Submission Components — Overview

First-time submissions include

  • A title page with identifying information (mandatory; not for review).
  • A paper-information document with additional information on paper type, related documents, etc. (mandatory; for review).
  • The anonymized article text, including figures and tables (mandatory; for review).
  • Supplementary material (if any; for review).
  • A cover letter (optional, not for review).

If a manuscript is accepted for publication you are requested to provide:

  • The final article text, deanonymized and including all revisions. Required file format is MS Word (.docx).
  • Each figure as a separate, high-resolution (300 ppi), print-ready image file. File formats: PNG, SVG, EPS, TIFF, editable charts from MS Excel or MS Word.

Title Page With Identifying Information ( Download Title-Page Template)

Authors should submit the title page with identifying information separately from the main manuscript. The identifying Title Page should include:

  • Title: Complete title of the manuscript.
  • Running Head: Short title (one line), no more than 50 characters including spaces.
  • Author Names, Affiliations: Name, affiliation (format: institution, city, country) for each author. Include no more than two affiliations per author. Mark the corresponding author with an asterisk (*).
  • ORCID: ORCID identifier (format: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-2345-6789) for all authors (if available).
  • Corresponding Author: Corresponding author's contact address (email and post).
  • Reviewer Suggestion: Provide a minimum of two (preferably three) reviewer names (with contact information) whom you consider suitable and indicate why.
  • Preregistration: Add URL(s) or DOI(s) of the preregistered study protocol(s) (if any).
  • Funding/Financial Disclosure: All sources of funding should be declared.
  • Acknowledgements: Any non-financial support (such as specialist statistical or writing assistance) from other persons or organizations should be disclosed.
  • Competing Interests: Financial and personal relationships of any author with other people or organizations that could inappropriately influence the work should be declared. Membership in one of the journal boards (e.g., Associate Editor) must also be indicated here.
  • Ethical Practice: Please include a statement about the ethics of the research conducted and ethical approval from an institutional ethics or review board whenever appropriate (e.g., human participants involved, parental consent for research with children, etc.). If not applicable (e.g., simulation studies), please state: ‘No ethical issues and/or ethics approvals need to be disclosed’ - or explain why your study is considered exempt from specific requirements. If necessary, authors may wish to further clarify author contributions beyond the info already provided according to the CRediT system, e.g., point out previous or related versions of the paper (e.g., if the paper is based on a thesis, or disruptive changes in the author group over the research process, etc.).

Paper Information Document ( Download Paper-Information Template)

Authors should include information on paper type, manuscript version, related documents (e.g.,  preregistration or preprints), etc. The paper information document must be updated and resubmitted with any revision.

Article Text (Anonymized)

  • Authors should include an anonymized title page without identifying information within the main manuscript document. Identifying information will be populated at the end of the review process, prior to copyediting. De-identified manuscripts are important for ensuring masked review (see also Ensuring Double-Anonymized (Masked) Peer-Review in the Submission Guidelines).
  • The Article Text should be double spaced and include page numbers. Tables and Figures should generally be located near their first reference in the text. Initial submissions can be in any style so long as it does not detract from readability. Accepted papers must conform to the current version of the APA Publication Manual prior to copyediting and production. The most basic requirements are described in detail in the general PsychOpen GOLD Style Guide.
  • All elements of the Article Text (see below) should be submitted as a single file. Accepted papers must be provided in MS Word (docx) format.
  • Article Texts should include all of the following:
    1. Titles
      • Complete title of the manuscript.
      • Running head: short title (one line), no more than 50 characters including spaces.
    2. Abstract
      • Abstracts are usually limited to 250 words (see Articles Types). They should briefly summarize the motivating questions for the research, methods, results, and conclusions. Systematic Reviews must provide structured abstracts (see the section "Systematic Review" in the Submission Guidelines page).
      • Keywords: 5 – 7 keywords or brief phrases separated by commas.
    3. Main Article
      • Depending on the specific Article Type, manuscripts should be structured into sections according to the Article-Type Specific Submission Guidelines.
      • All figures (including relevant captions) placed within the main body of text.
      • All tables (including titles, description, footnotes) placed within the main body of text.
    4. References
      • References in initial submissions can be in any standardized style. Accepted articles must format references according to the current edition of the APA Publication Manual.

