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Author Guidelines

Article types | Structure | Language & text | Data & Symbols | Figures & Tables | Reproducibility/Data repositories |References

Submissions should be made electronically through this website.

Please ensure that you consider the following guidelines when preparing your manuscript. Failure to do so may delay the processing of your submission.

Article types

• Review articles provide a useful overview of a sub-field of cognition. A comprehensive meta-analysis or literature review may lead to the exposition of ground-breaking theoretical ideas, or might more simply serve as a contemporary introduction to a topic for interested readers. Papers should critically engage with the relevant body of extant literature.
• Research articles describe the outcomes and application of unpublished original research. These should make a substantial contribution to knowledge and understanding in the subject matter and should be supported by relevant figures, tabulated data, and if possible, raw anonymised data should be publicly available and linked. Research articles may be brief articles reporting a single study or longer reports of a series of studies. Brief articles should be reserved for situations where that study is clearly justified, well-constructed and analysed, thoroughly powered, and where the results are clear, convincing, and theoretically important. It is neither in ESCoP's nor the authors' best interests to publish a single-experiment report when the results of the sole experiment are vague, unconvincing, or insufficiently justified. Multi-experiment research articles should be no more than 8,000 words. Brief articles reporting a single experiment should be no more than 3,000 words.
• Registered reports are a form of empirical article in which the methods and proposed analyses are pre-registered and reviewed prior to the research being conducted. High quality protocols are then provisionally accepted for publication before data collection commences. Provisional acceptance indicates that the article will be published pending successful completion of the study according to the pre-registered methods and analytic procedures, as well as inclusion of a defensible and evidence-based interpretation of the results. This format is designed to minimize publication bias and research bias in hypothesis-driven research, while also allowing the flexibility to conduct exploratory (unregistered) analyses and report serendipitous findings. More information on the registered reports workflow and policies can be found on the Registered Reports page.
• Data reports present one (or multiple related) novel data set(s). In such reports, authors provide a short description of the topic under investigation, describe how and why the data were acquired, present analyses of the data, and a brief summary of the findings. The data set reported must be publicly available in a stable repository or archive. Data reports are intended to allow for the reporting of useful data sets from sound research. They should not focus on interpretation. Authors may choose to publish data reports in addition to comprehensive papers that include the use of the stimuli or the interpretation of the data. They may also choose to publish such reports in order to document the existence of potentially useful data that, for whatever reason, the research team do not intend to follow-up. Data reports allow authors to get credit for work they have completed and prevent useful data from languishing in the file drawer, reducing the incentive of authors to inflate the impact of their data in order to make it seem suitable for publication. Data reports should be no more than 3,000 words.
• Material development reports present a novel set of stimuli or materials that have been developed to a high standard, and that would be useful to other cognitive psychologists. The stimuli or materials reported in a material development report must be publicly available and licensed for general academic use. Stimulus development reports should be no more than 3,000 words (excluding the stimuli and materials if they are words).
• Method notes should outline and test new techniques relevant to cognitive psychologists and discuss potential applications and significance of the technique. In addition, articles that critique or modify extant methodologies and approaches are welcome. Authors should provide a detailed summary of the protocol followed and establish replicability within the body of the paper. Methods articles should be no longer than 3,000 words in length.
• Commentaries, short papers critiquing an article previously published in the Journal of Cognition, will be considered for publication by a selection of editorial board members. We also encourage readers to comment on articles in the Journal of Cognition using our online comment system. Authors interested in submitting a commentary piece may discuss the content with the editor before submitting a manuscript. Commentaries should be no longer than 1,000 words in length.

Word limits are meant as guidelines and with some flexibility permitted. All word limits include referencing and citation.

Structure

Title page
Authors choose whether they want to be anonymous during peer review or not. Authors who want to ensure blind peer review should be careful to only list the title and abstract on the submitted manuscript file, not the author names, and to redact any other details within the manuscript that might reasonably lead to identification.

Note: Blind peer review is not mandatory: authors are responsible for anonymising their own manuscript. If your manuscript includes identifying information, we will assume that you have chosen to identify yourself to peer reviewers.

If the submission is not blinded, then author name(s), affiliation and contact details should be added to the title page.

Abstract
Research articles must have the main text prefaced by an abstract of no more than 250 words summarising the main arguments and conclusions of the article. This must have the heading ‘Abstract’ and be easily identified from the start of the main text.

