We ask you to provide editable source files for your submission (including figures, tables, and text graphics). Some guidelines:
Save files in an editable format, using the extension .doc/.docx for Word files and .tex for LaTeX files. A PDF is not an acceptable source file.
Lay out text in a single-column format.
Use spell-check and grammar-check functions to avoid errors.
This journal follows a double anonymized review process which means author identities are concealed from reviewers and vice versa. To facilitate the double anonymized review process, we ask that you provide your title page (including author details) and anonymized manuscript (excluding author details) separately in your submission.
The title page should include:
Article title
Author name(s)
Affiliation(s)
Acknowledgments
Declaration of Interest statement
Corresponding author address (full address is required)
Corresponding author's email address
The anonymized manuscript should contain the main body of your paper including:
References
Figures
Tables
Acknowledgments
It is important that your anonymized manuscript does not contain any identifying information such as author names or affiliations.
You are required to include the following details in the title page information:
Article title. Article titles should be concise and informative. Please avoid abbreviations and formulae, where possible, unless they are established and widely understood, e.g., DNA).
Author names. Provide the given name(s) and family name(s) of each author. The order of authors should match the order in the submission system. Carefully check that all names are accurately spelled. If needed, you can add your name between parentheses in your own script after the English transliteration.
Affiliations. Add affiliation addresses, referring to where the work was carried out, below the author names. Indicate affiliations using a lower-case superscript letter immediately after the author's name and in front of the corresponding address. Ensure that you provide the full postal address of each affiliation, including the country name and, if available, the email address of each author.
Corresponding author. Clearly indicate who will handle correspondence for your article at all stages of the refereeing and publication process and also post-publication. This responsibility includes answering any future queries about your results, data, methodology, and materials. It is important that the email address and contact details of your corresponding author are kept up to date during the submission and publication process.
Present/permanent address. If an author has moved since the work described in your article was carried out, or the author was visiting during that time, a "present address" (or "permanent address") can be indicated by a footnote to the author's name. The address where the author carried out the work must be retained as their main affiliation address. Use superscript Arabic numerals for such footnotes.
You are required to provide a concise and factual abstract. The abstract should briefly state the purpose of your research, principal results and major conclusions. Some guidelines:
Abstracts must be able to stand alone as abstracts are often presented separately from the article.
Avoid references. If any are essential to include, ensure that you cite the author(s) and year(s).
Avoid non-standard or uncommon abbreviations. If any are essential to include, ensure they are defined within your abstract at first mention.
You are required to provide 1 to 7 keywords for indexing purposes. Keywords should be written in English. Please try to avoid keywords consisting of multiple words (using "and" or "of").
We recommend that you only use abbreviations in keywords if they are firmly established in the field.
You are required to provide article highlights at submission.
Highlights are a short collection of bullet points that should capture the novel results of your research as well as any new methods used during your study. Highlights will help increase the discoverability of your article via search engines. Some guidelines:
Submit highlights as a separate editable file in the online submission system with the word "highlights" included in the file name.
Highlights should consist of 3 to 5 bullet points, each a maximum of 85 characters, including spaces.
We encourage you to view example article highlights and read about the benefits of their inclusion.
You are encouraged to provide a graphical abstract at submission.
The graphical abstract should summarize the contents of your article in a concise, pictorial form which is designed to capture the attention of a wide readership. A graphical abstract will help draw more attention to your online article and support readers in digesting your research. Some guidelines:
Submit your graphical abstract as a separate file in the online submission system.
Ensure the image is a minimum of 531 x 1328 pixels (h x w) or proportionally more and is readable at a size of 5 x 13 cm using a regular screen resolution of 96 dpi.
Our preferred file types for graphical abstracts are TIFF, EPS, PDF or MS Office files.
We encourage you to view example graphical abstracts and read about the benefits of including them.
Submit math equations as editable text, not as images.
Present simple formulae in line with normal text, where possible.
Use the solidus (/) instead of a horizontal line for small fractional terms such as X/Y.
Present variables in italics.
Denote powers of e by exp.
Display equations separately from your text, numbering them consecutively in the order they are referred to within your text.
Tables must be submitted as editable text, not as images. Some guidelines:
Place tables next to the relevant text or on a separate page(s) at the end of your article.
Cite all tables in the manuscript text.
Number tables consecutively according to their appearance in the text.
