Editorial, Production, and Peer Review Policies of ASHA Journals

(Last updated 2/09/2011)

ASHA’s journal program uses the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.) for guidance on editorial policies, as well as for manuscript style and formatting. Differences stemming from unique needs of the field and of the journals are set forth here and in the Instructions for Authors.

It is the responsibility of authors submitting articles for publication to review and adhere to these policies. Authors are also advised to familiarize themselves with the additional sources linked to within specific policies on this page.

Please send any general inquiries to journals{at}asha.org. Questions specific to a particular journal may be sent via the e-mail addresses found in the Instructions to Authors.

Editorial and Production Policies

For additional guidance on editorial and production matters, particularly with regard to manuscript style/formatting and publication requirements, please consult the Instructions for Authors.

Authors’ Use and Presentation of Articles

ASHA recognizes the importance of authors’ use of their work in the furtherance of scholarship and research. Although a copyright transfer is signed by authors at the time of submission, authors should be aware that they retain many rights for noncommercial use of the material. Express permission for use is only required in circumstances stipulated on the copyright transfer form.

Classroom Teaching
Authors may use the final published article in classroom teaching and similar academic settings, provided that the recipients are made aware that the material is copyrighted and is not for further dissemination. An article provided for classroom use must include a link to the Web address of the journal in which it has been published (or is to be published).

Personal Web Sites and Institutional Repositories
Authors may post on their personal Web sites, on department or university intranets, or in university repositories, the final, accepted manuscript along with the abstract from the final, published article when available, provided that the publication information (including the Web address of the journal site) is provided as applicable.

Presentation of the Work
Authors may present their accepted manuscripts orally in whole or in part and may use elements of the accepted manuscript as needed to support the presentation.

Reproduction, Republication, and Dissemination
Authors may, for professional purposes, make copies of the final, published article, provided that copyright is attributed and that no commercial use is made of the material. Authors may share by e-mail the PDF file of the final, published article for the purpose of dissemination to professional colleagues. Authors may also reuse in their own future works, without permission from ASHA, tables and figures from their article, provided that a full bibliographic citation is provided, including the Web address of the ASHA journal in which the article was originally published.

Return to Top

Clinical Forums and Research Forums

Depending on the ASHA journal, authors may have the option to submit a clinical forum or a research forum and, when doing so, must follow the procedures outlined in the journal’s Instructions for Authors. Clinical forums consist of empirical studies, scholarly reviews, and/or theoretical perspectives. Research forums contain a series of empirical studies centering on a key aspect of speech, language, or hearing science and/or disorders. Research forums may also comprise a set of scholarly papers presented at a scientific conference.

All submitted manuscripts that are part of a forum that has been approved for development will be subject to the typical ASHA journals peer review process. Each forum manuscript must be submitted separately by its corresponding author. The person designated as the forum coordinator is strongly encouraged to have all forum corresponding authors submit their manuscripts on the same day, or at least within the same week, to facilitate timely review and processing. Only those manuscripts accepted for publication will appear in a journal issue.

The editor determines the final manuscript order and may suggest to the forum coordinator the addition of relevant accepted articles as part of the final published forum in an issue. Whether to accept such additions is up to the forum coordinator (representing the decision of all original authors in the forum). In addition, any addition to a forum must include the assent of the added manuscript’s author(s). The editor may also choose to invite commentary or additional viewpoints for publication in a future issue (or the same issue, if feasible). The editor will also decide if accepted forum manuscripts can be processed for Papers In Press individually, or if they should be posted as a group once all forum manuscripts have received a final decision. (If posted as a group, the order of Papers In Press articles cannot be predetermined.)

Return to Top

Color in Figures and Tables

The editor determines the need for color in figures and tables. While not invoiced for color images, authors are asked to pay page charges from available publication funds for articles and letters that are five or more published journal pages. For details, see also Page Charges.

Return to Top

Conflicts of Interest

As part of the manuscript submission process, authors are required to disclose any real or potential conflicts of interest that could be seen as having an influence on the research (e.g., financial interests in a test or procedure, or funding by an equipment or materials manufacturer for efficacy research).

Sources of outside support for research, including funding, equipment, and supplies, must be named during the submission process (and questions to that effect will be presented online to authors as part of the article submission process). In addition, authors must disclose any financial or other nonprofessional benefit(s) that might result from the publication of the manuscript and that reviewers or readers might consider to have affected the conduct or reporting of the work.

