International Journal of Surgical Pathology

Instructions for Authors

This Journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics

This Journal recommends that authors follow the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals formulated by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).

Please read the guidelines below then visit the Journal’s submission site  http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ijsp, to upload your manuscript. Please note that manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned. Remember you can log in to the submission site at any time to check on the progress of your paper through the peer review process.

Sage Publishing disseminates high-quality research and engaged scholarship globally, and we are committed to diversity and inclusion in publishing. We encourage submissions from a diverse range of authors from across all countries and backgrounds.

Only manuscripts of sufficient quality that meet the aims and scope of International Journal of Surgical Pathology will be reviewed.

There are no fees payable to submit or publish in this Journal. Open Access options are available - see section 3.3 below.

As part of the submission process you will be required to warrant that you are submitting your original work, that you have the rights in the work, and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you, that you are submitting the work for first publication in the Journal and that it is not being considered for publication elsewhere and has not already been published elsewhere. Please see our guidelines on prior publication and note that International Journal of Surgical Pathology may accept submissions of papers that have been posted on pre-print servers; please alert the Editorial Office when submitting (contact details are at the end of these guidelines) and include the DOI for the preprint in the designated field in the manuscript submission system. Authors should not post an updated version of their paper on the preprint server while it is being peer reviewed for possible publication in the journal. If the article is accepted for publication, the author may re-use their work according to the journal's author archiving policy.

If your paper is accepted, you must include a link on your preprint to the final version of your paper.

1. What do we publish?

1.1 Aims & Scope

1.2 Article types

1.3 Writing your paper

2. Editorial policies

2.1 Peer review policy

2.2 Authorship

2.3 Acknowledgements

2.4 Funding

2.5 Declaration of conflicting interests

2.6 Research ethics and patient consent

2.7 Clinical trials

2.8 Reporting guidelines

2.9 Research Data

3. Publishing policies 

3.1 Publication ethics

3.3 Contributor’s publishing agreement

3.4 Open access and author archiving

4. Preparing your manuscript

4.1 Formatting

4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics

4.3 Identifiable information

4.4 Supplemental material

4.5 Reference style

4.6 English language editing services

5. Submitting your manuscript

5.1 ORCID

5.2 Information required for completing your submission

5.3 Permissions

6. On acceptance and publication

6.1 Sage Production

6.2 Online First publication

6.3 Access to your published article

6.4 Promoting your article

7. Further information

               

1. What do we publish?

1.1 Aims & Scope

Before submitting your manuscript to International Journal of Surgical Pathology, please ensure you have read the Aims & Scope.

1.2 Article types

The mission of the International Journal of Surgical Pathology is to provide a forum for the communication of scientific information in the field of surgical pathology. Studies that emphasize important diagnostic and prognostic features involving human histopathology in the diagnostic setting represent the main focus of the Journal. Manuscript categories include: Original Articles, Controversies in Surgical Pathology, Molecular Surgical Pathology, Pitfalls in Pathology, Brief Report, Case Reports, History of Pathology, Review Article, and Letter to the Editor.

Please note that we no longer accept Images in Pathology articles.

We are not currently considering biomarker studies without a significant component of diagnostic surgical pathology, or a direct impact on pathologic diagnosis.

Letters to the Editor should provide thoughtful, scientific, constructive commentary pertaining to articles or research published in International Journal of Surgical Pathology. These include no abstract and should contain not more than 1200 words, 10 references, and 1 or 2 figures.

Brief Reports follow the same guidelines as Letters to the Editor (no abstract and should contain not more than 1200 words, 10 references, and 1 or 2 tables/figures); however, these may contain observations not necessarily related to prior articles in the Journal, such as brief communication of original data.

Global Pathology manuscripts should briefly highlight how surgical pathology practice differs geographically. This may include illustrating how practice varies in areas that are underserved, or if there are different clinicopathologic factors contributing to the incidence of certain disease entities in that region. This manuscript type follows the format of Letter to the Editor and Brief Report (no abstract, and the same length and content restrictions). The content may not necessarily be entirely novel, as expected for a full original article.

