Author guidelines
Visit the Bioscientifica author resource centre for advice.
Overview
Submission checklist
Preparation of manuscripts
Article types
- Research
- Reviews
- Mini Reviews
- Commentaries
- Guidelines and Recommendations
- Editorials
- Letters to the Editor
- Brief Reports
- Case Reports
Supplementary data
Editorial policies
Overview
Submission checklist
- Title page – All submissions must have a title page stating all of the relevant information. See 'General’ for further details.
- Approval – Ensure all authors have seen and approved the final version of the article prior to submission and are aware it is being submitted to Endocrine Oncology.
- Ethical compliance – All articles are required to meet the requirements outlined in our ethical policy. Ensure you have included all relevant ethical approval statements.
- Open access – The appropriate open-access option must be selected on submission. Authors are responsible for ensuring any funder mandates are followed. For further details, please see the open access policy.
- Reported data – Data accuracy is crucial. Authors are strongly encouraged to double-check all reported data for accuracy and to confirm that all units of measurement are correct and consistent.
- Charges – Endocrine Oncology is an open-access journal, and an article publication charge is payable upon acceptance. The APC is being sponsored by Bioscientifica during the launch years and is currently free of charge. Full details are available on the publication charges page.
- Author list – All authors must be listed on the title page and entered on the ScholarOne Manuscripts submission in the correct order. Ensure all author email addresses provided are valid. Author information entered into ScholarOne Manuscripts will be used to generate PubMed listings for published papers.
- Language – Non-native English speakers are encouraged to have their manuscript professionally edited before submission. See Bioscientifica’s recommended English language editing services. Manuscripts may be written in either UK or US English.
- File formats – Ensure all files are in the correct format for revised submissions. See ‘General’ for further instructions.
User account details
ORCID iD
All submitting authors are required to link their ScholarOne account with their ORCID iD. The system will prompt the author to do this when creating the submission.
The journal also requests that all authors identified as ‘corresponding authors’ create and link an ORCID iD with their account on ScholarOne prior to article acceptance. We also encourage contributing authors to associate an ORCID iD with their ScholarOne account. Author ORCID iDs will be displayed on the published article.
Author email addresses
The journal requires an institutional email address is associated with the account of both the submitting author and corresponding author; please edit the associated ScholarOne accounts to include this before pressing 'submit'. Alternatively please provide an explanation as to why this is not available to the Editorial Office by contacting eo@bioscientifica.com
This policy has been adopted in order to verify the authenticity of article submissions and protect the integrity of Endocrine Oncology.
Preparation of manuscripts
General
- Be concise and clear.
- Be limited to 5000 words for Research submissions. For information on other manuscript types please see the relevant section below.
- Display the word count on the title page.
- Contain no more than 10 figures and 60 references as recommended by the journal.
- Use double line spacing throughout (including reference list and figure legends), and contain continuous line numbering down the left-side of each page.
- Define all abbreviations when first mentioned.
- Be submitted in the correct file type, ie main document in an editable Word format.
- Be written in either UK or US English.
- Contain a title page.
- Please be aware that the combined size of your files should not exceed 40 MB.
- For article text: txt, doc, docx, rtf. We are unable to accept pdf files for article text for revised manuscripts, but can do so for first submissions.
- For figures: eps, tiff, jpg, pdf.
Article types
Research papers
1. Title page
- Title (maximum 85 characters)
- All authors' names and full addresses
- Corresponding author’s postal and email address
- A short title (maximum 46 characters, including spaces)
- A minimum of four keywords describing the manuscript
- Word count of the full article, excluding references and figure legends
2. Abstract
3. Introduction
4. Materials and methods
- Include the source of chemicals, reagents and hormones and give the manufacturer’s name in parentheses.
- Give the generic name, dose and route of administration for drugs.
- Specify the composition of buffers, solutions and culture media.
- Use SI symbols, give concentrations in mol/L and define the term % as w/v or v/v for all solutions. For international units use IU (U should be used for enzyme activity).
- Specify the type of equipment (microscopes/objective lenses, cameras, detectors) used to obtain images.
