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Printable version of this page Instructions for Authors
Contents1. Editorial policyBioscience Reports provides researchers with recent advances across the whole breadth of the life sciences, publishing original articles and reviews on topics including biochemistry, molecular biology and cell biology. Original papers and reviews will be considered. Normally, however, review articles will be invited by the Editor-in-Chief; any person wishing to submit an unsolicited review article for consideration should, in the first instance, send a summary of the proposed article to the Editor-in-Chief, who will advise the author regarding its potential suitability. Original papers must contain sufficient detail to enable others to repeat the work. Manuscripts are accepted for review with the understanding that the same work has not been published elsewhere in any language, including publication on the World Wide Web (WWW); that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere; that its submission for publication has been approved by all of the authors and by the institution where the work was carried out; that all persons entitled to authorship have been so named; and that any person cited as a source of personal communication has approved such citation. Written authorization may be required at the Editor's direction. Abstracts of oral or poster presentations are not considered to constitute previous publication. Preliminary communications in journals that regularly publish reports in this form will not preclude publication of a paper in Bioscience Reports, provided the full paper contains additional information that justifies its publication and does not repeat the presentation of the same data. To facilitate evaluation of this matter by the Editors, submitted manuscripts should be accompanied by copies of all preliminary communications and of all relevant manuscripts that are in press or under editorial consideration elsewhere. Bioscience Reports is a member of COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) and endorses its guidelines, which are available at http://www.publicationethics.org.uk. Complaints against the Journal must be submitted in writing to the Editor-in-Chief; if a complaint is not resolved to the satisfaction of the complainant they have the option of referring the matter to COPE. Notwithstanding, the Editorial Board will not accept papers where the ethical aspects are, in the Board's opinion, open to doubt. Bioscience Reports endorses the Vancouver Guidelines on authorship as defined in the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors' (ICMJE) Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals, namely that entitlement to authorship should be based on all of the following criteria: (1) substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; (2) drafting the article or revising it for important intellectual content; (3) final approval of the version to be published. Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group, alone, does not justify authorship. All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in the Acknowledgements.Bioscience Reports will not tolerate plagiarism in submitted manuscripts. Passages quoted or closely paraphrased from other authors (or from the submitting authors' own published work) must be identified as quotations or paraphrases, and the sources of the quoted or paraphrased material must be acknowledged. Use of unacknowledged sources will be construed as plagiarism. If any manuscript is found to contain plagiarized material the review process will be halted immediately. Submission of a paper implies that authors will make available samples of unique biological materials (including cell lines, DNA clones and antibodies) to academic workers who request them. Authors are encouraged to suggest a suitable member of the Editorial Board and up to five potential reviewers for their paper. Authors may also specify the names of those they wish to be excluded from the review process for a particular paper; in such cases their wishes will usually be respected, unless, of course, in the opinion of the journal such a request unreasonably excludes all the expertise available to it in that scientific area. Bioscience Reports follows a rigorous reviewing procedure, which, for each paper, requires written input from two reviewers, one of whom will usually be a member of the Editorial Board. The Editorial Office, if required, receives advice before selecting the team of people involved in each paper and in each case the Editorial Office ensures that those involved in the process act independently and have no conflict of interest in the paper. In case of a complaint, the Editorial Office, if it is deemed necessary and appropriate, may ask for additional review(s) before making a recommendation. In all cases, the final decision rests with the Editor-in-Chief. The Editorial Board reserves the right to reject papers that are unsuitable for the journal or cannot adequately be assessed because of a poor standard of English. 2. Bioscience Reports Online (http://www.bioscirep.org)Access to papers published in Bioscience Reports Online in 2008 is restricted to institutions that have a subscription. To ensure that you have access, ask your subscribing librarian to contact support@portlandpress.com. An electronic back archive is available to all users with an internet connection. 2.1 Immediate Publications 2.2 Medline links and inter-journal linking 2.3 Multimedia adjuncts 3. Online submission of papersPapers should be submitted online at www.bioscirep.org/submit/, where full instructions are available. Submission checklist:
