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Author Guidelines

These recommendations are prepared in conformity with the requirements of CSE’s White Paper on Promotion Integrity in Scientific Journal Publications 2012 Update and ICMJE Recommendations for Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, December 2016.

The purposes and objectives of the Journal "Post-Soviet Issues" are to promote interdisciplinary research related to scientific study of the post-Soviet countries. This journal publishes articles that analyze the shaping and transformation of political systems in the post-Soviet states, establishment of new political ideology and culture, modification of social and political, national and confessional relations and processes, foreign policy and multifaceted interaction as well as the environmental issues and humanitarian cooperation.

The journal accepts for publication the original articles, reviews, scientific reports that have not been published in scientific journals earlier.

I. Recommendations for authors prior to article submission

The submission of an article to the Journal "Post-Soviet Issues" assumes that:

(i) The article has not been published elsewhere before;

(ii) The article is not under consideration elsewhere;

(iii) All co-authors agree with publication of the article’s current version.

Before sending the article for consideration make sure that the file/files contain all required information in Russian and English, the sources of information placed under figures and tables and that all references are presented in an appropriate form.

The title page of the article shall include (in Russian and English):

(i) Name of the author/authors

Authors are individuals identified by the research group to have made substantial contributions to the presented work and agree to be accountable for these contributions. In addition to being accountable for the parts of the work he or she has done, an author should be able to identify who of their co-authors is responsible for specific other parts of the work.

The Journal "Post-Soviet Issues" adopts the following criteria related to authorship:

1. Substantial contribution to the concept and design of research, data collection or analysis and interpretation of data.
2. Drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content.
3. Final approval of the version to be published.

The list of authors does not include individuals not qualified for authorship. The names of the individuals who have not been qualified for authorship, but who have provided some other support should be put in the Acknowledgments section.

The names of authors of an article should be given in the following format: Name, initial of Patronymic, Surname. The surname should be given after the name and initial of patronymic, e.g. Petr S. Ivanov or Sergey I. Petrov.

The surnames in English should be used as they are given in the foreign passport or in previously published articles. If an author has no foreign passport and/or publications its surname and name should be transliterated by the BSI standard.

(ii) Information about the author/authors

This section should include the academic degree, title, position and other standings as well as an e-mail and full postal address of the accountable author.

(iii) Affiliation of the author/authors

Affiliation includes the following data: full official name of an organization, full postal address, including index, city and country. The authors should include all the employments that were connected with the conduct of research.

If the article was prepared with participation of authors from different institutions, the affiliation of each author to a particular institution should be stated with the superscript.

The official name of an institution in English is required for the block of information in English.

(iv) Title of the article

The article’s title in Russian should correspond to the article content.

The title in English should be grammatically and lexically correct in terms of the English language and its meaning should correspond completely to the Russian title.

(v) Abstract

The recommended volume of an abstract is 250-300 words. The abstract may contain the following sections: Purpose, Methods, Results, Conclusions of research.

The abstract should not include the firstly used terms, abbreviations, except generally known, references to literature.

(vi) Key words

Key words should include 5-7 words related to the subject of an article. It is desirable that the key words supplement the abstract and the article name.

(vii) Text of an article

The journal has adopted format IMRAD (Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion).

Volume of the manuscript full text (original research, lectures, reviews), including tables and references, should not exceed 6000 words. The quantity of words in a text may be obtained in menu Word (File – View document – Statistics). If, in the author’s opinion, the greater volume of an article is justified and cannot be cut, the decision on publication is taken at the editorial board meeting by the reviewer recommendation.

Format of the manuscript text. The text should be printed in Times New Roman, font size 14 pt and line spacing 1.5 pt. The indents from each side of a page are 2 cm.

The emphases in the text may be made ONLY with italics or semibold types, but NOT with underlining. All repeating spaces and unnecessary line tearings should be deleted (automatically via Microsoft Word tool "Find" – "Replace").

File with the article which is uploaded in the submission form for manuscripts should contain entire information for publication, including figures and tables. The manuscript structure should be consistent with the adopted model: article’s authors; article name; name of institution specifying the city and country; abstract of the article; key words; text of the article; literature; date when the article was received by the editorial board; information about authors.

Full text (in Russian, in English, in both languages) should be divided into sections. The structure of the full text of a manuscript describing the results of original research should be consistent with the generally adopted model and contain the following sections: introduction (relevance), the body of the work broken into parts and conclusion.

(viii) Acknowledgements

This section should indicate all sources of fund raising for research as well as thank the individuals who have participated in the preparation of the article, but who are not given the authorship. Participation in the preparation of the article includes the following: recommendations on research improvement, provision of space for research, departmental control, obtaining financial support, certain kinds of analysis, provision of reagents/patients/animals/other materials for research.

(ix) Conflict of interest

Conflicts of interest can be defined as a situation in which an individual have conflicting or competing interests that could bias editorial decisions. Conflicts of interest may be potential or perceived, or they may be factual. Personal, political, financial, academic, or religious considerations can affect objectivity in numerous ways.

