Author Guidelines

General standards

Before you submit an article, please make sure you have:

  1. Understood the publication ethics,
  2. Understood the peer review process,
  3. Read the copyright notice,
  4. Confirmed your manuscript with the Al Ahkam article template.

Language Editing
Al Ahkam requires manuscripts submitted to meet international standards for the English language to be considered for publication. Articles are normally published only in English. 
For authors who would like their manuscript to receive language editing or proofing to improve the clarity of the manuscript and help highlight their research, Al Ahkam recommends the language-editing services provided by the internal or external partners (contact Principal of the Al Ahkam for further information).
Note that sending your manuscript for language editing does not imply or guarantee that it will be accepted for publication by the Al Ahkam. Editorial decisions on the scientific content of a manuscript are independent of whether it has received language editing or proofing by the partner services, or other services.

Language Style
The default language style at Al Ahkam is American English. If you prefer your article to be formatted in British English, please specify this on your manuscript on the first page. 

Article length / word count
Articles should be between 3,000 and 7,000 words in length. This includes all text, for example, the abstract, references, all text in tables, and figures and appendices. 

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
There are a few simple ways to maximize your article's discoverability. Follow the steps below to improve the search results of your article:

  • Include a few of your article's keywords in the title of the article;
  • Do not use long article titles;
  • Pick 3 to 5 keywords using a mix of generic and more specific terms on the article subject(s);
  • Use the maximum amount of keywords in the first 2 sentences of the abstract;
  • Use some of the keywords in level 1 headings.

Title
The title is written in title case, align to the left, and in Times New Roman font at the top of the page.
The title should be concise, omitting terms that are implicit and, where possible, be a statement of the main result or conclusion presented in the manuscript. Abbreviations should be avoided within the title.
Witty or creative titles are welcome, but only if relevant and within the measure. Consider if a title meant to be thought-provoking might be misinterpreted as offensive or alarming. In extreme cases, the editorial office may veto a title and propose an alternative.

Authors and Affiliations
All names are listed together and separated by commas. Provide exact and correct author names as these will be indexed in official archives. Affiliations should be keyed to the author's name with superscript numbers and be listed as follows: Institut/University/Organisation, Country (without detailed address information such as city zip codes or street names).
Example: Universitas Islam Negeri Sultan Maulana Hasanuddin Banten, Indonesia.
The Corresponding Author(s) should be marked with superscript. Provide the exact contact email address of the corresponding author(s) in a separate section below the affiliation.

Headings and Sub-headings
Capitalize on headings and capitalize each word of subheadings. Headings need to be defined in Garamond, 14, bold and subheadings defined in Garamond, 12, bold.

Abstract
As a primary goal, the abstract should render the general significance and conceptual advance of the work clearly accessible to a broad readership. In the abstract, minimize the use of abbreviations and do not cite references. The word length is not more than 100-150 words, written in English.

Tips:

  • Background of study
  • Aims and scope of the paper
  • Methods
  • Summary of result or findings
  • Conclusions

Keywords
All article types: you may provide up to 5 keywords; at least 3 are mandatory.

Text
The body text is in 11 points normal Garamond. New paragraphs will be separated with a single empty line. The entire document should be single-spaced and should contain page and line numbers in order to facilitate the review process. The Al Ahkam recommended manuscript written using MS-Word 97-2003.

Nomenclature
The use of abbreviations should be kept to a minimum. Non-standard abbreviations should be avoided unless they appear at least four times and defined upon first use in the main text. Consider also giving a list of non-standard abbreviations at the end, immediately before the Acknowledgments.

Sections
Your manuscript is organized by headings and subheadings.
For Original Research Articles, it is recommended to organize your manuscript in the following sections:

Introduction
The introduction is a little different from the short and concise abstract. The reader needs to know the background to your research and, most importantly, why your research is important in this context. What critical question does your research address? Why should the reader be interested?
The purpose of the Introduction is to stimulate the reader's interest and to provide pertinent background information necessary to understand the rest of the paper. You must summarize the problem to be addressed, give background on the subject, discuss previous research on the topic, and explain exactly what the paper will address, why, and how. A good thing to avoid is making your introduction into a minireview. There is a huge amount of literature out there, but as a scientist, you should be able to pick out the things that are most relevant to your work and explain why. This shows an editor/reviewer/reader that you really understand your area of research and that you can get straight to the most important issues.
Keep your Introduction to be very concise, well structured, and inclusive of all the information needed to follow the development of your findings. Do not over-burden the reader by making the introduction too long. Get to the key parts other paper sooner rather than later.

