Manuscript Guidelines


Manuscript Preparation
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Submission Checklist


Manuscript Preparation

When preparing your manuscript for submission to Social Behavior and Personality, please keep these guidelines in mind.

Articles published in SBP Journal follow the style outlined in the APA Publication Manual (7th ed.), which is available online at https://apastyle.apa.org/ and can be found in most institutional libraries. We use US English spelling, as found in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary.

Word document format: Our preferred style is 12-point Times New Roman font, with 1.5 spacing. Recommended length of the title is ~12 words, the abstract ~150 words, and the full text between 3,000 and 8,000 words. Give a minimum of four keywords to assist with discoverability of the published article.

The level of English expression should be high. We encourage nonnative English speakers to have their manuscript edited (preferably by a professional editing service) prior to submission.

Prepare three to five short sentences highlighting the main findings of your research, to appear as article highlights for readers of the published article. More information and an example previously published by SBP can be downloaded here.

Ensure that ethical considerations have been followed in your research (especially regarding privacy and consent) and include full statements about ethics approval and voluntary participation and consent of participants.

Ready to Submit?

Here are the separate files or documentation you will need to have ready for the submission process:

  1. Main manuscript file: this should contain no identifying author information, but will contain the title, abstract, keywords, article highlights, full text, references, tables/figures, and appendices.
  2. Title page: please include here the names, affiliations, contributions (using CRediT), and unique email addresses of all authors. Include conflicts of interest, funding sources, a data availability statement, and other acknowledgments. Provide the names, emails, and affiliations of three potential reviewers.
  3. Dataset: you may be required to provide your raw dataset (as a .sav or .csv file, with clearly labeled variables) or give a link to its location in an open data repository. We recommend that this is done during submission in all cases, as best practice.
  4. Ethical approval: give documentation to show that all necessary ethical approval has been obtained.
  5. Certificate of editing: if your paper has been edited by an English editing service, please include this documentation.

Submission Checklist