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PLoS Biology Guidelines for Authors

1. About PLoS Biology

PLoS Biology is an open-access* journal published by the Public Library of Science. The journal features features works of exceptional significance, originality, and relevance in all areas of biological science, from molecules to ecosystems, including works at the interface of other disciplines, such as chemistry, medicine, and mathematics. Our audience is the international scientific community as well as educators, policy makers, patient advocacy groups, and interested members of the public around the world.

* Open access means that every paper is freely available for everyone to read, download, copy, distribute and use.

2. Criteria for Publication

PLoS Biology is highly selective in the manuscripts that it publishes; rejection rates are high. To be considered for publication in PLoS Biology, any given manuscript must be exceptional in the following ways:

Originality
Importance to researchers in its field
Interest to scientists outside the field
Rigorous methodology and substantial evidence for its conclusions

3. Overview of the Editorial Process

Our aim is to provide all authors with an efficient, courteous, and constructive editorial process. To ensure the fairest and most objective decision-making, the editorial process is run as a partnership between the PLoS Biology professional editors and the editorial board, which is comprised of leaders in all fields of biology.

In situations in which authors are unsure whether their work satisfies the basic requirements for publication in PLoS Biology, we are happy to consider presubmission inquiries. Responses to these inquiries will normally be provided within a few days. Authors who receive an invitation to submit their manuscripts will then enter the regular editorial process.

Submitted manuscripts will be assigned to one of the PLoS Biology professional editors, who will promptly evaluate the paper and decide if it is likely to meet the requirement of providing a major advance in its relevant field and describing a sufficient body of work to support the main claims, and, if so, it will be sent out for peer review. An academic editors (often, but not always, selected from the editorial board) works with the professional editor throughout the review process. Academic editors are anonymous unless a paper is accepted for publication. The name of the academic editor is noted on the published paper.

Expert reviewers will be asked to assess the technical and scientific merits of the work. Once all reviews have been received and considered by the professional and academic editors, a decision letter to the author will be drafted.

There are several types of decisions possible: accept the paper as submitted; accept it with revision; invite the authors to revise the manuscript prior to the final decision; reject the paper, but with encouragement to resubmit it after extensive revision; or reject the manuscript outright, typically because it does not meet the criteria outlined above of originality, importance to the field, cross-discipline interest, or sound methodology. If the decision is to allow resubmission, the author will be advised in the decision letter whether the paper will require further peer review at that time. The revised manuscript will be assessed by a professional editor and academic editor. Sometimes, re-review will be required, but in general we aim to make decisions without involving multiple rounds of review.

Upon acceptance, the manuscript enters our production system. Articles are typically published online within 8 weeks of formal acceptance, and usually before they are assembled into a complete issue. Publication may be further expedited when warranted.

4. Preparation of Research Manuscripts

PLoS Biology publishes original research articles of outstanding scientific significance. We will consider manuscripts of any length; we encourage the submission of both substantial full-length bodies of work and shorter manuscripts that report novel findings that might be based on a more limited range of experiments. The key criteria are that the work demonstrates clearly its novelty, its importance to a particular field as well as its interest to those outside that discipline, and conclusions that are justified by the study.

The writing style should be concise and accessible. Editors will make suggestions for how to achieve this, as well as suggestions for cuts or additions that could be made to the article to strengthen the argument. Our aim is to make the editorial process rigorous and consistent, but not intrusive or overbearing. Authors are encouraged to use their own voice and to decide how best to present their ideas, results, and conclusions.

Although we encourage submissions from around the globe, we require that manuscripts be submitted in English. As a step towards overcoming language barriers, we encourage authors fluent in other languages to provide copies of their full articles or abstracts in other languages. Translations should be submitted as supporting information and listed, together with other supporting information files, at the end of the article text.

Organization of the Manuscript

Most articles published in PLoS Biology will be organized into the following sections: Title, authors, affiliations, summary, introduction, results, discussion, materials and methods, references, acknowledgments, and figure legends. Uniformity in format will facilitate the experience of readers and users of the journal. There are no specific length restrictions for the overall manuscript or individual sections. However, we urge authors to present and discuss their findings concisely. We recognize that some works will not be best presented in our research article format. If you have a manuscript that would benefit from a different format, please contact the editors to discuss this further.

