Author guidelines include:

1. Publication Criteria
2. Manuscript Preparation
3. Procedures for submitting articles
4. Submission of Revised Manuscript

Publication Criteria 

Criteria for publication of research articles in MJTUM include the following:

1. The study presents the results of original research.

   MJTUM is designed to communicate original research.

2. Results reports have not been published elsewhere

   MJTUM does not accept for publication studies that have already been published, in whole or in part, elsewhere in the peer-reviewed literature. All figures included in manuscripts should be original, and should not have been published in any previous publications. In addition, MJTUM will not consider submissions that are currently under consideration for publication elsewhere.

   MJTUM supports authors who wish to share their work early through deposition of manuscripts in preprint servers. This does not impact consideration of the manuscript at MJTUM. We will consider manuscripts that have been deposited in preprint servers, published as a thesis, or presented at conferences.

   If a submitted study replicates or is very similar to previous work, authors must provide a sound scientific rationale for the submitted work and clearly reference and discuss the existing literature. Submissions that replicate or are derivative of existing work will likely be rejected if authors do not provide adequate justification.

3. Experiments, statistics, and other analyses are performed to a high technical standard and are described in sufficient detail

   Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls and replication. Sample sizes must be large enough to produce valid results, where applicable. Methods and reagents must be described in sufficient detail for another researcher to reproduce the experiments described.

4. Conclusions are presented in an appropriate fashion and are supported by the data

   The data presented in the manuscript must support the conclusions drawn. Submissions will be rejected if the interpretation of results is unjustified or inappropriate, so authors should avoid overstating their conclusions. Authors may discuss possible implications for their results as long as these are clearly identified as hypotheses instead of conclusions.

5. The article is presented in an intelligible fashion and is written in Standard English

   MJTUM does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. We may reject articles that do not meet these standards. If the language of an article is difficult to understand or includes many errors, MJTUM may recommend that authors seek independent editorial help before submitting a revision.

6. The research meets all applicable standards for the ethics of experimentation and research integrity

   Research published in MJTUM must have been conducted to the highest ethical standards. The Journal reserves the right to reject any submission that does not meet these standards. Authors are expected to comply with best practices in publication ethics, specifically regarding authorship, dual publication, plagiarism, figure manipulation, and competing interests.

   Ethical approval from the relevant professional body is required for studies involving:

   • Humans (live or tissue), including studies that are observational, survey-based, or include any personal data.
   • Animals (live or tissue), including observational studies.
   • Cell lines that are not commercially available.
   • Field sampling involving humans and other animals.
   • Potential biosafety implications.

   If ethical approval was not obtained, authors must explain why it was not required. Please contact journal email if you have questions regarding your work and compliance with accepted ethical standards.

 

Manuscript Preparation

Submitted articles should be formatted according to the guidelines outline below. Overall length of an article not more 20 pages excluding figures and tables, single spaced, font size 12, Book Antiqua?

1. Title page

   This should contain a concise title and the names of authors followed by affiliations and their complete postal addresses. The corresponding author and email address must be indicated.

2. Abstract

   The abstract should not exceed 200 words, and should be on a separate page. It should briefly describe the main points of the manuscript, i.e. the topic, the main findings and the conclusions

3. Keywords

   Four to six key words are required for indexing purposes

4. Introduction

   A brief survey of relevant literature and objectives of the work should be given in this section. Thus, the introduction should largely be limited to the scope, purpose and rationale of the study

5. Literature Review

   The literature review should be synthesized and critiqued. Major research literature should be reviewed. The literature review should be current, logical and rigorous.

6. Conceptual/Theoretical Framework

   The theoretical framework should be relevant to the topic explored and be well developed. The theoretical framework should be used as an analytic tool throughout the article. Useful tenets and constructs should be used throughout the manuscript

7. Research question

   The research question(s) should be clear, major issues covered by the study should be thoroughly introduced

8. Materials and Methods</h3

   In this section, the methodology used should be clearly explained, including relevant references, such that another person can repeat the procedures. It should provide the framework to gain answers to the questions or problems identified.  Sampling methods must be elaborated as well as analytical frameworks and model specifications. The author should ensure methods of statistical analysis used are appropriate

9. Results

   Make the text as objective and descriptive as possible. Only material pertinent to the subject should be included. Avoid presenting the same information in both graphical and tabular form.

10. Discussion

    This section should interpret the results in view of the problems identified in the introduction, as well as in relation to other published work. The final paragraph of this section could include concluding remarks and recommendations for future work

11. Citations

    Authors should be cited using their surnames, followed by the year of publication. Two authors should be separated by ‘and’. If there are more than two authors, only the first author, followed by “et al.”, should be given. This and other Latin or foreign terms should be italicized

12. Acknowledgement/s

    This section should be brief. Authors are advised to limit acknowledgements to substantial contributions to the scientific and technical aspects of the paper, financial support or improvements in the quality of the manuscript.

