Prior to submission, please carefully read and follow the submission guidelines detailed below. Manuscripts that do not conform to the submission guidelines may be returned without review.
Submission
Submit manuscripts electronically (.rtf or .doc) via the Manuscript Submission Portal.
In addition to addresses and phone numbers, please supply email addresses and fax numbers.
Keep a copy of the manuscript to guard against loss.
Articles must be in English and must be competently written and argued. They may not exceed 35 double-spaced pages in length, including the cover page, abstract, references, tables, and figures.
Email Address
The address of the editorial office of the American Psychologist is AP Editor. Please do not submit manuscripts to this email address or directly to the Editor-in-Chief. All manuscripts should be submitted through the AP electronic Manuscript Submission Portal to be properly acknowledged and processed.
Comments
Comments should be submitted no later than two months from the date of the issue containing the article to which they respond; they should meet the same criteria for original articles and should make a reasonable and substantial contribution to the discussion of the topic.
Independent comments (i.e., those unrelated to a specific published AP article or special issue) and comments on matters of APA policy or on issues facing the Association are also considered. (Comments on obituaries are not published; comments on comments are rarely considered.)
Comments must be limited to 1,000 words (about five pages) and should contain no more than nine references. As for all manuscripts, authors should include page numbers and references for quotes.
A comment is reviewed by the associate editor who handled the original manuscript. If accepted, it may be accompanied by an invited response from the authors of the original article. An independent comment is prescreened like a regular manuscript; if it passes preliminary review, it gets assigned to an associate editor for a full editorial review.
Comments are published in the earliest possible issue of the journal, typically six to eight months after the original article.
Obituaries
Manuscript submissions for the Obituaries section are by invitation only.
Proposals for Special Sections or Special Issues
Proposals for special sections or issues should be submitted prior to developing the manuscripts.
Feature sections devoted to the explication of a particular topic are one means of fulfilling the journal's mission. A special section of the journal may contain three or four papers on a single theme, and a special issue may contain somewhat more, depending on the content area.
Proposals for special sections or special issues should describe their scope, provide a rationale (including why such a section or issue is timely and what contribution it would make to the literature), and list and describe the proposed papers, with potential authors for each. Potential authors should not be recruited until a proposal is accepted.
Authors, in proposing an entire special issue, should be aware that the larger the number of papers included, the more specialized they often become, rendering them less suitable for AP.
Proposals are first reviewed by the Editor-in-Chief and the Managing Editor. Some special feature proposals are then circulated to two or three individuals for review.
Among the factors used in considering a proposal are
- length of time since this topic was last addressed in AP
- amount of new research conducted since then
- whether the range of topics appears appropriate
- whether ethnic, racial, gender, and other types of diversity are reflected in the content and population within topic areas
Proponents of special sections or special issues should also consider diversity in the selection of manuscript authors.
If a proposal is accepted, the proposal author will be responsible for recruiting authors, with possible suggestions from the AP editors.
All manuscripts should be submitted at the same time, but as separate submissions.
In most cases, each paper in a special section is circulated separately for peer review to at least three experts. Editorial decisions about each manuscript in a special package are made separately.
For some special issue submissions, all manuscripts might be reviewed together by a single reviewer in order to ensure integration and consistent quality across all manuscripts.
Reports of APA Boards, Committees, and Task Forces
Reports are reviewed by a committee of the Editorial Board. They may be accepted in whole or in part, or may be rejected. Revisions are generally not requested because such reports are based on group consensus and have gone through extensive review and approval by the relevant APA governance bodies. Reports that are not accepted for publication may be submitted to specialty APA journals, considered for posting on the APA Web site, or deposited as full-text documents in PsycEXTRA. Practice guidelines that have been adopted as APA policy by the Council of Representatives will be automatically published in AP.
Review Policy
The AP review process is handled by the Editor-in-Chief, the Managing Editor, and a board of Associate Editors. The review process for all manuscripts occurs in two stages. The first stage of review is conducted by the Editor-in-Chief and the Managing Editor, and the second stage is handled by one of the AP associate editors.
Approximately 70% of author-submitted manuscripts are returned without review within 30 days for a host of reasons: Empirical manuscripts are more appropriate for one of the APA primary journals; the topic of the manuscript or style of the writing is too specialized for the broad AP readership; the same topic was recently covered in the journal; inappropriate content or style; or other, more typical reasons such as the paper does not offer a major contribution to the field or is simply not written well enough.
Masked Review Policy
As a matter of policy, the identities of authors and reviewers are masked. Manuscripts that are peer reviewed are circulated without their title pages to mask the identity of the authors.
Each copy of a manuscript should include a separate title page with authors' names and affiliations, and these should not appear anywhere else on the manuscript. Footnotes that identify the authors should be typed on a separate page.
Authors should make every effort to see that the manuscript itself contains no clue to their identity.
Please ensure that the final version for production includes a byline and full author note for typesetting.
Presubmission Checklist
View the Presubmission Checklist. The purpose of the checklist is to enable authors to evaluate a manuscript in light of the mission of the journal and the factors that are most salient in the initial round of editorial review.
Appeals Process
For manuscripts rejected without review. Authors of manuscripts rejected without review may appeal the decision to the Editor-in-Chief, requesting a reconsideration of the decision. If that appeal is rejected but the author believes the decision is inappropriate, the author may next appeal to the APA Chief Editorial Advisor, the ombudsperson for all APA journals, who is not an APA employee. If this appeal fails, the author may make a final appeal to an Appeals Committee, consisting of the chair of the Publications and Communications (P&C) Board, the chair of the Council of Editors (composed of the editors of all APA journals), and the APA Board of Directors' liaison to the P&C Board.
