APA Publishing Policies

⁠APA follows a contributorship rather than an authorship model, meaning that authors are not only those who do the writing but also those who have made substantial scientific contributions to a study. 

See APA Ethics Code Standard 8.12a and the seventh edition of the Publication Manual:

Authorship is reserved for persons who make a substantial contribution to and who accept responsibility for a published work. Individuals should take authorship credit only for work they have performed or to which they have substantially contributed (APA Ethics Code Standard 8.12a, Publication Credit). Authorship encompasses, therefore, not only those who do the writing but also those who have made substantial scientific contributions to a study. Substantial professional contributions may include formulating the problem or hypothesis, structuring the experimental design, organizing and conducting the statistical analysis, or interpreting the results and findings. Those who so contribute are listed in the byline. Lesser contributions, which do not constitute authorship, may be acknowledged in the author note (see Section 2.7; see also a taxonomy of authorship in the natural sciences called at CRediT). Lesser contributions may include such supportive functions as designing or building the apparatus, suggesting or advising about the analysis, collecting or entering the data, modifying or structuring a computer program, recruiting participants, and obtaining animals. Conducting routine observations or diagnoses for use in studies does not constitute authorship. Combinations of these (and other) tasks, however, may justify authorship.

Some APA journals have adopted the Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT) to automate author contributions statements in their published articles. CRediT is a high-level taxonomy comprised of 14 roles that describe each author’s specific contribution(s) to the scholarly output. Authors can select more than one contributor role, and the same role can be attributed to more than one person.

The taxonomy also allows for a broader and more representative acknowledgment of the work of researchers who may otherwise not be represented or credited.

APA Journals follows the statement published in McNutt et al.’s 2018 article*:

Each author is expected to have made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data; or the creation of new software used in the work; or have drafted the work or substantively revised it; AND to have approved the submitted version (and any substantially modified version that involves the author’s contribution to the study); AND to have agreed both to be personally accountable for the author’s own contributions and to ensure that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work, even ones in which the author was not personally involved, are appropriately investigated, resolved, and the resolution documented in the literature.

*McNutt, M.K., Bradford, M., Drazen, J. M., Hanson, B., Howard, B., Hall Jamieson, K., Kiermer, V., Marcus, E., Kline Pope, B., Schekman, R., Swaminathan, S., Stang, P. J., Verma, I. M. (2018). Transparency in authors’ contributions and responsibilities to promote integrity in scientific publication. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115, 2557-2560. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1715374115.

When an article appears in a journal issue or a part of a journal’s online first posting (whichever happens first), APA considers the article published. While there are some items that can be corrected without a correction notice (e.g., name changes, typographical errors, or funder information) once published, most changes to the article must be made via a public notice alerting the reader that a change has been made to the version of record.

Corrections, edits, or clarifying statements can be amended to the article via a correction notice, redaction notice, clarification notice, or retraction notice. Depending on the level of the change, the journal editor and APA staff will help clarify which notice is appropriate.

Correction notices

Correction notices are defined by the 7th edition of the APA Style Manual as a formal, public announcement of the correction that alerts readers to the changes in the article. These can also be referred to as an erratum. APA publishes corrections promptly when an important piece of information is missing, incorrect, misleading, or incomprehensible.

Process for correction notices

A request for possible correction may be made by the author(s), editor, readers, or the institution where the research took place. Requests go to the journal's current editor or APA staff.

• Once the editor is alerted, they confer with APA staff and the author(s) on whether the edit rises to the level of a formal correction notice.
• If the edit does warrant a correction notice, the editor will inform the author(s) of the need for a correction notice and the author(s) will work with APA staff to create it.
• Once the correction notice is finalized with the author(s) and reviewed by the editor, APA Staff will have the correction notice published online and in print.

The article will appear as it was originally published with the addition of a banner at the top of the article alerting the reader that there was a correction issued; the correction notice itself will be appended to the last page of the article.

Redactions

Redactions are used when part of the article must be removed and a process used for correction notices. Redacting a part of an article has been typically used when permissions to use a scale or image were not secured correctly before publication. The process for redactions follow the same process as correction notices with the exception that the original article will be changed to remove or cover the redacted sections.

Clarification notices

Clarification notices are used to expand on or clarify information in an article. In these instances, the information in the article is correct, but there may have been information missing that enhances the readers’ understanding of the material (e.g., missing disclosures). The process for clarification notices follows the same process as correction notices.

Retraction notices

Retraction notices are used when the information in an article cannot be corrected via a correction notice, redaction notice, or clarification notice due to the significance of the error (e.g., data were analyzed inappropriately, invalid data). Many retractions are the result of honest error and are an important way of maintaining the accuracy of the scientific record. As such, retractions are considered on an article-by-article basis, and therefore if an original article is retracted that had comment(s) and a reply, the comment(s) and reply are not automatically retracted.

