Guide for submitting articles in Urban and Regional Development Planning journal

In order to submit an article to the Urban and Regional Development Planning journal follow the below procedure:

1. Select the registration option from the system login page.
2. Complete the requested information such as name, surname, etc. (stared fields are necessary.)
3. Saving the data.
4. Log in to the system with the username and password sent to the author’s email.

Copyright and Permissions

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

The workings of the Creative Commons: BY-NC License, as stated on the Creative Commons website, are defined below:

"This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms."

Respected authors are required to:

1. Prepare 2 separate files according to the structure guideline which is available below, these files’ characteristics are:
1. The authors’ profile file, this file is according to the structure placed on this page along with the authors’ full profile and information.
2. The main file is according to the structure guideline without mentioning the authors' names.
2. Download the commitment letter and conflict of interest form (available in Persian and English) available below and after filling it out, sign and scan it and submit it along with the article files.

Articles sent by students, professors, and research faculty members of universities and research institutions should be sent by their organizational or academic email.

It is necessary to mention any financial support from organizations, etc.

Download the conflict of interest file in Word format

Download the commitment of compliance file in Word format

Download the article structure format file in Word format

A general guideline for writing articles in the urban and regional development planning journal:

1. Be in the direction of the goals of the publication
2. Have a scientific and research aspect
3. It is the result of studies, experiences, and research of the author(s)
4. It has not been sent or published in any of the domestic and foreign publications before.

The structure of the article

Title

The title of the article should show the main idea of the article and concisely express the variables, the theoretical problem, and the relationship between them. Avoid writing non-useful and unnecessary words such as review, experimental study, and similar things (other than meta-analysis). Bringing the place and year of research is usually not necessary. Avoid writing keywords and abbreviations except in essential cases such as (MRI). The number of words in a title should not exceed 12 words.

Names of author(s), place of work, and affiliation

First name and surname should be mentioned completely in the middle below the title. Avoid writing titles such as doctor, professor, engineer, Ph.D., and similar things. The department and the name of the institution, and the place of work of the author(s) should be mentioned. When the author does not have a place of work or affiliation, the city, and province of residence must be written under name and surname.

Author’s note

Each author should write a short note about name, surname, place of work, and acknowledgments. In the second paragraph, if there is a conflict of interest, it should be explained (for example, the conclusion of your research is not related to the institution where you work, or part of your research is based on data provided by another place). In the last paragraph, the full contact address and email should be mentioned. The author’s note should be written on the same title page and at the bottom of the page.

Abstract

The abstract is a summary of the article that allows a quick inference of the content of the article. A good abstract has several characteristics:

• It is accurate, meaning it shows what is in the article and nothing else
• It is non-value expressed and essentially reports rather than judgment
• It is compact, coherent, and understandable. Uses known verbs. It uses the past tense to describe what was done and the present tense to conclude. Write completely useful content and strictly avoid repeating content. Write content in the abstract that your audience will follow in electronic searches.

The abstract should include the problem under investigation (one sentence as much as possible), the participants (their specific characteristics such as age, gender, and ethnicity), the main characteristics of the research and method, the main findings, effect size, confidence interval or significance level, conclusions and implications; and its application (the method of abstract writing for review, meta-analysis, case, methodological and quantitative theory studies is different from what is mentioned here). The length of the abstract should be between 150 to 200 words, and the keywords should be between 3 to 5 words (in English abstract, they should be written in lowercase letters)/ the word abstract should be written in the middle and above the abstract. The abstract should not have paragraphs.

Note: Extended Abstract: Guidelines for Author:

Authors who are in the final section, " Accepted paper to publish" should submit an Extended Abstract. Word limit for Extended abstract is between 700 to 1200 words. 

Statement of the problem

This section should describe and express the problem. The introduction should explain what the problem is. How is it related to previous works and how is it different from them? Write down the hypotheses and purpose. The introduction should be 2 to 3 pages long, focusing on the statement of the problem, and the variables and components of the research. Avoid writing general, unnecessary, and useless content. Also, the introduction should not be written in such a way that it can only be used by professionals.

Theoretical foundations

After posing the problem, the theoretical foundations and theoretical framework of the research should be presented along with the hypotheses.

Method

This part describes the details of the research implementation. In this section, after explaining the type and design of the research, the following subheading is added:

• Participants (or subjects): an adequate description of the participants is essential. The sampling process and inclusion and exclusion criteria of the participants should be mentioned. Demographic characteristics such as age, gender, ethnicity, race, education level, location, socio-economic status, migration, disabilities and incapacitations, and language (and other specific characteristics such as the level of educational achievement) should be stated.
• explain anything that might affect the interpretation of the results in some way.
• In the experimental designs the participants, write the title of the research design and then explain it briefly.
• Tools (materials): the tools and materials used should be explained with reference to the source. The purpose, structure, credibility, and validity of the tools, and how to implement and respond to them should be mentioned. Especially translated tests should be explained in terms of direct and reverse translation. It is not necessary to give an extensive and unnecessary explanation about the tools and materials. (you can probably explain the essentials in these cases in a 6 to 10 line-paragraph.
• Method of implementation/data collection: if an intervention or experiment has been carried out in the research, its content should be fully explained and a summary of it should be given in a table, in the appendix, and at the end of the article, after the list of references. Explain how the data was collected or implemented. If a special device or device is used, explain it. The information that is required to be provided in this section:

1. The person(s) who conducted the intervention or collected the data
2. The place and location
3. The duration of the implementation and the sessions and the interval between them
4. The activities or incentives use.
5. How the participants were grouped (randomly or otherwise).

• Findings: in this section, summarize the data and analysis done. State all results, including those that were contrary to expectations. For example, state significant and non-significant results and effect sizes. Do not cite raw data and findings from a single subject (other than single-test designs). State the hypotheses and then show the data analysis. In the explanation of the results, express the rejection or acceptance of the research hypothesis. The researcher or researchers are always responsible for the accuracy of the analysis. In stating the results, the main assumption is that the reader of the article is a professional and expert. Therefore, do not mention general descriptive and expert. Therefore, do not mention general descriptive topics and general basics and their references. Mention missing data and dropouts. In expressing results state, the statistical value to two decimal places, the degree of freedom, the direction of influence, the confidence interval, and the effect size. If the experimental and intervention program was not implemented as the researcher intended, you should explain it. Avoid bringing unnecessary and numerous tables and charts. Enter only necessary tables. (in the tables, avoid drawing unnecessary internal vertical lines and add the table and figure number with a short appropriate explanation above them.)