Presubmission enquiries

Please see the sections below for guidance on presubmission enquiries to different sections of Nature. If you are not sure which category your manuscript falls into, please consult the formats for Nature contributions guide.

Nature cannot guarantee the speed of response to presubmission enquiries, but you will usually receive an answer within two working days. Editors cannot enter into discussion about a negative response to a presubmission enquiry, but authors who have received such a response may nevertheless formally submit the paper if they wish.

Articles and Letters

Presubmission enquiries are not required for Articles or Letters, and can be difficult to assess reliably; Nature editors cannot make an absolute commitment to have a contribution refereed before seeing the entire paper. Entire papers should not be sent as presubmission enquiries, but should be formally submitted through our online submission system.

When using the online submission form for a presubmission enquiry, you will need to include in the 'abstract' box a fully referenced first paragraph in Nature format (please refer to our annotated example (doc 40KB) to see how a summary paragraph is constructed for Letters). Please use the 'manuscript comments' box at the foot of the online submission form to list the references used. You can also put any general cover letter information in this box. When making a presubmission enquiry, please do not attach cover letters as separate files.

If you think that a presubmission enquiry would be helpful, please proceeed.

Reviews, Progress Articles and Commentary

Nature invites presubmission enquiries for the Reviews, Progress Articles and Commentary sections.

For Reviews or Progress Articles, please use our online submission system to submit a synopsis.

For Commentary, please send a short email summarising the main message, citing 'commentary' in the subject line.

Nature also publishes occasional Analysis and Hypothesis articles for which presubmission enquiries can be sent by email with an appropriate subject line.

Please see the guide to other Nature contributions for more information on submitting to these sections.

Security

Information on the security of the online submissions system.