Sociological Methodology

MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSION

Manuscript Submission Format: All text must be double-spaced and typed in Times New Roman, 12-point font size. Margins should be 1.25 inches on all four sides. Articles are generally 10,000 words or less, and short format articles are 4000 words or less with no more than 6 tables and figures. You may cite your own work, but do not use wording that identifies you as the author. Manuscripts must be submitted either in a Word document or in a LaTex file. If a LaTex file is submitted, it must be accompanied by a PDF version of the manuscript.

Submission Requirements: Manuscripts submitted to SM are processed electronically through Sage Track. Authors can create an account and log in to submit a manuscript at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/smx. As part of the blind peer review process, authors will need to upload a blinded manuscript without a title page, as well as a separate title page with the authors' institutional affiliations, acknowledgments, and contact information for the corresponding author. Sage Track will ask authors to recommend specific reviewers (or identify individuals SM should not use). Do not recommend colleagues, collaborators, or friends. SM may choose to disregard these recommendations.

Authors will need to upload the following separate files/items into Sage Track:

• Cover Letter. Please provide complete contact information for the corresponding author (name, address, phone/fax, e-mail), the complete manuscript title, and any other important and relevant information.
• Abstract. Please upload an abstract of 200 words or fewer describing the purpose, methods, and general findings of the study.
• Title Page. Please include authors' institutional affiliations, acknowledgments, and contact information for the corresponding author.
• Blinded Manuscript. Blinded manuscripts do not include the title page (or any self identifying information, see below). There is no need to include the abstract with the blinded manuscript.
• Figures. Provide grayscale figures in their original file format.
• Biography Page. Please provide a short biography (fewer than 100 words) for each author. See previous issues for examples.
• $25.00 Non-refundable Manuscript Processing Fee. Authors must pay the non-refundable $25.00 manuscript processing fee electronically through Sage Track. All new manuscripts require a fee unless authored by ASA student members.

Address editorial queries to the incoming editors, Michael Vuolo and David Melamed at SocMethodology@osu.edu. 

NOTE: Additional details on preparing manuscripts for SM are published in the ASA Style Guide (7th ed., 2022) available from the American Sociological Association.

Ethics: Submission of a manuscript to another professional journal while it is under review by SM is regarded by the ASA as unethical. Significant findings or contributions that have already appeared (or will appear) elsewhere must be clearly identified. All persons who publish in ASA journals are required to abide by ASA guidelines and ethics codes regarding plagiarism and other ethical issues. This requirement includes adhering to ASA’s stated policy on data-sharing: “As a regular practice, sociologists share data and pertinent documentation as an integral part of a research plan. Sociologists generally make their data available after completion of a project or its major publications, except where proprietary agreements with employers, contractors, or clients preclude such accessibility or when it is impossible to share data and protect the confidentiality of the research participants (e.g., field notes or detailed information from ethnographic interviews)” (ASA Code of Ethics, 2018).

Name Change Policy: Sage has introduced a policy to enable name and pronoun changes for our authors. ASA journals published by Sage follow this policy. Going forward, all requests to make a name or pronoun change will be honored. This includes, but is not limited to, name changes because of marriage, divorce, gender affirmation, and religious conversion. For more information, read Sage’s Name Change Policy. 

MANUSCRIPT PREPARATION

All pages must be double-spaced (including notes and references) with margins measuring 1.25 inches (i.e., line length must not exceed 6-1/2 inches). Please use 12-point Times New Roman font. Upload Comments and Rejoinders directly into Sage Track.

Sections in a manuscript may include the following: (1) Title page, (2) Abstract, (3) Text, (4) Notes, (5) References, (6) Tables, (7) Figures, and (8) Appendixes.

