Palliative Care and Social Practice

Manuscript Submission Guidelines: Palliative Care & Social Practice

This Journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics.

This Journal recommends that authors follow the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals formulated by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).

All articles are listed on PubMed.

Please read the guidelines below then visit the Journal’s submission site https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/pcr to upload your manuscript. Please note that manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned. Remember you can log in to the submission site at any time to check on the progress of your paper through the peer review process. 

Only manuscripts of sufficient quality that meet the aims and scope of Palliative Care & Social Practice will be reviewed.

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.

Palliative Care & Social Practice may accept submissions of papers that have been posted on pre-print servers; please alert the Editorial Office when submitting (contact details are at the end of these guidelines) and include the DOI for the preprint in the designated field in the manuscript submission system. Authors should not post an updated version of their paper on the preprint server while it is being peer reviewed for possible publication in the journal. If the article is accepted for publication, the author may re-use their work according to the journal's author archiving policy.

If your paper is accepted, you must include a link on your preprint to the final version of your paper.

Citing preprints is permitted if no peer reviewed version of the article has been published.

1. Open Access
2. Article processing charge (APC)
3. Article Types
   3.1 Title
   3.2 Keywords
   3.3 Abstracts
   3.3.1 Structuring your abstract
   3.4 Plain Language Summaries
4. Editorial policies
   4.1 Peer review policy
   4.2 Clinical trials
   4.3 Reporting guidelines
5. Declarations
   5.1 Ethics approval and consent to participate
   5.1.1 Ethics approval
   5.1.2 Consent to participate
   5.2 Consent for publication
   5.3 Author contributions
   5.3.1 CRediT
   5.4 Acknowledgements
   5.4.1 Third party submissions
   5.4.2 Writing assistance
   5.5 Funding
   5.6 Competing Interests
   5.7 Availability of data and materials
6. Publishing Policies
   6.1 Publication ethics
   6.1.1 Plagiarism
   6.1.2 Prior publication
   6.2 Contributor's publishing agreement
7. Preparing your manuscript for submission
   7.1 Formatting
   7.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
   7.3 Supplementary material
   7.4 Reference style
   7.5 English language editing services
8. Article publication enhancements
   8.1 Infographics
   8.2 Video abstracts
   8.3 Plain language summaries
9. Submitting your manuscript
   9.1 Information required for completing your submission
   9.2 ORCID iDs
   9.3 Permissions
10. On acceptance and publication
    10.1 Sage Production
    10.2 Online First publication
    10.3 Access to your published article
    10.4 Promoting your article
11. Further information

1. Open Access

Palliative Care & Social Practice is an open access, peer-reviewed journal. Each article accepted by peer review is made freely available online immediately upon publication, is published under a Creative Commons license and will be hosted online in perpetuity. Publication costs of the journal are covered by the collection of article processing charges which are paid by the funder, institution, or author of each manuscript upon acceptance. There is no charge for submitting a paper to the journal.

For general information on open access at Sage please visit the Open Access page or view our Open Access FAQs.

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2. Article processing charge (APC)

The APC for this journal is $2000 USD. 

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3. Article Types

Palliative Care & Social Practice considers the following article types for publication: 

The journal welcomes contributions from any discipline working on palliative care research, teaching, practice, or professional development. We publish numerous types of articles, including:

The journal welcomes contributions from any discipline working on palliative care research, teaching, practice, or professional development. We publish numerous types of articles, including:

Original Articles. The Editors will consider original research, including practice research and evaluations, with clearly stated aims, well-reported methodology (including main outcome measures), results, and a discussion of the results in the context of the published literature.

• Abstract: Maximum 300 words. Should be structured to include:   Background; Objectives; Design; Methods; Results; Conclusion; Registration (if applicable)
• Plain language summary: optional. Please check section 3.4 for further details.
• Word count: up to 6000 words (excluding tables, figure legends and references) is recommended (this can be flexible)
• Figures/Tables: no limit
• Declarations: please check section 5 for further details.
• Reporting guidelines: please check section 4.3 for further details.

