Submission guidelines

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.

Submissions are handled only through our Editorial Manager platform, and the only official journal website is through APA. If you believe you interacted with a fraudulent website for this journal, please email APA Journalsopens in new window. Review our resource for authors for more information on identifying predatory journals.

Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment^® ( PD:TRT ) 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 PD:TRT Editorial office for review immediately upon submission.

To submit to the editorial office of Joshua D. Miller, PhD, please submit manuscripts electronically through the Manuscript Submission Portal in Rich Text Format (.rtf), Microsoft Word (.docx) or Portable Document Format (.pdf).

Prepare manuscripts according to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association using the 7^th edition. Manuscripts may be copyedited for bias-free language (see Chapter 5 of the Publication Manual). APA Style and Grammar Guidelines for the 7^th edition are available.

An emphasis of PDTRT moving forward is to publish studies with larger sample sizes given the problems associated with smaller samples including lack of statistical power, lower precision and poorer stability of effect sizes (e.g., Schönbrodt & Perugini, 2013), and the increased odds that statistically significant effect sizes from small samples may be substantial overestimates. Studies submitted with very small samples are likely to be rejected without review (even when reporting patient data). Given the importance of power, all submissions must discuss how they decided upon the current sample size, report power analyses that influenced such decisions (if conducted), and if power was not part of the original plan, must report sensitivity analyses as to the smallest effects of interest the study was powered to find. Post-hoc power analyses based on the current effect sizes should not be reported. For case control designs (e.g., borderline PD vs. healthy groups), our strong preference will be that a third group be included (e.g., major depressive disorder) so as to speak to the specificity of the findings. Submissions must also note whether attempts were made to screen for data validity (e.g., with self-report data, reporting on tests of inconsistent or invariant responding, use of validity scales, attention checks, or cut-offs for timing deemed implausible). If data were not screened for validity, this must be noted explicitly. If participants were removed for invalid responding, the details (i.e., how many and for what reasons) must be provided.

Another goal of PDTRT is to increase transparency. In that vein, it is our hope that authors will submit work that was pre-registeredopens in new window. As such, authors must report in the first footnote of the study whether the study was pre-registered and, if so, provide an anonymized link to the pre-registration so that it can be examined by reviewers. Similarly, please note whether the data and code for the study are publicly available and, if so, where these can be found. Although pre-registration itself is not required for submission to PDTRT, it is our goal that an increasing percentage of PDTRT submissions will have been pre-registered across our 6 year term. We also welcome Registered Report submissionsopens in new window. If interested authors have questions about Registered Reports, please contact Josh Milleropens in new window.

Submit Manuscriptopens in new window

Joshua D. Miller
Department of Psychology
153 Psychology Building
University of Georgia
Athens, GA 30602
Emailopens in new window

In addition to addresses and phone numbers, please supply email addresses and fax numbers for use by the editorial office and later by the production office. Most correspondence between the editorial office and authors is handled by email, so a valid email address is important for the timely flow of communication during the editorial process.

Keep a copy of the manuscript to guard against loss.

PD:TRT uses a masked reviewing system for all submissions. Omit the authors' names and affiliations on the first page of the manuscript, but include the title of the manuscript and the submission date. Authors are to make every effort to see that the manuscript itself contains no clues to their identities, including grant numbers, names of institutions providing IRB approval, self-citations, and links to online repositories for data, materials, code, or preregistrations (e.g., Create a View-only Link for a Projectopens in new window ).

Please ensure that the final version for production includes a byline and full author note for typesetting.

List five keywords on the title page to facilitate the selection of peer reviewers. Additionally, provide a cover letter indicating the proposed category under which the manuscript was submitted (e.g., Brief Report) and up to four suggestions for potential reviewers. Suggested reviewers should generally not include those with possible conflicts of interest (COI). In most cases, this would include frequent collaborators, mentors, departmental colleagues, current or previous lab mates, or close personal friends. In some rarer cases in which the research is done in a very small, niche area it may be impossible to avoid suggestions with some COI. In these cases, please include information pertaining to this issue in the cover letter.

