How to submit

The entire guide for authors and referees is available in PDF format.

ONLINE SUBMISSION

We strongly prefer to receive manuscripts via our online submission system. Using this system, authors can upload manuscript files (text, figures and supplementary information, including video) directly to our office and check on the status of their manuscripts during the review process. In addition, reviewers can access the manuscript (in a highly secure fashion that maintains referee anonymity) over a direct internet link, which speeds the review process. Please consult our technical information on file formats and tips for using the system effectively. Revisions, including manuscripts submitted after a presubmission inquiry, should be uploaded via the link provided in the editor's decision letter. Please do not submit revisions as new manuscripts.

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SUBMISSION POLICIES

Submission to Nature Genetics is taken to imply that there is no significant overlap between the submitted manuscript and any other papers from the same authors under consideration or in press elsewhere. (Abstracts or unrefereed web preprints do not compromise novelty.) The authors must include copies of all related manuscripts with any overlap in authorship that are under consideration or in press elsewhere. If a related manuscript is submitted elsewhere while the manuscript is under consideration at Nature Genetics, a copy of the related manuscript should be sent to the editor.

Submission is also taken to imply that all coauthors have approved the contents of the manuscript and its submission by the corresponding author, and that the corresponding author is authorized to represent all coauthors in pre-publication discussions with the journal. (The corresponding author for editorial purposes need not be the senior author, nor the person to whom correspondence is addressed after publication.) The primary affiliation for each author should be the institution where the majority of their work was done. If an author has subsequently moved, the current address may also be stated. Statements of equal contribution from more than one author are permitted.

If the manuscript includes personal communications, please provide a written statement of permission from any person who is quoted. E-mail permission messages are acceptable.

For bioinformatics manuscripts, please send four copies of a CD containing any new algorithms for data analysis along with other resources necessary to use the algorithm, such as the user manual or spreadsheets. The CDs should be mailed to Nature Genetics, 75 Varick Street, 9th floor, New York, NY 10013-1917, USA.

For further information on the review process and how editors make decisions, please see the manuscript decisions page.

A high priority of Nature Genetics is that all papers be accessible to nonspecialists. Manuscripts are subject to substantial editing to achieve this goal. After acceptance, a copy editor may make further changes so that the text and figures are readable and clear to those outside the field, and so that papers conform to our style. Contributors are sent proofs and are welcome to discuss proposed changes with the editors, but Nature Genetics reserves the right to make the final decision about matters of style and the size of figures.

The editors also reserve the right to reject a paper even after it has been accepted if it becomes apparent that there are serious problems with the scientific content or with violations of our publishing policies.

Additional editorial policies can be found on the Nature journals joint policies page. This page includes information on manuscripts reviewed at other Nature journals, competing financial interests declarations, pre-publication publicity, deposition of data as a condition of publication, availability of data and reagents after publication, human and animal subjects, digital image integrity, biosecurity, refutations, complaints and correction of mistakes in the journal, duplicate publication, confidentiality and plagiarism.

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COSTS

There is a charge of $500 for the first color figure and $250 for each additional color figure. Otherwise, there are no submission fees or page charges.

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ADVANCE ONLINE PUBLICATION

Nature Genetics provides Advance Online Publication (AOP) of research articles, which benefits authors with an earlier publication date and allows our readers access to accepted papers several weeks before they appear in print. Note that papers published online are definitive and may be altered only through the publication of a print corrigendum or erratum, so authors should make every effort to ensure that the page proofs are correct. All AOP articles are given a unique digital object identifier (DOI) number, which can be used to cite the paper before print publication. For details, please see about advance online publication.

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COVERS AND OTHER ARTWORK

Illustrations are selected for their scientific interest and aesthetic appeal. Please send prints or electronic files (rather than slides) in the first instance. Please also include a clear and concise legend explaining the image.

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PREPARING THE MANUSCRIPT

Nature Genetics 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 biology may be assumed, please bear in mind that the language and concepts that are standard in one subfield may be unfamiliar to nonspecialists. Thus, technical jargon should be avoided as far as possible and clearly explained where its use is unavoidable. Abbreviations, particularly those that are not standard, should also be kept to a minimum. 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 nonspecialist readers.

The content types page describes the types of contributions that may be submitted to the journal, along with their length and figure limits. The journal's format requirements are described below.

