Submission guidelines

The standard we work to

Every article we publish is a permanent claim on the record. That places obligations on us as much as on the people who write for us. We commit to a review process that is competent and timely, decisions that are explained, and a route for anyone to challenge what we have published.

• Independence. Editorial decisions rest with the editor handling the paper. Commercial interest, advertising, sponsorship or an author's institution never influences acceptance.
• Merit alone. Manuscripts are judged on originality, method, evidence and relevance to the journal's readership — not on the nationality, gender, seniority or affiliation of the authors.
• Confidentiality. A submitted manuscript is a private document. It is shared only with people involved in evaluating it, and it is never used for anyone's own advantage before publication.
• Traceability. Correspondence, review reports and decisions are archived so that any question raised later can be answered from the record.

Authorship and contribution

Authorship credits intellectual contribution and accepts accountability. Everyone listed must have taken part in designing, carrying out, analysing or writing up the work, must have approved the final version, and must be willing to answer for it.

• People who helped but do not meet the criteria — statisticians, medical writers, technicians, funders' staff — belong in the acknowledgements, with their permission.
• Ghost authorship and gift or honorary authorship are treated as misconduct.
• Changes to the author list after submission need written agreement from every author, including anyone being added or removed, with the reason stated.
• For original research we may ask one author to act as guarantor: the person who had access to all the data and vouches for its integrity and for the accuracy of the analysis.

Originality, plagiarism and duplicate submission

Work you send us must be yours and must not be under consideration anywhere else. Every submission is screened with similarity-detection software before it reaches an editor.

• Reusing your own earlier text without citing it is still duplication and is handled as such.
• A conference abstract or a preprint on a recognised server does not count as prior publication, but you must tell us about it at submission and give the link.
• Where a similarity report raises a concern, we put it to the corresponding author and ask for an explanation before taking any decision.
• Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal at a time will end our consideration of it and we will inform the other journal.

Data, images and reproducibility

• Keep your raw data. Editors may ask to see it during review, and we expect it to be produced within a reasonable period.
• Figures may be adjusted for brightness, contrast or colour balance only when the change applies to the whole image and does not hide, invent or emphasise any feature.
• Gels and blots should be shown uncropped in the supplementary file where the journal asks for it.
• Where a repository exists for your field, deposit the dataset and quote the accession number in the article.
• Describe methods in enough detail that a competent reader in the field could repeat the work.

Research involving people and animals

• Studies on human participants, human tissue or human cells need approval from the appropriate review board or ethics committee, named in the manuscript along with the protocol number.
• Informed consent must have been obtained, and the manuscript must say so.
• Anyone identifiable in a photograph, video or case description must have given written permission for publication.
• Animal work must comply with the regulations governing the use of animals in research, teaching and testing that apply where the work was done, and the manuscript must confirm this.
• Where race or ethnicity is reported, say who assigned the categories, whether the investigators defined them, what they were, and why the variable matters to the study.
• Cultured cell lines should be authenticated, with the method described in the methods section.

Conflicts of interest

A conflict of interest is not misconduct — failing to declare one is. Authors, editors and reviewers all disclose anything a reasonable reader might think could have shaped the work or the judgement of it: employment, consultancy, funding, patents, shareholdings, board positions, or close personal and professional relationships.

• Authors declare in the cover letter and in the manuscript's disclosure statement.
• Editors step aside from any paper they cannot handle impartially and hand it to a colleague.
• Reviewers decline the invitation rather than review with a conflict in place.
• Where no interests exist, the article carries an explicit statement to that effect.

Use of generative AI

AI tools cannot be listed as an author, because they cannot take responsibility for the work. If you used such a tool for anything beyond routine language polishing — generating text, analysing data, producing images — say which tool, which version and for what, in the methods or acknowledgements. Reviewers must not upload a manuscript under review into a public AI service; doing so breaks confidentiality.

Corrections, concerns and retractions

Published articles are permanent. When something is wrong with one, we correct the record in public rather than quietly amending the file.

Complaints, appeals and allegations

Write to the editorial desk with the article details and what you believe is wrong. We acknowledge within five working days and aim to close a case within sixty. Appeals against rejection should set out a point-by-point response to the reviewers; the handling editor decides whether to seek a further review or let the original decision stand. Where an allegation concerns an author's institution we may need to refer the matter to it, and we will say so before doing it.

