Submissions

Author Guidelines

For authors

Submission

Manuscripts should be submitted by one of the authors of the manuscript through the online platform, the manuscript submission system for our journals. Only electronic PDF (.pdf) or Word (.doc, .docx, .odt, .rtf, .txt) files can be submitted through the manuscript submission system, and there is no page limit. Special characters should not be included in the file name of the main manuscript file. Submissions by anyone other than one of the authors will not be accepted. The submitting author takes responsibility for the manuscript during submission and peer review. For technical help, please contact ajwed@research.msu.ac.zw.

Terms of submission

Manuscripts must be submitted on the understanding that they have not been published elsewhere and are only being considered by this journal. The submitting author is responsible for ensuring that the article’s publication has been approved by all the other coauthors. It is also the submitting author’s responsibility to ensure that the article has all necessary institutional approvals. Only an acknowledgment from the editorial office officially establishes the date of receipt. Further correspondence and proofs will be sent to the author(s) before publication, unless otherwise indicated. It is a condition of submission that the authors permit editing of the manuscript for readability. All inquiries concerning the publication of accepted manuscripts should be addressed to ajwed@research.msu.ac.zw. All submissions are bound by Midlands State University's terms of service.

Peer review

All submitted articles are subject to assessment and peer review to ensure editorial appropriateness and technical correctness.

Research published in the journal must be:

• Scientifically valid – adhering to accepted community standards of research.
• Technically accurate in its methods and results.
• Representative of a specific advance, or replication, or null/negative result, which is worthy of publication.
• As reproducible as possible – sharing underlying data, code, and supporting materials wherever able.
• Ethically sound and transparent – adhering to best practice with respect to animal and human studies, consent to publish, and clear declaration of potential conflicts of interests, both real and perceived.

In the spirit of sharing findings through our open science mission, emphasis is not placed on novelty, interest, or perceived impact. Replication studies, particularly of research published in this journal, are encouraged.

In order for an article to be accepted for publication, the assigned editor will first consider if the manuscript meets the minimum editorial standards and fits within the scope of the journal. If an article is considered suitable for the journal, the editor will ideally solicit at least two external peer reviewers (who will remain anonymous to the authors unless they choose to disclose their identity by signing the review report) to assess the article before confirming a decision to accept. Decisions to reject are at the discretion of the editor.

Our research integrity team will occasionally seek advice outside standard peer review, for example, on submissions with serious ethical, security, biosecurity, or societal implications. We may consult experts and the editor before deciding on appropriate actions, including but not limited to: recruiting reviewers with specific expertise, assessment by additional editors, and declining to further consider a submission.

Concurrent submissions

In order to ensure sufficient diversity within the authorship of the journal, authors will be limited to having three manuscripts under review at any point in time. If an author already has three manuscripts under review in the journal, they will need to wait until the review process of at least one of these manuscripts is complete before submitting another manuscript for consideration. This policy does not apply to editorials or other non-peer-reviewed manuscript types.

Article processing charges

The journal is open access. Article processing charges (APCs) allow the publisher to make articles immediately available online to anyone to read and reuse upon publication.

Preprints

Midlands State University supports the deposition of manuscripts in preprint servers, and does not consider this to compromise the novelty of the results. Articles based on content previously made public only on a preprint server, institutional repository, or in a thesis will be considered. The preprint should be cited.

ORCID

Prior to publication, an ORCID iD must be provided for the corresponding author(s). If you already have an ORCID iD, you will be asked to provide it. If you haven’t registered with ORCID yet, we’ll help you create an iD at the point of submission. The ORCID is not required for submission, or for peer review, but highly encouraged to provide an ORCID iD.

Article types

The journal will consider the following article types:

Research articles

Research articles should present the results of an original research study. These manuscripts should describe how the research project was conducted and provide a thorough analysis of the results of the project. Systematic reviews may be submitted as research articles.

Reviews

A review article provides an overview of the published literature in a particular subject area.

