Submissions

Author Guidelines

We encourage prospective contributors to check the Author guidelines when preparing their manuscript. You may also download our manuscript template when preparing your writing draft.

Contributors must submit all manuscript submissions via our submission site. To begin a submission, please create and register your profile, especially if you are a first-time user/submitter of the OJS or our SINERGI. If you have previously used our website and forgot your password, you can reset it here. 

Starting July 2022, we no longer accept conventional submissions via our enquiries email (sinergi@ukm.edu.my). Manuscript submissions that do not comply with our guidelines and policy will be automatically rejected. However, suppose the Editor-in-Chief has decided to consider reviewing manuscripts that are not yielded to our required format at the time of submission. In that case, they must be brought into conformity for final acceptance.

SINERGI publishes original research articles, short research notes, commentary articles, book reviews and occasionally special issues and forums. All types of submissions should be constituted by original work. We will not consider manuscripts concurrently under consideration or already published in some form elsewhere. Manuscripts should follow the Author-Date Style of the 17th Edition of the Chicago Manual. All manuscripts will be checked with plagiarism detection (Turnitin) software. For more information on citation and referencing systems, see the checklist here.

An original research article is a standard, long-form manuscript submission. A research article should have a well-developed theoretical argument and appropriate supporting substantive arguments or empirical evidence. Research articles should not exceed 10,000 words, including references, tables and figures. Online supplementary information does not contribute to the word count. Manuscripts should be double-spaced, in 12-point font, and formatted with at least one-inch margins. Manuscripts should include an abstract of about 150 words.

A research note may take the form of a novel contribution to empirical knowledge in a given domain (e.g., new dataset, new operational measures or robustness analyses of predominant empirical findings) or theoretical knowledge (e.g., conceptual debate or technical contribution to formal modelling). Research notes should range from 2,500-5,000 words, exclusive of online supplementary materials. 

A commentary article may take the form of a critical appraisal or debating current issues with suggestions on directing discussions on various policy issues. Commentary notes should range from 3,000-5,000 words, exclusive of online supplementary materials. 

A special issue involves several research articles linked together under a common theme. The compositions may occupy an entire issue or part of an issue. Subject to the approval of the Editor-in-Cheif, we do consider appointing guest editors for special issues but manage the blind peer-review process ourselves. All articles in the special issue are reviewed separately. Proposals for a special issue should be sent directly to the Editor-in-Chief through the zaiothman02@gmail.com email address. The editorial team will review the merits of the proposed special issue weighing the benefits of the contributions to our readership versus the costs of setting aside limited journal space. Proposals should be no more than 3,000 words and clearly explain the proposed content of the special issue, the contributors and a justification of the importance and quality of the special issue. In situations where only some of the papers survive the review process, we may still offer authors the ability to publish their manuscripts as stand-alone articles.

To suggest titles or learn more about the manuscript submission for the book review, don't hesitate to get in touch with the Deputy Editor-in-Cheif through the bakri@uum.edu.my email.