MANUSCRIPT PREPARATION

As described below, manuscripts should be sent in electronic form, as an email attachment to the editor joan.sieber@csueastbay.edu

Manuscripts may be major empirical articles (see Appropriate Contributions) or brief reports of preliminary studies, or minor collaboratory projects.  Brief reports should follow the guidelines described below, and are limited to 950 words or one journal page.  Major empirical articles are limited to 10,000 words.  

GENERAL POLICIES.  Policies governing JERHRE's authors, editors, and reviewers are those of the Council of Science Editors (http://www.councilscienceeditors.org/services/draft_approved.cfm), the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (http://www.apastyle.org/styletips.html, and Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals (http://www.icmje.org). These policies are consistent with one another;  relevant aspects are described below.

Conflict of Interest - Authors and reviewers are required to disclose to the editor any conflicts of interest (any financial or other arrangements or commitments that could reasonably be considered sources of bias in the design, interpretation or reporting of the results of the research). Be guided by the question: If these facts were undeclared and emerged later, might they cause embarrassment or recrimination for myself, my institution, or for JERHRE? It is better to declare more rather than less. Specifically authors must state all sources of funding for the research; this will appear in the acknowledgement section of the paper. Other potential conflicts of interest must be described in the cover letter of the manuscript submission. Undisclosed conflicts later identified by a third party will be published in an “Errata” if the editors feel the readers should know about such conflicts.

Protection of Human Subjects - Manuscripts reporting data from human subjects research must state, in the Method section, what formal review and approval or waiver was granted by appropriate research ethics committee(s). The treatment of research participants must be in accord with ethical and other requirements, as set forth in the country in which the research was conducted and as specified by the sponsoring agency.

Informed Consent - The approach(es) and method(s) of obtaining informed consent should be described, including the reasons why any unconventional approaches or waivers were deemed more ethical and respectful in the particular culture and context. This discussion of the informed consent processes and rationales should be more than perfunctory, given that research published in JERHRE derives from a wide range of cultures (e.g., aboriginal communities), contexts (e.g., health outreach work in migrant communities), and methods (e.g., ethnographic studies of parents and children in pediatric research units). Considerable ethical problem solving often must enter into the development of effective research procedures including the establishment of a respectful relationship with the research participants and others in their community. Indeed, a major aim of JERHRE is to contribute to understanding and solving ethical problems of this nature.

MANUSCRIPT STYLE.  Manuscripts prepared for submission to JERHRE should follow the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (see Resources) and be written in English.  The following summary of the parts of manuscripts is too brief and generic to handle all issues concerning manuscripts appropriate for submission to JERHRE. The prospective author is encouraged to download articles from the UC Press website at http://caliber.ucpress.net/loi/jer to find relevant examples.

Abstract.  The abstract of your article is its most important paragraph.  It is used by readers to decide whether to read the article, used by information services to index and retrieve articles, and may live on for a long time in collections of abstracts. In JERHRE's electronic form, your abstract will be available worldwide to anyone who logs on (however, except for selected articles, only subscribers may read the entire article.) The abstract must reflect the content of the article accurately.  It must be non-evaluative (report, rather than evaluate what is in the text), readable and vigorous, using verbs rather than noun equivalents and the active rather than passive voice. Abstracts of empirical studies should describe (a) the problem, in one sentence, if possible, (b) the research subjects, (c) the research method, (d) the findings, and (e) the conclusion.  An abstract for a review article should describe (a) the topic, (b) the purpose and scope of the article, (c) the main sources used, and (d) conclusions.  Succinct, accurate, informative and clear abstracts increase the audience and retrievability of an article.  Abstracts should not exceed 120 words.

Title Page.  The title page should contain:

1.  A concise title of the article containing information that makes electronic retrieval both sensitive and specific.

2. Authors' names and institutional affiliations.

3. Disclaimers, if any.

4. Corresponding authors: name, mailing address, telephone and fax numbers, and email address of the author responsible for correspondence about the article.

5.  Source(s) of support.

6. Running head no more than 40 characters long.

7. Word counts of the text only, excluding abstract, acknowledgements, and references.

8. The number of figures and tables that belong to the manuscript.

Introduction.  The body of a manuscript should open with the title of the article, but not the byline, since the manuscript will be "blind" reviewed.  The introduction should answer the following questions in one or two paragraphs, giving the reader an overview of what was done and why:

• What problem is addressed and why is the problem important? What are its practical implications for understanding or solving ethical problems in human research? Bear in mind JERHRE's diverse readership: investigators, ethics committee staff and members, students, research administrators, and policymakers. Your writing should be lively, perhaps with examples or vignettes of the problem designed to capture the interest and imagination of any of JERHRE's readers.
• How do the hypothesis or research design relate to the problem?
• What are the theoretical implications of the research and how does the research relate to previous work in the area? How does it relate to research policy or practice?
• What theoretical propositions are tested?

Develop the background by discussing relevant literature.  Discuss and cite only works pertinent to the specific issue, emphasizing pertinent findings, relevant methodological issues, and major conclusions.  Refer the reader to general surveys or overviews of the topic if they are available.

Method.  This section describes in detail how the study was conducted and enables the reader to evaluate the appropriateness of your methods and the reliability and validity of your results.  This section should be written in accord with the requirements of your scientific society or the discipline within which your research was conducted.

Results.  This section summarizes the data collected and the data analytic treatment used, and should be sufficiently detailed to justify the conclusions.  Report all results, including those that run counter to expectations.  Statistical presentations should include descriptive statistics such as per-cell sample size, means or medians, and standard deviations or ranges, using parametric or nonparametric measures appropriate to the characteristics of your data.  Statistical data should include the magnitude of observed effects and confidence intervals, so that the reader can judge the practical significance of the findings for purposes of ethical decision making. Qualitative data may be presented in a wide variety of ways; authors should not hesitate to consult with the editor concerning the most effect ways to do so and the formats that are feasible.

