Qualitative Research
Submit your manuscript today at https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/qrj.
Qualitative Research publishes papers with a clear methodological focus. We invite scholarship that has multi-disciplinary appeal, that debates and enlivens qualitative methods, and that pushes at the boundaries of established ways of doing qualitative research. We are interested in papers that are attentive to a wide audience, that are alive to new and diverse ways of thinking about qualitative methods, and that contribute to discussions within the pages of this journal. These discussions can be brought to life through empirical studies and research encounters, but we do not accept papers that focus on reporting the findings from qualitative research studies.
We see our journal as contributing to the community of academics across different fields who use qualitative methods as a way of making sense of the world. We understand methods and methodology as a practice and as a perspective, and welcome contributions that reflect on and critically engage with both aspects. Qualitative Research is a space where ideas and understandings are used to open up methodological issues for reflection and debate, and we work hard to provide a supportive environment to foster this ethos.
| Roser Beneito-Montagut | Cardiff University, UK |
| Jane Edwards | University of Queensland, Australia |
| Tom Hall (Editor-in-Chief) | Cardiff University, UK |
| Sophie Hallett | Cardiff University, UK |
| Louisa Allen | University of Auckland, New Zealand |
| Allison Anders | University of South Carolina, USA |
| Sahla Aroussi | University of Leeds, UK |
| Paul Atkinson | Cardiff University, UK |
| Lucy Bell | University of Surrey, UK |
| Andy Bennett | Griffith University, Australia |
| Casey Burkholder | University of New Brunswick, Canada |
| David Calvey | Manchester Metropolitan University, UK |
| Bryan Clift | University of Bath, UK |
| Julia Coffey | University of Newcastle, Australia |
| Marci Cottingham | University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands |
| Sara Delamont | Cardiff University, UK |
| Tia DeNora | Exeter University, UK |
| Bella Dicks | Cardiff University, UK |
| Andrea Doucet | Brock University, Canada |
| Guillaume Dumont | EMLYON Business School, France |
| Umut Erel | The Open University, UK |
| Sandra L. Faulkner | Bowling Green State University, USA |
| Nigel Fielding | University of Surrey, UK |
| Richard Fitzgerald | University of Macau, China |
| Rosie Flewitt | Manchester Metropolitan University, UK |
| Uwe Flick | Freie Universtität Berlin, Germany |
| Maureen Flint | University of Georgia, USA |
| Victoria Foster | Edge Hill University, UK |
| Andrew Gitlin | University of Georgia, USA |
| Luis F. Gonzales | Universidad Santo Tomás, Columbia |
| Christian Greiffenhagen | The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong |
| Katalin Halasz | Brunel University, UK |
| Karen Henwood | Cardiff University, UK |
| Johanna Hiitola | University of Oulu, Finland |
| Sam Hillyard | University of Lincoln, UK |
| Christine Hine | University of Surrey, UK |
| Jenifer Ho | City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong |
| William Housley | Cardiff University, UK |
| David Howes | Concordia University, Canada |
| Marnie Howlett | LSE, UK and University of Oxford, UK |
| Samantha Hurn | Exeter University, UK |
| Annie Irvine | King’s College London, UK |
| Eleanor Johnson | University of Bristol, UK |
| Ameil Joseph | McMaster University, Canada |
| Mareile Kaufmann | University of Oslo, Norway |
| Frans Kruger | University of the Free State, South Africa |
| Joseph Levitan | McGill University, Canada |
| Karen Lumsden | University of Nottingham, UK |
| Dawn Lyon | University of Kent, UK |
| Mairtin Mac an Ghaill | Newman University, Birmingham, USA |
| Katie MacDonald | Athabasca University, Canada |
| Elizabeth Mackinlay | The University of Queensland, Australia |
| Dawn Mannay | Cardiff University, UK |
| Natalia Martini | Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany |
| Alan Santinele Martino | University of Calgary, Canada |
| Eva Marxen | School of the Art Institute of Chicago, USA |
| Sonja Marzi | LSE, UK |
| Natasha Mauthner | Newcastle University, UK |
| Julie McLeod | University of Melbourne |
| Litea Meo-Sewabu | University of the South Pacific, Fiji Islands |
| James Mienczakowski | Victoria University, Australia |
| Kathy A. Mills | Australian Catholic University, Australia |
| Lesley Murray | University of Brighton, UK |
| David Mwambari | King's College London, UK |
| Caitríona Ní Laoire | University College Cork, Ireland |
| Susan Nordstrom | University of Memphis, USA |
| Caitlin Nunn | Manchester Metropolitan University, UK |
| Chijioke Obasi | University of the West of Scotland, UK |
| Esther O. Ohito | Rutgers University, USA |
| Rebecca E. Olson | University of Queensland, Australia |
| Jane Palmer | American University, USA |
| Kaushalya Perera | University of Colombo, Sri Lanka |
| Maria-Victoria Perez-y-Perez | University of Canterbury, New Zealand |
