Author Guidelines
SEMPOA publishes scholarly contributions in pure mathematics, applied mathematics, and mathematics education. Manuscripts must demonstrate a clear contribution to one or more areas within the journal's stated aims and scope.
Relevant fields include, but are not limited to:
- Algebra and Number Theory
- Mathematical Analysis
- Geometry and Topology
- Probability and Statistics
- Discrete Mathematics and Combinatorics
- Applied and Computational Mathematics
- Mathematical Modelling and Optimization
- Operations Research
- Numerical Methods
- Data-oriented mathematical methods
- Mathematics Curriculum and Instruction
- Teaching and Learning of Mathematics
- Mathematical Thinking, Reasoning, and Problem Solving
- Assessment and Evaluation in Mathematics Education
- Technology-enhanced Mathematics Learning
- Teacher Education and Professional Development in Mathematics
- Ethnomathematics and contextual mathematics education
- Interdisciplinary studies connecting mathematics and educational practice
The journal primarily considers:
- Original Research Articles
- Review Articles, including systematic or structured reviews
- Mathematical and Computational Studies
- Mathematics Education Research
- Pedagogical Perspectives supported by scholarly evidence
- Manuscripts must be written in clear academic English.
- The recommended manuscript length is approximately 4–12 pages, including figures, tables, and references. Longer manuscripts may be considered when scientifically justified.
- Manuscripts should be prepared using the official SEMPOA Article Template.
- References and in-text citations must follow IEEE citation style.
- Authors are strongly encouraged to use reference-management software such as Mendeley, Zotero, or EndNote.
- Mathematical equations should remain editable and should not be inserted as screenshots or raster images.
- Figures, graphs, diagrams, and tables must be clear, readable, consecutively numbered, and referred to in the manuscript.
- Submitted manuscripts must not have been published previously and must not be simultaneously under consideration by another journal.
Title. The manuscript title should be concise, informative, specific, and accurately represent the principal content of the study. Avoid unnecessary abbreviations. A title of no more than approximately 20 words is recommended.
Author Names. Provide the full name of every author. Academic titles and professional positions such as Prof., Dr., Dean, or Director should not be included in the author-name field.
Affiliations. Each author's institutional affiliation must include the institution, city, and country.
Corresponding Author. One author must be identified as the corresponding author and must provide an active email address.
Authorship should be limited to individuals who have made a substantive scholarly contribution to the work and who accept responsibility for the integrity and accuracy of the manuscript.
All listed authors must approve the submitted manuscript and agree to its submission to SEMPOA.
Authors are encouraged to describe individual contributions using the CRediT Contributor Roles Taxonomy, including where applicable:
Conceptualization; Methodology; Software; Validation; Formal Analysis; Investigation; Resources; Data Curation; Writing – Original Draft; Writing – Review & Editing; Visualization; Supervision; Project Administration; and Funding Acquisition.
Artificial intelligence systems, language models, software applications, organizations, and other non-human entities cannot be listed as authors.
The abstract should be self-contained and clearly summarize the research problem or context, objective, methodology, principal findings, and conclusion or significance of the study. Citations should not normally appear in the abstract.
Provide approximately 3–5 specific keywords representing the principal topics, methods, or concepts of the manuscript. Keywords should facilitate accurate discovery and indexing of the article.
The Introduction should establish the scientific or educational context of the study, identify the research problem, summarize relevant previous work, demonstrate the research gap, and clearly state the objective or research question.
References should be relevant and appropriately balanced. Recent literature should be incorporated where relevant; however, authors of mathematical papers may cite older foundational works when they remain important to the theoretical basis of the research.
The methodology must contain sufficient information to allow readers to understand, evaluate, and where applicable reproduce the study.
For mathematics and computational manuscripts, authors should clearly describe assumptions, definitions, mathematical models, propositions, algorithms, proofs, computational procedures, datasets, parameter settings, and experimental conditions where applicable.
For mathematics education research, the Method section should normally describe the research design, participants or population, sampling procedure, instruments, validity/reliability procedures, data collection, ethical considerations, and data-analysis methods.
Results should be presented clearly and logically and should directly address the objectives or research questions.
Mathematical results should provide appropriate derivations, propositions, proofs, numerical results, computational validation, or comparative analysis as appropriate to the nature of the study.
In empirical mathematics education research, quantitative or qualitative results should be reported transparently using appropriate tables, figures, statistics, themes, or other forms of evidence.
