Journal Submission Guidelines – Asia Pacific Association of Language, Culture, and Education (APALCE)

Asia Pacific Journal of Language, Culture, and Education

[ISSN: 3092-362X / DOI: 10.23403]

Journal & Manuscript enquiries: journal@apalce.org

Chapter 1. General Provisions

Article 1. Purpose

These Guidelines set out the submission, formatting, review, publication, and disclosure requirements applicable to contributions submitted to the Asia Pacific Journal of Language, Culture, and Education (APJLCE).

Article 2. Basis and Scope

These Guidelines shall be read together with the Editorial Board Regulations and the Research Ethics Regulations of APJLCE.

These Guidelines apply to all submission categories recognized by the journal and to all authors submitting to APJLCE, regardless of nationality, institutional affiliation, or membership status in APALCE.

Article 3. Definitions and Shared Terms

For the purposes of these Guidelines, APALCE means the Asia Pacific Association of Language, Culture, and Education; APJLCE means the Asia Pacific Journal of Language, Culture, and Education; and Board means the Editorial Board of APJLCE.

The recognized submission categories are Research Articles; Short Articles / Research Notes; Scholarly Forum / Discussion Papers / Trend Essays; and Book Reviews.

Chapter 2. Submission Requirements

Article 4. Eligibility, Originality, and Prior Dissemination

The editors welcome manuscripts of 2,000 to 10,000 words, provided that the submission has not previously been published and is not under consideration elsewhere.

Authors shall inform the journal if the work, in whole or in part, has previously appeared in another form, medium, venue, or language, including as a thesis, dissertation, conference paper, proceedings paper, working paper, report, or preprint.

The journal may consider such work where the overlap is transparently disclosed and the submission remains sufficiently original and suitable for publication in APJLCE.

Article 5. Submission Procedure and Required Files

Manuscripts shall be submitted by email to journal@apalce.org unless the journal announces another submission route.

Initial submissions shall be provided in .doc, .docx, .rtf, or another editable format approved by the Editorial Office. Initial submissions shall not be sent as PDF files.

Authors shall submit two separate files: (a) a title page and (b) an anonymous manuscript.

The title page shall include the manuscript title, submission category, full name of each author, institutional affiliation and country, corresponding author’s email address, ORCID iD where available, total word count, funding statement, acknowledgements, and conflict-of-interest disclosure where applicable.

The anonymous manuscript shall contain the title, abstract where required, keywords where required, main text, footnotes, references, tables, and figures, but shall not contain identifying information in the text, headers, footers, acknowledgements, track changes, comments, or file properties.

Article 6. Length, Abstract, and Keywords

Word limits include the title, abstract, keywords, notes, references, appendices, tables, and figures.

Research Articles should normally be 5,000 to 10,000 words in length.

Short Articles / Research Notes and Scholarly Forum / Discussion Papers / Trend Essays should normally be 2,000 to 4,000 words in length.

Book Reviews should not exceed 1,500 words and do not require an abstract.

All submissions other than Book Reviews shall include an abstract of 150 to 200 words and 4 to 6 keywords.

Article 7. Language, Style, and Presentation

Unless otherwise agreed by the editors, manuscripts shall be submitted in clear academic English.

Authors shall prepare manuscripts in Times New Roman or a similar serif font at 12-point size and shall use bold numbered section headings without relying on complex automatic formatting features that compromise review or production.

Single quotation marks shall be used for main quotations, and double quotation marks shall be used for quotations within quotations. Quotations longer than 40 words should be presented as indented block quotations.

Foreign words and expressions, except proper names and established English borrowings, shall be italicized.

Dates should be written in the form 23 July 1945; decades as the 1940s; and ranges as 1952–56. Whole numbers up to ninety-nine should ordinarily be spelled out unless a statistical or technical presentation requires numerals. Initials of institutions or countries should be written without full stops.

Article 8. Tables, Figures, Orthography, and Transliteration

For the initial submission, tables and figures should be placed at the relevant point in the text rather than at the end of the manuscript or in separate files.

