Author Guidelines

 

Instructions for Authors

Contributors are invited to submit their articles in English to the Editor for critical peer review. The Journal of Athletic Performance and Nutrition considers for publication papers in the categories of:


- Original Research

- Review Article.

- Case Study

The articles must be in one of the following sub-disciplines relating generally to the broad sports medicine and sports science fields: physical activity and health, sports science, biomechanics, exercise physiology, sports nutrition, public health. Articles with an interdisciplinary perspective with specific applications to sport and exercise and its interaction with health will also be considered.

JAPN studies involving human subjects will be considered.

Authors must declare that articles submitted to the Journal have not been published elsewhere or are not being considered for publication elsewhere and that the research reported will not be submitted for publication elsewhere until a final decision has been made as to its acceptability by the Journal.

PLEASE NOTE that manuscripts will NOT be assigned for peer review until they are formatted as outlined in the Guide for Authors. In particular:
- Ensure that English is of good standard
- Ensure Ethics Committee details are as complete as possible
- Ensure all headings and subheadings conform to the Guide for Authors
- References, both in-text and reference list, must be formatted according to the Guide for Authors
- Provide the Figure Legends as part of the text file, at the end of the manuscript
- Include Acknowledgements – this is mandatory

The review process will consist of reviews by at least two independent reviewers. Contributors must suggest the names and full contact details of 2 possible reviewers. The reviewers must not be from the same institutions as the authors, and one must be from a country different to any of the authors. The Editor may, at his or her discretion, choose no more than one of those suggested. The reviewers will be blinded to the authorship of the manuscript. The Editor will make a final decision about the manuscript, based on consideration of the reviewers' comments.

The journal receives an ever-increasing number of submissions and unfortunately can only publish a small proportion of manuscripts. The journal's Editorial Board does not enter into negotiations once a decision on a manuscript has been made. The Editor's decision is final.

Papers accepted for publication become the copyright of JAPN. Authors will be asked to sign a transfer of copyright form, on receipt of the accepted manuscript by JAPN. This enables the publisher to administer copyright on behalf of the authors and the society, while allowing the continued use of the material by the author for scholarly communication.

PREPARATION OF MANUSCRIPTS
- Microsoft Word is the preferred software program. Use Arial or Times New Roman font, size twelve (12) point.
- Manuscript is double-spaced throughout (including title page, abstract, text, references, tables, and legends). 
- Margins are 1 inch or 2.5 cm all around
- Include page and line numbers for the convenience of the peer reviewers. 
- Number the pages consecutively, beginning with the title page as page 1 .
- All headings (including the Title) should be in sentence-case only, not in capital letters.
- Sub-headings are generally not accepted. Incorporate into the text if required. 
- Footnotes are not acceptable.
- Keep the use of tables, figures and graphs to a minimum.
- See notes on Tables, Figures, Formulae and Scientific Terminology at the end.

WORD COUNT LIMITS
Original Research papers
- 3000 word count limit (excluding title, abstract, tables/figures, Acknowledgements, and References)
- Maximum number of references is 40
- A structured abstract of less than 300 words (not included in 3000 word count) should be included with the following headings: Objectives, Design, Method, Results, and Conclusions

Review articles
- 4000 word count limit (excluding title, abstract, tables/figures, figure legends, Acknowledgements, and References)
- Maximum number of references is 70
- A structured abstract of less than 350 words (not included in 4000 word count) should be included sticking as closely as possible to the following headings: Objectives, Method, Results, and Conclusions

STRUCTURE OF THE MANUSCRIPT (in order):

1. Title Page (first page) should contain:

a. Title. Short and informative. 

b. Authors. List all authors by first name, all initials and family name (Exp: Alfred WAN, Tom JUAN)

c. Institution and affiliations. List the name and full address of all institutions. (Exp: Texas University, Faculty of Biomechanics, Department of Kinesiology)

d. Corresponding author. Provide the name and e-mail address of the author to whom communications, proofs and requests for reprints should be sent.

e. Word count (excluding abstract and references), the Abstract word count, the number of Tables, the number of Figures.

f. All author must be add their current ORCID number.

