npj Guide to Authors

Updated December 5

, 2018

Relationship to other Nature Research journals ................. 1

Content Types .................................................................... 1

Editorial and Publishing Policies ......................................... 1

Initial Submission ................................................................ 1

Formatting .......................................................................... 2

Resubmission ..................................................................... 5

Peer Review and Publication .............................................. 6

Post-Acceptance ................................................................ 7

This document will help you when preparing your

manuscript for initial submission and resubmission to a

Nature Partner Journal. Please ensure that you

familiarise yourself with our editorial policies as outlined

in this section before submitting your work. An overview

of key information on submitting primary research is also

available in our brief guide to manuscript submission in

PDF format.

Once you have prepared your manuscript, the Initial

Submission section will provide you with information on

the submission system, while our editorial criteria and

processes are described in the Peer review and

publication section.

For information on the journal aims & scope, as well as

content types, please refer to the About the Journal

section on the individual journal website.

Relationship to other Nature Research journals

The Nature Partner Journals are open access, online-only,

Nature Research journals published by Springer Nature in

collaboration with internationally renowned partners.

Each Nature Partner Journal is editorially independent. The

editors make their own decisions, independently of the

other Nature Research journals.

If a paper is rejected from one Nature Research journal,

the authors can use an automated manuscript transfer

service to submit the paper to another journal via a link

sent to them by the editor handling the manuscript.

For more information, please consult the following:

Details of the manuscript transfer service

Listing of all Nature journals

A general explanation of the relationship between Nature

Research titles

Content Types

Please refer to the About the Journal section on the

individual journal website for details on what content

types are considered.

Editorial and Publishing Policies

As part of Nature Research, the Nature Partner Journals

follow a number of common policies as detailed in our

authors and referees site and we request that our

authors and prospective authors abide by them.

In particular, when you submit a manuscript to the Nature

Partner Journals its content must not significantly overlap

with any other papers from you or your co-authors’

groups that are under consideration or in press at other

journals, with the exception of conference abstracts. We

do, however, support the posting of the pre-review

version of the manuscript on preprint servers.

If you submit a related manuscript to any other journal

while the submission to a Nature Partner Journal is

under consideration, you must send us a copy of the

related manuscript and details of its progress towards

publication. We reserve the right to decline publication of

a paper even after it has been accepted if it becomes

apparent that there are serious problems with the

scientific content or violations of our publishing policies.

Some of our policies you need to familiarise yourself with

are listed below:

 Author responsibilities

 Duplicate publication

 Confidentiality and pre-publicity

 Plagiarism and fabrication

 Competing interests

 Licence agreement and author copyright

 Embargo policy and press releases

 Availability of materials and data

 Digital image integrity and standards

 Refutations, complaints and corrections

 Compliance with open access mandates

 Security concerns

 Correction and retraction

 Use of experimental animals and human

subjects

Initial Submission

We do not request manuscripts to be formatted in Nature

Partner Journals’ style for initial submissions, as long as

the study is described in a fashion that is suitable for

editorial assessment and peer review.

You can submit either a single PDF file that includes the

manuscript text and any display items, or separate files

for text, figures and tables. Besides the manuscript files,

you should also provide a cover letter addressed to the

editors and any supplementary information.

Presubmission inquiries

If you are unsure whether your paper is in scope for a

Nature Partner Journal, you can submit a pre-submission

enquiry, providing at least an abstract of your work.

Updated December 5

, 2018

Manuscript files

The manuscript file must contain the following essential

information:

 Names and affiliations of all co-authors. The

primary affiliation for each author should be the

institution where the majority of their work was

done. If an author has subsequently moved, the

current address may also be stated. The

corresponding author should be identified with an

asterisk.

 A detailed description of the findings of the work

(by means of text and display items), including

sufficient information on methods and materials

which would enable replication of the study by a

fellow expert. As a guideline, the text should be

structured in broad sections (abstract,

introduction, results, discussion, methods).

 References to previous works.

If the manuscript includes personal communications,

please provide a written statement of permission from any

person who is quoted. E-mail permission messages are

acceptable.

Our formatting requirements are detailed below, and

information on sections, length limits and figure limits are

detailed in the ‘About the Journal’ page on each journal

website according to content type. While we do not ask

you to comply with these requirements for initial

submissions, they will be enforced prior to acceptance of

the work. We accept manuscripts in PDF, Word or

TeX/LaTeX formats; if you are using TeX/LaTeX, we

prefer that you submit compiled PDFs up until the pre-

acceptance stage. All textual content should be provided

in a single file; figures should be provided in individual

files (see below).

