Information for Authors

1. Topics

The International Journal of Public Opinion Research welcomes full articles and research notes that describe:

• studies of public opinion that contribute to theory development and testing about political, social and current issues, particularly those that involve comparative analysis;
• the role of public opinion polls in political decision making, the development of public policies, electoral behavior, and mass communications;
• evaluations of and improvements in the methodology of public opinion surveys.

2. Submission of manuscripts

All manuscripts must be submitted online. Once you have prepared your manuscript according to the instructions below please visit the online submission web site. Instructions on submitting your manuscript online can be viewed here.

Manuscripts should relate to the field of public opinion research as indicated in the Aims and Functions pages. The manuscripts should be in English, as should the abstract, title of the manuscript and the authors's affiliations. Manuscripts should be submitted via the online submission system.

Please note: All manuscripts are double-blinded for peer review. The title page containing the author's details must therefore be submitted as a separate file to the manuscript.

Submission for an original paper to the journal will be taken to imply that it represents original work not previously published. Authors are requested not to submit manuscripts that are under consideration for publication elsewhere. The editors hope to provide authors with a decision on whether a manuscript will be accepted within ten weeks of receipt.

3. Preparation of manuscripts

A template to use when preparing your manuscript is available.

A template to use when preparing your separate title page is available.

Manuscript files should be uploaded as adjustable files (i.e., word documents) not pdf files.

Except where specified otherwise, manuscripts should be prepared in accordance with the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (latest edition) in terms of citation style, references, figures, tables, bias in language and all other elements. Full articles including abstract, and all references should be no more than 9,000 words. Tables, figures, footnotes, appendices, and supplementary files are not included in this word limit. Research notes should generally not comprise more than 3,500 words (excluding the abstract and all references, tables, figures, appendices and footnotes) and not more than 2-3 tables or figures. Notes are refereed and subject to the same standards applied to other articles.

1. The title page of the manuscript should provide complete contact information (address, telephone, fax and email) and a brief biographical statement for each author. The title page should be submitted separately from the manuscript, so as to enable blinded peer review.
2. Page 1 of the manuscript must include an abstract (maximum of 200 words) and selected keywords.
3. Page 2 starts with title and main text.
4. Standard type (12-point font, double-spaced, Times New Roman, 1.0 inch margins) should be used throughout.
5. Running head on the top left corner (header) of each page and the page numbers on the top right corner (header) of each page.
6. Footnotes should be avoided or at least kept to a minimum (no more than 15), containing relevant information that cannot otherwise be accommodated in the manuscript. For further information, please consult section 2.12 of the APA publication manual. Endnotes are not compliant with APA format.  Footnotes should be placed after the references in the main manuscript file, unless the material is intended to be published as supplementary data.
7. References are double-spaced and start on a new page. There are no strict requirements for the formatting of references at submission. Any style is acceptable as long as the format is consistent throughout the text and references. Upon a revision decision the author will need to update the reference style used by the journal, which is the APA style of referencing 7th edition, with the inclusion of hyperlinking the DOI's when available. The authors should note that after APA 7th edition is applied, the final accepted manuscripts will have to be within the 9,000-word limit.
8. Please supply a separate original file for each table and figure and ensure a separate list of figure legends are included at the end of the main document after the references. 
9. Appendices to be included within the main document should be uploaded on the submission site as ‘Appendix – for publication’. If Appendices are to be published as supplementary data, they should be uploaded as ‘Supplementary file – online only’. Please display Appendix for publication figure and table captions at the end of the main document after the manuscript figure and table captions.  Supplementary (online) /Supplementary data/material (online), please display figure and table captions on the supplementary file.
10. Please provide and upload your figures in formats like (AI/eps/pdf) and ensure that they have at least 350 dpi for halftone, 600 dpi for line tone and 1200 DPI for line art.
    • Flowcharts, drawings, slides, maps, bar/pie/line/column charts can be provided in excel/word/power point formats.
    • Figures with editable text format are allowed in PDF format.
    • Figures containing photographs, halftone and line tone images with text can be provided in jpg/png/tif and have at least 600 DPI resolution
11. Authors are recommended to pay attention to the diversity of the authors they cite. At each stage of the revision process, authors should check for gender, race, ethnic, and geographic diversity of the authors they cite, to the extent possible.
12. Manuscripts submitted to the journal must contribute to international comparative knowledge.

Manuscripts that do not follow these requirements or that are otherwise deemed unsuitable for publication will be returned to the author(s) without review.

Click here for fuller OUP guidelines on submission parameters including table and figure information.

LaTeX

When submitting a paper written in LaTeX, generate a PDF locally and upload the PDF for peer review at first submission. There is no need to include LaTeX source files at this stage.

If asked to revise and resubmit, or make major or minor revisions, authors should make the edits to their original LaTeX source files. Once the edits are complete, authors should then generate and submit another PDF locally and upload only the PDF as their revision. Repeat for any further rounds of revision.

If the submission is accepted, authors will then be asked to upload the editable source files in a zip folder alongside a copy of the locally-generated PDF.

For creating manuscripts in LaTeX, we recommend the use of the OUP LaTeX template. The template is available online at Overleaf and also as a downloadable package via OUP's Preparing and submitting your manuscript page. Please use the 'Modern Large' design.

Further information on working with LaTeX. 

4. Revised Submissions

When you submit a revised manuscript  please could you include a summary of how you have addressed each of the points in the review process and also include a marked-up copy of the manuscript (with all changes highlighted), and a clean copy of the manuscript, suitable for production purposes. Please ensure these files are anonymous.

