Author Guidelines

Author Guidelines for the Journal of Speech Language and Communication

Submission Guidelines

Manuscript Types
JSLCR publishes a wide variety of article types:

Research Article
A research article is a full-length article presenting important new research results. Research articles include an abstract, introduction, methods and results sections, discussion, and relevant citations. Suggested maximum length: 20 pages, including citations, tables, and figures (supplemental materials not included in length guidelines).

Research Note
A research note is a brief manuscript presenting pilot, preliminary, and/or exploratory findings or a new method for the collection or analysis of data. Includes a short abstract and introductory paragraph. The scientific findings should be explained and documented concisely. Suggested maximum length: 20 manuscript pages, including citations, tables, and figures).

Review Article/Scoping Review
“Review Article” is an umbrella term covering systematic reviews (with or without meta-analyses), historical reviews of a body of research, description of an author’s programmatic research, and possibly other types of reviews.
Reviews can be a comprehensive overview, or they can be focused on a narrow body of research. Reviews should be accessible to knowledgeable readers, not experts in the subject area. They should be prepared with the same rigour as a research article reporting specific results. Suggested maximum length: 20 manuscript pages, including citations, tables, and figures (supplemental materials not included in length guidelines).

Clinical Focus
A clinical focus is an article that may be of primary clinical interest but may not have a traditional research format. Case studies, descriptions of clinical programs, and innovative clinical services and activities are among the possibilities. Suggested maximum length: 16 pages, including citations, tables, and figures (supplemental materials not included in length guidelines).

Tutorial
A tutorial is an educational exposition covering recent literature on topics of interest to clinicians and other scholars. Suggested maximum length: 16 pages including citations, tables, and figures (supplemental materials not included in length guidelines).

Technical Report
A technical report is a brief article describing a pretrial feasibility or pilot efficacy study that addresses important clinical questions (i.e., whom to treat with a given technology, when to treat, and for how long). Suggested maximum length: 16 pages, including citations, tables, and figures (supplemental materials not included in length guidelines).

Viewpoint
A viewpoint includes scholarly-based opinion(s) on an issue of clinical relevance that currently may be neglected, controversial, or related to future legislation or could serve to update the readership on current thinking in an area. Suggested maximum length: 10 pages, including citations, tables, and figures (supplemental materials not included in length guidelines).

Commentary
A commentary is a short, timely article that spotlights current issues of direct interest to the communication sciences and disorders community. Commentary articles are often extensions or reactions to positions put forward in viewpoint articles. Suggested maximum length: 10 pages, including citations, tables, and figures (supplemental materials not included in length guidelines).

Letter to the Editor
A letter to the editor communicates opinions about material previously published in the journal or views on topics of current relevance. A letter relating to work published in the journal will ordinarily be referred to the author(s) of the original item for a response, which may be published along with the letter.

Introduction
An introduction is generally a short article presented at the beginning of a forum or special issue. It may be written by, as applicable, the journal's editor-in-chief, an editor, or the special issue editor involved and is intended to provide background information on the topic covered, brief explanations of the articles, and the aims or goals of the forum or special issue. An introduction is typically limited to 10 manuscript pages, including citations, tables, and figures.

Epilogue
An epilogue is a short article at the end of a forum or special issue that is written by, as applicable, the journal's editor-in-chief, an editor, or the special issue editor involved. An epilogue should include a summation of the preceding articles' findings and may draw broader conclusions than the individual articles. An epilogue is typically limited to 10 manuscript pages, including citations, tables, and figures.

Manuscript Preparation
Generally, scientific manuscripts should be organized as follows:

  • Title page
  • Abstract
  • Introduction
  • Method
  • Results
  • Discussion
  • Acknowledgments
  • References
  • Tables and Figures
  • Appendices (optional)

Supplemental information (optional)
Because scientific papers are organized in this way, readers know what to expect from each part of the paper, and they can quickly locate specific information.

General Manuscript Formatting
All manuscripts submitted to the JSLCR should adhere to the following general formatting guidelines:
Manuscripts must be provided in a standard document format (e.g., .doc, .docx). Figures must be provided in a standard image format (e.g., JPEG, TIFF, PNG) and have a resolution of at least 300 DPI. Tables must be provided as either an editable Microsoft Word document (i.e., .doc, .docx), or as an editable Microsoft Excel spreadsheet (i.e., .xls, .xlsx) containing only text and no formulas.

Manuscripts should be double-spaced.

Article Template on the JSLCR.

Single spaces after periods.

Page Limit
A guideline of 8 - 20 pages (including title page, abstract, text, acknowledgments, references, appendixes, tables, and figures) is suggested as an upper limit for manuscript length for most manuscript types. This page limit does not include supplemental materials. Please note that this is just a general guideline. Longer manuscripts, particularly for critical reviews and extended data-based reports, will be considered but authors should submit a cover letter providing a rationale explaining why the added length is needed. Additional information is available on the JSLCR website.

