Editorial: How to increase probability of manuscript acceptance

David Smahel¹, Kristian Daneback², Lenka Dedkova³

^1,3 Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic
² Department of Social Work, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden

Dear researchers, colleagues, and readers interested in research on cyberspace,

We are pleased to present the July issue (2-2014) of “Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace”. In this issue, we present six articles which originate from three continents (Europe, Asia, Australia) and use different methodologies: surveys, in-depths interviews, focus groups and also content analyses. As discussed below, also the topics of this issue are diverse, and such territorial, methodological and topical variability allows readers to understand Cyberspace from different cultural and scientific perspectives.

The first article ”Media representations and children’s discourses on online risks: Findings from qualitative research in nine European countries” (Mascheroni, Jorge, Farrugia) is based on unique qualitative data from nine European countries and tries to understand how and to what extent children’s perceptions of online risks incorporate media representations, parental worries and discourses circulating among peers. Authors also investigate differences among ages, genders and identify cross-culture variations. The second article “Family honor, cultural norms and social networking: Strategic choices in the visual self-presentation of young Indian Muslim women” (Mishra, Basu) is also based on qualitative investigation and explores how young Indian Muslim women negotiate multiple influences while posting their photographs on social networking sites. Authors concluded that most Indian Muslim women seemed to carry the responsibility of upholding the “honor” of their families, a requirement in their offline life, also to digital settings. The third article “Is it Friday yet? Mothers talking about sex online” (Pedersen) explores the discussion of sex on the UK parenting website Mumsnet. The authors summarizes that women seek the advice and support from others, attempt to establish ‘norms’ relating to sexual behaviour, and supplement information given by health professionals. The fourth article “A developmental perspective regarding the behaviour of adolescents, young adults, and adults on social network sites” (Steijn) uses the developmental perspective to understand the behaviour of individuals on social network sites with respect to information sharing and the type of contacts. The fifth article “The role of social motivation and sociability of gamers in online game addiction” (Blinka, Mikuška) researches MMO gamers and focuses on associations between social factors and online addictive gaming. Authors revealed that although social motivation is a predictor of addictive gaming, high social motivation was typical for intensive gamers regardless of their level of addiction. The sixth article “Cyberbullying and self-esteem in Australian adults” (Brack, Caltabiano) examines the prevalence of cyberbully typologies and their associations with self-esteem in a sample of young adults. Authors summarize that research should examine cyberbullying behaviour across all age groups to determine if this is related to different factors in adolescence compared to adulthood.

Researchers submitting articles may be interested in the journal’s acceptance rate statistics and also how long it takes to receive a decision after reviews. Therefore, we calculated our data for 2013:

The acceptance rate was 12.5% (decreased from 20% in 2012). Although we receive more and more articles every year, we still encourage the submission of more high-quality articles!
The decision with two reviews typically takes 3 – 5 months (average 4 months).
Half of the articles were rejected directly by editors and the average time for editorial rejects is two weeks.

The high editorial rejection rate means that half of the manuscripts were not of sufficient quality to go into the review process. We would like to decrease this number, and so we decided to list the typical reasons of editorial rejects below along with our recommendations for authors for lowering the chance of editorial rejection:

The manuscript does not fit into our journal’s scope. Check the Submission page carefully to see what articles we publish, and also browse through a few issues to obtain a better picture.
The manuscript does not follow APA style guidelines. Check the newest Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.). Please follow the structure of articles recommended by APA.
The manuscript is not a scientific article. We do not publish essays and if the authors are submitting a theoretical review, they should again follow the APA style. It is a frequent mistake that the authors simply write “what they think” and the manuscript lacks scientific argumentation for their perspectives. The authors’ ideas can be great and even ground breaking, but we are a scientific journal and publish only scientific articles based on the APA style.
The manuscript does not bring a substantial contribution to the current state of knowledge, but instead only reproduces already known results and/or relations. Read more relevant articles in your area of research. Your literature review must be strong.
The manuscript does not provide sufficient information for proper evaluation: typically missing information about measures and their psychometric properties, or missing information about statistical analysis, or about the sample. Check statistical books to see what has to be reported and again follow the APA manual and recommendations.
The sample used in the study is not an appropriate sample for planned analyses and does not allow the drawing of the authors’ conclusions made in the manuscript. Typically, the sample is too small, too narrow, or self-selected and not appropriate for relevant conclusions. Check carefully that your data allow you to analyze what you want the way you want to do it. Otherwise collect more data or change the analysis plan.
The manuscript has not been proofread. The language of your manuscript is important and must be 100% correct.
The manuscript does not provide sufficient rationale for the study. Explicitly justify and explain why your research is needed and who (and how) benefits from the results.

We believe that if authors avoid all the mistakes mentioned above, they have a good chance to get through the whole review process. Therefore we want to encourage researchers to continue to submit their work to our journal – your manuscripts are most welcome!

We will be also happy to meet you personally at the 12th Conference on “Cyberspace” in Brno dated 28-29 November (see http://cyberspace.muni.cz). We will be honored to discuss your possible manuscripts, but also various fascinating aspects of Cyberspace research!

All the best,

David Smahel, editor
Kristian Daneback, associate editor
Lenka Dedkova, editor assistant

Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace

Issue Content

Editorial and issue information
David Smahel, Kristian Daneback and Lenka Dedkova
doi: 10.5817/CP2014-2-1

Media representations and children’s discourses on online risks: Findings from qualitative research in nine European countries
Giovanna Mascheroni, Ana Jorge and Lorleen Farrugia
doi: 10.5817/CP2014-2-2

Family honor, cultural norms and social networking: Strategic choices in the visual self-presentation of young Indian Muslim women
Smeeta Mishra and Surhita Basu
doi: 10.5817/CP2014-2-3

Is it Friday yet? Mothers talking about sex online
Sarah Pedersen
doi: 10.5817/CP2014-2-4

A developmental perspective regarding the behaviour of adolescents, young adults, and adults on social network sites
Wouter Martinus Petrus Steijn
doi: 10.5817/CP2014-2-5

The role of social motivation and sociability of gamers in online game addiction
Lukas Blinka and Jakub Mikuška
doi: 10.5817/CP2014-2-6

Cyberbullying and self-esteem in Australian adults
Kerryn Brack and Nerina Caltabiano
doi: 10.5817/CP2014-2-7

About Journal

The 'Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace' is a web-based, peer-reviewed scholarly journal. The first peer-reviewed issue was published in September 2007. The journal is focussed on social science research about cyberspace. It brings psychosocial reflections of the impact of the Internet on people and society. The journal is interdisciplinary, publishing works written by scholars of psychology, media studies, sociology, political science, nursing, and also other disciplines. The journal accepts original research articles, as well as theoretical studies and research meta-analyses. Proposals for special issues are also welcomed.

The journal is indexed with EBSCO Academic Search Complete, the Directory of Open Access Journals, SCOPUS and the Czech Database of Scientific Journals.

The articles in Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace are open access articles licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.

Editor

Assoc. Prof. David Smahel, M.Sc. et Ph.D., Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University, Czech Republic
E-mail: smahel(at)fss.muni.cz

Associate Editor

Prof. Kristian Daneback, Ph.D., University of Gothenburg, Sweden
E-mail: kristian.daneback(at)socwork.gu.se

Editor Assistant

Lenka Dedkova, M.A., Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University, Czech Republic
E-mail: ldedkova(at)fss.muni.cz