1.3 Writing your paper

The Sage Author Gateway has some general advice and on how to get published, plus links to further resources.

1.3.1 Make your article discoverable

For information and guidance on how to make your article more discoverable, visit our Gateway page on How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online

2. Editorial policies

2.1 Peer review policy

International Journal of Surgical Pathology adheres to a rigorous double-anonymous reviewing policy in which the identity of both the reviewer and author are always concealed from both parties.

International Journal of Surgical Pathology is committed to delivering high quality, fast peer-review for your paper, and as such has partnered with Publons. Publons is a third party service that seeks to track, verify and give credit for peer review. Reviewers for IJSP can opt in to Publons in order to claim their reviews or have them automatically verified and added to their reviewer profile. Reviewers claiming credit for their review will be associated with the relevant journal, but the article name, reviewer’s decision and the content of their review is not published on the site. For more information visit the Publons website

The Editor or members of the Editorial Board may occasionally submit their own manuscripts for possible publication in the journal. In these cases, the peer review process will be managed by alternative members of the Board and the submitting Editor/Board member will have no involvement in the decision-making process.

International journal of Surgical Pathology offers transparent peer review as a choice for authors, where the reviews at each stage, author responses and editor’s decision letters will be publicly available on the ScholarOne Transparent Peer Review platform and linked to from the published article should the article be accepted. Authors have the opportunity to opt-out during submission. Reviewers are encouraged to sign their reviews but their comments will be published anonymously should they choose not to do so.

2.2 Authorship

Papers should only be submitted for consideration once consent is given by all contributing authors. Those submitting papers should carefully check that all those whose work contributed to the paper are acknowledged as contributing authors.

The list of authors should include all those who can legitimately claim authorship. This is all those who:

1. Made a substantial contribution to the concept or design of the work; or acquisition, analysis or interpretation of data,

2. Drafted the article or revised it critically for important intellectual content,

3. Approved the version to be published,

4. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content.

Authors should meet the conditions of all of the points above. When a large, multicenter group has conducted the work, the group should identify the individuals who accept direct responsibility for the manuscript. These individuals should fully meet the criteria for authorship.

Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group alone does not constitute authorship, although all contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in the Acknowledgments section. Please refer to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) authorship guidelines for more information on authorship.

Please note that AI chatbots, for example ChatGPT, should not be listed as authors. For more information see the policy on Use of ChatGPT and generative AI tools.

2.3 Acknowledgements

All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an Acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, or a department chair who provided only general support.

Please supply any personal acknowledgements separately to the main text to facilitate anonymous peer review.

2.3.1 Third party submissions
Where an individual who is not listed as an author submits a manuscript on behalf of the author(s), a statement must be included in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript and in the accompanying cover letter. The statements must:

• Disclose this type of editorial assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input
• Identify any entities that paid for this assistance
• Confirm that the listed authors have authorized the submission of their manuscript via third party and approved any statements or declarations, e.g. conflicting interests, funding, etc.

Where appropriate, Sage reserves the right to deny consideration to manuscripts submitted by a third party rather than by the authors themselves.

2.3.2 Writing assistance

Individuals who provided writing assistance, e.g. from a specialist communications company, do not qualify as authors and so should be included in the Acknowledgements section. Authors must disclose any writing assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input – and identify the entity that paid for this assistance. It is not necessary to disclose use of language polishing services.

