Submissions

Author Guidelines

AUTHOR GUIDELINES

A. Manuscript Guidelines

Types of Manuscript

As a basic requirement, all manuscript submitted to El Barka: Journal of Islamic Economics and Business must be original work,  and is submitted exclusively to this journal. An original research article presents original empirical findings or conceptual inquiries that have not been published anywhere before. Details, particularly about research methods, description of the results, and discussions/conclusions are required to ensure that the readers (and referees) have sufficient information to comprehend and benefit from the work. The articles may not contain persuasive arguments justifying policy recommendations or act as a decision-making tool for target audiences.

To ensure an anonymous review, authors should not identify themselves directly or indirectly in the body text of their manuscript, except for title page (see instructions on the next section).

Language

The manuscript must be written in good academic English. All spelling and vocabularies should refer to Webster’s International Dictionary. Single authors should not use the word “we.” Authors for whom English is not their native languages are encouraged to have their paper checked for grammar and clarity before submission.

Article length

The article should be between 3,000 and 7,000 words. The allowable length of the manuscript is at the editor’s discretion; however, manuscripts that have a word count that is less than or exceeds the preferred number may be returned to the author(s) for revision before the editors consider the manuscript. The word count excludes tables, figures, references, and appendices.

Format

The manuscripts should be typed in A4 (8.27" x 11.69"), 12-point Times New Roman font and must be 1.5-spaced, except indented quotations. The manuscript must be saved as a word file. All pages, including tables, appendices, and references, should be serially numbered. Numbers from one to ten need to be spelled out, with an exception for following cases: when used in tables and lists or when used with mathematical, statistical, scientific or technical units and quantities, such as distances, weights, and measures. For instance, four days; 5 kilometers; 25 years. All other numbers should be expressed numerically. Percentage and Decimal Fraction, for a non-technical purpose, use percent in the text; for a technical purpose, use % symbol. Authors are encouraged to use the JIEB template. Please note that JIEB’s editor has the right to change the article formatting to maintain the journal style and consistency.

Artwork

Authors must provide high-quality artwork for all illustrations; each artwork objects should have at least at 300 PPI (pixel per inch) density. Poor resolution or definition is not acceptable. All tables and figures (graphs) should be included directly in the appropriate part of the article (not separated). Each table or figure should be numerically numbered separately (Table 1, Table 2; Figure 1, Figure 2) and fully titled, which refers to the contents of the table or figure. Authors must state the actual source of each table and figure, underneath the object.

Equations

Equations should be numerically numbered consecutively in parentheses with aligning right margin, and it can use either the same font (Calibri) or the formula font.

Questionnaires and experimental instruments

Manuscripts reporting on field surveys or experiments should include questionnaires, cases, interview plans or other instruments used in the study as appendices. 

B. Manuscript Structure

Title. The title is the first part that will be read, and it might be the only part that is read. Therefore, it should be concise, informative, and identify the main issue of the paper to attract the reader. It should be written in a sentence case title fewer than 16 words, and avoid abbreviation unless it is well known by the target audience.

Author’s name and Affiliations. Provide the full name of each author, and the affiliations of each author at the time the research was completed, followed by the city, zip code and the country of the institution. Where more than one author has contributed to the article, please provide detailed information on the corresponding author.

Abstract. Introduction/Main Objectives: Describe the topic your paper examines. Provide a background to your paper and why is this topic interesting. Avoid unnecessary content. Background Problems: State the problem or economic/business phenomena studied in this paper and specify the research question(s) in one sentence. Novelty: Summarize the novelty of this paper. Briefly explain why no one else has adequately researched the question yet. Research Methods: Provide an outline of the research method(s) and data used in this paper. Explain how did you go about doing this research. Again, avoid unnecessary content and do not make any speculation(s). Finding/Results: List the empirical finding(s) and write a discussion in one or two sentences. Conclusion: Provide conclusion(s) and implication(s) of your research. What conclusions did you get and what are the implication(s)? What is the main take-home message?

