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Author Guidelines

Guidelines for Contributors

Editorial policy

The South African Journal of Education (SAJE) publishes original research articles reporting
on research that fulfils the criteria of a generally accepted research paradigm; review articles,
intended for the professional scientist and which critically evaluate the research done in a
specific field in education; and letters in which criticism is given of articles that appeared in this
Journal. Research articles of localised content, i.e. of interest only to specific areas or
specialists and which would not appeal to the broader readership of the Journal, should
preferably not be submitted. Authors should indicate the relevance of the study for education
research when submitting manuscripts, where the education system is characterised by
transformation, and/or an emerging economy/development state, and/or scarce resources.
In addition a brief narrative account/description of ethical issues/aspects
should be included
in articles that report on empirical findings.

All manuscripts will be submitted to referees (national and/or international), who hold documented
expertise in the area the manuscripts addresses. When reviews
are received, an
editorial decision will be reached to either accept the article, reject the article, request a
revision (in some cases for a second or third round of peer review), or request arbitration.
As a rule only one article per author or co-author will be accepted per year for refereeing and possible publication.

Authors bear full responsibility for the accuracy and recency of the factual content of their
contributions. A signed declaration in respect of originality must accompany each manuscript.
On submission of the manuscript, the author(s) must present a written undertaking that the
article has not been published or is not being presented for publication elsewhere.

All manuscripts will be put through Turnitin upon receipt of the manuscript. An arbitrary
guideline of a 15% similarity index applies, even though Turnitin reports are interpreted
qualitatively. The use of common methodological terms and scientific concepts does
not necessarily imply plagiarism, yet repetition of other work in sections that focus on
content and new knowledge will not be allowed. Word-for-word copying of the work of
others should be indicated by means of double quotation marks, and reference to
the author, year of publication and relevant page number, e.g. “Brown (1997:40-41)”.
Redundancy/self-plagiarism is also unacceptable, where authors reproduce sections of their
own previously published work without using quotation marks, or where authors create
several papers slightly differing from each other, and then submit these to different journals
without acknowledging this (Information adapted from Code of Ethics for the Journal of
International Business Studies (n.d.). Available at http://www.palgrave-journals.com/jibs/author_instructions.html#Ethical-guidelines.
Accessed 20 March 2013).
Plagiarism and redundancy/self-plagiarism will be dealt with as follows:
• For papers already published: a formal notice of redundant publication
will be issued
to readers in the next issue of the journal. The Executive Editor has the right to refuse
submissions from such authors for a certain period of time (Information adapted from
Redundant Publication: The Editorial Policy Committee of the Council of Science Editors (n.d.).
Available at http://natajournals.org/userimages/ContentEditor/1256771128861/redundant_pub.pdf.
Accessed 20 March 2013).
• In cases of major concern, authors will be denied the privilege of publishing the
relevant paper in the South African Journal of Education.
• In cases of minor concern, authors will be asked to rephrase the duplicated
sentences. (Information adapted from Code of Ethics for the Journal of International Business
Studies (n.d.). Available at http://www.palgrave-journals.com/jibs/author_instructions.html#Ethical-guidelines. Accessed 20 March 2013).

Author(s) must furthermore ensure that the language in the manuscript is professionally edited.
Upon submission, the name and address of the language editor must be provided. Copyright
of all published material remains vested in the Education Association of South Africa (EASA).

Processing charges

Authors will be invoiced for the required article processing charges (APC) upon acceptance
of a manuscript for publication. These charges are reviewed annually, and will align with charges
for the year of acceptance. The 2024 approved APC is ZAR 5,500 per article for South
African and USD $525 for international, authors.

Preparation and structure of manuscripts

The manuscript, including abstract, figure captions, tables, etc. should be typed on A4
paper and the pages numbered consecutively. Manuscripts should be typed in Microsoft
Word format with text in Arial font, 12 point, and 1.5 line spacing. All margins should
be 2.54 cm. The total number of pages should preferably not exceed 17 pages (± 6,000 words).


The title of the manuscript should be brief (maximum 15 words). The title should be followed
by the author(s) name(s), affiliation(s) (Department and University), and an e-mail address
for the corresponding author.

An abstract in English (approximately 190 words) must be provided, followed by up to
10 keywords, presented alphabetically.

