Review the APSR Submission Guidelines, the APSA Style Manual for Political Science, the FAQs, and the guidelines outlined below before submitting your manuscript.
Format
The APSR accepts submissions of two types of manuscripts:
- Articles that use original work to advance understanding of important political issues, speaking to the field of political science (no longer than 12,000 words);
- Letters, also
known as research notes. As with article-length submissions, the editors
seek letter manuscripts on a wide variety of problem-driven scholarship
that is well-conceptualized, ethically designed, and well-executed;
research on topics the discipline has been slow to engage; work that
uses a range of methods and approaches to address both timely and
timeless questions about power and governance that are central to the
study of politics; and by a diverse array of scholars. Letters should
generate interest and discussion, often across political science
subfields and across disciplines to reach a broad readership.
Although letters are reviewed like article manuscripts, they are
shorter, more focused, demonstrate a novel perspective on existing
research, and encourage scholarly debate. Their maximum length is 4,000
words. Typically, a letter
does not have the long literature review that is standard in article
manuscripts and has a much briefer introduction, motivation, analysis,
and conclusion. Letters often have few tables; instead, they communicate
new insights and the main ideas succinctly, in accessible prose or
figures.
A non-exhaustive list of examples of submissions that may be appropriate for the letter format includes:
- Empirical evaluations of important theoretical propositions that provide new perspectives on the literature;
- Conceptual and theoretical contributions or interventions that articulate a clear direction or need for future research, with or without new empirical evidence;
- New descriptive analyses — qualitative and/or quantitative — that reveal important new findings, trends, or insights that challenge scholarly consensus or omissions;
- Purely theoretical (formal or normative) analyses that introduce new critiques of an often-used model or propose an analytic or conceptual innovation;
- Conceptual, theoretical, methodological, or data contributions that aim to shift attention to or instigate new avenues for research of broad disciplinary interest; or
- In exceptional cases, contributions that respond to published APSR articles or letters and advance theoretical, empirical, or methodological debates of broad disciplinary interest.
- See our FAQ to learn more about letters.
Prior Publication Policy
The APSR publishes only original work. Authors who have submitted or published work that is similar or closely related to their submitted manuscript elsewhere at any point, including in published conference proceedings, must immediately notify the editors. Please see Cambridge's Preprint Policy for exceptions.
Ethics and Transparency in Research
APSR takes seriously its role as a space for scholarly communication within the political science community. Such scholarly communication entails clear and transparent sharing of our research across disciplinary subfields and epistemological and methodological approaches. This, in turn, requires clear and transparent communication about the procedures that we use to collect our evidence and to ensure that our research practices are ethical. While epistemological and methodological diversity is a strength of the political science community, this diversity also makes more imperative scholarly communication that is as transparent and accessible as possible across disciplinary subfields and approaches.
Consequently, the APSR expects all authors to comply with ethical and transparency obligations described in APSA's A Guide to Professional Ethics in Political Science (2012) and in Principles and Guidance for Human Subjects Research (approved by the APSA Council, April 4, 2020).
Researchers have ethical obligations to:
- ensure that research that directly engages human participants in the research process adheres to APSA’s Principles and Guidance for Human Subjects Research, and, if it does not for well-founded reasons, provide reasoned justification in scholarly publications and presentations (APSA 2012, 9);
- declare what compensation was paid (if any) to human participants and how the amount was determined;
- declare any potential or perceived conflicts of interest arising from their research (APSA 2012, 9);
- disclose sources of financial support for their research (APSA 2012, 9);
- “facilitate the evaluation of their evidence-based knowledge claims through data access, production transparency, and analytic transparency so that their work can be tested or replicated” (APSA 2012, 9) whenever legally, ethically and epistemologically possible; and
- acknowledge contributions to the research, including authorship and citations to previous work, as appropriate (APSA 2012, 9, 11).
