Instructions to Authors

About the Journal 

G3: Genes|Genomes|Genetics is a peer-reviewed journal that publishes twelve issues per year online. Oxford University Press (OUP) publishes G3 on behalf of the Genetics Society of America.

Papers in G3 have associated charges. Please refer to the Manuscript Charges section below.

Once a paper is accepted and final files are provided, G3 will publish the accepted manuscript online within one week. This advance article will be replaced by a copyedited, proofed version of the paper as soon as it is ready.

Please read these instructions carefully and follow them closely. The Editors may return manuscripts that do not follow these instructions without review.

Scope of the Journal

G3, published by the Genetics Society of America, offers the opportunity to publish Reports as well as Investigations and encourages papers from molecular to the mathematical with results that are illuminating as well as those that are predictable or puzzling. G3 does not judge papers based on perceived impact and instead provides a forum for the publication of reproducible and useful genetics/genomics research with their associated data. The Editorial Board of G3 believes that rapid dissemination of data and results is critical to advancing the field. 

G3 welcomes studies on all species across the tree of life. 

G3 is a peer-reviewed, peer-edited journal. All editorial decisions are made through collaboration of at least two peer-editors.

Criteria for Publication 

• the experiments and other analyses are of high-quality and are clearly described  in sufficient detail to reproduce the results, which are useful to the community; 
• the study describes new data and information (e.g. genome assemblies, RNA-seq, association studies), reagents or new resources (e.g. results of a mutant screen; mutant; collections for functional genomic experiments) or novel tools/methodologies (e.g. statistical/computational methods) whose publication would be valuable for researchers and other stakeholders;
• the results are original and all community standards for data availability and format are followed;
• the results presented provide strong support for the conclusions reached.

No Scoop Policy

Because the editors appreciate that competing studies often complement each other, recent publication of similar articles by others does not necessarily preclude consideration of a manuscript for publication in G3.

Editorial Policies

For full details of Oxford University Press’s editorial policies, please see Publication Ethics.

Authorship

Authors are those who contributed substantially to the research described in the paper, shared responsibility for the resulting article, and approved of the final version submitted for review and publication. The names of these researchers should appear in the byline. Those who assisted peripherally but are not authors should be recognized in the Acknowledgments. Co-authors who are deceased before the manuscript is submitted should be recognized in the Acknowledgements section and not in the author byline. 

Large Language Models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, do not satisfy authorship criteria, and thus should not appear in the byline. OUP will screen author lists based on this policy during production. If a LLM has been used in the writing of your manuscript, this should be documented in the Materials and Methods section as described below.

All authors are responsible for the article's content. Authors may designate a Co-corresponding Author, but only the primary Corresponding Author has the authority to act on behalf of all authors and receives the manuscript proof. 

Authorship data entered during manuscript submission appears in the Advance Access version, so be sure to complete all fields. Changes to the author list post-acceptance will introduce production delays; please be sure that the author list is final and accurate at time of initial submission. If changes must be made post-acceptance, please contact g3-gsa@thegsajournals.org. G3 follows COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) guidelines and will obtain approval from the editor and all authors for authorship changes.

Peer Review

This journal uses single anonymized peer review. 

Portable Peer Review

If your manuscript was previously peer reviewed prior to submission at G3 and you are interested in including and responding to those reviews as part of your G3 submission, please 1) contact the editorial office at g3-gsa@thegsajournals.org, 2) indicate such in your cover letter, and 3) include a response to reviewers with your submission. 

The editorial office will contact the editorial office of the previous journal to request the decision letter, reviews, and if possible, reviewer identities. We will then provide this information to the editors handling your manuscript to aid in the decision-making process.

G3 also accepts reviews from independent peer review platforms. We are an affiliate journal for Review Commons - a platform for high-quality, journal-independent peer review of manuscripts from the life sciences before submission to a journal. We are also a Peer Community In (PCI) friendly journal.

Editors may choose to have your manuscript sent for further review either by the original reviewers or new reviewers. In that case, you will be given the opportunity to decline additional review and withdraw your submission. Inclusion of and response to prior reviews is not a guarantee of publication.

Preprint Policy

Authors retain the right to make an Author’s Original Version (preprint) available through various channels. This does not preclude submission to the journal. For further information, see our Online Licensing, Copyright and Permissions policies. If accepted, the authors are required to update the status of any preprint, including your published paper’s DOI, as described on our Author Self-Archiving policy page. 

Self-Archiving Policy

You may self-archive versions of your work on your own webpages, on institutional webpages, and in other repositories. If you want more information about the reuse rights you retain if you publish with us, please visit our Author Self Archiving Policy page.

Editor and Reviewer Suggestions and Exclusions

Authors are encouraged to suggest experts who could provide an unbiased review of their work. Please do not list close associates, collaborators, family members, or researchers who are at your institution. If authors wish to exclude editors or reviewers from handling their work, they should provide a brief (2-4 sentence) statement explaining the reason for exclusion in the submission form. We strive to honor requests.

