Guide for Authors
Psychology of Sport and Exercise is an international forum for scholarly reports in
the psychology of sport and exercise, broadly defined. Manuscripts will be considered for publication which deal with high quality research
and comprehensive research reviews. The journal is open to the use of diverse methodological approaches. Reports of professional practice
will need to demonstrate academic rigour, preferably through analysis of programme effectiveness, and go beyond mere description.
Ethics in publishing
For information on Ethics in publishing
and Ethical guidelines for journal publication see
http://www.elsevier.com/publishingethics and
http://www.elsevier.com/ethicalguidelines.
Conflict of interest
All authors are requested to disclose any actual or potential conflict of interest including
any financial, personal or other relationships with other people or organizations within three years of beginning the submitted work
that could inappropriately influence, or be perceived to influence, their work. See also
http://www.elsevier.com/conflictsofinterest.
Submission declaration
Submission of an article implies that the work described has not been published previously
(except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis), that it is not under consideration for publication
elsewhere, that its publication is approved by all authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was
carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere including electronically in the same form, in English or in any
other language, without the written consent of the copyright-holder.
Submission also implies that the
work described meets all ethical publication standards and follows the latest guidelines of the APA manual, edition VI (for a short version
see
http://www.apa.org/pubs/authors/openletter.pdf). The authors must declare that the submission fully follows these ethical
guidelines, and where appropriate, has received the approval of an ethics committee. Authors also must declare that their work is original,
it has not been published previously, and that is not under consideration for publication elsewhere. This declaration covers the submission
itself or the data used or samples (or relevant parts of them).
As an exception, there are circumstances in which already published
data (or parts of them) or samples (or parts of them) can be used again in a submission to PSE (e.g., re-analysis with a new method that
provides new interpretations of the original data). In such cases, this has to be declared within the letter to the editor and has to
be mentioned within the submission (with a sufficient discussion of how the new submission differs/advances knowledge compared to the
published paper). The editors will then decide whether this submission represents sufficiently original work before it is sent out for
peer review. Failing to declare the published paper will result in an automatic rejection of the submitted manuscript.
Changes to authorship
This policy concerns the addition, deletion, or rearrangement of author names in the
authorship of accepted manuscripts:
Before the accepted manuscript is published in an online issue: Requests to add or remove
an author, or to rearrange the author names, must be sent to the Journal Manager from the corresponding author of the accepted manuscript
and must include: (a) the reason the name should be added or removed, or the author names rearranged and (b) written confirmation (e-mail,
fax, letter) from all authors that they agree with the addition, removal or rearrangement. In the case of addition or removal of authors,
this includes confirmation from the author being added or removed. Requests that are not sent by the corresponding author will be forwarded
by the Journal Manager to the corresponding author, who must follow the procedure as described above. Note that: (1) Journal Managers
will inform the Journal Editors of any such requests and (2) publication of the accepted manuscript in an online issue is suspended until
authorship has been agreed.
After the accepted manuscript is published in an online issue: Any requests to add, delete, or
rearrange author names in an article published in an online issue will follow the same policies as noted above and result in a corrigendum.
Copyright
Upon acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to complete a 'Journal Publishing Agreement'
(for more information on this and copyright see
http://www.elsevier.com/copyright). Acceptance of the agreement will ensure
the widest possible dissemination of information. An e-mail will be sent to the corresponding author confirming receipt of the manuscript
together with a 'Journal Publishing Agreement' form or a link to the online version of this agreement.
Subscribers may reproduce
tables of contents or prepare lists of articles including abstracts for internal circulation within their institutions. Permission of
the Publisher is required for resale or distribution outside the institution and for all other derivative works, including compilations
and translations (please consult
http://www.elsevier.com/permissions). If excerpts from other copyrighted works are included,
the author(s) must obtain written permission from the copyright owners and credit the source(s) in the article. Elsevier has preprinted
forms for use by authors in these cases: please consult
http://www.elsevier.com/permissions.
Retained
author rights
As an author you (or your employer or institution) retain certain rights; for details you are referred to:
http://www.elsevier.com/authorsrights.
