Manuscript Preparation Guide
Please use the manuscript preparation guide as a template to prepare the manuscript. Author(s) must take special care to follow these instructions concerning margins.
Manuscript should adhere to the themes of the journal and its conventions, presentation and style. Manuscript written in poor English / Malay will not be considered for publication.
Types of Articles
Original research articles
Articles should be between 5000-8000 words in length, including references, notes and tables.
Research Notes and Discussions
Articles should be between 2000-3000 words in length, including references, notes and tables. At most, there should only be two (2) tables or graphics.
Reviews
Reviews should not be more than 2000 words in length, including references. There will be no tables or graphics.
The Manuscript
The manuscript must be typed in single spacing. Use extra line spacing between illustrations, figures and tables. The body of the text should be prepared using Times New Roman. The font size used for preparation of the manuscript must be 12 points (except when indicated otherwise). There should be a blank line between a heading/subheading and the first paragraph. The first paragraph following a heading should not be indented. The following paragraphs must be indented 10 mm. Note that there is no line spacing between paragraphs unless a subheading is used.
Text Layout
Subdivision/Numbering
Articles should be divided into clearly defined and numbered sections. Subsections should be numbered 1.1 (then 1.1.1, 1.1.2, ...), 1.2 accordingly. The abstract should not be numbered. Any subsection may be given a brief heading. Each heading should appear on its own separate line.
Section headings
Section headings should be typed and aligned at the left margin. Capitalisation should use sentence case. Do not underline section headings. A bold font of size 12 points should be used for section headings. The headings should be numbered.
Subheadings
Subheadings should also be aligned at the left margin. It should not be in a boldfaced font, but it should be italicised with font size 12 points. Capitalisation should use sentence case.
Sub-subheadings
Avoid sub-subheadings.
Article structure
The manuscript should be organised in the following order: Title of the paper, Authors' names and affiliation, Abstract, Keywords, Introduction, Methodology, Findings, Discussion, Conclusions, Acknowledgements (where applicable), References, and Appendices (where applicable).
The Title
The title should be brief and concise. It should adequately describe the content of the paper.
Author’s Name and Affiliation
The author’s name(s) follows the title and is also centred on the page. Names should be spelled out in full with last names in capital letters. The author's affiliation, complete mailing address and e-mail address, phone and fax numbers are provided immediately below the authors name. If there is more than one author, there should be a blank line between each author’s information.
Abstract
A concise abstract of between 100-200 words is required. The abstract should state briefly the purpose of the research; the methods applied, the major findings and conclusions, and must be able to stand alone. There should not be any in-text citation in the abstract. Manuscripts written in Malay must include an abstract written in English.
Keywords
The author should provide a list of three to five key words that clearly describe the subject matter of the paper, and state them after the abstract.
Introduction
The introduction should state the objectives of the work, and an adequate background that includes a review of relevant literature. Review of literature may be divided into subsections with appropriate headings.
Material and methods
The materials used and methods applied in the research should be sufficiently and explicitly explained.
Findings
The findings should be clear and concise, and when used, the statistical data should be reported correctly.
Discussion
The discussion should explore the significance of the findings and state them clearly in relation to the reviewed literature. A combined Findings and Discussion section is also allowed. The discussion should also highlight the contributions achieved by the work.
Conclusion
The main conclusions of the study may be presented in a short Conclusion section, which may include the limitations of the study.
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgements (if available) of not more than 50 words can be placed before the references as a separate section.
Footnotes
Footnotes are not encouraged.
References
References should be placed after the conclusion or the acknowledgement.
Appendices
The appendices should be placed after the references. If there is more than one appendix, they should be identified as A, B, etc.
Tables and Figures
Tables and figures should be numbered consecutively using Arabic numbers. They should be placed in the text soon after the point where they are referenced, and placed centred. Tables and figures should be complete, concise and clear, and given the appropriate title.
The caption for tables should be placed at the top of the table, and aligned to the left margin. It should not be in bold, and capitalisation should use sentence case. The caption for figures should be placed at the bottom of the figure, and aligned to the centre. It should not be in bold, and capitalisation should use sentence case. Tabled and figures are numbered consecutively and independently of each other.
Abbreviations
Abbreviations should be consistent throughout the article.
Citations and References
Every reference cited in the text should be included in the reference list (and vice versa). Citation of a reference as "in press" implies that the item has been accepted for publication. Citations in the text should follow the referencing style used by the American Psychological Association (APA, 7th edition) using the Author-Date system. List of reference should be arranged first alphabetically and then further sorted chronologically (if necessary), and should also follow the APA style.
The Title Page
All submissions must be submitted together with a title page, which should include the following information.
• Title of the manuscript
• Author(s) names and affiliations
• Complete addresses of the corresponding author and co-author(s)
• Complete email addresses of all authors
• Complete telephone and facsimile numbers of all authors
• State the type of article
• Acknowledgement (If available)
Please prepare your manuscript using IJHTC's template.
