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.

Please submit manuscripts electronically through the Manuscript Submission Portal in Microsoft Word or Open Office format.

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

Submit Manuscriptopens in new window

For general correspondence, of if you encounter difficulties with submission, please email Kara Hamiltonopens in new window, SP's peer review coordinator.

School Psychology publishes empirical studies and systematic literature reviews of the psychology of education and services for children in pre-K-12 school settings, encompassing a full range of methodologies and orientations, including educational, cognitive, social, cognitive behavioral, preventive, cross-cultural, and developmental perspectives. Manuscripts should focus on children, youth, and the adults who work with them.

We welcome manuscripts from scholars throughout the world, including research from multi-site international projects and work that has the potential to be adapted to and implemented around the globe to address the needs of diverse populations, cultures, and communities. Papers linking innovative empirical research with practice and public policy in the USA and elsewhere will also be considered.

Book or test reviews are not accepted for review or publication in SP.

School Psychology (SP) uses 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 SP Editorial office for review immediately upon submission.

This journal uses a masked reviewing system for all submissions. The first page of the manuscript should omit the authors' names and affiliations but should include the title of the manuscript and the date it is submitted. Footnotes containing information pertaining to the authors' identities or affiliations should not be included in the manuscript but may be provided after a manuscript is accepted. All author identifiers should be removed from the manuscript. These identifiers include author names, university or other affiliations, or citations to prior work that clearly was conducted by the study authors. Generally, make every effort to see that the manuscript itself contains no clues to the authors' identities. Keep a copy of the manuscript to guard against loss.

When citing your own work, it is often most appropriate to cite your work in-text and the reference list as you would any other author. When discussing your work in-text, use third person. In cases where you are citing unpublished works, replace your name or co-authors’ names with “author” both in-text citation and in the reference list.

School Psychology (SP) encourages authors to write their manuscripts concisely and clearly. Full-length manuscripts should not exceed 7,500 words total (including 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), unless otherwise specified (see "Manuscript Submission Types"). The References section should immediately follow a page break. The entire paper (text, references, tables, etc.) must be double spaced. For manuscripts that exceed the word limit specified for the manuscript type (see "Manuscript Submission Types"), authors must justify the extended length in their cover letter. In no case should the paper exceed 9,000 words.

Supplementary materials (e.g., oversized tables, lengthy appendices, detailed intervention protocols, supplementary data sets) may be submitted and, if accepted, posted online and linked to in the PsycArticles^® database. Please review Supplementing Your Article With Online Material for further information.

Examples of supplementary materials that may be posted online include

• audio or video clips
• oversized tables
• lengthy appendixes
• detailed intervention protocols
• supplementary data sets

Original research conveying the discovery of new knowledge and advancing the mission of the journal. In general, full-length manuscripts should not exceed 7,500 words total, unless otherwise specified (see manuscript types below). This word limit is inclusive of the cover page, abstract, narrative, references, tables, and figures.

SP is interested in publishing papers on promising quantitative, qualitative, mixed designs, single-case designs, and other methodological approaches. This can include step-by-step illustrations on the applications of new statistical software packages, how-to approaches to engage in cutting-edge methodological practices, common misuse or misunderstanding of methodological approaches, and/or innovative ways to transform traditional methods to examine complex issues facing today's children, families, and schools. Articles should not exceed 7,500 words inclusive of the cover page, abstract, narrative, references, tables, and figures.

Brief reports may be limited to a small sample, limited variables, or pilot study. The text is limited to 3,000 words (from the Introduction through the discussion), a maximum of 3 tables and figures (total), and up to 25 references.

SP welcomes submission of systematic review articles, particularly those that represent a new synthesis of information. They should be written for the general readership. The recommended length for systematic review articles and meta-analyses is 7,500 words inclusive of the cover page, abstract, narrative, references, tables, and figures. Manuscripts are to comply with the APA Journal Article Reporting Standards for meta-analysisopens in new window.

The policy of School Psychology is to encourage submission of replication studies, including of research published in this journal.

School Psychology welcomes submissions describing null findings that demonstrate excellent methodological rigor.

School Psychology welcomes topics that emphasize contemporary issues intended to advance science, practice, and/or policy that highlight or better position the field to be responsive to the current or future global context. Topics should incorporate a social justice perspective by considering issues related to equity, diversity, access, and inclusion.

