Submissions

Author Guidelines

Submission to this journal is strictly by invitation only. Invitations are extended exclusively to authors whose papers have successfully passed the preliminary evaluation during the Occidental Mindoro State College Annual Student Research Congress, where the best papers from each thematic category may be recommended for publication in the institutional research journals, particularly the Aka Student Research Journal. These manuscripts have already undergone peer review and technical evaluation prior to and during the Congress as part of the official screening and adjudication process. Only authors who receive an official invitation from the Editorial Board are eligible to submit their manuscripts for publication consideration.

Upon submission, invited manuscripts will undergo editorial assessment to ensure compliance with the journal’s publication standards, formatting requirements, ethical policies, and suitability for final publication. The Editorial Board reserves the right to request revisions or decline manuscripts that do not meet the journal’s quality standards.

Before making a submission, authors are responsible for obtaining permission to publish any material included with the submission, such as photos, documents, and datasets. All authors identified on the submission must consent to be identified as authors. Where appropriate, research should be approved by an appropriate ethics committee in accordance with the legal requirements of the study's country.

Due to page limitations, the inclusion of accepted articles in a journal issue strictly follows the time order of completion of publication requirements, except in rare cases when a manuscript is deemed deserving of expedited publication.

Submission Preparation Checklist

All submissions must meet the following requirements.

This submission meets the requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines.
This submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration.
All references have been checked for accuracy and completeness.
All tables and figures have been numbered and labeled.
Permission has been obtained to publish all photos, datasets and other material provided with this submission.

All submissions shall include the following as attachments:

Incomplete submissions will be rejected.

Use of Inclusive Language

Inclusive language acknowledges diversity, conveys respect to all people, is sensitive to differences, and promotes equal opportunities. Authors should ensure their work uses inclusive language throughout and contains nothing which might imply one individual is superior to another on the grounds of:

age
gender
race
ethnicity
culture
sexual orientation
disability or health condition

We recommend avoiding the use of descriptors about personal attributes unless they are relevant and valid. Write for gender neutrality with the use of plural nouns ("clinicians, patients/clients") as default. Wherever possible, avoid using "he, she," or "he/she."

No assumptions should be made about the beliefs of readers and writing should be free from bias, stereotypes, slang, reference to dominant culture and/or cultural assumptions.

These guidelines are meant as a point of reference to help you identify appropriate language but are by no means exhaustive or definitive.

Reporting Sex- and Gender-Based Analyses

There is no single, universally agreed-upon set of guidelines for defining sex and gender. We offer the following guidance:

Sex and gender-based analyses (SGBA) should be integrated into research design when research involves or pertains to humans, animals or eukaryotic cells. This should be done in accordance with any requirements set by funders or sponsors and best practices within a field.
Sex and/or gender dimensions of the research should be addressed within the article or declared as a limitation to the generalizability of the research.
Definitions of sex and/or gender applied should be explicitly stated to enhance the precision, rigor and reproducibility of the research and to avoid ambiguity or conflation of terms and the constructs to which they refer.

We advise you to read the Sex and Gender Equity in Research (SAGER) guidelines (Table 1) and the SAGER checklist (PDF) on the EASE website, which offer systematic approaches to the use of sex and gender information in study design, data analysis, outcome reporting and research interpretation.

Table 1. Sex and Gender Equity in Research: rationale for the SAGER guidelines and recommended use (Heidari et al., 2016)

*General principles*
• Authors should use the terms sex and gender carefully in order to avoid confusing both terms.
• Where the subjects of research comprise organisms capable of differentiation by sex, the research should be designed and conducted in a way that can reveal sex-related differences in the results, even if these were not initially expected.
• Where subjects can also be differentiated by gender (shaped by social and cultural circumstances), the research should be conducted similarly at this additional level of distinction.
*Recommendations per section of the article*
Title and abstract	If only one sex is included in the study, or if the results of the study are to be applied to only one sex or gender, the title and the abstract should specify the sex of animals or any cells, tissues and other material derived from these and the sex and gender of human participants.
Introduction	Authors should report, where relevant, whether sex and/or gender differences may be expected.
Methods	Authors should report how sex and gender were taken into account in the design of the study, whether they ensured adequate representation of males and females, and justify the reasons for any exclusion of males or females.
Results	Where appropriate, data should be routinely presented disaggregated by sex and gender. Sex- and gender-based analyses should be reported regardless of positive or negative outcome. In clinical trials, data on withdrawals and dropouts should also be reported disaggregated by sex.
Discussion	The potential implications of sex and gender on the study results and analyses should be discussed. If a sex and gender analysis was not conducted, the rationale should be given. Authors should further discuss the implications of the lack of such analysis on the interpretation of the results.

Definitions of sex and/or gender

We ask authors to define how sex and gender have been used in their research and publication. Some guidance:

Sex generally refers to a set of biological attributes that are associated with physical and physiological features such as chromosomal genotype, hormonal levels, internal and external anatomy. A binary sex categorization (male/female) is usually designated at birth ("sex assigned at birth") and is in most cases based solely on the visible external anatomy of a newborn. In reality, sex categorizations include people who are intersex/have differences of sex development (DSD).
Gender generally refers to socially constructed roles, behaviors and identities of women, men and gender-diverse people that occur in a historical and cultural context and may vary across societies and over time. Gender influences how people view themselves and each other, how they behave and interact and how power is distributed in society.

Depending on the focus of a paper, sex and/or gender may or may not be relevant to the content of the paper. We recognize that beliefs, attitudes, and laws relating to sex and gender may vary. These articles do not attempt to dictate author beliefs but rather require that, where relevant to an author’s research or paper, the author must provide clear explanations of how the paper and research define and use sex and gender.

Research Articles

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