American Journal of Trade and Policy (AJTP)

For Authors

Submit Manuscript

Manuscript Requirements (Research & Review Article)

Please prepare your manuscript before submission, using the following guidelines:

Format
All files should be submitted as a Word document (docx.).

Article Length
Articles should be upto 6000 words in length. This includes all text including references and appendices. Please allow 280 words for each figure or table.
(upto 20,000 words for Law Reviews)

Article Title Page
An Article Title Page should be submitted alongside each individual article using the followings:

  • Article Title
  • Author Details (see below)
  • Acknowledgements
  • Author Biographies
  • Abstract (see below)
  • Keywords (see below)
  • Article Classification (see below)

Article Title
A title of not more than twelve (12) words should be provided.

Author Details
Details should be supplied on the Article Title Page including:

  • Full name of each author
  • Affiliation of each author, at time research was completed
  • Where more than one author has contributed to the article, details of who should be contacted for correspondence
  • E-mail address of all contributor authors
  • Brief professional biography of each author.

Abstract
Authors must supply an abstract on the Article Title Page containing the followings:

  • Purpose (mandatory)
  • Design/methodology/approach (mandatory)
  • Findings (mandatory)
  • Research limitations/implications (if applicable)
  • Practical implications (if applicable)
  • Social implications (if applicable)

Maximum is 300 words in total (including keywords and article classification).

Keywords
Please provide up to 7 keywords on the Article Title Page, which encapsulate the principal topics of the paper.
Whilst we will endeavor to use submitted keywords in the published version, all keywords are subject to approval by AJTP’s in house editorial team and may be replaced by a matching term to ensure consistency.

Article Classification
Categorize your paper on the Article Title Page, under one of these classifications:

  • Research article
  • Case study
  • Short Technical paper
  • Working paper

Headings
Headings must be concise, with a clear indication of the distinction between the hierarchies of headings. The preferred format is for first level headings to be presented in bold format and subsequent sub-headings to be presented in medium italics.

Research Funding
Authors must declare all sources of external research funding in their article and a statement to this effect should appear in the Acknowledgements section. Authors should describe the role of the funder or financial sponsor in the entire research process, from study design to submission.

Figures
All Figures (charts, diagrams, line drawings, web pages/screenshots, and photographic images) should be submitted in electronic form.
All Figures should be of high quality, legible and numbered consecutively with arabic numerals. Graphics may be supplied in color to facilitate their appearance on the online database.

Tables
Tables should be typed and included to the main body of the article (not in a separate file).

References

References to other publications should be in Harvard style and carefully checked for completeness, accuracy and consistency. This is very important in an electronic environment because it enables your readers to exploit the Reference Linking facility on the database and link back to the works you have cited through CrossRef.

You should cite publications in the text: (Adams, 2006) using the first named author’s name or (Adams and Brown, 2006) citing both names of two, or (Adams et al., 2006), when there are three or more authors. At the end of the paper a reference list in alphabetical order should be supplied, numeric referencing list {example [1], [2] } should not be submitted for evaluation:

For books
Surname, Initials (year), Title of Book, Publisher, Place of publication.
e.g. Harrow, R. (2005), No Place to Hide, Simon & Schuster, New York, NY.

**For book chapters **
Surname, Initials (year), “Chapter title”, Editor’s Surname, Initials, Title of Book, Publisher, Place of publication, pages.
e.g. Calabrese, F.A. (2005), “The early pathways: theory to practice – a continuum”, in Stankosky, M. (Ed.), Creating the Discipline of Knowledge Management, Elsevier, New York, NY, pp. 15-20.

For journals
Surname, Initials (year), “Title of article”, Journal Name, volume, number, pages.
e.g. Capizzi, M.T. and Ferguson, R. (2005), “Loyalty trends for the twenty-first century”, Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 22 No. 2, pp. 72-80.

For published conference proceedings
Surname, Initials (year of publication), “Title of paper”, in Surname, Initials (Ed.), Title of published proceeding which may include place and date(s) held, Publisher, Place of publication, Page numbers.
e.g. Jakkilinki, R., Georgievski, M. and Sharda, N. (2007), “Connecting destinations with an ontology-based e-tourism planner”, in Information and communication technologies in tourism 2007 proceedings of the international conference in Ljubljana, Slovenia, 2007, Springer-Verlag, Vienna, pp. 12-32.

