Presubmission enquiries

This document provides instructions on our online service for presubmission enquiries. Presubmission enquiries are provided purely as a service to authors (for example, to see if a manuscript is likely to be of interest to the journal) and are not compulsory.

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 in our manuscript formatting 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

Presubmission enquiries are not required for Articles, 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 to see how a summary paragraph is constructed). 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 proceed.

Reviews, Perspectives and Opinion

Nature invites presubmission enquiries for Reviews and Perspectives. Please use our online submission system to submit a synopsis.

Opinion articles are commissioned by the Opinion Editor to fulfil the editorial mission of the magazine. Unsolicited contributions are not considered.

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