For Authors

Vision

To expand the field of psychology in the domains of sport, exercise, and performance by providing the student community a unique and inspiring platform to engage and disseminate rigorous scholarship.

Mission

Journal for Advancing Sport Psychology in Research (JASPR) aims to expand the field of psychology in the domains of sport, exercise, and performance by publishing rigorous scholarship for students, academics, researchers, and applied practitioners. Specifically, JASPR provides students and early-career professionals aspiring to develop their scholarship skills with innovative opportunities to participate as authors, reviewers, and editorial board members within a mentored publishing infrastructure.

Scope

JASPR is a peer reviewed academic publication focused on rigorous undergraduate and graduate student-led scholarly work. Submissions include primary and secondary, basic, applied, and developmental research using qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methodologies. Submissions can expand across a range of psychological topics in the domains of sport, exercise, and performance.

For an audiovisual introduction to JASPR, click here.

Pre-Submission Guidelines and Processes

Declaration of Adhering to Ethical Standards
Submission to the journal implies that the work described meets all ethical publication standards and guidelines as outlined in the APA manual, 7th edition. Authors must declare that their submission fully follows these ethical guidelines and, where necessary, has received the approval of their home universities ethics committee. For a review of major changes between the 6th and 7th edition, click here.

Authors must also declare that their work is original, has not been published previously, and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere (except in the form of an abstract, public lecture, or academic thesis). Additionally, authors must also declare that the submitted work was carried out by themselves, although supervision from an academic supervisor is highly recommended. These declarations must cover the submission itself and the data used within the submission.

All authors must disclose any financial and/or personal relationships with any individual or entity that could inappropriately influence their work. These relationships must be disclosed in the title page, with all author identifiers blinded during initial submission. Examples of competing interests that must be disclosed include employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership, grants, or other funding. Disclosures of interest will be published, if the article is accepted. If this does not apply, authors must state that there are no conflicts of interest in the title page.

Use of Bias-Free Language
Author(s) should use affirming and inclusive language in their manuscripts. Such language acknowledges diversity, conveys respect for all people, and is sensitive to differences. Authors should not perpetuate demeaning attitudes through language that may imply prejudicial beliefs based on age, disability, gender, participation in research, racial or ethnic identity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, or some combination of these or other personal factors. For more information see APA manual, 7th edition, pages 131–149.

Author Contributions
Transparency is required in regard to author contributions. In line with the mission of the journal, the first author of each manuscript, at the time of submission, must either: (a) be a student, or (b) be within the first two years following completion of all requirements for a master’s or doctoral degree from an accredited institution in a field related to sport, exercise, and performance psychology.

All authors are expected to have made substantive contributions to the drafting or revising of the manuscript. These contributions should be clearly identified and submitted following the CRediT roles. For more information, click here. Authors are also encouraged to read the APA guidance on determing and negotiating authorship.

Authors should carefully consider the list and order of authors prior to submitting. Deletion or rearrangement of author names in the authorship list should be made before a manuscript has been accepted and only if approved by the Editor-in-Chief and Junior Editor-in-Chief. To request such a change, the Editor-in-Chief must receive an e-mail from the corresponding author outlining the reason for change, as well as written confirmation from all authors that they agree with addition, removal, or rearrangement of authors. Once an article has been accepted, no author changes will be accepted.

Submission Guidelines and Processes

Language
All manuscripts must be submitted in English. American or British spelling and punctuation are acceptable, provided authors apply the style consistently throughout the manuscript.

Required Manuscript Font Style & Size
The official font style and font size of the journal is Calibri, 11-point font. All manuscripts must be submitted in this style and size.

Required Line Numbering
All manuscripts must have continuous line numbers. See here how to add continuous line numbers to your manuscript.

Manuscript Length
All manuscripts should be written as concisely as possible. Quantitative manuscripts must be maximum of 25 pages and qualitative/mixed-method research maximum of 35 pages in length inclusive of title page, abstract, main body of manuscript, references, footnotes, tables, and figures. Longer submissions may be allowed, upon the Editor-in-Chief’s discretion; reasoning for exceeding the page limit should be clearly articulated and justified in the cover letter.

Required Paper Elements
All submissions should include the following:
• Cover Letter
• CRediT Role Statement (enable pop-up)
• Submission Checklist (enable pop-up)
• Title Page (Blinded with No Identifying Features)
• Running Head
• Abstract
• Keywords
• Text (Main Body Of Manuscript, Including Continuous Line Numbers)
• Headings
• In-Text Citations
• Quotations
• References
• Footnotes (As Needed)
• Tables
• Figures

Authors are referred to APA’s Sample Professional Paper as an illustrative guide to required paper elements and formatting. For the ease of reviewing, please also add continuous line numbers to your manuscript.

Cover Letter
Authors must submit a cover letter as a separate file accompanying their manuscript. The cover letter should include the length of the manuscript and the number of figures and tables included.

The cover letter should also confirm the authorship order, assurances that the corresponding author will take responsibility for notifying co-authors in a timely manner in relation to any correspondence received during the review process, notice of any conflicts of interest, and verification that the research received ethical approval from a university ethics board when applicable. Permission to use any copyrighted material must also be indicated. The corresponding author’s e-mail address and telephone number should be included for further correspondence.