What to declare when you submit

Ethics and consent

• State that the research protocol was cleared by the relevant institutional review board or ethics committee, where the work involved human participants, human cells or human tissue.
• Confirm that every participant gave appropriate informed consent.
• Confirm that the rules governing the use of animals in research, teaching and testing were followed, where animal work was involved.
• Explain in the methods how any cultured cell lines were authenticated.
• Supply written permission from anyone who could be identified from a photograph or description in the manuscript.
• Where race or ethnicity is reported, state who determined it, whether the categories were set by the investigators, what those categories were, and why the variable is relevant.

Credit and accountability

• List as authors only those who meet the journal's authorship criteria, and record everyone else — statistical support, writing assistance — in the acknowledgements, with their agreement.
• Provide a contribution statement where the journal asks for one, and nominate a guarantor for original research: the author who had full access to the data and takes responsibility for its integrity and for the accuracy of the analysis.
• Disclose any potential conflict of interest for each author, in the cover letter, the manuscript or the disclosure form, as the journal's policy requires.
• Name every source of funding in the acknowledgements.
• Return the signed copyright transfer or licence agreement.

Sources, permissions and related work

• Obtain written permission from anyone cited as a source of personal communication or unpublished data.
• Get clearance from the copyright holder for any figure, table or extract reproduced from elsewhere.
• Cite the earlier published work the submission builds on.
• Describe any closely related work of your own that is in progress, and attach copies.
• Attach copies of cited manuscripts that are submitted or in press.
• Be ready to send the editor the data behind the summaries in the manuscript, or to say where it can be found.
• Share the data or materials another researcher would need in order to repeat the experiment.

What you are agreeing to

• The manuscript has not been published before and contains no plagiarised material.
• You will not attempt to influence the editor or the reviewers over whether the paper is accepted.
• You will answer reviewer and editor comments with evidence, and within the time given.
• You will settle the publication charge once the article has appeared online.
• You will respond substantively to readers who question the published work.

Your rights as an author

Towards authors

• Publish clear instructions for preparing and submitting a manuscript, and keep them current.
• State plainly what the journal counts as authorship.
• Deal with every author fairly, courteously, objectively and openly.
• Set and publish conflict-of-interest rules covering everyone in the publication chain — editors, editorial and sales staff, authors and reviewers.
• Keep each author's work confidential.
• Run a peer review system that is both rigorous and quick.
• Decide at reasonable speed, and put the decision in terms the author can act on.
• Watch for manuscripts being held up by editors or referees for reasons that do not bear scrutiny.
• Maintain a procedure by which an editorial decision can be reconsidered.
• Write down, apply and periodically revisit the policies for handling ethical questions and allegations of misconduct — by authors or by anyone else in the review process.
• Tell authors of commissioned work whether it will be assessed by the journal's normal procedure, and if not, describe the process that will be used.
• Work with the publisher so that accepted manuscripts appear without avoidable delay.
• Communicate all other editorial policies and standards clearly.

Towards reviewers

• Match each manuscript to reviewers whose interests and expertise actually fit it.
• Operate a process that holds reviewers to confidentiality and to returning the review on time.
• Make clear that reviewers may not use the work described, or anything they learned from reading it, before the article is published.
• Give reviewers written instructions covering the scope, content, depth and timing expected, so that the critique is thoughtful, fair and useful.
• Ask reviewers to declare conflicts and to stand down where they cannot be impartial.
• Allow enough time for a proper review.
• Spread invitations so that no reviewer is asked too often.
• Recognise the work reviewers do — by thanking them in the journal, by providing letters for promotion applications, through professional education credit, or by inviting them onto the editorial board.

