Author Guidelines
We recommend that authors download the author's guidelines to ensure the correct formatting of their reference list.
JOURNAL DESCRIPTION
The Rural Planning Journal (RPJ) is a double-blind peer-reviewed journal that publishes cutting-edge research of interest relating to rural development planning. Thematic areas of interest include Rural Development; Poverty Reduction; Development Planning and Management; Economic and Investment Planning; Agriculture, Food Security and Nutrition; Environment, Climate Change and Energy; Population and Development; and, Cross-Cutting Issues. Specific focus areas include public policies, social services, agriculture, regional planning, public health, development finance, environment, gender, governance, business and entrepreneurship, and natural resources management. RPJ is an interdisciplinary journal and welcomes papers from theoretical and methodological approaches, which contribute to sustainable development
planning in thematic areas of interest and identified focus areas.
AUDIENCE
The primary audience of RPJ includes; Rural planners, researchers, educators, students, development policy developers, and the general public with an interest in sustainable development planning
TYPES OF PAPERS
The journal publishes original research articles, review articles, and conceptual papers.
SUBMISSION CHECKLIST
You can use this list to carry out a final check of your submission before you send it to the journal for review. Please check the relevant section in this Guide for Authors for more details. Ensure that the following items are present:
a) Title of the Manuscript
(Centred, Bolded, Title case, Font type and size: Times New Roman 12, and 1.15 spacing).
b) Author (s) Name
(Maximum of three names per author e.g. Mipango Mafanikio Bora, in italics). For each author provide their full name, affiliation and address.
Corresponding author
Clearly indicate who will handle correspondence at all stages of refereeing and
publication, also post-publication. This responsibility includes answering any
future queries which may be raised pertaining to the submitted manuscript.
Ensure that the e-mail address (institute email) of the corresponding author has been provided
c) Language and Spellings
Authors are required to use British English in their manuscript. Use British spellings for example centre not center, labour not labor, organisation not organization, programme not program, behaviour not behavior etc. Use ise/isation endings rather than –ize/ization e.g. legalise not legalize, analyse not analyze, feminisation not feminization, characterisation not characterization. All authors are required to do a thorough editing and spell check before submitting their manuscript.
d) Abstract
The abstract should state briefly the purpose of the research, methodology used, the principal results and major conclusions. An abstract is often presented separately from the article, so it must be able to stand alone. For this reason, references should be avoided. Also, non-standard or uncommon abbreviations should be avoided, but if essential they must be defined at their first mention in the abstract itself. Its content should not exceed 250 words.
e) Keywords
Immediately after the abstract, provide a maximum of 5 keywords. These keywords will be used for indexing purposes.
f) Body text
Font type and size: Times New Roman 12 pt, 1.15 spacing. Format all your paragraphs and make sure they are aligned in a Justify mode, and Normal style. Leave one blank line above each paragraph and do not indent any paragraph.
g) Manuscript Length:
The manuscript should not exceed 8500 words including
abstract and references.
h) Headings:
Use Title case and do not use more than three levels of headings.
i) Abbreviations:
No full stops within abbreviations (e.g. URT not U.R.T). For financial year and academic year use 2012/13, 2013/14.
j) Capitalization
For proper nouns, Use: Lake Nyasa, Mount Kilimanjaro, the Indian Ocean. Also capitalize titles, positions, departments, units, divisions and offices in a government or private organisation. For example, the Ministry of Water and Irrigation, the Ministry of Finance and Planning, Community Development Department.
k) Foreign words
All foreign words to English such as shamba, kitongoji, vuli, should be italicised and placed in invented commas e.g. “shamba”, “kitongoji”, “vuli”. Other foreign words like plants’ and animals’ botanical names such as azadarata indica,moringe…. should be italicised. Common Latin words or expressions such as de facto, de jure, and modus operand should not be italicised.
l) Numbers
In your text, spell out (i.e. write in words) any number from zero to ten; but use numerals for any number from 11 onwards. However, in all cases where the number is followed by a unit of time, area, volume, length, and weight; always use numerals followed by the unit e.g. 20 ha, 3000 kg. Use a comma as a separator for a number with five digits or more, e.g. 17,300. In table of results, use three decimal places where possible. Tables contains more than 3 decimal places are not allowed.
