Qualitative Psychology® welcomes special issue proposals from guest editors!
We are especially glad to see papers focused on innovative uses of qualitative methods and how they advance and being tailored to different areas in psychology.
Here is some guidance about the process of putting together a special issue proposal and how these issues move through the review process.
In addition to the introduction, a special issue usually contains 6–8 articles, whereas a special section usually contains 3–5 articles. Usually there would not be more than one manuscript by a given author because the goal is to show some diversity in the work in an area. There are approximately 285 word pages (12pt Time New Roman with 1-inch margins) in a special issue (comprising 133 journal pages). You do not need to fill all these pages as we can add other articles, but you will want to be careful not to exceed that page number if you invite many articles (e.g., if you invite 8 articles, you may want to begin by requesting 30 page manuscripts with the idea of expanding to 35 pages after revisions).
Usually our special issues are focused on topics that have to do with qualitative methods, or their innovative use or best practices in a research area. These may refer to a common methodological issue, an epistemological concern, an overarching theory or social issue around which knowledge has been advanced by qualitative inquiry, a demonstration of state-of-the-art qualitative inquiry within a subfield of psychology. It can be helpful to communicate any connection to methods in each abstract within your proposal and, if your theme is focused on a topical area, to make clear how the studies you present will demonstrate innovations or best practices in qualitative research within that topical area. Usually there would not be more than one paper by a given author or lab in a special issue or section.
Often special issues or sections evolve from symposia or collaborations across peers in an area or invite leading researchers in an area to contribute to a section, but not always. If you do not have papers in mind (or have all the papers you would like) and would like QP to post a call for submissions for the special issue, please provide a blurb that describes the special issue and can be used to recruit submissions. If you are using this method, it can be helpful for guest editors to email the blurb to authors who write in their area and who they think might be interested and encourage them to submit in order to increase the likelihood of strong submissions.
A special issue or section proposal will include:
Please specify the deadline by which time the proposed authors agree that the initial submissions will be submitted to help in our planning. For your planning, the length of time for an average article to go through from submission to publication is 8.5 months at QP, but you might expect that fewer revision rounds will be needed when experienced researchers are making contributions to special sections or issues.
It can help to consult with the journal editor and/or associate editor dedicated to special issues before preparing a proposal. We might be able to give you advice if you submit an outline in a few pages that describe the focus of your proposal, the methods used, the contributions you imagine inviting/recruiting, and their connection to Qualitative Psychology. When ready, special issue proposals should be submitted to the editor who will bring them to the editorial team (associate editors and the editor) to be reviewed. Sometimes they are not found to be a good fit for our journal and we will let you know. Typically when proposals are a good fit, there can be suggestions from the editorial team to be considered that may strengthen the proposal and revisions may be required before approval. Usually these suggestions are focused on how the special issue can be written to have a stronger or more positive impact on the field, but may be varied in nature. We will let you know if the proposal is not a good fit. Preliminary proposals are approved if they are deemed to represent an important and timely topic or be of considerable interest to the Qualitative Psychology readership, and if they include a coherent and compelling set of contributions that advance the understanding, practice, and/or teaching of qualitative inquiry in psychology.
It is very similar to the review processes with which you are likely familiar. The guest editor will shepherd the external anonymous review of other contributors’ articles in the special issue or section. An associate editor at QP would oversee the review of any paper that a guest editor writes though and a footnote would be added to that paper to indicate this process (so that it is clear that guest editors did not conduct a review of their own work). Approval of the formal proposal indicates the journal's interest in publishing the proposed special section. However, it does not guarantee that the journal will publish the entire set of papers submitted. Each individual manuscript will be sent out for peer review by experts in the field, and the result of the peer review process will determine acceptance for publication.
After the proposal is approved and manuscripts are submitted, the guest editor will:
It can be exciting to see your special issue take shape and your vision come into being! Although the process may sound a bit complicated, you will find that it is pretty straightforward, remember that we will be on hand to answer any questions.
After proposal approval, if there are changes that occur to the proposed manuscripts included in the issue (e.g., some manuscripts drop out or there is interest in adding new ones), or other significant changes to articles (e.g., the topic or method of manuscripts changes), please check again with the editor on these changes for either approval or re-review by the editorial team (editor or associate editor).
Guest editors write an introduction for their special issues. The introduction usually focus on the meaning of the topic and its relevance to qualitative methods. It typically includes a brief (one paragraph or less) description of each contribution and how they relate to the special issue theme. These introductions are usually brief in nature—typically about 500 words. They can be longer but should not exceed 10-pages of text in manuscript form including references. You can find many examples of them if you look at our journal. The introduction also needs to be submitted and approved after a review process and by one of the associate editors and editor.
If you are interested, please talk with us about organizing a SQIP Salon after your special issue comes out, including all or some of the authors who contributed to your special issue. You can see a listing of past SQIP Salons under the “Events” Tab on our websiteopens in new window. These events are advertised through the SQIP list and have been successful ways for our authors to draw attention to their work in the qualitative research community. We encourage APA to disseminate these SQIP Salon announcements as well.
In addition, after having their articles accepted, we will ask authors to write a brief blog that we disseminate on our social media. As well, APA sends a list of each article title with authors’ names and links to QP for people who have signed up to receive notices of QP publications.
As a tip, you might want to consider submitting a symposium with the authors in your special section along the way to developing your special issue at the SQIP or APA (Division 5) annual conferences to generate interest in your topic. It is important to us that your issue/section is seen and read!
View a list of journals soliciting manuscripts for articles, special sections, and special issues.