Journal guidelines for authors

Before you submit your manuscript to a journal, check the journal’s Guidelines for Authors! Every journal has its own Guidelines for Authors - sometimes called Submission guidelines or Formatting rules

You will find these guidelines on the journal’s website. They are EXTREMELY IMPORTANT TO FOLLOW as they inform you about:

What information you need on your title page
Whether your abstract should be structured
Maximum number of words in your abstract and main text
Whether your manuscript sections and headings need to be numbered
How to format citations in the text and which reference style to use
Maximum number of tables and figures • Format for tables, figures, artwork, images (e.g. data visualisation of 2D and sometimes 3D images)
Whether you are allowed supplementary files or appendices and the format to use for them
TEMPLATES – an increasing number of journals provide (and sometimes require) a writing template to be used for your manuscript. These include: Microsoft word templates, LaTeX templates, Referencing templates e.g. for EndNote