Manuscript Preparation Instructions

• Online Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Manuscript Submission
• Manuscript Preparation
• Manuscript Organization
• Tables
• Figures
• Manuscript Acceptance
• Open Access Charges
• Contacts at NSR

Online Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

You can improve the online accessibility of your paper by writing optimized copy that is highly indexable across all search engines. A large number of readers find articles online by using search engines such as Google. Most searching is done using keywords or key phrases. Including key phrases that people searching are likely to use should make your article more discoverable. By taking some simple steps to optimize your article for search engines it will help your work to be discovered and read. This may in turn lead to the work being cited in others' work and will further raise the visibility of your article. Future measures, which assess the value of journals and of individual articles based on the number of times they are downloaded, are currently being developed and tested (see UKSG's usage factors page and PIRUS 2 ).

Manuscript Submission

Review articles are usually submitted by invitation only. Those who are not invited but intend to submit a review manuscript should contact the Editorial Board member in the related area of the journal (Editorial_Board). Once you have prepared your manuscript, according to the instructions below, please visit the journal's online submission system. Articles should be submitted according to the instructions.

Manuscript Preparation

In general, the NSR conforms to the principles laid out in the Oxford Style Manual, and the spelling conventions of the Concise Oxford Dictionary. If you are unsure about a particular point of style, please contact the editorial office (nsr@scichina.org).

By following the NSR style checklist you can ensure that your manuscript follows the major style points.

In addition to this, please follow the below guidance for the content of your manuscript:

Word limits

• Reviews . The main text (excluding references, footnotes, figure legends and tables) is expected not to exceed 8000 words, 10 figures and 100 references.
• Perspectives . The main text (excluding references, footnotes, figure legends and tables) should not exceed 1000 words, have less than 10 references, and only 1–2 figures.
• Research Articles. These articles are expected to be original, innovative and significant. Less than 5000 words, with a maximum of 50 references and 6 figures/tables. Methods section should appear between Conclusion and Acknowledgement sections.
• Research Highlights . The main text should not exceed 500 words, have less than five references, and only one figure at most. Capsule descriptions of selected articles from China’s academic journals form a sub-section. The total words for each description should not exceed 80, one figure at most, and no references.
• Letters & Commentaries . The main text should not exceed 300 words.

Layout

• Manuscripts should be prepared in Microsoft Word or LaTex. Times New Roman is the recommended font. Please do not use Chinese, Japanese or Korean fonts.
• Pages should be numbered consecutively throughout.
• Tables, maps and photographs should be provided separately but with their position within the text indicated appropriately (for example, a cue in capitals and square brackets: [INSERT TABLE 1 HERE].
• Any unusual features, such as variable line-spacing, reduced font-size, underlining, partial indenting, symbols or abbreviations, should be drawn to the attention of the typesetters with appropriate instructions: if tables and editions are to be typeset exactly as submitted, that should be indicated.

Abbreviations

Use abbreviations and symbols sparingly and only if terms are repeated frequently. Commonly used abbreviations do not need defining. All other abbreviations are defined at first mention in both the abstract and the text. A list of standard abbreviations and units is provided.

Use abbreviated SI Units for units of measure, e.g. kg, ml, kms-1. Use a space between the numeral and the unit of measure, except with degrees, per cent, and Svedberg (5°C, 10%, 6S). Avoid using nonstandard abbreviations in titles and headings.

Graphical abstract

Authors are encouraged to 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, and will be published as part of the article online and in PDF. The graphical abstract should be submitted for peer review as a separate file, selecting the appropriate file-type designation in the journal’s online submission system. The file should be clearly named, e.g. graphical_abstract.tiff. See this page for guidance on appropriate file format and resolution for graphics. Please ensure graphical abstracts are in landscape format.

Manuscript Organization

Cover letter

Each submission must be accompanied with a cover letter. The cover letter should clearly state the significance of the work being submitted and list any special requirements for the editorial office. If authors are submitting a manuscript to be considered for a themed special issue, this should be stated in the cover letter.

Title page

Place the title page on a separate sheet and include title of article, authors’ full names and affiliations. It is important to indicate a corresponding author, together with the email address, telephone and fax numbers.

Manuscript title

The full manuscript title should be succinct (less than 100 characters) and informative. It should not contain unconventional abbreviations.

