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Is there a word limit for Springer Nature journal articles?

We do not have restraints on the size of manuscripts submitted to most of our Springer Nature journals unless otherwise required and specified in the Submission Guidelines or Instructions for Authors.

Manuscripts can include an unlimited number of figures, tables and additional files but the abstract of the manuscript should not exceed 350 words. However, please remember that for the benefit of peer reviewers and readers articles should be as concise as possible. For more information, please see the Submission Guidelines or Instructions for Authors by selecting your journal of choice from the lists below: BMC Palgrave Macmillan Nature Research Springer

For any additional questions, please contact the relevant submission contact of the journal directly. This is how you will Find publishing contacts for Springer Nature journals .

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How Long Should an Abstract Be? Word Count & Length

The abstract is perhaps the most important section of your research paper. Apart from the title, it may be the only part of the paper anyone reads. Whether they read further  depends in part on how good an impression your abstract makes .

The abstract may also be the only part of your paper that has a word limit. Most word limits specify a maximum of  between 250 and 300 words , and some journals require that abstracts be as short as 150 words. Writing a great abstract is almost an art—but writing an abstract that meets word limits is, well, a  science .

 Why do journals impose abstract word limits?

There are several reasons your abstract needs to be short and concise. Journals want readers to buy your article, and they want other researchers to cite your study in their own articles. More citations means a higher impact factor for the journal. The best way to sell your study is to grab the reader’s attention with a great title and abstract. Finally, there is the issue of space. Journals want your abstract to fit on half a page so that a reader won’t have to scroll to read all of it.

When it comes to abstracts, less is more. Only essential information needs to be presented. A short, powerful abstract will draw readers into your research and help the journal attract more readers and receive more citations. The trick is how to trim your abstract to get under the word limit. Here are some time- and researcher-tested ways to pull that off.

Omit Needless Words and Adverbs

In their acclaimed guide to English writing,  The Elements of Style , William Strunk, Jr, and E. B. White teach the key to meeting abstract word limits: Omit needless words. Many writers, especially academic writers, pepper their writing with words that simply don’t need to be there.

A “hedge” is a word or phrase you use when you are concerned about making a claim instead of stating a fact. It’s always a good idea to be careful, especially in academic writing, but many authors use hedge words when they don’t need to. Among the most overused hedge words are the verbs “seem” and “appear.” In the examples below, you’ll see why taking away the hedge words does not alter the meaning.

Hedge : Maroney syndrome  seems   to impair quality of life. No Hedge : Maroney syndrome  impairs   quality of life.

Hedge : Ibuprofen  appears   to diminish pain in most patients. No Hedge : Ibuprofen  diminishes   pain in most patients.

In both pairs, the first and second sentences have essentially the same meaning, except that the second sentence omits the hedge word. Notice how the second examples are more powerful and straightforward without this extra verbiage.

Cutting out needless adverbs is another easy way to limit the number of words in an abstract.

With needless adverbs : We  slowly and carefully  dissected the vagus nerve. Without needless adverbs : We dissected the vagus nerve.

By definition, “dissection” is slow and careful (or  should  be!). Removing the needless adverbs “slowly” and “carefully’ leaves you with a sentence with the same meaning and three fewer words. Same your adverbs for situations in which they truly impact the meaning or have an impact on the reader or interpretation.

Remove Awkward and Unnecessary Transitions

Conjunctive adverbs are better known as “ transition terms ,” and although they can be very useful in creating structure and flow within the body of a paper, in the abstract they are often redundant or even incorrectly used. Among the more commonly used conjunctive adverbs are: however, moreover, therefore, furthermore, additionally, and thus.

The conjunction “moreover” is perhaps the most commonly used needless adverb in scientific papers. Some writers use it because they believe it makes them sound more “academic.” Others use it because they may know that it’s a grammatical faux-pas to start a sentence with the conjunction “And.” Nevertheless, “moreover” can virtually  always  be removed from a sentence without altering the meaning. Watch what happens when we remove the word “moreover from these sentences.

With a transition :  Moreover , we dissected the vagus nerve. Without a transition : We dissected the vagus nerve.

In the instance above, “moreover” does not really make sense as a transition term. Even other transition terms (furthermore, therefore, in addition, etc.) would be somewhat unnecessary when discussing how the study or experiment was performed.

With a transition :  Furthermore , patients with Boney-Maroney syndrome are likely to experience hot flashes and fatigue. Without a transition : Patients with Boney-Maroney syndrome are likely to experience hot flashes and fatigue.

Note that these two sentences have exactly the same meaning with and without the transition term “furthermore.”  These transitions can be much more useful in the longer sections of the paper’s body, especially in the Introduction and Discussion/Conclusion sections.

Use the Active Voice Instead of Passive Voice

One way to shorten your abstract is to apply a rule you might have learned in primary school: use active voice instead of passive voice . In active voice constructions, the subject carries the action. In passive voice, the subject is acted upon, usually by an unnamed actor. Scientists seem to be in love with the passive voice, as it can be found in many papers, simply adding to the word count and making the writing less engaging. Because of this longstanding convention, many believe it makes them sound more “scientific.” Others shun active voice because they feel as though it is too personal. That is a shame. Your sentences will often sound more convincing and powerful in active voice, as the following examples demonstrate:

Passive voice : Pituitary cells  were grown  in dishes that had been subjected to irradiation (12 words). Active voice :  We grew  pituitary cells in irradiated dishes (7 words). Passive voice : Three-hundred and forty-five patients  who had undergone  ovariectomy at our institution  were enrolled  in the present study (17 words). Active voice :  We enrolled   345 patients whom we had ovariectomized (eight words).

Remember, studies don’t conduct themselves;  scientists  conduct studies. Avoid using the passive voice in the abstract—save it for the Methods section!

Do not Include Statistical Methods or Findings in the Abstract

Most scientific articles include statistics. Usually, the statistical methods are described in detail in the Methods section of a paper. But many authors feel compelled for some reason to mention statistics in the abstract, perhaps to get the details out first. But unless your paper is primarily about statistics, it is best to keep statistics out of the abstract and stick to language that expresses the most important use and findings of the study. Not only do statistics add to your word count, but they also interrupt the flow of your argument. You certainly do not need to tell the reader what statistical tests you used or the version of the statistics program you used—that is what the Methods section is for. And never go into detail about EXACTLY which findings your study yielded—that is what the Results section is for.

Consent, Approval, and Other Info That Doesn’t Belong in an Abstract

Some authors place information about patient consent and institutional review board approval in the abstract. Whereas this information is indeed essential, it is not necessary to put it in the abstract. Like statistics, consent and approval statements interrupt the flow of your argument. Readers expect to find information about consent and approval in the Methods section. Leaving this out of your abstract will certainly free up your space to describe the importance of your study.

Abstract Word Limits Are not Targets

Keep in mind that a limit of 250 words does not mean that you should attempt to come as close as possible to the limit. The best abstracts include all essential information well before reaching word limit. Use the above tips to help you create a leaner, tighter abstract that will hook readers and entice them to read your full study.

