Author Guidelines

International Journal of Scientific Research and Management (IJSRM) ISSN (Online): 2321-3418 | DOI Prefix: 10.18535/ijsrm Open Access | Peer-reviewed | Publisher: Valley International

1. Scope

IJSRM is a peer-reviewed, open access, multidisciplinary journal. It publishes original research that makes a significant contribution to knowledge across engineering and computer science, management, economics, social sciences, law, medical sciences and pharmacy, and related fields. All manuscripts must be written in clear, grammatically correct English and must not have been published, or be under consideration for publication, anywhere else.

2. Article Types

• Original Research Papers — full reports of original studies.
• Review Articles — comprehensive, critical surveys of a topic, ideally by authors with established expertise. Approximately 15–20 pages. A review must contain at least an Abstract, Introduction, the body organised under appropriate headings, and Conclusion; it need not follow the IMRaD (Methods/Results) structure, but systematic reviews should describe their search and selection method.
• Case Studies / Case Reports — for medical case reports, patient consent for publication is mandatory (see Section 7).
• Short Communications — concise reports of preliminary but significant findings, up to 5 pages, with the narrative running continuously rather than under IMRaD headings, and no more than 3–4 illustrations.
• Technical Notes — short descriptions of a method, technique, or tool.

3. Manuscript Structure

Original research manuscripts should be organised as follows:

Title page, Abstract, Keywords, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion (or combined Results and Discussion), Conclusion, Declarations (ethics, consent, conflict of interest, funding, data availability, AI use, author contributions — see Section 7), Acknowledgements, and References.

3.1 Title Page

The title page must be uploaded as a separate file (to preserve blinding during review) and should contain:

• The full title of the manuscript — specific, concise, and informative.
• The full name of every author, written consistently (given name followed by family name).
• Each author's institutional affiliation, keyed to the author name by a superscript number. Every author must have exactly one clearly matching affiliation; where an author has more than one, list each and key it correctly.
• The ORCID iD of each author (registration at https://orcid.org is free and is required by most indexing databases).
• The corresponding author, clearly identified, with a full postal address, institutional email address, and telephone number.

3.2 Abstract and Keywords

Provide a structured abstract of no more than 250 words under the headings Objective, Methods, Results, and Conclusion. Review articles may use a brief unstructured abstract. Supply 4–8 keywords, drawn where possible from a standard vocabulary (for medical papers, MeSH terms), for indexing.

3.3 Body Sections

• Introduction — state the background and rationale briefly (not an exhaustive review) and end with a clear statement of the study's objective. Do not include results or conclusions.
• Materials and Methods — provide enough detail for the study to be reproduced. State all ethical approvals and consent (see Section 7). Give the manufacturer, city, and country for principal drugs, chemicals, and instruments. Name the statistical methods used and state the significance thresholds (e.g. P < 0.05, *P < 0.01). Previously published methods should be cited rather than repeated.
• Results — report the findings without interpretation.
• Discussion — interpret the results and compare them with other studies. Do not restate the results in full or review unrelated literature.
• Conclusion — summarise the main finding in relation to the study's objective, and note limitations and implications.

Define every abbreviation at its first appearance in both the abstract and the main text.

4. Tables and Figures

Tables and figures must be numbered with Arabic numerals in the order they are first cited in the text (Table 1 must be cited before Table 2, and so on).

• Tables must be created using the table tool of the word processor — not pasted as images and not typed as run-in text. Each table needs a concise caption above it (e.g. Table 1: in 12 pt Times New Roman bold) and, where needed, explanatory footnotes so it can be understood without reference to the text. Use horizontal rules only.
• Figures must be clear and legible at the size they will be printed. Supply line art as high-resolution files (minimum 300 dpi for photographs, 600 dpi for line drawings). Each figure needs a caption below it (e.g. Fig. 1:) containing enough detail to be understood on its own. For composite figures, label the parts A, B, C. Include scale markers on micrographs. Freehand or typewritten lettering is not acceptable.

Authors are responsible for obtaining written permission to reproduce any figure, table, or extended quotation already published elsewhere, and must cite the source.

5. Units and Symbols

Use the International System of Units (SI). Follow standard SI conventions: symbols are lower case unless derived from a name, are not pluralised and take no full stop (except at the end of a sentence), are separated from the preceding number by a space (10 mg, 60 °C), and a zero is placed before a decimal point (0.01). Prefer decimals to fractions.

6. References

Number references consecutively in the order they first appear in the text, and cite them in the text using Arabic numerals in square brackets, e.g. [1], [2,3]. References cited only in a table or figure are numbered according to where that table or figure is first mentioned.

