The journal «Social Competence» («Sociocom») is a scientific periodical ( issued 4 times a year), continues and develops a series of annual publications devoted to the study of legal, pedagogical and sociological problems.

Basic requirements for publication

• the recommended article size is 20,000-40,000 characters including spaces;
• all the margins (top, bottom, left, right) – 2 cm, indentation – 1.25 cm, portrait orientation, pages numbered in the bottom centre, font – Times New Roman, size – 12, line spacing – 1.5, word wrap – automatic, full justification. Do not use more than one space between words;
• the scientific article should be original and not contain illegal borrowings from other published materials;
• names and terminology abbreviations should be minimized and carried out in accordance with GOST 7.12-93, the full form should be introduced before providing the abbreviated one;
• if the article has been prepared as part of a research program or project supported by grants, information about them should be provided in Russian and English in a footnote on the first page of the article.

ARTICLE STRUCTURE

• subject heading, where your article should be placed;
• UDC number (see: http://teacode.com/online/udc/) in the top left corner;
• article title. The title should be concise and informative, typed in bold capital letters;
• author’s last name, name, patronymic name (marked with an apostrophe);
• name of the institution, its address, city, country;
• abstract should be between 175-250 words;
• keywords should be between 5-10;
• article should be structured: Introduction (topicality, aim, level of prior studies of the problem), Methods (description of the methods used), Results (results of the study, conclusion), Discussion (description of the challenges that the author encountered in the study, perspectives for further research);
• references (not less than 15-20 sources excluding reports, regulations, federal laws, statistics, which should be placed in a footnote);
• authorship criteria;
• conflict of interest;
• information about authors (in accordance with the apostrophe): last name, first name, patronymic name (fully), academic degree, position, title, contact phone number (for the editor only, not published) and e-mail.

Title of the scientific article should

• be informative, capture the essence of the study, describe the content of the article;
• be concise, no longer than12 words;
• not contain untranslatable slang, specific slang words known only to Russian-speaking specialists;
• title in English should be word-for-word translation of Russian one;
• reveal the subject of research, not the results;
• not be flashy like in newspapers.

Abstract (175-250 words) precedes the main body of the article and should convey

• the essence of a scientific problem,
• aim and subject of the study presented clearly and concisely,
• its methodology,
• its novelty,
• its main results.

Abstract should be

• informative (should not include common words);
• original (should not repeat the text, sentences and phrases of the article);
• meaningful (should reflect the main content of the article and results of research);
• structured (should follow the logic description of the results in the article).

Abstract should not include

• any information or conclusions that are not discussed in the article;
• common words and statements, relevance of the topic of the article;
• undefined abbreviations and acronyms unless they are widely accepted;
• links to tables and figures;
• citations and references to literature;
• difficult wordy sentences.

KEYWORDS (5-10 words) improve the search for the scientific article in e-library databases and platforms and, as a result, help to increase a researcher’s citation index:

• should correspond to the content of the article, convey the general meaning of the article;
• should not be too broad, because a scientific article, as a rule, considers a rather narrow problem;
• should not be cumbersome, include long phrases and complex wordings.

The article should contain the following sections: Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion (IMRAD). IMRAD is a recommended way of structuring a scientific article that may vary, for example, there are no sections Results and Discussion in review articles; they have different headings.

Introduction section should:

• be relatively concise (up to 500 words);
• determine the nature and extent of the problem being studied;
• provide links with the previous research (usually through a brief review of the literature relevant to the problem at issue);
• explain the aim and tasks of the research;
• identify specific terms which will be applied further in the text of the article;
• clearly state the hypothesis or main topic of the article.

Please do not:

• repeat the text of Abstract or Discussion;
• repeat well-known facts and state the obvious things.

Methods section should answer in detail the questions:

• when, where and by what methods the studies were conducted;
• what materials were used indicating all significant characteristics and basic information, or who was included in the sample (with justification for the choice of these materials and methods);
• what assumptions were made and their justification;
• what statistical and mathematical procedures were used to analyze and summarize data.