Publication Ethics

Scientific Misconduct 

GENETICS and G3 take allegations of scientific misconduct seriously and investigate each on a case by case basis. We consult the guidelines provided by COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics), International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), and the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) during this process.

GENETICS and G3 reserve the right to contact the authors’ institutions, funders, or regulatory bodies if needed. In cases of serious misconduct, an institution may be contacted without the knowledge of the author. If allegations of misconduct are made prior to publication of the article in question, we reserve the right to halt the peer review and publication process until the investigation is complete. If allegations are made against published articles, we will take the appropriate steps to correct the scientific record, which may include issuing an expression of concern or retraction of the published article.

We encourage authors to adhere to high ethical standards and to follow guidelines for best practices in research outlined at the following sites:

• COPE
• Responsible Conduct of Research NIH
• National Research Ethics Centre

Authors should follow our journal guidelines for declaring authorship, conflicts of interest, statement of informed consent/privacy and confidentiality, and statement of human and animal rights. Additional areas for concern include, but are not limited to, falsification or distortion of data, failure to provide data post acceptance, duplicate publication, and plagiarism.

GENETICS and G3 do not consider cases of unintentional error to be misconduct. In those cases, where a small portion of the publication contains an honest error, or the author list is incorrect, we will publish a Correction.

Please address any concerns or questions regarding scientific misconduct to g3-gsa@thegsajournals.org.

Image Manipulation

Images must not be manipulated in any way that misrepresents the original data. Examples of inappropriate manipulations include:

• Selective alteration of specific features or regions within an image, e.g. removing or obscuring bands in a gel photo or enhancing brightness for a specific cell within a group;
• Grouping together images without clearly indicating the edit using dividing lines or some other visual marker, e.g. combining lanes from different gels into a composite image;
• Selectively making the image background appear more uniform, e.g. “erasing” background noise;
• Duplicating images (e.g. controls) in different figures or parts of a figure without clearly indicating this duplication in the figure legend.

Adjustments to brightness, contrast, and color balance that clarify presentation of the data are acceptable only if they are applied uniformly to the entire image. Non-linear adjustments (such as gamma setting adjustments) should be noted in the text.

If editors suspect any images in your manuscript have been inappropriately manipulated, they may request the original image files for comparison. If original files are not available or reveal inappropriate manipulations, the editors may reject or withdraw acceptance of your manuscript.

Informed Consent/Privacy and Confidentiality 

Authors reporting data from human subjects must follow the below guidelines, as directly recommended by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors in the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals:

"Patients have a right to privacy that should not be violated without informed consent. Identifying information, including names, initials, or hospital numbers, should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, or pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or parent or guardian) gives written informed consent for publication. Informed consent for this purpose requires that an identifiable patient be shown the manuscript to be published. Authors should disclose to these patients whether any potential identifiable material might be available via the Internet as well as in print after publication. Patient consent should be written and archived with the journal, the authors, or both, as dictated by local regulations or laws."

"Nonessential identifying details should be omitted. Informed consent should be obtained if there is any doubt that anonymity can be maintained...If identifying characteristics are altered to protect anonymity, such as in genetic pedigrees, authors should provide assurance, and editors should so note, that such alterations do not distort scientific meaning."

If informed consent was  obtained, please indicate the manner of obtaining in the Materials and Methods Section and include the IRB number (or other proof of consent) in your Data Availability Statement. If informed consent was not deemed necessary, please state this in your Materials and Methods section. Editors may ask authors to provide documentation of the formal review and recommendation from the institutional review board (IRB) or ethics committee associated with the research. For further instructions, see our Data Policy.

Protection of Human and Animal Subjects 

Authors reporting data from human and/or animal subjects must follow the below guidelines, as directly recommended by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors in the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals:

"When reporting experiments on human subjects, authors should indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2008 (5). If doubt exists whether the research was conducted in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration, the authors must explain the rationale for their approach and demonstrate that the institutional review body explicitly approved the doubtful aspects of the study. When reporting experiments on animals, authors should indicate whether the institutional and national guide for the care and use of laboratory animals was followed."

Conflict of Interest

When submitting a paper, all authors must declare any potential conflicts of interest by providing the relevant details in the manuscript submission site and by including a Conflict of Interest statement in your submitted manuscript. For a detailed definition of conflicts of interest, please see Conflict of interest. 

Please also describe any affiliations that may present a conflict of interest in the choice of Senior Editor, Associate Editor, or reviewers. This information will remain confidential.

Third-Party Permissions

To reproduce any material for which you do not own the copyright—including quotations, tables, or images—you must obtain permission from the copyright holder. The permissions agreement must include the following documents:

• nonexclusive rights to reproduce the material in your article in G3
• both print and electronic rights, preferably for use in any form or medium
• lifetime rights to use the material
• worldwide English-language rights

Please see Copyright and Permissions Guidelines for further information on obtaining permissions.

Data Policy

Availability of Data and Materials

When you publish in G3, you help to catalyze scientific advances by sharing your experimental reagents, results and interpretations. For these articles to have the greatest impact, authors need to make unique research materials and data freely available to other investigators (see Genetics, 184: 1).