Tips:

  1. Begin the Introduction by providing a concise background account of the problem studied.
  2. State the objective of the investigation. Your research objective is the most important part of the introduction.
  3. Establish the significance of your work: Why was there a need to conduct the study?
  4. Introduce the reader to the pertinent literature. Do not give a full history of the topic. Only quote previous work having a direct bearing on the present problem. (State of the art, relevant research to justify the novelty of the manuscript.)
  5. State the gap analysis or novelty statement.
  6. Clearly state your hypothesis, the variables investigated, and concisely summarize the methods used.
  7. Define any abbreviations or specialized/regional terms.

Example of novelty statement or the gap analysis statement in the end of Introduction section (after state of the art of previous research survey): "........ (short summary of background)....... A few researchers focused on ....... There have been limited studies concerned on ........ Therefore, this research intends to ................. The objectives of this research are .........".

Be concise and aware of who will be reading your manuscript and make sure the Introduction is directed to that audience. Move from general to specific; from the problem in the real world to the literature to your research. Lastly, please avoid making a subsection in the Introduction.

Research Method
In the Method section, you explain clearly how you conducted your research order to: (1) enable readers to evaluate the work performed and (2) permit others to replicate your research. You must describe exactly what you did: what and how experiments were run, what, how much, how often, where, when, and why equipment and materials were used. The main consideration is to ensure that enough detail is provided to verify your findings and to enable the replication of the research. You should maintain a balance between brevity (you cannot describe every technical issue) and completeness (you need to give adequate detail so that readers know what happened).

Tips:

  1. Define the population and the methods of sampling;
  2. Describe the instrumentation;
  3. Describe the procedures and if relevant, the time frame;
  4. Describe the analysis plan;
  5. Describe any approaches to ensure validity and reliability;
  6. Describe statistical tests and the comparisons made; ordinary statistical methods should be used without comment; advanced or unusual methods may require a literature citation, and;
  7. Describe the scope and/or limitations of the methodology you used.

In the social and behavioral sciences, it is important to always provide sufficient information to allow other researchers to adopt or replicate your methodology. This information is particularly important when a new method has been developed or innovative use of an existing method is utilized. Last, please avoid making a subsection in Method.

Result and Discussion
The purpose of the Results and Discussion is to state your findings and make interpretations and/or opinions, explain the implications of your findings, and make suggestions for future research. Its main function is to answer the questions posed in the introduction, explain how the results support the answers and, how the answers fit in with existing knowledge on the topic. The Discussion is considered the heart of the paper and usually requires several writing attempts.
The discussion will always connect to the introduction by way of the research questions or hypotheses you posed and the literature you reviewed, but it does not simply repeat or rearrange the introduction; the discussion should always explain how your study has moved the reader's understanding of the research problem forward from where you left them at the end of the introduction.
To make your message clear, the discussion should be kept as short as possible while clearly and fully stating, supporting, explaining, and defending your answers and discussing other important and directly relevant issues. Care must be taken to provide commentary and not a reiteration of the results. Side issues should not be included, as these tend to obscure the message.

Tips:

  1. State the Major Findings of the Study;
  2. Explain the Meaning of the Findings and Why the Findings Are Important;
  3. Support the answers with the results. Explain how your results relate to expectations and to the literature, clearly stating why they are acceptable and how they are consistent or fit in with previously published knowledge on the topic;
  4. Relate the Findings to Those of Similar Studies;
  5. Consider Alternative Explanations of the Findings;
  6. Implications of the study;
  7. Acknowledge the Study's Limitations, and;
  8. Make Suggestions for Further Research.

It is easy to inflate the interpretation of the results. Be careful that your interpretation of the results does not go beyond what is supported by the data. The data are the data: nothing more, nothing less.  Please avoid and makeover interpretation of the results, unwarranted speculation, inflating the importance of the findings, tangential issues or over-emphasize the impact of your research.