2.3.3 Artificial Intelligence

Use of Large Language Models and generative AI tools in writing your submission

Sage recognizes the value of large language models (LLMs) (e.g. ChatGPT) and generative AI as productivity tools that can help authors in preparing their article for submission; to generate initial ideas for a structure, for example, or when summarizing, paraphrasing, language polishing etc. However, it is important to note that all language models have limitations and are unable to replicate human creative and critical thinking. Human intervention with these tools is essential to ensure that content presented is accurate and appropriate to the reader. Sage therefore requires authors to be aware of the limitations of language models and to consider these in any use of LLMs in their submissions:

• Objectivity: Previously published content that contains racist, sexist or other biases can be present in LLM-generated text, and minority viewpoints may not be represented. Use of LLMs has the potential to perpetuate these biases because the information is decontextualized and harder to detect.
• Accuracy: LLMs can ‘hallucinate’ i.e. generate false content, especially when used outside of their domain or when dealing with complex or ambiguous topics. They can generate content that is linguistically but not scientifically plausible, they can get facts wrong, and they have been shown to generate citations that don’t exist. Some LLMs are only trained on content published before a particular date and therefore present an incomplete picture.
• Contextual understanding: LLMs cannot apply human understanding to the context of a piece of text, especially when dealing with idiomatic expressions, sarcasm, humor, or metaphorical language. This can lead to errors or misinterpretations in the generated content.
• Training data: LLMs require a large amount of high-quality training data to achieve optimal performance. However, in some domains or languages, such data may not be readily available, limiting the usefulness of the model.

Guidance for authors

Authors are required to:

• Clearly indicate the use of language models in the manuscript, including which model was used and for what purpose. Please use the methods or acknowledgements section, as appropriate.
• Verify the accuracy, validity, and appropriateness of the content and any citations generated by language models and correct any errors or inconsistencies.
• Provide a list of sources used to generate content and citations, including those generated by language models. Double-check citations to ensure they are accurate, and are properly referenced.
• Be conscious of the potential for plagiarism where the LLM may have reproduced substantial text from other sources. Check the original sources to be sure you are not plagiarizing someone else’s work.
• Acknowledge the limitations of language models in the manuscript, including the potential for bias, errors, and gaps in knowledge.
• Please note that AI bots such as ChatGPT should not be listed as an author on your submission.

We will take appropriate corrective action where we identify published articles with undisclosed use of such tools.

2.4 Funding

International Journal of Surgical Pathology requires all authors to acknowledge their funding in a consistent fashion under a separate heading.  Please visit the Funding Acknowledgements page on the Sage Journal Author Gateway to confirm the format of the acknowledgment text in the event of funding, or state that: This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

2.5 Declaration of conflicting interests

It is the policy of International Journal of Surgical Pathology to require a declaration of conflicting interests from all authors enabling a statement to be carried within the paginated pages of all published articles.

Please ensure that a ‘Declaration of Conflicting Interests’ statement is included at the end of your manuscript, after any acknowledgements and prior to the references. If no conflict exists, please state that ‘The Author(s) declare(s) that there is no conflict of interest’. For guidance on conflict of interest statements, please see the ICMJE recommendations here

2.6 Research ethics and patient consent

Medical research involving human subjects must be conducted according to the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki

Submitted manuscripts should conform to the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, and all papers reporting animal and/or human studies must state in the methods section that the relevant Ethics Committee or Institutional Review Board provided (or waived) approval. Please ensure that you have provided the full name and institution of the review committee, in addition to the approval number.

For research articles, authors are also required to state in the methods section whether participants provided informed consent and whether the consent was written or verbal.

Information on informed consent to report individual cases or case series should be included in the manuscript text. A statement is required regarding whether written informed consent for patient information and images to be published was provided by the patient(s) or a legally authorized representative. Please do not submit the patient’s actual written informed consent with your article, as this in itself breaches the patient’s confidentiality. The Journal requests that you confirm to us, in writing, that you have obtained written informed consent but the written consent itself should be held by the authors/investigators themselves, for example in a patient’s hospital record. The confirmatory letter may be uploaded with your submission as a separate file.

Please also refer to the ICMJE Recommendations for the Protection of Research Participants

2.7 Clinical trials

International Journal of Surgical Pathology conforms to the ICMJE requirement that clinical trials are registered in a WHO-approved public trials registry at or before the time of first patient enrolment as a condition of consideration for publication. The trial registry name and URL, and registration number must be included at the end of the abstract.