G3 requires all authors to publicly release all data and software code underlying any published paper as a condition of publication. 

Data must be presented in the main manuscript, included as supplemental material, or deposited in a public repository. For information on general repositories for all data types, and a list of recommended repositories by subject area, please see Choosing where to archive your data.

For full details on our Data Policy, including Frequently Asked Questions, please see here.

Data Availability Statement

All articles published in G3 must have a Data Availability Statement. These statements provide a standardized format for readers to understand the availability of data underlying the research results described in the article. The statement may refer to original data generated in the course of the study or to third-party data analyzed in the article. The statement should describe and provide means of access, where possible, by linking to the data or providing the required unique identifier.

The Data Availability Statement should be included in the end matter of your article, prior to the acknowledgements, under the heading “Data availability.”

For example Data Availability Statements, please see here.

Data Citation

G3 supports Force 11 Data Citation Principles and requires that all publicly available datasets be fully referenced in the reference list with an accession number or unique identifier such as a digital object identifier (DOI). Data citations should include the minimum information recommended by DataCite:

     [dataset]* Authors, Year, Title, Publisher (repository or archive name), Identifier

*The inclusion of the [dataset] tag at the beginning of the citation helps in the identification and correct tagging of the citation. This tag will be removed from the citation published in the reference list.

Authors are also encouraged to reference FAIR Principles for data management and stewardship.

Community Resource Citations

Demonstrable use of community databases, knowledgebases, and stock centers is critical for the continued funding of these resources.

If you have used these resources, you must cite the relevant publication(s) in your Literature Cited. We recommend citing the original publication and the latest published update. Please also include any relevant award number in your acknowledgements section. Please visit the resource’s website to find the most current publication or award number for citation. 

Examples include, but are not limited to, FlyBase, WormBase, MaizeGDB, and XenBase. For papers that carry out a gene enrichment analysis, this would include the Gene Ontology Resource.

Research Materials 

If your manuscript is accepted for publication, you agree to provide any unique research materials at reasonable cost to any investigator who requests them. You are permitted to require that the materials be used only for non-commercial purposes and that the recipient not transfer the materials to a third party without your consent. You may request reasonable payment for costs of sending the material (e.g. shipping and customs fees).

We encourage authors to deposit unique research materials to established repositories. Examples include but are not limited to: Addgene, Drosophila stock centers, C. elegans stock centers, and other stock centers as appropriate.

Examples of unique research materials are strains, plasmids, antibodies (including cell lines producing monoclonal antibodies), and software programs or applications.

Submission

G3 will consider your manuscript as long as

• it is your own original work and does not duplicate any previously published work, including your own;
• it is not under consideration, in peer review, or accepted for publication in any journal other than G3;
• it has not been published in any other journal; and
• it contains nothing abusive, defamatory, libelous, obscene, fraudulent, or illegal.

Authors should observe high ethical standards and obey publication best practices. The following are unacceptable:

• data falsification or fabrication
• plagiarism, including duplicate publication of your own work without proper citation
• misappropriation of work

We treat any case of ethical or publication malpractice very seriously. We will address them in accordance with the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines. See COPE Guidelines on Good Publication Practice for further information about OUP’s ethical policies.

How to Submit

Submit your paper via our web-based manuscript submission system at https://g3.msubmit.net. If you have not published with G3 before, you will need to create an account. Questions about submitting can be sent to the editorial office at g3-gsa@thegsajournals.org.

Review Process 

A submitted manuscript is assigned to a Senior Editor with appropriate expertise. The Senior Editor assigns it to an Associate Editor who manages and adjudicates its review. The Editors will return manuscripts that are judged to be outside the scope of the journal. Manuscripts can be returned without review for reasons that include:

• Grammar and style that is not of the quality expected in a published article;
• The topic or scope of the work is not within the scope of the journal;
• The manuscript describes the work in too little or too much detail;
• The manuscript is not suitable for a broad audience of geneticists;
• The methods or approaches are judged to be flawed.

At least two Editorial Board members collaborate in determining whether a manuscript will be returned without review. Manuscripts sent for review are examined by one or more reviewers selected for their expertise in the subject matter of the article. Reviewers will remain anonymous unless they choose to reveal themselves by signing their review. The Associate Editor makes one of the following decisions on the manuscript:

• Accept
• Accept pending minor revision
• Reconsider upon revision
• Reject

The average time from submission until first decision is less than six weeks.

Appeals

Authors may appeal an editorial decision through the manuscript submission site. Your appeal should include a letter detailing your reasons for appealing the decision and provide specific responses to the editor and reviewer comments. You may include additional details or information the editors should consider. The Editor in Chief will consult with independent member(s) of the editorial board and will strive to provide a decision within three weeks. One appeal will be considered, and the decision on the appeal is final.

Article Types

Investigations

Investigations are full-length research articles that present novel findings. There are no length restrictions.

Genome Reports 

Genome Reports enable rapid review and publication of high-quality whole genome sequence (WGS) data for new species.