Supplementary information

Any information (including display items) not directly

related to the description of the main findings, but needed

to properly understand and replicate the study, should be

included in a supplementary information file, which can be

submitted as a PDF, Word or TeX/LaTeX document. The

supplementary information document will be sent to peer

reviewers alongside the manuscript file.

Language

Papers submitted to the Nature Partner Journals should

be accessible to non-specialists; you should ensure that

your findings are communicated clearly. Although a

shared basic knowledge of scientific language may be

assumed, please bear in mind that the language and

concepts that are standard in one subfield may be

unfamiliar to colleagues working in another area. Thus,

technical jargon should be avoided as far as possible and

clearly explained where its use is unavoidable.

Abbreviations should be kept to a minimum and should be

defined at their first occurrence. The background,

rationale and main conclusions of the study should be

clearly explained. Titles and abstracts in particular should

be written in language that will be readily intelligible to any

scientists.

No paper will be rejected for poor language. However, if

you would like assistance with writing your manuscript,

you can consider asking colleagues for their input and/or

use a professional editing service such as those provided

by our affiliates Nature Research Editing Service or

American Journal Experts. The use of a language editing

service has no bearing on editorial decisions and is not a

requirement for publication.

Cover letter

Providing a cover letter can help you convey the work's

importance to the editors and explain why you consider it

appropriate for the readership of a particular Nature

Partner Journal. You must disclose details of any related

manuscripts that you have under consideration or in press

elsewhere, and you can provide suggested reviewers to

include, or ask individuals to be excluded from peer

review (explaining why). Finally, you should indicate

whether you have had any prior discussions with a Nature

Partner Journal editor about the work described in the

manuscript. The cover letter is not transmitted to peer

reviewers.

Life sciences reporting guidelines

To improve the transparency of reporting and the

reproducibility of published results, authors of life sciences

research articles must provide a completed reporting

summary that will be made available to editors and

reviewers during manuscript assessment. The reporting

summary will be published with all accepted manuscripts.

All authors must also complete an editorial policy checklist

to ensure compliance with Nature Research editorial

policies.

Please note: because of the advanced features used in

these forms, you must use Adobe Reader to open the

documents and fill them out.

Guidance and resources related to the use and reporting

of statistics for life sciences are available here.

Formatting

The manuscript text file should include the following parts,

in order: a title page with author names, affiliations and

contact information (the corresponding author should be

identified with an asterisk); the sections required for each

content type, then Acknowledgements (optional), Author

Contributions, Competing Interests statement,

References, Figure Legends, and Tables.

Word

The Nature Partner Journals do not use a manuscript

template for Word documents. The manuscript file should

be formatted as double-spaced, single-column text without

justification. Pages should be numbered using an Arabic

numeral in the footer of each page. Standard fonts are

recommended and the 'symbols' font should be used for

representing Greek characters.

TeX/LaTeX

To submit a TeX/LaTeX file, please use any of the

standard class files such as article.cls, revtex.cls or

amsart.cls. All textual material should be provided as a

single file in default Computer Modern fonts. Please avoid

Updated December 5

, 2018

non-standard fonts and packages and remove all

personal macros before submitting. For graphics, we

recommend graphicx.sty. Please use numerical

references only for citations, and include the references

within the manuscript file itself. If you wish to use BibTeX,

please copy the reference list from the .bbl file, paste it

into the main manuscript .tex file, and delete the

associated \bibliography and \bibliographystyle

commands. Before submission, please ensure that the

complete .tex file compiles successfully on your own

system with no errors or warnings. There is no need to

spend time visually formatting the manuscript: our style

will be imposed automatically when the paper is prepared

for publication.

Methods

The Methods section should be written as concisely as

possible but should contain all elements necessary to

allow interpretation and replication of the results.

Authors can deposit the step-by-step protocols used in

their study to Protocol Exchange, an open resource

maintained by Nature Research. Protocols deposited by

the authors will be linked to the Online Methods section

upon publication.

The Methods section should be subdivided by short bold

headings referring to methods used and we encourage

the inclusion of specific subsections for statistics,

reagents and animal models.

