Author Guidelines

General standards

Language Editing

The Journal of Applied Taxation and Policy requires that manuscripts submitted meet international standards for the English language to be considered for publication. Articles are typically published in either Indonesian or English. 

For authors who would like their manuscript to receive language editing or proofing to improve the clarity of the manuscript and help highlight their research, the Journal of Applied Taxation and Policy recommends the language-editing services provided by internal or external partners (contact the Principal of the Journal of Applied Taxation and Policy for further information).

Note that sending your manuscript for language editing does not imply or guarantee that it will be accepted for publication in the Journal of Applied Taxation & Policy. Editorial decisions on the scientific content of a manuscript are independent of whether it has received language editing or proofing by partner services or other services.

Language Style

The default language style of the Journal of Applied Taxation and Policy is American English. English and Indonesian. If you prefer your article to be formatted in British English, please specify this on the first page of the manuscript.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

There are a few simple ways to maximize your article's discoverability. Please follow the steps below to improve the search results for your article:

  • Include a few keywords from your article in the title of the article.
  • Do not use long article titles.
  • Pick 3 to 5 keywords using a mix of generic and more specific terms on the article subject(s).
  • Use the maximum number of keywords in the first two sentences of Abstract.
  • Use some keywords in the Level 1 headings.

Title

The title is written in title case, aligned to the center, and in Cambria font at the top of the page.

The title should be concise, omitting implicit terms, and, where possible, should be a statement of the main result or conclusion presented in the manuscript. Abbreviations should be avoided in the title of the manuscript.

Witty or creative titles are welcome only if relevant and within measure. Consider whether a thought-provoking title might be misinterpreted as offensive or alarming. In extreme cases, the editorial office may veto a title and propose an alternative.

Authors and Affiliations

All names are listed together and separated by commas. Please provide the exact and correct author names, as these will be indexed in the official archives. Affiliations should be keyed to the author's name with superscript numbers and listed as follows: Institut/University/Organization, Country (without detailed address information such as city zip codes or street names).

Example: Universitas Islam Negeri Alauddin, Indonesia

The Corresponding Author(s) should be marked with superscript. Please provide the exact contact email address of the corresponding author(s) in a separate section below their affiliation.

Headings and Sub-headings

Sentence case for headings and capitalizing each word of subheadings. Headings need to be defined in Cambria, 14, bold, and subheadings defined in Cambria, 10.5, bold.

Abstract

The abstract should clearly render the general significance and conceptual advances of the work accessible to a broad readership. In the abstract, minimize the use of abbreviations and do not cite the references. The abstract should not exceed 250 words, written in English using Cambria, 9.

Tips:

  • Background of study
  • Aims and scope of the paper
  • Methods
  • Summary of result or findings
  • Conclusions

Keywords

All article types: You may provide up to five keywords; at least three are required.

Text

The body text is in 11 points normal  Cambria. New paragraphs are separated by a single, empty line. The entire document should be single-spaced and contain page and line numbers to facilitate the review process.

Nomenclature

The use of abbreviations should be minimized. Non-standard abbreviations should be avoided unless they appear at least four times and are defined upon first use in the main text. Please consider providing a list of non-standard abbreviations at the end, immediately before the Acknowledgements section.

 

Sections

Your manuscript is organized into headings and subheadings.

For Original Research Articles, it is recommended to organize your manuscript in the following sections:

Introduction

The introduction is slightly different from that of the short and concise abstract. The reader needs to know the background of the research and, most importantly, why the research is important in this context. What critical question does your research address Why should readers be interested in this study?

The purpose of the Introduction is to stimulate the reader's interest and provide pertinent background information necessary to understand the rest of the paper. You must summarize the problem to be addressed, provide background on the subject, discuss previous research on the topic, and explain exactly what the paper will address, why, and how. A good thing to Avoid making your introduction a mini-review. There is a huge amount of literature available, but as a scientist, you should be able to pick out the things that are most relevant to your work and explain why they are relevant. This shows the editor/reviewer/reader that you understand your area of research and that you can get straight to the most important issues.

The introduction should be concise, well-structured, and inclusive of all the information needed to follow the development of your findings. Do not overburden the reader by making the introduction too long. Get to the key parts of other papers sooner rather than later.

Tips:

  1. The introduction should begin by providing a concise background account of the problem studied.
  2. The objective of this study
  3. Establish the significance of your work: Why was it necessary to conduct this study?
  4. The pertinent literature is introduced. Do not provide a complete history of the topic. Only cite previous work that has a direct bearing on the present problem. (State of the art, relevant research to justify the novelty of the manuscript.)
  5. State the gap analysis or novelty statement here.
  6. Clearly state your hypothesis, the variables investigated, and concisely summarise the methods used.
  7. Please define any abbreviations or specialized/regional terms.

Example of a novelty statement or gap analysis statement at the end of the Introduction section (after state of the art of previous research survey): "........ (short summary of background)....... A few researchers have focused on ....... There have been limited studies on ........ Therefore, this study aims to ................. The objectives of this study are as follows:

Be concise and aware of who will read your manuscript, and ensure that the introduction is directed to that audience. Move from general to specific; from the problem in the real world to the literature to your research. Lastly, please avoid making subsections in the Introduction.