2.8 Reporting guidelines 

The relevant EQUATOR Network reporting guidelines should be followed depending on the type of study. For example, all randomized controlled trials submitted for publication should include a completed CONSORT flow chart as a cited figure and the completed CONSORT checklist should be uploaded with your submission as a supplementary file. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses should include the completed PRISMA flow chart as a cited figure and the completed PRISMA checklist should be uploaded with your submission as a supplementary file. The EQUATOR wizard can help you identify the appropriate guideline.

Other resources can be found at NLM’s Research Reporting Guidelines and Initiatives

2.9. Research Data

The journal is committed to facilitating openness, transparency and reproducibility of research, and has the following research data sharing policy. For more information, including FAQs please visit the Sage Research Data policy pages.

Subject to appropriate ethical and legal considerations, authors are encouraged to:

• share your research data in a relevant public data repository
• include a data availability statement linking to your data. If it is not possible to share your data, we encourage you to consider using the statement to explain why it cannot be shared.
• cite this data in your research

3. Publishing Policies

3.1 Publication ethics

Sage is committed to upholding the integrity of the academic record. We encourage authors to refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics’ International Standards for Authors and view the Publication Ethics page on the Sage Author Gateway

3.1.1 Plagiarism

International Journal of Surgical Pathology and Sage take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. We seek to protect the rights of our authors and we always investigate claims of plagiarism or misuse of published articles. Equally, we seek to protect the reputation of the journal against malpractice. Submitted articles may be checked with duplication-checking software. Where an article, for example, is found to have plagiarized other work or included third-party copyright material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgement, or where the authorship of the article is contested, we reserve the right to take action including, but not limited to: publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction); retracting the article; taking up the matter with the head of department or dean of the author's institution and/or relevant academic bodies or societies; or taking appropriate legal action.

3.1.2 Prior publication

If material has been previously published it is not generally acceptable for publication in a Sage journal. However, there are certain circumstances where previously published material can be considered for publication. Please refer to the guidance on the Sage Author Gateway or if in doubt, contact the Editor at the address given below.

Preprints, for instance, are not considered previously published as long as properly disclosed. Please see our guidelines on prior publication and note that International Journal of Surgical Pathology may accept submissions of papers that have been posted on pre-print servers; please alert the Editorial Office when submitting and include the DOI for the preprint in the designated field in the manuscript submission system. Authors should not post an updated version of their paper on the preprint server while it is being peer reviewed for possible publication in the journal. If the article is accepted for publication, the author may re-use their work according to the journal's author archiving policy. If your paper is accepted, you must include a link on your preprint to the final version of your paper.

3.2 Contributor’s publishing agreement      

Before publication, Sage requires the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement. Sage’s Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement is an exclusive licence agreement which means that the author retains copyright in the work but grants Sage the sole and exclusive right and licence to publish for the full legal term of copyright. Exceptions may exist where an assignment of copyright is required or preferred by a proprietor other than Sage. In this case copyright in the work will be assigned from the author to the society. For more information please visit the Sage Author Gateway

3.3 Open access and author archiving

International Journal of Surgical Pathology offers optional open access publishing via the Sage Choice programme and Open Access agreements, where authors can publish open access either discounted or free of charge depending on the agreement with Sage. Find out if your institution is participating by visiting Open Access Agreements at Sage. For more information on Open Access publishing options at Sage please visit Sage Open Access. For information on funding body compliance, and depositing your article in repositories, please visit Sage’s Author Archiving and Re-Use Guidelines and Publishing Policies.

4. Preparing your manuscript for submission         

4.1 Formatting

The preferred format for your manuscript is Word. LaTeX files are also accepted. Word and (La)Tex templates are available on the Manuscript Submission Guidelines page of our Author Gateway.

Manuscripts should be prepared using the AMA Style Guide (11th Edition).

