Submission Preflight (asq-submission)

When to trigger

• "I'm submitting tonight" — the last check before hitting submit
• You are unsure what files and metadata the editorial system requires
• You need a fit + anonymization + formatting sweep

Volatile specifics (length norms, abstract cap, named editors) change over time. Treat them as durable norms and verify the current Manuscript Submission Guidelines at journals.sagepub.com/author-instructions/asq and the live portal at https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/asq before submitting.

Fees. ASQ is a hybrid journal with no submission fee and no mandatory publication fee. Optional gold open access costs an article processing charge (APC) of US$3,000, billed only after acceptance if you opt in. Do not budget a submission fee — there is none.

Reference style: APA. As of January 2025, ASQ uses APA style for in-text citations and the reference list (this changed from its older in-house ASQ style — verify you are on the current APA convention).

Fit pre-check (do not skip)

• The manuscript delivers a surprising theoretical insight about organizations (not just a finding)
• The contribution is theoretical, not methodological
• The phenomenon is in ASQ's wheelhouse (organization theory / sociology of organizations)
• You can name the conversation it joins and a few recent ASQ articles as anchors
• If it is a pure conceptual paper with no data, reconsider (AMR may fit better)

Format

• Manuscript type selected correctly (research article vs. book review — ASQ runs a standing book review section, unusual among top management journals)
• One key point statable in a single sentence (ASQ: "each manuscript should contain one key point")
• Title page (with author info) is a separate file from the main document
• Abstract is 200 words or fewer, jargon-free; keywords drawn from the ASQ ScholarOne keyword list
• Length near the suggested 35–45 pages of text (12-pt Times New Roman, double-spaced, 1-inch margins) plus refs/tables/figures; over-long files get unsubmitted before review
• References in APA style (ASQ adopted APA in January 2025)
• Manuscript in Word or PDF (Word required later if accepted); supplemental material placed online and anonymized
• Data & Methods Transparency plan ready (a required ScholarOne item at submission)

Anonymization (double-blind)

• Main document contains no author-identifying information
  • Self-citations phrased neutrally ("prior work (Author, 2020) shows…"), not "in our earlier study"
  • Acknowledgments, funding, and thanks removed from the main file (placed on the separate title page)
  • Field site / data provider not identifiable if that would reveal the authors
• File properties/metadata scrubbed of author names and affiliations
• File names contain no author names

Exhibits & evidence

• Qualitative: data-structure figure and data-to-theory/evidence table included
• Quantitative: descriptives, correlations, and main tables complete and self-contained
• Every exhibit numbered, titled, noted, and referenced in text
• Online supplement / appendix prepared if used (interview guide, extra quotes, robustness)

References & citations

• Every in-text citation appears in the reference list and vice versa
• Recent and canonical organization-theory works both engaged
• DOIs/page numbers complete; no "in press" left unresolved if now published

Editorial system & metadata

• Account created at ASQ's ScholarOne portal (https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/asq) — no submission fee
• Cover letter does not summarize the paper; it lists prior viewers/conflicts and discloses any data overlap with other work (ASQ's overlap rule is broad)
• Keywords from the ASQ ScholarOne keyword list; suggested reviewers named in the cover letter (the form no longer accepts them)
• Declarations done (originality, COPE ethics, data transparency)
• Not under review elsewhere and not previously rejected by ASQ (no resubmissions of rejected papers)

Anti-patterns

• Submitting a thin-theory, sophisticated-method paper to a theory-first journal
• Forgetting to anonymize self-citations, acknowledgments, or file metadata (ASQ review is double-blind)
• A cover letter that summarizes the paper (ASQ says this is not useful) instead of disclosing overlap and conflicts
• Exhibits not self-contained; figures illegible in grayscale
• A bloated manuscript well past ~45 pages — length-to-contribution is an explicit evaluation criterion, and editors will unsubmit it
• Using old in-house ASQ references instead of APA (changed January 2025)
• Resubmitting a paper ASQ already rejected (not permitted)

Output format

【Fit】surprising org-theory contribution? (yes/no)
【Anonymization】pass / fixes: [...]
【Format】matches current ASQ/SAGE guidelines? (verify)
【Exhibits】data-to-theory / main tables complete?
【References】in-text ↔ list reconciled?
【System ready】cover letter + metadata + declarations done?
【Next step】asq-review-process (await decision)

Bundled resources

• templates/checklist.md — full pre-submission self-check across 8 sections
• templates/manuscript_template.md — ASQ-style manuscript skeleton for both qualitative and quantitative papers
• ../../resources/external_tools.md — qualitative/quantitative software, data sources, and writing tools