Author Guidelines

Use these instructions if you are preparing a manuscript to submit to Journal of Applied Sports Science (JASS).

Journal of Applied Sports Science (JASS) considers all manuscripts on the strict condition that

·         The manuscript is your own original work, and does not duplicate any other previously published work.

·         The manuscript has been submitted only to Journal of Applied Sports Science (JASS); it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere.

The manuscript contains nothing that is abusive, defamatory, libellous, obscene, fraudulent, or illegal.

By submitting your manuscript to Journal of Applied Sports Science you are agreeing to any necessary originality checks your manuscript may have to undergo during the peer-review and production processes.

Any author who fails to adhere to the above conditions will be rejected.

Contents List

Manuscript preparation

1.       General guidelines

2.       Style guidelines

3.       Tables

4.       Figures

5.       Publication charges

6.       Reproduction of copyright material

Manuscript submission

Copyright and authors’ rights

Reprints and journal copies 

Manuscript preparation

1.      General guidelines

• For authors whose native language is not English, it is strongly recommended they use a professional editing service to improve the quality of writing and screen out grammatical errors prior to manuscript submission.
• Manuscripts can be rejected on the basis of quality of writing.
• Manuscripts are accepted in English. British English spelling and punctuation are preferred.
• Manuscripts should be double spaced in 12 Font "Times New Roman" with normal character spacing. Add continuous line numbers to the main document (abstract to appendices) as reviewers will use only the line numbers to specify locations in the manuscript. Do not restart line numbers on each page. Allow at least 25 mm borders at top, bottom, left and right of each page, laid out as if to be printed on A4 or Letter-size paper.
• Please be very careful to conform to the format for figures, tables, references, and overall style established for Journal of Applied Sports Science (JASS). In the case of citations and references, please use the style and punctuation conventions given below.
• Manuscripts should be compiled in the following order: title page (including Acknowledgements); abstract; keywords; main text; references; appendices (as appropriate).
• All authors of a manuscript should include their full names, affiliations, postal addresses, telephone numbers and email addresses on the cover page of the manuscript. One author should be identified as the corresponding author. Please give the affiliation where the research was conducted. Please note that no changes to affiliation can be made after the manuscript is accepted. Please note that the email address of the corresponding author will normally be displayed in the article PDF (depending on the journal style) and the online article.
• The corresponding author must be authorized by all co-authors to act as an agent on their behalf in all matters pertaining to publication of the manuscript, and the order of names should be agreed by all authors.
• Abstracts of no more than 250 words are required for all manuscripts submitted.
• Each manuscript should have 3 to 5 keywords that are not included in the title.   

 Text is limited to 3000 words excluding abstract, figures, tables and references.

2. Style guidelines

Structure

Authors are required to adhere to the following structure for 'Original Research' papers.

Title:

The title should reflect the practical importance of the research as well as indicate its scientific basis.

Abstract:

The abstract should be not more than 250 words. Include the word count at the end of the abstract. The abstract should summarise the main findings and should conclude with clear statements off the research questions of the study. Refrain from including generic or explanatory statements in the abstract. Construct the abstract in a single paragraph with no subheading.

 Introduction:

The introduction should clearly elaborate the potential benefits of the research and its findings for sport practitioners. The purposes (aims and objectives) should be stated so as to capture both the contribution to knowledge and the practical benefits of the study. All hypotheses should be clearly formulated based on a sound theoretical framework. Authors should elaborate on explaining the mechanisms, not on simply describing the phenomena. The research questions and hypotheses should be justified fully within the introduction.

 Material and Methods:

The material and methods section should document the overall procedures and the participants involved, provide sufficient detail to allow replication of the study, and give relevant technical information to establish clearly the scientific merit of the study.

A statement that approval for the study was obtained from the appropriate research ethics committee must be included. Using an appropriate sample size is essential in generalizing the study findings. Studies using a small sample without proper justification may be returned to the authors immediately with no further consideration. A section should be dedicated to the statistical methods/procedures used and it should explicitly include the independent and dependant variables used in the analysis.

It is recommended to organize the material and methods section according to these sub-titles (i. Subjects, ii. Study Design, iii. Experimental Procedures (measurements and equipments), iv. Statistical Analyses).

 Results:

Sport practitioners should not be prevented from grasping the results because of a lack of knowledge of statistical procedures and terminology. However, no claims should be made without citing the relevant statistical results. Avoid using redundant numerical data in the text that are already presented in the tables and/or figures. Avoid using generic and narrative statements. Refer to relevant tables and figures parenthetically whenever possible and refrain from using expressions such as "Figure/Table x shows…." excessively.

The tables and figures limit for this section are 4 Tables and 4 Figures.

Discussion:

This section should be separate from the results section and should elaborate the implications of the results; it should also make clear the limitations of the study. Practitioners should be able to skip the results section and understand the findings of the study. Achieving this requires skill from authors to restate findings simply without repeating unnecessarily the information provided in the results section. It is important to keep the discussion within the scope of the study.

 Conclusion:                                                                               

The conclusion should summarise the main scientific findings and their practical implications in the context of the study's aims and objectives. The conclusions should be the last paragraph in the discussion. 

 References:

References, citations, and general style of manuscripts should be prepared in accordance with the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA, 6th ed.) style. The Arabic references should be not more than 5 references. It is preferable to use cited peer review articles where appropriate. Please note that the unpublished references are not acceptable for citations. Examples:  

Journal:

 Ellemberg, D., Leclerc, S., Couture, S., & Daigle, C. (2007). Prolonged neuropsychological impairments following a first concussion in female university soccer athletes. Clinical Journal of Sports Medicine, 17,369–374.

Book:

Ruegg, J. C. (1992). Calcium in muscle activation: Cellular and molecular physiology. Berlin, Germany: Springer Verlag.

Book Chapter:

•  Leclercq, M., & Azouvi, P. (2002). Attention after traumatic brain injury. In M. Leclercq & P. Zimmermann (Eds.), Applied neuropsychology of attention: Theory, diagnosis, and rehabilitation (pp. 257–279). New York, NY: Psychology Press.

3. Tables

• Tables must be created in Word and not imported from another package.
• Tables should be laid out with clear row and column headings and units should be included where appropriate. Place the table caption above the table. Keep the table captions as concise as possible and place the peripheral items in the footnotes.
• Tables must be imbedded in the main text.

4. Figures

• Please provide the highest quality figure format possible. Please be sure that all imported scanned material is scanned at the appropriate resolution: 1200 dpi for line art, 600 dpi for grayscale and 300 dpi for colour.
• Images downloaded from the internet and JPEGs are usually low resolution (72 dpi) and unsuitable for reproduction.
• Figures must be imbedded in the main text. Place the figure caption above the figure.
• All figures must be numbered in the order in which they appear in the manuscript (e.g. Figure 1, Figure 2). In multi-part figures, each part should be labelled (e.g. Figure 1(a), Figure 1(b)).
• Copyright permission must be obtained for all figures taken from other sources, including the internet.