Margins
One-inch margins are required around the text.

Line Spacing
Single space is required within the abstract, notes, titles and headings, block quotes, tables and figures, and references etc; double space is required before and after each single-spaced block.

Fonts
Text should be in 10-point or 12-point, Times New Roman.

Indents
Half-inch indents are standard.

Page Numbers
All the pages must be numbered sequentially.

The manuscript should include four major sections (in this order): Title Page, Abstract, Main Body, and References.

Sections in a manuscript may include the following (in this order): (1) Title page, (2) Abstract, (3) Keywords, (4) Text, (5) References, (6) Tables, (7) Figures, and (8) Appendices.

1. Title page.  The title page should be separate and not included in the main text for anonymized peer review. Manuscripts that include the title page as part of the main file will be sent back to the author for adjustment, which will delay the peer review process.

The title page should include:

• Full article title

• Acknowledgments and credits

• Each author’s complete name, academic degrees, and institutional affiliation(s)

• Grant numbers and/or funding information

• Corresponding author (name, address, phone/fax, e-mail)

2. Abstract. Abstracts should be included for all articles, except for Letters to the Editor and Brief Reports, with a word limit of 250 words. For reports of original research, the abstract structure should include: Introduction, Methods, Results, and Conclusions. For other article types, the abstract should be unstructured (one continuous paragraph). Abstracts should not include bullet points or numbered lists with line breaks. 

The abstract should be included in the main document file (not on the separate Title Page file), following the full manuscript tile.

References should not be cited in the abstract.

3. Keywords. A short list of keywords should be given at the end of the abstract.

4. Text. Begin the article text in a new, separate document, headed by the full article title, but without any identifying information of author names or institutions.

IMPORTANT: Please remove all author identifying information in the manuscript for the purpose of double-anonymized peer review. This includes the institution name, which should not be mentioned in the Methods section or with respect to Institutional Review Board approval. Likewise, author contribution statements, ORCID numbers, etc., can be included on the title page, but should not be included in the main text file.

Title	Centered / Flush Left	Upper lower case, bold
First Level Heading	Flush Left	Upper lower case, bold
Second Level Heading	Flush Left	Upper lower case, italics
Third Level Heading	Paragraph indented	Upper lower case, italics, end with a dot and run-on with the next para

 

Items to Avoid in Headings:

Ø Avoid using a single abbreviation as a heading, even if the abbreviation has been expanded earlier in the text.

Ø Avoid expanding abbreviations for the first time in a heading. Spell the abbreviation out in the heading if that is its first appearance and introduce the abbreviation, if appropriate, at the next appearance of the term.

Ø Avoid citing figures or tables and references in headings. Cite them in the appropriate place in the text that follows the heading.

Style tips

• For genes and proteins, please ensure that the official symbol is used (this can be checked via www.genenames.org). When referring to the gene, it should be written in italics, and for protein not italics. As much as possible, it is encouraged that the same names be used for immunohistochemical markers, e.g. KIT rather than c-kit or CD117. Human genes and proteins should be in all capital letters, e.g. BCL2, rather than bcl2 or Bcl2. Please also verify whether hyphens are used in the official symbol, e.g. BCL2 rather than BCL-2.
• For gene fusions, updated nomenclature now uses a double colon :: rather than hyphen (PubMed 34615987), e.g. BCR::ABL1.
• Cytokeratin / CK is no longer the preferred nomenclature for keratin proteins. Please use either the word keratin (i.e. keratin 5/6) or KRT (i.e. KRT7), which reflects the official gene / protein names.
• We discourage the use of non-standard abbreviations, that may be confusing to the reader to mentally translate at each appearance. If an abbreviation is extremely widely used, such as DNA, renal cell carcinoma (RCC), hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), it is likely acceptable; however, custom abbreviations, such as chromophobe renal cell carcinoma (chRCC) and similar are strongly discouraged.
• In general, we recommend that the terms “patients” or “tumors” be used to replace the term “case(s),” as it may be considered objectifying to refer to a patient as a “case,” and either of the above is clearer. 

