Submission Guidelines

Journal of Law, Psychology, and Communication Studies (JLPCS)

Thank you for considering submission to the Journal of Law, Psychology, and Communication Studies (JLPCS). Please read the following guidelines carefully to ensure that your manuscript meets the journal’s standards.

1. Scope of Submissions

JLPCS welcomes high-quality original research articles, theoretical papers, case studies, and critical reviews. We encourage interdisciplinary studies that advance the understanding of legal systems, psychological processes, and communication practices.
Manuscripts may be submitted in English or Chinese.

2. Manuscript Requirements

  • Submissions must be original, unpublished, and not under consideration elsewhere.

  • Manuscripts must be written in clear, professional English or Chinese.

  • All citations and references must strictly follow the American Psychological Association, Seventh Edition (APA-7) style, according to the Taylor & Francis APA Style Guide.

  • Manuscripts must adhere to the journal’s submission templates and formatting guidelines.

·Main Document

（It uses the same standard as Oxford University Press Journal of communication）

  The main document should be a maximum of 35 pages in length (including the abstract, main text, references, tables, figures, and endnotes).

  1. Page 1 should include only the title (centered), an abstract (maximum of 150 words), and selected keywords (at least 5 of author's own choosing).
  2. Page 2 starts with title (centered) and the main text follows directly thereafter. Please note that the title functions as the first-order heading for the introduction. Subsequent subheadings should begin with a second-order subheading (bold flush left).
  3. Standard type (12-point font, double-spaced, Times New Roman, 1.0 inch margins) should be used throughout.
  4. Running head and page numbers on top right corner (header) of each page.
  5. References are double-spaced; 2nd and subsequent lines should have hanging indent of 0.5 inch (References should also start on a new page). Reference style should follow the 7th edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA).
  6. All tables, figures, and endnotes should be placed after references.
  7. Tables and figures should be in standard 12-point type, Times New Roman. Each table and figure should be presented on a separate page, but in the case of simple tables and figures more than one (but no more than two) may be presented on a single page. 
  8. When appropriate, effect sizes (e.g., Cohen’s d, Pearson’s r, eta-squared) should be supplied. These details will provide enhanced understanding of a study’s findings, aid null hypothesis significance testing (NHST), and service future attempts to synthesize an area of study using meta-analytic procedures.
  9. Submit one main document in Microsoft WORD format (e.g., a docx extension). NOTE: Journal of Law, Psychology, and Communication Studies does not accept PDF files.

·Supplemental Materials Document

（It uses the same standard as Oxford University Press Journal of communication）

None of the items to be included in the supplemental materials document count against the main document’s page limit. However, a decision can always be made by researchers to include any of the potential supplemental materials listed below in the main document. If a choice is made to include any of the potential supplemental materials in the main document, then the space devoted to those items will work against a submission’s page-count limit. Like the main document, the supplemental materials document should be a single Microsoft WORD format submission. There are no specific formatting guidelines for the supplemental text materials, but authors should seek to create a document that follows APA style guidelines wherever possible and maximizes ease of use for editors and peer reviewers.

There are no required supplemental materials for an initial submission. However, the inclusion of methodological instruments (e.g., questionnaires, experimental stimuli, interview guides, codebooks, scripts) as well as details on sampling procedures is strongly encouraged if the information presented in the main document is not exhaustive. If an invitation to revise and resubmit a manuscript is extended, then the JLPCS editorial team may request the inclusion of some of these supplemental items in order to make a well-informed publication decision upon resubmission. Any requests of this kind will be detailed in the decision letter. Offered below is a list of items that could be included in the supplemental materials document. The list is not meant to be exhaustive. Instead, it provides potential submitters with a sense of what they may wish to include as part of an initial submission (depending on the nature of their work). If multiple supplemental items are being included in the single supplemental materials document, then each new item should begin on a new page within the document, with appropriate headings and numbering. The document should only include information that is necessary to document and evaluate the research presented in the article.

Examples of potential supplemental items include: Questionnaire items (in surveys); experimental stimuli (including links to any video material); descriptive statistics; justification of criterion values (e.g., Alpha level) and hyperparameters; syntax and/or code of statistical analyses; codebooks (in manual content analysis), dictionaries (in computational content analysis); documentation of workflows, preprocessing steps, and algorithms (e.g., in machine learning/topic modeling); interview guides and focus group protocols (in qualitative interviewing); meta-analysis checklists (e.g., QUOROM, MARS, MOOSE, PRISMA); validation procedures/metrics; comprehensive list of resources used in document analyses.

Please prepare the main and supplementary materials documents properly for anonymous peer review. Offline or email submissions will not be accepted. Nor will abstracts sent by email to the editors-in-chief be considered. All manuscripts must be submitted online through Submissions.

·Ethical Requirements and AI Use

Authors must disclose any use of generative AI tools (e.g., ChatGPT) within the Methods or Acknowledgments section. AI may not be used to generate data or serve as an author. Peer reviewers must not upload manuscripts into AI tools. The integrity and confidentiality of the peer review process must be maintained.

3. Plagiarism Screening

All manuscripts will undergo a plagiarism check before peer review:

  • English-language manuscripts will be screened using Turnitin and must demonstrate a similarity index of less than 20%.

  • Chinese-language manuscripts will be screened using the CNKI (China National Knowledge Infrastructure) system, also requiring a similarity index of less than 20%.
    Manuscripts exceeding these thresholds may be returned for revision or rejected.

4. Peer Review Process

JLPCS operates a double-blind peer review process: both reviewers and authors remain anonymous.
Each manuscript will be evaluated by at least two independent experts for originality, rigor, clarity, and relevance to the journal's scope.
The typical review period is approximately 6–8 weeks.

5. Article Processing Charge (APC)

  • An Article Processing Charge (APC) of 2000 RMB (approximately 275 USD) is applicable upon acceptance.

  • No fees are charged during the submission or peer review stages.

  • The APC supports the peer review management, editorial production, and open access publication of your work.

  • Authors with financial hardship may apply for a waiver during submission; applications will be assessed individually.

6. Copyright and Open Access

  • Authors retain the copyright of their work and grant JLPCS the right of first publication.

  • All published articles are made freely available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) license, allowing non-commercial sharing with proper attribution but prohibiting modifications.

7. How to Submit

All manuscripts must be submitted through the online submission system.
For account registration and manuscript submission, please visit our [Submission Portal].
For further inquiries, please contact the editorial office at:
Email: zacharyvu@grhas.centraluniteduniversity.de

We look forward to your valuable contributions and to fostering interdisciplinary dialogue through JLPCS.