Guide for Authors

The journal of Aging Psychology (AP) considers all articles provided they have not been published already, nor are they under consideration or accepted for publication elsewhere. Contributions to the Journal of Aging Psychology must report original research and will be subjected to peer review at the discretion of the Editors. If an article is not approved by the editorial team, it will be rejected in a maximum of 10 working days. If an article is approved by the editorial team, providing the writers to act swiftly in carrying out the modifications, the article will reach the acceptance stage in 6 months. Dear authors, Please invest your time studying the guidance form provided for authors before sending your articles to the journal of Aging Psychology (AP). It should be noted that in the content writing section of the articles and the reference style the APA scientific writing style is used and make sure to apply the given points in the form in your papers as the first stage. It should be noted that papers will not be reviewed unless all items in the authors' guide form are implemented. Second, authors are supposed to complete all the required parts on commitment-confirmation and conflict-interest forms and send them with their papers to the journal. For this purpose, the authors should print out the forms, fill in the required parts, and sign the forms; then, they should scan the pages and upload them in PDF or JPG format.

Guidelines for preparing and submitting your manuscript to this journal are provided below.

 Author Guidelines

The journal of Aging Psychology (AP) considers all types of articles. They have not been published already, nor are they under consideration or accepted for publication elsewhere. Contributions to the Journal of Aging Psychology must report original research and will be subjected to double-blind peer review at the discretion of the Editors. If an article is not approved by the editorial team, it will be rejected in a maximum of five working days. If an article is approved by the editorial team, providing the writers to act swiftly in carrying out the modifications, the article will reach the acceptance stage in a moment-long process.

 Submission declaration and verification

Submission of an article implies that the work described has not been published previously (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis or as an electronic preprint, that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, that its publication is approved by all authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other language, including electronically without the written consent of the copyright holder

Changes to authorship

This policy concerns the addition, deletion, or rearrangement of author names in the authorship of accepted manuscripts:

 Before the accepted manuscript is published in an online issue: Requests to add or remove an author, or to rearrange the author names, must be sent to the Journal Manager from the corresponding author of the accepted manuscript and must include: (a) the reason the name should be added or removed, or the author names rearranged and (b) written confirmation (e-mail, fax, letter) from all authors that they agree with the addition, removal or rearrangement (http://arww.razi.ac.ir/data/arww/news/Authorship request form.pdf). In the case of the addition or removal of authors, this includes confirmation from the author being added or removed. Requests that are not sent by the corresponding author will be forwarded by the Journal Manager to the corresponding author, who must follow the procedure as described above. Note that: (1) the Journal Manager will inform the Journal Editor of any such requests and (2) publication of the accepted manuscript in an online issue is suspended until authorship has been agreed upon.

 After the accepted manuscript is published in an online issue: Any requests to add, delete, or rearrange author names in an article published in an online issue will follow the same policies as noted above and result in a corrigendum.

Copyright

Upon acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to complete a 'Journal Publishing Agreement'. Acceptance of the agreement will ensure the widest possible dissemination of information. An e-mail will be sent to the corresponding author confirming receipt of the manuscript together with a 'Journal Publishing Agreement' form or a link to the online version of this agreement.  Articles are freely available to both subscribers and the wider public with permitted reuse.

 Conflict of Interest

Authors have requested to be evident whether impending conflicts do or do not exist. If an organization encompasses any financial interest in the outcome of the study, the authors are appealed to provide a declaration that has full access to all the data in the study and takes complete responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis. All studies (if necessary based on the type and subject), must be approved by the relevant Ethics Committee/ Institution review board of the respective institutions. Authors wishing to include figures, tables, or text passages that have already been published elsewhere are required to obtain permission from the copyright owner(s) for both the print and online format and to include evidence that such permission has been granted when submitting their papers. Any material received without such evidence will be assumed to be originated by the authors. A copyright transfer agreement is signed by the corresponding author, upon the acceptance of the manuscript, on behalf of all authors, for publication to be legally responsible towards the Journal's ethics and privacy policy. The authors will be notified as soon as possible of decisions concerning the suitability of their manuscripts for publication in the journal. Once the article has been accepted for publication, it will be copy-edited and typeset, after which the corresponding author will be sent information on accessing page proofs to correct. Other than the correction of typographical errors, alterations cannot be made at this stage. Please note that there are no page charges to publish in the Journal of Aging Psychology. The submitted materials may be considered for inclusion but cannot be returned and Editors of the Journal reserve the right to accept or reject any article in any stage, if necessary. Further information on the Conflict of Interest Disclosure form can be found at http://arww.razi.ac.ir/data/arww/news/conflict of interest.pdf

