What we publish

SINAG publishes rigorous research that informs practice, policy, and theory. Our primary fields are listed below; we also consider well-designed studies from related disciplines.

• EducationCurriculum, instruction, assessment, teacher education, and educational technology
• Educational managementSchool leadership, governance, policy, and institutional quality assurance
• Language and linguisticsApplied linguistics, discourse analysis, rhetoric, and language teaching
• Literature and cultureLiterary criticism, Philippine literature, and cultural studies
• Social sciencesPsychology, sociology, and community development research
• Multidisciplinary studiesHealth, business, and allied fields with clear relevance to graduate scholarship

Why publish with SINAG

Every manuscript is read by at least two independent reviewers under a double-blind process. Articles are free to read on publication, authors keep their copyright, and there are no submission or publication fees.

About the journal

SINAG: Scholarly Innovation for Advanced Graduate Research is the official research journal of the Northeastern College Graduate School, Santiago City, Isabela, Philippines.

Aims

SINAG aims to disseminate high-quality, original research that advances knowledge and practice in education, language, and related disciplines. It provides a venue where graduate students, faculty researchers, and practitioners can publish work that meets international standards of scholarly rigor while remaining grounded in local and regional contexts.

The journal seeks to:

• build a culture of research and publication within graduate education in the Cagayan Valley region and beyond;
• connect research findings to classroom practice, institutional decisions, and public policy;
• give early-career researchers a rigorous, supportive first step into peer-reviewed publication; and
• contribute Philippine perspectives to international scholarly conversations.

Scope

The journal publishes quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods research, systematic and integrative reviews, and theoretical papers in the following areas:

• Education: curriculum and instruction, assessment, teacher education, educational technology, and inclusive education
• Educational management: leadership, governance, policy, and quality assurance
• Language and linguistics: applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, rhetoric, and language teaching
• Literature and culture: literary criticism, Philippine literature in English and in the vernacular, and cultural studies
• Social sciences, health, business, and allied fields with clear relevance to graduate scholarship

Publication frequency

SINAG publishes two issues a year: Issue 1 (January to June) and Issue 2 (July to December). Accepted articles may be published online ahead of the full issue.

Publisher

SINAG is published by the Graduate School of Northeastern College, Santiago City, Isabela, Philippines. The Graduate School supports the journal’s operations so that authors pay no fees and readers have free access to every article.

Indexing and registration

The journal is preparing its ISSN registration and applications to academic indexing databases. This page will list each database once inclusion is confirmed.

ISSN (online): [pending]
ISSN (print): [pending]

Editorial board

The editorial board oversees the journal’s scholarly direction, peer review, and publication standards.

Editors

• Editor-in-ChiefMark Kevin M. Astrero, MAEd-LL, LPTCollege of Education, Northeastern College, Santiago City, Isabela, Philippines
• Associate EditorSaranay I. Doyaoen, EdD, LPT, CPADean, College of Education, Northeastern College, Santiago City, Isabela, Philippines
• Managing Editor[Name, credentials][Position, institution]

Editorial board members

• Member[Name, credentials][Position, institution, country]
• Member[Name, credentials][Position, institution, country]
• Member[Name, credentials][Position, institution, country]
• Member[Name, credentials][Position, institution, country]

Technical and production staff

• Language Editor[Name, credentials][Position, institution]
• Layout and Web[Name, credentials][Position, institution]

Author guidelines

Please prepare your manuscript according to these guidelines. Submissions that do not follow them will be returned for formatting before review.

Article types

Word counts include the abstract and main text but exclude references, tables, figures, and appendices.

Language

Manuscripts must be written in clear academic English. Authors who are less confident in English are encouraged to have their work proofread before submission. Quotations and data in Filipino or other Philippine languages should be accompanied by English translations.

Formatting

• Microsoft Word file (.docx), A4 or letter size, 1-inch margins on all sides
• Times New Roman, 12 point, double-spaced, with page numbers
• Headings, citations, references, tables, and figures in APA style, 7th edition
• Tables as editable text, not images; figures at a minimum of 300 dpi
• Include DOIs for all references that have them

Manuscript structure

Title page (separate file)

Because review is double-blind, submit the title page as a separate file. It should contain the title, each author’s full name, highest degree, affiliation, ORCID iD, and email address, and the corresponding author’s contact details. Add any acknowledgments, funding information, and author contributions here.

Anonymized manuscript

1. Title: concise and informative, no more than 20 words.
2. Abstract: 150 to 250 words, unstructured, covering purpose, method, key findings, and implications.
3. Keywords: three to six terms.
4. Introduction: the problem, its context, relevant literature, and the research questions or hypotheses.
5. Methods: design, participants or corpus, instruments, procedures, and analysis, with enough detail to allow replication.
6. Results: findings presented without interpretation.
7. Discussion: interpretation in relation to prior research, limitations, and implications.
8. Conclusion: the main contribution and directions for further research.
9. References: APA 7th edition.

Remove all author names, institutional names that identify the authors, and self-identifying citations from the manuscript and the file properties. Refer to your own earlier work in the third person.

Required statements

Include the following at the end of the manuscript, before the references:

• Ethical approval: the name of the approving ethics committee and the approval number for research involving human participants, or a statement explaining why approval was not required.
• Informed consent: confirmation that participants gave informed consent, and for minors, that parents or guardians consented.
• Conflict of interest: any financial or personal relationships that could influence the work, or “The authors declare no conflict of interest.”
• Use of artificial intelligence: a description of any generative AI tool used in preparing the manuscript and how it was used. AI tools may not be listed as authors.
• Data availability: where the data can be accessed, or why they cannot be shared.

