Author Guidelines

Author Guidelines

1. Aims and Scope

Responsive (eISSN 2654-6035) is an open-access, peer-reviewed journal published four times a year (April, August, October, and December). The journal publishes original research articles, critical reviews, and conceptual papers in Public Administration and Business, Public Policy, Sociology, and the Humanities, with an emphasis on contributions to international theoretical debates rather than the reporting of local cases alone.

Submitted manuscripts must explicitly situate their findings within the international literature of the relevant field and demonstrate theoretical, methodological, or contextual novelty. A claim that "this topic has not previously been studied in location X" does not, by itself, constitute a sufficient contribution.

2. Publication Ethics

The journal fully adopts the principles of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE):

  • Originality and similarity screening. Manuscripts must be original and must not be under consideration elsewhere. Every submission is screened using similarity-detection software (e.g., Turnitin/iThenticate); the maximum acceptable similarity index is 20%, excluding quotations and the reference list. Manuscripts exceeding this threshold are returned without review.
  • Authorship criteria. Authorship follows ICMJE criteria: substantial contribution to conception or design, data analysis or interpretation, drafting of the manuscript, and final approval of the version to be published. Any change to authorship after submission requires a written justification from all authors.
  • Conflicts of interest and funding. These must be disclosed in the Declarations section (see Section 5.14).
  • Research ethics. Studies involving human subjects or personal data must report the ethical clearance obtained and how informed consent was handled, or explain why such approval was not required.
  • Non-coercive citation policy. The editorial board never requires or suggests that authors cite articles from this journal as a condition of acceptance. Citation stacking or citation-cartel practices will be treated in accordance with COPE guidance and may result in permanent rejection.
  • Corrections and retractions. The journal follows COPE guidelines on retraction, correction, and expression of concern where post-publication misconduct is identified.

3. Peer Review Process

Manuscripts that pass initial editorial screening (scope fit, formatting, and completeness) undergo double-blind peer review by at least two qualified reviewers in the relevant field. The identities of authors and reviewers are concealed from one another. Editorial decisions, including accept, minor revision, major revision, or reject, are made by the editor on the basis of reviewer recommendations, with an estimated review time of 6-10 weeks from submission.

4. Manuscript Language

To meet the readability and international visibility required by databases such as Scopus, the main text (Introduction through Conclusion) must be written in English. Abstracts are provided in both English and Indonesian, as shown in the accompanying Manuscript Template. Terms or data drawn from Indonesian-language sources must be translated or adequately explained for international readers unfamiliar with the local institutional context.

5. Manuscript Structure and Format

The manuscript must follow the official Manuscript Template (.docx) provided by the journal; its layout must not be altered.

General formatting requirements

  • Paper size and margins: A4 (210 × 297 mm); top 30 mm, left 25 mm, bottom and right 20 mm.
  • Font: Times New Roman, 11 pt for body text; 14 pt bold for the title.
  • Spacing: single line spacing; first-line paragraph indent of 0.5 cm.
  • Length: 6,000-8,500 words (excluding the abstract and reference list), including tables and figures.
  • Tables and figures: maximum of six, each with a caption and source, and no vertical rules in tables.
  • Additional identifiers: an ORCID iD is required for all authors; the DOI and the received/revised/accepted/published dates are added by the editor on the final version.