New structures

Manuscripts reporting new structures should contain a

table summarizing structural and refinement statistics. To

facilitate assessment of the quality of the structural data,

a stereo image of a portion of the electron density map

(for crystallography papers) or of the superimposed

lowest energy structures (>10; for NMR papers) should be

provided with the submitted manuscript. If the reported

structure represents a novel overall fold, a stereo image

of the entire structure (as a backbone trace) should also

be provided.

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements should be brief, and should not

include thanks to anonymous referees and editors, or

effusive comments. Grant or contribution numbers may be

acknowledged.

Author contributions

Nature Partner Journals require an Author Contribution

statement as described in the Authorship section of our

Editorial policies.

Competing interests

Submission of a signed Competing Interests Statement is

required for all content of the journal. This statement will

be published at the end of all articles, whether or not a

competing interest is reported.

References

References are numbered sequentially as they appear in

the text, methods, tables, figure legends. Only one

publication is given for each number. Only papers that

have been published or accepted by a named publication

or recognized preprint server should be in the numbered

list. Meeting abstracts that are not published and papers

in preparation should be mentioned in the text with a list

of authors (or initials if any of the authors are co-authors

of the present contribution). Published conference

abstracts, numbered patents and research datasets that

have been assigned a digital object identifier may be

included in the reference list. URLs for web sites should

be cited parenthetically in the text, not in the reference

list; articles in formal, peer-reviewed online journals

should be included in the reference list. Grant details and

acknowledgments are not permitted as numbered

references. Footnotes are not used.

The Nature Partner Journals use standard Nature

referencing style. All authors should be included in

reference lists unless there are more than five, in which

case only the first author should be given, followed by 'et

al.'. Authors should be listed last name first, followed by a

comma and initials (followed by full stops) of given names.

Article titles should be in Roman text, the first word of the

title should be capitalized and the title written exactly as it

appears in the work cited, ending with a full stop. Book

titles should be given in italics and all words in the title

should have initial capitals. Journal names are italicized

and abbreviated (with full stops) according to common

usage. Volume numbers and the subsequent comma

appear in bold.

Titles of cited articles are required for all articles.

Example: Eigler, D. M. & Schweizer, E. K. Positioning

single atoms with a scanning tunnelling microscope.

Nature 344, 524-526 (1990).

For book citations, the publisher and city of publication are

required. Example: Jones, R. A. L. Soft Machines:

Nanotechnology and Life Ch. 3 (Oxford Univ. Press,

Oxford, 2004).

Research datasets may be cited in the reference list if

they have been assigned digital object identifiers (DOIs)

and include authors, title, publisher (repository name),

identifier (DOI expressed as a URL). Example:

Hao, Z., AghaKouchak, A., Nakhjiri, N. & Farahmand, A.

Global Integrated Drought Monitoring and Prediction

System (GIDMaPS) data sets. Figshare

http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.853801 (2014).

To cite a preprint, please follow this style: Babichev, S. A.,

Ries, J. & Lvovsky, A. I. Quantum scissors: teleportation

of single-mode optical states by means of a nonlocal

single photon. Preprint at http://arXiv.org/quant-

ph/0208066 (2002).

Figure legends

Figure legends begin with a brief title for the whole figure

and continue with a short description of each panel and

the symbols used, focusing on describing what is shown

in the figure and de-emphasizing methodological details.

The meaning of all error bars and how they were

calculated should be described. Each legend should total

no more than 250 words.

Tables

Please submit tables at the end of your text document (in

Word or TeX/LaTeX, as appropriate). Tables that include

statistical analysis of data should describe their standards

of error analysis and ranges in a table legend.

Updated December 5

, 2018

Figures

Figures should be numbered separately with Arabic

numerals in the order of occurrence in the text of the

manuscript. One- or two-column format figures are

preferred. When appropriate, figures should include error

bars. A description of the statistical treatment of error

analysis should be included in the figure or scheme

legend.

Figure lettering should be in a clear, sans-serif typeface

(for example, Helvetica); if possible, the same typeface in

approximately the same font size should be used for all

figures in a paper. Use symbol font for Greek letters. All

display items should be on a white background, and

should avoid excessive boxing, unnecessary colour,

spurious decorative effects (such as three-dimensional

'skyscraper' histograms) and highly pixelated computer

drawings. The vertical axis of histograms should not be

truncated to exaggerate small differences. Labelling must

be of sufficient size and contrast to be readable, even

after appropriate reduction. The thinnest lines in the final

figure should be no smaller than one point wide.

