REQUIREMENTS TO A RESEARCH ARTICLE
SUBMITTED FOR PUBLICATION
IN THE LEGAL JOURNAL "LAW OF UKRAINE"

1. REQUIREMENTS TO THE CONTENTS

1.1. The article should correspond to the topics of the Journal.

1.2. The scientific style of presentation (accuracy, logic, conciseness, clarity, connectedness, integrity, completeness) of the material and its high quality of scientific research.

1.3. The research article should contain the following structural elements:

a) problem statement and its connection to significant scientific and practical tasks (please demonstrate the essence of and the current situation with the issue under research in general, its theoretical and (or) practical significance, and also how it is linked to significant scientific or practical tasks; please also explain why the research is relevant and significant for further development of a respective domain of law (theory or practice));

b) analysis of recent researches and publications which contain a starting point for resolution of the issue concerned and upon which the author relies; identification of the parts of the overall issue which have not been settled yet and which the article focuses on (briefly, critically and in a certain logical sequence, please analyze the main provisions of recent researches and publications directly relating to the issue raised, and also identify the parts of the overall issue which the article focuses on);

c) purpose of the research (please formulate the main idea of ​​the publication which should significantly differ from the current views on the issue, supplement or deepen the approaches which are already known; pay attention to the introduction of new scientific facts, opinions, recommendations, and regularities, or clarification of those which have been known before but are not studied sufficiently; the research purpose should stem from the problem statement and the analysis of recent researches and publications, it should clearly define the ultimate scientific result and indicate the scientific prerequisites for it, and also how and by which ways it is achieved (in particular, please mention relevant scientific hypotheses, ideas, phenomena, and laws);

d) presentation of the research material and its main results (please describe the following: main provisions and results of the scientific research, personal ideas, thoughts, scientific facts obtained, regularities revealed, relations, trends, methods of obtaining the actual material and its analysis, and the author's personal contribution to the obtaining and implementation of the conclusions);

e) conclusions (the most important results of the research containing scientific novelty and having theoretical and (or) practical significance) (the conclusions should have the form of a synthesis of the research information accumulated in the main part of the article, i.e. should represent a consistent, clear and logical statement of the research’s most important results which are characterized by scientific novelty and have theoretical and (or) practical significance and which the author obtained personally in accordance with the outlined purpose).

1.4. Scientific novelty of the research results should be characterized by the following features: rationality, justification, reliability, logic consistency, and compliance with the fundamental principles of science.

 

2. REQUIREMENTS TO THE SIZE
 

2.1. The total size of the research article (information about the author, title, abstract, keywords, text, footnote bibliography citation, references) should be 12 – 20 pages.

2.2. The total size of the review should not exceed 5 pages. Please always send a copy of a monograph, a textbook, a training manual or any other publication to be reviewed.
 

3. REQUIREMENTS TO THE FORMATTING AND PRESENTATION STYLE
 

3.1. The article should be submitted in the Ukrainian or English language.

3.2. The text of the research article should be printed in MS Word text editor (in rtf or doc format); paper size: A4 (21 cm x 29.7 cm); page orientation: book with width alignment, 1.25 mm from the left edge; fields: upper, lower fields - 2 cm, left field - 3 cm, right field - 1 cm; font: Times New Roman (font size 14 pt); line spacing - 1.5. The text should not contain hyphens and macros.  

3.3. The information in the research article should be presented in the following sequence.

3.3.1. Information about the author (co-authors) of the article should be given  with center alignment (first and last name in Ukrainian, academic degree, academic title, information about the election as a member of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, the National Academy of Legal Sciences of Ukraine, honorary title, job position, place of employment, locality, country, Researcher ID, ORCID ID, email address).

No more than two co-authors are allowed in one research article.

3.3.2. The code according to the Universal Decimal Classification (UDC) should be given right-aligned (short UDC tables are available on the UDKK website).

3.3.3. The title of the article should be given in semi-bold uppercase letters with center alignment, without abbreviations and without letter abbreviations. The article’s title should reflect the contents of the research and be consistent with its purpose, research results and conclusions.

3.3.4. Please prepare an abstract (its size in characters depends on the contents of the research article (scientific importance and (or) practical significance of its provisions). The abstract should be 2-3 thousand characters, including keywords (4 – 8 words).

The abstract should contain the following structural parts:

a) problem statement;

b) purpose of the article;

c) research methods (should be indicated only if they are characterized by novelty and are of interest in the context of the article’s subject matter);

d) main results of the research;

e) conclusions.

Each structural part of the abstract should be started with an indention. The names of the abstract’s structural parts, except for the purpose of the article, should not be indicated.

The set of keywords should be consistent with the main contents of the article, reflect the subject matter of the research and provide for its subject-specific search. The keywords should be given in the nominative case separated by semicolons.