Additional information

The authors are required to submit a cover letter with each new submission to the journal. This cover letter should acknowledge that the author has consulted the Guide for Authors in preparing his or her submitted manuscript. The author must also confirm that he or she has prepared the manuscript in compliance with the Ethics in Publication.

1. General Information

• The journal of Aging Psychology publishes Regular descriptive, experimental Articles and Reviews. The articles must not exceed a maximum of 7000 words, 40 references, and a 250-word abstract. Word limits include the main text, references, tables, and figures, but no title page or abstract.
• Submitted papers are subject to a double-blind academic peer review process; neither authors nor reviewers are identified.

• The Editor retains the right to reject articles that do not meet established scientific or ethical standards.


2. Manuscript preparation

• Manuscripts must be in the Persian language And Persian and English in Abstract.

• All manuscripts submitted should adhere to the American Psychological Association (APA) format, following the latest edition of the Publication Manual of the APA (currently 6th edition).
• All parts of the manuscript should be single line spacing, with margins of one inch (2.54 cm) on all sides and Time New Romain; font size 12.

• Title Page: The title page should include the following in the order given:
(1) the title of the article, the name (s) and address(es) of all author(s), preceded by first names, but with no academic titles given;

(2) a short title not exceeding 50 letters and spaces, which will be used for page headings;
(3) the name and address of the author to whom correspondence and proofs should be sent;
• Manuscripts should be compiled in the following order: abstract; keywords; main text
(including introduction, method, results, and conclusion); acknowledgments; references;
appendices (as appropriate). Tables with captions and figures with captions should be placed in the appropriate place within the main text.

Abstract: Abstracts are required for all articles submitted. They are particularly important as a means of making your article more visible to anyone who might be looking for it.
Keywords: Articles should have 3-5 keywords. These will help to identify potential reviewers.

Main text: Some particular points to note are:

-Tables and figures should be as small as possible.

-In the initial version you are submitting, please report all of the tables and forms in question in the main body of the article, along with their titles.

Acknowledgments: This section, which comes after the main text of the article, contains short sentences. This section appreciates all sources of financial support, public and private. These resources include government grants, private-sector credits, and more. The authors can also thank all the study participants in this section.

References: References should be written in the style of the American Psychological Association (APA) (currently 6th edition). The list of references should be in alphabetical order. Any sources that are in the resource list should also be listed in the text, and any sources that are in the text should be reported in the resource list as well.

 3. Submit an article

Researchers can submit their articles through the journal site (http://jap.razi.ac.ir). Articles submitted to the journal of Aging Psychology should be prepared in accordance with the above guidelines and the structure stated on the next page. Otherwise, it will not go through the arbitration process.

 Our selection of articles depends on the quality, breadth, and originality of the themes covered and their relevance to the scope of the journal. We do not accept manuscripts that have been previously published elsewhere.

Submit the manuscript without the authors' names, affiliations, and biographies. Along with it, submit a cover page that includes the manuscript title, authors' names and affiliations, and the corresponding author's name and contact information (full postal and e-mail addresses, phone and fax numbers).

The maximum number of pages, including footnotes, should not exceed 20. Please note that only one submission per author will be considered at a time. Before submitting your manuscript, please familiarize yourself with the peer review and publication process and learn how to submit your work. If you have not registered yet, please click on: Register. After successfully registering, you should have a username and password. If you already have a username and password, please  Log in.

