Guide for Authors

Last updated: 28 August 2025

This Guide for Authors applies to journals published by TECHFORUM PUBLISHING GROUP. Authors should also consult the aims and scope and any journal-specific instructions displayed on the website of the journal to which they intend to submit.

TECHFORUM PUBLISHING GROUP publishes all journals under the Diamond Open Access model. Authors are not charged submission fees, article processing charges, publication fees, page charges, or mandatory open-access fees. Published articles are made freely and permanently available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence (CC BY 4.0).

All research manuscripts are evaluated through a single-blind peer-review process. Reviewers are informed of the authors’ names and affiliations, while reviewer identities normally remain confidential.

1. General Submission Requirements

Manuscripts submitted to a TECHFORUM PUBLISHING GROUP journal must be original, academically sound, relevant to the journal’s scope, and prepared in clear scholarly language.

By submitting a manuscript, the authors confirm that:

• the manuscript is original and has not been published previously in substantially the same form;
• the manuscript is not simultaneously under consideration by another journal, publisher, conference proceeding, or publication venue;
• all individuals who qualify for authorship have been included as authors;
• all listed authors have approved the submitted version of the manuscript;
• the corresponding author has obtained authorization from all co-authors to communicate with the journal on their behalf;
• all data, results, figures, tables, quotations, and references are accurate and appropriately presented;
• all necessary ethical approvals, participant consents, institutional permissions, and copyright permissions have been obtained;
• all sources of funding and competing interests have been disclosed;
• any substantive use of generative AI or AI-assisted technology has been declared;
• the manuscript does not contain fabricated, falsified, plagiarized, defamatory, unlawfully disclosed, or improperly attributed material; and
• the authors accept responsibility for the accuracy, originality, integrity, and lawful publication of the work.

Manuscripts should normally be written in English unless the relevant journal expressly accepts another language. Authors who are not confident in the quality of the language should arrange professional or qualified academic language review before submission.

Language editing does not guarantee acceptance. Editorial decisions are based on scholarly quality, originality, methodological soundness, ethical compliance, relevance, clarity, and contribution to the field.

2. Article Types and Suitability

Depending on the scope and editorial policy of the individual journal, TECHFORUM PUBLISHING GROUP may consider the following article types:

• original research articles;
• review articles and systematic reviews;
• meta-analyses;
• short communications;
• technical notes;
• case studies or case reports;
• methods articles;
• data articles;
• perspectives and viewpoints;
• editorials;
• letters to the editor;
• book reviews;
• conference or special-issue articles; and
• other article types approved by the journal’s Editor-in-Chief.

Not every journal accepts every article type. Authors should review the journal’s aims and scope before submission and ensure that the manuscript makes a clear contribution to the journal’s readership.

Review articles should provide a critical, structured, and current synthesis of the literature rather than a descriptive list of previously published studies. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses should report the search strategy, eligibility criteria, study-selection procedure, quality or risk-of-bias assessment, and analytical methods in sufficient detail.

Case reports should present a significant, unusual, educational, or clinically relevant case and must protect the identity and privacy of the individuals involved. Written informed consent for publication must be obtained where required.

Editorials, invited articles, and commissioned contributions may undergo editorial review rather than full external peer review. The journal will determine the appropriate evaluation process for each article type.

3. Manuscript Files and General Formatting

Authors should submit an editable manuscript file. Microsoft Word files in .doc or .docx format are generally accepted. LaTeX submissions should include the complete source files, bibliography files, figure files, class or style files not included in standard LaTeX distributions, and a compiled PDF for reference.

Unless a journal-specific template states otherwise, authors should use the following general formatting:

• A4 page size;
• approximately 2.5 cm margins;
• a clear and readable font;
• 11- or 12-point body text;
• 1.5 or double line spacing;
• continuous page numbering;
• continuous line numbering, where possible;
• left-aligned text with consistent paragraph formatting;
• a clear hierarchy of section and subsection headings; and
• editable text, tables, equations, and references.

Authors should not attempt to reproduce the final journal layout. Accepted manuscripts will be formatted according to the journal’s production style.

