Journal of Social Development in Africa
Journal / Journal of Social Development in Africa / Submissions

To submit your manuscript, please email the managing editor at managingeditor@jsda.msu.ac.zw

All submissions/documents should be in .docx format only!

 

Make sure you submit (email) the following when submitting the manuscript to the journal:

1. An anonymised manuscript (without author names or anything that can identify the author(s))

2. A Title Page (with all author names, emails, and affiliations together with ORCIDs for all authors)

An ORCID is a persistent, unique, numeric identifier for individual researchers. The complete ORCID URL of all authors must be included in the Title Page. Visit the ORCID website to register if needed.

We use a double-blinded peer-review system. The anonymised article will be used for peer review and the Title Page will be used to expedite the publication of the article after the manuscript has been accepted.

 

Only manuscripts of sufficient quality that meet the aims and scope of the Journal of Social Development in Africa (JSDA) will be reviewed.

There are no fees payable to submit or publish in this journal.

As part of the submission process, you will be required to warrant that you are submitting your original work, that you have the rights to the work, and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you, that you are submitting the work for first publication in the journal, and that it is not being considered for publication elsewhere and has not already been published elsewhere.

 

Please read the guidelines below carefully!

Manuscript Submission Guidelines:

The JSDA accepts full articles on issues related to social development. The articles can either be research or review articles.

Articles can be from various disciplines, including social work, sociology, development studies, economics, agrarian studies, gender issues, and public health, among others.

 

Each manuscript must:

• Be prepared using APA style, and be no longer than 30 pages (around 8000 words), including references, tables, and figures;
• include an abstract of up to 300 words describing the topic, methods, major findings, and recommendations;
• On the abstract page, include 5–7 keywords for indexing purposes. The abstract page as well as the first page of the text should include the manuscript’s title without the authors’ names to facilitate anonymised review.
• Begin the manuscript with a clear description of the knowledge area that is being researched and its relevance to understanding social development;
• Comprise an introduction, literature review, methodology, findings, discussion of findings, recommendations, conclusion, and references;
• Submission of a manuscript implies a commitment to publish in the journal. Authors submitting manuscripts to the journal should not simultaneously submit them to another journal, nor should manuscripts have been published elsewhere in substantially similar form or with substantially similar content. Authors in doubt about what constitutes prior publication should consult the managing editor.

 

Sections in a manuscript may include the following (in this order): 

(1) Title page, (2) Abstract, (3) Keywords, (4) Text, (5) Notes, (6) References, (7) Tables, (8) Figures, (9) Appendices, and (10) Author Biographies.

 

1. The title page must be uploaded as a separate file. Please include the following:

Full article title

Acknowledgements and credits

Each author’s complete name and institutional affiliation(s)

Grant numbers and/or funding information

Conflict of interests, if any

Corresponding author (name, address, phone/fax, e-mail)

 

2. Abstract.

The abstract must describe the topic, methods, major findings, and recommendations. The abstract should not be more than 300 words.

 

3. Keywords.

5–7 keywords must be included in the manuscript.

 

4. Text. 

Begin text headed by the full article title. The text must be blinded, with all author names and other identifying information removed, for peer review.

 

a. Headings and subheadings

Subheadings should indicate the organisation of the content of the manuscript. Generally, three heading levels are sufficient to organise text.

 

b. Citations.

For each text citation, there must be a corresponding citation in the reference list, and for each reference list citation, there must be a corresponding text citation. Each corresponding citation must have identical spelling and year. Each text citation must include at least two pieces of information: author(s) and year of publication. Following are some examples of text citations:

 

(i) Unknown Author:

To cite works that do not have an author, cite the source by its title in the signal phrase or use the first word or two in the parentheses. For example, “The findings are based on the study of students learning to format research papers” ("Using XXX," 2021).

 

(ii) Authors with the Same Last Name: 

Use first initials with the last names to prevent confusion. For example, “S. Matanga, 2021; A. A. Matanga, 2018.”

 

(iii) Two or More Works by the Same Author in the Same Year: 

For two sources by the same author in the same year, use lowercase letters (a, b, c) with the year to order the entries in the reference list. The lower-case letters should follow the year in the in-text citation. For example, “Research by Risinamhodzi (2023a) illustrated that...”

