Submissions

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Submission Preparation Checklist

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.
  • I understand that the submission must follow the rules below or it will be rejected BEFORE it reaches peer-review.
  • I have edited my paper for basic spelling, grammar and readability before submitting it.
  • I have read the Author Guidelines.
  • I used either the the Doc or LaTeX template which can be found here.
  • My citations are in the PNAS bibliography style. I can also provide a BibTex file of all my citations should my paper be accepted for publication.
  • My submission includes a “Significance and Public Understanding” statement that explains the paper’s value to a particular audience and any implications it has for the general public. This statement should be written in plain English.
  • I have all permissions (in writing) to use any images/figures for which I do not personally own the copyright.
  • My paper is under 10,000 words (not including references). I must have editorial pre-approval for submissions over 10,000 words.

Author Guidelines

In addition to the requirements for all submissions, we strongly suggest—but do not require—the following. A paper consisting only of written words ignores what we now know about the brain and learning. Imagery and structure can add significantly to your paper's readability and to public understanding of science. Thus, we suggest that you: (a) Use an abundance of high-quality images to re-communicate points made in text. (b) Use examples, metaphors, and rich-imagery to ground your more abstract, theoretical ideas. (c) If you need to explain something extremely technical, do so using whatever technical terminology (not jargon) is necessary. But, also consider adding a sentence that summarizes what you’re saying in simple terms as well. (d) Try to design headers so that reading them alone tells a stepwise story. Use the structure of the paper (headers and levels) to communicate your point. Ask yourself if reading through the headers of your paper follows a logical thread and tells the story. (e) Consider the importance of repetition and summarizing and use the 3-part 'tell 'em' structure: (1) tell ‘em what you're going to tell 'em (pre-summarize), (2) tell ‘em (rich detail and meat of paper), (3) tell ‘em what you told 'em (post summarize). 

Copyright Notice

To put it plainly, once an author’s paper is published by JoST the copyright is held by JoST. However, JoST is committed to open-access and therefore authors retain the following rights.

The right to: 

  1. Place the work on a course web site
  2. Copy it for students or colleagues
  3. Reuse portions in subsequent works (with proper citation)
  4. Deposit the work into a subject repository for your discipline, funder, etc.

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