Submissions

Author Guidelines

Preparation of manuscripts (Article File)

The manuscript must be written in English. The guideline for the preparation of manuscripts is the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association.

The title page should contain the title of the article; the authors’ names and surnames and their institutional affiliations (indicating the city and the country); mailing address, telephone and fax number, and e-mail address for the corresponding author.

Page 2 should include the abstract (250 words) revealing the scientific problem and providing the major data of the research. It must be structured into the following sections: Background. Methods. Results. Conclusion. Keywords (from 3 to 5 informative words and/or phrases) should not duplicate words in the title.

The full text of the manuscript should begin on page 3. It should be structured as follows:

Introduction. It should contain a clear statement of the problem of the research, the extent of its solution, the new arguments for its solution (for theoretical papers), most important papers on the subject, the aim, the object and the original hypothesis of the study.

Methods. In this part the choice of specific methods of the research should be grounded. The research participants, methods, apparatus and procedures should be identified in sufficient detail. If the methods of the research used are not well known and widely recognized the reasons for the choice of a particular method should be stated. References should be given for all non-standard methods used. Appropriate statistical analysis should be performed based upon the experimental design carried out. It is necessary to indicate the methods of mathematical statistics applied (statistical reliability, statistical power, confidence interval, effect size), and to explain the estimation of the sample size. Information that will identify human subjects must not be included. Research involving human subjects should be carried out following the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki.

Results. The findings of the study should be presented concisely, consistently and logically, not repeating the chosen methods. The statistical significance and statistical power of the finding should be denoted.

Discussion. At the beginning of the discussion section the authors should provide major original research statements that are supported by the data. We recommend structuring the discussion of the findings into subsections (each original research finding should be discussed in a different subsection). The data and the conclusions of the research are compared to the data obtained by other researchers evaluating their similarities and differences. Authors should emphasize the original and important features of the study and avoid repeating all the data presented within the Results section.

Conclusions. The conclusions provided should be formulated clearly and logically avoiding excessive verbiage. The most important requirement for the research conclusions is their originality in the world. It is advisable to indicate the further perspectives of the research.

Acknowledgements. On the Acknowledgement Page the authors are required to state all funding sources, and the names of companies, manufacturers, or outside organizations providing technical or equipment support (in case such support had been provided). If the funding source(s) had no such involvement then this should be stated, as: Funding: none.

References. Only published materials (with the exception of dissertations) and sources referred to in the text of the article should be included in the list of references. References should be consistent with the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association.

Manuscripts must be typed in 1.5 space and in 12 pt. font with 3 cm margin on the left and 1.5 cm on the right, 2.5 cm margins at the top and the bottom of the page. Pages should be numbered in the bottom right-hand corner beginning with the title page numbered as page 1.  Line numbering should be switched on.

All abbreviations should be explained in parentheses what they stand for on their first occurrence in the text. Non-standard special abbreviations and symbols need only to be defined at first mention. The results of all measurements and symbols for all physical units should be those of the System International (SI) Units. In the text of the article all numbers up to ten are to be written in words and all numbers starting from eleven on – in Arabic figures.

Every table should have a short subtitle with a sequential number given above the table (the tables are numbered in the same sequence as that of references given in the text). All explanations should be in the text of the article or in a short note added to the table. The symbols and abbreviations given in the tables should coincide with the ones used in the text. The location of the table should be indicated in the text, e.g. [Insert Table 1 here].

All figures are to be numbered consecutively giving the sequential number in Arabic numerals, e.g. Figure 1. The location of the figure should be indicated the text, e.g. [Insert Figure 1 here]. The figures should be presented in open file formats so that they could be edited.

In-text references should be cited as follows: Brown (2011) investigated… or: An investigation (Brown, 1991) found …. References cited in the text with two authors should list both names: Wright and Mander (2002) found…; Reviews of research on sport and reading (Wright & Morgan, 2001) have concluded…. references cited in the text with three, four, or five authors, list all authors at first mention; with subsequent citations, include only the first author’s last name followed by et al.: Campbell, Brady, Bradley, and Smithson (1991) found … (first citation); Campbell et al. (1991) found … (subsequent citations); (Campbell, Brady, Bradley, & Smithson,1991), (Campbell et al., 1991). References cited in the text with six or more authors should list the first author et al. throughout.

In the reference section, references should be listed in alphabetical order taking account of the first author. First the references in Latin characters are given, then – in Russian (Cyrillic) characters. For works up to seven authors, list all authors. For eight or more authors, list the first six, then ellipses followed by the last author’s name. In the case when there are several references of the same author published at the same year, they must be marked by letters, e.g. 2001 a, 2001 b, etc. in the list of references and in the article, too.

If there is a DOI (digital object identifier) number, then include that.  Begin the DOI number with https://doi.org (according to the latest publication of the APA Style Guide to Electronic Resources). If the resource was found online and does not have a DOI, end the reference with the precise URL needed to access the resource.

Examples:

Books (print and online):

Author, A. A. (year). Title of work. Location: Publisher.
Author, A. A. (year). Title of work. doi:xx.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Author, A. A. (year). Title of work. Retrieved from http://www.xxxxxxxxxxx
Author, A. A. (year). Title of work. Retrieved from xxxxxxxxxxxx database.

Chapter in a book:

Author, A. (year). Title of chapter. In E. Editor (Ed.), Title of book (pp. xx–xx). Location: Publisher.
Author, A. (year). Title of chapter. In E. Editor (Ed.), Title of book (pp. xx–xx). Retrieved from http://xxxxxxxxx
Author, A. (year). Title of chapter. In E. Editor (Ed.), Title of book (pp. xx–xx). doi:xxxxxxxxxx

Journal and newspaper articles (print and online)

Author, A. A., Author, B. B., & Author, C. C. (year). Article title. Journal Title, volume number (issue number), page numbers.
Author, A. A., Author, B. B., & Author, C. C. (year). Article title. Journal Title, volume number (issue number), page numbers. doi:xx.xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Author, A. A., Author, B. B., & Author, C. C. (year). Article title. Journal Title, volume number (issue number), page numbers. Retrieved from http://www.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

These are the most common examples cited. For a complete list of examples please consult Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association.

All manuscripts must be submitted online at https://journals.lsu.lt/baltic-journal-of-sport-health. The article should be submitted together with the supplements:

• Supplement 1. Authors' copyright statement for submitted articles proving that the article submitted is original and not previously published.
• Supplement 2. Cover Letter with the title of the article, the authors’ names and surnames, affiliations and e-mails, research interests, scientific degrees and titles, ORCID iDs.

If assistance is needed, contact zurnalas@lsu.lt.