Role of the funding source
You are requested
to identify who provided financial support for the conduct of the research and/or preparation of the article and to briefly describe
the role of the sponsor(s), if any, in study design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report;
and in the decision to submit the article for publication. If the funding source(s) had no such involvement then this should be stated.
Please see
http://www.elsevier.com/funding.
Funding body agreements and policies
Elsevier
has established agreements and developed policies to allow authors whose articles appear in journals published by Elsevier, to comply
with potential manuscript archiving requirements as specified as conditions of their grant awards. To learn more about existing agreements
and policies please visit
http://www.elsevier.com/fundingbodies.
Open access
This
journal offers you the option of making your article freely available to all via the ScienceDirect platform. To prevent any conflict
of interest, you can only make this choice after receiving notification that your article has been accepted for publication. The fee
of $3,000 excludes taxes and other potential author fees such as color charges. In some cases, institutions and funding bodies have entered
into agreement with Elsevier to meet these fees on behalf of their authors. Details of these agreements are available at
http://www.elsevier.com/fundingbodies.
Authors of accepted articles, who wish to take advantage of this option, should complete and submit the order form (available at
http://www.elsevier.com/locate/openaccessform.pdf).
Whatever access option you choose, you retain many rights as an author, including the right to post a revised personal version of your
article on your own website. More information can be found here:
http://www.elsevier.com/authorsrights.
Language and language services
Please write your text in good English (American or British usage is accepted,
but not a mixture of these). Authors who require information about language editing and copyediting services pre- and post-submission
please visit
http://webshop.elsevier.com/languageservices
or our customer support site at
http://support.elsevier.com
for more information.
Submission
Submission to this journal proceeds totally online and
you will be guided stepwise through the creation and uploading of your files. The system automatically converts source files to a single
PDF file of the article, which is used in the peer-review process. Please note that even though manuscript source files are converted
to PDF files at submission for the review process, these source files are needed for further processing after acceptance. All correspondence,
including notification of the Editor's decision and requests for revision, takes place by e-mail removing the need for a paper trail.
Additional Information
If you wish to contact one of the Editors-in-Chief for any reason, (e.g. becoming a
reviewer, interest in joining editorial board, issue about journal policy) please email Nikolaos Ntoumanis at
n.ntoumanis@bham.ac.uk.
Manuscripts should be prepared following the general style guidelines set forth
in the
Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th Edition, July 2009). All manuscripts should be presented
as concisely as possible, and our preference is to receive manuscripts that are 30 pages in length or less including references, tables
and figures. For longer manuscripts, authors should contact the Editor-in-Chief prior to submission with a clear justification for the
need for a longer manuscript. The editors will also consider brief reports and research notes for publication and such submissions should
be a maximum of 14 pages including abstract (150 words max for brief reports and short notes), main text, references, tables and figures
Language
Authors who require information about language editing and copyediting services pre- and post-submission
please visit
http://www.elsevier.com/languagepolishing or contact
authorsupport@elsevier.com for more information.
Please note Elsevier neither endorses nor takes responsibility for any products, goods or services offered by outside vendors through
our services or in any advertising. For more information please refer to our Terms & Conditions:
http://www.elsevier.com/termsandconditions.
Use of wordprocessing software
It is important that the file be saved in the native format of the wordprocessor
used. The text should be in single-column format. Keep the layout of the text as simple as possible. Most formatting codes will be removed
and replaced on processing the article. In particular, do not use the wordprocessor's options to justify text or to hyphenate words.
However, do use bold face, italics, subscripts, superscripts etc. When preparing tables, if you are using a table grid, use only one
grid for each individual table and not a grid for each row. If no grid is used, use tabs, not spaces, to align columns. The electronic
text should be prepared in a way very similar to that of conventional manuscripts (see also the Guide to Publishing with Elsevier:
http://www.elsevier.com/guidepublication).
Note that source files of figures, tables and text graphics will be required whether or not you embed your figures in the text. See also
the section on Electronic artwork.
To avoid unnecessary errors you are strongly advised to use the 'spell-check' and 'grammar-check'
functions of your wordprocessor.