The author should inform the editor about the factual or potential conflict of interest having included the information about such conflict into the respective section of an article.

If there is no conflict of interest, the author should say so in the form like the following: "Author declares about the lack of conflict of interest".

(x) Pictures

Pictures should be of good quality and suitable for print publication.

All pictures should have captions.

The caption should be translated into English.

Pictures should be numbered consecutively in Arab figures according to the order in which they have been cited in the text. If there is only one picture in the text, it is not numbered.

References to pictures should be presented as follows: "Figure 3 illustrates that …" or "It is shown that … (see Figure 3)".

The caption should include the consecutive number of a picture, its name. It should be centered:

"Fig. 2. Description of political processes"

No dot is put after the caption.

Translation of a caption should be given after the caption in Russian.

(xi) Tables

Tables should be of good quality and suitable for print publication. Tables fit for editing and not scanned or presented as pictures are most preferable.

All tables should be provided with headings.

The table heading should be translated into English.

Tables should be numbered consecutively in Arab figures according to the order in which they have been cited in the text. If there is only one table in the text, it is not numbered.

References to tables should be presented as follows: "Table 3 illustrates that …" or "It is shown that … (see Table 3)".

The table heading should include its consecutive number and name.

The table heading should be centered:

"Table 2. Indices for indicators"

No dot is put after the table heading.

Translation of a table heading should be given after the table heading in Russian.

(xii) Screenshots and photos

Photos, screenshots and other not drawn illustrations should be loaded separately into a special section of a form for article submission in the file format *.jpeg, *.bmp, *.gif (*.doc and *.docx – if some additional marks are made on the image). The image resolution should be >300 dpi. Files with images should be given a name corresponding to the picture number in a text. The file description should give separately the caption which should correspond to the photo name in the text.

(xiii) Footnotes

Footnotes are numbered using Arabic figures and placed on pages in which they are referred to. Footnotes may include references to anonymous sources in the Internet, references to textbooks, educational aids, GOST, statistical reports, articles in public political newspapers and journals, synopses, dissertations (at impossibility to cite articles published by the results of dissertation research), author’s comments.

(xiv) References

This journal has adopted the Vancouver style of citation assuming reference to a source within parentheses and further inclusion of the sources into the reference list in an order as they appear in the text. The page number should be given within parentheses as follows: first goes source number, then comma, open space and page number [6, p. 8].

The list of references includes only reviewed sources (articles from scientific journals and monographs) mentioned in the text of an article. It is undesirable to include into the list of references the synopses, dissertations, textbooks, educational aids, GOST, information from sites, statistical reports, articles in public political newspapers and journals, on sites and in blogs. If there is a need to refer to such information put the information about the source in a footnote.

The source should be mentioned with its DOI, if available (for foreign sources it is possible in 95% of cases).

References to papers accepted but not yet published should be designated as "in press". The authors should obtain written permission for reference to such documents and confirmation that they have been accepted for print. Information from unpublished sources should be cited in the text as "unpublished data/documents" and the authors should also obtain written confirmation to the use of such materials.

References to the articles from journals should contain the year of article publication, volume and number of a journal, page numbers.

Identification of each source should include all the authors.

All references should be verified, the publisher's imprint should be checked in the official site of journals and/or publishers.

The list of references should be translated into English. After each source in Russian the indication to the language of the work (In Russ.) should be given at the end of a reference.

Names and surnames of the authors, names of the journals should be transliterated by the BSI standard.

Examples of the format

References to articles from foreign sources:

1 Surname initials, 2 Surname initials. Article title. Journal title. Year; Volume (Number); 00-00.DOI; 10.13655/1.6.1234567.

References to monographs in a foreign language:

With 1-3 authors:

1 Surname initials, 2 Surname initials. Book title. Revision number. City: Publishers; Year of publication.

Reference to an editor or compiler:

1 Surname initials, 2 Surname initials, 3 Surname initials, editors. Title. Revision number. City: Publishers; Year of publication.

Chapter from a monograph or a collection of articles:

1 Surname initials 1 Name. B: 2 Surname initials, editor. 2 Title. Revision number. City: Publishers; Year of publication.

The title of a journal as well as of monographs and article collections should be given in italics; after surname initials the dots are put. There is no comma between the author’s surname and initials.

Format of translated references to an article and monograph

The structure of a reference to an article may be presented in general as follows:

Authors (transliteration) [Translation of an article title in English in square brackets]. Name of the Russian language source (transliteration). Publisher’s imprint with designation in English or only digital. Indication of the article language (in Russ.)

The structure of a reference to a monograph may be presented in general as follows:

Authors (transliteration) [Translation of a monograph title in English in square brackets]. Publisher’s imprint: place of publication in English if this is an organization and transliteration if the publisher has its own name (specifying in English that this is a publisher). Number of pages.  

1 Familia I.O., 2 Familia I.O. [Translation of the article title]. Transliteration of the journal title = Official title in English. Year;Volume(Number):00-00. DOI: 0000-0000 (In Russ.)]