A list of up to six key words may be placed below the abstract (optional).

The Abstract and Keywords should also be added to the metadata when making the initial online submission.

Main text
The body of the submission should be structured in a logical and easy to follow manner. A clear introduction section should be given that allows non-specialists in the subject an understanding of the publication and a background of the issue(s) involved. Methods, results, discussion and conclusion sections may then follow to clearly detail the information and research being presented.

Up to three level headings may be present and must be clearly identifiable using different font sizes, bold or italics. Please follow the APA guidelines for choosing heading levels and style.

Supplementary Files (optional)
Any supplementary/additional files that should link to the main publication must be listed, with a corresponding number, title and option description. Ideally the supplementary files are also cited in the main text.

e.g. Supplementary file 1: Appendix. Scientific data related to the experiments.

Note: additional files will not be typeset so must be provided in their final form. They will be assigned a DOI and linked to from the publication.

Reproducibility
If the content of your submission relates to data that has been deposited in a preservation repository, please provide summary information here, along with a DOI that links to the deposited data.

If your data have not been deposited in an open repository, please include a statement why within the Acknowledgments section of your manuscript. This statement will be published with the manuscript if your paper is accepted.

Ethics and consent (if applicable)
Research involving human subjects, human material, or human data, must have been performed in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. Where applicable, studies must have been approved by an appropriate ethics committee and the authors should include a statement within the article text detailing this approval, including the name of the ethics committee and reference number of the approval. The identity of the research subject(s) should be anonymised whenever possible. For research involving human subjects, informed consent to participate in the study must be obtained from participants (or their legal guardian).

Experiments using animals must follow national standards of care. For further information, click here.

Acknowledgements (optional)
Any acknowledgements must be headed and in a separate paragraph, placed after the main text but before the reference list.

Funding Information (optional)
Should the research have received a funding grant then the grant provider and grant number should be detailed.

Competing interests
If any of the authors have any competing interests then these must be declared. A short paragraph should be placed before the references. Guidelines for competing interests can be found here. If there are no competing interests to declare then the following statement should be present: The author(s) has/have no competing interests to declare.

Authors' contributions (recommended)
A sentence or a short paragraph detailing the roles that each author held to contribute to the authorship of the submission.

References
All references cited within the submission must be listed at the end of the main text file.

Language & Text

Capitalisation
For the submission title:

Capitalise all nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs and subordinate conjunctions (i.e. as, because, although). Use lowercase for all articles, coordinate conjunctions and prepositions.

• Slip-Sliding on a Yellow Brick Road: Stabilization Efforts in Afghanistan

Headings within the main text:

First level headings in the text should follow the same rule as the main title.

For lower-level subheadings, only capitalise first letter and proper nouns.

Headings should be under 75 characters.

Spelling
Submissions must be made in English. Authors are welcome to use American or British spellings as long as they are used consistently throughout the whole of the submission.

• Colour (UK) vs. Color (US)

When referring to proper nouns and normal institutional titles, the official, original spelling must be used.

• World Health Organization, not World Health Organisation

Grammar
American or English grammar rules may be used as long as they are used consistently and match the spelling format (see above). For instance, you may use a serial comma or not.

• red, white, and blue OR red, white and blue

Font
The font used should be commonly available and in an easily readable size. This may be changed during the typesetting process.

Underlined text should be avoided whenever possible.

Bold or italicised text to emphasise a point are permitted, although should be restricted to minimal occurrences to maximise their efficiency.

Lists
Use bullet points to denote a list without hierarchy or order of value. If the list indicates a specific sequence then a numbered list must be used.

Lists should be used sparingly to maximise their impact.

Quotation marks
Use single quotation marks except for quotes within another speech, in which case double quotation marks are used.

Quotations that are longer than three lines in length must be in an indented paragraph separate from the main text.

The standard, non-italicised font must be used for all quotes.

It must be clear from the text and/or citation where the quote is sourced. If quoting from material that is under copyright then permission will need to be obtained from the copyright holder.

Acronyms & Abbreviations
With abbreviations, the crucial goal is to ensure that the reader – particularly one who may not be fully familiar with the topic or context being addressed – is able to follow along. Spell out almost all acronyms on first use, indicating the acronym in parentheses immediately thereafter. Use the acronym for all subsequent references.

