Submission Preparation Checklist
As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.- The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
- You acknowledge that if the research qualifies for ethics review by an institutional ethics review body (e.g. IRB), each author’s institution has formally approved or exempted your study.
- The manuscript is anonymized for blind peer review. (Commentary submissions do not need to be anonymized.)
- You acknowledge that if you are invited to revise and resubmit your manuscript, you will be asked to resubmit the manuscript using a template that the journal will provide.
- If this manuscript includes a pre-analysis plan, you have included an anonymized version of the pre-analysis plan linked either in the manuscript or included in an appendix.
- You acknowledge the journal's policy on artificial intelligence. The policy is that the journal generally prohibits the use of AI-generated text and citations in articles, and the use of AI-generated code for analysis. We can make exceptions when the article is about generative AI. In these cases, the use of AI must be disclosed. When in doubt, authors should disclose the use of AI.
Peer-reviewed Articles
Journal Deadlines
The deadline for peer-reviewed submissions for the next general issue is December 2, 2024. The deadline for commentaries is February 3, 2025. The issue will be published in April 2025.
The deadline for peer-reviewed submissions for the 2025 Trust and Safety Research Conference Proceedings is May 1, 2025. The deadline for commentaries is July 1, 2025. The issue will be published in September 2025.
The deadline for peer-reviewed submissions for the Spring 2026 issue is December 1, 2025. The deadline for commentaries is February 2, 2026. The issue will be published in April 2026.
Submission information
There is no word count minimum nor maximum. You may submit a manuscript directly through this site, or submit a letter of inquiry first.
Letters of inquiry
Authors may submit letters of inquiry to assess whether the manuscript is a good fit for the journal. Letters can be emailed to trustandsafetyjournal@stanford.edu, should not exceed 500 words, and should answer the following questions:
- What is the research question or problem being addressed?
- What data is being used to answer this question? Please provide detail on how the dataset (whether qualitative or quantitative) was constructed and what it is representative of.
- What analysis is being done on the dataset?
- What replication data would you be able to make public on date of publication? We recognize that under some circumstances replication data cannot be made public. If this applies to your study, please note this and provide a justification.
- If the topic is not in one of our priority areas, how does this research relate to online trust and safety?
- What is the name, highest degree, and current institutional affiliation for all authors?
- Are you interested in having your paper considered for a general issue, or a special issue? If special issue, which one?
Data Availability Policy
In general, authors should make anonymized data and replication code public in a data repository at the time of publication. We recognize, however, that this may not always be possible, especially with the kinds of sensitive data common in online trust and safety research. In these circumstances, to increase transparency and trust in research findings, we encourage authors to offer managed access to replication materials to qualified researchers. There are many ways this could be done. For example, the author can provide an email address where researchers can request an in-person meeting to reproduce findings on the author’s device where the data reside.
Submission Statistics: Winter 2024 Issue
- We received 26 letters of inquiry or submissions for peer-reviewed articles. We accepted 4 articles.
- Authors waited 5 days on average between sending us a letter of inquiry and receiving an initial response.
- For authors who submitted articles directly but we declined the submission, we declined the submission in on average 4 days.
- We responded positively to 6 of the 26 letters of inquiry or submissions. We received full article submissions from 5 of the 6, and sent them all out for review. We accepted 4 of the 5 submissions that we sent out for review.
- For articles sent to review, authors received reviewer feedback and the Journal’s first decision after on average 41 days.
- The average time between submission and acceptance for all accepted research articles is 70 days.
Commentary
We invite letters, editorials, or research that is not a good fit for the peer-review section of the journal. There is no word count minimum nor maximum.