Preparing your materials

About

Research Synthesis Methods (JRSM) is devoted to the publication of papers covering the development and dissemination of methods for designing, conducting, analyzing, interpreting, reporting, and applying systematic research synthesis.

Papers must clearly be of scientific value in the field and will be submitted to two independent referees. Contributions must be in English and must not have been published elsewhere, and authors must agree not to communicate the same material for publication to any other journal. It is in the author's interest to ensure accurate and consistent presentation and thus avoid publication delays.

Article types

Research Synthesis Methods publishes the following types of articles:

Research Articles report original work on methodological issues. There are no formal limits on the number of pages for Research Articles, but they should be written as concisely as possible. Please see the above section for rules pertaining to format and presentation.

Tutorials provide a source of information about a topic or method that aims to be more instructive than what is conveyed in a normal research article. Topics should be presented at a level suitable for non-experts with maximum attention being given to clarity of expression, freedom from jargon, and high quality figures. We strongly recommend that relevant code (preferably using open source software like R) as well as sample datasets be provided. Any code that is provided should be clearly explained.

Reviews offer a general overview of a particular field or topic, providing the reader with an appreciation of the importance of the work, a summary of recent developments, and a starting point in the specialist literature. Reviews are not limited as to the number of pages, tables, figures and references that may be included.

Research in Brief describes or critiques a particular method, procedure, or graphic display. This type of article should focus on what is innovative or useful, or problematic about the method. The method or procedure should be presented clearly and with sufficient detail. Research in Brief articles are limited to 1,500 words (excluding References).

Software Focus describes software tools and computational methods for facilitating evidence synthesis. This type of article is expected to at least in part describe accompanying software (e.g., an R package or a web-based tool). Software Focus articles are expected to be relatively brief, but we do not impose a formal limit.

Book Review suggestions are always welcome and should be sent directly to an Editor-in-Chief. These reviews are limited to 1,000 words in length.

Letters to the Editor entail focused concerns, critiques or questions that might require further clarification or provide an alternative perspective. The Letter should refer to an article in a previously published issue (within the last calendar year) of Research Synthesis Methods. Authors of the focal article will be invited to respond. Letters to Editor will be peer-reviewed.

Discussions are usually by invitation of the Editors only. The Discussion must critique or support an article published in Research Synthesis Methods and set the problems addressed in that article in the wider context of the research synthesis field.

Article preparation

Manuscript style

During the submission process you must enter: 1) the full title 2) the names, email addresses, and affiliations of all authors
For all articles, the journal mandates CRediT (Contribution Roles Taxonomy).
Include the name(s) of any funder(s) of the research contained in the paper, along with grant number(s).
Enter an abstract of no more than 250 words for all articles. Please see the guidance below on acceptable abstract writing for Research Synthesis Methods.
Keywords. Please provide 4 to 6 keywords to help describe your paper for search and indexing purposes.
Research Synthesis Keywords. Select 3-6 keywords that best match the focus of your manuscript. The editorial office will use these selections to find appropriate subject matter experts for peer review.

Writing your abstract

An abstract is a concise summary of the whole paper, not just the conclusions. The abstract should be no more than 250 words and convey the following:

1. An introduction to the work. This should be accessible by scientists in any field and express the necessity of the experiments executed

2. Some scientific detail regarding the background to the problem

3. A summary of the main result

4. The implications of the result

5. A broader perspective of the results, once again understandable across scientific disciplines

It is crucial that the abstract convey the importance of the work and be understandable without reference to the rest of the manuscript to a multidisciplinary audience. Abstracts should not contain any citation to other published works.

Article file

Manuscripts can be uploaded either as a single document (containing the main text, tables and figures), or with figures and tables provided as separate files. Should your manuscript reach revision stage, figures and tables must be provided as separate files. The main manuscript file can be submitted in Microsoft Word (.doc or .docx) or LaTex (.tex) format.

If submitting your manuscript file in LaTex format, select the file designation “Main Document – LaTeX .tex File” on upload. When submitting a LaTex Main Document, you must also provide a PDF version of the manuscript for Peer Review. Please upload this file as “Main Document - LaTeX PDF.” All supporting files that are referred to in the LaTex Main Document should be uploaded as a “LaTeX Supplementary File.”

