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How to write your references quickly and easily

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Table of Contents

Every scientific paper builds on previous research – even if it’s in a new field, related studies will have preceded and informed it. In peer-reviewed articles, authors must give credit to this previous research, through citations and references. Not only does this show clearly where the current research came from, but it also helps readers understand the content of the paper better.

There is no optimum number of references for an academic article but depending on the subject you could be dealing with more than 100 different papers, conference reports, video articles, medical guidelines or any number of other resources.

That’s a lot of content to manage. Before submitting your manuscript, this needs to be checked, cross-references in the text and the list, organized and formatted.

The exact content and format of the citations and references in your paper will depend on the journal you aim to publish in, so the first step is to check the journal’s Guide for Authors before you submit.

There are two main points to pay attention to – consistency and accuracy. When you go through your manuscript to edit or proofread it, look closely at the citations within the text. Are they all the same? For example, if the journal prefers the citations to be in the format (name, year), make sure they’re all the same: (Smith, 2016).

Your citations must also be accurate and complete. Do they match your references list? Each citation should be included in the list, so cross-checking is important. It’s also common for journals to prefer that most, if not all, of the articles listed in your references be cited within the text – after all, these should be studies that contributed to the knowledge underpinning your work, not just your bedtime reading. So go through them carefully, noting any missing references or citations and filling the gaps.

Each journal has its own requirements when it comes to the content and format of references, as well as where and how you should include them in your submission, so double-check before you hit send!

In general, a reference will include authors’ names and initials, the title of the article, name of the journal, volume and issue, date, page numbers and DOI. On ScienceDirect, articles are linked to their original source (if also published on ScienceDirect) or to their Scopus record, so including the DOI can help link to the correct article.

A spotless reference list

Luckily, compiling and editing the references in your scientific manuscript can be easy – and it no longer has to be manual. Management tools like Mendeley can keep track of all your references, letting you share them with your collaborators. With the Word plugin, it’s possible to select the right citation style for the journal you’re submitting to and the tool will format your references automatically.

Like with any other part of your manuscript, it’s important to make sure your reference list has been checked and edited. Elsevier Author Services Language Editing can help, with professional manuscript editing that will help make sure your references don’t hold you back from publication.

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How should I prepare the references in my manuscript?

Check your journal's Guide for Authors to ensure you've met all the specific journal instructions relating to reference requirements, as well as other elements of submission and relevant submission items.

To find the Guide for Authors:

• To find the Journal's Homepage, search for the journal using the search box under 'Find by journal title' on the Journal Author’s page .
• Click on ‘Guide for Authors’ in the left hand menu.

The Guide for Authors will also tell you if the journal operates Your Paper Your Way , a submission process where there are no strict formatting requirements and references can be in any style or format, as long as the style is consistent. Every journal that offers YPYW clearly indicates this at the beginning of its Guide for Authors.

Reference templates

Most Elsevier journals have their reference template available in many of the most popular reference management software products. Authors only need to select the appropriate journal template when preparing their article, after which citations and bibliographies will be automatically formatted in the journal's style. Mendeley’s free reference manager services allow you to make your own fully-searchable library in seconds, cite as you write, and read and annotate your PDFs. Mendeley helps organize your papers, citations and references, accessing them in the cloud on any device, wherever you are. The journal’s Guide for Authors will contain a link from where users of Mendeley Desktop can easily install the reference style for the journal and then be able to select this style using the Mendeley plug-ins for Microsoft Word or LibreOffice. If you use reference management software, please ensure that you remove all field codes before submitting the electronic manuscript.

Click the sections below to view examples of the most popular reference styles:

List: references should be arranged first alphabetically and then further sorted chronologically if necessary. 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.

Reference to a journal publication: Van der Geer, J., Hanraads, J. A. J., & Lupton, R. A. (2010). The art of writing a scientific article. Journal of Scientific Communications , 163, 51–59. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.Sc.2010.00372.

Reference to a journal publication with an article number: Van der Geer, J., Hanraads, J. A. J., & Lupton, R. A. (2018). The art of writing a scientific article. Heliyon , 19, e00205. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2018.e00205.

Reference to a book: Strunk, W., Jr., & White, E. B. (2000). The elements of style . (4th ed.). New York: Longman, (Chapter 4).

Reference to a chapter in an edited book: Mettam, G. R., & Adams, L. B. (2009). 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). New York: E-Publishing Inc.

Reference to a website: Cancer Research UK. Cancer statistics reports for the UK. (2003). http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/aboutcancer/statistics/cancerstatsreport/ Accessed 13 March 2003.

Reference to a dataset: [dataset] Oguro, M., Imahiro, S., Saito, S., Nakashizuka, T. (2015). Mortality data for Japanese oak wilt disease and surrounding forest compositions. 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. (2009, 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.

Journal abbreviations source

Journal names should be abbreviated according to the List of Title Word Abbreviations .

References cited in the text should conform to the following examples:

Mendoza (1990), Knebel and Mecke (1990) and Mendoza et al. (1990) or (Mendoza, 1990; Knebel and Mecke, 1990; Mendoza et al., 1990; Mecke, 1991).

All references cited in the text should be listed at the end of the paper as follows:

• Single authors – list alphabetically and then chronologically.
• Author and one co-author – list first alphabetically by co-author, and then chronologically.
• First author and more than one co-author – list chronologically (not alpha-betically by the second author) because only the first author’s name and ”et al.” followed by the year publication will be used in the text.
• In case that more than one paper by the same author(s) published in the same year is cited, the letters a, b, c, etc., should follow the year – e.g. Bargmann (1970a) – in both the text and the reference list.

References must include: authors (surname followed by initials), year of publication, complete title of article or chapter, name of journal or title of book, editors (if a book), volume number, name of publisher and place of publication (if a book), and first and last page numbers of article or chapter.

Hollin, S.A., Drapkin, A.J., Wancier, J., Huang, Y.P., 1978. Mobile schwannoma of the cauda equina. J. Neurosurg. 48, 135–137.

Fujta, H., Imada, M., 1989. Three dimensional aspects on the functional morphology of the thyroid gland. In: Motta, P.M. (Ed.). Progress in Clinical and Biological Research, vol. 295. Cells and Tissue. A Three dimensional Approach by Modern Techniques in Microscopy. Alan R. Liss, New York, pp. 227–233.

Sternberger, L.A., 1986. Immunocytochemistry, third edition. Wiley, New York.

[dataset] Oguro, M., Imahiro, S., Saito, S., Nakashizuka, T., 2015. Mortality data for Japanese oak wilt disease and surrounding forest compositions. Mendeley Data, v1. http://dx.doi.org/10.17632/xwj98nb39r.1.

Articles "in press" may be cited in the reference list, but articles submitted or in preparation should not be included.

Text: Indicate references by number(s) in square brackets in line with the text. The actual authors can be referred to, but the reference number(s) must always be given. Example: '..... as demonstrated [3,6]. Barnaby and Jones [8] obtained a different result ....'

List: Number the references (numbers in square brackets) in the list in the order in which they appear in the text.

Reference to a journal publication:

[1] J. van der Geer, J.A.J. Hanraads, R.A. Lupton, The art of writing a scientific article, J. Sci. Commun. 163 (2010) 51–59. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.Sc.2010.00372.

Reference to a journal publication with an article number:

[2] Van der Geer, J., Hanraads, J.A.J., Lupton, R.A., 2018. The art of writing a scientific article. Heliyon. 19, e00205. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2018.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 an edited 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, 2009, pp. 281–304.

Reference to a website:

[5] Cancer Research UK, Cancer statistics reports for the UK. http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/aboutcancer/statistics/cancerstatsreport/, 2003 (accessed 13 March 2003).

Reference to a dataset:

[dataset] [6] M. Oguro, S. Imahiro, S. Saito, T. Nakashizuka, Mortality data for Japanese oak wilt disease and surrounding forest compositions, Mendeley Data, v1, 2015. https://doi.org/10.17632/xwj98nb39r.1.

References should be cited in the text by numbers in brackets, in order of appearance and follow the the Vancouver Style . Only articles that have been published or are in press should be included in the references. Authors are responsible for the accuracy of references. Unpublished results or personal communications should be cited as such in the text. Please note the following examples:

[1] Hermann BP, Seidenberg M, Bell B, Woodard A, Rutecki P, Sheth R. Comorbid psychiatric symptoms in temporal lobe epilepsy: association with chronicity of epilepsy and impact on quality of life. Epilepsy Behav 2000;1:184-90.

[2] Paxinos G, Ashwell KWS, Tork I. Atlas of the developing rat nervous system. 2nd ed. San Diego: Academic Press; 1994.

[3] Shafer PO, Salmanson E. Psychosocial aspects of epilepsy. In: Schachter SC, Schomer DL, editors. The comprehensive evaluation and treatment of epilepsy: a practical guide. San Diego: Academic Press; 1997. p. 91-109.

Reference style

Text: Indicate references by number(s) in square brackets in line with the text. The actual authors can be referred to, but the reference number(s) must always be given.

[1] Van der Geer J, Hanraads JAJ, Lupton RA. The art of writing a scientific article. J Sci Commun 2010;163:51–9. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.Sc.2010.00372.

[2] Van der Geer J, Hanraads JAJ, Lupton RA. The art of writing a scientific article. Heliyon. 2018;19:e00205. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2018.e00205

[3] Strunk Jr W, White EB. The elements of style. 4th ed. New York: Longman; 2000.

[4] Mettam GR, Adams LB. How to prepare an electronic version of your article. In: Jones BS, Smith RZ, editors. Introduction to the electronic age, New York: E-Publishing Inc; 2009, p. 281–304.

[5] Cancer Research UK. Cancer statistics reports for the UK, http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/aboutcancer/statistics/cancerstatsreport/; 2003 [accessed 13 March 2003].

[dataset] [6] Oguro M, Imahiro S, Saito S, Nakashizuka T. Mortality data for Japanese oak wilt disease and surrounding forest compositions, Mendeley Data, v1; 2015. https://doi.org/10.17632/xwj98nb39r.1.

Note shortened form for last page number. e.g., 51–9, and that for more than 6 authors the first 6 should be listed followed by 'et al.' For further details you are referred to 'Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts submitted to Biomedical Journals' (J Am Med Assoc 1997;277:927–34) (see also Samples of Formatted References .

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How to Cite Sources in Your Manuscript

Posted by Stephanie Chandler | Nov 3, 2016 | Blog , Writing Nonfiction | 2

Scholarly writers, or those in the academic realm, follow specific style guides (APA or MLA are two examples), and while you could certainly pick up an APA or MLA handbook to make sure you’re following citation guidelines as closely as possible, you can also follow some guidelines that are common to pretty much every style guide out there.

If you’re self-publishing, you need to follow your own guidelines, or find a reputable source to use. We recommend Chicago Manual of Style ( http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/home.html ).

Some Basics to Follow:

• Titles of books and reports are typically italicized in in-text citations.
• Put titles of articles in quotation marks.
• Be sure to include the author’s (or authors’) first/last name(s), source title, and publication year.
• If your work is more scholarly in nature, include the page number(s) on which your quoted text appears.

Following are several formatting options. Whichever style you choose, be sure to use it consistently throughout your manuscript.

Option 1: Simple In-Text Citation

With this format, simply state the author and date, or author, publication name and publication date, in parentheses directly after the quote. There are no endnotes for these citations, but we still recommend including a complete list of cited works at the end of your book.

“If you are not afraid of the voices inside you, you will not fear the critics outside you” ( Natalie Goldberg , Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within , 2nd edition, Shambhala 2005).

This can get rather cumbersome, so if your text includes a lot of citations, we recommend option 2:

Option 2: Endnotes

Endnotes, which are sources cited at the end of the chapter or book, are a more efficient way to cite your sources. To utilize this option, place superscripted numbers (in chronological order) after a quote, followed by a Notes page that you’ll put at the end of the book. Here’s an example of how it would appear in the text:

“If you are not afraid of the voices inside you, you will not fear the critics outside you.” 1                  

Then, for each of your sources, insert an entry that will appear in your “Notes” section at the end of the chapter or book. Entries would look similar to those in the in-text version, and at a minimum should include the author, publication name, and publication date.

Make sure the order of the sources on the Notes page follows the order the sources appear in the book.

Here’s a link to some info on creating endnotes: http://www.ehow.com/how_5180669_format-endnotes-properly.html

For a more in-depth look at how to cite specific types of publications, visit http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html Citation Machine: Website where you can plug in the book details and it will come up with a citation for you: http://www.citationmachine.net/

Amberly Finarelli has worked in the publishing and writing world for the past 10+ years as a literary agent, manuscript evaluator, copy editor, proofreader, and writer. She currently produces content for the Nonfiction Authors Association’s blog in addition to running her own editorial business. You can reach her at [email protected].

If you like this blog post, you’ll love the recordings from our previous Nonfiction Writers Conference events . Check it out!

About The Author

Stephanie Chandler

Stephanie Chandler is the founder of the Nonfiction Authors Association and Nonfiction Writers Conference , and author of several books including The Nonfiction Book Publishing Plan . A frequent speaker at business events and on the radio, she has been featured in Entrepreneur, BusinessWeek, and Wired magazine. Visit StephanieChandler.com to learn more.

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References & Article Types

Reference managers (or reference formatting software such as BibTeX for LaTeX documents) make it easy to organize and format citations. They can also assist with managing libraries containing citations, PDFs, and image files by organizing important documents by subject and allowing you to search your library using keywords. Add and organize any papers that are relevant to your research as you read them. This will help you remember to appropriately cite articles that you have read.

Some widely used reference management and formatting software applications are:

Types of journal articles

It is helpful to familiarize yourself with the different types of articles published by journals. Although it may appear there are a large number of types of articles published due to the wide variety of names they are published under, most articles published are one of the following types; Original Research, Review Articles, Short reports or Letters, Case Studies, Methodologies.

Original Research:

This is the most common type of journal manuscript used to publish full reports of data from research. It may be called an Original Article, Research Article, Research, or just Article, depending on the journal. The Original Research format is suitable for many different fields and different types of studies. It includes a full Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion sections.