Method

In the Method section, you should explain clearly how you conducted your research in order to (1) enable readers to evaluate the work performed and (2) permit others to replicate your research. You must describe exactly what you did: what and how the experiments were run, what, how much, how often, where, when, and why equipment and materials were used. The main consideration is to ensure that sufficient detail is provided to verify your findings and enable the replication of the research. You should maintain a balance between brevity (you cannot describe every technical issue) and completeness (you need to provide adequate detail so that readers know what happened).

Tips:

  1. Define the population and methods of sampling.
  2. Describe the instrumentation.
  3. Describe the procedures and, if relevant, the time frame.
  4. The analysis plan is described as follows:
  5. Describe any approaches to ensure validity and reliability.
  6. Describe statistical tests and the comparisons made; ordinary statistical methods should be used without comment; advanced or unusual methods may require a literature citation, and;
  7. Please describe the scope and/or limitations of the methodology used.

Result and Discussion

The purpose of the Results and Discussion section is to state your findings and make interpretations and/or opinions, explain the implications of your findings, and make suggestions for future research. Its main function is to answer the questions posed in the introduction, explain how the results support the answers, and how the answers fit in with the existing knowledge on the topic. The Discussion is considered the heart of the paper and usually requires several writing attempts to finalise.

The discussion will always connect to the introduction by way of the research questions or hypotheses you posed and the literature you reviewed, but it does not simply repeat or rearrange the introduction; the discussion should always explain how your study has moved the reader's understanding of the research problem forward from where you left them at the end of the introduction.

To make your message clear, the discussion should be kept as short as possible while clearly and fully stating, supporting, explaining, and defending your answers, and discussing other important and directly relevant issues. Care must be taken to provide commentary and not reiterate the results. Side issues should not be included, as they tend to obscure the message.

Tips:

  1. State the Major Findings of the Study.
  2. Explain the meaning of the findings and why they are important.
  3. Support your answers with the results. Explain how your results relate to expectations and the literature, clearly stating why they are acceptable and how they are consistent or fit in with previously published knowledge on the topic.
  4. Relate the Findings to Those of Similar Studies
  5. Consider Alternative Explanations of the Findings.
  6. Implications of the study
  7. Acknowledge the Study's Limitations, and
  8. Make Suggestions for Further Research

It is easy to inflate the interpretation of results. Be careful that your interpretation of the results does not go beyond what the data support. The data are the data: nothing more, nothing less.  Please avoid and makeover interpretation of the results, unwarranted speculation, inflating the importance of the findings, tangential issues or over-emphasize the impact of your research.

 

Work with Graphic:

Figures and tables are the most effective ways to present results. Captions should be able to stand alone, such that the figures and tables are understandable without the need to read the entire text. In addition, the data represented should be easy to interpret.

Tips:

  1. The graphic should be simple, but informative;
  2. The use of colour is encouraged.
  3. Graphics should uphold the standards of a scholarly, professional publication.
  4. The graphic must be entirely original, unpublished artwork created by one of the co-authors.
  5. Graphics should not include photographs, drawings, or caricatures of any person, living or deceased.
  6. Do not include Postage stamps or currency from any country, or trademarked items (company logos, images, and products)
  7. Please avoid choosing a graphic that already appears in the text of the manuscript.

To see the samples of tables and figure, please download the template of the Journal of Applied Taxation and Policy.

Finally, please avoid creating subsections in the Results and Discussion sections.

Conclusion

The conclusion is intended to help the reader understand why the research should matter to them after they have finished reading the paper. A conclusion is not merely a summary of the main topics covered or a re-statement of the research problem, but a synthesis of the key points. It is important that the conclusion does not leave any questions unanswered.

Tips:

  1. State your conclusions clearly and concisely in this section. Be brief and stick to the point.
  2. Explain why your study is important to the reader. You should instill in the reader a sense of relevance.
  3. Prove to the reader and the scientific community that your findings are worthy of note. This means setting your paper in the context of previous research. The implications of your findings should be discussed within a realistic framework.

For most essays, one well-developed paragraph is sufficient for a conclusion, although in some cases, a two- or three-paragraph conclusion may be required. Another important thing about this section is (1) do not rewrite the abstract; (2) statements with "investigated" or "studied" are not conclusions; (3) do not introduce new arguments, evidence, new ideas, or information unrelated to the topic; (4)do not include evidence (quotations, statistics, etc.) that should be in the body of the paper.

Acknowledgments (if any)

This is a short text to acknowledge the contributions of specific colleagues, institutions, or agencies that aided the efforts of the authors.

Author Contributions Statement

The Author Contributions Statement can be several sentences long and should briefly describe the tasks of individual authors. Please list only two initials for each author, without full stops, but separated by commas (for example, JC, JS). In the case of two authors with the same initials, please use their middle initials to differentiate between them (for example, REW, RSW). The Author Contributions Statement should be included at the end of the manuscript, before the References.

