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Resources > Journal Authors/Editors/Reviewers > Journal Author Gateway > Manuscript submission guidelines

Submitting your manuscript

Many Sage journals are hosted on Sage Track, a web based online submission and peer review system powered by ScholarOne™ Manuscripts. Please see the submission guidelines of the journal you wish to submit to find out its preferred submission method. 

IMPORTANT: If submitting through Sage Track, please check whether you already have an account in the system before trying to create a new one. If you have reviewed or authored for the journal in the past year it is likely that you will have had an account created. For further guidance on submitting your manuscript online please visit ScholarOne Online Help. 

Who should submit my manuscript? 

Sage authorship policy
Authors should submit their manuscripts and should have the consent of all contributing authors. The individual responsible for submitting the manuscript should carefully check that all those whose work contributed to the manuscript are listed as authors. Third parties may in some cases submit manuscripts but where appropriate, Sage reserves the right to deny consideration to manuscripts submitted by a third party rather than by the authors themselves.  

Please view our authorship policies on the Sage Author Gateway, which includes information on criteria for authorship, who should be the corresponding author and more.  

What should I submit? 

Details about what specific information to submit will be included in your chosen journal’s guidelines but the below might be helpful to know:

  • You may be asked to include a cover letter: To help the Editor in their preliminary evaluation you should indicate why you think the manuscript suitable for publication.
  • A title page: with all required identifying information as laid out in the How to prepare your manuscript for submission page. This will not be sent to the peer reviewers.
  • Your manuscript: properly formatted. If submitting to a journal that follows a double-anonymized peer review process please ensure it is anonymized. This version will be sent to the peer reviewers.
  • Figures and images: all figures must be numbered consecutively in the order in which they appear in the text – they will appear in the published article in the order they are numbered. Figure resolution is 300dpi. More information can be found on the How to prepare your manuscript for submission page.
  • Supplemental material: This journal can host additional materials online (e.g. datasets, podcasts, videos, images, etc) alongside the full-text of the article. Your supplemental material must be one of our accepted file types. For that list and more information please refer to our guidelines on submitting supplemental files.
  • ORCID ID of the submitting author (if required): we strongly encouraged that all co-authors ensure their ORCID IDs are linked to their accounts in the submission system prior to article acceptance, as this is the only way to have the ORCID ID present on the published article. ORCID IDs cannot be added to manuscripts after acceptance/publication. Please note that each co-author must log in to the submission system to add their own ORCID ID to their account. To add an ORCID ID, edit your account, click the link when prompted, and sign into your ORCID account to validate your ID. You will then be redirected back to the submission system and your ORCID ID will become part of your accepted publication’s metadata. If you do not already have an ORCID ID please follow this link to create one or visit our ORCID homepage to learn more.
  • Complete list of authors, with their institutional affiliations: The author information you enter at submission must exactly match what is included on your manuscript and/or title page, including full names, academic affiliations, and corresponding author contact details.  The listed affiliation should be the institution where the research was conducted. If an author has moved to a new institution since completing the research, the new affiliation can be included in a note at the end of the manuscript. All listed authors must meet the criteria for authorship and all those eligible for authorship must be included at the time of submission. All authors must have given consent for the manuscript to be submitted in its current form. Please ensure the information you are supplying is correct. If feedback raised during peer review suggests the addition of an unlisted author, please use the Authorship Change Form to make this request. Please note that authorship cannot be changed post-acceptance.
  • Keywords: During submission, you may be asked to select keywords from a pre-determined list. These keywords are used to match appropriate reviewers to your manuscript. Your selections should match the keywords on your manuscript as much as possible, but your manuscript may include keywords not on the list.
  • The number of figures, tables, and words in your manuscript.
  • Funder information: Name, grant/award number.
  • You may be required to enter your declaration of conflicting interest as part of the submission process, in addition to listing it on your manuscript and/or title page.
  • If you are submitting to a journal that considers preprints and you have posted your manuscript to a preprint server, you will be asked to supply the DOI (this does not prohibit submission, but no changes should be made to the preprint version while your manuscript is under evaluation in this journal). Please see our guidelines on prior publication. If the article is accepted for publication, the author may re-use their work according to the journal's author archiving policy. If your manuscript is accepted, you must include a link in your preprint to the final version of your published article.