The Journal of Sports Sciences is published on behalf of the British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences, in partnership with the World Commission of Science and Sports and in association with the International Society for Advancement of Kinanthropometry. The emphasis is on the human sciences applied to sport and exercise. Topics covered also include technologies such as design of sports equipment, research into training, and modelling and predicting performance; papers evaluating (rather than simply presenting) new methods or procedures will also be considered. The Journal of Sports Sciences also accepts 'Letters to the Editor'.

The Journal of Sports Sciences considers all manuscripts on the strict condition that they have been submitted only to the Journal of Sports Sciences, that they have not been published already, nor are they under consideration for publication or in press elsewhere. Authors who fail to adhere to this condition will be charged with all costs which the Journal of Sports Sciences incurs and their papers will not be published.

Contributions to  the Journal of Sports Sciences must report original research and will be subjected to review by referees at the discretion of the Editorial Office.

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in its publications. However, Taylor & Francis and its agents and licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content and disclaim all such representations and warranties, whether express or implied to the maximum extent permitted by law. Any views expressed in this publication are the views of the authors and are not the views of Taylor & Francis.

Manuscript preparation

1. General guidelines

§ Papers are accepted only in English. British English spelling and punctuation is preferred. Please use double quotation marks, except where “a quotation is ‘within' a quotation”.

§ A typical article will not exceed 4000 words not including references, tables, figures and captions. Footnotes should not be used unless they are absolutely necessary. Papers that greatly exceed this will be critically reviewed with respect to length. Authors should include a word count with their manuscript.

§ Manuscripts should be compiled in the following order: title page; abstract; keywords; main text; acknowledgments; references; table(s) with caption(s) (on individual pages); figure caption(s) and appendices (as appropriate). The manuscript can be arranged under headings such as Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion and Conclusion if this is appropriate.

§ Abstracts of 200 words or less are required for all papers submitted.

§ Each paper should have 3 to 6 keywords.

§ Search engine optimization (SEO) is a means of making your article more visible to anyone who might be looking for it. Please consult our guidance here.

§ Section headings should be concise and numbered sequentially, using a decimal system for subsections.

§ All the authors of a paper should include their full names, affiliations, postal addresses, telephone numbers and email addresses on the cover page of the manuscript. One author should be identified as the corresponding author. The affiliations of all named co-authors should be the affiliation where the research was conducted. If any of the named co-authors moves affiliation during the peer review process, the new affiliation can be given as a footnote. Please note that no changes to affiliation can be made after the article is accepted.

§ Biographical notes on contributors are not required for this journal.

§ For all manuscripts non-discriminatory language is mandatory. Sexist or racist terms should not be used.

§ Authors must adhere to SI units. Units are not italicised.

§ When using a word which is or is asserted to be a proprietary term or trade mark, authors must use the symbol ® or TM.

2. Style guidelines

Journal's article style

        Papers should be written and arranged in a style that is succinct and easy to follow. An informative title, a concise abstract and a well written introduction will help to achieve this. Authors should avoid some of the more common pitfalls, such as excessive use of the passive voice and past tense and unnecessary use of fabricated abbreviations within the text. The Journal would prefer authors to describe human volunteers as participants rather than subjects in the methods section. Figures and tables should be used to add to the clarity of the paper, not to pad it out. At all times, please try to think about your readers, who will not all be specialists in your discipline.

(a) General
The manuscript must be in English; UK English spellings and words should be used in preference to other versions of English. It must be word-processed, double-spaced throughout, with a 4 cm margin on the left side, with no 'headers and footers' (other than page numbers), and without footnotes unless these are absolutely necessary. Arrange the manuscript under headings (such as Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusions) and subheadings. Ideally, the main body of the text should not exceed 4,000 words, excluding references. Longer manuscripts may be accepted at the discretion of the respective Section Editor. Authors must make every effort to ensure that manuscripts are presented as concisely as possible. The Editors cannot consider for publication papers that are seriously deficient in presentation or that depart substantially from these 'Notes and Guidelines'.

(b) Ethics of human experimentation
The Journal will accept only papers that conform to the highest standards of ethics and participant protection. All experimental work in which humans are participants must conform to the laws of the country in which the work took place. The manuscript should contain a statement to the effect that the work reported has been approved by a recognised ethics committee or review board. There are two exceptions: 1. Where information is in the public domain such as on a website that contains statistical or other archive-type data, formal ethics approval is not necessarily a requirement but a statement about the source of the data must be made. 2. Retrospective analysis of data, such as those produced as a result of long-term monitoring of athletes that provides information worthy of broadcast to a wider audience: reporting of these data is seen as exceptional. The Journal's clear preference is for prior approval of experimental work, but it is recognised that information can arise from local applied sport science work that has not had prior ethics approval. In such instances, it must be made clear that data were collected as part of an athlete monitoring program and that none of the measurements was made for research purposes: authors must provide a detailed explanation of the absence of formal ethics approval. Normally, statements about ethics approval or sources of data should be made at the beginning of the methods section.

(c) Anonymous refereeing
Because of the adoption of anonymous refereeing by the Journal with effect from 1 January 1998, the title page and manuscript should include no information that clearly identifies the authors or their affiliations. Authors should submit a separate cover letter, which is not part of the manuscript, that can include the following information: the full title; the names of the authors without qualifications or titles; the affiliations and full addresses of the authors; the name, address, telephone and fax numbers, and e-mail address of the author responsible for all correspondence and correction of proofs. Any acknowledgements should also appear on this page, not in the manuscript. These acknowledgements will appear in the printed version if the manuscript is accepted.

