Prior to submission, please carefully read and follow the submission guidelines detailed below, especially on the maximum length limits for regular articles and brief reports. Manuscripts that do not conform to the submission guidelines may be returned without review.
Submission
International Journal of Stress Management® (IJSM) is now using a software system to screen submitted content for similarity with other published content. The system compares each submitted manuscript against a database of 25+ million scholarly publications, as well as content appearing on the open web.
This allows APA to check submissions for potential overlap with material previously published in scholarly journals (e.g., lifted or republished material). A similarity report will be generated by the system and provided to the International Journal of Stress Management Editorial office for review immediately upon submission.
Submit manuscripts electronically through the Manuscript Submission Portal.
Keep a copy of the manuscript to guard against loss. Please provide full contact information — authors' addresses, phone numbers, email, and fax numbers — for use by the editorial office and later by the production office. General correspondence may be directed to the Editor's Office.
The editorial focus of IJSM is the assessment, management, and treatment of stress and trauma, whether emotional, cognitive, behavioral, or physiological. Personal, organizational, and societal issues relevant to stress management are also covered.
IJSM is the official journal of the International Stress Management Association (ISMA). ISMA is a nonprofit organization dedicated to working for a less stressful world. It seeks to advance the education of professionals and students and promotes methodologically sound research in stress management across disciplines that include psychology, psychiatry, education, business and industry, medicine, nursing, dentistry, physical therapy, speech therapy, and occupational therapy.
The journal publishes high-quality, peer-reviewed, original research in the form of empirical, theoretical, historical, review articles and editorials.
Manuscript Length and Elements
The maximum acceptable manuscript length is 35 double-spaced pages for a regular article and 15 double-spaced pages for brief reports — including front matter, references, tables, and figures — in 12-point font.
For manuscripts that exceed these page limits, authors must justify the extended length in their cover letter (e.g., reporting of multiple studies).
All manuscripts must include on separate pages:
- a title page with the authors' names and affiliations at the time the research was done
- author footnotes, which include acknowledgments of support, changes of affiliation since the research was done, and the name and address of the author to whom correspondence should be sent
- an abstract containing a maximum of 250 words, followed, below it, by up to five keywords or brief phrases to assist in indexing
Number all pages serially, including these pages, the text, references, acknowledgments, tables, and figure captions.
Include in a cover letter assurances that the manuscript is not under review elsewhere and that the primary data have not been published previously nor accepted for publication.
Masked Review Policy
Manuscripts will be subject to masked review.
Authors' names and affiliations should appear only on the separate title page and the separate author footnotes page if any; authors should not be identified anywhere else in the manuscript. Authors should make every effort to see that the manuscript itself contains no clues to their identities.
Please ensure that the final version for production includes a byline and full author note for typesetting.
Selecting Reviewers
It is acceptable for an author to suggest individuals qualified to do the reviewing. The Editor encourages authors to nominate possible reviewers for their manuscript, to a maximum of six. Two of these reviewers may be from the IJSM Editorial Board. Authors may also recommend up to two reviewers who are not familiar with their submission.
Nominated reviewers should not have reviewed or provided comments on previous or current manuscripts, teach at your institution, or be co-authors on other manuscripts. Please be sure to address this assurance in your cover letter.
The Editor will make the final selection of all reviewers.
Research Context
IJSM encourages cross-cultural studies, as well as studies from underrepresented cultures. Simply stating that the study is unique because it provides information from a given culture is insufficient.
We strongly encourage ample description of unfamiliar contexts (be it occupational, organizational, and/or national contexts) so as to justify or provide context for the study hypotheses and to help readers make appropriate interpretations of results.
Such brief descriptions should be inserted into the body of the literature review or the "Method" section, as appropriate (e.g., if the context does not guide the hypotheses, the context will be described in the "Method" section).
The subheader for this section should be labeled "Contextual Factors." In cases when the contextual factors need to be highly detailed, author(s) should include them in an Appendix (after the references).
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, computer code, 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.
Computer Code
Because altering computer code in any way (e.g., indents, line spacing, line breaks, page breaks) during the typesetting process could alter its meaning, we treat computer code differently from the rest of your article in our production process. To that end, we request separate files for computer code.
In Online Supplemental Material
We request that runnable source code be included as supplemental material to the article. For more information, visit Supplementing Your Article With Online Material.
In the Text of the Article
If you would like to include code in the text of your published manuscript, please submit a separate file with your code exactly as you want it to appear, using Courier New font with a type size of 8 points. We will make an image of each segment of code in your article that exceeds 40 characters in length. (Shorter snippets of code that appear in text will be typeset in Courier New and run in with the rest of the text.) If an appendix contains a mix of code and explanatory text, please submit a file that contains the entire appendix, with the code keyed in 8-point Courier New.
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.
Submitting Supplemental Materials
APA can place supplemental 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:
Hughes, G., Desantis, A., & Waszak, F. (2013). Mechanisms of intentional binding and sensory attenuation: The role of temporal prediction, temporal control, identity prediction, and motor prediction. Psychological Bulletin, 139, 133–151. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0028566
- Authored Book:
Rogers, T. T., & McClelland, J. L. (2004). Semantic cognition: A parallel distributed processing approach. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
- Chapter in an Edited Book:
Gill, M. J., & Sypher, B. D. (2009). Workplace incivility and organizational trust. In P. Lutgen-Sandvik & B. D. Sypher (Eds.), Destructive organizational communication: Processes, consequences, and constructive ways of organizing (pp. 53–73). New York, NY: Taylor & Francis.
Figures
Graphics files are welcome if supplied as Tiff or EPS files. Multipanel figures (i.e., figures with parts labeled a, b, c, d, etc.) should be assembled into one file.
The minimum line weight for line art is 0.5 point for optimal printing.
For more information about acceptable resolutions, fonts, sizing, and other figure issues, please see the general guidelines.
When possible, please place symbol legends below the figure instead of to the side.
APA offers authors the option to publish their figures online in color without the costs associated with print publication of color figures.
The same caption will appear on both the online (color) and print (black and white) versions. To ensure that the figure can be understood in both formats, authors should add alternative wording (e.g., "the red (dark gray) bars represent") as needed.
For authors who prefer their figures to be published in color both in print and online, original color figures can be printed in color at the editor's and publisher's discretion provided the author agrees to pay:
- $900 for one figure
- An additional $600 for the second figure
- An additional $450 for each subsequent figure
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 test materials (or portions thereof), photographs, and other graphic images (including those used as stimuli in experiments).
On advice of counsel, APA may decline to publish any image whose copyright status is unknown.
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).
Authors of accepted manuscripts are required to transfer the copyright to APA.
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.
The APA Ethics Office provides the full Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct electronically on its 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
