Author Guidelines

• The guideline is also available in a PDF document
• Download Article Template

Aims and Scope

Riau Journal of Empowerment is a peer‑reviewed journal that advances knowledge, practice, and innovation in community empowerment. The journal publishes high‑quality manuscripts on empirical research and community service activities that deepen theoretical, methodological, and practical understanding of empowerment processes across diverse societal contexts.

To support a more comprehensive knowledge base, the journal invites a broad range of manuscripts, including:

• Knowledge transfer, applied science, and technology adoption in communities.
• Evaluations of empowerment programs, models, and interventions.
• Analyses of policy, governance, and institutional arrangements that shape empowerment outcomes.
• Empowerment of entrepreneurial ecosystems and their role in emerging and evolving communities' business resilience.
• Rural entrepreneurship as a pathway to empowerment, poverty reduction, and inclusive growth in rural areas.
• Community‑based enterprises: small and medium enterprises, cooperatives, and grassroots innovation‑based enterprises.

By integrating community service and empirical research through an empowerment lens, Riau Journal of Empowerment positions itself as a leading platform for scholars, practitioners, policymakers, and community leaders committed to advancing sustainable empowerment practices and evidence‑based development.

Ensure your manuscript's topic aligns with our focus and scope to pass the editorial desk evaluation.

Manuscript preparation

The journal accepts manuscripts written in English or Indonesian. Preferably in English to reach global audience and have a greater impact. Authors may use American or British English, as long as the language is consistent throughout. Type the manuscript in Microsoft Office Word® using the journal template provided. The manuscript must be at least 6000 words (excluding the ethical review board statement, data availability statement, funding, declaration of conflicting interest, declaration of generative AI use, and bibliography) and formatted in an A4 document. The author is required to use the article template provided by the editor on the journal website.

The submitted manuscript consists of two main parts: the title page and the manuscript itself.

Title page

The title page consists of the following details:

1. Title. The title of the manuscript is written short and no more than 150 letters. The title is written informative and illustrates the main content of the writing. The editor suggested that the authors compose titles that can attract reading interest. Please avoid abbreviations and formulae, where possible, unless they are established and widely understood, e.g., SDGs.
2. Author Name. Write the authors’ names without a title followed by their affiliation. Affiliation is the origin of the university for those who come from academic institutions. The affiliation can be the name of the institution for authors from non-academic institutions. All authors who contributed to the article included their email address. The editor suggested the author also include scholar profile links such as ORCID and Scopus (if any). The more complete the author's information submitted on the article will make it easier for the author to connect to the manuscript online.
3. Corresponding author. Clearly indicate who will handle correspondence for the article at all stages of the refereeing and publication process and also post-publication. This responsibility includes answering any future queries about results, data, methodology and materials. It is important that the email address and contact details of the corresponding author are kept up to date during the submission and publication process.
4. Authorship contribution statement. The corresponding author is required to acknowledge co-author(s) contributions using CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) roles: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Software, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. Find out more at https://credit.niso.org. Each author and co-author must be listed with their roles in manuscript finalization. The format will be “Author Full Name: Role#1; Role#2; Role#3. Co-author Full Name: Role#2, Role#7; Role#9”. Example: ”Brilliant Asmit: Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Methodology, Writing –original draft. Putri Fadhillah: Project administration, Resources, Writing –review & editing.”