Genome Reports are succinct, and follow guidelines designed to make it straightforward for authors to submit, for reviewers to assess, and for readers to understand the report and its results.

Genome reports that are acceptable include data and information that assist future genetic investigations. The amount of new information needed to warrant publication as a Genome Report varies by organism/system; for example, sequencing of new isolate of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, or Drosophila melanogaster, for which there is substantial information available, would not be considered appropriate, while a new WGS of a species without prior genome sequence data would more likely fit the criteria for publication. However, diversity panels are also encouraged to use this format (see below).

A Genome Report submission must have the components listed below; it is acceptable to have additional subheadings or headings as appropriate. Genome Reports lacking these components will be returned without review. We encourage you to be as brief as possible as Genome Reports are not meant to be the full length of an Investigation. Refer to Melotto et al. (2023) as an example. 

1. Title: Includes the organism and/or strain names     
   • (e.g. Genome Report: Whole genome sequence of two wild-derived Mus musculus domesticus inbred strains, LEWES/EiJ and ZALENDE/EiJ, with different diploid numbers.).
2. Keywords: Includes the relevant organism and strain names.
3. Abstract: Concise summary of the results. Include why this is useful to the community and who is likely to benefit from the resource being available.
4. Introduction: Approximately 500 words (or less) the rationale for the genomic analysis and the sampling strategy.     
5. Methods & Materials: Includes the following (additional sections are optional), and each of these sections should be at sufficient detail to enable reproducibility:       
   • Species/strain origin and sampling strategy             
   • Sequencing methods and sample preparation details          
   • Gene finding methods
   • Repeat assembly techniques
   • Data analysis methods: this should include detailed bioinformatic processing with options selected. Scripts and a step by step guideline for each section of the results. See Melotto et al. (2023) for an example. 
6. Results and Discussion: Includes the following:       
   • The size and quality of the assembly (e.g., N50, L50, NG50, NGA50, percentage of Ns.             
   • Coverage amount and quality of genome sequenced compared to expectations based on known biology of that species.
   • Genome annotations (GTF, GFF file) and description of number of genes (exons), and how this compares with expectations.      
   • Analysis of repetitive DNA; TE elements.
7. Diversity panels
   • Structural variation: table of variants ascertained in machine readable format (.vcf) with an accompanying analysis.                    
   • Comparison of strains/genomes (if reporting WGS of multiple strains/organisms).
   • Variant annotations (e.g. coding region, regulatory sequence).
   • Proportion of genetic variation in the species covered by the panel.
   • Phylogenomic analysis/GWAS or other demonstration that the diversity panel is of sufficient size to be useful.
8. Data Availability Statement: Describes where to access all raw sequence, processed data, genome assemblies and annotations. The assembly should be uploaded to NCBI or ENA and a reviewer token provided in the Data Availability Statement. If you are depositing the genome assembly and annotation or raw sequencing reads in a repository where reviewer tokens are not provided, please contact the editorial office in advance for guidance. Acceptable files types include GTF/GFF, repatMasker files, and VCF.
9. Acknowledgments     
10. Conflict of Interest      
11. Funder Information    
12. Literature Cited: Refer to our Community Resource Citations policy above which includes citing algorithms used (e.g. BLAST), BUSCO, and community databases and knowledgebases such as Gene Ontology Resource.     

The peer review process includes a specific independent assessment of the manuscript to ensure it meets the following criteria.

1. Have the authors used up-to-date technologies, both in terms of molecular analysis and bioinformatics? Is the approach described in detail and accompanied by scripts?
2. Do the results presented in the manuscript provide a useful resource for the target community?  
3. Is the quality of the results sufficient? (i.e. was the WGS well performed, etc.?). Have the authors reported on the quality and scale of the Raw data? Is the size of the assembly reasonable compared to the known/expected genome size and are the reported summary statistics (e.g., N50, L50, NG50, NGA50, percentage of Ns) acceptable?
4. If there are ‘other’ analyses (e.g. structural variation, repetitive elements, TE’s) are these described in detail and accompanied by scripts?
5. Does the report provide a stand-alone assembly or have the authors integrated their data with a previous assembly? If the latter, are all the data that are being integrated into the new data well described, referenced, and accessible?
6. How were the individual(s) selected/sampled and are the sample characteristics well described (e.g. sex, tissue, genotype)? Is the sampling strategy employed going to result in a useful reference for the species or will the usefulness be limited by the choices made in sampling?
7. Has the genome been annotated for protein coding genes, TEs, and other repetitive DNA, and has this process been described in enough detail to reproduce the annotation? Do the results indicate the genome is likely to contain most of the conserved proteins (e.g. reasonable BUSCO score)?      
8. Are the results complete and comprehensive?         
   • Note: The amount of new information needed to warrant publication as a Genome Report will vary by organism/system. In your judgment, is there sufficient new data presented to warrant publication in G3?
9. Do the authors interpret the results clearly for the reader?

