Guidelines for Authors

Responsibilities of Authors:

JPPP will ensure to provide you with a professional experience at each stage of the review and publication process. However, there are some responsibilities that sit with you as an author. These include:

1. Kindly make sure that you read and understand Guidelines for Authors and Submission Guidelines before submitting your manuscript.
2. During the publication process, please make sure that you respond promptly to every query.
3. Be liable for all aspects of your work i.e. investigating and resolving any queries about the accuracy or integrity of your manuscript.
4. Communication between you and the editor must remain confidential until an editorial decision is made.
5. Abide by all the research ethics. 

Guidelines:

1. Before going ahead with the submission, the authors should ensure that the manuscript is aligned with the scope of the journal. Please read the details about the scope of JPPP at  About the Journal
2. Manuscripts should be submitted electronically at https://journals.umt.edu.pk/index.php/jppp/howtomakeasubmission
3. The manuscript must be submitted as an MS Word file which includes all contents. The author owns complete rights to the text inside. Editors and Publishers will not make any changes to it. 
4. The length of the articles should not exceed 8000 words.
5. Please make sure that manuscripts have been spell-checked & grammar-checked. 
6. The references must be cited in the text and vice versa. 
7. JPPP follows the HEC Plagiarism policy, which allows a similarity index of less than 18%.

Review article (bridging the gap between theory and practice): A Guide for Authors

In public policy practice, review articles have become increasingly vital. They serve as a foundation for policy practitioners, helping them update their knowledge and establish future guidelines on pressing topics. A well-crafted review links practical experience to "what" has been discovered and "how" these findings are presented, making it a valuable resource for public managers.

Start with Purpose: Before diving into writing, it’s crucial to ask “why” a phenomenon occurred, followed by answering the “how”. This approach ensures your review is purposeful and addresses the core questions in your field.

Create a Comprehensive Synthesis: A review should present a clear and readable synthesis of the best available resources, offering insight into the research question or a relevant area of study. Invest time in identifying key questions that will provide value to practitioners and policymakers.

Adopt a Rigorous Methodology: An effective review is methodologically robust, providing an unbiased perspective. Aim for a systematic review approach where research methods are transparently outlined. This helps ensure your review is both comprehensive and credible. Consider using meta-analysis to synthesize studies and draw broader insights.

Maintain Clarity and Coherence: Focus on presenting your findings coherently, integrating ideas from the literature with a procedural and critical approach. Ensure that your review guides the reader through the subject, offering insights that are both structured and easy to digest.

Format Flexibility: While your review article’s structure can vary from a conventional research paper, adhering to traditional formats is also acceptable. Choose a format that best suits your content while ensuring clarity and accessibility.

Formatting Guidelines:

1. The guidelines for preparing the manuscript for submission are summarized in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.; APA, 2010; pp. 228–231). You will find detailed guidelines for APA formatting by clicking this link APA STYLE FORMATTING. Kindly make sure your manuscript follows guidelines presented in mentioned link. 
2. The Title Page must contain the title of the paper, the name(s) of the author(s), and a footnote giving the current affiliation and email address of the author(s) and any acknowledgments or authors' note.
3. All manuscripts must include an Abstract containing a maximum of 250 words typed on a separate page. After the abstract, please supply up to five keywords or brief phrases (APA). The abstract should explain the purpose of the research, the primary results, major conclusions, and any policy prescriptions.
4. The Introduction should have a brief background, a clear rationale for why the problem deserves new research, placing the study in the context of current knowledge and prior theoretical and empirical work on the topic.
5. In the Literature Review section, the author needs to extend the background to the article’s introduction and identify the most relevant previous literature on the topic for positioning the paper and demonstrate its significance. Please provide relevant and significant theories.
6. The author is required to provide relevant and reliable supporting empirical or other material to the conclusion and that the Methodology is appropriate and systematic.
7. Results should be clear and concise. The significance of the results of the research work, with no repeatedly mentioning of results in the text is often appropriate. 
8. Tables should be numbered and headed with appropriate concise titles. The tables are preferred to be presented after the main body of the text and not inserted in the manuscript. Tables for the main text and each of its appendices should be numbered serially and separately. The title of each table as well as the captions of its columns and rows should be clearly expressive of the contents. The source of the tables should be given in a footnote immediately below the line at the bottom of the table; but, unlike other footnotes, which must be numbered consecutively, it should not be numbered. Please submit tables as editable text and not as images. Tables can be placed either next to the relevant text in the article, or on separate page(s) at the end (not a mixture of both)
9. Please include Mathematical Equations and expressions as editable text and not as images. Write equations and formulas using the equation editor.
10. Ensure that each illustration has a Caption. A caption should comprise a brief title (not on the figure itself) and a description of the illustration. Keep text in the illustrations themselves to a minimum but explain all symbols and abbreviations used. The resolution of image should be 300dpi.
11. The original contribution of the manuscript and the discussion of implications of findings should be clearly mentioned in the Conclusion section. Provide a critical assessment of the limitations of the study, and outline possible directions for future research.
12. JPPP requires all References in APA format. All references used in the text should be listed in the alphabetical order of the authors’ surnames at the end of the text. References should be complete and correct. References in the text should include the name(s) of author(s) with the year of publication in parentheses. List of all these references needs to present at the very end of the paper under the heading of “References”. Use of DOI is highly encouraged. Write DOI of all the references, if available. Please note that paper should consist of minimum 15 and maximum 50 references.
13. Please ensure that every reference cited in the text is also present in the reference list (and vice versa). Any references cited in the abstract must be given in full. Reference management software such as Mendeley, EndNote etc. are preferable for reference citation.
14. The manuscripts submitted in the JPPP must be original and unpublished. They must not be under consideration for publication elsewhere. The authors are solely responsible to acquire the permission to reproduce the copyright material from other sources, if necessary.
15. JPPP requires all the contributing authors and co-authors to provide their ORCID iDs, as they are important for indexing and profiling, but also for enhancing their integral search visibility all over the internet. ORCID iDs are for lifetime and can be obtained free of charges through a simple registration process at https://orcid.org/.