Towards readers

• Check that each manuscript gives readers the evidence they need to test the authors' conclusions, and that those conclusions follow from the evidence presented.
• Carry references and author contact details so readers can take the discussion further.
• Identify individual and group authorship clearly, and put processes in place to satisfy the authorship criteria as far as the editor can establish them.
• Require all authors to review and accept responsibility for the final draft, or for the parts they contributed — through signatures from every author, or from the corresponding author on behalf of all, or through a named guarantor for the work as a whole.
• Protect the journal's internal integrity: correct errors; label and separate the different kinds of content — original research, editorials and letters, corrections, retractions, supplementary data, advertising and promotional material; and reference published material properly.
• Make sure nobody in the publication chain thinks citation can be manipulated, for instance by pressing authors to cite the journal.
• Disclose authorship, journal ownership and funding.
• Find out whether the journal is giving readers what they need, through reader surveys or equivalent.
• Disclose the relevant potential conflicts of everyone involved in considering a manuscript, or state that there are none.
• Provide somewhere for the scientific merits of a paper to be debated after publication — letters to the editor, invited commentary, article blogs or other public discussion.
• State the journal's positions on ethics, embargo, submission and publication fees, and whether content is open or restricted to subscribers.
• Work with the publisher to attract the manuscripts and research that readers most want.
• Resist any pressure from a publisher to run a review or article in order to lift reprint sales; the duty here is to readers and to the field.

Towards the publisher

• Ensure submitted manuscripts go through peer review.
• Follow the owner organisation's guidelines and procedures, including anything set out in the contract with it.
• Recommend better ways to evaluate and disseminate scientific material.
• Observe the owner's and publisher's financial policies for the journal, so far as they do not intrude on editorial independence.
• Keep to the agreed mission, publishing practice and schedule.

Towards the editor

• Remember what the editor is relying on you for: subject knowledge, sound judgement, and an honest account of where the work and the manuscript are strong and where they are weak.
• Say at the start of your report if you were asked to look at only certain parts or aspects of the paper, and name them.
• Be specific in criticism. A general claim such as "this has been done before" needs a reference behind it — both to help the editor decide and in fairness to the authors.
• Confidential comments to the editor are not a place for disparagement or unfounded accusation made in the knowledge that the authors will never see them.

Towards the manuscript

• Decline if you cannot give a fair and unbiased assessment.
• Read everything — the manuscript, the reviewer instructions, required ethics and policy statements, supplementary data files and the journal's own guidance. Go back to the journal if anything is unclear, or if something you need to complete the review is missing.
• Do not involve anyone else, including junior researchers you are mentoring, without asking the journal first. If someone did help, name them with the returned review so they are on the record and get the credit.
• Base the review on the merits of the work. Personal, financial and other competing considerations, and intellectual bias, must not move it in either direction.
• Be objective and constructive, and give feedback the authors can use to make the paper better.
• Avoid derogatory personal remarks and unfounded accusations.
• Distinguish the additional experiments that are essential to support the claims being made from those that would merely strengthen or extend the work.
• Keep the manuscript and the review confidential, during the process and afterwards.

Towards the authors

• It is their paper. If it is fundamentally sound and clear, do not rewrite it into your own preferred style — though suggestions that genuinely improve clarity matter.
• Be alert to language: many authors are writing in a language that is not their first, and feedback on this should be phrased with respect.
• Do not write the report in a way that implies someone else carried out the review.
• Do not write it in a way that reflects badly or unfairly on another person.
• Do not make unfair or unjustified remarks about a competitor's work mentioned in the manuscript.
• Keep the recommendations you send the editor consistent with the report the authors will see — and put most of the substance in the report for the authors.

Towards the journal and publisher

• Reply within a reasonable time, particularly when you cannot take the review on, and never delay deliberately.
• Say if you lack the subject expertise, or can assess only part of the manuscript, setting out clearly which parts you can judge.
• Accept only if you are reasonably confident of returning the review inside the agreed time, and tell the journal promptly if you need an extension.
• Declare competing interests of any kind — personal, financial, intellectual, professional, political or religious — and ask the journal if you are unsure whether something counts.
• Follow the journal's rules on what constitutes a conflict. Where there is no guidance, tell us if you work at the same institution as an author (or are joining it, or applying for a post there); if you have been a mentor, mentee, close collaborator or joint grant holder within roughly the last three years; or if you are personally close to any of the authors.
• Suggest alternative reviewers on suitability alone — not out of personal consideration, and not with the intention of steering the paper to a particular outcome.
• Do not accept a review simply to read the manuscript with no intention of reporting on it.
• Decline if you were involved in any part of the work described or in reporting it.
• Tell the journal as soon as you realise you cannot assess every aspect of the paper — waiting until the review is due only delays the authors.
• Keep all manuscript and review details confidential.
• Do not contact the authors directly without the journal's permission.
• Respond promptly if the journal comes back to you about your review, and supply what is asked for.

