Author Guidelines

 Introduction

Types of articles and formatting

The Journal publish a number of article formats: Original Research Articles, Reviews, Communications, Comments, Protocols, Replication Studies, Video Articles, and Editorials. Besides Editorials, there are no formal length or formatting requirements. Authors are welcome to structure articles as needed to convey their research best.

This Guide for Authors contains information on suggested article structures and lengths, but Authors don't need to adhere to this guidance.

Original Research Article

• An Original Research Article reports complete studies and new results of interest to a wide audience.
• Original Research Articles should highlight the research's significance, originality, and rigor so the potential scientific impact is transparent to the broad and scale-spanning readership of the journals.
• All essential experimental procedures necessary for understanding the research should be included in the main body of the text. Additional experimental and supporting material should be published as supplemental information. Sufficient information to ensure accurate reproducibility must be provided.
• Original Research Articles have no formal restrictions on page length, total character count, number of figures, or references. However, a typical Original Research Article will comprise approximately 3000-6000 words of text with 2-5 figures and 10-20 references.

Review

• A Review article should be a tutorial and provide a broad and balanced overview of a research field for a diverse audience.
• Review articles should describe how the field is progressing and critical challenges to be overcome in the future.
• The editorial team welcomes submitting Review articles without invitation, though interested Authors may wish to propose a Review before writing the article.
• Review articles have no formal restrictions on page length, total character count, number of figures, or number of references; However, a typical Review article will comprise approximately 4000-8000 words of text with 4-8 figures and 10-30 references.

Communication 

• A Communication report on ongoing studies or recent progress in a rapidly progressing field
• Communications should highlight the significance and rigor of the research so the potential scientific impact is transparent to the broad and scale-spanning readership of the journal.
• All essential experimental procedures necessary for understanding the research should be included in the main body of the text. Additional experimental and supporting material should be published as supplemental information. Sufficient information to ensure accurate reproducibility must be provided.
• Communications have no formal restrictions on page length, total character count, number of figures, or number of references; However, a typical Communication article will comprise approximately 2000-3000 words of text with 2-4 figures and 10-20 references.

 Comment

• Comment articles are a platform for topical, evidence-supported opinions related to the journal's scope and of interest to the journal's broad readership.
• Comment articles are typically single-author articles commissioned by the editorial office, but unsolicited contributions and multi-author contributions (for example, from a coalition of experts) will be considered.
• Authors of Comment articles are invited to include a short 100-word biography.
• Comment articles have no formal restrictions on page length, total character count, number of figures, or number of references; However, a typical Comment article will comprise approximately 1000-2000 words of text with 1-3 figures and 5-10 references.

Replication Study

• A Replication Study is a format dedicated to exploring result reproducibility.
• A Replication Study should follow the exact experimental/Modeling steps reported in a previously published research article and describe whether the reported results are reproducible.
• Replication Studies have no formal restrictions on page length, total character count, number of figures, or number of references; However, a typical Replication article will comprise approximately 3000-6000 words of text with 3-5 figures and 10-30 references.

Editorial

• Editorials are submitted exclusively to the journal by guest editors.
• Editorials should convey the aims and objectives of the research within a Special Issue, placing it in a broader context.
• Editorials should be submitted once all expected articles have been accepted and published.
• Editorials should not include unpublished or original data.
• An Editorial article is limited to 1 Figure and 1000 words.

 Formatting requirements

There are no strict formatting requirements, but all manuscripts must contain the essential elements needed to convey your manuscript, for example, Abstract, Keywords, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Conclusions, Artwork and Tables with Captions. If your article includes any supplementary material, this should be included in your initial submission for peer review purposes. Divide the article into clearly defined sections.

 

Article structure

Authors are welcome to structure articles as needed to convey their research best. The information below provides an example of how an article can be structured.

Introduction

State the objectives of the work and provide an adequate background, avoiding a detailed literature survey or a summary of the results.

Experimental

Provide sufficient details to allow the work to be reproduced by an independent researcher. Methods already published should be summarised and indicated by a reference. If quoting directly from a previously published method, you can use quotation marks and cite the source. Any changes to existing methods should also be described.

Theory/calculation

A Theory section should extend, not repeat, the background to the article already dealt with in the Introduction and lay the foundation for further work. In contrast, a Calculation section represents a practical development from a theoretical basis.

Results

Results should be clear and concise.

Discussion

This should explore the significance of the results of the work, not repeat them. A combined Results and Discussion section is often appropriate. Avoid extensive citations and discussion of published literature.

Conclusions

The study's main conclusions may be presented in a short Conclusions section, which may stand alone or form a subsection of a Discussion or Results and Discussion section.