Article structure
Subdivision
Divide
your article into clearly defined sections. Each subsection is given a brief heading as follows: Abstract, Introduction, Method, Results,
and Discussion for empirical articles and Abstract, Introduction, Approach, Findings, and Discussion for theoretical/review articles.
Each heading should appear on its own separate line. Subsections should be used as much as possible when cross-referencing text: refer
to the subsection by heading as opposed to simply "the text".
Introduction
State the objectives
of the work and provide an adequate background, avoiding a detailed literature survey or a summary of the results.
Material and methods
Provide sufficient detail to allow the work to be reproduced. Methods already published
should be indicated by a reference: only relevant modifications should be described.
Theory/calculation
A
Theory section should extend, not repeat, the background to the article already dealt with in the Introduction and lay the foundation
for further work. In contrast, a Calculation section represents a practical development from a theoretical basis.
Results
Please
include effect sizes and confidence intervals.
Discussion
This should explore the significance
of the results of the work, not repeat them. A combined Results and Discussion section is often appropriate. Avoid extensive citations
and discussion of published literature.
Conclusions
The main conclusions of the study may
be presented in a short Conclusions section, which may stand alone or form a subsection of a Discussion or Results and Discussion section.
Appendices
If there is more than one appendix, they should be identified as A, B, etc. Formulae and equations
in appendices should be given separate numbering: Eq. (A.1), Eq. (A.2), etc.; in a subsequent appendix, Eq. (B.1) and so on. Similarly
for tables and figures: Table A.1; Fig. A.1, etc.
Essential title page information
•
Title.
Concise and informative. Titles are often used in information-retrieval systems. Avoid abbreviations and formulae
where possible.
•
Author names and affiliations.
Where the family name may be ambiguous (e.g., a double name),
please indicate this clearly. Present the authors' affiliation addresses (where the actual work was done) below the names. Indicate all
affiliations with a lower-case superscript letter immediately after the author's name and in front of the appropriate address. Provide
the full postal address of each affiliation, including the country name and, if available, the e-mail address of each author.
•
Corresponding author.
Clearly indicate who will handle correspondence at all stages of refereeing and publication, also
post-publication.
Ensure that telephone and fax numbers (with country and area code) are provided in addition to the e-mail address
and the complete postal address. Contact details must be kept up to date by the corresponding author.
•
Present/permanent
address.
If an author has moved since the work described in the article was done, or was visiting at the time, a 'Present address'
(or 'Permanent address') may be indicated as a footnote to that author's name. The address at which the author actually did the work
must be retained as the main, affiliation address. Superscript Arabic numerals are used for such footnotes.
Abstract
The
journal uses a structured abstract with the following subheadings: Objectives, Design, Method, Results, and Conclusions. Abstracts should
not exceed 250 words (150 words for brief reports and short notes).
Graphical abstract
A
Graphical abstract is optional and should summarize the contents of the article in a concise, pictorial form designed to capture the
attention of a wide readership online. Authors must provide images that clearly represent the work described in the article. Graphical
abstracts should be submitted as a separate file in the online submission system. Image size: Please provide an image with a minimum
of 531 × 1328 pixels (h × w) or proportionally more. The image should be readable at a size of 5 × 13 cm using a regular
screen resolution of 96 dpi. Preferred file types: TIFF, EPS, PDF or MS Office files. See
http://www.elsevier.com/graphicalabstracts
for examples.
Authors can make use of Elsevier's Illustration and Enhancement service to ensure the best presentation of their images
also in accordance with all technical requirements:
Illustration
Service.
Highlights
Highlights are mandatory for this journal. They consist
of a short collection of bullet points that convey the core findings of the article and should be submitted in a separate file in the
online submission system. Please use 'Highlights' in the file name and include 3 to 5 bullet points (maximum 85 characters, including
spaces, per bullet point). See
http://www.elsevier.com/highlights for examples.
Keywords
Immediately
after the abstract, provide a maximum of 6 keywords, using American spelling and avoiding general and plural terms and multiple concepts
(avoid, for example, 'and', 'of'). Be sparing with abbreviations: only abbreviations firmly established in the field may be eligible.
These keywords will be used for indexing purposes.