Authors are encouraged to bring errors to editors' attention, especially when they affect the validity of study finding. Situations warranting retraction include those in which an article was plagiarized; its findings were previously published elsewhere without justification; if its findings are unreliable, either as a result of error (e.g., miscalculation or experimental error) or as a result of misconduct (e.g., fabrication of data or falsification via image manipulation); or that report unethical research as defined by the APA ethical guidelines or an institutional review board. For these instances, the article is marked as retracted from the journal.

Process for retraction notices

A request for a possible retraction may be made by the author(s), editor, readers, or the institution where the research took place. Requests go to journal's current editor or APA staff.  

• Once the editor is alerted, they will confer with the APA publisher, the chief editorial advisor, and the author(s) on whether the edits rise to the level of a formal retraction notice.
• If it is found that the edits warrant a retraction notice, the editor and author(s) will work with APA staff to create the retraction notice.
• Once the retraction notice is finalized with the editor and author(s), APA staff will have the retraction notice published online and in print.

The article will appear as it was originally published with a banner at the top of the article alerting the reader that there was a retraction issued for the article, each page of the article will be overlaid with a “RETRACTION” watermark, and the retraction notice itself will be appended to the last page of the article.

APA will change authors’ names in the digital record on request. Respecting authors’ autonomy and recognizing that authors’ names may change after articles have been published, APA Publishing will update author names without publishing an accompanying correction notice. Changes will be made to the digital record for APA-published ebooks or journal articles that have already appeared in print.

This policy was suggested by APA Division 44 (Society for the Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity) and formally recommended by the Publications and Communications Board in May 2020. The P&C Board recognizes that transgender and nonbinary authors are often subjected to gatekeeping discrimination when updating their records and has extended the option to all requesting authors, regardless of their reason for the change. 

Authors who change their name and wish to update their published articles or ebooks may request corrections via email. For articles published before this policy was posted in August 2020, coauthors will be notified of the change so that they can update their publication records.

For this policy, AI refers to generative LLM AI tools and does not include grammar-checking software, citation software, or plagiarism detectors.

• When a generative artificial intelligence (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.
• When AI is cited in an APA scholarly publication, the author must employ the software citation template, which includes specifying in the methods section how, when, and to what extent AI was used. Authors in APA publications are required to upload the full output of the AI as supplemental material.
• The authors are responsible for the accuracy of any information in their article. Authors must verify any information and citations provided to them by an AI tool. Authors may use but must disclose AI tools for specific purposes such as editing.
• No submitted content may be entered into generative AI tools as this violates the confidentiality of the process.

Additional reading material:

• APA Style Blog: How to cite ChatGPT (apa.org)
• COPE Position Statement: Authorship and AI tools | COPE: Committee on Publication Ethics
• US Copyright Office Guidance: Federal Register :: Copyright Registration Guidance: Works Containing Material Generated by Artificial Intelligence

The seventh edition of APA’s Publication Manual instructs authors to provide funder and conflict-of-interest information in the author note. Authors should disclose even interests that could potentially be perceived as conflicts. 

To add a further layer of transparency, many editors ask authors to provide a statement attesting that there is no potential perceived conflict of interest.

Authors are to avoid plagiarism and duplicate or fragmented publication. Duplicate publication involves publishing the same data more than once. Fragmented (or piecemeal) publication involves dividing the report of a research project into multiple articles. Duplicate or fragmented publications are misleading if they appear to represent independent instances. They can distort the scientific literature, especially in reviews or meta-analyses.

Sometimes authors want to publish essentially the same material in different journals in order to reach different audiences. If you think that such duplicate publication is justified, the article must include reference to the original report—both to inform editors, reviewers, and readers and as a necessary fulfillment of the author’s obligations to the previous copyright holder.

In general, the author should inform the editor about the existence of other reports from the same research project at the time of submission.

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. 

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. Many APA journals adhere to Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) Guidelines, and authors should refer to each journal for its data-sharing policy.

Authors who have posted their manuscripts to preprint archives, such as PsyArXiv, prior to submission should include a link to the preprint in the author note.

Authors of articles published in APA journals—the authoritative document, i.e., peer-reviewed publication of record—may post a prepublication copy of the final manuscript, as accepted for publication as a word processing file, on their personal website; their employer’s server; their institution's repository; a preprint repository like APA’s designated preprint server, PsyArXiv; reference managers (e.g., Mendeley); and author social networks (e.g., Academia.edu and ResearchGate) after it is accepted for publication.

See also APA Journals^® Internet Posting Guidelines.