Format-Free Submissions in Psychology-Related Journals

Geoff G. Cole (), Ellie Benfield and Steven Samuel
Additional contact information
Geoff G. Cole: Centre for Brain Science, University of Essex, Colchester CO4 3SQ, UK
Ellie Benfield: Centre for Brain Science, University of Essex, Colchester CO4 3SQ, UK
Steven Samuel: Department of Psychology, City St. George’s, University of London, London EC1V 0HB, UK

Publications, 2024, vol. 12, issue 3, 1-6

Abstract: Scientists have a duty to spend their time, and hence public money, in an efficient manner. One particularly wasteful task concerns the formatting of articles submitted to academic journals. Around a decade or so ago some academics began to challenge this inefficiency and a small number of articles have been published advocating for change. There has, however, been little progress, particularly within psychology. In the present article, we advocate for what is sometimes referred to as the Format-Free Submission . In order to quantify progression, we also examined a sample (n = 500) of psychology-related journals to determine which offer this. Results showed that only 73 (i.e., 14.6%) have formatting requirements that are relatively flexible for initial submissions. We suggest that the current system within psychology publishing is unethical, in that it wastes a huge amount of taxpayers’ money, and that change is needed.

Keywords: format-free submission; publishing; peer-review (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A2 D83 L82 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2304-6775/12/3/29/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2304-6775/12/3/29/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jpubli:v:12:y:2024:i:3:p:29-:d:1481456

Access Statistics for this article

Publications is currently edited by Ms. Jennifer Zhang

More articles in Publications from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().