- RT-PCR methods should broadly follow the MIQE guidelines, see http://miqe.gene-quantification.info/ and Bustin et al 2009 Clin Chem 55:611-622.
- The EQUATOR network provides a database of reporting guidelines, aiming to improve the reliability of published health research literature by promoting transparent and accurate reporting. Authors may find this a useful resource.
- Specify any image acquisition software used, and give a description of specialised techniques requiring large amounts of processing, such as confocal, deconvolution, 3D reconstructions, or surface and volume rendering.
5. Results
6. Discussion
7. Declaration of interest, Funding, Contributions and Acknowledgements
Declaration of interest
Actual or perceived conflicts of interest for all authors must be declared in full.
Please either (a) declare that there is no conflict of interest that could be perceived as prejudicing the impartiality of the research reported; or (b) fully declare any financial or other potential conflict of interest.
- Employment and consultancies
- Grants, fees and honoraria
- Ownership of stock or shares
- Royalties
- Patents (pending and actual)
- Board membership
Please detail all of the sources of funding relevant to the research reported in the following format:
This work was supported by the Medical Research Council (grant numbers xxxx, yyyy); the Wellcome Trust (grant number xxxx); and Tommy’s Baby charity (grant number xxxx).
This research did not receive any specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sector.
Please include a statement concisely specifying the contribution of each co-author. Use author initials to indicate contributions, for example:
AB conceived the study and wrote the paper. CD performed experiments and analysed data.
Please be as brief as possible.
8. References
Any unpublished work (personal communications, manuscripts in preparation and manuscripts submitted but not yet accepted for publication) must be referred to in the text and not listed in the references.
(A Stone, Y Li & MR Smith, unpublished observations)
(J Brown, personal communication)
Cite references in the text using the authors’ names and publication year. Use et al. for articles with more than two authors. Where there are several citations, list them in chronological order.
List references in alphabetical order. Give articles by the same author in the order:
- Single author
- Two authors alphabetically according to the name of the second author
- Three or more authors chronologically, with a, b and c etc for articles published in the same year, in the order in which they are cited in the text
See RH, Calvo D, Shi Y, Kawa H, Luke MP & Yuan Z 2001 Stimulation of p300-mediated transcription by the kinase MEKK1. Journal of Biological Chemistry 276 16310–16317.
Harvey SS 1975 Hypnotics and sedatives. The barbiturates. In The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics, edn 5, pp 102–123. Eds LS Goodman & A Gilman. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co.
Please use Harvard style (Author, Year). Do not use an Endnote style which abbreviates the reference list in your submitted article.
9. Tables
- Number tables in the order they are cited in the text
- Include a title – a single sentence at the head of the table that includes the name of the organism studied
- Use footnotes to provide any additional explanatory material, cross-referenced to the column entries
- Give a short heading for each column
- Do not use internal horizontal or vertical lines, colour or shading
- Explain all abbreviations used in the table in the footnotes
10. Figures
- Number figures in the order they are cited in the text
- Include legends to all figures, giving the figure number, keys to any symbols used, the name of the organism studied, the names of any statistical tests used and the probability levels used for comparisons
- Label figure sections as A, B etc in the top left-hand corner
- Use Arial or a similar sans-serif font for text labels
- Do not enclose figures in boxes
- Indicate magnification by a scale bar in the bottom right-hand corner of the image and give the measurement in the legend
- Use the preferred symbols of closed and open circles, squares and triangles. Ensure that symbols are large enough to be read clearly when the figure is reduced for publication
- Use Courier or a similar non-proportional font for amino acid, DNA, RNA and PCR primer sequences and highlight sections of homology between sequences with grey shading
Endocrine Oncology is committed to publishing high quality figures.
- Line images/graphs: eps, tiff, high-resolution pdf, AI (Adobe Illustrator). Resolution at final published size: 1200 dpi.
- Half-tone (greyscale) images: tiff, high-resolution pdf, jpg. Resolution at final published size: 600 dpi.
- Colour images: tiff, high-resolution pdf, jpg. eps or AI files can be used for graphical data and illustrations that don’t include photographs. Resolution at final published size: 300 dpi. Colour format: CMYK (not RGB).