For unpublished conference proceedings
Surname, Initials (year), “Title of paper”, paper presented at Name of Conference, date of conference, place of conference, available at: URL if freely available on the internet (accessed date).
e.g. Aumueller, D. (2005), “Semantic authoring and retrieval within a wiki”, paper presented at the European Semantic Web Conference (ESWC), 29 May-1 June, Heraklion, Crete, available at: http://dbs.uni-leipzig.de/file/aumueller05wiksar.pdf (accessed 20 February 2007).

For working papers
Surname, Initials (year), “Title of article”, working paper [number if available], Institution or organization, Place of organization, date.
e.g. Moizer, P. (2003), “How published academic research can inform policy decisions: the case of mandatory rotation of audit appointments”, working paper, Leeds University Business School, University of Leeds, Leeds, 28 March.

For encyclopedia entries (with no author or editor)
Title of Encyclopedia (year) “Title of entry”, volume, edition, Title of Encyclopedia, Publisher, Place of publication, pages.
e.g. Encyclopaedia Britannica (1926) “Psychology of culture contact”, Vol. 1, 13th ed., Encyclopaedia Britannica, London and New York, NY, pp. 765-71.
(For authored entries please refer to book chapter guidelines above)

For newspaper articles (authored)
Surname, Initials (year), “Article title”, Newspaper, date, pages.
e.g. Smith, A. (2008), “Money for old rope”, Daily News, 21 January, pp. 1, 3-4.

For newspaper articles (non-authored)
Newspaper (year), “Article title”, date, pages.
e.g. Daily News (2008), “Small change”, 2 February, p. 7.

For electronic sources
If available online, the full URL should be supplied at the end of the reference, as well as a date that the resource was accessed.
e.g. Castle, B. (2005), “Introduction to web services for remote portlets”, available at: http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/library/ws-wsrp/ (accessed 12 November 2007).
Standalone URLs, i.e. without an author or date, should be included either within parentheses within the main text, or preferably set as a note (roman numeral within square brackets within text followed by the full URL address at the end of the paper).

Submission Checklist

Submitted articles will only be considered for evaluation if they meet the following criteria:

  • Submitted papers MUST be written in English.
  • Articles need to be in MS Word format with file extension .doc or .docx, PDF and others cannot be accepted.
  • The title should have references in Roman script and citations example should be like (Robert, 2013) for research articles.. Numeric referencing style {example [3], [7] } cannot be accepted for evaluation.
  • The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration.
  • All the author(s) have seen and agreed to the submitted version of the manuscript and to the inclusion of their name(s) as co-author(s).
  • The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Manuscript Requirements.
  • No additional authors will be added post submission, unless editors receive agreement from all authors and detailed information is supplied as to why the author list should be amended.

Note: For law reviews footnote or endnote allowed.

Submissions

Prospective authors should ensure their papers meet the journal scope and must adhere to the author guidelines. Every submission must spell out the implications of findings in the paper (these should be mentioned in the introduction, objectives, and research methodology, discussion and conclusion sections of your paper.) Papers which focus on findings for specific sectors without adequate attention to the objectives of the study will not be accepted.

Review process

Each submission is reviewed by the editor and, if it is judged suitable for this publication, it is then sent to at least one independent referees for double blind peer review. Based on their recommendation, as well as consultation between relevant Editorial Board members the editor then decides whether the paper should be accepted as is, revised or rejected.
Law Review decisions will be sent after the editor’s judgment only, will not be sent for further peer review.

Permissions

Prior to article submission, authors should clear permission to use any content that has not been created by them. Failure to do so may lead to lengthy delays in publication. AJTP is unable to publish any article which has permissions pending.

Informed Consent Statement

For all research involving human subjects, informed consent to participate in the study should be obtained from participants (or their parent or guardian in the case of children under 16) and a statement to this effect should appear in the manuscript.
For all manuscripts that include details, images, or videos relating to individual participants, written informed consent for the publication of these must be obtained from the participants (or their parent or legal guardian in the case of children under 16) and a statement to this effect should appear in the manuscript.
When reporting experiments on human subjects, authors should indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000 (5).
Experimental research on vertebrates or any regulated invertebrates must comply with institutional, national, or international guidelines, and where available should have been approved by an appropriate ethics committee. A statement detailing compliance with guidelines and/or ethical approval must be included in the manuscript.
Field studies should be conducted in accordance with local legislation, and the manuscript should include a statement specifying the appropriate permissions and/or licences. We recommend that authors comply with the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Convention on the Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.

Final Revised Submission

The author must ensure that the manuscript is complete, grammatically correct and without spelling or typographical errors. Before submitting, authors should check their submission completeness using the available Author Guidelines and Submission Checklist. Galley Proofs will be emailed prior to publication.