the American Journal of Interdisciplinary Sciences, you will agree to cede copyright for that work to the publisher, Future Science Ventures, Inc., in perpetuity. After publication, you may not distribute the work nor reproduce or reprint significant portions without the permission of the publisher. This does not include use of tables, graphs or findings for academic or personal use (e.g., in a conference presentation or job talk). This does extend to the reproduction of tables and graphs in subsequent publications.