Short reports or Letters:

These papers communicate brief reports of data from original research that editors believe will be interesting to many researchers, and that will likely stimulate further research in that  field. As they are relatively short, the format is useful for scientists and other scholarly researchers with results that are time sensitive (for example, those in highly competitive or quickly-changing disciplines). This format often has strict length limits, so some experimental details may not be published until the author writes a full Original Research manuscript. These papers are also sometimes called Brief communications.

Review Articles:

We mentioned review articles earlier in this tutorial. Many researchers often begin their background work by reading these articles. Journal Editors typically invite leading researchers to write these articles to survey, catalog, and summarize a field’s current state. As these articles present a fundamental background to current research, many authors cite them when publishing their own work. 

Case Studies:

These articles report specific instances of interesting phenomena. Case Studies help make other researchers aware of the possibility that a specific phenomenon might occur. Common in medicine, they report the occurrence of previously unknown or emerging pathologies.

Methodologies or Methods:

These articles present a new experimental method, test or procedure. The method described may either be completely new, or may offer a better version of an existing method. The article should describe a demonstrable advance on what is currently available.

Next : Titles, Abstracts & Keywords

TIP: When using a reference manager, make sure you have the correct style file for your target journal. The reference style used by the journal can usually be found in the Instructions for Authors on their website. Formatting references using a reference manager with a style file is very simple.

TIP: If you would like to write a Review but have not been invited by a journal, be sure to check the journal website as some journals to not consider unsolicited Reviews. If the website does not mention whether Reviews are commissioned it is wise to send a pre-submission enquiry letter to the journal editor to propose your Review manuscript before you spend time writing it.   

For further support

We hope that with this tutorial you have a clearer idea of how the publication process works and feel confident in responding to editor and reviewers. Good luck with publishing your work!

If you feel that you would like some further support with writing your paper and understanding the peer review process, Springer Nature offer some services which may be of help.

• Nature Research Editing Service offers high quality  English language and scientific editing. During language editing , Editors will improve the English in your manuscript to ensure the meaning is clear and identify problems that require your review. With Scientific Editing experienced development editors will improve the scientific presentation of your research in your manuscript and cover letter, if supplied. They will also provide you with a report containing feedback on the most important issues identified during the edit, as well as journal recommendations.
• Our affiliates American Journal Experts also provide English language editing* as well as other author services that may support you in preparing your manuscript.
• We provide both online and face-to-face training for researchers on all aspects of the manuscript writing process.

* Please note, using an editing service is neither a requirement nor a guarantee of acceptance for publication. 

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Writing and formatting

In this section:

• NEW! Featured Author Support
• Language editing services
• Reproducing third party illustrative materials
• Suggesting reviewers
• Writing a cover letter
• Video abstracts
• Video: How to submit your article

Formatting your paper

These are general formatting guidelines across BMJ, please always refer to journal-specific instructions for authors for article type specifications. You can browse the titles on our  Journals website. If you are looking to submit to The BMJ , please visit this section .

If you are unable to find the answer to your question, our editorial team will be on hand to offer assistance throughout the submission process. Contact details for the editorial team are on the journal’s Contact Us page.

You can also refer to our formatting checklist to make sure you have covered everything on submission.

Submission prefill tool

Authors and institutions, manuscript format, figures and illustrations, colour images, multimedia files, acknowledgements, supplemental material.

BMJ has introduced a submission prefill tool to help authors populate various fields on submission of their manuscript to ScholarOne. When authors start their submission they will have the option, when prompted, to upload their manuscript enabling the system to automatically extract and populate the following submission fields if available in the main manuscript document: Title, Abstract, Authors, Institutions, Funders. This tool typically reduces the time taken to submit a manuscript by 25%

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Keywords are specific terms that define what your paper is about. Keywords are important for search engine optimisation and enhance the discoverability of your work and its impact. They also help editors to identify peer reviewers for your manuscript.

We ask authors to use Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) descriptors as keywords to optimise discoverability. MeSH provides two tools to help authors select MeSH descriptors as keywords :

• MeSH on Demand – input text from an abstract to automatically identify related terms
• MeSH Browser – search for related terms and descriptors using an existing list of keywords

You can start to type in a term and select from a list of suggested matches or search the full list of keywords. If your required MeSH descriptor is not available in the keyword list please contact the editorial office who will arrange for it to be added. You will be able to include this at revision.

On submission of your article through our submission system you will be asked to provide a name, email address and institutional affiliation for all contributing authors. In the final published article author names, institutions and addresses will be taken from these completed fields and not from the submitted Word document. Refer to the BMJ policy on authorship for more information.

The manuscript must be submitted as a Word document ( BMJ Case Reports request that authors submit using a template which should also be in Word format). PDF is not accepted.

The manuscript should be presented in the following order:

• Abstract, or a summary for case reports (Note: references should not be included in abstracts or summaries)
• Main text separated under appropriate headings and subheadings using the following hierarchy: BOLD CAPS, bold lower case, Plain text, Italics
• Tables should be in Word format and placed in the main text where the table is first cited. Tables should also be cited in numerical order
• Acknowledgments, Competing Interests, Funding and all other required statements
• References. All references should be cited in the main text in numerical order

BMJ has introduced a submission prefill tool to help authors populate various fields on submission of their manuscript to ScholarOne. When authors start their submission they will have the option, when prompted, to upload their manuscript enabling the system to automatically extract and populate the following submission fields if available in the main manuscript document: Title, Abstract, Authors, Institutions, Funders. This tool typically reduces the time taken to submit a manuscript by 25%.

Figures must be uploaded as separate files (view further details under the Figures/illustrations section). All figures must be cited within the main text in numerical order and legends should be provided at the end of the manuscript.

Online Supplementary materials should be uploaded using the File Designation “Supplementary File” on the submission site and cited in the main text.

Please remove any hidden text headers or footers from your file before submission.

Acronyms and abbreviations should be used sparingly and fully explained when first used. Abbreviations and symbols must be standard. SI units should be used throughout, except for blood pressure values which should be reported in mm Hg.

Whenever possible, drugs should be given their approved generic name. Where a proprietary (brand) name is used, it should begin with a capital letter.

To ensure a consistent approach, submitted articles should not include Trademark or Registered trademark symbols in the main text, tables or figures.

Authors should upload any images and figures in the highest resolution possible, and these should be uploaded as separate files. Any cleaning or image enhancement should be clearly described in the submission and in the figure legend. All images must be cited within the main text in numerical order and legends must be provided (ideally at the end of the manuscript). Video: How to improve your graphs and tables .

For certain journals, authors of unsolicited manuscripts that wish to publish colour figures in print will be charged a fee to cover the cost of printing. Refer to the specific journal’s instructions for authors for more information.

Alternatively, authors are encouraged to supply colour illustrations for online publication and black and white versions for print publication. Colour publication online is offered at no charge, but the figure legend must not refer to the use of colours. Detailed guidance on figure preparation

Figures should be submitted in TIFF, EPS, JPEG or PDF formats. Please note, figures submitted in TIFF formats should be a single-layered flat file; we can not accept TIFF files which contain multiple pages. In EPS files, text (if present) should be outlined. For non-vector files (eg TIFF, JPEG) a minimum resolution of 300 dpi is required, except for line art which should be 1200 dpi. Histograms should be presented in a simple, two-dimensional format, with no background grid.

For figures consisting of multiple images/parts, please ensure these are submitted as a single composite file for processing. We are unable to accept figures that are submitted as multiple files.

Figures are checked using automated quality control and if they are below the minimum standard you will be alerted and asked to resupply them.

Please ensure that any specific patient/hospital details are removed or blacked out (e.g. X-rays, MRI scans, etc). Figures that use a black bar to obscure a patient’s identity are not accepted.

Tables should be in Word format and placed in the main text where the table is first cited. Tables must be cited in the main text in numerical order. Please note that tables embedded as Excel files within the manuscript are NOT accepted. Tables in Excel should be copied and pasted into the manuscript Word file.

Tables should be self-explanatory and the data they contain must not be duplicated in the text or figures. Any tables submitted that are longer/larger than 2 pages will be published as online only supplementary material. Video: How to improve your graphs and tables

You may submit multimedia files to enhance your article. Video files are preferred in .WMF or .AVI formats, but can also be supplied as .FLV, .Mov, and .MP4. When submitting, please ensure you upload them using the File Designation “Supplementary File – Video”.

BMJ reference style BMJ formats references using Vancouver style; references are sequentially numbered within the text of the main document and match the reference list at the end of the article. The first three authors are listed by last name and initials, with additional authors acknowledged by the use of ‘et al’ if applicable.

Depending on the type of reference, we may also include: the publication name, date of publication, volume and page numbers, chapter, DOI, URL, PubMed ID, access date, and any other necessary information.

Exception: Medical Humanities uses Chicago author-date referencing which is more commonly used in social sciences; references are listed by author and date within the text of the main document with the an alphabetical reference list at the end of the article. Please see the online style manual for details and this published article for examples.

Preparing references

• Authors are asked to follow these guidelines when formatting their references:
• References should be cited in numerical order (i.e. 1,2,3) in the text and be listed numerically in the reference list at the end of the article
• The reference list should be included as part of the main text document
• Do not include references as footnotes by using the Footnotes and/or Endnotes function and/or Citations & Bibliography function in Word or by using EndNote
• References cited in the text should be presented in square brackets [6] or superscripts. Parentheses (6) should be used for in-line lists
• Multiple reference citations should be separated by commas [6, 9, 12] or by hyphens if numbers are sequential [12-15]
• Reference citations within figures and tables (or their legends/footnotes) should be listed in the reference list
• References in the reference list should include:
• author names in any format
• article title
• DOI or PubMed ID

Example references

• Print journal article: Koziol-Mclain J, Brand D, Morgan D, et al. Measuring injury risk factors: question reliability in a statewide sample. Inj Prev 2000;6:148–50.
• Online only journal article: Dark P, Dunn G, Chadwick P, et alThe clinical diagnostic accuracy of rapid detection of healthcare-associated bloodstream infection in intensive care using multipathogen real-time PCR technology. BMJ Open 2011;1:e000181. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2011-000181
• Supplement article: Mugosa A, Cizmovic M, Lakovic T, et alAccelerating progress on effective tobacco tax policies in Montenegro. Tobacco Control 2020;29:s293-s299
• Abstract article: Bricca A, Swithenbank Z, Scott N, et al21 Predictors of recruitment in randomised controlled trials of smoking cessation: meta-regression analyses from the IC-SMOKE systematic review project. Abstract competing for the ‘doug altman scholarship’. BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine 2019;24:A52-A53.
• Rapid response to an article: Krishnamoorthy KM, Dash PK. Novel approach to transseptal puncture. Heart Online [Rapid response] 18 September 2001. http://heart.bmj.com/cgi/eletters/86/5/e11#EL1

Databases and websites:

• Preprints: Rostami A, Sepidarkish M, Leeflang M, et al. First snap-shot meta-analysis to estimate the prevalence of serum antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 in humans. MedRxiv 20185017 [Preprint]. September 02, 2020 https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.08.31.20185017.
• Data citations: Wang G, Zhu Z, Cui S, at al. Glucocorticoid induces incoordination between glutamatergic and GABAergic neurons in the amygdala. Dryad Digital Repository [dataset]. August 11, 2017. https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.k9q7h.
• Electronic citations: Moore A. Paracetamol: widely used and largely ineffective [online]. 2018. http://uk.cochrane.org/news/paracetamol-widely-used-and-largely-ineffective (accessed 23 May 2018).

Books and Legal:

• Book: Howland J. Preventing Automobile Injury: New Findings From Evaluative Research. Dover, MA: Auburn House Publishing Company 1988:163–96.
• Chapter in a book: Nagin D. General deterrence: a review of the empirical evidence. In: Blumstein A, Cohen J, Nagin D, eds. Deterrence and Incapacitation: Estimating the Effects of Criminal Sanctions on Crime Rates. Washington, DC: National Academy of Sciences 1978:95–139.
• Legal material: Toxic substances Contro Act: Hearing on S776 Before the Subcommittee of the Environment of the Senate Comm. on Commerce, 94th Congress 1st September (1975).
• Law references: The two main series of law reports, Weekly Law Reports (WLR) and All England Law Reports (All ER) have three volumes a year e.g. Robertson v Post Office [1974] 1 WLR 1176

Authors whose research has been presented at a scientific meeting are of course still able to publish in any of our journals, but we ask that prior presentation of the work at a conference should be acknowledged in the manuscript and any published conference abstract(s) should be cited

Additional information such as figures, tables, raw data and methodology statements, may be submitted and published alongside your manuscript as ‘supplemental material’.  Supplemental material shall only be accepted subject to the following criteria:

• Content: Supplemental material should be used to support and enhance the content of your manuscript. Content should be directly relevant to the content of your manuscript.
• Publication: Supplemental material will be published online only.  This content may or may not be peer-reviewed, depending on the requirements of the relevant publication’s editorial office.
• Citation: The use of any supplemental material should be cited within the main text of the manuscript.
• Formatting: Supplemental material will only be published on an ‘as supplied’ basis, without checking for accuracy, copyediting, typesetting or proofing.  You are responsible for proofing the content and for ensuring that the style and formatting of your content is consistent with the corresponding manuscript.  
• File submission: Supplemental material may be submitted in PDF file format.  Files should not exceed 350MB and should be uploaded using the file designation “Supplemental Material [Description]”.
• Translated Abstract: Where a translated version of the abstract in the author’s local language is submitted, this file should be uploaded using the file designation “Abstract in local language”.
• Restrictions: Supplemental material hosted on a third party website or platform will not be accepted.
• Liability Disclaimer: The relevant publication’s Author Licence will apply in respect of any supplemental materials submitted.  You are responsible for ensuring the accuracy of that content. A disclaimer of BMJ’s liability will appear on the published supplemental material.

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AMA Style (11th ed): Citing Your Sources

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Reference style or manuscript style?

Being told to write "in AMA Style" can have more than one meaning. Carefully read your assignment or speak with the faculty who assigned it to determine what they want.

