Sunday, November 7, 2010

The Publication Process

In the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, Chapter 8, p. 225 - p. 243, the authors discuss the publication process.
The Peer Review process is the typically the method used to choose an article for publication.
Four areas are discussed and they include the four things the author is responsible for, like preparing the manuscript for submission, attending to administrative and ethical responsibilities, complying with publisher policy requirements, and working with the publisher during the production process.
The authors go on to say the Editorial Process uses Peer Review to select articles. For an article to be used in a journal, it must pass the following criteria. The journal article must not have been previously published, it must contribute to the archive of scientific knowledge, and it must have been reviewed by a panel of peers.
The author say, the peer-reviewed literature in a field is built by individual contributions that together represent the accumulated knowledge of a field.
Journal editors look for manuscripts that contribute significantly to the content area covered by the journal, communicate with clarity and conciseness, and follow style guidelines.
A reviewer may be asked to help in the selection process. A reviewer can provide technical expertise, might have familiarity with a particular controversy, and the reviewer might have a balance of perspectives. The reviewer typically provides scholarly input into the editorial decision.
To insure impartiality a masked review is used so that the reviewers do not know the author and the author does not know the reviewers.
A manuscript will be accepted or rejected based upon the importance of the novel contribution that the work might provide, and the appropriateness of the work to the particular journal.
Sometimes an article is rejected with an invitation to revise and resubmit it. The editor may want more empirical data to be gathered, that entire new experiments may need to be added, or that analyses need to be modified.
The author should attempt to submit a paper that looks good, is well formatted, and follows all APA rules. An author should comply with all ethical, legal, and policy requirements. The author should closely follow all APA rules and comply with all the policies and procedures when submitting and preparing a paper for publication.
I hope you get to enjoy the publication process.

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