Work with Graphic:
Figures and tables are the most effective way to present results. Captions should be able to stand alone, such that the figures and tables are understandable without the need to read the entire manuscript. Besides that, the data represented should be easy to interpret.

Tips:

  1. The graphic should be simple, but informative;
  2. The use of color is encouraged;
  3. The graphic should uphold the standards of a scholarly, professional publication;
  4. The graphic must be entirely original, unpublished artwork created by one of the co-authors;
  5. The graphic should not include a photograph, drawing, or caricature of any person, living or deceased;
  6. Do not include postage stamps or currency from any country, or trademarked items (company logos, images, and products), and;
  7. Avoid choosing a graphic that already appears within the text of the manuscript.

To see the samples of table and figure, please download the template of the Al Ahkam.
Last, please avoid making a subsection in Results and Discussion.

Conclusion
The conclusion is intended to help the reader understand why your research should matter to them after they have finished reading the paper. A conclusion is not merely a summary of the main topics covered or a re-statement of your research problem, but a synthesis of key points. It is important that the conclusion does not leave the questions unanswered. 

Tips:

  1. State your conclusions clearly and concisely. Be brief and stick to the point;
  2. Explain why your study is important to the reader. You should instill in the reader a sense of relevance;
  3. Prove to the reader, and the scientific community, that your findings are worthy of note. This means setting your paper in the context of previous work. The implications of your findings should be discussed within a realistic framework, and;

For most essays, one well-developed paragraph is sufficient for a conclusion, although in some cases, a two or three paragraph conclusion may be required. Another important things about this section is (1) do not rewrite the abstract; (2) statements with "investigated" or "studied" are not conclusions; (3) do not introduce new arguments, evidence, new ideas, or information unrelated to the topic; (4) do not include evidence (quotations, statistics, etc.) that should be in the body of the paper.

References
All citations in the text must be in the reference list and vice-versa. The references should only include articles that are published or accepted. Datasets that have been deposited to an online repository should be included in the reference list, include the version and unique identifier when available. For accepted but unpublished works use "in press" instead of page numbers. Unpublished data, submitted manuscripts, or personal communications should be cited within the text only, for the article types that allow such inclusions. Personal communications should be documented by a letter of permission.
In-text citations should be called according to the surname of the first author, followed by the year. For works by 2 authors include both surnames, followed by the year. For works by more than 2 authors include only the surname of the first author, followed by et al., followed by the year. For assistance, please use management reference (Mendeley) and utilize the format of the Chicago Manual of Style 16th edition (full note) Referencing Guide. If possible, please provide the retrieved link for each reference.

Jaya, I Made Laut Mertha. Metode Penelitian Kuantitatif Dan Kualitatif: Teori, Penerapan, Dan Riset Nyata. Anak Hebat Indonesia, 2020.  ←Book

Jambunanda, Ahmad Jamaludin, Efa Laela Fakhriah, Renny Supriyatni, and Anita Afriana. “Marriage Law in Religious Court: Regulation and Decision on Marital Property in Sustainable Legal Development.” Journal of Law and Sustainable Development 11, no. 10 (October 23, 2023): e1759. https://doi.org/10.55908/sdgs.v11i10.1759.  ←Journal

Clancey, W.J. “Communication, Simulation, and In-telligent Agents: Implications of Personal Intelligent Machines for Medical Education”. In Proceedings of the Eighth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 2021, 556-560. ←Conference Proceeding.

Rice, J. “Poligon: A System for Parallel Problem Solving”, Technical Report, KSL-86-19, Dept. of Computer Science, Stanford Univ, 2021. ←Report

Clancey, W.J. “Transfer of Rule-Based Expertise through a Tutorial Dialogue”. PhD Dissertation, Department of Computer Science, Stanford University, 2023. ←Thesis

Ivey, K.C. Citing Internet sources URL http://www.eei- alex.com/eye/utw/ 96aug. html. (2 September 2022) ←Website

