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The Sport Journal - ISSN: 1543-9518

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Publication Information

ISSN: 1543-9518

  • The Sport Journal is published online, at http://www.thesportjournal.org/. Academic libraries around the world and scientific research search engines link to The Sport Journal, including:
  • Submissions should fall under one of the following major categories:
    • Sports Management
    • Sports Coaching
    • Sports Studies
    • Sports Medicine
    • Sports Fitness and Health
  • Authors are encouraged to submit articles reflecting current issues in sport and exercise that are societal in nature and include both qualitative and quantitative research. Examples include but are not limited to the following:
    • Sports Management

      • Sports security
      • NCAA compliance
      • Sport architecture
      • Leadership
      • Public relations
      • Journalism
      • Marketing
      • Law and legal issues in sport
    • Sports Coaching
      • Coaching insights and innovations
      • Teaching innovations
      • Peak performance (goal setting, motivation, skill acquisition)
      • Coaching styles (leadership, management)
      • Participation rates
      • Youth coaching
      • Sociology of coaching
      • Psychology of coaching
    • Sports Studies
      • Title IX
      • Gender issues and ethnicity
      • Sports psychology
      • Gambling issues
      • Violence among fans and athletes
      • Declining youth participation
      • The conduct of agents
      • The Olympic movement
      • Athletic scholarships
    • Sports Medicine
      • Catastrophic injuries
      • Abuse of steroids and other drugs
      • Sports injury evaluation
      • Rehabilitation in sports medicine
      • Sports safety
    • Sports Fitness and Health
      • Personal training
      • Childhood obesity
      • Obesity
      • Exercise and sport physiology
      • Personal training
      • Strength and conditioning
      • Sports biomechanics
      • Sports performance enhancement
      • Sports nutrition
  • The Sport Journal accepts the following article types:
    • Research articles

      • Original research manuscripts, including both qualitative and quantitative analysis.
    • Review articles
      • Reviews of published literature on specific topics focusing on what has been published, studied, argued, and accepted into practice. Specific attention should be given to controversial findings and topics.
    • Methodology articles
      • Improvements and suggestions regarding any methods currently in use. This article can include original research or can be a literature review with suggestions and/or critical evaluations of current methods.
    • Letters to the Editor
      • Brief comments on recently published articles including both supportive and critical thoughts, typically followed by a rebuttal or clarification letter from the original author.
    • Commentaries
      • Comments regarding any area related to sport. Typically, commentaries are brief reviews of literature on “hot topics” and/or a series of recently published articles that are related. Commentaries can also include Case Reports.
  • Archives of The Sport Journal are indexed and maintained online.
  • The Sport Journal receives submissions from professors and sport professionals worldwide.
  • Accepted manuscripts become the property of The Sport Journal, the copyright holder; they may not be published elsewhere without written permission from the copyright holder.

Reprint Permission

The Sport Journal often receives requests to reprint articles. The editorial board is pleased to extend the reach of the journal’s content. Those seeking permission to reprint must fill out and submit the Permission to Reprint Form, which allows the Journal to manage necessary copyright policies.

Tag

The articles published in The Sport Journal are not intended to replace the advice of a physician and do not necessarily represent the opinions or views of the United States Sports Academy or the journal’s editors or editorial board members. The United States Sports Academy accepts students regardless of age, race, gender, religion, disability or national origin.

Submission information and guidelines

  • The Sport Journal is a refereed journal; all papers considered for publication are read by members of the Editorial Board of The Sports Journal. 
  • All articles and supporting text must be submitted in the form of an e-mail attachment (as a Microsoft Word doc.) to sportjournal@ussa.edu.
  • All manuscripts and supporting materials should be written in Times New Roman font size 11 or 12 point and double-spaced.
  • A blind title page should be included after the title page for all submissions.
  • All submissions must be accompanied by a $50 submission fee.
  • All articles submitted to The Sport Journal will be peer-reviewed by up to three reviewers.
  • All articles will receive one of four decisions:
    • Accept with minor changes
    • Accept with major changes
    • Major changes and resubmission are required before reconsideration
      • $50 resubmission fee
    • Reject
  • All authors will be notified of the decision of the Editorial Board regarding publication within six to eight weeks.
  • Authors are given eight weeks for each set of revisions. If revisions are not received within eight weeks the manuscript will need to be resubmitted as a new manuscript.

Payments are accepted in the form of a check and should be made payable to the United States Sports Academy, or simply USSA, and mailed to:

The Sport Journal Editor
United States Sports Academy
One Academy Drive
Daphne, AL 36526

If you prefer, you may pay via a credit card or Western Union. Please contact the Academy at 251-626-3303 for assistance with this form of payment.

Cover letter

A cover letter should accompany all submissions and must include a statement indicating that the submitted article is not under consideration nor will it be submitted to any other journal. Additionally, authors should indicate that the article as a whole or in-part is their own work and is not published or being considered elsewhere.

