The Open Law Journal is an Open Access online
journal, which publishes original research articles, reviews,
short articles (letters) and guest edited single topic issues
in the field of law, aiming at providing the most complete
and reliable source of information on current developments
in the field.
Manuscripts may be submitted directly to tolawj@benthamopen.org.
Each peer-reviewed article that is published in a Bentham
OPEN Journal is universally and freely accessible via
the Internet in an easily readable and printable PDF format.
Online Manuscript Submission: An online
submission and tracking service via Internet facilitates
a speedy and cost-effective submission of manuscripts.1
The full manuscript has to be submitted online via Bentham's
Content Management System (CMS) at http://www.bentham-editorial.org/
View
Instructions
Alternatively, you may also submit your full manuscript
by e-mail to tolawj@benthamopen.org
Manuscripts must be submitted by one of the authors of the
manuscript, and should not be submitted by anyone on their
behalf. The principal/corresponding author will be required
to submit a Covering Letter along with the manuscript, on
behalf of all the co-authors (if any). The author(s) will
confirm that the manuscript (or any part of it) has not
been published previously or is not under consideration
for publication elsewhere. Furthermore, any illustration,
structure or table that has been published elsewhere must
be reported, and copyright permission for reproduction must
be obtained.
For all online submissions, please provide your complete
manuscript in the form of a single zipped folder containing
soft copies of all the materials (main text in MS Word or
Tex/LaTeX), figures /illustrations in TIFF, PDF or JPEG,
and chemical structures drawn in ChemDraw (CDX)/ISISDraw
(TGF) as separate files, while a PDF version of the entire
manuscript must also be included, embedded with all the
figures/illustrations/tables/ chemical structures etc.
A successful electronic submission of a manuscript will
be followed by a system-generated acknowledgement to the
principal/corresponding author within 72
hours of the dispatch of the manuscript. Any questions with
regards to the preparation of and submission of your manuscript
to the journal should be addressed to tolawj@benthamopen.org
and copied to managingeditor@benthamopen.org
NOTE: Any queries therein should be addressed
to oa@benthamscience.org
and copied to Jalil@benthamscience.org
Manuscript Preparation: The manuscript
should be written in English in a clear, direct and active
style. All pages must be numbered sequentially, facilitating
in the reviewing and editing of the manuscript.
For further convenience, the customer support team available
at Bentham Publishing Services (www.benthampublishingservices.com)
can provide assistance to authors for the preparation of
manuscripts.
Manuscript Length:
Research Articles: The total number of
words for a published research article is from 4000 to 8000
words.
Review Articles: The total number of words
for a published comprehensive review article article is
from 8000 to 40000 words, and for mini-review articles from
3000 to 6000 words.
Letter Articles: The total number of words
for a published letter/short communication article is from
3000 to 6000 words.
There is no restriction on the number of figures, tables
or additional files e.g. video clips, animation and datasets,
that can be included with each article online. Authors should
include all relevant supporting data with each article.
Manuscripts Published: The Journal
accepts original research articles, mini- and full-length
review articles, letters/ short communications and guest
edited single topic issues written in English. Supplements,
proceedings of conferences and book reviews may also be
considered for publication.
Supplements/Single Topic Issues: The journal
also considers Supplements/Single topic issues for publication.
A Supplements/Single topic will be a collection of articles
(minimum of 6, maximum of 20 articles) based on a contemporary
theme or topic of great importance to the field. Mini-supplements
consisting of between 3 to 5 articles are also welcome.
A Supplement can consist of either all review articles or
a mixture of review and research articles. The Guest Editors'
main editorial task is to invite the contributors to the
Supplement and to manage the peer review of submitted manuscripts.
A short summary or proposal for editing a supplement should
be submitted to the Editor-in-Chief at e-mail to tolawj@benthamopen.org
with a copy to specialissue@benthamopen.org
Conference Proceedings: The journal will
consider for publication proceedings of relevant conferences
in the field. Proposals for publishing conference proceedings
should be submitted to the Editor at e-mail tolawj@benthamopen.org
with a copy to oa@benthamscience.org
Open Access Book Reviews: This journal publishes
open access reviews on recently published books (both print
and electronic) relevant to the journal. Publishers and
authors of books are invited to contact our book reviews
editor at tolawj@benthamopen.org
with book review requests. All submitted books will be reviewed
by an independent expert in the field.
