Author Guidelines

CITATION AND STYLE GUIDELINES

The International journal of social sciences and scientific studies (IJSSASS) is an international bi-monthly peer-review journal. Many years, it has been at the forefront of scholarship on general education and, encouraging research and reflection on a range of disciplines in the general spectre of social sciences and sciences pertinent to Africa. Founded in 2013, IJSSASS aims to serve as the forum where original research is presented and to shape the discussion of the most important and topical issues through a rigorous scholarship selection and editing process. Meeting the highest international standards, IJSSASS is published in the English and French language, thus engaging in an international dialogue about education and safeguarding that its content is widely disseminated. 

Instructions to Prospective Authors

Articles should be original and should not be under consideration elsewhere.

Submission Procedure:

Manuscripts should be submitted on the journal’s website www.ijssass.com. Should you encounter any difficulties, do not hesitate to contact the Editorial Team of IJSSASS at <ijossasseditor@gmail.com>.

Formatting Requirements

• Articles should range between 6,000-10,000 words.
• Documents should be submitted in A4 format, 1.5-spaced lines, in a 12-pt typeface, Times New Roman font.
• Pages should be numbered
• An abstract of no more than 150 words should be included together with a maximum of ten (10) keywords to define the article’s content. The abstract and keywords should be placed at the beginning of the first page just after the article’s title and before the main text.
• Policy Papers: Policy Papers on subjects relating to Cyprus should range between 4,000 and 7,000 words in length.
• Book Reviews are normally 2,000 words maximum in length. The reviewer’s name should appear at the end of the review. Guidance notes are available for book reviewers. Headings should appear as follows:

Title

Author

Publisher

(Place, Date), number of pages [pp. ….]

ISBN:

Separate files

• As manuscripts are sent out anonymously for editorial evaluation, the author’s name should appear on a separate covering page. The author’s full academic address and a short bio of no more than 50 words detailing current affiliation, areas of research interest and publications should also be included in the said cover page.

   Images, Tables, Figures, and Photos

• IJSSASS has adopted a strict BnW/no-more-than-three policy regarding images and/or photos accompanying submitted articles. More than three (3) items can be accepted at the editorial team’s discretion, if (and only if) they are deemed absolutely necessary for the sake of scientific completeness.
• In any case, the images should be submitted in high resolution and black & white format. The editorial team retains the right to place the images, photos, tables, etc. in a separate annex, following the end of the article’s main body. References to such images etc. within the article should be made in a footnote citing the item’s title and the word Annex, e.g. ¹ Photo 1 ‘Vision of Africa’ Annex.
• Images, tables, figures, graphs, and photographs should be numbered consecutively with titles, and submitted in a separate file(s). A copyright credit should be added, if mandatory, under a permissions agreement.

General Style and Format

• IJSSASS uses British spelling, ‘-ise’/‘-our’ endings (e.g. ‘organize’ and ‘organization’, ‘labor’ and ‘honor’), and strongly supports the Oxford comma.
• Possessives of words (nouns and proper names) ending in –s (such as Cyprus, politics, Descartes, etc.) should be formed by the addition of an apostrophe ( ’ ) at the end of the word, e.g. Cyprus’, politics’, Descartes’.
• We would ask authors to use the following formula in the headings(full capitals, as in CAPITALS, in headings, are to be absolutely avoided).
• Headings and subheadings should appear as follows:

1. Part One

A. First Subheading

1. Second Subheading

(a) Third subheading

(i) Fourth subheading

• All nouns, verbs, and adjectives on the first three levels should begin with capital letters.
• The word ‘state’ should begin with a capital ‘S’ when it denotes a polity, e.g. the international community of States; but the state of play.
• Acronyms should be capitalized in full.
• Basic legal material(e.g. the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, United Nations Charter) and their short titles or abbreviations should begin with capital letters (TFEU, UN Charter). The same rule applies to the titles of books, chapters, articles cited in the footnotes, and in the references section.
• Sources are written in languages other than English(for instance French or German) follow their own rules regarding the use of capital letters. In such cases, it is preferable to follow the rules applicable to the source’s original language.

For instance:

Christopher Staker, ‘Public International Law and the Lex Situs Rule in Proprietary Conflicts and Foreign Expropriations’ (1987) 58(1) British Yearbook of International Law 151.

Antony Anghie, Imperialism, Sovereignty, and the Making of International Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).

Maarten Bos, ‘Public International Law and Private International Law: Two Well Distinct Identities’ (‘Droit international public et droit international privé: deux identités bien distincte’) in Jerzy Makarczyk (ed.), Theory of International Law at the Threshold of the 21^st Century: Essays in Honour of Krzysztof Skubiszewski (The Hague/Boston MA: Kluwer Law International 1996) 89 (in French).

Georg Jellinek,, The Legal Nature of State Conventions: A Contribution to the Legal Construction of International Law (Die rechtliche Natur der Staatenverträge: Ein Beitrag zur juristischen Construction des Völkerrechts) (Wien: Hölder 1880) (in German).