Supplementary Material

To ensure research transparency standards (Open Science) – and also to help comply with the word, table etc. limits for distinct article type – authors are encouraged to make use of Supplementary Material. Supplementary Material is referenced in the article and linked to it but published independently (e.g., open measurement instruments, data, materials, scripts, additional exploratory or supplementary results etc.).

  • Repository: Supplementary Material  will usually be made available using PsychArchives (ZPID), an open repository for psychology, suitable for data, scripts, research materials, additional results, psychological measurement instruments etc. Authors may either
    1. self-submit their Supplementary Material to PsychArchives (see above) or another trustworthy (long-term or permanent) repository of their choice and reference these Supplements in their Article Text in the same way as they reference other sources like journal articles, books,  etc. in their paper (see example below), or
    2. submit the Supplementary Material together (but as separate files) with their Article Text to MISS. In this case MISS will deposit the Supplemental Material of accepted articles in Psycharchives and reciprocally link article with its Supplementary Material. Please add a "Readme" document with a short (15-20 words) description for every distinct Supplement.
    3. For article types related to specific measurement instruments, the instrument authors are encouraged to document their instrument in ZIS (GESIS) after publication. ZIS is an open access repository for measurement instruments that are suitable for the survey research in the social sciences. If the measurement instrument is beyond the scope of ZIS, authors are encouraged to document their measurement instrument in the Open Test Archive (ZPID). The Open Test Archive is a repository for test instruments from various fields of psychology and related disciplines.
  • Dataset and Analysis Code Files: We encourage authors to share their data analysis code along with their manuscript. Please state whether data and/or code are available, and if so, where to access them. If you are unable to share your data, please provide an explanation in the cover letter. Dataset files for each separate study should be clearly titled and should include a codebook (description of the content of the file). Codebooks for datasets should cover at least all the variable names (+ description) and values (+ value labels/meaning of numerical coding). When in doubt please comply with the OSF Data Dictionary style guide. Ideally, all datasets should comply with FAIR principles and be accessible with free or widely available tools (txt, csv, RData, xlsx). There are no restrictions of the specific analytical framework.
  • Referencing: All Supplementary Material must be referenced in the body of the Article Text like any other sources cited in the paper, e. g., "...see Author et al. (2022a, 2022b)" and unambiguously linked to a separate Reference List of Supplementary Materials. Example:
    • In text citation of Supplementary Material:
      ...the analysis code used for item analysis can be  found in Author et. al (2022a). 
    • In the Reference List of Supplementary Materials:
      Author, A, Auhor, B., & Author, C. (2022a). Supplementary materials to "A short version of the ABC questionnaire" [CODE]. PsychOpen GOLD. https://doi.org/10.23668/psycharchives.1234
  • DOI: In cases where the reference components (e.g., DOI) are not yet available as the Supplemtary Materials still needs to be submitted to an archive these components will be added by the production team during copy editing of the paper. But even in these cases authors should add at least an incomplete reference for this item.
  • Formatting: Please also note that the Supplementary Material itself will maintain author formatting and will not go through any copyediting by the journal team.
  • De-Identification: For the purpose of masked review Supplementary Material that should be part of the review process must be anonymized upon submission. When using external repositories, please check if you can include an anonymized “for-review-only” link (e.g., provided by OSF).

Cover Letter

  • Motivation: The cover letter may clarify the motivation for submission to MISS beyond those aspects covered in the abstract or in the main text of the manuscript. Present highlights of the submitted contribution (what we already know on this subject, and more importantly what this paper adds).
  • Paper Collection: If you wish your manuscript to be considered as part of a specific MISS Article Collection indicate the respective article collection here. 
  • Word Count: Word count of manuscript (excluding references), number of tables, figures and references. See the Limits for Words, References, Tables and Figures for different the Article Types published by MISS.
  • Preregistration: Please indicate any studies or study parts for which protocols and/or analyses were pre-registered. Add URL(s) or DOI(s) of the preregistered study protocol(s). Please note that preregistration requires a public file archive  that garantees the preservation of a time-stamped, immutable version of your study plan (embargos may be applied). Just uploading a study protocol to an OSF Project (for example) will not be considered as preregistration.
  • Open Science Badges: Please indicate in the cover letter if you anticipate your work to be eligible for an Open Science badge.
  • Replication Study: Please indicate if any studies or study parts replicate prior studies.
  • Other Information: As necessary, authors may wish to include information about author contributions, ethics, related versions of the paper (e.g., if the paper is based on a thesis), etc.

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