MANUSCRIPT SECTIONS FOR PAPERS: Manuscripts
for research articles and letters submitted to the respective
journals should be divided into the following sections;
however, there can be an extension in the number of sections
in review articles in accordance with the requirements of
the topic.
Covering letter
Title page
Abstract
Text organization
List of abbreviations (if any)
Conflict of interest (if any)
Acknowledgements (if any)
References
Appendices
Figures/illustrations (if any)
Tables and captions (if any)
Supportive/supplementary material (if any)
COVERING LETTER: It is a mandatory requirement
that a signed covering letter also be submitted
along with the manuscript by the author to whom correspondence
is to be addressed, delineating the scope of the submitted
article declaring the potential competing interests, acknowledging
contributions from authors and funding agencies, and certifying
that the paper is prepared according to the 'Instructions
for Authors'. All inconsistencies in
the text and in the reference section, and any typographical
errors must be carefully checked and corrected before the
submission of the manuscript. The
article contains no such material or information that
may be unlawful, defamatory, fabricated, plagiarized, or
which would, if published, in any way whatsoever, violate
the terms and conditions as laid down in the agreement. The
authors acknowledge that the publishers have the legal
right to take appropriate action against the authors for
any such violation of the terms and conditions as laid down
in the agreement. Download
the Covering letter
TITLE: The title should be precise and
brief and must not be more than 120 characters. Authors
should avoid the use of non-standard abbreviations. The
title must be written in title case except for articles,
conjunctions and prepositions.
Authors should also provide a short ‘running title’.
ABSTRACT: The abstract
should not exceed 250 words for review and research papers
and should be limited to only 150 words for letters, summarizing
the essential features of the article. The use of abbreviations
should be reduced to a minimum and the references should
not be cited in the abstract.
TEXT ORGANIZATION: The main text should
begin on a separate page and should be divided into separate
sections. For Research articles, the preparation of the
main text must be structured into separate sections as Introduction,
Materials and Methodology, Results, Discussion, and Conclusion.
For Review and Letter articles, the manuscript should be
divided into title page, abstract and the main text. The
text may be subdivided further according to the areas to
be discussed, which should be followed by the Acknowledgement
(if any) and Reference sections. The review article should
mention any previous important reviews in the field and
contain a comprehensive discussion starting with the general
background of the field. It should then go on to discuss
the salient features of recent developments. The authors
should avoid presenting material which has already been
published in a previous review.
If your manuscript contains quantitative evidence and analysis,
you should describe your procedures in sufficient detail
to permit reviewers to understand and evaluate what has
been done and -- in the event the article is accepted for
publication -- to permit other scholars to carry out similar
analyses on other data sets. For example, for surveys, at
the least, sampling procedures, response rates, and question
wordings should be given; you should calculate response
rates according to one of the standard formulas given by
the American Association for Public Opinion Research, Standard
Definitions: Final Dispositions of Case Codes and Outcome
Rates for Surveys (Lenexa, KS: AAPOR, 2006). This document
is available on the Internet (http://www.aapor.org/standards.asp).
For experiments, provide full descriptions of experimental
protocols, methods of subject recruitment and selection,
subject payments and debriefing procedures, and so on. Articles
should be self-contained, so you should not simply refer
readers to other publications for descriptions of these
basic research procedures.
Please indicate variables included in statistical analyses
by capitalizing the first letter in the variable name and
italicizing the entire variable name the first time each
is mentioned in the text. You should also use the same names
for variables in text, tables, and figures. Wherever possible,
avoid the use of acronyms and computer abbreviations when
discussing variables in the text. All variables appearing
in tables and figures should have been mentioned in the
text and the reason for their inclusion discussed.
As part of the review process, you may be asked to submit
additional documentation if procedures are not sufficiently
clear; the review process works most efficiently if such
information is given in the initial submission. If you advise
readers that additional information is available, you should
submit copies of that information with the manuscript as
“attached materials” on our website. If the
amount of this supplementary information is extensive, please
inquire about alternate procedures.