Supplementary Material
Al Ahkam do not support pushing important results and information into supplementary sections. However, data that are not of primary importance to the text, or which cannot be included in the article because it is too large or the current format does not permit it (such as movies, raw data traces, PowerPoint presentations, etc.) can be uploaded during the submission procedure and will be displayed along with the published article. Supplementary Material can be uploaded as Data Sheet (word, excel, csv, cdx, fasta, pdf or zip files), Presentation (PowerPoint, pdf or zip files), Supplementary Image (cdx, eps, jpeg, pdf, png or tif), Supplementary Table (word, excel, csv or pdf), Audio (mp3, wav or wma) or Video (avi, divx, flv, mov, mp4, mpeg, mpg or wmv).
Supplementary material is not typeset so please ensure that all information is clearly presented, the appropriate caption is included in the file and not in the manuscript, and that the style conforms to the rest of the article.

Figures and Table Guidelines
General Style Guidelines for Figures
Figures help readers visualize the information you are trying to convey. Often, it is difficult to be sufficiently descriptive using words. Images can help in achieving the accuracy needed for a scientific manuscript. For example, it may not be enough to say, "The surface had nanometer-scale features." In this case, it would be ideal to provide a microscope image.

For images, be sure to:

  • Include scale bars
  • Consider labeling important items
  • Indicate the meaning of different colors and symbols used

General Style Guidelines for Tables
Tables are a concise and effective way to present large amounts of data. You should design them carefully so that you clearly communicate your results to busy researchers.

The following is an example of a well-designed table:

  • Clear and concise legend/caption
  • Data divided into categories for clarity
  • Sufficient spacing between columns and rows
  • Units are a provided font type and size are legible

Figure and Table Requirements
Legends
Figure and table legends are required to have the same font as the main text (11 points normal Garamond, single-spaced). Legends should be preceded by the appropriate label, for example, "Figure 1" or "Table 4". Figure legends should be placed at the end of the manuscript (for supplementary images you must include the caption with the figure, uploaded as a separate file). Table legends must be placed immediately before the table. Please use only a single paragraph for the legend. Figure panels are referred to by bold capital letters in brackets: (A), (B), (C), (D), etc.

Image Size
Figure images should be prepared with the PDF layout in mind, individual figures should not be longer than one page and with a width that corresponds to 1 column or 2 columns.

Format
The following formats are accepted:
TIFF (.tif) TIFF files should be saved using LZW compression or any other non-lossy compression method. JPEG (.jpg)
EPS (.eps) EPS files can be uploaded upon acceptance

Colour Image Mode
Images must be submitted in the color mode RGB.

Resolution Requirements
All images must be uploaded separately in the submission procedure and have a resolution of 300 dpi at final size. Check the resolution of your figure by enlarging it to 150%. If the resolution is too low, the image will appear blurry, jagged or have a stair-stepped effect.
Please note saving a figure directly as an image file (JPEG, TIF) can greatly affect the resolution of your image. To avoid this, one option is to export the file as PDF, then convert into TIFF or EPS using a graphics software. EPS files can be uploaded upon acceptance.
Details of all funding sources must be provided in the funding section of the manuscript including grant numbers, if applicable.

 

Writing Guide:

  1. The manuscript may be a conceptual review, research result, or book review.
  2. The manuscript has not been published / published.
  3. The manuscript is written with MS word program, 1.5 spaces on quarto paper, Garamod font, with the number of pages 12-25.
  4. The manuscript can be written in English.
  5. The reference list uses the middle note system .
  6. The list of libraries is arranged alphabetically.
  7. Writing system:

Conceptual Review and Research result:

  1. Title
  2. Author Name (Affiliate and Email)
  3. Abstract
  4. Keywords
  5. Introduction
  6. Research methods
  7. Result and Discussion
  8. Conclusion
  9. References

The Al Ahkam Editorial Board will screen plagiarism using the Turnitin Program to check for plagiarism. If it is found that there is a plagiarism indication (above 20%), the editorial board will automatically reject the manuscript immediately, It is suggested the use of a reference manager, MENDELEY by using Chicago Manual of Style 16th edition (full note) Referencing Guide.

Article Template Newest : File Download (Since: Vol. 19 No. 2, 2023 - Present/now)

Article Template Oldest: File Expired (Since: Vol. 10 No. 1, 2014 - Vol. 19 No. 1, 2023)