LaTex Guidelines for Post-Acceptance:

Please check that you have supplied the following files for typesetting post-acceptance:

PDF of the finalized source manuscript files compiled without any errors.
The LaTeX source code files (text, figure captions, and tables, preferably in a single file), BibTex files (if used), any associated packages/files along with all other files needed for compiling without any errors. This is particularly important if authors have used any LaTeX style or class files, bibliography files (.bbl, .bst. .blg) or packages apart from those used in the NJD LaTex Template class file.
Electronic graphics files for the illustrations in Encapsulated PostScript (EPS), PDF or TIFF format. Authors are requested not to create figures using LaTeX codes.

Highlights

This REQUIRED section should be included directly in the manuscript, after the text but before the References. Research Synthesis Methods is an inter-disciplinary journal. Different scientific domains may interpret the same words to have different meanings, or different words to have the same meaning. In addition, it is not always clear to someone outside of the authors’ field why the article might be important for them to read. The objective of this section is to bridge this gap and to allow readers outside the authors’ field to more fully appreciate the importance of the work.

What is already known
What is new
Potential impact for Research Synthesis Methods readers

Figures

Upload each figure as a separate file in either .tiff or .eps format, with the figure number and the top of the figure indicated. Compound figures e.g. 1a, b, c should be uploaded as one figure. Tints are not acceptable. Lettering must be of a reasonable size that would still be clearly legible upon reduction, and consistent within each figure and set of figures. Where a key to symbols is required, please include this in the artwork itself, not in the figure legend.

Tables should be part of the the main document and should be placed after the references. If the table is created in excel the file should be uploaded separately.

References

This journal uses AMA reference style; as the journal offers Free Format submission, however, this is for information only and you do not need to format the references in your article. This will instead be taken care of by the typesetter.

Declarations

In the title page:

Original Publication Submission of a manuscript will be held to imply that it contains original unpublished work and is not being submitted for publication elsewhere at the same time. The author must supply 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.

Competing Interests Authors are responsible for disclosing all financial and personal relationships between themselves and others that might be perceived by others as biasing their work. To prevent ambiguity, authors must state explicitly whether potential conflicts do or do not exist. Any possible conflict of interest, financial or otherwise, related to the submitted work must be clearly indicated in the manuscript and in the cover letter accompanying the submission.

A paper will not be rejected because there is a competing interest: the aim of funding and conflicts of interest statements is not to eradicate conflict of interest (they are common); it is so that journal articles are fully transparent and ethical.

Data availability. Authors are required to provide a Data Availability Statement. This should include the DOI of any deposited data or materials that they have used or an explanation why the underlying data cannot be shared. Find some example Data Availability Statements here.

Funding statement. This must detail the sources of financial support for all authors in relation to the article, including grant numbers, or declare that no specific funding exists.

Ethics When reporting on patient data, for example in a patient data meta-analysis, do not use patients' names, initials or hospital numbers. When reporting experiments on specific animal trials, indicate whether the institution's or a national research council's guide for, or any national law on, the care and use of laboratory animals was followed. A statement describing explicitly the ethical background to the studies being reported should be included in all manuscripts. Ethics committee or institutional review board approval should be stated. Patients have a right to privacy that should not be infringed without informed consent. Identifying information should not be published in written descriptions, photographs and pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or parent or guardian) gives written informed consent for publication. Identifying details should be omitted if they are not essential but patient data should never be altered or falsified in an attempt to attain anonymity.

Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) As a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), adherence to these submission criteria is considered essential for publication in Research Synthesis Methods. If, at a later stage in the submission process or even after publication, a manuscript or authors are found to have disregarded these criteria, it is the duty of the Editor to report this to COPE. COPE may recommend that action be taken, including but not exclusive to, informing the authors' professional regulatory body and/or institution of such a dereliction.

For more information visit the COPE website at: https://publicationethics.org/

Research Transparency

Read the full RSM Research Transparency policy here.

Data Sharing

Research Synthesis Methods expects that data supporting the results in the paper will be archived in an appropriate public repository. Whenever possible the scripts and other artefacts used to generate the analyses presented in the paper should also be publicly archived. Exceptions may be granted at the discretion of the editor for sensitive information such as human subject data or the location of endangered species. Authors are expected to provide a data accessibility statement, including a link to the repository they have used, to accompany their paper.