Manuscripts reporting new structures should contain a table summarizing structural and refinement statistics. Templates for such tables describing NMR and X-ray crystallography data are available here. To facilitate assessment of the quality of the structural data, a stereo image of a portion of the electron density map (for crystallography papers) or of the superimposed lowest energy structures (>10; for NMR papers) should be provided with the submitted manuscript. If the reported structure represents a novel overall fold, a stereo image of the entire structure (as a backbone trace) should also be provided.

Please use American English spelling throughout.

At this time, we are not able to accept manuscripts in Word 2007 format.

Acknowledgments should be brief, and should not include thanks to anonymous referees and editors, or effusive comments. Grant or contribution numbers may be acknowledged. Nature Genetics encourages authors to include a statement to specify the individual contributions of each co-author, which will be published under a separate subheading "Author contributions" following the Acknowledgments. All authors should be included in the list. Please note that, in addition to this declaration, the corresponding author must certify that all authors have agreed to all the content in the manuscript, including the data as presented.

References are numbered sequentially as they appear in the text, tables and figure legends. Only one publication is given for each number, and footnotes are not used. Only papers that have been published or accepted by a named publication should be in the numbered list; meeting abstracts that are not published and papers in preparation should be mentioned in the text with a list of authors (or initials if any of the authors are co-authors of the present contribution). URLs for web sites should be cited parenthetically in the text, not in the reference list; articles in formal, peer-reviewed online journals should be included in the reference list. Grant details and acknowledgments are not permitted as numbered references.

All authors should be included in reference lists unless there are more than five, in which case only the first author should be given, followed by 'et al.'. Authors should be listed last name first, followed by a comma and initials of given names. Titles of cited articles are required for Articles, Letters, Technical Reports, Perspectives and Reviews, but not for Commentaries, Brief Communications, or News and Views. Titles of articles should be in Roman text and titles of books in italics; the first word of the title is capitalized, the title written exactly as it appears in the work cited, ending with a period. Journal names are italicized and abbreviated (with periods) according to common usage; refer to Index Medicus for details. Volume numbers appear in bold. For book citations, the publisher and city of publication are required (e.g., John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, NJ, 2003).

Figure legends for Articles, Letters or Technical Reports begin with a brief title for the whole figure and continue with a short description of each panel and the symbols used, focusing on describing what is shown in the figure and de-emphasizing methodological details. Each legend should total no more than 250 words. Brief Communications have short figure legends (generally less than 100 words), which may include details of methods.

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GENE NOMENCLATURE

Authors should use approved nomenclature for gene symbols, and use symbols rather than italicized full names (Ttn, not titin). Please consult the appropriate nomenclature databases for correct gene names and symbols. A useful resource is LocusLink. Approved human gene symbols are provided by HUGO Gene Nomenclature Committee (HGNC), e-mail: nome@galton.ucl.ac.uk; see also http://www.gene.ucl.ac.uk/nomenclature. Approved mouse symbols are provided by The Jackson Laboratory, e-mail: nomen@informatics.jax.org; see also http://www.informatics.jax.org/mgihome/nomen.

For proposed gene names that are not already approved, please submit the gene symbols to the appropriate nomenclature committees as soon as possible, as these must be deposited and approved before publication of an article.

Avoid listing multiple names of genes (or proteins) separated by a slash, as in 'Oct4/Pou5f1', as this is ambiguous (it could mean a ratio, a complex, alternative names or different subunits). Use one name throughout and include the other at first mention: 'Oct4 (also known as Pou5f1)'.

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STATISTICAL GUIDELINES

Every article that contains statistical testing should state the name of the statistical test, the n for each statistical analysis, the comparisons of interest, a justification for the use of that test (including, for example, a discussion of the normality of the data when the test is appropriate only for normal data), the alpha level for all tests, whether the tests were one-tailed or two-tailed, and the actual P value for each test (not merely "significant" or "P < .05"). It should be clear what statistical test was used to generate every P value. In the case of Brief Communications, these details should be reported in the text or the figure captions.

Data sets should be summarized with descriptive statistics, which should include the n for each data set, a clearly labeled measure of center (such as the mean or the median), and a clearly labeled measure of variability (such as standard deviation or range). Ranges are more appropriate than standard deviations or standard errors for small data sets. Graphs should include clearly labeled error bars. Authors must state whether a number that follows the ± sign is a standard error (s.e.m.) or a standard deviation (s.d.).

Authors must justify the use of a particular test and explain whether their data conform to the assumptions of the tests. Three errors are particularly common.

