Instructions to the authors
Instructions for Authors
Manuscript Submission
Manuscript Submission
Submission of a manuscript implies: that the work described has not been published before; that it is not under consideration for publication anywhere else; that its publication has been approved by all co-authors, if any, as well as by the responsible authorities – tacitly or explicitly – at the institute where the work has been carried out. The publisher will not be held legally responsible should there be any claims for compensation.
Permissions
Authors wishing to include figures, tables, or text passages that have already been published elsewhere are required to obtain permission from the copyright owner(s) for both the print and online format and to include evidence that such permission has been granted when submitting their papers. Any material received without such evidence will be assumed to originate from the authors.
Online Submission
Please follow the hyperlink “Submit online” on the right and upload all of your manuscript files following the instructions given on the screen.
Please ensure you provide all relevant editable source files. Failing to submit these source files might cause unnecessary delays in the review and production process.
Types of articles
The Brazilian Journal of Pharmacognosy accepts for publication original scientific work, reviews and communication articles written only in English.
• Original papers: Original papers are research articles describing original experimental results. The manuscript should be arranged in the following order: Graphical abstract, Title, Abstract, Keywords, Introduction, Material and methods, Results, Discussion, Authors’ contributions, Acknowledgements, References, Figures with Legends, Tables, Structural Formulae and Supplemental files (if applicable). Results and Discussion sections may appear as a combined ‘Results and Discussion’ section. The normal length of the main text of an Original Paper (excluding references, tables, figures and figure legends) is approximately 3,000 words. Longer manuscripts may be accepted only in exceptional and well justified cases.
•Short communications: This section will cover mainly the isolation of known compounds from new neotropical sources, or complementary results of on-going work. The text should be arranged as follows: Graphical abstract, Title, Abstract of 200 words, Keywords, Introductory Remarks, Material and Methods with brief experimental details without subheadings, Results and Discussion as one body of text without headlines, Acknowledgements, Authorship, References (up to 20 citations) and Figures and/or Tables (up to 3). The text should not exceed 2,000 words.
•Reviews: Authors are invited to submit a review article that provides concise and critical updates on a subject, and with around 100 references. The main purpose of reviews is to provide a concise, accurate introduction to the subject matter and inform the reader critically of the latest developments in the field. Review articles should be designed to give an interesting insight into a hot topic in Pharmacognosy, focusing on the key developments that have shaped a field rather than giving a very comprehensive overview of a very specific topic. They should be concise and include details of the search strategy used, such as time frame, search terms, used databases. A review should be an article that produces knowledge and not just a survey of the existing literature. The review must be a response to an initial question. Reviews of a particular herbal drug will be considered if they contain the newest issue and a perspective on future directions.
Authors are strongly recommended to prepare a manuscript using a A4-sized paper, double-spaced, with Times New Roman size-12 font, fully justified, with margins of 2 cm.
Submission checklist
You can use this list to carry out a final check of your submission before you send it to the journal for review. Please check the relevant section in this Guide for Authors for more details.
Ensure the following:
• One author has been designated as the corresponding author with contact details: Institutional e-mail address; full postal address;
• ORCID ID for all authors;
• Authors’ contributions;
• All authors, with their respective email addresses, should be entered into the system.
• All necessary files have been uploaded: Graphical abstract, Manuscript; Include keywords; All figures with Legends; All tables (including titles, description, footnotes); and Supplemental files (if applicable).
• All figure and table citations in the text match the files provided;
• Manuscript has been 'spell checked' and 'grammar checked;
• All references mentioned in the Reference List are cited in the text, and vice versa;
• Permission has been obtained for use of copyrighted material from other sources (including the Internet);
• Relevant declarations of interest have been made;
• Journal policies detailed in this guide have been reviewed.
Additional information
• All plant, microorganism and marine organism materials used in the described research should be supported by an indication of the site (including GPS coordinates, if possible) and country of origin, the name of the person identifying the biological material and the location of the voucher specimen.
• Authors should be prepared to provide documentary evidence that approval for collection was afforded from an appropriate authority in the country of collection and, if applicable, to follow the rules concerning the biodiversity rights.
• The journal will not accept responsibility for research works that do not comply with the legislation of the country of residence of the author.
• We strongly recommend that authors avoid stating that the popular or traditional use of a certain herb was confirmed by pre-clinical, in vitro assays or in vivo tests using animals.
