[Revised] Instruction for Authors & Publication Manual

| INFORMATION

All submissions will only be accepted through EM®. Please note that we cannot accept direct submissions to the editorial office email. If you plan to submit, you will need to register a new ID and password. Please check our Privacy Policy when registering. The revised guidelines will apply from Volume 30 (April 2026).

Instruction for Authors

Manuscripts submitted to our journal must be original scholarly works that contribute to advancement of the human services field. Submissions must not have been previously published or under consideration for publication elsewhere, including in academic journals, commercial publications, institutional repositories, or any other scholarly outlets. This restriction, however, does not extend to preliminary research outputs such as proceedings or reports submitted by funding agencies.

Authors, reviewers, and editors are expected to be aware of, and comply with, best practices in publication ethics. For details, refer to THE CODE OF ETHICS FOR THE ASIAN SOCIETY OF HUMAN SERVICES.

Authors are expected to be aware of, and comply with, best practices in publication ethics, including but not limited to those pertaining to authorship (for example, avoidance of ghost or guest authorship), duplicate submission/publication, attribution, plagiarism, and competing interests.
Reviewers and editors are required to treat manuscripts fairly and in confidence and to declare any competing interests.
Research involving human subjects must adhere to the Helsinki Declaration and, where applicable, be reviewed by an institutional ethics committee or its equivalent. Personal information must be anonymized; it full anonymization is not feasible, informed consent for publication and associated risks must be obtained.

All co-authors must take responsibility for the content of the manuscript. In addition, all co-authors are expected to have made substantial contributions to the submitted work and to be accountable for the work both before and after publication. The following criteria should be satisfied.

All co-authors, including the corresponding author, have made substantial contributions to one or more of the following: conception or design of the study; acquisition, (statistical) analysis, or interpretation of the data; creation of any software used in the study; and drafting or substantially revising the article.
All co-authors, including the corresponding author, have approved the submission (and any substantially revised version that includes the authors' contributions to the study).
All co-authors, including the corresponding author, have agreed to be personally responsible for their own contributions and to ensure that any questions regarding the accuracy or completeness of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved and that the resolution is documented in the literature.

The category of published articles in our journal shall be based on the following criteria.

"ORIGINAL ARTICLE" is a study report that is original and has clear conclusions.
"REVIEW ARTICLE" is a study report that summarizes prior research on a particular field or topic.
"SHORT PAPER" refers to research reports that are original and require prompt publication.
"CASE REPORT" is an interesting case report that is highly suggestive to readers.

All manuscripts will be accepted exclusively through our peer-reviewed submission system, Editorial Manager®.

The copyright of articles is retained by the authors. The authors grant Asian Society of Human Services (ASHS) an unlimited license to publish the article under a Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC-ND) and identify ASHS as the original publisher. Submission of an article for publication implies the authors' consent to publication under the applicable Creative Commons License and the terms and conditions of the Publisher's Licensing Agreement.

All articles are published as open access on the official website, J-STAGE, and Scopus.

Author requests for text revisions will not be accepted after the manuscript has been fully published on the website and in all academic databases. However, if serious errors or legal problems are discovered after the article has been published, authors must promptly notify the editorial office. For more information on examples of serious errors, please refer to the "Allegations of Misconduct" in the Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement.

Any commercial interests that may present a potential conflict of interest -such as consultancy fees, research funding, share ownership, or patent holdings- must be fully disclosed.

All manuscripts must be checked by a native English speaker, and this should be clearly stated at the time of submission.

The Article-Processing Charge (APC) for our journal will be invoiced after the manuscript is accepted, and publication is considered confirmed once payment has been confirmed.

The manuscript received in each submission category shall adhere to the specifications outlined below. Submissions that do not comply with the prescribed format will not be considered for review.

Enforced on December 1, 2013

Revised on September 7, 2025

Submission Guideline

Manuscript types and structure

Submissions to our journal may fall into the following categories.

Manuscript types	Word count	Structure
Original Article	Approximately 5,000 to 8,000 words (excluding references, tables, and figures)	Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusion
Review Article	Approximately 6,000 to 10,000 words (excluding references, tables, and figures)	Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Thematic Sections, Conclusion
Short Paper	Approximately 2,000 to 3,500 words	Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion
Case Report	Approximately 1,500 to 3,000 words	Abstract, Case description, Intervention, Results, Discussion

We recommend that the "Original Article" follow the format below, but this is not a mandatory requirement.

