Author Guidelines

Prior to submission, please carefully read and follow the submission guidelines detailed below. Authors must submit their manuscripts through the journal’s ScholarOne online submission system. To submit, click here: https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/hk_rsj

Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for the content. Authorship credit should be based only on substantial contributions to:

a. Conception and design, or analysis and interpretation of data; and

b. Drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and

c. Final approval of the version to be published.

Conditions a, b, and c must all be met. Individuals who do not meet the above criteria may be listed in the acknowledgments section of the manuscript.

*Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals. New England Journal of Medicine, 1991, 324, 424–428.

Open Access

Authors have the option of having their articles published Open Access within RSJ. In order for an article to be published Open Access, authors must complete and return the Request for Open Access form and provide payment for this option. To request Open Access, click here.

Manuscript Guidelines

The technical criteria for submission are as follows:

As part of the submission process you will be required to warrant that you are submitting your original work, that you have the rights in the work, and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you, that you are submitting the work for first publication in the Journal and that it is not being considered for publication elsewhere and has not already been published elsewhere. Please see our guidelines on prior publication and note that Recreational Sports Journal may accept submissions of papers that have been posted on pre-print servers; please alert the Editorial Office when submitting (contact details are at the end of these guidelines) and include the DOI for the preprint in the designated field in the manuscript submission system. Authors should not post an updated version of their paper on the preprint server while it is being peer reviewed for possible publication in the journal. If the article is accepted for publication, the author may re-use their work according to the journal's author archiving policy.

If your paper is accepted, you must include a link on your preprint to the final version of your paper.

• Submit complete names, title, mailing address, and e-mail addresses for all authors in a separate document.
• Original research articles should minimally contain the following sections: Abstract, Introduction/Background, Method, Results, Discussion, Application to Practice.
• A 150-word abstract should accompany an article of no longer than 6,000 words; longer articles will receive lower priority for publication.
• Supply no more than six key words that are not duplicated in the article title.
• Articles should be “letter perfect” in grammar, spelling, and punctuation, and all lines in manuscripts should be numbered (line numbering should be turned on in Microsoft Word).
• For style, articles must adhere to the guidelines published in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed., 2020). Copies are available in most academic libraries (inquire at the reference desk) and can be purchased in most bookstores.
• Microsoft Word (all versions) is preferred. If using another word processing program, please save your document as an .rtf file.
• Use figures and tables only where appropriate but not duplicated in the text of the article. In figures, use black and white only, no shading or color. Keep labels proportionate with the size of the figure on the journal page. Resolution of digital images should be 300 dpi at full size for photos and 600 dpi for line art; color images cannot be accepted. Format tables using the table function of your word processing program rather than aligning columns in text with tabs and spaces or using text boxes.  Tables and figures should be submitted in a separate document.
• For references, use APA style 7th Edition. Reference citations in the text must match those in the reference list and must be accurate as to dates of publication and spelling of author names.

Data Sharing Policy

The journal is committed to facilitating openness, transparency and reproducibility of research, and has the following research data sharing policy. For more information, including FAQs please visit the Sage Research Data policy pages.

Subject to appropriate ethical and legal considerations, authors are encouraged to:

• share your research data in a relevant public data repository
• include a data availability statement linking to your data. If it is not possible to share your data, we encourage you to consider using the statement to explain why it cannot be shared.
• cite this data in your research

Submitting a Manuscript

Articles are to be submitted electronically via ScholarOne (see submission button at the top of this page). First-time authors will create an account by following the directions on the ScholarOne page. Authors will be asked to submit a “blinded” version of their article and a separate cover sheet with names, institutional affiliations, and contact information.

Authors of accepted manuscripts must transfer copyright. Please visit ScholarOne to download the copyright form located under the "Instructions & Forms" link in the upper right corner. You do not need an account to access this information.

Submission of an article outside the ScholarOne system is possible only in special circumstances and with the advance permission of the editor. For more information, contact the editor: Dr. Austin Anderson at [email protected].

ORCHID iD

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.

 

There are no fees payable to submit or publish in this journal.