Abstract

A concise and factual abstract is required. The abstract should briefly state the purpose of the research, the principal results, and significant conclusions. An abstract is often presented separately from the article, so it must be able to stand alone. For this reason, references should be avoided, but if necessary, please cite the author(s) and year(s). Also, non-standard or uncommon abbreviations should be avoided, but if essential, they must be defined at their first mention in the abstract itself.

Graphical abstract

Although a graphical abstract is optional, its use is encouraged as it draws more attention to the online article. The graphical abstract should summarise the article's contents in a concise, pictorial form designed to capture the attention of a wide readership. Graphical abstracts should be submitted as a separate file in the online submission system. Image size: Please provide an image with a minimum of 531 × 1328 pixels (h × w) or proportionally more. The image should be readable at 5 × 13 cm using a regular screen resolution of 96 dpi—preferred file types: TIFF, EPS, PDF or MS Office files. You can view Example Graphical Abstracts on our information site.

Keywords

Immediately after the abstract, provide a maximum of 6 keywords, using American spelling and avoiding general and plural terms and multiple concepts (avoid, for example, 'and', 'of'). Be sparing with abbreviations: only abbreviations firmly established in the field may be eligible. These keywords will be used for indexing purposes.

Acknowledgements

Collate acknowledgements in a separate section at the end of the article before the references. Please do not include them on the title page as a footnote to the title or otherwise. List here those individuals who provided help during the research (e.g., providing language help, writing assistance, proofreading the article, etc.).

Formatting of funding sources

List funding sources in this standard way to facilitate compliance with the 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 unnecessary to include detailed descriptions of the program or type of grants 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 organisation 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 public, commercial, or not-for-profit funding agencies.

Math formulae

Please submit math equations as editable text and not as images. Present simple formulae in line with standard text where possible and use the solidus (/) instead of a horizontal line for small fractional terms, e.g., X/Y. In principle, variables are to be presented in italics. Powers of e are often more conveniently denoted by exp. Number consecutively any equations that must be displayed separately from the text (if referred to explicitly in the text).

Artwork

Electronic artwork

General points

• Make sure you use uniform lettering and sizing of your original artwork.
• Preferred fonts: Arial (or Helvetica), Times New Roman (or Times), Symbol, Courier.
• Number the illustrations according to their sequence in the text.
• Use a logical naming convention for your artwork files.
• Indicate per figure if it is a single, 1.5 or 2-column fitting image.
• For Word submissions only, you may still provide figures and their captions and tables within a single file at the revision stage.
• Please note that individual figure files larger than 10 MB must be provided in separate source files.

A detailed guide on electronic artwork is available. You are urged to visit this site; some excerpts from the detailed information are given here.

Formats

Regardless of the application used, when your electronic artwork is finalised, please 'save as' or convert the images to one of the following formats (note the resolution requirements for line drawings, halftones, and line/halftone combinations given below): EPS (or PDF): Vector drawings. Embed the font or save the text as 'graphics'.

• TIFF (or JPG): Color or grayscale photographs (halftones): always use a minimum of 300 dpi.
• TIFF (or JPG): Bitmapped line drawings: use a minimum of 1000 dpi.
• TIFF (or JPG): Combinations of bitmapped line/half-tone (colour or grayscale): a minimum of 500 dpi is required.

Please do not:

• Supply files optimised for screen use (e.g., GIF, BMP, PICT, WPG); the resolution is too low.
• Supply files that are too low in resolution.
• Submit graphics that are disproportionately large for the content.

Figure captions

Could you make sure that each illustration has a caption? A caption should comprise a brief title (not on the figure itself) and a description of the illustration. Keep text in the illustrations to a minimum, but explain all symbols and abbreviations used.

Tables

Please submit tables as editable text and not as images. Tables can be placed either next to the relevant text in the article or on separate page(s) at the end. Number tables consecutively by their appearance in the text and place any table notes below the table body. Please be careful using tables and ensure that the data presented do not duplicate results described elsewhere in the article. Please avoid using vertical rules and shading in table cells.

References

Reference formatting

There are no strict requirements on reference formatting at submission. References can be in any style or format as long as the style is consistent. Where applicable, author(s) name(s), journal title/book title, chapter title/article title, year of publication, volume number/book chapter and the article number or pagination must be present. The use of DOI is highly encouraged. The reference style used by the journals will be applied to the accepted article by Elsevier at the proof stage. Note that missing data will be highlighted for the author to correct at the evidence stage. If you do wish to format the references yourself, they should be arranged according to the following examples:

 

 

Reference:

https://www.elsevier.com/en-in/subject/next/guide-for-authors#1-before-you-begin