Please provide captions along with the tables.
Place any table notes below the table body.
Avoid vertical rules and shading within table cells.
We recommend that you use tables sparingly, ensuring that any data presented in tables does not duplicate results described elsewhere in the article.
Figures, images, artwork, diagrams, and other graphical media must be supplied as separate files along with the manuscript. We recommend that you read our detailed artwork and media instructions. Some excerpts:
When submitting artwork:
Cite all images in the manuscript text.
Number images according to the sequence they appear within your article.
Submit each image as a separate file using a logical naming convention for your files (for example, Figure_1, Figure_2, etc).
Please provide captions along with the artwork.
Text graphics may be embedded in the text at the appropriate position. If you are working with LaTeX, text graphics may also be embedded in the file.
When your artwork is finalized, "save as" or convert your electronic artwork to the formats listed below taking into account the given resolution requirements for line drawings, halftones, and line/halftone combinations:
Vector drawings: Save as EPS or PDF files embedding the font or saving the text as "graphics."
Color or grayscale photographs (halftones): Save as TIFF, JPG, or PNG files using a minimum of 300 dpi (for the single column: min. 1063 pixels, full page width: 2244 pixels).
Bitmapped line drawings: Save as TIFF, JPG, or PNG files using a minimum of 1000 dpi (for the single column: min. 3543 pixels, full page width: 7480 pixels).
Combinations bitmapped line/halftones (color or grayscale): Save as TIFF, JP,G or PNG files using a minimum of 500 dpi (for the single column: min. 1772 pixels, full page width: 3740 pixels).
Please do not submit:
files that are too low in resolution (for example, files optimized for screen use such as GIF, BMP, PICT, or WPG files).
disproportionally large images compared to font size, as text may become unreadable.
All images must have a caption. A caption should consist of a brief title (not displayed on the figure itself) and a description of the image. We advise you to keep the amount of text in any image to a minimum, though any symbols and abbreviations used should be explained.
Provide captions in a separate file.
If you submit usable color figures with your accepted article, we will ensure that they appear in color online.
Please ensure that color images are accessible to all, including those with impaired color vision. Learn more about color and web accessibility.
For articles appearing in print, you will be sent information on costs to reproduce color in the printed version, after your accepted article has been sent to production. At this stage, please indicate if your preference is to have color only in the online version of your article or also in the printed version.
Please read our policy on the use of generative AI and AI-assisted tools in figures, images and artwork, which states:
We do not permit the use of Generative AI or AI-assisted tools to create or alter images in submitted manuscripts.
The only exception is if the use of AI or AI-assisted tools is part of the research design or methods (for example, in the field of biomedical imaging). If this is the case, such use must be described in a reproducible manner in the methods section, including the name of the model or tool, version and extension numbers, and manufacturer.
The use of generative AI or AI-assisted tools in the production of artwork such as for graphical abstracts is not permitted. The use of generative AI in the production of cover art may in some cases be allowed, if the author obtains prior permission from the journal editor and publisher, can demonstrate that all necessary rights have been cleared for the use of the relevant material, and ensures that there is correct content attribution.
We encourage the use of supplementary materials such as applications, images, and sound clips to enhance research. Some guidelines:
Cite all supplementary files in the manuscript text.
Submit supplementary materials at the same time as your article. Be aware that all supplementary materials provided will appear online in the exact same file type as received. These files will not be formatted or typeset by the production team.
Include a concise, descriptive caption for each supplementary file describing its content.
Provide updated files if at any stage of the publication process you wish to make changes to submitted supplementary materials.
Do not make annotations or corrections to a previous version of a supplementary file.
Switch off the option to track changes in Microsoft Office files. If tracked changes are left on, they will appear in your published version.
We recommend you upload research data to a suitable specialist or generalist repository. Please read our guidelines on sharing research data for more information on depositing, sharing and using research data and other relevant research materials.
This journal accepts video material and animation sequences to support and enhance your scientific research. We encourage you to include links to video or animation files within articles. Some guidelines:
When including video or animation file links within your article, refer to the video or animation content by adding a note in your text where the file should be placed.
Clearly label files ensuring the given file name is directly related to the file content.
Provide files in one of our recommended file formats. Files should be within our preferred maximum file size of 150 MB per file, 1 GB in total.