• The Revista Brasileira de Farmacognosia-Brazilian Journal of Pharmacognosy strongly encourages the submission of original works in which the experimental procedures were conducted taking into consideration green chemistry principles, such as by employing green solvents and environmental resource saving experimental designs in any step of the investigation.
• Evaluations using animal models to provide evidences for the pharmacological efficacy of plants do not fall into the areas of interest of the journal when polyphenol-rich plant extracts are involved and, therefore, making the results predictable.
• For the pharmacological studies to explore the therapeutic roles of polyphenols, such as antioxidant activity, antibacterial, antiviral, hepatoprotective, anti-inflammatory, antipyretic, anti-obesity, cardioprotective, neuroprotective, anti-hypertension, free radicals scavenger, and central nervous system stimulators, the journal will give preference to articles that make use of molecular tools over animal models for the characterization of the mechanism(s) of action of isolated pure compounds.
• For the pharmacobotanical studies, the use of DNA barcodes combined with chemical profile analysis (TLC and HPLC) would be the required approach to solve the problems of quality control of medicinal plants.
• The use of HPLC or UHPLC coupled to hybrid state-of-the-art mass spectrometers are becoming a key tool for the rapid and accurate analysis and dereplication of substances in complex plant matrices to rapidly estimate their pharmacological potential, making unnecessary the use of in vivo models to validate it where polyphenols are the major constituents.
• The Revista Brasileira de Farmacognosia-Brazilian Journal of Pharmacognosy explicitly encourages the submission of chemically characterized extracts by GC (volatile oils), HPLC and/or NMR.
• It is a mandatory requirement for authors to include copies of NMR spectra for all new compounds and tested bioactive compounds from a natural source in the Supporting Information.
• For works describing the structural elucidation of novel natural products, it is mandatory to include evidences for the absolute configuration.
The following immediate rejection criteria apply
i. the manuscript does not fall into the areas of interest of the journal;
ii. manuscripts not formatted in accordance with the standards of the journal, e.g., papers requiring English proof-reading can be refused without further editorial inspection.
iii. the manuscript results are preliminary, e.g., chemical analysis using different reagents for the identification of classes and types of secondary metabolites; pharmacobotanical studies without the use of DNA barcodes combined with chemical profile analysis;
iv. results not presenting chemically characterized extracts;
v. experimental work based on preliminary biological and pharmacological analysis for extracts without the identification of the active constituent(s) or dereplication of major constituents by GC (volatile compounds), HPLC or NMR.
vi. manuscripts reporting activity data without comparison with a reference, without a positive control/appropriate control or not based on adequate statistics;
vii. the biological source (e.g. plant, microorganism, marine organism etc.) is not clearly identified, authenticated and documented;
viii. experimental work on antioxidant activity of crude extracts without isolation, identification and content estimation of the active compounds; phenolic compounds are widely spread in nature and fully recognized as antioxidants or scavengers;
ix. experimental work on antimicrobial activity with crude extracts without isolation and identification of the active compounds, with large MIC values (μg/ml) for antimicrobial activity (≥250 μg/ml for plant extracts and ≥50 μg/ml for pure compounds) and without appropriate identification of culture collections/strain designation codes;
x. experimental work on volatile oils with only one sample of a single plant specimen with a single chromatographic analysis and without appropriate statistical analyses; without oil yield (%) and characterization and component quantification not undertaken using GC-MS-FID. Analyses of the retention indices of the components not calculated using n-alkane homologous series together with analyses of some of the isolated natural components. Biological activity of essential oil without chemical characterization;
xi. too preliminary data using in vitro or in vivo assays will not be acceptable if (i) no information on the type of activity is given; (ii) single dose or very high concentrations (must show dose–response studies); (iii) repetition of a simple bioassay (usually one assay with replicates); (iv) lack of appropriate controls (solvents; positive or negative substances according to the study); (v) no IC50 values (if applicable); (vi) predictable bioactivity is described (e.g., therapeutic roles of polyphenols);
xii. pharmacological efficacy of plants in animal models when the results involved polyphenol-rich plant extracts;
xiii. use of only the brine shrimp assay (Artemia salina) to access the toxicity of extracts;
xiv. isolation and bioassay of well-known compounds with small or no relationship to the activity, or to the medicinal use of the plant without clear justification;
xv. manuscripts reporting pharmacological or biological activities of crude extracts or phytopharmaceuticals without chemical and technical standardization. Standardization of the plant extracts is considered to be the complete description of manufacturing parameters such as granulometry, solvent-plant ratio, time of extraction, solvent composition etc., together with marker quantification and chromatographic fingerprint analyses by HPLC.
xvi. structural elucidation of novel natural products without complete spectroscopic and spectrometric analyses (NMR and HRMS) and evidences for the absolute configuration.