5. Ethical review board statement. The author should add the Institutional Review Board Statement and its approval number if relevant to the study. The author might exclude this statement if the study did not require ethical clearance. Please add, “The study was conducted in accordance with the NAME OF LAW and approved by the Institutional Review Board (or Ethics Committee) of NAME OF INSTITUTE (protocol code XXX and date of approval).” OR “Ethical review and approval were waived for this study due to REASON (please provide a detailed justification).” OR “Not applicable” for studies not involving humans or animals or not concerning public health and safety.
6. Data availability statement. This section explains where to find data supporting the reported results, including links to publicly archived datasets analyzed or generated during the work. A statement is still required when the data is unavailable due to specific restrictions. Describe in the data availability statement how the authors intend to share the resources produced from the work with the scientific community. Any resources generated in the study that may be subject to restricted sharing/cannot be shared/subject to patent rights should be clearly indicated in this section.
7. Funding. Authors must disclose any funding sources who provided financial support for the conduct of the research and/or preparation of the article. Authors can write down the contract number or document number of the agreement with the sponsor. Example: “This work was supported by the Ministry of aaa [grant numbers xxxx, yyyy]; the bbb Foundation [grant number zzzz]”. If no funding has been provided for the research, it is recommended to include the following sentence: ”This work did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors”.
8. Declaration of conflicting interest. Declare conflicts of interest or state, “The authors declare no known financial conflicts of interest or personal relationships that could be perceived as influencing the content reported in this article.” Authors must identify and declare any personal circumstances or interests that may be perceived as inappropriately influencing the representation or interpretation of reported research results. Any role of the funders in the design of the study; in the collection, analysis, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript; or in the decision to publish the results must be declared. If there is no role, please state, “The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analysis, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript; or in the decision to publish the results”.
9. Declaration of generative AI use. Authors preparing a manuscript for the journal may use AI tools to support them. However, these tools must not replace human critical thinking and should always be used with appropriate human oversight and control. If the authors have used generative AI or AI-assisted technologies (including AI agents or deep research tools), please include a statement in the title page. Statement: ”During the preparation of this work the author(s) used [NAME OF TOOL / SERVICE] in order to [REASON]. After using this tool/service, the author(s) reviewed and edited the content as needed and take(s) full responsibility for the content of the published article.”

Manuscript

After the title page, write your manuscript on the following page, arranged as follows:

(1) Abstract. Write the abstracts with a maximum of 250 words. The abstract should briefly cover the main content, including the purpose, design/method/approach, findings, implications, and originality/value. The abstract should show the specific social, environmental, and/or economic impact of the work.

(2) Keywords. The author sets 5-8 specific keywords and reflects what is important about the article. Examples of keywords could include theoretical concepts, methods, geographical areas, or empowerment themes. Keywords are separated with a semicolon (;). The author is required to align the Title, Abstract, and Keywords in the manuscript.

(3) Contents. The main contents of the manuscript contain the parts of the Introduction, Method, Results and Discussion, Conclusions, and References. Make sure the main contents of the manuscript, except for the Acknowledgment and Declaration sections, do not contain the personal identities or affiliations of the author(s) (including, but not limited to, names, personal images, scanned documents).

Introduction. The introduction section includes the theoretical background, problem formulation, and objectives. This journal does not include a separate section for theoretical background (literature review). However, the introduction should include the theoretical background. This section must be supported by the theoretical background, which serves as support for the relevant concept of the study. The manuscript must present primary literature studies (references to journal articles and conference proceedings) and up-to-date references published within the last ten years. This literature will be used to provide the state of the art of the manuscript. The formulation of the hypotheses (if any) should be based on the theoretical review and, as far as possible, be expressed in terms of a one-tailed direction. After discussing the theories, the manuscript must formulate a problem that explains why it is essential and describe the existing gaps. The author is required to write the purpose of the manuscript at the end of the introduction section.

Methods. In the methods section, describe clearly and concisely the method used to achieve the objectives. The results must be measurable, and the author must explain the measurement tools used. The journal demands a rigorous method, explained in detail, to increase reproducibility. Any research article describing a study involving humans or animals should contain an ethical statement in the methods section. Please state that informed and/or written consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the work. Or the consent was waived due to REASON (please provide a detailed justification).

Results and Discussion. This section explains how operations are conducted to meet the objectives, organized systematically from general to specific. It should highlight the importance of the results and include comparisons with similar past studies to contextualize the current research. Use visual aids such as tables, graphs, maps, and diagrams for clarity. Additionally, discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the results or main focus. Finally, address the manuscript's impact on communities and institutions, considering both short-term and long-term effects.