 

(iv) Personal Communication: 

For letters, e-mails, interviews, and other person-to-person communication, the citation should include the communicator's name, the fact that it was personal communication, and the date of the communication. For example, S. Charamba, personal communication, January 4, 2009. Do not include personal communication in the reference list.

 

5. References. 

Basic rules for the reference list:

• The reference list should be arranged in alphabetical order according to the authors’ last names.
• If there is more than one work by the same author, order them according to their publication date, from oldest to newest (therefore, a 2008 publication would appear before a 2009 publication).
• When listing multiple authors of a source, use “&” instead of “and.”
• Capitalize only the first word of the title and the subtitle, if there is one, and any proper names, i.e., only those words that are normally capitalised.
• Italicise the title of the book, the title of the journal/serial, and the title of the web document.
• Manuscripts submitted to the JSDA should strictly follow the current APA style guide.
• Every citation in the text must have a detailed reference in the Reference section.
• Every reference listed in the Reference section must be cited in the text.
• Do not use “et al.” in the reference list at the end; the names of all authors of a publication should be listed there.
• Make sure the DOIs of all referenced articles are appended at the end of each reference.

Here are a few examples of commonly found references. For more examples, please check the APA style guide:

 

Books:

Book with place of publication: 

Nyamaka, L. (2010). Social work and social development in Zimbabwe. Berkeley, CA: New Riders.

 

Book with editors & edition:

Simango, T., & Mahuntse, S. (Eds.). (2017). Clinical social work in southern Africa. Cape Town, South Africa: Oxford University Press.

 

Chapter in an edited book: 

Muridzo, N. G., & Sukulao, T. (2017). What is the role of clinical social workers in grief? In T. Simango & S. Mahuntse (Eds.), Clinical Social Work in Southern Africa (2nd ed., pp. 257–280). Cape Town, SA: Oxford University Press.

 

Periodicals:

Journal article with more than one author: 

Kurevakwesu, W., Dzoma, F., Mundau, M., Magocha, J., Chizasa, S., & Takangovada, M. (2022). Towards the creation of a developmental welfare state in Zimbabwe: An inside perspective on the department of social development. Social Work/Maatskaplike Werk, 58(2), 115–130. https://doi.org/10.15270/58-2-1037

 

Journal article – 8 or more authors: 

Kurevakwesu, W., Dzoma, F., Mundau, M., Magocha, J., Chizasa, S……. Takangovada, M. (2022). Towards the creation of a developmental welfare state in Zimbabwe: An inside perspective on the department of social development. Social Work/Maatskaplike Werk, 58(2), 115–130. https://doi.org/10.15270/58-2-1037

 

Also, adhere to the APA style when referencing internet sources and other various types of information sources.

Important Note: To encourage a faster production process for your article, you are requested to closely adhere to the points above for references. Otherwise, it will entail a long process of solving the copyeditor's queries and may directly affect the publication time of your article. In case of any questions, please contact the managing editor at managingeditor@jsda.msu.ac.zw

 

6. Tables. They should be structured properly. Each table must have a clear and concise title.

 

7. Figures. They should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they appear in the text and must include figure captions. Figures will appear in the published article in the order in which they are numbered initially. The figure resolution should be at least 300 dpi at the time of submission.

 

Important: Permission: The author(s) are responsible for securing permission to reproduce all copyrighted figures or materials before they are published in the JSDA. A copy of the written permission must be included with the manuscript submission.

 

8. Appendices. They should be lettered to distinguish them from numbered tables and figures. Include a descriptive title for each appendix (e.g., “Appendix A. Variable Names and Definitions”). Cross-check the text for accuracy against the appendices.

 

9. Author Biographies. The author(s) are required to send a 40–60 word biography for publication at the end of the article. A sample biography is given below:

Ansley Tshugulu (PhD) - She is a social work lecturer at the Midlands State University. She obtained her PhD in Social Work from the University of North Carolina at Chapell-Hill and her Master of Social Work degree from the University of Zimbabwe. Her research interests include social development, child protection, social policy, and social welfare.

 

Editorial policy

1. Peer review

The Journal of Social Development in Africa (JSDA) adheres to a rigorous double-blinded reviewing policy in which the identity of both the reviewer and author are always concealed from both parties.

