JOURNAL OF RESEARCH NURSING

The editors of the Journal of Research in Nursing welcome research papers and
reviews on nursing, including clinical, research, education or management topics.
The contribution of the research to or implications for nursing practice and health
and social care policy should be made explicit. These guidelines are intended to
help authors with the presentation of the material that they wish to be considered
for publication. Papers should be presented in an academic format and should
contribute to the body of knowledge of the nursing professions.

1. Peer review policy

Journal of Research in Nursing adheres to a rigorous double-blind reviewing

policy in which the identity of both the reviewer and author are always concealed
from both parties.

On receipt, papers are acknowledged and, after review, authors are informed
whether their paper has been accepted for publication. In most cases, revisions
of the manuscript are requested in the light of the referees' comments before the
paper can be reconsidered for publication. Once a paper has been accepted, a
reviewer is invited to write a 500 word commentary to be published alongside the
paper.

1.1 Authorship

All parties who have made a substantive contribution to the article should be
listed as authors. Principal authorship, authorship order, and other publication
credits should be based on the relative scientific or professional contributions of
the individuals involved, regardless of their status. A student is usually listed as
principal author on any multiple-authored publication that substantially derives
from the students dissertation or thesis.

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2. Article types

The Journal of Research in Nursing welcome research papers and reviews on

nursing, whether clinical, research, education or management topics. The
contribution of the paper to, or implications for, both nursing practice and health
and social care policy should be made explicit. Papers are normally restricted to
a maximum of 5,000 words, including all elements (title page, abstract, notes,
references, tables, biographical statement, etc.).

The Journal considers the following kinds of article for publication:

1. Research papers should be presented under the following section headings:

1. Title
 2. All authors, qualifications, designations and place of work (upload
separately to the manuscript to facilitate blind peer review). Authors should
include a short (100-150 words) biography with their submission.

3. Abstract - including a short summary of the research aims, major findings

and conclusions of no more than 200 words Key words - up to six
essential words

4. Introduction - this should set the scene, including the policy context, for
the research study and state the research question/ hypothesis. This
should be followed by a literature review, which should quote key articles
directly relevant to the study

5. Methodology - this should be sufficiently detailed for subsequent

researchers to follow; it should reiterate the aims and hypotheses of the
study and why the methodology was chosen. Copies of research tools,
such as questionnaires, should be included with the manuscript

6. Results - full results should be submitted, including relevant tables, figures

and diagrams and details of statistical analysis

7. Discussion - this should be as full as possible and attempt to explain the

results achieved and their significance to both nursing practice and health
and social care policy. Limitations to the study should be highlighted in this
section

8. Conclusion - this section should draw together the findings of the study,
how they relate to the original aims and make recommendations as to how
the work can be carried forward.

9. Key points - a list of four or five key points drawing out the main findings
and their implications for nursing practice, health and social care policy
and future research.

2. Review Articles

In both cases, the contribution of the paper to, or implications for, nursing practice
and health and social care policy should be made explicit.

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3. How to submit your manuscript

Before submitting your manuscript, please ensure you carefully read and adhere
to all the guidelines and instructions to authors provided below. Manuscripts not
conforming to these guidelines may be returned.

Journal of Research in Nursing is hosted on SAGE track a web based online

submission and peer review system powered by ScholarOne Manuscripts.
Please read the Manuscript Submission guidelines below, and then simply
visit http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jrn to login and submit your article online.
IMPORTANT: Please check whether you already have an account in the system
before trying to create a new one. If you have reviewed or authored for the
journal in the past year it is likely that you will have had an account created. For
further guidance on submitting your manuscript online please visit
ScholarOne Online Help.

