Submissions
Submission Preparation Checklist
All submissions must meet the following requirements:
- The manuscript is original, has not been previously published, and is not under consideration by another journal.
- The manuscript is relevant to the aims and scope of the journal.
- The main manuscript has been anonymized for double-blind peer review.
- A separate title page containing author names, affiliations, email addresses, and corresponding-author details has been prepared.
- All listed authors have made an appropriate contribution and have approved the submitted version.
- The manuscript includes an abstract of approximately 150–250 words and 4–6 keywords.
- References have been checked for accuracy and follow APA 7th edition style; DOI links are included where available.
- Tables and figures are numbered, titled, cited in the text, and accompanied by necessary permissions where applicable.
- Ethical approval and informed consent information has been provided where applicable.
- Funding, Conflict of Interest, Data Availability, and relevant AI-use disclosures have been provided.
- Permission has been obtained for any copyrighted material reproduced from other sources.
Articles
Research Articles present original, theoretically informed and methodologically rigorous research in Sociology and Social Work. Submissions should make a clear scholarly contribution through empirical, theoretical, qualitative, quantitative, or mixed-method research. Research Articles normally undergo double-blind peer review and should generally be between 5,000 and 8,000 words, excluding references, tables, figures, and appendices.
Review Articles
Review Articles provide a critical, analytical, and up-to-date synthesis of existing scholarship in Sociology and Social Work. Submissions should go beyond descriptive summaries by identifying major debates, theoretical developments, methodological trends, research gaps, and directions for future research. Review Articles normally undergo double-blind peer review and should generally be between 4,000 and 7,000 words, excluding references, tables, figures, and appendices.
Research Notes
Research Notes present concise, focused, and original scholarly contributions in Sociology and Social Work. They may report preliminary findings, pilot studies, methodological innovations, focused empirical observations, replication studies, or brief theoretical interventions that make a clear contribution to knowledge. Research Notes normally undergo double-blind peer review and should generally be between 2,500 and 4,000 words, excluding references, tables, figures, and appendices.
Book Reviews
Book Reviews provide critical and scholarly assessments of recently published books relevant to Sociology and Social Work. Reviews should engage with the central arguments, theoretical contribution, methodology where relevant, strengths, limitations, and wider significance of the work rather than merely summarizing its contents. Book Reviews are normally editorially reviewed and should generally be between 1,000 and 1,500 words. Priority may be given to recent and academically significant publications.
Copyright Notice
Copyright in articles published in the International Journal of Social Exploration (IJSoE) is retained by the author(s).
By submitting and publishing their work in the journal, authors grant the International Journal of Social Exploration the right of first publication and a non-exclusive right to publish, distribute, archive, and identify itself as the original publisher of the work.
Articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). This permits others to copy, share, distribute, adapt, and build upon the published work, including for commercial purposes, provided that appropriate credit is given to the original author(s), the original publication in this journal is acknowledged, a link to the license is provided, and any changes made are indicated.
Authors are responsible for obtaining permission to reproduce any copyrighted material that is not covered by the Creative Commons license of the published article.
By completing the submission process, the author(s) confirm that they have read and agree to this copyright and licensing policy.
Privacy Statement
The International Journal of Social Exploration (IJSoE) respects the privacy of authors, reviewers, editors, readers, and other users of the journal website. Personal information collected through the journal management system will be used only for legitimate editorial, publishing, administrative, communication, preservation, and scholarly-record purposes.
Information We May Collect
Depending on how a user interacts with the journal, information collected may include:
- name and contact information;
- email address;
- institutional affiliation and country;
- ORCID iD and academic profile information where voluntarily provided;
- account and role information;
- manuscript submission and authorship information;
- peer-review and editorial correspondence;
- conflict-of-interest, funding, and other publication-related declarations;
- information voluntarily provided through forms or correspondence; and
- limited technical or usage information generated through normal operation of the journal platform.
Purpose of Data Use
Personal information may be used where reasonably necessary to:
- manage manuscript submissions and editorial workflows;
- administer peer review;
- communicate editorial decisions and publication-related information;
- manage journal user accounts and editorial roles;
- publish appropriate author and article metadata;
- maintain the integrity and provenance of the scholarly record;
- investigate legitimate ethical or publication-integrity concerns;
- generate journal usage or administrative statistics; and
- operate, secure, maintain, preserve, and improve the journal platform and publishing services.
Personal information will not be used for purposes unrelated to legitimate journal operations without an appropriate basis.
Published Author Information
When an article is published, information forming part of the scholarly record may become publicly available. This may include the author’s name, institutional affiliation, ORCID iD where provided, correspondence details where appropriate, funding information, conflict-of-interest statements, and other publication metadata.
Information published as part of the scholarly record may be indexed, harvested, archived, or redistributed by scholarly databases, repositories, search engines, libraries, DOI services, and other academic information systems.
Peer-Review Confidentiality
IJSoE follows a double-anonymous peer-review process for applicable manuscript categories.
Reviewer identities and confidential peer-review information will be handled in accordance with the journal’s peer-review and publication-ethics policies and will not ordinarily be disclosed to authors or the public.
Confidential information may nevertheless be disclosed where reasonably necessary to address serious ethical, legal, security, or publication-integrity concerns.
Sharing of Information
The journal does not sell personal information to advertisers or other third parties.
Information may be shared with editors, reviewers, editorial staff, technical service providers, hosting providers, preservation services, metadata-registration services, indexing or discovery services, or other parties where reasonably necessary for legitimate journal publishing operations.
Only information appropriate to the relevant purpose should be shared.
Information may also be disclosed where reasonably necessary to comply with applicable legal obligations, respond to legitimate institutional or ethical investigations, protect the integrity of the scholarly record, or protect the rights and security of the journal and its users.
Data Security
The journal and its publisher take reasonable administrative and technical measures to protect personal information against unauthorized access, inappropriate disclosure, alteration, loss, or misuse.
However, no online information system can guarantee absolute security, and users should take reasonable precautions when creating accounts and communicating through online systems.
Data Retention
Personal and editorial information may be retained for as long as reasonably necessary to operate the journal, maintain the scholarly and editorial record, resolve ethical or administrative matters, meet legitimate archival requirements, or comply with applicable obligations.
Some information associated with published articles, editorial decisions, or the scholarly record may need to be retained for long-term academic and archival purposes.
Cookies and Technical Data
The journal platform may use cookies or similar technical mechanisms that are necessary for functions such as user authentication, session management, security, and normal operation of the website.
If additional analytics, advertising, payment, or other external technologies are introduced in the future, this statement may be updated where appropriate.
User Responsibilities
Users are responsible for providing accurate information and for protecting the confidentiality of their account credentials.
Authors should avoid submitting unnecessary personal, confidential, or sensitive information about themselves or research participants.
Privacy Enquiries
Questions or concerns relating to privacy or the handling of personal information may be submitted to the journal through its official editorial contact:
Email: editor@socialexplorationjournal.com
The journal will consider legitimate privacy enquiries and requests in accordance with applicable requirements and the need to preserve appropriate scholarly and editorial records.
Changes to This Statement
The journal may update this Privacy Statement as its publishing services, technologies, legal obligations, or operational requirements develop. The current version published on the journal website will apply to ongoing journal operations.
