Format
The novel format of the journal focuses on an interactive exchanges on topics of importance to science and practice in our field.
The journal takes a focal article–peer commentary format. A focal article is a position paper on an important issue for the field (or potentially a pair of papers taking opposite sides in a debate). Such a focal article might summarize evidence on an issue and take a position as to implications for science, practice, or public policy. The paper might focus on a basic science issue, an applied science issue, a practice issue, or a public policy issue; many would be a blend.
The focal article is then followed by a series of peer commentaries. These could challenge or critique the original article, expand on issues not addressed in the focal article, or draw out implications not developed in the focal article. The goal is to include commentaries from various perspectives, including science, practice, and international perspectives.
Members will receive e-mail notification from SIOP when each focal article is made available on the SIOP web site, and interested parties can submit a commentary for consideration for publication. We’re eager to get as broad a range of perspectives and reactions as possible. Commentary submissions are peer reviewed.
Individuals with ideas for a potential focal article they would like to write or with ideas about topics they would like to see addressed in the journal can contact Editor Cort Rudolph at [email protected].
Commentary guidelines:
Purpose:
The goal of the focal article - commentary format is to advance the field by providing a forum for varying perspectives on the topic under consideration. A commentary may be:
a) a critical challenge to one or more aspects of the focal article, arguing for a position other than that taken in the focal article;
b) an elaboration or extension of the position taken in the focal article, basically sympathetic to the position taken in the focal article, but pushing the argument further;
c) an application of a theoretical perspective that sheds light on the issues addressed in the focal article;
d) a reflection on the writer’s experiences in applying the issues addressed in the focal article in particular organizational settings;
e) a comment on applicability of the issues raised in the focal article to other settings, or to other cultures;
f) a comment with a focus other than those listed above.
Length:
We envision comments as one to five journal pages in length, which sets 10 manuscript pages as a rough upper limit. A discussion with the editor is called for if an author sees a need for a longer commentary.
Based on experience to date, most commentaries should require less than 10 pages. In the interests of including as a wide a range of perspectives as possible, the editor will place a great premium on tight and concise writing. A tightly argued 3-5 page commentary is likely to be better received than a meandering 10 page commentary.
Style Guidelines:
1. Do not summarize the focal article. Assume the reader has just read the focal article and say four other commentaries before getting to yours. Move directly to identifying the key issues you want to raise (e.g., "X overlooked two key issues," or "We explore further the implications of X’s conclusion about issue Y"). Of course you may restate the specific issue that you are addressing. But there’s no need to say "X addresses A, B, and C; in this commentary we focus on C".
2. Do not include general praise for the focal article ("X has done the field a great service by summarizing this literature," or "There is much to admire in X’s article, namely, A, B, and C"). There is a tendency for commentators to want to start with a paragraph or two of general praise before getting down to business. Across multiple commentaries this takes up a lot of space.
3. Use only essential citations. There are stylistic differences in scientific writing; some like to cite extensively; others less so. For commentary purposes, cite only works absolutely essential to support your point. Going as light as possible on references provides more space for commentaries.
4. Use a short title that emphasizes your key message. Do not use "A Reply to X" as either the title or subtitle. It will be clear in context that all commentaries are a reply to a particular paper.
5. Do not include an abstract.
6. Make sure there is full author info (name, affiliation, address, phone, email) for all authors. Authors must be individuals (e.g., a paper cannot be listed as authored by "the XYZ Group"). We must know who the authors are, and the authors must assign copyright to SIOP prior to publication.
Tone:
While a commentary may be critical of a focal article, it is important to maintain a respectful tone that is critical of ideas, not of authors.
Timing:
There is a relatively short time window for the preparation of commentaries; this may be as short as 30 days. This is driven by journal production schedules.
Queries for the Editor:
Authors should feel free to correspond with the editor prior to submitting a commentary if there are questions about any aspect of the commentary process. Authors may prepare a brief outline of the key points they want to make in the commentary and send it to the editor. While not in a position to commit to a commentary prior to peer review, the editor can comment on whether other commentaries have been submitted or proposed making the same points.
Policy on prior publication
When authors submit manuscripts to this journal, these manuscripts should not be under consideration, accepted for publication or in press within a different journal, book or similar entity, unless explicit permission or agreement has been sought from all entities involved. However, deposition of a preprint on the author’s personal website, in an institutional repository, or in a preprint archive shall not be viewed as prior or duplicate publication. Authors should follow the Cambridge University Press Preprint Policy regarding preprint archives and maintaining the version of record.
English language editing services
Authors, particularly those whose first language is not English, may wish to have their English-language manuscripts checked by a native speaker before submission. This step is optional, but may help to ensure that the academic content of the paper is fully understood by the Editor and any reviewers.
In order to help prospective authors to prepare for submission and to reach their publication goals, Cambridge University Press offers a range of high-quality manuscript preparation services, including language editing. You can find out more on our language services page.
