Submit Your Paper to PLoS Biology
Ready to submit your manuscript? Please refer to our submission checklist below and use our online manuscript submission system.
When you submit your article to PLoS Biology, you will be asked to provide some information in addition to the manuscript itself, as well as some associated files. This checklist will ensure that you have gathered all the relevant information and that the manuscript is formatted appropriately.
Information Needed Prior to Submission
- Have you read the license agreement and are you able to sign it on behalf of all the authors?
- Have you identified potential reviewers whose e-mail addresses you can provide? Have you identified colleagues who may have a conflict of interest?
- Have you prepared a cover letter explaining why you consider this manuscript suitable for publication in PLoS Biology?
- Are related manuscripts by any of the authors submitted or in press elsewhere? If so, are you prepared to provide PDFs?
- Have you discussed the publication fees with your co-authors? Publication fees are US$2750 per manuscript and will be billed upon acceptance (read the FAQs on publication fees). The ability of authors to pay publication charges will never be a consideration in the decision whether to publish.
Manuscript Requirements
- Have all authors and their affiliations been included? Do you have a list of the contributions that each author has made to the project? Do you know of any conflicts of interest any of the authors may need to report?
- Does your paper follow the organization guidelines outlined in the Guidelines for Authors?
- Is your abstract divided into sections called Background, Methodology/Principal Findings, and Conclusions/Significance?
- Have you included page numbers on all the sections of the article (figures exempted)?
- Have you used double spacing (a blank line under each line of text) for all text in your manuscript?
- Have non-standard abbreviations been listed as well as defined in the text?
- Have you used standard nomenclature?
- Have all appropriate datasets, images, and information been deposited in the relevant public resources and have the accession (and version) numbers been provided in the paper?
- Have all genes, proteins, mutants, diseases, etc., used in the paper been identified by their accession number upon first use, if they appear in a public database?
- If your manuscript is ready for publication, do your figures conform to the Guidelines for Figure Preparation?
- Do you have datasets or raw data in a format that can be readily submitted as supplementary data?
- Are any new or lesser-known protocols described in detail in a separate file that can be submitted as supplemental data?
- Do you have any striking figures that might be suitable for consideration as cover images?
File Size and Format Requirements
Initial submissions may be done as a single PDF file containing text and figures, plus an additional file for supporting information, but individual publication quality files (as detailed below) will be required before formal acceptance.
- Is the manuscript file in DOC, RTF, or PDF?
- Have your original figures been created as EPS, Excel, GIF, Illustrator, JPEG, PhotoShop, PowerPoint, or TIFF files in a high enough resolution to provide for adequate review?
- If you have multimedia files, are they smaller than 10 MB in size?
Author Summaries
We ask that authors submitting revised manuscripts include a 150-200 word non-technical summary of the work as as a separate file, uploaded as Supporting Information, with the title "Author Summary". Subject to editorial review, this short text is published with all research articles as a highlighted text box.
Distinct from the scientific abstract, the author summary is included in the article to make findings accessible to an audience of both scientists and non-scientists. Ideally aimed to a level of understanding of an undergraduate student, the significance of the work should be presented simply, objectively, and without exaggeration.
Authors should avoid the use of acronyms and complex scientific terms and write the text using a first person voice. Authors may benefit from consulting with a science writer or press officer to ensure they effectively communicate their findings to a general audience. We encourage you to look at two examples of summaries currently online in PLoS Biology. These examples should help you determine the level we are aiming for:
Blurb
In addition to the Author Summary, we require a brief statement ("blurb") about the work. The blurb should be about 20 to 30 words long and is subject to editorial changes. It should, without exaggeration, entice people to read your manuscript. As it will be displayed on the website below the title of the article, it should not be redundant with the title. It should not contain acronyms or abbreviations. For examples, please view the blurbs accompanying the articles in the current issue of PLoS Biology.
Please submit your Blurb as a sentence or two, at the bottom of the document containing your Author Summary, under the heading "Blurb."