4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics

In general, we prefer that figure composites, particularly with histopathology, be not more than 2 panels wide, as this will cause morphologic features to be appear smaller on the final page (PDF or print), limiting the utility to the Journal’s main audience, surgical pathologists. Please also be mindful of figures with a large number of panels, which will also appear very small on the final page. For key morphologic features, orienting the long axis of the image vertically may be a consideration to optimize the size on the page.

For guidance on the preparation of illustrations, pictures and graphs in electronic format, please visit Sage’s Manuscript Submission Guidelines. 

Electronic submission of figures is required. Artwork includes charts and graphs, maps, photographs, and line art. Acceptable file formats include the following: TIFF, EPS, JPEG, and PDF. Microsoft application files are acceptable for line art (vector art). These are figures that only contain black and white lines, such as charts, and no gray-shaded or color areas.

Scanned images

Line art should be scanned as a bitmap at 900 ppi. Photos should be scanned as a grayscale or CMYK at 300 ppi.

Color figures

Color figures that will enhance the article will be accepted for publication. Color figures should be be submitted at 300 ppi resolution.

4.3 Identifiable information

Authors are required to submit:

1. A version of the manuscript which has had any information that compromises the anonymity of the author(s) removed or anonymised. This version will be sent to the peer reviewers. 
2. A separate title page which includes any removed or anonymised material. This will not be sent to the peer reviewers. 

See https://sagepub.com/Manuscript-preparation-for-double-anonymize-journal for detailed guidance on making an anonymous submission.

4.4 Supplemental material

This journal is able to host additional materials online (e.g. datasets, podcasts, videos, images etc) alongside the full-text of the article. For more information please refer to our guidelines on submitting supplemental files

4.5 Reference style

International Journal of Surgical Pathology adheres to the AMA Manual of Style, 11th edition. View the guide here to ensure your manuscript conforms to this style, with the modifications noted below.

In-text citation.

For each text citation there must be a corresponding citation in the reference list and for each reference list citation there must be a corresponding text citation.

Cite references in consecutive order using superscript Arabic numbers.

Each superscript must match one reference in the References list.

Use commas to separate multiple citation numbers in text. Corresponding references should be listed in numeric order at the end of the document. Unpublished works and personal communications (oral, written, and electronic) should be cited parenthetically (and not on the reference list). Superscript numbers are placed outside periods and commas, and inside colons and semicolons.

When more than 2 references are cited at a given place in the manuscript, use hyphens to join the first and last numbers of a closed series; use commas without space to separate other parts of a multiple citation.

For eg., As reported previously, ^1,3-8,19

The derived data were as follows^3,4

Page numbers may be used in the superscript numbers; they are enclosed in parentheses.

Page numbers are required for direct quotations.

 

Basic rules for the reference list

Ø The title “References” is centered at the top of a separate page at the end of the document.

Ø Entries are preceded by their number and are given in numerical order.

Ø The reference list should be single-spaced. Single-space between entries.

Ø The second line and all subsequent lines of each item in the reference list should be indented (hanging indent).

4.6 English language editing services

Authors seeking assistance with English language editing, translation, or figure and manuscript formatting to fit the journal’s specifications should consider using Sage Language Services. Visit Sage Language Services on our Journal Author Gateway for further information.

5. Submitting your manuscript

Manuscripts must be submitted electronically at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ijsp, where authors will be required to set up an online account in the Sage Track system powered by ScholarOne. Files should be submitted in Microsoft Word and should include the following elements: complete author names; author contact information, including credentials; departmental and institutional affiliations; acknowledgments; abstract; keywords; references; tables; illustrations; and legends. Again, all identifying information should be on the Title Page only (as a separate document), whereas the main document should not include the Title Page, nor any identifying information, such as the institutions noted in the Methods. Author names / initials should not be included in the main file, such as in the Methods or statements regarding author contributions, which should also be on the separate Title Page document only. Original works will be accepted with the understanding that they are contributed solely to the International Journal of Surgical Pathology and have not been published by and are not under simultaneous review by another publication. Accepted manuscripts become the sole property of the journal and may not be published elsewhere without the consent of the publisher. A form stating that the authors transfer all copyright ownership to the publisher will be sent from the editorial office when the manuscript is accepted; this form must be signed by all authors of the article.

