Leukemia
Guide to Authors
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Article Type Specifications
Article: An Article is a substantial, in-depth, novel research study of interest to the readership of the journal. The structure an Article should follow is detailed below.
Specifications: Unstructured abstract max. 200 words; Main body of text (excluding abstract, tables/figures, and references) not to exceed 4,000 words; Max 8 tables or figures; Max 60 references
Review Article: A Review Article is an authoritative, balanced survey of recent developments in a research field. Review Articles should incorporate a) a review of previously published literature from the past 5-10 years, describing the pros and cons of these studies, b) the authors opinion on how to approach the issue/situation being discussed, c) the authors thoughts on what is necessary to move the field forward in the future. Review Articles are regularly commissioned, however pre-submission enquiries are also welcome. Please contact Dr Andreas Hochhaus (andreas.hochhaus@med.uni-jena.de).
Specifications: Unstructured abstract max. 300 words; Main body of text (excluding abstract, tables/figures, and references) not to exceed 6,000 words; Max 8 tables or figures; Max 100 references
Letter: Letters report concise studies of high quality and broad interest.
Specifications: No abstract required; Main body of text (excluding abstract, tables/figures, and references) not to exceed 1,500 words; Max 2 tables or figures; Max 15 references
Perspective: A Perspective is intended to provide a forum for authors to discuss models and ideas from a personal viewpoint. They are more forward looking and/or speculative than Review Articles and may take a narrower field of view. They may be opinionated but should remain balanced and are intended to stimulate discussion and new experimental approaches. Perspectives are regularly commissioned, however pre-submission enquiries are also welcome.
Specifications: No abstract required; Main body of text (tables/figures, and references) not to exceed 1,500 words; Max 3 tables or figures; Max 25 references
Correspondence: Correspondence provides readers with a forum for comment on papers published in a previous issue of the journal or to address new issues relevant to the research community.
Specifications: No abstract required; Main body of text (tables/figures, and references) not to exceed 1,000 words; Max 2 tables or figures; Max 10 references
Comment: Commentaries provide short summaries of recently published articles in Leukemia.
Specifications: No abstract required; Main body of text (tables/figures, and references) not to exceed 750 words; Max 2 tables or figures; Max 10 references
Publication charges
After final layout for publication, each page of an article will incur a fixed charge of £150/ $235 per page. This charge is fully inclusive of colour reproduction of all colour images (where deemed appropriate by the Editor) in print, HTML and PDF formats. It covers also a proportion of the costs of processing and producing the article for publication (VAT or local taxes will be added where applicable). Page charges will NOT apply to authors who choose to pay an article processing charge to make their paper open access - for further information on open access publication see our Author Services page.
Preparation of Articles
House Style: Authors should adhere to the following formatting guidelines
Text should be double spaced with a wide margin.
All pages and lines are to be numbered.
Do not make rules thinner than 1pt (0.36mm).
Use a coarse hatching pattern rather than shading for tints in graphs.
Colour should be distinct when being used as an identifying tool.
Spaces, not commas should be used to separate thousands.
At first mention of a manufacturer, the town (and state if USA) and country should be provided.
Statistical methods: For normally distributed data, mean (SD) is the preferred summary statistic. Relative risks should be expressed as odds ratios with 95% confidence interval. To compare two methods for measuring a variable the method of Bland & Altman (1986, Lancet 1, 307–310) should be used; for this, calculation of P only is not appropriate.
Units: Use metric units (SI units) as fully as possible. Preferably give measurements of energy in kiloJoules or MegaJoules with kilocalories in parentheses (1 kcal = 4.186kJ). Use % throughout.
Abbreviations: On first using an abbreviation place it in parentheses after the full item. Very common abbreviations such as FFA, RNA, need not be defined. Note these abbreviations: gram g; litre l; milligram mg; kilogram kg; kilojoule kJ; megajoule MJ; weight wt; seconds s; minutes min; hours h. Do not add ‘s’ for plural units. Terms used less than four times should not be abbreviated.
Cover Letter: Authors should provide a cover letter that includes the affiliation and contact information for the corresponding author. Authors should briefly discuss the importance of the work and explain why it is considered appropriate for the diverse readership of the journal. The cover letter should confirm the material is original research, has not been previously published and has not been submitted for publication elsewhere while under consideration. If the manuscript has been previously considered for publication in another journal, please include the previous reviewer comments, to help expedite the decision by the Editorial team.
Title Page: The title page should contain:
Title of the paper - brief, informative, of 150 characters or less and should not make a statement or conclusion
Full names of all the authors and their affiliations, together with e-mail address of the corresponding author. If authors regard it as essential to indicate that two or more co-authors are equal in status, they may be identified by an asterisk symbol with the caption ‘These authors contributed equally to this work’ immediately under the address list.
