Literary Acceptance Conditions for Articles

Article Language

Articles must be written in one of the official languages of the country, namely Dari or Pashto, as well as in English.

The language of the article must be fluent, scientific, and literarily correct, and the use of colloquial or spoken expressions must be avoided.

Punctuation Marks

In writing articles, precise observance of punctuation marks is mandatory. These include:

Proper use of the period, comma, semicolon, colon, parentheses, question mark, exclamation mark, dash, quotation marks, and other signs.

Verses of the Holy Quran and Prophetic hadiths must be placed between the special brackets ﴿ ﴾.

The placement of punctuation marks relative to the words before and after them must conform to proper writing principles.

B: Comma

A comma must be used in the following cases:

Between two words that may otherwise be understood by the reader as being joined together.
On both sides of appositive expressions and explanatory insertions.
Between several words or groups of words that have the same grammatical function.
Between dependent clauses and phrases.
To separate parts of an address.
Numbers in a sentence must be separated by commas.
After conjunctive words and expressions.

C: Semicolon (؛)

A semicolon must be used in the following cases:

Before explanatory words and expressions.
Between parts that are related to one general topic and appear as multiple sentences.
Whenever multiple commas are used within different parts of a sentence, a semicolon should be used to separate those parts from one another.
Whenever the subject of a sentence is arranged in list form, a semicolon should follow each category, and a period should be placed after the final category.

D: Colon (:)

A colon must be used in the following cases:

After footnote explanations, tables, and charts.
At the end of a sentence and after mentioning the details of sources cited in the text.
To indicate abbreviations, except for the final letter.

E: Quotation Marks

The author must use quotation marks in the following cases:

Before quotations; for example: He said in his book: “It was you.”
To separate minor numbers from major ones; for example: Volume three and page twenty (3:20).

Note: A period should not be used after titles of books, articles, main titles, subtitles, and similar items.

Whenever the author quotes the exact wording from a book, article, or any source, it must be placed inside quotation marks.

F: Parentheses

The author must use parentheses in the following cases:

Complementary expressions must be written inside parentheses.
Dates must be placed inside parentheses.
If an example is given, it should be placed inside parentheses.
References and source citations must be placed inside parentheses.
Abbreviations must be written inside parentheses.

Note: Whenever the author includes hadiths or verses of the Holy Quran in the article text, they must be placed between the brackets ﴿ ﴾.

Grammar Rules

Separate Writing with a Single Space

Words that must always be written separately:

“ای”, such as: ای خدا.
“همین” and “همان”, such as: همین‌جا, همان کتاب.
“هیچ”, such as: هیچ‌یک.
“می” and “همی”, such as: می‌رود and همی‌گوید.

Words that are always written separately, but have exceptions:

“این” and “آن”, except in: آنچه, آنکه, اینکه, این‌ها, آنها, اینجا, آنجا, وانگهی.
“چه”, except in: چگونه, چقدر, چطور, چنان, چرا.
“بی”, unless the word is a simple compound, such as: بیهوده and بیجا.
“هم” should be written separately from the following word, except when the word is a simple compound (همشهری, همشیره, همسایه), the second part is monosyllabic (همدرس, همکار), or the second part begins with the vowel “آ” (هماهنگ, هماورد).
“به” should always be written separately, except in exceptional cases according to grammatical rules.
“که” should always be written separately from the preceding word, except in: بلکه, آنکه, اینکه.
“چه” should be written separately from the preceding word, except in: آنچه, چنانچه.
“را” should always be written separately, except in: چرا, مرا.
“تر” and “ترین” should always be written separately, except in: بهتر, مهمتر, کمتر, بیشتر.

Joining Words Without a Space — Half-Space

The main cases in which authors of articles in Shifa Medical Sciences Journal should use the half-space include:

The prefix “می-”, such as: می‌روم.
Words with the prefix “بی-”, such as: بی‌دغدغه.
Coordinated compounds, such as: حمل‌ونقل, کسب‌وکار, etc.
The preposition “به” + noun, such as: به‌آسانی, به‌درستی.
The preposition “در” + noun, such as: دراصل, درواقع.
Third-person singular perfect-tense forms, such as: آمده‌ام, آمده‌ای.
Words ending in “ها” as the plural marker, such as: کتاب‌ها, خانه‌ها.
“تان”, “مان”, and “شان” after a word, such as: کتاب‌تان, خانه‌شان, سخن‌تان, دوست‌مان.
When the second part of a compound word begins with “الف”, such as: دل‌انگیز, عقب‌افتادگی, کم‌احساس.
When one part of a compound word is a number, such as: پنج‌تن, هفت‌گنبد.
Long words that make reading difficult, such as: عافیت‌طلبی, مصلحت‌بین.
“که” after many words, such as: چنان‌که, آن‌که.