Authorship

All persons designated as authors should qualify for authorship. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for the content. All authors should be involved in drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content, and must have read and approved the final version of the manuscript. Any other contributors should not be listed as authors, but rather be acknowledged appropriately in the Acknowledgments section. The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that all authors have made bona fide, substantive contributions to the research and have seen and approved the manuscript in final form prior to submission.

Multiple corresponding authors are accepted in a single submission. The journal does not allow addition or removal of author names after submission unless exceptional circumstances are noted. A satisfactory explanation for any proposed changes in authorship will be required. We will also require a letter of consent from any person whose name has been removed indicating that they agree to the removal of their name from the author list. Owing to the complexity of these rules we strongly advise authors to fix the author list before submission and not to attempt to make changes at a later date.

Abstract

This part consists of a single paragraph not exceeding 150 words. In particular, the abstract should summarize the content of the article as briefly as possible. It should convey clearly and completely the significance and advancement of the work to the readership before they have read the paper. Abbreviations and citations to references should generally be avoided.

Keywords

Up to 6 relevant keywords should be provided below the abstract.

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements and details of non-financial support must be included at the end of the text before references and not in footnotes. Personal acknowledgements should precede those of institutions or agencies. Please note that acknowledgement of funding bodies should be given in separate Funding section.

Funding

Details of all funding sources for the work in question should be given in a separate section entitled ‘Funding’. This should appear after the ‘Acknowledgements’ section.

The following rules should be followed:

• The sentence should begin: ‘This work was supported by …’
• The full official funding agency name should be given, i.e. ‘the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health’ or simply 'National Institutes of Health' not ‘NCI' (one of the 27 subinstitutions) or 'NCI at NIH’ ( full RIN-approved list of UK funding agencies )
• Grant numbers should be complete and accurate and provided in brackets as follows: ‘(ABX CDXXXXXX)’
• Multiple grant numbers should be separated by a comma as follows: ‘(ABX CDXXXXXX, EFX GHXXXXXX)’
• Agencies should be separated by a semi-colon (plus ‘and’ before the last funding agency)
• Where individuals need to be specified for certain sources of funding the following text should be added after the relevant agency or grant number 'to [author initials]'.

An example is given here: ‘This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health [P50 CA098252 and CA118790 to R.B.S.R.] and the Alcohol & Education Research Council [HFY GR667789].

Crossref Funding Data Registry

In order to meet your funding requirements authors are required to name their funding sources, or state if there are none, during the submission process. For further information on this process or to find out more about CHORUS, visit the CHORUS initiative.

References

If you use EndNote and Reference Manager to facilitate referencing citations (not required for submission), this journal's style (Oxford SciMed) will shortly available for use. If an automatic referencing system has been used in the preparation of the paper, the references must not be left embedded in the final text file submitted.

Number references consecutively in the order in which they are mentioned in the text. Reference numbers in the text are full-sized Arabic numerals in brackets within the sentence. For 3 or more consecutive references cited all at once, use, for example, [1-4]. Format other references as [4,5,12], with spaces between the reference numbers.

References must be verified against the original documents and must give the exact authors’ last names, initials, and article title. Please supply the published year, volume number and entire page range. For manuscripts accepted (not submitted) but not yet published, designate the journal followed by a period and then ‘In press’. For references to papers presented at conferences, give the location (city and state or country), month, days, and year of the conference. For references published online in advance of print publication, provide the journal abbreviation followed by the digital object identifier (DOI) number in parentheses.

The reference list should be limited to published or ‘in press’ references. No ‘submitted’ manuscript should appear in the reference list. A manuscript submitted for publication but not yet accepted may be referenced in parentheses in the text. Give the author’s name, institutional affiliation, and ‘unpublished manuscript’. However, authors should not refer to ‘forthcoming’ papers or promise the future publication of results.

References to personal, written communications should be inserted in parentheses in the text rather than in the reference list. Give the person’s name, institutional affiliation, ‘personal communication’ and the year. Verbal communications are not acceptable as supporting documentation.

Full references should be provided in accordance with NSR style, the key points of which are listed.

Supplementary data

Supporting material that is not essential for inclusion in the full text of the manuscript, but would nevertheless benefit the reader, can be made available by the publisher as online-only content, linked to the online manuscript. The material should not be essential to understanding the conclusions of the paper, but should contain data that is additional or complementary and directly relevant to the article content. Such information might include more detailed methods, extended data sets/data analysis, or additional figures.