Please note that the use of any of these services is voluntary, and at the author's own expense. Use of these services does not guarantee that the manuscript will be accepted for publication, nor does it restrict the author to submitting to a Cambridge-published journal.
Competing Interests
All authors must include a competing interest declaration in their title page. This declaration will be subject to editorial review and may be published in the article.
Competing interests are situations that could be perceived to exert an undue influence on the content or publication of an author’s work. They may include, but are not limited to, financial, professional, contractual or personal relationships or situations.
If the manuscript has multiple authors, the author submitting must include competing interest declarations relevant to all contributing authors.
Example wording for a declaration is as follows: “Competing interests: Author 1 is employed at organisation A, Author 2 is on the Board of company B and is a member of organisation C. Author 3 has received grants from company D.” If no competing interests exist, the declaration should state “Competing interests: The author(s) declare none”.
Authorship and contributorship
All authors listed on any papers submitted to this journal must be in agreement that the authors listed would all be considered authors according to disciplinary norms, and that no authors who would reasonably be considered an author have been excluded. For further details on this journal’s authorship policy, please see this journal's publishing ethics policies.
Author affiliations
Author affiliations should represent the institution(s) at which the research presented was conducted and/or supported and/or approved. For non-research content, any affiliations should represent the institution(s) with which each author is currently affiliated.
For more information, please see our author affiliation policy and author affiliation FAQs.
Use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools
We acknowledge the increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools in the research and writing processes. To ensure transparency, we expect any such use to be declared and described fully to readers, and to comply with our plagiarism policy and best practices regarding citation and acknowledgements. We do not consider artificial intelligence (AI) tools to meet the accountability requirements of authorship, and therefore generative AI tools such as ChatGPT and similar should not be listed as an author on any submitted content.
In particular, any use of an AI tool:
- to generate images within the manuscript should be accompanied by a full description of the process used, and declared clearly in the image caption(s)
- to generate text within the manuscript should be accompanied by a full description of the process used, include appropriate and valid references and citations, and be declared in the manuscript’s Acknowledgements.
- to analyse or extract insights from data or other materials, for example through the use of text and data mining, should be accompanied by a full description of the process used, including details and appropriate citation of any dataset(s) or other material analysed in all relevant and appropriate areas of the manuscript
- must not present ideas, words, data, or other material produced by third parties without appropriate acknowledgement or permission
Descriptions of AI processes used should include at minimum the version of the tool/algorithm used, where it can be accessed, any proprietary information relevant to the use of the tool/algorithm, any modifications of the tool made by the researchers (such as the addition of data to a tool’s public corpus), and the date(s) it was used for the purpose(s) described. Any relevant competing interests or potential bias arising as a consequence of the tool/algorithm’s use should be transparently declared and may be discussed in the article.
ORCID
We encourage authors to identify themselves using ORCID when submitting a manuscript to this journal. ORCID provides a unique identifier for researchers and, through integration with key research workflows such as manuscript submission and grant applications, provides the following benefits:
- Discoverability: ORCID increases the discoverability of your publications, by enabling smarter publisher systems and by helping readers to reliably find work that you have authored.
- Convenience: As more organisations use ORCID, providing your iD or using it to register for services will automatically link activities to your ORCID record, and will enable you to share this information with other systems and platforms you use, saving you re-keying information multiple times.
- Keeping track: Your ORCID record is a neat place to store and (if you choose) share validated information about your research activities and affiliations.
See our ORCID FAQs for more information. If you don’t already have an iD, you can create one by registering directly at https://ORCID.org/register.
ORCIDs can also be used if authors wish to communicate to readers up-to-date information about how they wish to be addressed or referred to (for example, they wish to include pronouns, additional titles, honorifics, name variations, etc.) alongside their published articles. We encourage authors to make use of the ORCID profile’s “Published Name” field for this purpose. This is entirely optional for authors who wish to communicate such information in connection with their article. Please note that this method is not currently recommended for author name changes: see Cambridge’s author name change policy if you want to change your name on an already published article. See our ORCID FAQs for more information.
Supplementary materials
Material that is not essential to understanding or supporting a manuscript, but which may nonetheless be relevant or interesting to readers, may be submitted as supplementary material. Supplementary material will be published online alongside your article, but will not be published in the pages of the journal. Types of supplementary material may include, but are not limited to, appendices, additional tables or figures, datasets, videos, and sound files.
Supplementary materials will not be typeset or copyedited, so should be supplied exactly as they are to appear online. Please see our general guidance on supplementary materials for further information.
Where relevant we encourage authors to publish additional qualitative or quantitative research outputs in an appropriate repository, and cite these in manuscripts.
Author Hub
You can find guides for many aspects of publishing with Cambridge at Author Hub, our suite of resources for Cambridge authors.