Manuscript Preparation

File Format

We ask you to provide editable source files for your entire 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.
  • Remove any strikethrough and underlined text from your manuscript, unless it has scientific significance related to your article.
  • Use spell-check and grammar-check functions to avoid errors.

 

Elements of a Manuscript

This journal follows a single anonymized review process which means author identities are concealed from reviewers. To facilitate the single 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)
  • Acknowledgements
  • Declaration of Interest statement
  • Corresponding author address (full address is required)
  • Corresponding author email address

The anonymized manuscript should contain the main body of your paper including:

  • References
  • Figures
  • Tables

It is important that your anonymized manuscript does not contain any identifying information such as author names or affiliations.

The manuscript should be written with the following elements in the following order: title page; abstract; keywords; main text introduction, methods, results, discussion; acknowledgments; declaration of interest statement; references; appendices (as appropriate); table(s) with caption(s) (on individual pages); figures; figure captions (as a list).

Should be no more than 40 pages, inclusive of:

  • Abstract
  • Tables
  • References
  • Figure or table captions
  • Should contain an unstructured abstract of 250 words.
  • Should contain any number of keywords, making your article more discoverable, including information on choosing a title and search engine optimization.

Note: Headings should not be numbered.

Additional materials may be submitted as supplementary materials.

 

Abstract

You are required to provide a concise and factual abstract which does not exceed 250 words. 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.

 

Keywords

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.

Tables & Math Formulas must be submitted as editable text, not as images.

 

Supplementary Material

We encourage the use of supplementary materials such as applications, images and sound clips to enhance research. Some guidelines:

  • Supplementary material should be accurate and relevant to the research.
  • 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.

 

Acknowledgements

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 single anonymized peer review process. Do not add it as a footnote to your title.

 

Funding Sources

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].

 

References within Text

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.

 

Reference Style

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 [software], Zenodo, March 25, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1234/zenodo.3727209.