All papers must be submitted via the online system. If you would like to discuss
your paper prior to submission, please contact jrn@sagepub.co.uk

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4. Journal contributors publishing agreement

Before publication SAGE requires the author as the rights holder to sign a
Journal Contributors Publishing Agreement. SAGEs Journal Contributors
Publishing Agreement is an exclusive licence agreement which means that the
author retains copyright in the work but grants SAGE the sole and exclusive right
and licence to publish for the full legal term of copyright. Exceptions may exist
where an assignment of copyright is required or preferred by a proprietor other
than SAGE. In this case copyright in the work will be assigned from the author to
the society. For more information please visit our Frequently Asked Questions on
the SAGE Journal Author Gateway.

Journal of Research in Nursing and SAGE take issues of copyright infringement,

plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. We
seek to protect the rights of our authors and we always investigate claims of
plagiarism or misuse of articles published in the Journal. Equally, we seek to
protect the reputation of the Journal against malpractice. Submitted articles may
be checked with duplication-checking software. Where an article is found to have
plagiarised other work or included third-party copyright material without
permission or with insufficient acknowledgement, or where the authorship of the
article is contested, we reserve the right to take action including, but not limited
to: publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction); retracting the article
(removing it from the journal); taking up the matter with the head of department or
dean of the author's institution and/or relevant academic bodies or societies;
banning the author from publication in the journal or all Sage journals, or
appropriate legal action.

4.1 SAGE Choice and Open Access

If you or your funder wish your article to be freely available online to non
subscribers immediately upon publication (gold open access), you can opt for it to
be included in SAGE Choice, subject to payment of a publication fee. The
manuscript submission and peer review procedure is unchanged. On acceptance
of your article, you will be asked to let SAGE know directly if you are choosing
SAGE Choice. To check journal eligibility and the publication fee, please
visit SAGE Choice. For more information on open access options and compliance
at SAGE, including self author archiving deposits (green open access) visit SAGE
Publishing Policies on our Journal Author Gateway.

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5. Declaration of conflicting interests

Within your Journal Contributor's Publishing Agreement you will be required to

make a certification with respect to a declaration of conflicting interests. It is the
policy of Journal of Research in Nursing to require a declaration of conflicting
interests from all authors enabling a statement to be carried within the paginated
pages of all published articles.

Please ensure that a Declaration of Conflicting Interests statement is included at

the end of your manuscript, after any acknowledgements and prior to the
references. If no conflict exists, please state that The Author(s) declare(s) that
there is no conflict of interest.

For guidance on conflict of interest statements, please see the ICMJE

recommendations here

When making a declaration the disclosure information must be specific and

include any financial relationship that all authors of the article has with any
sponsoring organization and the for-profit interests the organization represents,
and with any for-profit product discussed or implied in the text of the article.

Any commercial or financial involvements that might represent an appearance of

a conflict of interest need to be additionally disclosed in the covering letter
accompanying your article to assist the Editor in evaluating whether sufficient
disclosure has been made within the Declaration of Conflicting Interests provided
in the article.

Please acknowledge the name(s) of any medical writers who contributed to your
article. With multiple authors, please indicate whether contributions were equal,
or indicate who contributed what to the article.

For more information please visit the SAGE Journal Author Gateway.

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6. Other conventions

6.1 Informed consent

Submitted manuscripts should be arranged according to the "Uniform

Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals". The full
document is available at http://icmje.org. When submitting a paper, the author
should always make a full statement to the Editor about all submissions and
previous reports that might be regarded as redundant or duplicate publication of
the same or very similar work.

Ethical considerations: All research on human subjects must have been approved
by the appropriate research body in accordance with national requirements and
must conform to the principles embodied in the Declaration of Helsinki
(http:/www.wma.net) as well as to the International Ethical Guidelines for
Biomedical Research Involving Human Subjects and the International Guidelines
for Ethical Review for Epidemiological Studies (http:/www.cioms.ch). An
appropriate statement about ethical considerations, if applicable, should be
included in the methods section of the paper.