It is standard practice for appendices to be made available online-only as supplementary data. All text and figures must be provided in suitable electronic formats. All material to be considered as supplementary data must be submitted at the same time as the main manuscript for peer review. It cannot be altered or replaced after the paper has been accepted for publication, and will not be edited. Please indicate clearly all material intended as supplementary data upon submission and name the files e.g. ‘Supplementary Figure 1’, ‘Supplementary Data’, etc. Also ensure that the supplementary data is referred to in the main manuscript where necessary, for example as ‘(see Supplementary data)’ or ‘(see Supplementary Figure 1)'.

Please note that the responsibility for scientific accuracy and content in supplementary data remains entirely with authors.

Additional components

Authors may also provide any of the below additional components:

• A Chinese abstract of the article (about 800 words).
• A list of Abbreviations and Definitions: this should include a list of important abbreviations and definitions of key terms (20 or less). Insert the list below the References section.
• A list of the Summary Points: Using complete sentences, this can list the central points (eight or less) of the article. Insert this above the Acknowledgments and/or References section.
• A list of Future Issues: using complete sentences, this can list forward-looking research (eight or less). Insert this list above the Acknowledgments and/or References section.
• Annotation of References: In less than 15 words this section can be used to explain the significance/importance of the references (but not more than 10). Insert below the References section.
• List of related resources: this can include up to 10 references (Web sites, articles, animations) that may be of interest to readers. Insert this below the References section.

Tables

Before submitting tables, please make sure they fulfil the following criteria:

• Submit editable electronic files for all tables. Table files must be compatible with Microsoft Word (.doc or .rtf) or Excel (.xls). Mathematically complex tables may be submitted in LaTeX or TeX. A PDF of the final tables must accompany all submissions.
• The tables should be numbered consecutively using Arabic numerals.
• Align entries under the appropriate heading or subheading. Type longer entries in block style, leaving extra space between entries.
• Units in which results are expressed should be given in parentheses at the top of each column and not repeated in each line of the table.
• Align numbers on the decimal; if numerical data are mixed, center entries in the column.
• Write out repeated entries; do not use ditto marks or leave a blank space.
• Use an em dash (–) if no information is available. If a data column heading is not applicable to a particular item, leave the space blank; do not use a dash.
• Avoid overcrowding the tables and the excessive use of words. The format of tables should be in keeping with that normally used by the journal; in particular, vertical lines, coloured text and shading should not be used.

Figures

Figures should be well-designed drawings or well-chosen photographs that illustrate key points in your article or that present relevant data economically. NSR illustration editors will work with you to enhance your figures’ legibility, colour, style, and consistency. Modified figures will be sent to you for approval before publication.

Please submit the artwork as a separate file. Before submitting artwork, please make sure that your image(s) fulfil the following criteria:

• Figures should be in vector image format. Vector images consist of many individual elements or vector objects, allowing each vector object to be transformed independently within the image.
• Figures should be supplied at a minimum resolution of 300 dpi. NSR’s in-house illustration editors will determine the appropriate final figure size unless you provide specific directions.
• Figures should be supplied in CMYK, not RGB. Please note that the use of red and green in figures is particularly problematic for approximately 5% of the male population. Advice on the preparation of colour-friendly figures is provided.
• Fonts should be embedded and editable. Font colour should be black only.
• Figures should be saved as clearly named files so that they can easily be identified in terms of manuscript ID, figure number, and format, e.g. [NSR-2013-h006] Fig 1.tif.
• Figure legends should be included at the end of the main text file. Please ensure that figures and figure legends are in agreement. Symbols must NOT be included in figure legends; ALL symbols used in figures should be described in the legend using words (e.g. filled triangle, open circle).
• Take care of any copyright issues regarding the artwork. We ask that you obtain permission to use copyrighted figures. In addition, they should be cited clearly.
  • If the figure is directly quoted, you should obtain permission from the copyright holder. A literature reference from where the figure has been taken should be given in the figure caption.
  • If this figure has been redrawn or revised, please indicate this with a parenthetical note in the figure caption.

