Author Guidelines

Manuscript Structure

Community Transformation Review is open for different types of manuscript based on a community service approach that follows APA Style Journal Article Reporting Standards (APA Style JARS) from Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association 7th Edition in structuring manuscript. APA Style JARS are a set of guidelines designed for journal authors, reviewers, and editors to enhance scientific rigor in peer-reviewed journal articles.

Using these standards will make the manuscript clearer and more accurate as well as more transparent for readers. For more details, authors are encouraged to visit here.

Community Transformation Review expects author(s) to submit manuscript that has common structure contains:

Title. The title must contain the main issue of the paper. The title should be clear and informative, and not more than 15 words.

Author's names and institutions. The author's full names should be accompanied by the author's institution name and its city (organization; private or government agencies; or college institution: department, faculty, and university). Maximum of 2 institutions for each author. Email addresses as email correspondence, without any academic title.

Abstract and keywords. The abstract must consist of the purpose of the paper, service procedure, main result and discussion, and conclusion. You must be accurate, brief, clear and specific.  The abstract should be 150 to 200 words. The key words should be of 3 to 5 words or phrases and alphabetical order.

The main body for research-based article covers:

Introduction. This section outlines the background of the community engagement activity. Authors are expected to narratively describe the real conditions in the field that prompted the initiative, emphasizing the urgency and relevance of the issues faced by the target community. A clear problem identification based on observations, discussions, or preliminary data should be included. A brief review of similar previous programs—by the authors or others—should be presented to establish the academic context and highlight the contribution of the current initiative. This includes noting the strengths, limitations, and gaps of earlier efforts that the present program aims to address. The section should conclude with a concise statement of the objectives of the activity.

Service Procedures. This section outlines the approach used to address the partner's problems in a systematic and structured manner. It should describe the implementation of procedures—such as participatory, educational, training-based, or the use of appropriate technology—along with the stages of the activity, from planning and coordination to field execution and evaluation. Each stage should be clearly explained to provide a comprehensive view of the process. Authors are also expected to present the indicators used to measure the success of the program.

Results and Discussions. This section presents the results of the community engagement activities along with their interpretation. Results should be described narratively and may include quantitative or qualitative data such as photos, tables, graphs, or participant quotes. Authors should highlight measurable outcomes and any significant changes or improvements observed in the target community. The discussion should interpret these results in relation to relevant theories or previous community service programs, emphasizing the contribution and novelty of the current initiative. Challenges encountered during the process and the solutions applied should also be addressed.


Conclusion. The conclusion summarizes the key outcomes of the community engagement activity and their relevance to the initial goals and targets. It should briefly highlight the main achievements, the impact on the partner community, and the effectiveness of the procedures used. Authors may also include suggestions for program sustainability or future follow-up actions.

The last part of article should contain:

Acknowledgment.

Please acknowledge anyone who contributed towards the community service activities. 

Declaration. 

The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest affecting the validity of the reported results. 

References.

Authors are required to include at least 10 references from journal articles, in addition to other sources such as books, reports, or websites. The use of non-journal sources should be kept to a minimum. Authors are also encouraged to avoid citing articles published by predatory or blacklisted publishers.

General Writing Format

The manuscript is prepared in an A4 paper, 1.15 spacing format. A new paragraph should start  from the left margin, using 11-size, Arial Narrow.  The Top 1,41 cm; Bottom 1,44 cm; Left 1,75 cm; right 1,75 cm. The title is written in sentence case or using capital letters only at first word or special name (example: location name), 16 font size, bold, center position. The title should have been composed of no more than 15 words. Journal of Community Transformation Review  encourages author(s) to use proper title without sub title. 

  • Heading 1 is written in sentence case or using capital letters only at first word or special name, 13 font size, bold, left position. Heading 1 is expected to be used for Introduction, Service Procedure, Results & Discussions, Conclusion, and References.
  • Heading 2 is written in sentence case or using capital letters only at first word or special name, 11 font size, bold, starting from the left margin. Heading 2 is expected for the subsection of Service Procedures, Results & Discussions. This also applies to Acknowledgment.
  • Heading 3 is written in sentence case or using capital letters only at first word or special name, 11 font size, bold, starting from the left margin. Heading 3 is expected for subsection of Heading 2 in Service Procedures, Results, and Discussions.

The manuscript template can be downloaded here

Additional Writing Format

Estimation results. Estimation results from a software package are not allowed to be directly presented in the article. Author(s) should arrange the results following Statistical and Mathematical Copy standards from the Publication manual of the American Psychological Association 7th Edition.

