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Instructions for Authors — Nature Medicine

Source: http://www.nature.com/nm/submission-guidelines

Submission Guidelines

When submitting your manuscript, please read the following guidelines, which will help you through the submission and publication process.

1 – What you need to know before initial submission

Make sure Nature MedicineAims and scope Check that Nature MedicineContent types Read and understand our policies – Editorial policies Understand our publishing models and costs – Publishing options Does Nature MedicinePresubmission enquiries Our preprint policy – Preprint policy and In Review

2 – Preparing your material for initial submission

Make sure your submission is complete – Preparing your material Understand the initial formatting requirements – Formatting for initial submission Make sure your manuscript is accurate and readable – Writing and language Do you want to participate in double-anonymized peer review? – Double-anonymized peer reviewrequirements

YOU ARE NOW READY TO SUBMIT YOUR MANUSCRIPT

Click ‘Submit manuscript’ and you will be taken to our online submission system, where you can upload the required files and check on the status of your manuscript after submission. You will need to log in; if you do not have an account, you will be able to register for one when you submit.

3 – Editorial Process, Peer Review, Appeals & Transfers

Once you have submitted your manuscript, it goes through our editorial process.

If your manuscript is sent out for peer review, you will receive an email asking you to read and sign our Editorial Policies.

To appeal against a decision, or transfer your submission to another journal – Appeals and Transfers.

4 – Acceptance in Principle & Formatting

If your article is accepted for publication (known as Acceptance in Principle), you will need to follow the formatting guidelines.

Before final acceptance, we request that corresponding authors of accepted papers link their Open Researcher and Contributor Identifier (ORCID) to their manuscript tracking system account – ORCID instructions.

5 – Production & Publication

Once your manuscript is formally accepted, it is sent to Production to prepare for publication – production process.

Formatting your initial submission

Your initial submission does not need to be specially formatted, as long as the study is described in a way that is suitable for editorial assessment and peer review.

We accept initial submissions in PDF, Word or TeX/LaTeX formats; if you are using TeX/LaTeX, please submit compiled PDFs.

Please note, further formatting of all text and images will be required if your manuscript is accepted for publication – see formatting requirements.

AIP and formatting

Acceptance in Principle (AIP)

Once peer review is completed and the editor is satisfied that any concerns raised by the reviewers have been suitably addressed, the paper is accepted ‘in principle’ (AIP). The editor will send detailed instructions to ensure that the paper contains all the information required for publication and meets our standards for the reporting of data and code.

A high priority of * Nature Medicine* is that all papers are accessible to non-specialists; manuscripts are subject to substantial editing to achieve this goal. After acceptance, a copy editor and an art editor may make further changes to ensure that the text and figures are readable and clear to those outside the field, and that papers conform to our house style.

Once your manuscript has been accepted in principle for publication, you will need to format it according to the guidelines below. Addressing these requirements at this stage will ensure your manuscript has a smoother path to publication.

FORMATTING REQUIREMENTS

1 – Document type

Please submit your manuscript in either Word or TeX/LaTeX format. We do not accept PDFs for final submissions.

Word

We accept all standard fonts; however, please note Symbol font should be used for 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 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.

For further guidelines on TeX/LaTeX, please visit https://www.springernature.com/gp/authors/campaigns/latex-author-support where you can download the Springer Nature LaTeX template.

2 – Tables

Please include tables at the end of your text document. Complex tables can be submitted as a separate Excel file. Tables that include statistical analysis of data should describe their standards of error analysis and ranges in a table legend. Tables that feature chemical structures should be included at the end of the text document and the native ChemDraw file(s) should be supplied separately as .cdx files.

3 – Figures

Effective figure preparation will enhance the readability of your manuscript – our image preparation guidelines will help you to produce effective publication-quality figures. In addition, please consider the following important requirements:

Images

All figures must be cited in sequence within the main article text in the form Fig. 1, Fig. 2. Figure panels should be prepared at a minimum resolution of 300 dpi and saved at a maximum width of 180 mm. Use a 5–7 pt san serif font for standard text labelling and Symbol font for Greek characters. Use scale bars, not magnification factors, and include error bars where appropriate. Do not flatten labelling or scale/error bars onto images – uneditable or low-resolution images are two of the most common reasons for delay in manuscript preparation.

Figure legends

Include a brief title for each figure with a short description of each panel cited in sequence. Ensure the legend does not exceed the word limit of the article type. Avoid methodological detail. Use verbal cues to describe keys, eg. "open red triangles", not visual cues or symbols. Include a description of centre values (median or average) and all error bars and how they were calculated. Give an indication of sample size (n number), state the statistical test used and provide P values.

