Submitting an Invited Manuscript1

The Harvard Data Science Review reviews full manuscripts by invitation only, following proposal screening. HDSR will only accept content submitted through Editorial Manager.

HDSR does not accept unsolicited submissions of full manuscripts. If authors submit full manuscripts without going through proposal review, we will return these manuscripts to their authors without review.

Full Manuscript Submissions

Article submissions must follow HDSR’s Formatting and Style Guidelines and include the following components, in this order:

1. Full title

2. Names, titles, and affiliations of all co-authors

   • Indicate corresponding author

   • List contributions of all participants utilizing the CRediT taxonomy

3. Abstract (approximately half a page, or 250 words)

4. Keywords (up to 6, capitalized only if proper nouns)

5. Media Summary (approximately one page, or 400 words; see below on requirements)

6. Full manuscript content

   • Figures, tables, photos, etc., including legends (optional)

7. Disclosure Statement

8. Acknowledgements (optional)

9. Appendices (optional)

10. Data Repository/Code (if applicable)

11. Supplementary Files (optional)

12. References

     

Abstracts

Authors may submit audio or video abstracts in addition to or in place of standard text abstracts. Authors should consult the Formatting and Style Guidelines for permissible file types.

Media Summary

The media summary is a plain-language highlight of the major contributions and their societal and scholarly impact. The purpose of Media Summary is to provide an overview of the article’s general importance for media and general readers. HDSR requires media summaries for all Cornucopia and Milestones & Millstones articles and may request them per article in other categories.

For examples of media summaries, authors are encouraged to review the following HDSR articles:

Banks, D., Albert, L., Caulkins, J., Frühwirth-Schnatter, S., Greig, F., Raftery, A., & Thomas, D. (2020). A Conversation about COVID-19 with Economists, Sociologists, Statisticians, and Operations Researchers. Harvard Data Science Review. https://doi.org/10.1162/99608f92.7fa08812

Keller, S. A., Shipp, S. S., Schroeder, A. D., & Korkmaz, G. (2020). Doing Data Science: A Framework and Case Study. Harvard Data Science Review, 2(1). https://doi.org/10.1162/99608f92.2d83f7f5

Romano, Y., Barber, R. F., Sabatti, C., & Candès, E. (2020). With Malice Toward None: Assessing Uncertainty via Equalized Coverage. Harvard Data Science Review. https://doi.org/10.1162/99608f92.03f00592

Acknowledgments (optional)

The acknowledgements include the authors’ personal thanks and comments. Acknowledgments are strongly encouraged but optional.

Disclosure Statement

The disclosure statement reports any financial support (such as funding, grants, or sponsorship) or potential conflicts of interest (such as place of employment and type of research or work conducted). This is required for all submissions. If the authors have nothing to disclose, text should read:

Author(s) has/have no financial or non-financial disclosures to share for this article.

Each author’s full name should be spelled out as it appears in the byline of the article.

Appendices and Supplementary Files

Appendices appear as a section of the text and serve as additional information or reference. Supplementary files exist separately from the main article and are generally more extensive than appendices. When published, they will be posted with their own URL and DOI.

Our digital edition allows for multimodal submission content, such as video abstracts, online appendices, and supplementary files. Authors are encouraged to consider innovative and interactive supplements to their manuscript submissions.

Policies for Manuscripts in Review

• Invited manuscripts should be submitted exclusively to HDSR.

• Manuscripts in review that do not contain mathematical symbols should be prepared in Word, in a single-column format. HDSR also has a Word doc template.

• Manuscripts in review with mathematical symbols should be prepared in LaTeX using the HDSR template available on Overleaf. Authors should also submit a PDF file together with the Overleaf project link. Please ensure that the Overleaf settings allow access to the project with the link.

• In addition to the required computer artifacts (e.g., data, code, notebook), authors may also choose to include tables, figures, or charts. For the review process, the only requirement for figures and illustrations is legibility.

• For submissions with multiple illustrations and/or media components—such as interactive data visualizations, audio, or video— a specialized editor may be involved for review. These editors’ comments and requests for revision are not necessarily limited to illustrations or the media component of the submission.

• While there is no maximum length for manuscripts, the most successful articles communicate their ideas concisely and engagingly, with selective use of tables and figures. Concise and engaging articles may also significantly reduce the review period.

• Authors must include a Point-by-Point Response to Reviewer Comments when submitting revisions.

• HDSR aims to respond to full manuscripts within 4 months of submission. Authors may inquire about the status of their proposals after this point.

• Invited revisions should be made within 6 months of the invitation. Revisions sent after 6 months may be considered as new submission, and risk a delayed process.

Policies for Accepted Manuscripts

Accepted manuscripts require production-ready files prior to publication, such as an editable file containing the full text of the manuscript (.docx, .tex) and separate image files. PDFs are not acceptable file types for text but may be included for reference for image placement or formulas.

• Accepted manuscripts should be formatted as single-column, double-spaced text for copyediting.

• If there are images or figures, authors should supply them as separate files. They must be high-resolution files.

• Authors of accepted content must include a preview image for the table of contents page and social media sharing. Ideally, this image will come directly from the article itself, or otherwise be author-created. Some authors use royalty-free image sites as well. Authors are responsible for confirming that they have permission to use their preview images.

• A full PDF file will be required for those authors who want to post their pre-copyedited final manuscripts as Just Accepted pieces.

Publication Policies

• Manuscripts are assigned to a Co-Editor and Associated Editor who oversee peer review. HDSR conducts single-blind review, so comments will be shared with the authors labeled by role, not name (i.e. “Editor Comments”/ “Reviewer 1” / “Reviewer 2”)

• The editorial board reserves the right to impose specific requirements for individual articles, including modifying titles and abstracts, before acceptance.