Sage Journals Information

Please ensure the manuscript…

• Is a Word file (.doc or .docx) or TeX file.
• Conforms to the appropriate style throughout (APA, AMA, etc.).
• Is the final version for publication, with developmental editing completed.
• Includes title, short title, abstract, and keywords.
• Includes names, e-mails, affiliations, degrees, and biographies for ALL authors and a mailing address for the corresponding author.
• Displays author names and surnames correctly and in a manner consistent with previous publications.
• Includes article type or issue section heading.
• Includes callouts within article text for all figures, tables, and supplements.
• Does not contain equations in image format - please ensure that all math equations and chemical formulas are editable.
• Includes references for all in-text citations, and all references are mentioned in the text.
• Does not contain tables in image format - tables must be editable and should be submitted in Word, Excel, or PowerPoint, include captions, and be placed after the reference list in separate files.
• Contains figures submitted in their original format, preferably as separate files. Figures must meet Artwork Guidelines (see below).
• Includes properly formatted supplemental material. Supplemental Material can be in any file format and must be labeled "Online_supp." Please understand that supplemental files are not edited by Sage or reviewed by the author prior to publication. Files should arrive in final, publish-ready format.

In addition to the manuscript file, please include:

• Permission(s) for usages of copyrighted material as appropriate (signed)

Artwork submission guidelines

• Figures must be high resolution (at least 300 dpi). They should be submitted exactly as they should appear in the journal. Line art should be submitted as vector-based (.eps) files
• Images are best submitted separately from the text document. Please do not embed images into your file, as embedding raster image files (photographs) in Word or similar programs automatically reduces the resolution below what is needed for quality print publication.
• Please see our “Artwork submission guidelines” online for more detailed information.

Adherence to issue due dates is imperative to ensure on-time issue publication, as this can affect your journal’s institutional subscriptions, impact factor, and subscription revenue. Please remember the following for smooth sailing through issue production:

• Please submit all issue content—including the Table of Contents (TOC)—by the deadlines provided by your PE. Please take care to remember special items like editorials, book reviews, and news pieces.
  • SMART’s Article List is a great tool for reviewing available articles for issue placement, listing all articles along with submission dates, page counts, author names, and other helpful data. The information can easily be sorted and copied, which can be helpful for creating the Table of Contents you’ll send to your PE or for tracking your page usage.
  • For many journals, your PE can create the TOC for an issue by selecting completed articles by order of acceptance and page allotment. Please contact your PE to discuss this option and outline the parameters of selection.
• Please send updates for editorial boards, submission guidelines, and other recurring content as soon as you think of them, no matter how distant the next issue. We suggest using TOC preparation as an additional “last-call” reminder to think about any such updates and supply them.
  • Many of our issues are finalized as early as 2 months prior to the cover month, so the deadline for such updates may be earlier than you expect! You can ask your PE for specific deadlines or reminders if needed.

Your journal has a contractual number of pages allowed per volume. Maintaining awareness of your page usage (both when accepting manuscripts and planning issues) is important for optimizing publication schedules and minimizing extra costs. Exceeding your page budget can be costly and we strive to help you keep your journal within its page budget:

• We provide the flexibility to divide your volume page budget among that volume’s issues however you prefer. Some issues can be longer and some shorter, as long as the total pages for the volume don’t exceed the budget.
• We recommend that you publish any special issues early in a volume, as special issues have the tendency to exceed initial page budget estimates.
• We provide easy-access reminders about your page budget (and more) in your customized Quick Ref guide, which also features a method for estimating the number of journal pages a manuscript will require.

• We provide up-to-the-minute information about your current and historical articles, including page counts and much more, on our SMART website (for more information, see the FAQs below).

Please discuss any page budget challenges with your PE.

What counts toward page budget?

