PHILIPPINE ENGINEERING JOURNAL
AUTHOR'S GUIDE

The Philippine Engineering Journal (PEJ) serves as a medium of exchange of technical information and dissemination of engineering knowledge through the publication of original technical papers such as original articles, review articles, or short communications in the field of engineering. Published semi-annually (June and December) by the National Engineering Center (NEC), it is being distributed at reasonable rates to schools, professional organizations, international entities, and practitioners. PEJ articles may be accessed on U.P. Diliman Journals Online (https://journals.upd.edu.ph/index.php/pej).

The PEJ invites authors who wish to publish their works in the fields of chemical engineering, civil engineering, computer science, computer engineering, electrical engineering, electronics and communications engineering, geodetic engineering, energy engineering, environmental engineering, industrial engineering and operations research, materials engineering, mechanical engineering, metallurgical engineering, mining engineering, and other engineering fields. Should you be interested to submit a manuscript, please refer to the guidelines below.

GUIDELINES ON MANUSCRIPTS SUBMITTED FOR PUBLICATION TO THE
PHILIPPINE ENGINEERING JOURNAL

 A.   Manuscript Type

 Manuscript Type. Unpublished research article, review article, short communication, and letter to the editor discussing current interests in engineering are accepted for publication.

 Type of Manuscripts

Research Article
A technical document that describes or contains novel or interesting technical results in the engineering fields. The content is limited to 30 Pages.

Review Article
A document that provides an elaborate review, survey, and summary of the present results and in-depth analysis of a certain engineering topic. The content is limited to 30 Pages.

Short Communication
Short Communication is a shorter version of a research article that presents novel and significant material for rapid dissemination. The content is limited to 10 Pages.

Letter to the editor
Letter to the editor is generally a short form of communication or constructive interpretations or discussions of an engineering topic that may attract attention or interest to the readers. The content is limited to 3 Pages.

B. Manuscript Content and Format
Manuscripts shall be submitted in editable electronic form written with page layout specified for A4
paper size. Non-editable form of the same may be included in your submission for reference. The
maximum number of pages depends on the type of manuscript.

The manuscript typically contains the following: Abstract, Keywords, Introduction, Methodology, Results and Discussion, Conclusion and Recommendation, Acknowledgment, and References. Since PEJ follows a double-blind peer review, the author should prepare a manuscript with no identifying author information and affiliation. However, a separate title page should be prepared with the author details (full name, affiliation, corresponding author's and abstract of not more than 300 words.

An Abstract not exceeding 300 words must accompany a original article, review article, and short communication.

Keywords. Provide keywords relevant to the paper or identifiable words related to the paper. This will facilitates online searches of your manuscript.

Introduction. This section provides a brief background and significance of the paper and discussion of related previous works (literature review/survey), the relevance of the topic being reported or problem addressed, the solution and objectives. In the case of the review article, the main purpose of the review should be the focus of the introduction.

Methodology. May be devoted to the detailed description of the experimental process or investigation, including the apparatus, materials, equipment, and method of analysis and characterization. This section may contain only the bare essentials in the case of short communications.

In the case of technical papers and short communications, a section should be devoted to the detailed discussion of the results, their accuracy, and how they compare with the results of other workers, if available.

There should also be a section summarizing the conclusion, observations, or recommendations of the authors. A suggested heading would be ‘Conclusions and Recommendations’.

Acknowledgments. Brief statements about the funding support and/or personal assistance, if any. Placed in a separate heading before the references. If there is any identifying author’s information in the acknowledgment section that may compromise the double-blind peer review, the author can send it as a supplemental file not for review or can be included in the cover letter. This acknowledgment section will be included later in the final proofing if the manuscript is accepted for publication.

References should list the name(s) of the author(s), year of publication, the title of reference materials, volume, and page numbers. (Please follow the reference stated in the reference format)

A list of symbols and abbreviations, if applicable, can be provided in a section called Nomenclature for technical papers, review articles, and short communications.

An appendix may be added to discuss the derivations of equations, an algorithm of programs used, and the like if these derivations, algorithm, etc. do not fit in the text for the reason of space, style, etc. but must be included for completeness, clarity, and or additional supplementary information to the reader.

All technical papers submitted will be subjected to a double-blind peer review process.

Page. All pages shall have the following dimensions:

Left margin                            1.0 inch

Right margin                          1.0 inch

Top margin                            1.0 inch

Bottom margin                      1.0 inch

Header (first page only)       0.5 inch

Footer                                      0.5 inch

The header, which shall contain the date of issue of the PEJ should be left blank by the author.

