Research & Development Policies

To ensure high-quality academic research the Southern Journal of Research, Institute of Southern Punjab, Multan follows the Higher Education Commission’s Ethical Guidelines. The following principles are key to the journal’s Policy:

Ethical Policy

For Editorial Board:

1. The editorial board of the journal will decide that which of the articles submitted to the journal should be published on the basis of their blind review reports.  
2. The confidentiality of the submitted work is the basic responsibility of Editorial Board until they are published.
3. In case, it is decided not to publish a material, the manuscript should not be used for any other purpose without the express written consent of the author.

For Advisory Board: 

1. The Advisory Boardof the journal is responsible to advice, suggest and support the editors.
2. The Advisory Board is guided by the policies of the journal and constrained by legal requirements related to libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism.
3. The advisory board members endorse the journal to authors, readers and subscribers and encourage colleagues to submit their bes0t work.

For the Reviewers: 

1. The reviewers of Southern Journal of Research, Institute of Southern Punjab, Multan assist the editors in taking the decision of publishing submitted manuscripts.
2. The reviews must be objective, comprehensive, and accurate.
3. A reviewer must evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual contents without regard to race, gender, political philosophy, citizenship, or religious beliefs of the authors.
4. If reviewers feels unqualified to review he/she should inform the editor and excuse him/her from the task within the suggested time period.

The reviewers are supposed to treat the manuscript(s) received for peer-reviewing as confidential and must not use the information obtained from them for personal advantage.

For the Authors: 

1. The authors of the manuscripts submitted to Southern Journal of Research should ensure that submissions are entirely their own original work.
2. When the authors use other materials and sources, they should be appropriately cited.
3. Any attempt of plagiarism would outright lead to the rejection of the submitted manuscript. Plagiarism, in all its forms, constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is strongly condemned.
4. Authors must not submit the same work or essentially the same research simultaneously to multiple journals.

Plagiarism Policy:

Southern Journal of Research strictly follows Plagiarism Policy as per guidelines of HEC. The Similarity Report on Turnitin should be below 19 percent.

Submissions are open throughout the year.

Guidelines for Submission of Research Articles:

The authors are requested to submit well-researched and original paper with a length of 5000 to 7000 words, including references. The paper must be contained an Abstract with a length of 200-300 words, including Keywords.

First page of the article should contain title of the research paper, name of the author, designation, institution affiliation and contact details. All the articles must be composed in MSWord, however, Font for English Articles; Times New Roman. An article should be typed on A4 size paper in double space, on one side of the page. Font size for title headings for English Articles 16 Bold, and for sub-headings 14 Bold, however, font size for references is 10. The main headings 16 Bold, sub-headings 14 Bold, and main body of text 13 and for references font size is 12.

All citations should follow the Chicago Manual of Style and the detail of the style can be observed on “http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org”>http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org.

Articles are required to be submitted by Email: .[email protected]  to the editor for the publication.

The articles are double blind peer reviewed by the experts before publication. However, the Editorial Board reserves the right to exclude the paper without showing cause for it. The decision of the Editorial Board will be considered exclusive for publication of the article.

The research paper must comprise an original and unpublished work. The article sent for publication is without plagiarism. The author has to submit article along with similarity report and he will be legally responsible for any objection in this regard.

 

• The Editor should not edit a submitted paper for those author(s) and/or institution against
  which s/he has any conflicts of interest (e.g. resulting from competitive, collaborative
  and/or professional standing).
• The Editor should also apply this guideline on their reviewers and Editorial Board members.
  • To ensure unbiased review, the Editor should declare a clear cut policy for his/her own
  submission and a research paper submitted by an Editorial Board member, and
• The Editor must publish a list of common interests (e.g. financial, academic and/or any other
  type) for all Editorial Board members and editorial staff. This list should be updated from
  time to time.
• To ensure unbiased review, the Editor should declare a clear cut policy for his/her own submission and a research paper submitted by an Editorial Board member.
  • In case of article (s) submitted by the Editor, the decision pertaining to the editor’s submitted article/s, one of the Associate Editors must take responsibility for the evaluation of the article and information pertaining to reviewers should be kept confidential.

Manuscript Acceptance and Rejection:

1. The review period of any manuscript is not more than eight weeks.
2. Editorial Board will decide in meeting about the acceptance and rejection of the article for further process.
3. In case of revision the time period of minimum two weeks will provide to the author to correct the mistakes and after revision the revised manuscript will go through the process affirmation of revision and be accepted or rejected accordingly.

Withdrawal Policy:

1. The author has right the withdrawal his/her manuscript. The author must inform the withdrawal of his/her manuscript through e-mail to the Editor of the Journal.

Peer Review Policy:

Southern Journal of Research follows the double-blind peer review and open access policy. Under this policy, we remove the name of the author(s) before sending an article to the reviewers. Likewise, the name of the reviewer is never revealed before the author(s) or any other in any case. We have very dynamic and well-read scholars, researchers and renowned literary figures in our review panel to get the papers reviewed.

Timelines of Publications of Issue:

The journals are bi-annual in its nature. The first issue is from January to June and published in June while the second issue is from July to December and published in December.

Open Access Policy:

Southern Journal of Research is an open access journal. All articles published in our journal are open access, freely available online and allowed readers to read, download, copy, print and to use them any other lawful purpose.

Copyrights/License Policy:

The authors retain copyright under the CC BY license. However, author have to sign a form agreeing to the publication of their article under the CC BY license.

Southern Journal of Researc is licensed under a http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/”>Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Copyright Policy:

The authors retain copyright under the CC BY license. However, author has to sign a form agreeing to the publication of their article under the CC BY license.

Disclaimer:

Facts and theories published in Southern Journal of Research demonstrate only the opinions of the respective authors. Authors are responsible for their text, citing of sources, accuracy of references and bibliographies. The editor or editorial board cannot be held responsible for any lack or possible violations of third party rights.

Publication Policy

1. Any type of complaints and grievances of authors can be addressed to Editor in Chief by giving in writing application.
2. Research Papers, not well written/ composed as per the guidelines for authors given at SJR website, will not be entertained for further process.

Plagiarism Policy

Southern Journal of Research strictly follows Plagiarism Policy as per guidelines of HEC. The Similarity Report on Turnitin should be below 19 percent. Submissions are open throughout the year.