4. Originality of papersSubmission of a paper to Bioscience Reports implies that it has been approved by all the named authors, that all persons entitled to authorship have been so named, that it reports unpublished work that is not under consideration for publication elsewhere in any language, that conflicts of interest are declared, that proper reference is made to the preceding literature, and that if the paper is accepted for publication the authors will grant the Biochemical Society an exclusive licence to publish the paper (see 14. Copyright policy).5. Form of manuscriptManuscripts should be written in clear, concise, and grammatically correct English; manuscripts that are inadequately prepared will be declined, since it is not feasible for the Editors to undertake extensive revision or rewriting of manuscripts. Editorial style should follow that recommended in the Instructions to Authors of the Biochemical Journal (see http://www.BiochemJ.org). Nomenclature, abbreviations and symbols should wherever possible follow the recommendations of the Nomenclature Committee of the IUBMB and the IUPAC–IUBMB Joint Committee on Biochemical Nomenclature (see http://www.chem.qmul.ac.uk/iupac/index.html). The International System of Units (SI; see Quantities, Units and Symbols in Physical Chemistry, 3rd edn, 2007, RSC Publishing, Cambridge) should be used; however, certain non-SI units (e.g. angstrom, minute) will continue to be accepted. . Page 1 should contain the article title, name(s) of author(s) (with first or second given name spelled out in full), affiliation(s), a short running title (abbreviated form of title) of less than 50 characters including spaces, and the name and complete mailing address (including telephone and fax numbers and e-mail address) of the person to whom correspondence should be sent. Page 2 should contain a short synopsis of up to 250 words, a list of up to six key words (in alphabetical order), of which at least three do not appear in the title of the paper, and any footnotes to the text. A list of abbreviations used should form the first footnote and should not bear a symbol. Other footnotes, identified by superscript arabic numerals, should be limited to dedications, an identification of the corresponding author and an author's present address. Abstract On acceptance authors will be offered the opportunity to provide a version of their abstract in a language other than English, for publication alongside the English version.The recommended organization of an article is: (i) synopsis, (ii) introduction, (iii) materials and methods (or experimental), (iv) results, (v) discussion, (vi) acknowledgements (vii) funding (in the form of a sentence with the funding agency written out in full followed by the grant number in square brackets) and (viii) references. Combination of certain of these sections (e.g. results and discussion) may make the presentation clearer. 6. Accepted papersOn acceptance authors will be requested to supply a Word file of the final version of their paper to the Editorial Office. Every effort will be made to use the Word file during typesetting, but this cannot be guaranteed. Authors must ensure that the file has been updated to incorporate all revisions, and hence that file matches the final version of the manuscript seen by the reviewers. Our preferred word-processing format is Word for Windows version 6. The Word file should be supplied in an e-mail specifying manuscript number, operating system and software program. 6.1 Text 6.2 Tables 6.3 Figures 6.4 Mathematics 7. Addresses for correspondence
8. Experimental and publishing ethicsExperiments with animals should be performed in accordance with the legal requirements of the relevant local or national authority. Procedures should be such that experimental animals do not suffer unnecessarily. The text of papers should include details of the strain or stock of animal used, experimental procedures, and of anaesthetics used. Papers describing any experimental work with humans should include a statement that the research has been carried out in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki (2000) of the World Medical Association, that the Ethical Committee of the Institution in which the work was performed has approved it, and that the subjects have given informed consent to the work. The Editorial Board will not accept papers where the ethical aspects are, in the Board's opinion, open to doubt. Bioscience Reports endorses the guidelines published by COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics; http://www.publicationethics.org.uk/ ).9. TablesTables should be numbered with arabic numerals (Table 1, Table 2, etc.) and cited consecutively in the text. Each table should be titled. Units must be clearly indicated for each of the entries in the table. Footnotes to tables should be identified by superscript lower-case roman letters and placed at the bottom of the table. 10. FiguresFigures should be cited consecutively in the text by arabic numerals (Figure 1, Figure 2, etc.). The use of tints should be avoided. Lettering on the figures should be of a size that allows for eventual reduction of the figures. Authors will normally be required to pay for colour illustrations (at 2008 prices: £550 for the first figure and £300 for each subsequent figure; 17.5% VAT is payable by authors in the European Union).10.1 Image acquisition and manipulation Images will be checked for manipulation when a paper is accepted. The Editorial Board may request that authors supply the original data for comparison against the prepared figures. If authors are unable to comply with such a request, the acceptance of the paper may be withdrawn. Bioscience Reports endorses the guidelines given in the Instructions for Authors of the Journal of Cell Biology, from where the following is adapted by kind permission of Rockefeller University Press: The following information must be provided about the acquisition and processing of images:
