Publishing a meta-analysis

With the analysis complete — effect sizes, heterogeneity, moderators, and publication bias all assessed — the last step is writing it up and choosing where to publish. That choice starts with the primary studies themselves: journals that already published several of the studies included in the review are natural candidates, since they've shown an interest in the topic — worth checking, too, whether they accept meta-analyses at all and what their length limits allow (some journals give meta-analyses significantly more room than a regular article).

In order to publish a high-quality meta-analysis it is useful to refer to meta-analysis reporting standards. In particular, various guidelines are currently available in different research fields:

MARS (Meta-Analysis Reporting Standards), the APA standards for quantitative meta-analyses, revised as part of the Journal Article Reporting Standards for quantitative research (JARS-Quant; Appelbaum et al., 2018) and described in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th ed. (2020)
PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses): a Statement, Explanation, Checklist, and Flow diagram — see PRISMA flow diagram and reporting guideline for how to read it
MOOSE (Meta-analysis Of Observational Studies in Epidemiology; Stroup et al., JAMA 2000)

Filling in the relevant checklist isn't just paperwork for the author: reviewers and editors use the same checklist to judge whether the submitted report is complete, which is exactly why following one from the start — rather than retrofitting it before submission — tends to save time.

The result of this step — and of the meta-analysis as a whole — is a published, peer-reviewed report that others can appraise, replicate, and build on.

References

Book American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). American Psychological Association.

Article Appelbaum, M., Cooper, H., Kline, R. B., Mayo-Wilson, E., Nezu, A. M., & Rao, S. M. (2018). Journal article reporting standards for quantitative research in psychology: The APA Publications and Communications Board task force report. American Psychologist, 73(1), 3–25. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000191

Article Stroup, D. F., Berlin, J. A., Morton, S. C., Olkin, I., Williamson, G. D., Rennie, D., Moher, D., Becker, B. J., Sipe, T. A., & Thacker, S. B. (2000). Meta-analysis of observational studies in epidemiology: A proposal for reporting. Journal of the American Medical Association, 283(15), 2008–2012. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.283.15.2008