Author Guidelines
Enacted in January 2, 2022
1. General Requirements
1) MechEcology encourages essay-style manuscripts offering original insights into the technological, social, ethical, and ecological impacts of AI and robotics.
2) Submissions in only English are accepted. Write in clear, concise language; define specialized terminology where necessary.
3) The recommended length is 3,000–5,000 words (excluding tables, figures, and references), although flexibility is allowed when justified.
4) Manuscripts should be typed double-spaced (in Microsoft Word) with lines and pages consecutively using Times New Roman font at 10 points.
5) Arabic numbers are used. Weights and measures should be in System International (SI) units and temperature in the Celsius (centigrade scale)
6) Tables and figures should be placed in separate sections at the end of the manuscript (not placed within the text).
7) Author must prepare photographs carefully so that clear images can be printed.
2. Form of Manuscript
1) Title page
(1) The title should be limited to 20 words and there should be no abbreviations. (2) The running title should be limited to 10 words. (3) Full names, institutional addresses and email addresses of all authors should be provided (4) The description of the corresponding author should include name, institution, mailing address, telephone and fax numbers, and e-mail address.2) Abstract
(1) The Abstract should not exceed 400 words. (2) Please do not use abbreviations and do not cite references in the abstract.3) Keywords
Three to six keywords are listed.
4) Main Text
While generally organized into introduction, body (analysis and discussion), and conclusion (summary and recommendations), authors are free to adapt the structure to an essay format
5) Competing Interests
The Journal requires authors to declare all competing interests including financial or non-financial support related to their work. Where authors have no competing interests, the statement should read “No potential conflict of interest relevant to this article was reported”. The editor may ask for further information relating to competing interests.
6) Acknowledgments
(1) Please acknowledge anyone who contributed towards the article who does not meet the criteria for authorship including anyone who provided professional writing services or materials.
(2) Authors should obtain permission to acknowledge from all those mentioned in the Acknowledgements section.
7) Author’s Contributions
(1) What authors have done for the study should be described in this section. To qualify for authorship, all contributors must meet at least one of the seven core contributions by CRediT (conceptualization, methodology, software, validation, formal analysis, investigation, data curation), as well as at least one of the writing contributions (original draft preparation, review and editing). Authors may also satisfy the other remaining contributions; however, these alone will not qualify them for authorship.
(2) Contributions will be published with the final article, and they should accurately reflect contributions to the work. The submitting author is responsible for completing this information at submission, and it is expected that all authors will have reviewed, discussed, and agreed to their individual contributions ahead of this time.
8) References
Mecheology follows the American Psychological Association (APA, 7th) reference style are shown below.
Example reference style:
Book
Lindon, J. C., Tranter, G. E., & Koppenaal, D. (2016). Encyclopedia of spectroscopy and spectrometry (3rd ed.). Academic Press.
Ngnoumen, C. T., & Langer, E. J. (2016). Mindfulness: The essence of well-being and happiness. In I. Ivtzan & T. Lomas (Eds.), Mindfulness in positive psychology: The science of mediation and wellbeing (pp. 97-107). Routledge.
Report
Bedford, D. A. D. (2017). Enterprise information architecture: An overview (Report No. WA-RD 896.4). Washington State Department of Transportation.
Journal
Hong, J., Choi, H., & Kim, W. S. (2020). A house price valuation based on the random forest approach: The mass appraisal of residential property in South Korea. International Journal of Strategic Property Management, 24(3), 140-152.
Dissertation and Thesis
Hawkins, E. J. (1999). Artist and model: Shaping the creative process [Master’s thesis or Doctoral dissertation]. James Cook University.
Website
Preqin. (2023). Preqin global report 2023: Real estate. https://www.preqin.com/insights/global-reports/2023-real-estate
News and Press Releases
Bahney, A. (2024.01.19.). Home sales last year dropped to the lowest level in 28 years. CNN. https://edition.cnn.com/2024/01/19/economy/us-home-sales-2023/index.html
Proceeding
Singh, K., & Best, G. (2004). Film induced tourism: Motivations of visitors to the hobbiton movie set as featured in The Lord of the Rings. In International Tourism and Media Conference Proceedings (pp. 98-111). Monash University.
Conference Session
Bland, A. (2017). The implementation of a junior Samoan language programme in a South Island, New Zealand secondary school context. Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) Conference 2017, Canberra, Australia.
9) Tables
When preparing tables, please follow the formatting instructions below.
• Tables should be numbered and cited in the text in sequence using Arabic numerals (i.e. Table 1, Table 2 etc.).
• Tables less than one A4 or Letter page in length can be placed in the appropriate location within the manuscript.
• Tables larger than one A4 or Letter page in length can be placed at the end of the document text file. Please cite and indicate where the table should appear at the relevant location in the text file so that the table can be added in the correct place during production.
• Tabular data provided as additional files can be uploaded as an Excel spreadsheet (.xls) or comma separated values (.csv). Please use the standard file extensions.
• Tables should not be embedded as figures or spreadsheet files, but should be formatted using ‘Table object’ function in your word processing program.
• Color and shading may not be used. Parts of the table can be highlighted using superscript, numbering, lettering, symbols or bold text, the meaning of which should be explained in a table legend.
• Commas should not be used to indicate numerical values.
10) Figures
When preparing figures, please follow the formatting instructions below.
• Figures should be provided as separate files, not embedded in the main manuscript file.
• Each figure of a manuscript should be submitted as a single file that fits on a single page in portrait format.
• Tables should NOT be submitted as figures but should be included in the main manuscript file.
• Multi-panel figures (those with parts a, b, c, d etc.) should be submitted as a single composite file that contains all parts of the figure.
• Figures should be numbered in the order they are first mentioned in the text, and uploaded in this order.
• Figures should be uploaded in the correct orientation.
• Figure keys should be incorporated into the graphic, not into the legend of the figure.
• Each figure should be closely cropped to minimize the amount of white space surrounding the illustration. Cropping figures improves accuracy when placing the figure in combination with other elements when the accepted manuscript is prepared for publication on our site.
• Individual figure files should not exceed 10 MB. If a suitable format is chosen, this file size is adequate for extremely high quality figures.
11) Figure file types
We accept the following file formats for figures:
• PDF (suitable for diagrams and/or images)
• Microsoft Word (suitable for diagrams and/or images, figures must be a single page)
• PowerPoint (suitable for diagrams and/or images, figures must be a single page)
• TIFF (suitable for images)
• JPEG (suitable for photographic images, less suitable for graphical images
12) Figure size and resolution
Figures on the web:
• width of 600 pixels (standard), 1200 pixels (high resolution)
Figures in the final PDF version:
• width of 85 mm for half page width figure
• width of 170 mm for full page width figure
• maximum height of 225 mm for figure and legend
• image resolution of approximately 300 dpi (dots per inch) at the final size
Figures should be designed such that all information, including text, is legible at these dimensions. All lines should be wider than 0.25 pt when constrained to standard figure widths. All fonts must be embedded.