You also should

• describe possible (current) problems when conducting the study;
• compare the methods and materials used with those of colleagues;
• indicate all quantitative characteristics in standard international units of measurement;
• avoid irrelevant and unnecessary information that is not related to the results or which may confuse the reader.

Results section should:

provide the results clearly and state the findings and conclusions supported by baseline data;

demonstrate that the review of the results reflects the purpose of the study;

report only representative data, not (infinitely) duplicate ones;

reduce data to statistically analyzed integrated forms and present them in the form of tables or graphs to facilitate their understanding and comparison;

repeat only the most important conclusions described in tables and graphs;

include negative data that were not revealed only if they are necessary for the interpretation of the results;

include only tables and figures that are necessary and understandable;

avoid wordy expressions;

do not display the same data in tables and graphs;

compare the results with data from similar studies or results previously predicted;

demostrate their theoretical and / or practical significance.

In Discussion section authors should explain the importance and consequences of the results:

• do not repeat the results, asses and interpret them;
• draw conclusions clearly, concisely and logically;
• show the importance and value of the results, be able to interpret them in the light of known facts and use them as evidence of innovative explanations of the phenomena and processes under study;
• do not repeat what has already been said in the literature review;
• correlate the results with the issues presented in Introduction;
• show whether the results and interpretations are consistent with current knowledge of the subject, that is, with previous studies and previously published works;
• explain the theoretical background of the results observed;
• determine the restrictions of the study: each study has weaknesses; there is no sense to belittle the merits of your article as well as to embellish them;
• propose future research suggestions that are planned or require consistent implementation;
• work only with the results presented in the study;
• not make generalizations and assumptions that are not justified by the results presented;
• formulate conclusions with the provision of evidence for each of them.
• disclose sufficient reasoning for proposals and conclusions;
• explain the result of the study (if the goal is fully achieved, how to apply the acquired knowledge in practice, what questions remained unanswered).

REFERENCES (not less than 15-20 sources)

• are to be arranged in the alphabetical order, but no numbering;
• should have the total number of volume or article pages;
• the list of references should be in two versions (bibliographic list and References);
• the first version (bibliographic list) should follow Harvard reference style in the source language in accordance with GOST R 7.0.5 2008 (template);
• the second version (References) is transliteration of Russian text into Latin followed by English translation;
• references in the text of the article should be cited in parentheses, for example, (Wagner, 2014. P. 20);
• the number of references in the text should correspond to that in References.

Please do not:

• refer to unpublished works, dissertations, abstracts, textbooks and manuals;
• avoid excessive self-citation;
• refer to outdated data, publications, and sources.

Recommended to refer to:

• articles and monographs on this subject;
• original sources (primary sources);
• publications from top-rated sources;
• foreign authors’ articles in journals indexed (Scopus, Web of Science).

TABLES

• should be numbered consecutively in accordance with their appearance in the text, have caption, must be referred to in the text;
• should be placed in the text after the first mention and be separated by the interval from the main text;
• the word «Table» is placed on a separate line to the right, for example, Table 1;
• the word «Table», the label of the table and subheadings in the table are printed in bold;
• headings in the table are typed with a capital letter and centered, full stop should be used after a number;
• a blank cell should be filled with dash (dash –).

Figures (illustrations, graphs, charts, diagrams) should

• have continuous numbering, caption (Fig. 1 – Caption);
• be first referred to in the text;
• have figure caption placed below the figure and centered;
• be submitted as a separate files besides inserting them into the article, illustrations provided with the extensions * JPEG, * BIF, * TIFF.

NOTES (other than grant or research programs)

• are placed after the text of the article;
• may be styled as endnotes and numbered 1, 2, 3, etc.

The Editorial Board reserves the right to reject articles that do not meet these criteria.