Guide for Authors
Autoimmunity Reviews will publish up-to-date, structured reviews on diverse topics in autoimmunity,
written by first-class experts in the field. The articles will include demonstrative illustrations and tables and will all have a "
take-home" message.
Articles will principally be invited by the Editors-in-Chief upon the recommendations of the international
Editorial Board, and will cover all fields of autoimmunology, bridging the gap between basic and clinical sciences. Contributions in
basic sciences will include those on the pathophysiology and mechanisms of disorders as well as genomics and proteomics; clinical contributions
will focus upon the diseases, novel therapies and clinical associations.
Types of paper
Autoimmunity
Reviews will publish peer-reviewed Review articles of various sizes and formats, but will focus primarily on
long review
articles that will be double-spaced printed pages, including references, one figure and 1-2 tables; a list of "take-home" messages or
bullet points (1-2 sentences) must be included with each manuscript. In general articles will be by invitation but submitted contributions
will also be considered for publication - in this case authors are requested to first contact the Editor with an outline of the intended
submission.
The submission of
Technical notes (short application notes, being pages of type plus references and 2-3
display items) and
Letters to the editors (in order to expedite publication of the letters no proofs will be sent to the authors)
is encouraged. On occasion
Autoimmunity Reviews will also publish special or thematic issues which will provide an overview
of a given field or topic
Contact details for submission
Manuscripts should be addressed
to the Editor in Chief:
Yehuda Shoenfeld, Zabludovizc Center for Autoimmune Diseases, Sheba Medical Center, Tel-Hashomer 52621,
Israel. E-mail:
shoenfel@post.tau.ac.il
In the event of rejection manuscripts will be retained in the Editorial
Office for 3 months so that authors may request the return of any original material.
Unclaimed material will be discarded after this
time.
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.
Policy and ethics
Informed consent
Investigations involving human subjects must include a statement
indicating that informed consent was obtained after the nature and possible consequences of the studies had been fully explained.
Animal welfare
Authors using experimental animals must state that their care was in accordance with institutional guidelines.
For animals subjected to invasive procedures, the anesthetic, analgesic and tranquilizing agents used, as well as the amounts and frequency
of administration, must be stated.
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.
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 including electronically in the same form, in English or in any other language, without the written consent of the copyright-holder.
Authorship
All authors should have made substantial contributions to all of the following: (1) the conception
and design of the study, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data, (2) drafting the article or revising it critically
for important intellectual content, (3) final approval of the version to be submitted.
Changes to authorship
This
policy concerns the addition, deletion, or rearrangement of author names in the authorship of accepted manuscripts:
Before the
accepted manuscript is published in an online issue: Requests to add or remove an author, or to rearrange the author names, must
be sent to the Journal Manager from the corresponding author of the accepted manuscript and must include: (a) the reason the name should
be added or removed, or the author names rearranged and (b) written confirmation (e-mail, fax, letter) from all authors that they agree
with the addition, removal or rearrangement. In the case of addition or removal of authors, this includes confirmation from the author
being added or removed. Requests that are not sent by the corresponding author will be forwarded by the Journal Manager to the corresponding
author, who must follow the procedure as described above. Note that: (1) Journal Managers will inform the Journal Editors of any such
requests and (2) publication of the accepted manuscript in an online issue is suspended until authorship has been agreed.
After
the accepted manuscript is published in an online issue: Any requests to add, delete, or rearrange author names in an article published
in an online issue will follow the same policies as noted above and result in a corrigendum.
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 article 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.
Open access
This journal offers you the option of making your article freely available to all via the ScienceDirect
platform. To prevent any conflict of interest, you can only make this choice after receiving notification that your article has been
accepted for publication. The fee of $3,000 excludes taxes and other potential author fees such as color charges. In some cases, institutions
and funding bodies have entered into agreement with Elsevier to meet these fees on behalf of their authors. Details of these agreements
are available at
http://www.elsevier.com/fundingbodies. Authors of accepted articles, who wish to take advantage of this
option, should complete and submit the order form (available at
http://www.elsevier.com/locate/openaccessform.pdf). Whatever
access option you choose, you retain many rights as an author, including the right to post a revised personal version of your article
on your own website. More information can be found here:
http://www.elsevier.com/authorsrights.
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://webshop.elsevier.com/languageservices or our customer support
site at
http://support.elsevier.com
for more information.
Submission
Authors may submit their articles electronically to this
journal. 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 a PDF file 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.
Note that contributions may be either submitted online
or sent by mail. Please do NOT submit via both routes. This will cause confusion and may lead to your article being reviewed and published
twice!
Referees
Suggestions for potential reviewers
Authors are invited to provide
the names, addresses and (if possible) fax numbers and e-mail addresses of up to four potential reviewers. It would not be appropriate
to nominate individuals that have had any input into the manuscripts submitted or any recent collaboration with the authors. The Editors
may or may not take these suggestions into account during the reviewing process.
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. 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).
Note that source files of figures, tables and text graphics will be required whether or not you embed your figures in the text. See also
the section on Electronic artwork.
