Journal of Pacific Rim Psychology

Manuscript Submission Guidelines: Journal of Pacific Rim Psychology

Table of Contents:

1. Open Access
2. Article processing charge (APC)
3. What do we publish?
   3.1 Aims & scope
   3.2 Article types
   3.3 Writing your paper
   3.4 Open Practices
4. Editorial policies
   4.1 Authorship
   4.2 Affiliation of authors from Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau of P.R. China
   4.3 Acknowledgements
   4.4 Funding
   4.5 Declaration of conflicting interests
   4.6 Research ethics and patient consent
   4.7 Reporting guidelines
   4.8 Research Data
5. Publishing policies
   5.1 Publication ethics
   5.2 Research Ethics and Participant Consent
   5.3 Contributor's publishing agreement
6. Preparing your manuscript
   6.1 Formatting
   6.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
   6.3 Supplementary material
   6.4 Reference style
   6.5 English language editing services
7. Submitting your manuscript
   7.1 How to submit your manuscript
   7.2 Title, keywords and abstracts
   7.3 Information required for completing your submission
   7.4 ORCID
   7.5 Permissions
8. On acceptance and publication
   8.1 Sage Production
   8.2 Online publication
   8.3 Promoting your article
9. Further information
10. 10. Appealing the publication decision

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 https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jprp 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 the Journal of Pacific Rim Psychology will be reviewed. 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, 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, and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you.

The Journal of Pacific Rim Psychology 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. Open Access

Journal of Pacific Rim Psychology is an open access, peer-reviewed journal. Each article accepted by peer review is made freely available online immediately upon publication, is published under a Creative Commons license and will be hosted online in perpetuity. There is no charge for submitting a paper to the journal.

For general information on open access at Sage please visit the Open Access page or view our Open Access FAQs.

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2. Article processing charge (APC)

There are no article processing charges (APC) to publish in the journal.

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3. What do we publish?

3.1 Aims & scope

Before submitting your manuscript to the Journal of Pacific Rim Psychology, please ensure you have read the Aims & Scope.

3.2 Article types

The Journal considers the following kinds of article for publication:

• Research Article: 8,000 word limit. No reference, figure and/or table limit.
• Short Reports: 3,000 word limit. 20 reference limit. 5 figure and/or table limit.
• Reviews/Meta-analysis: 10,000 word limit. No reference, figure and/or table limit.
• Replication: 5,000 word limit. No reference, figure and/or table limit.
• Commentary: 1,000 word limit. 5 reference limit. 1 figure and/or table limit.
• Letter: Correspondence to the Editor unrelated to a specific article should not exceed 500 words or have more than 3 references. Correspondence pertaining to a recently published article or to be published concurrently with an article within the journal should not exceed 800 words or have more than 5 references.

Please note that the word limit excludes references, tables and figures.

3.3 Writing your paper

The Sage Author Gateway has some general advice and on how to get published, plus links to further resources. Sage Author Services also offers authors a variety of ways to improve and enhance their article including English language editing, plagiarism detection, and video abstract and infographic preparation.

3.3.1 Making 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

3.4 Open Practices

To promote replicability and transparency, JPRP requires that the source data underlying the results and materials are made available to editors and reviewers during the peer review process and, should the article be accepted, publicly accessible to readers. Authors can deposit the data on a third-party permanent archive and include a link in the manuscript, and provide research materials in full unloaded as Supplementary Material. Therefore, manuscripts should include a compulsory Open Practices Statement in which the author(s) state whether the study(ies) reported were preregistered and where the data and materials are available.

Open Data: making publicly available the digitally shareable data necessary to reproduce the reported result. This includes annotated copies of the code or syntax used for all exploratory and principal analyses. If the data contains sensitive, personal information, a PM (Protected Access) notation will be added if the authors post their data according to the guidelines regarding protected access repositories (see below for more information about this notation).

Open Materials: making publicly available the digitally shareable materials/methods necessary to reproduce the reported results. Authors are also encouraged to make publicly available video recordings of their study procedures; in return, a (BM)Visualized Methods notation will be added to the authors’ Open Materials badge (see below for more information about this notation).