6.2 Ethics

When reporting experiments on human subjects, indicate whether the procedures

followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible
committee on human experimentation (institutional or regional) or with the
Declaration of Helsinki 1975, revised Hong Kong 1989. Do not use patients'
names, initials or hospital numbers, especially in illustrative material. When
reporting experiments on animals, indicate which guideline/law on the care and
use of laboratory animals was followed.

6.3 Data

SAGE acknowledges the importance of research data availability as an integral

part of the research and verification process for academic journal articles.

Journal of Research in Nursing requests all authors submitting any primary data
used in their research articles alongside their article submissions to be published
in the online version of the journal, or provide detailed information in their articles
on how the data can be obtained. This information should include links to third-
party data repositories or detailed contact information for third-party data sources.
Data available only on an author-maintained website will need to be loaded onto
either the journals platform or a third-party platform to ensure continuing
accessibility. Examples of data types include but are not limited to statistical data
files, replication code, text files, audio files, images, videos, appendices, and
additional charts and graphs necessary to understand the original research. The
editor(s) can also grant exceptions for data that cannot legally or ethically be
released. All data submitted should comply with Institutional or Ethical Review
Board requirements and applicable government regulations. For further
information, please contact the editorial office.

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7. Acknowledgements

Please supply any personal acknowledgements separately to the main text to

facilitate anonymous peer review.

All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an
`Acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged
include a person who provided purely technical help, writing assistance, or a
department chair who provided only general support. Authors should disclose
whether they had any writing assistance and identify the entity that paid for this
assistance.

7.1 Funding Acknowledgement

To comply with the guidance for Research Funders, Authors and Publishers
issued by the Research Information Network (RIN), Journal of Research in
Nursing additionally requires all Authors to acknowledge their funding in a
consistent fashion under a separate heading. Please visit Funding
Acknowledgements on the SAGE Journal Author Gateway to confirm the format
of the acknowledgment text in the event of funding or state in your
acknowledgments that: This research received no specific grant from any funding
agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

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8. Publishing policies

8.1 Publication ethics

SAGE is committed to upholding the integrity of the academic record. We

encourage authors to refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics International
Standards for Authors and view the Publication Ethics page on the SAGE Author
Gateway.

8.1.1 Plagiarism

Journal of Research in Nursing and SAGE take issues of copyright infringement,

plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. We
seek to protect the rights of our authors and we always investigate claims of
plagiarism or misuse of articles published in the journal. Equally, we seek to
protect the reputation of the journal against malpractice. Submitted articles may
be checked using duplication-checking software. Where an article is found to
have plagiarised other work or included third-party copyright material without
permission or with insufficient acknowledgement, or where authorship of the
article is contested, we reserve the right to take action including, but not limited
to: publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction); retracting the article
(removing it from the journal); taking up the matter with the head of department or
dean of the authors institution and/or relevant academic bodies or societies;
banning the author from publication in the journal or all SAGE journals, or
appropriate legal action.

8.2 Contributor's publishing agreement

Before publication, SAGE requires the author as the rights holder to sign a
Journal Contributors Publishing Agreement. SAGEs Journal Contributors
Publishing Agreement is an exclusive licence agreement which means that the
author retains copyright in the work but grants SAGE the sole and exclusive right
and licence to publish for the full legal term of copyright. Exceptions may exist
where an assignment of copyright is required or preferred by a proprietor other
than SAGE. In this case copyright in the work will be assigned from the author to
the society. For more information please visit our Frequently Asked Questions on
the SAGE Journal Author Gateway.

8.3 Open Access and author archiving

Journal of Research in Nursing offers optional open access publishing via the
SAGE Choice programme. For more information please visit the SAGE Choice
website. For information on funding body compliance, and depositing your article
in repositories, please visit SAGE Publishing Policies on our Journal Author
Gateway.
8.4 Permissions

Authors are responsible for obtaining permission from copyright holders for
reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously
published elsewhere. For further information including guidance on fair dealing
for criticism and review, please visit our Frequently Asked Questions on
the SAGE Journal Author Gateway

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9. Manuscript style

9.1 File types

Only electronic files conforming to the journal's guidelines will be accepted.
Preferred formats for the text and tables of your manuscript are Word DOC, RTF,
XLS. LaTeX files are also accepted. Please also refer to additional guideline on
submitting artwork and supplemental files below.

