Author instructions

Summary

The editors at Nature Reviews aim to provide an unrivalled service to authors during the preparation, submission, peer review and publication of every article. This service is best described by the following summary of our procedures:

• Scope. Agreement is reached between the author and the editor for the general scope of the article along with the submission deadline.

• Synopsis. The author submits a synopsis, and feedback is provided by the editor. This stage helps to finalize the aims and scope of each article.

• Text. Authors send a draft of the text before formal submission. Editors provide detailed editorial feedback, focusing on organization, structure and accessibility.

• Artwork. The figures in the Nature Reviews journals are all constructed (or redrawn) in house, in consultation with the author. Authors are encouraged to send rough drafts of figures early in the writing process.

• Peer review. Once the article is submitted, its format and scope will be appropriate for publication. This makes the referees’ task more straightforward — they focus on the scientific content of the article — and it expedites the peer review process.

• Revision. In addition to the referees’ comments, the editors provide recommendations for the final revision.

• The final product. As outlined above, the text and figures for each article are finely crafted, as a result of the work of the author, referees and editors.

Detailed guidelines for authors of Nature Reviews articles can be found at: http://mts-nrc.nature.com/letters/Author_Guidelines_Reviews_2004

and http://mts-nrc.nature.com/letters/Author_Guidelines_Perspectives_2004

To improve our service to authors and facilitate the publication process, we have now adopted a manuscript tracking system similar to that used by primary research journals in the Nature family. The following text explains how to submit a manuscript through this system.

Navigating the manuscript tracking system

The manuscript tracking system works by assigning “tasks” to authors, editors and referees. When you first access our tracking system, you will be taken to your Home page, where different categories of tasks are listed. If you have a task to complete, there will be a red arrow next to a Manuscript link. If there are no red arrows visible on your Home page, then you have no outstanding tasks to complete.

Before submission

Before submitting a manuscript, please gather the following information:

• For all authors:
• First name and last name
• Postal address
• Email address
• Telephone number

• Title (can be cut and pasted from your manuscript)
• Abstract (can be cut and pasted from your manuscript)
• Manuscript files in Word, WordPerfect, Encapsulated PostScript (EPS), PostScript, Rich Text Format (RTF) formats (for formatting guidelines, see our Guide to Authors)
• Figure files as Powerpoint, Illustrator, Photoshop and Canvas 7 saved as EPS or JPEG, and photographs as RGB JPEG (preferably 300 dots per inch (DPI) at final size). File stem names are essential, i.e. .ppt .ai .eps .psd .jpg and .cnv. Figure files should be less than 2–3 Megabytes in total.
• Contact information (name, e-mail address and institution) of suggested and/or excluded referees (if any)

Points to be aware of

Please submit article files that are less than 1-2 Megabytes (without embedded figures) and figure files under 2-3 Megabytes total. The average figure should be approximately 100-300 Kilobytes. Please note that most files are fine at 72 dpi (screen resolution) or 300 dpi (printer resolution); anything larger is unnecessary upon initial submission.

• Please note that our system cannot convert encrypted files. If your file is encrypted, please recreate the file without encryption before attempting to submit it electronically. You can check to see if your file is encrypted by looking at the file properties. If you are unable to recreate your file without encryption, then you will get an error message. Our editorial staff will print out the file and scan it in manually. If your file was an image file then most likely there will be a loss of resolution and image clarity.
• Occasionally, you may notice that unwanted characters appear in your text in place of the intended text. This is caused by not having the optimal browser character settings. The best advice we can offer to prevent this from happening is to suggest that you make your character settings as broad as possible by choosing a Unicode or ISO character set. By choosing "View" on your browser, then "Encoding", you will be able to see what your browser is currently set to. If you change it to be Unicode or ISO, you have less of a chance of transferring characters that the tracking system does not recognize.

The manuscript submission process is broken down into a series of 4 primary tasks that gather detailed information about your manuscript and allow you to upload the pertinent text and figure/image files. The sequence of screens is as follows:

1. The ‘Files’ primary task allows you to select the actual file locations (via an open file dialogue). You will be able to 'Browse' for the relevant files on your computer. Please include the figure number in the title line for each figure.
2. The ‘Manuscript Information’ primary task which asks for author details, the manuscript title, abstract, other associated manuscript information and types/number of files to be submitted. Please note, if you are the corresponding author please submit your details in the corresponding author fields; DO NOT re-enter the same details in the contributing author fields.
3. The ‘Validate’ primary task gives you the opportunity to check and verify the manuscript information uploaded. You may also update manuscript information by clicking on the ‘Change’ or ‘Fix’ links respectively.
4. The ‘Submit’ primary task is the last step in the manuscript submission process. At this stage the Manuscript Tracking System will perform a final check to ensure that all mandatory fields have been completed. Any incomplete fields will be flagged by a red arrow and highlighted by a red box. Click on the ‘Fix’ link to return to relevant section for completion. Once your manuscript has been finalised, click on the ‘Approve Submission’ button to submit your manuscript for consideration. A ‘Manuscript Approved’ message will display on your author desktop to confirm the submission.

Getting Help

If you need additional help, you can click on the help signs spread throughout the system. A help dialogue will pop up with context-sensitive help. Should further assistance be required, please contact nrc@nature.com

Check manuscript status

After submission, you will receive an acknowledgement email.

You can check the status of your manuscript at any time in the review process by:

1. Accessing the system with your password or link sent to you in the acknowledgement email.
2. Clicking on the link represented by your manuscript tracking number and abbreviated title.
3. Clicking on the Check Status link at the bottom of the displayed page.

This procedure will display detailed tracking information about where your manuscript is in the submission/peer review process.

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