AUTHOR GUIDELINES

Sections

  1. Submission and Peer Review Process
  2. Article Types
  3. After Acceptance

1. Submission and Peer Review Process

Once the submission materials have been prepared in accordance with the Author Guidelines, manuscripts should be submitted online at https://wiley.atyponrex.com/journal/DEV

For help with submissions, please contact: [email protected]

This journal does not charge submission fees.

Article Preparation Support

Wiley Editing Services offers expert help with English Language Editing, as well as translation, manuscript formatting, figure illustration, figure formatting, and graphical abstract design – so you can submit your manuscript with confidence.

Also, check out our resources for Preparing Your Article for general guidance about writing and preparing your manuscript.

New submissions should be made via the Research Exchange submission portal. For technical help with the submission system, please review our FAQs or contact [email protected].

Free format submission

Developmental Psychobiology now offers Free Format submission for a simplified and streamlined submission process.

Before you submit, you will need:

  • Your manuscript: this should be an editable file including text, figures, and tables, or separate files—whichever you prefer. All required sections should be contained in your manuscript, including abstract, introduction, methods, results, and conclusions. Figures and tables should have legends. Figures should be uploaded in the highest resolution possible. References may be submitted in any style or format, as long as it is consistent throughout the manuscript. Supporting information should be submitted in separate files. If the manuscript, figures or tables are difficult for you to read, they will also be difficult for the editors and reviewers, and the editorial office will send it back to you for revision. Your manuscript may also be sent back to you for revision if the quality of English language is poor.
  • An ORCID ID, freely available at https://orcid.org. (Why is this important? Your article, if accepted and published, will be attached to your ORCID profile. Institutions and funders are increasingly requiring authors to have ORCID IDs.)
  • The title page of the manuscript, including:
    • Your co-author details, including affiliation and email address. (Why is this important? We need to keep all co-authors informed of the outcome of the peer review process.)
    • Statements relating to our ethics and integrity policies, which may include any of the following (Why are these important? We need to uphold rigorous ethical standards for the research we consider for publication):
      • data availability statement
      • funding statement
      • conflict of interest disclosure
      • ethics approval statement
      • patient consent statement
      • permission to reproduce material from other sources
      • clinical trial registration

Open Access

Preprint policy:

Please find the Wiley preprint policy here.

This journal accepts articles previously published on preprint servers.

DEV will consider for review articles previously available as preprints. You may also post the submitted version of a manuscript to a preprint server at any time. You are requested to update any pre-publication versions with a link to the final published article.

Clinical Trial Registration

Developmental Psychobiology requires that clinical trials are prospectively registered in a publicly accessible database and clinical trial registration numbers should be included in all papers that report their results. Authors are asked to include the name of the trial register and the clinical trial registration number at the end of the abstract. If the trial is not registered, or was registered retrospectively, the reasons for this should be explained.

Research Reporting Guidelines

Accurate and complete reporting enables readers to fully appraise research, replicate it, and use it. Authors are encouraged to adhere to recognized research reporting standards. The EQUATOR Network collects more than 370 reporting guidelines for many study types, including for:

  • Randomised trials: CONSORT
  • Observational studies: STROBE
  • Systematic reviews: PRISMA
  • Case reports: CARE
  • Qualitative research: SRQR
  • Diagnostic / prognostic studies: STARD
  • Quality improvement studies: SQUIRE
  • Economic evaluations: CHEERS
  • Animal pre-clinical studies: ARRIVE
  • Study protocols: SPIRIT
  • Clinical practice guidelines: AGREE

We also encourage authors to refer to and follow guidelines from:

Data Sharing and Data Availability

This journal expects data sharing. Review Wiley’s Data Sharing policy where you will be able to see and select the data availability statement that is right for your submission.

Data Citation

Please review Wiley’s Data Citation policy.

Data Protection

By submitting a manuscript to or reviewing for this publication, your name, email address, and affiliation, and other contact details the publication might require, will be used for the regular operations of the publication. Please review Wiley’s Data Protection Policy to learn more.

Funding

You should list all funding sources in the Acknowledgments section. You are responsible for the accuracy of their funder designation. If in doubt, please check the Open Funder Registry for the correct nomenclature.

Authorship

All listed authors should have contributed to the manuscript substantially and have agreed to the final submitted version. Review editorial standards and scroll down for a description of authorship criteria.

Author Pronouns

Authors may now include their personal pronouns in the author bylines of their published articles and on Wiley Online Library. Authors will never be required to include their pronouns; it will always be optional for the author. Authors can include their pronouns in their manuscript upon submission and can add, edit, or remove their pronouns at any stage upon request. Submitting/corresponding authors should never add, edit, or remove a coauthor’s pronouns without that coauthor’s consent. Where post-publication changes to pronouns are required, these can be made without a correction notice to the paper, following Wiley’s Name Change Policy to protect the author’s privacy. Terms which fall outside of the scope of personal pronouns (e.g. proper or improper nouns), are currently not supported.