Chemical structures

Chemical structures should be produced using ChemDraw or a similar program. Figures containing chemical structures should be submitted according to our image preparation guidelines. Authors using ChemDraw should make use of our journal template, 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 see our Chemical Structures Style Guide.

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, stereo images should be submitted at their anticipated final size.

Copyright Permission

You are responsible for obtaining permission to publish any figures or illustrations that are protected by copyright, including figures published elsewhere and pictures taken by professional photographers. Incomplete permission information may delay publication of your manuscript, as we cannot publish images without appropriate permission. If submitting figures created using BioRender, please confirm whether you own a full licence to publish or a free trial plan.

Advance Online Publication

details about advance online publication.

4 – Colour charges (print journals only)

Charges apply for authors of primary subscription content who wish to publish figures in colour in Nature Portfolio print journals. For further details please email editorial enquiries.

5 – References

References should be numbered sequentially in the following order:

Only one publication is given for each reference. Research objects (such as conference abstracts, numbered patents, datasets, protocols and code) that have been assigned a DOI are included in the reference list. Unpublished meeting abstracts, papers in preparation and papers under review or in press without an available preprint should not appear in the reference list. Instead, they 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). URLs for web sites should be cited parenthetically in the main text, not in the reference list. Grant details and acknowledgments are not permitted as numbered references. Footnotes are not supported.

For long-form manuscripts such as Articles, Letters, Review Articles, Perspectives and Progress Articles, titles of cited articles are required.

Example:

Eigler, D. M. & Schweizer, E. K. Positioning single atoms with a scanning tunnelling microscope. Nature 344, 524–526 (1990).

For shorter article types such as Commentaries or News & Views, titles of cited articles are not included.

Iijima, S. Nature 354, 56–58 (1991).

For book citations, the publisher is required.

Jones, R. A. L. Soft Machines: Nanotechnology and Life Ch. 3 (Oxford Univ. Press, 2004).

Data and code may be cited in the reference list if they have been assigned DOIs and should include authors, title, publisher (repository name) and DOI expressed as a URL.

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

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 https://arXiv.org/quant-ph/0208066 (2002).

6 – Methods

Methods should be subdivided by short, bold headings referring to methods used. We encourage the inclusion of specific subsections; for example Statistics, Reagents or Animal models. If additional references are included, numbering should continue from the end of the last reference in the main paper (see section 5 References). Any Methods-only references should accompany the additional Methods at the end of the paper.

Authors are encouraged to deposit the step-by-step protocols used in their study to Protocol Exchange. Protocols deposited by the authors should be mentioned in the Methods section and added to the reference list.

7 – Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements should be brief and avoid thanking anonymous referees and editors. Dedications are not permitted unless for someone directly involved with the research who for some reason is not an author.

8 – Funding Statements

Any relevant funding should be declared in a separate funding statement. When declaring funding, our recommended best practice is that authors should note funders and grants on publications when the activities that contributed to that publication:

An appropriate format for a funding statement is:

A.B.C. discloses support for the research of this work from Funder [grant number xxxx], Funder [grant number xxxx] and Funder [grant number xxxx]. D.E.F. discloses support for publication of this work from Funder [grant number xxxx], Funder [grant number xxxx] and Funder [grant number xxxx]. G.H.I. declares no relevant funding.

For more information see the full Nature Portfolio Funding Statements policy page.

9 – Extended data figures

Extended Data figures are display items that provide essential background to the data presented in the main paper.

A maximum of 10 Extended Data display figures is permitted. Extended Data figures are not copy-edited or styled by Nature Medicine Figures can be multi-paneled, if necessary, and should be sized such that they will fit on a single PDF page. Legends for Extended Data figures should be prepared as for main figures and should be included in the ‘Inventory of Supporting Information’ document. All Extended Data figures must be referred to as discrete items at an appropriate place in the main text.

10 – Source Data

We encourage you to provide source data for your figures whenever possible. Full-length, unprocessed gels and blots must be provided as source data for any relevant figures, and should be provided as individual PDF files for each figure containing all supporting blots and/or gels with the linked figure noted directly in the file. Statistics source data should be provided in Excel format, one file for each relevant figure, with the linked figure noted directly in the file. For imaging source data, we encourage deposition to a relevant repository due to size constraints.

11 – Supplementary information

Supplementary information is published as supplied to ** Nature Medicine. Please ensure that it is presented clearly and succinctly in a logical order, and that terminology conforms with the rest of the paper. Once your paper is in production, Supplementary Information can only be replaced to correct significant scientific errors.