Competing Interests statement (see Editorial Policies section). Authors should disclose the sources of any support for the work received in the form of grants and/or equipment and drugs.
Abstract: Articles must be prepared with an unstructured abstract designed to summarise the essential features of the paper in a logical and concise sequence.
Introduction: The Introduction should assume that the reader is knowledgeable in the field and should therefore be as brief as possible but can include a short historical review where desirable.
Materials/Subjects and Methods: This section should contain sufficient detail, so that all experimental procedures can be reproduced, and include references. Methods, however, that have been published in detail elsewhere should not be described in detail. Authors should provide the name of the manufacturer and their location for any specifically named medical equipment and instruments, and all drugs should be identified by their pharmaceutical names, and by their trade name if relevant.
Results: The Results section should briefly present the experimental data in text, tables or figures. Tables and figures should not be described extensively in the text.
Discussion: The Discussion should focus on the interpretation and the significance of the findings with concise objective comments that describe their relation to other work in the area. It should not repeat information in the results. The final paragraph should highlight the main conclusion(s), and provide some indication of the direction future research should take.
Acknowledgements: These should be brief, and should include sources of support including sponsorship (e.g. university, charity, commercial organisation) and sources of material (e.g. novel drugs) not available commercially.
Competing Interests: Authors must declare whether or not there are any competing financial interests in relation to the work described. This information must be included at this stage and will be published as part of the paper, but should also be noted on the title page. Please see the Competing Interests definition in the Editorial Policies section for detailed information.
References: Only papers directly related to the article should be cited. Exhaustive lists should be avoided. References should follow the Vancouver format. In the text they should appear as numbers starting at one and at the end of the paper they should be listed (double-spaced) in numerical order corresponding to the order of citation in the text. Where a reference is to appear next to a number in the text, for example following an equation, chemical formula or biological acronym, citations should be written as (ref. X). Example “detectable levels of endogenous Bcl-2 (ref. 3), as confirmed by western blot”.
All authors should be listed for papers with up to six authors; for papers with more than six authors, the first six only should be listed, followed by et al. Abbreviations for titles of medical periodicals should conform to those used in the latest edition of Index Medicus. The first and last page numbers for each reference should be provided. Abstracts and letters must be identified as such. Papers in press may be included in the list of references.
Personal communications can be allocated a number and included in the list of references in the usual way or simply referred to in the text; the authors may choose which method to use. In either case authors must obtain permission from the individual concerned to quote his/her unpublished work.
Examples:
Journal article:
Belkaid Y, Rouse BT. Natural regulatory T cells in infectious disease. Nat Immunol. 2005; 6: 353–360.
Journal article, e-pub ahead of print:
Bonin M, Pursche S, Bergeman T, Leopold T, Illmer T, Ehninger G et al. F-ara-A pharmacokinetics during reduced-intensity conditioning therapy with fludarabine and busulfan. Bone Marrow Transplant. 2007; e-pub ahead of print 8 January 2007; doi:10.1038/sj.bmt.1705565
Journal article, in press:
Gallardo RL, Juneja HS, Gardner FH. Normal human marrow stromal cells induce clonal growth of human malignant T-lymphoblasts. Int J Cell Cloning (in press).
Complete book:
Atkinson K, Champlin R, Ritz J, Fibbe W, Ljungman P, Brenner MK (eds). Clinical Bone Marrow and Blood Stem Cell Transplantation. 3rd edn. (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2004).
Chapter in book:
Coccia PF. Hematopoietic cell transplantation for osteopetrosis. In: Blume KG, Forman SJ, Appelbaum FR (eds). Thomas' Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation. 3rd edn. (Blackwell Publishing Ltd, Malden, 2004) pp 1443–1454.
Abstract:
Syrjala KL, Abrams JR, Storer B, Heiman JR. Prospective risk factors for five-year sexuality late effects in men and women after haematopoietic cell transplantation. Bone Marrow Transplant. 2006; 37(Suppl 1): S4 (abstract 107).
Correspondence:
Caocci G, Pisu S. Overcoming scientific barriers and human prudence [letter]. Bone Marrow Transplant. 2006; 38: 829–830.
Tables: Tables should only be used to present essential data; they should not duplicate what is written in the text. All tables must be editable, ideally presented in Excel. Each must be uploaded as a separate workbook with a title or caption and be clearly labelled, sequentially. Please make sure each table is cited within the text and in the correct order, e.g. (Table 3). Please save the files with extensions .xls / .xlsx / .ods / or .doc or .docx. Please ensure that you provide a 'flat' file, with single values in each cell with no macros or links to other workbooks or worksheets and no calculations or functions.
Figure Legends: These should be brief, specific and appear on a separate manuscript page after the References section.