Rubric for submissions to The Sport Journal

The Editorial Board of The Sport Journal weighs the merits of articles submitted for publication in terms of eight criteria:

  1. Introduction of topic
  2. Information and evidence presented
  3. Support for author’s ideas
  4. Sequential development of ideas
  5. Conclusions and applications in sport
  6. Use of standard English
  7. Appropriate manuscript preparation following the submission guidelines

Research manuscripts submitted to The Sport Journal should be divided into the following sections:

  • Title page
  • Blind title page
  • Abstract
  • Introduction
  • Methods
  • Results
  • Discussion
  • Conclusions
  • Applications in sport
  • Acknowledgments
  • References
  • Figure Legends (if applicable)
  • Tables with captions

Title Page
Should include the title of the article, running head, the full names and institutional affiliations of all authors, and the corresponding author should be identified with a complete mailing address, phone number, and e-mail address. The major category should be identified on the title page:

  • Sports Management
  • Sports Coaching
  • Sports Studies
  • Sports Medicine
  • Sports Fitness and Health

Blind Title Page
Should only include the title of the article and running head.

ABSTRACT
The abstract should not exceed 350 words. Research article abstracts should include the following sections: Purpose, Methods, Results, Conclusions, and Applications in Sport. Be brief and concise and include only the important findings and outcomes and how they relate to sport. A list of four to six Key Words should follow the abstract.

INTRODUCTION
Should be a brief review of the topics being presented and how they relate to your study purpose and hypothesis. The main focus of this section is to give a brief background of your topic and explain why your paper/research is necessary. This section is typically one to three pages double spaced and highly referenced. The end of this section should include a statement of what the article will include and/or a purpose and hypotheses.

METHODS
Should clearly include the complete study design referencing when necessary and include the setting, type of participants and/or type and location of the database, what methods were used, what type of statistics were used. This section should also include a statement regarding the subjects’ consent to participate when appropriate.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The results and discussion sections can be grouped into one section or be separated into two sections. Results should include raw statistical findings including figures and tables. All statistical significance levels should be reported (i.e. p < 0.05). The discussion should describe how your results and findings answer the research questions established in the introduction. The discussion should also include your findings related to your hypotheses and how they compare and add to the current literature.

CONCLUSIONS
This section should summarize your findings and the overall importance and significance of your research results.

APPLICATIONS IN SPORT
This section should be written to the audience for whom your paper is intended. Such as a coach, trainer, athlete, parent, etc. This is the most important section because it unites your research findings with the practitioners. Put yourself in the shoes of your readers and clearly explain how your findings can and/or will impact them.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Use this section for acknowledging individuals that assisted with your research who are not authors. Also, declare any funding sources for your research.

In this section you should also disclose any financial and/or non-financial conflicts of interest. This includes any monetary reimbursement, salary, and/or stocks or shares in a company who may financially gain from the publication of this manuscript. This also includes patents related to the topics in the published article.

REFERENCES
The referencing style used for The Sport Journal is modified from the American Psychological Association (Current Edition from APA.org). References are identical to those published in the current APA Publication Manual with the addition of a reference number left of each reference. The order of references should be alphabetical as determined using the APA.org criteria (first author’s last name, etc.). Citations should include the reference number in parentheses (1). Three or more consecutive citations should include the first and last citation with a hyphen (1-4). Non-consecutive citations should be separated with a comma (1,3), and both methods should be used when using consecutive and non-consecutive references (1-4,6).

When using an author’s name please use et al. if more than two authors are reported in the reference and use the appropriate reference number after the name. For example, authors Smith and Jones could be used in the sentence “In 2009, Smith and Jones (8) discovered…”. If there are more than two authors in the Smith article the sentence would read “In 2009, Smith et al. (8) discovered…”.

FIGURE LEGENDS (if applicable)
All figures that do not include legends should have their legends written in this section. This includes all figures, such as graphs and pictures.

TABLES WITH CAPTIONS
All tables should be included in this section and should be in the form of an MS Word document (doc). MS Excel files are not acceptable. All tables should be numbered based on the order you expect them to appear in the manuscript.

Figure Requirements

Figures should be submitted as a jpg or ppt. All figures should be numbered based on the order you expect them to appear in the manuscript.

Final figures should be approximately the following sizes:

  • width of 8.5 cm (3.35 in) for single column;
  • width of 17.6 cm (6.93 in) for double column;
  • maximum height of 23.0 cm (9.1 in) for figure and legend;
  • Final image resolution should be at least 300 dpi (dots per inch).

Non-research manuscripts (book and other reviews, methodologies, letter to the editors, and commentaries) do not require all the sections listed above. However, it is strongly encouraged that authors utilize and organize their manuscripts to include as many sections as possible from the list above. All sections should be in all capital letters and bold. Subheadings should be identified on their own line using italics. If multiple subheadings are used the first subheading should be in lowercase bold and the next subheading under that subheading should be in italics.

INTRODUCTION
Subheading 1
Subheading 2

An example of a complete submission can be found here. Feel free to use this article as a template when preparing your manuscript.