Abbreviations should be defined at first use in the abstract and again at first use in the main text. Avoid unnecessary abbreviations. Standard abbreviations, measurement units, and symbols may be used without definition where their meaning is universally recognized within the relevant discipline.

Measurements should normally be reported using the International System of Units. If non-SI units are necessary, the SI equivalent should be provided where appropriate.

Mathematical expressions should be editable rather than inserted as screenshots. Displayed equations should be numbered consecutively only when they are cited or discussed in the manuscript. Equation numbers should appear in parentheses, normally aligned with the right margin.

Use consistent terminology, spelling, capitalization, notation, symbols, and abbreviations throughout the manuscript. Authors should carefully proofread the complete submission before uploading it.

4. Title Page, Abstract, and Keywords

The title page should contain:

• a concise and informative article title;
• the full name of each author;
• the institutional affiliation of each author;
• the city and country of each institution;
• a clear indication of the corresponding author;
• the corresponding author’s email address;
• ORCID identifiers, where available;
• a short running title, where requested;
• the article type;
• funding information;
• competing-interest information; and
• any other journal-specific metadata requested during submission.

Author names and affiliations should be entered accurately and consistently. Changes to authorship after submission must be justified and approved in writing by all affected authors. The journal may request additional documentation before accepting an authorship change.

The article title should accurately describe the subject and main focus of the study. Avoid unnecessary abbreviations, formulas, promotional language, exaggerated claims, and unsupported statements of priority such as “the first,” “unique,” or “unprecedented.”

Original research articles should normally include an abstract of approximately 150 to 250 words. The abstract should briefly state:

• the background or context;
• the objective or research question;
• the principal methods;
• the most important results; and
• the main conclusion.

Where required by the journal, the abstract should be structured using labels such as Background, Objective, Methods, Results, and Conclusion.

The abstract should not normally contain undefined abbreviations, detailed statistical tables, figure references, footnotes, or references unless a citation is essential.

Authors should provide approximately four to eight keywords or key phrases. Keywords should be specific, searchable, and relevant to the content of the article. Avoid repeating only words already used in the title.

5. Organization of the Manuscript

An original research article should normally contain the following sections:

1. Title page
2. Abstract
3. Keywords
4. Introduction
5. Materials and Methods or Methodology
6. Results
7. Discussion
8. Conclusion
9. Declarations
10. Acknowledgements, where applicable
11. References
12. Tables and figure captions, where not embedded in the text
13. Supplementary-material information, where applicable

Introduction: Explain the background, importance, and scholarly context of the study. Identify the specific research gap, problem, or unresolved question. State the study objective, research question, or hypothesis clearly. The introduction should not become an unnecessarily extensive literature review.

Materials and Methods or Methodology: Describe the research design, setting, participants or materials, sampling procedure, instruments, interventions, variables, data sources, software, statistical methods, and validation procedures in sufficient detail to permit evaluation and, where reasonably possible, replication.

For previously published methods, cite the original source and explain any modifications. Identify software by name and version where this is relevant to reproducibility. Authors should distinguish clearly between pre-specified analyses and exploratory or post hoc analyses.

Results: Present the findings clearly, logically, and without unnecessary repetition. The same numerical information should not normally be repeated in the main text, a table, and a figure. Report appropriate estimates, measures of uncertainty, sample sizes, effect sizes, confidence intervals, and statistical results where relevant.

Discussion: Interpret the findings in relation to the study objective, prior literature, theoretical context, and practical implications. Discuss important consistencies and differences between the present findings and earlier studies. Avoid repeating the Results section in narrative form.

The Discussion should address the strengths and limitations of the study and should avoid conclusions that are not supported by the evidence.

Conclusion: Provide a concise conclusion based directly on the findings. Do not introduce new data, references, or arguments that have not been discussed earlier. Recommendations should be realistic and supported by the evidence.

Review articles, theoretical papers, humanities articles, legal analyses, mathematical papers, and other discipline-specific contributions may use a different structure where appropriate.

Clinical studies, systematic reviews, observational studies, randomized trials, qualitative studies, diagnostic studies, animal studies, and other specialized research designs should follow the relevant recognized reporting guideline. Authors may be required to submit the completed reporting checklist and flow diagram.