Ethical Approval of Studies and Informed Consent: For human or animal experimental investigations,
it is a prerequisite to provide a formal review and approval,
or review and waiver, by an appropriate institutional review
board orlawcommittee and should be documented in your paper.
For investigations undertaken on human subjects, state in
the Methods section the manner in which the informed consent
was obtained from the study participants (i.e, oral or written),
where there is an unavoidable risk of breach of privacy-
e.g., in a clinical photograph or in case details- the patient’s
written consent or that of the next of kin, to publication
must be obtained. We will ask you to send a signed consent
form before publication. Consent must be obtained for all
Case Reports and Clinical Pictures.
The authors are advised to present and discuss their observations
in brief. The manuscript style must be uniform throughout
the text and 10 pt Times New Roman fonts should be used.
The full term for an abbreviation should precede its first
appearance in the text unless it is a standard unit of measurement.
The reference numbers should be given in square brackets
in the text. Italics should be used for Binomial names of
organisms (Genus and Species), for emphasis and for unfamiliar
words or phrases. Non-assimilated words from Latin or other
languages should also be italicized e.g. in vivo, in
vitro, per se, et al. etc.
Greek Symbols and Special Characters: Greek
symbols and special characters often undergo formatting
changes and get corrupted or lost during preparation of
manuscript for publication. To ensure that all special characters
used are embedded in the text, these special characters
should be inserted as a symbol but should not be a result
of any format styling (Symbol font face) otherwise
they will be lost during conversion to PDF/XML2.
Authors are encouraged to consult reporting guidelines.
These guidelines provide a set of recommendations comprising
a list of items relevant to their specific research design.
All kinds of measurements should be reported only in International
System of Units (SI). Chemical equations, chemical names,
mathematical usage, unit of measurements, chemical and physical
quantity & units must conform to SI and Chemical Abstracts
or IUPAC.
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS: If abbreviations
are used in the text either they should be defined in the
text where first used, or a list of abbreviations can be
provided.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST: Financial contributions
to the work being reported should be clearly acknowledged,
as should any potential conflict of interest.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Please acknowledge anyone
(individual/company/institution) who has contributed to
the study by making substantial contributions to conception,
design, acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation
of data, or who was involved in drafting the manuscript
or revising it critically for important intellectual content.
Please list the source(s) of funding for the study, for
each author, and for the manuscript preparation in the acknowledgements
section.
REFERENCES: References must be listed in
the APA style. APA style requires you to list your sources
with full bibliographic information at the end of the paper.
The bibliographic should include standard bibliographic
information: author, title, place of publication, publisher,
and year of publication. The references are not to be numbered
in the reference section but listed in alphabetical order.
Journal Articles:
Zhao, S. (2000). Chinese nationalism and its international
orientations. Social Sciences Quarterly 115, 1-33.
Klimoski, R., & Palmer, S. (1993). The ADA and the hiring
process in organizations. Consulting Psychology Journal:
Practice and Research, 45(2), 10-36.
Book Reference:
Baddeley, A. D. (1999). Essentials of human memory.
Hove, England: Psychology Press.
Essays or Chapters in Edited Books:
References to an essay or chapter in an edited book must
include the following elements: essay or chapter authors,
date of publication, essay or chapter title, book editor(s),
book title, essay or chapter page numbers, place of publication,
and the name of the publisher.
Massaro, D. (1992). Broadening the domain of the fuzzy logical
model of perception. In H. L. Pick Jr., P. van den Broek,
D. C. Knill (Eds.), Cognition: Conceptual and methodological
issues (pp. 51-84). Washington, DC: American Psychological
Association.
Bjork, R. A. (1989). Retrieval inhibition as an adaptive
mechanism in human memory. In H. L. Roediger III & F.
I. M. Craik (Eds.), Varieties of memory & consciousness
(pp. 309-330). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Edited book:
Gibbs, J. T., & Huang, L. N. (Eds.). (1991).
