Submissions

Author Guidelines

IMPORTANT: Due to the very large number of submissions, the journal is currently no longer accepting new submissions, until the evaluation of the existing submissions will be completed. We are sorry for the possible inconveniences created and we expect you to be with us as soon as possible!

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MANUSCRIPT PROCEDURE TIME |
The average time during which the preliminary assessment of manuscripts is conducted - 90 (Days)
The average time during which the reviews of manuscripts are conducted - 180 (Days)
The average time in which the article is published -  200 (Days)

STEPS FOR SUBMISSION|

All new submissions receive an ID that is used to identify the article. This ID should be kept throughout the entire evaluation process, included in all correspondence and in documents related to the open-access fee.

Before submitting an article to our Journal, the author(s) must make sure the manuscript is not under evaluation elsewhere.

IMPORTANT: When the author(s) submit a revised version of an article, the document should be submitted under the same submission ID, not by creating a New Submission. In exceptional cases, the revised version of an article could be sent by e-mail, specifying the submission ID.

POLICY FOR AUTHORSHIP|

The authors of the scientific articles are generally those who participate in the elaboration of the research and the writing of the article itself. In theoretical research, such as philosophical, legal or political, one or at most a few people participate in all stages of the research.

In exact sciences and in sciences of nature, and partly in social sciences where the research is wider, there are a large number of people involved in research, both in preliminary phases, in collecting experimental data, and in drawing conclusions and writing the article.

For a person to be on the list of authors, he/she should have significant intellectual contributions in at least one of the domains: conceiving and design of the paper, data acquisition, data analysis and interpretation, analysis statistics, scientific supervision of the research, elaboration of a draft of the article, formulation of substantial reviews with important intellectual content.

All authors must agree on publication and be able to support research by answering questions about this research. Contributors who do not meet the criteria to be authors should be included in the acknowledgments. It is not very usual in the Romanian scientific literature that, together with the doctoral or master student who publishes an article, the coordinating professor should also sign, although in many situations this should be taken into account both because of the increased volume of the coordinator's scientific contribution, and the credibility that a scientific personality with weight brings to the work. The contact between young researchers and highly experienced researchers will be responsible for both sides, reducing the risk of plagiarism or misrepresentation of data.

As regards the authors' order, this should respect the volume of work submitted and the importance of the scientific contribution of each author. Presenting in alphabetical order, mentioning the equal contribution of each author in acknowledgment, draws attention to the equal quoting of author in each signatory. Thomson Reuters identifies, together with the lead author, co-authors, and the reprint author as the correspondent with potential readers. In some journals, the last author is past the coordinator of the paper, when appropriate.

Lead Author (First Author)
In the case of publications with multiple authors, one author should assume the role of lead author. Even in different publications, the lead author is different to the first author; in all LUMEN Publishing Journals, the lead author is considered to be the first author and corresponding author. We admit exceptions, based on an all authors' request, for the corresponding author to be mentioned as being different to the lead author, with special mention, and is placed as the last author. Authors should decide to be equally responsible for the paper; in this case, they are mentioned in alphabetical order, with the acknowledgement that all authors have an equal contribution to the article.

Co-authors
All co-authors of a publication are responsible for:

• Authorship: By providing consent to authorship to the lead author, co-authors acknowledge that they meet the authorship criteria set above. A co-author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take responsibility for appropriate portions of the content.
• Approval: By providing consent to authorship to the lead author, co-authors are acknowledging that they have reviewed and approved the manuscript.
• Integrity: Each co-author is responsible for the content of all appropriate portions of the manuscript, including the integrity of any applicable research.
• An individual retains the right to refuse co-authorship of a manuscript if s/he does not satisfy the criteria for authorship.

GUIDELINES FOR CONTRIBUTORS| 

Use APA rules for citations and references (tutorial for APA Manual 7th edition);
Any paper that does not comply with the aforementioned requirements will be returned to the authors.

Click here to download the Template for your article.

Manuscripts should be no more than 6,000 words. Submitted papers will be screened by the volume's editors before they are entered into the Peer Review Process.

TITLE PAGE

TITLE OF THE PAPER
- should be clear and concise, provind the reader with an idea of the article s main topic;
- should not exceed 15 words;
- no subtitles, mottos or any other introductory words allowed;
ABSTRACT
- should have between 200-250 words, and should briefly present the main ideas expressed in the article, such as the context of the paper, objectives, hypotheses or thesis (if any), methodology (only mentioned), results (only the main or most relevant results), conclusions (optional);
KEYWORDS
- between 5-7 keywords, separated by semicolons;
AFFILIATION
- the author(s) should mention the institution of affiliation, city, country and the contact details (at least e-mail address) of all authors of the paper (if more than 1).
- a short biodata and a photo of the author(s) should be provided at the beginning of the document, before the Title (not mandatory). This part will be excluded from the file sent to peer-review, but will be published with the article, if accepted for publication.
NOTE: All information provided in the TITLE PAGE will be removed from the article before sending it for evaluation to peer-reviewers.

