Submit an article

General Rules

The author who submits the article, called “corresponding author”, acts if applicable in the name of all authors, who jointly share the responsibility of the submission and must also provide the confirmations mentioned below.

The corresponding author must first make sure that the content and format of the manuscript conform to the editorial policy of the Journal.

Therefore, the corresponding author must notably:

  • confirm that the manuscript has neither been published nor submitted elsewhere to be considered for publication;
  • if applicable, confirm that they hold the rights to reproduce any third-party work or substantial part thereof included in the manuscript;
  • confirm that they comply with the ethics policy of the Journal;
  • classify the manuscript according to the types of texts published in the Journal.

Furthermore, the corresponding author must confirm, as stated in the Publishing Agreement, that they agree that the final (i.e. accepted and revised) version of the text will be published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY) License. This license allows anyone to freely copy, distribute or display the text, modified or not, as long as they mention its authors and provide, whenever feasible, a hyperlink to the original publication in the Journal.

Lastly, the corresponding author must fill the data sharing form, joined to the Publishing Agreement. This form indicates if the article is based upon data that can be shared and, if so, describes how and under which conditions the data are made available.

It is important to note that by agreeing to distribute the article under a Creative Commons License, the author(s) keep the entire copyright on their text, including the so-called “commercial rights” provided by the Copyright Act. To that effect, the author(s) may:

  1. at any time, distribute or make available the manuscript, including its revised post-peer-review version;
  2. once the article is available on the Journal website, distribute, make available, republish the article, modified or not, by any means. It must however be understood that the CC BY licence, which allows anyone to do the same, cannot be revoked.

Review and Acceptance Process

Every manuscript submitted to the Journal is first examined to determine if it conforms to the editorial policy, in which case it will be subject to double-blind peer review by two or three referees who have expertise in the given field and who are not from the same institution as the author(s).

Following the assessment of the manuscript, each reviewer will offer one of the following recommendations:

  • Accept as is
  • Accept with only minor modifications
  • Accept with major modifications
  • Reject

These recommendations form the basis of the Journal’s decision regarding the acceptance of the manuscript (conditional or not), forwarded to the corresponding author.

In case of a conditional acceptance, the author(s) will revise the text in light of the recommended corrections and resubmit the manuscript within the specified timeframe. The final decision, acceptance, rejection or request of further modifications, will be forwarded to the corresponding author.

In any case, for the final version, the author(s) will update the references in the text, most notably by verifying the availability and URL addresses of online documents.

For special issues, that have a particular theme and whereupon an issue director, who may not be an Editor of the Journal, coordinates its preparation (inviting authors to submit a paper, giving indications regarding the selected theme, etc.), the same rules of the peer review process are applied and the Journal remains in charge of the decisions concerning the acceptance of manuscripts.

For those papers that have been accepted for publication, the Journal preserves the right to make any editorial corrections deemed necessary to improve the writing style, the readability and the conciseness of the text. If needed, the PDF version of the articles ready for print will be sent to the corresponding author for a last verification.

In short, there are about ten main steps (see Table below) in the publishing workflow, for a total duration of 4-6 months between the submission of a manuscript and the online availability of the article.

  • 1aThe corresponding author, acting on behalf of all authors, if applicable, submits a manuscript conforming to all guidelines described on the page Submit an article, along with the Publishing Agreement filled and signed.
  • 1bIf there is more than one author, the corresponding author sends a copy of the submission email to all co-authors. In turn, each of them confirms by email that they agree with the manuscript and the Publication Agreement, and that they assume the responsibilities arising from this Agreement.
  • 2The Journal verifies that the manuscript reflects the aims and scope of the Journal and conforms to its policies, notably the editorial policy and the data sharing requirements.
  • 3The Journal assigns the reviewers.
  • 4The Journal sends a Synthesis of reviews to the corresponding author.
  • 5The author(s) revise the manuscript. The corresponding author sends to the Journal the revised version, with a follow-up table of comments and modifications (this process is iterative).
  • 6The Journal makes the final acceptance decision.
  • 7The manuscript undergoes copy editing, and revision of references, tables and figures, with revised version sent to the corresponding author.
  • 8The author(s) finalize the manuscript and the corresponding author sends it to the Journal with, if applicable, a copy to the co-authors.
  • 9The article is formatted for publication, and sent to the corresponding author if needed.
  • 10The article is made available on the Journal website.

General Guidelines for Manuscript Presentation

Here are the guidelines for manuscript presentation.

  • The manuscript must be submitted as a file in .docx (preferably), .doc, or .rtf format (no PDF).
  • The text must be double-spaced with a Times New Roman font, 12 points.
  • You present on the title page of the manuscript, your name, mailing address, telephone numbers as well as your institutional affiliation, followed by the submission date of the manuscript. In the case of a manuscript with more than one author, this information must be provided for each author. In the published article, the order of the authors’ names and their affiliations will be those provided in Appendix B of the Publishing Agreement.
  • The title of the manuscript should be concise and clear.
  • The abstract, which must be submitted in French and English, should be presented below the title on a new page. A maximum of 100 words in length, the abstract must state the purpose of the paper and specify the objectives, the method used, the results obtained and the conclusions drawn. The abstract must be followed by a list of at most 10 keywords or terms for referencing.
  • Tables and figures can be directly inserted in the text, or presented on separate pages and compiled at the end of the manuscript; in that case, the placement of all tables and figures must be clearly indicated throughout the text (for example, “Note to the Journal: Insert Table 1 here”).
  • Inline citations and references (in a Reference section at the end) must comply with the APA style, as described in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th edition, 2020).

The author(s) should consider using the template (in Word format or in RTF format) available on this site, which contains guidelines and uses a style sheet implementing the APA style.

To ensure an anonymous review process, two distinct files should be submitted, one of which must be devoid of any information allowing for the identification of the author(s). The title page should thus not contain any identifying information about them, and the name of the author(s) in citations and references is replaced by “The authors”, as in (The authors, 2012). To that effect, the above-mentioned template includes two versions of the title page.

Submitting an Article

Before submitting the manuscript, please ensure you have read and understood the editorial policy, including the ethics policy, and the guidelines for manuscript presentation. You must also make sure you have filled the Publishing Agreement, which confirms that you agree to the conditions of publication, including to make your text made available for distribution under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Finally, you must have filled the Data sharing statement form.

When you have done this, send to article@ritpu.org your three electronic files, namely the two versions of the manuscript (with and without the authors’ names), and the Publishing Agreement (with Appendices A and B filled).

Manuscript With More Than one Author

Submitting an article is an action for which the authors share a joint responsibility.

Therefore, you shall send your co-authors a copy of your submission email (attachments included).

The Journal will then write to your co-authors and ask them to confirm that they (1) approve the manuscript as submitted, (2) accept the terms of the Publication Agreement and (3) assume the responsibilities arising from the Agreement.

Failure to receive this confirmation from all authors might delay the processing of the manuscript.