Reasonable requests to enlarge figures will be

considered, but editors will make the final decision on

figure size. Authors will see a proof of figures.

Figures divided into parts should be labelled with a lower-

case bold a, b, and so on, in the same type size as used

elsewhere in the figure. Lettering in figures should be in

lower-case type, with only the first letter of each label

capitalized. Units should have a single space between the

number and the unit, and follow SI nomenclature (for

example, ms rather than msec) or the nomenclature

common to a particular field. Thousands should be

separated by commas (1,000). Unusual units or

abbreviations should be spelled out in full or defined in

the legend. Scale bars should be used rather than

magnification factors, with the length of the bar defined in

the legend rather than on the bar itself. In legends, please

use visual cues rather than verbal explanations, such as

"open red triangles".

Authors are encouraged to consider the needs of

colourblind readers (a substantial minority of the male

population) when choosing colours for figures. Many

colourblind readers cannot interpret visuals that rely on

discrimination of green and red, for example. Thus, we

ask authors to recolor green-and-red heatmaps, graphs

and schematics for which colours are chosen arbitrarily.

Recoloring primary data, such as fluorescence or rainbow

pseudo-coloured images, to colour-safe combinations

such as green and magenta, turquoise and red, yellow

and blue or other accessible colour palettes is strongly

encouraged.

Unnecessary figures should be avoided: data presented

in small tables or histograms, for instance, can generally

be stated briefly in the text instead. Figures should not

contain more than one panel unless the parts are logically

connected; each panel of a multipart figure should be

sized so that the whole figure can be reduced by the

same amount and reproduced on the printed page at the

smallest size at which essential details are visible.

When a manuscript is accepted for publication, we will

ask for high-resolution figure files, possibly in a different

electronic format. This information will be included in the

acceptance letter. See below for details of digital image

production and submission.

Gene nomenclature

Authors should use approved nomenclature for gene

symbols, and use symbols rather than italicized full names

(Ttn, not titin). Please consult the appropriate

nomenclature databases for correct gene names and

symbols. A useful resource is Entrez Gene. Approved

human gene symbols are provided by HUGO Gene

Nomenclature Committee (HGNC). Approved mouse

symbols are provided by The Jackson Laboratory.

For proposed gene names that are not already approved,

please submit the gene symbols to the appropriate

nomenclature committees as soon as possible, as these

must be deposited and approved before publication of an

article.

Avoid listing multiple names of genes (or proteins)

separated by a slash, as in 'Oct4/Pou5f1', as this is

ambiguous (it could mean a ratio, a complex, alternative

names or different subunits). Use one name throughout

and include the other at first mention: 'Oct4 (also known

as Pou5f1)'.

Supplementary information

Supplementary information should be submitted with the

manuscript and will be sent to referees during peer

review. Supplementary information is not copy-edited, so

authors should ensure that it is clearly and succinctly

presented, and that the style and terminology conform

with the rest of the paper. The following guidelines detail

the creation, citation and submission of supplementary

information. Please note that modification of

supplementary information after the paper is published

requires a formal correction, so authors are encouraged to

check their supplementary information carefully before

submitting the final version.

Designate each item as Supplementary Table, Figure,

Video, Audio, Notes, Data, Discussion or Equations.

Number Supplementary Tables and Figures as, for

example, "Supplementary Table 1". This numbering

should be separate from that used in tables and figures

appearing in the main printed article. Supplementary

Notes should not be numbered and can have an optional

title. Please provide a title for Supplementary Tables and

a title and a caption for Supplementary Figures,

Supplementary Video and Supplementary Notes. The

latter should only be used in consultation with the editors

for specific elements best presented in Supplementary

Information, such as standalone descriptions related to

methods (for example algorithm description, compound

synthesis and characterization). Please note that

Supplementary Methods will no longer be allowed.

Refer to each piece of supplementary information at least

once within the text of the main article, at the appropriate

point(s). Be sure to include the word "Supplementary"

each time one is mentioned. Please do not refer to

individual panels of supplementary figures.

Please also ensure that, where relevant, the appropriate

reporting guidance checklist (e.g. CONSORT for

randomised controlled trials, PRISMA for systematic

Updated December 5

, 2018

reviews, and STROBE for cohort, case-control and cross-

sectional studies) has been completed and submitted as a

supplementary file. These can be obtained from

http://www.equator-network.org.

