Author Guidelines and Editorial Policy
Submission Guidelines
Submissions to the Youth Voice Journal (YVJ™) can be made at any given time. Once accepted, submissions are published online and indexed. Occasionally, the Journal publishes Special Issues and the deadlines relating to these publications are included in the related Calls.
Step 1: Check that your paper fits within the Journal’s objectives
Step 2: Check that your paper complies with our submission and editorial guidelines as well as our Publication Ethics Guidelines
Step 3: Fill out the Youth Voice Journal Copyrights Form
Step 4: Email in Microsoft Word format the following attachments:
- Anonymised Manuscript without authors’ details for peer review. All pages of the manuscript must be numbered. You must also include a running head (short title) appearing in all pages of the manuscript. The file should be named as “manuscript” and should not include the authors’ details.
- Title Page to include: The full and short title of the paper, the author’s name and affiliation, contact details including email and postal address and short biography of authors. Details of all funding sources for the work in question should be given in a separate section on the same page entitled ‘Funding’. This should appear before the ‘Acknowledgements’ section if any.
- Anonymised Abstract page without authors’ details. Each manuscript requires an abstract of no more than 250 words. We accept only structured abstracts (see guidelines below). Please also include in the same page up to 5 keywords.
- Youth Voice Journal Copyrights Form
- COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) & Indexing
- Editorial Policy
- Reviewing Policy
- Clearing Permissions
- Copyrights
The YVJ is a proud member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). COPE provides advice to editors and publishers on all aspects of publication ethics and, in particular, how to handle cases of research and publication misconduct.
Youth Voice Journal is ranked and indexed by EBSCO information services, Scopus, ORCID, Kudos, The European Reference Index for the Humanities and the Social Sciences (ERIH PLUS) and Criminal Justice Abstracts.
Original Articles:
We accept only original contributions that have not been published elsewhere. We publish research papers of theoretical and empirical nature as well as book reviews, article reviews, conference papers and commentaries. The Journal has an international readership and scope.
Each article must aim to provide critical analysis on a policy area/piece of legislation/piece of research that affects young people. Each article should address the journal’s international audience, which includes academia, policy makers, young people, practitioners and decision makers. The review process normally takes less than 7 weeks.
Structured Abstracts
Authors must supply a structured abstract in their submission, set out under 4-7 sub-headings:
- Purpose (mandatory)
- Design/methodology/approach (mandatory)
- Findings (mandatory)
- Research limitations/implications (if applicable)
- Practical implications (if applicable)
- Social implications (if applicable)
- Originality/value (mandatory)
Maximum is 250 words in total (including keywords and article classification, see below).
Authors should avoid the use of personal pronouns within the structured abstract and body of the paper (e.g. “this paper investigates…” is correct, “I investigate…” is incorrect).
Word count and referencing format
Your manuscript should be double-spaced, between 5,000 and 7,000 words (including tables, references, and appendices), and conform to APA format.
References should be indicated in the text with the author’s name and year of publication in parenthesis. If there are more than two authors, all should be given on the first occasion, and then the first author “et al” should be used subsequently. All references should be given in alphabetical order on a separate sheet with titles of books and journals given in full. The APA guidelines should be followed for references to a fault.
Examples:
Articles from Journals: Author, A. A., Author, B. B., & Author, C. C. (Year) ‘Title of article’ Title of Periodical volume number(issue number): pages
Books: Author, A. A. (Year of publication) ‘Title of work: Capital letter also for subtitle’ Location: Publisher
Electronic sources: Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Date of publication) ‘Title of article’ [Online] http://www.someaddress.com/full/url/ [Accessed on date]
Other non print sources: (E. Robbins, personal communication, Jan 4, 2001).
Book Reviews & Article Reviews
The Editor-in-Chief welcomes Reviews of Books and Articles that fall within the Journal’s interest. Your Review should be double-spaced, between 800-1000 words and conform to APA format. It should include all details of the reviewed book including page numbers, ISBN and price.
Language Editing
Particularly if English is not your first language, before submitting your manuscript you may wish to have it edited for language. This is not a mandatory step, but may help to ensure that the academic content of your paper is fully understood by journal editors and reviewers. Language editing does not guarantee that your manuscript will be accepted for publication.
All submissions are first reviewed by the Editor-in-Chief, and if judged suitable for this publication, they are then blind-reviewed anonymously and separately by at least two external, expert reviewers. The Journal has a double, blind review policy.
Acceptance of an invitation to review is taken as signifying that the reviewers consider themselves qualified to assess the submission and know of no reason why it would be inappropriate for them to comment on its quality and make a recommendation as to whether or not it should be published. We encourage all our reviewers to follow the COPE Guidelines for Peer Reviewers.
If, as reviewers read a submission, they realise that for any reason it is inappropriate for them to review that article, they are asked to return it to the Editor-in-Chief forthwith and another reviewer will be assigned. If reviewers, for any reason, know, or can guess, who has written an anonymous submission which they have been asked to review, they are expected to consider whether a conflict of interest is involved if they know the author to be a close friend or a previous departmental or research colleague; or where they know themselves to be prejudiced either in favour of, or against, specific perspectives, topics or authors.
Authors are responsible for obtaining permission from copyright holders to reproduce in both print and online form those illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. Permission must be obtained before submission to the publisher. The acknowledgment should be added to the typescript and the source and copyright of photographs or figures credited in the accompanying captions.
It is a condition of publication that authors vest or license copyright in their articles, including abstracts, in RJ4All Publications. This enables us to ensure full copyright protection and to disseminate the article, and the journal, to the widest possible readership in print and electronic formats as appropriate. Authors may, of course, use the material elsewhere after publication providing that prior permission is obtained from IARS Publications. Authors are themselves responsible for obtaining permission to reproduce copyright material from other sources. Authors whose publication has been accepted by the Journal must complete and sign the YVJ Contributors Release Form prior to the publication of their work.