6. Tables, Figures, Images, and Supplementary Material

Tables and figures must be relevant, clear, accurate, and cited in numerical order in the main text.

Tables:

• Tables should be created as editable text, not inserted as images.
• Each table should have a consecutive number and a concise descriptive title.
• Table titles should appear above the table.
• Explanatory notes, abbreviations, and statistical details should appear below the table.
• Each column should have a clear heading.
• Avoid unnecessary vertical lines, decorative formatting, and duplicated information.
• Symbols, superscripts, and abbreviations should be explained in the table notes.
• Previously published tables must include an appropriate acknowledgement and permission where required.

Figures and images:

• Figures should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they are cited.
• Each figure must have a complete and understandable caption.
• Captions should be included in the manuscript file and not only inside the image.
• Figure labels, symbols, legends, and text must remain readable at publication size.
• Photographs should have sufficient contrast and resolution.
• Graphs and diagrams should use consistent terminology, units, scales, and symbols.
• Composite figures should identify individual panels using labels such as (a), (b), and (c).
• Images must not be manipulated in a manner that obscures, removes, adds, moves, or misrepresents scientific information.

Preferred figure formats may include TIFF, JPEG, PNG, EPS, or PDF. Photographic images should normally be supplied at a minimum resolution of 300 dpi. Line drawings may require a higher resolution. Authors should retain the original, unmodified image files and provide them to the journal if requested.

Any adjustment to brightness, contrast, or colour must be applied consistently to the entire image and must not alter the interpretation of the data. Selective enhancement, deletion, duplication, splicing, or concealment of image elements is prohibited unless the modification is scientifically justified, clearly disclosed, and visually identified.

Authors are responsible for obtaining written permission to reproduce figures, tables, images, questionnaires, maps, scales, instruments, substantial text extracts, or other copyrighted material when permission is required.

Supplementary files may include datasets, extended methods, additional tables, additional figures, videos, audio, code, questionnaires, protocols, or other supporting information. Each file should be clearly named and cited in the manuscript as Supplementary Table S1, Supplementary Figure S1, or an equivalent designation.

Supplementary material should be scientifically relevant and should not be used to avoid presenting essential information in the main article. Authors remain responsible for the accuracy, legality, confidentiality, and accessibility of all supplementary files.

7. APA In-Text Citations and Reference List

TECHFORUM PUBLISHING GROUP journals use the American Psychological Association reference style, 7th edition, unless a journal expressly states otherwise.

Authors are fully responsible for the accuracy and completeness of every citation and reference. Every source cited in the text must appear in the reference list, and every entry in the reference list must be cited in the text.

In-text citation examples:

• One author, parenthetical citation: (Ahmed, 2024)
• One author, narrative citation: Ahmed (2024)
• Two authors, parenthetical citation: (Ahmed & Müller, 2024)
• Two authors, narrative citation: Ahmed and Müller (2024)
• Three or more authors: (Ahmed et al., 2024)
• Organization as author: (World Health Organization, 2025)
• Multiple sources: (Ahmed, 2022; Khan & Lee, 2024; Müller et al., 2023)
• Direct quotation: (Ahmed, 2024, p. 17)
• Quotation across pages: (Ahmed, 2024, pp. 17–19)
• Source without page numbers: (Ahmed, 2024, para. 6)
• Same author and year: (Ahmed, 2024a, 2024b)

For works with three or more authors, use the first author’s surname followed by et al. from the first citation, unless this would create ambiguity between two references.

When several references are included within the same parentheses, arrange them alphabetically by the surname of the first author and separate them with semicolons.

Direct quotations must include a page number or another suitable location indicator. Excessive quotation should be avoided. Authors should normally paraphrase and synthesize sources in their own scholarly language while retaining appropriate attribution.

The reference list should:

• appear at the end of the manuscript;
• be arranged alphabetically by the surname of the first author;
• use a hanging indentation;
• include complete and accurate bibliographic information;
• present article and chapter titles in sentence case;
• present journal titles in title case;
• include the journal volume, issue, and page range or article number where available;
• include the DOI in URL form where available;
• include a stable URL only where appropriate;
• avoid unnecessary database names for ordinary journal articles; and
• identify retracted, corrected, or updated material accurately.