Figure files should be submitted as web-ready files

through the online submission system. With the exception

of spreadsheet, audio and video files, please submit the

supplementary information as a single combined PDF, if

possible. If necessary, we can accept any of these

formats:

 .txt | Plain ASCII text

 .gif | GIF image

 .htm, .html | HTML document

 .doc, .docx | MS Word document

 .jpg | JPEG image

 .swf | Flash movie

 .xls, .xlsx | MS Excel spreadsheet

 .pdf | Adobe Acrobat file

 .mov | QuickTime movie

 .ppt, .pptx | MS Power Point slide

 .wav | Audio file

 Compressed Archive File (.zip),

 Encapsulated Postcript (.eps),

 MPEG animation (.mpg),

 PostScript (.ps),

 Rich Text Format (.rtf),

 Systems Biology Markup Language (.sbml, .xml,

.owl),

 TAR archive file (.tar),

 TIFF image (.tif),

 WordPerfect document (.wpd).

File sizes should be as small as possible, with a maximum

size of 30 MB, so that they can be downloaded quickly.

The combined total size of all files must not exceed 150

MB. The combined total size of all files must not exceed

150 MB. Video files should use a frame size no larger

than 320 x 240 pixels.

All panels of a figure or table (for example, Fig. 1a, b and

c) should be combined into one file; please do not send as

separate files. Image files should be just large enough to

view when the screen resolution is set to 640 x 480 pixels.

Remember to include a brief title and legend (preferably

incorporated into the image file to appear near the image)

as part of every electronic figure submitted, and a title as

part of every table.

Audio and video files should use a frame size no larger

than 320 x 240 pixels. The file size of each should not

exceed 30 MB.

Resubmission

If you have been invited to revise and resubmit your

paper, you should follow the instructions provided by the

editor in their decision email. You will be expected to

provide: a revised version of the manuscript that

addresses the issues raised by the peer reviewers; a

response to each of the reviewers, replying to their

comments in a point-by-point fashion; a cover letter that

provides any additional confidential information or

concern for the editors.

In addition, if your paper has been accepted, in principle,

for publication, the revised manuscript must comply with

the formatting requirements as specified by the editor and

detailed above, with the length and figure limits

appropriate to the content type, and with the following

requirements.

ORCID

As part of our efforts to improve transparency in

authorship, we request that all corresponding authors of

published papers provide their Open Researcher and

Contributor Identifier (ORCID) ID, before resubmitting the

final version of the manuscript. ORCID helps the scientific

community achieve unambiguous attribution of all

scholarly contributions.

Authors can link their ORCID to their account in the

manuscript tracking system (MTS). From the MTS

homepage, click Modify my Springer Nature account

and then ORCID Create/link an Open Researcher

Contributor ID (ORCID) in the Personal Profile tab. This

will re-direct you to the ORCID website. If you already

have an ORCID account, enter your ORCID email and

password and click on Authorize. If you don’t have one,

you can create one at this stage. Linking ORCID and MTS

accounts can be done at any time prior to acceptance.

For more information please visit ORCID at Springer

Nature. If you experience technical issues please contact

the Platform Support Helpdesk.

Language

As the Nature Partner Journals are is read by scientists

from diverse backgrounds, many of whom are not native

English speakers, it is essential that the findings are

reported in an accessible language. Manuscripts can be

subject to editing, in consultation with the authors, to

achieve this goal. You are welcome to discuss proposed

changes with the editors, but the Nature Partner Journal

editors reserve the right to make the final decision about

matters of style and the size of figures.

After acceptance, a copy editor may make changes so

that the text and figures are readable and clear to those

outside the field, and so that papers conform to our style.

Preparing production quality figures

Please read the digital images integrity and standards

policy. When possible, we prefer to use original digital

figures to ensure the highest-quality reproduction in the

journal. For optimal results, prepare figures at actual size

for the journal. Figures that do not meet these standards

will not reproduce well and publication may be delayed

until we receive high-resolution images. We cannot offer

to provide corrected reprints with higher image quality if

only poor quality images were supplied at accept stage.

Authors are responsible for obtaining permission to

publish any figures or illustrations that are protected by

pictures taken by professional photographers. The journal

cannot publish images downloaded from the internet

without appropriate permission.

Updated December 5

, 2018

When creating and submitting digital files, please follow

the guidelines found here.