Discussion. Open the Discussion section with a clear statement of the support or nonsupport of your hypotheses. Interpret any similarities or differences between your results and the work of others. As you interpret the implications of your findings, bear in mind the applied nature of JERHRE; investigators, ethics committee members and policy makers will want to know how you have increased understanding of the problem and insight into practical solutions.

ESSENTIAL OTHER PARTS OF THE MANUSCRIPT

In addition to the usual parts of a manuscript (title page, abstract, introduction, method, results, and discussion) and before the reference section, three brief additional sections should appear, with first order headings:

Best Practices is a thoughtful, practical set of recommendations based on your findings.  Typically this will include recommendations in relation to one or more specific cultures and contexts or whatever other variables seem relevant. These recommendations should include discussion of limits of generalizability of your findings. Think of "Best Practices" as your recommendations to the relevant stakeholders in the human-research enterprise.

Research Agenda is a discussion of useful kinds of additional research on aspects of your topic. In some cases, "Research Agenda" should be a nuanced discussion of exactly what needs to be investigated and why such investigation would be an important way to advance the field.  In other cases, the agenda is simpler and more obvious than this, and would require little or no discussion. Think of "Research Agenda" as your recommendation to other investigators of important specific research on your general topic that they might usefully pursue.  In many cases, it is also useful to treat the research agenda as an invitation to others elsewhere to join you in a "collaboratory."  Be prepared to share your raw data (with identifiers removed) with others who wish to extend the research to other contexts or cultures and publish a comparison of their data with yours; depending on wishes of the collaborators and the degree to which each contributes to the research, collaboratories may result in a joint publication.

Educational Implications is a discussion of how key concepts from your article may be taught effectively to relevant audiences. In most cases, the audiences are investigators, ethics committee members and staff, and students at various stages of their training; in other cases audiences are other stakeholders such as the media and general public, research participants, and policy makers. 

An author note, and a brief author biographical sketch are also required.

The author note, which appears on a separate manuscript page after the references, should include the current location of the author(s) if different than that shown in the byline, any acknowledgement of support and assistance, and the author to whom correspondence concerning the article should be addressed, providing mailing address and e-mail address. If any relationships may be perceived as a conflict of interest, explain them here.  If your employer or granting organization requires a disclaimer stating, for example, that the paper does not reflect the views of the organization, such a statement is included in this paragraph.

Author biographical sketch.  Because JERHRE's authors and readership cut across many professional and scientific boundaries, readers will be interested to know who the authors are and why they are credible.  Hence, appearing at the end of each article is a one-paragraph statement that connects the author with the general or specific topic of the paper, describing the main source(s) of the experience and knowledge that are reflected in the paper.  This brief biographical statement should not be about your general credentials or educational background, but rather about your specific background and experience as it relates to your paper.  Think of it as motivating the reader to respect your relevant experience -- perhaps enough to seek to develop a collaboratory with you. This sketch should appear as a separate manuscript page at the end of the manuscript so that the manuscript can readily be blinded for reviewing. 

Multi-authored articles should contain a biographical sketch about each author and conclude with a statement of the role of that author in the work reported.  Each author thus certifies responsibility for that aspect of the article.  The order of authorship on the byline should be a joint decision of the co-authors; where the order is alphabetical, that should be stated in the author note. Where an individual played a minor role in the development of the article, perhaps contributing ideas but not seminal theory or methodology, that individual should be thanked in the "author's note," not treated as an author. For further guidance on this issue, see Pp. 350 of the APA Publication Manual or http://www.apastyle.org/styletips.html.  Or, see II.A.1 (pp. 2-3) of the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals (http://www.icmje.org)

In keeping with requirements of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals, and the recommendations of the Council of Science Editors (http://www.councilscienceeditors.org/services/draft_approved.cfm), all authors must

• Have read and approved the final manuscript and believe that it represents honest work.
• Disclose any conflict of interest.
• Indicate what procedures were followed regarding protection of human subjects, including approval by a research ethics committee, where relevant.
• Understand the right of the editor to respond to allegations of scientific misconduct by authors.
  

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Manuscripts should be submitted electronically to joan.sieber@csueastbay.edu. Because manuscripts are blind reviewed the parts of the manuscript that reveal the identity of the author must be emailed as separate documents. Any figures and tables should also be transmitted as separate documents. Therefore, in the final preparation for submission, create as separate documents:

• Title page, including the names, titles, institutions, and contact information (phone, email address, street address) of each author, and the word count of the manuscript.
• Manuscript, minus title page, figures and tables, biographical sketches of authors, and other identifying information.
• Any figures or tables.
• Biographical sketches and address information for communication with the author(s).
• Cover letter.
  

Having moved these parts into separate documents, please make sure you have removed all material that would identify any of the authors in the material that is to be reviewed. A recommended procedure is to search and replace on the name of each author, replacing it with [removed for review].

Cover letter. Your cover letter should contain the following:

• A statement about all submissions and previous reports that might be regarded as redundant publication of the same or similar work. Copies of such possibly redundant material should be sent to the editor at the time the manuscript is submitted.
• A statement of any interests that might be seen as influencing the research.
• A statement that the manuscript has been read and approved by all authors, that the requirements for authorship (see above) have been met, and that each author believes that the manuscript represents honest work.
• Verification that the treatment of human subjects was in accord with ethical standards and other requirements, as set forth in the country in which the research was conducted.
• A copy of the permission granted to reproduce or adapt any copyrighted material from another source or a notice that permissions are pending.