Mutant Screen Reports 

Mutant Screen Reports provide a useful format for describing the results of mutant screens. The format is succinct, and follows a structured template designed to make it fast and easy for authors to submit, for reviewers to rapidly assess, and for readers to easily understand the screen and its results. The Reports fulfill one of G3's goals: to make data from useful genetic screens available to the community in a timely fashion.

Criteria for acceptance in this category includes usefulness of the screen (e.g., the results of the screen will stimulate further experimentation), quality of the results (e.g., was the screen well-performed?), and completeness (e.g., are the results comprehensive?) and the author’s interpretation of results (e.g., are the results of the screens lucidly interpreted for the reader?)

We encourage you to be as brief as possible; Mutant Screen Reports are not meant to be the full length of an Investigation. Papers that go substantially beyond the screen in terms of detailed phenotypic characterization will be considered on their merits as regular Investigations.

Mutant Screen Reports should include complementation test data, both within the new mutant set and with mutants in known genes, wherever possible. The complementation data greatly increases the utility of the article. The usefulness of the new sets of mutants is influenced most crucially by the number of new genes identified.

Your manuscript submission should have these components, where possible; it is acceptable to have additional subheadings or headings as appropriate. Refer to Gazy et al., 2013 for an example.

1. Title: include the species and relevant gene names (e.g. A genetic screen for suppressors of Drosophila NSF2).
2. Keywords: include the species and relevant gene names.
3. Abstract: ~250 words. Concise summary of the results.
4. Introduction: no more than 500 words. The introduction should discuss the rationale for the screen.
5. Methods & Materials: include the following (note: author may write additional subheadings as appropriate – the below points are not designed to be a list of complete subheadings, but rather, topics to be covered). 
   • Screen design, including strain/line construction and screen conditions
   • Description of phenotypes scored
   • Description of methods for classification and verification of mutants (e.g. complementation tests and test data; follow-up assays)
6. Results and Discussion: Tables should succinctly and completely describe the results of the screens, including tables of genes and alleles, as appropriate.
7. Data Availability Statement
8. Acknowledgments
9. Conflict of Interest
10. Funder Information 
11. Literature Cited

Software and Data Resources

The Software and Data Resources (SDR) format describes novel software for genetic data analyses and database resources. The editors of G3 recognize that modern genetic research requires specialized, efficient, and well-documented software, as well as access to high quality data.

Criteria for acceptance in this category includes the usefulness (i.e., is the tool/resource potentially useful for a broad community of researchers and not redundant with existing tools?), innovation, accessibility (including availability and quality of the documentation) and, in the case of software, scalability. Data resources must be made freely available in a public repository, and in the case of software distribution we encourage the use of Open Source. 

SDR manuscripts have a limit of 2500 words, excluding title, abstract, tables, figures, boxes, acknowledgments and references. Content will vary depending on the nature of the software or database resource; however, articles are expected to adhere to the following structure. (Additional subheadings are permitted as appropriate; the below points are a non-exhaustive list of topics to be covered.)

1. Title: Include the software or database resource name and make reference to the type of problem(s) addressed with the software or database.
2. Keywords: For software, include the relevant models, algorithms and language; for database resources include the organism, type of genetic data as well as phenotypes available.
3. Abstract: ~ 150 words.  Concise summary of the results.
4. Introduction: Limit of 500 words. The introduction should describe the significance of the software or resource presented, discuss novelty, provide an overview of the software or resource, and describe how researchers can access it.
5. Methods: For database resources, the authors should describe important details about the database, including the organisms, type of data available, the protocols followed in data collections and data pre-processing if any. For software, the authors should describe key elements of the algorithms implemented, and are expected to provide both the source code as well as examples illustrating the use of the software.
6. Results and Discussion: For software, the authors are expected to present a few examples that demonstrate the use of the software and benchmarks. Ideally, the examples should be simple. We encourage the use of boxes with scripts supported by a narrative. Benchmarks carried under more realistic situations than the one presented in the examples are also encouraged. For database resources the authors are encouraged to present a limited set of analysis (e.g., PC analysis, a GWA study) that describe key features of the data.
7. Web resources: List websites providing access to the software or database and with documentation. Software or data must be accessible via a publicly accessible repository such as GitHub, Figshare, Dryad, Zenodo, etc. 
8. Data Availability Statement 
9. Acknowledgments
10. Conflict of Interest
11. Funder Information
12. Literature Cited
13. Supplemental data (optional): Include scripts, additional results and additional resources to help the reader to get started with the software or database. Authors must use a publicly accessible repository such as GitHub, Figshare, Dryad, Zenodo, etc. 

Corrections

Corrections rectify mistakes and omissions in published manuscripts. They should be as brief as possible and cannot describe new methods or results. Changes to published articles require a correction, except in the case of a name change.

Please read the full policy here and direct queries to jnls.author.support@oup.com.