If the author is uncertain about what might be considered a conflict of interest, he or she should err on the side of full disclosure by reporting the potential conflict when requested to do so during submission. Information about conflicts of interest may be made available to reviewers at the editor's discretion. The role(s) of the support organization, if any, in the collection of data, in its analysis and interpretation, and in the right to approve or disapprove publication of the finished manuscript also must be detailed during the submission process. If a support agency claims the right to approve/disapprove publication, the author should have completed this process by the time of manuscript submission.

If, in the editor's judgment, the author has a real or potential conflict of interest, that conflict must be acknowledged with a disclosure statement on the first page of the article. Authors will be informed of this decision before acceptance.

Return to Top

Copyright and Permissions

During submission of a manuscript, the author will be required to affirm that

  1. No material in the manuscript is the copyrighted work of another individual or organization, or
  2. Any material that is the copyrighted work, or an adaptation of such work, of another individual or organization is clearly marked as such and that permission has been obtained for its use in the manuscript in all forms (i.e., both print and electronic).

Letters of permission must accompany the uploaded manuscript file during submission. Review of a manuscript will not begin until the following has occurred:

  1. All required letters of permission have been obtained by the author and have been uploaded with the manuscript file.
  2. Any material for which permission for use has been granted has been clearly marked in the manuscript file, consistent with the requirements of the permission grantor.

Accepted articles are published online first in ASHA’s Papers in Press collection. No copyediting occurs before publication at that stage. Therefore, authors must affirm at submission that they recognize they will liable for any claims or penalties resulting from the unauthorized publication of copyrighted material.

Return to Top

Corrections and Retractions

The widespread move to online publishing has brought forth many opportunities, but also many challenges, when it comes to the dissemination of scholarly research.

In developing policies on postpublication changes to journal articles, ASHA has taken into account the needs of the many users of the journals—researchers, librarians, archivists, and indexers—in addition to those of the authors and editors, to articulate policies that can be uniformly implemented and enduring. The following sources were consulted in creating this policy:

Types of Corrections

As the nature of scholarly publishing continues to evolve, ASHA will monitor trends, keep abreast of the policies of its fellow publishers, and regularly review the recommendations of organizations such as those listed above. Adjustments will inevitably be made; however, the following types of corrections are used by ASHA to help preserve the accuracy,reliability, and permanence of the scholarly record.

Erratum: a correction of any sort. ASHA has in the past made a distinction between a correction notice and an erratum. The former was for errors made by the production office but not of a substantive nature, and the latter was for substantive errors made by either the author or the production office. In keeping with guidelines from National Library of Medicine, this distinction is no longer made by ASHA. An error is an error, and its correction will take the form of an erratum regardless of its source or characteristics.

Retraction: rejection or disavowal of published work because of fraud, plagiarism, ethical breaches, or other such scientific malfeasance, or because one’s work is rendered invalid as a result of the malfeasance or misconduct of another author’s work on which one’s article is based. A retraction containing explanatory information is published and bidirectionally linked, and the original article online is clearly and permanently marked as having been retracted (e.g., by a watermark on each page).

Removal: deletion of content from the scholarly record (extremely rare). Bibliographic information will remain a part of the scholarly record, but the actual article content will be removed in the event of a court order to do so; if there is a clear risk of legal liability to the author, publisher, or copyright holder or if the content poses a danger to the public.

Hypothetical Examples
ASHA created hypothetical examples that address ASHA’s stance on corrections and retractions in the journals. These scenarios provide more specific information on procedures to be followed, as applicable.

Return to Top

Ethics

 ASHA Practice Policy Resources
ASHA expects of its members high standards of ethical conduct in all of their professional activities. In addition to the ASHA Code of Ethics, practice policy documents have been issued to clarify ethical issues related to research and scholarly activities.

Authors, particularly those who are ASHA members, are encouraged to review these documents and apply them to their research and scholarly endeavors. In addition, the following policies and their associated resources apply to the publication of research in ASHA journals.

Ethics in Research and Scholarly Activity
Guidelines for the Responsible Conduct of Research: Ethics and the Publication Process

Protection of Humans in Research
All research to be submitted for publication in ASHA journals in which human participants are used must adhere to the basic ethical considerations for the protection of human participants in research. Where applicable by law or institutional affiliation, authors must provide assurance of approval by an appropriate institutional review board or equivalent review process. The basis for these considerations can be found in The Belmont Report: Ethical Principles and Guidelines for the Protection of Human Subjects (1979).