APA endorses the Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) Guidelines by a community working group in conjunction with the Center for Open Science (Nosek et al. 2015opens in new window).

Empirical research, including meta-analyses, submitted to the PD:TRT must at least meet the “requirement” level (Level 2) for citation; data, code, and materials transparency; design and analysis transparency; and study and analysis plan preregistration. Authors should include a subsection in the method section titled “Transparency and Openness.” This subsection should detail the efforts the authors have made to comply with the TOP guidelines.

For example:

• We report how we determined our sample size, all data exclusions (if any), all manipulations, and all measures in the study, and we follow JARS (Appelbaum et al., 2018). All data, analysis code, and research materials are available at [stable link to repository]. Data were analyzed using R, version 4.0.0 (R Core Team, 2020) and the package ggplot, version 3.2.1 (Wickham, 2016). This study’s design and its analysis were not pre-registered.

Authors must state whether data and study materials are posted to a trusted repository and, if so, how to access them, including their location and any limitations on use. If they cannot be made available, authors must state the legal or ethical reasons why they are not available. Trusted repositories adhere to policies that make data discoverable, accessible, usable, and preserved for the long term. Trusted repositories also assign unique and persistent identifiers. Recommended repositories include APA’s repositoryopens in new window on the Open Science Framework (OSF), or authors can access a full list of other recommended repositoriesopens in new window.

In a subsection titled “Transparency and Openness” at the end of the method section, specify whether and where the data and materials are available or note the legal or ethical reasons for not doing so. For submissions with quantitative or simulation analytic methods, state whether the study analysis code is posted to a trusted repository, and, if so, how to access it (or the legal or ethical reason why it is not available).

For example:

• All data have been made publicly available at the [trusted repository name] and can be accessed at [persistent URL or DOI].
• Materials and analysis code for this study are not available [for ethical or legal reason].
• The code behind this analysis/simulation has been made publicly available at the [trusted repository name] and can be accessed at [persistent URL or DOI].

If you cannot make your data available on a public site, authors are required to follow current APA policy to make the materials and data used in a published study available in a timely manner to other researchers upon request.

If an author has multiple studies, the repository landing page should clearly identify how to access the specific type of information for each study and the links.

Upon submission of a manuscript, the authors must disclose any prior uses in published, accepted, or under review papers of data reported in the manuscript. The cover letter should include a complete reference list of these articles as well as a description of the extent and nature of any overlap between the present submission and the previous work.

Upon submission, all data sets, materials, and program code created by others must be appropriately cited in the text and listed in the reference section. Such materials should be recognized as original intellectual contributions and afforded recognition through citation.

Where possible, references for data sets and program code should include a persistent identifier assigned by digital archives, such as a Digital Object Identifier (DOI).

Data set citation example:

Campbell, Angus, & Kahn, Robert L. (1948). American National Election Study [Data set]. ICPSR07218v3.

Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research (Ann Arbor, MI) [distributor] (1999). [Data set]. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR07218.v3

Authors must adhere to the Journal Article Reporting Standards (JARS) (PDF, 220KB)opens in new window. See also the specific section editorials and instructions on information to include in method and results sections. It is particularly important to provide justifiable power considerations and specific details related to sample characteristics.

Preregistration of studies and specific hypotheses can be a useful tool for making strong theoretical claims. Likewise, preregistration of analysis plans can be useful for distinguishing confirmatory and exploratory analyses. Investigators may reregister prior to conducting the research via a publicly accessible registry system (e.g., OSFopens in new window, ClinicalTrials.gov, or other trial registries in the WHO Registry Network). There are many available templates; for example, APA, the British Psychological Society, and the German Psychological Society partnered with the Leibniz Institute for Psychology and Center for Open Science to create Preregistration Standards for Quantitative Research in Psychology (Bosnjak et al., 2022).