Figures: Figures and images should be labelled sequentially and cited in the text. Figures should not be embedded within the text but rather uploaded as separate files. The use of three-dimensional histograms is strongly discouraged unless the addition of the third dimension is important for conveying the results. Composite figures containing more than three individual figures will count as two figures. All parts of a figure should be grouped together. Where possible large figures and tables should be included as supplementary material.
Detailed guidelines for submitting artwork can be found by downloading our Artwork Guidelines. Using the guidelines, please submit production quality artwork with your initial online submission. If you have followed the guidelines, we will not require the artwork to be resubmitted following the peer-review process, if your paper is accepted for publication.
Graphs, Histograms and Statistics
Plotting individual data points is preferred to just showing means, especially where N<10
If error bars are shown, they must be described in the figure legend
Axes on graphs should extend to zero, except for log axes
Statistical analyses (including error bars and p values) should only be shown for independently repeated experiments, and must not be shown for replicates of a single experiment
The number of times an experiment was repeated (N) must be stated in the legend
Supplementary Information: Supplementary information is material directly relevant to the conclusion of an article that cannot be included in the printed version owing to space or format constraints. The article must be complete and self-explanatory without the Supplementary Information, which is posted on the journal's website and linked to the article. Supplementary Information may consist of data files, graphics, movies or extensive tables.
Please submit supplementary figures, small tables and text as a single combined PDF document. Tables longer than one page should be provided as an Excel or similar file type. Please refer to the journal’s Data Policies, outlined in the Editorial Policies section of these guidelines for additional options for such files, and which provides guidance on alternatives to supplementary files for data deposition, linking, preservation, and storage.
For optimal quality video files, please use H.264 encoding, the standard aspect ratio of 16:9 (4:3 is second best) and do not compress the video. Important: Supplementary information is not copyedited, so please ensure that it is clearly and succinctly presented, that the style and terminology conform to the rest of the manuscript, and that any tracked-changes or review mark-ups are removed.
Authors should submit supplementary information files in the FINAL format as they are not edited, typeset or changed, and will appear online exactly as submitted. When submitting Supplementary Information, authors are required to:
Include a text summary (no more than 50 words) to describe the contents of each file.
Identify the types of files (file formats) submitted.
Please note: We do not allow the resupplying of Supplementary Information files for style reasons after a paper has been exported in production, unless there is a serious error that affects the science and, if by not replacing, it would lead to a formal correction once the paper has been published. In these cases we would make an exception and replace the file; however there are very few instances where a Supplementary Information file would be corrected post publication.
Video summaries: Leukemia allows authors to include video presentations as part of their submission in order to support and enhance their scientific research. Authors should include these videos as ‘Supplementary Material’ uploaded upon submission and can refer to these within the body of the text. This can be done in the same way you would upload any other supplementary information and the file should be clearly labelled ‘Video Presentation’. Please take note of the technical requirements listed below. Videos supplied will be published online in the electronic version of your article, therefore please note that since they cannot be included in the print version of the journal, that you include text at the end of the article stating that ‘Supplementary information is available on Bone Marrow Transplantation’s website’.
Tips for presentation:
1. The video should introduce the topic of the article, highlight the main results and conclusions, discuss the current status and potential future developments in the field
2. Videos should be uploaded as Supplementary Material when submitting
3. Please include a sentence or two to describe the file. This will accompany your video on the website
4. Write your script and practise first – explain any obscure terminology
5. Film in a quiet room against a plain (white if possible) background and ensure there is nothing confidential in view
6. Avoid using background music
7. Include figures, slides, video clips of the experiment, etc. to help explain your methods and results. Please try to include a mixture of you talking to the camera and slides – it is nice for viewers to see your face at times
8. Keep figures simple; don’t show raw data and ensure any text is legible. Do not include lots of small text or data that won’t be legible in a small video player that’s the size of a smartphone screen.
9. Please do not use images, music, or insignia in your video for which you do not own the copyright or have documented permission from the copyright holder.
Technical requirements:
Videos should be no more than 8 minutes long, maximum 30MB in size so that they can be downloaded quickly - the combined total size of all supplementary files must not exceed 150 MB. Files should be submitted as .avi, .mov, .mp3, .mp4, .wav or .wmf. Videos need to be in widescreen (landscape), ideally 16x9 but 4:3 is also acceptable with a resolution of at least 640 x 360 pixels. Any videos that are not in the correct format will not be published. Files will be viewed by the editorial office for quality; however the onus for creating, uploading and editing the video falls on the author.
Subject Ontology
Upon submission authors will be asked to select a series of subject terms relevant to the topic of their manuscript from our subject ontology. Providing these terms will ensure your article is more discoverable and will appear on appropriate subject specific pages on nature.com, in addition to the journal’s own pages. Your article should be indexed with at least one, and up to four unique subject terms that describe the key subjects and concepts in your manuscript. Click here for help with this.
