Submission guidelines

Before you submit

• Check that your work fits the journal's aims and scope.
• The manuscript must not be published elsewhere or under review at another journal. Preprints are welcome; tell us where yours is posted. Material that has appeared as a book chapter or in conference proceedings is considered only if it has been substantially revised, the earlier version is disclosed, and you hold the rights to republish it.
• All authors must have approved the submission and agree to be listed.

Article types

Word limits include references and exclude tables and figures.

Practice notes are written by or with practitioners such as journalists, lawyers, communication staff, technologists, and policy officers. A practice note analyses a problem from professional practice, a documented intervention, or the lessons of a campaign or case. It must be grounded in evidence, cite relevant research, and say what practitioners and researchers can learn from it.

Preparing your files

Send three files.

1. Anonymized manuscript (.docx)

• Title, abstract of 150–250 words, and four to six keywords.
• Main text, then references in APA 7th edition style.
• Remove author names, affiliations, acknowledgements, funding details, and anything else that identifies you. Cite your own earlier work in the third person, or as "(Author, 2024)" with the reference withheld. Clear the author name from the file's document properties.
• Tables and figures may be embedded or placed at the end. Supply figures as editable files or at 300 dpi.
• Use US or UK English consistently.

2. Title page (.docx or PDF)

• Full title; every author's name, affiliation, email, and ORCID iD (required for the corresponding author, strongly encouraged for co-authors); the corresponding author.
• Funding: sources, or "none".
• Competing interests: any financial, professional, or personal relationships that could be seen to influence the work, or "none".
• Ethics: for research with human participants, the name of the approving ethics committee or institutional review board and the approval or exemption number, and how consent was obtained.
• Data availability: where the data can be found, or why they cannot be shared.
• Use of AI: whether generative AI tools were used in the research or writing, which tools, and for what. Spelling and grammar checkers do not need to be declared. See the AI policy.
• Author contributions (optional, for multi-author papers), for example using the CRediT taxonomy.

3. Cover letter

A short letter saying what the manuscript contributes, why it fits JGPCM, whether a preprint or earlier version exists, and, if you wish, up to three suggested reviewers who have no conflict of interest with you.

If the manuscript was reviewed and declined by another journal, you may also attach those reviews and a short memo on how you addressed them. This is optional, it does not affect the desk decision, and our reviewers still review the manuscript independently. Remove anything that identifies the earlier reviewers.

Research ethics

Studies with human participants need approval or a documented exemption from an ethics committee or institutional review board. If no such body is available in your setting, explain in the title page how participants were protected and how informed consent was obtained. When quoting social media posts by private individuals, consider whether a quotation could identify them and paraphrase where appropriate. Full details are in the publication ethics policy.

How to submit

Email the three files to submissions@jgpcm.org with the subject line Submission: [article type]: [short title]. We acknowledge every submission.

What happens next

1. Desk screening. An editor checks scope, completeness, anonymization, similarity with published work, and research integrity. You receive a decision, either sent to review or declined, within 14 days.
2. Peer review. At least two independent reviewers assess the manuscript under double-anonymous review. We aim to send a first decision within about six weeks of desk acceptance, but review times vary and are never guaranteed.
3. Decision. Accept, minor revisions, major revisions, or reject, with the reviewers' reports.
4. Revision. You return a revised manuscript with a point-by-point response to the reviewers.
5. Publication. After acceptance, the article is copyedited, you approve the proofs, and it goes online with its received, accepted, and published dates.

Copyright and licence

Authors keep the copyright in their work. On acceptance, the corresponding author signs a short licence-to-publish agreement on behalf of all authors, granting JGPCM a non-exclusive licence to publish the article and releasing it under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence. See the open access statement.

After publication, please link to your article's page on this site when you share it. Downloads and citations are easier to track when everyone points to the same version.

Corrections and appeals

If you disagree with a decision, you may appeal in writing; see the appeals procedure. If you find an error in a published article, email us and we will publish a correction.