Manuscript Guidelines to aid efficiency of peer review, and citation of your paper

About BioEssays BioEssays is a reviews and features journal for a readership in cell and molecular biology, genetics, physiology and related disciplines. Its functions are: (1) to present recent developments in language and figures that are engaging and intelligible to readers from a broad spectrum of disciplines within biology and biomedical science, and (2) to extend the discussion of ideas in biology, emphasizing transdisciplinarity where appropriate. In general Papers must be in essay-style with clear, broadly understandable narrative (story) and language, forward- looking perspectives, remarks on open questions, hypotheses or speculations on the answers to such gaps in knowledge, and a clear statement of new insights that are being brought to the field.

Parts of the manuscript • Title (limit: 17 words): Describe the topic simply and engagingly (e.g. original title: “Two E3 ubiquitin ligases, SCF-Skp2 and DDB1-Cul4, target human Cdt1 for proteolysis”; revised title: “Stopping re- replication of DNA in the cell cycle: two novel E3 ubiquitin ligases”). State the main point of the paper in the title, using good keywords.

• Subtitle: In no more than 20 words, describe the main insight that is presented in the manuscript.

• Summary (limit: 150 words; no citations allowed): o Certain rubrics do not have summaries: please check our rubric guide first.

o Place your most important and new concepts or insights first in the summary, not in the middle. o Do not begin with an old and well-known fact, e.g. “The sequencing of the human genome has produced huge quantities of data…”. o End the summary with a forward-looking perspective, if possible. o IMPORTANT: The article summary is the only piece that potential reviewers read before accepting or declining the invitation to review! The summary should be extremely well written and structured, clearly presenting the main new insight of the manuscript early, and in an appealing way.

• Introduction (limit: 1,000 words): Some rubrics do not have a section headed “Introduction”: please check our rubric guide first. Give a concise introduction suitable for a broad audience and not an exhaustive list of highly field-specific information and abbreviations. Those should instead be extracted and condensed into one or more tables or information boxes (see tips below).

Tips for constructing tables and information boxes o For long sections of text (more than 1/3 page), please shorten to improve chances of it being read. For highly structured information (e.g. gene names and regulators, proteins and ligands etc.) summarise in tabular format. Boxes/tables should be referenced from the text where appropriate. o If vital for immediate understanding of the article, such an information box or table can be placed immediately after the introduction. Bear in mind the limit of 6 figures/tables/boxes per article, and reserve enough of these for the things you really want readers to understand.

BioEssays instructions for authors as at 03.08.2017

• Main text: Papers for BioEssays should develop their thesis as a scientific "story" with reflection and vision. Text should be broken up into sections with short, statement-like subheadings. Each section should end with a brief summary (1 or 2 sentences) of the main points/conclusions drawn (particularly new insights!). • Conclusions (limit: 300 words): Some rubrics do not have a section headed “Conclusions”: please check our rubric guide first. Condense the main points of the article, and present implications, consequences for new understanding and future perspectives. Head this section “Conclusions” or “Conclusions and prospects”. • Supporting Information: Supporting Information can be a useful way to include important but ancillary information with the online version of an article. Examples of Supporting Information include additional tables, data sets, figures, movie files, audio clips, 3D structures, and other related nonessential multimedia files. Supporting Information should be cited within the article text, and a descriptive legend should be included. It is published as supplied by the author, and a proof is not made available prior to publication; for these reasons, authors should provide any Supporting Information in the desired final format. For further information on recommended file types and requirements for submission, please visit: http://authorservices.wiley.com/bauthor/suppinfo.asp

English language: We accept both UK and US English, but a manuscript must be written in one or other of the two, not a mixture. The quality of English can strongly influence the success of peer review. If appropriate in your case, have a native English speaker look over the whole manuscript before submission.

Word and reference limits • Reference lists should not exceed 120, 50 or 10 entries, depending on rubric. • Word limits (see rubric guide) are for body text (main text) only: abstract, acknowledgements, figure legends and reference list do not count.

Figures/photographs/tables • Imaginative use of illustrations and tables is welcome. Please see our rubric list for the total number permitted. • To ensure good print quality, your figures should be submitted in TIF or PPT format with a resolution of 800 dpi, or as close to this resolution as possible. In the case of diagrams with lettering, (e.g. figures created in Adobe Illustrator) EPS, PPT or DOC (Word file) format should be submitted. • Colour Figures must be submitted in RGB colorspace. Do not submit as CMYK. • Unacceptable figure formats are: PDF, GIF, PSD, CRD, PCT, XLS, BMP, 123 (or other Lotus formats). • Lines and lettering must be large and dense enough to remain legible after the figure is reduced. Please submit final-size figures - either one-column (8.25 cm) or two-column (17 cm) size. Text in figures must not be smaller than 6-point. Avoid strongly coloured/dark backgrounds. • Figure parts should be labelled in bold lower case letters e.g. a b c; in the legend, please use a) b) c) • Figures/tables should be referred to in sequence, using “Fig. 1a”, or “Figs 1, 2” or “Table 1” etc.