Special topics represent open calls pertaining to a thematic group of manuscripts with no expectations for the established number of articles required. Typically, an introduction is written by guest editors and commentary articles can be solicited.

Inquiries regarding special issues or special topic sections and be sent directly to the Editor, Dr. Robin Coddingopens in new window. An associate editor will serve as action editor for all special issues and sections and work closely with the guest editor(s) of the special issue/section.

In addition, the editorial team (composed of the editor and associate editors) will initiate special issues and sections to address gaps in the literature.

The manuscript title should be direct, accurate, explanatory, and concise. There is no prescribed word limit, but authors should keep the title succinct and clear. See APA Manual (7^th edition, p. 32) for guidance on how to develop effective titles including examples. If the paper reports a randomized clinical trial (RCT), this should be indicated in the title.

• The abstract is a paragraph (up to 250 words) that summarizes key content of the paper. Per the APA Manual (7^th Edition, p. 74), an abstract should accurately summarize the manuscript, report directly without judgment, and be clear, direct, and concise. The abstract should be typed on a separate page (page 2 of the manuscript).
• Specific guidance for what should be included in abstract based on the type of article is outlined in the APA Manual (pp. 74-75) and the JARS Standards. As an example, abstracts for empirical articles should include (a) the problem that is being studied (ideally within one sentence); (b) participants or data sources; (c) key methodological details (e.g., research design, analytic plan, data gathering procedures, materials used); (d) basic findings (including specific data if possible); and (e) conclusions and implications of the research.
• Include 3-5 keywords (i.e., words, phrases, or acronyms) that reflect key areas of the manuscript. These are used to index and search for published articles so being thoughtful about their selection can facilitate readers finding your work.
• Keywords should be listed in italic one line after the abstract and separated by commas. For additional formatting guidance see APA Manual (p. 39). 

• Include a short statement (i.e., 1–3 sentences; 30-70 words) that summarizes the manuscript findings and explains their implications to a general readership (i.e., not subject-matter experts or researchers). This statement should be written clearly and plainly, without jargon or technical language. This statement is an opportunity to clearly articulate the importance and relevance of the manuscript to a broad audience (e.g., practitioners, policy makers, news media).
• For examples of these statements, see published articles from School Psychology. In addition, see APA Guidance for Translational Abstracts and Public Significance Statements for additional guidance and examples.

• Include a detailed description of all study participants, including (but not limited to) the following: age, gender, ethnicity, SES, clinical diagnoses, and comorbidities (as appropriate), and any other relevant demographics. Explain how demographic information was collected. Consider referencing APA guidelines and policy statements when writing this section. Per APA Guidelines on Race and Ethnicityopens in new window in Psychology, authors should take care to operationalize participant characteristics to appropriately account for relevant demographics. That is, individuals should be described in a manner that is specific and respectful; refrain from using language that is prejudicial or general.  Such specificity accounts for the variability within groups and appropriately accounts for socio-political nature of many demographic variables. See APA Guidelines for Bias-Free Language for specific recommendations.
• The method section also must include a statement describing how informed consent was obtained from the participants (or their parents/guardians) and indicate that the study was conducted in compliance with an appropriate Internal Review Board.

• The method section of empirical reports must contain a sufficiently detailed description of the measures used so that the reader understands the item content, scoring procedures, and total scores or subscales.
• Provide a full accounting of the dependent variable(s) in the study, including psychometric data (e.g., evidence of reliability and validity with similar populations should be provided)

• SP requires the statistical reporting of measures that convey clinical significance. Authors should report means and standard deviations for all continuous study variables and the effect sizes for the primary study findings. (If effect sizes are not available for a particular test, authors should convey this in their cover letter at the time of submission.)
• SP also requires authors to report confidence intervals for any effect sizes involving principal outcomes.
• In addition, when reporting the results of interventions, authors should include indicators of clinically significant change. Authors may use one of several approaches that have been recommended for capturing clinical significance, including (but not limited to) the reliable change index (i.e., whether the amount of change displayed by an individual is large enough to be meaningful); the extent to which dysfunctional individuals show movement into the functional distribution, or other normative comparisons.