Protection of Animals in Research
All research to be submitted for publication in ASHA journals in which animal subjects are used must ensure that animals have been treated humanely with appropriate consideration of their comfort and health. Where applicable by law or institutional affiliation, authors must provide assurance of approval by an appropriate institutional animal care and use committee. The basis for these considerations can be found in the statement of the American Physiological Society regarding use and care of animals in research.

Scientific Misconduct
If an editor suspects scientific misconduct, the editor will bring the concern to the Publications Board. If it is determined that the author is not an ASHA member or certificate holder, the editor will bring the concern to a research ethics screening subcommittee. This subcommittee will have as members the editor (who will serve as chair) and two members of the Publications Board including one with expertise in the content area of the manuscript in question. In addition, the ASHA Director of Publications will serve as an ex-officio member. The charge to the screening subcommittee will be to determine whether the concerns have substantive merit and whether the potential for scientific misconduct is apparent.

If the concern appears to have substance, the first author’s home institution will be contacted by the ASHA Publications Board, and the institution’s appropriate research integrity officer will be notified of the concerns. The adjudication of the case, then, will be left to the home institution.

In referring the concern to the home institution, the ASHA Publications Board will request that it be notified of the outcome of any investigation or adjudication. The Publications Board will then determine procedures for dealing with the manuscript in question (issues such as withdrawal, removal from the Web site, corrections in the form of errata, etc.).

When the author is an ASHA member:
If an editor suspects scientific misconduct, the editor will bring the concern to the Publications Board. The Publications Board will file a formal complaint with the ASHA Board of Ethics.

If and when the case is resolved, the ASHA Board of Ethics will inform the Publications Board of the outcome. The Publications Board will determine procedures for dealing with the manuscript in question (issues such as withdrawal, removal from the Web site, corrections in the form of errata, etc.).

Return to Top

Open Access

 NIH-Funded Authors
What Is the NIH Public Access Policy?
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has mandated, as of April 7, 2008, that authors who have received NIH funding for their research must make that research publicly accessible in PubMed Central, NIH’s free digital archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature.

For more background on the policy and the specific terms of the law requiring it, please review the information provided on NIH’s Public Access Web site.

ASHA Permits Full Compliance With the NIH Policy
Manuscripts accepted for publication before April 7, 2008, are not subject to the mandate that authors must deposit their NIH-funded manuscripts into PubMed Central. For any manuscripts accepted after that date, ASHA hereby assures NIH-funded authors that they have ASHA’s full permission to comply with the NIH requirements, subject to the following conditions:

ASHA’s copyright transfer agreement has been revised to reflect current policy. Also, NIH is inviting further public comment. Refer back to this page for possible changes in the future.

How the PubMed Central Deposit Process Works
Although some publishers deposit articles to PubMed Central on behalf of authors, ASHA is at this time having authors make their own deposits. Important information is conveyed during the process, so authors are better served by making the deposit and receiving the information they will need for later use.

Once you have submitted your manuscript, you will receive an NIHMS ID number. PubMed Central will then perform quality assurance checks and create a retrieval record for the manuscript. At that time, your PubMed Central ID (PMCID) number will be available.

As of May 25, 2008, you need to cite the PMCID or the NIHMS ID, or both, when citing your manuscript in NIH applications, proposals, or progress reports. Consult the NIH FAQ for more information.

Voluntary Open Access
As of January 1, 2009, ASHA journals have an Open Access Option for authors publishing in our journals. Any authors wishing to have their articles in the online version of the journal freely available to the world from the time of publication and forward, may pay a one-time only Open Access fee of $3,000 per article. If this manuscript is the result of an NIH-funded project, you should know that your work will be freely available on PubMed Central in 12 months from publication.

Return to Top

Page Charges

ASHA bills authors for page charges, at the rate of $50 per page, for articles and letters that are five or more published journal pages. Page charge funds will be used for continued improvement of the journals; for example, page charges have helped allow for development of features such as Papers in Press and for completion of the online archive. Although not every research project has funds allocated to cover page charges, it is expected that researchers who are grant funded will have included publication funds in their grant proposals. In the absence of grant funding, payment may be considered optional. Nonpayment does not affect publication in any way.

Return to Top

Previously Published Works/Republication of Works With Limited Circulation

Except in the case of Special Reports (see below), ASHA journals do not consider for review submissions that have been published in the same, or essentially the same, form elsewhere. Authors who are modifying or extending work that has previously been published must notify the editor of the possible previous publication of their submission and provide a rationale for considering the new work to be substantially different from the original. They must also clearly acknowledge these prior publications in their manuscript.