MAIN BODY

INTRODUCTION

- the introduction provides the reader with a brief idea of the content of the article;
- should contain information about the scientific context of the research or theoretical article;
- scopes and objectives of the paper, hypotheses (if any);

LITERATURE REVIEW

- should present the relevant literature on the topics of the paper and should be structured upon specific analysis criteria;
- the scientific literature should be critically approached by the author(s);
- should mention the identified gaps that led to the current research. These gaps are what underlies the original contribution of the article;
- should argue the need for the research in the universe of the existing scientific literature and the conjunction point between it and the current paper.
- all sources used for inspiration in this chapter must be correctly quoted, according to the 6th APA Style Manual.

METHODOLOGY (mandatory chapter for research articles)

Some theoretical articles could have methodology, some don’t.
- this chapter describes the methods and techniques used for collecting, analysing and interpreting data;
- in the field-research papers, the author(s) should provide information on the sample, data collection, compliance with the ethical guideliness (this information could also be mentioned in Acknowledgments);
- other details regarding the data collection process;
- precise and comprehensive description of the analysed methods, particularly when they are new or poorly-known in the literature;

RESULTS (mandatory chapter for research articles)

- the results are presented in large, using tables, figures, graphics or any other type of visual representation destined to help the reader better understand the ideas resulted;
- the statistical data should be accompanied by explanations on its significance;
- the data that could contradict the hypotheses must be presented and analysed;
- the author(s) should present the way in which the collected data leads to the fulfilment of the research objective;

THEORETICAL SUB-CHAPTERS (especially used in theoretical articles)

For theoretical articles, the chapters of Methodology and Results could be replaced by subchapters of theoretical analysis. We recommend using the analythical framework of the theoretical papers which consist in Arguments to support the thesis and Arguments to argue the thesis;

LIMITS and DISCUSSIONS

- this subchapter presents the validity of the research and its limits;
- the author(s) should consider and present the geographical, epistemological, methodological limitations of the research;
- the author(s) should present how the results can be extrapolated and generalized to the literature on the topic;
- the author(s) should clearly state the original elements of the paper that could be of interest for worldwide readers;

CONCLUSIONS

- the conclusions should be correlated with the objectives and the data analysed;
- the author(s) should mention here whether the hypotheses (if any) were validated or not (in case of evidence-based research).

Acknowledgments:

Acknowledgments usually include the recognition of the contribution of third parties to the research, that led to creating the article, or the actual writing of the article, but whose contribution is not so significant as to be considered authors. Also, the acknowledgments include information on the source of research funding, the research organization in which the authors carried out the research activity or research project in which the data was obtained.

REFERENCES

- this chapter must be formatted according to the guideliness of the 6th edition of the APA Manual. It is very important to make sure that there is a full compliance between the sources mentioned in the text and in References.

Examples:

Mettam, G. R., & Adams, L. B. (1994). How to prepare an electronic version of your article. In B. S. Jones, & R. Z. Smith (Eds.), Introduction to the electronic age (pp. 281-304). New York: E-Publishing Inc.
Strunk, W., Jr., & White, E. B. (1979). The elements of style (3rd ed.). New York: Macmillan.
Van der Geer, J., Hanraads, J. A. J., & Lupton, R. A. (2000). The art of writing a scientific article. Journal of Scientific Communications, 163, 51 - 59.

________

An empirical research article or a theoretical article must contain a minimum of 20 bibliographic sources and a maximum of 50. At least 25% of the sources used should be from Web of Science indexed journals.

For a literature review article it is imperative to use 50 to 100 bibliographic sources, of which at least 25% should be from Web of Science indexed journals. The article should contain specific and expressly stated criteria for structuring the literature review.

All submissions will be peer reviewed before entering the publication process. Authors are expected to participate in the Peer Review process for further issues of this journal.

SIMILARITY WITH OTHER ONLINE SOURCES CHECK|

LUMEN Publishing House scans each article accepted for publication with the iThenticate software only after the article is considered final, so as not to make any changes that may increase the likelihood to be above the accepted limit, which is at most 5%. The articles that were prooven to have plagiarism elements will automatically be rejected from publication.

If the article exceeds the 5% similarity threshold, but it is not prooved to be plagiarised, the editor sends the article back to the authors, to motivate the identified similarities, and eventually to correct possible negligence. Each additional scan will be charged with 7 euros.

The authors whose works have been identified with similarities beyond the accepted limit will have to accept that all costs incurred by the editorial staff for the processing of the article will be withheld from the already paid fees.

The full refund of the open-access fee for articles identified with plagiarism suspicions is only possible through the formation and express acceptance of the Ethics Committee of the Affiliate Institution of each of the authors.

FEES|valid from 11.01.2021

OPEN ACCESS FEE: 0 euro (no open access fee)

SIMILARITY CHECK FEE: 7 euro (applied for the 2^nd check of the same article)