• Research completed by the World Health Organization (WHO) shows …

A number of abbreviations are so common that they do not require the full text on the first instance. Examples of these can be found here.

Abbreviations should usually be in capital letters without full stops.

• USA, not U.S.A

Common examples from Latin origin do not follow this rule and should be lower case and can include full stops.

• e.g., i.e., etc.

Use of footnotes/endnotes
Use endnotes rather than footnotes (we refer to these as ‘Notes’ in the online publication). These will appear at the end of the main text, before ‘References’.

All notes should be used only where crucial clarifying information needs to be conveyed.

Avoid using notes for purposes of referencing, with in-text citations used instead. If in-text citations cannot be used, a source can be cited as part of a note.

Please insert the endnote marker after the end punctuation.

Data & Symbols

Symbols
Symbols are permitted within the main text and datasets as long as they are commonly in use or have explanatory definition on their first usage.

Hyphenation, em and en dashes
There is no set rule on the use of hyphenation between words, as long as they are consistently used.

Em dashes should be used sparingly. If they are present, they should denote emphasis, change of thought or interruption to the main sentence and can replace comas, parentheses, colons or semicolons.

• The president’s niece—daughter of his younger brother—caused a media scandal when…

En dashes can be used to replace ‘to’ when indicating a range. No space should surround the dash.

• 10-25 years
• pp. 10-65

Numbers
For numbers zero to nine please spell the whole words. Please use figures for numbers 10 or higher.

We are happy for authors to use either words or figures to represent large whole figures (i.e. one million or 1,000,000) as long as the usage is consistent throughout the text.

If the sentence includes a series of numbers then figures must be used in each instance.

• Artefacts were found at depths of 5, 9, and 29 cm.

If the number appears as part of a dataset, in conjunction with a symbol or as part of a table then the figure must be used.

• This study confirmed that 5% of…

If a sentence starts with a number it must be spelt, or the sentence should be re-written so that it no longer starts with the number.

• Fifteen examples were found to exist…
• The result showed that 15 examples existed…

Do not use a comma for a decimal place.

• 2.43 NOT 2,43

Numbers that are less than zero must have ‘0’ precede the decimal point.

• 0.24 NOT .24

Units of measurement
Symbols following a figure to denote a unit of measurement must be taken from the latest SI brochure. See http://www.bipm.org/utils/common/pdf/si_brochure_8_en.pdf for the full brochure.

Formula
Formulae must be proofed carefully by the author. Editors will not edit formulae. If special software has been used to create formulae, the way it is laid out is the way they will appear in the publication.

Figures & Tables

Figures
Figures, including graphs and diagrams, must be professionally and clearly presented. If a figure is not easy to understand or does not appear to be of a suitable quality, the editor may ask to re-render or omit it.

All figures must be cited within the main text, in consecutive order using Arabic numerals (e.g. Figure 1, Figure 2, etc.).

Each figure must have an accompanying descriptive main title. This should clearly and concisely summarise the content and/or use of the figure image. A short additional figure legend is optional to offer a further description.

• Figure 1: 1685 map of London.
• Figure 1: 1685 map of London. Note the addition of St Paul’s Cathedral, absent from earlier maps.

Figure titles and legends should be placed within the text document, either after the paragraph of their first citation, or as a list after the references.

The source of the image should be included, along with any relevant copyright information and a statement of authorisation (if needed).

• Figure 1: Firemen try to free workers buried under piles of concrete and metal girders. Photo: Claude-Michel Masson. Reproduced with permission of the photographer.

If your figure file includes text then please present the font as Ariel, Helvetica, or Verdana. This will mean that it matches the typeset text.

NOTE: All figures must be uploaded separately as supplementary files during the submission process, if possible in colour and at a resolution of at least 300dpi. Each file should not be more than 20MB. Standard formats accepted are: JPG, TIFF, GIF, PNG, EPS. For line drawings, please provide the original vector file (e.g. .ai, or .eps).

Tables
Tables must be created using a word processor's table function, not tabbed text.

Tables should be included in the manuscript. The final layout will place the tables as close to their first citation as possible.

All tables must be cited within the main text, numbered with Arabic numerals in consecutive order (e.g. Table 1, Table 2, etc.).

