1) General information

a) Exlibris Social Gerontology Journal accepts for publication the original texts in psychogerontology, socio-gerontology, social gerontology, geragogy, and other related disciplines and sub-disciplines.

b) The editorial board accepts proposals continuously. Consecutive issues of the Journal are published every six months at the end of each half of the year. All the volumes are published in the digital version.  

c) Manuscripts should be submitted by the Open Journal System (see Submit)

d) Please note that by submitting an article for publication, you confirm that you are the corresponding/submitting author and that the paper has not been published. All cases of unethical behavior (plagiarism, ghostwriting, guest authorship) will be taken extremely seriously: we shall reveal them and inform the institutions the alleged author is affiliated with.

e) Articles in Polish or English (professional translation) are considered.

f) All texts that meet high academic standards will be subject to a double-blind peer-review process (review form).

g) Editorial Board reserves the right to make minor corrections to the text and shortcuts

h) The Journal is published under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International. Submission of a manuscript is treated as implying an agreement to the terms of the license.

i) The authors do not get paid for the articles they publish.

2) Types of manuscripts considered

Exlibris Social Gerontology Journal (ESGJ) will accept the following kinds of manuscripts:

a) Research Article: (peer-reviewed)

The research article presents significant new research results, including the entire contents of a research project. In the quantitative research article, please use the standardized format called the IMRaD. This format refers to a manuscript with four main sections: introduction, methods, results, and discussion. Please see the template below.

Quantitative studies template (up to 6000 words; the reference list is limited to 50 entries, and up to 5 data elements - tables and or figures)

The Journal Editorial Team realizes there is no one qualitative method but rather several research approaches that fall under 'qualitative methods.' Authors should follow good practices for writing and assessing manuscripts presenting qualitative data. Please see the template below.

Qualitative studies template (up to 10000 words; the reference list is limited to 50 entries, and up to 10 data elements figures or pictures).

b) Research Report: (peer-reviewed)

A research report is an update of ongoing research of national or international significance. This is an article providing the preliminary findings of a new study. The maximum allowable word count is 4000 words. The reference list is limited to 30 entries and up to 3 data elements. One of the two templates should be used depending on the adopted research strategy (quantitative or qualitative).

c) Review Article: (peer-reviewed)

The review article does not cover original research but rather accumulates the results of many different articles on a particular topic into a coherent narrative about the state of the art in the emerging field of old age and the aging process. The review article provides Journal references to the original research, contains an overview of the literature on a given topic to date, and indicates areas that have not been developed or are problematic. The maximum allowable word count is 6000 words. The reference list is limited to 50 entries and up to 5 data elements - tables and figures.

d) Theoretical article: (peer-reviewed)

The theoretical manuscript presents an issue that is not based on empirical research. This type of article opens an academic discussion in social gerontology. It can point to the links between theory and practice, explore existing views and ideas, or lay the foundations for a new approach. The maximum allowable word count is 6000 words. The reference list is limited to 50 entries and up to 5 data elements - tables and figures.

e) Book review: (not peer-reviewed)

ESGJ publishes reviews of books, reports, training materials, films, and other materials related to old age and the aging process. These publications should relate to old age and aging's national, international, social, and cultural context. The maximum allowable word count is 1500 words. The reference list is limited to 15 entries and up to 2 data elements - tables and figures.

3) Formatting guidelines

a) Manuscripts must be submitted in Microsoft Word or a Word-compatible program. Please do not submit PDF versions of your article. Manuscripts submitted in other formats and styles will be unsubmitted. Manuscripts should be one-half spaced in 12-pt Times New Roman font. The text should be adjusted.

b) Tables should be submitted as editable text and not as images. They should be placed next to the relevant text in the article. Tables should be numbered consecutively and provided with a title. The source should be provided under the illustration.

c) The full name should be given for the surnames of those mentioned for the first time.

4) Reference style guidelines

Submissions to Exlibris Social Gerontology Journal should follow the style guidelines described in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.).

References should be cited parenthetically in the text by author surname(s) and year, by APA 7 Publication Manual guidelines:

When available, page numbers should be included in citations of direct quotations, e.g., (Szybalska et al., 2018, p. 12).

References should be listed in a separate section at the end of the main text. All references in the list should be ordered alphabetically by the first author's surname. Examples of standard reference types appear below.

5) Submission Preparation Checklist

As part of the submission process, authors must check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.

a) I hereby declare that this manuscript is original.

b) I hereby declare that the submission has not been previously published in any other peer-reviewed journal, is not under consideration by any other journal, and does not infringe any existing copyright or third-party rights.

c) I hereby declare that I do not violate the ethical publishing standards adopted by this Journal.

d) I agree that the article, if editorially accepted for publication, shall be licensed under the following license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International.

e) I hereby consent for the data in my submission to be processed for publishing.

f) The text adheres to the bibliographic requirements outlined in the reference style adopted by this Journal (see point 3). 

6) Review the procedure

In Exlibris Social Gerontology Journal, the review rules conform with the Ministry of Education and Science guidelines and standards recommended by COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics)  (for more information, see our Publishing ethics).

a) The editorial office undertakes a preliminary assessment of the manuscripts' content and form.

b) Editors, frequently with the assistance of electronic databases of reviewers kept by Exlibris Social Gerontology Journal's office and the Publons, choose reviewers whose expertise most closely matches the manuscript's topic. The academic achievements confirm a reviewer's competencies to guarantee a high standard and reliability of reviews, including their methodological competencies.

c) The names of the reviewers of each issue are confidential.

d) Reviewers must conduct objective, reliable, and substantive reviews.

e) Reviewers are autonomous and independent in their opinions.

f) To provide transparency about the Journal's review process, the list of reviewers cooperating with Exlibris Social Gerontology Journal is updated on the website once a year.

g) An independent external reviewer is appointed to evaluate each manuscript.

h) The condition of accepting an article for publication is obtaining positive reviews. 

i) In cases of controversy or strong disagreement regarding the merits of the work, the editorial board may decide to appoint the next reviewer.

j) Each paper is evaluated in the double-blind review process, in which authors do not know the identity of their reviewers, nor do the reviewers know the authors' identities.

k) The reviewer selection process and the Journal's internal policies address the issue of potential bias by excluding reviewers with any potential conflict of interest with the author(s) of the manuscript (the review cannot have any personal or professional connection to the author(s), i.e., they cannot be related to each other, there cannot be any official relationship between them, they cannot be connected by cooperation during the two years preceding the review).

l) The review procedure respects the principle of confidentiality.

m) Reviewers may decline to review when a conflict exists with the author.

n) Any manifestation of scientific misconduct the reviewer notices in the assessed work should be reported to the Journal's editorial office.

o) The reviewers' recommendations are presented to the author in writing, and the conclusions are unambiguous.

p) The reviewer may accept the text without needing changes, approve the text for publication conditional on the author's amendments requested by the reviewer, propose a text correction and re-review, or reject a manuscript.

r) The average time for the initial assessment of manuscripts is 7 days.

s) The average time for manuscript review is 50 days.

t) The average time for article publication is 90 days 

Review form 

7)  Sharing published journal articles policy

The Exlibris Social Gerontology Journal allows authors to use the final published version of an article for self-archiving (author's website) and archiving in an institutional repository (on non-commercial websites and repositories) just after the publication of the manuscript on the Journal's website. The authors can add their work to any scientific database (for example, ORCID, Academia.edu, Research Gate, and Google Scholar) for better visibility to the research community.