m) Tables and artwork
All tables and figures should be included within the text and in Microsoft Word. Do not insert tables and figures as graphics from other programs. Also do not insert vertical lines in the tables. All tables and figures should be numbered sequentially. Title of the tables should be placed on top of the table and when referred to the table in the text it should be addressed as Table 1, Table 2
onwards. All figures should be labelled at its bottom, and whenever it is referred to in the text it should be indicated as Fig. 1, Fig. 2 onwards. Note that, figures should be supplied as high quality, original work and any lettering or linework should be able to sustain reduction to the final size of reproduction. Avoid too long and too short tables. Likewise, coloured and complex shading should be avoided as the RPJ is mostly printed in black and white. Remember that the titles of the tables and figures are required to be in sentence case. Do not bold any title or content of the tables and figures.
n) References in the text
a) The APA style of referencing is used (author's name (s) and date of publication bracketed in the text). For more than two authors cite as (Baraka et al., 2013). Note that, in the references’ list all authors should be cited as shown in part (a) under Items to be checked in the references. If more than one work by the same author is cited in a particular year the reference should be labelled alphabetically, i.e. (Jones, 2022a; 2022b).
b) Quotes: Quotation marks (“ ”) must be used for direct quotations and words used in unusual contexts. Short quotations should be embedded in the text but the quotations with more than 40 words should be indented in a separate paragraph. When a part of the quote is not reported in your text insert … then continue with the remaining part of that quotation. Whenever the quote is followed by the reference insert the reference with page number (s) before the full stop. For example, “the roles of actors at various levels have been changing along with the changes in political ideologies and service delivery models” (Mandara et al.,2013: 82). Note,
for any quote that is from the research respondent’s response or part of the response must be followed by the name of the study area and date as shown in the example “We prefer married youngsters to unmarried ones in the Village Water Committee because some unmarried youth can easily disappear with our money and since they do not have their own homestead, we will have no one to hold accountable...For the married youth we can always ask the spouse to give us our money and when he/she refuses we can take an asset that will cover our lost money” (Women FGD in Seluka village, Sept. 2012).
References in the list
Prior to submitting your manuscript, check each citation in the text against the References in the list (at the end of your paper) to ensure that they match (i.e. all cited references should be included at the reference list and vice versa). All works cited in the text should be listed alphabetically after the main body of the text. Delete citations from the list if they are not actually cited in the text of the article. All journal titles should be spelled out completely. In the titles of articles, capitalization of the common names of organisms and the spellings of all words should agree exactly with those used in the original publication. Provide the publisher's location and name (separated by a colon). When you cite symposia or conference proceedings, distinguish between the conference date and the publication date if both are given. If the publication date is not known, use the conference date.
Items to be checked in the references (NOTE: APA style should be used in this journal)
a) First and middle names are initialised; in case of multiple initials separate them with full stops.
For example: Baraka, K, J., and Amani, L. M. (2022). Impacts of climate change, variability and adaptation strategies on agriculture in semi-arid areas of Tanzania: The case of Manyoni District in Singida Region, Tanzania. African Journal of Environmental Science and Technology, 3(8),
206-218.
b) In case of multiple authors, "and" must be added before the last author's name (note: there is no semicolon before the "and"). See the example in (a) above
c) For journal articles, there is comma after the journal name, E.g. International Journal of Social Sciences and Humanity Studies, 43-62; without space between volume and issue numbers ("5(1)"), and a space between the colon and the page range [5(1): 43-62]; the page range should be followed by the full stop e.g. 43-62.
d) Titles of books and published reports must be italicized.
e) For published documents, the reference ends with the name of publisher, followed by a colon and at the very end place of publication.
f) (Ed), (Eds) with no full stop; "(Ed)." in titles, and "(Ed)," in book chapters.
g) MSc, PhD thesis, (no full stop, no capital letter for the word 'thesis')
h) For documents accessed on the web: "(accessed [no capital letter] on 2 May 2020)" [no comma before, no full stop after; no 'http://' if URL starts with www]
i) For chapters in edited volume of a Book: give the page range after a comma following the book title. e.g. Udas, P. B. (2022). Thinking and Acting on Gender Issue: The Interface of Policy, Culture and Identity. In: Diverting the Flow: Gender Equity and Water in South Asia. Zwarteveen, M., Ahmed, S and Gautam, S.R. (Eds.). Zubaan. New Delhi, pp. 546-573.