Review Articles. These manuscripts are usually commissioned by the Editors but unsolicited reviews will be considered. The following types of high-quality review will be considered:

(a) General reviews that provide a synthesis of an area that fits within the aims and scope of the journal
(b) Perspective reviews – review articles that address important new areas of general interest and afford the author the opportunity to present a forward-looking perspective on the topic
(c) Drug reviews – review articles focusing on the available evidence for the use of a particular drug or combination therapy.

• Abstract: unstructured, maximum 300 words
• Plain language summary: optional. Please check section 3.4 for further details.
• Word count: around 4000 – 6000 words (excluding tables, figure legends and references) is recommended. This can be flexible.
• Figures/Tables: no limit
• Declarations: please check section 5 for further details.

Scoping Reviews – these reviews assess the scope of available literature on a topic through comprehensive synthesis. It may help determine whether a systematic review of the literature is needed. These should be submitted under the Original Research article type and made clear from the title that it is a scoping review.

• Abstract: Structured, maximum 300 words. Should be structured to include:  Background; Objectives; Eligibility Criteria; Sources of Evidence; Charting Methods; Results; and Conclusions.
• Plain language summary: optional. Please check section 3.4 for further details.
• Word count: around 4000 – 6000 words (excluding tables, figure legends and references) is recommended. This can be flexible.
• Figures/Tables: no limit
• Declarations: please check section 5 for further details.
• Reporting guidelines: PRISMA extension for scoping reviews (please refer to section 4.3)

Systematic Reviews – these should answer a specific research question and involve a comprehensive search strategy aimed at identifying, assessing and summarising all the current evidence on a specific topic.

• Abstract: Structured, maximum 300 words. Should be structured to include:  Background; Objectives; Design; Data Sources and Methods; Results; Conclusion; Registration (if applicable)
• Plain language summary: optional. Please check section 3.4 for further details.
• Word count: around 4000 – 6000 words (excluding tables, figure legends and references) is recommended. This can be flexible.
• Figures/Tables: no limit
• Declarations: please check section 5 for further details.
• Reporting guidelines: PRISMA (please refer to section 4.3)

Meta-analyses – these include statistical procedures, mainly conducted in the context of a systematic review, that combine the results of multiple independent primary studies addressing the same research question.

• Abstract: structured, maximum 300 words. Should be structured to include:  Background; Objectives; Design; Data Sources and Methods; Results; Conclusion; Registration (if applicable)
• Plain language summary: optional. Please check section 3.4 for further details.
• Word count: around 4000 – 6000 words (excluding tables, figure legends and references) is recommended. This can be flexible.
• Figures/Tables: no limit
• Declarations: please check section 5 for further details.
• Reporting guidelines: PRISMA or MOOSE (please refer to section 4.3)

Case Reports – these structured reports should describe an unusual case and include a full review of the pertinent literature and a section on implications for clinical care.

• Abstract: unstructured, maximum 300 words
• Plain language summary: optional. Please check section 3.4 for further details.
• Word count: up to 2500 words (excluding tables, figure legends and references) is recommended. This can be flexible.
• Figures/Tables: no limit
• Declarations: please check section 5 for further details.
• Reporting guidelines: CARE (please check section 4.3 for further details)

Case Series – these descriptive structured reports (which do not involve formal hypotheses or pre-specified methodology or analyses) of a small group of patients should include a full review of the pertinent literature and a section on implications for clinical care.

• Abstract: unstructured, maximum 300 words
• Plain language summary: optional. Please check section 3.4 for further details.
• Word count: up to 6000 words (excluding tables, figure legends and references) is recommended. This can be flexible.
• Figures/Tables: no limit
• Declarations: please check section 5 for further details.
• Reporting guidelines: CARE (please check section 4.3 for further details)

Study Protocols – these can be for forthcoming or ongoing research. Information on trial registration (where applicable) and ethics approval should be included in the manuscript.

• Abstract: structured, maximum 300 words. Should be structured to include:  Background; Objectives, Design; Methods and Analysis, Ethics (if applicable), Discussion, Registration (if applicable)
• Word count: up to 6000 words (excluding tables, figure legends and references) is recommended. This can be flexible.
• Figures/Tables: no limit
• Declarations: please check section 5 for further details.
• Reporting guidelines: SPIRIT (please check section 4.3 for further details)

Editorials – Brief articles commenting on a particular topic of recent interest (and of limited scope; usually 1200-2000 words)

• Abstract: None
• Word count: Up to 2000 words (excluding references) is recommended
• Figures/Tables: There is a limit of one figure or one table
• Declarations: please check section 5 for further details
• References: these should not exceed 20 references

Letters to the Editor – these brief opinion pieces should be as concise as possible.