Reviews
Mini Reviews
Commentaries
Guidelines and Recommendations
Editorials
Letters to the Editor
- A copy of your abstract (for Review and Guideline articles only)
- A proposed outline of your article
- A brief explanation as to why the article is timely and would add value to the current literature
- 2 3 key publications from your research group which highlight expertise within the field
Brief Reports
Case Reports
Case Reports can present a case study, case report, or other description of a case. Submissions can be based on a single case or a number of similar cases.
Case Reports present significant new insights or cases with an unusual and noteworthy course. The most important aspect of the presentation is that it should provide a new perspective on a recognized clinical scenario or may represent an entirely new clinical condition. The novelty of the case(s) may lie in the phenotype, the presentation, the investigation, and/or the management. We strongly encourage authors to comply with the CARE guidelines.
The manuscript must include a statement detailing that written informed consent for publication was obtained and from whom as outlined in the patient consent statement below.
Authors wishing to submit a case report are required to follow this template.
Supplementary data
(Supplementary Table 1)
(Supplementary Figures 1 and 2)
Editorial policies
Human studies
Human subjects
Patient consent
- Images taken from pathology slides
- X-rays
- Laparoscopic images
- Images of internal organs
- Ultrasound images
Clinical trials
Human genotype–phenotype association studies
- Statistical analyses demonstrating the level of statistical significance of a finding should be published or at least available so that others can attempt to reproduce the reported results.
- Explicit information should be provided about the study’s power to detect a range of effects.
- The study should be epidemiologically sound, with careful accounting for potential biases in selection of subjects, characterization of phenotypes, comparability of environmental exposures (when possible) and underlying population structure in cases and controls.
- Phenotypes should be assessed according to standard definitions provided in the report.
- Associations should be consistent (within the range of expected statistical fluctuation) and reported for the same phenotypes across study subgroups or across similar phenotypes in the entire study group.
- Significance should not depend on altering the quality control methods beyond standard approaches that could change inclusion or exclusion of large numbers of samples or loci.
- Measures to assess the quality of genotype data should include results of known study sample duplicates or publicly available samples.
- The results for concordance between duplicate samples (if applicable) as well as completion and call rates per SNP and per subject should be disclosed, along with rates of missing data.
- A subset of notable SNPs should be evaluated with a second technology that verifies the same result with excellent concordance, because no technology is error-free.
- Associations with nearby SNPs in strong linkage disequilibrium with the putatively associated SNP should be reported (and should be similar).
- The results of replication studies of previous findings should be reported even if the results are not significant.
- Testing for differences in underlying population structure in case and control groups should be performed and reported.
- Appropriate correction for multiple comparisons across all statistical tests examined should be reported. Comparison to genome-wide thresholds should be described. Similarly, for bayesian approaches, the choice of prior probabilities should be described.
Animal studies
- Give the full binomial Latin names for all experimental animals other than common laboratory animals
- State the breed or strain and source of animals, and give details of age, weight, sex and housing
- Detail the procedures and anaesthetics used, including doses given
Experiments with genetically engineered mice
Cell lines
Authentication of cell lines
- Source of cell lines. Gifts of cell lines from individuals will not be acceptable.
- Please state what the method of authentication is. For example, ATCC uses STRS analysis.
- State the passage number(s) of cell lines used for the experiments described in the submission. Unless the research is specifically about senescence, lines >35 passages would not be acceptable.
Genetic association case/control studies
Gene and protein nomenclature
- In gene and protein symbols, substitute Greek letters with the corresponding Roman letter, eg TGFBR2 not TGFβR2
- Avoid hyphens unless they are part of the approved symbol, eg IGF1 not IGF-1
- Please use Arabic rather than Roman numerals, eg BMPR2 not BMPRII
Mice and rats
- Gene symbols should be in italics with only the first letter capitalised, eg Sox2
- Protein designations should be the same as the gene symbols except that all letters should be capitalised and in Roman (ie not italicised), eg SOX2
- Please use symbols approved by the International Committee on Standardized Genetic Nomenclature for Mice and the Rat Genome and Nomenclature Committee, which can be queried at the MGI website.