13. References

    The reference section must contain an alphabetical list of all references mentioned in the text of the manuscript. Use APA referencing format and give all journal names in full. Examples for citations from periodicals, books and composite works are given below:

    Periodicals. Here the following should be sequentially listed: author’s name/s, initials, year of publication, full title of paper, periodical (in full), volume, first and last page numbers.

    Example: Aloo, P.A., Munga, C.N., Kimani, E.N. and Ndegwa, S. (2014). A review of the status and potential of the coastal and marine fisheries resources in Kenya. International Journal of Marine Science 4(63): 1 – 9

14. Books.

    The following should be listed: author’s or editor’s name, initials, year of publication, full title, publisher, place of publication, total pages.

    Example: Kirk, T.J.O. (1983). Light and photosynthesis in aquatic ecosystems. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. 401 pp

15. Composite works or serials.

    The sequence should be as above, but also should include full title of paper followed by In: editor(s) if any, full title of publication, publisher, etc., and the first and last page numbers.

    Example: Sathyendranath, S. and Platt, T. (1993a). Remote sensing of water-column primary production. In: Li, W.K.W. and Maestrini, S.Y. (eds). Measurement of primary production from the molecular to the global Scale. ICES Marine Science Symposia, Vol. 97, Copenhagen. 236-243pp

16. Articles with a Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

    Example: Gooseff, M.N., McKnight, D.M., Lyons, H.J. and Blum, R.J. (2002). Weathering reactions and hyporheic exchange controls on stream water chemistry in a glacial meltwater stream in the McMurdo Dry Valleys. Water Resources Bulletin 38 [doi:10.1029/2001WR000834]

17. Tables and Illustrations

    Each figure/table/photograph should be numbered consecutively, accompanied by a complete caption, and must be cited in the text. Figures should be of high quality to allow reproduction and reduction without loss of information. When accepted for publication the original figure files may be requested to authors in order to eventual standardization and graphical improvement. Photographs should be of excellent quality to maximise contrast and detail during printing (15cm longest edge @300 dpi), be focused and well composed.

18. Supplementary material

    In case it is found relevant, authors may submit appendices with relevant information of major interest for the interpretation of the manuscript results. This is not applicable for the raw data of normal research. The editors will decide its eventual inclusion as appendices.

    A complete Review Article manuscript must include the following: title page, abstract, keywords, introduction, main body text (the central sections vary with specific divisions according to the theme), acknowledgements, references, tables and figures (with figure legends) in that order.

    A complete Short Communication manuscript must include the same structure as an Original Article in a shorter format

 

Procedures for submitting articles

Submission of article to MJTUM is done through the online submission systems. Author(s) have to register or log in if already registered.   Submitted articles will be subjected to a peer review process 

If the editor feels that the manuscript has the potential to be published, but requires changes, the author/s will be invited to revise it. A duration of 45 days will be given to resubmit the revised manuscript for both a major and a minor revision.

 

Submission of Revised Manuscript

If you are submitting a revised manuscript, upload your revised submission to the online submission system and include the following items:

• Response to reviewer/s: A Response to reviewers document addressing the specific points made by each reviewer. Include your responses to all the reviewers’ and editors’ comments and list the changes you have made to the manuscript.
• Revised manuscript (clean copy): Upload a clean copy of your revised manuscript that does not show your changes. Upload this as your “Manuscript” file.

Manuscript Status                                         

All communication about editorial decisions and final checks will be sent to the corresponding author. The corresponding author can be able to check the status of a submitted manuscript at any time in our online submission system

Key to Submission Status

Manuscript submitted	The journal receives the submission and conducts an initial editorial assessment and screening for technical requirements
Editor invited	The journal office identifies potential editors to handle the submission
With Editor	The manuscript is assigned to a member(s) of the editorial board for handling
Under review	The handling editor invites peer reviewers to evaluate the submission
Required reviews complete	Some or all assigned peer reviewers submit written comments
Decision in process	The handling editor drafts a decision, but it has not yet been finalized or sent to the authors.

 

Corrections and Retractions

MJTUM publishes corrections, retractions, and expressions of concern as appropriate, and as quickly as possible. 

A notice of correction will be issued by MJTUM to document and correct substantial errors that appear in online articles when these errors significantly affect the content or understanding of the work reported (e.g., error in data presentation or analysis) or when the error affects the publication's metadata (e.g., misspelling of an author's name).

In these cases, MJTUM may publish a correction that will be linked to the original article. Alternatively, the Journal may choose to correct the article itself and re-post it online. If that course is taken, a correction notice will also be created to document the changes to the original article.

Authors who wish to alert MJTUM to a situation where a correction may be warranted are requested to contact the Chief Editor with the relevant details (full citation of the article, and description of the error)