Visit re3data.org or fairsharing.org to help identify registered and certified data repositories relevant to your subject area.

Programming Code Policy

Authors are required to provide any previously unreported custom computer code used to generate the results described in the manuscript, including code for simulation studies. If there are issues preventing code sharing, the editors will review each case individually. Small amounts of source code can be included in the supplementary material. Authors should make larger amounts of code available in an open repository (GitHub, Bitbucket etc.) and include an OSI approved open source license. Code in a repository or with a formal DOI may be cited and listed in the References section of the manuscript.

Reproducibility

Following Hofner et al. (2016), Research Synthesis Methods will implement the following quality control steps in order to promote reproducible research. The standard review process focuses on the methods described in a manuscript and does not systematically evaluate the reproducibility of results. All articles that have been accepted in the regular review process will be inspected by the responsible Editor in Chief for software code, including simulation code. Articles with code will be referred to a reproducible research editor (RRE) who is responsible for the code evaluation. For common statistical software, either the RRE or a voluntary expert will check whether results can be reproduced. The authors will be contacted in case of failures to execute the code or major deviations in results. If there are persistent problems, the Editors may engage in a discussion with the RRE and the authors. If there are any serious doubts regarding the validity of the results, the Editors may decide to withdraw publication of the code or the entire article. In the case where authors use uncommon software, the RRE may not be able to evaluate the code and this will be noted in the publication.

Reference: Hofner B, Schmid M, Edler L. Reproducible research in statistics: A review and guidelines for the Biometrical Journal. Biometrical Journal. 2016;58(2):416-27.

Overleaf

Overleaf is a free online tool for writing and submitting scholarly manuscripts. An Overleaf template is available for this journal, which allows authors to easily comply with the journal’s guidelines.

Benefits of using Overleaf include:

An intuitive interface, in which authors can write in LaTeX or rich text and see a preview of their article typeset in the journal’s style
Features enabling collaboration with co-authors (the ability to share, highlight and comment on versions of articles)
Sophisticated version control
Clean PDF conversion and submission into the journal’s online manuscripts system (supporting materials can also be added during this process)

Overleaf is based on LaTeX but includes a rich text mode. An author writing in Overleaf would need to have some knowledge of LaTeX, but could collaborate through the tool with an author who is not a LaTeX expert. Overleaf’s tutorial pages include a two minute video and an introduction to LaTeX course, and Overleaf also provides support for authors using the tool.

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 ScholarOne, 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 ScholarOne account, or by supplying it during submission using the "Associate your existing ORCID iD" button.

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.

Authorship and contributorship

All authors listed on any papers submitted to this journal must be in agreement that the authors listed would all be considered authors according to disciplinary norms, and that no authors who would reasonably be considered an author have been excluded. For further details on this journal’s authorship policy, please see this journal's publishing ethics policies.

CRediT taxonomy for contributors

When submitting a manuscript, the corresponding author will be prompted to provide further details concerning contributions to the manuscript using the CRediT taxonomy. CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) is a high-level taxonomy, including 14 designated options, that can be used to represent the roles typically played by contributors to scholarly output. All parties who have contributed to the scholarly work, but do not meet the full criteria for authorship, should be recognised with their contributions described in terms of the CRediT taxonomy.

Our default position is that the corresponding author has the authority to act on behalf of all co-authors, and we expect the corresponding author to confirm this at the beginning of the submission process. When preparing your manuscript you should also ensure that you obtain permission from all contributors to describe their contributions using the CRediT taxonomy.

Author affiliations

Author affiliations should represent the institution(s) at which the research presented was conducted and/or supported and/or approved. For non-research content, any affiliations should represent the institution(s) with which each author is currently affiliated.

For more information, please see our author affiliation policy and author affiliation FAQs.

Policy on prior publication

When authors submit manuscripts to this journal, these manuscripts should not be under consideration, accepted for publication or in press within a different journal, book or similar entity, unless explicit permission or agreement has been sought from all entities involved. However, deposition of a preprint on the author’s personal website, in an institutional repository, or in a preprint archive shall not be viewed as prior or duplicate publication. Authors should follow the Cambridge University Press Preprint Policy regarding preprint archives and maintaining the version of record.