Formatting

An optional research article manuscript template is here attached (AJWED template). We recommend that all manuscripts include line numbers and follow the structure below:

Title and authorship information

The following information should be included:

• Manuscript title
• Full author names
• Full institutional mailing addresses
• Email addresses

Abstract

The manuscript should contain an abstract. The abstract should be self-contained, citation-free, and should not exceed 300 words.

Introduction

This section should be succinct, with no subheadings.

Materials and methods

The methods section should provide enough detail for others to be able to replicate the study. If you have more than one method, use subsections with relevant headings, e.g. different models, in vitro and in vivo studies, statistics, materials and reagents, etc.

The African Journal of Water, Environment and Development (AJWED) have no space restriction on methods. Detailed descriptions of the methods (including protocols or project descriptions) and algorithms may also be uploaded as supplementary information or a previous publication that gives more details may be cited. If the method from a previous article is used then this article must be cited and discussed. If wording is reused from a published article then this must be noted, e.g. This study uses the method of Peter et al. (2008) and the methods description partly reproduces their wording.

If a method or tool is introduced in the study, including software, questionnaires, and scales, the license this is available under and any requirement for permission for use should be stated. If an existing method or tool is used in the research, the authors are responsible for checking the license and obtaining any necessary permission. If permission was required, a statement confirming permission was granted should be included in the materials and methods section.

Results and discussion

This section may be divided into subsections or may be combined.

Main text (review only)

This section may be divided into subsections or may be combined.

Conclusions

This should clearly explain the main conclusions of the article, highlighting its importance and relevance.

Data availability

This statement should describe how readers can access the data supporting the conclusions of the study and clearly outline the reasons why unavailable data cannot be released.

Conflicts of interest

Authors must declare all relevant interests that could be perceived as conflicting. Authors should explain why each interest may represent a conflict. If no conflicts exist, the authors should state this. Submitting authors are responsible for coauthors declaring their interests.

Conflicts of interest (COIs, also known as ‘competing interests’) occur when issues outside research could be reasonably perceived to affect the neutrality or objectivity of the work or its assessment. Authors must declare all potential interests – whether or not they actually had an influence – in the conflicts of interest section, which should explain why the interest may be a conflict. If there are none, the authors should state: “The author(s) declare(s) that there is no conflict of interest regarding the publication of this article”. Submitting authors are responsible for coauthors declaring their interests. Declared conflicts of interest will be considered by the editor and reviewers, and included in the published article.

Authors must declare current or recent funding (including for article processing charges) and other payments, goods or services that might influence the work. All funding, whether a conflict or not, must be declared in the funding statement. The involvement of anyone other than the authors who: i) has an interest in the outcome of the work; ii) is affiliated to an organization with such an interest; or iii) was employed or paid by a funder, in the commissioning, conception, planning, design, conduct, or analysis of the work, the preparation or editing of the manuscript, or the decision to publish must be declared.

You may be asked to make certain changes to your manuscript as a result of your declaration. These requests are not an accusation of impropriety. The editor or reviewer is helping you to protect your work against potential criticisms.

If you are in any doubt about declaring a potential conflict, remember that if it is revealed later – especially after publication – it could cause more problems than simply declaring it at the time of submission. Undeclared conflicts of interest could lead to a corrigendum or, in the most serious cases, a retraction.

Funding statement

Authors must state how the research and publication of their article was funded, by naming financially supporting body(s) (written out in full) followed by associated grant number(s) in square brackets (if applicable), for example: “This work was supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council [grant numbers xxxx, yyyy]; the National Science Foundation [grant number zzzz]; and a Leverhulme Trust Research Project Grant”.

If the research did not receive specific funding, but was performed as part of the employment of the authors, please name this employer. If the funder was involved in the manuscript writing, editing, approval, or decision to publish, please declare this.

Acknowledgments

All acknowledgments (if any) should be included at the very end of the manuscript before the references. Anyone who made a contribution to the research or manuscript, but who is not a listed author, should be acknowledged (with their permission).

References

Authors should submit their references in APA style. Authors are responsible for ensuring that the information in each reference is complete and accurate. All references should be cited within the text and uncited references will be removed.

Citation standards. All data, program code, and other methods should be appropriately cited. Such materials should be recognized as original intellectual contributions and afforded recognition through citation.