Humans, non-human primates and domestic species
- Gene symbols should be in italics with all letters capitalised, eg SOX2
- Protein designations should be the same as the gene symbols but not italicised, eg SOX2
- Please use symbols approved by the HUGO Gene Nomenclature Committee (HGNC).
Fish
- Gene symbols should be in italics with all letters in lower case, eg sox2
- Protein designations should be the same as the gene symbols but not italicised and with the first letter capitalised, eg Sox2
- Please use symbols approved by the Zebrafish Nomenclature Committee (ZNC), which can be queried at the ZFIN website.
Digital image integrity
- No specific feature within an image may be enhanced, obscured, moved, removed or introduced. The groupings of images from different parts of the same gel, or from different gels, fields or exposures must be made explicit by the arrangement of the figure (eg using dividing lines) and in the text of the figure legend.
- Adjustments of brightness, contrast or colour balance are acceptable if and as long as they do not obscure or eliminate any information present in the original. Nonlinear adjustments (eg changes to gamma settings) must be disclosed in the figure legend. Adjustments should be applied to the entire image.
- Threshold manipulation, expansion or contraction of signal ranges and the altering of high signals should be avoided.
- 'Pseudo-colouring' and nonlinear adjustment of microscope images (for example 'gamma changes') are only allowed if unavoidable and must be disclosed.
- The legend to a digital image should state if and what digital modifications were applied.
- Band intensity should be quantified from several independent experiments. If only a "typical" experiment is shown in the figure, authors should be prepared to provide unprocessed images of gels or blots at the request of the Editor-in-Chief.
- Extensively cropped images are not acceptable. Images can be cropped to enhance clarity of presentation, but should always contain at least two markers (one with a smaller, one with a larger molecular size than the band of interest) with their molecular sizes indicated.
- Producing spliced images by combining lanes from gels or blots from different experimental runs should be avoided. A lane containing markers should be on the same gel for each run. If spliced images are presented, the vertical lanes obtained from gels or blots from different experimental runs should be clearly demarcated with lines.
- As the validity of immunoblots relies heavily on antibody specificity, an appropriate control (tissue from knockout mice or protein knockdown in cell lines) must be included, or alternatively a reference should be given in the methods section referring to such a control (Saper 2009; Burry 2011).
- The reuse of images of loading controls from other experiments or previous publications is unacceptable.
Statistical analysis
- Describe the numbers of experimental units used and the way in which they have been allocated to treatments
- Justify the omission of any observations from the analysis
- Describe methods of analysis precisely and state any necessary assumptions, as these may affect the conclusions that can be drawn from the experiment
Preprint repositories
Depositing data in public databases
Licence and Copyright
During the submission process the submitting author will need to complete a publication agreement on behalf of the co-authors and the copyright holder for the article. As part of this agreement, the copyright holder will grant Bioscientifica a non-exclusive licence to publish the article. The copyright is retained by the original copyright holder and is not assigned to Bioscientifica.
Authors may download a copy of this agreement in advance.
Appeals
Authors are entitled to appeal against a rejection decision made by a journal. Appeals should be submitted to the journal email address. We must receive your valid appeal within four weeks of the original decision, otherwise it will not be considered. An appeal is considered to be an extension of the peer review process and so you should not submit your article to another publication whilst an appeal is ongoing.
To be considered, appeals must directly address the reason(s) given for the initial rejection decision. If reviewer reports were included with the decision letter, then these criticisms must be responded to in the appeal, however you should not prepare and submit a revised version of your article with the appeal. Appeals that are received late, do not address reviewers’ criticisms, are dismissive of the reviewer comments, or contain offensive language will not be considered.
Valid appeals will be sent to a member of the journal’s Editorial Board for consideration. Where possible, an independent member of the Editorial Board who was not connected to the original decision will oversee the appeal.
If successful, an appeal may result in the decision being rescinded and a continuation of the peer-review process. If the appeal is rejected, then the original rejection decision is upheld and no further consideration of that article is possible.