Research on Aging

This journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Manuscript Requirements-Author Guidelines

CORRESPONDENCE: Jeffrey A. Burr, PhD, Editor-in-Chief, Department of Gerontology, 100 Morrissey Blvd., University of Massachusetts Boston, Boston, MA 02125-3393. Email: ROA@umb.edu.

SUBMISSION: Manuscripts must be submitted for review via Research on Aging’s SAGE Track website at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/roa. The entire review process is anonymous. The Editor-in-Chief makes the final decision on each manuscript after taking reviewers’ evaluations into consideration.

GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS: Manuscripts should be prepared in accordance with the most recent APA Reference Style, using a word-processor (save as .doc, .docx, or .rtf). Do not send PDF files. Times New Roman (12 pt) is the preferred text font. All manuscripts should be double-spaced with at least 1” margins on all sides. Please number all pages beginning with the abstract, including the reference pages, tables and figures. In order that manuscripts may be sent anonymously, authors are requested to place no form of identification either upon the body of the manuscript, upon the required abstract or in the file names. Submission of a manuscript implies commitment to publish in Research on Aging. Authors submitting a manuscript to the journal should not simultaneously submit the same manuscript to another journal, nor should manuscripts have been published elsewhere in substantially similar form or with substantially similar content. Content should be uploaded and placed in the following order.

Title Page: The title page should be a separate document and include:

• All authors’ names, affiliations, e-mail addresses, and highest professional degrees, and the corresponding author’s address and telephone number.
• Any acknowledgements should appear at the bottom of the title page. Funding acknowledgements should include the full name of the funding agency followed by the grant number.
• A brief (50 word maximum) biographical statement for all authors at the bottom of the title page.

Original Research

First submissions of manuscripts should not contain more than 6,000 words of text (not including abstract, references and exhibits). Shorter length manuscripts are appreciated. Also, these manuscripts should not contain more than 10 pages of references, tables and figures combined. The following organization applies to all research article submissions:

Abstract: Authors should include an abstract of no more than 150 words in paragraph form without citations as the first page of the manuscript. This abstract should be factual and present the objective of the study, methods, main findings, and the principal conclusions. The abstract should be followed by 4 to 6 key words for indexing.

Introduction: Rationale for the study and statement of purpose.

Literature Review: Literature review with sub-headings, as necessary, and conceptual framework (where appropriate).

Research Design: Specify design features including sampling strategy, data collection, measurement, and analytic strategy. Additionally, please note the approval of human subjects research by all Institutional Review Boards, where appropriate. If reporting qualitative methodology, please review the COREQ guidelines for reporting qualitative research: http://www.equator-network.org/resource-centre/library-of-health-research-reporting/reporting-guidelines/qualitative-research/

Results: Describe the sample attributes and present the results for each research question or hypotheses. When statistical tests are preformed, provide test statistics and p values.

Discussion: Interpret the findings in the context of other research, conceptual frameworks, theory, and study design. Address the study limitations.

Conclusion: State the bottom line and what the results mean for policy, practice with seniors, or future research.

Tables and Figures: Tables and figures generally convey information not presented in the text. Word processing programs should be used to produce tables without vertical lines, following the most recent edition of the APA Style Manual. Tables should be placed at the end of the article, following the references. Each figure should be submitted as a separate file. Preferred placement of tables and figures should be noted in the text. Example:

[Insert Table 1 about here]

Systematic Literature Reviews and Meta-Analysis

Traditional literature reviews are not appropriate; however, systematic evidence-based reviews are encouraged as well as rigorous meta-analyses. These manuscripts should follow the above guidelines and report using guidelines of PRISMA: http://www.equator-network.org/resource-centre/library-of-health-research-reporting/reporting-guidelines/systematic-reviews-and-meta-analysis/

If you or your funder wish your article to be freely available online to nonsubscribers immediately upon publication (gold open access), you can opt for it to be included in SAGE Choice, subject to payment of a publication fee. The manuscript submission and peer review procedure is unchanged. On acceptance of your article, you will be asked to let SAGE know directly if you are choosing SAGE Choice. To check journal eligibility and the publication fee, please visit SAGE Choice. 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.

ETHICS: Authors who submit manuscripts to Research on Aging are expected to observe high professional standards with respect to publication ethics. Falsification of data, plagiarism (including of authors' own work, without proper citation), and misappropriation of the work of others or of information regarding financial support are examples of unethical practices. Problems of unethical conduct will be discussed with the corresponding author. If the issue cannot be resolved, then the author's institution and funding agencies will be contacted for investigation and adjudication. SAGE Journals, publisher of Research on Aging is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) (http://publicationethics.org/).

It is the author’s responsibility to disclose any potential conflict of interest regarding the manuscript on their title page. Any conflict or financial disclosure will be published within the manuscript.

Manuscripts submitted that have data collected from human subjects require ethics approval. If the study does not include ethics approval, the paper will not be sent out for review.

Actual or potential conflict of interest including any financial, personal or other relationships with other people or organizations must be declared.

Authorship

Papers should only be submitted for consideration once consent is given by all contributing authors. Those submitting papers should carefully check that all those whose work contributed to the paper are acknowledged as contributing authors.

The list of authors should include all those who can legitimately claim authorship. This is all those who:

(i) made a substantial contribution to the concept and design, acquisition of data or analysis and interpretation of data,

(ii) drafted the article or revised it critically for important intellectual content,

(iii) approved the version to be published.

Please refer to the ICMJE Authorship guidelines at http://www.icmje.org/ethical_1author.html

Acknowledgements

Any acknowledgements should appear first at the end of your article prior to your Declaration of Conflicting Interests (if applicable), any notes and your References.

All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an ‘Acknowledgements’ section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, writing assistance, or a department chair who provided only general support. Authors should disclose whether they had any writing assistance and identify the entity that paid for this assistance.

Reviewers

As part of the submission process you will be asked to provide the names of peers who could be called upon to review your manuscript. Recommended reviewers should be experts in their fields and should be able to provide an objective assessment of the manuscript. Please be aware of any conflicts of interest when recommending reviewers. Examples of conflicts of interest include (but are not limited to) the below:

• The reviewer should have no prior knowledge of your submission
• The reviewer should not have recently collaborated with any of the authors
• Reviewer nominees from the same institution as any of the authors are not permitted

Please note that the Editors are not obliged to invite any recommended/opposed reviewers to assess your manuscript.

Contributor’s publishing agreement

Before publication, SAGE requires the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement. SAGE’s Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement is an exclusive license agreement which means that the author retains copyright in the work but grants SAGE the sole and exclusive right and license to publish for the full legal term of copyright. Exceptions may exist where an assignment of copyright is required or preferred by a proprietor other than SAGE. In this case copyright in the work will be assigned from the author to the society. For more information please visit our Frequently Asked Questions on the SAGE Journal Author Gateway.

ROA and SAGE take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. We seek to protect the rights of our authors and we always investigate claims of plagiarism or misuse of articles published in the journal. Equally, we seek to protect the reputation of the journal against malpractice. Submitted articles may be checked using duplication-checking software. Where an article is found to have plagiarized other work or included third-party copyright material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgement, or where authorship of the article is contested, we reserve the right to take action including, but not limited to: publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction); retracting the article (removing it from the journal); taking up the matter with the head of department or dean of the author’s institution and/or relevant academic bodies or societies; banning the author from publication in the journal or all SAGE journals, or appropriate legal action.

Permissions

Authors are responsible for obtaining permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. For further information including guidance on fair dealing for criticism and review, please visit our Frequently Asked Questions on the SAGE Journal Author Gateway.