 

4. Font

All spellings must be rendered in American English. To change British or Commonwealth spellings to their American equivalents, please see the Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary. To distinguish the different parts of the manuscript, use the following fonts for each part:

  • Title: The title of the manuscript should be typed in 16-point Times New Roman, Boldface, heading 1, centered.  
  • Author Name: Author names should be typed in 12-point Times New Roman.
  • Corresponding author: It should be typed in 12-point Times New Roman.
  • Abstract: Times New Roman is the "default" font. The abstract should be justified. The font is Times New Roman 12. The indention of BEFORE TEXT and AFTER TEXT are 0. The special indention should be in NONE. The spacing of BEFORE paragraph is 0 and the space AFTER a paragraph is 10 pt. LINE spacing is multiple 1.2.
  • Introduction: The entire manuscript should be typed in 12-point Times New Roman and single-spaced. The paragraph should be justified. The indention of BEFORE TEXT and AFTER TEXT are 0. The special indention should be in NONE. The spacing of BEFORE paragraph is 0 and the space AFTER a paragraph is 10 pt. LINE spacing is multiple 1.2. The body of the paper should be written in a single-column format.
  • Table: Times New Roman 10 is the default font of tables, numbered from 1.

 

SECTIONING AND STRUCTURE:

The manuscript should be organized in the following sequence: title page, abstract, keywords, introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion, conflict of interest, acknowledgments (optional), references, tables, and figures.

 

1. Title page

The title page should include the following items (please do not include any text other than the ones described below):

- The title of the manuscript. The title of the manuscript should be typed in bold-faced print using both upper and lower-case letters and set in the center of the page. Abbreviations are not permitted in the title. Capitalize all “major” words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and pronouns) in the title and subtitle. The title should reflect exactly, efficiently, and succinctly what the study is about. The title of a scientific paper is the most important part of the paper because it is the first introduction the reader has to the content of the paper. Many readers skim titles and abstracts looking for suitable articles to read. So the title should give a terse description of the main content and should help readers decide whether to read the abstract or the paper itself. Therefore, it should be attractive and meaningful.

- Author or authors list. The full names of all authors should be provided with the family name.

- Each author's institution and e-mail (optional). The address of the institution was conducted should include the name of the institution, city, zip code, and country

- The FIRST NAMEs, Initials (if any), and LAST NAMEs, as well as the e-mail addresses and the ORCID code of all authors, must be provided.

- The corresponding author should be marked with "Corresponding author" at the beginning of his/her affiliation address.

 

The title page should include the title and the authorship in the following structure:

Title of the manuscript

Author Name

Corresponding author, Assistant Professor, Department of Clinical Psychology, Faculty of Social Sciences, Razi University, Kermanshah, Iran. E-mail: abcdef@razi.ac.ir

 

Author Name

Associate Professor, Department of Clinical Psychology, Faculty of Psychology and Education, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran. E-mail: abcdef@ut.ac.ir

 

Notes:

- Professional titles: Professional titles (e.g., Doctor or Engineer) should not be included.

- Affiliation: The affiliation(s) and address(es) of the author(s) should follow the below structure: Academic ranking, department, faculty, university, city, and country. E-mail: abcd@ut.ac.ir, for example, Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Psychology and Education, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran. E-mail: abcdef@ut.ac.ir.

 

2. Abstract

An abstract is required for all article types. The abstract should be structured in the following order: objective, methods, results, and conclusions. The abstract should be between 400-500 words. The abstract should be free of references and abbreviations. The abstract should summarize pertinent results in a brief but understandable form.

  

3. Keywords

At the end of the abstract, up to six keywords that best describe the content of the research should be listed. The term "Keywords" should appear in bold, followed by a colon. The first letter of each keyword is capitalized, and keywords are separated by a comma. It is suggested to use the Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms provided by the American Psychological Association (APA) and UNESCO Thesaurus.

 

4. Document types:

  • Article: Original research or opinion.
  • Editorial: Summary of several articles or provides editorial opinions or news.
  • Erratum: Report an error, correction, or retraction of a previously published paper.
  • Letter: Letter to or correspondence with the editor.
  • Note: Note, discussion, or commentary.
  • Review: Significant review of original research, also includes conference papers.
  • Short survey: Short or mini-review of original research.

The document type should follow the below structure:

            Paper type: Research Article

            Paper type: Research Review

 

5. Introduction

The Introduction, the beginning of the paper, provides a context or sufficient background information for the study (i.e., the significance and nature of the problem) and previous experimental results to enable a reader who is not an expert in the topic to understand the question that is being addressed in the paper, and why it is significant. The Introduction should attract the reader to the rest of the paper. When presented properly, this section ensures that the reader will be able to understand the details of the experiment as well as its relevance to the scientific community. The Introduction should (a) present the nature and the scope of the problem investigated; (b) provide enough background to orient the reader and justify the study, reviewing the pertinent literature to the problem; (c) state the reason for the study, and how it differs or is related to previous studies; and (d) state the goal/objectives and method of the investigation.

