Author Guidelines

Please read the following guidelines carefully before submitting your manuscript. Submissions that do not comply with the journal’s ethical, formatting, anonymisation, and metadata requirements may be returned to authors before peer review.

Author Registration and Profile Requirements

All authors, including corresponding authors and co-authors, must create a user account in the journal system and complete their author profiles. All authors are responsible for completing their registration and providing complete profiles. Any critical missing information in the profile may cause trouble even before publication, and due to time management, the manuscript may be removed from the schedule.

Each contributor must fill in the boxes in the profile (with an asterix or no asterix):

• full name and surname;
• institutional affiliation;
• ORCID iD;
• 100-word biography;
• email address;
• mobile phone number or WhatsApp number
• NALANS account name.

The spelling of each author’s name and surname in the NALANS profile must match the information provided in the author’s ORCID record. Authors are responsible for ensuring that their profiles are complete, accurate, and up to date.

Mandatory profile fields, including biography, affiliation, and ORCID iD, must be completed during registration. NALANS requires ORCID iDs for editorial processing, indexing, and author identification.

Conditions of Submission

NALANS considers manuscripts on the strict condition that:

• the manuscript is the authors’ own original work;
• the manuscript does not duplicate any previously published work, including the authors’ own previously published work;
• the manuscript has been submitted exclusively to NALANS;
• the manuscript is not under consideration, under review, accepted for publication, in press, or published elsewhere;
• the manuscript contains no abusive, defamatory, libellous, obscene, fraudulent, unlawful, or unethical material.

By submitting a manuscript to NALANS, authors confirm that they have read and accepted the journal’s author guidelines, publication ethics policy, peer review policy, copyright notice, and privacy statement.

Ethical Requirements and Publication Integrity

NALANS is committed to maintaining the highest standards of publication ethics and research integrity. Authors are fully responsible for the accuracy, originality, and integrity of their submissions.

Manuscripts submitted to NALANS must:

• acknowledge all sources properly;
• avoid plagiarism, self-plagiarism, fabrication, falsification, and duplicate publication;
• include ethical approval for studies involving human participants, where applicable;
• disclose any potential conflicts of interest;
• provide funding information, where applicable;
• observe the principles of academic honesty, transparency, and responsible authorship.

Authors must ensure that all individuals listed as authors have made a significant contribution to the work and have approved the final version of the manuscript before submission.

Artificial Intelligence Use Policy

NALANS recognises that artificial intelligence and generative AI tools may be used in academic writing, editing, research organisation, translation, coding, and data-related tasks. However, the use of such tools must be transparent, responsible, and subject to full human oversight.

Authors must disclose any significant use of AI or generative AI tools during the preparation of the manuscript. This includes, but is not limited to, the generation of substantial portions of text, translation assistance, content summarisation, data analysis support, image generation, or research assistance affecting the intellectual content of the manuscript.

AI tools must not be listed as authors or co-authors. Authorship requires responsibility, accountability, intellectual contribution, and approval of the final version of the manuscript, none of which can be assumed by an AI system.

Any use of AI that results in fabricated data, hallucinated references, inaccurate citations, misleading claims, plagiarism, or text generated without substantial human supervision and academic responsibility is strictly prohibited.

Authors remain fully responsible for all content submitted to NALANS, including any material generated, revised, translated, formatted, or supported by AI tools.

Manuscript Language and Style

All manuscripts must be written in English. The language should be clear, coherent, concise, and suitable for academic publication.

Authors may use either British or American English; however, spelling, punctuation, and usage must be consistent throughout the manuscript.

All manuscripts must follow the guidelines of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th edition, for in-text citations, references, headings, tables, figures, and general manuscript structure.

Manuscript Types and Word Limits

NALANS welcomes original research articles, review articles, and theoretical or conceptual articles.

Research Articles

Research articles should normally not exceed 8,000 words.

Review Articles and Theoretical Articles

Review articles and theoretical or conceptual articles should normally be between 4,000 and 5,000 words.

Unless otherwise stated, word limits include the main text, tables, references, notes, and appendices. Manuscripts that substantially exceed the recommended word limit may be considered only if their length is justified by exceptional scholarly quality, methodological complexity, or substantial contribution to the field.