9.2 Journal Style

Journal of Research in Nursing conforms to the SAGE house style. Click here to
review guidelines on SAGE UK House Style

9.3 Reference Style

Journal of Research in Nursing adheres to the SAGE Harvard reference
style. Click here to review the guidelines on SAGE Harvard to ensure your
manuscript conforms to this reference style.

If you use EndNote to manage references, download the SAGE Harvard output
style by following this link and save to the appropriate folder (normally for
Windows C:\Program Files\EndNote\Styles and for Mac OS X
Harddrive:Applications:EndNote:Styles). Once youve done this, open EndNote
and choose Select Another Style... from the dropdown menu in the menu bar;
locate and choose this new style from the following screen.

9.4. Manuscript Preparation

The text should be double-spaced throughout and with a minimum of 3cm for left
and right hand margins and 5cm at head and foot. Text should be standard 10 or
12 point.

9.4.1 Keywords and Abstracts: Helping readers find your article online
The title, keywords and abstract are key to ensuring readers find your article
online through online search engines such as Google. Please refer to the
information and guidance on how best to title your article, write your abstract and
select your keywords by visiting SAGEs Journal Author Gateway Guidelines
on How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online.

9.4.2 Corresponding Author Contact details

Provide full contact details for the corresponding author including email, mailing
address and telephone numbers. Academic affiliations are required for all co-
authors. These details should be presented separately to the main text of the
article to facilitate anonymous peer review.
9.4.3 Guidelines for submitting artwork, figures and other graphics
For guidance on the preparation of illustrations, pictures and graphs in electronic
format, please visit SAGEs Manuscript Submission Guidelines.
Figures supplied in colour will appear in colour online regardless of whether or
not these illustrations are reproduced in colour in the printed version. For
specifically requested colour reproduction in print, you will receive information
regarding the costs from SAGE after receipt of your accepted article.

9.4.4 Guidelines for submitting supplemental files

This journal is able to host approved supplemental materials online, alongside the
full-text of articles. Supplemental files will be subjected to peer-review alongside
the article. For more information please refer to SAGEs Guidelines for Authors on
Supplemental Files.

9.4.5 English Language Editing services

Non-English speaking authors who would like to refine their use of language in
their manuscripts might consider using a professional editing service.
Visit English Language Editing Services on our Journal Author Gateway for
further information.

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10. After acceptance

10.1 Proofs
We will email a PDF of the proofs to the corresponding author.

10.2 E-Prints

SAGE provides authors with access to a PDF of their final article. For further
information please visit http://www.sagepub.co.uk/authors/journal/reprint.sp.

10.3 SAGE Production

At SAGE we place an extremely strong emphasis on the highest production
standards possible. We attach high importance to our quality service levels in
copy-editing, typesetting, printing, and online publication
(http://online.sagepub.com/). We also seek to uphold excellent author relations
throughout the publication process.

We value your feedback to ensure we continue to improve our author service

levels. On publication all corresponding authors will receive a brief survey
questionnaire on your experience of publishing in Journal of Research in
Nursing with SAGE.

10.4 OnlineFirst Publication

Journal of Research in Nursing offers OnlineFirst, a feature offered through
SAGEs electronic journal platform, SAGE Journals Online. It allows final revision
articles (completed articles in queue for assignment to an upcoming issue) to be
hosted online prior to their inclusion in a final print and online journal issue which
significantly reduces the lead time between submission and publication. For more
information please visit our OnlineFirst Fact Sheet
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11. Further information

Any correspondence, queries or additional requests for information on the

Manuscript Submission process should be sent to the Editorial Office:
E-mail: jrn@sagepub.co.uk