- 18 Mar, 2021
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Results part
Scientific Reports publishes original research in one format, Article. In most cases we do not impose strict limits on word count or page number. We do, however, strongly encourage authors to write concisely and to adhere to the guidelines below.
Articles should ideally be no more than 11 typeset pages in length. As a guide, the main text (not including Abstract, Methods, References and figure legends) should be no more than 4,500 words. The maximum Article title length is 20 words. The Abstract — which must be no more than 200 words long and contain no references — should serve both as a general introduction to the topic and as a brief, non-technical summary of the main results and their implications.
For the main body of the text, there are no explicit requirements for section organization. According to the authors’ preference, the text may be organized as best suits the research. As a guideline and in the majority of cases, however, we recommend that you structure your manuscript as follows:
Introduction
Results (with subheadings)
Discussion (without subheadings)
Methods
A specific order for the main body of the text is not compulsory and, in some cases, it may be appropriate to combine sections. Figure legends are limited to 350 words. As a guideline references should be limited to 60 (this is not strictly enforced). Footnotes should not be used.
We suggest that Articles contain no more than 8 display items (figures and/or tables). In addition, a limited number of uncaptioned molecular structure graphics and numbered mathematical equations may be included if necessary. To enable typesetting of papers, the number of display items should be commensurate with the word length — we suggest that for Articles with less than 2,000 words, no more than 4 figures/tables should be included. Please note that schemes are not used and should be presented as figures.
Authors must provide a competing interests statement within the manuscript file.
Submissions should include a cover letter, a manuscript text file, individual figure files and optional supplementary information files. For first submissions (i.e. not revised manuscripts), authors may incorporate the manuscript text and figures into a single file up to 3 MB in size; the figures may be inserted in the text at the appropriate positions, or grouped at the end. Supplementary information should be combined and supplied as a single separate file, preferably in PDF format.
The following file types can be uploaded for Article text:
txt, doc, docx, tex, (pdf [first submissions only])*
*We are unable to accept PDF files for article text for revised manuscripts.
A submission template is available in the Overleaf template gallery to help you prepare a LaTeX manuscript within the Scientific Reports formatting criteria.
Scientific Reports is read by scientists from diverse backgrounds. In addition, many are not native English speakers. Authors should, therefore, give careful thought to how their findings may be communicated clearly. Although a shared basic knowledge of science may be assumed, please bear in mind that the language and concepts that are standard in one field may be unfamiliar to non-specialists. Thus, technical jargon should be avoided and clearly explained where its use is unavoidable.
Abbreviations, particularly those that are not standard, should also be kept to a minimum. Where unavoidable, abbreviations should be defined in the text or legends at their first occurrence, and abbreviations should be used thereafter. The background, rationale and main conclusions of the study should be clearly explained. Titles and abstracts in particular should be written in language that will be readily intelligible to any scientist. We strongly recommend that authors ask a colleague with different expertise to review the manuscript before submission, in order to identify concepts and terminology that may present difficulties to non-specialist readers.