Submissions

JSDS welcomes original research that has not been published elsewhere and is not under consideration by another journal. Every submission is assessed by an editor against the journal's aims and scope; those that fit are sent for double-blind peer review.

Submissions may be made through this site or by email attachment. Receipt of a manuscript is acknowledged within 48 hours.

Review process

Each submission is first screened in house by the editors for relevance, scope, quality and originality, including a similarity check. Manuscripts that pass this screening are sent to experienced external reviewers in the relevant field.

All manuscripts undergo double-blind peer review: reviewers are not told who the authors are, and authors are not told who reviewed their work. We aim to return a decision within 8 to 10 weeks of submission, and to publish accepted manuscripts within 12 to 14 weeks.

Before you submit

Settle each of these before sending the manuscript, because a submission missing any of them cannot be sent for review:

• Obtain permission to publish any third-party material included with the submission, such as photographs, documents and datasets.
• Confirm that everyone listed as an author consents to being identified as one, and that no one who qualifies has been omitted.
• Where the research involves human or animal participants, obtain approval from an appropriate ethics committee in accordance with the law of the country in which the study was conducted.
• Declare any funding, conflicts of interest or competing interests.

What to submit

Submit two separate Microsoft Word files (.doc or .docx). An editor may decline to review a manuscript that does not follow these requirements.

File one, the title page. The title of the study, the name, affiliation, telephone number and email address of every author, and a clear indication of which author is the corresponding author.

File two, the manuscript. This file must be anonymous: the author's name must not appear anywhere in it, because it is sent for blind review. It should contain:

• the title of the paper, set in bold, precise and concise;
• an abstract of no more than 250 words, written as a single paragraph, stating the objective and significance of the study, the methodology applied, the main findings and the contribution the work makes;
• five keywords;
• the body of the paper: introduction, review of the literature, methodology, results and discussion, conclusion, recommendations, acknowledgments where applicable, and references.

Formatting

Manuscripts are typeset from the file you supply, so the house format matters:

• Write in clear, concise and correct English.
• Single line spacing, Cambria, 10 point, 14 to 16 pages.
• Apply the same formatting consistently throughout the manuscript.
• Number tables in Arabic numerals. Set them in Word and place each one where it is discussed, rather than collecting them on a separate sheet.
• Number figures in Arabic numerals ("Figure 1"), and make sure each is legible at the size it will be printed.
• Type mathematical equations as text using an equation editor. An equation supplied as an image cannot be accepted.
• Insert references with Word's reference tool or with EndNote.
• An article from a previous issue is a reliable guide to the house format.

References

Cite sources in the running text in the usual way: Armstrong (2001), (Simon, 2001), Fullan and Scott (2009). List references alphabetically at the end of the paper, following the latest edition of the APA style for every type of source.

Journal article

Musiita, B., Kijjambu, F. & Nsengiyumva, J. (2025). Fiscal Policy Variables and Industrial Growth in Uganda. Journal of Social and Development Sciences, 15(3), 25-42.

Book

Kotler, P. (1997). Marketing Management: Analysis, Planning, Implementation and Control (9th ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall International.

Everything we expect of authors, editors and reviewers is set out in our publication ethics policy. Please read it before submitting.

Authors affirm on submission that the material has not been published previously, is not under consideration by another journal, and that they accept responsibility for the content submitted and for any errors or omissions in it. Authors execute a publication permission agreement to that effect.

Once a revised paper has been submitted in the light of the reviewers' suggestions, the editorial team edits and formats the manuscript to bring it into line with the journal's house style.

Articles are published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). Under that license anyone is free to read, copy, remix, transform, redistribute, download, print, search and link to the full text of an article, and to build upon the work, provided the original authors are credited.

As a matter of journal policy, authors hold and retain copyright in their work without restriction.

The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.