Author Guidelines
Submitting manuscripts
Manuscripts in English must be submitted via https://czasopisma.uni.lodz.pl/ar/login portal.
The authors are responsible for all article content, for the accuracy of their quotes and for reference adequacy. Authors must submit their manuscripts in a proper form, consistent with our guidelines and in correct English (a Declaration of the linguistic correctness of the manuscript form must be uploaded at submission). Articles that do not meet the conditions specified in the below “guidelines for authors” will not be processed. However, a corrected version may be resubmitted. The submitting author will receive confirmation that the article has been accepted for evaluation; together with instructions on future procedural stages.
Submitted manuscripts are subject to evaluation by two anonymous reviewers and, where appropriate, by the Statistical Advisor. Here, the principle of double-blind reviewing is applied. The names of both authors and reviewers are concealed. The reviews and the Editors’ comments will be sent to the correspondent’s email address.
Authors’ revised articles must be submitted before the Editor’s deadline. The corrected version will be re-evaluated where necessary, and the author will be advised whether the article has been accepted for publication, requires further revisions, or has been declined. The form and rules of our reviews are available in the journal tab on the PTA website.
The Editors’ correspondence is conducted by e-mail. Editorial corrections are permitted to authors only in substantial matters and the Editors reserve the right to make necessary corrections and shortenings without the authors’ prior consent. The Editors may refuse article publication following consultation with Editorial Board members.
Material accepted for publication becomes the property of the journal and may not be published in whole or in part elsewhere without prior written consent.
Authors will receive copies of their articles in PDF format. Authors are not entitled to royalties.
Guidelines for Authors
Preparation of manuscript
General comments
Material submitted for publication must be written in English, American spelling, according to style guidelines of the Council of Biological Editors (CBE) Scientific Style and Format (6th edition as updated after 2006). Please view our Proofreading policy for further information. It must be sent in electronic form in Microsoft Word format (as doc or rtf), and the pages must have 2.5 cm margins with the text written in Times New Roman 12p. The format must also have 1.5 line intervals, be unjustified and have no indentations or bold type.
The text of original papers or short notes must have the following layout: 1) title page; 2) abstract; 3) keywords; 4) introduction; 5) material and methods; 6) results; 7) discussion; 8) acknowledgements; 9) references; 10) tables; 11) figures legends and 12) figures.
Reviews must have the following layout: 1) title page; 2) abstract; 3) keywords; 4) particular aspects of the issues discussed under their title headings; 6) results; 7) discussion; 8) acknowledgements and 9) references.
Original papers should not be longer than 25 pages (including references); tables and figures excluded. Although the limit for review articles is 45 pages, this maximum may be extended in well justified cases.
Supplementary materials can also be included, but please keep those to a minimum and ensure they are contained in one file. This file will undergo copyediting at the same time as the main manuscript, so present the text following the same guidelines as for the main manuscript. When referring to supplementary tables or figures in-text, use 's': Table S1, S2; Figure S1, S2 and so on. Longer supplementary materials should be deposited online externally and a link can be provided in the main manuscript.
Title page
Page one should contain the following contents, in separate lines and in the following order:
1) title; 2) authors’ full names, email addresses, and ORCID numbers if available; 3) names of the institutions where the authors work – from the lowest level (laboratory, department, chair) to the highest (institute, university); 4) the corresponding author/s' full name, address, phone number, email address, ORCID number and 5) a running title of up to 50 characters: counting the spaces between words.
Abstract and keywords
The abstract of up to 300 words must be on a separate page and subdivided into five concise sections with the following sub-headings: Introduction, Study aim(s), Material(s) and Methods, Results, and Conclusion(s).
Keywords in the form of index items (3-10 words) should be placed under the abstract without repeating terms/words contained in the title.
Text
The text should be written in Word using Times New Roman 12p. with line intervals of 1.5, unjustified and without indentations or bold formatting. Abbreviations must be defined at first use in the text. Measurement results must be in SI units with statistical methods described in detail at the end of the methodology section.
Research data structure (data article)
Is a short, peer-reviewed publication whose purpose is to present information about a data set and the possibilities of its reuse. Describes:
a) the contents of the data set deposited in a trusted, accredited repository;
b) the methods used to create this dataset;
c) the reuse potential of the dataset.
The data documentation contains a link to the data set deposited in the repository selected by the Author. It is distributed under the CC license and is provided with a DOI. Structure of research data (data article):
a) Dataset location [DOI];
b) Contents of the data set;
c) Context and methodology;
d) Reuse potential;
e) License;
f) Relationship to other projects;
g) Bibliography;
h) Citation https://citation.crosscite.org/;
i) Financing.
References
In general, we do not accept references to unpublished (“in review”) or papers that are "in press". Exceptions will be made in circumstances necessitating the inclusion of such reference(s), please discuss with Editor-in-Chief prior to submission.
