Guide for Authors

The Journal of Experimental Child Psychology is devoted primarily to reports of empirical work on behavioral and psychological development. Although the emphasis is on empirical work with infants, children, and adolescents, manuscripts that report research on adults or on special populations fall under the purview of JECP if the work expands our understanding of development. Integrative papers that present findings from multiple experiments focused on a problem are encouraged; piecemeal papers that carve up findings from a single project are discouraged. JECP will also consider notes on methodological issues, analytical techniques, or innovative apparatus if these contributions have clear implications for empirical research in child psychology.

In order to facilitate the review process and the communication of research findings, manuscripts should be no longer than necessary. The maximum number of words of text for a regular submission is 10,500 (text plus references). Single-experiment studies will usually be shorter than those with multiple experiments.

The journal also publishes Brief Reports, not to exceed 4,000 words. This word count includes the main text and references, but excludes the title page, abstract, tables, and figures, (maximum of two tables/figures per report). Despite their short length, Brief Reports are expected to make substantial contributions to new knowledge and to be of broad interest to JECP's readership.

Manuscripts are evaluated for their methodological adequacy, evidence of replicability of results, contribution to our understanding of developmental process and theory, and clarity of presentation, both verbal and graphic.

All manuscripts must follow the specifications of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (5th ed.).

Submission of Manuscripts

Authors should submit their articles electronically via the Elsevier Editorial System (EES) page of this journal at http://ees.elsevier.com/jecp. The system automatically converts source files to a single Adobe Acrobat version of the article, which is used in the peer-review process. Please note that even though manuscript source files are converted to PDF 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 and via the Author's EES homepage, removing the need for a hard-copy paper trail.

There are no submission fees or page charges. The author should retain a copy of the complete manuscript to guard against loss.

Authors are invited to identify up to five key topic areas to aid in the assignment of reviewers. Topic areas used for reviewer assignment may be found on the JECP Web site at http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jecp. Authors are welcome to provide suggestions for reviewers (assuming no known conflict of interest); however, these suggestions will be drawn upon at the Editor's discretion. Manuscripts will be acknowledged immediately. Every attempt will be made to return a decision quickly, and authors are welcome to send an inquiry to the Editor about the status of their manuscript if no decision has been returned within 3 months of the initial acknowledgment.

Only original papers will be considered. Articles and any other material published in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology represent the opinions of the author(s) and should not be construed to reflect the opinions of the Editor(s) or the Publisher. Authors submitting a manuscript do so on the understanding that if the manuscript is accepted for publication, copyright in the article, including the right to reproduce the article in all forms and media, shall be assigned exclusively to the Publisher. The Copyright Transfer Agreement should be signed by the appropriate person.

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 in the same form, in English or in any other language, without the written consent of the Publisher.

Upon acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to sign a "Journal Publishing Agreement'' (for more information on this and copyright see http://www.elsevier.com/authorsrights). Acceptance of the agreement will ensure the widest possible dissemination of information. An e-mail (or letter) 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. 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: contact Elsevier's Rights Department, Oxford, UK: phone (+44) 1865 843830, fax (+44) 1865 853333, e-mail permissions@elsevier.com. Requests may also be completed online via the Elsevier homepage (http://www.elsevier.com/locate/permissions).

Preparation of Manuscript

We accept most word-processing formats, but Word, WordPerfect or LaTeX are preferred. In preparing manuscripts, authors are requested to follow all specifications of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (5th ed.), including the use of nonsexist language, double-spacing all parts of the manuscript, 12-point font, and style rules for reporting statistics. Authors are requested to pay particularly close attention to APA style in the preparation of margins, indentation, headings, figures, tables, and references. Authors are asked to provide information on chronological age rather than school grade in abstracts to ease international communication. Abbreviations throughout the text should be limited to those found in a standard English dictionary or those in common use in psychology. When in doubt, abbreviations should be avoided. Pages should be numbered consecutively and organized as follows:

The Cover Page should contain the article title, authors' names and complete affiliations, footnotes to the title, and the address for manuscript correspondence (including e-mail address and telephone and fax numbers). Clearly indicate who is willing to handle correspondence at all stages of refereeing and publication, also post-publication. Footnotes containing information pertaining to the authors' identity or affiliations should be included with the Cover Page to ensure this information is not seen by reviewers.

To insure blind review, the Title Page (p. 1) should contain the article title and footnotes to the title. This page should omit the authors' names and affiliations, but should include the title of the manuscript. Include the word count for the manuscript on the Title page.

The Abstract (p. 2) must be a single paragraph that summarizes the main findings of the paper in a maximum of 100-150 words. After the abstract a list of between 6 and 8 keywords that will be useful for indexing or searching should be included.

References follow different formats depending upon where they appear in the manuscript. For example, co-authored sources are referred to by all authors' names in the initial citation but are abbreviated with "et al." thereafter; the word "and" is used in text, as in Smith and Jones (1996), but the ampersand sign is used in parentheses (as in Smith & Jones, 1996); full citation information in the reference list must follow the detailed rules provided in the APA Manual and illustrated by all articles appearing in JECP. Only articles that have been published or are in press should be included in the references. Unpublished results or personal communications should be cited as such in the text.

Figures

Illustrations in color in the printed issue can be accepted only if the author defrays the cost. If, together with your accepted article, however, 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 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. For further information on the preparation of electronic artwork, visit http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions.

Tables

Tables should be numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals in order of appearance in the text. Type each table double-spaced on a separate page, with a short descriptive title typed directly above and with essential footnotes below. Authors should submit complex tables as camera-ready copy.

Proofs

Proofs will be sent to the corresponding author. To avoid delay in publication, only necessary changes should be made, and proofs should be returned promptly. Authors will be charged for alterations that exceed 10% of the total cost of composition.

Electronic offprints (e-offprints)
The corresponding author, at no cost, will be provided with a PDF file of the article via e-mail or, alternatively, free paper offprints. 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.

Authors' benefits
(1) 25 reprints per contribution free of charge. To facilitate authors' easier distribution of articles to peers, the author also has the option to instead receive an e-offprint. This is a watermarked PDF file of their published article and comes with a cover sheet including the journal's cover image.
(2) 30% discount on all Elsevier books.

Author Inquiries

For any further information please contact the Author Support Department at authorsupport@elsevier.com.