At the same time, we recognize that there may be good reasons to change a study or analysis plan after it has been preregistered, and thus encourage authors to do so when appropriate so long as all changes are clearly and transparently disclosed in the manuscript.
Articles must state whether or not any work was preregistered and, if so, where to access the preregistration. Preregistrations must be available to reviewers; authors may submit a masked copy via stable link or supplemental material. Links in the method section should be replaced with an identifiable copy on acceptance.

For example:

• This study’s design was preregistered; see [STABLE LINK OR DOI].
• This study’s design and hypotheses were preregistered; see [STABLE LINK OR DOI].
• This study’s analysis plan was preregistered; see [STABLE LINK OR DOI].
• This study was not preregistered.

Whether or not a study is preregistered, PD:TRT stresses the importance of transparency in reporting and expects researchers to fully disclose in their manuscript all decisions that were data-dependent (e.g., deciding when to stop data collection, what observations to exclude, what covariates to include, and what analyses to conduct after rather than before seeing the data).

Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment acknowledges the significance of replication in building a cumulative knowledge base in our field. We therefore encourage submissions that attempt to replicate important findings. Major criteria for publication of replication papers include (i) theoretical significance of the finding being replicated, (ii) statistical power of the study that is carried out, and (iii) the number and power of previous replications of the same finding.

Other factors that would weigh in favor of a replication submission include: pre-registration of hypotheses, design, and analysis; submissions by researchers other than the authors of the original findings; and attempts to replicate more than one study of a multi-study original publication. Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment publishes Registered Reports, which are particularly well-suited for planned replications (but not limited to such content). Such submissions will consist of a detailed research proposal, including an abstract, introduction, hypotheses, method, planned analyses, and implications of the expected results. We recommend that authors initially contact the editor before submitting a Registered Report. For Registered Reports, the proposed research will be reviewed and, if approved, should then be carried out in accordance with the proposed plan. To the extent that the study is judged to have been competently performed, the paper will be accepted (pending any necessary revisions) regardless of the outcome of the study.

Four types of manuscripts will be accepted:

• full-length articles
• brief reports
• target conceptual articles
• practice reviews (jointly written by a researcher and primary clinician)

Manuscripts presenting empirical findings may be submitted as full-length articles. Full-length articles should not exceed 36 pages total (including cover page, abstract, text, references, tables, and figures), with margins of at least 1 inch on all sides and a standard font (e.g., Times New Roman) of 12 points (no smaller). The entire paper (text, references, tables, etc.) must be double-spaced.

PD:TRT requires that reports of randomized clinical trials conform to CONSORT reporting standardsopens in new window , including the submission of a flow diagram and checklist. Nonrandomized clinical trials must conform to TREND criteriaopens in new window .

In addition to full-length manuscripts, PD:TRT will consider brief reports of empirical findings. Brief reports are to be prepared in line with the guidelines for full-length articles, yet they may not exceed 18 pages.

Manuscripts that evaluate and synthesize the research literature and/or make important theoretical contributions are sought for target conceptual articles. Four commentaries invited by the journal will be published on the PD:TRT homepage, along with the author's response to the commentaries.

Target conceptual articles are to be prepared in line with the guidelines for full-length articles, yet they may not exceed 40 pages. Please note that these are typically invited submissions. If you have an idea for a manuscript or a prepared manuscript that may be relevant for this mechanism, please email the editor-in-chief prior to submission for initial consideration.

Meta-analytic and narrative reviews are appropriate for submission to PD:TRT with a preference for quantitative reviews when possible. These reviews can be a maximum of 40 pages; for meta-analyses, references to studies summarized can be included in supplemental materials, if necessary. Narrative reviews in particular must provide a systematic, integrative synthesis of the empirical literature in a given area and/or should be a springboard to the development of a new theory or model. Mere reviews of the literature without integrative synthesis or model/theory development will not be considered.