 

2. Authorship

All parties who have made a substantive contribution to the article should be listed as authors. Principal authorship, authorship order, and other publication credits should be based on the relative scientific or professional contributions of the individuals involved, regardless of their status. A student is usually listed as the principal author of any multiple-authored publication that substantially derives from the student’s dissertation or thesis.

Please note that AI chatbots, for example, ChatGPT, should not be listed as authors.

 

3. Acknowledgements

All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, or a department chair who provided only general support.

Any acknowledgements should appear on the title page, and not in the anonymised manuscript.

 

4. Funding

The JSDA requires all authors to acknowledge their funding, invariably under a separate heading.  This can be a statement like this one: This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

 

5. Declaration of conflicting interests

The JSDA encourages authors to include a declaration of any conflicting interests.

 

6. Ethics & Responsibility

The Journal of Social Development in Africa (JSDA) is committed to upholding the integrity of the work it publishes. The value of academic publishing relies on the ethical conduct of everyone involved. The following points are only intended to give a broad overview and are not exhaustive. We encourage our authors and reviewers to refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) website. The JSDA believes strongly in maintaining an accurate academic record and following COPE’s Principles of Transparency and Best Practices in Scholarly Publishing. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the managing editor of the journal at managingeditor@jsda.msu.ac.zw.

We encourage authors and reviewers to familiarise themselves with the following information when preparing articles for submission and to ensure that submissions being considered for publication meet the journal’s ethical standards. We will not be able to consider submissions that do not meet these standards, and if, for any reason, published articles are found to fall short of these standards, we will correct or retract the article.

 

a. Authors must ensure that:

• their work is original and written by them
• their work has not been previously published and has been submitted only to the journal 
• where the material is taken from other sources (including their own published writing), the source is cited and where appropriate permission is obtained,
• their work does not infringe on any rights of others, including privacy rights and intellectual property rights
• their data is true and not manipulated
• their data is their own or that they have permission to use data reproduced in their paper
• any real or apparent conflicting or competing interest is clearly stated on submission of their paper (this would include funding assistance)
• they adhere to all research ethics guidelines of their discipline, particularly where human subjects are involved
• they contact the Editor to identify and correct any material errors upon discovery, whether prior to or after the publication of their work
• authorship of the paper is accurately represented, including ensuring that all individuals credited as authors participated in the actual authorship of the work and that all who participated are credited and have given consent for publication

Above all, authors should be transparent. For example, if an author is not sure whether her/his paper is original (for instance, whether it might constitute duplicate publication), she/he should inform the journal’s managing editor. If the managing editor (together with the Chief Editor and the Editorial Board) decides it is appropriate to publish, the paper itself should clearly state any potential overlap.

 

b. Reviewers must:

• maintain the confidentiality of the review process
• refrain from contacting the authors directly without permission of the journal
• immediately alert their journal editor of any real or potential competing interest that could affect the impartiality of their review and decline to review where appropriate
• conduct themselves fairly and impartially

We are aware, of course, that academics will come from a particular school of thought and/or may have strong ties to a particular interest. All we ask is that reviewers strive to act fairly. If in doubt about whether a conflict exists, a reviewer should be transparent and seek the views of the journal editor.

 

7. Copyright infringement and plagiarism

The JSDA takes issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism, or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. We seek to protect the rights of our authors, and we always investigate claims of plagiarism or misuse of published articles. Equally, we seek to protect the reputation of the journal against malpractice.

Submitted articles may be checked with plagiarism detection software. Where an article, for example, is found to have plagiarised other work or included third-party copyright material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgement, or where the authorship of the article is contested, we reserve the right to act, including, but not limited to:

• publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction)
• retracting the article
• taking up the matter with the head of department or dean of the author's institution and/or relevant academic bodies or societies; or
• taking appropriate legal action.

The author should disclose any prior distribution and/or publication of any portion of the material to the managing editor for the Editor’s consideration and ensure that appropriate attribution to the prior distribution and/or publication of the material is included.

In addition, the JSDA does not tolerate fraudulent activities, including attempts to manipulate the peer review process. Where we have strong suspicions or evidence of such activities, unpublished contributions will be automatically disqualified from further consideration in the journal.

Where there is evidence of such activity in a published article, the JSDA will investigate per guidance from the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).