Conclusion. The manuscript can conclude the main result in this section, but should not repeat the explanation that has been given in the previous sections. The conclusions should be based on new findings presented accurately and in depth. New findings can take the form of rules, methods, models, technology, innovation, prototypes, or equivalents related to empowerment. Additionally, the conclusion must define the novelty, the benefit to society, the environment, and/or the economy, and the manuscript's scientific contribution.

Acknowledgments (if any). Acknowledgments are inserted at the end of the manuscript after the conclusion section.

(4) Tables and Figures: Tables and figures are part of the manuscript and are not separated from the body of the paper. Place tables and figures where they fit the narration so they complete the description. Number the tables and figures according to the order in which they appear in the text. Give the title of each table and figure. The images included in the manuscript must be of high quality. Figures must not stand alone and must be part of the paper. Please note that the figure is not documentation that is not related to the discussion of the manuscript. Do not display pictures that show the identity or personal information of respondents, informants, participants, or authors.

The printed version is in black and white, and the author should adjust the picture accordingly. Examples of laying out and naming pictures can be seen here.

(5) References: For good quality articles, editors require authors to use primary references (journals) with a composition of at least 80% compared to other references in the bibliography. Authors are asked to use the most recent works published in the last ten years. This journal does not use footnotes in the body of the manuscript; all sources of literature follow the rules of writing citations and bibliography.

Starting in 2020, the citation format in the manuscript and bibliography displayed in the RIAU JOURNAL OF EMPOWERMENT follows the American Psychological Association (APA). For more details, the author can learn about writing in the APA Format Citation Guide or can follow the instructions below.

All citations in the text must be included in the references, and all references must be mentioned in the text. Check the reference list against literature citations in the text before submitting the manuscript for publication. Ensure that working papers and in-press articles have not been published before submitting your work. For proper reference management, the editor recommends that the writer use a reference management application such as Mendeley, EndNote, Zotero, or Microsoft Office Word Citations & Bibliography. And the most important, make sure that all of the references have complete elements (proper author name, date, title, publisher, volume, issue, DOI or URL, etc.) to be tracked down to the source. 

Instructions for Citation and Writing APA Format Bibliography

In-text citation

The in-text citation must match what is written in the references list. This citation is followed by or ends the sentence or phrase quoted from the source. The manuscript cites by including the author's last name followed by the year the article was quoted.

One Author: If the author's full name is Almasdi Syahza, then the writing of the citation on the manuscript becomes:

• Syahza (2002) stated … or
• … (Syahza, 2002)

The structure of the above writing can be used depending on the arrangement of sentences in the manuscript. The page number in the citation in the paper does not need to be written.

Two Authors: When writing a quote with two authors, the names of the first and second authors are linked with the words 'and' as in the following example:

• Syahza and Nasrul (2003) said that …… or
• …… (Syahza & Nasrul, 2003);

Three, Four, or More Authors: In quoting, only the first author's last name is written, followed by et al. as the following:

• Irianti et al. (2019) …… or …… (Irianti et al., 2019)

Citing a Group or Organization: For the first citation, the full name of the group must be used. Subsequently this can be shortened. For example:

• First cite: (Food and Agriculture Organization, 2019)
• Further cite: (FAO, 2019)

No Authors or Unknown Authors: If the author is unknown, the first few words of the reference should be used. This is usually the title of the source.

• If this is the title of a book, periodical, brochure or report, it should be italicized: (Teknologi hidroponik, 2019)
• If this is the title of an article, chapter or web page, it should be in quotation marks: (“Reference Management”, 2017)

Citing Authors with Multiple Works from One Year: Works should be cited with a, b, c etc following the date. These letters are assigned within the reference list, which is sorted alphabetically by the surname of the first author. For example:

• … (Syahza, 2017a). … (Syahza, 2017b).