Children of color: Psychological interventions with
minority youth. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Technical and Research Reports:
References to a report must include the following elements:
author(s), date of publication, title, place of publication,
and name of publisher. If the issuing organization assigned
a number (e.g., report number, contract number, or monograph
number) to the report, give that number in parentheses immediately
after the title. Additional information is included when
a report is published by the Government Printing Office
(GPO) or when it is available from a document deposit service
such as NTIS or ERIC.
Government report:
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (1992).
Pressure ulcers in adults: Prediction and prevention
(AHCPR Publication No. 92-0047). Rockville, MD: Author.
Government report, GPO Publisher :
National Institute of Mental Health. (1990). Clinical
training in serious mental illness (DHHS Publication
No. ADM 90-1679). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing
Office.
Article in an Internet-only journal:
Fredrickson, B. L. (2000, March 7). Cultivating
positive emotions to optimize health and well-being. Prevention
& Treatment, 3, Article 0001a. Retrieved November
20, 2000, from http://journals.apa.org/prevention/volume3/pre0030001a.html
Website:
Goldberg, I. (2000). Dr. Ivan's depression central.
Retrieved November 21, 2001, from http://www.psycom.net/depression.central.html.
Conference:
Bickman, L., & Ellis, H. (Eds.). (1990). Preparing
psychologists for the 21st century: Proceedings of the National
Conference on Graduate Education in Psychology, 1988, University
of Utah. Hillsdale, NJ: L. Erlbaum.
Thesis:
Milnes, G. M. (1998). Adolescent depression: The use
of generative instruction to increase rational beliefs and
decrease irrational beliefs and depressed mood. Unpublished
M.Appl.Psy. thesis, Murdoch University, Perth, Western Australia.
Patent:
Smith, I. M. (1988). U.S. Patent No. 123,445. Washington,
D.C.: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
* In the reference section all authors of referenced papers
must be cited and there must be no use of the short hand
version of et al.
E-citations:
Citations for articles/material published exclusively online
or in open access (free-to-view) , must contain the exact
Web addresses (URLs) at the end of the reference(s), except
those posted on an author’s Web site unless editorially
essential, e.g. ‘Reference: Available from: URL’.
APPENDICES: In case there is a need to present
lengthy, but essential methodological details, use appendices,
which can be a part of the article. An appendix must not
exceed three pages (Times New Roman, 12 point fonts, 900
max. words per page).The information should be provided
in a condensed form, ruling out the need of full sentences.
A single appendix should be titled APPENDIX, while more
than one can be titled APPENDIX A, APPENDIX B, and so on.
FIGURES/ILLUSTRATIONS: The authors should
provide the illustrations as separate files, as well as
embedded in the text file, numbered consecutively in the
order of their appearance. Each figure should include a
single illustration. No charges will be levied on the use
of color figures except in the reprints. Each figure should
be closely cropped to minimize the amount of white space
surrounding the illustration.
If a figure consists of separate parts, it is important
that a single composite illustration file be submitted,
containing all parts of the figure.
Photographs should be provided with a scale bar if appropriate,
as well as high-resolution component files.
Scaling/Resolution
For Line Art image type, which is generally an image based
on lines and text and does not contain tonal or shaded areas,
the preferred file format is TIFF or EPS, with colour mode
being Monochrome 1-bit or RGB, in a resolution of 900-1200
dpi.
For Halftone image type, which is generally a continuous tone photograph and contains no text, the preferred file format is TIFF, with colour mode being or RGB or Grayscale, with a minimum resolution of 300 dpi.
For Combination image type, which is generally an image
containing halftone in addition to text or line art elements,
the preferred file format is TIFF, with colour mode being
or RGB or Grayscale, in a resolution of 500-900 dpi.
Formats
For illustrations, the following file formats are acceptable:
• Illustrator
• EPS (preferred format for diagrams)
• PDF (also especially suitable for
diagrams)
• PNG (preferred format for photos
or images)
• Microsoft Word (version 5 and above;
figures must be a single page)
• PowerPoint (figures must be a single
page)
• TIFF
• JPEG (conversion should be done
using the original file)
• BMP
Bentham OPEN does not process figures
submitted in GIF format.