1	Introduction
2	Materials and Methods
3	Results
4	Discussion
5	Conclusion (optional)
No numbering	Acknowledgments
No numbering	Conflict of Interest
No numbering	Funding
No numbering	References
No numbering	Appendix (optional)

The abstract should briefly summarize the IMRaD (introduction, material and methods, results, and discussion) format.
The abstract must not exceed 250 words.
Keywords should be limited to five or less, and special terms should be avoided; use general terms that are easy for any reader to understand.
The introduction section should define the research problem addressed and why it is important. At the end of the introduction, conclude with a brief statement of the overall aim of the study.
The materials and methods section should provide enough detail to allow other researchers to fully replicate your study. Feasibility must always be taken into consideration.
If the study is quantitative and performs statistical analysis, the results and discussion should be written separately to ensure objectivity.
However, if the study is qualitative and does not perform statistical analysis, the results and discussion can be written as an integrated section.
In the discussion section, authors should explain how the results relate to the study's hypotheses and explain the implications of the findings, especially in comparison to previous studies.

Manuscript Formatting

Use Times New Roman, 10 pt font throughout the main text.
Headings should be numbered, bold, left-aligned, and in 12 pt font.
Subheadings must follow a numbered format (e.g., 1.1., 1.2.) and be left-aligned.

Title and Author Information

The manuscript title and subtitle should be separated by a semicolon.
Author names and affiliations will be added at the time of publication.
Contact details for the corresponding author will also be included upon publication.

Abstract and Keywords

Use Times New Roman, 10 pt font.
Abstract is justified alignment, and keywords are left-aligned.
Provide up to five keywords separated by commas (,).

Tables and Figures

Do not just paste data from Excel or statistical software but edit it into results for academic articles.
All tables and figures should be embedded within the text and center aligned.
All figure titles should be written below the figures.
All table titles should be written above the tables.
Remove all vertical lines in tables.
Leave on blank line above and two blank lines below each table or figure.
Tables and figures should be numbered with Arabic numerals.
Preferred formats for figures are PNG, JPEG, and GIF.
To ensure high-quality reproduction, image resolution requirements are as follows: 300-350 dpi for color images, 600 dpi for grayscale images, and 1200 dpi for monochrome images. Images not meeting these standards may be subject to revision or rejection.

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements should be included before the reference list.
The heading should be bold, left-aligned, and not numbered.

References

All references cited in the text must be included in the reference list and vice versa.
In-text citations should use superscript numbers or brackets (e.g., 1), 2,3)).
Reference entries must follow the formatting examples below.

e.g.) Up to six authors: Separate with "," and "&"
Saudi AS, Mohd Ali Hanafiah N, & Jamaluddin Z. The moral practice level of daily high school students; Case study in Malaysia. Asian J of Human Services, 2025, 28, 18-30. DOI:10.14391/ajhs.28.18

e.g) More than seven authors: After separating them with "," and add "et al."
Kimiko Y, Miwako H, Masami A, Chigusa O, Yukiko S, Tomoko S, et al. Construct of "Individuality" perceived by nursing care workers: A qualitative interview study. Asian J of Human Services, 2019, 16, 58-67. DOI:10.14391/ajhs.16.58

e.g.) Academic books
Lemke T. Foucault, politics and failure. In Jakob Nilsson & Sven-Olov Wallenstein (Eds.), Foucault, biopolitics and governmentality. 2013, Sodertorn University. 35-52.

e.g.) Formal reports
Japan Association of Geriatric Health Services Facilities. White Paper on Care in FY2016 -From the Standpoint of Geriatric Health Services Facilities-. 2016a, 78, Office TM Co., Ltd.

e.g.) Successive formal reports
Japan Association of Geriatric Health Services Facilities. White Paper on Care in FY2016 -From the Standpoint of Geriatric Health Services Facilities-. 2016b, 10-13, Office TM Co., Ltd.

Reference in text

When citing references within the text, the corresponding reference number should be indicated using superscript numerals enclosed in parentheses.
When citing multiple references, separate each number with a comma. If citing a consecutive range of references, use a hyphen to indicate the range.

e.g.)

This sentence was written by editor of Asian Journal of Human Services 1).

This sentence was written by editor of Asian Journal of Human Services 1,3,7).

This sentence was written by editor of Asian Journal of Human Services 1-3).

When referring to a specific author's report in the text, include the publication year.

e.g.) 1 person:

Smith (2025) reported that further research is needed 1).

e.g.) 2 or more:

Smith et al. (2025) reported that further research is needed 1).

Abbreviation

When using abbreviations in text, the full term should be spelled out at first mention, followed by the abbreviation in parentheses. Thereafter, the abbreviation may be used alone.

e.g.) World Health Organization (WHO), WHO (2025) is report that ....