List up to 20 authors in a reference entry. For a work with 21 or more authors, list the first 19 authors, insert an ellipsis, and then include the final author’s name. Do not place an ampersand before the final author when an ellipsis is used.

Journal article:

Ahmed, N., & Müller, T. (2025). Sustainable publishing models in interdisciplinary research. Journal of Scholarly Communication, 18(2), 101–118. https://doi.org/10.xxxx/xxxxx

Journal article with an article number:

Khan, R., Lee, J., & Ferreira, M. (2024). Open-access publishing and international research visibility. Research Communication Review, 12(4), Article e10457. https://doi.org/10.xxxx/xxxxx

Book:

Ahmed, N. (2024). Principles of academic publishing (2nd ed.). Academic Research Press.

Chapter in an edited book:

Müller, T., & Khan, R. (2025). Research integrity in digital publishing. In J. Brown & L. Chen (Eds.), Contemporary scholarly communication (pp. 85–104). Academic Research Press. https://doi.org/10.xxxx/xxxxx

Webpage:

World Health Organization. (2025, March 12). Title of the webpage. https://www.example.org/page

Report:

European Research Council. (2025). Annual report on research and innovation. Publications Office.

Dataset:

Ahmed, N., & Lee, J. (2025). Dataset for international open-access publishing patterns [Data set]. Research Data Repository. https://doi.org/10.xxxx/xxxxx

Doctoral dissertation:

Khan, R. (2024). Digital transformation in scholarly publishing [Doctoral dissertation, University of Example]. Institutional Repository. https://www.example.org/record

Conference paper:

Ferreira, M., & Ahmed, N. (2025, June 10–12). Digital editorial workflows in open-access publishing [Paper presentation]. International Conference on Scholarly Communication, Berlin, Germany.

Authors must verify each reference against the original source or official publisher record before submission. Reference-management software may be used, but automatically generated references must be checked carefully for incorrect authors, titles, years, page ranges, journal details, and DOIs.

AI-generated references must not be included unless the authors have located, read, and verified the original sources. A generative AI response should not normally be cited as evidence for a scientific or scholarly claim.

8. Ethical and Research-Integrity Requirements

TECHFORUM PUBLISHING GROUP is committed to protecting the integrity, reliability, transparency, and reproducibility of the scholarly record.

Authors must not engage in:

• fabrication or falsification of data;
• plagiarism or unattributed copying;
• duplicate or redundant publication;
• simultaneous submission;
• citation manipulation;
• peer-review manipulation;
• undisclosed image manipulation;
• false authorship or omitted authorship;
• undisclosed competing interests;
• misrepresentation of ethical approval or participant consent;
• paper-mill activity;
• fabricated references or quotations; or
• any other practice that misrepresents the origin, conduct, findings, or ownership of the research.

Research involving human participants, identifiable human data, human tissue, or clinical information must comply with applicable ethical principles and legal requirements. The manuscript should identify the approving ethics committee or institutional review board, provide the approval number where available, and state how informed consent was obtained.

Where ethics approval was not required, the authors should provide a clear explanation and identify the relevant institutional or legal basis for the exemption.

Research involving animals must have been reviewed and approved by an appropriate ethics or animal-care committee where required. Authors should report the approval information and describe measures taken to protect animal welfare and minimize suffering.

Clinical trials should be registered in a recognized public trial registry before enrolment of participants where prospective registration is required. The registration number should appear in the manuscript.

Authors must protect participant privacy. Identifying information, including names, initials, dates, images, case details, or institutional identifiers, should not be published unless it is essential to the scholarly purpose and valid consent for publication has been obtained.

Where a study uses proprietary, confidential, sensitive, restricted, or personal data, the authors must ensure that the data were accessed and processed lawfully and that publication does not breach confidentiality, privacy, contractual, institutional, or legal obligations.

The journal may use similarity-checking and research-integrity screening tools. A similarity score does not by itself establish misconduct. Editors will evaluate the nature, source, extent, and context of any overlap.