Keywords. Keywords are an essential part of abstract writing. Authors should select a maximum of five keywords that are specific and reflect what is essential about the article. Keywords and the article classification should be provided right after the abstract. These keywords will be used for indexers and search engines in finding the relevant articles.

Introduction.

What is the purpose of the study? Why are you conducting the study? The main section of the article should start with an introductory section, which provides more details about the paper’s purpose, motivation, research methods and findings. The introduction should be relatively nontechnical, yet clear enough for an informed reader to understand the manuscript’s contribution.

The “introduction” in the manuscript is important to demonstrate the motives of the research. It analyzes the empirical, theoretical and methodological issues in order to contribute to the extant literature. This introduction will be linked with the following parts, most noticeably the literature review.

Explaining the problem’s formulation should cover the following points: (1) Problem recognition and its significance; (2) clear identification of the problem and the appropriate research questions; (3) coverage of problem’s complexity; and (4) well-defined objectives. 

Authors are suggested to present their articles in the section structure: Introduction - Research Method - Results and Discussion – Conclusion – References.

Research Method

“Research Method” is designed to describe the nature of the data. The method should be well elaborated enhancing the model, the analysis approach and the steps taken. Equations should be numbered as we illustrate.

This section typically has the following sub-sections: Sampling (a description of the target population, the research context, and units of analysis; the sampling itself; and the respondents’ profiles); data collection; and measures (or measurements).

The research methodology should cover the following points: (1) A concise explanation of the research methodology is prevalent; (2) reasons to choose particular methods are well described; (3) research design is accurate; (4) the sample design is appropriate; (5) data collection processes are proper; and (6) data analysis methods are relevant and state-of-the-art.

Result and discussion. The author needs to report the results in sufficient detail so that the reader can see which statistical analysis was conducted and why, and later to justify the conclusions.

Conclusion. In this section, the author presents brief conclusions from the results of the research with suggestions for advanced researchers or general readers. A conclusion may cover the main points of the paper, but do not replicate the abstract in the conclusion. Authors should explain the empirical and theoretical benefits, the economic benefits, and the existence of new findings.

The author may present any significant flaws and limitations of the study, which could reduce the validity of the writing, thus raising questions from the readers (whether, or in what way), the limits in the study may have affected the results and conclusions. Limitations require a critical judgment and interpretation of the impact of their research. The author should provide the answer to the question: Is this a problem caused by an error, or in the method selected, or the validity, or something else?

Acknowledgment (if any). Author (s) may acknowledge a person or organization that helped him/her/them in many ways. Please use the singular heading even if there are many acknowledgments.

Reference. In this section, the author (s) must list all the reference documents cited in the text. The citation and reference list should follow the American Psychological Association (APA) referencing style (6^th edition). Otherwise, please follow the format of the sample references and citations as shown in the citation guidelines.  

C. Citation Guidelines

Citation and reference list should follow the American Psychological Association (APA) referencing style (6^th edition). In writing the reference, the author(s) are recommended to use reference management tools, such as Mendeley.

Authors are encouraged to cite manuscripts mainly from primary source publications (journals) from the last five years. Also, the authors should avoid excessively referencing their work (self-citation).

A basic format to list the reference documents as follows:

1. The reference list is arranged in alphabetical order by the authors’ last names
2. If there is more than one work by the same author, order them by publication date, oldest to newest.
3. If there is no author, the title moves to that position and the entry is alphabetized by the first significant word, excluding words such as “A” or “The.” If the title is long, it may be shortened when citing in the text.
4. The first line of the reference list entry is left-hand justified, while all subsequent lines are consistently indented.
5. Use “&” instead of “and” when listing multiple authors of a source.
6. Capitalize only the first word of the title and the subtitle, if there is one, plus any proper names – i. e. only those words that would normally be capitalized.
7. Italicize the title of the book, the title of the journal/serial and the title of the web document.
8. For any non-English articles, please write down the translation of the article in brackets [ ] after the original article’s title. Note that the original article should be written in italics.
9. Do not create separate lists for each type of information source.