Scope and fit
RIMP covers research that connects music, psychological processes and bodily responses. Read the aims and scope and the assessment model first. AI review and human publication approval are different activities; neither is human peer review.
Explain how the paper fits the scope and what its design can establish. RIMP makes no acceptance or turnaround promise.
Prepare the manuscript
Use a descriptive title and an abstract that states the question, approach, main contribution or findings, and limitations. Organise the manuscript for its research type; a protocol should describe planned work without implying that results already exist.
- Completed empirical and validation studies: give the research context, methods, results, interpretation and references. Explain recruitment, eligibility, sample-size reasoning, design, procedures, measurements, processing decisions, exclusions and analysis. Distinguish planned analyses from exploratory work.
- Reviews: define the question and review type. For a systematic review, report sources and search dates, eligibility, selection and synthesis methods, findings and limitations. For another review, explain how the evidence was chosen and the limits of that approach.
- Protocols: state the rationale, planned design, measures, analysis and registration status, if any. Identify anticipated limitations and label any pilot findings as such.
- Data and software papers: explain the resource's provenance, structure or function, validation, access conditions, useful applications and limitations.
For completed studies, report relevant estimates and uncertainty, missing data and departures from the plan. Avoid treating a non-significant result as proof that no effect exists. Connect conclusions to the design and evidence, including alternative explanations and the boundary between association and causation.
Describe how music materials were selected or created and presented, with enough detail to interpret or reproduce the study, and explain sharing restrictions. Supply readable figures and tables with explanatory captions and text descriptions where needed; do not rely on colour alone.
Use an appropriate reporting guide
A reporting checklist helps readers find what a study did. It does not certify that the methods or conclusions are sound. Choose a guide suited to the design and explain items that do not apply.
The EQUATOR Network provides a searchable reporting-guideline library. Examples include CONSORT for randomised trials, STROBE for observational studies and PRISMA for systematic reviews, with extensions for particular designs. These are external resources, not evidence of RIMP endorsement or membership.
When bodily measures are used, report the recording device and settings, measure definition, timing with the music and task events, preprocessing and artifact or exclusion decisions, analysis windows, missing-data handling, and quality or reliability checks where relevant. Explain the music presentation conditions needed to interpret those measurements. The journal Psychophysiology's author guidelines point to field-specific methods guidance; use the guidance appropriate to the measures, with reasons for departures. This external example is not a RIMP endorsement or a fixed measurement requirement.
Authorship, ethics and disclosures
- Authorship: identify the contributors, their roles and the person authorised to communicate for the author group. All authors should know which version is being considered for publication. The CRediT taxonomy is a useful way to describe contributions; listing a role does not itself settle authorship.
- Ethics and consent: identify the relevant oversight body and approval, exemption or other applicable basis. Explain participant consent and any permission needed to publish identifiable material. Do not include confidential records as public supplements.
- Funding and interests: declare funding, the funder's role and financial or other relationships that could affect interpretation.
- AI use: describe relevant tools and their role in writing, analysis or materials, together with human checks. Authors remain responsible for the manuscript and its references.
Data, code and permission to publish
Describe where supporting data, code and materials can be accessed, or explain why access is restricted. An honest restriction statement is preferable to sharing information that participants did not consent to release.
Separate the article's publication permission from permission for music, recordings, scores, lyrics, images, third-party data and supplements. A paper's licence does not automatically cover every item it contains. State the permission basis for every item that may be published.
Disclose related preprints, prior publications and overlapping submissions. Previously published papers found in a literature search are background evidence; their discovery is not permission for RIMP to republish them.
Assessment and publication
The publication sequence requires completeness and rights checks, evidence-linked AI review, revision where needed, and a human's final decision on the exact version. A change to the paper must not inherit approval of a different version.
Unresolved problems and highly frustrating interactions require human escalation. The publication policies explain rights, conflicts and corrections. No response-time guarantee is offered.