Graphical abstract
A Graphical abstract is mandatory for this journal. It should summarize the contents of the article in a concise and simple pictorial form designed to capture the attention of a wide readership online. Authors must provide images that clearly represent the work described in the article. This graphical abstract should capture the reader’s attention and, in conjunction with the manuscript title, should give the reader a quick visual impression of the essence of the manuscript without providing specific results. Graphical abstracts should be submitted as a separate file in the online submission system. Image size: please provide an image with a minimum of 531 x times; 1328 pixels (h & w) or proportionally more. The image should be readable at a size of 5 x 13 cm using a regular screen resolution of 96 dpi. Preferred file types: TIFF, EPS, PDF or MS Office files. BJP does not accept Graphical abstract using images of animals.
Title page
Title Page
The title page should include:
- The name(s) of the author(s)
- A concise and informative title
- The affiliation(s) of the author(s), i.e. institution, (department), city, (state), country
- A clear indication and an active e-mail address of the corresponding author
- If available, the 16-digit ORCID of the author(s)
If address information is provided with the affiliation(s) it will also be published.
For authors that are (temporarily) unaffiliated we will only capture their city and country of residence, not their e-mail address unless specifically requested.
Abstract
Please provide an abstract of 150 to 250 words. The abstract should not contain any undefined abbreviations or unspecified references.
Keywords
Please provide 4 to 6 keywords which can be used for indexing purposes.
Text
Text Formatting
Manuscripts should be submitted in Word.
- Use a normal, plain font (e.g., 10-point Times Roman) for text.
- Use italics for emphasis.
- Use the automatic page numbering function to number the pages.
- Do not use field functions.
- Use tab stops or other commands for indents, not the space bar.
- Use the table function, not spreadsheets, to make tables.
- Use the equation editor or MathType for equations.
- Save your file in docx format (Word 2007 or higher) or doc format (older Word versions).
Manuscripts with mathematical content can also be submitted in LaTeX.
LaTeX macro package (Download zip, 188 kB)
Headings
Please use no more than three levels of displayed headings.
Abbreviations
Abbreviations should be defined at first mention and used consistently thereafter.
Footnotes
Footnotes can be used to give additional information, which may include the citation of a reference included in the reference list. They should not consist solely of a reference citation, and they should never include the bibliographic details of a reference. They should also not contain any figures or tables.
Footnotes to the text are numbered consecutively; those to tables should be indicated by superscript lower-case letters (or asterisks for significance values and other statistical data). Footnotes to the title or the authors of the article are not given reference symbols.
Always use footnotes instead of endnotes.
Acknowledgments
Acknowledgments of people, grants, funds, etc. should be placed in a separate section on the title page. The names of funding organizations should be written in full.
References
Citation
Cite references in the text by name and year in parentheses. Some examples:
- Negotiation research spans many disciplines (Thompson 1990).
- This result was later contradicted by Becker and Seligman (1996).
- This effect has been widely studied (Abbott 1991; Barakat et al. 1995a, b; Kelso and Smith 1998; Medvec et al. 1999, 2000).
Reference list
The list of references should only include works that are cited in the text and that have been published or accepted for publication. Personal communications and unpublished works should only be mentioned in the text. Do not use footnotes or endnotes as a substitute for a reference list.
Reference list entries should be alphabetized by the last names of the first author of each work. Order multi-author publications of the same first author alphabetically with respect to second, third, etc. author. Publications of exactly the same author(s) must be ordered chronologically.
- Journal article
Gamelin FX, Baquet G, Berthoin S, Thevenet D, Nourry C, Nottin S, Bosquet L (2009) Effect of high intensity intermittent training on heart rate variability in prepubescent children. Eur J Appl Physiol 105:731-738. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-008-0955-8
Ideally, the names of all authors should be provided, but the usage of “et al” in long author lists will also be accepted:
Smith J, Jones M Jr, Houghton L et al (1999) Future of health insurance. N Engl J Med 965:325–329
- Article by DOI
Slifka MK, Whitton JL (2000) Clinical implications of dysregulated cytokine production. J Mol Med. https://doi.org/10.1007/s001090000086
- Book
South J, Blass B (2001) The future of modern genomics. Blackwell, London
- Book chapter
Brown B, Aaron M (2001) The politics of nature. In: Smith J (ed) The rise of modern genomics, 3rd edn. Wiley, New York, pp 230-257
- Online document
Cartwright J (2007) Big stars have weather too. IOP Publishing PhysicsWeb. http://physicsweb.org/articles/news/11/6/16/1. Accessed 26 June 2007
- Dissertation
Trent JW (1975) Experimental acute renal failure. Dissertation, University of California
Always use the standard abbreviation of a journal’s name according to the ISSN List of Title Word Abbreviations, see
If you are unsure, please use the full journal title.
