Scientometrics Research Journal

Guide for Authors

Guide for Authors of Scientometrics Research Journal

[Shahed University Biennial Scientific Journal]

(Version dated 2025/06/21)

Section One: Manuscript Preparation and Submission Guidelines

The Scientometrics Research Journal accepts original and innovative research papers and review papers that are structured according to the journal's author guidelines.
The submitted article, or any part thereof, must not have been previously published in any other journal. If the article has been presented at scientific conferences, full details of the conference must be declared.
Authors must not submit their article to any other journal until they have received an acceptance notification from this journal.
The official language of the journal is Persian, and the article must be written in clear and fluent Persian.
English words or terms that have understandable Persian equivalents should be avoided in the text. Where necessary, the Persian form of the word should be used in the text, and its English equivalent should be provided in a footnote.
From a writing perspective, the verb tenses and sentences in different sections of a manuscript must conform to the following scientific writing standards:

Verb Tense Usage in Article Writing

Section of Article	Tense
Objectives	Present
Abstract	Past
Introduction	Present
Literature Review	Past
Materials and Methods	Past
Results and Discussion	Present
Table and Figure Titles	Present
Conclusion	Present
Suggestions	Future

7. Submitted articles will first undergo structural and citation evaluation. If approved, they will be evaluated and peer-reviewed by the Editor-in-Chief, Editorial Board, and reviewers. Upon approval, after necessary corrections (if any) and editing, they will be published in due order.

8. A cover letter, signed by the author(s), confirming their consent for publication and non-simultaneous submission to other journals, must accompany the submitted manuscript.

9. Based on the decision of the Editorial Board members, non-Persian speaking authors may submit manuscripts to the journal under the following conditions. If these conditions are met, submitted manuscripts will proceed through the peer review process:

Strict adherence to all scientific, ethical, structural, and citation guidelines provided in the journal's author guidelines.
Translation of the article's text and abstract into Persian by proficient Persian speakers [along with a certificate from the translator].
Simultaneous submission of the original version (English) and the translated Persian version of the manuscript.
Submission of a plagiarism similarity report from reputable international systems.
Adherence to the journal's policy and guidelines regarding the use of artificial intelligence in the manuscript preparation process.
Inclusion of necessary information in the Acknowledgements section of the named manuscript version, indicating which person or organization's translation services were used in the manuscript.