References

All citations in the text must be in the reference list and vice versa. References should include only articles that are published or accepted. Datasets that have been deposited in an online repository should be included in the reference list, including the version and unique identifier when available. For accepted but unpublished works, use "in press" instead of page numbers. Unpublished data, submitted manuscripts, or personal communications should be cited within the text only for article types that allow such inclusions. Personal communications should be documented with a letter of permission.

In-text citations should be called according to the surname of the first author, followed by the year of publication. For works by two authors, include both surnames, followed by the year. For works by more than two authors, include only the surname of the first author, followed by et al., followed by the year. For assistance, please use management reference (Mendeley or Zotero) and utilise the format of the American Psychological Association 7th Edition. If possible, please provide the retrieved link for each reference.

Article in a printed journal:

Aziz, K. G., Faraj, B. M., & Rostam, K. J. (2022). Online and face-to-face learning during the COVID-19 pandemic: A comparative analysis of instructors and students' performance. Journal of Applied Taxation and Policy, 2(2), 75-83.

Articles in online journals:

Josua, D. P., Nur Idayanti, Riyadi, Sarifah, I., & Arthur, R. (2025). Exploratory Factor Analysis of Instruments Evaluation Interactivity Learning Management System (LMS) for Increase Involvement Study Student Faculty of Engineering. Journal of Applied Taxation and Policy, 4(1), 1–10. Retrieved from http://journal.unm.ac.id/index.php/INTEC/article/view/6009

Book:

Barber, A. J., Crow, M. J., & Milsom, J. S. (2005). SUMATRA: Geology, Resources, and Tectonic Evolution. The Geological Society.

Theses and Dissertations

Sulaiman, F. (2011). The effectiveness of problem-based learning (PBL) online on students' creative and critical thinking in physics at the tertiary level in Malaysia (Thesis). University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand.

Supplementary Material

The Journal of Applied Taxation and Policy does not support pushing important results and information into supplementary sections. However, data that are not of primary importance to the text, or which cannot be included in the article because it is too large or the current format does not permit it (such as movies, raw data traces, PowerPoint presentations, etc.) can be uploaded during the submission procedure and will be displayed along with the published article. Supplementary Material can be uploaded as Data Sheet (word, excel, csv, cdx, fasta, pdf or zip files), Presentation (PowerPoint, pdf or zip files), Supplementary Image (cdx, eps, jpeg, pdf, png or tif), Supplementary Table (word, excel, csv or pdf), Audio (mp3, wav or wma) or Video (avi, divx, flv, mov, mp4, mpeg, mpg or wmv).

Supplementary material is not typeset; therefore, please ensure that all information is clearly presented, the appropriate caption is included in the file and not in the manuscript, and that the style conforms to the rest of the article.

Figures and Table Guidelines

General Style Guidelines for Figures

Figures help readers visualise the information being conveyed. It is often difficult to be sufficiently descriptive using words. Images can help achieve the accuracy required for a scientific manuscript. For example, it may not be enough to say, "The surface had nanometer-scale features." In this case, it would be ideal to provide a microscope image of the defect.

For images, please ensure the following:

  • Include scale bars
  • Consider labeling important items
  • Indicate the meaning of different colors and symbols used

General Style Guidelines for Tables

Tables are a concise and effective way to present large amounts of data. You should design them carefully to clearly communicate your results to busy researchers.

The following is an example of a well-designed table.

  • Clear and concise legend/caption
  • Data divided into categories for clarity
  • Sufficient spacing between columns and rows
  • Units are a provided font type and size are legible

Figure and Table Requirements

Legends

Figure and table legends are required to have the same font as the main text (11 points normal Cambria, single-spaced). Legends should be preceded by the appropriate label, for example, "Figure 1" or "Table 4". Figure legends should be placed at the end of the manuscript (for supplementary images, you must include the caption with the figure, uploaded as a separate file). Table legends must be placed immediately before the tables. Please use only a single paragraph for the legend. 

Image Size

Figure images should be prepared with the PDF layout in mind; individual figures should not be longer than one page and with a width that corresponds to one or two columns.

 

Format

The following formats are accepted.

TIFF (.tif) TIFF files should be saved using LZW compression or any other non-lossy compression method. JPEG (.jpg)

EPS (.eps) EPS files can be uploaded upon acceptance

 

Colour Image Mode

Images must be submitted in RGB colour mode.

 

Resolution Requirements

All images must be uploaded separately during the submission procedure and have a resolution of 300 dpi at the final size. Check the resolution of your figure by enlarging it to 150%. If the resolution is too low, the image will appear blurry, jagged, or have a stair-stepped effect.

Please note that saving a figure directly as an image file (JPEG, TIF) can greatly affect the resolution of your image. To avoid this, one option is to export the file as a PDF and then convert it into a TIFF or EPS using graphics software. EPS files can be uploaded after acceptance.

Details of all funding sources must be provided in the funding section of the manuscript, including grant numbers, if applicable.