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ManuSights

Methods and limitations

How we mapped a fragmented submission decision

The four-wave study follows one practical unit: the set of official pages an author must reconcile to answer the launch decisions for one journal. It does not score publishers, estimate prevalence, or treat an inaccessible page as proof that a requirement disappeared.

30journals
90official surfaces
6decision areas
18–27 Augevidence review
01

Sample and research question

The purposive sample contains 30 submission guides researched in five waves from 18 to . The first wave covered JMIS, EJIS, JAIS, IEEE TKDE, and the Journal of Operations Management. The second added Nature Communications, PLOS ONE, Physical Review Letters, ACS Catalysis, and The BMJ. The third added eLife, NEJM, The Journal of Finance, Academy of Management Journal, and PNAS. The fourth added Nature, JAMA, Nucleic Acids Research, American Economic Review, and Management Science after each passed the distinct-source evidence gate. Journals were selected because contemporaneous guide work exposed cross-surface dependencies, not because they represent all journals.

Research questionCan an author resolve fit, article type, review model, package requirements, and submission route from one official surface?
02

What counts as a separate source

A source is a distinct official URL published by the journal, society, publisher, or its author center. Navigation wrappers and duplicate mirrors do not create another source. A page counts only when it resolves a material author decision that another mapped page does not settle on its own.

Journal overview

The journal-level page that establishes subject scope, audience, department, or content-type boundaries.

Author workflow

The page that controls files, formatting, declarations, submission mechanics, or author-facing requirements.

Policy or editorial

A society, publisher, or journal surface that resolves review policy, disclosure, genre, or contribution framing.

03

Counting required and supporting surfaces

A surface is marked required when removing it leaves at least one core launch decision unresolved. A surface is supporting context when it sharpens contribution or editorial fit without controlling the minimum administrative submission job. That distinction is why the Journal of Operations Management maps three useful pages but counts two as required for the core job.

  • All 30 sampled journals needed at least two required official surfaces.
  • 27 of 30 needed three required surfaces.
  • The result describes this sample only; it is not a publisher-wide rate.
04

Evidence, classification, and access

Official URLs and their visible instructions are sourced evidence. Source roles, decision-area labels, required-surface judgments, and the cross-journal interpretation are Manusights classifications. They are displayed separately so another researcher can inspect the evidence and disagree with the classification.

Publicly retrievableThe official page returned content during the 26 August URL recheck.
Official URL; automated access limitedThe publisher returned an access-control response. The URL remains an official source, but the live page should be opened manually before acting.

A blocked automated request is not treated as a broken page, a changed rule, or missing evidence. A verified change requires a second manual source review with preserved before/after evidence.

05

Maintenance and correction policy

The typed dataset, public CSV, canonical guide owners, source URLs, and aggregate study claims are checked together by the guarded SEO preflight. It fails closed if those representations diverge. Source access limitations trigger review rather than silent removal.

  • Recheck sources at least every 120 days or sooner when a guide is materially revised.
  • Run daily conditional source checks using validators such as ETag and Last-Modified when publishers expose them.
  • Preserve the prior observation before recording a verified rule change.
  • Do not infer changes from redirects, temporary blocks, or missing markup alone.
  • Publish corrections with the affected journal, source, date, and corrected classification.

Verified releases and their immutable data files remain available in the public version history. Automated content fingerprints are review signals only; they are not published as factual revisions.

To report a correction, use the Manusights contact page and include the journal, official source, and the specific field that needs review.

Limitations

  • The sample remains small and purposive despite broader coverage of science, medicine, molecular biology, physics, chemistry, computing, economics, management, and finance.
  • Source fragmentation can change when publishers redesign or consolidate their author guidance.
  • Original URLs were rechecked on 26 August 2026 and expansion waves were reviewed on 27 August 2026; content was not reclassified without a full manual evidence review.
  • The map does not reproduce full author instructions, predict editorial decisions, or replace the live official pages.
  • No backlink, citation, ranking, or traffic outcome is implied by publishing the study.

Open study file

Inspect the source paths directly

Use the CSV for analysis or the versioned JSON baseline for programmatic reuse and future comparisons.

Download CSVOpen JSONVersion history