Companion Papers

Papers that overlap in the use of primary data, share authors, and/or consider a similar topic from a different angle are welcome to be submitted as companion papers for concurrent publication. Papers by different authors concerning the same topic may also be submitted as companions. Companion manuscripts should be submitted within two weeks of each other, and the cover letters should clearly indicate which papers are being submitted as companions. Because the editors seek to understand the relationships between papers sharing data or authors, failure to indicate which papers are companions may cause a delay in their consideration. Each companion paper should have a cover letter clearly explaining its unique and novel contributions, as well as the importance of the group of papers. If you have submitted a related/companion paper to another journal, please disclose this upon submission. Responsibility for adhering to publication policies in consortium groups is the sole responsibility of the authors of the paper.

You may split companion submissions between GENETICS and G3 as appropriate.

Manuscript Preparation

Pre-Submission Language Editing

To improve the quality of your written English, you may wish to use a language-editing service. Language editing is optional and does not guarantee that your manuscript will be accepted. Edited manuscripts will still undergo peer review by the journal.

Initial Submission in Any Format 

G3 accepts manuscripts in any format at initial submission. The order of information, figures, tables, and references may be in any format you prefer. We ask that you include line numbers and page numbers.

You may upload your manuscript and all associated files as a single PDF file (<15MB), though this is not required. You may include your supplemental material in this single PDF, size permitting. You can also choose to upload the supplemental material as separate files along with your manuscript or to deposit them in a data repository of your choosing, or our Figshare portal at https://gsajournals.figshare.com/submit.

If your manuscript is accepted for publication, we will ask you to format the files for publication according to the guidelines below and provide individual, non-PDF files.

Title Page

The title page should include the following:

• the title of your paper; avoid jargon and include the name of the organism under study
• all author names and affiliations
• full mailing addresses and zip codes for all authors
• email addresses for corresponding author(s)
• a short running head of 50 characters or less 
• keywords 

Abstract

Abstracts have a maximum length of 250 words, contain the name of the organism studied, and must not contain reference citations or abbreviations. Abstracts are not allowed in Letters. 

Article Summary

Please provide a summary of your article for a general audience. This summary may be used in promotion of your article and should not be more than 80 words.

Graphical Abstracts

Authors may submit a graphical abstract as part of the article, in addition to the text abstract. The graphical abstract should clearly summarize the focus and findings of the article; it will be published as part of the article both online and in the downloadable PDF. The graphical abstract should be submitted for editorial review as a separate file, and the file name should be clear, e.g. graphical_abstract.tiff. Graphical abstracts should be in landscape format and follow the same guidelines used for figures.

Introduction

Authors should be mindful of the broad readership of the journal and set the stage for the importance of the work to a generalist reader. You should clearly state the scope and impact of your work.

In individual organisms where a mutant is being studied, the rationale for the study of that mutant must be clear to a geneticist who does not study that particular organism. Similarly, study of particular phenotypes should be justified broadly and not on the basis of interest for that organism alone. General background on the importance of the genetic pathway and/or phenotype should be provided in a single, well-reasoned paragraph near the beginning of the introduction.

Materials and Methods

Manuscripts should contain a clear description of the experimental design in sufficient detail so that the experimental analysis could be repeated by another scientist. If the level of detail necessary to explain the protocol goes beyond two paragraphs, give a short description in the main body of the paper and prepare a detailed description for supplemental material.

If you have used a Large Language Models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, please provide full technical specifications of the LLM used (name, version, model, source) and method of application (query structure, syntax). Authors are responsible for the work performed by a LLM in the paper (including the accuracy of what is presented, and the absence of plagiarism) and for appropriate attribution of all sources (including for material produced by the LLM).

G3 suggests authors supplement their methods with detailed protocols on the open access repository protocols.io. To include a link to a protocol in your article:

1. Describe your step-by-step protocol on protocols.io
2. Select Get DOI to issue your protocol a persistent digital object identifier (DOI)
3. Include the DOI link in the Methods section of your manuscript using the following format provided by protocols.io: http://dx.doi.org/10.17504/protocols.io/[PROTOCOL DOI]

Your protocol will only be visible to those with the link. This will allow editors and reviewers to view your protocol. Your protocols can be made public at any time by selecting Publish on the protocols.io site. Protocol(s) referenced in your manuscript will automatically be made public when your article is published.

G3 encourages authors to use Research Resource Identifiers (RRIDs) throughout the manuscript to link readers to external resources such as an antibody, organism, or tool. To obtain an RRID visit https://scicrunch.org/resources and enter your search term(s) there. Once you have located an RRID, please insert "RRID:" plus the identifier in the appropriate location in the manuscript. For help, please contact rii-help@scicrunch.org. To request a new RRID, please visit https://scicrunch.org/resources/about/guidelines#organism.

Statistical Analysis

Indicate what statistical analysis has been performed—not only the name of the software and options selected but also the method and model applied. In the case of many genes or phenotypes being examined simultaneously, a multiple comparison correction should be used to control the type I error rate. Otherwise, a rationale for not applying a correction must be provided. Clearly state the type of correction applied and whether the p-values reported are raw or post-correction. Corrected p-values are often appropriate, but raw p-values should be available in the supporting materials so that others may perform their own corrections. In large-scale data exploration studies (e.g. genome wide expression studies), a clear and complete description of the replication structure must be provided.

