Guide for Authors
Introduction
The Journal
is an international, broadly based, cross-disciplinary, peer-reviewed journal addressing issues of professional and academic importance
to people interested in adolescent development. The Journal aims to enhance theory, research and clinical practice in adolescence through
the publication of papers concerned with the nature of adolescence, interventions to promote successful functioning during adolescence,
and the management and treatment of disorders occurring during adolescence. We welcome relevant contributions from all disciplinary areas.
For the purpose of the Journal, adolescence is considered to be the developmental period between childhood and the attainment of adult
status within a person's community and culture. As a practical matter, published articles typically focus on youth between the ages of
10 and 25. However, it is important to note that JoA focuses on adolescence as a
developmental period, and this criterion is
more important than age per se in determining whether the subject population or article is appropriate for publication.
The Journal
publishes both qualitative and quantitative research. While the majority of the articles published in the Journal are reports of empirical
research studies, the Journal also publishes reviews of the literature, when such reviews are strongly empirically based and provide
the basis for extending knowledge in the field. Authors are encouraged to read recent issues of the Journal to get a clear understanding
of style and topic range.
Types of contributions
Specific instructions for different
manuscript types
Full research articles: The majority of the articles carried in the Journal are full research articles
of up to 5000 words long. The word count relates to the body of the article. The abstract, references, tables, figures and appendices
are not included in the count. These can report the results of research (including evaluations of interventions), or be critical reviews,
meta-analyses, etc. Authors are encouraged to consult back issues of the Journal to get a sense of coverage and style, but should not
necessarily feel confined by this. Articles should clearly make a new contribution to the existing literature and advance our understanding
of adolescent development.
Brief reports: The Editors will consider Brief Reports of between 1000 and 1500 words (three to
five typewritten pages). This format should be used for reports of findings from the early stages of a program of research, replications
(and failures to replicate) previously reported findings, results of studies with sampling or methodological problems that have yielded
findings of sufficient interest to warrant publication, results of well designed studies in which important theoretical propositions
have not been confirmed, and creative theoretical contributions that have yet to be studied empirically. The title of the Brief Report
should start with the words: "Brief Report:" A footnote should be included if a full-length report is available upon request from the
author (s).
International notes: The Journal is interested in developing a new format for the very brief reporting of research
replications from developing countries and places with a less well supported adolescence research field, where it may be difficult to
find international publication outlets and bring the work to the attention of a wider audience. International Briefs would be published
as a very brief summary in the Journal (up to 1000 words in length), with a fuller version available as on-line supplementary material
(see above). They are likely to focus on local replications of well-known phenomena or findings.
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.
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 by the Journal, author (s) will be asked to transfer the copyright of the article to the Association for Professionals
in Services for Adolescents (APSA), the owner of the Journal of Adolescence. This transfer will ensure the widest possible dissemination
of information.
Subscribers may reproduce tables of contents or prepare lists of articles including abstracts for internal circulation
within their institutions. Permission from APSA is required for resale or distribution outside the institution and for all other derivative
works, including compilations and translations. If excerpts from other copyrighted works are included, the author(s) must obtain written
permission from APSA and credit the source(s) in the article.
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.
Submit your article
Please submit your article via
http://ees.elsevier.com/yjado/
Additional information
The Journal considers full Research Articles (up to 5,000 words), Brief Reports (up
to 1,500 words), and International Notes (1,000 words).
All manuscripts should observe the following rules about presentation.
The word count relates to the body of the article. The abstract, references, tables, figures and appendices are not included in the count.
GENERAL STYLE:
The Journal follows the current American Psychological Association style guide. Papers that are not submitted
in APA style are likely to be returned to authors. You are referred to their Publication Manual, Sixth Edition, copies of which may be
ordered from
http://www.apa.org/pubs/books/4200066.aspx, or APA order Dept, POB 2710, Hyattsville, MD 20784, USA, or APA,
3 Henrietta Street, London, WC3E 8LU, UK. There are also abbreviated guides freely available on the web. Text should be written in English
(American or British usage is accepted, but not a mixture of these). Italics are not to be used for expressions of Latin origin, for
example, in vivo, et al., per se. Use decimal points (not commas); use a space for thousands (10 000 and above). If (and only if) abbreviations
are essential, define those that are not standard in this field at their first occurrence in the article: in the abstract but also in
the main text after it. Ensure consistency of abbreviations throughout the article.
Manuscripts must be typewritten using double
spacing and wide (3 cm) margins. (Avoid dull justification, i.e., do not use a constant right-hand margin). Ensure that each new paragraph
is clearly indicated. Present tables and figure legends on separate pages in separate electronic files. If possible, consult a recent
issue of the Journal to become familiar with layout and conventions. Number all pages consecutively.
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 - unnumbered
sections
Divide your article into clearly defined sections. Each subsection is given a brief heading. 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'.
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
A concise and factual abstract is required (maximum length 150
words). The abstract should state briefly the purpose of the research, the principle results and major conclusions. An abstract is often
presented separate from the article, so it must be able to stand alone. References should therefore be avoided, but if essential, they
must be cited in full, without reference to the reference list.
Highlights
Highlights are
a short collection of bullet points that convey the core findings of the article. Highlights are optional 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 British 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.).
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.
Figure captions
Ensure that each illustration
has a caption. Supply captions separately, not attached to the figure. A caption should comprise a brief title (
not on the figure
itself) and a description of the illustration. Keep text in the illustrations themselves to a minimum but explain all symbols and abbreviations
used.
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.
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 Association. 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
or APA Order Dept., P.O.B. 2710, Hyattsville, MD 20784, USA or APA, 3 Henrietta Street, London, WC3E 8LU, UK. Details concerning this
referencing style can also be found at
http://linguistics.byu.edu/faculty/henrichsenl/apa/apa01.html.
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:
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. (2000).
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.
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.