| Timothy Rapley | Newcastle University, UK |
| Signe Ravn | University of Melbourne, Australia |
| Sarah Riley | Massey University, New Zealand |
| Lucero Ibarra Rojas | Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas, Mexico |
| Karen Ross | University of Massachusetts, Boston, USA |
| Kathryn Roulston | University of Georgia, USA |
| Jennifer Rowsell | University of Sheffield, UK |
| Anne Ryen | University of Agder, Norway |
| Samira Saramo | Migration Institute of Finland, Finland |
| Susie Scott | University of Sussex, UK |
| Anastasia Shesterinina | University of York, UK |
| Wesley Shumar | Drexel University, USA |
| Pat Sikes | University of Sheffield, UK |
| Robin Smith | Cardiff University, UK |
| Neil Stephens | University of Birmingham, UK |
| Sharlene Swartz | University of Fort Hare, South Africa |
| Atsushi Takeda | Ritsumeikan University, Japan |
| Elena Vacchelli | University of Greenwich, UK |
| Phillip Vannini | Royal Roads University, Canada |
| Dirk vom Lehn | King’s College London, UK |
| Ash Watson | UNSW, Australia |
| Darin Weinberg | University of Cambridge, UK |
| Susan Whatman | Griffith University, Australia |
| Emilie Whitaker | University of Salford, UK |
Manuscript Submission Guidelines: Qualitative Research
This Journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics
Please read the guidelines below then visit the Journal’s submission site http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/qrj to upload your manuscript. Please note that manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned.
Only manuscripts of sufficient quality that meet the aims and scope of Qualitative Research will be reviewed.
There are no fees payable to submit or publish in this journal.
As part of the submission process you will be required to warrant that you are submitting your original work, that you have the rights in the work, that you are submitting the work for first publication in the Journal and that it is not being considered for publication elsewhere and has not already been published elsewhere, and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you.
- What do we publish?
1.1 Aims & Scope
1.2 Article types
1.3 Writing your paper - Editorial policies
2.1 Peer review policy
2.2 Authorship
2.3 Acknowledgements
2.4 Funding
2.5 Declaration of conflicting interests - Publishing policies
3.1 Publication ethics
3.2 Contributor's publishing agreement
3.3 Open access and author archiving - Preparing your manuscript
4.1 Formatting
4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
4.3 Supplementary material
4.4 Reference style
4.5 English language editing services - Submitting your manuscript
5.1 ORCID
5.2 Information required for completing your submission
5.3 Permissions - On acceptance and publication
6.1 SAGE Production
6.2 Online First publication
6.3 Access to your published article
6.4 Promoting your article - Further information
Before submitting your manuscript to Qualitative Research, please ensure you have read the Aims & Scope.
Qualitative Research publishes original research and review articles. The Journal considers the following kinds of article for publication:
- Articles;
- Research notes;
- Review essays, symposia and book reviews.
Note that articles and research notes should be methodological in content. Qualitative Research does not publish papers that are primarily reports of empirical research.
Full papers are generally restricted to a strict maximum length of 8000 words, including all elements (title page, abstract, notes, references, tables, biographical statement, etc.). We are reluctant to burden our referees with very long manuscripts. Authors who suspect that their articles will have to be cut anyway should make the required deletions before submitting.Authors should provide a word count as part of their submission.
Authors of potential Research Notes should look at two recently published Research Notes (eg Amanda Holt in 10.1 (2010), and Glenn A Bowen in 8.1 (2008)) for guidance. Research Notes submissions should be between 3,000 - 4,000 words.
The SAGE Author Gateway has some general advice and on how to get published, plus links to further resources.
1.3.1 Make your article discoverable
When writing up your paper, think about how you can make it discoverable. The title, keywords and abstract are key to ensuring readers find your article through search engines such as Google. For information and guidance on how best to title your article, write your abstract and select your keywords, have a look at this page on the Gateway: How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online.
Qualitative Research operates a strictly anonymous peer review process in which the reviewer’s name is withheld from the author and the author’s name from the reviewer. The reviewer may at their own discretion opt to reveal their name to the author in their review but our standard policy practice is for both identities to remain concealed. Each manuscript is reviewed by at least two referees. All manuscripts are reviewed as rapidly as possible, and an editorial decision is generally reached within 12 weeks of submission.