As of January 2026, the references of the journal should be prepared according to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA, 7th Edition). In-text citations follow the author-date method whereby the author's last name and the year of publication for the source should appear in the text. Use of et al. occurs when there are three or more authors and in all instances of citations (i.e., it is not different the first time the citation occurs, which may be required in other journals). The complete reference list should appear alphabetically by name at the end of the manuscript. A DOI should be provided for all references where available with the extension https://doi.org/.
Specific examples follow below, but for more comprehensive examples and guides please see:
APA 7th Edition https://apastyle.apa.org/
APA 7th Edition Style Reference Quick Guide https://apastyle.apa.org/instructional-aids/reference-guide.pdf
APA 7th Edition Common Reference Examples Guide https://apastyle.apa.org/instructional-aids/reference-examples.pdf
1. References quoted in the text
a) When an author is quoted directly, the year of publication must be given after the name in round brackets. When a statement is being supported by an in-text citation, the name followed by a comma and the year of publication are included. The citation must be placed in an appropriate part of the sentence or at the end, both the name and year of publication in round brackets are required.
This view has been supported in the work of Tanner (1962).
This view has been supported by the work undertaken on this subject (Tanner, 1962).
b) When quoting a specific fragment of a paper, the text page-numbers for the fragment must be given using p. for ‘page’. Use an en dash, not a hyphen, for page ranges, e.g. 21–27. An en dash (–) is wider than a hyphen (-). There are no gaps between the page numbers and the en dash. For two authors, use ‘and’ in the sentence but ‘&’ in the citation.
Sisk and Foster (2004, p. 1145–46) claim that neuroscientists have made enormous progress recently.
Neuroscientists have made enormous progress recently (Sisk & Foster, 2004, pp. 1145–46).
Range of instances:
(Sisk & Foster, 2020, p. 10)
(Sisk & Foster, 2020, pp. 10–12)
(Sisk & Foster, 2020, para. 4)
(Sisk & Foster, 2020, paras. 2–3)
(Sisk & Foster, 2020, Discussion section, para. 2)
(Sisk & Foster, 2020, Table 1)
(Sisk & Foster, 2020, Chapter 3)
(Sisk & Foster, 2020, Part 2)
c) When multiple studies are referenced, they are to appear in alphabetical order and be separated by a semicolon.
Recent research (Brown, 2001; Collins, 1998; Davies 2008) shows that…
d) When there are three or more authors, the reference must include the first author and et al. in text, but et al., (including a comma) in the parenthetical citation.
Green et al. (2005) found that the majority …
Recent research (Green et al., 2005) has found that the majority of …
e) When reference is made to studies by the same author(s) published in the same year, these must be lettered alphabetically.
as suggested by Patel (2002a; 2002b) who found that …
f) When reference is made to studies published by societies or government agencies such as the World Health Organisation, abbreviations are acceptable.
World Health Organisation (WHO) has shown that … More recently the WHO (2008) has issued guidelines …
2. Direct quotations
Quotes shorter than 40 words should be incorporated into the paragraph and enclosed in quotation marks. Quotations longer than 40 words should be placed in a separate, indented block of text.
the author states that “……..” or the author writes that “… ” or Smith (2010) states that “…” (p. 10) or “Neuroscientists have made enormous strides in calling attention to the role of the brain in reproductive maturation”. (Sisk & Foster, 2004, pp. 1145–46)
3. Formatting of references
a) Peer reviewed journal article
Archer, J. (2006). Testosterone and human aggression: an evaluation of the challenge hypothesis. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 30(3), 319–345. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2004.12.007
Rybaczewska, M., & Sparks, L. (2022). Ageing consumers and e-commerce activities. Ageing and Society, 42(8), 1879–1898. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0144686X20001932
Jerrentrup, A., Mueller, T., Glowalla, U., Herder, M., Henrichs, N., Neubauer, A., & Schaefer, J. R. (2018). Teaching medicine with the help of “Dr. House.” PLoS ONE, 13(3), Article e0193972. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0193972
b) Book chapter
Zeleke, W. A., Hughes, T. L., & Drozda, N. (2020). Home–school collaboration to promote mind–body health. In C. Maykel & M. A. Bray (Eds.), Promoting mind–body health in schools: Interventions for mental health professionals (pp. 11–26). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000157-002
c) Edited book
Kesharwani, P. (Ed.). (2020). Nanotechnology based approaches for tuberculosis treatment. Academic Press.
Torino, G. C., Rivera, D. P., Capodilupo, C. M., Nadal, K. L., & Sue, D. W. (Eds.). (2019). Microaggression theory: Influence and implications. John Wiley & Sons. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119466642
d) Book
Sapolsky, R. M. (2017). Behave: The biology of humans at our best and worst. Penguin Books.
Jackson, L. M. (2019). The psychology of prejudice: From attitudes to social action (2nd ed.). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000168-000
e) E-book
Svendsen, S., & Løber, L. (2020). The big picture/Academic writing: The one-hour guide (3rd digital ed.). Hans Reitzel Forlag. https://thebigpicture-academicwriting.digi.hansreitzel.dk/
f) Magazine article
Lyons, D. (2009, June 15). Don’t ‘iTune’ us: It’s geeks versus writers. Guess who’s winning. Newsweek, 153(24), 27.