The journal reserves the right to reject, accept, edit, condense, or revise articles, and submitted articles will not be returned.
The order of article inclusion is subject to the journal's specific regulations and does not depend on the academic rank or personal standing of the authors.
To check and ensure the absence of similar texts and plagiarism in Persian, please refer to https://en.irandoc.ac.ir/service-product/97, and to ensure the absence of plagiarism in the English section of the article, please refer to https://www.ithenticate.com.
The author is responsible for the accuracy and veracity of the article's contents.
If the article is not revised within the granted deadline and is not returned to the journal within the specified time, the journal may withdraw the article from its agenda. In such cases, re-submission of the said article to the journal will not be possible.
The submitted article should be prepared on A4-size paper with single line spacing and 3 cm margins on all sides, using Microsoft Word. The article should not exceed 25 pages in length.
The main text, from the introduction to the reference list, should be in a single column, justified, with right alignment for Persian articles, and the line spacing should be set to 1.15 lines.
The Persian article text should be typed in thin B Lotus 12 font and Times New Roman 11 font, with headings in Bold.
The article's font (Persian and English) must be consistent.
The submitted manuscript must include a title page (English and Persian), names and affiliations of authors in English and Persian, an extended English abstract, a non-extended Persian abstract, and keywords (English and Persian).
Tables and figures should be numbered sequentially and used appropriately within the text, centered.
All table titles should be placed above the table, and figure and graph titles below them, centered, with explanations for tables, figures, and graphs written below them. Additionally, citing the source next to the titles of tables and figures is mandatory.
Tables should not have internal lines; only a horizontal line at the top and one at the bottom of the table.
In English tables, numbers should be in English, and Persian tables, numbers should be in Persian.
For decimals in text, tables, and graphs, use a dot (.) instead of a slash (/).
Symbols and footnotes should be written at the bottom of each page and start from number one on each page.
Internal headings within the manuscript should not be numbered.
Appendices and notes should be placed at the end of the article, after the reference list.
The journal reserves the right to reject or accept articles.
The journal welcomes constructive suggestions and criticisms to improve the quality of article publication.
Article submission is only possible through the journal's system at https://rsci.shahed.ac.ir/?lang=en, and after registration.
After electronic submission of the article to the journal's system, a Submission ID will be generated.
The author is not permitted to resubmit and obtain more than one ID for a single manuscript. Submitting more than one version of a manuscript will result in losing the chance of the initially submitted manuscript being reviewed.
For more information on the Code of Ethics, please refer to the journal's website.
The journal's policy and guidelines regarding the use of artificial intelligence in the manuscript preparation process must be studied and observed. Please refer to the journal's website.
The corresponding author may withdraw an article from review only up to one week after submission to the journal. Once the article enters the review process, withdrawal is not possible. If the corresponding author wishes to submit a request for article retraction after the specified period, this request must be submitted exclusively through the relevant option in the journal's system. It should be noted that if the editor-in-chief agrees to the article withdrawal request, the corresponding author is obliged to pay the review and evaluation fees on behalf of all authors. If the author refuses to pay the specified fees, the journal may, without further author permission and at its discretion, publish the said article while observing the authors' intellectual rights.
Simultaneous submission of an article to other journals or conferences before receiving the journal's final decision regarding the article is considered research misconduct, and in such a case, action will be taken according to regulations.
The journal reserves the right to evaluate adherence to ethical standards, cases of plagiarism, and article retraction, and at any stage of the article evaluation process, or even after publication, may proceed with blacklisting offending authors and retracting the aforementioned articles.

Required Files at the Final Acceptance Stage

Upon notification from the journal to the author for final preparation of the files to receive final acceptance, the author must prepare and upload files in the formats specified by the journal. In other words, to receive final acceptance, the article must, in addition to the standard format, also be prepared and uploaded in the "Early View" format and other desired formats of the journal, which will be communicated to the author upon successful peer review results and approval of all implemented corrections. These files, which will usually be requested by the journal from the author before granting final acceptance, are as follows:

Article file with complete English and Persian author names and affiliations, in standard and clean format (with all comments deleted and all Track Changes accepted).
Article file with complete English and Persian author names and affiliations, in standard format with highlighted changes.
Article file with complete English and Persian author names and affiliations, in Early Online Access format.
Article file without author names and affiliations, in standard format.
Response to Reviewers' Comments file.
English abstract file with complete English author names and affiliations, in standard format.
Final file of author names and affiliations in Persian and English.
ORCID ID registration for all authors in the journal's system and all named versions of the article.

It is essential that the content and structure of all submitted versions of the article (including the Early View version, clean standard version, highlighted changes version, named version, etc.) precisely match and be identical [The raw Early Online Access format file is available on the journal's main page].

When submitting the manuscript in the initial stage, two versions of the manuscript file, including an anonymous version and a named version with authors' details in standard format, must be uploaded.
Author Commitment Form must be completed.
Conflict of Interest Form must be completed.

Section Two: Order and Details of Internal Headings and Article Structure

Given the necessity of adhering to the journal's writing conventions and article structure, authors are required to meticulously review the manuscript's structure and internal headings, both in terms of order and form, and writing style. After ensuring the manuscript's compliance with all mentioned items, proceed with submission. The structure and internal keywords of the journal's articles are as follows:

English Article Title, preferably between 12 to 20 words.
English Name and Surname, English Organizational Affiliation, Email Address, and ORCID ID of authors [only in the named version].
Extended and Structured English Abstract [Extended Abstract] between 700 to 800 words, including sections: Purpose, Methodology, Findings, Conclusion, Keywords.
Persian Article Title, preferably between 12 to 20 words.
Persian Name and Surname, Persian Organizational Affiliation, Email Address, and ORCID ID of authors [only in the named version].
Non-extended and Structured Persian Abstract (between 200 to 300 words), including sections: هدف (Purpose), روش‌شناسی (Methodology), یافته‌ها (Findings), نتیجه‌گیری (Conclusion), واژگان کلیدی (Keywords).
Introduction and Problem Statement [should conclude with a general question that represents the research problem].
Research Questions/Research Hypotheses [Research Questions/Hypotheses should be listed with numbers].
Theoretical Framework: A brief theoretical framework should be added after the research questions and before the literature review, clearly explaining the connection between the article's topic and scientometrics.
Literature Review: The analytical literature review, including internal and external precedents and a summary of the literature review, should be written under this heading.
Research Methodology: This section should include information such as research type, research method, how the research stages were conducted, a description of the materials and methods used, including sampling methods, statistical methods used, research population and sample, validity and reliability, how data was analyzed, and tools for analyzing findings.
Research Findings.

Response to Research Question 1. ...
Testing Research Hypothesis 1. ... [if applicable]

13. Discussion and Conclusion.

14. Practical Suggestions of Research [as a bulleted list].

15. Suggestions for Future Research [as a bulleted list].

16. Acknowledgements and Funding: [In the named version of the article, inclusion of "Acknowledgements and Funding" information at the end of the article (before the reference list) is mandatory. It should be noted that in the anonymous version of the article, to maintain confidentiality, only the heading "Acknowledgements" is sufficient, and the information below it should not be included. It is understood that after the completion of the review stages, when the author is requested to upload the final versions of the article according to the journal's desired formats, completing the information in this section by the author is mandatory].

17. Conflict of Interest [The author(s) must declare any potential conflict of interest for the publication of their article. The following text must be included verbatim in the article: "The author declares that there is no conflict of interest regarding the publication of the registered research. Furthermore, ethical considerations including plagiarism, informed consent, misconduct, fabrication and/or falsification of data, duplicate publication, and also Journal Policy on Artificial Intelligence Use have been fully observed by the authors"].

18. References [The reference list and in-text citations should be formatted according to APA 7^th style, and alphabetical order should be observed in the reference list].

19. Appendices [if any].

Section Three: Manuscript Formatting Guidelines (in order of journal's article structure)

On the opening page of the manuscript, the English title and an extended and structured English abstract (between 700 to 800 words), including (Purpose, Methodology, Findings, Conclusion, Keywords), along with the names, surnames, and affiliations of authors in English, should be provided on a separate page. The article title and English author information must precisely match the Persian article information.
The English and Persian titles of the manuscript must be specific, concise, clear, contain main variables and the research's time and place, and avoid formulas and abbreviations.
After the English information of the manuscript, the manuscript title, non-extended structured Persian abstract, along with the Persian names, surnames, and affiliations of authors, should be included.
The name(s) and surname(s) of the author(s) should be listed in the footnote of the first page, in order of principal author, second author, and so on, along with their academic rank, affiliated organization, and ORCID ID. Additionally, the corresponding author (author responsible for correspondence) must be specified.
The address (postal address and postal code), phone number, fax number, and email address of the corresponding author, along with the manuscript submission date, should be specified in the footnote of the first page.
The Persian abstract should be non-extended, structured, between 200 to 300 words, along with keywords, including (Purpose, Methodology, Findings, Conclusion, Keywords).
Introduction and Problem Statement: In the introduction and problem statement section, specific problems under investigation are addressed, and strategies adopted for conducting the research are outlined based on the following:

Why is this research important?
How does this study relate to similar previous studies and scholarly works?
What are the primary and secondary objectives and implications of the study?
How are the research design and hypotheses related to each other?
What are the theoretical and practical concepts related to the research?
The end of the introduction should conclude with a general question that represents the main research problem.

In other words, a brief description of the research topic or problem should be provided in this section. The research problem should be clearly stated in the problem statement section. The problem statement must follow three topics: the importance of the topic [with citation], the current state of advancements in this field [with citation], and finally, the problem and concern that prompted the researcher to conduct this study [without citation, based on the author's analysis, creativity, and concern, and building on previous content]. The final research problem should be posed as a general question.

