Submissions

Author Guidelines

1. Submission Procedure

• Papers submitted to the Multidisciplinary Journal of School Education should not have been published or submitted for publication before, e.g. to the editorial offices of other periodicals or in the Internet.
• Papers presented for publication should be submitted in electronic form as Word documents at the Multidisciplinary Journal of School Education. The submission procedure requires:
  • Registering for an account
  • Logging in to your account
  • Selecting your role as an Author
  • Selecting "Start a new submission"
  • Completing 5-step submission process
  • A description of the whole process can be found at Submitting to the Multidisciplinary Journal of School Education
• Papers should be submitted in English. All papers will be read by a native speaker of English and reviewed in terms of linguistic quality. The Editorial Board reserves the right to return papers to authors in the case of a low standard of English.
• Papers should be written in accordance with the APA style.
• The preferred length of the article is between 20.000 and 30.000 characters.
• Submission of the article to the editorial office entails the author's permission for printing as well as making the full electronic version of the article available on the Internet.
• Papers submitted in accordance with the editorial criteria will be reviewed by two reviewers, according to the double-blind review procedure. The Editorial Board reserves the right to reject papers in the case of a negative review.
• The final decision to print a text is made by the Chief Editor or the Deputy Editor.
• The Editorial Board does not return submitted materials.
• Papers are published free of charge.

2. Structure of a Paper

Article:

• Title of paper/title of article
• Author’s first name and surname
• Affiliation (university, faculty)
• Abstract (approx. 1000 characters)
• Keywords
• Introduction
• Main body, divided into sections/subsections with headings
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Information about the author, which should include the following:
  • Author’s first name and surname
  • Academic degree and title
  • Affiliation (university, faculty, department), including the address
  • A short biography and note on research interests
  • Contact e-mail address

Report:

• Title of report
• Author’s first name and surname
• Author’s affiliation (university)
• Main body
• Information about the author, which should include the following:
  • Author’s first name and surname
  • Academic degree and title
  • Affiliation (university, faculty, department), including the address
  • Contact e-mail address

Review:

• Reviewer’s first name and surname
• Reviewer’s affiliation (university)
• Review of monograph/publication (author's name or names, publication date, title of the work, place of publication, publishing house, ISBN, total number of pages)
• Main body
• Information about the reviewer, which should include the following:
  • Author’s first name and surname
  • Academic degree and title
  • Affiliation (university, faculty, department), including the address
  • Contact e-mail address

3. APA Style

Your paper should include four major sections: Title Page, Abstract, Main Body and References. Remember to include a Page Header (or Running Head) on each page of your article. It should be a shortened version of your article’s title and it cannot exceed 50 characters including spacing and punctuation.

Below you can find the general APA guidelines, as applied to an article:

Title Page

This should include the title, author's name(s), affiliation and abstract.

Difficulties in Reading:

A Report of Empirical Research Conducted in Poland

Anna Nowak

University of Lower Silesia, Poland

Department of Educational Sciences

Abstract

The abstract comes right below the author’s information. Use the word “Abstract” as the title in 12-point Times, boldface type, initially capitalized. The abstract should be in 12-point, single-spaced type, and up to 1000 characters in length.

Keywords: keywords, shall, be, separated, with, commas

Introduction

These guidelines include complete descriptions of the fonts, spacing, and related information for producing your paper. Please follow them.

Formatting Your Paper

All printed material, including text, illustrations, and charts must be kept within a print area of 6 1/2 inches (16.51 cm) wide by 8 7/8 inches (22.51 cm) high. Do not write or print anything outside the print area.

Do not put page numbers on your document. We will add appropriate page numbers to accepted papers.

Papers must be submitted as a Word document (.doc, .docx).

Main Title

The main title (on the first page) should be centered, and in 12-point Times, boldface type. Capitalize the first letter of nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs; do not capitalize articles, coordinate conjunctions, or prepositions (unless the title begins with such a word). Leave two 12-point blank lines after the title.