  1. Multiple comparisons:

    When making multiple statistical comparisons on a single data set, authors should explain how they adjusted the alpha level to avoid an inflated Type I error rate, or they should select statistical tests appropriate for multiple groups (such as ANOVA rather than a series of t-tests).

  2. Normal distribution:

    Many statistical tests require that the data be approximately normally distributed; when using these tests, authors should explain how they tested their data for normality. If the data do not meet the assumptions of the test, then a non-parametric alternative should be used instead.

  3. Small sample size:

    When the sample size is small (less than about 10), authors should use tests appropriate to small samples or justify their use of large-sample tests.

There is a checklist available to help authors minimize the chance of statistical errors.

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PREPARING THE FIGURES

Authors are responsible for obtaining permission to publish any figures or illustrations that are protected by copyright, including figures published elsewhere and pictures taken by professional photographers. The journal cannot publish images downloaded from the internet without appropriate permission.

Figures should be uploaded upon submission via our online submission system, in one of our preferred formats, if possible. Please use the smallest file size that provides sufficient resolution, preferably less than 1 MB, so that referees do not have to download extremely large files. When a paper is accepted, the editors will request high-resolution files suitable for publication.

Unnecessary figures and parts (panels) of figures and tables should be avoided: data presented in small tables or histograms, for instance, can generally be stated briefly in the text instead. Figures should not contain more than one panel unless the parts are logically connected; each panel of a multipart figure should be sized so that the whole figure can be reduced by the same amount and reproduced on the printed page at the smallest size at which essential details are visible. When a manuscript is accepted for publication, we will ask for high-resolution figure files, possibly in a different electronic format. This information will be included in the acceptance letter.

Lettering on figures should be in a clear, sans-serif typeface (for example, Helvetica); if possible, the same typeface in approximately the same font size should be used for all figures in a paper. Use symbol font for Greek letters. Figures should be on a white background, and should avoid excessive boxing, unnecessary color, spurious decorative effects (such as three-dimensional 'skyscraper' histograms) and highly pixelated computer drawings. The vertical axis of histograms should not be truncated to exaggerate small differences. Labeling must be of sufficient size and contrast to be readable after appropriate reduction. The thinnest lines in the final figure should be no smaller than one point wide. Authors will see a proof of figures. Reasonable requests to enlarge figures will be considered, but editors will make the final decision on figure size.

Figures divided into parts should be labeled with a lower-case, bold a, b, and so on, in the same typesize as used elsewhere in the figure. Lettering in figures should be in lower-case type, with only the first letter of each label capitalized. Units should have a single space between the number and the unit, and follow SI nomenclature (for example, ms rather than msec) or the nomenclature common to a particular field. Thousands should be separated by commas (1,000). Unusual units or abbreviations should be spelled out in full or defined in the legend. Scale bars should be used rather than magnification factors, with the length of the bar defined in the legend rather than on the bar itself. In general, please use visual cues rather than verbal explanations, such as "open red triangles", in the legend.

Authors are encouraged to consider the needs of colorblind readers (a substantial minority of the male population) when choosing colors for figures. Many colorblind readers cannot interpret micrographs presented in green and red, for example. Thus, we encourage authors to submit micrographs in color combinations other than green and red.

If the manuscript is initially submitted in hard copy (which is no longer preferred and may cause delays), please follow the instructions below:

Figures should be presented on separate sheets of paper. Please include one original and three copies of sufficient quality for review. The figures should be attached to the review copies of the manuscript (rather than enclosed in a separate envelope). In general, multi-part figures should be arranged as they would appear in the final version. Please avoid sending oversized figures (larger than 8.5 x 11" or A4) wherever possible. Each copy should be marked with the figure number and the corresponding author's name. Reduction to the scale that will be used on the page is not necessary, but any special requirements (such as the separation distance of stereo pairs) should be clearly specified.

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DIGITAL FIGURE GUIDELINES

Please read the digital images integrity and standards policy before preparing your figures. When possible, we prefer to use original digital figures to ensure the highest quality reproduction in the journal. When creating and submitting digital files, please follow the guidelines below.

Formats

For publication, we can only use TIFF, EPS or postscript (ps) files in PC or Macintosh format, preferably from PhotoShop or Illustrator software. We cannot accept Freehand, Canvas, PowerPoint, CorelDRAW or MacDrawPro files. These files must be converted to postscript (ps) format.

