British Journal of Psychology (BJP)

Journal Scope

The British Journal of Psychology is one of a small number of 'general' psychology journals with a strong international reputation and we hope to be able to build upon this position to publish a range of distinctive articles of high quality in future years. We attract a large number of submissions each year, of which only a minority are accepted for publication. We intend to maintain the rigour of our editorial process, and hope that our increasing use of electronic communications will allow us and the Journals Department to deal with papers more efficiently. While maintaining our quality standards, we hope to increasingly attract articles and groups of articles (see 'Special Topics' below) which make major contributions across the range of psychology, particularly where the work has the following characteristics:

• articles or groups of articles dealing with topics which are of interest to researchers from more than one specialism; or
• section of psychology or which address topics or issues at the interface between different specialisms or sections of psychology;
• articles or groups of articles which take different or contrasting methodological or theoretical approaches to a single topic;
• articles or groups of articles dealing with novel areas, theories or methodologies;
• integrative reviews, particularly where the review offers new analysis (e.g. meta-analysis), new theory or new implications for practice;
• articles or groups of articles dealing with the history of psychology;
• interdisciplinary work, where the contribution from, or to, psychological theory or practice is clear.

Target Articles

Target articles are submitted by invitation. These articles, which will usually be about 7000 words in length, can either present the launch or update of a significant new theory or they can present an important new discovery. The main feature, though, is that these articles will provoke discussion, and hence two or three 1000-word commentaries by well-known experts will be published alongside the article. Anybody interested in writing a target article should contact the editor to explain the rationale in the first instance. If the editor then invites submission, the article will be reviewed in the normal way. We anticipate publishing between 1 and 4 target articles per year.

Special Topics

Special issues of journals can be tricky to manage and often incur increases in publication lag for articles in regular issues of the journal, and at a recent meeting the new editorial board decided not to recruit them during its tenure. Instead, we hope to make a more frequent use of special topics, and we invite submissions of groups of (three or more) articles which fulfil one or more of the criteria outlined above. Such multiple submissions will be handled by a single Associate Editor and will be refereed in the usual way, with the usual quality standards applied independently to each article. Where several related articles are accepted for publication they will appear as a Special Topic, shown as a boxed section in the contents, and including a short editorial introduction or commentary where appropriate. One advantage of this approach is that where delays or problems are encountered which jeopardise the grouping into a special topic, individual accepted articles can still be published in the usual way and without undue lag. Another advantage is that Special Topics are much more flexible in terms of scale as well as frequency - we may be able to enhance the impact of a small number of articles in a new area of research without waiting for the area to grow sufficiently to merit a full special issue. Associate editors will look out for possibilities for special topics from conference symposia they attend, and may actively solicit such submissions on occasion. I hope this editorial may serve to stimulate spontaneous multiple submissions of this kind from among our readership.

Essay Reviews

Another change in emphasis will come in our book reviewing process, where we will increasingly be commissioning essay reviews of the contribution made by more than one book, or of a number of works by the same author, or an unusually detailed critique of a single book. Essay reviews will be refereed in order to improve their quality and impact. Suggestions for, or offers of, essay reviews may be made to the editor for book and essay reviews.

Business as usual

None of the above is intended to discourage the submission of high quality articles of the kind that we currently publish. We will continue to publish individual articles making novel contributions to particular specialisms within psychology, and indeed hope that authors of articles within particular specialisms may regard the British Journal of Psychology as a preferred outlet for their work which will reach a larger and broader readership than may be possible via more specialised journals. Our preference will be for substantial papers which achieve some degree of theoretical and/or empirical closure on the questions addressed, though we will continue to publish shorter papers describing the results of a single study where their contribution is clear. Moreover, we emphasize that the Journal is an international journal, attracting submissions and readers from across the world. We wish particularly to encourage authors outside the UK to continue to submit articles, or groups of articles, to the Journal.