Author guidelines

Last updated: 08 March 2019

Acceptable manuscript types

 

Article type	Description	Suggested length*
		These are not limits. Longer manuscripts can be accepted if justified by the content (editors and reviewers will judge this)
Research Article	Describing novel research	4000 – 12000 words
Review	State-of-the-art evaluation of important current research areas	Up to 20000 words
Note	Brief report on novel findings not warranting a full Research Article but significant enough for publication	Up to 3000 words (incl. up to 25 references)
Comment / Reply Comment	Critical, fair assessment of an article published in the same journal; and a reply to the Comment; see this editorial for details	Up to 2000 words
Opinion Piece**	Important, personal views on hot topics	Up to 3000 words

Theme Sections/Specials integrate expert analyses, highlighting an important research area or problem (e.g. a collection of high-quality papers stemming from a research symposium). Please approach us with your ideas for a Theme Section via email to the appropriate Managing Editor.

 

Submitting your manuscript

 

A submitted manuscript must:

• not be simultaneously submitted to any other publication outlet
• be original, i.e. not previously published whole or in part as a peer-reviewed publication (including in different languages). Inter-Research may check submissions using anti-plagiarism software.
• list all (and only) those authors deserving authorship (see IR's authorship policy)
• have been approved by all immediately involved, e.g. authors and institutional authorities
• meet ethics guidelines (i.e. institutional, national and international guidelines concerning the use of animals in research, sampling of endangered species, and ethics in publication). All conflicts of interest must be declared.

 

If the manuscript was previously submitted to a publication outlet, this must be disclosed and a rationale for its current submission provided. It is the expectation that such submissions incorporate any previous recommendations and address any reviewer concerns prior to submission to any Inter-Research (IR) journal. Submissions of manuscripts that have been archived as preprint (defined as the manuscript version initially submitted to a publication outlet for review, i.e. not yet peer-reviewed) in an online depository are allowed (see http://www.int-res.com/journals/open-access/ for details) but such deposits must be disclosed in the cover letter upon submission. Take note of any restrictions in the license agreement of the preprint archive that may affect or limit your desired IR publication model (e.g. by depositing a manuscript in a preprint archive you may be required to publish it with Open Access). Permission to re-use any previously published material must have been obtained by the authors from the copyright holders. Submitting a manuscript implies agreement to IR terms of publication related to Open Access, copyright and manuscript processing. Please submit your manuscript using the online manuscript submission system (click on the appropriate journal):

 

MEPS | AB | AEI | AME | CR | DAO | ESEP | ESR

 

In the unlikely event that you have problems, please email the submission to the editorial office of the journal (click on the appropriate journal):

 

MEPS | AB | AEI | AME | CR | DAO | ESEP | ESR

 

The submission must contain 2 separate files:

• a cover letter (see Cover Letter Requirements and Tips) for details
• the manuscript, which must:
  • be correctly formatted to match journal style (see Formatting Requirements and Tips for details)
  • be in one file (it includes all text, with tables, figures and their captions at the end)
  • use line numbers throughout (restart numbering on each page; do not use ‘continuous’ line numbering)
  • be smaller than 5 MB (for accepted manuscripts, higher-resolution figures can be provided later)

Appendices: supporting material not longer than 2 printed pages may be published at the end of the main article. Figures, tables and equations should be numbered A1, A2, A3, etc. Longer materials or those not suitable for printing may be published as electronic supplements (see below).

Electronic supplements: material unsuitable for inclusion within the article (overlong tables, mathematical derivations, video clips, computer code, etc.) may be published on the Inter-Research website as an electronic supplement (linked to the article and abstract page). This material will not be copyedited, typeset, or checked for accuracy; responsibility for its content and presentation rests with the author(s). Figures, tables and equations should be numbered S1, S2, S3, etc.; if references are used, the supplement must contain its own complete Literature Cited section.

 

After you submit: Peer-review

 

Manuscripts are pre-screened to ensure that the submission fits the scope of the journal and that language and formatting requirements are met. Manuscripts sent for review will usually be critically evaluated by 3 reviewers. The Contributing Editor decides on acceptance, revision, or rejection.

 

If your manuscript is accepted: Next Steps

 

You will be contacted with a request for appropriate file types if needed (send them to acceptance@int-res.com). You will receive an Acceptance Form that includes a copyright agreement and reader access options (subscriber-only or Open Access) for your article. Our open access fees can be found here. Titles of accepted manuscripts are added within a few days to 'Forthcoming publications' on the journal's web site, together with a prepress abstract and a DOI, making them citable. Proofs are sent a few weeks later. You can order offprints and, if desired, revise your access options when returning the proof. Final articles, fully paginated and citable, are published 1–3 weeks after corrected proofs have been returned by the corresponding author. The corresponding author will be sent a watermarked pdf of their article.