Each table must have an accompanying descriptive title. This should clearly and concisely summarise the content and/or use of the table. A short additional table legend is optional to offer a further description of the table. The table title and legend should be placed underneath the table.

Tables should not include:

• Rotated text
• Colour to denote meaning (it will not display the same on all devices)
• Images
• Vertical or diagonal lines
• Multiple parts (e.g. ‘Table 1a’ and ‘Table 1b’). These should either be merged into one table, or separated into ‘Table 1’ and ‘Table 2’.

NOTE: If there are more columns than can fit on a single page, then the table will be placed horizontally on the page. If it still can't fit horizontally on a page, the table will be broken into two.

Reproducibility/Data repositories

In the interests of open scholarship and the reproducibility of results, Journal of Cognition strongly encourages all authors to deposit the data relating to their publication in an open preservation repository. The journal has no preference on which repository is used, as long as it is suitable to the data and provides long term preservation and a DOI along with the citation. This could be an open repository, such as Figshare, or Dataverse, or your institutional repository. 

We ask that the version of data described in your paper, if applicable, is available in a repository that satisfies the criteria below:

• Allow the deposit of data under the correct licence
• Provide a unique, persistent identifier (e.g. a DOI) which references the deposited data
• Has a published backup policy and terms of service that do not allow deletion without warning
• Have a published preservation strategy that guarantees long term preservation
• Have a sound business/sustainability model

If your data have not been deposited in an open repository, please include a statement why within the Acknowledgments section of your manuscript. This statement will be published with the manuscript if your paper is accepted.

If you would like more information on this subject, please contact us.

References

In-text citations
Every use of information from other sources must be cited in the text so that it is clear that external material has been used.

If the author is already mentioned in the main text then the year should follow the name within parenthesis.

• Both Jones (2013) and Brown (2010) showed that …

If the author name is not mentioned in the main text then the surname and year should be inserted, in parenthesis, after the relevant text. Multiple citations should be separated by semi-colon and follow alphabetical order.

• The statistics clearly show this to be untrue (Brown 2010; Jones 2013).

If three or fewer authors are cited from the same citation then all should be listed. If four or more authors are part of the citation then ‘et al.’ should follow the first author name.

• (Jones, Smith & Brown 2008)
• (Jones et al. 2008)

If citations are used from the same author and the same year, then a lowercase letter, starting from ‘a’, should be placed after the year.

• (Jones 2013a; Jones 2013b)

If specific pages are being cited then the page number should follow the year, after a colon.

• (Brown 2004: 65; Jones 2013: 143)

For publications authored and published by organisations, use the short form of the organisation’s name or its acronym in lieu of the full name.

• (ICRC 2000) NOT (International Committee of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies 2000)

Please do not include URLs in parenthetical citations, but rather cite the author or page title and include all details, including the URL, in the reference list.

Reference list
All citations must be listed at the end of the text file, in alphabetical order of authors’ surnames.

All reading materials should be included in ‘References’ – works which have not been cited within the main text, but which the author wishes to share with the reader, must be cited as additional information in endnotes explaining the relevance of the work. This will ensure that all works within the reference list are cited within the text.

NOTE: If multiple works by the same author are being listed, please re-type the author’s name out for each entry, rather than using a long dash.

NOTE: DOIs should be included for all reference entries, where possible.

Reference format

This journal uses the APA system – see below for examples of how to format:

• Books:

Author, A. A. (year). Title of work. Location: Publisher. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/xx.xxxxxxxx

Leaver, B. L., Ehrman, M., & Shekhtman, B. (2005). Achieving success in second language acquisition. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511610431

Jacobs, G. M., & Hall, S. (2002). Implementing cooperative learning. In J. C. Richards & W. A. Renandya (Eds.), Methodology in language teaching: An anthology of current practice (pp. 52-58). DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511667190.009

NOTE: If multiple works by the same author are being listed, please re-type the author’s name out for each entry, rather than using a long dash.

• Journal articles:

Author, A. A., Author, B. B., & Author, C. C. (year). Article title. Journal Title, volume number(issue number), page numbers. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/xx.xxxxxxxx

Radford, M. (2001). Aesthetic and religious awareness among pupils: Similarities and differences. British Journal of Music Education, 18(2), 151-159. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0265051701000249

NOTE: Please include DOIs for all journal articles where possible.