For authors using EndNote, Springer provides an output style that supports the formatting of in-text citations and reference list.
Tables
- All tables are to be numbered using Arabic numerals.
- Tables should always be cited in text in consecutive numerical order.
- For each table, please supply a table caption (title) explaining the components of the table.
- Identify any previously published material by giving the original source in the form of a reference at the end of the table caption.
- Footnotes to tables should be indicated by superscript lower-case letters (or asterisks for significance values and other statistical data) and included beneath the table body.
Artwork and Illustrations Guidelines
Electronic Figure Submission
- Supply all figures electronically.
- Indicate what graphics program was used to create the artwork.
- For vector graphics, the preferred format is EPS; for halftones, please use TIFF format. MSOffice files are also acceptable.
- Vector graphics containing fonts must have the fonts embedded in the files.
- Name your figure files with "Fig" and the figure number, e.g., Fig1.eps.
Line Art
- Definition: Black and white graphic with no shading.
- Do not use faint lines and/or lettering and check that all lines and lettering within the figures are legible at final size.
- All lines should be at least 0.1 mm (0.3 pt) wide.
- Scanned line drawings and line drawings in bitmap format should have a minimum resolution of 1200 dpi.
- Vector graphics containing fonts must have the fonts embedded in the files.
Halftone Art
- Definition: Photographs, drawings, or paintings with fine shading, etc.
- If any magnification is used in the photographs, indicate this by using scale bars within the figures themselves.
- Halftones should have a minimum resolution of 300 dpi.
Combination Art
- Definition: a combination of halftone and line art, e.g., halftones containing line drawing, extensive lettering, color diagrams, etc.
- Combination artwork should have a minimum resolution of 600 dpi.
Color Art
- Color art is free of charge for online publication.
- If black and white will be shown in the print version, make sure that the main information will still be visible. Many colors are not distinguishable from one another when converted to black and white. A simple way to check this is to make a xerographic copy to see if the necessary distinctions between the different colors are still apparent.
- If the figures will be printed in black and white, do not refer to color in the captions.
- Color illustrations should be submitted as RGB (8 bits per channel).
Figure Lettering
- To add lettering, it is best to use Helvetica or Arial (sans serif fonts).
- Keep lettering consistently sized throughout your final-sized artwork, usually about 2–3 mm (8–12 pt).
- Variance of type size within an illustration should be minimal, e.g., do not use 8-pt type on an axis and 20-pt type for the axis label.
- Avoid effects such as shading, outline letters, etc.
- Do not include titles or captions within your illustrations.
Figure Numbering
- All figures are to be numbered using Arabic numerals.
- Figures should always be cited in text in consecutive numerical order.
- Figure parts should be denoted by lowercase letters (a, b, c, etc.).
- If an appendix appears in your article and it contains one or more figures, continue the consecutive numbering of the main text. Do not number the appendix figures,"A1, A2, A3, etc." Figures in online appendices (Electronic Supplementary Material) should, however, be numbered separately.
Figure Captions
- Each figure should have a concise caption describing accurately what the figure depicts. Include the captions in the text file of the manuscript, not in the figure file.
- Figure captions begin with the term Fig. in bold type, followed by the figure number, also in bold type.
- No punctuation is to be included after the number, nor is any punctuation to be placed at the end of the caption.
- Identify all elements found in the figure in the figure caption; and use boxes, circles, etc., as coordinate points in graphs.
- Identify previously published material by giving the original source in the form of a reference citation at the end of the figure caption.
Figure Placement and Size
- Figures should be submitted separately from the text, if possible.
- When preparing your figures, size figures to fit in the column width.
- For large-sized journals the figures should be 84 mm (for double-column text areas), or 174 mm (for single-column text areas) wide and not higher than 234 mm.
