All submissions should be made online at the BBS Editorial Manager website. New users should first create an account. Once logged on to the site, submissions should be made via the Author Center. Online user guides and access to a helpdesk are available here.
Target Article manuscripts should be compiled in the following order:
- Title
- Full Name(s), Institutional Affiliation(s) (including Country), E-mail Address(es) and Homepage URL(s) for all authors (where available)
- Short Abstract (100 words)
- Long Abstract (250 words)
- 5-10 Keywords (in alphabetical order)
- Word Counts (for the abstract, main text, references, and entire text—total + addresses etc.)
- Main text
- Acknowledgements (optional)
- Financial Support / Funding statement
- Competing Interest statement
- Reference List (APA standard)
- Appendices (as appropriate)
- Table(s) with caption(s) (on individual pages)
- Figure caption(s) (as a list)
Commentary Proposal submissions are limited to a single author. If you are proposing to write a commentary with co-authors, the system will not allow you to enter their information here. Instead, include their names at the top of the Commentary Proposal document you upload. These potential co-authors need not contribute to the Commentary Proposal itself. The only required submission Item is your Commentary Proposal itself. In the Description field please add the last name of the first author of the target article or book. For example; "Commentary Proposal on [Author Last Name]."
At the conclusion of the Commentary Proposal period, the editors will review all the submitted Commentary Proposals. At that time you will be notified of the decision. If you are formally invited to submit a commentary, you will be asked to confirm your intention to submit by the commentary deadline.
Format for Commentaries (solicited only)
Please make sure your commentary has ALL of the following in this order:
- The name of the author(s) of the target article
- Four separate word counts (abstract, main text, references, entire text (total + addresses etc.)
- An indexable and informative commentary title
- Full name(s)
- Institution
- Full institutional affiliation(s) (including Country)
- One email address each
- One home page url each (where available)
- 60 word abstract
- 1000 word main text (with paragraphs separated by full blank lines, not tab indents) (2000 word main text for Multiple Book Reviews)
- Acknowledgements (optional)
- Funding statement (see Preparing Your Materials)
- Conflicts of Interest statement (see Preparing Your Materials)
- Alphabetical reference list (APA standard)
ORCID
We require all corresponding authors to identify themselves using ORCID when submitting a manuscript to this journal. ORCID provides a unique identifier for researchers and, through integration with key research workflows such as manuscript submission and grant applications, provides the following benefits:
- Discoverability: ORCID increases the discoverability of your publications, by enabling smarter publisher systems and by helping readers to reliably find work that you have authored.
- Convenience: As more organisations use ORCID, providing your iD or using it to register for services will automatically link activities to your ORCID record, and will enable you to share this information with other systems and platforms you use, saving you re-keying information multiple times.
- Keeping track: Your ORCID record is a neat place to store and (if you choose) share validated information about your research activities and affiliations.
See our ORCID FAQs for more information.
If you don’t already have an iD, you will need to create one if you decide to submit a manuscript to this journal. You can register for one directly from your user account on Editorial Manager, or alternatively via https://ORCID.org/register.
If you already have an iD, please use this when submitting your manuscript, either by linking it to your Editorial Manager account, or by supplying it during submission.
ORCIDs can also be used if authors wish to communicate to readers up-to-date information about how they wish to be addressed or referred to (for example, they wish to include pronouns, additional titles, honorifics, name variations, etc.) alongside their published articles. We encourage authors to make use of the ORCID profile’s “Published Name” field for this purpose. This is entirely optional for authors who wish to communicate such information in connection with their article. Please note that this method is not currently recommended for author name changes: see Cambridge’s author name change policy if you want to change your name on an already published article. See our ORCID FAQs for more information.
Licence to publish
Before Cambridge can publish your manuscript, we need a signed licence to publish agreement. Under the agreement, certain rights are granted to the journal owner which allow publication of the article. The original ownership of the copyright in the article remains unchanged. For full details see the publishing agreement page.