Guide for Authors
A section of Mutation Research
NOW PUBLISHED
Special issue on
Reports
of the 4th International Workshop on Genotoxicity Testing (IWGT)
Edited by D.J. Kirkland, M. Hayashi, D. Jacobson-Kram,
P. Kasper, J.T. MacGregor, L. Muller and Y. Uno
INTRODUCTION
MUTATION RESEARCH - Genetic Toxicology and Environmental Mutagenesis publishes complete papers on
the testing of chemicals for genetic toxicity, monitoring and/or surveillance of human populations for genotoxic effects, development,
evaluation, and validation of new testing and monitoring methods, effects of environmental mutagens on species composition in ecosystems,
and assessments of genetic risks resulting from induction of mutations in germ cells. Health risks of concern include abnormal reproductive
outcomes, genetic diseases, and cancer.
Types of Paper
Mutation Research
- Genetic Toxicology and Environmental Mutagenesis publishes the following types of article: (I) Research papers- papers reporting
results of original, fundamental research. (II) Short communications of up to 5 printed pages. (III)Rapids - are accelerated publications
- research papers identified by the Editor as being of significant quality and thereby qualifying for rapid reviewing, and publication
within 8-10 weeks of acceptance. (IV) Current issues are generally short, 1-2 page comments on a topical theme, and are published within
10 weeks of acceptance. (V) Volunteered and invited Mini-reviews of less than 10 printed pages, using references generally no later than
2 years old. The journal accepts Letters to the Editor.
Please note that Full-length reviews comprehensively covering and critically
analysing a topic are published in
Mutation Research Reviews. Also published in the Reviews section are invited papers in the
series
Reflections in Mutation Research, in which research and techniques that have played an important part in the development
of the field of mutation research are revisited and their significance discussed. Special issues, comprising multiple original and/or
review articles written from a particular viewpoint, on a central theme, are published on a regular basis in the appropriate section
of Mutation Research by topic or article type.
It is the policy of the Editors to conduct a preliminary review of each submitted manuscript
that reports results of studies on extracts or complex mixtures. If such papers do not offer new data and insight on the chemical nature
of the active components or their mechanisms of action, the manuscript will be returned to the authors without being sent for further
review.
Page charges
This journal has no page charges.
Ethics in Publishing
For information
on Ethics in Publishing and Ethical guidelines for journal publication see
http://www.elsevier.com/publishingethics and
http://www.elsevier.com/ethicalguidelines.
Conflict of interest
All
authors are requested to disclose any actual or potential conflict of interest including any financial, personal or other relationships
with other people or organizations within three years of beginning the submitted work that could inappropriately influence, or be perceived
to influence, their work. See also
http://www.elsevier.com/conflictsofinterest.
The Journal requires full disclosure of
all potential conflicts of interest. Please declare any financial or personal interests that might be viewed to inappropriately influence
the work presented. Interests could include employment, consultancies, stock ownership and honoraria. If there are no conflicts of interest,
the authors should state, "The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest". If there are any financial or personal interests
please state so here and include this statement as an Acknowledgement in your submitting manuscript. Signed copies of the
Mutation
Research- Genetic Toxicology and Environmental Mutagenesis Conflict of Interest policy form are required upon submission. The Conflict
of Interest policy form can be downloaded
here.
In order to minimize delays, we strongly advise that the signed copies of these statements are prepared before you submit your manuscript.
Submission declaration
Submission of an article implies that the work described has not been published previously
(except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis), that it is not under consideration for publication
elsewhere, that its publication is approved by all authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was
carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other language, without
the written consent of the copyright-holder.
A Chinese version of the submission instructions for MUTGEN can be found
here.
Copyright
Upon acceptance of an article,
authors will be asked to complete a 'Journal Publishing Agreement' (for more information on this and copyright see
http://www.elsevier.com/copyright).
Acceptance of the agreement will ensure the widest possible dissemination of information. An e-mail will be sent to the corresponding
author confirming receipt of the manuscript together with a 'Journal Publishing Agreement' form or a link to the online version of this
agreement.