• The Discussion includes an interpretation of the study findings, considering the stated hypotheses and presented results. Clearly indicate which hypotheses were supported by the findings. Highlight study implications, taking care to be appropriate given the scope of the findings and the potential for error.
• Highlight how the findings are similar or different from prior theory and research. There should be correspondence between the introduction and discussion, in that the work presented to articulate the rationale could be referenced in relationship to findings.
• Constraints on Generality/Transferability: In a subsection of the discussion titled  either “Constraints on generality,” or “Constraints on transferability” (depending on quantitative or qualitative methods), authors should include a detailed discussion of the limits on generality (see Simons, Shoda, & Lindsay, 2017 or JARS Qualitative Research Designopens in new window). In this brief section, authors should detail grounds for concluding that results are specific to characteristics of the participants and address limits on generality not only for participants but for materials, procedures, and historical or temporal context. They should also specify which methods the authors think could be varied without affecting the result and which should remain constant. Authors can also verify recognition of constraints by indicating when there is no reason to suspect findings depend on characteristics of participants, materials, or context.
• Manuscripts must include the implications for practice of the study findings or analytic review. The discussion section should contain a clear statement of the extent of practical application in the school context of the current assessment, prevention, or treatment methods. The extent of application to practice may range from suggestions that the data are too preliminary to support widespread dissemination to descriptions of existing manuals available from the authors or archived materials that would allow full implementation at present.
• See the APA Manual Chapter 3 for additional guidance by manuscript type.

Authors should review the APA Style Journal Article Reporting Standards (JARS) for quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods. The standards offer ways to improve transparency in reporting to ensure that readers have the information necessary to evaluate the quality of the research and to facilitate collaboration and replication. The JARS: 

• recommend the division of hypotheses, analyses, and conclusions into primary, secondary, and exploratory groupings to allow for a full understanding of quantitative analyses presented in a manuscript and to enhance reproducibility; 
• offer modules for authors reporting on replications, clinical trials, longitudinal studies, and observational studies, as well as the analytic methods of structural equation modeling and Bayesian analysis; and 
• include guidelines on reporting on of study preregistration (including making protocols public); participant characteristics (including demographic characteristics; inclusion and exclusion criteria) psychometric characteristics of outcome measures and other variables, and planned data diagnostics and analytic strategy. 

JARS-Qual offers guidance to researchers using qualitative methods such as narrative data, grounded theory, phenomenological, critical, discursive, performative, ethnographic, consensual qualitative, case study, psychobiography, and thematic analysis approaches. 

The guidelines focus on transparency in methods reporting, recommending descriptions of how the researcher’s own perspective affected the study, as well as the contexts in which the research and analysis took place. 

Authors should also review the new Journal Article Reporting Standards for Race, Ethnicity, and Culture (JARS–REC). Meant for all authors, regardless of research topic, JARS–REC include standards for all stages of research and manuscript writing, on, for example: 

• Using the title, abstract, and keywords to identify race and ethnicity of participants without signaling Whiteness as default; 
• Discussing the applicability of the theoretical approach to populations for which it was not developed; 
• Addressing limits on generality, recognizing that generalizability is always constrained and is not the primary purpose of every study; and 
• Considering whether findings could be used or misused to cause harm. 

For more, see the Guidance for Authors sections of the table (PDF, 184KB)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.

• Prepare the manuscript in a manner to reduce the potential for bias. These efforts include a consideration of the authors’ positionality and how it influences their perspective, their research design, and their interpretation. Authors should take care to utilize bias-free language consistent with APA Style. Utilize system-centered language that appropriately accounts for system-level influence on how outcomes may disparately impact different groups.
• 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).
• The manuscript is written in a manner consistent with the APA JARS reporting standards and open science principles. That is, authors write in a manner to facilitate transparency, clarity, and replicability. Authors should take care to review the APA Manual 7th Ed (see Chapter 3 for reporting standards) and JARS Standards (https://apastyle.apa.org/jars) for a complete guide to writing the method section.
• Review APA's Journal Manuscript Preparation Guidelinesopens in new window before submitting your article.
• Other formatting instructions, as well as instructions on preparing tables, figures, references, metrics, and abstracts, appear in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. Additional guidance on APA Style is available on the APA Style websiteopens in new window.

• 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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.