Requirements for Supplementary Information

Each item should be designated as either Supplementary Equation, Discussion, Notes, Figure, Table, Video, Audio, Data or Software, and all except Notes should be numbered sequentially. This numbering should be separate from that used for items appearing either in the main article or in the Extended Data. Supplementary Figures should be used only for cases when the use of Extended Data to report these findings is not appropriate. Each Supplementary Figure should fit, along with its legend, on a single PDF page. Authors are encouraged to be selective in including other types of supplementary information. Supplementary Figures, Tables and Videos should have a title and a caption that follow the guidelines for display items in the main text. We encourage all methodological information to be included in the main text but if additional information is needed, e.g. for algorithm description, step-by-step protocol, compound synthesis and characterization, they can be included as a Supplementary Note. Refer to each piece of supplementary information at least once within the text of either the main article or its Methods, at the appropriate point(s). Be sure to include the word "Supplementary" each time one is mentioned and cite them in sequence.

Please submit supplementary text, figures, simple tables or data, and associated legends within a single combined PDF file. For complex tables or data (larger than an A4 PDF page) we recommend combining all tables on separate tabs within one Excel workbook named ‘Supplementary Tables’ or ‘Supplementary Data’ as appropriate. We also accept tables and data as .csv files. We accept most commonly used audio and video formats, and supplementary software should be submitted within a .zip or .tar archive file.

12 – New structures

Manuscripts reporting new structures should contain a table summarizing structural and refinement statistics. Templates for such tables describing cryo-EM, NMR and X-ray crystallography data are available. 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. For cryo-EM structures, a representative micrograph showing individual particles should be provided in the submission.

13 – 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), e-mail: [email protected]; see also http://www.genenames.org. Approved mouse symbols are provided by The Jackson Laboratory, e-mail: [email protected]; see also www.informatics.jax.org/mgihome/nomen.

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)'.

14 – Chemical and biological nomenclature and abbreviations

When possible, authors should refer to chemical compounds and biomolecules using systematic nomenclature, preferably using IUPAC and IUBMB rules. Standard chemical and biological abbreviations should be used. Unconventional or specialist abbreviations should be defined at their first occurrence in the text.

15 – Equations

Equations and mathematical expressions should be provided in the main text of the paper. Equations that are referred to in the text are identified by parenthetical numbers, such as (1), and are referred to in the manuscript as "equation (1)".

16 – Cover artwork

Authors of accepted papers are encouraged to submit images related to their research for consideration as an issue cover once their paper is assigned to an issue. Cover images are selected for their scientific interest and aesthetic appeal. Please upload good quality image files along with a clear and concise legend explaining the image content.

Presubmission enquiries

Nature Medicine does not accept presubmission enquiries. For general questions about suitability of clinical trials and consideration in the journal's fast track, please contact our editorial team.

Editorial Process & Peer Review

Once you have submitted your manuscript, it goes through the following editorial process:

1 – Quality check

The journal’s editorial assistant will check that the manuscript and associated materials are complete. Please see our guidelines for initial submission to make sure that you provide us with all necessary information at this stage.

2 – 3 First editorial decision

After initial checks are complete, the manuscript is assigned to an editor, who reads the paper, consults with the editorial team, and decides whether it should be sent for peer review. Editors decide whether to send a manuscript for peer review based on the degree to which it advances our understanding of the field, the soundness of conclusions, the extent to which the evidence presented - including appropriate data and analyses - supports these conclusions, and the wide relevance of these conclusions to the journal’s readership.

Like other journals in the Nature family, * Nature Medicine* has no external editorial board involved in editorial decision-making. However, on occasion editors might consult with expert researchers when deciding whether to review a paper.

4 – 5 Peer review

If the editor decides to send the manuscript to peer reviewers, they will contact researchers with relevant expertise. Reviewer selection is critical to the review process, and we work hard to ensure that the different technical and conceptual aspects of the work are covered. Authors may suggest reviewers; these suggestions are often helpful, although they are not always followed. Reviewers are not identified to the authors, except at the request of the reviewer.

Find out more about peer review.

6 – 7 Editorial decision

When all the reviewer reports are received, the editors decide to either:

OR - Decline publication, typically on grounds of either there being insufficient support for the conclusions or a reassessment of the level of interest or advance in light of the reviewers' comments.

8 – Revise and resubmit

If you are invited to revise and resubmit your manuscript, you should follow the instructions provided by the editor in their decision email.

You will be expected to provide:

Your revised manuscript should be submitted using the link provided in the decision email, and not as a new manuscript.

Appeals

Some authors ask the editors to reconsider a rejection decision. These are considered appeals, which, by policy, take second place to consideration of normal submissions.

Decisions are reversed on appeal only if the editors are convinced that the original decision was an error. Further consideration may be merited if a reviewer made substantial errors of fact or there is significant evidence of bias, but only if a reversal of that reviewer's opinion would have changed the original decision. Similarly, disputes on factual issues need not be resolved unless they would have altered the final decision to publish or not.

