The Journal of the Society for the Study of School Psychology (SSSP)

Submission to the journal prior to acceptance
Authors should submit their articles electronically via the Elsevier Editorial System (EES) page of this journal ( http://ees.elsevier.com/jsp). The system automatically converts source files to a single Adobe Acrobat PDF 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 homepage, removing the need for a hard-copy paper trail. Questions about the appropriateness of a manuscript for JSP should be directed to the Editorial office of Journal of School Psychology: University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 33 Teachers Hall, Lincoln, NE 68588-0345 USA. Tel: 402.472.5923, Fax: 402.472.8319, E-mail: edaly2@unl.edu.

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and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other language, without the written consent of the copyright-holder.

Cover letter
The cover letter should conform to American Psychological Association (APA) 5^th edition standards (see 5.26, pp. 303-304). To avoid having the manuscript returned to you, be sure to address the following items in your cover letter:

1. Specific details about the manuscript (title, length, number of tables and figures);
2. Information about any previous or planned presentations of the data (e.g., at a professional conference);
3. Assurance from the Authors that the manuscript will not be submitted elsewhere during the JSP review process (including "information about the existence of any closely related manuscripts that have been submitted for simultaneous consideration to the same or to another journal," p. 303);
4. Notice of any interests that might have influenced the research (e.g., financial interests);
5. Verification that participants were treated in accordance with ethical standards of APA (and relevant information about a research study's HSIRB status); and
6. A copy of permission granted to reproduce any copyrighted materials, as appropriate.

Presentation of manuscript
The manuscript should be written to conform to standards and guidelines described by the APA Publication Manual (5^th edition), ISBN 1-55798-790-4, copies of which may be ordered from http://www.apa.org/books/4200061.html or APA Order Dept., P.O.B. 2710, Hyattsville, MD 20784, USA or APA, 3 Henrietta Street, London, WC3E 8LU, UK. Please write your text in good 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.

Please avoid full 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 at the end of the manuscript. If possible, consult a recent issue of the journal to become familiar with layout and conventions. Number all pages consecutively.

Provide the following data on the Title Page (in the order given).

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. The full postal address of the corresponding Author, including the country name, and, if available, the e-mail address, should be placed in an Author Note at the bottom of the Title Page (first paragraph of the Author Note).

Corresponding author. Clearly indicate who is willing to 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.

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 in the second papragraph of the Author Note that appears at the bottom of the first page. The address at which the author actually did the work must be retained as the main affiliation address.

Abstract. A concise and factual abstract is required (between 100-120 words). The abstract should state briefly the purpose of the research, the principal 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.

Keywords. Immediately after the abstract, provide a maximum of 6 keywords, to be chosen from the APA list of index descriptors. These keywords will be used for indexing purposes.

Abbreviations. Use standard scientific abbreviations, as per APA Publication Manual guidelines (3.25, pp. 106-108). Define abbreviations 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.

Arrangement of the article
Manuscript pages should be ordered in the manner described by the APA Publication Manual (5.05, p.287).

Acknowledgements. Include acknowledgements as the last paragraph of the Author Note that appears at the bottom of the Title Page.

Specific remarks

Manuscript length. Manuscripts should be between 10-45 typewritten pages.

Presentation. The manuscript should be double-spaced, including quotations, footnotes, references, and tables.

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.

Preparation of supplementary data. Elsevier now accepts electronic supplementary material to support and enhance your scientific research. Supplementary files offer the author additional possibilities to publish supporting applications, movies, animation sequences, 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 ensure that data are provided 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. Via the homepage of this journal ( http://www.elsevier.com/journals), you will be guided stepwise through the creation and uploading of the various files. Files can be stored on CD (either MS-DOS or Macintosh) or DVD.

References
Responsibility for the accuracy of bibliographic citations lies entirely with the authors

Citations in the 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. Personal communications should not be in the reference list, but may be mentioned in the text. Citation of a reference as 'in press' implies that the item has been accepted for publication. Citing and listing of web references should conform to APA Publication Manual guidelines.

Reference list. The reference list should follow the referencing style described by the APA Publication Manual. 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. See the APA Publication Manual for examples.

Preparation of illustrations

Submitting your artwork in an electronic format helps us to produce your work to the best possible standards, ensuring accuracy, clarity and a high level of detail.