Citing Multiple Works in One Parentheses: If these works are by the same author, the surname is stated once followed by the dates in chronological order:

• Syahza (2015, 2017a, 2017b, 2019) …
• … (Syahza, 2015, 2017a, 2017b, 2019).
• If these works are by multiple authors, then the references are ordered alphabetically by the first author separated by a semicolon as follows: … (Jones, 2008; Freeman, 2009; Syahza, 2019).

Citing a Secondary Source: Lorde (1980) as cited in Syahza (2019) … or … (Lorde, 1980, as cited in Syahza, 2019)

Reference Writing in Bibliography

All the references must be mentioned in the text and must be written with complete information. Author name(s), journal or book title, article or chapter title, year of publication, volume, issue (where appropriate), and page numbers are essential components. The addition of DOI numbers if available is recommended but not essential. The core components of writing a Bibliography for journal articles using the APA format are as follows:

Author’s surname, initials. (date published). Title. Journal name, volume number(issue number), pages. DOI or URL

The writing of the author's name starts from the last name followed by the initials of the first name, separated by commas and closed with a period, for example, the author with the name Almasdi Syahza becomes "Syahza, A.", the author with three-word names such as Muhammad Nur Mustafa becomes "Mustafa, M. N.", while the author's name with one word like Hapsoh is enough to type "Hapsoh". If the three names of the authors in one library source become "Syahza, A., Mustafa, M. N., & Hapsoh".

The APA format writing varies considerably based on the type of reference cited in the manuscript. Here are some examples of writing.

Journal article:

Asmit, B., & Koesrindartoto, D.P. (2015). Identifying the Entrepreneurship Characteristics of the Oil Palm Community Plantation Farmers in the Riau Area. Gadjah Mada International Journal of Business, 17(3), 219-236. https://doi.org/10.22146/gamaijb.8500

Evelyn, Saputra, E., Komalasari, & Utami, S. (2019). Community training in dishwashing-liquid soap making from waste cooking oil. Riau Journal of Empowerment, 1(2), 67-74. https://doi.org/10.31258/raje.1.2.9

Hapsoh, Gusmawartati, Amri, A.I., & Diansyah, A. (2017). Respons Pertumbuhan dan Produksi Tanaman Cabai Keriting (Capsicum annuum L.) terhadap Aplikasi Pupuk Kompos dan Pupuk Anorganik di Polibag. Jurnal Hortikultura Indonesia, 8(3), 203. https://doi.org/10.29244/jhi.8.3.203-208

Syahza, A., Rosnita, Suwondo, & Nasrul, B. (2013). Potential Oil Palm Industry Development in Riau. International Research Journal of Business Studies, 6(2), 133-147. https://doi.org/10.21632/irjbs.6.2.133-147

Book:

Syahza, A. (2015). Ekonomi Pembangunan: Teori dan Kajian Empirik Pembangunan Pedesaan. Universitas Riau Press.

Todaro, M.P. (2000). Pembangunan Ekonomi di Dunia Ketiga. Erlangga.

Chapter or Section in the Book:

Irianti, M. (2006). Pengaruh pemberian model hand-out dan gaya belajar mahasiswa terhadap hasil belajar gelombang. In A. Syahza, B. Nasrul, & N. Qomar (Eds.), Kumpulan Hasil Penelitian Unggulan Universitas Riau: Menuju Universitas Riset 2020 (pp. 92-94). Lembaga Penelitian Universitas Riau.

Dissertation, Theses, and Undergraduate Theses:

Syahza, A. (2004). Pemberdayaan Ekonomi Masyarakat Pedesaan melalui Pengembangan Industri Hilir Berbasis Kelapa Sawit di Daerah Riau [Unpublished Doctoral dissertation]. Universitas Padjajaran.

Zarei, R. (2017). Developing enhanced classification methods for ECG and EEG signals [Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation]. Victoria University.