Transcriptome Analysis

Transcriptome analysis study design must be robust and should meet standards for the statistical analysis of RNA-seq data, including at least three biological replications, which allows for meaningful inferences about differential gene expression.

The following questions provide guidance to determine suitability for G3. Regardless of the experimental system used, papers that fare well at G3 have positive responses to questions 1-4. Question 5 helps authors evaluate the role their transcriptomic data plays in the larger scientific story they are telling.

1. Does the transcriptome data add useful information relative to the existing literature?
2. Does the paper present a sound rationale for choosing a particular tissue/organism/sample?
3. Is the experimental design (sampling, number of biological replicates) sound?
4. Is the analysis pipeline state-of-the-art?
5. Does the paper include an additional contribution beyond the items mentioned above? Examples include: linkage map development, demonstration of inheritance of markers, relationships among germplasm within the genus, extensive SNP discovery and annotation

Results and Discussion

The results and discussion should not be repetitive but should give a factual presentation of the data with all tables and figures referenced. The discussion should interpret the results rather than summarize them, and it should clearly delineate between the findings of the particular study and the possible impact of those findings in a larger context. Authors are encouraged to cite recent work relevant to their interpretations. Present and discuss results only once, not in both the Results and Discussion sections. You may combine results and discussion for concision. 

Data Availability Statement

G3 requires all authors to publicly release all data and software code underlying any published paper as a condition of publication. Authors are required to include a Data Availability Statement in their article under the heading “Data availability,” before the Acknowledgements section. See the “Data Policy” section above for additional details.

Acknowledgments 

Acknowledgments should be included at the end of your manuscript.

Funding

Funding information should be included at the end of your manuscript. Please fully cite any relevant funding information, including specific grant numbers.

Conflict of Interest

You may need to include a “conflict of interest” section. This would cover any situations that might raise any questions of bias in your work and in your article’s conclusions, implications, or opinions. Please see Conflict of Interest for more information.

References

You may format references in any readable style at initial submission, but final files must follow CSE style (author-date/name-year; see Scientific Style and Format). You are responsible for the accuracy of reference information. Style files for reference managers can be found online or within the tool itself; common options include Zotero and EndNote.

Preprint example:

Exciting preprint in genetics. :2022.02.07.xxxxxx. [accessed 2022 Feb 9]. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.02.07.xxxxxxv1.

Journal article example:

Saez L, Derasmo M, Meyer P, Stieglitz J, Young MW. 2011. A key temporal delay in the circadian cycle of Drosophila is mediated by a nuclear localization signal in the timeless protein. GENETICS. 188(3):591–600. doi:10.1534/genetics.111.127225.

Figures

Number all figures (e.g., Figure 1, Figure 2, Figure 3) and reference them in the text. You must include figure titles and legends within the manuscript file; they should not be included in the image file.

Submit each figure as an individual image file. Submit all panels of a multipanel figure on a single page as one file; a figure with three panels should be submitted as one file. Each panel should be labeled as a lower-case letter (a, b, c, d, etc.) in the upper-left corner of the panel.

Images of photographs or paintings can be provided as raster images. Common examples of raster images are .tif/.tiff, .raw, .gif, and .bmp file types. The resolution of raster files is measured by the number of dots or pixels in a given area, referred to as “dpi” or “ppi.”

• minimum resolution required for printed images or pictures: 350dpi
• minimum resolution for printed line art: 600dpi (complex or finely drawn line art should be 1200dpi)
• minimum resolution for electronic images (i.e., for on-screen viewing): 72dpi

Images of maps, charts, graphs, and diagrams are best rendered digitally as geometric forms called vector graphics; PDF files are acceptable. Vector images use mathematical relationships between points and the lines connecting them to describe an image. These file types do not use pixels; therefore, resolution does not apply to vector images.

We encourage authors to make their figures accessible to those with color vision deficiency (CVD) and to present data fairly and intuitively. This can be accomplished using scientifically-derived color maps, which are universally readable (even in black and white) and designed to represent data fairly. For more information, including downloadable color maps, see here. Guidelines for preparing different image-types, including recommendations for colour palettes, colour contrast, image layout, and text accessibility, are available here.

Figures prepared as .doc/.docx, .ai, or .jpeg/.jpg files will not be accepted.

Tables 

Number all tables (e.g., Table 1, Table 2, Table 3) and reference them in the text. Place all tables at the end of the main text. Tables must be in an editable format and not embedded as an image file.

Reagent Table

Wider use of identifiers and recognized symbols increases the transparency and reproducibility of biological research, while aiding curation into research databases. We encourage authors to use the Reagent Table, which is designed to be used regularly during the course of a research project, recording reagents as they are received and/or used. The Excel template can be found here. Authors should upload the spreadsheet as supplemental material and refer to it at least once in their manuscript as “Reagent Table.”

We encourage authors to use Research Resource Identifiers (RRIDs) within the Reagent Table to link readers to external resources such as an antibody, organism, or tool. To obtain an RRID, visit https://scicrunch.org/resources and enter your search term(s). Once you have located an RRID, please insert “RRID:” plus the identifier in the appropriate location in the manuscript. For help, please contact rii-help@scicrunch.org. To request a new RRID, please visit https://scicrunch.org/resources/about/guidelines#organism.