Authors must disclose any related manuscript, preprint, conference paper, thesis, report, dataset, or publication that may overlap with the submitted work. Reuse of an author’s own previously published material must be properly cited and must not result in misleading duplicate publication.

9. Authorship, Contributions, Conflicts, Funding, and AI

Authorship should be limited to individuals who made substantial scholarly contributions to the work and who accept public responsibility for the published article.

Each author should have contributed substantially to one or more of the following:

• the conception or design of the study;
• data acquisition;
• data analysis or interpretation;
• development of the methodology;
• software or computational work;
• drafting the manuscript;
• critically revising the manuscript for important intellectual content; or
• supervision or administration of the research.

All authors must approve the final version and agree to be accountable for their own contributions. They should also cooperate in resolving questions concerning the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work.

Individuals who provided technical support, language editing, administrative assistance, general supervision, data access, or funding but do not meet the authorship criteria should be acknowledged rather than listed as authors.

Authors are encouraged to provide an author-contribution statement using recognized contributor roles. A contribution statement may include roles such as conceptualization, methodology, software, validation, formal analysis, investigation, resources, data curation, writing of the original draft, review and editing, visualization, supervision, project administration, and funding acquisition.

The corresponding author is responsible for:

• ensuring that all authors meet the authorship criteria;
• obtaining approval of the submitted and revised versions from all authors;
• providing complete and accurate author information;
• communicating with the journal during submission, peer review, production, and post-publication review;
• responding to editorial questions within a reasonable period;
• disclosing related submissions, conflicts, funding, and AI use; and
• ensuring that all authors are informed of editorial decisions and required actions.

Authors must declare all financial and non-financial interests that could reasonably be perceived as influencing the research, interpretation, or publication of the manuscript. Where no competing interest exists, authors should include:

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

All sources of financial and material support must be disclosed. The funding statement should identify the funder and grant number where applicable. The role of the funder in the study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, manuscript preparation, and publication decision should be stated where relevant.

Where no specific funding was received, authors may state:

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Generative AI systems and AI-assisted tools cannot be listed as authors or co-authors. Authors remain fully responsible for all text, data, code, references, images, interpretations, and conclusions produced or modified with AI assistance.

Substantive use of generative AI must be disclosed in accordance with the publisher’s Generative AI Policies. The declaration should identify the tool, provider, model or version where available, purpose of use, affected parts of the manuscript or research process, and the human verification performed.

A suitable declaration is:

During the preparation of this manuscript, the authors used [tool name, provider, and model or version] for [specific purpose]. The authors reviewed, verified, and edited all outputs and accept full responsibility for the accuracy, originality, and integrity of the submitted work.

Authors must not upload confidential participant information, restricted data, unpublished third-party material, peer-review documents, or copyrighted content to an external AI system without appropriate authorization and safeguards.

10. Submission, Single-Blind Peer Review, and Revision

Manuscripts should be submitted through the submission method identified on the website of the relevant journal. Authors must complete all required metadata fields and upload the correct manuscript, figure, table, supplementary, and declaration files.

A submission should normally include:

• the complete manuscript;
• a title page containing author information;
• all tables and figure captions;
• separate high-resolution figure files where required;
• supplementary files, where applicable;
• a cover letter;
• ethical approval and consent information;
• funding and competing-interest statements;
• an author-contribution statement;
• a data-availability statement;
• a generative-AI declaration, where applicable;
• permission documents for reused material; and
• reporting-guideline checklists where required.

The cover letter should briefly explain:

• the title and article type;
• the main contribution and significance of the work;
• why the manuscript is suitable for the journal;
• whether any related paper, preprint, dataset, or conference version exists;
• whether the manuscript has been submitted previously to the journal;
• whether generative AI was used substantively; and
• any information that the editors should consider during evaluation.

After submission, the editorial office may conduct an initial technical and administrative check. A manuscript may be returned before editorial assessment if it is incomplete, incorrectly formatted, outside the journal’s scope, missing essential declarations, or inconsistent with the submission requirements.

The Editor-in-Chief or a designated editor will assess the manuscript’s suitability, originality, quality, ethical compliance, methodological soundness, and relevance. A manuscript may be declined without external review when it is clearly outside the journal’s scope, lacks sufficient novelty or scholarly quality, contains serious methodological or ethical concerns, or does not satisfy the journal’s requirements.