Case 1: "Write in AMA Style" is a reference style. This means that the references within the text and the bibliography at the end of the text should follow the guidelines laid out by the AMA Manual of Style. This is frequently used for papers and other writing in classes, and presentations conducted during classes or practice rotations. This guide includes detailed help on creating references in AMA Style.

Case 2: "Write in AMA Style" as a manuscript style. This means using proper references within the text and bibliography, but also using the stylistic matters laid out in the AMA Manual of Style to format the text. This includes such factors as using headings and capitalizing them appropriately, line spacing, margins, text style issues (such as using "one" or "1", using AM or a.m. or A.M.), placement of page numbers, preferred font and spacing for graphs, preferred size and shape for tables, etc. This is more frequently called for when publishing writing, submitting to a journal for peer review, or writing materials for presentation or distribution at professional meetings. This guide includes very little help on manuscript style, as it comprises about 500 pages of the Manual and is difficult to summarize. Consult the AMA Manual of Style for detailed information on manuscript style.

Commonly asked questions about manuscript styling

Acronyms, abbreviations, initialisms:

Acronyms, abbreviations, and initialisms are discouraged from use, except for well-known and accepted units of measurement and some well-recognized terms. 

• If used, spell out at the first use, even if the acronym or initialism is well-known. Do not place periods between the letters of an acronym, abbreviation or initialism.
• State names should always appear as full names in the text of a manuscript. If included in references, use the two-letter abbreviation.

Numerals (1, 2, 3, etc.) should be used in all writing, except when:

• The number begins the sentence or title
• Common fractions
• Ordinals: first through ninth
• Number spelled out in quotations or titles of works cited.
• One number may be spelled out, if the sentence requires multiple numbers to be placed next to each other. E.g., "If 12 16-year-olds had this reaction..." should be changed to "If twelve 16-year-olds..."
• To indicate a time of day, use AM or PM in small capitals.
• Conventional 12-hour clock time is preferred. However, 24 hour or military time convention can also be used to convey precise timing when needed, such as when describing drug dosage regimens.
• When dates are provided in the text, use numerals for day and year, and write out the month using text. E.g., April 2, 1990.
• If using dates in a table, you may use numerals for the month (e.g., 4/2/1990).

Measurements:

• Use SI (Le Système International d'Unitiés) standards for writing measurements. Numbers are always written in plain text, there is a space after the number and prior to the unit, and never a period after the unit (unless it ends a sentence).
• Do not include commas in longer numbers (e.g. 1600 km, not 1,600 km).

The Web/Internet:

• Use email. Never capitalize the "e" unless at the beginning of a sentence.
• Internet and web should not be capitalized.
• Home page is two words.
• Web page or web site are two words. Most other compound words starting with "web" are one word and spelled lowercase: webmaster, webcast, webcam, etc.
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General manuscript preparation guidelines

Brush up on the basic requirements for formatting your manuscript, using the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association.

All manuscripts must be prepared according to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.).

Manuscripts may be copyedited for bias-free language (see Chapter 5 of the 7th ed.).

Double-space all copy.

Other formatting instructions, as well as instructions on preparing tables, figures, references, metrics, and abstracts, appear in the Publication Manual .

Additional guidance on APA Style is available on the APA Style website , including sample papers . Please use the resources below to further guide your manuscript preparation.

All manuscripts must include an abstract containing a maximum of 250 words typed on a separate page. After the abstract, please supply up to five keywords or brief phrases.

Graphics files are welcome if supplied as Tiff or EPS files. Multipanel figures (i.e., figures with parts labeled a, b, c, d, etc.) should be assembled into one file.

The minimum line weight for line art is 0.5 point for optimal printing.

For more information about acceptable resolutions, fonts, sizing, and other figure issues, please see KnowledgeWorks Global Digital Art Support General Guidelines .

When possible, please place symbol legends below the figure instead of to the side.

APA offers authors the option to publish their figures online in color without the costs associated with print publication of color figures.

The same caption will appear on both the online (color) and print (black and white) versions. To ensure that the figure can be understood in both formats, authors should add alternative wording (e.g., "the red (dark gray) bars represent") as needed.

For authors who prefer their figures to be published in color both in print and online, original color figures can be printed in color at the editor's and publisher's discretion provided the author agrees to pay:

• $900 for one figure
• An additional $600 for the second figure
• An additional $450 for each subsequent figure

List references in alphabetical order. Each listed reference should be cited in text, and each text citation should be listed in the References section.

Examples of basic reference formats:

Journal article

Nag, S., Vagh, S. B., Dulay, K. M., Snowling, M., Donolato, E., & Melby-Lervåg, M. (2024). Home learning environments and children’s language and literacy skills: A meta-analytic review of studies conducted in low- and middle-income countries. Psychological Bulletin, 150 (2), 132–153. https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000417

Authored book

Dehaene, S. (2023). Seeing the mind: Spectacular images from neuroscience, and what they reveal about our neuronal selves . MIT Press.

Chapter in an edited book

Kim, Y., Boulware, J. N., Nusbaum, H. C., & Henly, A. (2024). Civic virtues, wisdom, and psychological resilience. In N. E. Snow (Ed.), The self, civic virtue, and public life (pp. 21–36). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003367857-3

APA can place supplemental materials online, available via the published article in the APA PsycArticles ® database. Please see Supplementing Your Article With Online Material for more details.

Respecting authors’ autonomy and recognizing that authors’ names may change after articles have been published, APA Publishing will update author names without publishing an accompanying correction notice. Changes will be made to the digital record for APA-published e-books or journal articles that have already appeared in print. Please see the policy on author name changes after publication for more information.

Journal Manuscript Preparation Guidelines

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APA Publishing Insider is a free monthly newsletter with tips on APA Style, open science initiatives, active calls for papers, research summaries, and more.

Visit the APA Style website for style and grammar guidelines, free instructional aids, reference examples, the APA Style blog, APA Style products, and more.

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Manuscript preparation

“From the proposal stage to the publication, every stage is process driven. Very systematic communication and the best e-proofing platform for online proof submission!” -  Book Author, 2020

You can keep track of where your book is in the publication process in real-time by signing up for notifications alerting you of all the critical stages, including when your book is published online and ready to share with the research community.

Revising your thesis into a book

Springer  will consider submissions containing material that has previously formed part of a PhD or other academic thesis including those that have been made publicly available according to the requirements of the institution awarding the qualification.

Important downloads

• Manuscript guidelines for English books ↗
• Manuscript guidelines for English textbooks ↗
• Key style points ↗
• LaTeX template for monographs ↗
• LaTeX template for contributed works ↗
• Word template for book chapters ↗
• How to create videos for books ↗
• Guide to open access books for Springer authors ↗

On this page

Layout & templates.

If you are comfortable using templates, we offer Word and LaTeX templates for monographs as well as for contributed books. If you prefer not to use a template, please follow the alternate instructions given under the appropriate template below.

When writing a book for Springer, please do not worry about the final layout. To ensure we always keep pace with all the requirements both online and in print, Springer

• structures the content in XML as the basis for presentation in print or in digital formats for such devices as Amazon Kindle™, Apple iPad™/iPhone™, and Google Android™
• utilizes standard layouts with style specifications suitable for multiple display formats.

What advantages do these provide for you in manuscript preparation? It means you can focus on the structured content and let Springer take care of the rest . We will professionally prepare your book with underlying XML structuring, in such a way that ensures your content becomes not only a professionally typeset printed work but is also available to readers in numerous formats for many years to come.

A key part of the publication process (and in response to the changing requirements of the book industry), are the standard corporate book covers that Springer introduced for each subject area in which it publishes. These covers provide a strong, corporate brand identity for Springer books, making them instantly recognizable amongst the scientific community. In addition the covers also assist speed of publication, as having standardized versions greatly reduces the time traditionally spent on creating individual book covers for each title.

Springer provides templates for Word users that help structure the manuscript, e.g., define the heading hierarchy. If you are using Microsoft Word to prepare your manuscript, you do not need to use any special tool for preparation. Please just ensure that the document is clearly structured visually, (e.g., using heading styles, lists, footnotes, etc.). We also provide a Manuscript preparation tool for Word.

• Word template

Note: These templates are not intended for the preparation of the final page layout. The final layout will be created by Springer according to our layout specifications.

The usage of these templates is not mandatory. Alternatively, you may either use a blank Word document or the standard LaTeX book class (for monographs) or article class (for individual contributions) and apply the default settings and styles (e.g., for heading styles, lists, footnotes, etc.).

Springer provides templates for LaTeX users that help structure the manuscript, e.g., define the heading hierarchy. Predefined style formats are available for all the necessary structures that are supposed to be part of the manuscript, and these formats can be quickly accessed via hotkeys or special toolbars.

Note: are not intended for the preparation of the final page layout. The final layout will be created by Springer according to our layout specifications.

LaTeX2e macro packages for 

• contributed books

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Book structure

L Key Style Points August 2023 To guarantee a smooth publication process and a seamless transformation of your manuscript into the final layout and various electronic platforms, the manuscript needs to be structured as follows:

• Front Matter: Title page, Dedication, Foreword, Preface, Acknowledgments, About the book/conference, Table of Contents, About the Author (for authored books), About the Editor/List of Contributors (for edited books), List of Abbreviations, List of Figures and/or Tables

The title page and table of contents must appear in the manuscript’s front matter. All other sections listed above are optional. The above order is not flexible. We have defined this order as our house style and optimized our publication process to follow it strictly.

• Text Body: It comprises the chapters containing the content of the book, i.e. text, figures, tables, and references. Chapters can be grouped together in parts.
• Back Matter: After the last chapter, the back matter can contain an appendix, a glossary, and/or an index, all of which are optional.

Front matter

Title page, preface, and table of contents precede the actual content of a book. The preface should be about the book: why it was written, who it is for, its organization, or the selection of contributors. An introduction in the subject of the book, however, should appear as the first chapter of the book.

Please include all author/editor names, their affiliations, the book title, and the subtitle. Ensure that the sequence of the author names is correct and the title of your book is final when you submit your manuscript. Once the manuscript has been delivered to Production, changes to title, subtitle, or authorship are no longer possible.

If you intend to include a foreword, please submit it with the manuscript.

• A foreword is usually written by an authority in the subject and serves as a recommendation for the book
• The name of the foreword’s contributor is always given at the end of the foreword; affiliations and titles are generally not included, but the date and place of writing may be.

The preface should be about the book: why its important, why it was written, who it is for. It should stimulate interest in the book.

• Front matter material is not listed in the table of contents.
• List all parts, chapters, and back matter material (e.g., an index) in their final sequence.
• If your chapters are numbered, use Arabic numerals and number the chapters consecutively throughout the book (Chapter 1, Chapter 2, etc.), i.e., do not start anew with each part. The introductory chapter must be listed as Chapter 1, if your chapters are numbered. Please do not use subchapters.
• In authored books we present two heading levels under the main chapter titles. In edited books, we present the chapter titles and the chapter author names.
• If there are parts, use Roman numerals for parts (Part I, Part II, etc.). Parts consist of a short title and can contain a short introductory text (optional). Please don’t use subparts.

Chapters contain the actual content of the book, i.e., text, figures, tables, and references. Chapters can be grouped together in parts; subparts are not possible. Only one chapter (e.g. an introduction) may precede the first part and would be the first chapter.

• Decide the numbering style for the chapters and apply this style consistently to all chapters: consecutively numbered (monographs or textbooks) or unnumbered (contributed volumes).
• If an introduction to the subject of the book (historical background, definitions, or methodology) is included, it should appear as the first chapter and thus be included in the chapter numbering. It can contain references, figures, and tables, just as any other chapter.

Either British or American English can be used, but be consistent within your chapter or book. In contributed books chapter-specific consistency is accepted Check for consistent spelling of names, terms and abbreviations, including in tables and figure legends.

For contributed volumes, please include each chapter authors’ names (spelled out as they would be cited), affiliations and e-mail addresses and telephone numbers after the chapter title. Ensure that the sequence of the author names is correct and the title of your book is final when you submit your manuscript. Please supply all emails, telephone numbers and address of each author and editor. Once the manuscript has been delivered to production, changes to title or authorship are no longer possible.

Chapter abstracts are strongly encouraged because they have been proven to significantly increase a book’s visibility. Good abstracts will mean that more people read your book. These will appear online at SpringerLink and other sites and will be available with unrestricted access to facilitate online searching (e.g., Google) and allow unregistered users to read the abstract as a teaser for the complete chapter.

If no abstract is submitted, we will use the first paragraph of the chapter instead.

Some books also publish keywords. Please check with the editor of your book or with the publishing editor to see if keywords are required.

• Heading levels should be clearly identified and each level should be uniquely and consistently formatted and/or numbered.
• Use the decimal system of numbering if your headings are numbered.
• Never skip a heading level. The only exception are run-in headings which can be used at any hierarchical level.
• Technical terms and abbreviations should be defined the first time they appear in the text.
• Please always use internationally accepted signs and symbols for units (also called SI units).
• Numerals should follow the British/American method of decimal points to indicate decimals and commas to separate thousands

Manuscripts will be checked by a copy editor for formal style. Springer Nature follows certain layouts and standards with regard to the presentation of the content, and the copy editors make sure that the manuscript conforms to these styles. When you receive the page proofs during the production of your book, please do not make changes that involve only matters of style.

• Italics should be used for emphasized words or phrases in running text, but do not format entire paragraphs in italics. 
• Use italics for species and genus names, mathematical/physical variables, and prefixes in chemical compounds. 
• Bold formatting should only be used for run-in headings and small capitals for indicating optical activity (D- and L-dopa). 
• Sans serif (e.g., Arial) and nonproportional font (e.g., Courier) can be used to distinguish the literal text of computer programs from running text.
• Do not set entire pages as boxes, because this diminishes online readability.
• Do not set entire pages as boxes, because this affects online readability. 
• For additional didactic elements such as examples, questions, exercises, summaries, or key messages in textbooks and in professional books, please use a consistent style for each of these elements and submit a list of the styles used together with your manuscript. For LaTeX users please use the Springer Nature macro package to highlight these elements.
• In Word, use the Math function, MathType, or Microsoft Equation editor to create your equations. Please don’t include the equations as images.
• In LaTeX, use the Math environment to create your equations.
• Give each table a heading (caption). Add a reference to the table source at the end of the caption if necessary.
• Number tables consecutively using the chapter number (e.g. Table 1.1 for the first table in Chapter 1) and ensure that all tables are cited in the text in sequential order. Do not write “the following table”.
• Use the table function to create and format tables. Do not use the space bar or multiple tabs to separate columns and please do not use Excel to create tables as this can cause problems when converting your tables into the typesetting program and other formats.

