Qualitative Psychology: Guidelines for reviewing manuscripts

As a reviewer, you serve the dual roles of evaluator and educator. In your evaluative role, you will provide a recommendation to the action editor on whether the manuscript should be accepted, rejected, or revised/resubmitted. Please use the submission portal to submit your review and indicate your decision in the manuscript portal by checking from the drop-down decision menu. Please do not provide an explicit recommendation on the status of a manuscript (e.g., accept, reject, minor or major revisions) in your feedback to the authors.

In deciding on your recommendation, consider the following factors:

1. Fit: Does the manuscript not discuss methodological adaptations and recommendations? If not, it might not be a good fit with Qualitative Psychology (QP). Please see the submission guidelines for QP and its mission. You can find the SQIP (Society for Qualitative Inquiry in Psychology) recommendations for designing and reviewing qualitative research (Levitt et al., 2017opens in new window). This article has tips for reviewing that are meant specifically for qualitative manuscripts. Here are some examples of what makes a manuscript appropriate for QP:
   • The paper is written coherently and in keeping with the logic of the qualitative methods used:
     • We do not require any set number of participants, but are concerned with the adequacy of the data and the richness of findings (see Levitt et al., 2017opens in new window on data adequacy). Please do not apologize for using a number of participants that is small but adequate for your analysis.
     • We are looking for results that have a depth of analysis and present rich findings that hold fidelity in reflecting important aspects of your phenomenon as well as utility for readers who may read your work.
     • The results should be described in a manner that is consistent with the methods used.
     • It is typical to include a reflection on the assumptions and positions of the researchers as well as a description of how they were managed in the research.
     • Category titles (or themes, or narrative, or discourses) should reflect the findings of the analysis. They should not restate the questions asked (e.g., “Times when anxiety occurs”, or “Forms of disagreement”) or be general and vague. They should convey insightful information about the findings to the reader. 
   • There is a focus on methodological reflection (even if much of the article is on primary research),
     • Ask authors to identify what was innovative about methods used. What would be recommended methodologically for researchers in the area going forward.
     • Authors should explain why the use of a particular method or procedure enabled the insightfulness of their particular analysis so that its contributions to the literature advances the field (with advances related to your topic and qualitative psychology).
   • Structure and approximate length of article
     • We recommend that authors check the APA Journal Article Reporting Standards (JARS) for reporting qualitative, qualitative meta-analytic/meta-syntheses, or mixed methods manuscripts before submitting to ensure that their paper structure is in APA format and contains the necessary information for review. It can be found at Levitt et al., 2018opens in new window.
     • There is no maximum length for articles in QP. At the same time, articles should be as concise as possible. Most primary qualitative articles can be presented within 35-45 pages of text, all-inclusive. Being more concise is an advantage and papers may be rejected if papers appear to contain redundancies or to be poorly organized. Please work to be as concise as possible while representing your work well.
     • Authors may place materials that are helpful but are less central to the article in an online supplemental document that will be linked to the article, is published.
2. Fatal flaws: For empirical manuscripts, a fatal flaw is one that severely undermines the key findings and cannot be remedied through a revision. Examples include an analysis that has produced findings that are not inspiring and do not advance knowledge in an area of research, method sections that undermine your confidence in the findings, and questions that are not amenable for qualitative exploration.
3. Major weaknesses: Even if a manuscript has no fatal flaws, it might suffer from multiple problems that, collectively, undermine the overall quality of the manuscript. An example of a major weakness is a manuscript that would likely require numerous rounds of revisions because the quality of writing is very poor. As editor, I try to offer revisions only when I’m reasonably certain (about 75% confident; one can’t be 100% certain) that the manuscript will be ready or close to ready for publication within 2 rounds of revision.
4. Substantive scientific or methodological contribution: This is arguably the most important factor you should consider in determining if the manuscript can proceed on a trajectory toward publication. Even if there are no fatal flaws or major weaknesses in the manuscript, your recommendation should be to reject the manuscript if you do not believe it is a substantive scientific or methodological contribution to the literature. The mere claim that a manuscript addresses a gap in the literature does not qualify as a substantive scientific contribution. In QP articles are often rejected when they don’t add substantively to the content field or to qualitative psychology. To judge this, you can ask yourself if the manuscript offers novel or creative findings, contributes new methods or methodological approaches or adaptations thereof, makes an important theoretical contribution, and is likely to be well cited or lead to policy changes.
5. Equity, diversity, and inclusion: On the QP website, please see our statement on equity, diversity, and inclusion that authors should address in their manuscript. Please use the APA Guidelines for Bias-Free Languageopens in new window. Also, please see the APA reporting standards for race, ethnicity, and culture. If the authors have not complied with these guidelines, please remind them to review these guidelines and amend their manuscript accordingly. For instance, guidelines encourage authors to use inclusive language and to include and discuss references in their manuscripts that include the scholarship of women, people of color, people from other minoritized groups (e.g., based upon age, gender, sexual orientation, immigration status, disability, economic disadvantage), and those from authors from diverse nationalities.
