Guideline to Publishing Articles in the Journal of Spatial Planning

The articles in this journal are only accepted through the journals’ website of Tarbiat Modares University: http://hsmsp.ir 

To prevent delay in on-time judgment and publication, the esteemed authors are requested to consider the following points:

1. The Modares Journal of Spatial Planning is specialized in Applied Geography, and just accepts relevant topics including the following:

1. Planning models, techniques and methods	8. Techniques of spatial/locational data processing in environmental planning
2. Ecological planning and sustainable development	9. Tourism planning and space economy
3. Civil planning	10. Defensive and security planning of space
4. Rural and tribal planning	11. Regional planning
5. Planning of environmental management and risks	12. Cultural planning
6. Planning and political organization of space	13. Skeletal and territorial planning
7. Locatings	14. Local planning

2. The article should be the result of scientific and research works and leads necessarily to the production of a new science and knowledge. The journal welcomes the articles extracted from PhD dissertations, salient theses and independent research plans provided that the principles and standards of scientific research methodology in the related fields are duely observed and enjoy theoretical or methodological innovation. The journal does not accept the articles recurrent in topic or methodology in different situations.

3. The journal welcomes theoretical articles, which scientifically investigate scientific theories and the available theoretical discourses and models, and  or deal with the invention and introduction of new scientific models and theories by outstanding scholars and professors.

4. Review articles by experienced authors and the authors of research articles in the related fields are accepted provided that they have taken advantage of well-documented research, and the authors have actively contributed to the discussion.

5. The scientific responsibility (correspondence) of the article is upon the first author.

As to the articles written by MA and PhD students with the cooperation of supervisors  or advisors, the article should be sent to the journal by the scientific responsibility, signature and form completion on the part of the supervisor, and his/her name should be mentioned as the first author. Otherwise, it will not be raised in the authorship board.  

6. The journal does not accept compiled and translated articles for publication.

7. The article should not have already been published either in another journal- internal or external- or in a seminar article collection and scientific communities, and it should not simultaneously be sent to another journal for publication. The author is required to send a written commitment to the journal along with the article, provided as a form in the journal’s website.

Note: The articles submitted in the scientific communities will be considered provided that they are noticeably changed and have undergone the addition of new materials.

8. The structure of the article should include Persian and English abstracts, keywords, introduction, main body (theoretical discussions, data and research methodology, research findings, analysis and conclusion), acknowledgement, references and appendix.

9. In the articles with more than one author, it is essential that the name of the correspondent author be mentioned in the titel page.

10. The article should contain maximally 15 pages including the text, figures, tables, maps, references and the English abstract while observing the typesetting standards of the journal. The articles with beyond 15 pages will not be considered.

11. The typesetting of the article should be done in word 2003, line spacing should be single, and the margins should be 4, 4.5, 4.5 and 4 centimeters for top, bottom, right and left margins, respectively. In typing the articles, it is necessary to use half-space. The authors are required to use the following fonts:

Farsi text: B Lotus soft 12; English text: Times 11; article title: Bold B Nazanin 15; author, (s), reference information: Bold B Nazanin 12; Farsi abstract: Bold B Nazanin 10; within-text titles: Bold B Nazanin 13; references: B Nazanin 12.

12. Sending the article is only possible through the website and includes the following:

- A pdf file including the whole article without the reference information of the author (s) of the article;

- A word file including the entire main article along with the name and complete characteristics of the author (s) as stated in Section 9 of this guideline.

- Complementary files including a commitment from showing that the article will neither be published in another journal nor will it be simultaneously sent to other journals; the approval form of the article for the articles elicited from theses or dissertations and the approval form of research works for independent articles;

- A word file including the extended abstract as stated in Section 14 of this guideline.

13. The first and the second pages of the article should be arranged as stated in the following:

The first page: The article’s title in Farsi and English; author (s)’s name in Farsi and English (the name of the corresponding author should be marked with an aster. The scientific level and the related institute in Farsi and English; the full address of the corresponding author including the postal address, phone number, fax number, and e-mail in Farsi and English; the name of the institute supporting or paying the financial expenditures of the research (optional).

Note: The information related to the author (s) should not be mentioned in any part of the article except for the first page. 

The second page: The full title of the article in Farsi; Farsi abstract (a maximum of 200 words and a minimum of 100 words); Farsi keywords (a maximum of 5 words); English abstract (a maximum of 250 words and a minimum of 200 words).  

14. The article should have an extended abstract and the following structure:

The first page: Article’s title, the name of the related institute, and the scientific level of the author (s).

The second page: The extended abstract includes the following components:

 Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results and Discussion, Conclusion and Keywords.

This abstract should contain a minimum of 400 words and a maximum of 600 words and the Farsi extended abstract should accompany it. The English text should be originally written in English within the English structure and grammar, and a non-scientific translation of Farsi to English should be avoided.

15. Foreign words/terms with exact and clear Farsi equivalents and the complete name of the abbreviated words and acronyms in the text should be referred to the footnote. 

16. The references should be in APA or Chicago styles and the documented resources in the text should have the family name of the author, year of publication and the page number with them inside the parenthesis: (Ganji, 2007/1386: 22).

17. In the arrangement of the tables and figures, it is essential to observe the following points:

A. The information in the tables should not be repeated in the form of figures or diagrams in the article. The number and the title of the table should be mentioned above the table. If the tables or figures are taken from other resources, they should be mentioned beneath the tables or figures.

B. Each column of the table should have its own title and unit. If all of the values in the table have the same units, the unit can be mentioned in the table’s title.

C. Explanation related to the table’s title and text should be mentioned in the footnote.

D. Figures include curves, diagrams, pictures and maps, and should all be numbered like the figures. The figures should be prepared in color or in black and white, and their numbers and titles should come beneath them.

Pictures should be clear, readable, with suitable and favorable scale and quality (300 to 500 dpi) in one of the gif, pdf, jpg, png and tif formats (in the case a color print of the maps and diagrams is needed, the cost will be calculated and received separately).

18. The DOI of the electronic resource used should be mentioned at the end as much as possible (doi: 10.1000/182).

19. Writing manner of the reference information at the end of the article in alphabetical order should be according to the following examples: 

Book: Family name of the author (s) / his/her first name, book’s title (in italic), translator, place of publication, publisher, publication year, and the related DOI. 

Journal: Family name of the author (s) / his/her first name, the article’s title (within the “quotation marks”), journal’s name (in italic), the journal number, numbers of  the first and the last pages of the article, publication year, and the related DOI.   

Internet sources: Family name of the author (s) / his/her first name, (the year of publication or availability), work’s title, website address, and the related DOI.

Note: If the author is a legal entity (organization, institute, etc.), the title of that legal entity should be mentioned instead of the full name of the author.

20. In legal terms, the responsibility of the accuracy of the materials is upon the author (s).

21. The journal has the right of rejecting, accepting or editing the articles, and the received articles will not get returned.

22. The articles sent for modification, in the case not corrected by the author in due time (maximally one month, which might increase as requested by the author) and the rejected or withdrawn articles (after three months), will be removed from the journal’s archive, and the journal will have no accountability in this regard.