Preregistered: having a preregistered design and analysis plan for the reported research and reporting results according to that plan. An analysis plan includes specification of the variables and the analyses that will be conducted. Please note that “Preregistration” does not require all analyses to be confirmatory (planned in advance); it merely requires investigators to state up front which analyses are confirmatory and which are exploratory.

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4. Editorial policies

Following a preliminary triage to eliminate submissions unsuitable for The Journal of Pacific Rim Psychology all papers are sent out for review. The covering letter is important. To help the Editor in their preliminary evaluation, please indicate why you think the paper suitable for publication. If your paper should be considered for fast-track publication, please explain why.

The journal’s policy is to have manuscripts reviewed by two expert reviewers. The Journal of Pacific Rim Psychology utilizes a double-anonymize peer review process in which the reviewer and authors’ names and information are withheld from the other. Reviewers may at their own discretion opt to reveal their names to the author in their review but our standard policy practice is for their identities to remain concealed. All manuscripts are reviewed as rapidly as possible, while maintaining rigor. Reviewers make comments to the author and recommendations to the Editors, who then make the final decision.

If you are asked to provide the names of a peer who could be called upon to review your manuscript, please note that reviewers should be experts in their fields and should be able to provide an objective assessment of the manuscript. Please be aware of any conflicts of interest when recommending reviewers. Examples of conflicts of interest include (but are not limited to) the below: 

• The reviewer should have no prior knowledge of your submission
• The reviewer should not have recently collaborated with any of the authors
• Reviewer nominees from the same institution as any of the authors are not permitted

Please note that the journal’s editors are not obliged to invite any recommended/opposed reviewers to assess your manuscript.

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 will have no involvement in the decision-making process.

4.1 Authorship

All parties who have made a substantive contribution to the article should be listed as authors. Principal authorship, authorship order, and other publication credits should be based on the relative scientific or professional contributions of the individuals involved, regardless of their status. A student is usually listed as principal author on any multiple-authored publication that substantially derives from the student’s dissertation or thesis.

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.

4.2 Affiliation of authors from Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau of P.R. China

The Journal of Pacific Rim Psychology requires authors from Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau to add "Taiwan, China", "Hong Kong, China" or "Macau, China" after their affiliated organisations respectively in the front page when they submit their manuscripts.

4.3 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.

4.3.1 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.

4.3.2 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.

4.4 Funding

The Journal of Pacific Rim Psychology 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.

4.5 Declaration of conflicting interests

The Journal of Pacific Rim Psychology encourages authors to include a declaration of any conflicting interests and recommends you review the good practice guidelines on the Sage Journal Author Gateway.

It is the policy of the Journal of Pacific Rim Psychology 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.

4.6 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

All research involving animals submitted for publication must be approved by an ethics committee with oversight of the facility in which the studies were conducted. The Journal has adopted the ARRIVE guidelines.

4.7 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.

4.8 Research Data

At Sage we are committed to facilitating openness, transparency and reproducibility of research. Where relevant, the Journal of Pacific Rim Psychology encourages authors to share their research data in a suitable public repository subject to ethical considerations and to include a data accessibility statement in their manuscript file. Authors should also follow data citation principles. For more information please visit the Sage Author Gateway, which includes information about Sage’s partnership with the data repository Figshare.

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5. Publishing policies

5.1 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.

5.1.1 Plagiarism

The Journal of Pacific Rim Psychology 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.

5.1.2 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.

5.2 Research Ethics and Participant Consent

If applicable, authors are also required to state in the methods section whether participants provided informed consent. 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 participant information and images to be published was provided by the participant(s) or a legally authorized representative. Please do not submit the participant’s actual written informed consent with your article, as this in itself breaches the participant’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. 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.

5.3 Contributor's publishing agreement

Before publication Sage requires the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement. The Journal of Pacific Rim Psychology publishes manuscripts under Creative Commons licenses. The standard license for the journal is Creative Commons by Attribution Non-Commercial (CC BY-NC), which allows others to re-use the work without permission as long as the work is properly referenced and the use is non-commercial. For more information, you are advised to visit Sage's OA licenses page. Alternative license arrangements are available, for example, to meet particular funder mandates, made at the author’s request.

