For authors
Submitting to an APYCF journal
What to prepare, how double-blind review works here, what it costs, and what happens after you press send. Read this before you make an account — most of what goes wrong at submission is a file prepared the wrong way, and it is easier to prepare it right than to correct it afterwards.
Two files, not one
A submission is two separate documents. Sending a single file with the names in it is the most common reason a submission is sent back, and the system cannot fix it for you: it would have to guess which words were a name.
Reviewers read this
Anonymised manuscript
The research itself, with every trace of who wrote it removed — including the traces a word processor adds without being asked.
Editors only
Title page
The full author list, affiliations, acknowledgements and funding. Requests for this file from a reviewer are refused by the system, not by a person.
What the system checks before it accepts the file
Each of these is checked automatically, and a manuscript that fails is not rejected — it comes back naming the specific items found, for you to correct and send again.
- No author or affiliation names in the text, the headers or the footers.
- No acknowledgements and no funding identifiers — a funder identifies an author as surely as a name does.
- Self-citations written in the third person: “Guo (2024) found”, not “we previously found”.
- Document properties cleared. Word records the author of a file whether or not the name appears in it.
How a manuscript moves
All research and review articles are assessed by double-blind peer review: you are not told who reviewed your manuscript, and reviewers are not told who wrote it.
The Editorial Office confirms the submission is complete, within scope and accompanied by the required declarations, and reads the integrity screening report.
A handling editor takes responsibility for it. An editor who is an author of the manuscript, or who has a conflict of interest, cannot take it.
The handling editor invites reviewers. A decision requires at least two independent reviews in the round it is based on. Reviewers are asked to report within 21 days.
Acceptance, minor revision, major revision or rejection, written to the corresponding author together with the reviewers' comments.
These journals do not promise a decision inside a fixed period. A review that arrives late is better than a decision taken without it.
What it costs
To submit
NothingNo submission fee
On acceptance
USD 300Article processing charge
To read
NothingOpen access, always
Pages & colour
NothingNo page or figure charge
Reductions, waivers and other assistance are available and are decided separately from the editorial decision — see Financial Assistance. Any change to these charges is published before it applies, and is never applied to a manuscript already under review.
Ready to submit
Submission happens inside the author portal. If you have not used it before, make an account first — it takes a minute and asks for a verification code sent to your email.
Already submitted? Track a manuscript with its reference — no account needed.