- For small-sized journals, the figures should be 119 mm wide and not higher than 195 mm.
Permissions
If you include figures that have already been published elsewhere, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner(s) for both the print and online format. Please be aware that some publishers do not grant electronic rights for free and that Springer will not be able to refund any costs that may have occurred to receive these permissions. In such cases, material from other sources should be used.
Accessibility
In order to give people of all abilities and disabilities access to the content of your figures, please make sure that
- All figures have descriptive captions (blind users could then use a text-to-speech software or a text-to-Braille hardware)
- Patterns are used instead of or in addition to colors for conveying information (colorblind users would then be able to distinguish the visual elements)
- Any figure lettering has a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1
Electronic Supplementary Material
Springer accepts electronic multimedia files (animations, movies, audio, etc.) and other supplementary files to be published online along with an article or a book chapter. This feature can add dimension to the author's article, as certain information cannot be printed or is more convenient in electronic form.
Before submitting research datasets as electronic supplementary material, authors should read the journal’s Research data policy. We encourage research data to be archived in data repositories wherever possible.
Submission
- Supply all supplementary material in standard file formats.
- Please include in each file the following information: article title, journal name, author names; affiliation and e-mail address of the corresponding author.
- To accommodate user downloads, please keep in mind that larger-sized files may require very long download times and that some users may experience other problems during downloading.
Audio, Video, and Animations
- Aspect ratio: 16:9 or 4:3
- Maximum file size: 25 GB
- Minimum video duration: 1 sec
- Supported file formats: avi, wmv, mp4, mov, m2p, mp2, mpg, mpeg, flv, mxf, mts, m4v, 3gp
Text and Presentations
- Submit your material in PDF format; .doc or .ppt files are not suitable for long-term viability.
- A collection of figures may also be combined in a PDF file.
Spreadsheets
- Spreadsheets should be submitted as .csv or .xlsx files (MS Excel).
Specialized Formats
- Specialized format such as .pdb (chemical), .wrl (VRML), .nb (Mathematica notebook), and .tex can also be supplied.
Collecting Multiple Files
- It is possible to collect multiple files in a .zip or .gz file.
Numbering
- If supplying any supplementary material, the text must make specific mention of the material as a citation, similar to that of figures and tables.
- Refer to the supplementary files as “Online Resource”, e.g., "... as shown in the animation (Online Resource 3)", “... additional data are given in Online Resource 4”.
- Name the files consecutively, e.g. “ESM_3.mpg”, “ESM_4.pdf”.
Captions
- For each supplementary material, please supply a concise caption describing the content of the file.
Processing of supplementary files
- Electronic supplementary material will be published as received from the author without any conversion, editing, or reformatting.
Accessibility
In order to give people of all abilities and disabilities access to the content of your supplementary files, please make sure that
- The manuscript contains a descriptive caption for each supplementary material
- Video files do not contain anything that flashes more than three times per second (so that users prone to seizures caused by such effects are not put at risk)
After Acceptance
Upon acceptance of your article you will receive a link to the special Author Query Application at Springer’s web page where you can sign the Copyright Transfer Statement online and indicate whether you wish to order OpenChoice and offprints.
Once the Author Query Application has been completed, your article will be processed and you will receive the proofs.
Copyright transfer
Authors will be asked to transfer copyright of the article to the Publisher (or grant the Publisher exclusive publication and dissemination rights). This will ensure the widest possible protection and dissemination of information under copyright laws.
Offprints
Offprints can be ordered by the corresponding author.
Color illustrations
Publication of color illustrations is free of charge.
Proof reading
The purpose of the proof is to check for typesetting or conversion errors and the completeness and accuracy of the text, tables and figures. Substantial changes in content, e.g., new results, corrected values, title and authorship, are not allowed without the approval of the Editor.
After online publication, further changes can only be made in the form of an Erratum, which will be hyperlinked to the article.
Online First
The article will be published online after receipt of the corrected proofs. This is the official first publication citable with the DOI. After release of the printed version, the paper can also be cited by issue and page numbers.
Open Choice
Open Choice allows you to publish open access in more than 1850 Springer Nature journals, making your research more visible and accessible immediately on publication.
Article processing charges (APCs) vary by journal – view the full list
Benefits:
- Increased researcher engagement: Open Choice enables access by anyone with an internet connection, immediately on publication.
- Higher visibility and impact: In Springer hybrid journals, OA articles are accessed 4 times more often on average, and cited 1.7 more times on average*.