8. Research Questions/Research Hypotheses: Research questions or hypotheses (or both) should be presented under their independent heading after the problem statement section.

9. Theoretical Framework: A brief theoretical framework should be added after the research questions and before the literature review, and the connection between the article's topic and scientometrics should be explained more clearly.

10. Literature Review: The analytical literature review, including internal and external precedents and a summary of the literature review, should be written under this heading.

11. Research Methodology: This section should include items such as research type, research method, how the research stages were conducted, a description of the materials and methods used, including sampling methods, statistical methods used, research population and sample, validity and reliability, how data was analyzed, and tools for analyzing findings. Thus, content related to steps and population, which pertains to the methodology section, should be placed under the "Research Methodology" heading, after the literature review. In this section, the correct method used in conducting this research should be referred to, and the method of data analysis should be mentioned.

12. Research Findings: This section involves the analysis of research findings and their clear and precise presentation through explanations, tables, and purely scientific graphs. It is essential in the findings analysis section that before presenting the analyses related to each question, each relevant question is literally stated, and then the tables, graphs, and analyses related to that question follow below it. Note that in the findings analysis section, each table or graph should be presented first, followed by its description.

13. Discussion and Conclusion: The discussion includes interpretation of the presented results, the reason(s) for such phenomena, comparison of research findings with previous research, and mention of possible reasons for agreement or disagreement between results, along with analysis and highlighting of results.

14. Practical Suggestions of Research: Research suggestions should be presented after the conclusion, in a bulleted list, under the independent heading "Practical Suggestions of Research". The suggestions must be derived from the research and be relevant to its findings.

15. Suggestions for Future Research: In this section, the researcher introduces suggestions for future research. These suggestions should be presented as a bulleted list, outlining some research topics arising from this study for other researchers.

16. Acknowledgements and Funding: A statement of gratitude and appreciation should be provided to individuals or organizations who have indirectly participated in the research but are not among the authors and researchers of the study. In addition to acknowledging individuals and organizations, the information in this section also indicates the originality of the article. Therefore, it is necessary to state in this section from which thesis, dissertation, research project, independent research, or similar the article is extracted. Acknowledgments to supporting individuals and organizations, including an indication that this article is derived from a thesis, dissertation, or research project, etc., must be included in the named version of the article under the "Acknowledgements" heading. If the research was not supported by any organization or was not extracted from a thesis, dissertation, or research project, etc., and was conducted independently by the authors, it is also necessary to state in this section that "This article is the result of independent research conducted by the authors and has not been supported by any organization".

17. Conflict of Interest: The author(s) must declare any potential conflict of interest for the publication of their article. The following text must be included verbatim in the article: "The author declares that there is no conflict of interest regarding the publication of the registered research. Furthermore, ethical considerations including plagiarism, informed consent, misconduct, fabrication and/or falsification of data, duplicate publication, and/or misconduct have been fully observed by the authors".

Section Four: Guidelines for Formatting the Reference List

The reference list must be formatted using APA 7^th style, and Mendeley Cite or EndNote should be used as much as possible. In this regard, authors are kindly requested to pay attention to the following:

Details of in-text citation style and how to include the reference list (such as writing style, italicization, punctuation, bolding, etc.) must precisely match the APA 7^th style guide available at at https://apastyle.apa.org/.
Utmost care must be taken in preparing the reference list, and it must be ensured that bibliographic information for all in-text citations is included in the reference list.
To increase accuracy and ease of use in APA 7^th style citation, it is primarily suggested to use the free software Mendeley Cite or EndNote as much as possible.
If this citation management software is not used, it is suggested that bibliographic information for Latin sources in APA 7^th format be extracted directly from Google Scholar as text, and after adding the DOI to the end of the bibliographic information, be transferred to the article's reference list, and then, if necessary, corrections be made.
Given the availability of automatic generation of bibliographic information for articles in APA 7^th format on the websites of most domestic journals, for articles in Persian journals, it is suggested that bibliographic information for the article be converted from the journal's website to APA 7^th format, and after adding the DOI to the end of the bibliographic information, be transferred to the article's reference list, and then, if necessary, necessary corrections be made.
Alphabetical order must be observed for all references. Also, ensure that all in-text citations are present in the reference list.
Correct DOI for works must be included at the end of their bibliographic information.
If a DOI is old or unavailable for a work, not including the DOI is acceptable.
If an article lacks a DOI but has a URL, the article's URL must be included instead.
Note that the DOI must follow the journal's pattern.
Based on the journal's pattern, DOI starts with HTTPS: or HTTP. Example: Example: https://rsci.shahed.ac.ir/article_4142.html?lang=en
The DOI or URL must lead exactly to the page of the cited work. For example, an article's DOI must lead to the article's page, not the journal's page.
Since DOI or URL is monitored by the journal and also by reputable citation and specialized indexes, and including an incorrect DOI or URL is considered a fake source, it is necessary to ensure the accuracy of the relevant links before submitting the manuscript to the journal.
Persian references should be prepared in B Lotus font, thin, size 12, and English references in Times New Roman font, thin, size 11, and formatted as hanging indent with a one-centimeter indentation on the next line.
In-text citations for foreign sources must be in English with the Gregorian publication year, and APA 7^th style must be observed.
In-text citations for Persian sources (both authored and translated works) within the text, while observing APA 7^th style, must be in Persian with the Solar publication year.
The final reference list must be in alphabetical order and start with Persian language sources. Then, English sources should be sorted and follow the Persian sources.
In the Persian reference list section, bibliographic information for Persian sources will be in Persian. Additionally, an English translation of all Persian sources, with the Solar year converted to Gregorian year, must be simultaneously included in the English reference list section, and at the end of them, the phrase [In Persian] must be bolded.
For example:

Persian source to be included in the Persian reference list:

نوروزی چاکلی، ع. (1402). سخن سردبیر: جایگاه دانش‌آموختگان علم‌سنجی در تحقق سیاست‌ها و برنامه‌های نظام آموزش عالی. پژوهش‌نامه علم‌سنجی، 9(1)، (بهار و تابستان)، 1-2. https://doi.org/10.22070/rsci.2023.4142

English translation of the Persian source to be simultaneously included in the English reference list, based on the English bibliographic information in the source itself, with [In Persian] at the end:

Noroozi Chakoli, A. (2023). Note from the Editor-in-Chief: A Review of the Professional Status of Scientometrics Graduates in Realizing the Policies and Programs of the Higher Education System. Scientometrics Research Journal, 9(1), (spring & summer), 1-2. https://doi.org/10.22070/rsci.2023.4142 [In Persian].

Explanation 1: In translating sources from Persian to English, bibliographic information such as article title, journal title, author name writing style, conversion of Solar year to Gregorian year, etc., should not be personally translated or transliterated by the author; instead, the English form of the bibliographic information must be obtained from the cited source itself, and this information must precisely match the English information included in the cited source.

Explanation 2: In cases where a foreign author's name is mentioned in the Persian text, it is necessary to cite the English surname and Gregorian publication year of the work in parentheses and in-text during citation. For example:

Glänzel et al. (2006) showed in their research that ....

It should be noted that the complete bibliographic information for this work in APA 7^th style will be included in the article's reference list.

Example:

Glänzel, W., Debackere, K., Thijs, B., & Schubert, A. (2006). A Concise Review on the Role of Author Self-citations in Information Science, Bibliometrics and Science Policy. Scientometrics, 67(2), 263-277. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-006-0098-9

Section Five: Examples of APA 7^th Style Citation and Reference Formatting

Generally, the overall structure of reference list formatting in APA 7^th style follows the pattern below:

Authors must refer to https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/examples and study the APA 7^th citation style, as well as benefit from the examples provided therein, to ensure the accuracy and precise conformity of their in-text citations and reference list with APA 7^th style.

Note: A manuscript that is not prepared and formatted according to the journal's author guidelines will be excluded from the journal's scientific evaluation process.