The Introduction should put forth the related background to the study, explain why the study was done, and specify the hypotheses to be tested. An extensive discussion of relevant literature should be included in the discussion of results, not in the Introduction.

 

6. Materials and Methods

In the Materials and Methods section, all materials used and methods followed throughout the experiment should be reported. This section should be sufficiently clear and include a detailed procedure of how the experiment was performed, both methodologically and statistically, in such a way that another competent researcher can follow and duplicate the experiment. It is vital in the Materials and Methods section that the reader understands the author's experimental design and how data will be analyzed. The Materials and Methods section allows the reader to put the work into its environmental context. Scientific reports must be reproducible; consequently, the Materials and Methods section is extremely important to the credibility of the work.

The materials and methods should present essential details, experimental design, and statistical analysis. A clear description or original reference is required for all biological, analytical, and statistical procedures used in the study. All modifications of procedures must be explained. Treatments and measurements should be described clearly. Statistical models and methods of analysis should be described clearly and fully.

 

7. Results

The results should present the findings of the study. The Results of the study should be presented in tables, and data means (numbers) should not be repeated broadly in the text. The results should be separate from the discussion and written in the past tense.  

The Results section is often referred to as the "core" of the scientific paper.  The purpose of this section is to present the data and observations clearly. It describes the results obtained but generally should not interpret the results, discuss their significance, or present conclusions. The Results section should be in paragraph form and concisely report the exact results of the experiment. The data must be described in words and may be accompanied by representative data in tables and figures. "A picture is worth a thousand words." However, the Results section is not merely a collection of tables and figures without explanatory text.  If tables and figures are used, the author should provide the reader with an interpretation of what a table or figure illustrates. 

All tables and figures must be referred to in the text of the results in this way (Table 1) or (Figure 1). All tables and figures must: (a) have a brief description, preferably one or two sentences; (b) be numbered consecutively and in the same sequence as they will be used in the text; (c) be appropriately labeled; (d) be formatted properly to stand alone, and (e) be headed by a caption or a title describing its contents.  Tables and figures should include titles, legends (if necessary), axis and column labels, units, and numbered figure headings. Figures and tables are numbered separately. 

The clarity in the Results section is paramount. Statistical methods used to analyze and treat data should be pertinent and meaningful, and problems with data collection can be presented. The Results section should only deal with results, but briefly describe experimental approaches when necessary to understand the experiment. 

 

8. Discussion

The Discussion section is the most important component of a scientific paper. The Discussion section serves to interpret the results and place them in a broader context by citing and discussing related studies. The purpose of the Discussion section is to make conclusions and evaluate the results within the general context of the research rather than to summarize the results, although it can start with this.

The Discussion section is a return to the original objectives and hypotheses. It is the section of the paper in which the author should interpret his/her data and draw conclusions regarding his/her hypotheses. The author should describe in detail what s/he observed and explain why demonstrating how the results support or refute his/her original hypotheses and how the results lead to the conclusions.

The author can refer to the data, citing tables and figures if necessary as evidence for his/her argument. The author should not repeat the Results section but rather place his/her data in a broader context (i.e., why should anyone care about what s/he found?). While the other sections of the paper are mostly technical, in the Discussion, the author gets a chance to express his/her scientific point of view and the significance of his/her work. In some respects, the Discussion section is the most difficult section of the paper to write and define.

 Conclusion

The Conclusion is the final section of a scientific paper, and it should wrap everything up. The Conclusion section should summarize the findings of the research and explain the implications of the experiment (What does this new information mean?  How can this information be used in the future?) 

The Conclusion section restates the primary goal of the study, the hypothesis, and whether the data and results collected confirm or refute that hypothesis (Why? How? If refuted, was there some sort of error or bias that affected the outcome?).  This is the primary principle for a scientific paper to convince readers of the experiment’s validity. The author should never claim that a hypothesis is correct, true, or proven; it is only confirmed or refuted.