In line with the journal's commitment to bridging science and practice, practice reviews will present an issue from clinical practice, review relevant research, and provide a practical recommendation informed by the reviewed research.

Practice reviews must be coauthored by at least one individual with a primary focus in clinical practice and at least one individual with a primary focus in research. This partnering of individuals with a different professional emphasis is crucial for practice reviews to provide a credible bridge between research and practice.

When submitting a practice review, provide a description of each individual's primary professional focus in the cover letter. Manuscripts not meeting this partnering requirement will be returned without review. New collaborations are especially encouraged.

Practice reviews are to be prepared in line with the guidelines for full-length articles, yet they may not exceed 30 pages.

Prepare manuscripts according to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association using the 7th edition. Manuscripts may be copyedited for bias-free language (see Chapter 5 of the Publication Manual).

Review APA's Journal Manuscript Preparation Guidelines 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. Additional guidance on APA Style is available on the APA Style website.

The APA Publication Manual (7th ed.opens in new window) stipulates that "authorship encompasses…not only persons who do the writing but also those who have made substantial scientific contributions to a study." In the spirit of transparency and openness, this journal has adopted the Contributor Roles Taxonomyopens in new window (CRediT) to describe each author's individual contributions to the work. CRediT offers authors the opportunity to share an accurate and detailed description of their diverse contributions to a manuscript.

Submitting authors will be prompted to select one or more contributor roles for each author at initial submission. All authors should have reviewed and agreed to their individual contribution(s) before submission. If the manuscript is accepted for publication, an Author Contributions Statement will be generated during the typesetting process and published in the author note of the final article. It is not necessary for authors to provide a written Author Contributions Statement upon submission.

CRediT includes 14 contributor roles, as described below:

• Conceptualization: Ideas; formulation or evolution of overarching research goals and aims.
• Data curation: Management activities to annotate (produce metadata), scrub data and maintain research data (including software code, where it is necessary for interpreting the data itself) for initial use and later reuse.
• Formal analysis: Application of statistical, mathematical, computational, or other formal techniques to analyze or synthesize study data.
• Funding acquisition: Acquisition of the financial support for the project leading to this publication.
• Investigation: Conducting a research and investigation process, specifically performing the experiments, or data/evidence collection.
• Methodology: Development or design of methodology; creation of models.
• Project administration: Management and coordination responsibility for the research activity planning and execution.
• Resources: Provision of study materials, reagents, materials, patients, laboratory samples, animals, instrumentation, computing resources, or other analysis tools.
• Software: Programming, software development; designing computer programs; implementation of the computer code and supporting algorithms; testing of existing code components.
• Supervision: Oversight and leadership responsibility for the research activity planning and execution, including mentorship external to the core team.
• Validation: Verification, whether as a part of the activity or separate, of the overall replication/reproducibility of results/experiments and other research outputs.
• Visualization: Preparation, creation and/or presentation of the published work, specifically visualization/data presentation.
• Writing—original draft: Preparation, creation and/or presentation of the published work, specifically writing the initial draft (including substantive translation).
• Writing—review and editing: Preparation, creation and/or presentation of the published work by those from the original research group, specifically critical review, commentary or revision—including pre- or post-publication stages.

Authors can claim credit for more than one contributor role, and the same role can be attributed to more than one author. Not all roles will be applicable to any particular scholarly work.

Authors who feel that their manuscript may benefit from additional academic writing or language editing support prior to submission are encouraged to seek out such services at their host institutions, engage with colleagues and subject matter experts, and/or consider several vendors that offer discounts to APA authors.

Please note that APA does not endorse or take responsibility for the service providers listed. It is strictly a referral service. Use of such service is not mandatory for publication in an APA journal. Use of one or more of these services does not guarantee selection for peer review, manuscript acceptance, or preference for publication in any APA journal.

APA can place supplemental materials online, available via the published article in the APA PsycArticles^® database.

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.