 

2. Manuscript (excluding all author details) should contain: (in order)

a. Abstract - must be structured using the following sub-headings: Objectives, Methods, Results, and Conclusions. 

b. Keywords - provide up to 5 keywords, with at least 3 selected via the Index Medicus Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) browser list: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/authors.html. These keywords should not reproduce words used in the paper title.

c. Main body of the text.

For Original Research papers, text should be organised as follows:

1) Introduction - describing the (purpose of the study with a brief review of background

2) Methods - described in detail. Include details of the Ethics Committee approval obtained for Human investigation, and the ethical guidelines followed by the investigators. 

3) Results - concisely reported in tables and figures, with brief text descriptions. Do not include subheadings. Measurements and weights should be given in standard metric units. Do not replicate material that is in the tables or figures in the text.

4) Discussion - concise interpretation of results. Cite references, illustrations and tables in numeric order by order of mention in the text.

5) Conclusion

6) Acknowledgments - this section is compulsory. Grants, financial support and technical or other assistance are acknowledged at the end of the text before the references. All financial support for the project must be acknowledged. If there has been no financial assistance with the project, this must be clearly stated.

7) References - authors are responsible for the accuracy of references. 

REFERENCES

Authors are requested to use the APA (6th edition) citation style.

CITATIONS IN THE TEXT: 

APA uses the author-date method of citation. The last name of the author and the date of publication are inserted in the text in the appropriate place.

One work by one author:

 In one developmental study (Smith, 1990), children learned... OR 
ƒ In the study by Smith (1990), primary school children... OR 
ƒ In 1990, Smith’s study of primary school children…

Works by multiple authors:

When a work has 2 authors cite both names every time you reference the work in the text. 
When a work has three to five authors cite all the author names the first time the reference 
occurs and then subsequently include only the first author followed by et al. For example: 

First citation: Masserton, Slonowski, and Slowinski (1989) state that... 
Subsequent citations: Masserton et al. (1989) state that... 

For 6 or more authors, cite only the name of the first author followed by et al. and the year.

Two or more works in the same parenthetical citation: 

Citations of two or more works in the same parentheses should be listed in the order they appear in the reference list (i.e., alphabetically, then chronologically). 

Several studies (Jones & Powell, 1993; Peterson, 1995, 1998; Smith, 1990) suggest that...

CITATIONS IN A REFERENCE LIST: 

In general, references should contain the author name, publication date, title, and publication information.

Book: 

Strunk, W., Jr., & White, E. B. (1979). The guide to everything and then some more stuff. New York, NY: Macmillan. 

Gregory, G., & Parry, T. (2006). Designing brain-compatible learning (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin. 

Chapter of a Book: 

Bergquist, J. M. (1992). German Americans. In J. D. Buenker & L. A. Ratner (Eds.), Multiculturalism in the United States: A comparative guide to acculturation and ethnicity (pp. 53-76). New York, NY: Greenwood. 

Journal Article with DOI: 

Paivio, A. (1975). Perceptual comparisons through the mind's eye. Memory & Cognition, 3, 635-647. doi:10.1037/0278-6133.24.2.225 

Journal Article without DOI (when DOI is not available): 

Becker, L. J., & Seligman, C. (1981). Welcome to the energy crisis. Journal of Social Issues, 37(2), 1-7. 

Hamfi, A. G. (1981). The funny nature of dogs. E-journal of Applied Psychology, 2(2), 38 -48.

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.

  1. 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).
  2. The submission file is in Microsoft Word.
  3. Where available, URLs for the references have been provided.
  4. The text is single-spaced; uses a 12-point font; employs italics, rather than underlining (except with URL addresses); and all illustrations, figures, and tables are placed within the text at the appropriate points, rather than at the end.
  5. The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines, which is found in About the Journal.
  6. If submitting to a peer-reviewed section of the journal, the instructions in Ensuring a Blind Review have been followed.

