As you prepare to submit your manuscript, this checklist may be helpful to ensure that your manuscript is not returned to you for incomplete content or formatting reasons. Please note that all submissions are prescreened for suitability. Papers that fail to comply with manuscript preparation guidelines may be rejected without peer review at the discretion of the Editor.

Making a submission decision

Is Family Relations, Journal of Marriage and Family, or Journal of Family Theory & Review the right venue for your article?

Family Relations (FR) publishes applied articles that are original, innovative and interdisciplinary and that focus on diverse families and family issues. Audiences include educators in academic and community settings, researchers with an applied or evaluation focus, family practitioners, and family policy specialists. The journal's content emphasizes family research with implications for intervention, education, and public policy. Articles include a critical synthesis of relevant substantive issues and papers that focus on program evaluations and/or family life educational policies and practices.

The Journal of Marriage and Family (JMF) is the leading research journal in the family field and has been so for over 70 years. JMF features original research and theory, research interpretation and reviews, and critical discussion concerning all aspects of marriage, other forms of close relationships, and families. (The journal does not publish book reviews.)

The Journal of Family Theory & Review (JFTR) seeks to encourage integration and growth in the multidisciplinary and international domains of inquiry that define contemporary family studies. The journal publishes original contributions in all areas of family theory, including new advances in theory development, reviews of existing theory, and analyses of the interface of theory and method, as well as integrative and theory based reviews of content areas, and book reviews. The journal draws from a broad range of the social sciences although scholarship based within the fields of family studies, sociology, and allied disciplines, developmental and social psychology, communications, health and allied fields is favored. Families are viewed broadly and inclusively to include individuals of varying ages and genders, sexual orientations, ethnicities, and nationalities.

Acceptance rates in each of the journals may be a factor in your decision. In addition, the typical lag time between submission and editorial decision may be important to you. While your article is under review for an NCFR journal, it cannot be submitted for consideration by any other publication. Summary information on the Journal's acceptance rates and operation can be found here: NCFR Journal Statistics

Preparing your manuscript-resources for authors

Detailed instructions on preparing your manuscript, including information on formatting, creating tables and figures, manuscript length, listing references and other important information is here:
Submit to JMF
Submit to FR
Submit to JFTR

Take special care to prepare your document for blind review. In order to submit your manuscript to a blind review, the manuscript must conceal your identity. Compose your manuscript in such a way that reviewers cannot identify you as the author. Ways in which a reviewer may infer your identity include writing in the first person or including numerous references to your own work. After review, when the final version is submitted, these self-citations can be added.

Prepare your abstract for readability, and keep it to no more than 150 words. Within your abstract be sure that you have fully described your results and succinctly summarized the most important contributions that your paper makes to the field. Wiley Blackwell's information for authors offers advice on optimizing your article and choice of keywords for search engines-an important factor in your research being cited. http://authorservices.wiley.com/bauthor/seo.asp

Need more guidance? We suggest reading both of these articles:

• An annotated bibliography of resources assembled by Robert Milardo, Former Editor, Journal of Family Theory & Review.
• An article of advice for writers, Writing for a Scholarly Journal, by Ronald Sabatelli, Former Editor, Family Relations.

Submitting your manuscript

All manuscripts are submitted online through the ScholarOneTM "manuscript central" website. You will need to establish an author's account if you have not done so already. There is a detailed ScholarOneTM User's Guide that explains the process step by step. There is a non-refundable submission fee assessed at the time of submission ($25 for NCFR members, $35 for nonmembers). Have your credit card ready for this transaction.

Our publisher, Wiley, has an "Author Services" webpage that explains journal publishing and important information about publishing research that is funded by federal agencies such as NIH. There are other links with information such as how to track the progress your article is making in the editorial process.