Writing Instructions

This text and template file explains the methodology of writing an article, which is prepared based on Word (.Doc). Authors can use the template file to align their articles with the desired style guide and type their text into it. Also, the article file without the author's name should be uploaded on the journal website at https://mmsd.semnan.ac.ir/?lang=en. Margins, column widths, line spacing, and type styles are built-in throughout this document.

Article Structure

The page size should be A4. The top, left, and right margins of the pages should be 2.5 cm, and the bottom margin should be 1.5 cm. All paragraphs should be indented and justified in alignment. The entire text of the article should be written in Cambria font with single spacing.

Article specifications

Each article should consist of the following subsections:

Title:

• Use a concise and informative title. The title should be as brief as possible.
• It should be written in the middle of the first page.
• Every word in a title must be capitalized except for words such as "a", "an", "and", "as", "at", "by", "for", "from", "if", "in", "into", "on", "or", "of", "the", "to", "with".

Author’s Information: 

• It should be noted any professional and official titles or academic degrees must not be shown in the author’s details.
• The first name should be written in abbreviation and the family name in a complete form.
• The corresponding author’s name should be specified with an asterisk after the name.
• The affiliation is specified with separate numbers.
• The author’s details include department, faculty, university, city name, country name, and email address. These should be written for each author in a separate line and referenced with a number corresponding to the respective author.

Submission with ORCID iD: We strongly recommend the authors specify their ORCID iD when they submit the manuscript. The ORCID iD icon, an active hyperlink, will appear next to the author's name.

Abstract: The abstract should contain 250 to 300 words in one paragraph to give an obvious perspective of the paper's goals, research method, data-gathering tools, and results. The summaries of the contribution, the principal findings, and conclusions of analyses must be mentioned in it.

Keyword: All articles should have at least 3 to 5 keywords or phrases in separate lines.

Introduction:  The introduction explains the aims of the manuscript. The history of research and results of previous works and their shortcoming should be mentioned here. Also, it provides theories and methods that are used in the manuscript. Figures and tables should not be inserted in the introduction section.

• A citation must be used for each sentence from other references. These references appear in the reference section at the end of the paper in the order of their appearance. Citations should be numbered using square brackets like [1]. The Multiple references [2, 3] or a range of references [4-6] must be indicated within a single set of brackets. In sentences, refer simply to the reference number, like [7]. Do not use "Ref. [8]" or "reference [8]" except when you are beginning a sentence, for example: "Reference [8] shows ...".
• Don't use more than three levels of headings, and those shouldn't be indented. For the third level of heading, use 10-point fonts.

Footnotes: Footnotes should be avoided if possible. Necessary footnotes should be denoted in the text by consecutive superscript letters. The footnotes should be typed single-spaced and in a smaller type size (8 pt) at the foot of the page in which they are mentioned and separated from the main text by a short line.

Figures and Tables: All figures and tables should be numbered. They must be placed within the manuscript and inserted as close as possible to the first reference in the text. Every figure (including photographs, schemas, graphs, and diagrams) and table has a caption that includes the figure number and a brief description. This caption must be enough perceptible without mention of the text. Details shouldn't appear in the caption of the tables. You can put them in the footnotes. Low-quality scans are not acceptable.

Numbers and captions should be typed below the figures, and those should be typed above the table. Figures and tables must be aligned in the center of the column and sized appropriately as width as one column. For referring to them, don't use brackets or parenthesis; for example, "Fig. 1 shows ...". If figures or tables are duplicated from other references, a citation should appear at the end of the caption.

Only horizontal lines should be used within a table to distinguish the column headings from the body of the table and immediately above and below the table.

• All tables, figures, and equations must be set in two-column format, except for large tables and figures or long equations that may span across both columns if necessary. Any table, figure, or equation that takes up more than one column width must be positioned either at the top or at the bottom of the page.

Equations: Equations should be numbered consecutively throughout the paper. Equations and formulae should be typed by Microsoft Equation (insert-> symbols-> Equation) or MathType and numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals throughout the paper in parentheses on the right-hand side of the page.

Conclusions: The conclusions may review the main points of the author's work. Also, it could include the application of the proposed method and suggestions for feature research.

Nomenclature: All variables used in this manuscript should be listed in nomenclature.

X	Variables should appear in the first column with the definition in the second column
t & Me	One and two-letter abbreviations should appear in italics
Sim	Three-letter abbreviations should not appear in italics
Fr	Dimensionless numbers and parameters don't appear in italics

Acknowledgments: In General, the last paragraph of each paper is the place to acknowledge people and sponsors for dedicating and financial support. Company names and specific places should be cited only here.

 It should be noted that the heading of the Acknowledgment and the References must not be numbered.

Conflicts of Interest: The author declares that there is no conflict of interest regarding the publication of this manuscript. In addition, the authors have entirely observed the ethical issues, including plagiarism, informed consent, misconduct, data fabrication and/or falsification, double publication and/or submission.

Appendixes: Appendixes appear after Conflicts of Interest.

References: Authors are responsible for the authenticity and completeness of all references.

 The authors should use the Harvard referencing style. Some examples are given as follows:

[1]       Book:

Harrow, R. (2005), No Place to Hide, Simon & Schuster, New York, NY.

[2]       Book Chapter:

Calabrese, F.A. (2005), "The early pathways: theory to practice – a continuum", Stankosky, M. (Ed.), Creating the Discipline of Knowledge Management, Elsevier, New York, NY, pp.15-20.

[3]       Journal:

Capizzi, M.T. and Ferguson, R. (2005), "Loyalty trends for the twenty-first century", Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 22 No. 2, pp.72-80.

[4]       Published conference proceedings:

Wilde, S. and Cox, C. (2008), “Principal factors contributing to the competitiveness of tourism destinations at varying stages of development”, in Richardson, S., Fredline, L., Patiar A., & Ternel, M. (Ed.s), CAUTHE 2008: Where the 'bloody hell' are we?, Griffith University, Gold Coast, Qld, pp.115-118.

[5]       Working papers:

Moizer, P. (2003), "How published academic research can inform policy decisions: the case of mandatory rotation of audit appointments", working paper, Leeds University Business School, University of Leeds, Leeds, 28 March.

[6]       Electronic sources:

Weida, S. and Stolley, K. (2013), “Developing strong thesis statements”, available at: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/588/1/ (accessed 20 June 2018)

[7]       Data:

Campbell, A. and Kahn, R.L. (2015), American National Election Study, 1948, ICPSR07218-v4, Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (distributor), Ann Arbor, MI, available at: https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR07218.v4 (accessed 20 June 2018).

Copyright

Please click here to download MMSD COPYRIGHT FORM. Authors must know that the exclusive copyright in their published paper in this journal shall be assigned to Semnan University. Under no circumstance, the articles received will not be returned to the authors. The publisher will not put any limitation on the personal freedom of the author to use the material contained in the paper in other works.