If the large size of TIFF or EPS figures acts as an obstacle
to online submission, authors may find that conversion to
JPEG format before submission results in significantly reduced
file size and upload time, while retaining acceptable quality.
JPEG is a 'lossy' format, however. In order to maintain
acceptable image quality, it is recommended that JPEG files
are saved at High or Maximum quality.
Files should not be compressed with tools such as Zipit
or Stuffit prior to submission as these tools will in any
case produce negligible file-size savings for JPEGs and
TIFFs, which are already compressed.
Please do not:
1. Supply embedded graphics in your word processor (spreadsheet,
presentation) document;
2. Supply files that are optimized for screen use (like
GIF, BMP, PICT, WPG); the resolution is too low;
3. Supply files that are too low in resolution.
4. Submit graphics that are disproportionately large for
the content.
Image Conversion Tools
There are many software packages, many of them freeware
or shareware, capable of converting to and from different
graphics formats, including PNG.
Good general tools for image conversion include GraphicConverter
on the Macintosh, PaintShop Pro, for Windows, and ImageMagick,
which is available on Macintosh, Windows and UNIX platforms.
Note that bitmap images (e.g. screenshots) should not be
converted to EPS, since this will result in a much larger
file size than the equivalent JPEG, TIFF, PNG or BMP, with
no increase in quality. EPS should only be used for images
produced by vector-drawing applications such as Adobe Illustrator
or CorelDraw. Most vector-drawing applications can be saved
in, or exported as, EPS format. In case the images have
been originally prepared in an Office application, such
as Word or PowerPoint, then the original Office files should
be directly uploaded to the site, instead of being converted
to JPEG or another format that may be of low quality.
TABLES:
* Data Tables should be submitted in Microsoft Word table
format.
* Each table should include a title/caption being explanatory
in itself with respect to the details discussed in the table.
Detailed legends may then follow.
* Table number in bold font i.e. Table 1,
should follow a title. The title should be in small case
with the first letter in caps. A full stop should be placed
at the end of the title.
* Tables should be embedded in the text exactly according
to their appropriate placement in the submitted manuscript.
* Columns and rows of data should be made visibly distinct
by ensuring that the borders of each cell are displayed
as black lines.
* Tables should be numbered in Arabic numerals sequentially
in order of their citation in the body of the text.
* If a reference is cited in both the table and text, please
insert a lettered footnote in the table to refer to the
numbered reference in the text.
* Tabular data provided as additional files can be submitted
as an Excel spreadsheet.
SUPPORTIVE/SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: We
do encourage to append supportive material, for example
a PowerPoint file containing a talk about the study, a PowerPoint
file containing additional screenshots, a Word, RTF, or
PDF document showing the original instrument(s) used, a
video, or the original data (SAS/SPSS files, Excel files,
Access Db files etc.) provided it is inevitable or endorsed
by the journal's Editor.
Published/reproduced material should not be included unless
you have obtained written permission from the copyright
holder, which must be forwarded to the Editorial Office
in case of acceptance of your article for publication.
Supportive/Supplementary material intended for publication
must be numbered and referred to in the manuscript but should
not be a part of the submitted paper. In-text citations
as well as a section with the heading "Supportive/Supplementary
Material" before the "References" section
should be provided. Here, list all Supportive/Supplementary
Material and include a brief caption line for each file
describing its contents.
Any additional files will be linked into the final published
article in the form supplied by the author, but will not
be displayed within the paper. They will be made available
in exactly the same form as originally provided only on
our Web site. Please also make sure that each additional
file is a single table, figure or movie (please do not upload
linked worksheets or PDF files larger than one sheet). Supportive/
Supplementary material must be provided in a single zipped
file not larger than 4 MB.
Authors must clearly indicate if these files are not for
publication but meant for the reviewers'/editors' perusal
only.
PERMISSION FOR REPRODUCTION: Published/reproduced
material should not be included unless you have obtained
written permission from the copyright holder, which should
be forwarded to the Editorial Office in case of acceptance
of your article for publication.
For obtaining permission for reproducing any material published
in an article by Bentham Science Publishers, please fill
in the request FORM
and send to tolawj@benthamopen.org
for consideration.