For more helpful suggestions on academic and research writing, check out the links below or visit the Wordvice Academic Resources page. And be sure to receive professional  English editing services , including  paper editing services , for your journal manuscript before submitting it to journal editors.

Wordvice Resources

• Writing the Results Section for a Research Paper
• How to Write a Literature Review
• Research Writing Tips: How to Draft a Powerful Discussion Section
• How to Captivate Journal Readers with a Strong Introduction
• Tips That Will Make Your Abstract a Success!
• APA In-Text Citation Guide for Research Writing
•   “Abstract Guide for Research Papers.”  (Academic Conferences and Publishing International Limited)
• “How many words should be in the abstract?”  (Research Gate)
• Strunk and White.  The Elements of Style. ( PDF)
• “Organizing Your Social Science Research Paper: The Abstract.”  (USC Libraries)

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Submission guidelines

Format of articles, cover letter, revised manuscripts, tex/latex files, writing your manuscript, copy editing services, acknowledgements, author contributions, competing interests, data availability, ethics declarations, approval for animal experiments, approval for human experiments, consent to participate/consent to publish.

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Scientific Reports publishes original research in two formats: Article and Registered Report. For Registered Reports, see section below . In most cases, we do not impose strict limits on word count or page number. However, we strongly recommend that you write concisely and stick to the following guidelines:

• Articles should ideally be no more than 11 typeset pages
• The main text should be no more than 4,500 words (not including Abstract, Methods, References and figure legends)
• The title should be no more than 20 words, should describe the main message of the article using a single scientifically accurate sentence, and should not contain puns or idioms
• The abstract should be no more than 200 words

For a definitive list of which limits are mandatory please visit the submission checklist page .

Please do not include any references in your Abstract. Make sure it serves both as a general introduction to the topic and as a brief, non-technical summary of the main results and their implications. Abstract should be unstructured, i.e. should not contain sections or subheadings.

We allow the use of up to 6 keywords/key phrases that can be used for indexing purposes. These should represent the main content of the submission.

Your manuscript text file should start with a title page that shows author affiliations and contact information, identifying the corresponding author with an asterisk. We recommend that each section includes an introduction of referenced text that expands on the background of the work. Some overlap with the Abstract is acceptable. Large Language Models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT , do not currently satisfy our authorship criteria . Notably an attribution of authorship carries with it accountability for the work, which cannot be effectively applied to LLMs. Use of an LLM should be properly documented in the Methods section (and if a Methods section is not available, in a suitable alternative part) of the manuscript. In response to emerging information, advice, guidance and policy around artificial intelligence (AI), we have created a dedicated AI section in our  Editorial Policy page . Please familiarize yourself with this content and comply with relevant policies.

For the main body of the text, there are no specific requirements. You can organise it in a way that best suits your research. However, the following structure will be suitable in many cases:

• Introduction
• Results (with subheadings)
• Discussion (without subheadings)

You should then follow the main body of text with:

• References (limited to 60 references, though not strictly enforced)
• Acknowledgements (optional)
• Data availability statement (mandatory)
• Additional Information (including a Competing Interests Statement)
• Figure legends (these are limited to 350 words per figure)
• Tables (maximum size of one page)

Please note, footnotes should not be used. 

We do not automatically include page or line numbers in the materials sent to Editorial Board Members and reviewers. Please consider including those in your manuscript; this can help facilitate the evaluation of the paper and makes giving feedback on specific sections easier.

You may include a limited number of uncaptioned molecular structure graphics and numbered mathematical equations if necessary. Display items are limited to 8 ( figures and/or tables ). However, to enable typesetting of papers, we advise making the number of display items commensurate with your overall word length. So, for Articles of 2,000 words or less, we suggest including no more than 4 figures/tables. Please note that schemes should not be used and should be presented as figures instead.

Your submission must also include:

• A cover letter
• Individual figure files and optional supplementary information files

For first submissions (i.e. not revised manuscripts), you may incorporate the manuscript text and figures into a single file up to 3 MB in size. Whilst Microsoft Word is preferred we also accept LaTeX, or PDF format. Figures can 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.

A submission template is available in the Overleaf template gallery to help you prepare a LaTeX manuscript within the Scientific Reports formatting criteria.

In your cover letter, you should include:

• The affiliation and contact information of your corresponding author
• A brief explanation of why the work is appropriate for Scientific Reports
• The names and contact information of any reviewers you consider suitable
• The names of any referees you would like excluded from reviewing

Finally, you should state whether you have had any prior discussions with a Scientific Reports Editorial Board Member about the work described in your manuscript.

For revised manuscripts, you should provide all textual content in a single file, prepared using either Microsoft Word or LaTeX. Please note, we do not accept PDF files for the article text of revised manuscripts. Make sure you:

• Format the manuscript file as single-column text without justification.
• Number the pages using an Arabic numeral in the footer of each page.
• Use the default Computer Modern fonts for your text, and the 'symbols' font for any Greek characters.
• Supply any figures as individual files.
• Combine and supply any Supplementary Information as a separate file, preferably in PDF format.
• Include the title of the manuscript and author list in the first page of the Supplementary Information file.

If you do not wish to incorporate the manuscript text and figures into a single file, please provide all textual content in a separate single file, prepared using either Microsoft Word or LaTeX.

If you’re submitting LaTeX files, you can either use the standard ‘Article’ document class (or similar) or the wlscirep.cls file and template provided by Overleaf . For graphics, we recommend your use graphicx.sty. Use numerical references only for citations.

Our system cannot accept .bib files. If you prepare references using BibTeX (which is optional), please include the .bbl file with your submission (as a ‘LaTeX supplementary file’) in order for it to be processed correctly; this file is included automatically in the zip file generated by Overleaf for submissions. Please see this help article on Overleaf for more details.

Alternatively, you can make sure that the references (source code) are included within the manuscript file itself. As a final precaution, you should ensure that the complete .tex file compiles successfully on its own system with no errors or warnings, before submission.

Scientific Reports is read by a truly diverse range of scientists. Please therefore give careful thought to communicating your findings as clearly as possible.

Although you can assume a shared basic knowledge of science, please don’t expect that everyone will be familiar with the specialist language or concepts of your particular field. Therefore:

• Avoid technical jargon wherever possible, explaining it clearly when it is unavoidable.
• Keep abbreviations to a minimum, particularly when they are not standard.
• If you must use an abbreviation, make sure you spell it out fully in the text or legend the first time it appears.
• Clearly explain the background, rationale and main conclusions of your study.
• Write titles and abstracts in language that will be readily understood by any scientist.

We strongly recommend that you ask a colleague with different expertise to review your manuscript before you submit it. This will help you to identify concepts and terminology that non-specialist readers may find hard to grasp.

We don’t provide in-depth copy editing as part of the production process. So, if you feel your manuscript would benefit from someone looking at the copy, please consider using a copy editing or language editing service. You can either do this before submission or at the revision stage. You can also get a fast, free grammar check of your manuscript that takes into account all aspects of readability in English.

We have two affiliates who can provide you with these services: Nature Research Editing Service and American Journal Experts . As a Scientific Reports author, you are entitled to a 10% discount on your first submission to either of these.