Editorial content, plus any special elements on interior pages, such as:

• TOC (Table of contents)
• Verso (Postal/copyright info)
• Editorial board
• Call for papers
• Reviewer lists
• Submission guidelines
• Abstracts
• Indexes

Please consult your journal’s contract for additional details about your page budget and the costs of extra pages.

In matters relating to your journal, you may need to contact several people at Sage.
To route your questions, comments, suggestions, or needs to the appropriate person, please use this guide.

Journals Production: Your Production Editor

• Status of articles or issues in production
• Production schedules and manuscript due dates
• Open access - Hybrid subscription journals (Sage Choice) options
• Corrections, additions, or deletions to manuscripts or proofs
• Transfer of copyright/exclusive license to publish agreements and permissions
• Page usage or page budget for current volume or issue
• Changes to online submission guidelines
• Errata/corrigenda

Journals Editorial: Your Publishing Editor

• Journal contracts and terms
• Contractual page length allotments
• Financial concerns
• Ethical/plagiarism concerns
• Editorial board changes and complimentary access
• All Society/Association concerns
• Facebook, podcasts, and videocasts
• Marketing and advertising/promotions concerns
• Special issues and proposals
• Mailing lists
• Conventions and supplements
• Bulk sales
• Covers and interior design specifications
• Open access - Sage Choice, open access archiving
• For open access journals, author requests for waivers, discounts to the article processing charge

Sage Track: Peer Review Assistant/Peer Review Specialist

• Logging into your Editor or EIC Center
• Adjusting Sage Track access for editors or reviewers
• Assigning editors or reviewers to particular manuscripts in Sage Track
• Viewing completed reviews
• Making manuscript decisions
• Exporting manuscripts
• Any other questions pertaining to Sage Track peer review process (ex. rejection and acceptance rates) or manuscript export

Sage Journals: Licensing & Payment is an integrated online platform that provides a single portal for authors, consortia, libraries and funders to manage their open access publishing options. The platform also supports Contributor License signing for a growing number of Sage’s hybrid and subscription journals.

Authors publishing open access in Sage’s Gold Open Access journals or hybrid journals (via Sage Choice, Sage’s hybrid OA option) can choose and sign funder compliant open access creative commons licenses and pay (or assign payers) for Article Processing Charges, where applicable, in the platform.

Authors publishing subscription: can sign their Contributor License in the platform, a required step before publication of their article.

Authors will be invited to Sage Journals: Licensing & Payment via email after acceptance in Sage Track. Authors will receive automated reminders and clear instructions to ensure that their post-acceptance actions are completed and the production of their article is not delayed.

Once a manuscript is accepted in Sage Track, it goes through three tasks—

1. Completion and approval of the contributor form
   This task is being removed from Sage Track to Sage Journals: Licensing & Payment over the course of 2025. Journal Editors will be notified when this is happening for their journal and while there are active manuscripts in the Contributor Task queue they should be completed until the queue is empty. Journals with this task removed need only complete steps 2 and 3.
2. Completion of the production checklist
3. Assign to batch task.

Manuscripts must be assigned to the Sage Production batch and exported to reach production. For further assistance, contact the Peer Review Specialist.

Open access content is made freely available to under the terms of a Creative Commons licence. Open access publication is usually subject to payment of an article processing charge (APC) paid by the author, institution or funding body.  At Sage, open access publication is available through three routes: Sage Gold Open Access journals, Hybrid subscription journals (Sage Choice) and Green Open Access archiving.

For gold open access journals and open access (Sage Choice) in hybrid journals, authors can request open access or review what they are eligible for in Sage Journals: Licensing & Payment.  Authors will receive a link to Sage Journals: Licensing & Payment after acceptance in Sage Track, provided the article type is eligible.

For green open access archiving: Many funding bodies and institutions now require that the work they support is made publicly available through a suitable repository. Sage’s Open Access publishing programme and author archiving policies allow our authors to comply with the various requirements stipulated by the major funding bodies. For more information please review the Journals permissions page.