Author Guidelines

The Ghana Social Science Journal (GSSJ) is published by the School of Social Sciences,  College of Humanities, University of Ghana. The Journal publishes the best of original research and scholarship in the social sciences as well as research from cognate disciplines that addresses social issues. It provides a forum for discussing new issues and ideas of relevance to the developing world particularly those in LAMICs. The Ghana Social Science Journal accepts papers solely on the basis of scientific rigor, adherence to technical and ethical standards, and evidence that the data support the conclusions.

Manuscript Requirements

Correspondence/Length of paper 

Papers submitted to the journal should follow the guidelines set out below. The manuscript including illustration tables, references, etc., must carefully consider the guidelines given below:  

• Research Articles should be a minimum of 6000 words and a maximum of 8000 words. 
• Systematic reviews should have a maximum of 10,000 words
• Book reviews, opinion papers and commentaries are shorter write-ups of between 1000 to 3000 words.
• Articles should contain between 3 and 5 keywords
• Contributions are received with the understanding that they comprise original, unpublished material and have not been submitted or considered for publication elsewhere.
• All submissions must be online using the University of Ghana Journal submission portal.

Title Page

The title page should include: The name(s) of the author(s); A concise and informative title; The affiliation(s) and address (es) of the author(s); The e-mail address and telephone numbers of the corresponding author. ORCID numbers with their respective link should be provided for each authors. All authors submitting manuscripts to the journal should have ORCID numbers. For those without one, we encourage them to register for one at https://orcid.org/

Abstract 

Abstracts must be between 150 to 250 words. The abstract should not contain any undefined abbreviations or unspecified references. Structured abstracts are not acceptable.

Presentation 
Manuscripts should be written in English (UK); font type – Arial/Times New Roman; font size - 12; and double-spaced. Footnotes should be used sparingly. If English is not the author's mother tongue, please arrange proofreading before submission. 

Structure 

Your paper should be compiled in the following order: title page; abstract; key policy highlights (if appropriate); keywords; main text introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion; conclusion and references. Acknowledgments; declaration of interest statement  and appendices may be provided. 

Text 
The text should be organized under appropriate section headings. All headings should be placed on the left-hand side of the text (left aligned). The pages in the manuscript must be numbered. All illustrations, tables, etc. should be inserted at the appropriate locations in the text. Only three levels of headings are accepted in the text. Do not number the headings. Avoid unnecessary formatting and codes. Avoid the automatic hyphenation function and do not hyphenate manually at line breaks. All measurements should be given in metric units. Acknowledgements may be made briefly just before the list of references ONLY on the revised final manuscript. 

Tables and Figures 

• All illustrations other than tables are to be numbered consecutively as Figures (e.g. graphs, drawing and photographs) using Arabic numerals.
• All Figures and Tables should be inserted within the manuscript and numbered appropriately.
• A maximum of 3 Tables and 2 Figures should be presented in a submitted manuscript

Ethical Clearance 

Authors are encouraged to ensure that they seek the necessary ethical clearance before submitting their paper for review. When in doubt, the Journal may demand the submission of a signed proof of clearance from a responsible authority. 

Submission Preparation Checklist 

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines. 

• The submission has not been published, nor is it before another journal for consideration.
• The submission file is in Microsoft Word file format.
• Where available, DOI/URLs for the references have been provided.
• The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines.

References

All references must follow the American Psychological Association’s (APA) reference style. Manuscripts that do not adhere to the journals’ referencing style will be returned to the authors without peer review

2. Copyright
The copyright belongs to the School of Social Sciences, University of Ghana, Accra, Ghana.