This policy is meant to apply to all types of previously published materials, including conference proceedings and book chapters that have been offered for public sale. It does not necessarily apply to manuscripts that previously have been abstracted for proceedings of a conference or by a dissertation/thesis abstracting service. It also may not apply to duplications or revisions of work previously published in a form such as a university or government report that has limited circulation or availability, whether in print or online (e.g., working papers disseminated primarily among colleagues at the same institution).

In some unclear cases, a decision must be made to determine whether a manuscript represents original or duplicate work. This decision always rests with the editor of the ASHA journal, who may consult with the chair of ASHA's Publications Board as part of the decision process.

Return to Top

Publish Ahead of Print

The ASHA Publications Board strives for timely dissemination of research articles following acceptance for publication in one of ASHA’s scholarly journals. Because the time lag between the acceptance of a manuscript for publication and the actual publication may be as long as 9 months, our journals now publish Papers in Press. Papers in Press is a collection of accepted manuscripts that have been peer reviewed and accepted for publication but have not been copyedited, formatted, or published in final form in the journal.

Papers will be published in a journal’s Papers in Press collection as soon as possible after publication—generally a minimum of 10 days and a maximum of 1 month. A paper remains in the collection until published in final form in the journal; at that time it is removed from Papers in Press.

Manuscripts are considered published upon being made available in Papers in Press. They are indexed in MEDLINE and are available through searches in PubMed, Google, and other venues. Prepublication information, including the date, appears on the PDF file of each manuscript in Papers in Press. The format for citing these manuscripts is as follows:

Brockmann, M., Storck, C., Carding, P. N., & Drinnan, M. J. (2008). Voice loudness and gender effects on jitter and shimmer in healthy adults. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research. Published online July 29, 2008. doi: 10.1044/1092-4388(2008/06-0208)

Readers who want to respond to the content of a paper may do so using the traditional letter to the editor process after final publication of the paper.

Return to Top

Reporting Standards for Clinical Studies

Clinical studies appearing in ASHA journals must meet recognized standards for reporting. Articles reporting randomized clinical trials must follow the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT), nonrandomized clinical evaluations must follow the Transparency of Reporting Evaluations of Nonrandomized Designs (TREND), and studies of diagnostic accuracy must meet the Standards for Reporting of Diagnostic Accuracy (STARD). Authors should find these standards useful as guides in designing and implementing their studies; however, it is recognized that the standards apply directly to the reporting of studies rather than to their implementation.

Return to Top

Special Reports/Simultaneous Publication

ASHA journals may publish manuscripts on cross-disciplinary issues that have been previously published or that are being simultaneously published in two or more journals. Acceptance is contingent on approval of the manuscript by the editor of the journal in consultation with at least one associate editor and the chair of the Publications Board. Such exceptional content will be included under the heading of “Special Report” with a note on the title page of the article indicating that it was not subject to the journal’s typical peer review process.

Supplements

Supplements to ASHA journals consist of articles that for various reasons fall outside of the normal types of manuscripts submitted to the journals. The topics or concepts of a supplement must be approved by the Publications Board. When published, supplements are bound within a scheduled issue of the journal using supplementary pages so that the queue for regular content is not disrupted. Supplements may include, but are not restricted to, proceedings of conferences, monographs, and groups of related papers.

Procedure for initiating a supplement:

  1. Author contacts the appropriate editor with a detailed proposal.
  2. If the editor wishes to move forward with the proposal in the form of a supplement, the proposal is presented to the Publications Board.
  3. If the majority of the voting members of the board approve, the supplement is authorized.
  4. Editor has the option of appointing a guest editor to manage the peer review process. However, editor has final responsibility for acceptance for publication.

For an example of a recently published supplement, see the February 2008 issue of the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research.

Return to Top

Translations

 Non-English Articles
Although the Publications Board recognizes certain advantages in publishing select articles in languages other than English, such projects are time and cost prohibitive due to the amount of human and financial resources required to do them well. Consequently, the Publications Board policy is to publish articles in its four scholarly journals in English only.

Permission to Translate Articles for Use in Other Publications
Occasionally, individuals request permission to translate and distribute articles (or portions of articles) from ASHA journals in a language other than English and in publications other than journals. ASHA reserves the right to grant such permissions on a case-by-case basis.

