Submissions

Author Guidelines

Style guidelines for your article

Please anonymise your article before submitting it as follows:
FILE > Options > Personalise your copy of Microsoft Office. Change your details to Anonymous or Author. You may need to copy and paste your article onto a new blank page that has been anonymised. DO NOT SUBMIT ARTICLES IN PDF FORMAT.

After the heading, follow with:

1. An Abstract of no more than 200 words;
2. 4 to 6 Keywords in lower case.
   The word Keywords is indented and italicised; the words are in Roman, separated by commas.
3. Indicate any funding details. Please acknowledge any funding or grant awards that made your research possible. 
4. Indicate whether you have used AI and for what purpose you used it. (Policy on AI use for JOVACET)

NB Please don’t forget to submit the article with your author(s) details (name, email address and affiliation) in a separate Word document.

Word limit: Strictly 8000 words, including references (indicate the number of words at the end of the article); includes abstract of no more than 200 words.

Spelling and punctuation
1. Please use British spelling throughout, for example ‘colour' rather than ‘color'. The -ise/-isa convention should also be followed (instead of -ize/iza).
2. Please use single quotation marks, except where 'a quotation is "within" a quotation'. Longer quotations (longer than 40 words) should simply be indented without quotation marks.
3. Acronyms should be spelt out in full at first use, with the acronym in brackets afterwards, and the acronym may be used alone thereafter. In references, list under full name with acronym in brackets thereafter.

Format: Kindly use Microsoft Word, Times New Roman, 12 point font, and double spacing throughout, spaced 6 pt after. Within Tables and Figures, use font sizes between 8 and 12 point. The spacing here may be single spacing, 1,5 or double, depending on what is the most effective. Justify all body text but align references hard left and hanging. Do not indent paragraphs.

Formatting of headings (do not number or bullet): sentence case, which means capitalise only first letter and proper nouns, Start word after colon in title with a capital letter.

Title [Centred, Bold, Sentence Case – also used for References heading]
Level 1 [Left-aligned, Bold, Sentence Case]
Level 2 [Left-aligned, Not Bold, Sentence Case]
Level 3 [Left-aligned, Bold Italic, Sentence Case]
Level 4 [Left-aligned, Not Bold, Italics, Sentence Case]

Citations and references (Quick Guide to a version of APA V7 referencing for JOVACET):
For the sake of consistency, please use the following APA-based style guide for references and citations (please take note of the punctuation):

BOOKS
Created by? Author (& s)
Year: (Year)
What is it called? Title (italics and sentence case)
How to find it: Publisher or URL or DOI (see requirements for URLs and DOIs below)
Example: Smith, S. S., & Blackwell, W. (2022). Poverty below the breadline. SunMedia

CHAPTER IN A BOOK
Created by? Author (& s)
Year: (Year)
What is it called? Title (sentence case)
How to find it: In Author (& s). Initials after surname with fullstops and separated by commas. End with full stop. Then, (Eds or Ed.). Title of book, Publisher and page ref. (brackets; preceded by pp. then full stop after closing bracket).
Example: McMillan, J. W. (2017). Beyond poverty: An analysis. In Smith, S. S., & Blackwell, W. (Eds). Poverty below the breadline. SunMedia, 24–32. [first letter capitalised after the colon in the title]

JOURNAL ARTICLES
Created by? Author (& s)
Year: (Year)
What is it called? Title (NB initial capital letter after colon, no italics)
How to find it: Name of journal in italics, title case, volume(issue), page reference (no pp.; vol. in italics)
Example: Smith, S. S. & Blackwell, W. (2022). Poverty below the breadline: Coming to grips. Journal for Economic Development, 3(7), 112–121. (page range indicated by en-dash)
NOTE: Do not use p. or pp. to indicate page range when referencing journal articles. Use p. or pp. to indicate page numbers or page ranges in brackets for all in-text citations.

CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS
Created by? Author (& s)
Year: (Year)
What is it called?
Title (unpublished)
Title (published)
How to find it: Title, Name of conference, place: institution, page ref.
OR Title, Name of conference, day, place.
Examples: Smith, S. S. 2022. Poverty below the breadline. Conference Proceedings: Economic development for sustainable living. Johannesburg: University of Johannesburg, 57-65.
OR Conference proceedings at the second African Regional Conference on Economic development for sustainable living. 10 June, Johannesburg.

THESES AND DISSERTATIONS
Created by? Author 
Year: (Year)
What is it called? Title (do not italicise)
How to find it: Title. Doctoral thesis/Master’s dissertation. Institution. [Only provide the place if it is not in the name of the institution]
Example: Smith, S. S. 2022. Poverty below the breadline. Doctoral thesis/Master’s dissertation. University of Stellenbosch.

WEBSITES
Created by? Author (& s) or title of article if author is not known.
Year: (Year)
What is it called? Title
How to find it: Full URL [Accessed: full date] in square brackets at the end.
Example: Smith, S. S. 2022. Poverty below the breadline. https://www.economicsdirect.com/economy [Accessed: 15 August 2017].

PDFs
Created by? Author (& s)
Year: (Year)
What is it called? Title (PDF). [Add the letters PDF in brackets after the title]
How to find it: Full URL [Accessed: Full date].
Example: Smith, S. S. 2022. Poverty below the breadline (PDF). https://www.economicsdirect.com/economy [Accessed: 15 August, 2017].

DOI (use if available)
Created by? Author (& s)
Year: (Year)
What is it called? Title 
How to find it: https://doi.org/number
Example: Smith, S. S., & Blackwell, W. 2022. Poverty below the breadline: Coming to grips. https://doi.org/10.13121,etc [no full stop or retrieval date at the end]

Please ensure that your references are aligned hard left (to avoid creating spaces). The reference list must also be hanging.

Citations
Only the first two authors mentioned in the reference list must be cited in the article, with et al. replacing the author if the number of authors is three or more and every author cited in the article must be listed alphabetically in the reference list. For example: (Bell, 2009 or De Lange & Finch, 2011, but Foster et al., 2017 if three or more authors). In a reference list at the end, every separate reference must be listed alphabetically. Do not use et al. in the reference list. More than 20 authors, list all 20 authors, then use the spaced ellipsis ( … ) followed by the final author.

Only use quotation marks for direct quotations: provide page reference e.g. Smith and Blackwell (2017, p. 132) describe the situation as ‘untenable’ or only Smith and Blackwell (2017) if there is no direct quotation. 

Footnotes
Footnotes should be kept to a minimum and only used where absolutely necessary. No endnotes, please.

Figures and tables
1. Figures should be of a high quality and be saved as TIFF, JPEG or .eps format and placed where they should be in the article. Images or figures not the property of the author should have the necessary permission to be used. Please do not attach these separately. Captions for figures should appear below the figure.
2. Tables should be easy to read and interpret. The same requirements apply for figures. Captions for both figures and tables should appear above tables.

Please take note of the following requirements for your emailed submission on a SEPARATE page:
Author details. All authors’ full names (main author first), affiliations, telephone numbers and email addresses and orcid number on a separate title page that accompanies your article. Please repeat the title of your article. Please indicate who the corresponding author is with an asterisk before the name.

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Updated 3 September 2026