Provide "stills" for each of your files. These will be used as standard icons to personalize the link to your video data. You can choose any frame from your video or animation or make a separate image.
Provide text (for both the electronic and the print versions) to be placed in the portions of your article that refer to the video content. This is essential text, as video and animation files cannot be embedded in the print version of the journal.
We publish all video and animation files supplied in the electronic version of your article.
We are committed to supporting the storage of, access to, and discovery of research data, and our research data policy sets out the principles guiding how we work with the research community to support a more efficient and transparent research process.
Research data refers to the results of observations or experimentation that validate research findings, which may also include software, code, models, algorithms, protocols, methods, and other useful materials related to the project.
Please read our guidelines on sharing research data for more information on depositing, sharing, and using research data and other relevant research materials.
For this journal, the following instructions from our research data guidelines apply.
Option B: Research data deposit, citation and linking
You are encouraged to:
Deposit your research data in a relevant data repository.
Cite and link to this dataset in your article.
If this is not possible, make a statement explaining why research data cannot be shared.
Linking to the data underlying your work increases your exposure and may lead to new collaborations. It also provides readers with a better understanding of the described research.
If your research data has been made available in a data repository there are a number of ways your article can be linked directly to the dataset:
Provide a link to your dataset when prompted during the online submission process.
You can also link relevant data or entities within the text of your article through the use of identifiers. Use the following format: Database: 12345 (e.g. TAIR: AT1G01020; CCDC: 734053; PDB: 1XFN).
This journal enables the publication of research objects (e.g. data, methods, protocols, software, and hardware) related to original research.
Research Elements are peer-reviewed, open-access journals, which make research objects findable, accessibl,e and reusable. By providing detailed descriptions of objects and their application with links to the original research article, your research objects can be placed into context within your article.
You will be alerted during submission to the opportunity to submit a manuscript to one of the Research Elements journals. Your Research Elements article can be prepared by you, or by one of your collaborators.
Divide your manuscript into clearly defined sections covering all essential elements. For example:
Abstract
Keywords
Introduction
Materials and methods
Results
Conclusions
Artwork
Tables with captions
The introduction should clearly state the objectives of your work. We recommend that you provide an adequate background to your work but avoid writing a detailed literature overview or summary of your results.
The materials and methods section should provide sufficient details about your materials and methods to allow your work to be reproduced by an independent researcher. Some guidelines:
If the method you used has already been published, provide a summary and reference the originally published method.
If you are quoting directly from a previously published method, use quotation marks and cite the source.
Describe any modifications that you have made to existing methods.
The theory section should lay the foundation for further work by extending the background you provided in the introduction to your article. The calculation section should represent a practical development from a theoretical basis.
Results should be clear and concise. We advise you to read the sections in this guide on supplying tables, artwork, supplementary material and sharing research data.
The discussion section should explore the significance of your results but not repeat them. You may combine your results and discussion sections into one section, if appropriate. We recommend that you avoid the use of extensive citations and discussion of published literature in the discussion section.
The conclusion section should present the main conclusions of your study. You may have a stand-alone conclusions section or include your conclusions in a subsection of your discussion or results and discussion section.
Please provide definitions of field-specific terms used in your article, in a separate list.
Abbreviations, which are not standard in the field should be defined in a footnote on the first page of your article.
Abbreviations, which are essential to include in your abstract should be defined at first mention in your abstract, as well as in a footnote on the first page of your article.
Before submission we recommend that you review your use of abbreviations throughout your article to ensure that it is consistent.
Include any individuals who provided you with help during your research, such as help with language, writing or proof reading, in the acknowledgements section. Include acknowledgements only in the title page since this journal follows a double anonymized peer review process. Do not add it as a footnote to your title.
Corresponding authors are required to acknowledge co-author contributions using CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) roles:
Conceptualization
Data curation
Formal analysis
Funding acquisition
Investigation
Methodology
Project administration
Resources
Software
Supervision
Validation
Visualization
Writing – original draft
Writing – review and editing
Not all CRediT roles will apply to every manuscript and some authors may contribute through multiple roles.
We advise you to read more about CRediT and view an example of a CRediT author statement.
Authors must disclose any funding sources who provided financial support for the conduct of the research and/or preparation of the article. The role of sponsors, if any, should be declared in relation to the study design, collection, analysis, and interpretation of data, writing of the report, and decision to submit the article for publication. If funding sources had no such involvement this should be stated in your submission.