The abstract together with the keywords should be printed in Times New Roman (font size - 12 pt), line spacing – 1.0.

3.3.5. The article’s text should be set forth in compliance with requirements to the contents.

3.4. The text of the article should comply with the general rules of citation and reference to the sources used, and with the requirements of the international citation and reference style for scientific papers OSCOLA used for legal papers, namely:

a) the text of a quotation inside a line (up to three lines of the text) should begin and end with single quotes and be given in the same grammatical form as in the source, without changing the peculiarities of the author's writing style. The footnote marker is put after a respective punctuation at the end of the quotation or directly after the word (phrase) which it refers to. If the word (phrase) which the footnote refers to is given in parentheses, the footnote marker is put before the parenthesis closing this word or phrase;

b) block quotation (consisting of four or more text lines) should be given in the text of the article starting from a new line using indentation for the entire quotation without quotes. Before and after the block quotation, use one indent line;

c) citation should be complete, without any discretionary reduction of the author's text and without distortion of the author's thoughts. Citation words, sentences and paragraphs may be omitted without distortion of the author's text and marked by three full stops put in the appropriate part of the quotation (at the beginning, in the middle, at the end). If a separating character stood before or after the omitted text, it is not given;

d) each quotation should always be accompanied by a reference to the source and its bibliographic entry should be given in the manner depending on its type (primary or secondary source) according to the international style OSCOLA.;

e) in case of indirect citation (retelling or giving other authors’ views in own words), always be particularly precise when giving the views of authors and tactful  when assessing their findings, and give respective references to the sources. Indirect quotation does not need quote marks. The footnote marker is put after a respective punctuation at the end of the indirect quotation or directly after the word (phrase) which it refers to. If the word (phrase) which the footnote marker refers to is given in parentheses, the footnote marker is placed before the parenthesis closing the word or phrase;

f) if when making a citation the author of the article adds emphasis to some words, a special reservation should be made, i.e., after the text explaining the emphasis a full stop and a dash is put and the italicized initials of the article’s author are given, and the entire text of the reservation is taken in parentheses. There are the following options of such reservations: (italicized by us. – L.P.), (underlined by me. – L.P. ), (spacing by me. – L.P.).

3.5. The terms and the main provisions of the article should be (if necessary) given in italics.

3.6. It is possible to give illustrations (tables, diagrams, graphs, charts, formulas) in the text of the article. The illustrations should be consistent with the text of the article, and the text – with the illustrations. Names of the illustrations should be given after their numbers. If necessary, the illustrations may be accompanied by explanatory information (picture caption).

An illustration caption should include four basic elements: name of the graphic picture indicated by the abbreviated word "Fig."; the illustration’s sequential number given in Arabic numerals without the number sign; thematic heading of the illustration  containing the text with a brief description of the picture; explication given as follows: details of the picture are marked by figures mentioned in the caption and accompanied by a respective text. Explication does not replace the general name of the picture and just explains it.

In the place where the topic related to the illustration is mentioned in the text and so it is necessary to draw the reader’s attention to it, give a respective reference in the form of a phrase in parentheses "(Fig. 1)" or a phrase like this: "... as can be seen on Fig. 1" or " ... as shown on Fig . 1" .

Illustrations should be made in separate files in Adobe PhotoShop (PSD), tiff, ai, pdf, eps formats with proper quality. Resolution should be at least 300 dpi, and image size - at least 1060 x 1410 pixel. Any re-photographing or scanning of illustrations from printed sources is not allowed. In case of vector formats, the text should be converted into curves or fonts should be added.

When preparing the tables, please keep in mind that they can be of two types: analytical and non-analytical. Analytical tables are the result of processing and analyzing of digital indicators. Typically, after such tables it is necessary to give a generalized statement of new (derived) knowledge which should be incorporated into the text by words, it particular: "as can be seen from the table...". Non-analytical tables should contain mainly unprocessed statistical data which are needed only for submitting information or stating the current condition of a particular situation.

Each table should have a sequential number and a thematic heading which should be given above the table symmetrically to the text. The thematic heading and the word "Table" should be capitalized.

Tables should be made in the text editor MS Word (in rtf or doc format).

Diagrams and graphs should be made using vector editors Adobe Illustrator, Corel Draw or MS Excel.

Charts should be made in the vector format (cdr, eps, pdf, ai).

Formulas must be written using MS Equation 3.0, Math Type formula editor.

Diagrams, graphs, charts, formulas should not be put into a separate frame or over the text. The text should be given above and below without using the text wrap.

