Submissions

Author Guidelines

Guidelines for Articles Reporting on Research Studies

Witness welcomes reports on critical empirical studies that fit with the aims and scope of the journal. Required elements are provided below.

Introduction – Purpose, context, and rationale for the study.  A link to your title should be introduced here (and returned to in the conclusions)
Background - Authors must ensure their study is situated in a review of existing literature, presents the related conceptual, theoretical or philosophical perspectives, and articulates the specific research questions that were explored.
Materials and Methods –Study design, sample, data collection dates, instruments (if applicable)  and methods used. An articulation of how the data was analyzed, as well as considerations and measures to ensure the rigour (and related components) of the study. Include a brief synopsis of ethical approaches to the conduct of the study. Note: REB approval must be clearly identified.  
Findings – Characteristics of the sample followed by results/findings for each research question. 
Discussion – What/how the results or findings contribute to the purpose or aim of conducting the study. Discussion of how the study adds to/enhances existing work in the area of investigation and any additional areas.

Limitations: Study limitations as they relate to materials and methods, findings and implications. 
Conclusion –Nursing implications (i.e., nursing education, practice, public and institutional policy, leadership, research). Authors are also encouraged to provide broader structural (i.e., cultural, social, economic, legal, political) implications. 

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Discussion Paper Guidelines

Witness welcomes critical scholarly discussion papers that focus on a philosophical, theoretical, conceptual, practice, or other issues of concern to nursing in the context of local, regional and/or global health and wellbeing, The journal especially welcomes analyses that are grounded in critical perspectives and the structural determinants of health, focussing on power and privilege in the micro, meso and macro realms. Structural refers broadly to societal systems, such as cultural, economic and political systems. A structural perspective is often referred to as a root cause perspective—societal forces such as ageism, colonialism, genderism and racism are the systemic roots of inequities in health outcomes.  

  
Introduction - Articulation of your philosophical, theoretical, conceptual, practice, or other issue of concern, followed by a succinct overview of the aim of the discussion paper. Situate your discussion within its relevance to nursing and the broad contexts of health and wellbeing (e.g. health of populations, ecological and planetary health). Provide a clear and convincing rationale for the necessity/urgency of your analysis. A link to your title should be introduced and revisited in the paper’s conclusions.  

Background Literature - Situate your discussion in current literature and provide a critical analysis and synthesis of the literature reviewed.

Discussion -Clear presentation of a novel perspective, conceptualization, framework, or understanding of the issue of concern within broader societal contexts, such as the structural determinants of health. Links to the previous section are important. 

Conclusion - Identification of possible nursing implications (i.e., nursing education, practice, public and institutional policy, leadership research). Authors are also encouraged to provide broader structural (i.e., cultural, social, economic, political) implications. 

Note: The use of clear, concise and content-specific headings and subheadings will augment  clarity and argument presentation in the discussion section, as well as in the overall paper.  
Acknowledgement: Witness acknowledges and thanks the Journal of Quality Advancement of Nursing Education, from which these guidelines have been developed. 

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Manuscript Originality

Manuscripts that are submitted to Witness must meet the following originality requirments:

1. The manuscript must be an original contribution and  not have been previously published. To verify originality, the editorial staff may check manuscripts for plagiarism / duplicate publication by using  software which compares the manuscript to material uploaded to the plagarism software's own database, articles published on Cinahl, PubMed (or others), and text appearing on the Internet. Please note that our software shall also check for self-plagiarism or redundancy. Authors are urged to understand what constitutes self-plagarism, and rework and cite text from their previously published works. By submitting to WITNESS, you are agreeing to have your manuscript uploaded to an originality software program. 
2. Your article must NOT be under consideration for publication elsewhere; you will be asked to verify this claim in the submission process.
3. If your article is based on a project in which there were human participants, you must indicate in your text the procedures used to assure ethical conduct related to your participants.
4. Your article must meet standards of English language used for professional publication. 

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Authorship Requirements

Each person listed as an author is expected to have participated in the preparation of the manuscript to a significant extent. The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals (http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/) guides our requirements surrounding ethical authorship. That is Witness therefore requires that all authors must meet the following 4 criteria:

1. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
2. Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
3. Final approval of the version to be published; AND
4. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Individuals who have contributed to the manuscript in some way, but who do not meet all of these 4 criteria, should be noted in the acknowledgements, along with a brief description of their contribution to the work.

(Witness acknowledges Advances in Nursing Science for criteria and wording used in the above criteria)

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Further Guidelines Include:

1. Articles must critically address an issue related to nursing, education, practice, policy or health (broadly defined). Authors are warmly invited to contact the managing co-editors to discuss your ideas for submission. Further, our peer review process is rooted in supporting and strengthening critical nursing scholarship.
2. We welcome passionate and political submissions rooted in critical discourse and strive to achieve an anti-hierarchical, strength-based approach to publishing with the aim of capacity building.
3. In making a submission, authors affirm that the submission is original and unpublished, is not in press or under consideration elsewhere, and will not be submitted elsewhere while under consideration by the Journal.
4. Articles must not exceed 5000-6000 words in length (including quotations, references, footnotes, tables, figures, diagrams, and illustrations).
5. The author must include an abstract of 100-150 words summarizing the main arguments and themes of the article, the methods, conclusions and emerging questions.
6. A list of a maxium 5 keywords must also be included after the abstract.
7. Articles submitted to Witness are peer-reviewed, and therefore we ask that authors’ names and other identifying information must be removed (including in the document properties) in order to be sent to the reviewers.
8. The submission file for text manuscripts must be in Microsoft Word file format, with numbered pages.
9. A Cover Letter is Required: In the cover letter, indicate the area of scholarship you are writing about, the significance of your contribution, the relevance to the scope and intent of Witness, and any other aspects you'd like the editors to know. In addition you must disclose any conflicts of interest, ethical permissions funding sources, availability of data set and where stored, adherence to COPE authorship guidelines and an acknowledgment that your manuscript will be submitted to ithenticate. 
10. When submitting the paper all authors must agree on the final version of the paper and must have contributed either by substantial contributions to the conception, design, data collection, analysis and interpretation of data or to revising it critically for important intellectual content.
11. Undergraduate Student Submissions: In your cover letter please indicate if you are an undergrad, masters or Phd student.  Undergrad student submissions must be accompanied by a statement from a nominating faculty member. Undergrad submissions will be reviewed by the York Witness Collective, Masters and PhD student submissions will be reviewed in same vein as other submissions. 
12. Ethical Permissions STATEMENT: Please ensure you provide a statement regarding ethical permissions (or the reason why these were not needed) is included before the reference section in all manuscripts. Please provide the full name and institution of the review committee, in addition to the approval number (if relevant). This is to be included in the cover letter and at the end of the manuscript prior to the references. 
13. Conflict of Interest STATEMENT - Authors must provide a conflict of interest statement in both the cover letter and at the end of the manuscript prior to the references. 
14. Data Availability Statement - Authors for manuscripts involving any data must provide a Data Availability Statement. This is to be included in both the cover letter and at the end of the manuscript prior to the references. 
15. Funding Statement - Authors must provide a statement regarding if any funding is associated with the manuscript or the material within it. This is to be included in the cover letter and at the end of the manuscript prior to the references. 
16. The Journal’s style follows the most recent edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA), and English spelling should follow the most recent edition of the Canadian Oxford Dictionary. It is the express responsibility of the submitting author to ensure that manuscript style requirements are met, to ensure a fulsome copy edit has been done on the work and not to rely on editing by the Journal post acceptance.
17. The Journal does not produce a print edition. By making a submission, authors are consenting to their work being published online, and widely accessible to the general public globally. Increasing access to critical discourse in nursing is one of the main objectives of the Journal.
18. Prospective authors are welcome to connect with the Editor prior to submission to discuss suitability and scope of their article with this Journal. We would be happy to hear from you!

READY?

To make a submission, register as an author with Witness using the following URL and clicking on “Register”:  https://witness.journals.yorku.ca/index.php/default. Upon completing your user profile, you will have the option to create a new submission. To maintain the integrity of our double-masked review process, we ask that the main manuscript be free of author identifying information. Submissions that do not adhere to this request cannot be considered for review. 

PEER REVIEW PROCESS

All submissions will be initially screened by the managing editors for basic fitness to the scope and theme of the journal and adherence to the journal's submission guidelines. Further, upon submission all manuscripts will be sent through an online plagiarism checker called ithenticate. The Editor/Guest Editor may consult with the prospective author with feedback so as to ensure fit with the critical scope of the journal, and/or congruence with the relevant Call for Submissions to which the author is responding and any concerns arising from ithenticate or missing components in the cover letter. Please ensure you print the author guidelines and refer to them ahead of your submission to avoid missing required components. .

Selected submissions proceed to the next stage of the review process and undergo double-masked review by our peer reviewers. The first round of reviews typically takes three months. Authors will be provided with an expected timeline to address any requested revisions. For early scholars, the peer review process is intentionally rooted in capacity-building and comments from reviewers will be in support of strengthening the submission. Please note, revision of a manuscript does not guarantee publication. All editorial communication is conducted through the journal website to expedite the publication process. Authors can follow the progress of their submission through their account.

PERMISSIONS

You must submit written permission from the copyright owner (usually the publisher) to use material being borrowed or adapted from other sources, including previously published material of your own, along with complete details about the source. Any permissions fees that might be required by the copyright owner are the responsibility of the authors requesting use of the borrowed material, not the responsibility of Witness. You can download our file to use for this purpose, or use the letter of permission you obtain from the publisher. You must scan the signed permission and save as a PDF file, then attach the file to your submission as a submission item.

You must obtain written permission for the following material:

• All direct quotes of 300 words or more from any full-length book
• All direct quotes of 200 words or more from a periodical article
• All excerpts from a newspaper article or other short piece
• Any passage from a play or a song
• Two or more lines of poetry
• Any borrowed table, figure, or illustration being reproduced exactly or adapted to fit the needs of the subject.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

Copyright for articles published in Witness is retained by the authors, with first publication rights granted to the Witness. By virtue of their appearance in this open access journal, articles are free to use–with proper attribution–in educational and other non-commercial settings. Authors should not receive royalties from subsequent publications. Witness asks that authors, if their submissions are accepted, license their work by using Creative Commons: http://creativecommons.org (and going to 'License Your Work'). Doing so will protect the author and the journal. Authors may deposit all versions (Submitted, Accepted and Published) of their papers in institutional repositories on personal websites.

OPEN ACCESS POLICY

Witness provides open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge and equitable educational practices. For more information on this approach, see the Public Knowledge Project, which has designed this system to improve the scholarly and public quality of research, and which freely distributes the journal system as well as other software to support the open access publishing of scholarly resources.

Authors may deposit all versions (Submitted, Accepted and Published) of their papers in institutional repositories on personal websites.