Journal Information
Online Submission System
Authorship
Publication Fees
Prepare Your Manuscript
Peer Review Process
Open Access and Copyright
Ethical Oversight
Plagiarism and Data Fabrication
Data Availability
Article Retraction
Appeals and Complaints
Contact us
JOURNAL INFORMATION
The Theory and Practice in Child Development (T&PICD) is a peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes only original scholarly works written in English. T&PICD welcomes research papers, theoretical works, literature reviews, research reports, and book reviews.
All manuscripts submitted to T&PICD are rigorously evaluated via a double-blind peer review process. The manuscripts should be original, unpublished, and not in consideration for publication elsewhere at the time of submission.
The subject matter of all manuscripts must be within the scope of the journal. Manuscripts that are not suitable for the journal will be rejected even if they are of high scientific quality. For detailed information on the aims and scope of T&PICD, please refer to Aims and Scope.
The journal is published twice yearly.
ONLINE SUBMISSION SYSTEM
Authors are requested to submit their manuscripts using the journal’s online submission system. Authors must register with the journal prior to submission. The online submission system will guide authors through the submission process. Submission by email is not accepted.
AUTHORSHIP
Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the article. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. Significant contributions include:
- significant contributions to the conception, design, execution, data acquisition, or interpretation of the study;
- drafting the manuscript or revising it critically for important intellectual content
The corresponding author should verify that all co-authors have approved the final version of the manuscript and agreed to its submission for publication. Those who contributed to the work but do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in the Acknowledgements.
The definitive list of all authors must be provided when submitting the manuscript. Please ensure that the authorship information on the manuscript (the title page) matches the information you entered in the journal's submission system. Please note that if there is any inconsistency (for example, in the order of the co-authors), the information on the title page will be taken into account.
Changes in Authorship
Adding and/or removing authors, and/or changes in corresponding author, and/or changes in the order of co-authors are generally not permitted, but in some cases, and with a valid reason, it may be allowed. Please note that changes in authorship are only permissible during the review process. No changes are allowed after the manuscript has been accepted.
You will need to get approval for any changes by contacting the journal's Editor-in-Chief with your change request and a clear and valid reason for the change. This request must come from all the authors, including the person you are adding or removing. Please use the Authorship Change Form for any change request.
PUBLICATION FEES
There is no submission fee or Article Processing Cost (APC) for this journal. T&PICD is free for both readers and authors.
Title Page
The title page should be a Microsoft Word document separate from the main manuscript. The Title Page Template specifies what should be included on the title page. (You can download the template file here.) Please provide all of the required information on the title page. Submissions containing incomplete information will be returned without peer review.
Manuscript Format and Style
All manuscripts should be prepared in accordance with the form and style outlined in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA, 7th edition). For an open-access guide to APA 7th edition citation rules, see https://columbiacollege-ca.libguides.com/apa.
Since T&PICD applies a double-blind peer review process, the manuscript file must not contain any information that reveals the identities of the authors or their institutions.
Length of Manuscript
Recommended manuscript length is 2500 to 8000 words, including references.
Abstract
Include an abstract of 250 words or less.
Keywords
Include 4 to 6 keywords that can be used for indexing purposes.
Text Formatting
Manuscripts must be submitted as Microsoft Word (.doc), OpenOffice, or Rich Text Format (.rtf) and must be single-spaced using 12-point font in Times New Roman. Employ italics rather than underlining (except with URL addresses). All illustrations, figures, and tables should be placed within the text at the appropriate points rather than at the end of the paper.
Citation
The manuscript should be an original work. Authors must appropriately cite the sources of other works, words, ideas, or figures used in the manuscript. Text copied from another source must be appropriately quoted and cited according to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th edition).
Reference List
The list of references should be prepared according to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th edition). Each reference cited in the text must appear in the reference list, and each entry in the reference list must be cited in the text.
Reference Examples
Please pay attention to punctuation (comma, dot, etc.), italics and spaces.
Books:
Author's Last Name, First Initial. Second Initial if Given. (Year of Publication). Title of book in italic (edition if given and is not first edition). Publisher Name.
Watson, J. (2012). Human caring science: A theory of nursing (2nd ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Book chapters:
Author's Last Name, First Initial. Second Initial if Given. (Year of Publication). Title of chapter. In Editor's First Initial. Second Initial if Given. Editor's Last Name (Ed. or Eds.), Title of book in italic (edition if given and is not first edition, pp. first page number-last page number). Publisher Name
Rattan, A. (2019). How lay theories (or mindsets) shape the confrontation of prejudice. In R. K. Mallett & M. J. Monteith (Eds.), Confronting prejudice and discrimination: The science of changing minds and behaviors (pp. 121-140). Academic Press.
Journal Articles:
Author's Last Name, First Initial. Second Initial if Given. (Year of Publication). Title of article. Name of Journal in italic, Volume Number in italic(Issue Number), first page number-last page number. https://doi number
Bailey, N. W. (2012). Evolutionary models of extended phenotypes. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 27(3), 561-569. https://doi.org/10.1037/rev0000126
Blog posts:
Author's Last Name, First Initial. Second Initial if Given. (Year, Month Day). Title of post. Website name in italic. URL.
Scoville, H. (2019, July 14). What Is Evolution? A Brief Overview of the History and Concepts of Evolution. ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-evolution-1224603
Online documents (reports, etc.):
Author's Last Name, First Initial. Second Initial if Given. (Year). Title of document in italic. Organization if given. URL.