Pagination should be automatic and should be right aligned on the last line of the footer.

Paragraphs and Font. All lines of the main text should be double-spaced and one line of spacing must separate paragraphs. The text shall be written in MS Word using 12-point Times New Roman font. The abstract should be written single-spaced, italicized, and using 10-point Times New Roman font.

Headings. Main headings should be numbered using Roman numerals and written in boldface, e.g., I. Introduction, II. Methodology, and so on. Sub-headings should be numbered using Arabic numerals and written in Italics, i.e., 2.1 Characterization. The heading of the abstract should not be numbered. All headings should be left-aligned.

Captions. All drawings, photographs, graphs, and similar graphical material should be labeled and numbered consequently. A brief caption describing the content should appear. The label should be in boldface while the caption should be plain. Thus, an example would be:

Figure 1. Details of the construction of the experimental apparatus

The label and caption should appear centered below the figure it describes and separated from the figure by only one line of space. Likewise, tables should be labeled and numbered consecutively. The label should appear centered above the table and should be written boldface. The caption should appear directly below the label. Hence, the following format:

Table 3. Summary of Reactor Specifications

Sub labels should be numbered as Figure 3a. Table 2c, etc. A figure or a table label should be separated from succeeding or preceding text by a line of spacing.

Equations. All equations should be centered and numbered, the numbering being right-aligned. If possible, the authors should write equations using an equation editor.

References. References should be numbered and listed in the order in which they are cited in the main text. Indicate references by number(s) in square brackets. Should the names of the authors be mentioned in the text, the reference number should also be indicated.

Example: “…as described [12,14]. Suarez and Cortez [15] used a different approach…”

The references section should follow the following formatting. Only published articles, data, or information should be included in the references. Personal communication should appear only in text with the names of the person/s who supplied the information and should not be listed in the References section.

TYPE OF REFERENCE	FORMAT	EXAMPLE
Articles from Journals	Author(s). Year of publication. Article title. Journal title. Volume(issue): page number	Santos S, Manolo M. 2020. Pitting corrosion of steinmann stainless steel pins in simulated body fluid using cyclic polarization technique. Philippine Engineering Journal. 41(2):73-86.
Books	Author(s). Year of publication. Title of book. Edition. Place of publication: publisher. Page number.	Das BM. 2016. Principles of foundation engineering. 8th ed. Connecticut, USA: Cengage Learning. p. 749–756.
Electronic Book (e-book)	Author(s). Year of Publication. Title of e-Book: Subtitle if applicable. [e-book], nth Edition. Publisher. <doi or url>	Clark M, Phelan J. 2020. Debating rhetorical narratology: On the synthetic, mimetic, and thematic aspects of narrative [e-book]. The Ohio University Press. https://doi.org/10.26818/9780814214282
Papers from Proceedings	Author(s). Year of publication. Title of the paper. Name of conference; place of conference. Publisher. Page number. <doi or url>	Aeschbach P, Zhang X, Georghiou A, Lygeros, J. 2015. Balancing bike sharing systems through customer cooperation-a case study on London's Barclays Cycle Hire. 54th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC); Osaka, Japan. IEEE. p. 4722–4727. doi:10.1109/CDC.2015.7402955
Dissertations and Theses	Author(s). Year of publication. Title of thesis [doctoral or masters]. Place of publication: publisher. Page number	Lutz M. 1989. American nervousness and the economy of cultural change [doctoral]. Stanford (CA): Stanford University. p. 101.
Patent	Author(s). Year of publication. Title of the patent. Place and Patent number.	Ghatak S. 2019. Immunization testing system. U.S. Patent No. 10,788,482.
Electronic References	Webpage name. Year. Retrieved from <webpage or url> on <date of retrieval>.	Philippines Statistics Agency. 2018. Retrieved from https://psa.gov.ph/sites/default/files/ PIF%202018.pdf on 25 Nov 2019.

 
Nomenclature. All symbols and abbreviations used should be listed in alphabetical order and explained.
The units of symbols denoting physical quantities should be given. The format of an entry in the
nomenclature is shown below, as an example.

 Figures (Electronic Images ) and Tables
All figures and artwork accompanying the manuscript must be camera-ready. For electronic images that
are to be submitted online along with the manuscript, follow the general points given below.

If the application used for preparing the artwork is other than Microsoft Office, save the image or convert
to any one of the following formats giving attention to details such as halftones and pixels.

