Maximum length: 3,000 words.

Descriptive title

The title should include a core finding or argument of the article.

Article’s lead [50 to 100 words]

The “lead” of an article attracts the curiosity of the readers. It presents one or two highlights from the article. For example, the lead could focus on one of the most important findings or implications discussed in the paper. This is NOT an abstract and it should NOT provide a comprehensive overview of the paper.

Research questions

Summarize your research questions in bullet points (no more than 4).

Essay summary [200 words]     

• Summarize the research methods you used in one or two sentences (surveys, experiments, interviews, observations, document analysis, etc.).
• Summarize the most important findings of this study in one or two sentences each.
• Summarize the real-world implications of this study in one or two sentences each.

Implications [1,000 words]

First, briefly present the key argument(s) that you are deriving from your findings in formatting and language that are easily understandable for a non-specialist audience with a professional interest in misinformation (e.g., journalists, educators, policymakers, politicians).

Second, discuss the significance and implications of your argument and findings. What recommendations can you provide, and to whom, based on your argument and findings? For example, can your argument and findings inform the design of novel policies, infrastructural interventions, or educational programs? 

Remember: Use clear, accessible language that avoids academic jargon.

Findings [1,000 words]

This section corresponds to the “findings or results” section of a traditional academic publication. However, you must present your findings in formatting and language that are easily understandable for a non-specialist audience with a professional interest in misinformation.

To complete this section:

• List and describe the key findings or major points, from the more generalizable to the more specific;
• Each finding should be separately described in one or two paragraphs; 
• Start each paragraph with a topic sentence, then describe the finding(s) with a few sentences;
• Add as many paragraphs and findings as needed, within the word limit;
• Add images, data, tables, videos, and audio files “inline” immediately after the paragraph presenting the corresponding finding or set of findings (for non-embeddable interactive files, mark where in the text they should appear and send a link to the file itself separately).

Example:

Finding 1: … (state your most important finding/point in one sentence)

CONTENT (describe this finding in a few sentences)

CORRESPONDING VISUAL (add if necessary)

Finding 2: … (state your next most important finding/point in one sentence)

CONTENT (describe this finding in a few sentences)

CORRESPONDING VISUAL (add if necessary)

Methods [500 to 1,000 words]

This section corresponds to the “research design and methods” sections of a traditional academic publication.

Please answer the following questions (when appropriate):

• What are your research questions? (mandatory)
• What hypotheses did you investigate or test? (if appropriate)
• What methods for data collection and analysis did you use? (mandatory)
• How did you select your population sample? (if appropriate)
• How and why are these methods appropriate to answer your research questions? (mandatory)

NOTE: If you need more space to describe your methodology, submit a separate methodology appendix. The appendix has no word limit. Supplemental appendices should be included in the text of the submission (after the Data Availability statement) AND submitted as separate files. Please use our template for appendices when submitting.

Bibliography

All citations must be listed at the end of the text file, in alphabetical order of authors’ surnames. Citations should be submitted in APA 7 format (Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th Edition).

Acknowledgements [optional]

Any acknowledgements must be headed and in a separate paragraph, placed after the main text but before the bibliography.

Funding

Should the research have received a funding grant, then the grant provider and grant number should be detailed. If no funding was received, please state: “No financial support was received for this study.”

Competing interests

Authors are required to declare any competing interests that may be perceived as contributing to potential bias. Examples include funding for a research program or employment by, consulting for, or stocks/shares in an organization that could be financially affected by the publication of a paper, as well as patents or patent applications whose value may be affected by the publication of the paper. Authors are required to provide a statement listing any competing interests, which will be published in their article. If there are no competing interests to declare, then please state: “The authors declare no competing interests.”

Ethics

Where applicable, studies must have been approved by an appropriate ethics committee, and the authors should include a statement within the article text detailing this approval, including the name of the ethics committee and reference number of the approval. The identity of the research subject(s) should be anonymized whenever possible. For research involving human subjects, informed consent to participate in the study must be obtained from participants (or their legal guardian) and added to this statement. If a study involving human subjects/tissue/data was exempt from requiring ethical approval, a confirmation statement from the relevant body should be included within the submission.

When ethnicity/gender are reported, define who determined ethnicity/gender categories, whether the options were defined by the investigator and, if so, what they were and why ethnicity/gender are considered important in the study.

Copyright

Copyright and publishing rights remain with the author/s of the article/s. All articles published in the journal can be reused under the following CC license: CC BY-SA Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Data availability

The HKS Misinformation Review requires, as a condition for publication, that all data necessary to replicate published results should be archived in the Harvard Dataverse repository, within IRB restrictions.

Please consult our data sharing policy before submission.