Author Guidelines

Manuscripts should:

• 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. 

 

Accepted file types:

• Please be aware that the combined size of your files should not exceed 40 MB.
• For article text: txt, doc, docx, tex. 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

 

Changes within revised manuscripts should be highlighted using the highlighter function or coloured text, and should be accompanied by a full response letter to editor and reviewer comments. 

 

Research

All research submissions should be formatted in the following sections: 

1. Title Page

Include a separate title page with:

• 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

The abstract should be a single paragraph of not more than 250 words, clearly stating the objective of the study or review, the methods used (where applicable), and summarizing results and conclusions.  Avoid abbreviations and references in this section.

3. Introduction

The introduction should set the study in context by briefly reviewing relevant knowledge of the subject; follow this with a concise statement of the objectives of the study.

4. Materials and methods

Provide sufficient information for other workers to repeat the study. If well-established methods are used give a reference to the technique and provide full details of any modifications.

• Include the source of chemicals, reagents and hormones and give the manufacturer's name and location (town, country) 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.
• Specify any image acquisition software used, and give a description of specialized 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 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.

Conflicts of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Employment and consultancies
• Grants, fees and honoraria
• Ownership of stock or shares
• Royalties
• Patents (pending and actual)
• Board membership

Funding

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).

Where research has not been funded please state the following:

This research did not receive any specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sector.

Author contribution statement (optional)

Please include a statement specifying the contribution of each co-author.

Acknowledgements

Please be as brief as possible.

8. References

All references cited in the text must be included in the reference list and vice versa. However, if a reference consists of only a web address do not include it in the reference list but cite it in the text, giving the date the page was accessed.

Unpublished work

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.

Give the full list of authors, including their initials. For example:

(A Stone, J Brown & M R Smith, unpublished observations)

(J Brown, personal communication)

Articles accepted for publication but not yet published may be listed as ‘in press' in the reference list, using the current year as the publication year. If an ‘in press' article is included in the Accepted Preprint service or a similar scheme, then the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) should be included; otherwise, provide a copy of the article as a supplementary file for reviewing purposes. 

In the text

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. 

In the reference list

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

List a maximum of ten authors. Where there are more than ten authors, list the first ten and then use et al.

Reference in the following format:
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.

EndNote

Please use Harvard style.

9. Tables

Tables should be concise. Tables too large for print publication should be submitted as supplementary data. 

• 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

The journal has produced digital image guidelines in order to clarify the standards expected by the journal. All submitted digital images must adhere to these guidelines.

Colour figures will be published online at no charge to the author. Publication of colour figures in the print version will incur a charge that must be paid before publication. Please note the option to print in greyscale is subject to editorial approval, if the meaning of your image is unclear you will be asked to print in colour and a charge will apply.

• 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

 

File types and resolution

ARKAVI is committed to publishing high quality figures.

EPS or TIFF files are preferred. Files should be exported in Illustrator compatible format. Avoid using PowerPoint or Word files for 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, JPEG; resolution at final published size: 600 dpi
• Colour images: TIFF, high-resolution PDF, JPEG. EPS or AI files can be used for graphical data and illustrations that don't include photographs; resolution at final published size: 300 dpi; CMYK format (not RGB)

ARKAVI also accepts the following manuscript types. For full details please see the ‘scope' page.

 

Reviews

The format of review articles is more fluid but should include the following:

1. Title page
2. Abstract
3. Conclusions
4. Declaration of interest, Funding, Author contributions statements (where appropriate)
5. References
6. Figure legends
7. Figures/ tables

 

Review submissions should be limited to 6000 words. We recommend a maximum of 60 references for review articles, with 2--6 figures and tables.  Original summary diagrams and illustrations of proposed models (in colour where appropriate) are encouraged. Line drawings may be redrawn. Boxes can be used to separate detailed explanations and background information from the main part of the text.

For further information on what is include in each of these sections, please see the ‘Manuscript Preparation' section above.  

 

Editorials 

All Editorials must be a maximum 1500 words (including references, legends and tables) and 10 references. If you would like to submit an article for consideration please submit a proposal to the editorial office.