Our submission system can support a large range of formats for text and graphics, but if you experience difficulties with the site or are concerned about the suitability of your files, please contact the production department PLoSBiology [at] plos.org.

Title (75 characters)

The title should be specific to the project yet concise. It should be comprehensible to readers outside your field. Avoid specialist abbreviations, if possible. Titles should be presented in title case, meaning that all words except for prepositions, articles, and conjunctions should be capitalized.

Example:
Detection of Specific Sequences among DNA Fragments Separated by Gel Electrophoresis.

Please also provide a brief "running head" of approximately 50 characters.

Authors and Affiliations

Provide the first names or initials (if used), middle names or initials (if used), surnames, and affiliations—department, university or organization, city, state/province (if applicable), and country—for all authors. One of the authors should be designated as the corresponding author. If the article has been submitted on behalf of a consortium, all consortium members and affiliations should be listed after the Acknowledgments.

Abstract

The abstract succinctly introduces the paper. It should mention the techniques used without going into methodological detail and mention the most important results. The abstract is conceptually divided into the following three sections: Background, Methodology/Principal Findings, and Conclusions/Significance, however these headers do not appear in the published article. Please do not include any citations in the abstract. Avoid specialist abbreviations.

Author Summary

We ask that authors submitting revised manuscripts include a 150-200 word non-technical summary of the work as as a separate file, uploaded as Supporting Information, with the title "Author Summary". Subject to editorial review, this short text is published with all research articles as a highlighted text box.

Distinct from the scientific abstract, the synopsis is included in the article to make findings accessible to an audience of both scientists and non-scientists. Ideally aimed to a level of understanding of an undergraduate student, the significance of the work should be presented simply, objectively, and without exaggeration.

Authors should avoid the use of acronyms and complex scientific terms and write the text using a first person voice. Authors may benefit from consulting with a science writer or press officer to ensure they effectively communicate their findings to a general audience.

This is a new feature for articles published in PLoS Biology, however, we encourage you to look at two examples of summaries currently online in our sister journals. These examples are in the third-person voice, but they should inform you of the level of knowledge we are aiming for:

example 1

example 2

Introduction

The introduction should put the focus of the manuscript into a broader context. As you compose the introduction, think of readers who are not experts in this field. Include a brief review of the key literature. If there are relevant controversies or disagreements in the field, they should be mentioned so that a non-expert reader can delve into these issues further. The introduction should conclude with a brief statement of the overall aim of the experiments and a comment about whether that aim was achieved.

Results

The results section should provide details of all of the experiments that are required to support the conclusions of the paper. There is no specific word limit for this section, but details of experiments that are peripheral to the main thrust of the article and that detract from the focus of the article should not be included. The section may be divided into subsections, each with a concise subheading. Large datasets, including raw data, should be submitted as supplemental files; these are published online alongside the accepted article. The results section should be written in past tense.

Discussion

The discussion should spell out the major conclusions and interpretations of the work including some explanation on the significance of these conclusions. How do the conclusions affect the existing assumptions and models in the field? How can future research build on these observations? What are the key experiments that must be done? The discussion should be concise and tightly argued. If warranted, the results and discussion may be combined into one section.

Materials and Methods

This section should provide enough detail for reproduction of the findings. Protocols for new methods should be included, but well-established protocols may simply be referenced. We encourage authors to submit, as separate files, detailed protocols for newer or less well-established methods. These will be published online only, but will be linked to the article and will be fully searchable.

Acknowledgments

People who contributed to the work, but do not fit the criteria for authors should be listed in the Acknowledgments, along with their contributions. You must also ensure that anyone named in the acknowledgments agrees to being so named.

References

Only published or accepted manuscripts should be included in the reference list. Meetings abstracts, conference talks, or papers that have been submitted but not yet accepted should not be cited. Limited citation of unpublished work should be included in the body of the text only. All personal communications should be supported by a letter from the relevant authors.

Download EndNote style file
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PLoS uses the numbered citation (citation-sequence) method. References are listed and numbered in the order that they appear in the text. In the text, citations should be indicated by the reference number in brackets. Multiple citations within a single set of brackets should be separated by commas. Where there are more than three sequential citations, they should be given as a range. Example: "...has been shown previously [1,4–6,22]." Make sure the parts of the manuscript are in the correct order for the relevant journal before ordering the citations. Figure captions and tables should be at the end of the manuscript.