Date formatting

The African Journal of Water, Environment and Development (AJWED) recommends writing dates out fully to avoid confusion with different all-numeral date styles. For example, 02/10/2023 could be 10 February 2023 or 2 October 2023 depending on the reader, therefore, the date should be written out in full. For example, the date October 2, 2023 should be used rather than 02/10/2023 or 10/02/2023.

Units of measurement

Units of measurement should be presented simply and concisely using the International System of Units (SI).

Preparation of figures

Upon submission of an article, authors should include all figures and tables in the PDF file of the manuscript. Figures and tables should not be submitted in separate files. If the article is accepted, authors will be asked to provide the source files of the figures. Each figure should be supplied in a separate electronic file. All figures should be cited in the manuscript in a consecutive order. Figures should be supplied in either vector art formats (Illustrator, EPS, WMF, FreeHand, CorelDraw, PowerPoint, Excel, etc.) or bitmap formats (Photoshop, TIFF, GIF, JPEG, etc.). Bitmap images should be of 300 dpi resolution at least unless the resolution is intentionally set to a lower level for scientific reasons. If a bitmap image has labels, the image and labels should be embedded in separate layers.

Maps. The African Journal of Water, Environment and Development (AJWED) remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps. For reasons of consistency, authors are requested to use accepted standard maps as the basis for map figure drawing, for example using the latest standard base-map of Map Press. Responsibility for maps rests with the author and it is their responsibility to also provide any copyright or licence information when using maps that are not owned or created by the author (e.g. Google Maps, etc.)

Preparation of tables

Tables should be cited consecutively in the text. Every table must have a descriptive title and if numerical measurements are given, the units should be included in the column heading. Vertical rules should not be used.

Supplementary materials

Supplementary materials are the additional parts to a manuscript, such as audio files, video clips, or datasets that might be of interest to readers. Authors can submit one file of supplementary material along with their manuscript through the manuscript submission system. If there is more than one file, they can be uploaded as a .ZIP file.

A section titled supplementary material should be included before the references list with a concise description for each supplementary material file. Supplementary materials are not modified by our production team. Authors are responsible for providing the final supplementary material files that will be published along with the article.

Proofs

Corrected proofs must be returned to the publisher within two to three days of receipt. The publisher will do everything possible to ensure prompt publication.

Copyright and permissions

Authors retain the copyright of their manuscripts, and all open which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided that the original work is properly cited.

The use of general descriptive names, trade names, trademarks, and so forth in this publication, even if not specifically identified, does not imply that these names are not protected by the relevant laws and regulations. The submitting author is responsible for securing any permissions needed for the reuse of copyrighted materials included in the manuscript.

While the advice and information in this journal are believed to be true and accurate on the date of its going to press, neither the authors, the editors, nor the publisher can accept any legal responsibility for any errors or omissions that may be made. The publisher makes no warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein.

Reporting guidelines

Authors are strongly encouraged to use appropriate reporting guidelines when preparing and submitting manuscripts, to maximize transparency and reproducibility. The editors and reviewers are also encouraged to use them in the review process. Completed checklists should be provided in the supplementary files on submission.

Ethical guidelines

In any studies on human or animal subjects, the following ethical guidelines must be observed. For any experiments on humans, all work must be conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki (1964). Manuscripts describing experimental work that carries a risk of harm to human subjects must include a statement that the experiment was conducted with the human subjects’ understanding and consent, as well as a statement that the responsible ethics committee has approved the experiments. In the case of any animal experiments, the authors must provide a full description of any anesthetic or surgical procedure used, as well as evidence that all possible steps were taken to avoid animal suffering at each stage of the experiment.

Appeals

Authors may appeal if they feel that the decision to reject was based on: i) a major misunderstanding over a technical aspect of the manuscript; or ii) a failure to understand the scientific advance shown by the manuscript. Appeals requesting a second opinion without sufficient justification will not be considered. To lodge an appeal, please contact the journal by email, quoting your manuscript number. Appeals will only be considered from the original submitting author.