List funding sources in this standard way to facilitate compliance to funder's requirements:
Funding: This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health [grant numbers xxxx, yyyy]; the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Seattle, WA [grant number zzzz]; and the United States Institutes of Peace [grant number aaaa].
It is not necessary to include detailed descriptions on the program or type of grants, scholarships and awards. When funding is from a block grant or other resources available to a university, college, or other research institution, submit the name of the institute or organization that provided the funding.
If no funding has been provided for the research, it is recommended to include the following sentence:
This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
We ask you to use the following format for appendices:
Identify individual appendices within your article using the format: A, B, etc.
Give separate numbering to formulae and equations within appendices using formats such as Eq. (A.1), Eq. (A.2), etc., and in subsequent appendices, Eq. (B.1), Eq. (B. 2), etc. In a similar way, give separate numbering to tables and figures using formats such as Table A.1; Fig. A.1, etc.
Any references cited within your article should also be present in your reference list and vice versa. Some guidelines:
References cited in your abstract must be given in full.
We recommend that you do not include unpublished results and personal communications in your reference list, though you may mention them in the text of your article.
Any unpublished results and personal communications included in your reference list must follow the standard reference style of the journal. In substitution of the publication date add "unpublished results" or "personal communication."
References cited as "in press" imply that the item has been accepted for publication.
Linking to cited sources will increase the discoverability of your research.
Before submission, check that all data provided in your reference list are correct, including any references which have been copied. Providing correct reference data allows us to link to abstracting and indexing services such as Scopus, Crossref, and PubMed. Any incorrect surnames, journal or book titles, publication years, or pagination within your references may prevent link creation.
We encourage the use of Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) as reference links as they provide a permanent link to the electronic article referenced. See the example below, though be aware that the format of such citations should be adapted to follow the style of other references in your paper.
DOI link example (for an article not yet in an issue):
VanDecar J.C., Russo R.M., James D.E., Ambeh W.B., Franke M. (2003). Aseismic continuation of the Lesser Antilles slab beneath northeastern Venezuela. Journal of Geophysical Research, https://doi.org/10.1029/2001JB000884.
This journal does not set strict requirements on reference formatting at submission. Some guidelines:
References can be in any style or format as long as the style is consistent.
Author names, journal or book titles, chapter or article titles, year of publication, volume numbers, article numbers or pagination must be included, where applicable.
Use of DOIs is recommended.
Our journal reference style will be applied to your article after acceptance, at proof stage. If required, at this stage we will ask you to correct or supply any missing reference data.
Indicate references by adding a number within square brackets in the text. You can refer to author names within your text, but you must always give the reference number, e.g., "as demonstrated [3,6]. Barnaby and Jones [8] obtained a different result ....".
Number references in the order they appear in your article.
Examples:
Reference to a journal publication:
[1] J. van der Geer, T. Handgraaf, R.A. Lupton, The art of writing a scientific article, J. Sci. Commun. 163 (2020) 51 – 59. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sc.2020.00372.
Reference to a journal publication with an article number:
[2] J. van der Geer, T. Handgraaf, R.A. Lupton, 2022. The art of writing a scientific article. Heliyon. 19, e00205. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2022.e00205.
Reference to a book:
[3] W. Strunk Jr., E.B. White, The Elements of Style, fourth ed., Longman, New York, 2000.
Reference to a chapter in a book:
[4] G.R. Mettam, L.B. Adams, How to prepare an electronic version of your article, in: B.S. Jones, R.Z. Smith (Eds.), Introduction to the Electronic Age, E-Publishing Inc., New York, 2020, pp. 281 - 304.
Reference to a website:
[5] Cancer Research UK, Cancer statistics reports for the UK. http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/aboutcancer/statistics/cancerstatsreport/, 2023 (accessed 13 March 2023).
Reference to a dataset:
[6] M. Oguro, S. Imahiro, S. Saito, T. Nakashizuka, Mortality data for Japanese oak wilt disease and surrounding forest compositions [dataset], Mendeley Data, v1, 2015. https://doi.org/10.1234/abc12nb39r.1.
