Submissions

Author Guidelines

Maximum word count
For research-based submissions, the total word count of the Submission Document must NOT exceed 8,000 words (excluding Abstract and References list). (See Article Types for the lower maximum word counts for non-research-based submissions.)

Authorship, listing of authors
If the submission has more than one listed author: (i) all authors must have contributed substantively to the submission; (ii) an Authors’ contributions declaration must be included in the Author Information Document (see below); and (iii) the authors must be listed in order of degree of contribution to the submission, i.e., the first-listed author is the one who contributed most.

ORCID identifiers
Each author listed in a submission's Author Information Document is required to have, and provide, an ORCID identifier. ORCID registration can be performed here.

Protection of personal information
If the submission draws on research with human subjects, the research subjects' personal information must have been managed in accordance with applicable laws and regulations, e.g., research conducted in South Africa must comply with the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA).

Originality
Each submission to AJIC is received on the understanding that: its contents are original, unpublished material; it is not being considered for publication elsewhere (unless a note is provided that indicates otherwise); and its content is not directly copied from material submitted as part of a student paper, Master’s thesis/dissertation, or PhD thesis/dissertation.

Where a submission is an adapted (e.g., revised, updated) version of a previously published work (e.g., conference paper, working paper, research report, student paper, Master’s thesis/dissertation, PhD thesis/dissertation), the author(s) must specify this at the time of submission in the "Acknowledgements" section of the Author Information Document (see below), and the original work must be cited in the References section of the Submission Document (see below).

Where a submission includes written content and/or data from an item or items already published online by one or more of the submitting authors (e.g., in a conference paper, working paper, research report, student paper, Master’s thesis/dissertation, or PhD thesis/dissertation), each of those published sources must be mentioned in the "Acknowledgements" section of the Author Information Document (see below), and each of those published sources must be cited in the References section of the Submission Document (see below).

Translated material that has not been published in English will be considered.

The AJIC editorial team reserves the right to edit or otherwise alter contributions, both before and after internal review and/or external double-blind peer review, with author(s) given the opportunity to review and accept/reject edits and alterations in advance of peer review and publication. 

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The two documents that must be submitted
All authors must submit two documents: an Author Information Document and a Submission Document, as outlined below:

(1) Author Information Document: A one-page document containing:

• Submission title
• Corresponding author’s name, title, organisational affiliation, ORCID identifier, postal address, email address, and mobile telephone number
• (where applicable) Name, title, organisational affiliation and ORCID identifier of each co‐author
• Acknowledgements (where applicable): Statement of acknowledgement of the kind specified above under the "Originality" guidelines; and acknowledgement of any other kind of non-financial support/assistance from individuals/entities
• Funding declaration (where applicable): Declaration of any funding received for the research detailed in the submission and/or for the preparation of the submission, including funding grant number(s) where applicable
• Data availability statement: Statement regarding availability of any data used to generate the findings set out in the submission
• Artificial intelligence (AI) declaration: Declaration as to whether any AI tools (and if so, which tools) were used in the research covered in the submission and/or in preparation of the submission, or a declaration that "The author(s) did not use any AI tools in the research covered in this submission or in the preparation of this submission." If generative AI tools such as ChatGPT were used in the research and/or preparation of the submission, the AI declaration must specify (a) the version used, e.g., GPT-4, (b) the element(s) of the research and/or submission preparation that the tool was used for, and (c) the prompt(s) used for the the element(s) specified.
• Competing interests declaration: Declaration of any competing interests on the part of the author(s), or a declaration that "The author(s) has/have no competing interests to declare."

When there is more than one author:

• Authors’ contributions declaration: Specify contribution(s) of EACH listed author, using the following taxonomy developed by the South African Journal of Science (SAJS): https://www.sajs.co.za/author-contributions 

(2) Submission Document: An anonymised (i.e., with no author information) submission containing:

• Title
• Abstract (not exceeding 200 words in length)
• Keywords
• the body of the submission (see rules below for format, footnotes, citations, spellings, tables, figures)
• References (see guidelines below)

Format: All submission documents  should  be in 12‐point Times New Roman font, with single line-spacing that is left- and right-justified, in MS Word (or  compatible  open  source  format), and with NO auto-formatting (e.g., with NO auto-formatting of headings, sub-headings etc., and NO auto-formatting of in-text citations or References citations).

Footnotes: Footnotes (NOT end notes) should be used ONLY to provide supplementary information, NOT to provide full citations for sources (see citations guidelines below).

In-text citations for sources: Citations of primary and secondary sources referred to in the body of submission must each be provided via an APA-style parathentical (author, year) or narrative citation, with page numbers for direct quotations, and with this same style used if and when a source needs to be cited in the course of provision of supplementary information in a footnote.

References section (at end of submission): All bracketed (author, year) citations in the body of the submission must have a full entry in a concluding APA-style References section arranged in alphabetical order and following APA 7th Edition style conventions for listing of author(s), year of publication, source title—including adherence to all of the APA conventions for punctuation, italicisation, upper-casing, lower-casing, URLs and DOIs in References sections.

African/UK English spellings: Submissions must use African/UK (NOT American) English spellings, e.g., programme NOT program; labour NOT labor; organisation NOT organization; analyse NOT analyze, etc.

Tables: Tables should be numbered consecutively, in decimal numerals (e.g., 1, 2, 3, 4, 5), with the numbers followed by headings. Each table heading should be above the table.

Figures: All graphs, diagrams, drawings and photographs should be referred to as figures, should be provided in the body of the submission in high-resolution .jpeg file format, and should be numbered consecutively in decimal numerals (e.g., 1, 2, 3, 4, 5), with the numbers followed by headings. Each figure heading should be above the figure.

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Queries on submission procedures
Contact Chris Armstrong, AJIC Publishing Editor, chris.armstrong@wits.ac.za