Use the National Library of Medicine (NLM) / ICMJE reference style consistently for every reference. This is a hard requirement: databases such as PubMed and Scopus reject inconsistent or incomplete references. Each reference must be complete.

Do not use "et al." in the reference list. List all authors; only where there are more than six authors, list the first six followed by "et al." Every journal reference must include: author surnames and initials, article title, abbreviated journal name (per the CASSI or NLM Catalog abbreviation), year, volume(issue), page range, and DOI where one exists.

Examples of correct style:

Journal article: Halpern SD, Ubel PA, Caplan AL. Solid-organ transplantation in HIV-infected patients. N Engl J Med. 2002;347(4):284–7. doi:10.1056/NEJMsb010384

Book: Murray PR, Rosenthal KS, Kobayashi GS, Pfaller MA. Medical microbiology. 4th ed. St. Louis: Mosby; 2002.

Chapter in a book: Meltzer PS, Kallioniemi A, Trent JM. Chromosome alterations in human solid tumors. In: Vogelstein B, Kinzler KW, editors. The genetic basis of human cancer. New York: McGraw-Hill; 2002. p. 93–113.

Avoid citing abstracts, personal communications, or unpublished data except where essential, and then only with the source's written permission. Full NLM guidance is at https://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/uniform_requirements.html and ICMJE guidance at http://www.icmje.org.

7. Declarations (Mandatory)

Every manuscript must end, before the reference list, with the following statements. These declarations are required for indexing in DOAJ, PubMed/PMC, and Scopus, and a manuscript will not be sent for review without them.

• Ethics approval: For any study involving human participants, state the name of the approving ethics committee / institutional review board and the approval reference number, and confirm the study followed the Declaration of Helsinki. For animal studies, state the approving body and the guidelines followed. For studies not involving humans or animals, state "Not applicable."
• Informed consent: Confirm that informed consent was obtained from all participants. For case reports or any identifiable patient data or images, confirm that written consent for publication was obtained.
• Conflict of interest: Declare all financial and non-financial competing interests, or state "The authors declare no conflict of interest."
• Funding: Name all sources of funding and grant numbers, or state that the research received no specific funding.
• Data availability: State where the data supporting the findings can be found, or explain any restrictions on availability.
• Use of AI tools: Disclose any use of generative AI or AI-assisted technologies in the preparation of the manuscript, describing how they were used. AI tools cannot be credited as authors.
• Author contributions: Briefly state what each author contributed. All listed authors must meet the ICMJE authorship criteria; contributors who do not qualify should be named in the Acknowledgements instead.

8. Publication Ethics

IJSRM adheres to the Core Practices of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). All submissions are screened with similarity-detection software. Plagiarism, duplicate or redundant publication, data fabrication or falsification, image manipulation, improper authorship, or undisclosed conflicts of interest will result in rejection and may be reported to the authors' institutions. Concerns raised after publication are handled through correction, expression of concern, or retraction in accordance with COPE guidelines. The full policy is set out on the journal's Publication Ethics page.

9. Peer Review

All manuscripts that pass initial editorial screening undergo double-blind peer review by at least two independent expert reviewers. To enable blinding, author names and affiliations must appear only on the separate title page, not in the main manuscript file. Editorial decisions are based solely on scientific merit and are independent of any fee.

10. Copyright and License

Authors retain copyright of their work. Articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), which allows others to share and adapt the work provided the original authors and source are credited. By submitting, authors grant IJSRM the right of first publication under this license.

11. Article Processing Charge

IJSRM is open access and charges no submission, editorial, or peer-review fee. An Article Processing Charge, payable only after acceptance, covers online hosting, DOI registration, indexing, and long-term preservation. The current amount and any waiver options are published on the Publication Fee page. Payment is never a condition of, and has no influence on, editorial acceptance.

12. Submission Checklist

Before submitting, confirm that:

• The manuscript is in Microsoft Word, OpenOffice, or RTF format.
• The main manuscript file contains no author-identifying information; author details and ORCID iDs are on a separate title page.
• The abstract is structured and within 250 words, with 4–8 keywords.
• Tables are built with the word-processor table tool and placed at the correct point in the text; figures meet the resolution requirements.
• All references follow NLM/ICMJE style, list all authors (no "et al." in the list unless more than six), and include DOIs where available.
• All Section 7 declarations are present.
• The text is single-spaced in 12-point font, using italics rather than underlining except in URLs.

13. Submission and Contact

Submit online at https://ijsrm.net through the author dashboard.

Editorial Office — International Journal of Scientific Research and Management (IJSRM) Website: https://ijsrm.net | Email: editor@ijsrm.net