Figures space: NSR's standard figure sizes for Review and Research Article are 65 mm wide (single column), 97.5 mm wide (one margin+one column), 140 mm wide (double column), and 170 mm (1 page width). For the Perspective and Research Highlight manuscripts, the standard figure sizes are 55mm (one column), 110mm wide( two column) and 170 mm (1 page width). The height of a figure should be less than 200 mm. Please strictly follow this formatting requirement in the final publication version.

Text settings: NSR use Arial family for all figures. The optimum font size is between 5 pt~9 pt at the size when appear in print. And fonts should be embedded and editable. 

Line: Line weights and strokes should be set between 0.25 and 1 pt at the final size (lines thinner than 0.25 pt may vanish in print). 

The graphic file can be provided in RGB or CMYK format. RGB colour will be automatically converted to CMYK to be printed in the journal. In particular, brighter colours are likely to appear muted, and the contrast between different coloured areas may be reduced. If you wish to ensure the printed figures are replicated faithfully, please provide your artwork in CMYK.

Figures should be in vector image format. Vector images consist of many individual elements or vector objects, allowing each vector object to be transformed independently within the image. We prefer vector files with editable layers. Acceptable formats are: .ai, .eps, .pdf, .ps, .svg for fully editable vector-based art; layered .psd or .tif for editable layered art; .psd, .tif, .png or .jpg for bitmap images; .ppt if fully editable and without styling effects; ChemDraw (.cdx) for chemical structures.

Further information on figure submission.

Permission to reproduce figures

Permission to reproduce copyright material, for print and online publication in perpetuity, must be cleared and if necessary paid for by the author; this includes applications and payments to DACS, ARS and similar licensing agencies where appropriate. Evidence in writing that such permissions have been secured from the rights-holder must be made available to the editors. It is also the author's responsibility to include acknowledgements as stipulated by the particular institutions. Please note that obtaining copyright permission could take some time. Oxford Journals can offer information and documentation to assist authors in securing print and online permissions: please see the Guidelines for Authors section. Should you require copies of this then please contact the editorial office of the journal in question or the Oxford Journals Rights department on journals.permissions@oup.com .

Third-Party Content in Open Access papers 

If your paper contains material for which you do not have Open Access re-use permissions, please state this clearly by supplying the following credit line alongside the material:

Title of content
Author, Original publication, year of original publication, by permission of [rights holder]

This image/content is not covered by the terms of the Creative Commons licence of this publication. For permission to reuse, please contact the rights holder.​

Manuscript Acceptance

Copyediting

Accepted manuscripts will be copyedited for grammar and style before proofs are generated. The authors should carefully check and proof the manuscript to ensure that all sections are correct. After the corrections are made, the article will be posted online as part of the continuous online publication of NSR.

Offprints and Issue Copies

Authors publishing in NSR are entitled to one free copy of the issue in which their paper is published. Please contact the editorial office (nsr@scichina.org) for more information about this arrangement.

Proofs

The journal will deliver electronic page proofs to the corresponding author with the offprint order forms. Corrections should be returned within 48 hours. ‘Note added in proof’ should only be inserted when there are essential changes. Notes added will be reviewed for appropriate content and style, and are subjected to approval by the editors. Excessive changes on the proof should be avoided unless they are for correction of errors introduced during production.

Advance Access

Advance Access articles are published online soon after they have been accepted for publication, in advance of their appearance in a printed journal. Appearance in Advance Access constitutes official publication, and the Advance Access version can be cited by a unique DOI. When an article appears in an issue, it is removed from the Advance Access page.

Articles posted for Advance Access have been copyedited and typeset and any corrections included. This is before they are paginated for inclusion in a specific issue of the journal. Once an article appears in an issue, both versions of the paper continue to be accessible and citable.

Open Access Charges

All content published in National Science Review is made freely available online to all under an Open Access model.

After a manuscript is accepted for publication, the corresponding author will be required to accept a mandatory license to publish agreement.  Authors can use the Creative Common Attribution license (CC BY) for their articles.

More information about the Creative Commons licences.

Open Access charges for articles submitted after 1st January 2020:

• Standard charge: £1200/$1632/€1452
• Reduced rate developing country charge: £0/$0/€0

For a list of participating countries, visit our developing country page.

Contacts at NSR

If you have any questions about these instructions, do not hesitate to contact NSR Editorial Office.

Address: 16 Donghuangchenggen North Street, Beijing 100717, China
Tel: +86-10-6403-7232
Fax: +86-10-6401-6350
E-mail: nsr@scichina.org