- Easy compliance with funder and institutional mandates: Many funders require open access publishing, and some take compliance into account when assessing future grant applications.
It is easy to find funding to support open access – please see our funding and support pages for more information.
*) Within the first three years of publication. Springer Nature hybrid journal OA impact analysis, 2018.
Copyright and license term – CC BY
Open Choice articles do not require transfer of copyright as the copyright remains with the author. In opting for open access, the author(s) agree to publish the article under the Creative Commons Attribution License.
Research Data Policy
The journal encourages authors, where possible and applicable, to deposit data that support the findings of their research in a public repository. Authors and editors who do not have a preferred repository should consult Springer Nature’s list of repositories and research data policy.
General repositories - for all types of research data - such as figshare and Dryad may also be used.
Datasets that are assigned digital object identifiers (DOIs) by a data repository may be cited in the reference list. Data citations should include the minimum information recommended by DataCite: authors, title, publisher (repository name), identifier.
Springer Nature provides a research data policy support service for authors and editors, which can be contacted at researchdata@springernature.com.
This service provides advice on research data policy compliance and on finding research data repositories. It is independent of journal, book and conference proceedings editorial offices and does not advise on specific manuscripts.
Scientific style
Please always use internationally accepted signs and symbols for units (SI units).
Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest
Authors must disclose all relationships or interests that could influence or bias the work. Although an author may not feel there are conflicts, disclosure of relationships and interests affords a more transparent process, leading to an accurate and objective assessment of the work. Awareness of real or perceived conflicts of interests is a perspective to which the readers are entitled and is not meant to imply that a financial relationship with an organization that sponsored the research or compensation for consultancy work is inappropriate. Examples of potential conflicts of interests that are directly or indirectly related to the research may include but are not limited to the following:
- Research grants from funding agencies (please give the research funder and the grant number)
- Honoraria for speaking at symposia
- Financial support for attending symposia
- Financial support for educational programs
- Employment or consultation
- Support from a project sponsor
- Position on advisory board or board of directors or other type of management relationships
- Multiple affiliations
- Financial relationships, for example equity ownership or investment interest
- Intellectual property rights (e.g. patents, copyrights and royalties from such rights)
- Holdings of spouse and/or children that may have financial interest in the work
In addition, interests that go beyond financial interests and compensation (non-financial interests) that may be important to readers should be disclosed. These may include but are not limited to personal relationships or competing interests directly or indirectly tied to this research, or professional interests or personal beliefs that may influence your research.
The corresponding author collects the conflict of interest disclosure forms from all authors. (Please note that each author should complete a disclosure form.) Examples of forms can be found
The corresponding author will include a summary statement on the title page that is separate from their manuscript, that reflects what is recorded in the potential conflict of interest disclosure form(s).
See below examples of disclosures:
Funding: This study was funded by X (grant number X).
Conflict of Interest: Author A has received research grants from Company A. Author B has received a speaker honorarium from Company X and owns stock in Company Y. Author C is a member of committee Z.
If no conflict exists, the authors should state:
Conflict of Interest: Author A, Author B, and Author C declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Research involving human participants and/or animals
1) Statement of human rights
When reporting studies that involve human participants, authors should include a statement that the studies have been approved by the appropriate institutional and/or national research ethics committee and have been performed in accordance with the ethical standards as laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
If doubt exists whether the research was conducted in accordance with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration or comparable standards, the authors must explain the reasons for their approach, and demonstrate that the independent ethics committee or institutional review board explicitly approved the doubtful aspects of the study.
If a study was granted exemption from requiring ethics approval, this should also be detailed in the manuscript (including the name of the ethics committee that granted the exemption and the reasons for the exemption).
Authors must - in all situations as described above - include the name of the ethics committee and the reference number where appropriate.
The following statements should be included in the text before the References section:
Ethical approval: “All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee (include name of committee + reference number) and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.”
Ethical approval retrospective studies
Although retrospective studies are conducted on already available data or biological material (for which formal consent may not be needed or is difficult to obtain) ethical approval may be required dependent on the law and the national ethical guidelines of a country. Authors should check with their institution to make sure they are complying with the specific requirements of their country.
2) Statement on the welfare of animals
The welfare of animals used for research must be respected. When reporting experiments on animals, authors should indicate whether the international, national, and/or institutional guidelines for the care and use of animals have been followed, and that the studies have been approved by a research ethics committee at the institution or practice at which the studies were conducted (where such a committee exists). Please provide the name of ethics committee and relevant permit number.