Tables and Figures. The number of tables and figures should follow a numbering system (Arabic numbering system). The title of the tables and figures are placed at the top. The tables and figures should provide the source of information, if any, at the bottom. Any table should contain only heading and contents. The table contains row lines only without column lines. Note(s) and source(s) should be included underneath the table where appropriate.

Citation Style. Community Transformation Review follows APA 7th edition in citation style. In-text citations have two formats: parenthetical and narrative. In parenthetical citations, the author name and publication date appear in parentheses. In narrative citations, this information is incorporated into the text as part of the sentence. Citation should be written using the references manager. Community Transformation Review recommends Mendeley and other citation tools as the reference managers.

References. Community Transformation Review standards in citations and references follow the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association 7th Edition. References should include only works that are cited within the text of the manuscript. Consulting the APA style manual (https://apastyle.apa.org/products/publication-manual-7th-edition) is strongly recommended for completing manuscript submissions. Community Transformation Review recommends Mendeley and other citation tools as the reference managers.

Manuscript Submission Using OJS

The corresponding author is requested to submit the manuscript electronically by using the OJS adopted by Community Transformation Review in website page https://journal.uii.ac.id/CTR/index The corresponding author should first register as Author and through the address https://journal.uii.ac.id/index/user. Once registered, corresponding author can log in and start submission process.

Preliminary Assessment

Submitted articles that do not meet the aims and scope of Community Transformation Review will be rejected. The quality issues include inappropriate scope of the journal. In addition, the papers written in language and grammar that do not achieve a scholarly accepted standard are likely to be rejected.

Preliminary assessment also includes plagiarism checks using Turnitin. Manuscript with more than 20% without reference similarity index will be rejected in this step. Initial review will be conducted by editors or section editors. Manuscripts may be directly sent for review or returned for some revisions to authors. In addition, the initial assessment is also based on the suitability of the article with the writing guide and template.

Review Process

Manuscript will be seen for review using double-blind approach. Editors or section editors will request at least two reviewers to review manuscript for four weeks until six weeks. During this process, author(s) should not send the manuscript for publication consideration in other journals. Once reviewers finish the review process, the results will be sent to the corresponding author. Decision on the manuscript can will be one of the following:

  • Accept Submission: The submission will be accepted without revisions.
  • Revisions Required: The submission will be accepted after minor changes have been made.
  • Resubmit for Review: The submission needs to be re-worked, but with significant changes, may be accepted. It will require a second round of review, however.
  • Decline Submission: The submission will not be published with the journal.

Revision Process

Manuscripts sent back to the authors after revision should be returned to the editors or section editors within two weeks or four weeks depending on revision’s notes. The revised manuscript should be uploaded to the Online Submission Interface in the "Upload Author Version" from the Review task window. The revised documents should include the Revised Manuscript file according to Template-based format (MS Word file) (Important: please color blue highlight the revised sentences). 

Editing Process

The final version of the revised manuscript will be screened one more time for plagiarism using iThenticate or Turnitin. This screening is aimed to ensure the final version that will be published is free from a maximum of 20% similarity. The corresponding author may be asked to make a final minor revision when the similarity index reaches the threshold.

After revision, the manuscript will be sent to a copyeditor for the copyediting process. In this way, some revisions may occur for some grammatical matters and reference entries. The corresponding author should respond to the copyeditor once the copyediting process finished.

Copyedited manuscript will be sent to layout editor. In this stage, a layout editor will format the manuscript using proper software and provide a Galley version of the manuscript. Once it is completed, the Galley version will be sent to corresponding author for proofreading process.

The corresponding author should take a look at the Galley version carefully and notify a proofreader for any mistakes to be corrected. The corresponding author should make sure that all authors of the manuscript agree with the Galley version.

The proofreader will finally check the proofreading comments from the corresponding author. The comments from the corresponding author and additional proofreading from the proofreader will be used by layout editor for revision of final version of the Galley.

After editing process, the Galley version of manuscript will be published in an issue. At this stage the manuscript has become a journal article. A DOI will be assigned to the article. The author(s) can and is(are) recommended to share the article in the social media, personal blog or website, and institutional repository to improve article reach in academia.

Copyright Notice

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

  1. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgment of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
  2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgment of its initial publication in this journal.
  3. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).

Privacy Statements

The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.

Screening for Plagiarism

Community Transformation Review will be checked by using iThenticate or Turnitin, with a maximum of 20% similarities permitted.

Reference Manager Usage

The submitted manuscript must at least use Mendeley or Zotero as the reference manager, since in the copyediting process, Journal of Community Transformation Review  will use the same reference manager.