• Newspaper articles (online):

Author, A. (year, date). Article title. Newspaper. Retrieved from www.URL

McMahon, S. (2010, July 19). Fund new Victorian era. Herald Sun. Retrieved from http://www.heraldsun.com.au/

• Newspaper articles (print):

Author, A. (year, date). Article title. Newspaper. pp. page number

Parker, K. (2008, December 3). Plea for languages. Koori Mail, pp. 19-20

• Conference papers:

Author, A. (year, month). Title. Paper presented at Conference title, Location, Country.

Liu, C., Wu, D., Fan, J., & Nauta, M. M. (2008, November). Does job complexity predict job strains? Paper presented at the 8th Biannual Conference of the European Academy of Occupational Health Psychology, Valencia, Spain.

• Organisational publications/Grey literature:

Organisation. (year). Title. Series/publication number. Retrieved from (if online)

World Bank. (2008). Textbooks and school library provision in secondary education in Sub-Saharan Africa (World Bank Working Paper No. 126. Africa Human Development Series). Retrieved from EBL database.

• Theses and dissertations:

Author, A. A. (year). Thesis title (Doctoral dissertation, Institution, location). DOI: http://dx.doi.org/xx.xxxxxxxx

Murray, B. P. (2008). Prior knowledge, two teaching approaches for metacognition: Main idea and summarization strategies in reading (Doctoral dissertation, Fordham University, New York)

• Webpages / PDFs:

Author, A. A. (year). Title of work. Retrieved month day, year, from source.

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. (2011). Australia's health 2004. Retrieved from http://www.aihw.gov.au/publications/index.cfm/title/10014

Submission Preparation Checklist

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.

1. The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
2. Any third-party-owned materials used have been identified with appropriate credit lines, and permission obtained from the copyright holder for all formats of the journal.
3. All authors qualify as authors, as per the authorship guidelines, and have given permission to be listed on the submitted paper.
4. The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines, which is found in About the Journal. The author acknowledges that they are responsible for blinding their files, should they wish to pursue a blind peer review process.
5. Tables are all cited in the main text and are included within the text document.
6. Figures are all cited in the main text and are uploaded as supplementary files. Figures/images have a resolution of at least 150dpi (300dpi or above preferred). The files are in one of the following formats: JPG, TIFF, GIF, PNG, EPS (to maximise quality, the original source file is preferred).
7. Links have been provided to publicly available data, or it has been indicated in the acknowledgements how the data might be obtained. If the data cannot be shared, justification has been stated in the acknowledgements

Copyright Notice

1. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
3. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).

Privacy Statement

Publication Fees

The European Society for Cognitive Psychology (ESCoP) is committed to ensuring that professional cognition research is accessible to the public. To make this possible, we need to ask an Article Processing Fee (APC) from authors. The regular APC is €1150 per published article, although this may be reduced, as below.

The Journal of Cognition differs from many other open-access journals in that it is run by an academic society, not by a private publisher. Any surplus income generated through the APC is used entirely for scientific purposes. Some of the APC serves to cover the cost for the services needed to create a professional product, with the journal's publisher receiving €565 per publication. This ensures the availability of professional copy-editing and type-setting services, continuous archiving of published articles, DOI management and assistance in promoting the research so that its impact is maximized. ESCoP uses the remainder for advancing cognitive psychology. This includes ensuring the quality of the contents of the Journal of Cognition by securing an expert editorial team to handle the peer review process and covering APCs for certain kinds of articles (e.g., invited content, Special Research Themes, Commentaries, etc.), as well as sponsoring workshops and summer schools.

Reduced APCs
From mid May 2017 until the end of 2017, corresponding authors who have registered as reviewers in our system shall receive a €100 discount on their own article processing charge. From 2018, corresponding authors who have completed a peer review for the Journal of Cognition within the 12 months before they submit their article shall receive a discount of €100. Corresponding authors who are associate or full members of ESCoP receive a discount of €150. These discounts may be combined (i.e., corresponding authors who have reviewed and are current members pay only €900).

Waivers
If you do not have funds available to pay the APC (eg because your institution/funder will not cover the fee) then we may be able to offer a discount or full waiver. Please ensure that you contact the editor prior to submission, should you need to discuss waiver options or the APC in general.