Claim 10% off English editing from Nature Research Editing Service

Claim 10% off American Journal Experts

Please note that the use of an editing service is at your own expense, and doesn’t ensure that your article will be selected for peer-review or accepted for publication.

We don't impose word limits on the description of methods. Make sure it includes adequate experimental and characterisation data for others to be able to reproduce your work. You should:

• Include descriptions of standard protocols and experimental procedures.
• Only identify commercial suppliers of reagents or instrumentation when the source is critical to the outcome of the experiments.
• Identify sources for any kits you use in your procedures.
• Include any experimental protocols that describe the synthesis of new compounds.
• Use the systematic name of any new compound and put its bold Arabic numeral in the heading for the experimental protocol, indicating it thereafter by its assigned, bold numeral.
• Describe the experimental protocol in detail, referring to amounts of reagents in parentheses, when possible (eg 1.03 g, 0.100 mmol).
• Use standard abbreviations for reagents and solvents.
• Clearly identify safety hazards posed by reagents or protocols.
• Report isolated mass and percent yields at the end of each protocol.

If you’re reporting experiments on live vertebrates (or higher invertebrates), humans or human samples, you must include a statement of ethical approval in the Methods section (see our detailed requirements for further information on preparing these statements).

We don’t copy edit your references. Therefore, it’s essential you format them correctly, as they will be linked electronically to external databases where possible. At Scientific Reports , we use the standard Nature referencing style. So, when formatting your references, make sure they:

• Run sequentially (and are always numerical).
• Sit within square brackets.
• Only have one publication linked to each number.
• Only include papers or datasets that have been published or accepted by a named publication, recognised preprint server or data repository (if you include any preprints of accepted papers in your reference list, make sure you submit them with the manuscript).
• Include published conference abstracts and numbered patents, if you wish.
• Don’t include grant details and acknowledgements.

Sorry, we cannot accept BibTeX (.bib) bibliography files for references. If you are making your submission by LaTeX, it must either contain all references within the manuscript .tex file itself, or (if you’re using the Overleaf template) include the .bbl file generated during the compilation process as a ‘LaTeX supplementary file’ (see the "Manuscripts" section for more details).

In your reference list, you should:

• Include all authors unless there are six or more, in which case only the first author should be given, followed by 'et al.'.
• List authors by last name first, followed by a comma and initials (followed by full stops) of given names.
• Use Roman text for Article and dataset titles, with only the first word of the title having an initial capital and written exactly as it appears in the work cited, ending with a full stop.
• Use italics for book titles, giving all words in the title an initial capital.
• Use italics for journal and data repository names, abbreviating them according to common usage (with full stops).
• Use bold for volume numbers and the subsequent comma.
• Give the full page range (or article number), where appropriate.

Published papers:

Printed journals Schott, D. H., Collins, R. N. & Bretscher, A. Secretory vesicle transport velocity in living cells depends on the myosin V lever arm length. J. Cell Biol . 156 , 35-39 (2002).

Online only Bellin, D. L. et al . Electrochemical camera chip for simultaneous imaging of multiple metabolites in biofilms . Nat. Commun . 7 , 10535; 10.1038/ncomms10535 (2016).

For papers with more than five authors include only the first author’s name followed by ‘ et al. ’.

Books: Smith, J. Syntax of referencing in How to reference books (ed. Smith, S.) 180-181 (Macmillan, 2013).

Online material:

Babichev, S. A., Ries, J. & Lvovsky, A. I. Quantum scissors: teleportation of single-mode optical states by means of a nonlocal single photon. Preprint at https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0208066 (2002).

Manaster, J. Sloth squeak. Scientific American Blog Network http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/psi-vid/2014/04/09/sloth-squeak (2014).

Hao, Z., AghaKouchak, A., Nakhjiri, N. & Farahmand, A. Global integrated drought monitoring and prediction system (GIDMaPS) data sets.  figshare   https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.853801 (2014).

Please keep any acknowledgements brief, and don’t include thanks to anonymous referees and editors, or any effusive comments. You may acknowledge grant or contribution numbers. You should also acknowledge assistance from medical writers, proof-readers and editors.

You must supply an Author Contribution Statement as described in the Author responsibilities section of our Editorial and Publishing Policies .

Please be aware:

• The author name you give as the corresponding author will be the main contact during the review process and should not change.
• The information you provide in the submission system will be used as the source of truth when your paper is published.

You must supply a competing interests statement . If there is no conflict of interest, you should include a statement declaring this.

Your statement must be explicit and unambiguous, describing any potential competing interest (or lack thereof) for EACH contributing author. The information you provide in the submission system will be used as the source of truth when your paper is published.

Examples of declarations are:

Competing interests The author(s) declare no competing interests.

Competing interests Dr X's work has been funded by A. He has received compensation as a member of the scientific advisory board of B and owns stock in the company. He also has consulted for C and received compensation. Dr Y and Dr Z declare no potential conflict of interest.

You must include a Data Availability Statement in all submitted manuscripts (at the end of the main text, before the References section); see ' Availability of materials and data ' section for more information.

If your research includes human or animal subjects, you will need to include the appropriate ethics declarations in the Methods section of your manuscript.

For experiments involving live vertebrates and/or higher invertebrates, your Methods section must include a statement that:

• Identifies the institutional and/or licensing committee that approved the experiments, including any relevant details.
• Confirms that all experiments were performed in accordance with relevant named guidelines and regulations.
• Confirms that the authors complied with the ARRIVE guidelines.

For experiments involving human subjects (or tissue samples), your Methods section must include a statement that:

• Confirms that informed consent was obtained from all participants and/or their legal guardians.

Please note that:

• Study participant names (and other personally identifiable information) must be removed from all text/figures/tables/images.
• The use of coloured bars/shapes or blurring to obscure the eyes/facial region of study participants is not an acceptable means of anonymisation. For manuscripts that include information or images that could lead to identification of a study participant, your Methods section must include a statement that confirms informed consent was obtained to publish the information/image(s) in an online open access publication.

Supplementary Information

You should submit any Supplementary Information together with the manuscript so that we can send it to referees during peer-review. This will be published online with accepted manuscripts.

It’s vital that you carefully check your Supplementary Information before submission as any modification after your paper is published will require a formal correction.

Please avoid including any "data not shown" statements and instead make your data available via deposition in a public repository (see ' Availability of materials and data ' for more information).

If any data that is necessary to evaluate the claims of your paper is not available via a public depository, make sure you provide it as Supplementary Information.

We do not edit, typeset or proof Supplementary Information, so please present it clearly and succinctly at initial submission, making sure it conforms to the style and terminology of the rest of the paper.

To avoid any delays to publication, please follow the guidelines below for creation, citation and submission of your Supplementary Information:

You can combine multiple pieces of Supplementary Information and supply them as a single composite file. If you wish to keep larger information (e.g. supplementary videos, spreadsheets [.csv or .xlsx] or data files) as another separate file you may do so.

Designate each item as Supplementary Table, Figure, Video, Audio, Note, Data, Discussion, Equations or Methods, as appropriate. Number Supplementary Tables and Figures as, for example, "Supplementary Table S1". This numbering should be separate from that used in tables and figures appearing in the main 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. Please do not refer to individual panels of supplementary figures.