5. Tables and illustrations

Tables and illustrations submitted as separate files will be automatically appended to the text for peer review. Tables and figures should be comprehensible without reading the text and their ideal position in the text should be clearly marked. Tables containing results from survey research should contain the following information:

1. the exact wording of the questions asked;
2. the exact wording of precoded answers (if applicable);
3. the population under study;
4. the year of the survey;
5. the sample size and the number of the respondents in breakdown- columns;
6. the total of percentages in each column.

For further information in the text, please consult the 'Code of Professional Ethics and Practices' of the American Association for Public Opinion Research. Response rates have to be reported according to that organization's 'Standard Definitions'.

When submitting illustrations please ensure that the prepared electronic image files appear at a legible size and are of a high quality for publication. See the Figure guidelines for more information.

Manuscript figure and table captions - Display at the end of the main document file, after the references

Appendix (for publication) figure and table captions -  Main document file, after manuscript figure and table captions

Supplementary (online) figure and table captions/Supplementary data/material (online) -  Display on the supplementary file

Figure accessibility and alt text

Incorporating alt text (alternative text) when submitting your paper helps to foster inclusivity and accessibility. Good alt text ensures that individuals with visual impairments or those using screen readers can comprehend the content and context of your figures. The aim of alt text is to provide concise and informative descriptions of your figure so that all readers have access to the same level of information and understanding, and that all can engage with and benefit from the visual elements integral to scholarly content. Including alt text demonstrates a commitment to accessibility and enhances the overall impact and reach of your work.  

Alt text is applicable to all images, figures, illustrations, and photographs. 

Alt text is only accessible via e-reader and so it won’t appear as part of the typeset article. 

Detailed guidance on how to draft and submit alt text. 

6. Copyright

Upon receipt of accepted manuscripts at Oxford Journals authors will be invited to complete an online copyright licence to publish form.

Please note that by submitting an article for publication you confirm that you are the corresponding/submitting author and that Oxford University Press ("OUP") may retain your email address for the purpose of communicating with you about the article. You agree to notify OUP immediately if your details change. If your article is accepted for publication OUP will contact you using the email address you have used in the registration process. Please note that OUP does not retain copies of rejected articles

7. Funding

Details of all funding sources for the work in question should be given in a separate section entitled 'Funding'. This should appear before the 'Acknowledgements' section.

The following rules should be followed:

• The sentence should begin: ‘This work was supported by …’
• The full official funding agency name should be given, i.e. ‘National Institutes of Health’, not ‘NIH’ (full RIN-approved list of UK funding agencies).  Grant numbers should be given in brackets as follows: ‘[grant number xxxx]’
• Multiple grant numbers should be separated by a comma as follows: ‘[grant numbers xxxx, yyyy]’
• Agencies should be separated by a semi-colon (plus ‘and’ before the last funding agency)
• Where individuals need to be specified for certain sources of funding the following text should be added after the relevant agency or grant number 'to [author initials]'.

An example is given here: ‘This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health [AA123456 to C.S., BB765432 to M.H.]; and the Alcohol & Education Research Council [hfygr667789].’

8. Author self-archiving policy

For information about this journal's policy, please visit our Author Self-Archiving policy page.

After publication, all authors will receive a free access link to their article.

9. Open access publishing

International Journal of Public opinion Research offers the option of publishing under either a standard licence or an open access licence. Please note that some funders require open access publication as a condition of funding. If you are unsure whether you are required to publish open access, please do clarify any such requirements with your funder or institution.

Should you wish to publish your article open access, you should select your choice of open access licence in our online system after your article has been accepted for publication. You will need to pay an open access charge to publish under an open access licence.

Details of the open access licences and open access charges. 

OUP has a growing number of Read and Publish agreements with institutions and consortia which provide funding for open access publishing. This means authors from participating institutions can publish open access, and the institution may pay the charge. Find out if your institution is participating.

Third-Party Content in Open Access papers

If you will be publishing your paper under an Open Access licence but it contains material for which you do not have Open Access re-use permissions, please state this clearly by supplying the following credit line alongside the material:

Title of content
Author, Original publication, year of original publication, by permission of [rights holder]

This image/content is not covered by the terms of the Creative Commons licence of this publication. For permission to reuse, please contact the rights holder.

10. Availability of Data and Materials

Where ethically feasible, the International Journal of Public Opinion Research strongly encourages authors to make all data and software code on which the conclusions of the paper rely available to readers. We suggest that data be presented in the main manuscript or additional supporting files, or deposited in a public repository whenever possible. For information on general repositories for all data types, and a list of recommended repositories by subject area, please see Choosing where to archive your data.

11. Data Citation

The International Journal of Public Opinion Research supports the Force 11 Data Citation Principles and requires that all publicly available datasets be fully referenced in the reference list with an accession number or unique identifier such as a digital object identifier (DOI). Data citations should include the minimum information recommended by DataCite:

• [dataset]* Authors, Year, Title, Publisher (repository or archive name), Identifier

*The inclusion of the [dataset] tag at the beginning of the citation helps us to correctly identify and tag the citation. This tag will be removed from the citation published in the reference list.

12. Preprint Policy

Authors retain the right to make an Author’s Original Version (preprint) available through various channels, and this does not prevent submission to the journal. For further information see our Online Licensing, Copyright and Permissions policies. If accepted, the authors are required to update the status of any preprint, including your published paper’s DOI, as described on our Author Self-Archiving policy page.