For studies with animals, the following statement should be included in in the text before the References section:
Ethical approval: “All applicable international, national, and/or institutional guidelines for the care and use of animals were followed.”
If applicable (where such a committee exists): “All procedures performed in studies involving animals were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institution or practice at which the studies were conducted.(include name of committee + permit number)”
If articles do not contain studies with human participants or animals by any of the authors, please select one of the following statements:
“This article does not contain any studies with human participants performed by any of the authors.”
“This article does not contain any studies with animals performed by any of the authors.”
“This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.”
Informed consent
All individuals have individual rights that are not to be infringed. Individual participants in studies have, for example, the right to decide what happens to the (identifiable) personal data gathered, to what they have said during a study or an interview, as well as to any photograph that was taken. This is especially true concerning images of vulnerable people (e.g. minors, patients, refugees, etc) or the use of images in sensitive contexts. In many instances authors will need to secure written consent before including images. Identifying details (names, dates of birth, identity numbers and other information) of the participants that were studied should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, and genetic profiles unless the information is essential for scholarly purposes and the participant (or parent or guardian if the participant is incapable) gave written informed consent for publication. Complete anonymity is difficult to achieve in some cases. Detailed descriptions of individual participants, whether of their whole bodies or of body sections, may lead to disclosure of their identity. Under certain circumstances consent is not required as long as information is anonymized and the submission does not include images that may identify the person.
Informed consent for publication should be obtained if there is any doubt. For example, masking the eye region in photographs of participants is inadequate protection of anonymity. If identifying characteristics are altered to protect anonymity, such as in genetic profiles, authors should provide assurance that alterations do not distort scientific meaning.
Exceptions where it is not necessary to obtain consent:
• Images such as x rays, laparoscopic images, ultrasound images, brain scans, pathology slides unless there is a concern about identifying information in which case, authors should ensure that consent is obtained.
• Reuse of images: If images are being reused from prior publications, the Publisher will assume that the prior publication obtained the relevant information regarding consent. Authors should provide the appropriate attribution for republished images.
Consent and already available data and/or biologic material
Regardless of whether material is collected from living or dead patients, they (family or guardian if the deceased has not made a pre-mortem decision) must have given prior written consent. The aspect of confidentiality as well as any wishes from the deceased should be respected.
Data protection, confidentiality and privacy
When biological material is donated for or data is generated as part of a research project authors should ensure, as part of the informed consent procedure, that the participants are made what kind of (personal) data will be processed, how it will be used and for what purpose. In case of data acquired via a biobank/biorepository, it is possible they apply a broad consent which allows research participants to consent to a broad range of uses of their data and samples which is regarded by research ethics committees as specific enough to be considered “informed”. However, authors should always check the specific biobank/biorepository policies or any other type of data provider policies (in case of non-bio research) to be sure that this is the case.
Authorship principles
These guidelines describe authorship principles and good authorship practices to which prospective authors should adhere to.
Authorship clarified
The Journal and Publisher assume all authors agreed with the content and that all gave explicit consent to submit and that they obtained consent from the responsible authorities at the institute/organization where the work has been carried out, before the work is submitted.
The Publisher does not prescribe the kinds of contributions that warrant authorship. It is recommended that authors adhere to the guidelines for authorship that are applicable in their specific research field. In absence of specific guidelines it is recommended to adhere to the following guidelines*:
All authors whose names appear on the submission
1) made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data; or the creation of new software used in the work;
2) drafted the work or revised it critically for important intellectual content;
3) approved the version to be published; and
4) agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
* Based on/adapted from:
ICMJE, Defining the Role of Authors and Contributors,
Disclosures and declarations
All authors are requested to include information regarding sources of funding, financial or non-financial interests, study-specific approval by the appropriate ethics committee for research involving humans and/or animals, informed consent if the research involved human participants, and a statement on welfare of animals if the research involved animals (as appropriate).
The decision whether such information should be included is not only dependent on the scope of the journal, but also the scope of the article. Work submitted for publication may have implications for public health or general welfare and in those cases it is the responsibility of all authors to include the appropriate disclosures and declarations.
Data transparency
All authors are requested to make sure that all data and materials as well as software application or custom code support their published claims and comply with field standards. Please note that journals may have individual policies on (sharing) research data in concordance with disciplinary norms and expectations. Please check the Instructions for Authors of the Journal that you are submitting to for specific instructions.