Resolution and figure quality

Figure files must be supplied at an appropriate resolution for print publication:

  • Color, 300 d.p.i. minimum; please convert all color files into CMYK mode

  • Grayscale, 600 d.p.i. minimum for blots and black & white photographs

  • Line art, 1200 d.p.i. minimum for graphs and illustrations

Figures that do not meet these standards will not reproduce well and may delay publication until we receive high-resolution images or high-quality printouts. We cannot be held responsible for assuming the cost of corrected reprints should poor quality images need to be used.

Please do not scan laser printouts of figures and send them to us as digital files. The dot pattern on a laser print often creates a moire pattern when scanned.

Please remove panel letters (a, b, c, etc.) that are directly over other features of figures, especially in photographic or modeling images, from the electronic files; we will replace them later with our own font. In such cases, please indicate in a separate electronic file where panel letters should go.

Tables

Please submit tables in Word format at the end of your text document.

Stereo images

Stereo diagrams should be presented for divergent 'wall-eyed' viewing, with the two panels separated by ~5.5 cm. In the final accepted version of the manuscript, the stereo images should be submitted at their final print size.

FTP site

If necessary, you can use any type of FTP software to place files on our FTP site, although we prefer to receive figures through our electronic submission system if possible. Name your files with the corresponding author's name, figure number (and letter if applicable), and file format (for example, Dr. Smith's Figure 3 in TIFF format: Smith_Fig3.tiff; Dr. Smith's Figure 3a in EPS format, Smith_Fig3a.eps). Please compress your files before uploading.

  • site address:

    ftp.nature.com

  • user name:

    genetics

  • password:

    natgen

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SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION

Authors should note that supplementary information is not copy-edited by Nature Genetics, so they should ensure that it is clearly and succinctly presented, and that the style of terms conforms with the rest of the paper. The following guidelines detail the creation, citation and submission of supplementary information. Please note that modification of supplementary information after the paper is published requires a formal correction, so authors are encouraged to check their supplementary information carefully before submitting the final version.

Where there is supplementary information to be included exclusively in the online version of a paper published in Nature Genetics, please follow these guidelines, or publication may be delayed.

Refer to each piece of supplementary information at least once within the text of the main article (the article that is published in the print issue of the journal), as follows:

Designate each item as Supplementary Table, Figure, Figure Legend, Data, Discussion, Equations, Video, Video Legend, Audio, Audio Legend, Tutorial, Note, or Methods. Number Supplementary Tables and Figures as, for example, "Supplementary Table 1," and provide a title for each one (for figures, please include the number and title in the caption). This numbering should be separate from that used in tables and figures appearing in the main printed article. Supplementary Note or Methods should not be numbered; titles for these are optional.

Refer to each piece of supplementary material at the appropriate point(s) in the main article. Be sure to include the word "Supplementary" each time one is mentioned.

Use the following samples as a guide (note: abbreviate "Figure" as "Fig." when in parentheses).

"Table 1 provides a selected subset of the most active compounds. The entire list of 96 compounds can be found as Supplementary Table 1 online."

"The biosynthetic pathway of L-ascorbic acid in animals involves intermediates of the D-glucuronic acid pathway (see Supplementary Fig. 2 online). Figure 2 shows..."

Figure files should be submitted as web-ready files through Nature Genetics's online submission system. Manuscripts will not be accepted for publication by Nature Genetics until supplementary information is received.

With the exception of spreadsheet, audio and video files, please submit the supplementary information as a single combined PDF if possible. If necessary, we can accept any of these formats:

  •  .txt - Plain ASCII text
  •  .gif - GIF image
  •  .html - HTML document
  •  .doc - MS Word document
  •  .jpg - JPEG image
  •  .swf - Flash movie
  •  .xls - MS Excel spreadsheet
  •  .pdf - Adobe Acrobat file
  •  .mov - QuickTime movie
  •  .ppt - MS Power Point slide
  •  .wav - Audio file

File sizes should be as small as possible, with a maximum size of 3 MB, so that they can be downloaded quickly. Images should be just large enough to view when the screen resolution is set to 640 x 480 pixels. Audio and video files should use a frame size no larger than 320 x 240 pixels. Remember to include a brief title and legend (incorporated into the file to appear near the image) as part of every figure submitted, and a title as part of every table.

Further queries about submission and preparation of supplementary information should be directed to the editor handling the manuscript.

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