Submissions

Submissions

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Submission Preparation Checklist

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.
  • The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
  • Authors who have published in ILS have to skip three issues before their next submission will be considered, regardless of whether one is an author or a co-author. The journal will validate every author before publication. Please ensure you and your co-authors have not published with us in our latest three issues before you proceed.
  • The text adheres to the stylistic and referencing requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines. You are required to use the ILS Manuscript Template (DOC format) provided. The Editorial team will reject the paper if the manuscript is not properly formatted.
  • Three (3) potential reviewers who are not from UNIMAS and the author's institution have been nominated and their names, title, affiliation and email address have been included in the "Comments for the Editor".
  • The Declaration of Originality form (Download The Form Here) has been completed and submitted with the article.
  • The manuscript submitted must be in Microsoft Word, OpenOffice, WordPerfect document file format (.doc or .docx). Do not upload in PDF format.

Author Guidelines

Title Page (Put in a different file/doc)

Title, author’s name and affiliation, postal and e-mail address of each author. Please indicate corresponding author with an asterisk.

Article (Main Document) - Follow the template given

Title, abstract not exceeding 200 words, 4-6 keywords. Articles not written in English should be accompanied by a title, abstract and keywords in English.

Text in single-spacing and margins – top and bottom, left and right – should be 1.50 inches wide, Calibri 11 point (A4 paper size). Do not indent the first paragraph of each section. Indent the first line of subsequent paragraphs by ½ inch. The word length should not exceed 7,000 words, inclusive of abstract, references, tables, figures and appendices. 

Use the five-level headings in APA style:

                                Centred, Bold, Upper and Lowercase Letters

Flush Left, Bold, Upper and Lowercase Letters

Flush Left, Bold, Italics, Upper and Lowercase Letters

                Indent 0.5 Inch from Left, Bold, Upper and Lowercase Letters, Period at End.

                Indent 0.5 Inch from Left, Bold, Italics, Upper and Lowercase Letters, Period at End.

 

Quotations. Use double quotation marks to enclose quotations of fewer than 40 words. Within this quotation, use single quotation marks to enclose quoted material. Long quotations should be placed in a block which is indented ½ inch from the left margin.

Words and phrases in other languages. Please italicise these words and provide a translation.

Do not use footnotes. If notes are unavoidable, use a numeral in superscript and list notes at the end of the article, before the References. 

Place the headings above the table and figure respectively as shown below:

Table 1 (bold)   
Types of Communication Strategies Used across Age Groups (italics)

Figure 1 (bold)   
 Frequency of Communication Strategy Use across Age Groups (italics)

Conclusion
Conclusion should just should briefly state the main results, the main contribution of the study, limitation of the study, and recommendation for further research.

Citation and References

  • Follow APA style (7th ed.) for citation and referencing.  For Malay names, use the father's name.  
  • For references, provide the digital object identifier (DOI) number. 
  • Each reference cited in text must appear in the reference list. Uncited sources must not be included in the Reference list. 
  • References should not be managed by any kind of reference management tool. Type out each of them manually by following the correct APA format, for both in-text citations and references. 

Please use the journal's template provided here (DOC Format)

Submitting Your Manuscript

Please prepare your manuscript according to the ILS guideline and template, and submit it via ILS Online Submission System. You need to register prior to submission. If you have problems submitting via the system, please email us. 

IMPORTANT:

  1. Please suggest 3 potential reviewers who are not from Universiti Malaysia Sarawak and the authors' own institution.  The following details should be provided: reviewer's name, title, affiliation, and email address. Be aware that the choice of reviewers is at the discretion of ILS.
  2. Authors who have published in ILS have to skip three issues before their next submission will be considered, regardless of whether one is an author or a co-author.
  3. We would also like to advise author(s) that the review process usually takes about 3-4 months.
  4. We have a rigorous initial quality check. Your manuscript may be rejected if it does not meet one or more of ILS requirements:
  • compliance with author guidelines
  • similarity index (must be less than 30%)
  • scientific merit and contribution of the research
  • journal scope and readership
  • diversity in authors and research areas

The use of AI-assisted technologies in writing

  • When authors use generative AI and AI-assisted tools in writing, these tools should only enhance the readability and language of the work, not replace important tasks like creating scientific insights, making conclusions, or giving clinical advice.
  • Authors should not credit generative AI and AI-assisted tools as authors or co-authors, nor should they cite AI as an author. Authorship involves responsibilities and tasks that only humans can fulfil.

Language and Spelling
ILS prefers British spelling for English, and for Malay, authors should follow the guidelines of Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka.

Copyright Notice

Copyright Transfer Statement for Journal

1) In signing this statement, the author(s) grant UNIMAS Publisher an exclusive license to publish their original research papers. The author(s) also grant UNIMAS Publisher permission to reproduce, recreate, translate, extract or summarize, and to distribute and display in any forms, formats, and media. The author(s) can reuse their papers in their future printed work without first requiring permission from UNIMAS Publisher, provided that the author(s) acknowledge and reference publication in the Journal.

2) For open access articles, the author(s) agree that their articles published under UNIMAS Publisher are distributed under the terms of the CC-BY-NC-SA (Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License) which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, for non-commercial purposes, provided the original work of the author(s) is properly cited.

3) The author(s) is/are responsible to ensure his or her or their submitted work is original and does not infringe any existing copyright, trademark, patent, statutory right, or propriety right of others. Corresponding author(s) has (have) obtained permission from all co-authors prior to submission to the journal. Upon submission of the manuscript, the author(s) agree that no similar work has been or will be submitted or published elsewhere in any language. If submitted manuscript includes materials from others, the authors have obtained the permission from the copyright owners.

4) In signing this statement, the author(s) declare(s) that the researches in which they have conducted are in compliance with the current laws of the respective country and UNIMAS Journal Publication Ethics Policy. Any experimentation or research involving human or the use of animal samples must obtain approval from Human or Animal Ethics Committee in their respective institutions. The author(s) agree and understand that UNIMAS Publisher is not responsible for any compensational claims or failure caused by the author(s) in fulfilling the above-mentioned requirements. The author(s) must accept the responsibility for releasing their materials upon request by Chief Editor or UNIMAS Publisher.

5) The author(s) should have participated sufficiently in the work and ensured the appropriateness of the content of the article. The author(s) should also agree that he or she has no commercial attachments (e.g. patent or license arrangement, equity interest, consultancies, etc.) that might pose any conflict of interest with the submitted manuscript. The author(s) also agree to make any relevant materials and data available upon request by the editor or UNIMAS Publisher.

Privacy Statement

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