• Abstract: None
• Word count: Up to 1000 words (excluding references) is recommended
• Figures/Tables: There is a limit of one figure or one table
• Declarations: please check section 5 for further details.
• References: these should not exceed 10 references

The journal also welcomes the following article types:

Curriculum and pedagogic studies that review and evaluate new ways of teaching and learning about palliative care.

Policy analysis and critique that review and evaluate national or international policies about palliative care emanating from governments or peak professional bodies.

Critical essays that address perceived shortcomings, limitations, or gaps in palliative care ‘culture’, history, practice, or philosophy. These essays should also include suggestions for overcoming these problems or ways/models by which we can move forward.

Personal Reflections that are meditations, brief essays, or short personal stories on the topics of death, dying, or grief that may provide professional and existential insights into the work of end-of-life care. These should be no more than 1700 words in length. References are optional.

The journal considers the results of rigorous, well-designed studies that demonstrate “no effect” or that fail to replicate previous work (“negative results”) as important to the advancement of science. Palliative Care & Social Practice welcomes short reports on null or negative results as long as the papers are based on strong hypothesis testing.

3.1 Title

Use titles that describe the main aspect of your review or study, stimulate interest, are easy to read and concise, and state the design of the study (i.e., randomized controlled trial, case-control study, cohort study etc.). Main findings or interpretation of the study should not be included in the title.

3.2 Keywords

A minimum of 2-10 keywords will need to be entered when submitting your paper.

3.3 Abstracts

Along with the title and keywords, your abstract is key to ensuring that readers find your article through online search engines such as Google.

Please refer to the information and guidance on how best to title your article, write your abstract and select your keywords by visiting Sage’s Journal Author Gateway Guidelines on How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online.

3.3.1 Structuring your abstract

Your abstract should be no more than 300 words. When submitting an Original Article, Meta-analysis or Systematic Review, it is essential that you structure your abstract with headings that follow the structure described in section 3. No references should be cited in the abstract. Any Original Articles, Meta-analyses or Systematic Reviews received without an appropriately structured abstract will be returned to the corresponding author.

3.4 Plain Language Summaries

A plain language summary (PLS) is an optional addition that can be submitted for any article type that requires an abstract. The plain language title (approx. 50 words) and plain language summary (approx. 300 words) should describe the article using non-technical language, making it accessible to a wider network of readers. More information and guidance on how to write a PLS can be found on our Author Gateway.

The PLS publishes directly below the scientific abstract and are open access making it available online for anyone to read. Peer review of the PLS will be conducted following our PLS reviewer guidelines. When submitting, authors should enter their plain language title and plain language summary into the box provided in the submission system when prompted. The PLS does not need to be provided in the manuscript text or as a separate file. If you are not submitting a PLS with your submission, please enter “N/A” in each box.

If you need professional help writing your Plain Language Summary, please visit our Author Services portal.

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4. Editorial policies

4.1 Peer review policy

Manuscripts are reviewed by at least two experts. Palliative Care and Social Practice utilises a single-anonymised peer review process in which the reviewer’s name and information is withheld from the author. Reviewers may at their own discretion opt to reveal their names to the author in their review, but our standard policy is for their identities to remain concealed. All manuscripts are reviewed as rapidly as possible, while maintaining rigor. Reviewers make comments to the author and recommendations to the Editor who then makes the final decision.

Sage does not permit the use of author-suggested (recommended) reviewers at any stage of the submission process, be that through the web-based submission system or other communication. 
Reviewers should be experts in their fields and should be able to provide an objective assessment of the manuscript. Our policy is that reviewers should not be assigned to a paper if:

•  The reviewer is based at the same institution as any of the co-authors
•  The reviewer is based at the funding body of the paper
•  The author has recommended the reviewer
•  The reviewer has provided a personal (e.g. Gmail/Yahoo/Hotmail) email account and an institutional email account cannot be found after performing a basic Google search (name, department and institution). 