Abbreviations
Define abbreviations that
are not standard in this field in a footnote to be placed on the first page of the article. Such abbreviations that are unavoidable in
the abstract must be defined at their first mention there, as well as in the footnote. Ensure consistency of abbreviations throughout
the article.
Acknowledgements
Collate acknowledgements in a separate section at the end
of the article before the references and do not, therefore, include them on the title page, as a footnote to the title or otherwise.
List here those individuals who provided help during the research (e.g., providing language help, writing assistance or proof reading
the article, etc.).
Math formulae
Present simple formulae in the line of normal text where
possible and use the solidus (/) instead of a horizontal line for small fractional terms, e.g., X/Y. In principle, variables are to be
presented in italics. Powers of e are often more conveniently denoted by exp. Number consecutively any equations that have to be displayed
separately from the text (if referred to explicitly in the text).
Footnotes
Footnotes should
be used sparingly. Number them consecutively throughout the article, using superscript Arabic numbers. Many wordprocessors build footnotes
into the text, and this feature may be used. Should this not be the case, indicate the position of footnotes in the text and present
the footnotes themselves separately at the end of the article. Do not include footnotes in the Reference list.
Table footnotes
Indicate each footnote in a table with a superscript lowercase letter.
Artwork
Electronic
artwork
General points
• Make sure you use uniform lettering and sizing of your original artwork.
•
Save text in illustrations as 'graphics' or enclose the font.
• Only use the following fonts in your illustrations: Arial, Courier,
Times, Symbol.
• Number the illustrations according to their sequence in the text.
• Use a logical naming convention
for your artwork files.
• Provide captions to illustrations separately.
• Produce images near to the desired size of
the printed version.
• Submit each figure as a separate file.
A detailed guide on electronic artwork is available on our
website:
http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions
You are urged to visit this site; some excerpts from the
detailed information are given here.
Formats
Regardless of the application used, when your electronic artwork is
finalised, please 'save as' or convert the images to one of the following formats (note the resolution requirements for line drawings,
halftones, and line/halftone combinations given below):
EPS: Vector drawings. Embed the font or save the text as 'graphics'.
TIFF:
Color or grayscale photographs (halftones): always use a minimum of 300 dpi.
TIFF: Bitmapped line drawings: use a minimum of 1000
dpi.
TIFF: Combinations bitmapped line/half-tone (color or grayscale): a minimum of 500 dpi is required.
If your electronic artwork
is created in a Microsoft Office application (Word, PowerPoint, Excel) then please supply 'as is'.
Please do not:
•
Supply files that are optimised for screen use (e.g., GIF, BMP, PICT, WPG); the resolution is too low;
• Supply files that are
too low in resolution;
• Submit graphics that are disproportionately large for the content.
Color
artwork
Please make sure that artwork files are in an acceptable format (TIFF, EPS or MS Office files) and with the correct
resolution. If, together with your accepted article, you submit usable color figures then Elsevier will ensure, at no additional charge,
that these figures will appear in color on the Web (e.g., ScienceDirect and other sites) regardless of whether or not these illustrations
are reproduced in color in the printed version.
For color reproduction in print, you will receive information regarding the costs
from Elsevier after receipt of your accepted article. Please indicate your preference for color: in print or on the Web only. For
further information on the preparation of electronic artwork, please see
http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions.
Please
note: Because of technical complications which can arise by converting color figures to 'gray scale' (for the printed version should
you not opt for color in print) please submit in addition usable black and white versions of all the color illustrations.
Tables
Number tables consecutively in accordance with their appearance in the text. Place footnotes to tables
below the table body and indicate them with superscript lowercase letters. Avoid vertical rules. Be sparing in the use of tables and
ensure that the data presented in tables do not duplicate results described elsewhere in the article.
References
Citation in text
Please ensure that every reference cited in the text is also present in the reference list
(and vice versa). Any references cited in the abstract must be given in full. Unpublished results and personal communications are not
recommended in the reference list, but may be mentioned in the text. If these references are included in the reference list they should
follow the standard reference style of the journal and should include a substitution of the publication date with either 'Unpublished
results' or 'Personal communication'. Citation of a reference as 'in press' implies that the item has been accepted for publication.