3.7. Please use footnote bibliographic references (example).

The footnote bibliographic references should be given as a note at the bottom of the page (type area) separating them from the main text by a horizontal line. The footnote bibliographic references should be linked to the text of the document using  footnote markers which should be put on the top line of type face after a respective fragment in the text (e.g.: Text¹) and before the footnote reference (e.g.: ¹ Reference).

While numbering the footnote bibliographic references please use continuous numbering throughout the article (with Arabic numerals).

The footnote bibliographic references should be printed in MS Word text editor with width alignment; font: Times New Roman (font size - 10 pt); line spacing - 1.0.

The footnote bibliographic references should be given in compliance with the international citation and reference style for scientific papers OSCOLA used for legal papers.

According to the OSCOLA style, all sources used in the article should be divided  into the primary sources (regulations, statutes, cases) and secondary ones (books, parts of books, multivolume dissertations, articles from journals (printed, electronic) and newspapers (printed, electronic), dissertations, materials of conferences (seminars, symposiums, congresses, round tables, etc.), web-sites, blogs).

The rules according to which bibliographic references should be written and given in the article can be found in the Oxford University Standard for the Citation of Legal Authorities (OSCOLA) (Fourth Edition).
An electronic bibliography manager can be used to prepare the bibliographic references according to the OSCOLA citation style.

3.8. References should be given after the text of the article.
References are divided as follows:

a) a list of primary sources titled "List of legal documents". The list of primary sources consists of such sections: legislation, statutes, and cases. All references should be arranged alphabetically by name in each section.;

b) a list of secondary sources titled "Bibliography". The list of secondary sources consists of the following sections: authored books (books by an author (authors)), edited books (books or parts of books edited), translated books, encyclopedias, dictionaries, journal articles, conference papers (materials of conferences, seminars, symposiums, congresses, round tables, etc), thesis abstracts (abstracts of dissertations), dissertations, newspaper articles, websites, blogs etc. All references should be arranged alphabetically by name in each section. Unattributed references should be given in the alphabetical order by name.

Primary and Secondary sources are compiled using the OSCOLA style.

After each citation, indicate the original language of the source in parentheses, for example – (in English).

Where in a bibliography entry works of one and the same author, editor or compiler are given one after another, in the entries following the first one please use the double dash (– –) to replace the first and last name. The entries should be given in the chronological order (starting with the earliest one), and if publication years coincide  - in the alphabetical order by title.

The international digital identifier DOI (digital object identifier) should always be given for each cited source for which they exist.
"References" should be printed in MS Word textual editor with width alignment; font: Times New Roman (size font - 12 pt); line spacing - 1.0.
 

4. Requirements to presentation
 

4.1. For publication of a research article which has not been published (posted) in others printed (electronic) media, to the e-mail address of the Journal (editor.pravoua@gmail.com) please send its electronic version (the file name should consist of the last name (last names) of the author (co-authors) and the date on which it is submitted to the Editorial Council with the mark "article") together with illustrations (if any) in separate files in appropriate formats (see cl. 3.6.) (the file name should consist of the last name (last names) of the author (co-authors) and the date on which it is submitted to the Editorial Council with the mark "article" ).

4.2. The author (co-authors) are requested to provide his/her Information Summary with the following contents (the file name should consist of the last name (last names) of the author (co-authors) and the date on which it is submitted to the Editorial Council with the mark "Information Summary").

4.3. The author (co-authors) are requested to provide in electronic form in jpg or tiff format a high-quality colored photo (high-quality colored photos), size 9x12, resolution not less than 300 dpi (the file name should consist of the last name (last names) of the author (co-authors) and the date on which it is submitted to the Editorial Council with the mark "Photo").

4.4. The author (co-authors) are requested to provide a scanned copy of a receipt confirming yearly subscription to the paper version of the Legal Journal "Law of Ukraine" (the file name should consist of the last name (last names) of the author (co-authors) and the date on which it is submitted to the Editorial Council with the mark "Receipt").

4.5. By submitting a research article and other materials mentioned under cl. 4.1.-4.4. of these Requirements to a research article submitted for publication in the Legal Journal "Law of Ukraine", the author (co-authors) completely and unconditionally accepts (accept) the terms and conditions of the License Agreement  for Work Use.
 

Each article submitted for publication in the Legal Journal "Law of Ukraine" passes high-quality double-blind peer review where a reviewer does not know who the author of a research article is and the author does not know who reviews his/her article.

Reviewers analyze and make a critical assessment of research articles, make their remarks and suggestions concerning improvement and elaboration of the article using the Content Review Form.
 

The author (co-authors) is (are) responsible for the reliability of the material provided, for his/her (their) personal authorship of such material and for the quality of translation of the quotes from foreign language sources.

If any material is submitted with a breach of the mentioned requirements, such material is not published.

The Editorial Council has the right to review (double-blind peer review), edit, abbreviate and reject articles.