All parties who have made a substantive contribution to the article should be listed as authors. Principal authorship, authorship order, and other publication credits should be based on the relative scientific or professional contributions of the individuals involved, regardless of their status. A student is usually listed as principal author on any multiple-authored publication that substantially derives from the student’s dissertation or thesis.
All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an Acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, or a department chair who provided only general support.
Please supply any personal acknowledgements separately to the main text to facilitate anonymous peer review.
Qualitative Research requires all authors to acknowledge their funding in a consistent fashion under a separate heading. Please visit the Funding Acknowledgements page on the SAGE Journal Author Gateway to confirm the format of the acknowledgment text in the event of funding, or state that: This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
2.5 Declaration of conflicting interests
Qualitative Research encourages authors to include a declaration of any conflicting interests and recommends you review the good practice guidelines on the SAGE Journal Author Gateway
SAGE is committed to upholding the integrity of the academic record. We encourage authors to refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics’ International Standards for Authors and view the Publication Ethics page on the SAGE Author Gateway.
3.1.1 Plagiarism
Qualitative Research and SAGE take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. We seek to protect the rights of our authors and we always investigate claims of plagiarism or misuse of published articles. Equally, we seek to protect the reputation of the journal against malpractice. Submitted articles may be checked with duplication-checking software. Where an article, for example, is found to have plagiarised other work or included third-party copyright material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgement, or where the authorship of the article is contested, we reserve the right to take action including, but not limited to: publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction); retracting the article; taking up the matter with the head of department or dean of the author's institution and/or relevant academic bodies or societies; or taking appropriate legal action.
3.1.2 Prior publication
If material has been previously published it is not generally acceptable for publication in a SAGE journal. However, there are certain circumstances where previously published material can be considered for publication. Please refer to the guidance on the SAGE Author Gateway or if in doubt, contact the Editor at the address given below.
3.2 Contributor's publishing agreement
Before publication, SAGE requires the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement. SAGE’s Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement is an exclusive licence agreement which means that the author retains copyright in the work but grants SAGE the sole and exclusive right and licence to publish for the full legal term of copyright. Exceptions may exist where an assignment of copyright is required or preferred by a proprietor other than SAGE. In this case copyright in the work will be assigned from the author to the society. For more information please visit the SAGE Author Gateway
3.3 Open access and author archiving
Qualitative Research offers optional open access publishing via the SAGE Choice programme. For more information please visit the SAGE Choice website. For information on funding body compliance, and depositing your article in repositories, please visit SAGE Publishing Policies on our Journal Author Gateway.
4. Preparing your manuscript for submission
The preferred format for your manuscript is Word. LaTeX files are also accepted. Word and (La)Tex templates are available on the Manuscript Submission Guidelines page of our Author Gateway.
4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
For guidance on the preparation of illustrations, pictures and graphs in electronic format, please visit SAGE’s Manuscript Submission Guidelines.
Figures supplied in colour will appear in colour online regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced in colour in the printed version. For specifically requested colour reproduction in print, you will receive information regarding the costs from SAGE after receipt of your accepted article.
This journal does not currently accept supplemental files.
Qualitative Research adheres to the SAGE Harvard reference style. View the SAGE Harvard guidelines to ensure your manuscript conforms to this reference style.
If you use EndNote to manage references, you can download the SAGE Harvard EndNote output file..
- Attach to every submission a letter confirming that all authors have agreed to the submission and that the article is not currently being considered for publication by any other journal.
- Include a title page with full title and subtitle (if any). For the purposes of blind refereeing, full name of each author with current affiliation and full address/phone/fax/email details plus short biographical note should be supplied on a separate sheet, along withthe full contact details of three possible referees in countries other than the authors'. The editors will not inspect the manuscript until this information is given.
- Also for the purposes of blind refereeing, authors should replace all self-citations in the text and reference list with anonymous citations, in the style (Author, 2009), etc.
- Any citation that includes any of the authors should be replaced with (Author A and others, 2003) in the text, and in the reference list at 'Au' put 'Author A and others (2003), details withheld for peer review' followed by Author B and others, if necessary.
- Abstract of 100-150 words.
- Up to 10 key words.
- All authors must provide a full word count for their paper, fully inclusive of all references, figures and tables. The maximum word length is 8,000 words including all references, figures and tables. Authors should estimate that any figures and tables are the equivalent of 300-500 words of text each. The preferred length is 6000 - 8000 words. Papers exceeding the maximum word count will be unsubmitted.