4.2 Clinical trials

Palliative Care & Social Practice conforms to the ICMJE requirement that clinical trials are registered in a WHO-approved public trials registry at or before the time of first patient enrolment as a condition of consideration for publication. The trial registry name and URL, and registration number must be included at the end of the abstract.

4.3 Reporting guidelines

The relevant EQUATOR Network reporting guidelines must be followed depending on the type of study. In addition, alongside your manuscript, you should upload the relevant checklist for your specific study type. Reporting checklists are used by the Editorial team and reviewers during the peer-review process and can be published alongside the final article at the authors’ request. The EQUATOR wizard can help you find the right reporting checklist and appropriate guideline for your type of study.

• All randomized controlled trials must be reported according to the CONSORT guidelines. A completed CONSORT flow chart must be submitted as a cited figure and the completed CONSORT checklist should be uploaded with your submission as a supplementary file
• Systematic reviews and meta-analyses must be reported according to PRISMA guidelines.  The PRISMA flow chart should be included as a cited figure and the completed PRISMA checklist should be uploaded alongside your submission as a supplementary file
• Meta-analyses of observational studies should be reported according to MOOSE
• Observational Studies (case-control, cohort, or cross-sectional studies) should be reported according to the STROBE statement
• Diagnostic or prognostic studies should conform to the STARD statement. The STARD flow diagram must be submitted as a cited figure and the completed STARD checklist should be submitted as a supplementary file
• Study protocols should be reported according to the SPIRIT statement and the completed checklist submitted as a supplementary file
• Case series and case reports should follow the CARE guidelines. The CARE checklist should be submitted as a supplementary file
• Cost and health outcomes evaluations should follow the CHEERS guidelines and should include the completed checklist as a supplementary file

For a full comprehensive list, please consult the EQUATOR Network website. Other resources can be found at NLM’s Research Reporting Guidelines and Initiatives.

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5. Declarations

All submissions must include a section with the heading ‘Declarations’, including each of the sub-headings listed below. If a declaration is not applicable to your manuscript, you must still include the heading and state ‘Not applicable’ underneath. Please note that you may be asked to justify why a declaration was not applicable to your submission by the Editorial Office.

• Ethics approval and consent to participate
• Consent for publication
• Author contributions
• Acknowledgments
• Funding
• Competing interests
• Availability of data and materials

5.1 Ethics approval and consent to participate

Medical research involving human subjects must be conducted according to the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki. Submitted manuscripts should conform to the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals.

5.1.1 Ethics approval

All papers reporting studies involving human participants, human data or human tissue must state that the relevant Ethics Committee or Institutional Review Board approved the study, or waived the requirement for approval, providing the full name and institution of the review committee in addition to the approval number. If applicable, please also include this information in the Methods section of your manuscript. If this is not applicable to your manuscript, please state ‘Not applicable’ in this section.

5.1.2 Consent to participate

Please state whether informed consent to participate was obtained from participants and whether the consent was written or verbal. If the requirement for informed consent to participate has been waived by the Ethics Committee or Institutional Review Board (i.e. where it has been deemed that consent would be impossible or impracticable to obtain), please state this. If this is not applicable to your manuscript, please state ‘Not applicable’ in this section.

5.2 Consent for publication

Submissions containing any data from an individual person (including individual details, images or videos) must include a statement confirming that informed consent for publication was provided by the participant(s) or a legally authorized representative. Non-essential identifying details should be omitted.  Please do not submit the participant’s actual written informed consent with your article, as this in itself breaches the patient’s confidentiality. The Journal requests that you confirm to us, in writing, that you have obtained written informed consent to publish but the written consent itself should be held by the authors/investigators themselves, for example in a patient’s hospital record. The confirmatory letter may be uploaded with your submission as a separate file in addition to the statement confirming that consent to publish was obtained within the manuscript text. If this is not applicable to your manuscript, please state ‘Not applicable’ in this section.

