Guidelines
Author Guidance Notes
These guidance notes are intended to guide authors for papers submitted to the Journal.
General
Pakistan Journal of Urban Affairs published by The Urban Unit, under the flagship of Planning and Development Department, Government of the Punjab deals with worldwide aspects of the urbanization and a broad range of environmental matters. The institution aims at publishing papers presented by national and international researchers, practitioners and officials involved directly with the issues pertaining to urbanization, papers from national and international conferences and symposia, and papers which are submitted for Journal publication alone.
Journal subscribers will be interested to hear about the cutting-edge research being undertaken by academics and professionals in their field. Operational, Scientific, Technical and Research papers are welcomed, and both short and full-length papers are encouraged.
Papers to be published in the Journal must be original, and are expected to be of a high standard – not only in respect of their subject matter and its treatment, but also in the quality of the writing. Particular attention should be paid to clarity and conciseness of expression. Authors are encouraged to draw out generic messages from their work in relation to urban affairs and environmental issues. This is particularly important for case study papers.
All papers are expected to have a literature review setting the work in its research and practical context, as appropriate. We will sometimes publish papers consisting entirely of review material, provided they provide a critical overview and demonstrate original thought. Those submitting papers derived from MSc and PhD theses should ensure they produce a concise summary of their work within the prescribed word limits.
Sustainability
Papers submitted to Pakistan Journal of Urban Affairs should encompass the principles of sustainable development as defined in the Bruntland Report (World Commission on Environment and Development, Our Common Future, 1987). Papers which promote unsustainable practices will not be accepted for publication. Authors should conduct and report research in an ethical manner and are required to sign a declaration that their work conforms to the ethical and legal requirements.
Evaluation/ Assessment
Authors should note that all submitted manuscripts are refereed through a double blind peer review process which means that author's identities remain unknown to reviewers and vice versa throughout the reviewing process. Expert reviewers will assess each paper and a decision regarding publication will be made by the Editor-in-Chief on the basis of the reviewers’ reports. The editor’s decision will be final. Where authors will be invited to resubmit their paper for consideration in the journal, feedback will be given to authors to help them with the revising of their papers. Where papers will not be accepted for publication, the policy of the editorial board will be non-correspondence with authors regarding the reasons for the rejection.
Editing
The Editor-in-Chief reserves the right to amend a manuscript if it does not comply with the Institution's requirements and not to publish any parts which he considers superfluous or to which he takes exception.
Publication
Papers that are in their final form will be published online on the journal website ahead of their appearance in a print issue. These papers will be fully peer reviewed and proofs will be corrected by the author. Accepted papers will be typically published in the printed Journal within 12 months of submission.
Language
Authors whose first language is not English should ensure that their paper is carefully checked by a fluent English speaker for language accuracy and appropriateness. Authors may choose to have their manuscript professionally edited before submission to improve the English.
Submission Guideline
Papers should be submitted using Pakistan Journal of Urban Affairs template available at: www.pjua.gop.pk. There is a help function on the website to guide you through the process. Files can be uploaded in Word (.doc), Power Point (.pptx) RTF (.rtf) or PDF (.pdf) format.
Please note that if your submission exceeds 5MB images and/or black and white charts and graphs it may slow down the review process. If this is the case please consider using lower resolution. If the paper is accepted higher quality images will be requested by the publishers. For further information please contact the Journal Editorial team: pjua@urbanunit.gov.pk.
Length
Papers, including illustrations, tables, and references, must not exceed (the equivalent of) 5000 words in length. Short papers (between 1500 and 2500 words) are also encouraged. Authors are requested to give a word count at the end of the paper.
Presentation
Papers should be arranged in two column text, if a paper is accepted for publication, the Editor may format the paper to the journal standard format.
Layout
The layout of the main body of the paper will depend upon the subject but, in general, a paper should follow the following format: Title page; Abstract; Key words; Introduction; Main exposition, subdivided as appropriate for the subject; Discussion, if required, e.g. of experimental results; Conclusions, Acknowledgements; References; Word count; Appendices, if necessary.