Reference to software:
[7] E. Coon, M. Berndt, A. Jan, D. Svyatsky, A. Atchley, E. Kikinzon, D. Harp, G. Manzini, E. Shelef, K. Lipnikov, R. Garimella, C. Xu, D. Moulton, S. Karra, S. Painter, E. Jafarov, S. Molins, Advanced Terrestrial Simulator (ATS) v0.88 (Version 0.88) [software], Zenodo, March 25, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1234/zenodo.3727209.
Citations in the text should follow the referencing style used by the American Psychological Association. You are referred to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, Seventh Edition (2020) ISBN 978-1-4338-3215-4.
The reference list should be arranged alphabetically and then chronologically. More than one reference from the same author(s) in the same year must be identified by the letters 'a', 'b', 'c', etc., placed after the year of publication.
Examples:
Reference to a journal publication:
Van der Geer, J., Handgraaf T., & Lupton, R. A. (2020). The art of writing a scientific article. Journal of Scientific Communications, 163, 51–59. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sc.2020.00372.
Reference to a journal publication with an article number:
Van der Geer, J., Handgraaf, T., & Lupton, R. A. (2022). The art of writing a scientific article. Heliyon, 19, Article e00205. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2022.e00205.
Reference to a book:
Strunk, W., Jr., & White, E. B. (2000). The elements of style (4th ed.). Longman (Chapter 4).
Reference to a chapter in a book:
Mettam, G. R., & Adams, L. B. (2020). How to prepare an electronic version of your article. In B. S. Jones, & R. Z. Smith (Eds.), Introduction to the electronic age (pp. 281–304). E-Publishing Inc.
Reference to a website:
Powertech Systems. (2022). Lithium-ion vs lead-acid cost analysis. Retrieved from http://www.powertechsystems.eu/home/tech-corner/lithium-ion-vs-lead-acid-cost-analysis/. Accessed January 6, 2022.
Reference to a dataset:
Oguro, M., Imahiro, S., Saito, S., & Nakashizuka, T. (2015). Mortality data for Japanese oak wilt disease and surrounding forest compositions [dataset]. Mendeley Data, v1. https://doi.org/10.17632/xwj98nb39r.1.
Reference to a conference paper or poster presentation:
Engle, E.K., Cash, T.F., & Jarry, J.L. (2019, November). The Body Image Behaviours Inventory-3: Development and validation of the Body Image Compulsive Actions and Body Image Avoidance Scales. Poster session presentation at the meeting of the Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Therapies, New York, NY.
Reference to software:
Coon, E., Berndt, M., Jan, A., Svyatsky, D., Atchley, A., Kikinzon, E., Harp, D., Manzini, G., Shelef, E., Lipnikov, K., Garimella, R., Xu, C., Moulton, D., Karra, S., Painter, S., Jafarov, E., & Molins, S. (2020, March 25). Advanced Terrestrial Simulator (ATS) v0.88 (Version 0.88) [computer software]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3727209.
We ask you to abbreviate journal names according to the List of Title Word Abbreviations (LTWA).
When listing web references, as a minimum you should provide the full URL and the date when the reference was last accessed. Additional information (e.g. DOI, author names, dates, or reference to a source publication) should also be provided, if known.
You can list web references separately under a new heading directly after your reference list or include them in your reference list.
We encourage you to cite underlying or relevant datasets within the article text and to list data references in the reference list.
When citing data references, you should include:
author name(s)
dataset title
data repository
version (where available)
year
global persistent identifier
Add [dataset] immediately before your reference. This will help us to properly identify the dataset. The [dataset] identifier will not appear in your published article.
We ask you to mark preprints clearly. You should include the word "preprint" or the name of the preprint server as part of your reference and provide the preprint DOI.
Where a preprint has subsequently become available as a peer-reviewed publication, use the formal publication as your reference.
If there are preprints that are central to your work or that cover crucial developments in the topic, but they are not yet formally published, you may reference the preprint.
Required files to upload: Authors must submit the following five essential files through the manuscript submission system: 1. Main Manuscript File (without the author details and prepared based on the provided template. 2. Title Page, 3. Authorship Form (must include the article title, full names of all authors, and be signed by all authors), 4. Conflicts of Interest Form (must be signed by the Corresponding Author and uploaded with the Main Manuscript File), and 5. Cover Letter (Please include any necessary information in the cover letter).
If a template is not available for this journal, follow the format given in examples in the reference style section of this Guide for Authors.