Use the following examples as a guide (note: abbreviate "Figure" as "Fig." when in the middle of a sentence): "Table 1 provides a selected subset of the most active compounds. The entire list of 96 compounds can be found as Supplementary Table S1 online." "The biosynthetic pathway of L-ascorbic acid in animals involves intermediates of the D-glucuronic acid pathway (see Supplementary Fig. S2 online). Figure 2 shows...".

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.

Keep file sizes as small as possible, with a maximum size of 50 MB, so that they can be downloaded quickly.

Supplementary video files should be provided in the standard video aspects: 4:3, 16:9, 21:9.

If you have any further questions about the submission and preparation of Supplementary Information, please email: [email protected] .

Please begin your figure legends with a brief title sentence for the whole figure and continue with a short description of what is shown in each panel. Use any symbols in sequence and minimise the methodological details as much as possible. Keep each legend total to no more than 350 words. Provide text for figure legends in numerical order after the references.

Please submit any tables in your main article document in an editable format (Word or TeX/LaTeX, as appropriate), and not as images. Tables that include statistical analysis of data should describe their standards of error analysis and ranges in a table legend.

Include any equations and mathematical expressions in the main text of the paper. Identify equations that are referred to in the text by parenthetical numbers, such as (1), and refer to them in the manuscript as "equation (1)" etc.

For submissions in a .doc or .docx format, please make sure that all equations are provided in an editable Word format. You can produce these with the equation editor included in Microsoft Word.

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You should state the source of any images used. If you or one of your co-authors has drawn the images, please mention this in your acknowledgements. For software, you should state the name, version number and URL.

Number any figures separately with Arabic numerals in the order they occur in the text of the manuscript. Include error bars when appropriate. Include a description of the statistical treatment of error analysis in the figure legend.

Please do not use schemes. You should submit sequences of chemical reactions or experimental procedures as figures, with appropriate captions. You may include in the manuscript a limited number of uncaptioned graphics depicting chemical structures - each labelled with their name, by a defined abbreviation, or by the bold Arabic numeral.

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• Figures divided into parts should be labelled with a lower-case, bold letter ( a, b, c and so on) in the same type size as used elsewhere in the figure.
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In legends, please use visual cues rather than verbal explanations such as "open red triangles". Avoid unnecessary figures: 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 at the smallest size at which essential details are visible.

At the initial submission stage, you may choose to upload separate figure files or to incorporate figures into the main article file, ensuring that any figures are of sufficient quality to be clearly legible.

When submitting a revised manuscript, you must upload all figures as separate figure files, ensuring that the image quality and formatting conforms to the specifications below.

You must supply each complete figure as a separate file upload. Multi-part/panel figures must be prepared and arranged as a single image file (including all sub-parts; a, b, c, etc.). Please do not upload each panel individually.

Please read the digital images integrity and standards section of our Editorial and Publishing Policies . 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. Failure to do so, or to adhere to the following guidelines, can significantly delay publication of your work.

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Please supply all photographic and bitmap images in a bitmap image format such as tiff, jpg, or psd. If saving tiff files, please ensure that the compression option is selected to avoid very large file sizes. Please do not supply Word or Powerpoint files with placed images. Images can be supplied as RGB or CMYK (note: we will not convert image colour modes).

Figures that do not meet these standards will not reproduce well and may delay publication until we receive high-resolution images.

3. Chemical structures

Please produce Chemical structures using ChemDraw or a similar program. All chemical compounds must be assigned a bold, Arabic numeral in the order in which the compounds are presented in the manuscript text. Structures should then be exported into a 300 dpi RGB tiff file before being submitted.

4. Stereo images

You should present stereo diagrams for divergent 'wall-eyed' viewing, with the two panels separated by 5.5 cm. In the final accepted version of the manuscript, you should submit the stereo images at their final page size.

If your paper contains statistical testing, it should state the name of the statistical test, the n value 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 < 0.05"). Please make it clear what statistical test was used to generate every P value. Use of the word "significant" should always be accompanied by a P value; otherwise, use "substantial," "considerable," etc.

Data sets should be summarised with descriptive statistics, which should include the n value for each data set, a clearly labelled measure of centre (such as the mean or the median), and a clearly labelled 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 labelled error bars. You must state whether a number that follows the ± sign is a standard error (s.e.m.) or a standard deviation (s.d.).

You must justify the use of a particular test and explain whether the data conforms to the assumptions of the tests. Three errors are particularly common:

• Multiple comparisons: when making multiple statistical comparisons on a single data set, you should explain how you adjusted the alpha level to avoid an inflated Type I error rate, or you should select statistical tests appropriate for multiple groups (such as ANOVA rather than a series of t-tests).
• Normal distribution: many statistical tests require that the data be approximately normally distributed; when using these tests, you should explain how you tested your data for normality. If the data does not meet the assumptions of the test, you should use a non-parametric alternative instead.
• Small sample size: when the sample size is small (less than about 10), you should use tests appropriate to small samples or justify the use of large-sample tests.

You should identify molecular structures by bold, Arabic numerals assigned in order of presentation in the text. Once identified in the main text or a figure, you may refer to compounds by their name, by a defined abbreviation, or by the bold Arabic numeral (as long as the compound is referred to consistently as one of these three).

When possible, you should refer to chemical compounds and biomolecules using systematic nomenclature, preferably using IUPAC . You should use standard chemical and biological abbreviations. Make sure you define unconventional or specialist abbreviations at their first occurrence in the text.

You should use approved nomenclature for gene symbols, and employ symbols rather than italicised full names (for example Ttn, not titin). Please consult the appropriate nomenclature databases for correct gene names and symbols. A useful resource is Entrez Gene .

You can get approved human gene symbols from HUGO Gene Nomenclature Committee (HGNC), e-mail: [email protected] ; see also www.genenames.org .

You can get approved mouse symbols from The Jackson Laboratory, e-mail: [email protected] ; see also 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)'.

Scientific Reports is committed to publishing technically sound research. Manuscripts submitted to the journal will be held to rigorous standards with respect to experimental methods and characterisation of new compounds.

You must provide adequate data to support your assignment of identity and purity for each new compound described in your manuscript. You should provide a statement confirming the source, identity and purity of known compounds that are central to the scientific study, even if they are purchased or resynthesised using published methods.

1. Chemical identity

Chemical identity for organic and organometallic compounds should be established through spectroscopic analysis. Standard peak listings (see formatting guidelines below) for 1H NMR and proton-decoupled 13C NMR should be provided for all new compounds. Other NMR data should be reported (31P NMR, 19F NMR, etc.) when appropriate. For new materials, you should also provide mass spectral data to support molecular weight identity. High-resolution mass spectral (HRMS) data is preferred. You may report UV or IR spectral data for the identification of characteristic functional groups, when appropriate. You should provide melting-point ranges for crystalline materials. You may report specific rotations for chiral compounds. You should provide references, rather than detailed procedures, for known compounds, unless their protocols represent a departure from or improvement on published methods.

2. Combinational compound libraries

When describing the preparation of combinatorial libraries, you should include standard characterisation data for a diverse panel of library components.