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

McCauley, S. M., & Christiansen, M. H. (2019). Language learning as language use: A cross-linguistic model of child language development. Psychological Review, 126(1), 1–51. https://doi.org/10.1037/rev0000126opens in new window

Authored book

Brown, L. S. (2018). Feminist therapy (2nd ed.). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000092-000opens in new window

Chapter in an edited book

Balsam, K. F., Martell, C. R., Jones. K. P., Safren, S. A. (2019). Affirmative cognitive behavior therapy with sexual and gender minority people. In G. Y. Iwamasa & P. A. Hays (Eds.), Culturally responsive cognitive behavior therapy: Practice and supervision (2nd ed., pp. 287–314). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000119-012opens in new window

Data set citation

Alegria, M., Jackson, J. S., Kessler, R. C., & Takeuchi, D. (2016). Collaborative Psychiatric Epidemiology Surveys (CPES), 2001–2003 [Data set]. Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR20240.v8opens in new window

Software/Code citation

Viechtbauer, W. (2010). Conducting meta-analyses in R with the metafor package.  Journal of Statistical Software, 36(3), 1–48. https://www.jstatsoft.org/v36/i03/opens in new window

Wickham, H. et al., (2019). Welcome to the tidyverse. Journal of Open Source Software, 4(43), 1686, https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.01686opens in new window

All data, program code, and other methods must be appropriately cited in the text and listed in the references section.

All data, program code and other methods must be cited in the text and listed in the References section.

Data Set Citation:

Alegria, M., Jackson, J. S., Kessler, R. C., & Takeuchi, D. (2016). Collaborative Psychiatric Epidemiology Surveys (CPES), 2001–2003 [Data set]. Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR20240.v8

Tables should adhere to APA Styleopens in new window. Use Word’s Insert Table function to create tables, and do not insert tabs or extra spaces to align columns as this will create problems when the table is typeset.

Preferred formats for graphics files are TIFF and JPG, and preferred format for vector-based files is EPS. Graphics downloaded or saved from web pages are not acceptable for publication. Multipanel figures (i.e., figures with parts labeled a, b, c, d, etc.) should be assembled into one file. When possible, please place symbol legends below the figure instead of to the side.

Resolution 

• All color line art and halftones: 300 DPI 
• Black and white line tone and gray halftone images: 600 DPI 

Line weights 

• Adobe Photoshop images 
• Color (RGB, CMYK) images: 2 pixels 
• Grayscale images: 4 pixels 
• Adobe Illustrator Images 
• Stroke weight: 0.5 points 

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.

Color figure fees

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

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.

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 the article in the production process. Supply separate files for computer code.

In online supplemental material

Runnable source code should 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 authors would like to include code in the text of the published article, submit a separate file with your code exactly as it should appear, using Courier New font with a type size of 8 points. An image will be made 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.

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.

• Download Permissions Alert Form (PDF, 13KB)opens in new window

Articles are eligible for open science badges recognizing publicly available data, materials, and/or preregistered plans and analyses. These badges are awarded on a self-disclosure basis.

At submission, authors must confirm that criteria have been fulfilled in a signed badge disclosure form (PDF, 33KB)opens in new window that must be submitted as supplemental material. If the editorial team confirms that all criteria have been met, the form will then be published with the article as supplemental material.

Authors should also note their eligibility for the badge(s) in the cover letter.

For all badges, items must be made available on an open-access repository with a persistent identifier in a format that is time-stamped, immutable, and permanent. For the preregistered badge, this is an institutional registration system.

Data and materials must be made available under an open license allowing others to copy, share, and use the data, with attribution and copyright as applicable.

Open Data:
All data necessary to reproduce the reported results that are digitally shareable are made publicly available. Information necessary for replication (e.g., codebooks or metadata) must be included.

Open Data; Protected Access:
A Protected Access (PA) notation may be added to open data badges if sensitive, personal data are available only from an approved third-party repository that manages access to data to qualified researchers through a documented process. To be eligible for an open data badge with such a notation, the repository must publicly describe the steps necessary to obtain the data and detailed data documentation (e.g. variable names and allowed values) must be made available publicly. Manuscripts with data deposited in ICPSR's database are eligible for this badge.