Competing Interests

All authors must include a competing interest declaration in their main manuscript file. This declaration will be subject to editorial review and may be published in the article.

Competing interests are situations that could be perceived to exert an undue influence on the content or publication of an author’s work. They may include, but are not limited to, financial, professional, contractual or personal relationships or situations.

If the manuscript has multiple authors, the author submitting must include competing interest declarations relevant to all contributing authors.

Example wording for a declaration is as follows: “Competing interests: Author 1 is employed at organisation A, Author 2 is on the Board of company B and is a member of organisation C. Author 3 has received grants from company D.” If no competing interests exist, the declaration should state “Competing interests: The author(s) declare none”.

Supplementary materials

Material that is not essential to understanding or supporting a manuscript, but which may nonetheless be relevant or interesting to readers, may be submitted as supplementary material. Supplementary material will be published online alongside your article, but will not be published in the pages of the journal. Types of supplementary material may include, but are not limited to, appendices, additional tables or figures, datasets, videos, and sound files.

Supplementary materials will not be typeset or copyedited, so should be supplied exactly as they are to appear online. Please see our general guidance on supplementary materials for further information.

Where relevant we encourage authors to publish additional qualitative or quantitative research outputs in an appropriate repository, and cite these in manuscripts.

Permissions

Authors are responsible for obtaining necessary permissions to quote or reproduce material, including figures, from already published works and/or any copyrighted material. If a figure is from another source, this should be credited appropriately in the figure legend along with any terms of any re-use.

For further advice, see this page on seeking permission to use copyrighted material.

Publishing ethics

Authors should check the publishing ethics policies while preparing their materials. Cambridge University Press is a member of the Committee on Publishing Ethics.

Use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools

We acknowledge the increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools in the research and writing processes. To ensure transparency, we expect any such use to be declared and described fully to readers, and to comply with our plagiarism policy and best practices regarding citation and acknowledgements. We do not consider artificial intelligence (AI) tools to meet the accountability requirements of authorship, and therefore generative AI tools such as ChatGPT and similar should not be listed as an author on any submitted content.

In particular, any use of an AI tool:

to generate images within the manuscript should be accompanied by a full description of the process used, and declared clearly in the image caption(s)
to generate text within the manuscript should be accompanied by a full description of the process used, include appropriate and valid references and citations, and be declared in the manuscript’s Acknowledgements.
to analyse or extract insights from data or other materials, for example through the use of text and data mining, should be accompanied by a full description of the process used, including details and appropriate citation of any dataset(s) or other material analysed in all relevant and appropriate areas of the manuscript
must not present ideas, words, data, or other material produced by third parties without appropriate acknowledgement or permission

Descriptions of AI processes used should include at minimum the version of the tool/algorithm used, where it can be accessed, any proprietary information relevant to the use of the tool/algorithm, any modifications of the tool made by the researchers (such as the addition of data to a tool’s public corpus), and the date(s) it was used for the purpose(s) described. Any relevant competing interests or potential bias arising as a consequence of the tool/algorithm’s use should be transparently declared and may be discussed in the article.

Author Hub

You can find guides for many aspects of publishing with Cambridge at Author Hub, our suite of resources for Cambridge authors.

English language

Papers must be in English. Oxford English Dictionary or American spelling is acceptable, provided usage is consistent within the manuscript.

Manuscripts that are written in English that is ambiguous or incomprehensible, in the opinion of the Editor, will be returned to the authors with a request to resubmit once the language issues have been improved. This policy does not imply that all papers must be written in "perfect" English, whatever that may mean. Rather, the criterion will require that the intended meaning of the authors must be clearly understandable, i.e., not obscured by language problems, by referees who have agreed to review the paper.

English language editing services

Authors, particularly those whose first language is not English, may wish to have their English-language manuscripts checked by a native speaker before submission. This step is optional, but may help to ensure that the academic content of the paper is fully understood by the Editor and any reviewers.

In order to help prospective authors to prepare for submission and to reach their publication goals, Cambridge University Press offers a range of high-quality manuscript preparation services, including language editing. You can find out more on our language services page.

Please note that the use of any of these services is voluntary, and at the author's own expense. Use of these services does not guarantee that the manuscript will be accepted for publication, nor does it restrict the author to submitting to a Cambridge-published journal.