3. Biomolecular identity

For new biopolymeric materials (oligosaccharides, peptides, nucleic acids, etc.), direct structural analysis by NMR spectroscopic methods may not be possible. In these cases, you must provide evidence of identity based on sequence (when appropriate) and mass spectral characterisation.

4. Biological constructs

You should provide sequencing or functional data that validates the identity of their biological constructs (plasmids, fusion proteins, site-directed mutants, etc.) either in the manuscript text or the Methods section, as appropriate.

5. Sample purity

We request evidence of sample purity for each new compound. Methods for purity analysis depend on the compound class. For most organic and organometallic compounds, purity may be demonstrated by high-field 1H NMR or 13C NMR data, although elemental analysis (±0.4%) is encouraged for small molecules. You may use quantitative analytical methods including chromatographic (GC, HPLC, etc.) or electrophoretic analyses to demonstrate purity for small molecules and polymeric materials.

6. Spectral data

Please provide detailed spectral data for new compounds in list form (see below) in the Methods section. Figures containing spectra generally will not be published as a manuscript figure unless the data are directly relevant to the central conclusions of the paper. You are encouraged to include high-quality images of spectral data for key compounds in the Supplementary Information. You should list specific NMR assignments after integration values only if they were unambiguously determined by multidimensional NMR or decoupling experiments. You should provide information about how assignments were made in a general Methods section.

Example format for compound characterisation data. mp: 100-102 °C (lit. ref 99-101 °C); TLC (CHCl 3 :MeOH, 98:2 v/v): R f = 0.23; [α] D = -21.5 (0.1 M in n-hexane); 1 H NMR (400 MHz, CDCl 3 ): δ 9.30 (s, 1H), 7.55-7.41 (m, 6H), 5.61 (d, J = 5.5 Hz, 1H), 5.40 (d, J = 5.5 Hz, 1H), 4.93 (m, 1H), 4.20 (q, J = 8.5 Hz, 2H), 2.11 (s, 3H), 1.25 (t, J = 8.5 Hz, 3H); 13 C NMR (125 MHz, CDCl 3 ): δ 165.4, 165.0, 140.5, 138.7, 131.5, 129.2, 118.6, 84.2, 75.8, 66.7, 37.9, 20.1; IR (Nujol): 1765 cm- 1 ; UV/Vis: λ max 267 nm; HRMS (m/z): [M] + calcd. for C 20 H 15 C l2 NO 5 , 420.0406; found, 420.0412; analysis (calcd., found for C 20 H 15 C l2 NO 5 ): C (57.16, 57.22), H (3.60, 3.61), Cl (16.87, 16.88), N (3.33, 3.33), O (19.04, 19.09).

7. Crystallographic data for small molecules

If your manuscript is reporting new three-dimensional structures of small molecules from crystallographic analysis, you should include a .cif file and a structural figure with probability ellipsoids for publication as Supplementary Information. These must have been checked using the IUCR's CheckCIF routine, and you must include a PDF copy of the output with the submission, together with a justification for any alerts reported. You should submit crystallographic data for small molecules to the Cambridge Structural Database and the deposition number referenced appropriately in the manuscript. Full access must be provided on publication.

8. Macromolecular structural data

If your manuscript is reporting new structures, it should contain a table summarising structural and refinement statistics. Templates are available for such tables describing NMR and X-ray crystallography data. To facilitate assessment of the quality of the structural data, you should submit with the manuscript 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). If the reported structure represents a novel overall fold, you should also provide a stereo image of the entire structure (as a backbone trace).

Registered Reports are original research articles which undergo peer-review prior to data collection and analyses. This format is designed to minimize publication bias and research bias in hypothesis-driven research, while also allowing the flexibility to conduct exploratory (unregistered) analyses and report serendipitous findings. If you intend to submit a Registered Report to Scientific Reports , please refer to detailed guidelines here .

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Generate accurate APA citations for free

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• APA Style 7th edition
• How to write and format an APA abstract

APA Abstract (2020) | Formatting, Length, and Keywords

Published on November 6, 2020 by Raimo Streefkerk . Revised on January 17, 2024.

An APA abstract is a comprehensive summary of your paper in which you briefly address the research problem , hypotheses , methods , results , and implications of your research. It’s placed on a separate page right after the title page and is usually no longer than 250 words.

Most professional papers that are submitted for publication require an abstract. Student papers typically don’t need an abstract, unless instructed otherwise.

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Table of contents

How to format the abstract, how to write an apa abstract, which keywords to use, frequently asked questions, apa abstract example.

Formatting instructions

Follow these five steps to format your abstract in APA Style:

• Insert a running head (for a professional paper—not needed for a student paper) and page number.
• Set page margins to 1 inch (2.54 cm).
• Write “Abstract” (bold and centered) at the top of the page.
• Do not indent the first line.
• Double-space the text.
• Use a legible font like Times New Roman (12 pt.).
• Limit the length to 250 words.
• Indent the first line 0.5 inches.
• Write the label “Keywords:” (italicized).
• Write keywords in lowercase letters.
• Separate keywords with commas.
• Do not use a period after the keywords.

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The abstract is a self-contained piece of text that informs the reader what your research is about. It’s best to write the abstract after you’re finished with the rest of your paper.

The questions below may help structure your abstract. Try answering them in one to three sentences each.

• What is the problem? Outline the objective, research questions , and/or hypotheses .
• What has been done? Explain your research methods .
• What did you discover? Summarize the key findings and conclusions .
• What do the findings mean? Summarize the discussion and recommendations .

Check out our guide on how to write an abstract for more guidance and an annotated example.

Guide: writing an abstract

At the end of the abstract, you may include a few keywords that will be used for indexing if your paper is published on a database. Listing your keywords will help other researchers find your work.

Choosing relevant keywords is essential. Try to identify keywords that address your topic, method, or population. APA recommends including three to five keywords.

An abstract is a concise summary of an academic text (such as a journal article or dissertation ). It serves two main purposes:

• To help potential readers determine the relevance of your paper for their own research.
• To communicate your key findings to those who don’t have time to read the whole paper.

Abstracts are often indexed along with keywords on academic databases, so they make your work more easily findable. Since the abstract is the first thing any reader sees, it’s important that it clearly and accurately summarizes the contents of your paper.

An APA abstract is around 150–250 words long. However, always check your target journal’s guidelines and don’t exceed the specified word count.

In an APA Style paper , the abstract is placed on a separate page after the title page (page 2).

Avoid citing sources in your abstract . There are two reasons for this:

• The abstract should focus on your original research, not on the work of others.
• The abstract should be self-contained and fully understandable without reference to other sources.

There are some circumstances where you might need to mention other sources in an abstract: for example, if your research responds directly to another study or focuses on the work of a single theorist. In general, though, don’t include citations unless absolutely necessary.

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.

Streefkerk, R. (2024, January 17). APA Abstract (2020) | Formatting, Length, and Keywords. Scribbr. Retrieved August 19, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/apa-style/apa-abstract/

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• Writing Tips

The Word Limit in Academic Writing (and How to Stick to It)

• 3-minute read
• 24th September 2016

Even the phrase “word limit” can cause panic among students . For some it’s the challenge of writing enough, while others find it hard to stick within the limit given. In either case, it can lead to spending more time worrying about the length of your paper than the content!

