Submission Guidelines

Word Length

The word length should not exceed 7,000 words, inclusive of abstract, references, tables, figures and appendices. 

 

Similarity Index

The similarity index must be less than 30%. 

 

Declaration of Originality

When submitting the work, contributors are requested to make a declaration that the submitted work has not been published, or is being considered for publication elsewhere. Contributors have to declare that the submitted work is their own and that copyright has not been breached in seeking the publication of the work. You may use the following form for this purpose (if you are submitting your manuscript manually via email). Submission via ILS Online Submision system will require author(s) to agree to the stated declarations on the page itself.  

Download Declaration Form

 

Manuscript Format and Preparation

Title Page (Put in a different file/doc)

Title, author’s name and affiliation, postal and e-mail address of each author. Please indicate corresponding author with an asterisk.

 

Article (Main Document) - Follow the template given

Title, abstract not exceeding 200 words, 4-6 keywords. Articles not written in English should be accompanied by a title, abstract and keywords in English.

Text in single-spacing and margins – top and bottom, left and right – should be 1.50 inches wide, Calibri 11 point.

Do not indent the first paragraph of each section. Indent the first line of subsequent paragraphs by ½ inch.

Use the five-level headings in APA style:

                               Centred, Bold, Upper and Lowercase Letters

Flush Left, Bold, Upper and Lowercase Letters

Flush Left, Bold, Italics, Upper and Lowercase Letters

                Indent 0.5 Inch from Left, Bold, Upper and Lowercase Letters, Period at End.

                Indent 0.5 Inch from Left, Bold, Italics, Upper and Lowercase Letters, Period at End.

 

Use double quotation marks to enclose quotations of fewer than 40 words. Within this quotation, use single quotation marks to enclose quoted material. Long quotations should be placed in a block which is indented ½ inch from the left margin.

Words and phrases in other languages. Please italicise these words and provide a translation.

Follow APA style for table title and heading (placed above the table) and figure title and caption (placed above the figure). Examples:

 

Table 1 (bold) 
Types of Communication Strategies Used across Age Groups (italics) 

                                 [centralised table]

 

Figure 1 (bold) 
Frequency of Communication Strategy Use across Age Groups (italics)

                                 [centralised figure]

 

Conclusion

Conclusion should just should briefly state the main results, the main contribution of the study, limitation of the study, and recommendation for further research.

 

Research ethics

For studies involving respondents, author(s) should declare that they have obtained:

• informed consent from respondents
• ethics approval from the university or related institutions. Example: "The study was conducted according to the guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki and approved by the Institutional Review Board (or Ethics Committee) of Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Protocol Code: HREC(BP)2020(1)/02 (approval date: 8 December 2020))."

 

Citation and References

Do not use footnotes. If notes are unavoidable, use a numeral in superscript and list notes at the end of the article, before the References. 

Follow APA style (7th ed.) for citation and referencing.  For Malay names, use the father's name.  

For references, provide the digital object identifier (DOI) number. 

Each reference cited in text must appear in the reference list. Uncited sources must not be included in the Reference list. 

References should not be managed by any kind of reference management tool. Type out each of them manually by following the correct APA format, for both in-text citations and references.

Download Manuscript Template 

 

Submitting Your Manuscript

Please prepare your manuscript according to the ILS guideline and template, and submit it via ILS Online Submission System. You need to register prior to submission. If you have problems submitting via the system, please email us. 

IMPORTANT:

1. Please suggest 3 potential reviewers who are not from Universiti Malaysia Sarawak and the authors' own institution.  The following details should be provided: reviewer's name, title, affiliation, and email address. Be aware that the choice of reviewers is at the discretion of ILS.

2. We would also like to advise author(s) that the review process usually takes about 2 months.

3. We have a rigorous initial quality check. Your manuscript may be rejected if it does not meet one or more of ILS requirements:

4. Authors who have published in ILS have to skip three issues before their next submission will be considered, regardless of whether one is an author or a co-author.

Submit Your Manuscript