General points
• Always supply high-quality printouts of your artwork, in case conversion of the electronic artwork is problematic.
• 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, Helvetica, Times, Symbol.
• Number the illustrations according to their sequence in the text.
• Use a logical naming convention for your artwork files, and supply a separate listing of the files and the software used.
• Provide all illustrations as separate files and as hardcopy printouts on separate sheets.
• Provide captions to illustrations separately.
• Produce images near to the desired size of the printed version.

For more detailed instructions please visit our artwork instruction pages at 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.
DOC, XLS or PPT: If your electronic artwork is created in any of these Microsoft Office applications please supply "as is".

Line drawings
Supply high-quality printouts on white paper produced with black ink. The lettering and symbols, as well as other details, should have proportionate dimensions, so as not to become illegible or unclear after possible reduction; in general, the figures should be designed for a reduction factor of two to three. The degree of reduction will be determined by the Publisher. Illustrations will not be enlarged. Consider the page format of the journal when designing the illustrations. Photocopies are not suitable for reproduction. Do not use any type of shading on computer-generated illustrations.

Photographs (halftones)
Please supply original photographs for reproduction, printed on glossy paper, very sharp and with good contrast. Remove non-essential areas of a photograph. Do not mount photographs unless they form part of a composite figure. Where necessary, insert a scale bar in the illustration (not below it), as opposed to giving a magnification factor in the legend. Note that photocopies of photographs are not acceptable.

Copyright
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/copyright). This transfer will ensure the widest possible dissemination of information. A letter will be sent to the corresponding author confirming receipt of the manuscript. A form facilitating transfer of copyright will be provided.

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 forms for use by authors in these cases available at www.elsevier.com/locate/permissions phone: (+44) 1865 843830, fax: (+44) 1865 853333, e-mail: permissions@elsevier.com

Proofs
When your manuscript is received by the Publisher it is considered to be in its final form. Proofs are not to be regarded as "drafts."

One set of page proofs will be sent to the corresponding author to be checked for typesetting/editing. No changes in, or additions to, the accepted (and subsequently edited) manuscript will be allowed at this stage. Proofreading is solely your responsibility.

The Publisher reserves the right to proceed with publication if corrections are not communicated. Return corrections within 3 days of receipt of the proofs. Should there be no corrections, please confirm this.

Offprints
Twenty-five offprints will be supplied free of charge. Additional offprints and copies of the issue can be ordered at a specially reduced rate using the order form sent to the corresponding author after the manuscript has been accepted. Orders for reprints (produced after publication of an article) will incur a 50% surcharge.

Overview of The Editorial Review Process Authors submitting work will receive two email notifications from the Editorial Assistant. The first email will acknowledge receipt of the submission. The second email will inform the Author of the manuscript number assigned to the manuscript, the Action Editor assigned to the manuscript, and a target editorial decision date (generally 8 weeks after acknowledgement of receipt). Action Editors may be the Editor, an Associate Editor, or an individual with significant expertise in the area of investigation who was specially invited to coordinate the review.

The Action Editor will send the manuscript out for review to approximately three reviewers who are blind to the identity of the Author. Reviewers may be from the Editorial Advisory Board or Ad Hoc reviewers invited because of special expertise in the area. The Action Editor writes an editorial decision letter within about 8 weeks and sends it by email to the Author. The editorial decision letter includes a decision regarding publication (Accept contingent on revision, Rejection encouraging revision, or Reject) and a rationale for the decision. The decision of Accept is reserved to the Editor of the journal. Therefore, Associate Editors or Invited Action Editors cannot accept an article for publication during the initial part of the review process.

Should an Action Editor other than the Editor find a manuscript suitable for publication in JSP, the Action Editor will forward the manuscript to the Editor with a recommendation of acceptance. The Editor will review the manuscript and make a final decision. Both the Action Editor and Editor will generally request that authors make revisions to the manuscript. Revisions should be returned to the Action Editor or Editor within 60 days to avoid having the manuscript be treated as a new submission (requiring a new review). Revisions are handled electronically. The Author should always provide a detailed letter outlining revisions when corresponding with the Action Editor or Editor.

Conflict Of Interest

A conflict of interest may exist when an author or the author's institution has a financial or other relationship with other people or organizations that may inappropriately influence the author's work. A conflict can be actual or potential and full disclosure to the Journal is the safest course. All submissions to the Journal must include disclosure of all relationships that could be viewed as presenting a potential conflict of interest. The Journal may use such information as a basis for editorial decisions and may publish such disclosures if they are believed to be important to readers in judging the manuscript. A decision may be made by the Journal not to publish on the basis of the declared conflict.