Figures and illustrations

Number the figures using the chapter number (e.g. Fig. 1.1 for the first figure in Chap. 1) and ensure that all figures are cited in the text in sequential order. Do not write “the following figure”.

• Give each figure a concise caption, describing accurately what the figure depicts. Include the captions at the end of the text file, not in the figure file.
• Identify all elements found in the figure in the figure caption; and use boxes, circles, etc., as coordinate points in graphs instead of color lines.
• If a figure is reproduced from a previous publication, include the source as the last item in the caption.
• A figure is an object that is drawn or photographed; it does not consist solely of characters and thus cannot be keyed.
• Do not submit tabular material as figures.
• Graphics and diagrams should be saved as EPS file with the fonts embedded. MS Office files (Excel or PowerPoint) can be submitted in the original format (xls, xlsx, ppt, pptx). Scanned graphics in TIFF format should have a minimum resolution of 1200 dpi.
• Photos or drawings with fine shading should be saved as TIFF with a minimum resolution of 300 dpi.
• A combination of halftone and line art (e.g., photos containing line drawing or extensive lettering, color diagrams, etc.) should be saved as TIFF with a minimum resolution of 600 dpi.

Cite references in the text with author name/s and year of publication in parentheses (“Harvard system”)

• One author: (Miller 1991) or Miller (1991)
• Two authors: (Miller and Smith 1994) or Miller and Smith (1994)
• Three authors or more: (Miller et al. 1995) or Miller et al. (1995)

If it is customary in your field, you can also cite with reference numbers in square brackets either sequential by citation or according to the sequence in an alphabetized list: [3, 7, 12].

Include a reference list at the end of each chapter so that readers of single chapters of the eBook can make full use of the citations. References at the end of the book cannot be linked to citations in the chapters. Please do not include reference lists at the end of a chapter section, at the end of a book part, in a preface or an appendix.

Include all works that are cited in the chapter and that have been published (including on the internet) or accepted for publication. Personal communications and unpublished works should only be mentioned in the text. Do not use footnotes as a substitute for a reference list.

Entries in the list must be listed alphabetically except in the numbered system of sequential citation. The rules for alphabetization are:

• First, all works by the author alone, ordered chronologically by year of publication
• Next, all works by the author with a coauthor, ordered alphabetically by coauthor
• Finally, all works by the author with several coauthors, ordered chronologically by year of publication

Springer Nature follows certain standards with regard to the presentation of the reference list. They are based on reference styles that were established for various disciplines in the past and have been adjusted to facilitate automated processing and citation linking. This allows us, for example, to easily cross link the cited references with the original publication. References will be revised in production in accordance with these house styles. 

Choose the appropriate style for your subject from the list below. Please note that the adapted and standardized forms are based on, but differ slightly from, certain recommended styles (e.g., APA, Chicago)

Back matter

After the last chapter, the back matter of the book can contain an appendix, a glossary or an index.

Do not include a reference list containing the cited literature in the back matter, as references are then not linked to citations in the chapters. Instead, please include reference lists at the end of each chapter. A list of further reading may be included in the back matter.

An appendix cannot include a reference list.

If an index is desired, please submit the entries with the manuscript.

Optimizing for Google – tips for book authors

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Search engine optimization (SEO) is about relevance! Help Google and other search engines present your book to the right audience and give these readers what they want.

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A Brief Guide To Writing Your First Scientific Manuscript

I’ve had the privilege of writing a few manuscripts in my research career to date, and helping trainees write them. It’s hard work, but planning and organization helps. Here’s some thoughts on how to approach writing manuscripts based on original biomedical research.

Getting ready to write

Involve your principal investigator (PI) early and throughout the process. It’s our job to help you write!

Write down your hypothesis/research question. Everything else will be spun around this.

Gather your proposed figures and tables in a sequence that tells a story. This will form the basis of your Results section. Write bulleted captions for the figures/tables, including a title that explains the key finding for each figure/table, an explanation of experimental groups and associated symbols/labels, and details on biological and technical replicates and statements (such as “one of four representative experiments are shown.”)

Generate a bulleted outline of the major points for each section of the manuscript. This depends on the journal, but typically, and with minor variations: Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion. Use Endnote, Reference Manager, Mendeley, or other citation software to start inserting references to go with bullets. Decide from the beginning what word processing software you’ll use (Word, Google Docs, etc.). Google Docs can be helpful for maintaining a single version of the manuscript, but citation software often doesn’t play well with Google Docs (whereas most software options can automatically update citation changes in Word). Here’s what should go in each of these sections:

Introduction: What did you study, and why is it important? What is your hypothesis/research question?

Methods: What techniques did you use? Each technique should be its own bullet, with sub-bullets for key details. If you used animal or human subjects, include a bullet on ethics approval. Important methodologies and materials, i.e., blinding for subjective analyses, full names of cell lines/strains/reagents and your commercial/academic sources for them.

Results: What were your findings? Each major finding should be its own bullet, with sub-bullets going into more detail for each major finding. These bullets should refer to your figures.

Discussion: Summarize your findings in the context of prior work. Discuss possible interpretations. It is important to include a bullet describing the limitations of the presented work. Mention possible future directions.

Now read the entire outline (including the figures). Is it a complete story? If so, you’re ready to prepare for submission. If not, you should have a good idea of what it will take to finish the manuscript.

Writing your manuscript

You first need to decide where you want to submit your manuscript. I like to consider my ideal target audience. I also like to vary which journals I publish in, both to broaden the potential readers of my papers and to avoid the appearance of having an unfair “inside connection” to a given journal. Your academic reputation is priceless.

Once you’ve chosen your journal, look at the journal’s article types. Decide which article type you would like to submit and reformat your outline according to the journal’s standards (including citation style).

Convert your outline (including the figure captions) to complete sentences. Don’t focus on writing perfect prose for the first draft. Write your abstract after the first draft is completed. Make sure the manuscript conforms to the target journal’s word and figure limits.

Discuss all possible authors with your PI. If the study involved many people, create a table of possible authors showing their specific contributions to the manuscript. (This is helpful to do in any case as many journals now require this information.) Assigning authorship is sometimes complicated, but keep in mind that the Acknowledgements can be used to recognize those who made minor contributions (including reading the manuscript to provide feedback). “Equal contribution” authorship positions for the first and last authors is a newer option for a number of journals. An alternative is to generate the initial outline or first draft with the help of co-authors. This can take a lot more work and coordination, but may make sense for highly collaborative and large manuscripts.

Decide with your PI who will be corresponding author. Usually you or the PI.

Circulate the manuscript draft to all possible authors. Thank them for their prior and ongoing support. Inform your co-authors where you would like to send the manuscript and why. Give them a reasonable deadline to provide feedback (minimum of a few weeks). If you use Microsoft Word, ask your co-authors to use track changes.

Collate comments from your co-authors. The Combine Documents function in Word can be very helpful. Consider reconciling all comments and tracked changes before circulating another manuscript draft so that co-authors can read a “clean” copy. Repeat this process until you and your PI (and co-authors) are satisfied that the manuscript is ready for submission.

Some prefer to avoid listing authors on manuscript drafts until the final version is generated because the relative contributions of authors can shift during manuscript preparation.

Submit your manuscript

Write a cover letter for your manuscript. Put it on institutional letterhead, if you are permitted by the journal’s submission system. This makes the cover letter, and by extension, the manuscript, more professional. Some journals have required language for cover letters regarding simultaneous submissions to other journals. It’s common for journals to require that cover letters include a rationale explaining the impact and findings of the manuscript. If you need to do this, include key references and a citation list at the end of the cover letter.

Most journals will require you to provide keywords, and/or to choose subject areas related to the manuscript. Be prepared to do so.

Conflicts of interest should be declared in the manuscript, even if the journal does not explicitly request this. Ask your co-authors about any such potential conflicts.

Gather names and official designations of any grants that supported the work described in your manuscript. Ask your co-authors and your PI. This is very important for funding agencies such as the NIH, which scrutinize the productivity of their funded investigators and take this into account when reviewing future grants.

It’s common for journals to allow you to suggest an editor to handle your manuscript. Editors with expertise in your area are more likely to be able to identify and recruit reviewers who are also well-versed in the subject matter of your manuscript. Discuss this with your PI and co-authors.

Likewise, journals often allow authors to suggest reviewers. Some meta-literature indicates that manuscripts with suggested reviewers have an overall higher acceptance rate. It also behooves you to have expert reviewers that can evaluate your manuscript fairly, but also provide feedback that can improve your paper if revisions are recommended. Avoid suggesting reviewers at your own institution or who have recently written papers or been awarded grants with you. Savvy editors look for these types of relationships between reviewers and authors, and will nix a suggested reviewer with any potential conflict of interest. Discuss suggested reviewers with your PI and co-authors.

On the flip side, many journals will allow you to list opposed reviewers. If you believe that someone specific will provide a negatively biased review for non-scientific reasons, that is grounds for opposing them as your manuscript’s reviewer. In small fields, it may not be possible to exclude reviewers and still undergo expert peer review. Definitely a must-discuss with your PI and co-authors.

Generate a final version of the manuscript. Most journals use online submission systems that mandate uploading individual files for the manuscript, cover letter, etc. You may have to use pdf converting software (i.e., Adobe Acrobat) to change Word documents to pdf’s, or to combine documents into a single pdf. Review the final version, including the resolution and appearance of figures. Make sure that no edges of text or graphics near page margins are cut off (Adobe Acrobat sometimes does this with Microsoft Word). Send the final version to your PI and co-authors. Revise any errors. Then submit! Good luck!

Edited by Bill Sullivan, PhD, Indiana University School of Medicine.

Michael Hsieh is the Stirewalt Scientific Director of the Biomedical Research Institute and an Associate Professor at the George Washington University, where he studies host-pathogen interactions in the urinary tract. Michael has published over 90 peer-reviewed scientific papers. His work has been featured on PBS and in the New York Times.

Your article is wonderful. just read it. you advise very correctly. I am an experienced writer. I write articles on various scientific topics. and even I took some information for myself, who I have not used before. Your article will help many novice writers. I’m sure of it. You very well described all the points of your article. I completely agree with them. most difficult to determine the target audience. Thanks to your article, everyone who needs some kind of help can get it by reading your article. Thanks you

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What are you submitting? The main manuscript document The title page How do I format my article? Sage Author Services

What are you submitting? 

Sage journals publish a variety of different article types, from original research, review articles, to commentaries and opinion pieces. Please view your chosen journal’s submission guidelines for information on what article types are published and what the individual requirements are for each. Below are general guidelines for submitting an original research article. 

Whatever kind of article you are submitting, remember that the language you use is important. We are committed to promoting equity throughout our publishing program, and we believe that using language is a simple and powerful way to ensure the communities we serve feel welcomed, respected, safe, and able to fully engage with the publishing process and our published content. Inclusive language considerations are especially important when discussing topics like age, appearance, disability, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, race, religion, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, emigration status, and weight. We have produced an Inclusive Language Guide that recommends preferred terminology on these topics. We recognize that language is constantly evolving and we’re committed to ensuring that this guide is continuously updated to reflect changing practices. The guide isn't exhaustive, but we hope it serves as a helpful starting point.  

The main manuscript document 

Have a look at your chosen journal’s submission guidelines for information on what sections should be included in your manuscript. Generally there will be an Abstract, Introduction, Methodology, Results, Discussion, Conclusion, Acknowledgments, Statements and Declarations section, and References. Be sure to remove any identifying information from the main manuscript if you are submitting to a journal that has a double-anonymized peer review policy and instead include this on a separate title page. See the Sage Journal Author Gateway for detailed guidance on making an anonymous submission .   

Your article title, keywords, and abstract all contribute to its position in search engine results, directly affecting the number of people who see your work. For details of what you can do to influence this, visit How to help readers find your article online .

Title: Your manuscript’s title should be concise, descriptive, unambiguous, accurate, and reflect the precise contents of the manuscript. A descriptive title that includes the topic of the manuscript makes an article more findable in the major indexing services.  

Abstract: Your abstract should concisely state the purpose of the research, major findings, and conclusions. If your research includes clinical trials, the trial registry name and URL, and registration number must be included at the end of the abstract. Submissions that do not meet this requirement will not be considered. Please see your chosen journal’s guidelines for information on how to set out your abstract.  

Keywords: You will be asked to list a certain number of keywords after the abstract. Keywords should be as specific as possible to the research topic.   

Acknowledgements: If you are including an Acknowledgements section, this will be published at the end of your article. The Acknowledgments section should include all contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship. Per ICMJE recommendations , it is best practice to obtain consent from non-author contributors who you are acknowledging in your manuscript.   

Writing assistance and third-party submissions: if you have received any writing or editing assistance from a third-party, for example a specialist communications company, this must be clearly stated in the Acknowledgements section and in the covering letter. Please see the Sage Author Gateway for what information to include in your Acknowledgements section. If your submission is being made on your behalf by someone who is not listed as an author, for example the third-party who provided writing/editing assistance, you must state this in the Acknowledgements and also in your covering letter. Please note that the journal editor reserves the right to not consider submissions made by a third party rather than by the author/s themselves.   

Author contributions statement: As part of our commitment to ensuring an ethical, transparent and fair peer review and publication process, some journals have adopted CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) . CRediT is a high-level taxonomy, including 14 roles, which is used to describe each author’s individual contributions to the work. Other journals may require you to list the contribution of each author as part of the submission process. If so, please include an Author Contributions heading within your submission after the Acknowledgements section. The information you give on submission will then show under the Author Contributions heading later at the proofing stage.  