Originality and similarity

Manuscripts must be original, not published elsewhere, and not under review by another journal. All submissions are checked with similarity-detection software. The overall similarity index should not exceed 15%, excluding references, and no single source may account for more than 3%. Theses and dissertations may be submitted as articles if they are substantially rewritten and the original work is cited.

Editorial policies

SINAG follows the Core Practices of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and applies these policies to every manuscript.

• Peer review
• Publication ethics
• Plagiarism
• Artificial intelligence
• Open access and copyright
• Fees
• Corrections and retractions
• Archiving
• Privacy

Peer review

SINAG uses double-blind peer review: reviewers do not know the authors’ identities, and authors do not know the reviewers’ identities. Each manuscript that passes initial screening is reviewed by at least two independent experts.

1. Initial screeningThe editors check scope, formatting, completeness, and similarity, normally within two weeks. Manuscripts may be returned for formatting or declined without review.
2. Peer reviewTwo or more reviewers evaluate originality, methodological rigor, clarity, and contribution, normally within four to six weeks.
3. Editorial decisionThe editors decide to accept, request minor revisions, request major revisions, or reject, based on the reviews.
4. RevisionAuthors revise and submit a response letter addressing each comment. Major revisions may be sent back to the reviewers.
5. Copyediting and proofsAccepted articles are copyedited and typeset, and the corresponding author approves the final proof.
6. PublicationThe article is published online in the current issue under an open-access license.

Editors and board members who submit their own work are excluded from all decisions on it, and their manuscripts are handled by another editor.

Publication ethics

Authors must report their work honestly, credit all sources, list as authors only those who made substantial contributions, disclose conflicts of interest, and notify the editors promptly of any significant error found after submission.

Reviewers must keep manuscripts confidential, declare conflicts of interest, give objective and constructive feedback, and not use unpublished material for their own research.

Editors must judge manuscripts on their scholarly merit alone, without regard to the authors’ race, gender, religion, nationality, or institutional affiliation, and must keep all submissions confidential.

Suspected misconduct, including fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, duplicate submission, and authorship disputes, is handled following the COPE flowcharts.

Plagiarism

Every submission is screened with similarity-detection software before review and again before publication. Manuscripts above the similarity threshold in the author guidelines are returned or declined. Plagiarism discovered after publication leads to correction or retraction.

Artificial intelligence

Authors may use generative AI tools for tasks such as language editing, provided they disclose the tool and its use and take full responsibility for the content. AI tools cannot be credited as authors and may not be used to generate data, results, or citations. Reviewers may not upload manuscripts to AI tools, because doing so breaches confidentiality.

Open access and copyright

SINAG is a fully open-access journal. All articles are free to read, download, and share immediately on publication, without registration.

Authors retain copyright and grant the journal the right of first publication. Articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0), which allows others to share and adapt the work for non-commercial purposes with proper attribution. Authors may deposit the published version in institutional repositories and on personal websites, with a citation to SINAG.

Fees

SINAG charges no submission, processing, or publication fees. The journal is fully supported by the Northeastern College Graduate School.

Corrections and retractions

Minor errors that do not affect the findings are fixed through a published correction. Articles with serious errors or evidence of misconduct are retracted with a notice explaining the reason. Retracted articles remain online, clearly marked as retracted.

Archiving

All published articles are preserved in PDF form on this website and in the Northeastern College library repository. The journal will join a digital preservation network as part of its indexing applications.

Privacy

Names and email addresses submitted to the journal are used only for the journal’s stated purposes and are not shared with any other party, in accordance with the Data Privacy Act of 2012 (Republic Act No. 10173).

Issues

SINAG publishes two issues a year. Every article is free to read and download.

Forthcoming issue

SINAG
Vol. 1, No. 1
2027

Volume 1, Issue 1 (January to June 2027)

The inaugural issue is now open for submissions. Accepted articles will appear here with their abstracts, full-text PDFs, and citation details.

Submit a manuscript for this issue

Archive

Past issues will be listed here once the inaugural issue is published.

Submit a manuscript

Submissions are received by email. You will receive an acknowledgment and a manuscript number within five working days.

Before you submit

• The manuscript fits the journal’s aims and scope.
• It is original, unpublished, and not under review elsewhere.
• It follows the formatting and length rules in the author guidelines.
• The manuscript file is fully anonymized.
• The title page is a separate file with all author details.
• The ethics, consent, conflict of interest, AI use, and data availability statements are included.
• All co-authors have approved the submission.

How to submit

1. Prepare two filesName them Surname_TitlePage.docx and Surname_Manuscript.docx, using the corresponding author’s surname.
2. Email the editorial officeSend both files to mkastrero@northeasterncollege.edu.ph with the subject line “SINAG Submission: [Short title].”
3. Include a cover letterIn the email body, state the article type, confirm the manuscript is original and not under review elsewhere, and suggest up to three possible reviewers who have no conflict of interest.

Email your submission

Contact

For questions about submissions, peer review, or the journal, contact the editorial office.

Editorial office

SINAG Journal
Graduate School, Northeastern College
Santiago City, Isabela, Philippines

Editor-in-Chief

Mark Kevin M. Astrero, MAEd-LL, LPT
mkastrero@northeasterncollege.edu.ph

Associate Editor

Saranay I. Doyaoen, EdD, LPT, CPA
[email address]