Online submissions

Information Sheets for Downloading

• Submitting a manuscript (doc 73KB)

See the full list of information sheets.

Nature strongly prefers submissions online for Articles, Letters, Brief Communications Arising and Reviews. Do not submit other types of contribution online unless specifically requested by a Nature editor; see instead the other submitted material pages. If in doubt, send an enquiry message first. Please follow these guidelines to ensure that your submission proceeds smoothly.

IF YOUR MANUSCRIPT AND FIGURES ARE READY TO SUBMIT ACCORDING TO THE FORMATTING GUIDE AND REQUIREMENTS BELOW, PLEASE PROCEED TO THE ONLINE SUBMISSION SYSTEM.

Thank you for choosing to submit your manuscript to Nature.

Table of contents

• 1. Important requirements
• 2. Content-related issues
• 3. Manuscript formats
• 4. Figure formats
• 5. Cover letter
• 6. Submitting your files
• 7. Security
• 8. Postal contributions
• 9. Revised or final submissions

1. Important requirements

• Emailed submissions will not be considered.

  

• If you submit a manuscript online, please do not also make a postal contribution.

  

• To use our online submission system, you will need either Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 or above, or Netscape 4.7 or above. Please also ensure that your browser is set to accept cookies, as the system requires them for proper operation.

  

• Online submissions require the full names and email addresses of all the authors.

  

• When entering contact and manuscript information (see Submitting your files below), please make sure that everything is input correctly. Errors in contact information, in particular in your email address or in manuscript titles, create severe problems in the handling of your submission.

2. Content-related issues

• Nature does not require all authors of a paper to sign the letter of submission, nor does it impose an order on the list of authors. Submission to Nature is taken to mean that all the listed authors have agreed all the content. The corresponding (submitting) author is responsible for having ensured that this agreement has been reached.

  

• A copy of a permission letter or e-mail must be included for any work described in the paper as "personal communication". Please ensure that any unpublished data cited within the manuscript are properly credited.

  

• Nature expects that as a rule, figures in research papers will be original figures generated by the authors. However, in cases where figures are commissioned, obtained or bought externally by the authors, or where figures have been previously published elsewhere, the corresponding author is responsible for pointing this out to the editors at time of submission, and for including written permission for use of such figures before or at time of acceptance for publication of the manuscript in Nature.

  

• One copy of any relevant paper by any of the authors submitted or in press elsewhere (including papers submitted elsewhere while the Nature contribution is under consideration) should be attached, ideally as PDFs but in other format if PDF is not possible, clearly marked as such. Failure to disclose this information may lead to rejection. (Authors submitting by mail should include one copy of clearly identified supporting manuscripts, where possible in electronic form, but where not, on paper.)

  

• Nature does not consider contributions under consideration or published elsewhere. This policy does not apply to conference abstracts or to prior postings on recognized community preprint servers, which are allowed. If part of a contribution has appeared or has been submitted elsewhere, the paper is not automatically rejected so long as the main result, conclusion and implications are not apparent from the other work. In this event, the corresponding author must specify in the covering letter which part of the contribution will appear or has appeared elsewhere, indicating the publication concerned. Authors must also state whether any material in the paper has appeared or will appear on a preprint server and, if so, which. After submission, the editor handling the manuscript must be consulted if the author wishes to publish or publicise any part of it elsewhere during the consideration process.

3. Manuscript formats

Before sending your manuscript to Nature, please ensure that it meets the requirements stipulated in the formatting guide.

Acceptable formats for the manuscript are MS Word (preferred), PostScript (PS, EPS or PRN), PDF, WordPerfect, Rich Text Format (RTF) and plain text (TXT). If using MS Word, we recommend that you format your manuscript with the Nature MS Word template.

The filename, including the extension, MUST NOT EXCEED 31 CHARACTERS, or your file will fail to transmit.

All figure legends and tables should be included in the manuscript.

4. Figure formats

Production-quality figures are not helpful at this stage. Follow these guidelines carefully to produce versions suitable for editorial assessment and peer review:

• All digital images should comply with the Nature guide for digital images.
• We prefer that you convert all your figures to medium-resolution JPEG to reduce the time it takes files to upload to our submission site. If you cannot send JPEG we can accept GIF, PostScript (PS, EPS or PRN), PDF, TIFF and PowerPoint only. Please do not send other formats.

  

• Figures should be prepared at the size you would expect them to appear in Nature. (Nature's standard figure sizes are 89mm, 120mm, 136mm, 183mm wide).

