Submissions

Login or Register to make a submission.

Submission Preparation Checklist

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.
  • The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
  • The submission file is in OpenOffice, Microsoft Word, or RTF document file format.
  • Where available, URLs for the references have been provided.
  • The text is single-spaced; uses a 12-point font; employs italics, rather than underlining (except with URL addresses); and all illustrations, figures, and tables are placed within the text at the appropriate points, rather than at the end.
  • The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines.

Author Guidelines

1. Title page

The title page will remain separate from the manuscript throughout the peer review process and will not be sent to the reviewers. It should include:

  • The manuscript title
  • All authors' names and affiliations
  • A complete address for the corresponding author, including an e-mail address
  • Acknowledgements
  • Conflict of interest statement

2. Anonymised manuscript

Please remove any identifying information, such as authors' names or affiliations, from your manuscript before submission. As well as removing names and affiliations under the title within the manuscript, other steps need to be taken to ensure the manuscript is correctly prepared for double anonymized peer review. The key points to consider are:

Make sure that figures and tables do not contain any reference to author affiliations

Exclude acknowledgements and any references to funding sources. Use the title page, which is not sent to reviewers, to detail these and to declare any potential conflicts of interest to the editor.

Choose file names with care, and ensure that the file’s “properties” are also anonymised. If you are using Microsoft Office 2007 or later, consider using the Document Inspector Tool prior to submission.

Take care to ensure that you do not inadvertently upload identifying information within any of the files that will be shared with reviewers. All file types except title page and LaTeX source files are typically included in the version of your manuscript shared with reviewers.

Privacy Statement

The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.