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.
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. Similarly for tables and figures: Table A.1; Fig. A.1, etc.
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. Contact details must be kept up to date by the corresponding
author.
•
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.
Graphical abstract
A Graphical abstract is optional and should summarize
the contents of the article in a concise, pictorial form designed to capture the attention of a wide readership online. Authors must
provide images that clearly represent the work described in the article. Graphical abstracts should be submitted as a separate file in
the online submission system. Image size: Please provide an image with a minimum of 531 × 1328 pixels (h × w) or proportionally
more. The image should be readable at a size of 5 × 13 cm using a regular screen resolution of 96 dpi. Preferred file types: TIFF,
EPS, PDF or MS Office files. See
http://www.elsevier.com/graphicalabstracts for examples.
Authors can make use of Elsevier's
Illustration and Enhancement service to ensure the best presentation of their images also in accordance with all technical requirements:
Illustration Service.
Highlights
Highlights are mandatory for this journal. They consist of a short collection of bullet points
that convey the core findings of the article and should be submitted in a separate file in the online submission system. Please use 'Highlights'
in the file name and include 3 to 5 bullet points (maximum 85 characters, including spaces, per bullet point). See
http://www.elsevier.com/highlights
for examples.
Keywords
Immediately after the abstract, provide a maximum of 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.).
Units
Follow internationally
accepted rules and conventions: use the international system of units (SI). If other units are mentioned, please give their equivalent
in SI.
Database linking
Elsevier aims at connecting online articles with external databases
which are useful in their respective research communities. If your article contains relevant unique identifiers or accession numbers
(bioinformatics) linking to information on entities (genes, proteins, diseases, etc.) or structures deposited in public databases, then
please indicate those entities according to the standard explained below.
Authors should explicitly mention the
database abbreviation
(as mentioned below) together with the actual database 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:
Database ID: xxxx
Links can be provided
in your online article to the following databases (examples of citations are given in parentheses):
•
ASTM:
ASTM Standards Database (ASTM ID: G63)
•
CCDC: Cambridge Crystallographic
Data Centre (CCDC ID: AI631510)
•
GenBank: Genetic sequence
database at the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) (GenBank ID: BA123456)
•
GEO:
Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO ID: GSE27196; GEO ID: GPL5366; GEO ID: GSM9853)
•
MI:
EMBL-EBI OLS Molecular Interaction Ontology (MI ID: 0218)
•
MINT:
Molecular INTeractions database (MINT ID: 6166710)
•
NCBI Taxonomy:
NCBI Taxonomy Browser (NCBI Taxonomy ID: 48184)
•
NCT: ClinicalTrials.gov
(NCT ID: NCT00222573)
•
OMIM: Online Mendelian Inheritance
in Man (OMIM ID: 601240)
•
PDB: Worldwide Protein Data
Bank (PDB ID: 1TUP)
•
TAIR: The Arabidopsis Information Resource
database (TAIR ID: AT1G01020)
•
UniProt: Universal Protein Resource
Knowledgebase (UniProt ID: Q9H0H5)
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.
If your electronic artwork is created in a Microsoft Office application (Word, PowerPoint, Excel)
then please supply 'as is'.
Please do not:
• Supply files that are optimised for screen use (e.g., 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
Submit color illustrations as original photographs,
high-quality computer prints or transparencies, close to the size expected in publication, or as 35 mm slides. 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 and the date when the reference was last accessed. 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 (2010) 51–59.
Reference to a book:
[2] W. Strunk Jr., E.B. White, The Elements of Style, fourth ed.,
Longman, New York, 2000.
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, 2009, 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 title word abbreviations:
http://www.issn.org/2-22661-LTWA-online.php;
CAS (Chemical Abstracts Service):
http://www.cas.org/sent.html.
Submission checklist
The following list will be useful during the final checking of an article prior to sending
it to the journal for review. Please consult this Guide for Authors for further details of any item.
Ensure that the following
items are present:
One author has been designated as the corresponding author with contact details:
• E-mail address
• Full postal address
• Telephone and fax numbers
All necessary files have been uploaded, and contain:
•
Keywords
• All figure captions
• All tables (including title, description, footnotes)
Further considerations
•
Manuscript has been 'spell-checked' 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://support.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.2010.09.059
When you use the DOI to create URL
hyperlinks to documents on the web, the DOIs 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://get.adobe.com/reader. 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/reader/tech-specs.html.
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 – please let us have all your corrections within
48 hours. It is important to ensure that all 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. For an extra charge, paper offprints can be ordered via
the offprint order form which is sent once the article is accepted for publication. 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.
For inquiries relating to the submission of articles (including electronic submission) please
visit this journal's homepage. Contact details for questions arising after acceptance of an article, especially those relating to proofs,
will be provided by the publisher. You can track accepted articles at
http://www.elsevier.com/trackarticle. You can also
check our Author FAQs (
http://www.elsevier.com/authorFAQ) and/or contact Customer Support via
http://support.elsevier.com.