Statements and declarations: You’ll be asked to provide various statements and declarations regarding the research you’re submitting. These will vary by journal so do make sure you read your chosen journal’s guidelines carefully to see what is required. Please include a section with the heading ‘Statements and Declarations’ at the end of your submitted article, after the Acknowledgements section (and Author Contributions section if applicable) including the relevant sub-headings listed below. If a declaration is not applicable to your submission, you must still include the heading and state ‘Not applicable’ underneath. Please note that you may be asked to justify why a declaration was not applicable to your submission by the Editorial Office.

• Ethical considerations: Please include your ethics approval statements under this heading, even if you have already included ethics approval information in your methods section. If ethical approval was not required, you need to state this. You can find information on what to say in your ethical statements as well as example statements on our Publication ethics and research integrity policies page    
• Consent to participate: Please include any participant consent information under this heading and state whether informed consent to participate was written or verbal. If the requirement for informed consent to participate has been waived by the relevant Ethics Committee or Institutional Review Board (i.e. where it has been deemed that consent would be impossible or impracticable to obtain), please state this. If this is not applicable to your manuscript, please state ‘Not applicable’ in this section. More information and example statements can be found on our Publication ethics and research integrity policies page   
• Consent for publication: Submissions containing any data from an individual person (including individual details, images or videos) must include a statement confirming that informed consent for publication was provided by the participant(s) or a legally authorized representative. Non-essential identifying details should be omitted.  Please do not submit the participant’s actual written informed consent with your article, as this in itself breaches the patient’s confidentiality. The Journal requests that you confirm to us, in writing, that you have obtained written informed consent to publish but the written consent itself should be held by the authors/investigators themselves, for example in a patient’s hospital record. The confirmatory letter may be uploaded with your submission as a separate file in addition to the statement confirming that consent to publish was obtained within the manuscript text. If this is not applicable to your manuscript, please state ‘Not applicable’ in this section. If you need one you can download this template participant consent form . 
• Declaration of conflicting interest: All journals require a declaration of conflicting interests from all authors so that a statement can be included in your article. For guidance on conflict of interest statements, see our policy on conflicting interest declarations and the ICMJE recommendations . If no conflict exists, your statement should read: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
• Funding statement: All articles need to include a funding statement, under a separate heading, even if you did not receive funding .  You’ll find guidance and examples on our Funding statements page .  
• Data availability statement: We are committed to helping ensure you reach as many readers as possible, always in a spirit of openness and transparency. We encourage you to share your research to a public repository and cite this data in your research (please note that this is a requirement for some journals). You will need to publish a data availability statement with your article under this heading. More information on how to write one can be found on the Sage Gateway: Research Data Sharing FAQs | SAGE Publications Ltd   

Artwork, figures, and other graphics: Illustrations, pictures and graphs, should be supplied in the highest quality and in an electronic format that helps us to publish your article in the best way possible. Please follow the guidelines below to enable us to prepare your artwork for the printed issue as well as the online version. 

• Format: TIFF, JPEG: Common format for pictures (containing no text or graphs). 
• EPS: Preferred format for graphs and line art (retains quality when enlarging/zooming in). 
• Placement: Figures/charts and tables created in MS Word should be included in the main text rather than at the end of the document. 
• Figures and other files created outside Word (i.e. Excel, PowerPoint, JPG, TIFF and EPS) should be submitted separately. Please add a placeholder note in the running text (i.e. “[insert Figure 1.]") 
• Resolution: Rasterized based files (i.e. with .tiff or .jpeg extension) require a resolution of at least 300 dpi (dots per inch). Line art should be supplied with a minimum resolution of 800 dpi. 
• Colour: Please note that images supplied in colour will be published in colour online and black and white in print (unless otherwise arranged). Therefore, it is important that you supply images that are comprehensible in black and white as well (i.e. by using colour with a distinctive pattern or dotted lines). The captions should reflect this by not using words indicating colour. If you have requested colour reproduction in the print version, we will advise you of any costs on receipt of your accepted article. 
• Dimension: Check that the artworks supplied match or exceed the dimensions of the journal. Images cannot be scaled up after origination 
• Fonts: The lettering used in the artwork should not vary too much in size and type (usually sans serif font as a default). 

Please ensure that you have obtained any necessary permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures, or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. For further information including guidance on fair dealing for criticism and review, please see the Frequently Asked Questions page on the Sage Journal Author Gateway.   

References: Every in-text citation must have a corresponding citation in the reference list and vice versa. Corresponding citations must have identical spelling and year. Information about what reference style to use can be found in your chosen journal’s guidelines. 

Authors should update any references to preprints when a peer reviewed version is made available, to cite the published research. Citations to preprints are otherwise discouraged.  

Supplemental material Sage journals can host additional materials online (e.g. datasets, podcasts, videos, images etc.) alongside the full text of the article. Your supplemental material must be one of our accepted file types. For that list and more information please refer to our guidelines on submitting supplemental files .  

The title page  

You will also need to prepare a title page. This should include any information removed from the main manuscript document for the purposes of anonymity. The title page will not be sent to peer reviewers.  

Your title page should include:  

• Article title  
• The full list of authors including all names and affiliations. 
• The listed affiliation should be the institution where the research was conducted. If an author has moved to a new institution since completing the research, the new affiliation can be included in a note at the end of the manuscript – please indicate this on the title page.  
• Everybody eligible for authorship must be included at the time of submission (please see the authorship section for more information).
• Contact information for the corresponding author: name, institutional address, phone, email  
• Acknowledgments section  
• Statements and Declarations section  
• Any other identifying information related to the authors and/or their institutions, funders, approval committees, etc, that might compromise anonymity.   

How do I format my article? 

The preferred format is Word. There is no need to follow a specific template when submitting your manuscript in Word. However, please ensure your heading levels are clear, and the sections clearly defined. 

(La)TeX guidelines We welcome submissions of LaTeX files. Please download the  Sage LaTex Template , which contains comprehensive guidelines. The Sage LaTex template files are also available in  Overleaf , should you wish to write in an online environment. 

If you have used any .bib or .bst files when creating your article, please include these with your submission so that we can generate the reference list and citations in the journal-specific style. If you have any queries, please consult our  LaTex Frequently Asked Questions.  

When formatting your references, please ensure you check the reference style followed by your chosen journal. Here are quick links to the  Sage Harvard  reference style, the  Sage Vancouver  reference style and the  APA  reference style. 

Other styles available for certain journals are:  ACS Style Guide ,  AMA Manual of Style ,  ASA Style Guide ,  Chicago Manual of Style  and  CSE Manual for Authors, Editors, and Societies . 

Please refer to  your journal's manuscript submission guidelines  to confirm which reference style it conforms to and for other specific requirements. 

Equations should to be submitted using Office Math ML and Math type. 

Artwork guidelines   Illustrations, pictures and graphs, should be supplied in the highest quality and in an electronic format that helps us to publish your article in the best way possible. Please follow the guidelines below to enable us to prepare your artwork for the printed issue as well as the online version. 

• Format:  TIFF, JPEG: Common format for pictures (containing no text or graphs).  EPS: Preferred format for graphs and line art (retains quality when enlarging/zooming in). 
• Placement:  Figures/charts and tables created in MS Word should be included in the main text rather than at the end of the document.  Figures and other files created outside Word (i.e. Excel, PowerPoint, JPG, TIFF and EPS) should be submitted separately. Please add a placeholder note in the running text (i.e. “[insert Figure 1.]") 
• Resolution:  Rasterized based files (i.e. with .tiff or .jpeg extension) require a resolution of at least  300 dpi  (dots per inch). Line art should be supplied with a minimum resolution of  800 dpi . 
• Color:  Please note that images supplied in colour will be published in color online and black and white in print (unless otherwise arranged). Therefore, it is important that you supply images that are comprehensible in black and white as well (i.e. by using color with a distinctive pattern or dotted lines). The captions should reflect this by not using words indicating colour. 
• Dimension:  Check that the artworks supplied match or exceed the dimensions of the journal. Images cannot be scaled up after origination 
• Fonts:  The lettering used in the artwork should not vary too much in size and type (usually sans serif font as a default). 

Image integrity Figures should be minimally processed and should reflect the integrity of the original data in the image. Adjustments to images in brightness, contrast, or color balance should be applied equally to the entire image, provided they do not distort any data in the figure, including the background. Selective adjustments and touch-up tools used on portions of a figure are not appropriate. Images should not be layered or combined into a single image unless it is stated that the figure is a product of time-averaged data. All adjustments to image date should be clearly disclosed in the figure legend. Images may be additionally screened to confirm faithfulness to the original data. Authors should be able to supply raw image data upon request. Authors should also list tools and software used to collect image data and should document settings and manipulations in the Methods section. 

Sage Author Services 

Authors seeking assistance with English language editing, translation with editing, or figure and manuscript formatting, to fit the journal’s specifications should consider using Sage Author Services. Other additional services include creation of infographics and video summaries to promote your article with colleagues and over social media. Visit  Sage Author Services  on our Journal Author Gateway for further information. 

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In addition to providing guidelines for the general formatting of a manuscript and for in-text citations and the page of references, which follows a document, the  ASA Style Guide  also specifies a particular style of writing for presenting sociological work.  

Generally, avoid writing in the first person, unless instructed to do so. Avoid giving an opinion, unless the purpose of the writing is to make an argument.

Use the active voice (click  here  to view the OWL's resources on active voice).

Spell out words such as  percent ,  chi-square  and  versus , rather than using their abbreviations (except when presenting data in tables or graphs).

Avoiding Plagiarism

Whenever using data that someone else collected, or whenever referring to that data, or whenever using another person’s ideas, whether published, unpublished, or available electronically, reference the author(s). This is true whether quoting their work verbatim or paraphrasing it (click  here  to view the OWL's resources on avoiding plagiarism).

Use straightforward language, avoiding jargon, superlatives, wordy phrases and common expressions.

Pay close attention to such “nuts and bolts” issues as consistent use of verb tenses and accuracy in spelling, punctuation, sentence construction, and following a well-thought-out outline.

Unless gendered terms are important to the analysis or demographics, use nongendered terms wherever possible.

Instead of  man ,  men , or  mankind , use  person ,  people ,  individual , or  humankind .

When appropriate, use a plural noun ( people ) or pronoun ( they ). Replace gendered pronouns with an article when possible ( the  instead of  hers) .

Race and Ethnicity

Avoid racial and ethnic stereotyping.

Be as specific as possible when using terms that describe a race or ethnicity.

Use the following terms:

• African American (no hyphen)
• black (not capitalized)
• white (not capitalized)
• Hispanic, Chicano, Latino, or Latina ( Latino  if gender is unknown or known to be male;  Latin a if known to be female)
• American Indian or Native American (no hyphen)
• Asian or Asian American (no hyphen)

Avoid using the following:

• Afro-American

Acronym Usage

The first time you use an acronym, you should give the full name with the acronym in parenthesis.

Afterwards, you can use only the acronym.

Different sections of a paper may call for different verb tenses but use the same tense within each section.

Literature Review

Use the past tense to communicate that the research being reviewed has been completed.

It is possible to mix tenses  if  it helps to explain the finding.

Methods Section

Use the past tense to explain the methods used in the research.

Results Section

Use either past or present tense but don’t mix them.

Punctuation

In addition to following general writing conventions,  the ASA Style Guide  also provides the following guidelines:

Punctuation marks should be in the same font (including italics) as the text that precedes it. (Note: this is a change from the previous usage in  The Chicago Manual of Style ).

When numbering a series of items in a list, use the convention (1), (2), (3) rather than 1. or 1).

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How to Cite an Unpublished Paper or Manuscript in APA Referencing

3-minute read

• 23rd June 2020

Did you know that you can cite unpublished works, such as in-progress research papers or manuscripts, in an essay? Well, you can! The key is citing them correctly. And in this post, we will look at how to cite an unpublished paper or manuscript in APA referencing .

How to Cite an Unpublished Paper in APA referencing

In APA referencing, you can cite an unpublished work in the same way as you would a published one. This means giving an author’s name and a date in brackets . The only difference is that you give a year of production (i.e., when the paper was written) rather than a year of publication:

Few fully understand the publication process (Clarke, 2020).

Like other sources, if you name the author in the text, you do not need to repeat it in the brackets. And if you quote an unpublished paper, you should give page numbers. For example:

According to Clarke (2020), publication “is a complex process” (p. 20).

When a paper has been accepted for publication but not yet published, however, you should use the term “in press” in place of a year in citations:

Few fully understand the publication process (Clarke, in press).

How to Reference an Unpublished Work in APA Referencing

When adding an unpublished paper to an APA reference list , the correct format will depend on where it is in the publication process. But let’s start with works that will not be published at all (e.g., a paper that the author never submitted or that the publisher rejected).

In this case, the correct format is:

Author Surname, Initial(s). (Year of Production). Title of manuscript [Unpublished manuscript]. Department, University Name.

So, in practice, we could cite an unpublished paper like this:

Clarke, J. (2020). The publication process explained [Unpublished manuscript]. School of Journalism, Media and Performance, University of Central Lancashire.

Referencing a Work Submitted for Publication

If a paper has been submitted for publication but not yet accepted, the reference should state “manuscript submitted for publication.” However, you should not include any other information about the submission, such as where it was submitted, as this information could go out of date quickly.

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The correct format in this case is therefore:

Author Surname, Initial(s). (Year of Production). Title of manuscript [Manuscript submitted for publication]. Department, University Name.

For example, we would list the paper above as follows:

Clarke, J. (2020). The publication process explained [Manuscript submitted for publication]. School of Journalism, Media and Performance, University of Central Lancashire.

Referencing a Paper in Press

If a paper has been accepted for publication, use the following format:

Author Surname, Initial(s). (in press). Title. Periodical or Journal Title .

As you can see, we now include both:

• The phrase “in press” to show that the paper has been accepted by the journal and is now awaiting publication.
• The title of the journal that accepted it (note, too, that we only use italics for the journal title here, not the title of the paper itself).