Subscribers may reproduce tables of contents or prepare lists of articles including abstracts for internal circulation
within their institutions. Permission of the Publisher is required for resale or distribution outside the institution and for all other
derivative works, including compilations and translations (please consult
http://www.elsevier.com/permissions). If excerpts
from other copyrighted works are included, the author(s) must obtain written permission from the copyright owners and credit the source(s)
in the article. Elsevier has preprinted forms for use by authors in these cases: please consult
http://www.elsevier.com/permissions.
Retained author rights
As an author you (or your employer or institution) retain certain rights; for details
you are referred to:
http://www.elsevier.com/authorsrights.
Role of the
funding source
You are requested to identify who provided financial support for the conduct of the research and/or preparation
of the article and to briefly describe the role of the sponsor(s), if any, in study design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation
of data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the paper for publication. If the funding source(s) had no such
involvement then this should be stated. Please see
http://www.elsevier.com/funding.
Funding body agreements and policies
Elsevier has established agreements and developed policies to allow authors whose
articles appear in journals published by Elsevier, to comply with potential manuscript archiving requirements as specified as conditions
of their grant awards. To learn more about existing agreements and policies please visit
http://www.elsevier.com/fundingbodies.
Language and language services
Please write your text in good English (American or British usage is accepted,
but not a mixture of these). Authors who require information about language editing and copyediting services pre- and post-submission
please visit
http://www.elsevier.com/languagepolishing or our customer support site at
http://epsupport.elsevier.com
for more information. Please note Elsevier neither endorses nor takes responsibility for any products, goods or services offered by outside
vendors through our services or in any advertising. For more information please refer to our Terms & Conditions:
http://www.elsevier.com/termsandconditions.
Submission
Submission to this journal proceeds totally online and you will be guided stepwise through
the creation and uploading of your files. The system automatically converts source files to a single PDF file of the article, which is
used in the peer-review process. Please note that even though manuscript source files are converted to PDF files at submission for the
review process, these source files are needed for further processing after acceptance. All correspondence, including notification of
the Editor's decision and requests for revision, takes place by e-mail removing the need for a paper trail.
Referees
The Editors welcome submissions by the authors of the names and adresses of up to four individuals
who could expertly review the paper, and who are not from the same institutions as the authors. The Editors reserve the right to use
these or other reviewers.
Free access to scientific publications for public institutions
in developing countries:
The Health InterNetwork Access to Research Initiative (HINARI) is an initiative to provide free
or nearly free access to the major journals in biomedical and related social sciences, to public institutions in developing countries.
Starting in January 2002 with over 2000 journals from Elsevier and other leading biomedical publishers, HINARI is part of the Health
InterNetwork, which was introduced by the United Nations' Secretary General Kofi Annan at the UN Millennium Summit in the year 2000.
For further information and registration, please check the HINARI site:
www.healthinternetwork.net
Use of wordprocessing software
It
is important that the file be saved in the native format of the wordprocessor used. The text should be in single-column format. Keep
the layout of the text as simple as possible. Most formatting codes will be removed and replaced on processing the article. In particular,
do not use the wordprocessor's options to justify text or to hyphenate words. However, do use bold face, italics, subscripts, superscripts
etc. Do not embed "graphically designed" equations or tables, but prepare these using the wordprocessor's facility. When preparing tables,
if you are using a table grid, use only one grid for each individual table and not a grid for each row. If no grid is used, use tabs,
not spaces, to align columns. The electronic text should be prepared in a way very similar to that of conventional manuscripts (see also
the Guide to Publishing with Elsevier:
http://www.elsevier.com/guidepublication). Do not import the figures into the text
file but, instead, indicate their approximate locations directly in the electronic text and on the manuscript. See also the section on
Electronic illustrations.
To avoid unnecessary errors you are strongly advised to use the "spell-check" and "grammar-check" functions
of your wordprocessor.