Supplemental Material

Submit supplemental material, including supplemental data, at the same time as the main manuscript.

• Please name files using the following style:
  • Figure S1, Figure S2
  • Table S1, Table S2
  • File S1, File S2
  • Video S1, Video S2
• Supplemental material must be cited in the text of the main manuscript, and the citation must match the file name. Example: See Figure S1. Please note that Appendices are not to be treated as supplemental material. 
• If you have combined your supplemental material in a single file, please cite the item you are describing and the file in which it’s located. Example: See Figure A in File S1. 
• Supplemental material will be available online only and will not be copyedited or typeset.
• Style and formatting of supplemental material should be consistent with that of the manuscript. 
• Supplemental material should be formatted to function on any internet browser.
• Supplemental material files should be no larger than 2MB each and no larger than 10MB total (all files combined). If your files are larger than this, please upload them to a public repository of your choice, or use our Figshare portal at https://gsajournals.figshare.com/submit.

Style

G3 follows Scientific Style and Format: The CSE Manual for Authors, Editors, and Publishers. Please refer to these requirements when preparing your manuscript. Use US spelling throughout your manuscript, except in quotations and in references.

Abbreviations

Please define nonstandard abbreviations at the first occurrence.

Genetic Nomenclature 

Authors are expected to use standard genetic nomenclature, consulting the relevant organism database(s) whenever possible. Reference to genetic resources (e.g., genes, loci, alleles) in organisms that do not have a public database that resolves synonymy of such items must be accompanied by a thorough scholarly accounting of all other names in the literature.

G3 offers In-Article Database Linking to enrich your scientific publications and ensure that data relevant to your research can be discovered and accessed by readers. Please indicate in the submission form if your manuscript contains these linkable entities:

• Flybase  
• Saccharomyces Genome Database  
• Wormbase 

Please hyperlink FungiDB entities within your article. For example, hyperlink AMAG_00042 with the URL http://fungidb.org/gene/AMAG_00042. Information on how to find available Gene IDs is here.

LaTeX

For information on LaTeX files and formatting, see Working in LaTeX. G3 also offers an Overleaf template, and OUP offers a generic template. 

License to Publish and Open Access 

After your manuscript is accepted, you must sign a license to publish agreement on our Author Portal. 

G3 articles are published under a Creative Commons Attribution license; CC BY 4.0.

Please see Open access licenses at OUP for more information about the Creative Commons licenses. Check with your funding body if you are unsure of any license requirements.

Manuscript Charges

Corresponding authors who are members of the Genetics Society of America are eligible for discounts on OA license charges. Please provide your member identifier when prompted as you submit your manuscript.  

OA License Charges

Charges for the open access license APC for G3 are $2,215 for society members and $2,580 for non-members. Dialogue and Debate articles have an APC of $866.

OUP has a growing number of Read and Publish agreements with institutions and consortia which provide funding for open access publishing. This means authors from participating institutions can publish open access, and the institution may pay the charge. Find out if your institution is participating.

Author Portal

You can pay your APC on the same Author Portal used to sign your license to publish.

While no article will be refused because of an author's inability to pay page charges, authors citing grant support are assumed to have the resources to pay for publication charges. 

Corresponding authors based in the countries listed here are eligible for a full waiver of all fees associated with publishing in our fully open access journals. Eligible authors do not need to request a waiver. The waiver will be automatically applied, based on your address.

If you are not eligible for our Developing Countries Initiative but are unable to pay the APC for your article, please contact our open access team to request a partial or full waiver.  These requests will be considered on a case-by-case basis and should be made prior to final Acceptance (at revision stage).

See more information about waivers on our APC Waiver policy page.

Advance Articles and Production

G3 publishes articles online as soon as possible once they have been accepted for publication and authors have provided final files. The advance access manuscript PDF published is the last-reviewed and accepted version. This PDF has not been formatted or copyedited, and the final proof has not been reviewed by the authors. Advance access articles are citable, with the official publication date being the date of the article's first online posting, and they are deposited into PubMed shortly after appearing online. G3 articles are assigned digital object identifiers (DOIs), providing a permanent way to identify manuscripts published in the online environment.

After an article is first published online, it continues through the publication process, which includes final copyediting, typesetting, proofreading, and author review. The primary corresponding author will receive an email from Oxford University Press with further details once an article reaches production, including instructions for completing a license to publish. When proofs are ready, the primary corresponding author will receive an email with instructions on how to access the page proofs online for proofreading purposes.

Manuscript Transfer

G3 sends and receives transfers from other journals on related topics published by Oxford University Press. All transfers are sent according to the choice of the authors. Unless a reviewer declines to have their feedback shared, reviewer reports and the original decision letter are included in the transfer, but the reviewer identities are not shared.

Transferred manuscripts may be sent out for additional peer review, and a decision will be made on the manuscript based on the feedback from all reviewers and the judgment of the editorial team.