Nature Guide To Authors: Manuscript Formatting - Information Sheets (Page 2 of 3) in pdf

Contributions should be double-spaced and written in

list of authors (or initials if any of the authors are co-

English (spellings as in the Oxford English Dictionary).

authors of the present contribution).

Contributions should be organized in the sequence:

Published conference abstracts, numbered patents

title, text, methods, references, end notes, tables,

and preprints on recognized servers are included in

figure legends.

reference lists, but text, grant details and

acknowledgements are not.

5.1 Titles

In preparing reference lists, please ensure that:

do not exceed 90 characters (inc. spaces) for Letters,

•

or 75 characters (inc. spaces) for Articles. Titles

Authors are listed surname first, followed by a

should not include numbers, acronyms, abbreviations

comma and initials of given names. All authors

or punctuation. They should include sufficient detail for

are included in reference lists unless there are

indexing purposes but be general enough for readers

more than five, in which case only the first author

outside the field to appreciate what the paper is about.

should be given, followed by 'et al.'.

5.2 Text

•

Titles of all cited articles are given in upright, not

italic text. The first word of the title is capitalized,

the title written exactly as it appears in the work

Articles should fill no more than 5 pages, and Letters

cited, ending with a full stop. Book titles are italic

no more than 4 pages, of Nature. An uninterrupted

with all main words capitalized. Journal titles are

page of text contains about 1,300 words. Authors

italic and abbreviated according to common usage

should state in a cover letter to the editor their rough

(see published issues of Nature).

estimate of the length of their paper in terms of

number of pages of Nature, after reducing display

items to the smallest acceptable size (see 5.9).

•

Volume numbers are bold. The publisher and city

of publication are required for books cited.

Nature prefers authors to be listed without details of

relative status, but instead to specify the contribution

•

References to online-only journals are in the style:

made by co-authors in the end notes of the paper.

authors, article title and journal name as above,

followed by url in full - or doi if known - and the

Present addresses appear after the author address list

year of publication in parentheses.

(below the footnote rule at the bottom of the first page)

and may be identified by a dagger symbol.

•

References to websites are in the style: authors (if

known), title of cited page, url in full, and year of

5.3 Methods.

posting in parentheses.

If brief (less than 200 words), they can be included in

5.5 End notes

the text at an appropriate place. Otherwise, they

should be described at the end of the text in a

are brief and follow the reference list.

'Methods' section, subdivided by short, bold headings.

End notes contain a statement for supplementary

Descriptions of methods already published should be

information and summary schematics where present;

avoided. This whole section should not exceed 800

acknowledgements; author contributions; and author

words and if possible should be shorter. If more space

information. For full details see

is required, the author is advised to submit the extra

material as Supplementary Information.

consult our annotated example at

5.4 References

5.6 Statistics

are each numbered, ordered sequentially as they

appear in the text, methods, tables, figure legends.

Please also consult the statistical checklist at

When cited in the text, reference numbers are

superscript, not in parentheses unless they are likely

Papers with statistical testing should state the name of

to be confused with a superscript number. Only one

the test, the n for each analysis, the comparisons of

publication can be listed for each number.

interest, a justification for the use of that test, the alpha

level for all tests, whether the tests were one- or two-

Only articles that have been published or submitted to

tailed, and the actual P value for each test.

a named publication are included in the reference list;

papers in preparation are mentioned in the text with a

Nature guide to authors: Manuscript formatting

Information sheets 3a

Nature Guide To Authors: Manuscript Formatting - Information Sheets Page 2

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