BioEssays instructions for authors as at 03.08.2017

Citations and reference list • Citation of published literature must be indicated in square brackets as superscripts after any punctuation; e.g. “These studies showed that… [12-15]” • Do not use composite references but rather use one number per cited reference; i.e. do not use [1] a)…. b) …. c) in the reference list but rather display this as 3 separate references [1], [2], [3] • The names of all authors should be given, starting with the initials of first names followed by the surname (“et al.” should not be used). The penultimate and last names should be separated by a comma (not by “and”). • Journal titles should be abbreviated in accordance with the ISI standards abbreviations for Journals. See: http://images.isiknowledge.com/WOK45/help/WOS/A_abrvjt.html. Abbreviated journal names should be italicized and should be directly followed by the year of publication (in bold), comma, volume number (in italics), comma, first page, period. • Here is an example: o A. L. Borikova, C. F. Dibble, N. Sciaky, C. M. Welch, A. N. Abbell, S. Bencharit, G. L. Johnson, J. Biol. Chem. 2010, 285, 11760. • Book citations: o Books without editor: ▪ E. Wingender, Gene Regulation in Eukaryotes, Wiley-VCH, Weinheim, Germany 1993, p. 215 o Books with editor: ▪ T. D. Tullius, in Comprehensive Supramolecular Chemistry, Vol. 5 (Eds: J. L. Atwood, J. E. D. Davies, D. D. MacNicol, F. Vögtle, K.S. Suslick), Pergamon, Oxford, UK 1996, pp. 317-343. ENDNOTE for managing and formatting your reference list: We use the same style as Advanced Materials.

Inclusion and citation of unpublished work: This should be kept to a minimum (no more than two such citations are permissible). Your own unpublished observations, including results submitted for publication, should be cited as such in text only, and not in reference list. Personal communications, - i.e. unpublished observations of other scientists - should only be included with written permission from the source.

Nomenclature and style: For biochemical nomenclature, refer to the No.1 issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry. EC numbers should accompany citation of all enzymes. SI units should be used throughout in preparation of manuscripts. Genetics nomenclature should follow that used by the Journal Genetics. Gene and species names should be in italic type. Proteins should be in roman type.

Keywords: Please provide up to 7 keywords/terms that you feel optimally describe the topic(s) of your paper.

Abbreviations: Very common abbreviations such as DNA, RNA, PCR do not need explaining. However, BioEssays’ readership is very broad, so field-specific abbreviations such as SNP (Single Nucleotide Polymorphism) or GPCR (G protein-coupled receptor) should be included in an abbreviations section. Gene names need not be included, as the full names are often no more informative than the abbreviations. In cases where an abbreviation is used only once or twice in short succession, it need not be included.

BioEssays instructions for authors as at 03.08.2017

Copyright and permissions Submission of an article to BioEssays will be taken to imply that the article, or a highly similar version, has not been published elsewhere, has not been submitted for publication elsewhere and will not be submitted until its acceptability has been decided.

• The authors list of a paper must contain only individuals who have contributed to its writing. • Permissions to use copyright material (including modifications or adaptations of figures) must be obtained from the original author and publisher. Many journals give permission online but where that is not the case you may use the permission request form found on our website: http://onlinelibrarystatic.wiley.com/central/prf/USsprf.pdf • In order to give Wiley Periodicals, Inc. the authority to deal with matters of copyright, authors will be required to assign to them the copyright of any article published in the journal and therefore must sign and return the Copyright Transfer Agreement upon acceptance of the manuscript.

Publication ethics BioEssays adheres strongly to the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). All instances of publishing misconduct, including, but not limited to, plagiarism, data fabrication, image/data manipulation to falsify/enhance results etc. will result in rejection/retraction of the manuscript in question. Authors are also requested to disclose potential conflicts of interest, for example, an author might have commercial involvement (e.g. advise a company, or serve as a director/board member of a company) in the topic on which he/she is writing. Potential conflicts must be stated at the top of the manuscript.

Dual use research BioEssays expects that all authors will conform to the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) guidelines for Dual Use Life Sciences Research (http://oba.od.nih.gov/biosecurity/). For further information, and a description of ‘dual use research of concern’, please refer to the June 2007 NSABB report (http://oba.od.nih.gov/biosecurity/pdf/Framework for transmittal 0807_Sept07.pdf). If any of the reported studies may fall in any of these categories, the Editor-in-Chief must be informed at the time of manuscript submission.

Distribution of strains and materials The publication of an article in BioEssays is subject to the understanding that authors will distribute freely any strains, clones, antibodies or other self-generated materials described therein for use in academic research, unless they are subject to commercially-related protection that forbids free distribution. Authors might wish to make their plasmid constructs available free of charge through Addgene (www.addgene.org).

Ethical nature of the research In relationship to the research that constitutes the manuscript submitted, BioEssays requires that all appropriate steps be taken in obtaining informed consent for research involving human subjects, data from human subjects, tissue, cell or other biological samples from human subjects; and that appropriate approval for research involving live animals be obtained where necessary. A statement indicating that the protocol and procedures employed were reviewed and approved by the appropriate institutional review committee must be included in the Methods section of the manuscript. For research involving recombinant DNA, containment facilities and guidelines should conform to those of the National Institutes of Health or corresponding institutions. For those investigators who do not have formal ethics review committees, the principles outlined in the Helsinki Declaration (Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects http://www.wma.net/en/30publications/10policies/b3/) should be followed.

BioEssays instructions for authors as at 03.08.2017

Open Access Open Access is available to BioEssays authors who - upon publication - wish to make their article available to non-subscribers to the journal, or who are obliged, by the conditions of their funding agency, to archive the final version of their paper. With Open Access, the author, the author's funding agency, or the author's institution pays a fee to ensure that the article is made available to non-subscribers upon publication online with Wiley, as well as deposited in the funding agency's preferred archive. For the full list of terms and conditions, see https://authorservices.wiley.com/author-resources/Journal-Authors/open-access/index.html. Authors wishing to make their paper Open Access will be required to complete the payment form available from our website at: https://authorservices.wiley.com/author-resources/Journal-Authors/open- access/onlineopen.html. Prior to a decision to publish/reject your paper, you do not have to inform the relevant Editorial Office of your wish to make it Open Access, if you do not want to. Be assured, however, that Open Access articles are treated in the same way as any other article. They go through the journal's standard peer review process and will be accepted or rejected based on their merit.

BioEssays instructions for authors as at 03.08.2017