- Text should be clearly organized with a clear hierarchy of headings and subheadings and quotations exceeding 40 words displayed indented in the text.
- The journal uses notes where necessary. Historical, documentary or archival sources should be cited in endnotes. Discursive endnotes are also allowed. Endnotes are signalled in the text by superscript numbers.
- References in both the text and in any endnotes should follow SAGE Harvard style. References are cited in the text thus: (author, date: page).
- An alphabetical References section should follow the text (and endnotes, if any) using the SAGE Harvard system.
- All line diagrams and photographs are termed 'Figures' and should be referred to as such in the manuscript. They should be numbered consecutively. All figures should have short descriptive captions at the end of the document.
- Articles must be written in English. Use a clear, readable style, avoiding jargon. If technical terms or acronyms must be included, define them when first used. Use non-racist, non-sexist language and plurals rather than he/she.
- UK or US spellings may be used with '-ize' spellings as given in the Oxford English Dictionary (e.g. organize, recognize).
- Use single quotation marks with double quotes inside single quotes. Dates should be presented in the form 1 May 2010. Do not use points in abbreviations, contractions or acronyms (e.g. AD, USA, Dr, PhD)
4.5 English language editing services
Authors seeking assistance with English language editing, translation, or figure and manuscript formatting to fit the journal’s specifications should consider using SAGE Language Services. Visit SAGE Language Services on our Journal Author Gateway for further information.
Qualitative Research is hosted on SAGE Track, a web based online submission and peer review system powered by ScholarOne™ Manuscripts. Visit http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/qrj to login and submit your article online.
IMPORTANT: Please check whether you already have an account in the system before trying to create a new one. If you have reviewed or authored for the journal in the past year it is likely that you will have had an account created. For further guidance on submitting your manuscript online please visit ScholarOne Online Help.
As part of our commitment to ensuring an ethical, transparent and fair peer review process SAGE is a supporting member of ORCID, the Open Researcher and Contributor ID. ORCID provides a persistent digital identifier that distinguishes researchers from every other researcher and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between researchers and their professional activities ensuring that their work is recognised.
We encourage all authors to add their ORCIDs to their SAGE Track accounts and include their ORCIDs as part of the submission process. If you don’t already have one you can create one here.
5.2 Information required for completing your submission
You will be asked to provide contact details and academic affiliations for all co-authors via the submission system and identify who is to be the corresponding author. These details must match what appears on your manuscript. At this stage please ensure you have included all the required statements and declarations and uploaded any additional supplementary files (including reporting guidelines where relevant).
Please also ensure that you have obtained any necessary permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. For further information including guidance on fair dealing for criticism and review, please see the Copyright and Permissions page on the SAGE Author Gateway.
6. On acceptance and publication
Your SAGE Production Editor will keep you informed as to your article’s progress throughout the production process. Proofs will be sent by PDF to the corresponding author and should be returned promptly. Authors are reminded to check their proofs carefully to confirm that all author information, including names, affiliations, sequence and contact details are correct, and that Funding and Conflict of Interest statements, if any, are accurate. Please note that if there are any changes to the author list at this stage all authors will be required to complete and sign a form authorising the change.
Online First allows final articles (completed and approved articles awaiting assignment to a future issue) to be published online prior to their inclusion in a journal issue, which significantly reduces the lead time between submission and publication. Visit the SAGE Journals help page for more details, including how to cite Online First articles.
6.3 Access to your published article
SAGE provides authors with online access to their final article.
Publication is not the end of the process! You can help disseminate your paper and ensure it is as widely read and cited as possible. The SAGE Author Gateway has numerous resources to help you promote your work. Visit the Promote Your Article page on the Gateway for tips and advice. In addition, SAGE is partnered with Kudos, a free service that allows authors to explain, enrich, share, and measure the impact of their article. Find out how to maximise your article’s impact with Kudos.
The editors will not provide advice on abstracts. All prospective authors are recommended to read the editorials in the journal, especially those in volume 5 issue 1 (2005) and volume 9 issue 1 (2009), and read between 8 and 10 papers published in the journal, before reaching their own judgment about submission. Close reading of the mission statement is also recommended.
Any correspondence, queries or additional requests for information on the manuscript submission process should be sent to the Qualitative Research editorial office as follows:
Patrick Mullan, Editorial Assistant
Qualitative Research
Cardiff School of Social Sciences
Cardiff University
Glamorgan Building
King Edward VII Avenue
Cardiff CF10 3WT
Wales, UK
Email: MullanPC@cardiff.ac.uk