But why do college papers come with set word limits? And what should you do to ensure you don’t write too much or too little?

Why Have a Word Limit?

There are two main reasons that academic papers usually come with a word limit:

• Fairness It’s impossible to grade two papers of vastly different lengths (e.g., 20,000 compared to 2,000 words) on the same scale. The word limit makes sure that everyone taking the same class knows what is expected of them.
• Communication Skills As well as testing your knowledge, college papers are about communicating clearly and concisely. Setting a word limit forces you to consider what you’re saying more carefully, helping you to develop your writing skills.

Sticking to the word limit is, therefore, part of being a good academic, since being a long way over or under could suggest you’ve misjudged the scope of the essay topic or that you’re having trouble communicating your ideas.

How to Stick to the Word Limit

Although many colleges give you roughly 10% leeway on the word limit, you should aim for your finished paper to be as close to the suggested word count as possible. If you find yourself writing too much, you can reduce the word count by:

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• Editing out repetition, redundant words and padding phrases
• Cutting down long or unnecessary quotations
• Reducing the number of examples or case studies used (if you’ve included several)
• Using the active voice instead of the passive voice

More generally, you should re-read your work and eliminate anything that isn’t directly related to the question you’re answering. As well as helping you stick to the word limit, this will make your work more focused, which could boost your grades.

How to Increase Your Word Count

If you’re struggling to write enough, the temptation might be to add padding phrases like “in my opinion” or long block quotations until you hit the minimum word count. But this will simply detract from the clarity of your writing.

Instead, the answer is usually to go back over your work and look for things that could be improved with a little additional attention. This might involve:

• Addressing anything from your essay question that you’ve overlooked
• Adding illustrative examples to support a point
• Considering different sources and views on the same issue
• Using short quotations as evidence for your arguments

Moreover, whether you’ve written too much or too little, getting someone else to read your work and offer feedback is a fantastic idea (especially if you ask a professional for help). This will help you to identify areas that could be expanded or cut in the next draft, so eventually you should be able to get your essay to the required length.

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How Long Should a Research Title Be? Data from 104,161 Examples

I analyzed a random sample of 104,161 full-text research papers, uploaded to PubMed Central between the years 2016 and 2021, to learn more about title length.

I used the BioC API to download the data (see the References section below).

Here’s a summary of the key findings

1. The median title was 14 words long (equivalent to 103 characters), and 90% of titles in the sample were between 6 and 25 words.

2. The 10-year trend shows an increase in title length from an average of 103 characters in 2012 to 111 characters in 2021.

3. Since Google shows only the first 60 characters of titles in its results page, 89.2% of titles in our sample will be truncated when they appear in Google search. And the median title loses 41.7% of its words in this process .

4. On average, review articles (systematic reviews and meta-analyses) had longer titles (16 words) compared to original research articles (14 words) .

5. L onger articles are not associated with longer titles .

6. Articles published in high impact journals tend to have shorter titles than average .

1. Overall title length

In our sample of 104,161 articles, the mean title length was 14.7 words, and the distribution of title word count had an expected right skew:

Here’s a table that describes the title word and character counts in the sample:

From these data, we can conclude that most titles were between 11 and 18 words long (80 to 129 characters).

The shortest title was:

“Cellular Inheritance” Link to the article on PubMed

Length: 2 words (21characters)

And the longest title was:

“Safety and efficacy of alpha‐amylase from Bacillus amyloliquefaciens DSM 9553, Bacillus amyloliquefaciens NCIMB 30251, Aspergillus oryzae CBS 585.94 and Aspergillus oryzae ATTC SD‐5374, endo‐1,4‐beta‐glucanase from Trichoderma reesei ATCC PTA‐10001, Trichoderma reesei ATCC SD‐6331 and Aspergillus niger CBS 120604, endo‐1,4‐beta‐xylanase from Trichoderma koningii MUCL 39203 and Trichoderma citrinoviride CBS 614.94 and endo‐1,3(4)‐beta‐glucanase from Aspergillus tubingensis MUCL 39199 as silage additives for all animal species” Link to the article on PubMed

Length: 148 words (1,097 characters)

2. Title length 10-year trend

The following is a plot of the average title character count each year, for the past 10 years:

The 10-year trend shows an increase in title length from an average of 103 characters in 2012 to 111 characters in 2021.

3. Titles as they appear in Google search

The results page of Google shows only the first 60 characters of titles and the rest is truncated. So, the first 60 characters constitute the part of a research title that is visible to users.

As an example, let’s try to search on Google for the article that had the longest title in our sample (1,097 characters).

In Google’s search field, I typed: “safety and efficacy of alpha-amylase” pubmed.

Here’s the response:

What happened is that Google chose a part of the title (specifically, 57 characters from the title) and displayed it in its results page.

We can all agree that this is horrible!

All these people who are searching online for the safety and efficacy for alpha-amylase are seeing a title that has nothing to do with their search, and will probably end up not clicking on that title.

So how many research titles get truncated by Google search? and what percentage of these title is invisible to users?

Based on our sample data, 89.2% of titles were longer than 60 characters and therefore will be truncated when they appear on the results page of Google. And the median title has 41.7% of its words invisible to online users.

Conclusion:

When writing a research title, make sure:

• To keep it as short as possible
• That the visible part in an online search (the first 60 characters) is meaningful. Journalists call this: front loading–i.e. important words should be put close to the beginning.

4. Title length for different article types

In our sample of 104,161 articles, review articles (systematic reviews and meta-analyses) had longer titles (median: 16 words; n=2,851 articles) compared to original research articles (median: 14 words; n=101,310 articles).

5. Influence of article length on title length

To study the influence of article length on title length, I ran a Poisson regression model that predicts the title character count given the whole article word count.

According to the output of that model:

A research article that has 1000 more words, has a title that is 1% longer.

Although this result is statistically significant, it is practically negligible, since an article that has 1000 words more than the median is associated with a title that is only 1 character longer.

In practice, longer research articles are not associated with longer titles.

6. Length of titles in different journals

The following table shows the maximum title length allowed in 10 famous scientific journals according to their “instructions for authors” available from their websites:

According to this table, famous journals recommend keeping titles below 126.6 characters on average. But 27% of the titles in our sample exceed this limit.

So where are these 27% of articles published?

More generally, do higher-quality journals prefer publishing shorter titles?

In order to answer this question, I ran a Poisson regression that models the title word count given the journal impact factor. Here’s the model’s output:

The model shows that a higher journal impact factor is associated with shorter titles. Specifically, a 1 unit increase in the journal impact factor is associated with a decrease of 1.1% in the title word count. For the median article, this means that a 1 unit increase in the journal impact factor is associated with a decrease of 0.15 words (or approximately 1 character) in the title.

On average, higher-quality journals tend to publish slightly shorter titles.

• Comeau DC, Wei CH, Islamaj Doğan R, and Lu Z. PMC text mining subset in BioC: about 3 million full text articles and growing,  Bioinformatics , btz070, 2019.

