anuscripts submitted for publication consideration in JM are judged on the basis of their potential contribution to the advancement of the science and/or practice of marketing. For a manuscript to be published in JM, it must meet three minimum criteria:

1. It must make a contribution to knowledge in marketing. It must provide new insights, new ideas, and/or new empirical results.

2. It must be based on sound evidence, whether literature review, theory, or empirical research. It is expected that articles submitted for publication consideration to JM will be more theory based, more literature based, and/or more rigorously empirical relative to those articles in journals whose primary target audience is practicing managers.

3. It must be of value to marketing educators and/or practitioners. That is, the information must be considered new, insightful, and important by the marketing educators and/or marketing practitioners who comprise the readership of JM.

I. READABILITY

JM publishes a diverse set of papers within the domain of marketing, and its readers have varied backgrounds. Hence, the following guidelines should be followed:

1. Write in an interesting, readable manner with varied sentence structure. Whenever possible, authors should use active voice, as the passive voice is wordier and often clumsy. For a single author, passive voice is acceptable except for article setup. (For single authors, the royal "we" is not acceptable.) If an author prefers passive voice, then the article setup should be in active voice only, for example, "In the next section, we compare two theoretically based message design strategies."

2. Keep sentences short so the reader does not get lost before the end of a sentence. Avoid using technical terms that few readers are likely to understand. If you use these terms, include definitions. Remember: The journal is designed to be read, not deciphered.

3. To improve the readability of the manuscript, descriptions of technical procedures, mathematical proofs, or development that is not critical to the exposition of the main part of the text may be placed in a technical appendix.

II. REVIEW PROCEDURE

The procedures guiding the selection of articles for publication in JM require that no manuscript be accepted until after it has been reviewed by the editor and at least two members of the editorial review board. Formal written comments from members of the editorial review board are provided in support of editorial decisions. The editor may also ask for written comments from additional ad hoc reviewers. The decision of the editor to publish the manuscript is influenced considerably by the judgments of these advisors, who are experts in their respective fields. We promise anonymity to both reviewers and authors. The author's name and credentials are removed prior to forwarding a manuscript to reviewers to maximize objectivity and ensure that a manuscript is judged solely on the basis of it content and contribution to the field. If reviewers have previously read a manuscript and recognize its authorship, they are asked to notify the editor. At the time of publication, reviewers have the option of revealing their identities.

Members of the JM Editorial Review Board are appointed by the editor for maximum three-year terms. They may be reappointed, or may be replaced for cause by the editor at any time. All reviews will use a double-blind review process. The editor has the final authority for the acceptance or rejection of any article. No formal articles by the editor may be submitted or accepted for publication in JM during the editor's term of office.

III. ACCEPTANCE CRITERIA

Beyond selecting an interesting and important problem, authors of all manuscripts are expected to follow the rules for scholarly work, namely:

1. Conceptual Work. Theoretical, perspective or conceptual articles that introduce new concepts, explanations and viewpoints of marketing problems are welcome. Use references to previous work when developing your model or theory. Do not assume other work on the subject does not exist, giving yourself credit for all the ideas in your manuscript. Distinguish your work from other work on the subject, and highlight how you extend such work to make a contribution to marketing science and practice.

2. Empirical Work. Give as much information as possible about the research procedures, including measures or scales, sample stimuli, instructions to respondents or observers, and so forth. Describe the characteristics of the sample and how well it represents the population being studied. Do not ignore non-respondents who might have different characteristics than the respondents. Use appropriate statistical procedures. Address the reliability and validity of any empirical findings.

3. Limitations. Be sure to describe any limitations of your work. Be objective.

4. Accuracy. All technical and quantitative features should be double-checked for precision, including those in tables, figures, equations and captions.