AUTHORS AND INSTITUTIONAL AFFILIATIONS: The
author will be required to provide their full names, the
institutional affiliations and the location, with an asterisk
in front of the name of the principal/corresponding author.
The corresponding author(s) should be designated and their
complete address, business telephone and fax numbers and
e-mail address must be stated to receive correspondence
and galley proofs.
REVIEWING AND PROMPTNESS OF PUBLICATION:
All manuscripts submitted for publication will be immediately subjected to peer-reviewing, usually in consultation with the members of the Editorial Advisory Board and a number of external referees. Authors may, however, provide in their Covering Letter the contact details (including e-mail addresses) of four potential peer reviewers for their paper. Any peer reviewers suggested should not have recently published with any of the authors of the submitted manuscript and should not be members of the same research institution.
All peer-reviewing will be conducted via the Internet to facilitate rapid reviewing of the submitted manuscripts. Every possible effort will be made to assess the manuscripts quickly with the decision being conveyed to the authors in due course. Papers which are delayed by authors in revision for more than 30 days will have to be re-submitted as a new submission.
LANGUAGE AND EDITING: Manuscripts must
be written in good English in a clear and correct style.
In order to maintain uniformity throughout the text, the
manuscript should be written in either American
or British English. Submitted manuscripts will not be edited
for style or language, and reviewers may advise rejection
of a manuscript if it is compromised by grammatical errors.
Non-native speakers of English may choose to make use of
a copyediting and language editing service such as that
provided by
Bentham Publishing Services (please contact at email:
info@benthampublishingservices.com).
PROOF CORRECTIONS: Authors are required
to proofread the PDF versions of their manuscripts before
submission. To avoid delays in publication, proofs should
be checked immediately for typographical errors and returned
within 48 hours. Major changes are not
acceptable at the proof stage. If unable to send corrections
within 48 hours due to some reason, the
author(s) must at least send an acknowledgement on receiving
the galley proofs or the article will be published exactly
as received and the publishers will not be responsible for
any error occurring in the manuscript in this regard.
The corresponding author will be solely responsible for
ensuring that the revised version of the manuscript incorporating
all the submitted corrections receives the approval of all
the authors of the manuscript.
COPYRIGHT: Authors who publish in Bentham
OPEN Journals retain copyright to their work. Submission
of a manuscript to the respective journals implies that
all authors have read and agreed to the content of the Covering
Letter or the Terms and Conditions. It is a condition of
publication that manuscripts submitted to this journal have
not been published and will not be simultaneously submitted
or published elsewhere. Plagiarism is strictly forbidden,
and by submitting the article for publication the authors
agree that the publishers have the legal right to take appropriate
action against the authors, if plagiarism or fabricated
information is discovered. Once submitted to the journal,
the author will not withdraw their manuscript at any stage
prior to publication.
Articles are licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution non-commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/)
which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution
and reproduction in any medium, providing that the work
is properly cited.
PUBLICATION FEES: Bentham OPEN
is pleased to announce a 50% special discount on the article
processing fee for a limited period of 12 months. The discounted
publication fee details for each article published in the
journal are given below:
Research Articles: The publication fee
for each published Research article is US $400.
Review Articles: The publication fee for
each published Review article is US $450.
Mini-Review Articles: The publication fee
for each published Mini-Review article is US $300.
Letters: The publication fee for each published
Letter article submitted is US $300.
Book Reviews: The open access fee for a
published book review is US $225.
Once the paper is accepted for publication, the author will
receive by email an electronic invoice. The fee form is
also available on the Web site at www.benthamscience.com/open/feeform.
MEMBERSHIP: Join as a member of Bentham
Open today to obtain great discounts on your article publication
fees! For details click
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REPRINTS: High quality printed reprints
of published articles are available for purchase, if ordered,
with a minimum number of 100 reprints.
1 The submission process
is compatible with version 3.0 or later of Internet Explorer
and Netscape Navigator, and with most other modern Web browsers.
It can be used from PC, Mac, or Unix platforms.
2 In this connection, we
recommend the use of Microsoft Word version 2000 and above.
