Author Guidelines

Manuscripts submitted to VFAST Transactions on Mathematics should be written in clear, concise English. Authors must follow the structure and formatting guidelines below to ensure their work is ready for peer review and, upon acceptance, for final publication.

1. Submission Preparation Checklist

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items. Submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.

  • The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).

  • The submission file is in OpenOffice, Microsoft Word, PDF, RTF, or WordPerfect document file format.

  • The manuscript has been prepared for anonymous peer review, with all author details and acknowledgements removed.

  • All references have been checked for accuracy and completeness.

  • Any research involving data has a data availability statement, where applicable.

2. Originality and Plagiarism Policy

All manuscripts submitted to VFAST Transactions on Mathematics are screened for originality and similarity using plagiarism detection software (e.g., Turnitin).

  • The required overall similarity threshold is less than 20%.

  • The individual similarity rate from a single source should be less than 5%.
    Submissions exceeding these thresholds or showing signs of textual overlap without proper attribution may be rejected or returned to the authors for revision before further consideration.

3. General Formatting Guidelines (Pre-Acceptance)

For initial submission, manuscripts can be submitted in any standard word processing format (as listed in the checklist). However, to expedite the review process, authors are encouraged to prepare their manuscripts with the following basic structure and formatting:

  • Page Setup: Standard Letter-size page (8.5 × 11 inches).

  • Layout: Single-column layout with adequate margins (approx. 2-3 cm).

  • Sections: Articles should be clearly structured, generally including:

    • Title: A concise and informative title.

    • Abstract: A single paragraph summarizing the problem, approach, key results, and conclusions.

    • Introduction: Outlining the background, context, and objectives of the work.

    • Main Body: Clearly numbered sections (e.g., 1., 2., 2.1) presenting the methodology, results, and discussion.

    • Conclusion or Discussion Section: Summarizing the main findings and their implications.

    • Reference Style

      The journal uses numbered citation style. References should be listed at the end of the manuscript and cited in the text as:

      [1], [3,4], [6–9]

      Example:

      [1] Hale, J.K. (1971). Functional differential equations. In Analytic Theory of Differential Equations. Springer.
      [2] Folland, G.B. (2020). Introduction to Partial Differential Equations. Princeton University Press.

    • Appendices (if any): Placed after the references.

4. Final Manuscript Preparation (Post-Acceptance)

Upon provisional acceptance, authors are required to prepare and submit the final version of their manuscript using the official VFAST LaTeX template . The template is based on the vfastcs.cls class file.

Please adhere to the following instructions when using the template:

a) Document Class and Options:

  • The document class is vfastcs. Use the software option for standard research articles.

    latex
    \documentclass[software]{vfastcs}

  • Use the lineno option to add line numbers for the review version.

    latex
    \documentclass[software,lineno]{vfastcs}

  • For the final published version, ensure the pubversion option is included to display publication metadata (DOI, volume, issue, etc.) in the footer.

    latex
    \documentclass[software,pubversion]{vfastcs}

b) Preamble and Title Page:

  • Use \title{Your Article Title} for the title.

  • List authors using the \author command and affiliations with \affil. The authblk package is loaded for this purpose.

  • Provide correspondence details using \corr{email@address.com}{Corresponding Author Name}.

  • Include ORCID IDs using \orcid{Author Name}{0000-0000-0000-0000}.

  • Add a short journal blurb (e.g., "VFAST Transactions on Mathematics") using \blurb{Journal Name}.

c) Frontmatter and Abstract:

  • All frontmatter elements, including the abstract, must be placed inside the frontmatter environment. The abstract environment will not work outside of it.

  • The correct structure is:

    latex
    \begin{frontmatter}
  \begin{abstract}
    Your concise abstract goes here. It will be formatted with the correct font and styling.
  \end{abstract}
\end{frontmatter}

d) Sections and Headings:

  • Use standard LaTeX sectioning commands: \section{...}, \subsection{...}, \subsubsection{...}.

  • The template automatically styles these with the journal's fonts and colors.

e) Figures and Tables:

  • Use the figure and table environments.

  • Place figures and tables within the text near their first citation.

  • Use the \caption{...} command to add a caption. Captions will be automatically formatted.

f) Special Environments:

  • Feature Boxes: Use the featurebox environment for highlighted content. Inside, you can use \featurefig{...} and \featuretable{...}.

    latex
    \begin{featurebox}
  \featurefig{Caption for the box figure.}
  % ... figure code ...
\end{featurebox}

  • Checklists: Use the Checklists float environment with the checklist environment inside for structured lists.

    latex
    \begin{Checklists}
  \begin{checklist}{Checklist Title}
    \item First item.
    \item Second item.
  \end{checklist}
\end{Checklists}

g) Citations and References:

  • The journal uses a numbered citation style.

  • Cite references in the text using standard LaTeX \cite{key} commands. This will produce citations as numbers, e.g., [1], [3,4], [6–9].

  • Prepare your bibliography in a .bib file and use \bibliographystyle{unsrt} (or a similar numbered style) and \bibliography{yourfile} to generate the reference list.

h) Appendices:

  • Use the \appendix command before your first appendix section. The template will automatically adjust section headings and figure/table numbering (e.g., Appendix A Figure 1).

By following these guidelines, authors will ensure a smooth transition from submission to final publication. For any questions regarding the LaTeX template, please contact the editorial office.