Author Name(s) and Affiliation(s)

Author names and affiliations are to be centered beneath the title and printed in 12-point Times, non-boldface type. Multiple authors may be shown in a two- or three-column format, with their affiliations italicized and centered below their respective names. Author information should be followed by two 12-point blank lines.

Second and Following Pages

The second and following pages should begin 1.0 inch (2.54 cm) from the top edge. On all pages, the bottom margin should be approximately 1 5/8 inches (4.13 cm) from the bottom edge of the page.

Type-Style and Fonts

Wherever Times is specified, Times Roman or Times New Roman may be used. If neither is available on your word processor, please use the font closest in appearance to Times. Avoid using bit-mapped fonts if possible. True-Type 1 fonts are preferred.

Main Text

Type your main text in 12-point Times, single-spaced. Do not use double-spacing. All paragraphs should be indented 1/4 inch (approximately 0.5 cm). Be sure your text is fully justified—that is, flush left and flush right. Please do not place any additional blank lines between paragraphs.

Figures and tables are really useful ways of presenting a large amount of information to a reader. There are, however, some points an author should keep in mind when deciding on visuals in his article:

• An author should be convinced they are really necessary.
• He should refer to them stressing the most important information they convey.
• Tables and figures coming from other sources should be well documented.
• They should be intelligible without referring to the text.
• They should be well-organized, consistent, and coherent throughout the whole article.

Figure and table captions should be 10-point boldface Helvetica (or a similar sans-serif font). Initially capitalize only the first word of each figure caption and table title. Figures and tables must be numbered separately. For example: “Figure 1. Database contexts”, “Table 1. Input data”. Figure captions are to be centered below the figures. Table titles are to be centered above the tables.

First-Order Headings

For example, “Introduction”, should be 12-point Times, boldface, initially capitalized, centered, with one blank line before, and one blank line after.

Second-Order Headings

Second-order headings should be 12-point Times, boldface, initially capitalized, flush left, with one blank line before, and one after.

Third-Order Headings

Third-order headings are discouraged. However, if you must use them, use 12-point Times, boldface, initially capitalized, indented, flush left, preceded by one blank line, followed by a period and your text on the same line.

Fourth-Order Headings

Fourth-order headings are discouraged. However, if you must use them, use 12-point Times, boldface, italicized, initially capitalized, indented, flush left, preceded by one blank line, followed by a period and your text on the same line.

Fifth-Order Headings

Fifth-order headings are discouraged. However, if you must use them, use 12-point Times, italicized, initially capitalized, indented, flush left, preceded by one blank line, followed by a period and your text on the same line.

Footnotes

Use footnotes sparingly (or not at all) and place them at the bottom of the column on the page on which they are referenced. Use 8-point Times, single-spaced. To help your readers, avoid using footnotes altogether and include necessary peripheral observations in the text (within parentheses, if you prefer, as in this sentence).

Bibliography

List and number all bibliographical references in 12-point Times, single-spaced, at the end of your paper.

Information About the Author(s)

Prof. Anna Nowak, Ph.D.

University of Lower Silesia, Poland

Department of Educational Sciences

ul. Wizowa 3

00-250 Bodowa

anna.nowak@ulv.edu.pl

She is primarily interested in children’s development, especially at preschool and school ages. Her research has mainly focused on the development of educational policy at various levels of the system of education in Poland and other European countries.

4. General Rules Related to Reference Lists and In Text Citations

Below you can find examples of in text citations and reference listings. They are related to various types of printed and internet sources.

For non-English or translated sources, a reference follows the basic APA Style templates, but you may need to include some additional information.

If you refer to a non-English source you need to add the English translation of the source's title (article or book, not the journal) put in square brackets.

Here's an example:

Piaget, J. (1966).La psychologie de l’enfant [The psychology of the child]. Paris, France: Presses Universitaires de France.

The reference for a translated source includes the translator’s name in parenthesis right after its title.

Here's another example:

Piaget, J. (1969).The psychology of the child (H. Weaver, Trans.). New York, NY: Basic Books.