1. Title page. Please include the following:
   1. Full article title
   2. Acknowledgments and credits
   3. Each author’s complete name and institutional affiliation(s)
   4. Grant numbers and/or funding information
   5. Key words (four or five)
   6. Corresponding author (name, address, phone/fax, e-mail)
2. Abstract. The abstract (150 to 200 words) should not include authors' names or other identifying information.
3. Blinded Manuscript. The manuscript should not include the title page, authors' names or affiliations, or any other identifying information. SM uses anonymous peer reviewers for manuscript evaluation. Delete or rewrite any text that identifies you as the author: when citing your own work, please write “Smith (1992) concluded...,” but do not write “I concluded (Smith 1992)....”
   1. Headings and subheadings. Generally, three heading levels are sufficient to organize text. See recent issues for examples.
   2. Citations in the text should provide the last name of the author(s) and year of publication. Include page numbers for direct quotes or specific passages. Cite only those works needed to provide evidence for your assertions and to refer to important sources on the topic. In the following examples of text citations, ellipses (...) indicate manuscript text:
   3. When author’s name is in the text, follow it with the year in parentheses—... Duncan (1959).
   4. When author’s name is not in the text, enclose the last name and year in parentheses—... (Gouldner 1963).
   5. Pages cited follow the year of publication after a colon—... (Ramirez and Weiss 1979:239–40).
   6. Provide last names for joint authors—... (Martin and Bailey 1988).
   7. For three authors, list all three last names in the first citation in the text—... (Carr, Smith, and Jones 1962). For all subsequent citations use “et al.”—... (Carr et al. 1962). For works with four or more authors, use “et al.” throughout.
   8. For institutional authorship, supply minimal identification from the complete citation—... (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1963:117).
   9. List a series of citations in alphabetical order or date order separated by semicolons—... (Burgess 1968; Marwell et al. 1971).
   10. Use “forthcoming” to cite sources scheduled for publication. For dissertations and unpublished papers, cite the date. If no date, use “n.d.” in place of the date—... Smith (forthcoming) and Oropesa (n.d.).
   11. For machine-readable data files, cite authorship and date—... (Institute for Survey Research 1976).
   12. Notes should be numbered in the text consecutively using superscript Arabic numerals. When referring to a note later in the text, use a parenthetical note—... (see note 3).
   13. Equations in the text should be typed using Word equations or MathType and should be editable (do not insert equations as images). Use consecutive Arabic numerals in parentheses at the right margin to identify important equations.
       If you are submitting a revised manuscript, please include a blinded author response (separate from the manuscript) detailing the changes that were made to address the reviewers' comments from the previous round of review.
4. Notes should be typed, double-spaced, in a separate “ENDNOTES” section. Begin each note with the superscript numeral to which it is keyed in the text (e.g., “1After 1981, there were…”). Notes can (a) explain or amplify text, (b) cite materials of limited availability, or (c) append information presented in a table or figure. Avoid long notes: consider (a) stating in the text that information is available from the author, (b) depositing the information in a national retrieval center and inserting a short footnote or a citation in the text, or (c) adding an appendix. Each note should not exceed 100 words.
5. References are presented in a separate section headed “REFERENCES.” All references cited in the text must be listed in the reference section, and vice versa. Publication information for each must be complete and correct. List the references in alphabetical order by authors’ last names; include first names and middle initials for all authors when available. List two or more entries by the same author(s) in order of the year of publication. When the cited material is not yet published but has been accepted for publication, use “Forthcoming” in place of the date and give the journal name or publishing house. For dissertations and unpublished papers, cite the date and place the paper was presented and/or where it is available. If no date is available, use “n.d.” in place of the date. If two or more cited works are by the same author(s) within the same year, list them in alphabetical order by title and distinguish them by adding the letters a, b, c, etc., to the year (or to “Forthcoming”). For works with more than one author, only the name of the first author is inverted (e.g., “Jones, Arthur B., Colin D. Smith, and James Petersen”). List all authors; using “et al.” in the reference list is not acceptable. References for data sets should include a persistent identifier, such as a Digital Object Identifier (DOI). Persistent identifiers ensure future access to unique published digital objects, such as a text or data set. Persistent identifiers are assigned to data sets by digital archives, such as institutional repositories and partners in the Data Preservation Alliance for the Social Sciences (Data-PASS). Refer to the ASA Style Guide (7th ed., 2022) for additional examples:
   1. Books:
      Bernard, Claude. [1865] 1957. An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine. Translated by H. C. Greene. New York: Dover.
      Mason, Karen O. 1974. Women’s Labor Force Participation and Fertility. Research Triangle Park, NC: National Institutes of Health.
      U.S. Bureau of the Census. 1960. Characteristics of Population. Vol. 1. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
   2. Periodicals:
      Goodman, Leo A. 1947a. “The Analysis of Systems of Qualitative Variables When Some of the Variables Are Unobservable. Part I—A Modified Latent Structure Approach.” American Journal of Sociology 79:1179–1259.
      Goodman, Leo A. 1947b. “Exploratory Latent Structure Analysis Using Both Identifiable and Unidentifiable Models.” Biometrika 61:215–31.
      Szelényi, Szonja and Jacqueline Olvera. Forthcoming. “The Declining Significance of Class: Does Gender Complicate the Story?” Theory and Society.
   3. Collections:
      Sampson, Robert J. 1992. “Family Management and Child Development: Insights from Social Disorganization Theory.” Pp. 63–93 in Advances in Criminology Theory. Vol. 3, Facts, Frameworks, and Forecasts, edited by J. McCord. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.
   4. Dissertations:
      Charles, Maria. 1990. “Occupational Sex Segregation: A Log-Linear Analysis of Patterns in 25 Industrial Countries.” PhD dissertation, Department of Sociology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA.
   5. Web sites:
      American Sociological Association. 1997. “Call for Help: Social Science Knowledge on Race, Racism, and Race Relations” (ASA Action Alert, October 15). Washington, DC: American Sociological Association. Retrieved October 15, 1997 (http://www.asanet.org/racecall.htm).
      Kao, Grace and Jennifer Thompson. 2003. “Racial and Ethnic Stratification in Educational Achievement and Attainment.” Annual Review of Sociology 29:417–42. Retrieved October 20, 2003 (http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.soc.29.010202.100019).
   6. Data Sets:
      Deschenes, Elizabeth Piper, Susan Turner, and Joan Petersilia. Intensive Community Supervision in Minnesota, 1990–1992: A Dual Experiment in Prison Diversion and Enhanced Supervised Release [Computer file]. ICPSR06849-v1. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2000. doi:10.3886/ICPSR06849.
6. Tables should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they appear in the text and must include table titles. Tables will appear in the published article in the order in which they are numbered initially. Each table must include a descriptive title and headings for all columns and rows. Gather general notes to tables as “Note:”; use a, b, c, etc., for table footnotes. Use asterisks *, **, and *** to indicate significance at the p < .05, p < .01, and p < .001 levels, respectively, and always specify one-tailed or two-tailed tests. Generally, results at p > .05 (such as p < .10) should not be indicated as significant. Tables must be editable (not inserted as an image); Word tables or Excel tables are acceptable.
7. Figures should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they appear in the text and must include figure captions. Figures will appear in the published article in the order in which they are numbered initially. Preferred programs and formats for figures include the following: Excel, Word, PowerPoint, .wmf, .emf, and .tif (300 dpi). Figures must be in grayscale; do not submit color figures. Questions on figure file types or figure formatting should be addressed to the editorial office (socmethodology@osu.edu).
   PERMISSION: The author(s) are responsible for securing permission to reproduce all copyrighted figures or materials before they are published by SM. A copy of the written permission must be included with the manuscript submission.
8. Equations in the Word document must be editable (do not insert images). Word Equation Editor or MathType are preferred. If the manuscript is in LaTex, the author must provide a PDF along with the LaTex file.
9. Appendixes should be lettered to distinguish them from numbered tables and figures. Include a descriptive title for each appendix (e.g., “Appendix A. Variable Names and Definitions”).

Orcid

As part of our commitment to ensuring an ethical, transparent and fair peer review process Sage is a supporting member of ORCID, the Open Researcher and Contributor ID. ORCID provides a unique and persistent digital identifier that distinguishes researchers from every other researcher, even those who share the same name, and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between researchers and their professional activities, ensuring that their work is recognized.

The collection of ORCID iDs from corresponding authors is now part of the submission process of this journal. If you already have an ORCID iD you will be asked to associate that to your submission during the online submission process. We also strongly encourage all co-authors to link their ORCID ID to their accounts in our online peer review platforms. It takes seconds to do: click the link when prompted, sign into your ORCID account and our systems are automatically updated. Your ORCID iD will become part of your accepted publication’s metadata, making your work attributable to you and only you. Your ORCID iD is published with your article so that fellow researchers reading your work can link to your ORCID profile and from there link to your other publications.

If you do not already have an ORCID iD please follow this link to create one or visit our ORCID homepage to learn more.