Chemical structures

Chemical structures should be produced using

ChemDraw or a similar program. All chemical compounds

must be assigned a bold, Arabic numeral in the order in

which the compounds are presented in the manuscript

text. Figures containing chemical structures should be

submitted in a size appropriate for direct incorporation

into the printed journal. Authors using ChemDraw should

make use of our journal template or use the preferences

below, submitting the final files at 100% as .cdx files.

Creating molecules within or copying them into the

template will ensure that most of our journal style points

are followed. For more information, please also review our

Chemical Style Guide.

Drawing settings: chain angle, 120° bond spacing, 18% of

width; fixed length, 14.4 pt; bold width, 2.0 pt; line width,

0.6 pt; margin width 1.6 pt; hash spacing 2.5 pt.

Atom Label settings: font, Arial; size, 8 pt. "Show labels on

Terminal Carbons" and "Hide Implicit Hydrogens" should

be unchecked.

Stereo images

Stereo diagrams should be presented for divergent 'wall-

eyed' viewing, with the two panels separated by ∼5.5 cm.

In the final accepted version of the manuscript, the stereo

images should be submitted at their final print size.

Peer Review and Publication

This section explains the editorial processes at the

Nature Partner Journals, which can be outlined in the

following steps:

1. The author submits a manuscript and it receives

a tracking number.

2. An editor is assigned to the manuscript.

3. The editorial team decides whether to send the

manuscript out to review. If the decision is not to

send the manuscript for review, the editor

contacts the author with the decision.

4. The editor assigns potential reviewers to the

manuscript and the author is notified.

5. Reviewers agree to review the manuscript.

6. Reviewers submit their reports to the editor.

7. The editorial team discusses the reports and the

editor makes the final decision. This process

may involve further consultation with the

reviewers and editor-mediated communications

between the reviewers.

8. The editor contacts the author with the decision.

9. If the decision is negative, the author can

choose to transfer their manuscript to another

journal. If the manuscript was peer reviewed the

referee comments are also transferred. Please

see our Manuscript Transfer FAQ for more

information about this service.

First editorial decision

When a new submission is received, it is assigned to an

Editor in Chief, who reads the paper, and decides

whether to assign it to an Associate Editor. The

Associate Editor can then consult with other editors

(including in-house Managing Editors), and decide

whether it should be sent for peer review based on the

editorial criteria of the journal of novelty and significance.

The novelty of a submitted paper might be considered to

be compromised if it has significant conceptual overlap

with a published paper. Preprint archives do not

compromise novelty.

If a paper was previously reviewed at a Nature journal,

the authors can use an automated manuscript transfer

service to transfer the referees' reports to a Nature

Partner Journal via a link sent by the editor who handled

the manuscript. The reviewer identities will not be

transferred, and although the journal editors will take the

previous reviews into account when making their

decision, the editors will likely choose to take advice from

additional or alternative referees. Alternatively, authors

may choose to request a fresh review, in which case they

should not use the automated transfer link, and the

editors will evaluate the paper without reference to the

previous review process. However, this decision must be

made at the time of initial submission and cannot be

changed later.

If the authors ask the editors to consider the previous

reviews, they should include a note explaining the

relationship between the submitted manuscript and the

previous submission and (assuming it has been revised

in light of the referees' criticisms) giving a point-by-point

response to the referees. In cases where the work was

felt to be of high quality, papers can sometimes be

accepted without further review, but if there were serious

criticisms, the editors will consider them in making the

decision. In the event of publication, the received date is

the date of submission to the Nature Partner Journal.

When the editors have reached a first decision on the

paper, they notify the corresponding author by email.

Peer review

If the editor decides to send the paper to external peer

reviewers, they will contact researchers with relevant

expertise. Referee selection is critical to the review

process, and we base our choice on many factors,

including expertise, reputation, specific

recommendations and our own previous experience of a

referee’s characteristics. For instance, we avoid using

referees who are chronically slow, careless, too harsh or

too lenient. Authors may suggest referees; these

suggestions are often helpful, although they are not

always followed. By policy, referees are not identified to

the authors, except at the request of the referee.

Conceptually similar manuscripts are held to the same

editorial standards as far as possible, and so they are

often sent to the same referees. However, each of the

co-submitted manuscripts must meet the criteria for

publication without reference to the other paper. Thus if

one paper is substantially less complete or convincing

than the other, it may be rejected, even if the papers

reach the same conclusion.

