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 article’s lead 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 four).

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 using language that is clear and accessible to 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? 

Evidence [1,000 words]

This section corresponds to the “Findings” or “Results” section of a traditional academic publication. Please ensure that you present the evidence using clear, accessible language that avoids academic jargon. 

To complete this section:

• List and describe the evidence (historical events, interview transcripts, observational notes, etc.) that you are bringing in support of your thesis.
• Add as many paragraphs and data as needed, within the word limit.
• Add visuals (e.g., images, data, tables) immediately after the paragraph presenting the corresponding evidence.

Methods [500 to 1000 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 your methods appropriate to answer your research questions? (mandatory)

Note: If you need more space to describe your methodology, please submit a separate methodology appendix. Supplemental appendices, which have no word limit, should be included in the main manuscript file (after the Data Availability statement).

Bibliography

All citations should be listed at the end of the main text and must follow the APA 7 reference style (Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th Edition). In order to comply with the APA 7 author-date system, references must be formatted in alphabetical order. A list of examples for formatting different kinds of publications in APA 7 can be found in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, our Guidelines for References and Citations, and at the Purdue Online Writing Lab.

Acknowledgments (optional)

State any acknowledgements. 

Authorship (optional)

State equal author contributions. 

Funding

State all sources of funding for your research. 

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 the 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 is published in their article.

Ethics

Where applicable, studies must have been approved by an appropriate ethics committee and the author(s) should include a statement within the article text detailing this approval, including the name of the ethics committee and the 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 guardians) 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 Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). 

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.