Submit Special Issue

Guidance for authors submitting to depression and therapy special issues.

Special issues focus on targeted themes in depression and therapy. Authors should align submissions with the issue scope, call for papers, and guest editor requirements.

Each submission still follows standard peer review and ethical requirements.

• Confirm that your manuscript aligns with the special issue theme
• Review the call for papers or issue description
• Identify the special issue name in the cover letter
• Prepare data availability and ethics statements
• Follow the journal formatting and reporting guidelines

Guest editors coordinate peer review with the editorial office. Final decisions are issued by the journal to ensure consistent quality across all special issue submissions.

Use this checklist to ensure proposals and submissions are complete and aligned with journal priorities.

• Define the special issue theme and scope clearly
• Explain the clinical or research significance
• Identify guest editors and affiliations
• Provide a short proposal summary
• List expected article types and volume
• Outline a timeline for submissions and review
• Suggest potential contributors or networks
• Describe review and quality assurance plans
• Provide outreach or promotion strategies
• Align the issue with journal priorities
• Include ethics and reporting expectations
• Share contact details for the lead editor
• Describe how to handle conflicts of interest
• Plan for issue introduction or editorial
• Provide a closure plan and summary deliverable

Planning helps special issues stay on schedule and maintain quality.

• Define review milestones and deadlines
• Plan reviewer recruitment for the issue
• Provide communication plan for authors
• Describe issue marketing strategy
• Include plans for editorial introduction
• Clarify expected acceptance rate
• Provide final issue publication timeline
• Plan for post publication dissemination
• Ensure alignment with journal ethics
• Outline quality control checkpoints

Complete, well structured submissions move through review more efficiently and reduce follow up questions.

Clear coordination improves the special issue experience for authors and reviewers.

• Confirm submission deadlines and review milestones
• Align guest editor communication plans
• Provide consistent reviewer guidance
• Share decision timelines with contributors
• Document expected article types and volume
• Provide a plan for post publication promotion
• Coordinate with the editorial office regularly
• Track revision turnaround times
• Prepare an issue introduction or summary
• Confirm quality control checkpoints

These small checks help keep manuscripts and communications consistent.

• Keep terminology consistent across sections
• Confirm that tables match reported results
• Use clear headings that guide reviewers
• Provide concise summaries of key findings
• Check that ethics statements are visible
• Align figures with outcome descriptions
• Include clinical implications in discussion
• Verify that all links are current

Quality checks reduce revision cycles and accelerate review.

• Use plain language for complex findings
• Avoid unnecessary jargon or acronyms
• Ensure methods are described in sequence
• Clarify participant flow and attrition
• Report baseline characteristics clearly
• State limitations and generalizability
• Include acknowledgments where needed
• Double check citation formatting

Clear scope alignment improves editorial screening outcomes.

• Confirm scope alignment before submission
• Summarize key takeaways for clinicians
• Highlight novelty in the cover letter
• Provide complete author contact details
• Indicate any supplemental material
• Note any clinical trial registrations
• Share funding statements explicitly
• Check spelling of assessment instruments

These final reminders help keep submissions consistent and reduce delays during editorial checks and production workflows.

• Confirm contact details and institutional affiliations
• Verify that all required statements are present
• Check formatting against journal instructions