Author Guidelines

Scientific Journal “SECURITY SCIENCE”

GUIDELINES FOR AUTHORS

Manuscripts should be submitted in English to the editorial office in two double-spaced copies and should be accompanied by an indicative abstract of 100 to 200 words.

The text should be structured with numbered subheadings. It should contain (a) an introduction, giving an overview and stating the purpose, (b) the main body, describing in sufficient detail the materials or methods used and the results or ideas developed, and (c) a conclusion or summary.

Criteria for acceptance will be appropriateness to the field of the journal Scope and Aims, taking into account the merit of the contents and presentation. The manuscript should be concise and should conform to professional standards of English usage and grammar. Manuscripts are received with the understanding that they have not been previously published, are not being submitted for publication elsewhere, and that if the work received an official sponsorship, it has been duly released for publication. Submissions are referred, and authors will usually be notified within 6 to 8 weeks. Unless specifically requested, manuscripts and illustrations will not be returned.

The submitted paper shall have a minimum of 12 pages and shall not exceed 16 pages (28 lines per page, 66 characters per line). In case the submitted material has been published elsewhere, the content of the paper submitted for publication in this Journal may not exceed 40% of the material originally published elsewhere

Title page. The title page should list (1) the article; (2) the author's name and affiliation at the time the work has been conducted; (3) the corresponding author's address, telephone and FAX numbers and e-mail address, if available; (4) a concise running title.

Abstract. An abstract should be submitted that does not exceed 200 words in length. This should be typed on a separate sheet following the title page.

Font and font size. Author(s) shall use font Times New Roman for the whole paper.

TITLES: The title of the scientific paper shall be centrally aligned and printed in capital letters (Uppercase), Bold formatting style (font size 14, line spacing: 1.5). The author's name shall be centrally aligned (font size 14, line spacing: 1.5). Subtitles shall be centrally aligned, printed in capital letters (font size 12), and enumerated in Arabic numerals.

Text of the article: Author(s) shall use font Times New Roman, font size 12, line spacing: 1.5, and alignment: justify. For in-text references, the authors shall use font size 10 (single spacing).

Reference citations with the text should have the following form: (author, year). For example, (Kent, 1949). Specific page numbers are optional e.g. (Kent, 1949, p. 56). A citation with two authors would read (Shulsky & Godson, 1991); three or more authors would be: (Smith et al., 1995). When the author is mentioned in the text, only the date, and optional page number should appear in parenthesis - e.g. According to Kent (1949),...

References should be listed alphabetically by the author at the end of the article. Journal names should not be abbreviated. Multiple citations by the same author should be listed in chronological and should each spell out the author's name. Articles appearing in the same year should have the following format: Smith, M. (1995a) ..., Smith, M. (1995b) ...

Examples:

  • Journal reference: Alexander, M. S. (1988). Introduction: Knowing Your Friends, Assessing Your Allies - Perspectives on Intra-Alliance Intelligence. Intelligence and National Security, 13(1). 1-17.
  • Edited book reference:Gries, D. D. (1995). New Links Between Intelligence and Policy. In H. B. Westerfield (ed.). Inside CIA's Private World. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
  • Book reference:Andrew, C. (1985). Secret Service: The Making of the British Intelligence Community. London: Sceptre.
  • Conference paper reference:Habsburg, O. v. (1998). A Security Policy for Europe. In M. Sopta & M. Marnika (eds.). Croatia as a Stabilizing Factor For Peace In Europe: Proceedings from an International Symposium Held in Zagreb, Croatia 11 - 14 April 1996. Zagreb: Croatian Centre of Strategic Studies. 27-34.

Book reviews should be preceded by full publication details including price: eg. Adams, J. (1998). The next World War: The warriors and weapons of the new battlefields in Cyberspace. London: Hutchinson. Pp. 366, biblio., index. L 18.99. ISBN 0-09-180232-6.

Footnotes should be kept to a minimum. They should be indicated in the text with numbered superscripts, and the corresponding notes should be collected at the end of the article, before the references, under the heading Notes.