5.3 Author contributions

Papers should only be submitted for consideration once consent is given by all contributing authors. Those submitting papers should carefully check that all those whose work contributed to the paper are acknowledged as contributing authors. The list of authors should include all those who can legitimately claim authorship. This is all those who:

1. Made a substantial contribution to the concept or design of the work; or acquisition, analysis or interpretation of data,
2. Drafted the article or revised it critically for important intellectual content,
3. Approved the version to be published,
4. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content. Authors should meet the conditions of all of the points above. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content. When a large, multicentre group has conducted the work, the group should identify the individuals who accept direct responsibility for the manuscript. These individuals should fully meet the criteria for authorship.

Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group alone does not constitute authorship, although all contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in the Acknowledgments section. Please refer to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) authorship guidelines for more information on authorship.

5.3.1 CRediT

As part of our commitment to ensuring an ethical, transparent and fair peer review and publication process, Sage is trialling the adoption of CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) on several of our journals. CRediT is a high-level taxonomy, including 14 roles, which is used to describe each author’s individual contributions to the work.

You will be asked to list the contribution of each author as part of the submission process. Please include the Author Contributions heading within your manuscript. The information you give on submission will then show under the Author Contributions heading later at the proofing stage.

5.4 Acknowledgements

All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in this 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. If you do not have any acknowledgements to make, please state ‘Not applicable’ in this section.

5.4.1 Third party submissions

Where an individual who is not listed as an author submits a manuscript on behalf of the author(s), a statement must be included in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript and in the accompanying cover letter. The statements must:

• Disclose this type of editorial assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input
• Identify any entities that paid for this assistance
• Confirm that the listed authors have authorized the submission of their manuscript via a third party and approved any statements or declarations, e.g. conflicting interests, funding, etc.

Where appropriate, Sage reserves the right to deny consideration to manuscripts submitted by a third party rather than by the authors themselves.

5.4.2 Writing assistance

Individuals who provided writing assistance, e.g. from a specialist communications company, do not qualify as authors and so should be included in the Acknowledgements section. Authors must disclose any writing assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input – and identify the entity that paid for this assistance. It is not necessary to disclose use of language polishing services.

5.5 Funding

All authors must 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.

5.6 Competing Interests

All financial and non-financial competing interests must be declared in this section. If no conflict exists, please state that ‘The Author(s) declare(s) that there is no conflict of interest’. For guidance on conflict of interest statements, please see the ICMJE recommendations.

5.7 Availability of data and materials

Sage acknowledges the importance of research data availability as an integral part of the research and verification process for academic journal articles.

The Journal encourages all authors to submit any primary data used in their research articles alongside their article submissions to be published in the online version of the journal, or provide detailed information on how the data can be obtained. This information should include links to third-party data repositories or detailed contact information for third-party data sources. Data available only on an author-maintained website will need to be loaded onto either the journal’s platform or a third-party platform to ensure continuing accessibility. Examples of data types include but are not limited to statistical data files, replication code, text files, audio files, images, videos, appendices, and additional charts and graphs necessary to understand the original research. The editor may consider limited embargoes on proprietary data. The editor can also grant exceptions for data that cannot legally or ethically be released. All data submitted should comply with Institutional or Ethical Review Board requirements and applicable government regulations. If this is not applicable to your manuscript, please state ‘Not applicable’ in this section.

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6. Publishing Policies

6.1 Publication ethics

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.

6.1.1 Plagiarism

Palliative Care & Social Practice 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.

6.1.2 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.

6.2 Contributor's publishing agreement

Before publication, Sage requires the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement. Palliative Care & Social Practice publishes manuscripts under Creative Commons licenses. The standard license for the journal is Creative Commons by Attribution Non-Commercial (CC BY-NC), which allows others to re-use the work without permission as long as the work is properly referenced and the use is non-commercial. For more information, you are advised to visit Sage's OA licenses page.

Alternative license arrangements are available, for example to meet particular funder mandates, made at the author’s request.

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7. Preparing your manuscript for submission

7.1 Formatting

The preferred format for your manuscript is Word. Word templates are available on the Manuscript Submission Guidelines page of our Author Gateway.

7.2 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.

7.3 Supplementary material

This journal is able to host additional materials online (e.g. datasets, podcasts, videos, images etc) alongside the full-text of the article. For more information please refer to our guidelines on submitting supplementary files.