ORCID

This journal requires ORCID. Please refer to Wiley’s resources on ORCID.

Reproduction of Copyright Material

If excerpts from copyrighted works owned by third parties are included, credit must be shown in the contribution. It is your responsibility to also obtain written permission for reproduction from the copyright owners. For more information visit Wiley’s Copyright Terms & Conditions FAQ.

The corresponding author is responsible for obtaining written permission to reproduce the material "in print and other media" from the publisher of the original source, and for supplying Wiley with that permission upon submission.

Title Page

The title page should contain:

  1. A brief informative title containing the major key words. The title should not contain abbreviations (see Wiley's best practice SEO tips);
  2. A short running title of less than 40 characters;
  3. The full names of the authors;
  4. The author's institutional affiliations where the work was conducted, with a footnote for the author’s present address if different from where the work was conducted;
  5. Acknowledgments.

Main Text File

Manuscripts can be uploaded either as a single document (containing the main text, tables and figures), or with figures and tables provided as separate files. Should your manuscript reach revision stage, figures and tables must be provided as separate files. The main manuscript file can be submitted in Microsoft Word (.doc or .docx) format.

Your main document file should include:

  • A short informative title containing the major key words. The title should not contain abbreviations
  • The full names of the authors with institutional affiliations where the work was conducted, with a footnote for the author’s present address if different from where the work was conducted;
  • Acknowledgments;
  • Unstructured Abstract (200 words maximum)
  • Up to 7 keywords;
  • Main body: formatted as introduction, materials & methods, results, discussion, conclusion
  • References;
  • Tables (each table complete with title and footnotes);
  • Figure legends: Legends should be supplied as a complete list in the text. Figures should be uploaded as separate files (see below).

Reference Style

This journal uses APA reference style; as the journal offers Free Format submission, however, this is for information only and you do not need to format the references in your article. This will instead be taken care of by the typesetter.

General Style Points

The following points provide general advice on formatting and style.

  • Abbreviations: In general, terms should not be abbreviated unless they are used repeatedly and the abbreviation is helpful to the reader. Initially, use the word in full, followed by the abbreviation in parentheses. Thereafter use the abbreviation only.
  • Units of measurement: Measurements should be given in SI or SI-derived units. Visit the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (BIPM) website for more information about SI units.
  • Numbers: Numbers under 10 are spelt out, except for: measurements with a unit (8mmol/l); age (6 weeks old), or lists with other numbers (11 dogs, 9 cats, 4 gerbils).
  • Trade Names: Chemical substances should be referred to by the generic name only. Trade names should not be used. Drugs should be referred to by their generic names. If proprietary drugs have been used in the study, refer to these by their generic name, mentioning the proprietary name and the name and location of the manufacturer in parentheses.

Figures and Supporting Information

Figures, supporting information, and appendices should be supplied as separate files. You should review the basic figure requirements for manuscripts for peer review, as well as the more detailed post-acceptance figure requirements. View Wiley’s FAQs on supporting information.

All figures of your manuscript will undergo an integrity check. In case of any doubt, raw data will be requested. Publication will proceed on the condition that all final files comply with the journal integrity checks. In the event that any file does not comply with our integrity checks, the journal reserves the right to rescind this decision, or, alternatively, you may be contacted to resolve any concerns raised by these checks.

Peer Review

This journal operates under a single-blind peer review model. Except where otherwise stated, manuscripts are peer reviewed by at least two anonymous reviewers and an Associate or Assistant Editor. Papers will only be sent to review if the Editor-in-Chief determines that the paper meets the appropriate quality and relevance requirements.

You will be asked to recommend expert peer reviewers during the submission process.

Please recommend three expert peer reviewers who are not affiliated with your institution or that of your co-authors.

In-house submissions, i.e. papers authored by Editors or Editorial Board members of the title, will be sent to Editors unaffiliated with the author or institution and monitored carefully to ensure there is no peer review bias.

Wiley's policy on the confidentiality of the review process is available here.

Refer and Transfer Program

Wiley believes that no valuable research should go unshared. This journal participates in Wiley’s Refer & Transfer program. If your manuscript is not accepted, you may receive a recommendation to transfer your manuscript to another suitable Wiley journal, either through a referral from the journal’s editor or through our Transfer Desk Assistant.

Guidelines on Publishing and Research Ethics in Journal Articles

The journal requires that you include in the manuscript details IRB approvals, ethical treatment of human and animal research participants, and gathering of informed consent, as appropriate. You will be expected to declare all conflicts of interest, or none, on submission. Please review Wiley’s policies surrounding human studies, animal studies, clinical trial registration, biosecurity, and research reporting guidelines.