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6. Preparing your manuscript

6.1 Formatting

The preferred format for your manuscript is Word. Templates are available on the Manuscript Submission Guidelines page of our Author Gateway.

6.1.1 Style and Reporting Standards

 

Contributions should follow the format and style described in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.), and the latest APA Reporting Standards for quantitative and Qualitative Research:

Appelbaum, M., Cooper, H., Kline, R. B., Mayo-Wilson, E., Nezu, A. M., & Rao, S. M. (2018). Journal article reporting standards for quantitative research in psychology: The APA Publications and Communications Board task force report. American Psychologist, 73(1), 3-25. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/amp0000191

Levitt, H. M., Bamberg, M., Creswell, J. W., Frost, D. M., Josselson, R., & Suárez-Orozco, C. (2018). Journal article reporting standards for qualitative primary, qualitative meta-analytic, and mixed methods research in psychology: The APA Publications and Communications Board task force report. American Psychologist, 73(1), 26-46. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/amp0000151

6.1.2 Reporting Statistics

 

To safeguard research integrity and replicability, submissions to JPRP should conform to the following guidelines:

Check the accuracy of all statistics reported in the manuscript. It is the responsibility of the authors and JPRP will check if needed.

Follow the APA guidelines for reporting statistical results. Manuscript that does not conform to the guidelines will be desktop rejected. Below are examples of correct format:

t (df) = value, p = value

F (df1, df2) = value, p = value

r (df) = value, p = value

χ2 (df, N = value) = value, p = value (N is optional)

Z = value, p = value

Report how sample size was determined for each study and discuss statistical power.

Report all data exclusions (e.g., dropped outliers) and how decisions about data exclusions were made.

Report all measures or conditions for variables of interest to the research question(s), whether they were included in the analyses or not.

All key results should be accompanied by exact p-values, effect sizes, and 95% confidence intervals, or an explanation of why calculation of effect sizes and/or confidence intervals were not possible.

6.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics

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

Figures supplied in color will appear in color online.

6.3 Supplementary 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.

6.4 Reference style

Journal of Pacific Rim Psychology adheres to the APA reference style. View the APA guidelines to ensure your manuscript conforms to this reference style.

6.5 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.

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7. Submitting your manuscript

7.1 How to submit your manuscript

The Journal of Pacific Rim Psychology is hosted on Sage Track, a web based online submission and peer review system powered by ScholarOne™ Manuscripts. Visit https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jprp to login and submit your article online.

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.

7.2 Title, keywords and abstracts

Please supply a title, short title, an abstract and keywords to accompany your article. The title, keywords and abstract are key to ensuring readers find your article online through online search engines such as Google. Please refer to the information and guidance on how best to title your article, write your abstract and select your keywords by visiting the Sage Journal Author Gateway for guidelines on How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online.

7.3 Information required for completing your submission

When submitting a new manuscript, institutional contact addresses for the submitting and corresponding author must be provided. Corresponding authors must link their ORCID IDs to their accounts in the journal system.

Provide full contact details for the corresponding author including email, mailing address and telephone numbers. Academic affiliations are required for all co-authors. These details should be presented separately to the main text of the article to facilitate anonymous peer review.

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. 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).

7.4 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 require 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.

7.5 Permissions

Please 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 Journal Author Gateway.

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8. On acceptance and publication

If your paper is accepted for publication after peer review, you will first be asked to complete the contributor’s publishing agreement. 

8.1 Sage Production

Your Sage Production Editor will keep you informed as to your article’s progress throughout the production process. Proofs will made available to the corresponding author via our editing portal Sage Edit, or by email to the corresponding author and should be returned 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.

8.2 Online publication

One of the many benefits of publishing your research in an open access journal is the speed to publication. With no page count constraints, your article will be published online in a fully citable form with a DOI number as soon as it has completed the production process. At this time it will be completely free to view and download for all.

8.3 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. 

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9. Further information

Any correspondence, queries or additional requests for information on the Manuscript Submission process should be sent to the Journal of Pacific Rim Psychology editorial office as follows:

Dr. Jianning Dang at: jprp@bnu.edu.cn

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9. Appealing the publication decision

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

 

 

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