• Use italics for the following:
• The names of cases and judgments either domestic or international:

Attorney General of the Republic v. Mustafa Ibrahim & Ors

Military and Paramilitary Activities in and Against Nicaragua

Distomo case

• The titles of published books, e.g. Professor Emilianides’ Constitutional Law in Cyprus
• The titles of periodicals, journals, and review e.g. British Yearbook of International Law, American Journal of Legal History, IJSSASS
• Short foreign phrases, names, or individual words, e.g. Areios Pagos,Cour de Cassation, sui generis.
• However, Latin abbreviations or words commonly used should not be italicized: cf., e.g., ad hoc, i.e., per se.
• Words or phrases which the author wishes to emphasize. Emphasis added by the author in a quoted passage should be explained in the corresponding footnote as follows:

‘[…] gender equality in every aspect of economic and social life is a basic obligation for every state which ensures equal treatment for all citizens irrespective of their gender’.¹

¹ Konstantinos Dimarellis, Christina Ioannou, ‘Equal Treatment of Women and Men in Employment: An Analysis of the Cypriot and the Greek Legal Frameworks’ (2018) 30(1) IJSSASS 259, 273 (emphasis added).

• In a likewise manner, when the author wishes to omit an emphasis in a quoted passage, this should be explained in the corresponding footnote adding (emphasis omitted).
• Emphasizing by use of Boldis to be absolutely avoided. Exceptions may apply strictly for quoted passages where the original text already contains certain emphasized passages in italics and the author wishes to add more emphasis in another part. The corresponding footnote should then contain the explanation: (italic emphasis in the original, bold emphasis added).

Punctuation, Footnote Indicators, Numbers, and Abbreviations

• Quotations must correspond to the original source in wording, spelling, and punctuation.
• Any alterations to the original should be noted (e.g. use brackets […] to indicate omitted information).
• Single quotation marks (‘ ’)are to be used to denote direct quotes and double quotation marks (“ ”) to denote a quote within a quotation.
• The closing full stop should be outside the closing quotation mark (‘________’.)
• Footnotes should be placed after the closing quotation mark (‘________’¹), unless a specific reference to a term within the quoted passage is made.
• In general, footnote numbers should be placed after the punctuation marks. Footnote indicators should follow full stops, commas, semi-colons, quotations marks, and brackets or parentheses ( _____.¹______,¹ ______;¹ ).
• Footnotes should be used to provide additional comments and discussion or for reference purposes and should be numbered consecutively in the text.
• Acknowledgments, references to grants, etc. should appear within the footnotes.
• Passages of more than three lines should be printed as a separate paragraph, indented, without quotation marks (11-pt, Times New Roman, Indent: Left 2,00 cm, Right 2,00 cm) as in the following template:

As aptly observed:

The mediator is neither a judge nor an arbitrator. As an unbiased intermediary, the mediator listens to potential apologies, explores possible points of settlement and realistic solutions, discusses with each party workable and viable agreements and prioritizes the main points of the dispute and the key issues for each party.¹

Consequently, we may suggest that …….

¹ Anna Plevri, ‘Mediation in Cyprus: Theory without Practice’ (2018) 30(1) IJSSASS 233, 237.

• Hyphensjoining composite words should be short [-] without spaces.
• Em-dashes [—]should be used as punctuation devices, introducing parenthetic phrases, without a space on either side.
• It is preferable not to use hyphens when such a choice is grammatically available (e.g. coordination, transnational, intergenerational, etc.).
• Single parentheses( ) should be used for all comments, remarks, and explanations either in the main text or in the footnotes.
• Brackets [ ]should be used in the following cases:
• For the publication year of reports/reviews lacking a volume number, e.g. Christodoulides v. The Republic[1967] 3 CLR 356; Paul Craig, ‘Theory, “Pure Theory” and Values in Public Law’ [2005] Public Law
• For modifications and explanatory remarks within quoted passages. For instance:

As the European Court of Human Rights has consistently held, the obligation to protect the right to life under Article 2 of the Convention, read in conjunction with the State’s general duty under Article 1 of the Convention to ‘secure to everyone within [its] jurisdiction the rights and freedoms defined in [the] Convention’.