Research manuscripts selected for external evaluation undergo single-blind peer review. The reviewers receive the authors’ names and affiliations. Reviewer identities are not disclosed to the authors unless the reviewer expressly agrees to disclosure or disclosure is required in an exceptional legal or integrity-related situation.

Reviewers are asked to assess matters such as:

• originality and significance;
• relevance to the journal;
• clarity of the research question;
• appropriateness of the methodology;
• quality and transparency of the analysis;
• validity of the results and conclusions;
• ethical compliance;
• quality and relevance of the references;
• clarity of tables and figures;
• reproducibility and reporting quality; and
• overall suitability for publication.

Editorial decisions may include acceptance, minor revision, major revision, rejection with an invitation to resubmit, or rejection.

A revision invitation does not guarantee acceptance. Revised manuscripts may be returned to the original reviewers, evaluated by new reviewers, or assessed directly by the editor.

Authors submitting a revised manuscript should provide:

• a clean revised manuscript;
• a marked or tracked-changes version, where requested;
• a detailed point-by-point response to every reviewer and editor comment; and
• updated declarations, figures, tables, data, or supplementary files where necessary.

Each response should reproduce or clearly identify the relevant reviewer comment, explain the action taken, and indicate where the manuscript was changed. Where the authors disagree with a requested change, they should provide a respectful and evidence-based explanation.

Authors must not attempt to identify, contact, influence, threaten, or retaliate against anonymous reviewers. Any concern regarding a review should be communicated confidentially to the handling editor.

11. Acceptance, Publication, Copyright, and Author Checklist

After acceptance, the manuscript may undergo copyediting, formatting, typesetting, reference checking, metadata preparation, and proof production.

The corresponding author will normally receive page proofs for final review. Proof corrections should be limited to typesetting errors, factual mistakes, author-information errors, and other necessary corrections. Substantial changes to the accepted content, authorship, data, analysis, conclusions, or references require editorial approval.

Authors should review proofs carefully, including:

• author names and affiliations;
• corresponding-author information;
• article title and abstract;
• section headings;
• equations and symbols;
• tables and figures;
• citations and references;
• funding and conflict statements;
• ethics, consent, data, and AI declarations;
• DOIs and hyperlinks; and
• supplementary-material references.

Authors retain copyright in their published articles. By agreeing to publication, authors grant TECHFORUM PUBLISHING GROUP the non-exclusive rights necessary to publish, distribute, identify, preserve, and archive the article as the version of record.

Articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence (CC BY 4.0). This licence permits copying, redistribution, adaptation, translation, and commercial or non-commercial reuse, provided that appropriate credit is given, the original source is identified, a link to the licence is supplied, and changes are indicated.

Authors may deposit and share the submitted manuscript, accepted manuscript, and final published version without an embargo, subject to appropriate acknowledgement of the original publication.

All journals published by TECHFORUM PUBLISHING GROUP operate under the Diamond Open Access model. No article processing charge is payable for submission, peer review, acceptance, publication, open access, or routine production.

Before submitting, authors should confirm that:

• the manuscript fits the aims and scope of the selected journal;
• the work is original and is not under consideration elsewhere;
• all authors have approved the submission;
• the title page and author information are complete;
• the abstract and keywords are included;
• the manuscript structure is appropriate for the article type;
• all tables and figures are cited and correctly numbered;
• all figure files have sufficient quality and resolution;
• all in-text citations and references follow APA style;
• every cited work appears in the reference list;
• every reference-list entry is cited in the manuscript;
• all references and DOIs have been verified;
• ethical approval and consent statements are included where required;
• funding, competing-interest, contribution, and data-availability statements are included;
• generative-AI use has been disclosed where applicable;
• permissions have been obtained for third-party material;
• the manuscript has been carefully proofread; and
• all required files have been uploaded.

The journal may issue a correction, expression of concern, retraction, or other notice if a significant error or integrity concern is identified after publication. Authors are expected to cooperate promptly and transparently in any post-publication review.

Questions concerning manuscript preparation or submission should be directed to the editorial office of the relevant journal.

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