1 Familia I.O. [Translation of the monograph title]. Gorod: Izdatelstvo; 2000. (In Russ.)]

Reference to the Internet resources

Note: Giving a direct reference to the material on the website that was mentioned in the article is preferable. A reference to the main page of the website is not informative and prevents from checking the information.

Title of the material on a website [website]. Name of the website; 2016 [revised on October 19, 2016; cited on October 30, 2016]. Available at: http://www.example.ru

II. How to submit an article for consideration

The manuscript should be sent to the journal via an online submission form. The file with an article should be loaded into a system and presented in a format of Microsoft Word (with extension *.doc, *.docx, *.rtf).

III. Relations between the journal and the author

The editorial board of the journal keeps correspondence with the responsible (contact) author. But if the group of authors may wish so, the letters may be directed to all authors by e-mail addresses given by them.

All articles submitted to the Journal "Post-Soviet Issues" are subject to preliminary check by an executive secretary of the journal for compliance with the formal requirements. At this stage the article may be returned to an author/authors for revision to correct mistakes or add missing data. Additionally, at this stage the article may be also rejected due to its non-compliance with the objectives of the journal, lack of originality, poor scientific value.

After preliminary check the executive editor passes the article to a reviewer setting the deadline for doing this work. The author will receive the respective notice.

In case of any disputes, an editor may involve in the reviewing process several specialists as well as the editor-in-chief.

After receiving a positive response from the reviewer, the article is transferred to an editor to prepare it for publishing.

If it is decided to improve the article, all comments and recommendations of the reviewer should be sent to the author. The author is given 3 months to edit the article considering the given comments. If within this period the author does not notify the editor about future steps the article is taken out of the plan of publications.

If it is decided to reject the article the author should be sent a letter with the respective decision of the editorial board.

The responsible (contact) author of the article accepted for publication will receive the final makeup of the article that should be checked by the author. The response from the author is expected within 7 days. If there is no response from the author the article is considered approved.

IV. Procedure of the revision of editor's/reviewer's decision

If the author does not agree with the conclusions of a reviewer and/or editor or with individual comments, he/she may challenge such decision. For this purpose, the author should:

- Correct the manuscript in accordance with the justified comments of reviewers and editors;

- To explain clearly his/her position in relation to the disputable issues.

The editors facilitate the repeated submission of the manuscripts which potentially could be accepted, but were denied due to the necessity of making essential changes or collecting additional data. The editors are also ready to explain in detail what should be corrected in the manuscript so that it can be accepted for publication.

V. Actions of the editorial board upon detection of plagiarism, fabrication or falsification

In case of revealing the misconduct of an author, detection of plagiarism, fabrication or falsification of data the editors should be guided by the COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) rules.

Misconduct is understood in the Journal "Post-Soviet Issues" as any action of a researcher that involves mistreatment of research subjects or deliberate manipulation of the scientific record so that it no longer reflects observed truth as well as conduct of a researcher that falls short of good ethical and scientific standards.

In the Journal "Post-Soviet Issues" misconduct does not include separate errors or minor differences in the plan, implementation, interpretation or judgment in evaluating research methods or results along with misconduct not connected with scientific process.

VI. Correction of errors and article revocation

If in an article the errors are found that influence its interpretation, but do not distort the research results they may be corrected by the substitution of the PDF-file with the article indicating the error in the article file and on the relevant article page on the journal website.

If in an article the errors are found that distort the research results or in case of plagiarism, detection of misconduct of author/authors connected with falsification and/or fabrication of data, such article may be revoked and the revocation may be initiated by editors, author, organization, private person.

The revoked article should be marked "Revoked" and on the page of the article the information about the reason for revocation should be given. Information about revocation is directed to the databases where the journal is indexed.

http://guides.lib.monash.edu/citing-referencing/vancouver

Submission Preparation Checklist

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.

1. The manuscripts are accepted if they have not been published or submitted for publication elsewhere.

2. The materials should be prepared in one of the following formats: OpenOffice, Microsoft Word, RTF or World Perfect.

3. Internet links are provided as a complete URL.

4. The text should be typed with an interval of one line spacing, font Times New Roman, 12 pt; to highlight the accents it is recommended to use italics rather than underlining (except for Internet links). All images, graphics and tables are placed within the text according to the meaning of the particular part of text (and not at the end of the document).

5. The text should meet the stylistic and bibliography requirements as stated in the part "Author guidelines".

6. Please, remove the authors' names from the title of the article and other parts of the document to ensure the anonymity of reviewing.

Copyright Notice

The authors who publish articles in this journal agree to the following terms:

1. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal the right of the first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements regarding the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., placing it in an institutional repository or publishing it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
3. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on personal website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive discussions, as well as to earlier and greater citation of the published work (See The Effect of Open Access).

Privacy Statement

The names and addresses given during the registration and submission will be used solely for technical purposes of a contact with the author or reviewers (editors) when preparing the article for publication. Private data will not be shared with other individuals and organizations.