Because all references will be linked electronically as much as possible to the papers they cite, proper formatting of the references is crucial. For all references, list the first five authors; add "et al." if there are additional authors. You can include a DOI number for the full-text article as an alternative to or in addition to traditional volume and page numbers. Please use the following style for the reference list:

Published Papers
1. Sanger F, Nicklen S, Coulson AR (1977) DNA sequencing with chain-terminating inhibitors. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 74: 5463–5467.

Accepted Papers
Same as above, but "In press" appears instead of the page numbers. Example: Adv Clin Path. In press.

Electronic Journal Articles 1. Loker WM (1996) "Campesinos" and the crisis of modernization in Latin America. Jour Pol Ecol 3. Available: www.library.arizona.edu/ej/jpe/volume_3/ascii-lokeriso.txt. Accessed 11 August 2006.

Books
1. Bates B (1992) Bargaining for life: A social history of tuberculosis. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 435 p.

Book Chapters
1. Hansen B (1991) New York City epidemics and history for the public. In: Harden VA, Risse GB, editors. AIDS and the historian. Bethesda: National Institutes of Health. pp. 21–28.

Competing Interest

Authors are asked at submission to declare whether they have any financial, personal, or professional interests that could be construed to have influenced their paper. Reviewers are also asked to declare any interests that might interfere with their objective assessment of a manuscript. Any relevant competing interests of authors must be available to editors and reviewers during the review process and will be stated in published articles. Click here for more general information on the Public Library of Science’s policy regarding competing interests.

Abbreviations

Please keep abbreviations to a minimum. List all non-standard abbreviations in alphabetical order, along with their expanded form. Define them as well upon first use in the text. Non-standard abbreviations should not be used unless they appear at least three times in the text.

Nomenclature

The use of standardized nomenclature in all fields of science and medicine is an essential step toward the integration and linking of scientific information reported in published literature. We will enforce the use of correct and established nomenclature wherever possible:

We strongly encourage the use of SI units. If you do not use these exclusively, please provide the SI value in parentheses after each value.
Species names should be italicized (e.g., Homo sapiens).
Genes, mutations, genotypes, and alleles should be indicated in italics. Use the recommended name by consulting the appropriate genetic nomenclature database, e.g., HUGO for human genes. It is sometimes advisable to indicate the synonyms for the gene the first time it appears in the text. Gene prefixes such as those used for oncogenes or cellular localization should be shown in roman: v-fes, c-MYC, etc.
The Recommended International Non-Proprietary Name (rINN) of drugs should be provided.

Accession Numbers

All appropriate datasets, images, and information should be deposited in public resources. Please provide the relevant accession numbers (and version numbers, if appropriate). Suggested databases include, but are not limited to:

ArrayExpress
BioModels Database
Database of Interacting Proteins
DNA Data Bank of Japan [DDBJ]
EMBL Nucleotide Sequence Database
GenBank
Gene Expression Omnibus [GEO]
Protein Data Bank
UniProtKB/Swiss-Prot

In addition, as much as possible, please provide accession numbers or identifiers for all entities such as genes, proteins, mutants, diseases, etc., for which there is an entry in a public database, for example:

Ensembl
Entrez Gene
FlyBase
InterPro
Mouse Genome Database (MGD)
Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (OMIM)

Providing accession numbers allows linking to and from established databases and integrates your article with a broader collection of scientific information. Please list all accession numbers directly after the Supporting Information section.

Figures

If the article is accepted for publication, the author will be asked to supply high-resolution, print-ready versions of the figures. Please ensure that the files conform to our Guidelines for Figure Preparation when preparing your figures for production. After acceptance, authors will also be asked to provide an attractive image to highlight their paper online.

Figure Legends

The aim of the figure legend should be to describe the key messages of the figure, but the figure should also be discussed in the text. An enlarged version of the figure and its full legend will often be viewed in a separate window online, and it should be possible for a reader to understand the figure without switching back and forth between this window and the relevant parts of the text. Each legend should have a concise title of no more than 15 words. The legend itself should be succinct, while still explaining all symbols and abbreviations. Avoid lengthy descriptions of methods.

