Taylor & Francis

Prepare your manuscript for European Journal of Developmental Psychology.

Review the checklist, choose your article type, and turn your draft into a cleaner submission package.

Checked 2026-08-01

Article types

Review
Clinical Trial
Original Article
Commentary
Registered Report
Editorial
Protocol
Systematic Review
Letter
Lectio

Readiness requirements

Review the key details below, or download the complete checklist with every stored source-backed requirement.

Abstract length

  • Provide an author-written abstract of no more than 250 words.
  • Use a unstructured abstract.
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  • Should be no more than 5000 words, inclusive of the abstract, tables, references, figure captions, footnotes, endnotes.
  • Should contain an unstructured abstract of 250 words.
  • Should contain an unstructured abstract of 150 words.
  • Trial registration numbers should be included in the abstract, with full details in the methods section.

Keywords

  • Provide up to 5 keywords chosen by the author.
  • Should contain no more than 5 keywords.

Reference style

  • Articlo formats your supplied references to the journal's stored style and checks that citations match the reference list; source validity is not verified.
  • Should be no more than 2500 words, inclusive of references.
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  • This should include the hyperlink, DOI or other persistent identifier associated with the data set(s).
  • Readers should be able to interpret the table without reference to the text.
  • If you reply yes, you will be required to provide the DOI, pre-registered DOI, hyperlink, or other persistent identifier associated with the data set(s).
  • A declaration must be included within the submission stating: Confirmation the authors take full responsibility for the integrity of the whole content, including accuracy of references.

Figure and table rules

  • Keep every figure and table numbered, captioned, and cited in the manuscript.
  • Figures should be high quality (1200 dpi for line art, 600 dpi for grayscale and 300 dpi for colour, at the correct size).
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  • Tables should present new information rather than duplicating what is in the text.
  • Figures should be supplied in one of our preferred file formats: PS, JPEG, TIFF, or Microsoft Word (DOC or DOCX) files are acceptable for figures that have been drawn in Word.

Funding statement

  • You should declare only the acquired funds and grants that are directly relevant to the work reported in your article; for example, This work was supported by the [Funding Agency #1] under Grant [number xxxx]; [Funding Agency #2] under Grant [number xxxx]; and [Funding Agency #3] under Grant [number xxxx].

Competing interests

  • Include or confirm the competing interests required by the journal. Articlo checks this item and flags anything that still needs author input.

Data availability statement

  • Add or confirm the author-written Data availability statement; Articlo flags it if author input is still needed.
  • Authors are required to provide a data availability statement (DAS), detailing where data associated with a paper can be found and how it can be accessed.
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  • If data cannot be made open, authors should state why in the data availability statement.
  • Authors are required to cite any data sets referenced in the article and provide a Data Availability Statement.
  • Articles need to meet the Open Science Badges criteria in order to earn a badge.

Ethics statement

  • Add or confirm the author-written Ethics statement; Articlo flags it if author input is still needed.
  • Review: Authors who do not have formal ethics review committees should include a statement that their study follows the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki.
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  • Consent All authors are required to follow the ICMJE requirements on privacy and informed consent from patients and study participants.
  • Authors may use this Patient Consent Form, which should be completed, saved, and sent to the journal if requested.
  • Clinical Trial: Clinical Trials Registry In order to be published in a Taylor & Francis journal, all clinical trials must have been registered in a public repository at the beginning of the research process (prior to patient enrolment).
  • Clinical Trial: Please confirm that any patient, service user, or participant (or that person’s parent or legal guardian) in any research, experiment, or clinical trial described in your paper has given written consent to the inclusion of material pertaining to themselves, that they acknowledge that they cannot be identified via the paper; and that you have fully anonymized them.

Blinded manuscript

  • Include or confirm the blinded manuscript required by the journal. Articlo checks this item and flags anything that still needs author input.

Cover letter

  • Using Third-Party Material in your Paper You must obtain the necessary permission to reuse third-party material in your article.
  • Review: The use of short extracts of text and some other types of material is usually permitted, on a limited basis, for the purposes of criticism and review without securing formal permission.
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  • If you wish to include any material in your paper for which you do not hold copyright, and which is not covered by this informal agreement, you will need to obtain written permission from the copyright owner prior to submission.

Author contributions

  • Submitting authors should be prepared to submit CRediT roles for themselves and their co-authors (where applicable) as part of the submission process.

Title page and author information

  • All authors of a manuscript should include their full name and affiliation on the cover page of the manuscript.
  • One author will need to be identified as the corresponding author, with their email address normally displayed in the article PDF (depending on the journal) and the online article.