  

• We prefer figures to be 150 DPI (dots per inch). However, the general guide is that you should be happy with what you see on your printer and/or monitor and adjust the resolution accordingly. Most referees will print your figures on common laser or inkjet printers, using ordinary copy paper, and may view them on a monitor set to 256 colours. If you are using high-specification hardware please take this into account.

  

• Colour, when used as an identifying tool, should be distinct.

  

• Please name your figure files with the convention: "CorrespondingAuthorSurname_fig1.jpg".

  

• For figures with more than one part, label parts "a", "b" etc, and create a PDF scan of the whole figure to show preferred layout. On each composite include the corresponding author's name, Nature reference number, when known, and the figure number.

5. Cover Letter

Submissions should be accompanied by a brief covering letter from the corresponding author. This letter should contain two (100-word or shorter) summaries: a concise paragraph to the editor indicating the scientific grounds why the paper should be considered for a topical, interdisciplinary journal rather than for a single-discipline or archival journal; and a separate, 100-word summary of the paper's appeal to a popular (non-scientific) audience

The cover letter should state clearly what is included as the submission, including number of figures, supporting manuscripts and any Supplementary Information (specifying number of items and format).

The cover letter should also state the number of words of text in the paper; the number of figures and parts of figures (for example, 4 figures, comprising 16 separate panels in total); a rough estimate of the desired final size of figures in terms of number of pages; and a full current postal address, telephone and fax numbers, and current e-mail address. Nature usually communicates with authors by e-mail; authors must specify if they wish to exclude a method of communication.

6. Submitting your files

When you are ready to submit your files, please proceed to Nature's online submission system.

Once you have logged in to the online submission system, you will be asked to fill in your details on the submission form and submit all files relating to your manuscript.

When you have submitted all your files, these will be converted into PDF format and you will be asked to approve the file conversion. Please note that the submission process is not complete and Nature editors will not receive your files until you have approved the file conversion.

When checking the converted files, you should reassure yourself that the conversion is of sufficient quality for editors and reviewers to reach an informed judgement. Please pay particular attention to any special characters and equations to ensure that these have converted properly.

Once you have approved the file conversion, your manuscript will be submitted to Nature's editors and you will receive an email acknowledgement. At any time afterwards you can use the system to check the status of your manuscript.

Help for navigating the system is available through the submission system. If you experience any problems using the system, please email our helpdesk with "problem with submission" or similar wording in the subject line of your message.

7. Security

Information on the security of the online submissions system.

8. Postal submissions

Nature prefers to receive submissions online. If online submission is not possible, contributions should be posted. In these cases, one copy is required, with a disk (cover letter, manuscript, supporting manuscripts, figures, all in separate files, clearly labelled and named and format identified). We keep all submissions on file for future reference. Supplementary Information (if any) can be supplied on the same disk, with the files and formats clearly labelled and specified. Do not submit Supplementary Information without first reading the guidelines. Submissions can be mailed to London or Washington DC.

Postal submissions are uploaded by Nature staff into our online tracking system, and we will communicate with the author about the manuscript by email. Therefore authors of postal submissions need to provide an email address at time of submission.

For postal submissions only: figures should be provided on disk, clearly labelled with corresponding author's name, a list of the figure numbers/parts on the disk and formats used, and file types (see figure formats below). Authors submitting by mail must also provide one set of hard-copy figures in a separate, clearly marked envelope with a set of photocopies, one for each figure, with the panels (if any) arranged into a rectangular shape as they should appear on a printed page. These hard-copy original figures should be of the highest possible quality, as Nature will scan them into electronic form to send to reviewers if unable to use digital files from authors' disks.

Please also read the content-related issues above before submitting by post.

9. Revised and final submissions

Revised manuscripts

Please use this system only if a Nature editor has asked you to submit a revised version of your manuscript. When resubmitting your paper, please use the 'Revised Manuscript' link on your author homepage on the online submissions system.

Revised versions should be sent online, in accordance with the online submission requirements outlined above. They must include the manuscript reference number. If online submission is not possible, they should be sent by mail (one hard copy plus two disks, one of the figures and one of all textual material, all labelled with the manuscript reference number).

All revised papers should be accompanied by one copy of the authors' response to the referees' and editors' comments, and by length estimates of revised manuscripts and figures.

Final manuscripts

If a manuscript is accepted in principle for publication, it will be required by mail as part of a package, specified by the editor in a letter to the author, and must not be submitted online or by email. For full instructions see the final submissions pages.