Advice to authors before submitting an article to JM:
- Define your incremental contribution. Look at back issues of JM and other marketing journals and, where appropriate, journals from other disciplines. It is important initially to define what has been done and what you do that makes a difference. Articles that simply replicate a known methodology or theory will have a difficult time being published at JM.
- Link to recent issues. It is important that your article reflects current research. Accepted articles that are not yet in print are listed on JM’s Web site. These reflect the newest thinking in the journal and thus can be very important for positioning your article.
- Be careful about overlap. If what you have done has been done before, it is unlikely to be accepted. If you have previous similar work, you may need to reference it and position the current paper as an extension of the earlier one. If you have any questions about whether to reference earlier work or whether your work reflects sufficient incremental contribution over earlier work, a quick note to the editor will resolve that issue.
- Consider the managerial implications. In general, articles in JM focus attention on managerial implications or implications to some important marketing stakeholder group, such as public policy makers or consumers. It is very important to emphasize the implications in the abstract, introduction, and discussion. This is an important requirement for all JM articles.
- Match JM style. This is not imperative on the first round. JM will review articles with a broad range of styles and suggest changes in the revise and resubmit. However, the signal to the reviewers and the editor of a strongly different style is that you did not make the effort to adjust the manuscript to JM norms. Thus, adjusting to any journal’s style increases the likelihood of a positive review.
- Build a strong abstract and title. Your abstract communicates your key findings and encourage the reader to read the rest of the paper. Spend time on both; a well-crafted beginning can greatly increase the impact of your paper.
- Ask colleagues to review your paper. Choose two kinds of readers. First, choose one who knows the area well and will criticize your method from that perspective. Second, ask a colleague who is less familiar with your area. That reading will show you what you need to do to make your article accessible to a broader range of readers. Note that this is not a minor favor. You will owe the colleague the same rigorous review of a paper in return.