7.4 Reference style

Palliative Care & Social Practice adheres to the Sage Vancouver reference style. View the Sage Vancouver guidelines to ensure your manuscript conforms to this reference style.

If you use EndNote or Zotero to manage references, you can download the appropriate output style file to help format your references quickly.

EndNote: here 
Zotero: here

7.5 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.

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8. Article publication enhancements

8.1 Infographics

An infographic is a graphic visual representation that provides a snapshot of an article. It is a very effective means of making your article stand out, encouraging readership of your work.

Infographics must be peer-reviewed and submitted at some point during the peer review process prior to official article acceptance.  We recommend creating an infographic after first decision to ensure it reflects any peer review comments received. However, please let your Sage Editor know as soon as possible if you plan to create and include an infographic in your article.

Sage is partnered with an external professional vendor. This service can be requested from the Sage Author Services prior to acceptance of your manuscript.

Please visit our Author Guidelines for Creating and Publishing Infographics for further information on creating and publishing infographics.

8.2 Video abstracts

A video abstract is a short video that appears at the top of your article that highlights the key finding of your work. These are a great way of making your article stand out and can be either animations, narrative slide decks or ‘talking heads’.

Video abstracts must be peer-reviewed, hence, the final video or the written audio transcript must be submitted during the peer-review process prior to article acceptance. If you think that you would like to prepare a video abstract to accompany your paper, please let your Sage Editor know in advance of article acceptance or upon receipt of your initial decision letter.

You may wish to utilize a professional vendor to create an animated video abstract. Sage is partnered with an external professional vendor if you wish to use them. Read more here.

Please visit our Author Guidelines for creating and publishing Video Abstracts | Sage Publications Ltd for further information on creating and publishing infographics.

8.3 Plain language summaries

Plain language summaries (PLS) are short descriptions of the paper that are easily understandable, making them accessible not only by clinicians and researchers but also by the general public and the media. They therefore increase the accessibility and reach of your research.

Please visit our Author Guidelines for writing and publishing Plain Language Summaries for further information on creating and publishing infographics.

You may wish to utilize a professional vendor to create a PLS. Sage is partnered with an external professional vendor if you wish to use them. Read more here.

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9. Submitting your manuscript

Palliative Care & Social Practice is hosted on Sage Track, a web-based online submission and peer review system powered by ScholarOne™ Manuscripts. Visit https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/pcr 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.

9.1 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). 

9.2 ORCID iDs

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 unique and persistent digital identifier that distinguishes researchers from every other researcher, even those who share the same name, 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 recognized.

If you already have an ORCID iD, please list this next to your name in this section. You will also be asked to link your ORCID iD to your submission during the online submission process.

We also strongly encourage all co-authors to link their ORCID iD to their accounts in our online peer review platforms. It takes seconds to do: click the link when prompted, sign into your ORCID account and our systems are automatically updated. Your ORCID iD will become part of your accepted publication’s metadata, making your work attributable to you and only you. Your ORCID iD is published with your article so that fellow researchers reading your work can link to your ORCID profile and from there link to your other publications. Please note that only ORCID iDs validated prior to article acceptance will be authorized for publication, and ORCID iDs cannot be added or amended at a later stage.

If you do not already have an ORCID iD please follow this link to create one or visit our ORCID homepage to learn more.

9.3 Permissions

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.

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10. On acceptance and publication

10.1 Sage Production

Your Sage Production Editor will keep you informed as to your article’s progress throughout the production process. Proofs will made available to the corresponding author via our editing portal Sage Edit, or by email 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.

10.2 Online First publication

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.

10.3 Access to your published article

Sage provides authors with online access to their final article.

10.4 Promoting your 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.

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11. Further information

Any correspondence, queries or additional requests for information on the manuscript submission process, or any pre-submission enquiries, should be sent to the Palliative Care & Social Practice Managing Editor, Georgia Patey, as follows:

Lara.Sindelar@sagepub.co.uk

For all commercial sales and sponsorship enquiries, including advertising, reprints and supplements, please contact:

Commercial Sales Team, London, UK Tel: +44 20 7336 1205 Email: reprints@sagepub.co.uk

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