Submitting Manuscripts

Submission implies that the manuscript has not been published and is not currently under consideration for publication elsewhere. Manuscripts should be accompanied by thecorresponding cover letter. Submit your manuscript online: https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/tsjp.

The opinions and statements published are the responsibility of the authors, and such opinions and statements do not necessarily represent the policies of UCM, COP Madrid, or the views of the Editor.

Cover Letter

Please provide a covering letter to accompany your manuscript. Since the reviewing process will be double-blind, the author's name should appear only on the accompanying cover letter. Authors should make every effort to ensure that the manuscript itself contains no clues to their identities.

Conflicts of Interest declarations: Authors should include a Conflicts of Interest declaration in their title page. Conflicts of Interest are situations that could be perceived to exert an undue influence on an author’s presentation of their work. They may include, but are not limited to, financial, professional, contractual or personal relationships or situations. Conflicts of Interest do not necessarily mean that an author’s work has been compromised. Authors should declare any real or perceived Conflicts of Interest in order to be transparent about the context of their work.

If the manuscript has multiple authors, the author submitting the title page must include Conflicts of Interest declarations relevant to all contributing authors.

Example wording for your Conflicts of Interest declaration is as follows: “Conflicts of Interest: Author A is employed at company B. Author C owns shares in company D, is on the Board of company E and is a member of organization F. Author G has received grants from company H.” If no Conflicts of Interest exist, your declaration should state “Conflicts of Interest: None”.

Funding Statements: Authors must include a Funding Statement in their title page. Within this statement please provide details of the sources of financial support for all authors, including grant numbers, for example: “Funding Statement: This work was supported by the Medical Research Council (grant number XXXXXXX)”.

Grants held by different authors should be identified as belonging to individual authors by the authors’ initials, for example: “Funding Statement: This work was supported by the Wellcome Trust (AB, grant numbers XXXX, YYYY), (CD, grant number ZZZZ); the Natural Environment Research Council (EF, grant number FFFF); and the National Institutes of Health (AB, grant number GGGG), (EF, grant number HHHH).”

Where no specific funding has been provided for research, you should include the following: “Funding Statement: This research received no specific grant from any funding agency, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.”

Plagiarism checker
Spanish Journal of Psychology is now using a software system to screen submitted content for similarity with other published content. The system compares a manuscript against a database of 40+ million scholarly documents, as well as content appearing on the open web. This allows to check submissions for potential overlap with material previously published in scholarly journals (e.g., lifted or republished material).

Data Transparency and Openness
As strongly recommended by the American Psychological Association, and in line with the requirements in the field, SJP requires that all data in their published articles be an original use. Along with determining the appropriateness of any submission, the editorial team (editor and reviewers) also have a role in determining what constitutes "original use". Key to this determination is the extent to which reported data and results serve to promote cumulative knowledge and insight to the literature.

Any previous, concurrent, or near future use of data (and/or sample) reported in a submitted manuscript must be brought to the editorial team's attention (i.e., any paper(s) previously published, in press, or currently under review at any journals, as well as any paper(s) that foreseeably will be under review before an editorial decision is made on the current submitted manuscript). This includes variables that overlap as well as those that may not overlap with those in the submitted article. In order to preserve masked review, authors should include a data transparency appendix in the manuscript which details how and where the data collected was (or potentially will soon be) used. Authors may also put in any other clarifying information they wish, as long as it can be done anonymously. Any identifying information, such as authors' names or titles of journal articles that the authors wish to share can be included in the cover letter where only the editorial staff will see it. When providing information in the paper itself and/or in the appendix, authors should ensure there is enough detail for reviewers to assess whether data presented constitute original use and unique knowledge and insights. For more information on APA's data policies, please see "Duplicate and Piecemeal Publication of Data," APA Publications Manual (Section 1.09, 6th Edition, p. 13–15 or Section 1.16, 7th Edition, p. 17–20).

Authors are encouraged to make their data, materials, and/or preregistration plans and analyses publicly available, if possible, by providing a link to a third-party repository, in the author note and including the data citation in your reference list. Making your data and materials publicly available can increase the impact of your research, enabling future researchers to incorporate your work in model testing, replication projects, and meta-analyses, in addition to increasing the transparency of your research. APA's data sharing policy does not require public posting, so it is at your discretion to decide what is best for your project in terms of public data, materials, and conditions on their use. Please note that APA policy does require authors to make their data available to other researchers upon request, per the APA Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct.

Final Methods Review Option for Conditional Acceptance Decisions of Manuscripts that Use Quantitative Methods
For manuscripts that include quantitative analyses, please note that The Spanish Journal of Psychology has implemented an optional "methods review" step as part of the review process. That is, when such manuscripts reach the stage where the Action Editor is contemplating a "Conditional Acceptance" decision, he or she may request SJP’s Methods Associate Editors to provide a final methods review. Specifically, a review of the methods and statistical analyses reported will be requested to ascertain if there is a need for additional information or clarification and/or any errors that require correction. The findings of this methods review will be taken into account by the Action Editor when issuing the subsequent editorial decision.