IMPORTANT: Please check whether you already have an account in the system before trying to create a new one. If you have reviewed or authored for the journal in the past year it is likely that you will have had an account created.  For further guidance on submitting your manuscript online please visit ScholarOne Online Help.

5.1 ORCID

As part of our commitment to ensuring an ethical, transparent and fair peer review process Sage is a supporting member of ORCID, the Open Researcher and Contributor ID. ORCID provides a unique and persistent digital identifier that distinguishes researchers from every other researcher, even those who share the same name, and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between researchers and their professional activities, ensuring that their work is recognized.

The collection of ORCID IDs from corresponding authors is now part of the submission process of this journal. If you already have an ORCID ID you will be asked to associate that to your submission during the online submission process. We also strongly encourage all co-authors to link their ORCID ID to their accounts in our online peer review platforms. It takes seconds to do: click the link when prompted, sign into your ORCID account and our systems are automatically updated. Your ORCID ID will become part of your accepted publication’s metadata, making your work attributable to you and only you. Your ORCID ID is published with your article so that fellow researchers reading your work can link to your ORCID profile and from there link to your other publications.

If you do not already have an ORCID ID please follow this link to create one or visit our ORCID homepage to learn more.

5.2 Information required for completing your submission

You will be asked to provide contact details and academic affiliations for all co-authors via the submission system and identify who is to be the corresponding author. These details must match what appears on your manuscript. The affiliation listed in the manuscript should be the institution where the research was conducted. If an author has moved to a new institution since completing the research, the new affiliation can be included in a manuscript note at the end of the paper. At this stage please ensure you have included all the required statements and declarations and uploaded any additional supplementary files (including reporting guidelines where relevant).

5.3 Permissions

Please also ensure that you have obtained any necessary permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. For further information including guidance on fair dealing for criticism and review, please see the Copyright and Permissions page on the Sage Author Gateway

6. On acceptance and publication           

6.1 Sage Production

Your Sage Production Editor will keep you informed as to your article’s progress throughout the production process. Proofs will be made available to the corresponding author via our editing portal Sage Edit or by email, and corrections should be made directly or notified to us promptly. Authors are reminded to check their proofs carefully to confirm that all author information, including names, affiliations, sequence and contact details are correct, and that Funding and Conflict of Interest statements, if any, are accurate. 

6.2 Online First publication

Online First allows final articles (completed and approved articles awaiting assignment to a future issue) to be published online prior to their inclusion in a journal issue, which significantly reduces the lead time between submission and publication. Visit the Sage Journals help page for more details, including how to cite Online First articles.

6.3 Access to your published article

Sage provides authors with online access to their final article.

6.4 Promoting your article

Publication is not the end of the process! You can help disseminate your paper and ensure it is as widely read and cited as possible. The Sage Author Gateway has numerous resources to help you promote your work. Visit the Promote Your Article page on the Gateway for tips and advice.

7. Further Information

Editors have very broad discretion in determining whether an article is an appropriate fit for their journal. Many manuscripts are declined with a very general statement of the rejection decision. These decisions are not eligible for formal appeal unless the author believes the decision to reject the manuscript was based on an error in the review of the article, in which case the author may appeal the decision by providing the Editor with a detailed written description of the error they believe occurred.

If an author believes the decision regarding their manuscript was affected by a publication ethics breach, the author may contact the publisher with a detailed written description of their concern, and information supporting the concern, at publication_ethics@sagepub.com