Website:

Saputra, A. (2019, July 13). Pengarahan Keberangkatan Mahasiswa KKN Kebangsaan dan KKN Bersama UNRI oleh WR 3. LPPM Universitas Riau. https://lppm.unri.ac.id/pengarahan-keberangkatan-mahasiswa-kkn-kebangsaan-dan-kkn-bersama-unri-oleh-wr-3/

Syahza, A. (2014, June 24). Meningkatkan Daya Saing CPO dengan Penerapan ISPO. http://almasdi.staff.unri.ac.id/meningkatkan-daya-saing-cpo-dengan-penerapan-ispo/

Magazine:

Jaeger, J. (2010, August). Social media use in the financial industry. Compliance Week, 54.

Setyawan, B. (2018, October). Ubi Jalar Makin Pulen. Trubus, 122-123.

Newspaper:

Meier, B. (2013, January 1). Energy drinks promise edge, but experts say proof is scant. New York Times, p. 1. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com

Walid, R. (2016, February 4). Loyalitas vs Kepentingan Individu. Riau Pos, p. 12.

Research Report:

Syahza, A., Suwondo, Bakce, D., Ernaputra, F.H., & Riadi, R.M. (2013). Kegiatan Tindak Lanjut Penghimpunan Data, Informasi Dana Bagi Hasil (DBH) Sektor Perkebunan (DBH CPO). Lembaga Penelitian Universitas Riau.

Article Presented at the Conference (unpublished):

Indrawati, H. (2015, November). Implementasi Lesson Study sebagai Upaya Peningkatan Kompetensi Pedagogik Guru Ekonomi di Kabupaten Kepulauan Meranti [Conference presentation]. Seminar Internasional Pendidikan Serantau ke-7, Pekanbaru, Indonesia.

Zwolinski, M. (2009, September). Effects of study habits on scholastic achievement [Conference presentation]. The Third Semi-annual Meeting of the Anderson Society for Educational Measurement, San Diego, CA.

Article published in the Proceedings:

For online proceedings/conferences/symposia replace the publisher's name and location with the DOI address. If there is no DOI, you can use the URL.

Irianti, M., Syahza, A., Asmit, B., Suarman, Riadi, R.M., Bakce, D., & Tampubulon, D. (2018). Peningkatan Pendapatan Masyarakat melalui Pemanfaatan Limbah Lidi Kelapa Sawit di Desa Sepahat Kabupaten Bengkalis [Conference presentation]. Paper presented at Seminar Nasional Hasil Pengabdian Kepada Masyarakat. https://conference.upnvj.ac.id/index.php/pkm/article/view/15

Novak, D., & Verber, D. (2015). Assessment of the influence caused by random events within a real-time strategy game engine on a game bot gameplay [Conference presentation]. The 8th Annual International Conference on Computer Games, Multimedia and Allied Technology. https://doi.org/10.5176/2251-1679_CGAT15.27

Proceedings of the conference published in book form (ISBN) following the writing of a book reference:

Blakey, N., Guinea, S., & Saghafi, F. (2017). Transforming undergraduate nursing curriculum by aligning models of clinical reasoning through simulation. In R. Walker, & S. Bedford (Eds.), HERDSA 2017 Conference: Research and Development in Higher Education: Curriculum Transformation (pp. 25-37). Hammondville, NSW: Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia.

While conference articles which are published in journals or in periodicals such as conference series, reference writing follows the way of writing journal article references.

Guidelines for Manuscript Submissions

Manuscripts for publication are written in Indonesian or English and following the writing guidelines. Editors will not accept documents that do not comply with this provision.

RIAU JOURNAL OF EMPOWERMENT has used the management of scientific manuscript publishing based on the Open Journal System (OJS). Manuscripts received by editors in latest Microsoft Office Word® format (*.docx). Author needs to register with the journal prior to submitting or, if already registered, can simply log in and begin the five-step process. The author can also watch the tutorial video How to submit the manuscript in OJS 3.0.

Manuscripts that have passed selection from the editorial board will then go through a peer-review process. The authors are allowed to revise their article if there are suggestions for improvement from editors and reviewers. The manuscript will be published in the journal after it is declared eligible to be published by the editorial board.

For further information related to the technical submission of the manuscript, you can contact the editor via email [email protected]