All tables and figures shall be numbered consecutively, clearly titled or captioned, cited in the main text, and accompanied by source information where necessary.

Authors are responsible for obtaining permission to reproduce previously published or copyrighted material.

Examples and citations from languages other than English should follow the established orthography of the relevant language community wherever possible. In the absence of an established orthography, authors shall use a recognized and documented transcription or transliteration system, such as the IPA or a standard romanization scheme.

Article 9. Footnotes, References, and Citation Style

Footnotes shall be used rather than endnotes and should be kept brief and directly relevant to the argument.

APJLCE uses an author-date citation system. In-text citations should normally appear in the form (Forde, 1964, p. 102), (Lee, 2020, pp. 21–23), or (Hoffmann et al., 2008).

A complete reference list shall appear at the end of the manuscript, arranged alphabetically by author surname, and shall include only works cited in the text.

Authors are responsible for the accuracy and completeness of all bibliographic information and should include a DOI or stable URL where available.

Chapter 3. Review and Publication

Article 10. Peer Review and Editorial Process

Research Articles, Short Articles / Research Notes, and Scholarly Forum / Discussion Papers / Trend Essays are ordinarily evaluated through a double-blind peer review process.

Book Reviews are ordinarily assessed editorially by the Book Review Editor and/or the Editor-in-Chief and may, at the discretion of the Board, be sent for external review.

The editorial process ordinarily includes initial screening, anonymous review where applicable, revision where required, and final decision by the Editor-in-Chief.

A submission may be returned before review or declined without external review if it falls outside the journal’s scope, fails to meet minimum scholarly standards, or does not comply with the journal’s requirements.

Article 11. Revisions, Final Materials, and Proofs

Where revisions are requested, authors shall submit a revised manuscript together with a response indicating how reviewer and editorial comments have been addressed.

For accepted manuscripts, the Editorial Office may request final files, editable figures or tables, permissions documentation, disclosures, acknowledgements, or other materials required for production.

Authors shall review proofs promptly and shall limit proof corrections to typographical, factual, or editorial matters unless otherwise approved by the editors.

Article 12. Copyright, Publication Rights, Fees, Open Access, and Contributor Copies

The copyright of accepted and published works remains with the author.

By accepting publication in APJLCE, the author grants the journal a non-exclusive right to edit, publish, reproduce, distribute, host, and archive the work in print, electronic, and other media for purposes of publication and dissemination.

The editors may make minor editorial revisions for clarity, style, format, and consistency, but no major substantive change shall be made without the author’s approval.

APJLCE charges no submission fee, review fee, or publication fee.

APJLCE follows a Green Open Access model. Authors may self-archive permitted pre-publication versions in accordance with the journal’s current archiving policy. The Version of Record may not be deposited unless expressly authorized by the journal.

Authors will receive a PDF copy of their published contribution.

Article 13. Authorship, Acknowledgements, Conflicts of Interest, and Ethical Compliance

A person shall be listed as an author only if that person has made a substantial scholarly contribution to the work, has approved the submitted version, and is willing to take responsibility for the content.

Contributions that do not meet the standard for authorship should be recognized in an Acknowledgements section where appropriate.

Authors shall disclose relevant funding, conflicts of interest, and ethical approvals or consent procedures where applicable.

All submissions shall comply with the Research Ethics Regulations of APJLCE.

Article 14. Use of Generative AI

If generative AI tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, Claude, DALL·E, Midjourney, or similar systems have been used in drafting, editing, translating, coding, generating images, or otherwise preparing a manuscript, such use shall be clearly disclosed in accordance with journal policy.

Authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, originality, legality, and integrity of all submitted material. Generative AI tools shall not be listed as authors or co-authors.

Addendum

Article A1. Effective Date

These Guidelines shall take effect on the date of approval by the Association and shall supersede the previous Journal Submission Guidelines of APJLCE.

Note

Authors are strongly encouraged to consult the current Call for Papers, the journal website, and any issue-specific announcements before submission.

For submissions and inquiries, please contact:

journal@apalce.org