• Other parenthetic indicators and quotation marks, such as braces { } or Guillemets « », are to be absolutely avoided, even if preferred in the original language of a given source (e.g. French, Greek, or German).
• Numbers one to ten should appear in their written form, whilst numbers above ten should appear in Arabic numerals, e.g. one, nine, 11, 20, 100, 10,000).
• The period sign ( . )should be used as a decimal separator/radix (e.g. 2.02 cm), while comma ( , ) as a groups of thousand’s separator, e.g. 100,000,000.
• Dates should follow the day month year format, as on 1 January 2000.
• Months should not be abbreviated in any case (e.g. February; not ).
• Decades should be referred to as the 1930s, the 2000s, etc.
• Centuries can be written in numerals, e.g. the 21^st
• Abbreviations should be followed by a full stop, e.g. Doc., Cf., Appl., Suppl.
• The abbreviated form of the word ‘number’, i.e. No, should not be followed by a period.
• The word ‘editors’ should be abbreviated as eds (without a period); the word ‘editor’ should be abbreviated as with a period.
• The word ‘edition’(i.e. 1^st edition, 2^nd edition, etc.) should be abbreviated as edn (without a fool stop, while the word ‘translator’ as (followed by a full stop).
• Abbreviations/Latin indicators, such as ‘Op. cit.’ and ‘Loc. cit.’ should be avoided. The use of Latin bibliographic location indicators, such as supraor infra is also discouraged.
• The Latin abbreviation ‘Ibid.’(ibidem, the same) may be used where there are two or more consecutive references to a source.
• The moderate use of the Latin indicator/cf.(compare) is encouraged.
• When two or more works of the same author are cited, the indicator ‘Id./id.’ can be used instead of repeating the name of the author.
• Acronyms and law report abbreviations should not be followed by full stops, e.g. UN, EU, NATO, CLR, EWCA Civ, WLR.
• It is preferable to avoid abbreviating the title of journals, reviews, yearbooks, and other periodicals. Titles should be written in full and italicised accordingly, e.g. Journal of European Legal Studies instead of JELS. However the word ‘and’ can be replaced with the ampersand sign (&), if and if only the ampersand is used in the official name of the respective journal, e.g. The Law & Practice of International Courts and Tribunals, Law & Contemporary Problems, International & Comparative Law Quarterly, Science & Education.
• The same rules apply to publish houses and university presses(avoidance of acronyms, use of ampersand when adopted by the publisher), e.g. Harvard University Press, Taylor & Francis.
• In judgments and secondary sources with more than three parties or authors the abbreviations ‘& Ors’ or ‘et al.’ can be used respectively.
• When introducing an abbreviation or short title of an entity’s or a source’s name, the abbreviation should be stated after the first mention of the entity or the source.
• Abbreviations of entities’ names can appear either in the main text or in a footnote.
• Sources should be abbreviated in the first footnote citing them. Afterward, the short title or abbreviation can be used in both the main text and the footnotes.

For instance:

The question of jurisdiction in international human rights law can be considered within the context of Article 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights.¹ …

Article 1 of the ECHR ………..

According to the Restatement Fourth on the Foreign Relations Law of the United States⁵ drafted under the auspices of the American Law Institute (henceforth ALI)….. Executive jurisdiction in ALI’s Restatement Fourth is defined as …..

¹ Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (signed 4 November 1950, entered into force 3 September 1953), CETS No. 5, 213 UNTS 221 (henceforth ECHR).

⁵ ALI, Restatement of the Law (Fourth), on the Foreign Relations Law of the United States (St. Paul MN: American Law Institute Publishers, 2018) (henceforth Restatement Fourth).

• Avoid forming the possessive of a noun, when it is followed by an abbreviated or short form in parentheses, e.g. the Third Post-Program Monitoring Discussions Staff Report of the International Monetary Fund (henceforth IMF) on Cyprus; not the International Monetary Fund’s (henceforth IMF’s) Third Post-Program Monitoring Discussions Staff Report.

References in Footnotes

• As a general rule, if a secondary source is authored, edited, etc. by more than three scholars[in which case the formula Name, Name & Name is applicable], it is advisable to write just the first name of the author/editor, etc., as it appears in the original source, and add et al.
• If the source’s original language is not English, both the title and possible quotes should be translated into English.
• When a book, book chapter, or article is written in a language other than English, its original title should be stated in eclipses ( ), following the translated version, using the alphabet (Latin or other) utilized by its original At the end, the name of the language should be indicated within eclipses, i.e. (in ….). For instance:

Christina Ioannou, Demetris P. Sotiropoulos, Achilles K. Emilianides, Cyprus in a New Era: Geostrategic Parameters, Economy, Foreign Policy (Η Κύπρος στη Νέα Εποχή: Γεωστρατηγικές Παράμετροι, Οικονομία, Εξωτερική Πολιτική) (Nicosia: Hippasus, 2014) (in Greek).

Achilles C. Emilianides, ‘State and Church in Cyprus’ (‘Staat und Kirche in Zypern’) in Gerhard Robbers (ed.), Staat und Kirche in der Europaischen Union (State and Church in the European Union) (2^nd edn, Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 2005) 231 (in German).

Georges Ténékidès, ‘The International Condition of the Republic of Cyprus’ (‘La condition Internationale de la République de Chypre’) (1960) 6 Annuaire Français de Droit International 133 (in French).

• When a book has more than one edition, the number of the cited edition should be mentioned, before the rest of the publication details. The translator of the book, if existing, should be mentioned before the said details too. If the book has several editions and different publishers (especially older books or classic works), the date of the first publication should be mentioned. For instance:

Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (first published 1651, London: Penguin 1985).

Charles de Visscher, Theory and Reality in Public International Law (Percy Ellwood Corbett tr., 1^st edn, Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1957).

Achilles Emilianides, Family and Succession Law in Cyprus (2^nd edn, The Hague: Kluwer Law International, 2019).