6. Addressing stigma: These policies make reviewers aware of resources that can assist them in reviewing research that is focused on stigma-relevant experiences (e.g., sexism, racism, ethnocentrism, heterosexism, cissexism, ableism, agism).
   • Please see the Journal Article Reporting Standards for Race, Ethnicity, and Culture (PDF, 232KB)opens in new window.
   • There is a growing body of research that has documented how stigma-related experiences can be traumatic and lead to psychological disorder and distress (e.g., Asnaai & Hall-Clark, 2017; Barr et al., 2022; Cole et al., 2024). It is helpful to understand this literature when reviewing papers related to stigma and mental health. Here are a few examples of these findings.
     • Cole, T. A., Dubuclet, C. M., Valentine, J., Meyer, E. A., & Orcutt, H. K. (2024). Assessing the mediating role of emotion regulation and experiential avoidance within a posttraumatic stress disorder and racial trauma framework. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, 16(2), 254–261. https://doi.org/10.1037/tra0001487opens in new window  
     • Asnaani, A., & Hall-Clark, B. (2017). Recent developments in understanding ethnocultural and race differences in trauma exposure and PTSD. Current Opinion in Psychology, 14, 96–101. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2016.12.005opens in new window
     • Barr, S. M., Snyder, K. E., Adelson, J. L., & Budge, S. L. (2022). Posttraumatic stress in the trans community: The roles of anti-transgender bias, non-affirmation, and internalized transphobia. Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity, 9(4), 410–421. https://doi.org/10.1037/sgd0000500opens in new window
7. Educational role and tone: Beyond evaluating the manuscript’s suitability for publication, you also perform an educational role as a reviewer. As an educator, your goal is to provide constructive feedback that will help the authors improve the quality of their manuscripts. As a reviewer, you play a profound role in shaping the career trajectory of our authors, some of whom are students and early career professionals. We should provide feedback that will challenge or inspire them to be better scholars without destroying their self-efficacy. Consider the following suggestions:
   • Try to provide some strength-based feedback or encouragement in your review. Highlight positive aspects of the manuscript.
   • Even if you are recommending rejection of a manuscript, you should provide at least 1 tangible suggestion for what the authors can do their future work to address the limitations in their manuscript (e.g., “In your future research, you might want to consider…”). It is natural for authors to feel disappointed if their manuscripts are rejected, but we want them to receive useful feedback from us that will improve the quality of their research and scholarship.
   • Your role is not to provide line-by-line edits, but specific instructions on what should be changed generally and direction on what would be better is helpful. Some of our authors are non-native English writers and, in some instances, we can suggest that the quality of writing can be remedied with the assistance of a writing professional.
   • Before submitting your review, re-read it by focusing on the tone of your writing. Put yourself in the shoes of the authors. Does your review sound sarcastic, impatient, or harsh? Does it sound supportive, encouraging, and helpful? After reading your review, are the authors likely to feel deflated and demoralized by the tone of your review or will your review challenge them to become better scholars? If reviews include statements that seem unnecessarily harsh or personally attacking, QP editors may ask reviewers to adjust them and/or may remove those statements before sending out the review to authors.
8. Structure of your review: There are multiple ways to organize your review, and we don’t want to be overly prescriptive. However, please consider the following guidelines:
   • Number the main points made in your review, e.g., 1, 2, 3. Doing so will make it easier for the action editor to refer to direct the authors to consider points in your review and for authors to refer to specific aspects of your review in their response.
   • Your review will be particularly helpful to the action editor and the authors if you provide a clear distinction between major and minor comments. For instance, you could add the headings, “Major Comments” and “Minor Comments,” or make it clear at the beginning of your review that points 1, 2, 3 reflect your major comments. Again, please remember not to indicate your decision within the content of your review (that goes to authors), but to indicate it to the action editor via the dropdown menu.
9. Ethics in accepting a review: Reviewers will need to consider if they may have a conflict of interest in overseeing the reviews of those papers and if they are qualified to conduct a review. A conflict of interest may arise when there are close relationships between editors and authors or when there are other situations that might cloud judgement in accepting, rejecting, or assigning reviewers for manuscripts (i.e., a close friendship, supervisor/student relationship, working together on other current projects, a colleague within your own department, etc.). Please watch COPE's video which discusses conflicts of interestopens in new window.

If you have questions about the reviewing of a manuscript or experience problems in submitting a review, please contact the action editor who sent the review request to you.

We appreciate your work to support our journal and to strengthen qualitative research in our discipline.

Heidi M. Levitt, PhD
Editor, QP
Updated November 2024

These guidelines were inspired, in part, by the Psychology of Men & Masculinity and the Journal of Counseling Psychology’s guidelines for reviewing manuscripts. 

References

American Psychological Association (2020).  Chapter 5: Bias-free language.  The publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th Ed).  American Psychological Association.

Levitt, H. M., Motulsky, S. L., Wertz, F. J., Morrow, S. L., & Ponterotto, J. G. (2017). Recommendations for designing and reviewing qualitative research in psychology: Promoting methodological integrity. Qualitative Psychology, 4(1), 2–22. https://doi.org/10.1037/qup0000082

Levitt, H. M., Bamberg, M., Creswell, J. W., Frost, D. M., Josselson, R., & Suárez-Orozco, C. (2018). Journal article reporting standards for qualitative primary, qualitative meta-analytic, and mixed methods research in psychology: The APA Publications and Communications Board task force report. American Psychologist, 73(1), 26–46. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000151