General text settings

• Set the whole manuscript in Times New Roman, 10 pt, justified — headings and the title are the exceptions and are specified below.
• Strip out double spaces.
• Sentences belong to their own paragraph; do not let one run loose between paragraphs.
• Do not indent or space in at the start of a paragraph.
• Never begin a sentence with a numeral.
• Close every paragraph with a full stop.
• Do not open a sentence with a parenthesis.
• Leave no space in front of any punctuation mark.
• Set et al. in roman, not italic, when it stands in for the remaining authors.
• Write dates as date, month, year.
• Country acronyms take no full stops: UK, USA, not U.K. or U.S.A.
• Capitalise only the first letter of a disease name; the rest stays lower case.
• i.e., and e.g., are both acceptable in place of "that is" and "for example".
• In quoted text, punctuation sits inside the quotation marks — except the colon and the semicolon.

Dashes and hyphens

Scientific names, genes and drugs

• Use binomial nomenclature only, set in italics, with the genus capitalised.
• Put the scientific name in parentheses after the common name: the house sparrow (Passer domesticus) is in decline across Europe.
• Write the name out in full at first use. When several species of one genus are listed, or the same species recurs, abbreviate the genus afterwards to an initial and a full stop — Canis lupus, C. aureus, C. simensis.
• A few names may be abbreviated from the outset, such as E. coli and T. rex.
• Where the species is unknown or need not be given, use sp. for one and spp. for several — Canis sp., Canis spp. These abbreviations stay in roman.
• Gene names are italicised; the protein name is not.
• Generic drug names are lower case; registered names take an initial capital.
• Chemical names take no space before or after a hyphen.

Element-by-element specification

Headings from the third level down run inline with the paragraph that follows, separated by a colon.

Title

• Between one and twelve words.
• No full stop at the end.
• Avoid "I" and "we" — editorials, letters to the editor, commentary and opinion pieces excepted.
• Conjunctions and prepositions stay lower case.
• Italicise in vitro, in vivo, ex vivo and the like, and any scientific name.

Authors and affiliations

Author names

• Initials follow the last name; separate authors with commas.
• No full stop at the end of the list.
• Where there is more than one affiliation, mark each name with a superscript number. A single shared affiliation needs no numbering.
• Mark the corresponding author with an asterisk after the affiliation number — no comma before the asterisk.
• There is no cap on the number of authors; inclusion is a matter of contribution.

Affiliations

• Give name, department, institution, city and country. Do not include designations such as "Assistant Professor".
• City name is followed by the PIN or ZIP code; include street or avenue number where it applies.
• The country comes last, and there is no full stop at the end.

Corresponding author

• The heading is bold, opens with an asterisk and closes with a colon.
• Name, affiliation and address are separated by commas; telephone, fax and email by semicolons.
• Contact details are set out as Tel: +0000000, Fax: 0000000, Email: name@domain.org.
• No full stop at the end.

Abstract, keywords and abbreviations

Abstract

• 250–300 words covering the background, the method and the outcome.
• One paragraph. Structured abstracts are not accepted unless a particular journal asks for one.
• No formulae, acronyms, references or citations.
• A graphical abstract may be placed inside the abstract box where one is needed.

Keywords

• Five or six, separated by semicolons.
• Capitalise the first letter of the first word only; no full stop at the end.
• Use the expanded form in sentence case rather than an acronym — unless the term is so long that only the acronym will fit.

Abbreviations and acronyms

• Separate with semicolons; no full stop at the end. This section is optional if the text contains none.
• Give the acronym in parentheses at first appearance in the text; the acronym alone will do thereafter.
• If a sentence or paragraph opens with an abbreviation, make sure the meaning still carries.
• General phrases, experimental procedures, disease names, treatments and receptor names take lower case rather than title case in the body text.
• Companies, universities, organisations and associations are capitalised, as are procedures or diseases named after a person.

Body text

Order the article as follows, using the heading levels set out in the specification table above.

• Introduction
• Materials and methods
• Results
• Conclusion
• Acknowledgement
• Appendix
• References

Five to six main headings under materials and methods is a comfortable maximum; one or two is enough for research elaborations. Draft the conclusion as a single paragraph. Appendices are optional and hold mathematical proofs, word lists, the questionnaire used, a detailed description of apparatus and similar material — label them A, B, C where there is more than one.

Acknowledgement

• Credit research contributions from people who are not authors, by name only — no titles, honorifics, positions or awards.
• Do not acknowledge non-scientific contributors.
• Set out the findings in logical order, without bias or interpretation.