Web references
As a minimum, the full URL should be given and the date when the reference was last accessed.
Any further information, if known (DOI, author names, dates, reference to a source publication, etc.), should also be given. Web references
can be listed separately (e.g., after the reference list) under a different heading if desired, or can be included in the reference list.
References in a special issue
Please ensure that the words 'this issue' are added to any references in the
list (and any citations in the text) to other articles in the same Special Issue.
Reference management
software
This journal has standard templates available in key reference management packages EndNote (
http://www.endnote.com/support/enstyles.asp)
and Reference Manager (
http://refman.com/support/rmstyles.asp). Using plug-ins to wordprocessing packages, authors only
need to select the appropriate journal template when preparing their article and the list of references and citations to these will be
formatted according to the journal style which is described below.
Reference style
Text:
Citations in the text should follow the referencing style used by the American Psychological Associationm 6th Edition. You are referred
to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, Sixth Edition, ISBN 978-1-4338-0561-5, copies of which may be ordered
from
http://books.apa.org/books.cfm?id=4200067.
List: references should be arranged first alphabetically and then further
sorted chronologically if necessary. More than one reference from the same author(s) in the same year must be identified by the letters
'a', 'b', 'c', etc., placed after the year of publication.
Examples:
Reference to a journal publication:
Woodman, T.,
Akehurst, S., Hardy, L., & Beattie, S. (2010). Self-confidence and performance: A little self-doubt helps.
Psychology of Sport
and Exercise, 11(6), 467-470. doi:10.1016/j.psychsport.2010.05.009
Van der Geer, J., Hanraads, J. A. J., & Lupton, R. A.
(2010). The art of writing a scientific article.
Journal of Scientific Communications, 163, 51-59.
Reference to a book:
Strunk, W., Jr., & White, E. B. (1979).
The elements of style. (4th ed.). New York: Longman, (Chapter 4).
Reference
to a chapter in an edited book:
Mettam, G. R., & Adams, L. B. (2009). How to prepare an electronic version of your article.
In B. S. Jones, & R. Z. Smith (Eds.),
Introduction to the electronic age (pp. 281-304). New York: E-Publishing Inc.
Video data
Elsevier accepts video material and animation sequences to support and enhance your scientific
research. Authors who have video or animation files that they wish to submit with their article are strongly encouraged to include these
within the body of the article. This can be done in the same way as a figure or table by referring to the video or animation content
and noting in the body text where it should be placed. All submitted files should be properly labeled so that they directly relate to
the video file's content. In order to ensure that your video or animation material is directly usable, please provide the files in one
of our recommended file formats with a preferred maximum size of 50 MB. Video and animation files supplied will be published online in
the electronic version of your article in Elsevier Web products, including ScienceDirect:
http://www.sciencedirect.com.
Please supply 'stills' with your files: you can choose any frame from the video or animation or make a separate image. These will be
used instead of standard icons and will personalize the link to your video data. For more detailed instructions please visit our video
instruction pages at
http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions. Note: since video and animation cannot be embedded in
the print version of the journal, please provide text for both the electronic and the print version for the portions of the article that
refer to this content.
Supplementary data
Elsevier accepts electronic supplementary material
to support and enhance your scientific research. Supplementary files offer the author additional possibilities to publish supporting
applications, high-resolution images, background datasets, sound clips and more. Supplementary files supplied will be published online
alongside the electronic version of your article in Elsevier Web products, including ScienceDirect:
http://www.sciencedirect.com.
In order to ensure that your submitted material is directly usable, please provide the data in one of our recommended file formats. Authors
should submit the material in electronic format together with the article and supply a concise and descriptive caption for each file.
For more detailed instructions please visit our artwork instruction pages at
http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions.
As of 1st January 2012, authors will be required to provide supplementary material, as described below, when submitting
a manuscript via EES. If the manuscript is accepted for publication the supplementary material will be available online only and will
be listed alongside the article in ScienceDirect. The supplementary material will be peer-reviewed.