Schulman, M. (2019, September 9). Superfans: A love story. The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/09/16/superfans-a-love-story
g) Newspaper article
Carey, B. (2019, March 22). Can we get better at forgetting? The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/22/health/memory-forgetting-psychology.html
Harlan, C. (2013, April 2). North Korea vows to restart shuttered nuclear reactor that can make bomb-grade plutonium. The Washington Post, A1, A4.
h) Report by a government agency
National Cancer Institute. (2019). Taking time: Support for people with cancer (NIH Publication No. 18-2059). U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health. https://www.cancer.gov/publications/patient-education/takingtime.pdf
Stuster, J., Adolf, J., Byrne, V., & Greene, M. (2018). Human exploration of Mars: Preliminary lists of crew tasks (Report No. NASA/CR-2018-220043). National Aeronautics and Space Administration. https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/-casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20190001401.pdf
i) Conference presentation
Evans, A. C., Jr., Garbarino, J., Bocanegra, E., Kinscherff, R. T., & Márquez-Greene, N. (2019, August 8–11). Gun violence: An event on the power of community [Conference presentation]. APA 2019 Convention, Chicago, IL, United States. https://convention.apa.org/2019-video
j) Abstract of a conference presentation
Cacioppo, S. (2019, April 25–28). Evolutionary theory of social connections: Past, present, and future [Conference presentation abstract]. Ninety-ninth annual convention of the Western Psychological Association, Pasadena, CA, United States. https://westernpsych.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/WPA-Program-2019-Final-2.pdf
k) Published and unpublished theses
Zambrano-Vazquez, L. (2016). The interaction of state and trait worry on response monitoring in those with worry and obsessive-compulsive symptoms [Doctoral dissertation, University of Arizona]. UA Campus Repository. https://repository.arizona.edu/handle/10150/620615
Harris, L. (2014). Instructional leadership perceptions and practices of elementary school leaders [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. University of Virginia.
Tables
Tables must be numbered in Arabic numerals (not Roman numerals) and marked in the text: Table 1, Table 2, with their intended location clearly indicated (as in;Table 1, insert here). They must be in Times New Roman 12p, with intervals of 1 line and each in a separate file. The caption title above the table must refer to its content. No vertical lines (except for column heading separation lines and the table closure line) or horizontal lines, must be used. All abbreviations in the table must be defined below it.
Figures
Figures with Arabic numerals and marked in the text: Figure 1, Figure 2, with their intended location clearly indicated (as in;Figure 1, insert here), should be of the best possible quality, with each one saved in a separate file using dr, tif, jpg, bmp or eps formats. Photos should have 300 dpi.resolution, and poor quality figures and photos will not be accepted. In addition, figure legends must be on a separate page.
An alternative text should follow figure legend. An alternative text is textual information about what you see in a graphic element that is relevant to the text or topic that the element illustrates. Alternative texts are read by a screen reader and allow people with blindness or vision impairment to see what is, for example, in a given graphic, photo or chart. Graphic elements without an alternative description will be read by the assistive software for visually impaired people as the word ‘graphic’, so they will not get any other information that this ‘graphic’ is supposed to convey.
What should an alternative text look like?
Above all, the description should be concise and succinct – try to describe the graphic as accurately as possible, doing so in the shortest possible way (the optimum length of an alternative text should not exceed 250 characters).
• It should describe the meaning and content of the graphic element in question.
• It should contain key information for the viewer (e.g. a repetition of the content written on the graphic, or in the case of photos, a description of the most important elements building the message: “Rector presenting the habilitation diploma to Dr Anna Kowalska”).
• When creating alternative texts for charts and infographics, remember to include, in addition to the title, a summary and description of the trends resulting from the graphic. Often, due to the length and level of complexity of the data being described, it is worth including the chart description in the proper body of the text, below the graphic itself.
• You do not need to use alternative descriptions for graphics that are purely decorative (in which case mark them as decorative by selecting the “Mark as decorative” option).
Function of adding alternative description in Microsoft Word:
• To add alternative text for graphics/charts added into a Microsoft Word document, right-click on the object and select “Format image” -> “Accessibility” -> “Alternative text”; or “Review” -> “Check accessibility “-> “Alternative text”.
• For graphic elements that only have a decorative function in the document, also fill in the alternative text field – instead of the content in the “Alternative text” field, tick the “Mark as decorative” option.
Acknowledgements
Information on financial support sources, including the research project number, the finance source and tributes to persons who have made a considerable contribution to the paper’s development, but insufficient to be listed as authors, must be acknowledged before the reference section.
Author declarations
Information from the Author Declaration Form must appear before references. This includes a statement of contributions from individual authors, any conflicts of interest, and where applicable, an ethics statement listing ethics protocol number and the name of the approving ethics board or committee.
Use of AI
Policy of the University of Lodz Publishing House on Generative Artificial Intelligence Tools
