Style Guidelines & Recommendations

2.1 Title

The title of an article should be written in 16 point bold Times New Roman font, left-aligned, and at the top of page. Global Spheres Journal requires all manuscripts to have concise titles which omit terms that indicate the main result or a conclusion of the manuscript. The titles can be thought-provoking and creative, only if relevant to the manuscript’s main idea, and should not include abbreviations. They must not be ambiguous, vague, alarming or offensive.

2.2 Authors

All author names should be listed and separated with commas. Corresponding authors should be marked with an asterisk (e-mail address of correspondence should be provided in separate section). The affiliations of the authors should be attached to the author’s name with superscript numbers following this order: Institute, Department, Organization, City, State abbreviation, and Country (with no zip codes or street names). Example: John Smith, Department of Global Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, USA.

2.3 Abstract

Abstract should render the manuscript a significant contribution to the larger body of work while stressing its wide accessibility to a broad readership. The abstract should not include abbreviations and cannot include references. Abstracts should be defined in 12 point normal Times New Roman.

2.4 Keywords

Keywords must be provided for all article types. Five keywords are required.

2.5 Acknowledgments

Acknowledgement is a short section that can be included in the article to acknowledge the contributions of colleagues, institutions, or agencies that were significant in the process of producing the article.

2.6 Headings, Subheadings

Headings and subheadings should be defined in Times New Roman, 12, italicized. The manuscript can have up to 5 levels of headings, such as 2.2.3.1.5.

2.7 Sections

The manuscript should be split into headings and subheadings. Some article types, such as the Original Research Article can follow this structure: (1) Introduction - without subheadings; (2) Methods - may be divided into subheadings. It should contain sufficient information of methodologies used. Ethical approvals and considerations, if applicable, should be included in this section; (3) Results - may be divided into subheadings; (4) Discussion - may be divided into subheadings. This section should summarize the key findings of the study, contextualize the distinctiveness and novelty of the article and how it advances the current views, acknowledge potential limitations and weaknesses of the study, offer further suggestions in the area of more extensive research on the subject or policy recommendations.

2.8 Body Text

The body text of the manuscript should be defined in 12 point normal Times New Roman. Every new paragraph should be separated with a single empty line. The body text of the entire manuscript should be single-spaced. The document should contain page and line numbers.

2.9 References

Global Spheres Journal uses Harvard, "author-date" style of referencing. This referencing system consists of citation (which acknowledges a source by providing the author and date of publication along with page number within a citation in the main body of work), and reference (which includes full details of each citation that is included in a reference list, or bibliography, at the end of your manuscript). The bibliography should include all in-text citations along with figures and tables, and vice-versa. The manuscript should refer only to published or accepted articles. If manuscript refers to an accepted but unpublished works, please include "in press". In cases of referring to unpublished data, submitted manuscripts, or personal communications, the manuscript should include in-text citations only with a footnote. Data derived from personal communication should be accompanied with a letter of permission. Website URLs should be included in the bibliography. Any use of verbatim text must be in quotation marks and clearly referenced.

2.10 Supplementary Material

Supplementary materials are usually data which are not of primary importance to the main text or do not fit within the current article type. These can be data sheets, films, audio files, tables, images, Microsoft PowerPoint presentations, etc. They can be uploaded along with the manuscript, but not as a part of it, and will be displayed together with the published article on the GSJ website.