Murray, G. (2005). A duty of care to children and young people in Western Australia: Report on the quality assurance and review of unsubstantiated allegations of abuse in care. Western Australia Department of Child Protection. http://www.community.wa.gov.au/NR/rdonlyres/851183A4-.pdf
Thesis/Dissertation:
Author's Last Name, First Initial. Second Initial if Given. (Year). Title of thesis – italicised [Doctoral dissertation or Master's thesis, Institution]. URL (if any)
Axford, J. C. (2007). What constitutes success in Pacific Island community conserved areas? [Doctoral dissertation, University of Queensland]. http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:158747
Footnotes
Footnotes should be used sparingly to provide additional information. Do not use them for citation purposes.
Tables and Figures
All tables and figures must be numbered using Arabic numerals and include a caption (title) explaining their contents. They must be placed within the text at the appropriate points. Supply any tables in an editable format (such as Microsoft Word), and not as images.
Disclosure and conflicts of interest
Authors should include a statement disclosing any financial or other substantive conflicting or competing interests that may be construed to influence the results or interpretation of the manuscript. All sources of financial support must be disclosed.
Permissions
It is the responsibility of the author to obtain written permission for a figure, illustration, table, or text passage that has been published elsewhere.
Acknowledgments
Acknowledgments (of people, grants, funding, etc.) should be placed in a separate section before the reference list. Authors must obtain permission to include the names of all individuals included in the Acknowledgements section.
PEER REVIEW PROCESS
The papers published by T&PICD are selected via a rigorous and double-blind peer review process. Submitted manuscripts are first reviewed by the editorial staff, who may decide to reject them or send them to two external peer reviewers. The process is double-blind. Based on the reviewers’ decisions and remarks, the Editor-in-Chief make the final decision.
If revisions are required, authors will be asked to resubmit the revised manuscript within a certain period of time. In the case of major revisions, the revised version of the manuscript will be returned to the reviewers and re-evaluated.
After acceptance for publication, proofs of the paper will be prepared and sent to the corresponding author via the journal’s online system. The corresponding author must revise the proofs and return the corrected proofs to the Editor within one week.
For more information on the review process, please refer to our Peer Review Policy.
OPEN ACCESS AND COPYRIGHT
T&PICD is an open journal and provides immediate open access to all its published content. The content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0). Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, reuse, or link to full-text articles without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author.
Authors are allowed to self-archive their articles on institutional or other specialized repositories, their personal websites, and social networking sites such as ResearchGate and Academia.edu.
For detailed information, please refer to our Open Access and Copyright Policy.
ETHICAL OVERSIGHT
In the educational sciences, as well as in other fields such as medicine, researchers must comply with ethical rules while using human subjects, working with vulnerable populations, or handling confidential data. T&PICD adheres to the Ethical Guidelines for Educational Research published by the British Educational Research Association (BERA). We encourage authors who will submit their manuscripts to T&PICD to adopt these ethical guidelines and apply them to their research process.
For more information about ethical issues, please refer to the Publication Ethics Policy.
PLAGIARISM AND DATA FABRICATION
The manuscript should be an original work. Authors must appropriately cite the sources of other works, words, ideas, or figures used in the manuscript. Text copied from another source must be appropriately quoted and cited.
Plagiarism, one of the biggest threats to scholarly publication quality and academic integrity, is forbidden in T&PICD. Plagiarism may take different forms, such as showing someone else’s work as one’s own, copying or paraphrasing parts of other studies without proper attribution, or using research data collected or produced by others without permission and proper attribution.
All manuscripts submitted to T&PICD are routinely screened for plagiarism. T&PICD’s editors use Turnitin to check each manuscript for plagiarism and text duplication. If editors suspect plagiarism during the peer review process, they shall follow the guidelines set by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). If plagiarism is confirmed, the manuscript will be rejected.
Practices such as fabricating or manipulating data, manipulating images and other visual objects, and deliberately selecting analysis tools or methods to support a particular conclusion constitute unethical behavior and are strictly forbidden in T&PICD. Authors must present an accurate account of the work performed, especially regarding data collection, analysis, and interpretation. Underlying data must be represented accurately in the manuscript. The study should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable.
DATA AVAILABILITY
We encourage authors to make the research data on which their paper is based available either by depositing the data into a public repository or uploading the data and files as supplementary materials with the submission. The Registry of Research Data Repositories is available at www.re3data.org. Authors who have deposited their datasets into a public repository should state this in their Cover Letter. As a data availability statement could reveal the identity of the author(s), we recommend that this information be removed from the anonymized version of the manuscript.
ARTICLE RETRACTION
Published articles in T&PICD should remain extant and intact. However, under exceptional circumstances involving plagiarism, data fabrication, and redundant publication or involuntary data errors, articles may need to be retracted, removed, or replaced in order to protect the integrity of the literature. The need for a retraction will be determined by the Editor-in-Chief but may be initiated, in cases of flawed data or conclusions, at the request of the author(s).
To retract an article, a notice of retraction will be published. This notice of retraction will:
- include the title and author(s) of the article, the reason for the retraction, and who is retracting the article;
- be published online and be linked to the online version of the article.
Appeals
Authors have the right to appeal a decision regarding their submission to T&PICD if they believe the decision was unfair. To appeal a decision, submit a letter detailing the nature of the appeal and indicating why the decision is viewed as unfair.
The Editor-in-Chief will review all relevant documentation relating to the submission, may consult the relevant Associate Editor or reviewers, and may appoint a new reviewer to evaluate the submission before making a decision. The decision of the Editor-in-Chief is final.
Complaints
For complaints relating to the policies and procedures of T&PICD or the conduct of editorial staff, please email the details of the complaint to the Editor-in-Chief. All complaints directed through the correct channels will be acknowledged and the resolution will be conveyed to the complainant. Complaints will be resolved as quickly as possible.
CONTACT US
Please feel free to contact us for further information.