j) When the government or an organisation is the author, cite asUnited Republic of Tanzania. (2008). National Water Sector Development Strategy 2006-2015. Dar Es Salaam: Ministry of Water and Irrigation. Note that, in the text you can use (URT, 2008) after you have indicated the meaning of the URT in the footnote.
n) A reminder to all authors
Whenever you have used materials/data from other(s) in your paper please acknowledge the source appropriately. In case the materials/data which you have used require a prior consent and copyright of the owner (i.e. author(s) OR publisher OR both) please make sure that you get the formal approval(s) supported with formal letter(s) from the original source which authorise you to use the said materials/ data. If the author(s) fail to get the said approval(s), RPJ will not be responsible for any measures against the contents of the paper as that equals to intentionally deceiving the publisher i.e. the RPJ. Besides, the RPJ will not publish such papers if the editor found out that there is a need for such approvals but the author(s) fail to provide the formal approval letter(s) within specified period of time. Author(s) are fully responsible for the contents of their manuscripts/ papers.
O) Further consideration
Manuscript should be 'spell checked' and 'grammar checked'
Changes to authorship
Authors are expected to consider carefully the list and order of authors before submitting their manuscript and provide the definitive list of authors at the time of the original submission. Any addition, deletion or rearrangement of author names in the authorship list should be made only before the manuscript has been accepted and only if approved by the journal Editor. To request such a change, the Editor must receive the following from the corresponding author:
(a) the reason for the change in author list and (b) written confirmation (e-mail, letter) from all authors that they agree with the addition, removal or rearrangement. In the case of addition or removal of authors, this includes confirmation from the author being added or removed.
Only in exceptional circumstances will the Editor consider the addition, deletion or rearrangement of authors after the manuscript has been accepted. While the Editor considers the request, publication of the manuscript will be suspended. If the manuscript has already been published in an online issue, any requests approved by the Editor will result in a corrigendum.
Peer -review
This journal operates a double anonymized review process. All contributions will be initially assessed by the editor for suitability for the journal. Papers deemed suitable are then typically sent to a minimum of two independent expert reviewers to assess the scientific quality of the paper. The Editor is responsible for the final decision regarding acceptance or rejection of articles. The Editor's decision is final. Editors are not involved in decisions about papers which they have written themselves or have been written by family members or colleagues or which relate to products or services in which the editor has an interest.
Double anonymized review
This journal uses double anonymized review, which means the identities of the authors are concealed from the reviewers, and vice versa. To facilitate this, please include the following separately: Title page (with author details): This should include the title, authors' names, affiliations, acknowledgements and any Declaration of Interest statement, and a complete address for the corresponding author including an e-mail address. Anonymized manuscript (no author details): The main body of the paper (including the references, figures, tables and any acknowledgements) should not include any identifying information, such as the authors' names or affiliations.
Revised submission
All comments in a revised submission should be addressed properly, reflecting all rebuttal changes in a point-by-point response, and should be coloured red in the manuscript to imply the reviewer’s changes.
Article structure
Divide your article into clearly defined and numbered sections. Subsections should be numbered 1.1 (then 1.1.1, 1.1.2 ...), 1.2, etc. (the abstract is not included in section numbering). Use this numbering also for internal crossreferencing: do not just refer to 'the text'. Any subsection may be given a brief heading. Each heading should appear on its own separate line.
1. Introduction
State the objectives of the work and provide an adequate background, explain the study motivation, novel contribution of the study, avoiding a detailed literature survey or a summary of the results.
2. Material and methods
Methods that are already published should be summarized, and indicated by a reference. Any modifications to existing methods should also be described.
3. Results
Results should be clear and concise.
4. Discussion
This should explore the significance of the results of the work, not repeat them. A combined Results and Discussion section is often appropriate. Avoid extensive citations and discussion of published literature.
5. Conclusions
The main conclusions of the study may be presented in a short conclusions section, which may stand alone or form a subsection of a discussion or results and should include recommendation or policy implications and direction of future research.
Appendices
If there is more than one appendix, they should be identified as A, B, etc.