Tables

All tables should have a concise title. Footnotes can be used to explain abbreviations. Citations should be indicated using the same style as outlined above. Tables occupying more than one printed page should be avoided, if possible. Larger tables can be published as online supporting information. Tables must be cell-based; do not use picture elements, text boxes, tabs, or returns in tables.

Larger tables can be published as online supporting information.

Multimedia Files and Supporting Information

We encourage authors to submit essential supporting files and multimedia files along with their manuscripts. All supporting material will be subject to peer review, and should be smaller than 10 MB in size because of the difficulties that some users will experience in loading or downloading files of a greater size.

Supporting files should fall into one of the following categories: Dataset, Figure, Table, Text, Protocol, Audio, or Video. All supporting information should be referred to in the manuscript with a leading capital S (e.g., Figure S4 for the fourth supporting information figure). Titles (and, if desired, legends) for all supporting information files should be listed in the manuscript under the heading "Supporting Information."

Supporting files may be submitted in a variety for formats, but should be publication-ready, as these files are not copyedited. All video files should be submitted as AVI or Quicktime files.

5. Submission of Research Manuscripts

Presubmission Enquiries

If you wish to submit an informal presubmission enquiry, please e-mail your referenced abstract and a cover letter to biology_editors [at] plos.org. We will get back to you within a few days. Please do not send additional material. Entire manuscripts should be formally submitted.

Are You Ready to Submit Your Manuscript?

We have provided an author checklist to help you prepare your materials for submission and to make the online submission process as straightforward as possible. Please take the time to look through the list before submitting your article.

Cover Letter

It is important that you include a cover letter with your manuscript. Take the time to consider why this manuscript is suitable for publication in PLoS Biology. Why will your paper inspire the other members of your field, and how will it drive research forward? Please explain this in your cover letter.

Electronic Submission

Detailed instructions for submission can be found on the PLoS Biology Manuscript Submission and Peer Review Web site. Files are uploaded individually and are combined into a single PDF file, which must be approved by the author at the end of the submission process.

Hardcopies of your manuscript are not required.

Text files can be submitted in the following formats: Word, WordPerfect, RTF, LaTeX, TeX, and PDF.

Graphics files can be submitted in the following formats: EPS, Excel, GIF, Illustrator, JPEG, PhotoShop, PowerPoint, or TIFF.

6. Other Types of Article

The front section of PLoS Biology is inclusive and accessible to a broad audience, while still scientifically rigorous. All articles submitted to the front section are directed at a readership that extends beyond the traditional research community and that includes scientific educators, students, physicians, patients, and the interested public. The front section provides opportunities for contributions not only from scientists, but also from authors who might not otherwise publish primary articles in PLoS Biology.

All articles in the front section of PLoS Biology are published by invitation only, but if you have a suggestion for a topic or an author in any of the following categories, we will be happy to consider the idea. Please contact biology_editors [at] plos.org.

Essays

PLoS Biology publishes visionary and provocative essays that cover broad topics of general interest to life scientists.

Retrospectives

These cover key decisions, people, events, or research that has influenced the career of a leading scientist.

Book Reviews/Science in the Media

Written by scientists, advocates, science writers, or others, these are short reviews of books, films, plays, etc., that deal with some aspect of science or the scientific community.

Primers

Primers provide concise and accessible background information for a particular topic in biology that might be featured in one of the research articles in PLoS Biology or for an emerging technique or discipline that holds great promise for the life science research community.

Correspondence

PLoS Biology will also consider correspondences relating to a paper published in the journal, but only when the correspondence is judged to affect the principal conclusions in the paper. Correspondence should be submitted using our Web site and should be limited to fewer than 600 words. All other comments about a published paper may be submitted as an e-letter.

7. Outline of the Production Process

Once an article has been accepted for publication, the manuscript files are transferred into our production system. Manuscripts are then copyedited by professional copyeditors who correspond directly with the authors concerning queries and corrections. Any corrections should be made before the article is typeset. Once the article has been typeset, PDF proofs are generated so that authors can approve the final article. The prompt return of proofs by authors will expedite the production process.