Types of supplementary
material
All authors need to provide, if not already reported in the manuscript, a correlation matrix with all variables
described in the study as well as internal reliability coefficients and other relevant item statistics that could be useful for a future
meta-analysis. This information should be provided for the overall sample reported within a study, but at the authors' discretion, it
could also be provided separately for specific sub-samples.
Additional supplementary material can be submitted at the authors'
discretion or if requested by the handling editor. Such supplementary material can be for example additional tables or figures or more
detailed information regarding a methodology.
Submission checklist
The following list
will be useful during the final checking of an article prior to sending it to the journal for review. Please consult this Guide for Authors
for further details of any item.
Ensure that the following items are present:
One author has been designated as the corresponding
author with contact details:
• E-mail address
• Full postal address
• Telephone and fax numbers
All necessary
files have been uploaded, and contain:
• Keywords
• All figure captions
• All tables (including title, description,
footnotes)
Further considerations
• Manuscript has been 'spell-checked' and 'grammar-checked'
• References are
in the correct format for this journal
• All references mentioned in the Reference list are cited in the text, and vice versa
• Permission has been obtained for use of copyrighted material from other sources (including the Web)
• Color figures
are clearly marked as being intended for color reproduction on the Web (free of charge) and in print, or to be reproduced in color on
the Web (free of charge) and in black-and-white in print
• If only color on the Web is required, black-and-white versions of
the figures are also supplied for printing purposes
For any further information please visit our customer support site at
http://support.elsevier.com.
Use of the Digital Object Identifier
The Digital Object Identifier (DOI) may be used to cite and link to electronic
documents. The DOI consists of a unique alpha-numeric character string which is assigned to a document by the publisher upon the initial
electronic publication. The assigned DOI never changes. Therefore, it is an ideal medium for citing a document, particularly 'Articles
in press' because they have not yet received their full bibliographic information. The correct format for citing a DOI is shown as follows
(example taken from a document in the journal
Physics Letters B):
doi:10.1016/j.physletb.2010.09.059
When you use the
DOI to create URL hyperlinks to documents on the web, the DOIs are guaranteed never to change.
Proofs
One
set of page proofs (as PDF files) will be sent by e-mail to the corresponding author (if we do not have an e-mail address then paper
proofs will be sent by post) or, a link will be provided in the e-mail so that authors can download the files themselves. Elsevier now
provides authors with PDF proofs which can be annotated; for this you will need to download Adobe Reader version 7 (or higher) available
free from
http://get.adobe.com/reader. Instructions on how to annotate PDF files will accompany the proofs (also given online).
The exact system requirements are given at the Adobe site:
http://www.adobe.com/products/reader/tech-specs.html.
If
you do not wish to use the PDF annotations function, you may list the corrections (including replies to the Query Form) and return them
to Elsevier in an e-mail. Please list your corrections quoting line number. If, for any reason, this is not possible, then mark the corrections
and any other comments (including replies to the Query Form) on a printout of your proof and return by fax, or scan the pages and e-mail,
or by post. Please use this proof only for checking the typesetting, editing, completeness and correctness of the text, tables and figures.
Significant changes to the article as accepted for publication will only be considered at this stage with permission from the Editor.
We will do everything possible to get your article published quickly and accurately – please let us have all your corrections within
48 hours. It is important to ensure that all corrections are sent back to us in one communication: please check carefully before replying,
as inclusion of any subsequent corrections cannot be guaranteed. Proofreading is solely your responsibility. Note that Elsevier may proceed
with the publication of your article if no response is received.
Offprints
The corresponding
author, at no cost, will be provided with a PDF file of the article via e-mail. For an extra charge, paper offprints can be ordered via
the offprint order form which is sent once the article is accepted for publication. The PDF file is a watermarked version of the published
article and includes a cover sheet with the journal cover image and a disclaimer outlining the terms and conditions of use.
For inquiries relating to the submission of articles (including electronic submission) please
visit this journal's homepage. Contact details for questions arising after acceptance of an article, especially those relating to proofs,
will be provided by the publisher. You can track accepted articles at
http://www.elsevier.com/trackarticle. You can also
check our Author FAQs (
http://www.elsevier.com/authorFAQ) and/or contact Customer Support via
http://support.elsevier.com.