Further reading

• Can a Research Title Be a Question? Real-World Examples
• How Long Should a Research Paper Be? Data from 61,519 Examples
• How Many References to Cite? Based on 96,685 Research Papers
• How Old Should References Be? Based on 3,823,919 Examples

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Title, Abstract and Keywords

The importance of titles.

The title of your manuscript is usually the first introduction readers (and reviewers) have to your work. Therefore, you must select a title that grabs attention, accurately describes the contents of your manuscript, and makes people want to read further.

An effective title should:

• Convey the  main topics  of the study
• Highlight the  importance  of the research
• Be  concise
• Attract  readers

Writing a good title for your manuscript can be challenging. First, list the topics covered by the manuscript. Try to put all of the topics together in the title using as few words as possible. A title that is too long will seem clumsy, annoy readers, and probably not meet journal requirements.

Does Vaccinating Children and Adolescents with Inactivated Influenza Virus Inhibit the Spread of Influenza in Unimmunized Residents of Rural Communities?

This title has too many unnecessary words.

Influenza Vaccination of Children: A Randomized Trial

This title doesn’t give enough information about what makes the manuscript interesting.

Effect of Child Influenza Vaccination on Infection Rates in Rural Communities: A Randomized Trial This is an effective title. It is short, easy to understand, and conveys the important aspects of the research.

Think about why your research will be of interest to other scientists. This should be related to the reason you decided to study the topic. If your title makes this clear, it will likely attract more readers to your manuscript. TIP: Write down a few possible titles, and then select the best to refine further. Ask your colleagues their opinion. Spending the time needed to do this will result in a better title.

Abstract and Keywords

The Abstract is:

• A  summary  of the content of the journal manuscript
• A time-saving  shortcut  for busy researchers
• A guide to the most important parts of your manuscript’s written content

Many readers will only read the Abstract of your manuscript. Therefore, it has to be able to  stand alone . In most cases the abstract is the only part of your article that appears in indexing databases such as Web of Science or PubMed and so will be the most accessed part of your article; making a good impression will encourage researchers to read your full paper.

A well written abstract can also help speed up the peer-review process. During peer review, referees are usually only sent the abstract when invited to review the paper. Therefore, the abstract needs to contain enough information about the paper to allow referees to make a judgement as to whether they have enough expertise to review the paper and be engaging enough for them to want to review it.

Your Abstract should answer these questions about your manuscript:

• What was done?
• Why did you do it?
• What did you find?
• Why are these findings useful and important?

Answering these questions lets readers know the most important points about your study, and helps them decide whether they want to read the rest of the paper. Make sure you follow the proper journal manuscript formatting guidelines when preparing your abstract.

TIP: Journals often set a maximum word count for Abstracts, often 250 words, and no citations. This is to ensure that the full Abstract appears in indexing services.

Keywords  are a tool to help indexers and search engines find relevant papers. If database search engines can find your journal manuscript, readers will be able to find it too. This will increase the number of people reading your manuscript, and likely lead to more citations.

However, to be effective, Keywords must be chosen carefully. They should:

• Represent  the content of your manuscript
• Be  specific  to your field or sub-field

Manuscript title:  Direct observation of nonlinear optics in an isolated carbon nanotube

Poor keywords:  molecule, optics, lasers, energy lifetime

Better keywords:  single-molecule interaction, Kerr effect, carbon nanotubes, energy level structure

Manuscript title:  Region-specific neuronal degeneration after okadaic acid administration Poor keywords:  neuron, brain, OA (an abbreviation), regional-specific neuronal degeneration, signaling

Better keywords:  neurodegenerative diseases; CA1 region, hippocampal; okadaic acid; neurotoxins; MAP kinase signaling system; cell death

Manuscript title:  Increases in levels of sediment transport at former glacial-interglacial transitions

Poor keywords:  climate change, erosion, plant effects Better keywords:  quaternary climate change, soil erosion, bioturbation

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About The BMJ

• Resources for authors

Article types and preparation

At The BMJ , we offer authors the opportunity to submit a range of article types. You can find out more about preparing and submitting a particular style of article by clicking on the links below. Please take the time to explore these instructions before proceeding with a submission. Further details about each of these individual sections and article types are discussed further down this page.

Article Types at The BMJ

Requirements for ALL manuscripts

Please ensure that anything you submit to The BMJ conforms to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors’ Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly work in Medical Journals  uniform recommendations for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals.

Before submitting an article, please ensure that you have followed all guidelines below. We recommend learning about our house style and ways to incorporate images into your submission .

Title page and authorship

The title should be informative and, for research papers, a subtitle with the study design (for example, "a phase III clinical trial" or "a systematic review and meta-analysis").

In this page, please provide for each author his or her name, affiliation (job title) at the time the paper was written, email and, for the corresponding author, the best contact address. All authors must fulfill the ICMJE criteria for authorship . If the number of authors is very large we may ask for confirmation that everyone listed met the ICMJE criteria for authorship . We also offer the option of joint first authorship when two authors meet criteria for such a designation. We reserve the right to require that authors form a group whose name will appear in the article byline. MEDLINE guidance explains that group authorship is acceptable, stating "When a group name for a specific consortium, committee, study group, or the like appears in an article byline, the personal names of the members of that group may be published in the article text. Such names are entered as collaborator names for the MEDLINE citation."

Further details about The BMJ 's stance on authorship, contributorship, and group authorship can be found on our Authorship and contributorship page.

Please note that from 30 November 2018 The BMJ is mandating ORCiD iDs for corresponding authors for all research articles if accepted, and this information will be required alongside submitted manuscripts. Co-authors and reviewers are strongly encouraged to also connect their ScholarOne accounts to ORCiD. We firmly believe that the increased use and integration of ORCiD iDs will be beneficial for the whole research community. For those who do not currently have an iD they will be required to register but this is free and takes a matter of seconds - we strongly encourage all authors to register for an ORCiD profile .

To learn more about ORCiD, please visit http://orcid.org/content/initiative

Contributor and guarantor information

Each contributorship statement should make clear who has contributed what to the planning, conduct, and reporting of the work described in the article, and should identify one, or occasionally more, contributor(s) as being responsible for the overall content as guarantor(s). The guarantor accepts full responsibility for the work and/or the conduct of the study, had access to the data, and controlled the decision to publish. The following line should also be included - "The corresponding author attests that all listed authors meet authorship criteria and that no others meeting the criteria have been omitted."

For articles in The BMJ that do not report original research - such as editorials, clinical reviews, and education and debate - please state who had the idea for the article, who performed the literature search, who wrote the article, and who is the guarantor (the contributor who accepts full responsibility for the finished article, had access to any data, and controlled the decision to publish). For non-research articles that include case reports such as lessons of the week, drug points, and interactive case reports, please also state who identified and/or managed the case(s). We encourage authors to fully acknowledge the contribution of patients and the public to their research where appropriate.

Copyright/license for publication

Since January 2000, The BMJ has not asked authors of journal articles to assign us their copyright and authors (or their employers) retain their copyright in the article. All we require from authors is an exclusive licence (or, from government employees who cannot grant this, a non-exclusive licence) that allows us to publish the article in The BMJ (including any derivative products) and any other BMJ products (such as the Student BMJ or overseas editions), and allows us to sublicense such rights and exploit all subsidiary rights.

