Abstract
The journal will primarily serve as an outlet for the publication of:
Original reports of empirically-based evaluation studies on the outcomes of social work practice;
Original reports of empirical studies on the development and validation of assessment methods useful in social work research or practice; and
Original systematic reviews or meta-analyses of the practice-research literature that convey direct applications (not simply implications) to social work practice. The websites of the Cochrane and Campbell Collaborations provide exemplary guidelines for the design and conduct of systematic reviews, and authors contemplating submitting such studies are urged to follow these standards. The two types of systematic reviews considered for publication are: Systematic reviews of the evidence-based status of a particular psychosocial intervention or assessment method, or Systematic reviews of different psychosocial interventions applicable to clients with a particular psychosocial problem.
The journal welcomes empirical research appropriately derived from a variety of etiological and interventive theories, as well as studies which focus on evaluation and assessment issues not based upon formal theoretical frameworks. Studies using diverse methodologies, such as group or single-system research designs, and/or quantitative and qualitative approaches, are invited, as are interdisciplinary works. Replication studies are welcome, as are well-designed studies with negative findings or reports of treatment failures. Authors are encouraged to submit only articles of the highest quality for editorial review and possible publication. The submission of seriously flawed or marginal studies is discouraged. Reports of inferential statistics involving significant differences must be accompanied by suitable measures (and a discussion of their clinical importance) of effect sizes and/or proportions of variance potentially accounted for by an intervention.
The journal does publish book reviews, and the authors of newly published books who believe that their book’s subject matter is congruent with the focus of the journal are encouraged to contact the Editor with respect to arranging a review, as are individuals who themselves wish to author a book review of a newly published book. The submission of unsolicited book reviews is welcome, providing the work relates to research on social work practice. Book reviews should be formatted in strict APA-style, and submitted as an email attachment in MicroSoft Word, to the Editor, at Bthyer@fsu.edu. A copy of RSWP Guidelines for Book Reviews is also available from the Editor, upon request.
The journal publishes occasional special issues devoted to a particular topic and readers with an interest in proposing a topic for such a special issue and to serve as a Guest Editor for that issue are welcome to contact the Editor.
Submissions are required to be prepared using the formatting standards found in the 6th Edition (2010) of the APA Publication Manual. Authors are specifically asked to adhere to the relevant Journal Article Reporting Standards (JARS) found on pp. 245– 252 of the APA Manual. Reports of quasi-experiments or randomized controlled trials must also include a participant flowchart (see page 253 of the APA Manual). The Editor is available to consult with you about any questions you may have regarding complying with these standards. They have been adopted to help promote consistency in research reporting, to try and further elevate the standards of work appearing in Research on Social Work Practice, and to ultimately improve the credibility of research findings available to the profession and the public. The abstracts of research articles must include the following headings: Objective:, Methods:, Results:, Conclusions:.
All manuscripts should include an abstract on a separate page that contains no more than 150 words, and also a separate title page (designated as Title Page) which includes: 1) title of the article; 2) corresponding author's full name, current position, affiliation, institutional and email address, telephone and fax numbers; 3) co-author(s)' full name(s) and affiliation(s); 4) up to five key words as they should appear if they were to be published. Manuscripts will not be considered for submission if they do not include these elements. Tables and/or Figures are to be included when necessary to depict the results. There is no specific limit on the total number of pages, table or figures.
Authors submitting manuscripts are protected by common law against the unauthorized use of their unpublished work. Specifically, an unpublished manuscript is considered to be a confidential or privileged paper. Reviewers will be asked to destroy or return the manuscript after their review is completed; in addition, reviewers will be asked not to circulate, quote, cite, or refer to the unpublished work in any way unless specific permission is granted by the author.
Artwork Submissions
High-resolution figures should be uploaded as separate electronic files, with callouts for each in the text. Figure legends should include full explanations of the figures and be typewritten double-spaced with numbers corresponding to those on the figure files themselves. All figures must be specifically referred to in the text and numbered in order of appearance in the text. Acceptable file formats for figures include TIFF, EPS, and JPEG, and PDF Microsoft Application Files are acceptable for vector art (line art). Permission for use of the copyrighted material is the responsibility of the author. All artwork must be camera ready.
Tables
Tables should be numbered consecutively corresponding to in-text citation. Each table should be prepared on a separate page at the end of the text document and preferably should be no larger than a single page. Include a brief descriptive title of the table and a footnote with explanation of any abbreviations. All tables must be specifically referred to in the text and numbered in order of appearance in the text. Elements in tables should be separated by tabs, not cells or lines.
Conflict of Interest
Authors must disclose any commercial, financial, or other associations that could pose a conflict of interest in connection with their submitted article and these must be disclosed on the title page at the time of submission.
Financial Disclosure/Funding
Authors should list all funding sources related to the study and to the article preparation.
Copyright
Once a manuscript is accepted for publication, the corresponding author will be required to complete an electronic copyright transfer form. From SAGETRACK website “Corresponding Author Center” choose the correct manuscript from “Manuscripts with Decisions” and from the ACTION box on the far right side, choose “Contributor Form.” After reading the form and completing the appropriate boxes, clicking the “I accept” box will confirm appropriate copyright transfer.
Authors are required to submit written permission from the original publisher to reprint copyright-protected material, including quoted material of 300 words or more from a single source (journal article or book).
Submission of a manuscript implies commitment to publish in this journal. Authors submitting manuscripts to the journal should not simultaneously submit them to another journal, nor should manuscripts have been published elsewhere in substantially similar content.
Publish Ahead of Print With Onlinefirst
Onlinefirst is a feature in which completed articles are published online prior to their inclusion in a print issue, offering authors the advantage of making their research accessible to the public in a more timely manner. Only online subscribers can view these PDFs, but abstracts are available to the public to view for free. Each Onlinefirst manuscript is citable by the publication date of the manuscript’s first online posting and the Digital Object Identifier (DOI), providing a persistent, permanent way to identify manuscripts published in the online environment. You can cite Onlinefirst articles as follows:
Author’s last name, first initials. Article title. Journal title. Prepublished month day, year; DOI: 10.1177/0123456789123456
Once your article has completed the production process and before it is published in a print issue, it will be posted online. You can access RSWP Onlinefirst articles on the Web at http://rswp.sagepub.com/pap.dtl. Once posted online, articles may not be retracted or edited. If your article is not completed prior to its publication date, it will not go on Onlinefirst but will be posted online with the issue in which it is published.
The journal uses a blind peer review system to evaluate manuscripts, and the expertise of the Editorial Board members is augmented by the extensive use of Guest Reviewers. Most authors receive an initial editorial decision within two months of submission, accompanied by constructive peer commentary. Most articles eventually accepted for publication undergo extensive author-completed revisions, based on peer-review commentary, prior to acceptance. The journal has a modest backlog of accepted manuscripts, thus the authors of accepted manuscripts can expect a lag of about 6 months or less from final acceptance to print publication. However the journal has a publish-ahead-of-print service in that the final, corrected and accepted version of their paper will be published electronically on the journal’s website, with a DOI. This will permit its ready access to the community of scholars, students, and practitioners months ahead of print publication. These articles will be both citable and downloadable. Articles are published in the general order of their acceptance.
An invitation to join the journal’s Editorial Board is published in the journal every three years, prior to the appointment of a new board. All readers possessing suitable backgrounds in social work practice and research are welcome to nominate themselves to the Editorial Board. In addition, individuals such as experienced MSWs or doctoral students who wish to serve as occasional Guest Reviewers are welcome to contact the Editor about their interest.
Research on Social Work Practice is provided by the