Editorial Board

Prof. Kaveri Subrahmanyam, Ph.D., California State University, Los Angeles, USA
Prof. Herbert Hrachovec, Ph.D., University of Vienna, Austria
Prof. Dr. Micheline Frenette, Universite de Montreal, Canada
Prof. Alexander E. Voiskounsky, Ph.D., Moscow State University, Russia
Prof. Michael W. Ross, Ph.D., DrMedSc, MPH, MPHEd, University of Texas, Houston, USA
Prof. Petr Macek, CSc., Masaryk University, Czech Republic
Prof. Olle Findahl, World Internet Institute, Uppsala University, Sweden
Prof. Jochen Peter, Ph.D., University of Amsterdam, Netherlands
Prof. Veronika Kalmus, Ph.D., University of Tartu, Estonia
Assoc. Prof. Joshua Fogel, Ph.D., Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, USA
Assoc. Prof. Gustavo S. Mesch, Ph.D., University of Haifa, Israel
Václav Štětka, Ph.D., University of Oxford, UK
Andra Siibak, Ph.D., University of Tartu, Estonia
Birgit U. Stetina, Ph.D., University of Vienna, Austria
Lukas Blinka, Ph.D., Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University, Czech Republic

Advisory Board

Prof. Bente Traen, Ph.D., University of Tromso, Norway
Prof. Charles Ess, Ph.D., Drury University, USA
Prof. Dr. Ilse Kryspin-Exner, University of Vienna, Austria
Prof. PhDr. Jan Jirák, Ph.D., Charles University, Czech Republic
Prof. Vasja Vehovar, Ph.D., University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
Prof. Dr. Larry D. Rosen, California State University, USA
Prof. Patricia M. Greenfield, Ph.D., University of California, USA
Prof. Peter K Smith, University of London, England
Prof. Nicola Döring, Ilmenau University of Technology, Germany
Prof. Kimberly Young, Center for Internet Addiction Recovery
Prof. Jos de Haan, Ph.D., Erasmus University, Netherlands
Prof. Zbyněk Vybíral, Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University, Czech Republic
Prof. Monica Whitty, Ph.D., Nottingham Trent University, UK
Assoc. Prof. Alfred Choi, Ph.D., Wee Kim School of Communication and Information, Singapore
Assoc. Prof. T. Ramayah, Technology Management Lab, School of Management, Universiti Sains Malaysia
Assoc. Prof. Neil Coulson, Ph.D., The University of Nottingham, UK
Assoc. Prof. Kenneth C. C. Yang, Ph.D., University of Texas at El Paso, USA
Assoc. Prof. Sun Sun Lim, Ph.D., National University of Singapore, Singapore
Assoc. Prof. Sameer Hinduja, Ph.D., Florida Atlantic University, USA
Assoc. Prof. Jana Horáková, Ph.D., Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University, Czech Republic
Assoc. Prof. Radim Polčák, Ph.D., Faculty of Law, Masaryk University, Czech Republic
Assist. Prof. Alexander Schouten, Ph.D., Tilburg University, Netherlands
Assist. Prof. Ewa S. Callahan, Ph.D., School of Communications, Quinnipiac University, USA
Assist. Prof. Regina van den Eijnden, Ph.D., Utrecht University, Netherlands
PhDr. Ing. Petr Soukup, Ph.D., Faculty of Social Studies, Charles University, Czech Republic
Alistair Duff, Ph.D., Napier University, Scotland
Janis Wolak, Ph.D., University of New Hampshire, USA
Francesca Romana Seganti, Ph.D., American University of Rome, Italy
Jeffrey Gavin, Ph.D., University of Bath, UK
Pille Pruulmann-Vengerfeldt, Ph.D., University of Tartu, Estonia
Michael Fenichel, Ph.D., New York, USA
Leslie Haddon, Ph.D., London School of Economics, UK
Monica Barbovschi, Ph.D., Masaryk University, Czech Republic
Jan Sirucek, Ph.D., Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University, Czech Republic

Publisher

Masaryk University, Faculty of Social Studies
Jostova 10, 60200 Brno
Czech Republic

Publication Schedule

Twice per year (July and December) plus special issues