To ensure that research published in the ASPR
- if the submission draws on research directly engaging human participants, including human subjects, expert interviewees, and those exposed to experimental interventions. If yes, authors should answer "yes" to the screening question (even if ruled exempt from further review by the relevant ethics review board) and
- discuss in the text or an appendix their ethical practices concerning human participants, particularly those included in the Principles such as consent, deception, confidentiality, harm and impact, as well as whether and how participants were compensated
- confirm compliance with APSA’s Principles and Guidance for Human Subjects Research, or if it is not in compliance, provide reasoned justification for deviation(s) in the main text, with additional explanation provided in an appendix (included at the time of submission) if needed;
- whether they adhere to the other ethical principles listed above, including explaining how any other real or perceived ethical issues or conflicts of interest, were addressed, including where these issues are discussed in the manuscript or an appendix as needed;
- to declare any agencies, organizations, or institutions that funded the research;
- to indicate where in the manuscript or an appendix the data collection procedures (if relevant) are explained; and
- to confirm that, if the paper is accepted, quantitative data and related code necessary to produce the results will be made publicly available on the APSR Dataverse, or in cases where such confirmation is not possible, provide a reasoned justification in the text or an appendix concerning the legal, ethical, or methodological constraints that prevent public, free access to the data.
This information (including any appendix that provides further details) will be shared with reviewers as appropriate. Reviewers will be invited to comment on the extent to which the research or researchers have adequately addressed ethical and transparency obligations.
Manuscript Preparation and Formatting
Authors should follow the manuscript preparation guidelines below. Submissions that do not follow these guidelines will be sent back to authors, which will delay the review process. Repeated submission of manuscripts that do not meet our standards may result in rejection.
Self-citation and Blind Review
Manuscripts should be written in such a way that they preserve the anonymity of the author. In order to ensure Blind Review, authors ought to avoid citing themselves unnecessarily or excessively, and should certainly ensure that any self-citation does not reveal their identity.
Authors also have the option of using the APSR template in the free-to-use online collaborative LaTeX tool, Overleaf. This tool helps authors follow the APSR manuscript format and provides a number of other useful features, including: an intuitive interface; version control and a typeset preview of the article; collaborative tools allowing the sharing of the article with co-authors and the ability to highlight and comment on the text. More information is given below.
Research Preregistration
The APSR does not publish preregistration reports, but it does review and publish research that has a preregistered research plan. Authors who have preregistered their research plan will be asked to provide information sufficient for the editors and reviewers to evaluate the extent to which the reported analysis is consistent with the preregistered research plan at the time of submission. This includes submitting an anonymized copy of the preregistration plan, and preferably a link to the anonymized version of the preregistration online, which will normally be shared with manuscript reviewers.
Manuscript Formatting for Review at a Glance
Maximum word count: 12,000 (manuscript); 4,000 (letter)
- The word count excludes the maximum 150-word abstract and online Appendices. It includes all text, tables and figures and their subsequent notes and captions, footnotes, and references in the article itself exclusive of appendices.
- NOTE: Please include all word counts in total. Programs like TexCount separate word count between main text, figure and table captions and footnotes. Be aware that this software notoriously underestimates word counts, struggling to properly estimate the word count produced when entering in-text references. This website provides a free (and fairly accurate) word count tool for counting words in PDFs.
Formatting
- Font should be 12 point for text, including footnotes and references.
- Everything should be double-spaced (including text, footnotes, and references)
- Page numbers are required on all pages.
- Please use footnotes and refrain from using endnotes.
- Do not use acronyms or computational abbreviations when discussing variables.
- Please include complete first and family names in the reference list.
- We expect the use of the 17th edition of The Chicago Manual of Style (for final acceptance only, not at point of submission).
Figures and Tables
- Place figures and tables exactly where they should fall in the manuscript, or, if need be, use a place holder [Figure/Table 1 about here], with the figure directly following on a new page.
- Please number figures and tables consecutively.
- All variables that appear in tables of figures should be described in appropriate detail in the text.
Figures
- Should be readable in grayscale. If submitting in color, please vary colors not by shade, but by intensity and tones. We recommend increments of 15-85%.