Article structure
Subdivision - numbered sections
Divide your article into clearly defined and numbered sections. Subsections should
be numbered 1.1 (then 1.1.1, 1.1.2, ...), 1.2, etc. (the abstract is not included in section numbering). Use this numbering also for
internal cross-referencing: do not just refer to "the text". Any subsection may be given a brief heading. Each heading should appear
on its own separate line.
Introduction
State the objectives of the
work and provide an adequate background, avoiding a detailed literature survey or a summary of the results.
Material and methods
Provide sufficient detail to allow the work to be reproduced. Methods already
published should be indicated by a reference: only relevant modifications should be described.
Results
Results should be clear and concise.
Discussion
This should explore the significance of the results of the work, not repeat them. A combined Results and Discussion section is often
appropriate. Avoid extensive citations and discussion of published literature.
Conclusions
The main conclusions of the study may be presented in a short Conclusions section, which may stand alone or form a subsection of
a Discussion or Results and Discussion section.
Appendices
If there
is more than one appendix, they should be identified as A, B, etc. Formulae and equations in appendices should be given separate numbering:
Eq. (A.1), Eq. (A.2), etc.; in a subsequent appendix, Eq. (B.1) and so on.
Essential
title page information
•
Title.
Concise and informative. Titles are often used in information-retrieval
systems. Avoid abbreviations and formulae where possible.
•
Author names and affiliations.
Where the family name
may be ambiguous (e.g., a double name), please indicate this clearly. Present the authors' affiliation addresses (where the actual work
was done) below the names. Indicate all affiliations with a lower-case superscript letter immediately after the author's name and in
front of the appropriate address. Provide the full postal address of each affiliation, including the country name, and, if available,
the e-mail address of each author.
•
Corresponding author.
Clearly indicate who will handle correspondence at
all stages of refereeing and publication, also post-publication.
Ensure that telephone and fax numbers (with country and area code)
are provided in addition to the e-mail address and the complete postal address.
•
Present/permanent address.
If an author has moved since the work described in the article was done, or was visiting at the time, a "Present address" (or "Permanent
address") may be indicated as a footnote to that author's name. The address at which the author actually did the work must be retained
as the main, affiliation address. Superscript Arabic numerals are used for such footnotes.
Abstract
A concise and factual abstract is required. The abstract should state briefly the purpose of the research, the
principal results and major conclusions. An abstract is often presented separately from the article, so it must be able to stand alone.
For this reason, References should be avoided, but if essential, then cite the author(s) and year(s). Also, non-standard or uncommon
abbreviations should be avoided, but if essential they must be defined at their first mention in the abstract itself.
The abstract
should be up to 300 words of size.
Keywords
Immediately after the
abstract, provide between 3 to 6 keywords, using American spelling and avoiding general and plural terms and multiple concepts (avoid,
for example, "and", "of"). Be sparing with abbreviations: only abbreviations firmly established in the field may be eligible. These keywords
will be used for indexing purposes.
Abbreviations
Define abbreviations
that are not standard in this field in a footnote to be placed on the first page of the article. Such abbreviations that are unavoidable
in the abstract must be defined at their first mention there, as well as in the footnote. Ensure consistency of abbreviations throughout
the article.
Acknowledgements
Collate acknowledgements in a separate section
at the end of the article before the references and do not, therefore, include them on the title page, as a footnote to the title or
otherwise. List here those individuals who provided help during the research (e.g., providing language help, writing assistance or proof
reading the article, etc.).
Accession numbers
Accession numbers are unique
identifiers in bioinformatics allocated to nucleotide and protein sequences to allow tracking of different versions of that sequence
record and the associated sequence in a data repository [e.g., databases at the National Center for Biotechnical Information (NCBI) at
the National Library of Medicine ('GenBank') and the Worldwide Protein Data Bank]. There are different types of accession numbers in
use based on the type of sequence cited, each of which uses a different coding. Authors should explicitly mention the
type of accession
number together with the actual number, bearing in mind that an error in a letter or number can result in a dead link in the online
version of the article. Please use the following format: accession number type ID: xxxx (e.g., MMDB ID: 12345; PDB ID: 1TUP). Note that
in the final version of the
electronic copy, accession numbers will be linked to the appropriate database, enabling readers
to go directly to that source from the article.