Other grammatical requirements that are necessary in scientific writing must also be observed.

Spelling and Composition of Terms

All words must be written with correct and standard spelling.
Non-standard abbreviations, foreign words without equivalents, and incomplete expressions must be avoided.
The writing style must be scientific, clear, precise, and free from ambiguity.
Sentences must be grammatically correct, coherent, and understandable.
Unnecessary complexity or very long sentences should be avoided.
The verb and subject should be placed in their proper positions, and their omission without justification should be avoided.
The style and tone of sentences should be properly adjusted for fluency and readability.

Sentences

All words must be written with correct and standard spelling.
Non-standard abbreviations, foreign words without equivalents, and incomplete expressions must be avoided.
The writing style must be scientific, clear, precise, and free from ambiguity.
Sentences must be grammatically correct, coherent, and understandable.
Unnecessary complexity or very long sentences should be avoided.
The verb and subject should be placed in their proper positions, and their omission without justification should be avoided.
The style and tone of sentences should be properly adjusted for fluency and readability.

Paragraphs

In all paragraphs, the rules of written grammar for articles must be observed to ensure fluency and readability.
Each paragraph should have a topic sentence, supporting sentences, and a conclusion.
Internal coherence and semantic continuity between paragraphs must be maintained.
The author should provide sufficient information for readers to better and more fully understand the topic, while remaining concise.
The structure of sentences and paragraphs should be reviewed to remove ambiguity, colloquial expressions, and repetitive wording. Instead of long and scattered paragraphs, short and focused paragraphs should be used.
The number of sentences in each paragraph should preferably be fewer than three and no more than five.
The beginning of each paragraph should be indicated by indentation. In other words, the first line of each paragraph should be indented by 0.5 inch or 1.27 cm more than the following lines.
The title of keywords should be written in italics and, like the first line of other paragraphs, should be indented by 0.5 inch.

Note: The abstract paragraph should not be indented like the other paragraphs; the lines of the abstract paragraph should be aligned uniformly, right-aligned and justified.

Headings

The article title should be centered on the line, with normal margins (2.54 cm) from the top, in “B Nazanin 12 Bold” font.
The distance of the article title from the margin should be three spaces (Triple Space).
The author’s name should be written below the title, centered on the line, with a distance of 1.5 cm, in “B Nazanin 12 Thin” font.
The academic rank and workplace of the author/authors should be indicated with an asterisk (*) or number in a footnote on the same page, in Lotus Thin 12 or B Nazanin Thin 12 font.
Dari articles: First-level headings should be in (B Nazanin, 14pt, Bold), second-level headings in (B Nazanin, 12pt, Bold), and third-level and higher headings in (B Nazanin, 12pt, Italic), with paragraph spacing from the following line and the preceding section.
Pashto articles: First-level headings should be in (Bahij Zar, 14pt, Bold), second-level headings in (Bahij Zar, 12pt, Bold), and third-level and higher headings in (Bahij Zar, 12pt, Italic), with paragraph spacing from the following line and the preceding section.

Authors should observe specialized scientific language in writing the article, consistent with the scientific field of the article.
The use of implicit and imaginative words or terms should be avoided, and effort should be made to use formal, explicit, and specialized language in writing articles so that they are understandable to everyone.
The author should use specialized scientific vocabulary related to the field and topic of the article.
The use of specialized vocabulary must be precise, with the correct meaning and in the proper place.
If needed, a glossary of terms is recommended at the end of the article.

Unrelated Scientific Words

Observance of Specialized Scientific Language

If the use of interdisciplinary vocabulary is necessary, the author must exercise due care in their application and definition.
Vocabulary unrelated to the specialized field of the article should be included in the text only if scientifically justified.

Use of Words

The use of ambiguous, contradictory, or incomprehensible words must be avoided.
The use of colloquial, local, or non-scientific terms in the article text is prohibited.
Unnecessary repetition of words should be avoided.
If there is an exact equivalent in the language of the article, the use of foreign words is not permitted.