CRediT Role Statement
Authors must submit a CRediT Role Statement as a separate file accompanying their manuscript. All authors are expected to have made substantive contributions to the drafting or revising of the manuscript in different CRediT roles: conceptualization; data curation; formal analysis; funding acquisition; investigation; methodology; project administration; resources; software; supervision; validation; visualization; writing – original draft; writing – review & editing. For more information, click here. You can download JASPR CRediT Role Statement template here. (enable pop-up)

Submission Checklist
The Submission Checklist must be included as a separate file accompanying the manuscript. The corresponding author must sign the submission checklist in acknowledgement that all required elements are included in the submission. Failure to do so will result in a desk rejection. You can download JASPR Submission Checklist template here. (enable pop-up)

Title Page (Blinded with No Identifying Features)
Your title should be concise and informative. Avoid abbreviation and formulae where possible. Consistent with APA Style, 7th edition, the title page should include a proper running head (read more below) and page number beginning with the number 1. The title page must not contain any author identifying features (i.e., there should be no author byline or institutional affiliation listed, or any other identifying information). This will help facilitate the double-blind review process.

Running Head
A running head should be included in the header of the manuscript (flush left). The running head should be an abbreviated version of the title. The running head should be the same on every page of the manuscript, including the title page.

Abstract
Each manuscript should include a concise and factual abstract that briefly provides an overview of the purpose of the research, the principal results, and major conclusions. References should be avoided unless essential. The abstract should appear on its own page following the title page, have the heading “Abstract” bolded, and be a single paragraph of no more than 250 words.

Keywords
Following the abstract, a minimum of three, and maximum of five, keywords should be included from terms not used in the title of the manuscript. Keywords are words, phrases, or acronyms that describe the most important aspects and essential elements of your paper. They are used to help facilitate the indexing of your manuscript and make it discoverable by online databases. The label ‘Keywords’ should be written in italicized form (i.e., Keywords) one line below the abstract followed by the keywords in lowercase. Keywords should be separated by a comma, but no punctuation should appear after the final keyword. Should the keywords run onto a second line, the second line should not be indented.

Text (Main Body of Manuscript)
Authors are encouraged to review APA’s Journal Article Reporting Standards (JARS), when preparing the manuscript, which provide guidelines on what should be included, at a minimum, when preparing a manuscript. For more information, click here.

Following JARS ensures scientific rigor and methodological integrity, while also improving writing quality and facilitating reader comprehension. The main text of the manuscript should begin on a new page after the abstract. On the first line of the text, write the title of the paper in title case, bold, and centered. The text should be left aligned, double spaced, with the first line of each paragraph indented by one-tab key.

Generally, each manuscript should then begin with an introduction (do not include an introduction heading). The introduction of the paper should address the importance of the contribution by contextualizing the work within the current literature and stating the aims of the work. Following the introduction, the paper may be broken down into sections. These may include (but are not limited to) a section outlining: method, results/findings, and discussion. Within each section you may also choose to include subheadings. Headings should be used to separate sections and reflect the organization structure of the content. Authors are strongly encouraged to read and follow the guidance provided by Teufell et al. (2014).

Headings
Following the APA 7th edition guidelines, the following heading styles should be used:

LEVEL 1 Centered, Bold, Title Case Heading
Text begins as a new paragraph.
LEVEL 2 Flush Left, Bold, Title Case Heading
Text begins as a new paragraph.
LEVEL 3 Flush Left, Bold Italic, Title Case Heading
Text begins as a new paragraph.
LEVEL 4 Indented, Bold, Title Case Heading, Ending with a Period. Text begins on the same line and continues as a regular paragraph.
LEVEL 5 Indented, Bold Italic, Title Case Heading, Ending with a Period. Text begins on the same line and continues as a regular paragraph.

Do not start a new page or add extra line breaks when a new heading occurs.
For further information, consult the APA 7th Edition, section 2.27, Table 2.3 and figure 2.4, page 48.

In-Text Citations
In-text references should follow the guidelines outlined in the APA 7th Edition manual. All references should follow the author-date citation system.

Parenthetical citations can appear within, or at the end, of a sentence. Author and date should be separated by a comma. If appearing at the end of the sentence, the punctuation should follow the closing parenthesis. Example: Mentoring programs may lead to students’ personal and professional development (Watson et al., 2009).

Narrative citations are used for information incorporated into the text of a sentence. The author(s)’s name appears in the running text and the date appears in parentheses immediately after the author(s)’ name. Example: Watson and colleagues (2009) suggest the development of mentoring programs within SEP programs to help improve students’ personal and professional development.

In-text citations with one or two authors should include each authors surname in every citation.

In-text citations with three more authors should include only the first author plus “et al.” in every citation including the first. The only case in which this should not be done is if there is more than one citation with the same authorship order, in which case the authors should be listed until citations can be distinguished from one another. If the authorship order and year of multiple sources are identical, abide by the above rule by including the first author plus “et al.” and add a lowercase letter after the year. The letter order should reflect the order in which sources appear as references.