Math formulae
Present
simple formulae in the line of normal text where possible and use the solidus (/) instead of a horizontal line for small fractional terms,
e.g., X/Y. In principle, variables are to be presented in italics. Powers of e are often more conveniently denoted by exp. Number consecutively
any equations that have to be displayed separately from the text (if referred to explicitly in the text).
Footnotes
Footnotes should be used sparingly. Number them consecutively throughout the article, using superscript
Arabic numbers. Many wordprocessors build footnotes into the text, and this feature may be used. Should this not be the case, indicate
the position of footnotes in the text and present the footnotes themselves separately at the end of the article. Do not include footnotes
in the Reference list.
Table footnotes
Indicate each footnote in a table with a superscript lowercase letter.
e-CRC
General points: Elsevier can only accept MS Word, LaTeX, or postscript/PDF documents as electronic
camera-ready copy (e-CRC). Electronic files can be stored on CD or may be transferred to Elsevier via FTP (details available from Customer
support:
http://epsupport.elsevier.com).
MS Word file: Please ensure that you use normal fonts as much as possible
in your documents, such as Times New Roman, Arial, Symbol, Helvetica, or Times (TrueType or Type 1 fonts). Special fonts, such as those
used in the Far East (Japanese, Chinese, Korean, etc.) may be cause problems during processing. If you use a lot of special fonts, please
convert the document to PDF with Adobe Acrobat (see below, and also Elsevier's Quickguide:
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/authorsview.authors/howtosubmitpaper).
Please place figures in a logical place within the document (see also the section on
Preparation of electronic illustrations
at
http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions). To avoid unnecessary errors you are strongly advised to use the "spellchecker"
function of your wordprocessor.
LaTeX documents: Please use a LaTeX setup that uses Type 1 fonts instead of the sometimes
default bitmap fonts (Type 3, or pk fonts). For instance, using the LaTeX Times package may be enough to enable this adjustment. For
information on LaTex see
http://www.elsevier.com/latex. Please provide all document-related and temporary files on submission,
as well as the resulting postscript or PDF file.
Postscript/PDF files: Please create postscript files, making sure all fonts
are embedded. When creating PDF files with Adobe Acrobat, please use version 4.05 or higher, and use the standard "Press Optimized" settings,
as provided by Adobe.
Artwork
Electronic artwork
General points
• Make sure you use uniform lettering and sizing of your original
artwork.
• Save text in illustrations as "graphics" or enclose the font.
• Only use the following fonts in your illustrations:
Arial, Courier, Times, Symbol.
• Number the illustrations according to their sequence in the text.
• Use a logical
naming convention for your artwork files.
• Provide captions to illustrations separately.
• Produce images near to
the desired size of the printed version.
• Submit each figure as a separate file.
A detailed guide on electronic artwork
is available on our website:
http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions
You are urged to visit this site; some
excerpts from the detailed information are given here.
Formats
Regardless of the application used, when your electronic
artwork is finalised, please "save as" or convert the images to one of the following formats (note the resolution requirements for line
drawings, halftones, and line/halftone combinations given below):
EPS: Vector drawings. Embed the font or save the text as "graphics".
TIFF: color or grayscale photographs (halftones): always use a minimum of 300 dpi.
TIFF: Bitmapped line drawings: use a minimum
of 1000 dpi.
TIFF: Combinations bitmapped line/half-tone (color or grayscale): a minimum of 500 dpi is required.
DOC, XLS or
PPT: If your electronic artwork is created in any of these Microsoft Office applications please supply "as is".