Open Materials:
All materials necessary to reproduce the reported results that are digitally shareable, along with descriptions of non-digital materials necessary for replication, are made publicly available.

Preregistered:
At least one study's design has been preregistered with descriptions of (a) the research design and study materials, including the planned sample size; (b) the motivating research question or hypothesis; (c) the outcome variable(s); and (d) the predictor variables, including controls, covariates, and independent variables. Results must be fully disclosed. As long as they are distinguished from other results in the article, results from analyses that were not preregistered may be reported in the article.

Preregistered+Analysis Plan:
At least one study's design has been preregistered along with an analysis plan for the research — and results are recorded according to that plan.

Note that it may not be possible to preregister a study or to share data and materials. Applying for open science badges is optional.

APA holds policies that apply to all journals published. These include policies on author contributorship and responsibilities of authors; author name changes after publication; the use of generative artificial intelligence; funder information and conflict-of-interest disclosures; duplicate publication; data publication and reuse; and preprints. Please also refer to individual journal submission guidance for specific practices and requirements for manuscript submission.

A key convention in the publication of research is the peer review process, in which the quality and potential contribution of each manuscript is evaluated by one's peers in the scientific community. Like other scientific journals, APA journals utilize a peer review process to guide manuscript selection and publication decisions.

In light of changing patterns of scientific knowledge dissemination, APA requires authors to provide information on prior dissemination of the data and narrative interpretations of the data/research appearing in the manuscript (e.g., if some or all were presented at a conference or meeting, posted on a listserv, shared on a website, including academic social networks like ResearchGate, etc.). This information (2–4 sentences) must be provided as part of the author note.

APA policy prohibits an author from submitting the same manuscript for concurrent consideration by two or more publications.

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).

APA Journals aims to address systemic inequities and bias, promote equitable opportunities for researchers, and foster an inclusive environment within the psychological research and scholarly publishing communities, representative of the wide array of people that psychology consists of and serves. Please refer to individual journal submission guidance for specific EDI practices and requirements for manuscript submission.

The APA Journals™ Program is committed to publishing transparent, rigorous research; improving reproducibility in science; and aiding research discovery. Open science practices vary across subfields and per editor discretion, and APA Publishing supports all efforts to improve openness and transparency, especially as they improve diversity, equity, and inclusion. Please refer to individual journal submission guidance for specific OS practices and requirements for manuscript submission.

The APA Journals Office supports authors’ choices on how to publish their work. We are committed to offering options that we believe comply with most funder and institutional requirements and support both self-archiving (“green”) and APC (paid for via an article processing charge and also known as “gold”) Open Access options. Submitting a manuscript for peer review is free of charge.

APA’s current policies on generative AI include:

• When a generative AI model is used in the drafting of a manuscript for an APA publication, the use of AI must be disclosed in the methods section and cited.
• AI cannot be named as an author on an APA scholarly publication.

APA policy prohibits an author from submitting the same manuscript for concurrent consideration by two or more publications. Preprints are allowed.

Authors of accepted papers must obtain and provide 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.

It is a violation of APA Ethical Principles to publish “as original data, data that have been previously published” (Standard 8.13).

APA Ethical Principles also state 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 make their data available if asked during the editorial process and for at least five years after the date of publication.

If the manuscript is accepted, the corresponding author is required to sign and submit a Certification of Compliance with APA Ethical Principles (PDF, 26KB).opens in new window

See APA’s Publishing Policies page for more information on publication policies, including information on author contributorship and responsibilities of authors, author name changes after publication, the use of generative artificial intelligence, funder information and conflict-of-interest disclosures, duplicate publication, data publication and reuse, and preprints.

Visit the Journals Publishing Resource Center for more resources for writing, reviewing, and editing articles for publishing in APA journals.