This journal follows the core practices of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and handles cases of research and publication misconduct accordingly (https://publicationethics.org/core-practices).

This journal uses iThenticate’s CrossCheck software to detect instances of overlapping and similar text in submitted manuscripts. Read Wiley’s Top 10 Publishing Ethics Tips for Authors and Wiley’s Publication Ethics Guidelines.

2. Article Types

Developmental Psychobiology publishes the following contribution types:

  • Research Article
  • Review Article
  • Brief Report
  • Letter to the Editor
  • Commentary

Brief Report

Brief reports are limited to 3500 words or less in the body of the manuscript (introduction, methods, results, and discussion). Abstract, references, headings and figures/tables are not included it the word count.

Subject headings may or may not be included in the brief report.

Brief reports are restricted to only one figure and no more than 2 tables. If there is no figure, 3 tables may be included.

There are no restrictions on the reference list; however please keep in mind that excessive references are not appropriate even in full reports.

Commentary

Commentaries are short pieces that respond to a previously published Developmental Psychobiology article, engage with an aspect of the discipline of developmental psychobiology, or reflect on an aspect of current political or policy decision-making in the field. The maximum word length of commentaries is 1,500 words and anyone considering writing a commentary should contact the Editorial Office at [email protected] in the first instance and before writing the commentary. All commentaries are subject to peer review.

3. After Acceptance

First Look

After your paper is accepted, your files will be assessed by the editorial office to ensure they are ready for production. You may be contacted if any updates or final files are required. Otherwise, your paper will be sent to the production team.

Wiley Author Services

When an accepted article is received by Wiley’s production team, the corresponding author will receive an email asking them to login or register with Wiley Author Services. You will be asked to sign a publication license at this point as well as pay for any applicable APCs.

Copyright & Licensing

You may choose to publish under the terms of the journal’s standard copyright agreement, or Open Access under the terms of a Creative Commons License.

Standard re-use and licensing rights vary by journal. Note that certain funders mandate a particular type of CC license be used. This journal uses the CC-BY/CC-BY-NC/CC-BY-NC-ND Creative Commons License.

Self-Archiving Definitions and Policies: Note that the journal’s standard copyright agreement allows for self-archiving of different versions of the article under specific conditions.

Proofs

Authors will receive an e-mail notification with a link and instructions for accessing HTML page proofs online. Authors should also make sure that any renumbered tables, figures, or references match text citations and that figure legends correspond with text citations and actual figures. Proofs must be returned within 48 hours of receipt of the email.

Article Promotion Support

Wiley Editing Services offers professional video, design, and writing services to create shareable video abstracts, infographics, conference posters, lay summaries, and research news stories for your research – so you can help your research get the attention it deserves.

Author Name Change Policy

In cases where authors wish to change their name following publication, Wiley will update and republish the paper and redeliver the updated metadata to indexing services. Our editorial and production teams will use discretion in recognizing that name changes may be of a sensitive and private nature for various reasons including (but not limited to) alignment with gender identity, or as a result of marriage, divorce, or religious conversion. Accordingly, to protect the author’s privacy, we will not publish a correction notice to the paper, and we will not notify co-authors of the change. Authors should contact the journal’s Editorial Office with their name change request.

Correction to authorship

In accordance with Wiley’s Best Practice Guidelines on Research Integrity and Publishing Ethics and the Committee on Publication Ethics’ guidance, Developmental Psychobiology will allow authors to correct authorship on a submitted, accepted, or published article if a valid reason exists to do so. All authors – including those to be added or removed – must agree to any proposed change. To request a change to the author list, please complete the Request for Changes to a Journal Article Author List Form and contact either the journal’s editorial or production office, depending on the status of the article. Authorship changes will not be considered without a fully completed Author Change form. [Correcting the authorship is different from changing an author’s name; the relevant policy for that can be found in Wiley’s Best Practice Guidelines under “Author name changes after publication.”]

Resource Identification Initiative

The journal supports the Resource Identification Initiative, which aims to promote research resource identification, discovery, and reuse. This initiative, led by the Neuroscience Information Framework and the Oregon Health & Science University Library, provides unique identifiers for antibodies, model organisms, cell lines, and tools including software and databases. These IDs, called Research Resource Identifiers (RRIDs), are machine-readable and can be used to search for all papers where a particular resource was used and to increase access to critical data to help researchers identify suitable reagents and tools.

You will be asked to use RRIDs to cite the resources used in your research where applicable in the text, similar to a regular citation or Genbank Accession number. For antibodies, you should include in the citation the vendor, catalogue number, and RRID both in the text upon first mention in the Methods section. For software tools and databases, please provide the name of the resource followed by the resource website, if available, and the RRID. For model organisms, the RRID alone is sufficient.

Additionally, you must include the RRIDs in the list of keywords associated with the manuscript.