Please do not:
• Supply embedded graphics in your wordprocessor (spreadsheet, presentation) document;
• Supply files that are optimised
for screen use (like GIF, BMP, PICT, WPG); the resolution is too low;
• Supply files that are too low in resolution;
•
Submit graphics that are disproportionately large for the content.
Color artwork
Please make sure that artwork files are in an acceptable format (TIFF, EPS or MS Office files) and with the correct resolution. If,
together with your accepted article, you submit usable color figures then Elsevier will ensure, at no additional charge, that these figures
will appear in color on the Web (e.g., ScienceDirect and other sites) regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced
in color in the printed version.
For color reproduction in print, you will receive information regarding the costs from Elsevier after
receipt of your accepted article. Please indicate your preference for color in print or on the Web only. For further information
on the preparation of electronic artwork, please see
http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions.
Please note: Because
of technical complications which can arise by converting color figures to "gray scale" (for the printed version should you not opt for
color in print) please submit in addition usable black and white versions of all the color illustrations.
Figure captions
Ensure that each illustration has a caption. Supply captions separately, not attached
to the figure. A caption should comprise a brief title (
not on the figure itself) and a description of the illustration. Keep
text in the illustrations themselves to a minimum but explain all symbols and abbreviations used.
Tables
Number tables consecutively in accordance with their appearance in the text. Place footnotes to tables below the
table body and indicate them with superscript lowercase letters. Avoid vertical rules. Be sparing in the use of tables and ensure that
the data presented in tables do not duplicate results described elsewhere in the article.
References
Citation in text
Please ensure that every reference
cited in the text is also present in the reference list (and vice versa). Any references cited in the abstract must be given in full.
Unpublished results and personal communications are not recommended in the reference list, but may be mentioned in the text. If these
references are included in the reference list they should follow the standard reference style of the journal and should include a substitution
of the publication date with either "Unpublished results" or "Personal communication" Citation of a reference as "in press" implies that
the item has been accepted for publication.
Web references
As a minimum,
the full URL should be given. Any further information, if known (DOI, author names, dates, reference to a source publication, etc.),
should also be given. Web references can be listed separately (e.g., after the reference list) under a different heading if desired,
or can be included in the reference list.
References in a special issue
Please ensure that the words 'this issue' are added to any references in the list (and any citations in the text) to other articles
in the same Special Issue.
Reference style
Text: Indicate
references by number(s) in square brackets in line with the text. The actual authors can be referred to, but the reference number(s)
must always be given.
Example: "..... as demonstrated [3,6]. Barnaby and Jones [8] obtained a different result ...."
List:
Number the references (numbers in square brackets) in the list in the order in which they appear in the text.
Examples:
Reference to a journal publication:
[1] J. van der Geer, J.A.J. Hanraads, R.A. Lupton, The art of writing a scientific article,
J. Sci. Commun. 163 (2000) 51-59.
Reference to a book:
[2] W. Strunk Jr., E.B. White, The Elements of Style, third ed., Macmillan,
New York, 1979.
Reference to a chapter in an edited book:
[3] G.R. Mettam, L.B. Adams, How to prepare an electronic version of
your article, in: B.S. Jones, R.Z. Smith (Eds.), Introduction to the Electronic Age, E-Publishing Inc., New York, 1999, pp. 281-304.
Journal abbreviations source
Journal names should be abbreviated according to
Index Medicus journal
abbreviations:
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/tsd/serials/lji.html;
List of serial title word abbreviations:
http://www.issn.org/2-22661-LTWA-online.php;
CAS (Chemical Abstracts Service):
http://www.cas.org/sent.html.
Supplementary
material
Elsevier accepts electronic supplementary material to support and enhance your scientific research. Supplementary
files offer the author additional possibilities to publish supporting applications, movies, animation sequences, high-resolution images,
background datasets, sound clips and more. Supplementary files supplied will be published online alongside the electronic version of
your article in Elsevier Web products, including ScienceDirect:
http://www.sciencedirect.com. In order to ensure that your
submitted material is directly usable, please ensure that data are provided in one of our recommended file formats. Authors should submit
the material in electronic format together with the article and supply a concise and descriptive caption for each file. Video files:
please supply 'stills' with your files: you can choose any frame from the video or make a separate image. These will be used instead
of standard icons and will personalize the link to your supplementary information. For more detailed instructions please visit our artwork
instruction pages at
http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions.
