Author Guidelines

Author Guidelines

Before you submit

Please read these guidelines carefully before preparing your manuscript. Papers that do not follow them may be returned to the author before review, which delays the process for everyone.

Does your paper fit the journal? ISJ publishes work from all engineering disciplines and related fields, as long as it contributes to green and sustainable development. Good fits include sustainable materials, renewable energy, carbon reduction, recycling and upcycling, waste valorisation, water and environmental engineering, and green manufacturing. If you are unsure whether your paper fits, email the editorial office with your title and abstract before submitting.

Originality. Your manuscript must be your own original work. It should not have been published before, and it must not be under review with another journal at the same time. Conference papers may be considered if they have been substantially extended, but you must tell us about the earlier version.

Preparing your manuscript

All manuscripts must be prepared using the journal's MS Word template, available on the journal website. Please type your content directly into the template rather than changing its styles, and do not edit its header or footer. Submit the file in Word format (.docx).

Page layout

•         A4 page (21 cm × 29.7 cm), portrait, single column.

•         Margins: 2.5 cm left, right and top; 2 cm bottom.

•         No page numbers, and no headers, footers or footnotes of your own.

Fonts and spacing

Start each paragraph with a small first-line indent, and do not add extra spacing between paragraphs.

Title, authors and affiliations

•         Keep the title concise and specific, in Title Case.

•         List all authors' full names. Use superscript numbers to link each author to their affiliation (department, faculty, institution, city, country).

•         Mark the corresponding author with an asterisk (*) and give only the corresponding author's email, on the line directly after their affiliation.

Abstract and keywords

•         Place the abstract and keywords inside the table box provided in the template.

•         The abstract is a single paragraph of 150 to 250 words, with no citations. It should state the research problem or gap, the method used, the key quantitative results, and the main conclusion or impact.

•         Give 4 to 6 keywords, separated by semicolons and arranged alphabetically. Avoid repeating words from the title.

Structure of the paper

Section headings are numbered 1., 2., 3. and written in capitals; sub-sections are numbered 1.1., 1.2. A research article should normally follow this order:

1.       INTRODUCTION (3 to 5 paragraphs): broad background, the specific problem and research gap, what earlier work has done and its limits, the objectives and novel contribution of this study, and a brief outline of the paper. End with a clear statement of the objective, for example: "Therefore, the primary objective of this study is to..."

2.       LITERATURE REVIEW (recommended, or merged with the Introduction): a critical comparison of previous work that shows what it missed and how your study addresses it.

3.       MATERIALS AND METHODS (or METHODOLOGY): enough detail for another researcher to repeat the work.

4.       RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: the findings, what they mean, and how they compare with earlier studies.

5.       CONCLUSIONS: no new information. Give a numbered list of the most important quantitative findings, state the study's limitations, and make specific recommendations for future research.

6.       Acknowledgement (if any), including funding sources.

7.       REFERENCES

Review articles and case studies may adapt the middle sections to suit their content.

Sustainability statement (encouraged)

We encourage authors to add two or three sentences in the Conclusions explaining how the work supports sustainability. For example, it may reduce carbon emissions, save energy or water, reuse waste, or relate to a specific UN Sustainable Development Goal.

Figures, tables, units and equations

Figures

•         All figures must be centred, clear, and prepared at high resolution (more than 450 dpi) at 100% scale.

•         Insert each figure into the text as close as possible to where it is first mentioned, and also upload the original graphics files separately.

•         Refer to figures as "Fig." and number them consecutively through the paper: Fig. 1, Fig. 2, and so on.

•         Axis titles: Calibri, bold, 12 pt, Capital Case. Put units in square brackets, for example Velocity [m/s].

•         Axis values and legends: Calibri, bold, 10 pt.

•         Captions go below the figure, centred, in 9 pt Book Antiqua, for example: "Fig. 1. Compressive strength of concrete with varying rice husk ash content."

•         A figure made of several parts should be merged into one figure with one caption. Label the parts (a), (b), (c) in bold 10 pt Calibri, centred under each part, and describe them in the caption.

•         If you use a figure from another source, you must have permission and cite the source in the caption.

Tables

•         Number tables consecutively (Table 1, Table 2), separately from the figures.

•         Centre tables and use 10 pt Book Antiqua. Place the caption above the table, centred, in 9 pt Book Antiqua.

•         Create tables with Word's table tool; do not paste them in as images. Give units in the column headings.

Symbols and units

•         Use SI units throughout. If you mention other units, give their SI equivalent.

•         Identify Greek letters and unusual symbols by name the first time they are used, and define every abbreviation at first use.

Equations

•         Type equations with Word's equation editor, not as images, and define every symbol.

•         Number displayed equations consecutively, and refer to them in the text as Eq. (1), Eq. (2), or Eqs. (1) and (2).