In practice, then, we would reference a paper awaiting publication like this:

Clarke, J. (in press). The publication process explained, Publishing Research Quarterly .

It is always worth checking the status of submitted papers before finalizing your reference list, too, as they can go from “submitted for publication” to “in press” quite suddenly, leaving your reference out of date.

Hopefully, you will now be able to cite an unpublished paper or manuscript correctly. But if you would like any further help with your writing, why not submit a document for proofreading ?

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• v.11(2); 2013 Apr

How to write a scientific manuscript for publication

Giancarlo maria liumbruno.

1 Immunohaematology, Transfusion Medicine and Clinical Pathology Units, “San Giovanni Calibita” Fatebenefratelli Hospital, AFAR, Rome, Italy

Claudio Velati

2 Immunohaematology and Transfusion Medicine Department, Ospedale Maggiore Pizzardi, Azienda USL Bologna, Bologna, Italy

Patrizio Pasqualetti

3 Medical Statistics & Information Technology, Fatebenefratelli Association for Research, Isola Tiberina, Rome, Italy

Massimo Franchini

4 Department of Transfusion Medicine and Haematology, Carlo Poma Hospital, Mantua, Italy

Introduction

The origins and development of the scientific and technical press can be traced back to 1665 when the first “modern” scientific papers appeared and were characterized by non standardised form and style 1 . Subsequently, nearly 300 years ago 2 , in an attempt to ensure that articles met the journal’s standards of quality and scientific validity, the peer-reviewed process for scientific manuscripts was born in England and France. Since then, there has been an enormous proliferation of scientific journals and manuscripts so that, at present, the numbers of biomedical papers published annually by over 20,000 journals, at a rate of 5,500 new papers per day, far exceeds 2,000,000 1 , 2 .

Published scientific papers and professional meetings are really essential to disseminate relevant information and research findings. However, most of the abstracts of presentations given at scientific meetings are usually available only in conference proceedings although they have the potential to be subsequently published as articles in peer-reviewed journals.

A recently published Cochrane review showed that only 44.5% of almost 30,000 scientific meeting abstracts were published as articles 3 . No association between full publication and authors’ country of origin was detected. Factors associated with full publication included acceptance vs rejection of abstracts for oral or poster presentations, acceptance for oral presentations rather than poster sessions, “positive” results, using the report authors’ definition of “positive”, randomised trial study design and basic rather than clinical research.

Possible reasons for failed publication include lack of time, research still underway, problems with co-authors and negative results 4 . Undoubtedly, lack of the necessary skills and experience in the process of writing and publishing is another possible contributing factor also in the field of Transfusion Medicine although the specialists in this discipline are currently adopting the principles and research methodologies that support evidence-based medicine 5 , and high-level research is actually being carried out at the same rate as in all medical specialties.

There are three broad groups of manuscripts: original scientific articles, reviews and case reports. Although case reports are part of the evidence hierarchy in evidence-based practice, albeit at a lower level, and case series are incorporated in a significant proportion of health technology assessments 6 , this article will address the multiple steps required in writing original articles and reviews with the aim of providing the reader with the necessary tools to prepare, submit and successfully publish a manuscript.

The anatomy of a paper: from origin to current format

The history of scientific journals dates from 1665, when the French “Journal des sçavans” and the English “Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society” first began systematically publishing research results 7 . From then on, the initial structure of scientific papers evolved gradually from letters (usually by a single author, with a polite style and contemporarily addressing multiple subjects) and experimental reports (essentially descriptive and presenting experiences and effects in chronological order) to a better structured and more fluent form characterised by an embryonic description of methods and interpretation of results. This evolved way of reporting experiments gradually replaced the letter form.

It was not, however, until the second half of the 19 th century that the method description became fully developed and a comprehensive organisation of the manuscripts known as “theory-experiment-discussion” emerged 1 . At the beginning of the last century a gradual decrease of the use of the literary style coincided with a growing standardisation of the editorial rules that paved the way for the formal established Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion (IMRAD) structure of scientific papers, which was adopted in the 1980s.

At present, IMRAD is the format encouraged for the text of observational (i.e. retrospective/descriptive) and experimental (i.e. randomised controlled) studies by the “Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals” which have become the most important and widely accepted (by over 500 biomedical journals) guide to writing, publishing, and editing in international biomedical publications 8 . The Uniform Requirements are released by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), an evolution of the initial group of Journal Editors who met for the first time in Vancouver in 1978 and subsequently issued a number of editorial policy statements and guidelines for manuscript submission.

According to the ICMJE, “this so-called IMRAD structure is not an arbitrary publication format but rather a direct reflection of the process of scientific discovery” 9 . In addition it facilitates modular reading and locating of specific information, which is normally found in pre-established sections of an article 7 .

“Long articles may need subheadings within some sections (especially Results and Discussion) to clarify their content. Other types of articles, such as case reports, reviews and editorials, probably need to be formatted differently” 9 .

This format does not comprise other important and integral parts of the article, such as the Title Page, Abstract, Acknowledgements, Figures and Tables (comprising their legends) and References 8 .

There are often slight variations from one journal’s format to another but every journal has instructions to authors available on their website and it is crucial that authors download and comply with them.

The latest edition of the Uniform Requirements was updated in April 2010; it is available at the ICMJE website and is an essential guideline for all authors writing a biomedical manuscript 9 .

Consolidated standards of reporting trials

Medical science depends entirely on the transparent reporting of clinical trials 10 .

Unfortunately, several reviews have documented deficiencies in reports of clinical trials 11 – 15 .

In 1996, a group of scientists and editors developed the CONsolidated Standards Of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) statement which is intended to improve the reporting of a randomised, controlled trial (RCT), enabling readers to understand the design of a trial, its conduct, analysis and interpretation and to assess the validity of its results 16 . It emphasises that this can only be achieved through complete transparency from authors.

The CONSORT statement was updated in 2001 and after the 2007 meeting the statement was further revised and published as CONSORT 2010 which is the most up-to-date version and can be freely viewed and downloaded through one of the several link to Journals available at the CONSORT website under the section “CONSORT Statement - Downloads” 17 . The statement facilitates critical appraisal and interpretation of RCT and many leading medical journals and major international editorial groups have endorsed it.

The statement consists of a checklist (25 items) and a flow diagram that authors can use for reporting a RCT. The checklist items pertain to the content of the Title, Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion and Other information. The flow diagram is intended to depict the passage of participants through a RCT (enrolment, intervention allocation, follow-up and analysis). It is strongly recommended that the CONSORT Statement be used in conjunction with the CONSORT Explanation and Elaboration Document which is available at the CONSORT website under the above mentioned section 17 .

Another major point to consider is the obligation to register clinical trials 9 .

In September 2004 the ICMJE changed their policy and decided they would consider trials for publication only if they had been registered before the enrolment of the first participant. The ICMJE accepts registration in the international registries listed in Table I .

International trial registries acceptable to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors and relevant websites.

Strengthening the reporting of observational studies in epidemiology

The reporting of observational studies frequently lacks details and is not clear enough 18 , 19 . Consequently the quality is poor although many questions in medical research are investigated in observational studies and overwhelming evidence is also extrapolated from them 20 . In fact, observational studies are more suitable for the detection of rare or late adverse effects of treatments, and are more likely to provide an indication of what is achieved in daily medical practice 21 .

To improve the reporting of observational studies (cohort, case-control or cross-sectional studies) a group of methodologists, researchers and editors developed a useful checklist of 22 items: the StrengThening the Reporting of OBservational studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) Statement 21 . The checklist items pertain to the content of the Title, Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion and Other information sections of articles. The STROBE checklists can be freely viewed and downloaded at the STROBE website under the section “Available checklists” 22 . They also include a draft checklist for conference abstracts (items to be included when reporting observational studies in a conference abstract) pertaining to the content of the following sections: Title, Authors, Study design, Objective, Methods, Results and Conclusion.

The STROBE Statement provides guidance to authors on how to improve the reporting of observational studies, it facilitates critical appraisal and interpretation of studies and is widely supported by reviewers, a growing number of biomedical journal editors and readers.

The STROBE checklist is best used in conjunction with an explanation and elaboration article which discusses each of the 22 checklist items, gives methodological background, publishes examples of transparent reporting and is freely available at the STROBE Statement website under the above mentioned section through the link with the Journals in which the document has been published (PLoS Medicine, Annals of Internal Medicine and Epidemiology) 22 .

As review articles comprehensively cover a specific biomedical topic and justify future research directions, they require that the author extensively review and master the literature and then develop some general statements and conclusions with practical implications for patients’ care 23 , 24 . In addition, they should provide an updated reference for those readers interested in broadening their knowledge of critical issues. Review articles are, therefore, important not only for younger physicians early in their career but also for senior academic staff as they represent a tool for intellectual enrichment and enhancement of the standards of research. Writing a review requires knowledge and continuous improvement of qualifications in line with the accumulation of better and updated scientific literature evidence. For this reason, journals often invite experts on a specific topic to write a review article. However, authors can also ask Editors if they would be interested in publishing a review article on a particular, topical, relevant and debated issue.

As reviews are the most accessed among the various types of articles and contribute substantially to the impact factor of journals, obviously they are welcomed and encouraged by many journals and have become an inseparable part of the writing scientific culture.

The three basic types of literature reviews are narrative reviews (which include editorials, commentaries and narrative overviews or non-systematic narrative reviews), qualitative systematic reviews and quantitative systematic reviews (meta-analyses) ( Table II ) 25 .

Summary of the types of literature reviews.

Editorials, typically written by the editor of the journal or an invited guest, may be a narrative review if the author retrieves and summarises information about a particular topic for the reader 25 . Usually, these types of narrative reviews are based upon a short, select and narrowly focused review of only a few papers. However, editorials may be no more than the editor’s comments regarding a current issue of the journal or a current event in health care and do not, therefore, automatically qualify as narrative reviews.

Commentaries

Commentaries may also be written as a narrative review; however, they are typically written with a particular opinion being expressed 25 . Research methodology is not usually presented in these articles which reflect the author’s biased synthesis of other articles. Commentaries are usually shorter than a full-length review article and the author should be an expert in the content area of the commentary. Usually, the purpose of a commentary is to stimulate academic debate between the journal’s readers.

Narrative reviews

Non-systematic narrative reviews are comprehensive narrative syntheses of previously published information 26 . This type of literature review reports the author’s findings in a condensed format that typically summarises the contents of each article. Authors of narrative overviews are often acknowledged experts in the field and have conducted research themselves. Editors sometimes solicit narrative overviews from specific authors in order to bring certain issues to light. Although the bibliographic research methodology is an obligatory section in systematic reviews and meta-analyses, it is also becoming an inseparable part of narrative literature reviews. Providing information on the databases accessed, terms, inclusion and exclusion criteria and time limits adds objectivity to the main messages and conclusions. It is advisable to use only credible databases (at least two or three) which only select high-quality publications that contain the most up-to-date information (see Table III ) 24 . The best way to organise the analysis of the sources in the main text of a narrative biomedical review is to transform information from the retrieved publications into bibliographic cards with a short description of the main results, level of evidence, strengths and limitations of each study and relevance to each section of the manuscript. Furthermore, the readability of a review can be improved by including a few self-explanatory tables, boxes, and figures synthesising essential information and conveying original messages 24 . We also suggest the use of software packages for reference management, which saves time during the multiple revisions.

Main online libraries, catalogues and databases.

In conclusion, a successful narrative review should have the following characteristics: be well-structured, synthesise the available evidence pertaining to the topic, convey a clear message and draw conclusions supported by data analysis.

Qualitative systematic reviews

Qualitative systematic reviews are a type of literature review that employ detailed, rigorous and explicit methods and are, therefore, a more powerful evidence-based source to garner clinical information than narrative reviews, case reports, case series, and poorly conducted cohort studies. A detailed bibliographic research based upon a focused question or purpose is the peculiar characteristic of a systematic review 27 . These reviews are called qualitative because the process by which the individual studies are integrated includes a summary and critique of the findings derived from systematic methods, but does not statistically combine the results of all of the studies reviewed.

Quantitative systematic reviews

A quantitative systematic review or meta-analysis critically evaluates each paper and statistically combines the results of the studies 28 . The authors of a meta-analysis employ all of the rigorous methodology of qualitative systematic reviews and, in addition, gather the original patients’ data from each of the studies under review, pool it all together in a database and produce the appropriate statistics on this larger sample. While this process leads to a more powerful and generalizable conclusion, which is the strength of the meta-analysis, on the other hand it can pool together studies that are very heterogeneous which is the main drawback of a quantitative systematic review. Nevertheless, well-executed quantitative systematic reviews constitute the highest level of evidence for medical decision making 28 .

The recently published Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) statement aims to help improve reporting, focusing on systematic reviews of RCT. The Statement consists of a checklist of 27 essential items for transparent reporting and a flow diagram for the phases of study selection and is accompanied by the PRISMA Explanation and Elaboration Document, which, among other things, provides examples of good reporting for the various review sections 29 .

A further guidance on the reporting of systematic reviews has been published by the Cochrane Collaboration, an international organisation that prepares, updates and publishes systematic reviews of the effects of health-care interventions following a standardised format 30 .

Preparing to write a manuscript Background information

The question or hypothesis formulated by the investigator is the common starting point to search the relevant published literature for an answer 31 . Gathering the background information through an extensive literature search relevant to the topic of interest is the subsequent essential step. Peer reviewers are often experts and not citing important articles poses the manuscript at risk of rejection. It is advisable to consult at least two or three credible databases (see Table III ) to identify the crucial relevant articles and to track down “landmark” articles. In addition, avoid using papers published more than 10 years ago and do not rely on just the abstracts but obtain full-text articles. Articles relevant to the research topic and published in the journal in which the paper is to be submitted should be reviewed and cited 32 .

Last but not least, the bibliographical search should also aim at finding recently published articles similar to the one the author intends to submit. In fact, a journal can be less interested in publishing such a manuscript unless the results reflect new or different findings.

Target journal

It can be worth thinking about this issue before starting to write as a proper choice of the journal can affect not only the writing style but also the ease of publication and the prompt dissemination of research. Ideally, the target journal should be the one in which similar work has been published 32 .