Publication Ethics  Statement

Duties of Editors

Fair play and editorial independence

Editors evaluate submitted manuscripts exclusively on the basis of their academic merit (importance, originality, study’s validity, clarity) and its relevance to the journal’s scope, without regard to the authors’ race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnic origin, citizenship, religious belief, political philosophy or institutional affiliation. Decisions to edit and publish are not determined by the policies of governments or any other agencies outside of the journal itself. The Editor-in-Chief has full authority over the entire editorial content of the journal and the timing of publication of that content. 

Confidentiality

Editors and editorial staff will not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest

Editors and editorial board members will not use unpublished information disclosed in a submitted manuscript for their own research purposes without the authors’ explicit written consent. Privileged information or ideas obtained by editors as a result of handling the manuscript will be kept confidential and not used for their personal advantage. Editors will recuse themselves from considering manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships/connections with any of the authors, companies or institutions connected to the papers; instead, they will ask another member of the editorial board to handle the manuscript.

Publication decisions

The editors ensure that all submitted manuscripts being considered for publication undergo peer-review by at least two reviewers who are expert in the field. The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for deciding which of the manuscripts submitted to the journal will be published, based on the validation of the work in question, its importance to researchers and readers, the reviewers’ comments, and such legal requirements as are currently in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism. The Editor-in-Chief may confer with other editors or reviewers in making this decision.

Duties of Reviewers

Contribution to editorial decisions

Peer review assists editors in making editorial decisions and, through editorial communications with authors, may assist authors in improving their manuscripts. Peer review is an essential component of formal scholarly communication and lies at the heart of scientific endeavour. 

Promptness

Any invited referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should immediately notify the editors and decline the invitation to review so that alternative reviewers can be contacted.

Confidentiality

Any manuscripts received for review are confidential documents and must be treated as such; they must not be shown to or discussed with others except if authorized by the Editor-in-Chief (who would only do so under exceptional and specific circumstances). This applies also to invited reviewers who decline the review invitation.

Standards of objectivity

Reviews should be conducted objectively and observations formulated clearly with supporting arguments so that authors can use them for improving the manuscript. Personal criticism of the authors is inappropriate.

Acknowledgement of sources

Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement that is an observation, derivation or argument that has been reported in previous publications should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also notify the editors of any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other manuscript (published or unpublished) of which they have personal knowledge.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest

Any invited referee who has conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies or institutions connected to the manuscript and the work described therein should immediately notify the editors to declare their conflicts of interest and decline the invitation to review so that alternative reviewers can be contacted.

Unpublished material disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in a reviewer’s own research without the express written consent of the authors. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for the reviewer’s personal advantage. This applies also to invited reviewers who decline the review invitation.

Duties of Authors

Reporting standards

Authors of original research should present an accurate account of the work performed and the results, followed by an objective discussion of the significance of the work. The manuscript should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Review articles should be accurate, objective and comprehensive, while editorial 'opinion' or perspective pieces should be clearly identified as such. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behaviour and are unacceptable.

Data access and retention

Authors may be asked to provide the raw data of their study together with the manuscript for editorial review and should be prepared to make the data publicly available if practicable. In any event, authors should ensure accessibility of such data to other competent professionals for at least 10 years after publication (preferably via an institutional or subject-based data repository or other data centre), provided that the confidentiality of the participants can be protected and legal rights concerning proprietary data do not preclude their release.

Originality and plagiarism

Authors should ensure that they have written and submit only entirely original works, and if they have used the work and/or words of others, that this has been appropriately cited. Publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the work reported in the manuscript should also be cited. Plagiarism takes many forms, from "passing off" another's paper as the author's own, to copying or paraphrasing substantial parts of another's paper (without attribution), to claiming results from research conducted by others. Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable.

Multiple, duplicate, redundant or concurrent submission/publication

Papers describing essentially the same research should not be published in more than one journal or primary publication. Hence, authors should not submit for consideration a manuscript that has already been published in another journal. Submission of a manuscript concurrently to more than one journal is unethical publishing behaviour and unacceptable.

The publication of some kinds of articles (such as clinical guidelines, translations) in more than one journal is sometimes justifiable, provided that certain conditions are met. The authors and editors of the journals concerned must agree to the secondary publication, which must reflect the same data and interpretation of the primary document. The primary reference must be cited in the secondary publication.

