Submissions

Author Guidelines

We aim to provide potential authors with important notes on our journal’s philosophy and the requirements they should be familiar with before making a submission. Please note that submissions that do not comply with these guidelines cannot be accepted for review.

General requirements

We welcome papers from a variety of academic disciplines, provided they address issues relevant to VET. Submissions should make a meaningful contribution to the international conversation on VET. Authors should keep in mind that they are writing for an international audience and ensure that their work can withstand scrutiny from a broad, global community. A common issue with submissions, particularly quantitative studies, is that they often give the impression that the authors are not deeply engaged with VET as a field. This is frequently evident when key references from VET research are missing or when the study focuses on general outcomes or methods without situating the work in the relevant VET literature. Authors are encouraged to demonstrate a clear understanding of the field by engaging with foundational and current scholarship on VET, ensuring that their research builds on and contributes to existing knowledge. Language quality is another frequent reason for desk rejection. Manuscripts that are unclear or difficult to understand risk being rejected regardless of content. We strongly advise authors to prioritize clarity, coherence, and precision in their writing. The use of AI for translating or editing manuscripts is not recommended, as AI-generated or AI-edited texts typically remain inferior to those produced by human authors in terms of grammar, style, and overall readability.

Please make sure that your manuscript already aligns with our style guide and with APA 7th edition before submitting. We understand that many authors like to postpone these formalities until after the review process, but dealing with these will help for a faster publication process as well as lowering the chances for making mistakes, e.g. wrong citations, missing DOIs etc. Please consult our  quick guide to APA 7th edition.

Article-specific requirements

The titel of your article must be informative and should be engaging. A strong title is often the first–and sometimes only–part of your paper that readers will see. It plays a crucial role in attracting attention, signaling relevance, and ensuring your work can be found in searches. Make sure your title contains no more than one or two abstract or collective nouns. Avoid predictable academic verbs, especially in participle form. Include conrete or proper nouns and vivid verbs.

The abstract should offer a clear, concise summary of the article, usually in a single paragraph of 150–250 words. An effective abstract states the purpose or research question, briefly situates the work in its context, and outlines the methods without unnecessary technical detail. It should then highlight the main findings and explain their contribution or significance to the field. Abstracts should not be teasers; they must provide enough information for readers to understand what was done, what was found, and why it matters. Authors are advised to write in accessible language, avoid citations and abbreviations, and use present tense for established knowledge but past tense when describing what the study itself accomplished.

Keywords play a complementary role by making the article discoverable in databases and search engines. Authors are asked to provide four to six keywords that reflect the central concepts, theories, or methods of the paper. These should be specific enough to capture the unique focus of the work while also including at least one or two broader terms that situate the article within its wider disciplinary conversation. Synonyms should not be listed separately; instead, authors should select the most widely recognized term. Keywords should not simply duplicate words from the title, unless they are essential for indexing.

The structure of an article plays a vital role in how it is received by readers, including reviewers. Most readers will scan an article before deciding whether to read it closely, looking for signposts such as section headings, paragraph openings, and visual cues. A clear and well-designed structure not only makes your argument more persuasive but also increases the accessibility of your work. Headings and subheadings should be used thoughtfully to guide readers through the argument. They should be concise, descriptive, and informative, signaling the content of each section rather than using generic labels. Subheadings can be used to break down complex arguments into manageable steps, allowing readers to follow the logic of the article at a glance. For reasons of clarity and consistency, headings should not go beyond level three; deeper hierarchies risk confusing readers and disrupting the flow of the article. Importantly, text should always follow a heading–a heading should introduce a section, not stand alone without content.

All figures and tables must be of high quality (at least 300 dpi), legible, and numbered consecutively. Each should be placed within the text at the appropriate location rather than at the end of the manuscript. Every figure and table must be cited in the text and clearly explained so that its content and relevance are understandable without reference to external material. References to sources should be included in the figure or table legend, not in the title. To ensure accessibility, authors are required to provide alternative text (alt text) for every figure and illustration. Alt text should briefly describe the content and purpose of the image, enabling readers who use screen readers to understand the information conveyed. Avoid repeating information already provided in the caption; instead, focus on what the figure shows and its significance for the argument.

Manuscript preparation for blind review

To maintain the integrity of the blind peer-review process for submissions to IJVES, every effort should be made to ensure that the identities of authors and reviewers remain confidential. This responsibility applies to authors, editors, and reviewers, including when uploading documents as part of the review process. Authors should take care to remove any information that could reveal their identity. In the case of multiple authors, ensure that no individual can be identified during the blind review. Additionally, authors should avoid citing their own work in a way that would disclose their identity. File properties and metadata should also be checked to prevent inadvertent identification.