No specific feature within an image may be enhanced, obscured, moved, removed or introduced. The grouping of images from different parts of the same gel, or from different gels, fields or exposures must be made explicit by the arrangement of the figure (i.e. using dividing lines) and in the text of the figure legend. Adjustments of brightness, contrast or colour balance are acceptable if they are applied to the whole image and as long as they do not obscure, eliminate or misrepresent any information present in the original, including backgrounds.The background of figures should be clearly distinct from the surrounding page. Non-linear adjustments (e.g. changes to gamma settings) must be disclosed in the figure legend. Authors are encouraged to read the papers by M. Rossner and K. M. Yamada (2004) J. Cell Biol. 166, 11-15 and A. J. North (2006) J.Cell Biol. 172, 9-18 11. ReferencesReferences should be cited in the text by arabic numerals in square brackets (e.g. [1], [2,3], [4-7]) and listed at the end of the paper in numerical order. Names and initials of all authors and inclusive pagination should be provided. Abbreviations of journal titles should conform to those of Chemical Abstracts Service Source Index, 1999, and subsequent Quarterly Supplements. Please note the following examples for a journal article, a chapter in a multi-author book, and a single-author book, respectively: 1. Reidy, M.R., Ellis, J., Schmitz, E.A., Kraus, D.M. and Bulla, G.A. (2007) Apoptosis of dedifferentiated hepatoma cells is independent of NF-κB activation in response to LPS. Biosci. Rep. 27, 235-246 2. Entwistle, N. (2003) in Excellence in Higher Education (De Corte, E., ed), pp. 83-96, Portland Press, London 3. Cornish-Bowden, A. (2004) Fundamentals of Enzyme Kinetics, 3rd edn, Portland Press Ltd, London If an article has been accepted for publication but has not yet been published, the reference should appear as follows: 4. Lohia, A., Mukherjee, C., Majumder, S. and Dastidar, P.G. (2008) Genome re-duplication and irregular segregation occur during the cell cycle of Entamoeba histolytica. Biosci. Rep, in the press Alternatively, for papers 'in the press', if the doi (digital object identifier) is known, then this should be cited instead: 5. Capua, I. and Dennis J. Alexander, D.J. (2008) Animal and human health implications of avian influenza infections. Biosci. Rep. doi:10.1042/BR20080500 A reference to 'unpublished work' should be accompanied by the names of all persons concerned; documentary evidence that any person cited as the source of a 'personal communication' has agreed to this citation must be provided; both of these types of citation are permitted in the text only, not in the list of references. The use of 'in preparation' or 'submitted for publication' is not permitted. References are often the cause of many proof corrections, and inaccuracies hamper inter-journal linking and Medline links in the online journal. Please check the list carefully before submission. WWW URLs are permitted in the text only, not in the reference list, and should be quoted only when a literature reference(s) will not suffice. 12. ProofsProofs will be sent to the authors by email as a PDF, together with an offprint order form. Authors will be charged for extensive alterations. To avoid delay in publication, corrected proofs should be faxed to the publisher within 48 hours of receipt. 13. OffprintsOffprints may be purchased at the prices given on the order form sent with the proofs14. Copyright policyBioscience Reports is published by Portland Press Ltd on behalf of the Biochemical Society, the sole owner of the journal. In order allow your article to be distributed as widely as possible in the Journal we ask that you grant Portland Press Ltd an exclusive licence to publish your article on behalf of the Biochemical Society if it is accepted for publication. There are also a number of other reasons for this: (i) you authorize Portland Press to act to defend your copyright, although we are under no obligation to act in this way; (ii) it will enable us to deal efficiently with requests from third parties to reproduce or reprint the article, or part of it. Ownership of copyright remains with you as the author (or with your employer if they own the copyright in the work) and you retain non-exclusive rights to do the following (provided that the Journal is acknowledged in standard bibliographic citation form):
You need not seek permission from Portland Press Ltd to apply the above rights. Please note: you are NOT permitted to post the Portland Press Ltd version of your article (the Version of Record, VoR) online. For definitions of journal article versions, see the Recommended Practice of the National Information Standards Organization in Partnership with the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers. Full details will be provided on the Licence to Publish that you will be asked to sign after you submit your article.
On acceptance authors may choose to pay a fee to make the Version of Record (VoR) of their paper freely available under the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Licence. Portland Press will post all pre-paid articles on PubMed Central (PMC) on receipt of payment as a service to authors and permit their inclusion on PMC mirror sites. The Opt2Pay scheme allows authors to post the PDF version of the Version of Record (VoR), for non-commercial purposes, on their own or institutional website or to free public servers in the relevant subject area, in whole or in part according to the terms of the licence, provided they include a link to the published article on the Journal's website and that the Journal and Portland Press are given the correct attributions. For more information, see Opt2Pay FAQs. 16. Portland Press booksAuthors, Editors and all contributors to Portland Press journals may order books published by Portland Press, for their personal use, at 25% discount. A complete list of books can be found at http://www.portlandpress.com© Biochemical Society, London 2008 |
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