Authorship of the manuscript

Only persons who meet these authorship criteria should be listed as authors in the manuscript as they must be able to take public responsibility for the content: (i) made significant contributions to the conception, design, execution, data acquisition, or analysis/interpretation of the study; and (ii) drafted the manuscript or revised it critically for important intellectual content; and (iii) have seen and approved the final version of the paper and agreed to its submission for publication. All persons who made substantial contributions to the work reported in the manuscript (such as technical help, writing and editing assistance, general support) but who do not meet the criteria for authorship must not be listed as an author, but should be acknowledged in the "Acknowledgements" section after their written permission to be named as been obtained. The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate coauthors (according to the above definition) and no inappropriate coauthors are included in the author list and verify that all coauthors have seen and approved the final version of the manuscript and agreed to its submission for publication.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest

Authors should—at the earliest stage possible (generally by submitting a disclosure form at the time of submission and including a statement in the manuscript)—disclose any conflicts of interest that might be construed to influence the results or their interpretation in the manuscript. Examples of potential conflicts of interest that should be disclosed include financial ones such as honoraria, educational grants or other funding, participation in speakers’ bureaus, membership, employment, consultancies, stock ownership, or other equity interest, and paid expert testimony or patent-licensing arrangements, as well as non-financial ones such as personal or professional relationships, affiliations, knowledge or beliefs in the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. All sources of financial support for the work should be disclosed (including the grant number or other reference number if any).

Acknowledgement of sources

Authors should ensure that they have properly acknowledged the work of others, and should also cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work. Information obtained privately (from conversation, correspondence or discussion with third parties) must not be used or reported without explicit, written permission from the source. Authors should not use information obtained in the course of providing confidential services, such as refereeing manuscripts or grant applications, unless they have obtained the explicit written permission of the author(s) of the work involved in these services.

Hazards and human or animal subjects

If the work involves chemicals, procedures or equipment that have any unusual hazards inherent in their use, the authors must clearly identify these in the manuscript. If the work involves the use of animals or human participants, the authors should ensure that all procedures were performed in compliance with relevant laws and institutional guidelines and that the appropriate institutional committee(s) has approved them; the manuscript should contain a statement to this effect. Authors should also include a statement in the manuscript that informed consent was obtained for experimentation with human participants. The privacy rights of human participants must always be observed.

Peer review

Authors are obliged to participate in the peer review process and cooperate fully by responding promptly to editors’ requests for raw data, clarifications, and proof of ethics approval, patient consents and copyright permissions. In the case of a first decision of "revisions necessary", authors should respond to the reviewers’ comments systematically, point by point, and in a timely manner, revising and re-submitting their manuscript to the journal by the deadline given.

Fundamental errors in published works

When authors discover significant errors or inaccuracies in their own published work, it is their obligation to promptly notify the journal’s editors or publisher and cooperate with them to either correct the paper in the form of an erratum or to retract the paper. If the editors or publisher learns from a third party that a published work contains a significant error or inaccuracy, then it is the authors’ obligation to promptly correct or retract the paper or provide evidence to the journal editors of the correctness of the paper. 

Duties of the Publisher

Handling of unethical publishing behaviour

In cases of alleged or proven scientific misconduct, fraudulent publication or plagiarism, the publisher, in close collaboration with the editors, will take all appropriate measures to clarify the situation and to amend the article in question. This includes the prompt publication of an erratum, clarification or, in the most severe case, the retraction of the affected work.  The publisher, together with the editors, shall take reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of papers where research misconduct has occurred, and under no circumstances encourage such misconduct or knowingly allow such misconduct to take place.

Access to journal content

The publisher is committed to the permanent availability and preservation of scholarly research and ensures accessibility by partnering with organizations and maintaining our own digital archive. For details JAPN archiving policy, please click here: https://www.journalapn.com/index.php/ojs/about/submissions 

JAPN policies on key issues ranging from accessibility to text and data mining can be found here: https://www.journalapn.com/index.php/ojs/about/submissions