Article structure and word limits

  • It should be a maximum width of 525 pixels.
  • Parental consent is required for any research involving children under the age of 16; any exceptional cases where parental consent has not been obtained for children under the age of 16 must be discussed with the editors before submission.
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  • Review: These instructions will ensure we have everything required so your paper can move through peer review, production and publication smoothly.
  • Data must be deposited in a recognized data repository prior to or at the time of submission.
  • For all NIH/Wellcome-funded papers, the grant number(s) must be included in the declaration of interest statement.
  • The registry should be publicly accessible (at no charge), open to all prospective registrants, and managed by a not-for-profit organization.
  • Please include all relevant safety precautions; and cite any accepted standard or code of practice.
  • Your research funder or your institution may require you to publish your article open access.
  • Use our APC finder to view the APC for this journal.
  • Queries Should you have any queries, please visit our Author Services website or contact us here.
  • A declaration must be included within the submission stating: Originality and accuracy of content has been confirmed by the authors.
  • Authors must provide full methodological details and adhere to relevant reporting guidelines where applicable.
  • Authors must retain the original and revised versions which must be shared upon request.
  • The PLSP guidelines for authors must be followed at all times.
  • If you submit a paper to a participating journal, you will then receive an email upon submission with: Details of the badges offered by the journal.
  • If you submit a paper to a participating journal, you will then receive an email upon submission with: Links to additional information.
  • If you submit a paper to a participating journal, you will then receive an email upon submission with: An open practices disclosure form.
  • If you submit a paper to a participating journal, you will then receive an email upon submission with: The journal editor’s email address.
  • Please use SI units (non-italicized).
  • Please note that data should only be shared if it is ethically correct to do so, where this does not violate the protection of human subjects, or other valid ethical, privacy, or security concerns.
  • Such as: The standards on Data, Materials, and Analytical Code Transparency speak to the items generated over the course of the study and how you should preserve or share them.
  • Please do not embed it in the manuscript file but save it as a separate file, labelled GraphicalAbstract1.
  • If the data cannot be made open, we recommend it is still preserved in a FAIR-compliant repository with appropriate access and controls in place.
  • Image descriptions are typically used by systems such as pronouncing screen readers to make images accessible to people that cannot read or see the object due to a visual disability.
  • COS currently offers three badges in its program: The Open Materials badge is earned by making publicly available the components of the research methodology needed to reproduce the reported procedure and analysis.

Reporting guidelines

  • Include or confirm the reporting guidelines required by the journal. Articlo checks this item and flags anything that still needs author input.

Artificial intelligence disclosure

  • Add or confirm the author-written Artificial intelligence statement; Articlo flags it if author input is still needed.
  • Please include a statement disclosing whether and how generative AI has been used in the research and manuscript preparation process.
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  • Use of AI tools as part of ethical research studies is permitted.
  • A declaration must be included within the submission stating: The name and version number of the AI tool used.
  • Systematic Review: Use of AI tools as part of ethically conducted literature reviews, systematic reviews, meta-analysis and bibliometrics studies is permitted.
  • Use of AI tool assisted plain language summaries (PLS) of authors own work is permitted.
  • Please read our guidance on using AI tools in your research and manuscript preparation to understand scenarios where their use may be permissible, and the required information that must be disclosed.
  • A declaration must be included within the submission stating: Confirmation the authors have checked terms of use for the specific AI tool used, and therefore confirm suitability for publication.

Authorship and originality

  • Preparing Your Paper All authors submitting to medicine, biomedicine, health sciences, allied and public health journals should conform to the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals, prepared by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).

Article type and manuscript length

  • Should be written with the following elements in the following order: title page; abstract; keywords; main text; acknowledgements; references; appendices (as appropriate); table(s) with caption(s) (on individual pages); figure caption(s) (as a list).
  • Should be written with the following elements in the following order: title page; abstract; keywords; main text; acknowledgments; declaration of interest statement; references; appendices (as appropriate); table(s) with caption(s) (on individual pages); figures; figure captions (as a list).
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  • Should be written with the following elements in the following order: title page; abstract; keywords; main text introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion; acknowledgments; declaration of interest statement; references; appendices (as appropriate); table(s) with caption(s) (on individual pages); figures; figure captions (as a list).

Manuscript structure

  • Clinical Trial: All papers which report in vivo experiments or clinical trials on humans or animals must include a written statement in the Methods section.
  • Authors are required to make the data and materials supporting the results or analyses presented in their paper freely available.
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  • Authors must retain full records of the methods undertaken, including full descriptions and records of the prompts used, which must be shared with the journal upon request.

Study reporting guidelines

  • Authors must provide full methodological details and adhere to relevant reporting guidelines where applicable (e.g. CONSORT-AI, STARD-AI, GAMER, TRIPOD-AI, etc).
  • Clinical Trial: This should explain that all work was conducted with the formal approval of the local human subject or animal care committees (institutional and national), and that clinical trials have been registered as legislation requires.

What your package checks

Abstract: 250 words
Keywords: Up to 5 keywords
Declarations: Data availability, Ethics, Artificial intelligence

Source transparency

This preparation guide uses published journal-specific author requirements. Journal instructions can change, so authors should complete a final review before submission.

Open official guideline source