Certain conditions must apply to all approved cases, however. This includes permission of the authors and of the ASHA Publications Office. In addition, the individual or institution requesting permission must satisfy the ASHA Publications Office that the translator is well qualified to perform the translation. Finally, the following statement must appear in boldface on the front page of the document:
Neither the authors nor ASHA were involved in the translation of this article from English. Neither the authors nor ASHA assume any responsibility for the accuracy of this translation.

Translations of Articles Previously Published in Non-English Journals
ASHA journals typically do not consider manuscripts that have been published elsewhere. However, if an editor considers an article important enough, and also considers the original publication obscure enough that broad dissemination was not possible, an article can be republished in an ASHA journal. This has occurred very rarely, however. Such an article must clearly reference the original and include all necessary disclosures to indicate that the article is a republished translation; publication is, of course, also contingent on permission from the original authors and the copyright holder, for all uses (both print and online).

Return to Top

Peer Review Policies

All manuscripts (except Special Reports) are peer reviewed, typically by at least two reviewers with relevant expertise, an associate editor responsible for manuscripts in a given area, and the editor of the journal.

Appeals Regarding Editor Decisions

Authors may disagree with the decision of the editors of ASHA journals and may wish to challenge and appeal those decisions.

  1. All appeals concerning decisions of the editor are first directed to the editor. In many cases, author–editor disagreements can be resolved directly through discussions between these parties. If no resolution is achieved, the author may file an appeal with the chair of the Publications Board.
  2. The Publications Board chair discusses the disagreement with both parties to determine whether the dispute involves matters of scientific or technical opinion. If the dispute solely concerns such differing opinions, the appeal is not considered further and the original editorial decision is upheld. The chair then notifies the author and editor of the decision.
  3. If the chair concludes that the issue could be the result of personal bias and/or capriciousness in an editorial decision, the chair then convenes an ad hoc Publications Board Appeals Committee. This committee is made up of two voting members of the Publications Board and the Publications Board chair. This committee is charged with the task of determining whether the author’s appeal has merit. This decision will be determined by majority vote.
  4. If the decision is that there is no merit to the appeal, the chair of the Publications Board notifies the editor and the author of the decision.
  5. If the committee determines that the appeal has merit, the editor is given an opportunity to reconsider the final decision.
  6. If the Editor maintains the original decision, the chair of the Publications Board may assign a new guest editor and guest associate editor for the manuscript. New reviewers are then solicited and the review process is re-initiated.

Return to Top

Blind Versus Open Peer Review

Peer review of submissions to ASHA journals is typically open, with the author(s) known to the reviewers. Authors may request blind review but identities will still be known to the editor and associate editors. Requests must be made at the time of submission and the author is responsible for removal of identifying information from the manuscript. Reviewers’ identities are not revealed to the author(s) unless reviewers choose to include their names in the review.

Return to Top

Confidentiality/Privileged Information

Manuscripts submitted to ASHA journals are privileged information. They are confidential and must not be discussed with anyone other than the journal editor and the assigned associate editor. After the final publication decision has been made, reviewers should destroy their copies of the manuscript.

Statistical Consultation

Occasionally, a reviewer must consult with colleagues on some aspect of a paper, such as the statistical analysis. Such consultations should occur only with the editor’s or associate editor’s permission and without providing the author’s identity or details of the manuscript’s content.

Mentoring Individual Doctoral Students

For the purpose of training PhD students in the peer review process, a manuscript reviewer/mentor may engage a PhD student in the review process under the mentor’s guidance. (One student per mentor per paper.) The mentor bears full responsibility for the review. The PhD student will be bound by the same principles of confidentiality that govern the review process as a whole. It is the responsibility of the mentor to inform the journal editorial administrator, the Editor, and AE of the mentee’s identity. The editorial administrator will enter the information into the manuscript administrative record. If a doctoral student conducts a written review, the mentor must append the review to his or her formal review and mark the appended review as having been done by a doctoral student.

Return to Top

Criteria for Acceptance

The principal criteria for acceptance are significance of the topic or experimental question, conformity to rigorous standards of evidence and scholarship, and clarity of writing. ASHA membership is not a factor in selection.

Return to Top

Editor Transitions and Manuscripts in Process

Manuscripts that have not received a final decision at the time of an editor transition (this typically occurs on November 15 of the final year of an editor’s term) will continue the peer review process under the same associate editor and reviewers wherever possible to preserve consistency.

Return to Top