For manuscripts rejected after peer review. An author wishing to appeal a manuscript should direct the editorial appeal first to the AP associate editor who made the rejection. If the associate editor declines to further consider the manuscript, or the associate editor does a second review of the manuscript and still rejects it, the author may appeal next to the AP Editor-in-Chief. If the AP Editor-in-Chief believes the appeal has merit, the manuscript may be reassigned to a new associate editor for independent re-review. If the AP Editor-in-Chief rejects the appeal, the author may request that the appeal and the manuscript be sent to the APA Chief Editorial Advisor for evaluation. The next levels of appeal are the Appeals Committee and the APA Board of Directors.
For rejected comments. Decisions on comments are final and cannot be appealed.
Change of Address
To change the mailing address at which you receive the journal and other mail from APA, please send information to the Subscriptions Department or to
American Psychological Association
Subscriptions
750 First Street, NE
Washington, DC 20002-4242
Manuscript Preparation
Prepare manuscripts according to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th edition). Manuscripts may be copyedited for bias-free language (see Chapter 3 of the Publication Manual).
Review APA's Checklist for Manuscript Submission before submitting your article.
Double-space all copy. Other formatting instructions, as well as instructions on preparing tables, figures, references, metrics, and abstracts, appear in the Manual.
Below are additional instructions regarding the preparation of display equations and tables.
Display Equations
We strongly encourage you to use MathType (third-party software) or Equation Editor 3.0 (built into pre-2007 versions of Word) to construct your equations, rather than the equation support that is built into Word 2007 and Word 2010. Equations composed with the built-in Word 2007/Word 2010 equation support are converted to low resolution graphics when they enter the production process and must be rekeyed by the typesetter, which may introduce errors.
To construct your equations with MathType or Equation Editor 3.0:
- Go to the Text section of the Insert tab and select Object.
- Select MathType or Equation Editor 3.0 in the drop-down menu.
If you have an equation that has already been produced using Microsoft Word 2007 or 2010 and you have access to the full version of MathType 6.5 or later, you can convert this equation to MathType by clicking on MathType Insert Equation. Copy the equation from Microsoft Word and paste it into the MathType box. Verify that your equation is correct, click File, and then click Update. Your equation has now been inserted into your Word file as a MathType Equation.
Use Equation Editor 3.0 or MathType only for equations or for formulas that cannot be produced as Word text using the Times or Symbol font.
Tables
Use Word's Insert Table function when you create tables. Using spaces or tabs in your table will create problems when the table is typeset and may result in errors.
If your manuscript was mask reviewed, please ensure that the final version for production includes a byline and full author note for typesetting.
Submitting Supplemental Materials
APA can now place supplementary materials online, available via the published article in the PsycARTICLES® database. Please see Supplementing Your Article With Online Material for more details.
Abstract and Keywords
All manuscripts must include an abstract containing a maximum of 250 words typed on a separate page. After the abstract, please supply up to five keywords or brief phrases.
References
List references in alphabetical order. Each listed reference should be cited in text, and each text citation should be listed in the References section.
Examples of basic reference formats:
Journal Article:
Herbst-Damm, K. L., & Kulik, J. A. (2005). Volunteer support, marital status, and the survival times of terminally ill patients. Health Psychology, 24, 225–229. doi: 10.1037/0278-6133.24.2.225
Authored Book:
Mitchell, T. R., & Larson, J. R., Jr. (1987). People in organizations: An introduction to organizational behavior (3rd ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
Chapter in an Edited Book:
Bjork, R. A. (1989). Retrieval inhibition as an adaptive mechanism in human memory. In H. L. Roediger III & F. I. M. Craik (Eds.), Varieties of memory & consciousness (pp. 309–330). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Figures
Graphics files are welcome if supplied as Tiff, EPS, or PowerPoint files. The minimum line weight for line art is 0.5 point for optimal printing.
When possible, please place symbol legends below the figure instead of to the side.
Permissions
Authors of accepted papers must obtain and provide to the editor on final acceptance all necessary permissions to reproduce in print and electronic form any copyrighted work, including, for example, test materials (or portions thereof) and photographs of people.
Download Permissions Alert Form (PDF, 47KB)
Publication Policies
APA policy prohibits an author from submitting the same manuscript for concurrent consideration by two or more publications.
See also APA Journals® Internet Posting Guidelines.
APA requires authors to reveal any possible conflict of interest in the conduct and reporting of research (e.g., financial interests in a test or procedure, funding by pharmaceutical companies for drug research).
Download Disclosure of Interests Form (PDF, 38KB)
Authors of accepted manuscripts are required to transfer the copyright to APA.
Download Publication Rights (Copyright Transfer) Form (PDF, 83KB)
Ethical Principles
It is a violation of APA Ethical Principles to publish "as original data, data that have been previously published" (Standard 8.13).
In addition, APA Ethical Principles specify that "after research results are published, psychologists do not withhold the data on which their conclusions are based from other competent professionals who seek to verify the substantive claims through reanalysis and who intend to use such data only for that purpose, provided that the confidentiality of the participants can be protected and unless legal rights concerning proprietary data preclude their release" (Standard 8.14).
APA expects authors to adhere to these standards. Specifically, APA expects authors to have their data available throughout the editorial review process and for at least 5 years after the date of publication.
Authors are required to state in writing that they have complied with APA ethical standards in the treatment of their sample, human or animal, or to describe the details of treatment.
Download Certification of Compliance With APA Ethical Principles Form (PDF, 26KB)
The APA Ethics Office provides the full Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct electronically on their website in HTML, PDF, and Word format. You may also request a copy by emailing or calling the APA Ethics Office (202-336-5930). You may also read "Ethical Principles," December 1992, American Psychologist, Vol. 47, pp. 1597–1611.
Other Information