Manuscript Structure

An organized and neat manuscript structuring may help with the positive evaluation of the study since submissions should meet the following critical points and criteria of evaluation:

• Significance & Originality;
• Appropriateness of the methodology or conceptual framework;
• Analysis and Discussion;
• Language, Formatting and Style

To achive this, for literary and narrative studies and related humanities submissions, authors may follow a flexible argumentative structure. These manuscripts should normally include the following elements. Section headings do not necessarily use or include these section names or headings.

• Abstract
• Keywords
• Introduction
• Critical / Theoretical Context
• Textual, Historical, or Cultural Background, where applicable
• Analytical Discussion
• Conclusion
• References

To ensure consistency and academic clarity, research manuscripts should normally include the following sections.

• Abstract
• Keywords
• Introduction
• Background / Literature Review
• Methodology
• Analysis / Results
• Findings and Discussion
• Conclusion
• References

The title should be concise, informative, and descriptive. The abstract should be approximately 250 words and should clearly present the purpose, scope, method, main argument, findings, and contribution of the manuscript. Each manuscript must include exactly five keywords.

For systematic reviews and scoping reviews, the review method or search strategy must be clearly explained. For narrative reviews, this section is recommended where applicable. Theoretical and conceptual articles should present a clear argument, engage critically with relevant scholarship, and make an identifiable contribution to ongoing debates in narrative studies, literature, linguistics, language education, or related interdisciplinary fields.

Formatting Requirements

Manuscripts should be prepared according to APA 7th edition guidelines and the following formatting requirements:

• Font: Times New Roman, 12-point
• Line spacing: Single spacing throughout the document
• Paragraph spacing: 6 pt after each paragraph
• Left margin: 3 cm
• Right margin: 2.5 cm
• Top margin: 3 cm
• Bottom margin: 3 cm
• Block quotations: indented 6 cm from the left margin and 2.5 cm from the right margin
• Title spacing: 12 pt before and after all titles

Authors should ensure that the manuscript is cleanly formatted and free from tracked changes, comments, hidden text, unnecessary layout features, or embedded formatting problems. The submitted file should contain standard editable text.

Submission Files

To facilitate the double-blind peer review process, authors must upload two separate files:

1. Title Page
2. Anonymous Manuscript

Authors may also upload supplementary files, where relevant, such as datasets, ethics approval documents, conflict of interest statements, research instruments, or other materials that may assist the editorial team in evaluating the submission.

File 1: Title Page

The Title Page is a non-anonymous document and must include all author-identifying information.

The Title Page should include:

• title of the submission;
• abstract;
• five keywords;
• word count;
• full names of all authors;
• affiliations of all authors;
• ORCID iDs of all authors;
• email addresses of all authors;
• full contact details of the corresponding author;
• author biographies;
• acknowledgement statement, where applicable;
• funding statement, where applicable;
• conflict of interest statement, where applicable.

One author must be clearly identified as the corresponding author.

Funding Statement

Authors should provide all details required by funding or grant-awarding bodies. Funding information should be included on the Title Page in a separate acknowledgement or funding paragraph.

For a single funding agency, authors may use the following format:

“This work was supported by [Funding Agency] under Grant [number xxxx].”

For multiple funding agencies, authors may use the following format:

“This work was supported by [Funding Agency 1] under Grant [number xxxx]; [Funding Agency 2] under Grant [number xxxx]; and [Funding Agency 3] under Grant [number xxxx].”

If the research received no specific funding, authors should state this clearly where required by the journal system.

File 2: Anonymous Manuscript

File name format: First-two-words-of-the-title.Anonymous Manuscript
File name format sample: narrativisation-palimpsest.Anonymous Manuscript

The anonymous manuscript must not contain any author-identifying information.

Authors should ensure that:

• all author names are removed from the manuscript;
• institutional affiliations are removed from the manuscript;
• acknowledgements and funding details that reveal author identity are removed from the anonymous file;
• self-citations are phrased in a way that does not reveal authorship;
• author-identifying information is removed from document properties and metadata;
• tracked changes, comments, and hidden identifying information are removed.

The anonymous manuscript file should be named using the first two words of the manuscript title.