The Discussion should interpret the findings, relate them to existing scholarship, explain theoretical or practical implications, identify limitations, and clarify the contribution of the study.
Tables: Tables must be numbered consecutively and provided with concise titles. Tables should be referred to explicitly in the manuscript.
Figures: Figures, graphs, diagrams, and illustrations must be of sufficient resolution for publication. Figure captions should explain the content without requiring excessive reference to the main text.
Equations: Mathematical equations should be created using an editable equation format. Important equations should be numbered consecutively.
Symbols and abbreviations: Symbols and abbreviations should be defined when first introduced and used consistently throughout the manuscript.
Mathematics education studies involving students, teachers, or other human participants must comply with applicable institutional and national research-ethics requirements.
Where ethical approval is required, the manuscript should identify the approving ethics committee or institutional review body and provide the approval reference where available.
Authors must obtain informed consent or other appropriate authorization when required and must protect the confidentiality and privacy of research participants.
The Conclusion should concisely state the main findings and contribution of the research. Authors should avoid merely repeating the abstract. Relevant limitations and directions for future research may also be provided.
Manuscripts submitted to SEMPOA must represent original scholarly work. Plagiarism, fabrication, falsification, inappropriate data manipulation, duplicate publication, redundant publication, citation manipulation, and inappropriate authorship practices are not acceptable.
Manuscripts may be screened using similarity-detection or other research-integrity tools. Any automated assessment is subject to editorial evaluation and should not by itself determine an editorial decision.
Authors must disclose the use of generative AI or AI-assisted tools when such tools have materially contributed to manuscript preparation, analysis, coding, visualization, or other research-related activities.
- AI tools cannot be listed as authors.
- Authors remain fully responsible for all submitted content.
- AI-generated information must be independently verified by the authors.
- AI systems should not be cited as authoritative scholarly sources.
- AI must not be used to fabricate references, data, results, or evidence.
Routine spelling, grammar, formatting, and language-correction tools do not normally require detailed disclosure unless their use substantially changes or generates scholarly content.
Funding: Authors must identify all financial support received for the research and, where relevant, describe the role of the funding organization.
Conflict of Interest: Authors must disclose financial, professional, institutional, or personal relationships that could reasonably be perceived to influence the research. If none exist, authors should state: "The authors declare no conflict of interest."
Authors should provide a Data Availability Statement when the study generates or analyzes research data.
The statement should indicate whether data, source code, computational scripts, questionnaires, supplementary materials, or other supporting resources are publicly available, deposited in a repository, available upon reasonable request, or restricted for ethical, privacy, contractual, or legal reasons.
References must follow IEEE Style and should primarily consist of credible scholarly sources relevant to the research.
- Authors should prioritize peer-reviewed journal articles and authoritative scholarly sources.
- Recent literature should be included where relevant to the research problem.
- Foundational mathematical works may be older when scientifically necessary.
- Excessive self-citation should be avoided.
- References that the authors have not consulted should not be cited.
- Where available, DOI information should be included and verified.
- References should be checked against the original publication before submission.
All manuscripts are initially evaluated by the editorial team for suitability to the journal's scope, basic scientific quality, originality, ethical compliance, and adherence to the Author Guidelines.
Manuscripts considered suitable for further evaluation are subjected to external peer review by at least two independent reviewers with relevant expertise.
Acceptance is based on scholarly quality, methodological or mathematical rigor, originality, clarity, relevance to the journal's scope, and the responses to reviewer and editor comments. Submission does not guarantee acceptance or publication.
Authors may acknowledge individuals, institutions, research facilities, technical assistance, language editing, or other contributions that do not satisfy the criteria for authorship. Permission should be obtained from individuals who are named in the acknowledgment where appropriate.
Before submitting, authors should confirm that:
- The manuscript falls within the scope of SEMPOA.
- The manuscript represents original work.
- The manuscript is not under consideration elsewhere.
- All authors have approved the submitted version.
- Author names and institutional affiliations are complete.
- A corresponding author and valid email address are identified.
- The official journal template has been followed.
- Tables, figures, and equations are numbered correctly.
- References follow IEEE Style and DOI information has been checked where available.
- Funding and conflicts of interest have been declared.
- Human-participant ethics information has been provided where applicable.
- A Data Availability Statement has been provided where appropriate.
- Any material use of AI-assisted technologies has been transparently declared.
