Guidelines for Authors

Manuscript Preparation Guidelines-

Research

All research submissions should be formatted in the following sections:

  1. Title Page

Include a separate title page with:

  • Title (maximum 85 characters)
  • All authors’ names and full addresses along with the contact numbers
  • Corresponding author’s postal and email address
  • A short title (maximum 46 characters, including spaces)
  • A minimum of four keywords describing the manuscript
  • Word count of the full article, excluding references and figure legends
  1. Abstract

The abstract should be a single paragraph of not more than 250 words, clearly stating the objective of the study or review, the methods used (where applicable), and summarizing results and conclusions. Avoid abbreviations and references in this section.

  1. Introduction

The introduction should set the study in context by briefly reviewing relevant knowledge of the subject; follow this with a concise statement of the objectives of the study.

  1. Materials and methods

Provide sufficient information for other workers to repeat the study. If well-established methods are used give a reference to the technique and provide full details of any modifications.

  • Include the source of chemicals, reagents and hormones and give the manufacturer’s name and location (town, country) in parentheses.
  • Give the generic name, dose and route of administration for drugs.
  • Specify the composition of buffers, solutions and culture media.
  • Use SI symbols, give concentrations in mol/L and define the term % as w/v or v/v for all solutions. For international units use IU (U should be used for enzyme activity).
  • Specify the type of equipment (microscopes/objective lenses, cameras, detectors) used to obtain images.
  • Specify any image acquisition software used, and describe specialized techniques requiring large amounts of processing, such as confocal, deconvolution, 3D reconstructions, or surface and volume rendering.
  1. Results

The results should read as a narrative leading the reader through the experiments and investigations performed. Referencing and mention of others studies are permitted in the results section where necessary or helpful.

  1. Discussion

Should not simply re-state results, but should put them in the broader context and highlight the importance and novelty of the work.

  1. Declaration of interest, Funding and Acknowledgements

Declaration of interest

Actual or perceived conflicts of interest for all authors must be declared in full.

Please either (a) declare that no conflict of interest could be perceived as prejudicing the impartiality of the research reported, or (b) fully declare any financial or another potential conflict of interest.

Funding

Please detail all of the sources of funding relevant to the research reported in the following format:

This work was supported by the XXXX Council (grant numbers xxxx, yyyy); the XXXXXX Trust (grant number XXXX); and David’s Baby charity (grant number XXXX).

Where research has not been funded, please state the following:

This research did not receive any specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sector.

Author contribution statement (optional)

Please include a statement specifying the contribution of each co-author.

Acknowledgements

Please be as brief as possible.

  1. References

All references cited in the text must be included in the reference list and vice versa

Unpublished work

Any unpublished work (personal communications, manuscripts in preparation and manuscripts submitted but not yet accepted for publication) must be referred to in the text and not listed in the references.

Give the full list of authors, including their initials. For example:

(A Stone, J Brown & M R Smith, unpublished observations)

(J Brown, personal communication)

Articles accepted for publication but not yet published may be listed as ‘in press’ in the reference list, using the current year as the publication year. If an ‘in press’ article is included in the Accepted Preprint service or a similar scheme, then the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) should be included; otherwise, provide a copy of the article as a supplementary file for reviewing purposes.

In the text

Cite references in the text using the authors’ names and publication year. Use et al. for articles with more than five authors.

References should be collected from only published or accepted manuscripts should be included in the reference list numbered in the order that they appear in the text. Meetings abstracts, conference talks, or papers that have been submitted but not yet accepted should not be cited. All personal communications should be supported by a letter from the relevant authors.

Example: Daniel J. Article title. Journal short name year;volume: page numbers.

  1. Statistical analysis

It is the author’s responsibility to document that the results are reproducible and that the differences found are not due to random variation. No absolute rules can be applied but, in general, quantitative data should be from no fewer than three replicate experiments. Appropriate statistical methods should be used to test the significance of differences in results. The term ‘significant’ should not be used unless statistical analysis was performed, and the probability value used to identify significance (e.g., P < 0.05) should be specified.

  1. Tables

Tables should be concise. Tables too large for print publication should be submitted as supplementary data.

  • Number tables in the order they are cited in the text
  • Include a title – a single sentence at the head of the table that includes the name of the organism studied
  • Use footnotes to provide any additional explanatory material, cross-referenced to the column entries
  • Give a short heading for each column
  • Do not use internal horizontal or vertical lines, colour or shading
  • Explain all abbreviations used in the table in the footnotes

Reviews

The format of review articles is more fluid but should include the following:

  1. Title page
  2. Abstract
  3. Conclusions
  4. Declaration of interest, funding, author contributions statements (where appropriate)
  5. References
  6. Figure legends
  7. Figures/ tables

Review submissions should be limited to 6000 words. We recommend a maximum of 60 references for review articles, with 2-6 figures and tables. Original summary diagrams and illustrations of proposed models (in colour where appropriate) are encouraged. Line drawings may be redrawn. Boxes can be used to separate detailed explanations and background information from the main part of the text.