Submission
checklist
It is hoped that this list will be useful during the final checking of an article prior to sending it to the journal's
Editor for review. Please consult this Guide for Authors for further details of any item.
Ensure that the following items are
present:
One Author designated as corresponding Author:
• E-mail address
• Full postal address
• Telephone
and fax numbers
All necessary files have been uploaded
• Keywords
• All figure captions
• All tables (including
title, description, footnotes)
Further considerations
• Manuscript has been "spellchecked" and "grammar-checked"
•
References are in the correct format for this journal
• All references mentioned in the Reference list are cited in the text,
and vice versa
• Permission has been obtained for use of copyrighted material from other sources (including the Web)
•
Color figures are clearly marked as being intended for color reproduction on the Web (free of charge) and in print or to be reproduced
in color on the Web (free of charge) and in black-and-white in print
• If only color on the Web is required, black and white
versions of the figures are also supplied for printing purposes
For any further information please visit our customer support site
at
http://epsupport.elsevier.com.
Use of the Digital Object Identifier
The Digital Object Identifier (DOI) may be used to cite and link to
electronic documents. The DOI consists of a unique alpha-numeric character string which is assigned to a document by the publisher upon
the initial electronic publication. The assigned DOI never changes. Therefore, it is an ideal medium for citing a document, particularly
'Articles in press' because they have not yet received their full bibliographic information. The correct format for citing a DOI is shown
as follows (example taken from a document in the journal
Physics Letters B):
doi:10.1016/j.physletb.2003.10.071
When
you use the DOI to create URL hyperlinks to documents on the web, they are guaranteed never to change.
Proofs
One set of page proofs (as PDF files) will be sent by e-mail to the corresponding author (if we do
not have an e-mail address then paper proofs will be sent by post) or, a link will be provided in the e-mail so that authors can download
the files themselves. Elsevier now provides authors with PDF proofs which can be annotated; for this you will need to download Adobe
Reader version 7 (or higher) available free from
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html. Instructions on how
to annotate PDF files will accompany the proofs (also given online). The exact system requirements are given at the Adobe site:
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/acrrsystemreqs.html#70win.
If you do not wish to use the PDF annotations function, you may list the corrections (including replies to the Query Form) and
return them to Elsevier in an e-mail. Please list your corrections quoting line number. If, for any reason, this is not possible, then
mark the corrections and any other comments (including replies to the Query Form) on a printout of your proof and return by fax, or scan
the pages and e-mail, or by post. Please use this proof only for checking the typesetting, editing, completeness and correctness of the
text, tables and figures. Significant changes to the article as accepted for publication will only be considered at this stage with permission
from the Editor. We will do everything possible to get your article published quickly and accurately. Therefore, it is important to ensure
that all of your corrections are sent back to us in one communication: please check carefully before replying, as inclusion of any subsequent
corrections cannot be guaranteed. Proofreading is solely your responsibility. Note that Elsevier may proceed with the publication of
your article if no response is received.
Offprints
The corresponding author,
at no cost, will be provided with a PDF file of the article via e-mail. The PDF file is a watermarked version of the published article
and includes a cover sheet with the journal cover image and a disclaimer outlining the terms and conditions of use. Additional paper
offprints can be ordered by the authors. An order form with prices will be sent to the corresponding author.
For inquiries relating to the submission of articles (including electronic submission
where available) please visit this journal's homepage. You can track accepted articles at
http://www.elsevier.com/trackarticle
and set up e-mail alerts to inform you of when an article's status has changed. Also accessible from here is information on copyright,
frequently asked questions and more. Contact details for questions arising after acceptance of an article, especially those relating
to proofs, will be provided by the publisher.
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