The anonymous manuscript should normally include:

• title
• abstract
• five keywords
• introduction;
• background / literature review
• methodology
• analysis / results
• findings and discussion
• conclusion

Metadata and Contributor Information

During submission, authors must enter accurate and complete metadata into the journal system. This information helps the editorial team manage the submission and ensures that publication and indexing records are accurate.

Authors should provide:

• full manuscript title;
• abstract;
• keywords;
• author and co-author details;
• affiliations;
• ORCID iDs;
• references, where requested;
• funding and grant information, where applicable;
• any additional information requested by the journal system.

All contributors added to the submission will receive email confirmation of the submission and copies of editorial decisions recorded in the system.

If a contributor cannot be contacted by email for a legitimate reason, authors should not enter a false or artificial email address. Instead, they should provide the relevant information to the editor in the appropriate message field during submission.

Supplementary Files

Authors may upload supplementary files when necessary or useful for editorial assessment, peer review, or research transparency.

Supplementary files may include:

• datasets;
• research instruments;
• ethics approval documents;
• conflict of interest statements;
• permissions for copyrighted material;
• appendices;
• visual, audio, or textual materials relevant to the submission.

Authors are responsible for ensuring that supplementary files do not compromise the anonymity of the manuscript during double-blind peer review unless such files are intended only for editorial use.

Submission Checklist

Before completing the submission, authors should ensure that:

• all the authors are registered to Nalans OJS with complete profiles
• the manuscript fits the aims and scope of NALANS;
• the manuscript has not been published previously and is not under consideration elsewhere;
• the manuscript follows APA 7th edition style;
• the manuscript complies with the word limit;
• the abstract is approximately 250 words;
• exactly five keywords are provided;
• the Title Page and Anonymous Manuscript are uploaded as separate files;
• all author-identifying information has been removed from the anonymous manuscript;
• all author profiles are complete and include ORCID iDs;
• all metadata entered into the journal system is accurate;
• all sources are properly cited;
• any AI use requiring disclosure has been declared;
• ethical approval, funding information, and conflict of interest statements are provided where applicable.

Authors should review all entered information carefully before completing the submission. After the submission is completed, a member of the editorial team will be assigned to conduct the initial editorial assessment.

Article Processing Charges

NALANS is committed to open-access dissemination and does not charge authors any submission fees or article processing charges.

There are no publication charges for articles published in regular issues of NALANS.

Copyright Notice

Authors who publish with Journal of Narrative and Language Studies (NALANS) retain copyright of their work and grant the journal the right of first publication.

Published articles are distributed under the Creative Commons license specified by the journal. This permits the sharing and distribution of the work with appropriate acknowledgement of the author, the article title, and the initial publication in NALANS, in accordance with the terms of the applicable license.

Authors may enter into separate, additional, non-exclusive arrangements for the distribution of the published version of their work, such as depositing it in an institutional repository, sharing it on a personal or institutional website, or including it in a future book, provided that the original publication in NALANS is properly acknowledged and cited.

Authors are permitted and encouraged to share their work online before, during, and after the submission process, where appropriate, as this may encourage scholarly exchange and increase the visibility and citation of published work.

Reproduction of Copyrighted Material

Authors are responsible for obtaining permission to reproduce any copyrighted material included in their manuscripts, including figures, tables, images, long quotations, archival documents, and other third-party materials.

Where permission is required, authors must obtain written permission from the copyright holder and provide appropriate acknowledgement in the manuscript.

Privacy Statement

The names, email addresses, affiliations, ORCID iDs, and other personal information entered in the journal system will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of NALANS.

This information will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party, except where required for editorial processing, publication, indexing, legal compliance, or the normal operation of the journal system.

Editorial Communication

Authors should follow the journal system for updates regarding their submissions. Editorial decisions, reviewer comments, revision requests, and publication-related notifications will normally be communicated through the journal system.

Authors are encouraged to ensure that their contact information is accurate and up to date in order to avoid delays in communication.

In case of e-mail drawbacks, spamming or other technical issues, the authors can use the discussion sections to send and receive messages about the process. The authors can use these discussion boxes in OJS, below the submission page or the review stage.