Submission Preflight (joc-submission)

The last check before pressing submit on Manuscript Central. JoC is double-anonymous, so the single most common avoidable failure is an under-anonymized main document or supplement. Verify volatile specifics on the official page before relying on them.

When to trigger

• "Submitting tomorrow" — last pass before upload
• Unsure which files/metadata Manuscript Central expects
• Confirming the page/abstract caps are met and the manuscript is properly anonymized

Process facts (verify volatile items on the official page)

• Owner / publisher: International Communication Association (ICA) / Oxford University Press.
• Portal: Manuscript Central (mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jcom).
• Review model: double-anonymous — anonymize the main document and supplemental materials;

provide a separate title page.

• Formats: original research article (main document ≤ 35 pages), JoC Forum (3,000–6,000 words),

special-issue submissions.

• Abstract: ≤ 150 words.
• Length: main document ≤ 35 pages, including the abstract, main text, references, tables,

figures, and endnotes.

• Style & file: APA 7th edition; Microsoft Word (.docx) (PDF not accepted); 12-pt Times New

Roman, double-spaced, 1.0-inch margins.

• Self-citations: written in the third person.
• Transparency: Data Availability Statement required; **preregistration is encouraged, not

required — note it in the cover letter; Open Science Badges are supported for open data, open materials, and preregistration. No formal Registered Reports** (Stage 1/Stage 2) track is confirmed for JoC — do not assume one exists (需复核 on live calls-for-papers).

• Review process: double-anonymous; external review is usually by two or three referees

(需复核); formal desk-screening criteria are not enumerated on the official pages.

• Fee & open access: no submission fee (verified 2026-06-22); hybrid open-access option —

authors may pay an OA fee (APC) to make the accepted manuscript freely available. Read-and-Publish agreements may cover the APC, and OUP offers Research4Life waivers (Tier 3) plus discretionary waivers. The exact APC amount/currency is maintained separately by OUP and changes — confirm the current figure on the live OUP charges page.

• Decision timeline: time-to-first-decision is reported approximately as within ~90–120 days;

treat as approximate and confirm on the live guidelines page (需复核).

Preflight checklist

Format & length

• [ ] Format chosen and its cap met (article ≤ 35 pages / Forum 3,000–6,000 words)
• [ ] Page count includes abstract, text, references, tables, figures, endnotes
• [ ] Abstract ≤ 150 words, states question + approach + finding

Anonymity (double-anonymous)

• [ ] No author names, affiliations, or acknowledgments in the main document
• [ ] Supplemental materials also anonymized (no identifying links/paths)
• [ ] Self-citations in the third person ("Smith and Lee (2024) showed…", not "as we showed…")
• [ ] Identifying file metadata stripped (document properties, comments)
• [ ] Separate (non-anonymous) title page with contact info + brief bio prepared as a distinct file

Format & metadata

• [ ] APA 7th edition formatting; consistent author-date citations
• [ ] Word (.docx), 12-pt Times New Roman, double-spaced, 1.0-inch margins
• [ ] Figures/tables self-contained, accessible (see joc-tables-figures)

Compliance & files

• [ ] Ethics / IRB / human-subjects compliance
• [ ] Data Availability Statement included; preregistration noted in cover letter if applicable
• [ ] Open Science Badge materials staged if a badge is claimed (see joc-open-science-and-transparency)

Desk-reject and return-to-author patterns (avoidable before upload)

At the ICA flagship the handling editor screens for fit and form before review. The failures that most often trigger a return or an early decline are mechanical — fix them in the preflight:

Calibration anchor: what "ready" means at JoC (hedged)

A JoC-ready submission clears three bars at once: a theory-advancing contribution (not a bare effect), valid message/exposure measurement an expert referee will trust, and broad significance legible to ICA's readership. Volatile specifics — page rules, badge mechanics, exact APC amount, reviewer count, decision timeline — drift; confirm against the current submission guidelines.

Worked micro-example: a 5-minute anonymity sweep (illustrative)

Before upload, a content-analysis manuscript runs the sweep: (1) search the main doc for the author surname — two first-person self-cites get rewritten in the third person; (2) an OSF link in the supplement resolving to a named project page is swapped for a view-only anonymized link; (3) clear the author field in document properties; (4) confirm the codebook and intercoder-reliability report sit in the supplement, not the main text. All four would otherwise return the paper.

Anti-patterns

• Leaving author identifiers in the text, supplements, or file metadata (breaks anonymity)
• First-person self-references ("as we previously found") instead of third-person
• Submitting a PDF when JoC requires Word (.docx)
• Abstract over 150 words; main document over 35 pages
• Omitting the Data Availability Statement

Output format

【Format】Article / JoC Forum / Special issue (cap met? Y/N)
【Anonymized】main doc + supplements + file metadata clean? [Y/N]
【Self-citations third person】[Y/N]
【Abstract】word count (≤150)
【Length】≤ 35 pages incl. refs/tables/figures/endnotes? [Y/N]
【APA 7th + Word .docx】[Y/N]
【Data Availability Statement】included? [Y/N]
【Next】await decision → joc-rebuttal on R&R

Supplementary resources

• ../../resources/external_tools.md — reference managers, anonymization, repro tooling
• ../../resources/official-source-map.md — official JoC URLs behind every fact in this pack