What is Sage's policy on prior publication?

Sage follows the COPE Guidelines in addressing potential Redundant Publication. To avoid the need for corrective action after publication, please disclose any prior publication or distribution of your manuscript to the Editor when submitting your manuscript to the journal. It is important to ensure appropriate attribution to your prior publication of the material is included in the manuscript and that any quoted materials are identified as quotes so that readers of your article may reference the original work.

If a substantial portion of your manuscript has been previously published, your manuscript will generally not be acceptable for publication in a Sage journal. However, subject to each journal’s policy, there are certain circumstances where material that has been publicly distributed may be considered for publication.  You should first review the ‘Instructions to Authors’ for the journal you are interested in submitting to (found on the journal’s website at journals.sagepub.com) to review that journal’s policy. You should also include a description of any prior distribution of any part of your manuscript when submitting your manuscript to the journal and within the manuscript itself.

Following are examples of prior distribution that may be acceptable:

Working papers or versions of the paper posted on a preprint server or a scholarly collaboration network (SCN)

Please consult the journal's submission guidelines to determine whether the journal will consider submissions that have been previously shared as a pre-print.  While Sage generally supports the early dissemination of research through preprints (the pre-peer review version of the paper, also referenced as a “working paper”), including through Sage’s own preprint platform, Advance, and other preprint platforms and SCNs, such as bioRxiV, preprints.org, ResearchGate and Academia.edu, some journals will not consider submissions that have been shared as a preprint prior to submission.

Most dissertations and theses posted in institutional archives

Excerpts or material from your dissertation that have not been through peer review will generally be eligible for publication. However, if the excerpt from the dissertation included in your manuscript is the same or substantially the same as any previously published work, the editor may determine that it is not suitable for publication in the journal.

Conference abstracts, posters and presentations

Subject to the journal's policy, manuscripts based on papers that have been presented at conferences may be considered for publication as long as they have not been published and provided that you still retain the rights to the manuscript. The journal editor may review whether the version of your article considered for publication is materially different from the work you presented at a conference and/or whether publication in the journal will enable your article to reach an audience that the conference paper did not previously reach. Prior publication of an abstract or poster presented at a conference will generally not impact the manuscript's eligibility for publication.

Raw data and clinical trials registries

New papers based on data that have been previously referenced in other works may be acceptable. However, please note that permission may be required to re-use collections of data, and any prior works by you based on the same data collection as that used in the manuscript should be identified by you when submitting the manuscript to the journal. If you are reproducing data that was arranged, organized or compiled by someone else (such as in a table or appendix), you should check whether permission is needed to reproduce the table, appendix, or other collection of data within your manuscript.

Please keep in mind that some journals use a double-anonymized peer review process and that by posting your article on a preprint server or on a scholarly collaboration network such as ResearchGate, your article and its author list may be discovered by reviewers.

This will not prevent most journals from considering your article, but please make sure you are comfortable with reviewers possibly discovering your identity before posting your preprint online. To understand the different types of peer review models we recommend looking at COPE’s Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers. If you have any questions about whether or not posting a preprint may jeopardize your submission to a journal, you should contact the journal editor.

After submission to a Sage journal

After submission to the journal, you are asked to refrain from posting updated versions of your paper until a publication decision is made. Upon acceptance of your paper to a Sage journal, you may post your article in accordance with the terms applicable to the journal, as stated in the Guidelines for Sage Authors.

The final published version of your article (the formatted PDF) should not be used when posting a paper on any open/unrestricted website, including preprint servers, your own website, subject repositories, or any other scholarly collaboration networks (SCNs) or article-sharing networks (such as ResearchGate, Mendeley or Academia.edu), unless a license allowing such posting is in place.