References

The journal uses a numbered (IEEE-style) reference system.

•         Cite references in the text by number in square brackets, in the order they first appear: [1], [2], [3–5], [8, 9].

•         List the references at the end of the paper in the same numerical order, not alphabetically.

•         Every cited source must be in the list, and every item in the list must be cited in the text.

•         Give the full details of each reference, including the DOI wherever one exists. Use 10 pt Book Antiqua, justified.

Examples

Journal article (volume and issue) [1] R. Warty, M. Tofighi, U. Kawoos, A. Rosen, "Characterization of implantable antennas for intracranial pressure monitoring: Reflection by and transmission through a scalp phantom," IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques, vol. 56, no. 10, pp. 2366–2376, 2008, doi: 10.1109/TMTT.2008.2004254.

Journal article (volume, no issue) [2] N. Daina, A. Sivakumar, J. Polak, "Electric vehicle charging choices: Modelling and implications for smart charging services," Transportation Research Part C, vol. 81, pp. 36–56, 2017, doi: 10.1016/j.trc.2017.05.006.

Journal article (article number) [3] T. Solanke, V. Ramachandaramurthy, J. Yong, J. Pasupuleti, P. Kasinathan, A. Rajagopalan, "A review of strategic charging–discharging control of grid-connected electric vehicles," Journal of Energy Storage, vol. 28, p. 101193, 2020, doi: 10.1016/j.est.2020.101193.

Book [4] P. Kundur, Power System Stability and Control, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1994.

Conference paper [5] A. Taskin, T. Kumbasar, "An open source Matlab/Simulink toolbox for interval type-2 fuzzy logic systems," IEEE Symposium Series on Computational Intelligence, 2015, doi: 10.1109/SSCI.2015.220.

Website [6] CST-Computer Simulation Technology, 2013, http://www.CST.com.

Dataset [7] A. Alqudah, S. Qazan, "Augmented COVID-19 X-ray images dataset," Mendeley Data, Version 4, 2020, https://data.mendeley.com/datasets/2fxz4px6d8/4.

Submission and peer review

All manuscripts are submitted online through the journal website. You will need to register as an author first. If you have trouble with the system, email the manuscript to grace.research@futminna.edu.ng

What happens after you submit

1.       Initial check (about 1 week). The editorial office checks that the paper fits the scope, follows these guidelines, and passes a similarity check. Papers that do not meet the basic requirements are returned or declined at this stage.

2.       Peer review (about 4 to 8 weeks). Suitable papers are sent to at least two independent experts under double-blind review, meaning authors and reviewers do not know each other's identities.

3.       Decision. The editor makes a decision based on the reviewers' reports: accept, minor revision, major revision, or reject.

4.       Revision. If revisions are requested, submit the revised paper within 4 weeks for minor / 8 weeks for major revisions, along with a response letter answering each reviewer comment point by point. Highlight the changes in the revised manuscript.

5.       Acceptance and production. Accepted papers are copyedited and typeset. The corresponding author receives a proof to check, which should be returned within 3 working days. Only small corrections can be made at this stage.

6.       Publication. The article is published online with a DOI and included in the next issue.

Suggesting reviewers

Authors may suggest up to three potential reviewers with their emails and affiliations. They should be experts in the field with no close connection to the authors, such as recent co-authors or colleagues at the same institution. The editor is not obliged to use them.

Ethics, copyright and fees

Plagiarism and similarity. Every submission is checked with similarity software. A paper with an overall similarity above [20]%, or any copied passage without proper citation, will be returned or rejected. This includes reusing large parts of your own earlier published work without acknowledging it.

Authorship. Everyone listed as an author should have made a real contribution to the work and approved the final version. People who helped in other ways, such as providing equipment or proofreading, should be thanked in the acknowledgements instead. Changes to the author list after submission need the written agreement of all authors.

Use of AI tools. Authors may use AI tools to improve language and readability, but they must say so in the declarations section. AI tools cannot be listed as authors, and authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy and originality of everything in the paper. AI must not be used to fabricate data, results, or references.

Research and data integrity. Data must be genuine and reported honestly. Fabricating, falsifying, or selectively manipulating data or images is serious misconduct. We encourage authors to share their data where possible and to state in the data availability statement where it can be found or how it can be requested.

Conflicts of interest. All authors must declare any financial or personal relationship that could be seen to influence the work. If there are none, write: "The authors declare no conflict of interest."

Funding. Name every funding body and give grant numbers where they apply.

Misconduct. Suspected misconduct will be handled following the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Published articles found to contain serious problems may be corrected or retracted.

Fees. An article processing charge of 40,000 NGN is payable only after a paper has been accepted.

For any questions about these guidelines, contact the editorial office at grace.research@futminna.edu.ng