If an appeal merits further consideration, the editors may send the authors' response or the revised paper to one or more reviewers, or they may ask one reviewer to comment on the concerns raised by another reviewer. On occasion, particularly if the editors feel that additional technical expertise is needed to make a decision, they may obtain advice from additional reviewers.

Transfers

If the editors of * Nature Medicine *decline publication of a manuscript, before or after peer review, the authors can easily transfer their manuscript to a different journal within the Nature Portfolio family by following the link provided in the editor’s decision email. This service is available to authors at the time of decision or at a later time.

If the manuscript has been peer-reviewed, authors should include a note explaining any changes made to the manuscript compared to the original * Nature Medicine* submission, along with a separate point-by-point response to the reviewer reports.

Upon transfer, if the manuscript is assessed by the receiving journal to be a good fit and technically sound, it may be accepted without further review.

In the event of publication, the received date is the date of submission to the journal where the manuscript is published.

Transfer of peer-review reports

If the manuscript is transferred, the original reviewer reports and identities will be shared with the receiving journal (with the exception of transfers to the npj Series and Scientific Reports). The editors of the receiving journal will take the reviews into account when making their decision, although in some cases they may choose to take advice from additional reviewers.

If authors prefer not to make the review history of their paper at * Nature Medicine* known to a new journal, they should not use the transfer service and they should make a new submission instead; the editors will evaluate the paper without reference to the previous review process. Please note, this decision must be made at the time of initial submission and cannot be changed later.

More information about the manuscript transfer service can be found here.

ORCID

ORCID for corresponding authors

As part of our efforts to improve transparency in authorship, we ask all corresponding authors of accepted papers to provide their Open Researcher and Contributor Identifier (ORCID) ID, before submitting the final version of the manuscript.

To do this, the corresponding author will need to:

If you have an ORCID account, enter your ORCID email and password.

If you don’t have an ORCID account, you can create one at this stage.

Non-corresponding authors do not have to link their ORCID but are encouraged to do so.

Linking ORCID and SpringerNature accounts can be done at any time prior to acceptance.

Please note that it is not possible to add/modify ORCID details at proof stage.

For more information please visit ORCID at Springer Nature. If you experience technical issues please contact the Platform Support Helpdesk.

Double-anonymized peer review

Requirements for double-anonymized peer review

If you want to participate in double-anonymized peer review, you should:

Please note that authors are responsible for ensuring that the paper is properly anonymized; this will not be checked by your editor.

Editorial policies

The Nature Portfolio journals' editorial policies for primary scientific research can be found on the pages listed below. The Nature Portfolio includes all journals with Nature in their name, the Communications journals, the npj series, Scientific Reports and Scientific Data. A list of these journals and a description of the relationship between them can be found here. In August 2015, the Nature Portfolio journals became members of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). We will be guided by COPE guidelines, however the Nature Portfolio journals will continue to make independent decisions based on our existing policies and principles.

For details on the editorial policies of other any non-Nature-Portfolio journal on nature.com, please visit their website.

Communicate with respect

Only through relationships based upon mutual respect can we build trust and deliver quality publishing products and services to the communities we serve.

Authorship

The Nature Portfolio journals' authorship policy (including Authorship: inclusion & ethics in global research).

Competing interests

Nature Portfolio journals' competing interests policies.

Ethics and Biosecurity

Nature Portfolio journals' editorial policies on publishing primary research reporting experiments on living organisms; and on biosecurity and bioethics.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Nature Portfolio journals' policies on the use of artificial intelligence.

Reporting standards and availability of data, materials, code and protocols

Nature Portfolio journals' policy on availability of materials and data, and reporting requirements for life sciences research articles.

Image integrity and standards

Nature Portfolio journals' policies and guidelines on digital images and their manipulation.

Plagiarism and duplicate publication

The Nature Portfolio journals' policies on plagiarism and on providing due credit for published and unpublished data.

Corrections, Retractions and Matters Arising

Nature Portfolio journals' policy on corrections, retractions and other amendments to published material.

Peer Review

Nature Portfolio journals' advice for peer-reviewers, and policies relevant to the peer-review process.

Confidentiality

The Nature Portfolio journals' policies on confidentiality.

Acknowledgements 

The Nature Portfolio journals’ acknowledgements policies.

Appeals & Complaints 

The Nature Portfolio journals’ appeals and complaints policies.

Preprints & Conference Proceedings

Nature Portfolio journals' policy on preprints and conference proceedings.

Press and embargo policies

Nature Portfolio journals' policy on authors' communication with the media and at scientific meetings.

Self archiving and license to publish

Nature Portfolio license to publish policy, and conditions of re-use, for authors.

Collections and Special Issues

Clinical Research

Nature Portfolio journals' policy on clinical research.

Act with integrity

Nature portfolio journals' policy on Act with integrity.