To maintain integrity of the masked peer review process, authors should refrain from using first person (I, my, we, our) when referring to a study conducted by the author(s) (e.g., “As we have discussed previously (Smith et al., 2011)”). Instead, in-text citations to the authors’ work should be framed in third person (e.g., “As discussed by Smith et al. (2011)”).

For further information, consult the APA In-Text Citation Style table, Table 8.1, page 266.

Quotations
Quotations that are fewer than 40 words should be incorporated into the text and enclosed with double quotations. A parenthetical citation must follow a direct quotation either immediately following the quotation or at the end of the sentence.

Block quotations (i.e., direct quotations 40 words or longer) should begin on a new, indented line. The whole block of the quote should be indented. Do not add extra space before or after the quotation. Block quotations may be cited in two ways: (a) directly after the quotation’s final punctuation, or (b) with the author and year cited narratively preceding the block quotation and only the page number in parentheses following the final punctuation. The page number(s) from which quotations are drawn from should be included within the parenthetical citation, following a comma after the date.

For further information, consult the APA 7th Edition, sections 8.23 – 8.36, pages 269–278.

References
The reference list at the end of the manuscript should provide the information necessary to identify and retrieve each work cited in text. Reference material judiciously, choosing only material that is necessary to support the ideas, concepts, and claims made within the manuscript. The reference list should begin on a new page, following the text of the manuscript.

The title “References” should be in bold and centered at the top of the page. Reference list entries should be order alphabetically by first author’s surname. Double space the entire reference list. The first line of each reference should be flush left, with every following line indented (i.e., a hanging indent). Use the paragraph-formatting function to apply the hanging indent. Each reference should include the following elements: (a) author, (b) date, (c) title and (d) source.

For further information consult the APA 7th Edition, sections 9 and 10, pages 279–352.

Footnotes (As Needed)
For information on footnotes, consult APA 7th Edition, section 2.13, pages 40-41.

Tables
Tables should be designed as integral to the text, but also concise and able to be understood in isolation. Tables should be logically laid out so that meaning is obvious at a glance. Tables should include:
• A table number at the top in bold font
• Title below the table number in italic title case
• Headings
• Body which may be single spaced, one-and-a-half space, or double spaced
• Notes that refer to general, specific, or probability information. These appear below the table and are used to describe information that cannot be gleaned from the title or body.

For further information, consult the APA 7th Edition, sections 7.8 – 7.21, pages 199-209 or click here for a quick tutorial on how to create an APA formatted table.

Figures
All types of graphical information (other than tables) should be included as figures. Figures should contribute substantively to readers’ understanding and not duplicate written information. A good figure is easy to understand and read, carefully planned, and produced in a similar style to other accompanying figures.
Each figure should include:
• A figure number above the figure and in bold font
• A figure title one double-spaced line below the figure number in italic title case
• The image
• A figure legend or key (if needed, should be positioned within the figure)
• Notes that refer to general, specific, or probability information.

For further information consult the APA 7th Edition, sections 7.22 – 7.36, pages 225-234.

Post-Submission Guidelines and Processes

Peer Review
JASPR is committed to a peer review integrity and upholding the highest standards of review. After your paper has been assessed for suitability by the Editor-in-Chief and Junior Editor-in-Chief, a minimum of two independent and anonymous expert referees (i.e., one graduate student and one professional) will be solicited for a double-blind review.

Authors are responsible for the preparation of manuscripts to permit blind peer review. Every effort should be made to ensure that the manuscript contains no clues to the authors’ identities, including acknowledgments, institutional information, mention of a specific city, and easily identifiable self-references. Information that might identify the author(s) should be omitted or highlighted in black.

Following the peer review process the Editor-in-Chief and Junior Editor-in-Chief will notify the corresponding author of one of three outcomes:

1. Reject
2. Revise and resubmit
3. Accept

Responding to Reviews
When responding to the reviews, please follow the guidance below:

1. Format your responses similarly to the sample JASPR Response to Reviewers Template. Make sure your responses follow both the instructions and the format provided.
2. Make sure you create ONE response table for each review separately, but submit them as ONE document.
3. Ensure all revisions made to the manuscript document are formatted in bold. The resubmitted manuscript should not contain any track changes or comments.
4. Submit a revised Cover Letter. Instructions on what to include in the Cover Letter are outlined above in the submission guidelines.
5. In case of changes in authorship and/or authorship order, complete and submit a revised CRediT Role Statement.

Upon Acceptance
Once a manuscript has been accepted, corresponding authors will be sent proofs of the article. To ensure a fast publication process authors will be expected to return their proof corrections within one week. Instructions for how proofs corrections must be completed will be provided to the corresponding author. The proof-checking process is used solely for checking the typesetting, editing, completeness, and correctness of the text, tables, and figures. Significant changes to the article, at this stage, will only be considered with permission from the Editor-in-Chief.

For more details on submission guidelines, please see JASPR Author Handbook.

To view a diagram of JASPR’s publication process, please click here.

For an audiovisual introduction to peer review process at JASPR, click here.

To find out more about how to get involved with JASPR, click here.

Copyright 2020 Journal for Advancing Sport Psychology in Research