The author should restate the objective(s) of the study and point out how s/he has achieved these goals. The author should make a general statement about the success of the experiment as a whole, generalizing the conclusions. The final paragraph should return to the initial subject matter of the paper.  The author should make suggestions for improvement in the future or propose further studies in the Conclusion section. Science progresses through attempts to extend explanations to new areas.    

 

9. Conflicts of interest

The corresponding author must inform the editor of any potential conflicts of interest that could influence the authors' interpretation of the data. Download the form of conflicts of interest here. A copy of the letter of commitment is available here

 

10. Acknowledgements (optional)

The acknowledgments should be as brief as possible. The Acknowledgements section should be a few sentences at the end, but it is important to recognize those people (organizations and individuals) who made a considerable impact on the research, provided significant help to the author to formulate and complete the experiment, and improved the research at any stage (from providing access to equipment or field sites to editing the manuscript). However, this is an optional section. 

 

11. References

The Journal uses the style of the APA to conform to international styles. The references section should be located following the acknowledgments at the end of the text. Complete information should be given for each reference. The accuracy and completeness of the references are the responsibility of the author(s). References to personal letters (e-mail communications), papers presented at meetings, and other unpublished works (papers in preparation) may be cited. If such work may be of help in the evaluation of the manuscript, copies should be made available to the editor(s). The author(s) must submit a letter of permission from the cited persons to cite e-mail communications. The corresponding authors and references should be set out in the style of the APA, and only the first word of a cited title should be written in an initial capital letter. Journal names should not be abbreviated and should be given in italics.

When referring to your own work within the manuscript, consider the likelihood of someone being able to identify you from the citation. Reduce that possibility by:

  1. a) Avoiding the first-person in association with any citation (e.g., replace “As we have shown (Jackson, 2019) …” with “As Jackson (2019) has shown…”).
  2. b) Remove references to your own unpublished / in press work except where essential; where such work is cited, delete the author’s name (i.e., cite as “Author, in press”) and remove from the reference list.
  3. c) Avoid references that by implication identify the author (e.g., delete “This work is part of a larger grant project (Garfield, 2018, 2019)”).
  4. d) Avoid excessive self-citation—typically, articles citing “Wilson (2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024) …” are by Wilson!
  5. e) More generally, use common sense. Consider whether your writing has the potential to identify you to a reader who is an expert in the field; if it does, think about sensible ways to reduce that possibility.

  

12. Illustrations: Tables and Figures

Illustrations (tables and figures) should be embedded within the text. All illustrations should be cited in the text as Table 1, Table 2, etc., or Figure 1, Figure 2, etc.

 

Tables

They must be numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals in the order in which they are cited in the text. They should have a brief descriptive title placed at the top and with essential footnotes below. Prepare tables in a consistent form, and each appropriately titled. Provide them at approximately the correct size they are to be published.

 

Figures

The figures must be numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals and have a brief descriptive title. They should have a short descriptive title placed at the top and with essential footnotes below. Lettering on drawings should be of professional quality or generated by high-resolution computer graphics and must be large enough. Diagrams should be converted to .jpg or .gif files. 

 

13. Footnotes

Footnotes can be used and are usually listed at the bottom of each page in your manuscript. Times New Roman 9 is the default font for the footnotes. WORD, however, puts the footnotes in 10pt. WORD also sometimes changes the font. Any endnotes should be converted to footnotes.

 

14. Symbols and Variables

All variables or applied symbols should be defined and explained at the point of first use in the text.

 

15. Copyright and permissions

The copyright of manuscripts accepted for publication in the journal rests with the author(s) under the Creative Commons — Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). All opinions stated are exclusively those of the author(s).

Figures that reproduce copyrighted or trademarked visual images or that show objects whose design is copyrighted or trademarked can be published only with the permission of the owner of the copyright or trademark. It is the responsibility of the author of the article in which the figure appears to obtain this permission or to determine that the image or design is in the public domain.

Required files to upload: Authors must submit the following five essential files through the manuscript submission system: 1. Main Manuscript File (without the author details and prepared based on the provided template. 2. Title Page, 3. Authorship Form (must include the article title, full names of all authors, and be signed by all authors), 4. Conflicts of Interest Form (must be signed by the Corresponding Author and uploaded with the Main Manuscript File), and 5. Cover Letter (Please include any necessary information in the cover letter).