Reporting Empirical Research on Adolescence: Reflections on the Appeal of Coherence, Purpose and Responsibility

The study of adolescence has come of age. Many successful journals now provide researchers with a wide variety of reasonable options for contributing to our understanding of adolescents and their place in society. This article explores these options and offers suggestions to prospective authors, especially those who expect to publish in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence (JYA). This article briefly overviews the scope and audiences of the field's leading journals to emphasize the need to select appropriate publishing outlets. The discussion demonstrates how that selection helps determine the eventual success of submitted manuscripts and influences manuscript effectiveness. The analysis then suggests ways to avoid common errors and to write effective, publishable manuscripts that have a sense of purpose and coherence. The article ends by emphasizing the need to write responsibly, in a way that tempers scientific endeavors with a sense of responsibility to adolescents, their lived environments, broader society and the study of adolescence.