Role of the Corresponding Author
One author is assigned as Corresponding Author and acts on behalf of all co-authors and ensures that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately addressed.
The Corresponding Author is responsible for the following requirements:
- ensuring that all listed authors have approved the manuscript before submission, including the names and order of authors;
- managing all communication between the Journal and all co-authors, before and after publication;*
- providing transparency on re-use of material and mention any unpublished material (for example manuscripts in press) included in the manuscript in a cover letter to the Editor;
- making sure disclosures, declarations and transparency on data statements from all authors are included in the manuscript as appropriate (see above).
* The requirement of managing all communication between the journal and all co-authors during submission and proofing may be delegated to a Contact or Submitting Author. In this case please make sure the Corresponding Author is clearly indicated in the manuscript.
Author contributions
Please check the Instructions for Authors of the Journal that you are submitting to for specific instructions regarding contribution statements.
In absence of specific instructions and in research fields where it is possible to describe discrete efforts, the Publisher recommends authors to include contribution statements in the work that specifies the contribution of every author in order to promote transparency. These contributions should be listed at the separate title page.
Examples of such statement(s) are shown below:
• Free text:
All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by [full name], [full name] and [full name]. The first draft of the manuscript was written by [full name] and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
• Conceptualization: [full name], …; Methodology: [full name], …; Formal analysis and investigation: [full name], …; Writing - original draft preparation: [full name, …]; Writing - review and editing: [full name], …; Funding acquisition: [full name], …; Resources: [full name], …; Supervision: [full name],….
For review articles where discrete statements are less applicable a statement should be included who had the idea for the article, who performed the literature search and data analysis, and who drafted and/or critically revised the work.
For articles that are based primarily on the student’s dissertation or thesis, it is recommended that the student is usually listed as principal author:
Affiliation
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 additionally be stated. Addresses will not be updated or changed after publication of the article.
Changes to authorship
Authors are strongly advised to ensure the correct author group, the Corresponding Author, and the order of authors at submission. Changes of authorship by adding or deleting authors, and/or changes in Corresponding Author, and/or changes in the sequence of authors are not accepted after acceptance of a manuscript.
- Please note that author names will be published exactly as they appear on the accepted submission!
Please make sure that the names of all authors are present and correctly spelled, and that addresses and affiliations are current.
Adding and/or deleting authors at revision stage are generally not permitted, but in some cases it may be warranted. Reasons for these changes in authorship should be explained. Approval of the change during revision is at the discretion of the Editor-in-Chief. Please note that journals may have individual policies on adding and/or deleting authors during revision stage.
Author identification
Authors are recommended to use their ORCID ID when submitting an article for consideration or acquire an ORCID ID via the submission process.
Deceased or incapacitated authors
For cases in which a co-author dies or is incapacitated during the writing, submission, or peer-review process, and the co-authors feel it is appropriate to include the author, co-authors should obtain approval from a (legal) representative which could be a direct relative.
Authorship issues or disputes
In the case of an authorship dispute during peer review or after acceptance and publication, the Journal will not be in a position to investigate or adjudicate. Authors will be asked to resolve the dispute themselves. If they are unable the Journal reserves the right to withdraw a manuscript from the editorial process or in case of a published paper raise the issue with the authors’ institution(s) and abide by its guidelines.
Confidentiality
Authors should treat all communication with the Journal as confidential which includes correspondence with direct representatives from the Journal such as Editors-in-Chief and/or Handling Editors and reviewers’ reports unless explicit consent has been received to share information.
Editorial procedure
Single-blind peer review
This journal follows a single-blind reviewing procedure.
English Language Support
For editors and reviewers to accurately assess the work presented in your manuscript you need to ensure the English language is of sufficient quality to be understood. If you need help with writing in English you should consider:
- Asking a colleague who is a native English speaker to review your manuscript for clarity.
- Visiting the English language tutorial which covers the common mistakes when writing in English.
- Using a professional language editing service where editors will improve the English to ensure that your meaning is clear and identify problems that require your review. Two such services are provided by our affiliates Nature Research Editing Service and American Journal Experts. Springer authors are entitled to a 10% discount on their first submission to either of these services, simply follow the links below
Nature Research Editing Service
Please note that the use of a language editing service is not a requirement for publication in this journal and does not imply or guarantee that the article will be selected for peer review or accepted.
If your manuscript is accepted it will be checked by our copyeditors for spelling and formal style before publication.