Updated December 5

, 2018

Decision after review and revision

When all the referee reports are received, the editors

then make a decision based on the reviewers’ advice,

from among several possibilities:

 Accept, with or without editorial revisions

 Invite the authors to revise their manuscript to

address specific concerns before a final decision

is reached

 Decline publication, typically on grounds of

specialist interest, lack of novelty, insufficient

conceptual advance or major technical and/or

interpretational problems

Editors consider not only how good the paper is now, but

also how good it might become after revision. In cases

where the referees have requested well-defined changes

to the manuscript that do not appear to require extensive

further experiments, editors may request a revised

manuscript that addresses the referees' concerns. The

revised version is normally sent back to some or all of

the original referees for re-review. The decision letter will

specify a deadline, and revisions that are returned within

this period will retain their original submission date.

In cases where the referees' concerns are more wide-

ranging, editors will normally decline publication of the

manuscript.

An invited revision should be submitted via the revision

link to the online submission system provided in the

decision letter, not as a new manuscript. The revised

manuscript should be accompanied by a cover letter that

includes a point-by-point response to referees' comments

and an explanation of how the manuscript has been

changed.

Acceptance and publication

If the authors have successfully addressed all the

comments of the reviewers and the editors, the editors

will deem the paper acceptable for publication in the

Nature Partner Journal. They will send a request for final

submission possibly requiring some text changes but

usually no revisions to the data or conclusions. These

letters are accompanied by detailed comments on the

paper's format compiled by the Managing Editors. At this

stage, authors may receive an edited manuscript from

the editor indicating editorial concerns that must be

addressed in the revision. A priority of the Nature Partner

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For the final revision, authors should use the revision link

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letter to upload a final version of the text with all the

requested format changes. Electronic files of the final

figures, at high resolution, should be submitted at this

time.

When all remaining editorial issues are resolved, the

paper is formally accepted. Contributors are sent proofs

and are welcome to discuss proposed changes with the

editors, but the Nature Partner Journals team reserves

the right to make the final decision about matters of style

and the size of figures.

Appeals

Even in cases where editors did not invite resubmission,

some authors ask the editors to reconsider a rejection

decision. These are considered appeals, which, by

policy, must take second place to the normal workload.

Decisions are reversed on appeal only if the editors are

convinced that the original decision was a factual

mistake. Further consideration may be merited if a

referee made substantial errors of fact or showed

evidence of bias, but only if a reversal of that referee's

opinion would have changed the original decision.

Similarly, disputes on factual issues need not be

resolved unless they were critical to the outcome.

If an appeal merits further consideration, the editors may

send the authors' response or the revised paper to one

or more referees, or they may ask one referee to

comment on the concerns raised by another referee. On

occasion, particularly if the editors feel that additional

technical expertise is needed to make a decision, they

may obtain advice from additional referees.

Transfers

If the editors of a Nature Partner Journal decline

publication of a manuscript, before or after peer review,

the authors can easily resubmit it to a different journal

within the Nature Research family, in most cases without

the need to reformat or upload the files, by following the

link provided in the editor’s decision email.

More information about the manuscript transfer service

can be found here.

Follow this link for a list of all Nature Research journals

and subject areas

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relationships between Nature Research titles

Post-Acceptance

Once a manuscript is accepted, the corresponding author

must complete a Creative Commons licence and Article

Processing Charge Payment form online on behalf of all

authors. Failure to promptly return this information will

result in delay of publication.

Publication

Publishing Open Access will mean the paper is freely

accessible online immediately upon publication. By paying

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publication.

Open access articles are published under a CC BY licence

(Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence).

The CC BY licence is preferred by many research funding

bodies. It allows for maximum dissemination and re-use of

open access materials: users are free to share (copy,

distribute and transmit) and remix (adapt) the contribution

including for commercial purposes, providing they attribute

Updated December 5

, 2018

the contribution in the manner specified by the author or

licensor.

Under Creative Commons licences, authors retain

funders require papers to be published under a specific

licence and so should check the funder mandate to ensure

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The Nature Partner Journals offer APC waivers for papers

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Discretionary APC waivers for authors will be considered

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All decisions to publish are based entirely on editorial

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Processing Charge.

Open access funding

Visit Nature Research’s open access funding page for

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Nature Research also offers an APC support service to

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