(d) Title page
Include the following information on the first page of the manuscript: the full title; a running title of no more than 75 characters and spaces; and up to five keywords for indexing purposes.

(e) The abstract
The abstract must not exceed 200 words and it must summarize the paper, giving a clear indication of the conclusions it contains.

(f) Tables and illustrations
Illustrations and tables must accompany the manuscript but not be included in the text. Authors may wish to express a preference for the location of tables and figures by including comments such as ****Table 1 near here**** or ****Figure 2 near here**** separated by at least one line space from the main text. Tables, referred to as 'Table 1', 'Table 2', and so on, must be numbered in the order in which they occur in the text. Tables must be clearly and simply laid out with clear row and column legends, units where appropriate, no vertical lines and horizontal lines only between the table title and column headings, between the column headings and the main body of the table, and after the main body of the table.

Photographs and line drawings, referred to as 'Figure 1', 'Figure 2', and so on, must be numbered in the order in which they occur in the text. Diagrams and drawings should be produced using a computer drawing or graphics package. All illustrations must be suitable for reduction to single column (84 mm) or page width (174 mm) of the Journal, with particular attention to lettering size. Photographs must be reproduced as black and white image files.

Journal's reference style

This journal follows the APA reference style.  

§ It is in the author's interest to provide the highest quality figure format possible. Please be sure that all imported scanned material is scanned at the appropriate resolution: 1200 dpi for line art, 600 dpi for grayscale and 300 dpi for colour.

§ Figures must be saved separate to text. Please do not embed figures in the paper file.

§ Files should be saved as one of the following formats: TIFF (tagged image file format), PostScript or EPS (encapsulated PostScript), and should contain all the necessary font information and the source file of the application (e.g. CorelDraw/Mac, CorelDraw/PC).

§ All figures must be numbered in the order in which they appear in the paper (e.g. Figure 1, Figure 2). In multi-part figures, each part should be labelled (e.g. Figure 1(a), Figure 1(b)).

§ Figure captions must be saved separately, as part of the file containing the complete text of the paper, and numbered correspondingly.

4. Colour

5. Reproduction of copyright material

As an author, you are required to secure permission to reproduce any proprietary text, illustration, table, or other material, including data, audio, video, film stills, and screenshots, and any supplementary material you propose to submit. This applies to direct reproduction as well as “derivative reproduction” (where you have created a new figure or table which derives substantially from a copyrighted source). The reproduction of short extracts of text, excluding poetry and song lyrics, for the purposes of criticism may be possible without formal permission on the basis that the quotation is reproduced accurately and full attribution is given.

For further information and FAQs, please see http://journalauthors.tandf.co.uk/preparation/permission.asp

Copies of permission letters should be sent with the manuscript upon submission to the editors.

All submissions should be made online at the Journal of Sports SciencesScholarOne Manuscripts site . New users should first create an account. Once logged on to the site, submissions should be made via the Author Centre. Online user guides and access to a helpdesk are available on this website.

On submission, authors should select the relevant Section Editor (see Editorial Board) or, in case of any doubt, submit to the Editor-in-Chief. Authors should keep a copy of all materials sent for later reference. Papers submitted to the Journal will be refereed anonymously by acknowledged experts in the subject; at least two such referees will be involved in this process. In the event of conflicting reviews, the Section Editor will normally seek a further independent review. As the Journal operates an anonymous peer-review policy, please ensure that your manuscript submission has all information identifying the author(s) removed. If you are submitting a revised manuscript and have used track changes, please make sure that any comments are anonymous in order to ensure your anonymity. Alternatively, please highlight your text changes through the use of red font.

On submission, authors are required to nominate up to four expert referees for their paper; these potential referees must not have been informed that they have been nominated or be members of the authors' institutions. The nominated referees may or may not be used, at the Section Editor's discretion, and at least one of the referees involved in the review of the paper will be independent of the nominated list.

Manuscripts may be submitted in any standard format, including Word, PostScript and PDF, although the preferred format is Word. These files will be automatically converted into a PDF file for the review process. LaTeX files should be converted to PDF prior to submission because ScholarOne Manuscripts is not able to convert LaTeX files into PDFs directly.

Click here for Information regarding anonymous peer review

Copyright and authors' rights

It is a condition of publication that all contributing authors grant to Taylor & Francis the necessary rights to the copyright in all articles submitted to the Journal. Authors are required to sign an Article Publishing Agreement to facilitate this. This will ensure the widest dissemination and protection against copyright infringement of articles. The “article” is defined as comprising the final, definitive, and citable Version of Scholarly Record, and includes: (a) the accepted manuscript in its final and revised form, including the text, abstract, and all accompanying tables, illustrations, data; and (b) any supplementary material. Copyright policy is explained in detail at http://journalauthors.tandf.co.uk/preparation/copyright.asp.

Free article access

As corresponding author, you will receive free access to your article on Taylor & Francis Online. You will be given access to the My authored works section of Taylor & Francis Online, which shows you all your published articles. You can easily view, read, and download your published articles from there. In addition, if someone has cited your article, you will be able to see this information. We are committed to promoting and increasing the visibility of your article and have provided guidance on how you can help.

Reprints and journal copies

Corresponding authors can receive 50 free reprints and a complimentary copy of the issue containing their article. Complimentary reprints are available through Rightslink® and additional reprints can be ordered through Rightslink® when proofs are received. If you have any queries about reprints, please contact the Taylor & Francis Author Services team at reprints@tandf.co.uk. To order extra copies of the issue containing your article, please contact our Customer Services team at Adhoc@tandf.co.uk.