Title Page
The title should be short and clear, yet provide a sufficient description of the work. As the title becomes the basis for online search results, it should contain the key words describing the work presented. If your title is not precise enough or is too “catchy” versus informative, people may have difficulty finding your article. The title page should also include a list of the authors and their affiliations

Abstract
The abstract helps readers scan through lists of articles or search results and is essential for helping users decide whether to read the rest of the article or save it for future reference. As a result, abstracts must be brief but also informative enough to be genuinely useful. JSLCR recommends that abstracts be 150–250 words. The size limit for what can be included in your submission is set above 300 words, but that is so that very detailed abstracts for specific types of studies can be accommodated.

Regardless of the type of manuscript, abstracts must be structured using the following sections:
Purpose: The Purpose section must concisely describe the specific purposes, questions addressed, and/or hypotheses tested. Lengthy descriptions of rationale are not necessary or desirable.
Method: The Method section must describe characteristics and numbers of participants and provide information related to the design of the study (e.g., pre-post group study of treatment outcomes, randomized controlled trial, multiple baselines across behaviours; ethnographic study with qualitative analysis; prospective longitudinal study) and data collection methods. If the participants were randomly assigned to study conditions, this must be noted explicitly, regardless of the design used. If the article is not data-based, information should be provided on the methods used to collect information (e.g., online database search), to summarize previously reported data and to organize the presentation and arguments (e.g., meta-analysis, narrative review).
Results: The Results section should summarize findings as they apply directly to the stated purposes of the article. Statistical outcomes may be summarized, but no statistics other than effect sizes should be provided. This section may be omitted from articles that are not data-based.
Conclusions: The Conclusions section must state specifically the extent to which the stated purposes of the article have been met. Comments on the generalizability of the results (i.e., external validity), needs for further research, and clinical implications often are highly desirable.

Introduction
The introduction usually describes the theoretical background, indicates why the work is important, states a specific research question, and poses a specific hypothesis to be tested. This section should provide your statement of purpose and rationale.

Method
The methods section must provide a clear and precise explanation of how you carried out the study and why specific experimental procedures were chosen. This section describes both the techniques and the overall experimental strategy used by the authors in order to address any questions the readers may have about the experimental design. The methods section must be written with enough information so that (1) the experiment could be repeated by others to determine if the results can be replicated and (2) the audience can judge the study’s validity.

Results
The results section contains the data collected during your study and is the heart of a scientific paper. The body of the results section is a text-based presentation of the key findings which includes references to each of the Tables and Figures. Much of the important information may be in the form of tables or graphs. The text should guide the reader through the results stressing the key results that provide the answers to the question(s) investigated.

Discussion
The discussion section should explain what the results mean and how the results relate to other studies. This section interprets your findings, evaluates the hypotheses or research questions, discusses unexpected results, and ties the findings to the previous literature (discussed first in the Introduction). Any possible objections to the work and/or suggestions of areas for improvement in future research can be addressed in this section.

Conclussion
A conclusion is the final part of something, or its end or result. In writing, a conclusion is the final section of a paper, essay, or article that summarizes the work and draws a final impression.

Acknowledgments
Citation of grant or contract support of research must be given in an acknowledgments section at the end of the article (before the References). If any part of the research was supported by an institution not named on the title page, that institution should be acknowledged in this section. Individuals who assisted in the research may be acknowledged. Do not name individuals (editors and reviewers) who participated in the review process.

References
All literature cited in the text, as well as test and assessment tools, ANSI and ISO standards, and specialized software, must be listed in this section. References should be listed alphabetically, then chronologically under each author. Journal names should be spelled out and italicized. Pay particular attention to accuracy and APA style for references cited in the text and listed in the references. Provide page numbers for any chapters or journal articles. Include digital object identifier (DOI) information if available.

Tables and Figures
Tables present lists of numbers or text in columns, each column having a title or label. Figures are visual presentations of results, including graphs, diagrams, photos, drawings, schematics, maps, and so on. Each table or figure should appear on its own page (i.e., do not put more than one figure or table on the same page). Use Arabic numerals to identify both tables and figures, and do not use suffix letters for complex tables. Instead, simplify complex tables by making two or more separate tables. Table titles and figure captions should be concise but explanatory. The reader should not have to refer to the text to decipher the information. Keep in mind the width of a column or page when designing tables and figures. In other words, consider whether legibility will be lost when reductions are made to fit a column or page width. Avoid “special effects” in figures (e.g., three-dimensional bar graphs) because they distort, rather than enhance, the data and distract the reader. Keep in mind that for figures with color, legends or captions should provide enough explanation that the meaning is not lost if the article is printed in black and white by a user of the article. See General Manuscript Formatting section for information on file types for tables and figures.