ASAP welcomes submissions in many forms. These include:
Content areas include, but are not limited to:
Papers should not be more than 40 ms pages including references. They must be submitted electronically either by themselves or as an attachment using Ascii, Rich Text, or Word Perfect format. Authors must contact the editor before sending an attachment and indicate the title of the attachment that will be sent. Submissions are free and every effort will be made to keep reviewing time at a minimum. In addition to their scholarly merit, manuscripts will be evaluated for their ability to communicate clearly their ideas to policy makers and the general public as well as fellow social scientists.
Manuscripts will be sent electronically for review to nationally and internationally recognized scholars with expertise in the area. Their reviews will also be sent to authors electronically. Articles will be published in a timely manner as soon as they are accepted. At that time, the author will be requested to send a disk with the accepted manuscript in either WORD or WordPerfect so that articles can be converted to a PDF file.. All peer-reviewed articles will also appear in a print edition of ASAP at the end of each calendar year.
Manuscripts should be in the style of the American Psychological Association.
Authors may send brief (no more than two pages) preliminary proposals to the editor of ASAP. Proposals should be sent to: Geoff Maruyama at geoff@umn.edu.
The ASAP book review section includes reviews of recently published books and other media which are likely to be of interest to SPSSI members and the broader community of behavioral and social scientists concerned with policy issues. Reviews include thematic essays, typically incorporating discussion of several books, as well as reviews of single volumes. Publishers should submit copies of books for review consideration to
Publishers should submit copies of books for review consideration to:
Peggy Stockdale, Ph.D.
Professor, Psychology
Southern Illinois University Carbondale
Carbondale, IL 62901-6502
Readers are invited to submit brief comments on reviews; these should be sent via email to pstock@siu.edu. Though all reviews are written by invitation, readers interested in reviewing books on particular topics are encouraged to contact the book review editor, preferably via email, at the address given above
Reviews should include a description of the goals of the work(s) under review and an assessment of the adequacy with which those goals have been met. The intended audience and, if different, the appropriate audience should be noted. The review should pay particular attention to the relevance of the work(s) to the SPSSI membership.
Reviewers are encouraged to be frank, recognizing limitations as well as strengths of the works under review. Reviews should stand on their own as informative essays, should avoid technical jargon and acronyms, and should be intelligible and coherent to the broad base of psychologists, social scientists, and policy makers that make up ASAP's intended readership. Finally, reviews should be timely.
The typical review of a single work (book, monograph, etc.) will be between 400 and 1,000 words. Thematic reviews of multiple works may be substantially longer.
Reviews should be preceded by the appropriate bibliographic information, i.e., author(s), title, publisher, year, ISBN and retail price. Following the review, authors should include a self-description, typically no more than 30 words in length. Authors must also include an email address to be published with the review.
Point/Counterpoint is devoted to discussion and critical commentary about issues and articles published by ASAP and other SPSSI publications such as the Journal of Social Issues. Our goal is to take advantage of the interactive capacity of electronic publishing to engage authors and readers. Although Point/Counterpoint commentaries may include personal opinions, authors are expected to support their position with reference to social science theory and empirical research. Commentaries will be reviewed for scholarly content and importance, not for their support or refutation of particular social viewpoints. The published remarks do not necessarily represent the views of either ASAP or SPSSI as a whole.
State the target articles' argument as you understand it. Use tact to formulate a reply so that it does not cast a negative light on the competency of the author(s) of the target article. Avoid ad hominem attacks and emotional language. Offer constructive criticism that advances the debate, by for example, showing how the argument in the target article fairs in the context of new insights. Aim to amend, elaborate, clarify and expand the discussion raised by the target article. Deal with the issues in a general way that informs and educates the reader and focus on implications for a whole field rather than on small issues that matter to only a few specialists in a narrow area. Be brief - a reply should be less than half the length of the target article.
These points are summarized from Hyman, R. (1985). How to critique a published article. Psychological Bulletin, 118, 178-182.