Illustrations should be kept to the necessary minimum. Graphs and diagrams should be supplied as black and white drawings suitable for reproduction. Half-tone illustrations should be sharp, well-contrasted glossy prints. Illustrations should be numbered lightly with a soft pencil on the back, and a numbered legend should be attached on a separate sheet. Clear copies of the illustrations should accompany the submitted manuscript, but camera-ready originals should not be sent until requested by the editor. Tables should contain a number and a title at the top, and all columns and rows should have headings. All illustrations should be cited in the text as Figure 1, Figure 2, etc. or Table 1, Table 2, etc.

Upon acceptance of a manuscript for publication, authors have to provide a one-paragraph biographical sketch.

 

Ethical guidelines for peer reviewers (extract)

https://doi.org/10.24318/cope.2019.1.9

https://publicationethics.org/files/cope-ethical-guidelines-peer-reviewers-v2_0.pdf

Peer review in all its forms plays an important role in ensuring the integrity of the scholarly record. The process depends to a large extent on trust and requires that everyone involved behaves responsibly and ethically. Peer reviewers play a central and critical part in the peer-review process, but too often come to the role without any guidance and are unaware of their ethical obligations. COPE has produced some guidelines which set out the basic principles and standards to which all peer reviewers should adhere during the peer-review process in research publication. The aim has been to make them generic so that they can be applied across disciplines. Peer reviewers play a role in ensuring the integrity of the scholarly record. The peer-review process depends to a large extent on the trust and willing participation of the scholarly community and requires that everyone involved behaves responsibly and ethically. Peer reviewers play a central and critical part in the peer review process but may come to the role without any guidance and be unaware of their ethical obligations. Journals have an obligation to provide transparent policies for peer review, and reviewers have an obligation to conduct reviews in an ethical and accountable manner. Clear communication between the journal and the reviewers is essential to facilitate consistent, fair, and timely review. COPE has heard cases from its members related to peer review issues and bases these guidelines, in part, on the collective experience and wisdom of the COPE Forum participants. It is hoped they will provide helpful guidance to researchers, be a reference for editors and publishers in guiding their reviewers, and act as an educational resource for institutions in training their students and researchers. Peer review, for the purposes of these guidelines, refers to reviews provided on manuscript submissions to journals, but can also include reviews for other platforms and apply to public commenting that can occur pre- or post-publication. Reviews of other materials such as preprints, grants, books, conference proceeding submissions, registered reports (preregistered protocols), or data will have a similar underlying ethical framework, but the process will vary depending on the source material and the type of review requested. The model of peer review will also influence elements of the process.

Evaluation process

The first step in the evaluation of received papers is editor-in-chief. The editor-in-chief will also do plagiarism-checking. If the editor-in-chief is not satisfied with the paper, it will be rejected. If the answer is positive, then the paper is going to be sent to the reviewers according to hers/his expertise. Usually, the time frame for the first evaluation is 6-8 weeks. First review comments are going to be sent to the author(s) for (not)acceptance. If the author(s) does not want to accept comments and recommendations, that has to be explained with valid and strong arguments. In that case, the editor-in-chief and expert members within the editorial board will take a final decision about the paper publication.

 

Guidelines for reviewers

 Each reviewer receives a form for reviewing together with the article for a blind review.

Dear reviewers pay attention to the following items when writing a review:

  • Clarity, conciseness, legibility and content of the title and the article itself in terms of its content;
  • Article organization;
  • Correctness of the methodological procedure;
  • Literature and sources used for the article;
  • Adequacy and accuracy of the terminology used by the author i the article;
  • Proposal for possible changes, additions to the paper;
  • Final assessment of whether the paper should be published without or after certain interventions in the article; i.e. that the article is not recommended for publication.

When you are writing review, you should be guided by the following definitions:

  • Original scientific paper - contains hitherto unpublished results of original scientific research, views and conclusions;
  • Preliminary communication - although it contains new results of scientific research, views and/or conclusions, and needs to be published quickly;
  • Review paper - contains an original overview of a particular thematic area that is written in a clear, acceptable way and contributes to the science;
  • Professional paper - article that contains useful and usable suggestions, attitudes and opinions from the experts and for the experts, and, as a rule, does not represent the result of original research.