Electronic and open-access journals are the latest resources for publishing and data dissemination available on the scientific journal horizon.

It is also worth considering an appropriate level of impact factor or journal quality. The impact factor of a journal is a measure reflecting the average number of citations to recent articles published in science and social science journals. It is determined by the ratio of the number of citations of papers from that journal in the whole of the biomedical literature over a 2-year period. It is frequently used as a proxy for the relative importance of a journal within its field, with journals with higher impact factors deemed to be more important than those with lower ones.

It is also extremely important to read the instructions to authors section of the selected journal carefully. In fact, although there is a general style for most biomedical journals as agreed by the ICMJE in the Uniform Requirements 9 , individual journals may differ slightly in detail.

It is always best to sort out authorship before writing a manuscript as authorship order can be a source of problems once the paper has been written 23 .

Several guidelines relating to authorship are available and this issue has been extensively addressed in a recently published review article by Elizabeth Wager 33 . Most guidelines on the authorship of scientific articles are focused more on creative and intellectual aspects of research than on routine or technical contributions.

Alhough not universally accepted, the authorship criteria suggested by the ICMJE are the ones most widely promoted by medical journals 9 . According to these criteria, co-authors should: (i) substantially contribute to conception and design of the study, acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; (ii) draft the article or revise it critically for important intellectual content; and (iii) approve the final version.

The authors are listed in decreasing order of their contribution and the senior author, or mentor, should be the last but this convention has never been codified 33 .

It is advisable to provide accurate affiliations and contacts as they will be published on PubMed as well as in the journal but it is also important to agree on the corresponding author who should have full access to the study data and through the provided e-mail address will be the link with the scientific community for the future 1 .

Ethical issues

In addition to the authorship discussed above, there are several ethical issues involved in writing a paper. These include fabrication of data, duplicate publication, plagiarism, misuse of statistics, manipulation of images and inadequate or obviously false citations 31 .

A must-read for all those who are involved in any editorial activity are the guidelines released by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) which is a forum for editors and publishers of peer-reviewed journals to discuss all aspects of publication ethics 34 . COPE provides advice to editors and publishers on all aspects of publication ethics and, in particular, how to handle cases of research and publication misconduct.

Writing the manuscript

Several models for the initial draft exist. A useful algorithm for writing a scientific manuscript is the one recently published by O’Connor and Holmquist 35 . According to these authors, the writing should start with making figures and tables, and then proceed with summary statements (the conclusions summarising the major contributions of the manuscript to the scientific community), identification of the audience, materials and methods, results, discussion, references, introduction, title and conclusion. The aim of this algorithm is to give the structural backbone to the manuscript and is designed to overcome writer’s block and to assist scientists who are not native English speakers.

A further and more general strategy to increase productivity during the early phases of manuscript writing is to ignore at the outset all the details that can be approached later such as structure, grammar and spelling.

The sequence of writing should address the following core sections of the paper in the order from first to last: methods, results, discussion and introduction 31 , 36 , 37 .

“Like every well-written story, a scientific manuscript should have a beginning (Introduction), middle (Materials and Methods), and an end (Results). The Discussion (the moral of the story) puts the study in perspective. The Abstract is an opening summary of the story and the Title gives the story a name” 38 . However, as correctly pointed out by Michael McKay, “writing is not necessarily in the temporal order of the final document (i.e. the IMRAD format)” 39 .

The take-home messages are, therefore: (i) a clear understanding of the essential components of each of these sections is critical to the successful composition of a scientific manuscript; (ii) the proper order of writing greatly facilitates the ease of writing; (iii) the approach to writing can be customised by authors on the basis both of the subject they are dealing with and their personal experience; (iv) the CONSORT 16 , 17 , STROBE 21 , 22 or PRISMA 29 statement must be used as a guidance document for the appropriate reporting of the type of study the authors are dealing with 31 , 32 , 38 .

In the following part of this paper the different sections of a manuscript will be dealt with in the order they are presented in the final document.

Title, keywords and abstract

The title is determinant for the indexing process of the article and greatly contributes to the visibility of the paper. It should reflect the essence of the article, its novelty and its relevance to the biomedical field it deals with 24 . It should be clear, brief, specific, not include jargon or non-standard and unexplained abbreviations, reflect the purpose of the study and state the issue(s) addressed rather than the conclusions 38 . Indicative titles are, therefore, better than declarative ones. Obviously, the title and abstract should correlate with each other.

Available evidence suggests that the presence of a colon in the title positively correlates with the number of citations 40 . In other words, the more specific and accurate the description of the content is, the more chance the manuscript has of being cited 38 .

The title of systematic reviews should ideally follow the participants, interventions, comparisons, outcomes, and study design (PICOS) approach, and include the terms “systematic review”, “meta-analysis”, or both 41 .

The keywords enable the database searching of the article and should be provided in compliance with the instructions to authors. A careful choice from the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) in the National Library of Medicine (NLM) controlled vocabulary thesaurus used for indexing articles in PubMed greatly increases the chances the paper is retrieved and cited by other authors 42 .

The abstract is the last section to be written but it is the most important part of a paper because it is usually the first to be read and readers use the information contained in it to decide whether to read the whole article or not. It should be a concise summary of the manuscript and no longer than specified in the instructions to authors. Usually, abstracts do not contain references and abbreviations and acronyms are not always allowed. If required, it has to be structured in a specific way. For example, original articles submitted to Blood Transfusion, require an abstract of no more than 2,000 characters (including spaces), structured as follows: Background, Materials and methods, Results, Discussion 43 .

A good abstract should be easy to understand and broadly appealing, informative but not too detailed. It can start with a sentence or two outlining the work; then the disease and/or system studied must be introduced and what was previously unknown has to be stated in order to provide a brief overview of the current state-of-the art knowledge on the issue. The methods must be summarised without too many details; the major findings must be clearly indicated and followed by a sentence or two showing the major implications of the paper that must be consistent with the study conclusions without overestimating their possible relevance 44 . In the abstract the present tense should be used to refer to facts already established in the field, while the findings from the current study should be dealt with in the past tense.

The aim of the introduction is to introduce the topic to the readers in a straightforward way, avoiding excessive wordiness 42 . For this reason it should be short and focused, comprising approximately three paragraphs in one page 37 .

The first paragraph should mention the questions or issues that outline the background of the study and establish, using the present tense, the context, relevance, or nature of the problem, question, or purpose (what is known) 23 , 37 .

The second paragraph may include the importance of the problem and unclear issues (what is unknown).

The last paragraph should state the rationale, hypothesis, main objective, or purpose thus clearly identifying the hypothesis to be treated and the questions addressed in the manuscript (why the study was done).

One of the most common mistakes is the failure to make a clear statement of purpose. This is because many research projects, especially retrospective clinical studies, do not start at the beginning (with the identification of a specific question, followed by methods and data collection) but begin by collecting data without first identifying a specific question to be addressed that must in any case be established before beginning to write 38 . Data or conclusions from the study should not be presented or anticipated in the introduction section.

Writing the introduction at the end of the process prevents any block and it is easier after the methods, results and discussion have been completed.

Materials and methods

The methods section is one of the most important parts of a scientific manuscript and its aim is to give the reader all the necessary details to replicate the study.

CONSORT 16 , 17 , STROBE 21 , 22 and PRISMA 29 statements provide a guideline relevant to the particular type of study 2 , 42 .

The two essential elements of this section are a clear presentation of the study design and the identification and description of the measurement parameters used to evaluate the purpose of the study.

It is, therefore, necessary to provide a thorough explanation of the research methodology, including the study design, data collection, analysis principles and rationale. Special attention should be paid to the sample selection, including inclusion and exclusion criteria and to any relevant ethical considerations. A description of the randomisation or other group assignment methods used should be included, as should be the pre-specified primary and secondary outcome(s) and other variables.

According to the Uniform Requirements 9 , in the case of experimental/clinical reports involving patients or volunteers, the authors must provide information about institutional, regulatory and ethical Committee authorisation, informed consent from patients and volunteers and the observance of the latest release of the Helsinki Declaration 45 .

When reporting experiments on animals, authors should state which institutional authority granted approval for the animal experiments 9 .

Finally, in addition to describing and identifying all the measurement parameters used, it is also important to describe any unusual statistical methodology applied, how subjects were recruited and compensated and how compliance was measured (if applicable).

The results section consists of the organised presentation of the collected data. All measurements that the authors described in the materials and methods section must be reported in the results section and be presented in the same order as they were in that section 35 . The past tense should be used as results were obtained in the past. Author(s) must ensure that they use proper words when describing the relationship between data or variables. These “data relation words” should be turned into “cause/effect logic and mechanistic words” in the discussion section. A clear example of the use of this appropriate language can be found in the article by O’Connor 35 .

This section should include only data, including negative findings, and not background or methods or results of measurements that were not described in the methods section 2 . The interpretation of presented data must not be included in this section.

Results for primary and secondary outcomes can be reported using tables and figures for additional clarity. The rationale for end-point selection and the reason for the non-collection of information on important non-measured variables must be explained 35 .

Figures and tables should be simple, expand text information rather than repeat it, be consistent with reported data and summarise them 23 . In addition, they should be comprehensible on their own, that is, with only title, footnotes, abbreviations and comments.

References in this section should be limited to methods developed in the manuscript or to similar methods reported in the literature.

Patients’ anonymity is essential unless consent for publication is obtained.

The main objective of the discussion is to explain the meaning of the results.

This section should be structured as if it were a natural flow of ideas and should start with a simple statement of the key findings and whether they are consistent with the study objectives enunciated in the last paragraph of the introduction. The strengths and the limitations of the research and what the study adds to current knowledge should then be addressed 42 .

Through logical arguments, the authors should convert the relations of the variables stated in the results section into mechanistic interpretations of cause and effect using the present tense as these relations do exist at present 35 . In addition, they should describe how the results are consistent or not with similar studies and discuss any confounding factors and their impact.

They should avoid excessive wordiness and other commonly made errors such as 38 : (i) including information unrelated to the stated purpose of the article; (ii) repeating detailed data previously presented in the Results section; (iii) not interpreting and not critically analysing results of other studies reviewed and cited but rather just repeating their findings; (iv) presenting new data or new details about techniques and enrolment criteria, and (v) overstating the interpretation of the results.

Another common mistake is to forget to criticise the research described in the manuscript by highlighting the limitations of the study. The value of a scientific article is enhanced not only by showing the strengths but also the weak points of the evidence reported in the paper.

The conclusion is a separate, last paragraph that should present a concise and clear “take home” message avoiding repetition of concepts already expressed 32 . The authors should also avoid excessive generalizations of the implications of the study and remember that except for RCT there can only be testable hypotheses and observed associations, rather than rigorous proof of cause and effect 42 . Possible implications for current clinical practice or recommendations should be addressed only if appropriate.

Finally, the areas for possible improvement with future studies should be addressed avoiding ambiguous comments such as “there is a need for further research” and if there is a real need for further studies on the topic it is strongly advisable to be specific about the type of research suggested.

Acknowledgements

All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an Acknowledgements section 9 . The authors should, therefore, add a statement on the type of assistance, if any, received from the sponsor or the sponsor’s representative and include the names of any person who provided technical help, writing assistance, editorial support or any type of participation in writing the manuscript.

In addition, “when submitting a manuscript authored by a group, the corresponding author should clearly indicate the preferred citation and identify all individual authors as well as the group name. Journals generally list other members of the group in the Acknowledgments. The NLM indexes the group name and the names of individuals the group has identified as being directly responsible for the manuscript; it also lists the names of collaborators if they are listed in Acknowledgments” 9 .

The first suggestion is to follow the journal’s policies and formatting instructions, including those for books and web-based references. Other general considerations related to references, including the following ones, can be found in the Uniform Requirements 9 .

References to review articles are an efficient way to guide readers to a body of literature but they do not always reflect original work accurately. Papers accepted but not yet published should be designated as “in press” or “forthcoming” and information from manuscripts submitted but not accepted should be cited in the text as “unpublished observations”.

Avoid using abstracts as references and citing a “personal communication” unless it provides essential information not available from a public source. In this case the name of the person and date of communication should be cited in parentheses in the text. Do not include manuscripts “in submission”

In addition it is important to remember that “authors are responsible for checking that none of the references cite retracted articles except in the context of referring to the retraction. Authors can identify retracted articles in MEDLINE by using the following search term, where pt in square brackets stands for publication type: Retracted publication [pt] in PubMed” 9 . Last but not least, remember that if a reviewer does not have access to any references he or she can ask the author for a full (pdf) copy of the relevant works.

Tips for successful revision of a manuscript

Most papers are accepted after some degree of revision. In some cases, a manuscript may be rejected after internal and editorial review only.

The process of revising a manuscript and successfully responding to the comments of reviewers and Editor can be challenging. Little has been published addressing the issue of effectively revising a manuscript according to the (minor or major) comments of reviewers. This topic was recently extensively and pragmatically covered by James M. Provenzale 46 . The ten principles for revising a manuscript suggested by the author are reported in Table IV .

Ten principles for revising a manuscript suggested by James M. Provenzale 46 .

Many manuscripts are not published simply because the authors have not followed the few simple rules needed to write a good article. We hope that this paper provides the reader with the basic steps to build a draft manuscript and an outline of the process needed for publishing a manuscript. However, in Table V we summarise the ten principles we strongly recommend to comply with in order to improve the likelihood of publication of a scientific manuscript 47 .

Ten principles to improve the likelihood of publication of a scientific manuscript, suggested by James M. Provenzale 47 .

The Authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Educational resources and simple solutions for your research journey

How To Write a Manuscript? Step-by-Step Guide to Research Manuscript Writing

Getting published for the first time is a crucial milestone for researchers, especially early career academics. However, the journey starting from how to write a manuscript for a journal to successfully submitting your scientific study and then getting it published can be a long and arduous one. Many find it impossible to break through the editorial and peer review barriers to get their first article published. In fact, the pressure to publish, the high rejection rates of prestigious journals, and the waiting period for a publication decision may often cause researchers to doubt themselves, which negatively impacts research productivity.

