Manuscript Portal

Submit your manuscript to The Journal of Literacy Research (JLR) through Sage Track here: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jlr

First-time users will need to create an account by selecting a username and password. Be sure to enter your email address and select areas of expertise. After creating an account, log in to the Author Center to submit your manuscript.

Please note that editors do not review manuscripts outside of the desk review process.

Editorial Policy on Manuscript Review

Submitted manuscripts are first reviewed by the editors for research integrity, topic suitability, and reporting format. Submitted manuscripts may be returned without further review if judged not appropriate for publication in JLR.

Manuscripts meeting initial screening criteria are sent to members of the editorial board or other qualified literacy researchers for anonymized, peer-review. Following peer-review, all manuscripts are read by the full team of editors prior to a final decision about publication. The principal criteria used in judging manuscripts are the: (a) significance of their contribution to the field of literacy, (b) soundness of the methods employed in the research, (c) rigor of the scholarly argument(s), and (d) clarity of the writing.

The editors strongly encourage potential authors to consult the following two documents as applicable in the shaping of their intellectual arguments: “Standards for Reporting Empirical Social Science Research” (AERA, 2006) and “Standards for Reporting Humanities Oriented Research” (AERA, 2009) which can be found at https://www.aera.net/Publications/Standards-for-Research-Conduct

Potential contributors who have specific questions about editorial policy, manuscript preparation, or the review process are encouraged to contact Dr. Christina L. Dobbs, Editor, Journal of Literacy Research, Wheelock College of Education and Human Development, Boston University. Email: cdobbs@bu.edu

Manuscript Preparation

Authors are encouraged to align their work with the goals of the journal and are encouraged to examine previous issues of JLR for style presentation. Submissions to the journal contribute to an ongoing conversation related to the aims and scope of JLR. As such, authors are encouraged to make connections, as appropriate, to previous work published in JLR.

Additionally, for style presentation, authors should use the guidance of the 7the edition of the American Psychological Association (APA). We encourage authors to avoid dehumanizing language such as “struggling reader,” “failing schools,” “dyslexics,” “special education students,” and “high poverty schools.” We also encourage authors to avoid bias in their language related to gender and the representation of gender in their work.

All manuscripts submitted to the JLR must be original works of the author(s), which have not been published previously in any form or submitted simultaneously to other journals.

Manuscript Submission

All documents submitted for review must be fully masked (anonymized) according to APA 7. This requires removing all identifying information (authors’ names, affiliated institutions, and the year of publication by the author) from all manuscripts, tables/figures, author’s response letters, cover letters, and appendices during the peer review process.

Empirical Articles

Manuscripts must be anonymized and double-spaced using Times New Roman 12 point font. A maximum length of 10,500 words (inclusive of references) for traditional submissions is allowed. For traditional submissions, the manuscript should be reduced by 450 words for every table/figure. Tables and figures must be directly germane to the main argument of the paper, and authors should aim to submit no more than 6 tables and figures.

The editors encourage authors to use the repository; supplementary materials such as appendices, tables, or figures should be submitted as supplemental materials. Each supplemental material must be submitted as an individual file. Upon acceptance and publication, these supplemental materials may be retrieved by interested readers from an online archive supported by Sage with the URL link printed in the final article. These supplementary materials must conform to APA guidelines for such graphical elements. Editors should be consulted in the event that authors wish to submit additional types of materials to the repository.

Insight Essays

Manuscripts must be anonymized and double-spaced with a maximum length of 3,000 words (inclusive of references). Insight essays may be invited or submitted. Insight essays draw from multi- or interdisciplinary perspectives to challenge, expand and/or evolve notions of literacy. Submissions that engage with disciplines and theoretical perspectives traditionally outside of the scope of literacy and language education are particularly welcomed.

All Submissions

All submissions (empirical and Insight Essays) must conform to the guidelines of American Psychological Association’s Manual of Style (7th ed).

Additionally, please adhere to the following guidelines:

• submission of 8 ½” x 11” manuscript with 1” margins in Microsoft Word format;

• 12pt Times New Roman font and double-spaced;

• running header (the title of the manuscript in all capital letters) flush left and page numbers flush right;

• first line of all paragraphs indented;

• block quotations (40 words or more) should be indented 1/2 inch;

• headings and reference list in APA format and fact-checked; and

• references to the author(s) must be deleted and replaced with “Authors (Year A)” etc., and author(s) own citations in the reference list should be alphabetically ordered as “Author. (Year).” for anonymizing purposes.

Submissions should include:

a) anonymized manuscript following the guidelines above;

b) separate title page including name, affiliation, address, phone number, email address of the author and all coauthors;

c) one-paragraph abstract limited to 150 words should accompany all submissions. The abstract should be written without citations;

d) up to 5 keywords (the terms that researchers will use to find your article in indexes and databases) at the bottom of the abstract (limited to five key words and/or 85 characters with spaces); and

e) titles will be limited to 66 characters (with spaces).

Tables and Figures. Placement and titles for tables and figures in the text should follow APA 7th edition formatting. Tables and figures should be uploaded as a separate document from the main document as individual files.

Illustrations. Figures and photos accompanying an initial submission must be provided as production-ready. Digital files are recommended for highest quality reproduction and should follow these guidelines: 300 dpi or higher; sized to fit on journal page; EPS, TIFF, JPEG, and PDF files are preferred; Microsoft Office files are also acceptable as long as they meet the other guidelines listed here. Please submit illustrations as separate documents, not embedded in text files, and submit in grayscale, not color. Within the manuscript, a placeholder should be used to mark the approximate location for each table/figure.

Permissions. Authors are responsible for all statements made in their work and for obtaining permission from copyright owners to use a lengthy quotation (exceeding the limits of fair use) or to reprint or adapt a table or figure published elsewhere. Authors should write to the original author(s) and publisher of such material to request nonexclusive world rights in all languages for use in print and non-print versions of the present article and in all future editions. Provide copies of all permissions and credit lines obtained.

Please direct any questions to jlrbu@bu.edu.

Manuscripts that do not adhere to these guidelines will be returned to the author.

Sage Choice and Open Access

For more information on open access options and compliance at Sage, including self-author archiving deposits (green open access) visit Sage Publishing Policies on our Journal Author Gateway.

For more information, please refer to the Sage Manuscript Submission Guidelines.

ORCID

As part of our commitment to ensuring an ethical, transparent and fair peer review process Sage is a supporting member of ORCID, the Open Researcher and Contributor ID. ORCID provides a unique and persistent digital identifier that distinguishes researchers from every other researcher, even those who share the same name, and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between researchers and their professional activities, ensuring that their work is recognized.

The collection of ORCID iDs from corresponding authors is now part of the submission process of this journal. If you already have an ORCID iD you will be asked to associate that to your submission during the online submission process. We also strongly encourage all co-authors to link their ORCID ID to their accounts in our online peer review platforms. It takes seconds to do: click the link when prompted, sign into your ORCID account and our systems are automatically updated. Your ORCID iD will become part of your accepted publication’s metadata, making your work attributable to you and only you. Your ORCID iD is published with your article so that fellow researchers reading your work can link to your ORCID profile and from there link to your other publications.

If you do not already have an ORCID iD please follow this link to create one or visit our ORCID homepage to learn more.