●	EPS or PDF	all used fonts should be embedded.
●	TIFF or JPEG	color or grayscale photographs (halftones), minimum 300 dpi.
●	TIFF or JPEG	bitmapped pure black & white pixels line drawings, minimum of 1000 dpi.
●	TIFF or JPEG	combinations bitmapped line/half-tone color or grayscale, minimum of 500 dpi.

Do not supply files that are

• optimized for screen use such as GIF, BMP, PICT or WPG.
• have very low resolution
• disproportionately large graphics in relation to content.

 
Submit tables as editable text (not images). You may place tables next to the relevant text within the article or on separate pages at the end of the article, numbering them according to their sequence of appearance in the text.

All manuscripts must be properly proofread and free of typographical errors upon submission. It is
strongly suggested that you run your manuscript through a spell-checker and a grammar-checker prior to
submission.

C. Manuscript Submission

The authors can submit their manuscript online at https://mc04.manuscriptcentral.com/pej
For authors who do not have an account yet, a new account can easily be created in the same log in site.
During the online submission, authors must be guided and prepare the following for uploading.

a. BLINDED formatted manuscript in .DOCX/.DOC

b. Separate title page (designate as Title Page) with author(s) details (full name, affiliation, corresponding author's email) and abstract of not more than 300 words

c. A cover letter addressed to the editor in chief clearly stating the brief statements on the merit, scientific novelty, or significance of the manuscript.

d. If you are submitting a revision of your manuscript, please highlight any changes made and upload a separate point-to-point response to the reviewer's comments and select the file upload designation as 'supplemental file for review'.

e. Authors can also recommend reviewers for the editor to consider. Recommended reviewers, which are optional during submission, should have no conflict of interest with any of the authors.

f. Corresponding author and co-authors can check anytime the progress of their submission in the PEJ online submission portal.

g. NO FEES will be collected when submitting/publishing in PEJ

Manuscripts may be submitted year-round. Depending on the number of manuscripts under review at a given time, the peer review process may take about 2 to 6 months from submission to acceptance. Accepted papers are lined up for publication in our June and December issues. Early online publication upon acceptance in the PEJ portal may also be available.

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Philippine Engineering Journal Policy Statement

 The Philippine Engineering Journal (PEJ) abides by the information indicated herein, which could help in ensuring an error-free and ethical publication of scientific papers. The PEJ editorial policy observes clear and rigorous guidelines for best working practices in scientific publishing.

 

 Peer Review Policy Statement

The PEJ operates a double-blind peer-review system wherein the name and affiliation of the author/s are concealed from the reviewer. Likewise, the reviewer reports provided to the authors remain anonymous. Submitted manuscripts will generally be reviewed by at least two experts. These experts are requested to assess if the manuscript is coherent, scientifically sound, significant, and whether the manuscript is worthy of publication. The Editor-in-Chief would reach a decision according to these reports and upon the recommendations of the Associate Editor. When necessary, they will consult members of the Editorial Board of the PEJ.

 

Publication Ethics
High ethical standards for publication must be applied to ensure that the paper submitted to PEJ adheres to excellent scientific publications. Thus, it is crucial to avoid:

a. Data fabrication and falsification:

Data fabrication means that the authors falsified the data, invented it, or did not at all conduct the study. Data falsification is when the authors undertake the experiment but alter some or all of the data provided to the paper.

b. Plagiarism:

Owning the ideas and work of other authors without giving them the proper credit is unethical and intellectual dishonesty. Replicating even one sentence from another author’s paper, or even one of the authors’ previously published papers, proper citation of every single sentence in every paper written is very important to avoid plagiarism.

c. Multiple submissions:

The authors must prevent submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal at a time. This is to avoid retraction from the later publisher once it was published.

d. Improper author contribution or attribution:

All authors who have worked and made significant contributions should be named in the paper.

 

Copyright Policy Statement

The author/s should agree to the definitive transfer of the copyright to the publisher when the manuscript is accepted for publication. The copyright transfer covers the exclusive right to publish, reproduce, and distribute, including reprints, translations, photographic reproductions, electronic form, or any other reproductions of similar nature.

By submitting the manuscript, the author agrees to abide by the above statements and policy, which are consistent with the best practices of internationally authoritative organizations.

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For any inquiries or clarifications, please email: The Philippine Engineering Journal Editorial Office at pej.nec@up.edu.ph

PEJ Authors Guide Version as of September 2023