The text of the article should be structured according to the following unnumbered sections,
which may include sub-sections:
• Introduction and/or background
• Literature review
• Theoretical/Conceptual Framework
• Methodology
• Results/findings
• Discussion
• Acknowledgements
• References
Figures should be clear, black/white originals, on separate pages — not embedded in the
text. Grey or coloured shading must be avoided. Tables/figures should include a brief
descriptive heading/caption and be numbered consecutively, using the decimal point
rather than the decimal comma.

References

Only sources cited in the text must be listed in the list of references, in alphabetical order,
at the end of the manuscript. References should be presented as indicated in the examples
below. Special attention should be paid to the required punctuation.

References are cited in the text by the author(s') name(s) and the year of publication in
brackets (Harvard method), separated by a comma, e.g. (Brown, 1997). If several articles
by the same author and from the same year are cited, the letters a, b, c,
etc. should
be added after the year of publication, e.g. (Brown, 1977a).

Page references in the text should follow a colon after the date, e.g. (Brown, 1997:40-48).
In works by three or more authors the surnames of all authors should be given in the first
reference to such a work yet in subsequent references to such this work, only the name of
the first author is given, followed by the abbreviation et al., e.g. (Ziv et al., 1995).

If reference is made to an anonymous item in a newspaper, the name of the newspaper is
given in brackets, e.g. (Daily News, 1999).

For personal communications (oral or written) the relevant person and personal communication
should be indicated in brackets, e.g. (M Smith, pers. comm.).

Format for referencing journal articles:
Johnson DW & Johnson RT 1999. Gifted students illustrate co-operative learning. Educational
Leadership, 50(1):60-61. https://doi.org/10.15700/el.1999.50

Books:
Van Zyl R (ed.) 1994. Recent advances in classroom research. San Diego, CA: McGraw-Hill.

Chapters in books:
Dukzec S 1988. Gender issues. In D Hicks & J Brown (eds). Education for peace. London,
England: Routledge.

Unpublished theses or dissertations:
Squelch J 1991. Teacher training for multicultural education in a multicultural society. MEd
dissertation. Pretoria, South Africa: University of South Africa.

Anonymous newspaper references:
Citizen 1996. Education for all, 22 March.

Electronic references:
Published under author’s name:
Wilson J 2000. The blame culture. British Educational Research Journal, 26. Available at
http://www.govsources/gtp%access. Accessed 20 April 2005.

Website references with no author:
These references are not archival and are therefore subject to change in any way and at any
time. If it is essential to present them, however these should be included in a numbered endnote
and not in the reference list.

Submission of manuscripts:
Manuscripts can be submitted electronically by e-mail or via the internet. All manuscripts should
be submitted in MS Word format.

Authors who submit manuscripts for the first time should submit their manuscripts to
Estelle.Botha@up.ac.za. Only once the Editorial Committee decides to accept the
manuscript for review, users will be registered as authors. All submissions should include
a (i) cover letter, (ii) checklist (see below), (iii) the manuscript (in the stipulated format),
(iv) proof of professional language editing, and (v) declaration of originality. Authors
who have published in the Journal before can make use of Internet submissions,
following the “Register as Author” and then submitting the manuscript online. Following
this route will enable authors to track the status of their articles on the website.

For inquiries contact Estelle.Botha@up.ac.za

 

Submission Preparation Checklist

  1. Cover letter is included confirming that the submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration
  2. Manuscript is prepared according to page number and format stipulations
  3. Manuscript includes the following headings: Introduction, Literature review, Theoretical/conceptual framework, Methodology, Results/findings, Discussion, Conclusion, References
  4. Manuscript is free of plagiarism and declaration of originality is attached
  5. Certificate of professional language editing is attached
  6. Recommendation for three national and three international reviewers is included
  7. All URL addresses in the text (e.g., http://pkp.sfu.ca) are activated and ready to click
  8. The text has had the authors' names removed. If an author is cited, "Author" and year are used in the bibliography and footnotes, instead of author's name, paper title, etc. The author's name has also been removed from the document's Properties, which in Microsoft Word is found in the File menu.
  9. Empirical data must be checked by a statistical consultant
 

Copyright Notice

If the article is accepted for publication, copyright of this article will be vested in the Education Association of South Africa.

All articles published in this journal are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license, unless otherwise stated.

 

Privacy Statement

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All articles published in this journal are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license, unless otherwise stated.

SA Journal of Education is hosted at the University of Pretoria, Faculty of Education