- NOTE: When printing in grayscale, classic blue, black, red and green all look the same.
- The costs of printing published color figures are the responsibility of the author.
References
- Author-Date system of the 17th Edition of the Chicago Manual of Style
- Information can be found in Chapter 15, Documentation II: Author-Date References
- Click here for access to the Chicago-Style Citation Quick Guide. Please be sure to change to Author-Date
- See below for a basic reference list example.
- Please provide authors' first and last names, rather than last name and first initial
- All listed references must be cited in the text, and vice versa. Do not include non-cited material in references.
- Please include a link to all non-published work, i.e., working papers, conference papers, etc.
- Publication information for each reference must be complete and correct at time of submission.
- If you are using the following research tools, we recommend:
- LaTeX – biblatex, style=chicago-authordate,
- MS Word 2016 includes CMS, for previous Word versions, try the Zotero MS-Word add-in
- Zotero – Chicago Manual of Style 17th Edition (author-date)
- EndNote – download the Chicago Manual of Style 17th Edition Author-Date (B)
In-Text Citations
- Use the Author-Date system in the following format: (Author Year, Pages). Note there is no comma between the author and the year. Separate mass citations with a semicolon.
- Do not redact your self-citations.
- Do not use footnotes for simple citations.
- Examples:
- “In the book by Ahlquist and Levi (2013), …”.
- Or at the end of a sentence (Mansbridge 1986).
- Citations may appear at the end of each (in-)dependent clause.
Appendices:
- Figures and Tables appearing in the appendices should be lettered to distinguish them from those in the manuscript (Table A.1, A.2, Figures A.1, A.2 etc.).
- Each appendix should have a descriptive title.
- Please restart the page count.
- Appendices intended for online publication do not count toward word count; however, please distinguish between online appendices and those you would intend to publish in print. On-line Appendices should be limited to 25 pages, including ethical and methodological discussions, if at all possible.
ORCID Identifier
Beginning January 1, 2019, an ORCID iD is a requirement for corresponding authors submitting to APSR
Examples of References:
Books
Cohen, Cathy J. 1999. The Boundaries of Blackness. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Hardy-Fanta, Carol, Pei-te Lien, Dianne Pinderhughes, and Christine Marie Sierra. 2016. Contested Transformation. New York: Cambridge University Press.
U.S. Department of State. 1979. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1951. Vol. II: United Nations; Western Hemisphere. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
Periodicals
Gay, Claudine. 2001. “The Effect of Black Congressional Representation on Political Participation.” American Political Science Review 95 (3): 589-602. Junn, Jane. 2007. "From Coolie to Model Minority: US Immigration Policy and the Construction of Racial Identity." Du Bois Review 4: (2): 355-73. Wedeen, Lisa. 2002. "Conceptualizing Culture: Possibilities for Political Science." American Political Science Review 96: (4): 713-28.
Chapter in Edited Collection
Ravi K. Perry and X. Loudon Manley. 2017. “Case Studies of Black Lesbian and Gay Candidates: Winning Identity Politics in the Obama Era.” In LGBTQ Politics: A Critical Reader, eds. Marla Brettschneider, Susan Burgess, and Christine Keating, 295-308. New York: NYU Press.
Edited Collections
Brettschneider, Marla, Susan Burgess, and Christine Keating, eds. 2017. LGBTQ Politics: A Critical Reader. New York: NYU Press.
Dissertations
Smooth, Wendy. 2001. "African American Women State Legislators." PhD diss., University of Maryland, College Park.
Websites
American Political Science Association. 2013. "About the APSA Africa Workshops." Washington, DC: American Political Science Association. Retrieved October 10, 2013 (http://www.apsanet.org/~africaworkshops/content_58417.cfm).
Datasets
Dawson, Michael C., Ronald E. L. Brown, and James S. Jackson. National Black Politics Study. [Computer file]. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 1993. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR02018.v3
Further Questions
Do not hesitate, in any cases of doubt, to consult the APSR Editorial Offices with more specific questions by sending an e-mail to apsr@apsanet.org.