Funding statement

Optional, but where funding exists give the source, its address and the grant number.

In-text citations

• Every reference in the list must be cited in the text, and every citation must appear in the list. The two counts have to match, and nothing uncited may be added.
• Cite in square brackets.
• Separate multiple references with a comma and no space.
• Give a range with an en dash and no spaces — [2–11].
• Within one bracket, order the citations as they appear in the reference list.
• No sentence or paragraph may open with a bare reference number; name the author.

Figures and tables

• Legends: sentence case, Times New Roman 8 pt, justified; the heading is bold and the legend closes with a full stop.
• Cite every figure and table in the body text in chronological order, in title case.
• Sub-figures and sub-tables need not follow order themselves, but their citations do — Figure 1a, Table 3b.
• Two items cited together read "Figure 1 and 2", "Table 1 and 2", "Figure 1 and Table 1". More than two read "Figure 1–4", "Table 1–7".
• Any abbreviation used in a legend must also appear in the abbreviations section.
• Footnotes to figures and tables do not end with a full stop, and take no space after a representative character — letters, numbers, asterisks — which should be superscript.
• Table content is centred, with words and phrases kept intact and properly aligned. No cell may be left empty.
• Supply figures as JPG or PNG at publication quality. Figures include graphs, diagrams, photographs, drawings, schematics and maps.

References

• English only, with titles in sentence case and only scientific names italicised.
• Use superscripts and subscripts where they belong — 2^nd, 5^th, CH₃COOH, H₂SO₄.
• Give each reference complete and unsplit, with no duplicates in the list.
• Quality counts for more than quantity.
• Include an ISBN, SICI, DOI, PMID or ISSN wherever one is available.

Formats

Journal article

Author Names (Year) Article title. Journal Name Volume: Pages.

Book

Author Names (Year) Book title. Publisher.

Book chapter

Author Names (Year) Book title. Chapter title, pp: Pages.

Conference proceedings

Author Names (Year) Topic of the presentation. Conference Title, Place and Country.

Thesis or dissertation

Author Names (Year) Title of the research or project. Institution Name.

Newspaper article

Author Names (Year) Subject title. Newspaper Name, Accessed on: 00 July 0000.

Web page

Site or Publisher (Year) Title of the page, [URL]. Accessed on: 00 July 0000.

Units and measurements

Follow SI throughout, and take particular care with multiplied and divided units.

• Write decimals with a leading zero — 0.25, not .25 — and never use a comma for a decimal point.
• 25 cm × 48 cm is right; 25 × 48 cm is not.
• 1 MHz to 10 MHz, or (1 to 10) MHz — not 1 MHz-10 MHz or 1 to 10 MHz.
• 20 °C to 30 °C, or (20 to 30) °C — not 20 °C-30 °C or 20 to 30 °C.
• 123 g ± 2 g, or (123 ± 2) g — not 123 ± 2 g.
• 70 % ± 5 %, or (70 ± 5) % — not 70 ± 5 %.
• A space before °C and % is optional, but be consistent across the manuscript.
• Do not mix unit symbols with unit names, and do not apply mathematical operations to unit names.
• Put a single space or a thin space (2009, Alt+X) before a unit symbol that follows a numeral, and a thin space either side of a mathematical symbol.
• Equations and formulae should be supplied in MathType for the final PDF; inline and simple equations may be given as text.

The NIST units checklist at physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/checklist.html covers the edge cases.

Quick format checklist

The short version, for a manuscript you are formatting against the clock.

Charges by journal

What the charge covers

• Editorial handling and peer review management
• Copyediting and language correction
• Professional typesetting and proofing
• A registered DOI for the article
• XML production and metadata distribution
• Permanent hosting and archiving
• Open access under a Creative Commons licence
• Indexing submissions on your behalf
• Unlimited colour figures, online
• A citable, shareable PDF of record

When and how you pay

Withdrawal and refunds

• Withdrawing before peer review begins is free.
• Withdrawing after review has started, but before acceptance, attracts a handling fee that covers the reviewers' and editors' time. The amount is quoted before you confirm.
• Once an article is published online it cannot be withdrawn; corrections and retractions are handled under the publishing ethics policy instead.
• Where an article is retracted for reasons attributable to InkTide, the charge is refunded in full.