Required order of sections

  1. Title: informative, no more than 15 words, free of uncommon abbreviations, bold and centered.
  2. Author names: (without academic titles) and affiliations (department, faculty, institution, city, country), marked with superscript numbers; the corresponding author is listed first, with email address and ORCID iD.
  3. Abstract (English): a single paragraph of 200-250 words, free of citations, abbreviations, and footnotes, covering five elements in sequence: the problem and its significance, the objective, the design/data/analytical strategy, the principal findings (direction and magnitude of relationships, not a promise that findings will be discussed), and the contribution to theory and to practice or policy.
  4. Keywords: three to five terms, arranged alphabetically, separated by semicolons, not repeated from the title.
  5. Abstrak and Kata kunci (Indonesian): a faithful translation of the English version.
  6. Introduction: the empirical or policy problem and its significance, its position within the international literature, the theoretical, methodological, or contextual gap being addressed (not merely "this has not been studied before"), the research question or hypothesis, the objective, and the intended contribution.
  7. Literature Review: organized thematically rather than as a source-by-source summary, showing scholarly debates and conflicting evidence, and concluding with the analytical framework carried through to the discussion.
  8. Methods: with subsections covering: research design; setting and case selection; data sources and collection; data analysis; validity, reliability, and trustworthiness; and ethical considerations.
  9. Results: analyzed evidence rather than raw data, organized around the research questions; every table and figure must be referred to in the text.
  10. Discussion: interpretation of the findings against the theoretical framework, comparison with prior studies (points of convergence and divergence, with explanation), theoretical contribution and practical/policy implications presented separately, and an honest statement of limitations and directions for future research.
  11. Conclusion: a direct answer to the research question and the contribution, stated in one or two sentences, with no new data or citations; any recommendations must follow from the findings and name the actor to whom they are addressed.
  12. Declarations: author contributions (CRediT format), funding, conflicts of interest, data availability, use of generative AI, and acknowledgements.
  13. References: see Section 6.

6. Citation and Reference Standards

  • Citation style follows APA 7th edition and must be managed using reference management software (Mendeley, Zotero, or EndNote).
  • Each manuscript must include a minimum of 25 references.
  • At least 80% of references must be drawn from reputable peer-reviewed journal articles (preferably Scopus- or Web of Science-indexed) and must be primary sources.
  • At least 60% of references must have been published within the last ten years; older sources are cited only where foundational to the field.
  • All references must be in Roman script; a DOI or stable URL must be provided for every source that has one.
  • Citation of articles from this journal is permitted only where substantively relevant, never as a condition of acceptance (see Section 2).

7. Copyright and Open-Access License

The journal operates under a full open-access model. Copyright is retained by the authors, who grant the journal a non-exclusive license to publish and distribute the manuscript under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license. Authors are permitted to self-archive the preprint or postprint version in an institutional repository or preprint platform, provided a link to the published version is included.

8. Article Processing Charge

In the interest of the transparency expected by reputable indexing databases, the journal's article processing charge policy, including the amount, if any, and the waiver mechanism for authors from institutions with limited funding, is stated explicitly and consistently on the journal's official website and in the letter of acceptance.

9. Online Submission Procedure

Manuscripts are submitted online through the Open Journal System (OJS) at the Responsive portal (http://jurnal.unpad.ac.id/responsive), following these steps:

  1. Register as an Author via the "Register" menu.
  2. Log in, select "New Submission," and choose the "Research Article" journal section.
  3. At the Start stage, check off the full submission checklist (see Section 10).
  4. At the Upload Submission stage, upload the manuscript in .docx format following the Manuscript Template, with author identifying information removed from the main file to support double-blind review.
  5. At the Enter Metadata stage, complete the details of all authors, affiliations, ORCID iDs, abstract, and keywords (English and Indonesian).
  6. At the Upload Supplementary Files stage, upload the signed Statement of Manuscript Originality, ethical approval documentation (where applicable), and any supporting data files available for upload.
  7. At the Confirmation stage, review all entered data, then click "Finish Submission."

10. Submission Checklist

  • The manuscript follows the official Manuscript Template and has not been previously published or submitted elsewhere.
  • Author identity has been removed from the main manuscript file (blind file).
  • Both the English and Indonesian abstracts are complete (200-250 words each), with keywords.
  • All authors have an ORCID iD and complete affiliation details; the corresponding author is clearly identified.
  • At least 25 APA 7th-edition references are included, managed with reference software, meeting the recency and primary-source requirements.
  • The Declarations section is complete: author contributions (CRediT), funding, conflicts of interest, data availability, and use of generative AI (if applicable).
  • A signed Statement of Manuscript Originality, together with an active email address and WhatsApp number, has been uploaded at the Supplementary Files stage.
  • Research ethics documentation is attached where the study involves human subjects or personal data.