Journal Policies & Author Guidelines, Written for Your Journal

Overview

“Our ethics page is a paragraph, our author guidelines still mention a fax number, and three different pages give three different peer-review descriptions.” Indexing reviewers read policies closely, and inconsistency between what the policies say and what the journal does is a frequent cause of rejection. Authors read them too, and abandon submissions when the instructions are unclear.

NeucitePress writes a coherent policy suite for your journal from the ground up: what you actually do, described accurately, in language that meets COPE, DOAJ and Scopus expectations and that an author can follow. Every document is customized to your scope, article types, review model and business model, and the suite is internally consistent.

Who this is for: new journals that need policies before launch, established journals whose documents have drifted, and journals preparing for an indexing application.

What’s Included

• Editorial policies — aims and scope, article types, peer-review model and process, editorial decision-making, appeals, publication frequency
• Publication ethics statement — COPE-aligned policies on misconduct, authorship, conflicts of interest, data, corrections and retractions
• Author guidelines — submission requirements, manuscript preparation, formatting and reference style, declarations, checklists, fees if any
• Reviewer guidelines — evaluation criteria, confidentiality, conflicts, timelines and how to write a useful report
• Open-access, licensing, copyright and archiving policy — Creative Commons license choice, author rights, self-archiving, digital preservation
• Consistency check across all documents and against your OJS submission settings
• Two revision rounds with your editorial board

How It Works

1. Discovery — a call with the editor to confirm how the journal actually operates, plus review of existing documents and OJS settings.
2. Drafting — the full suite written and cross-checked for consistency.
3. Board review — two revision rounds until the board approves.
4. Delivery — final documents in editable form, with guidance on where each belongs on the site and in OJS.

What Stays With Your Editors

The journal’s editors keep final authority over reviewer selection, editorial assessment and acceptance, and the editorial board approves and adopts every policy. NeucitePress runs the drafting and review process.

Important Limitations

• Documentation only. Publishing the policies on your website and configuring OJS to match is separate (see Editorial Workflow Setup in OJS), or can be added.
• Two revision rounds included; additional rounds at $150 per round.
• Policies describe your practice; they cannot make a journal compliant with a standard it does not follow in practice.
• Not legal advice. Medical journals that need full ICMJE alignment and disclosure workflows should see the ICMJE alignment service.

Common Questions

Will the policies satisfy DOAJ and Scopus?
They are written to the published requirements of DOAJ, Scopus and Web of Science for policy transparency. Inclusion is decided solely by each database; NeucitePress prepares and cannot sell inclusion.

Can we get them in more than one language?
Yes; translation is quoted separately.

Do you write the policies in OJS for us?
Placement guidance is included; entering them and configuring OJS to match is part of Editorial Workflow Setup in OJS.

Every engagement can begin with the Journal Health Check.