Title page
The title of the paper should be consistent with a clear indication of the subject matter as shown in the template. The name(s) and appointment(s) of the author(s) should be given. If the paper has been presented, the date and venue of the presentation should be given. In the case of multi-author papers one author should agree to act as the corresponding author to whom queries and proofs will be sent. An e-mail address and other contact details for the corresponding author should be provided.
Abstract
Abstract of not more than 150 words and not less than 100 words should be included at the beginning of the paper. It should briefly indicate the subject and scope of the paper, calling attention to points of special interest, e.g. method of investigation and important results.
Keywords
Up to 8 key words should be listed in alphabetical order for use in retrieval systems.
Headings
Not more than three levels of headings should be used. Style to be adopted for the heading is discussed in detail in template and must be adhered. Numbering of paragraphs and sections of a paper should be avoided.
Units
The Système International (SI) should be used for all units of measurement as far as possible. The oblique stroke (e.g. m3/d) should be used instead of the negative index (m3d-1). Temperature should be expressed in °C.
Illustrations
Diagrams should be drawn without boundary boxes and should be as simple as possible, but should contain enough information to be understood with reference to the text. Any map should include a compass point. Photographs can help to enhance the overall appearance of a paper. Captions should be concise and be listed below the Figure and above the Table. When a paper is submitted all figures should be embedded into the main text file for review purposes. Figure should occupy two columns i.e. they should be placed within columns. Please note that after acceptance separate high resolution print quality figures will be needed and may be asked as described below.
Artwork requirements for accepted papers
Our preferred electronic file type is vector-format encapsulated post script (EPS) because these images are scalable and therefore do not lose quality in the online PDF. All line drawings or photographs with added labelling should be supplied in EPS format. The best results are obtained with software applications that can output EPS format (Systat SigmaPlot; Adobe Illustrator; CorelDraw; Deneba Canvas; Macromedia Freehand) rather than ‘save as’ EPS format.
Half tones without any labeling can be supplied in TIFF format at 300 dots per inch minimum. If line drawings cannot be supplied as EPS files then they must be in TIFF format with a minimum resolution of 800 dpi. These resolutions also apply to any images embedded into an EPS file. Please carefully consider the choice of tones in black and white figures and ensure the grey scale is used effectively for better definition.
Tables
Tables should be concise and as simple as possible. Graphs are often preferable to tables, and the same data should not be presented in both forms. Captions should appear above tables. Dislike figures, Table should occupy one column. The format for tables detailed down in the template must be adhered.
Acknowledgements
These should be to the authority by whose permission the paper is published, any sources of grants or funds to support the work, colleagues or others who have made significant contributions to the work, and any copyright holders who have given permission for their work to be quoted. Recurrent references to proprietary names should not be given in the main body of the text; recognition should instead be made in the Acknowledgements section.
References
References should be cited using the Howard Referencing System. See template for reference.
Citations in the text take the form of author names and dates (e.g. Smith 1990). Sort references chronologically and then alphabetically within dates (e.g. Smith 1990; Brown 2001; Walton 2001). For references with three or more authors, use the first author’s name and ‘et al’ in the text.
Discussion
Written discussion in response to papers published in Pakistan Journal of Urban Affairs is welcome. The authors of the original article will be invited to write a response and the comment and response articles will proceed through the review process together. Individual items of discussion should not exceed 500 words in length and may be submitted through pjua@urbanunit.gov.pk.
Permission TO Reproduce
It is the author's responsibility to obtain permission from the copyright holders to reproduce any copyright material, including diagrams, tables, etc. which he or she wishes to include in the paper. Adequate acknowledgement must be made in the paper.
Proofs
Full instructions will be sent via email when the proof is ready for collection. Adobe Acrobat Reader is required in order to read the proof file, and can be downloaded (free of charge) from: http://www.adobe.com/.
Author Material Archive Policy
Please note that unless specifically requested, Editorial Board will dispose of all hardcopy or electronic material submitted two months after publication. If you require the return of any material submitted, please inform the editorial office or production editor as soon as possible.
Enquiries
For enquiries email pjua@urbanunit.gov.pkor telephone the office on 00 92 42 99205316-22