To Obtain Research Resource Identifiers (RRIDs):

  • Use the Resource Identification Portal, created by the Resource Identification Initiative Working Group.
  • Search for the research resource (please see the section titled “Search Features and Tips” for more information).
  • Click on the “Cite This” button to obtain the citation and insert the citation into the manuscript text.

If there is a resource that is not found within the Resource Identification Portal, you are asked to register the resource with the appropriate resource authority. Information on how to do this is provided in the “Resource Citation Guidelines” section of the Portal.

If any difficulties in obtaining identifiers arise, please contact [email protected] for assistance.

Example Citations:

Antibodies: "Wnt3 was localized using a rabbit polyclonal antibody C64F2 against Wnt3 (Cell Signaling Technology, Cat# 2721S, RRID: AB_2215411)"

Model Organisms: "Experiments were conducted in c. elegans strain SP304 (RRID:CGC_SP304)"

Cell lines: "Experiments were conducted in PC12 CLS cells (CLS Cat# 500311/p701_PC-12, RRID:CVCL_0481)"

Tools, Software, and Databases: "Image analysis was conducted with CellProfiler Image Analysis Software, V2.0 (http://www.cellprofiler.org, RRID:nif-0000-00280)"

Species Names

Upon its first use in the title, abstract, and text, the common name of a species should be followed by the scientific name (genus, species, and authority) in parentheses. For well-known species, however, scientific names may be omitted from article titles. If no common name exists in English, only the scientific name should be used.

Genetic Nomenclature

Sequence variants should be described in the text and tables using both DNA and protein designations whenever appropriate. Sequence variant nomenclature must follow the current HGVS guidelines; see varnomen.hgvs.org, where examples of acceptable nomenclature are provided.

Sequence Data

Nucleotide sequence data can be submitted in electronic form to any of the three major collaborative databases: DDBJ, EMBL, or GenBank. It is only necessary to submit to one database as data are exchanged between DDBJ, EMBL, and GenBank on a daily basis. The suggested wording for referring to accession-number information is: ‘These sequence data have been submitted to the DDBJ/EMBL/GenBank databases under accession number U12345’. Addresses are as follows:

Proteins sequence data should be submitted to either of the following repositories:

Structural Data

For papers describing structural data, atomic coordinates and the associated experimental data should be deposited in the appropriate databank (see below). Please note that the data in databanks must be released, at the latest, upon publication of the article. We trust in the cooperation of our authors to ensure that atomic coordinates and experimental data are released on time.

  • Organic and organometallic compounds: Crystallographic data should not be sent as Supporting Information, but should be deposited with the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre (CCDC) at cam.ac.uk/services/structure%5Fdeposit.
  • Inorganic compounds: Fachinformationszentrum Karlsruhe (FIZ; fiz-karlsruhe.de).
  • Proteins and nucleic acids: Protein Data Bank (org/pdb).
  • NMR spectroscopy data: BioMagResBank (wisc.edu).

Additional Guidelines for Cover Pictures, Visual Abstracts, Frontispieces and Table of Contents Graphics

  • Concepts illustrated in graphical material must clearly fit with the research discussed in the accompanying text.
  • Images featuring depictions or representations of people must not contain any form of objectification, sexualization, stereotyping, or discrimination. We also ask authors to consider community diversity in images containing multiple depictions or representations of people.
  • Inappropriate use, representation, or depiction of religious figures or imagery, and iconography should be avoided.
  • Use of elements of mythology, legends, and folklore might be acceptable and will be decided on a case-by-case basis. However, these images must comply with the guidelines on human participants when they are present.
  • Generally, authors should consider any sensitivities when using images of objects that might have cultural significance or may be inappropriate in the context (for example, religious texts, historical events, and depictions of people).
  • Legal requirements:
  • All necessary copyright permission for the reproduction of the graphical elements used in visuals must be obtained prior to publication.
  • Clearance must be obtained from identifiable people before using their image on the cover or the like and such clearance must specify that it will be used on the cover. Use within text does not require such clearance unless it discloses sensitive personal information such as medical information. In all situations involving disclosure of such personal info, specific permission must be obtained. And images of individuals should not be used in a false manner.

Graphics that do not adhere to these guidelines will be recommended for revision or will not be accepted for publication.

Additional Guidelines for Special Issues: If you want to submit manuscript to Special Issue 'The critical need for diversity in the science of developmental psychobiology', please send the Abstract to Guest editors first, Lana Grasser and Koraly Pérez-Edgar.

Plain Language Summary

The Plain Language Summary (PLS) should convey the same information as the Abstract but in a completely different language and tone. It should summarize your scientific study, its results, and their broader relevance without using jargon so that it is understandable by scientists from outside of your discipline, as well as science journalists and science educators. The PLS should be a single paragraph no more than 200 words long.