While there is no quick and easy way to getting published, there are some proven tips for writing a manuscript that can help get your work the attention it deserves. By ensuring that you’ve accounted for and ticked the checklist for manuscript writing in research you can significantly increase the chances of your manuscript being accepted.

In this step‐by‐step guide, we answer the question – ­­ how to write a manuscript for publication – by presenting some practical tips for the same.

As a first step, it is important that you spend time to identify and evaluate the journal you plan to submit your manuscript to. Data shows that 21% of manuscripts are desk rejected by journals, with another approximately 40% being rejected after peer review 1 , often because editors feel that the submission does not add to the “conversation” in their journal.  Therefore, even before you actually begin the process of manuscript writing, it is a good idea to find out how other similar studies have been presented. This will not only give you an understanding of where your research stands within the wider academic landscape, it will also provide valuable insights on how to present your study when writing a manuscript so that it addresses the gaps in knowledge and stands apart from current published literature.

The next step is to begin the manuscript writing process. This is the part that people find really daunting. Most early career academics feel overwhelmed at this point, and they often look for tips on how to write a manuscript to help them sort through all the research data and present it correctly. Experts suggest following the IMRaD (Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion) structure that organizes research findings into logical sections and presents ideas and thoughts more coherently for readers.

• The introduction  should state the research problem addressed in your study and highlight its significance in your research domain. A well-crafted introduction is a key element that will compel readers to delve further into the body of your manuscript.
• The materials and methods  section should include what you did and how you conducted your research – the tools, techniques, and instruments used, the data collection methods, and details about the lab environment. Ensuring clarity in this section when writing a manuscript is critical for success.
• The results  section must include complete details of the most significant findings in your study and indicate whether you were able to solve the problem outlined in the introduction. In your manuscript writing process, remember that using tables and figures will help to simplify complex data and results for readers.
• The discussion  section is where you evaluate your results in the context of existing published literature, analyze the implications and meaning of your findings, draw conclusions, and discuss the impact of your research.

You can learn more about the IMRaD structure and master the art of crafting a well-structured manuscript that impresses journal editors and readers in this  in-depth course for researchers , which is available free with a Researcher.Life subscription.

When writing a manuscript and putting the structure together, more often than not, researchers end up spending a lot of time writing the “meat” of the article (i.e., the Methods, Results, and Discussion sections). Consequently, little thought goes into the title and abstract, while keywords get even lesser attention.

The key purpose of the abstract and title is to provide readers with information about whether or not the results of your study are relevant to them. One of my top tips on how to write a manuscript would be to spend some time ensuring that the title is clear and unambiguous, since it is typically the first element a reader encounters. This makes it one of the most important steps to writing a manuscript. Moreover, in addition to attracting potential readers, your research paper’s title is your first chance to make a good impression on reviewers and journal editors.  A descriptive title and abstract will also make your paper stand out for the reader, who will be drawn in if they know exactly what you are presenting. In manuscript writing, remember that the more specific and accurate the title, the more chances of the manuscript being found and cited. Learn the dos and don’ts of drafting an effective title with the help of  this comprehensive handbook for authors , which is also available on the Researcher.Life platform.

The title and the abstract together provide readers with a quick summary of the manuscript and offer a brief glimpse into your research and its scientific implications. The abstract must contain the main premise of your research and the questions you seek to answer. Often, the abstract might be the only part of the manuscript that is read by busy editors, therefore, it should represent a concise version of your complete manuscript. The practice of placing published research papers behind a paywall means many of the database searching software programs will only scan the abstract and titles of the article to determine if the document is relevant to the search keywords the reader is using. Therefore, when writing a manuscript, it is important to write the abstract in a way that ensures both the readers and search engines will be able to find and decide if your research is relevant to their study 2 .

It would not be wrong to say that the title, abstract and keywords operate in a manner comparable to a chain reaction. Once the keywords have helped people find the research paper and an effective title has successfully captured and drawn the readers’ attention, it is up to the abstract of the research paper to further trigger the readers’ interest and maintain their curiosity. This functional advantage alone serves to make an abstract an indispensable component within the research paper format 3 that deserves your complete attention when writing a manuscript.

As you proceed with the steps to writing a manuscript, keep in mind the recommended paper length and mould the structure of your manuscript taking into account the specific guidelines of the journal you are submitting to. Most scientific journals have evolved a distinctive style, structure, and organization. One of the top tips for writing a manuscript would be to use concise sentences and simple straightforward language in a consistent manner throughout the manuscript to convey the details of your research.

Once all the material necessary for submission has been put together, go through the manuscript with a fresh mind so that you can identify errors and gaps. According to Peter Thrower, Editor-in-Chief of  Carbon , one of the top reasons for manuscript rejection is poor language comprehension. Incorrect usage of words, grammar and spelling errors, and flaws in sentence construction are certain to lead to rejection. Authors also often overlook checks to ensure a coherent transition between sections when writing a manuscript. Proofreading is, therefore, a must before submitting your manuscript for publication. Double-check the data and figures and read the manuscript out loud – this helps to weed out possible grammatical errors.

You could request colleagues or fellow researchers to go through your manuscript before submission but, if they are not experts in the same field, they may miss out on errors. In such cases, you may want to consider using professional academic editing services to help you improve sentence structure, grammar, word choice, style, logic and flow to create a polished manuscript that has a 24% greater chance of journal acceptance 4.

Once you are done writing a manuscript as per your target journal, we recommend doing a  comprehensive set of submission readiness checks  to ensure your paper is structurally sound, complete with all the relevant sections, and is devoid of language errors. Most importantly, you need to check for any accidental or unintentional plagiarism – i.e., not correctly citing, paraphrasing or quoting another’s work – which is considered a copyright infringement by the journal, can not only lead to rejection, but also stir up trouble for you and cause irreversible damage to your reputation and career. Also make sure you have all the ethical declarations in place when writing a manuscript, such as conflicts of interest and compliance approvals for studies involving human or animal participants.

To conclude, whenever you find yourself wondering – how to write a manuscript for publication – make sure you check the following points:

• Is your research paper complete, optimized and submission ready?
• Have all authors agreed the content of the submitted manuscript?
• Is your paper aligned with your target journals publication policies?
• Have you created a winning submission package, with all the necessary details?
• Does it include a persuasive cover letter that showcases your research?

Writing a manuscript and getting your work published is an important step in your career as it introduces your research to a wide audience. If you follow our simple manuscript writing guide, you will have the base to create a winning manuscript, with a great chance at acceptance. If you face any hurdles or need support along the way, be sure to explore these  bite-sized learning modules on research writing , designed by researchers, for researchers. And once you have mastered the tips for writing a research paper, and crafting a great submission package, use the comprehensive AI-assisted manuscript evaluation  to avoid errors that lead to desk rejection and optimize your paper for submission to your target journal.

• Helen Eassom, 5 Options to Consider After Article Rejection. The Wiley Network. Retrieved from  https://www.wiley.com/network/researchers/submission-and-navigating-peer-review/5-options-to-consider-after-article-rejection
• Jeremy Dean Chapnick, The abstract and title page. AME Medical Journal, Vol 4, 2019. Retrieved from  http://amj.amegroups.com/article/view/4965/html
• Velany Rodrigues, How to write an effective title and abstract and choose appropriate keywords. Editage Insights, 2013. Retrieved from  https://www.editage.com/insights/how-to-write-an-effective-title-and-abstract-and-choose-appropriate-keywords
• New Editage Report Shows That Pre-Submission Language Editing Can Improve Acceptance Rates of Manuscripts Written by Non-Native English-Speaking Researchers. PR Newswire, 2019. Retrieved from  https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/new-editage-report-shows-that-pre-submission-language-editing-can-improve-acceptance-rates-of-manuscripts-written-by-non-native-english-speaking-researchers-300833765.html#https%3A%2F%2Fwww.prnewswire.com%3A443

Researcher.Life is a subscription-based platform that unifies the best AI tools and services designed to speed up, simplify, and streamline every step of a researcher’s journey. The Researcher.Life All Access Pack is a one-of-a-kind subscription that unlocks full access to an AI writing assistant, literature recommender, journal finder, scientific illustration tool, and exclusive discounts on professional publication services from Editage.  

Based on 21+ years of experience in academia, Researcher.Life All Access empowers researchers to put their best research forward and move closer to success. Explore our top AI Tools pack, AI Tools + Publication Services pack, or Build Your Own Plan. Find everything a researcher needs to succeed, all in one place –  Get All Access now starting at just $17 a month !    

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Manuscript Writer

Premium add-on | Not suitable for graduate students

Manuscript Writer saves you time and helps you get started with writing your manuscript based on the information you recorded in your SciNote account. It can create a draft of the introduction, materials & methods, results, and references.

Please note that Manuscript Writer is an add-on available to SciNote Premium users only. It is not a standalone product and it is not recommended for graduate students , but is a solution for lab teams, that can provide value once the research data management system has been established as a part of the SciNote license.

That`s how much of your time on avarage goes into writing a manuscript.

Writing from scratch

Is the most difficult part of writing. Making sense of all your data and transforming it into a manuscript you are atually proud of.

Data, data … data

Is definetly a rough patch before you even start writing a draft of your manuscript.

Using the Manuscript Writer

SciNote’s Manuscript Writer is an add-on to your SciNote account and your established data management in SciNote. It is available to SciNote users who already have their data organized and traceable in SciNote.

Once your data is organized in SciNote by projects, experiments and tasks, Manuscript Writer will be able to give you a head start for your writing: a draft of your manuscript!

If you are already a SciNote customer, contact your customer success manager for more information.

When upgrading to an Extended reports add-on, the Manuscript Writer will automatically be activated for you. If you wish to upgrade please contact your Customer Success representative. Once your data is organized in SciNote by projects, experiments and tasks, Manuscript Writer will be able to give you a head start for your writing: a draft of your manuscript!

What will you get?

Manuscript Writer will give you a draft of: the introduction, materials & methods, results and references of your manuscript.

Making sure the final manuscript is always edited by the scientist and all references are properly annotated

Manuscript Writer will pull information from selected references, and based on the relevant keywords it will look for additional relevant open access references and include them in the draft as well. The scientists will get an introduction in which every sentence or paragraph comes with a citation and all references are added to the list of references (another part of the manuscript generated by Manuscript Writer). Every source of text is therefore properly annotated.

After every paragraph that is included in the introduction, the scientist sees the number of the reference and a percentage (e.g. 100%) which shows the scientist that a particular paragraph is cited from the specified reference and is 100% the same text. This information cannot be overlooked, because it is part of the text and additionally notifies the scientist that she/he should edit it…It is then their responsibility to edit and proofread the text. As it would be in every other case when writing manuscripts. Therefore, whether the text stays the same or not is the responsibility of a scientist and Manuscript Writer cannot take over their own responsibility of not editing the text.

We also notify the scientist to edit the received text at the point when they receive the draft. The main benefit is that Manuscript Writer can include interesting paragraphs, related to the subject at hand, to the introduction and give the scientist a head start while writing.

Manuscript Writer’s purpose is not to write the finalized text instead of the scientist, its purpose is to empower the scientist. Which is why it cannot write the discussion section, which is the most creative and original part of the scientific article and greatly depends on the scientist’s style and way of thinking. Every scientist adds their own expertise and knowledge to the entire text.

Learn more about using Manuscript Writer in this post .

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Microsoft 365 Life Hacks > Writing > What is a Manuscript?

What is a Manuscript?

An author engrossed in the process of crafting an incomplete, unpublished work is not typically described as having written a book. Instead, within literary circles, this work in progress is referred to as a manuscript. A refined manuscript is crucial to developing connections with literary agents and securing a publishing deal for your forthcoming book. Take the first step towards publishing your book by learning what a manuscript is, understanding its importance in the publishing process and how to refine your manuscript before submission.

What is the Definition of a Manuscript?

A manuscript is a document that contains writing that is intended to be published as a book. These works-in-progress may contain errors that need to be fixed before publication, showcasing the difference between a manuscript and a book. Although manuscripts are drafts, authors complete, revise, and edit their manuscripts before submission. Once they are highly polished, authors send query letters to literary agents, requesting to send them their manuscripts. If the agent responds, prospective authors send off their manuscripts, in hopes of getting published .

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How to Organize and Improve Your Manuscript

It’s crucial to make your manuscript as polished as possible before submitting it for publication. This includes revising and properly formatting your work. Take these steps to appropriately organize your manuscript:

Use a Consistent Font and Formatting

Employ a standard font and stick to a 12pt font size. Manuscripts are typically written in Times New Roman or a font specified by your publisher. Using one-inch margins throughout your document. This maintains uniformity in your pages and makes it easier for your reader to navigate. Adhering to specific formatting requirements ensures uniformity across the volumes of manuscripts that editors and publishers receive, so that they can easily read your work.

Mark Chapters with Page Breaks

Clearly indicate new chapters with page breaks. Page breaks help maintain the organization of your manuscript, making it easier for your readers to follow along.

Use Double or 1.5 Spacing

Make sure that your paragraphs are spaced in a manner that enhances readability. Paragraphs should be formatted with double or 1.5 spacing, which is in alignment with industry standards. Check with your publisher about their specific requirements.

Create a Title Page

The title page is the first element readers see in your manuscript, so don’t neglect any necessary information. Title pages should include essential information about your manuscript, such as the title, author’s name, and contact details.

Read Your Work Aloud

Identifying every minor grammar , punctuation, or spelling error in your writing can be cumbersome. Reading your work aloud helps ensure that your writing is clear, concise, and coherent. Another tip is to read it aloud backwards, which will make you pay close attention to the text and better able to spot errors in your writing.

Check Your Spelling

Lastly, meticulously review your manuscript for spelling errors. Spelling mistakes can undermine the professionalism of your work, so make sure to proofread thoroughly.

Increase your chances of your manuscript being picked up by a literary agent. Properly format, revise, and review your manuscript before submission, so you can make your publishing dreams a reality. For more assistance with improving the quality of your future book, learn more writing tips .

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