We ask the corresponding author to grant this exclusive licence (or non-exclusive for government employees) on behalf of all authors by reading our licence and inserting in the manuscript on submission the following statement:

“The Corresponding Author has the right to grant on behalf of all authors and does grant on behalf of all authors, a worldwide licence to the Publishers and its licensees in perpetuity, in all forms, formats and media (whether known now or created in the future), to i) publish, reproduce, distribute, display and store the Contribution, ii) translate the Contribution into other languages, create adaptations, reprints, include within collections and create summaries, extracts and/or, abstracts of the Contribution, iii) create any other derivative work(s) based on the Contribution, iv) to exploit all subsidiary rights in the Contribution, v) the inclusion of electronic links from the Contribution to third party material where-ever it may be located; and, vi) licence any third party to do any or all of the above."

This licence allows authors to use their own articles for their own non-commercial purposes without seeking permission from us. Only if the use is commercial do we need to know about it. In addition, we will pay authors a royalty on certain commercial uses that we negotiate.

Information on permissions for authors and third parties for reuse can be found here .

Manuscripts authored or co-authored by one or more NIH employees must be submitted with a completed and signed NIH Publishing Agreement and Manuscript Cover Sheet according to NIH’s Employee Procedures .

Patient consent (if applicable)

Publication of any personal information about a patient in The BMJ - for example, in a case report or clinical photograph - will normally require the signed consent of the patient. If this is the case, please include a statement that any identifiable patients have provided their signed consent to publication and submit, as a supplemental file, The BMJ 's patient consent form that is available in several languages .

Competing interests declaration

A competing interest - often called a conflict of interest - exists when professional judgment concerning a primary interest (such as patients' welfare or the validity of research) may be influenced by a secondary interest (such as financial gain, academic promotion, or personal rivalry). It may arise for the authors of an article in The BMJ when they have a financial interest that may influence, probably without their knowing, their interpretation of their results or those of others.

We believe that, to make the best decision on how to deal with an article, we should know about any competing interests that authors may have, and that if we publish the article readers should know about them too. We are not aiming to eradicate such interests across all article types in The BMJ . However, certain articles (see below) fall under a stricter policy announced in 2014 . This means that authors whose financial conflicts of interest are judged to be relevant by the BMJ team are not permitted to write these articles. We also ask our staff and reviewers to declare any competing interests.

A declaration of interests for all authors must be received before an article can be reviewed and accepted for publication. It should take one of two forms, depending on what type of article you are submitting. The links to the relevant forms are provided at the end of this section.

For editorials and education articles (excluding State Of The Art reviews and Therapeutics articles)

Since 2014, The BMJ requires that such articles must be written by authors without relevant financial ties to industry . By "industry" we mean companies producing drugs, medical foods, nutraceuticals, devices, apps or tests; medical education companies; or other companies with a financial or reputational interest in the topic of the article. We consider the following relationships with industry to be relevant, making it unlikely that we would be able to publish your work: employment; ownership of stocks and shares (this excludes mutual funds or other situations in which the person is not in a position to control investment decisions) ; travel and accommodation expenses; paid consultancy or directorship; patent ownership; aid membership of speakers' panels or bureaus and advisory board; acting as an expert witness ; being in receipt of a fellowship, equipment, writing, or administrative support; writing or consulting for a medical education promotional or communications company. If you are in doubt about the relevance of any potential conflict of interest please discuss with the editor of the appropriate section before submission.

All authors must review the updated COI policy and complete The BMJ 's Education Declaration of Interests form . If the article is accepted for publication these completed forms will be stored and made available on request. The corresponding author should insert within their manuscript a summary statement derived from the information provided in the COI forms (link below): " I/We have read and understood BMJ policy on declaration of interests and declare the following interests: [list them or state that you have none]."

Examples of different sorts of summary statements:

No competing interests : "We have read and understood BMJ policy on declaration of interests and declare that we have no competing interests."

Competing interests disclosed: " We have read and understood BMJ policy on declaration of interests and declare the following interests: AA is an unpaid member of XX group developing guidelines for ZZ."

For Research and RMR papers

We ask authors of research papers to use a revised version of the ICMJE’s unified disclosure form . The unified form can be used for several journals. Each journal, will, however, integrate the form into its processes in different ways.

Authors must disclose three types of information:

Associations with commercial entities that provided support for the work reported in the submitted manuscript (the timeframe for disclosure in this section of the form is the lifespan of the work being reported).

Associations with commercial entities that could be viewed as having an interest in the general area of the submitted manuscript (in the three years before submission of the manuscript).

Non-financial associations that may be relevant or seen as relevant to the submitted manuscript.

All authors must complete the disclosure form and send it to the corresponding author who will use the information in the forms to craft the COI statement for the paper (examples provided below). The statement but not the forms must be included with the submission. and that must be included with the initial submission. If the paper is accepted, these forms will be required and will be published alongside the article.

The statement in the manuscript should take the following format:

"Competing interests: All authors have completed the ICMJE uniform disclosure form at http://www.icmje.org/disclosure-of-interest/ and declare: no support from any organisation for the submitted work [or describe if any]; no financial relationships with any organisations that might have an interest in the submitted work in the previous three years [or describe if any]; no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work [or describe if any].”

Examples of statements:

No competing interests: "All authors have completed the ICMJE uniform disclosure form at http://www.icmje.org/disclosure-of-interest/ and declare: no support from any organisation for the submitted work; no financial relationships with any organisations that might have an interest in the submitted work in the previous three years; no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work."

Grant funding for research but no other competing interest: "All authors have completed the ICMJE uniform disclosure form at http://www.icmje.org/disclosure-of-interest/ and declare: all authors had financial support from ABC Company for the submitted work; no financial relationships with any organisations that might have an interest in the submitted work in the previous three years; no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work."

Mixed competing interests: "All authors have completed the ICMJE uniform disclosure form at http://www.icmje.org/disclosure-of-interest/ and declare: no support from any organisation for the submitted work; AB has received research grants and honorariums from XYZ company, BF has been paid for developing and delivering educational presentations for BBB foundation, DF does consultancy for HHH and VVV companies; no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work."

For all other papers

Complete The BMJ 's Disclosure form . We do not need to receive signed copies of the statements regarding competing interests or the licence to publication: these are for information only. When submitting your article (or a revised version of it) you will be prompted at our online editorial office to tick two boxes , confirming that you have read and complied with our policies on competing interests and licence to publication. Please also ensure that your manuscript, whether in original or revised form, also includes your written statements of competing interests and licence to publication.

Additional requirements by Article Type

In addition to the above, all of our articles have additional requirements which should be fulfilled before submitting. For more information on any of the requirements below, please contact [email protected] .

We have produced a checklist to help authors decide whether The BMJ is the right journal for their research. If the work does not seem to fit in The BMJ , it may be better sent straight to another journal with a more specialist or local readership or a higher acceptance rate.

To learn more about the kind of research articles we give priority to, and what services we offer to authors of research, please read the editorial "Publishing your research study in the BMJ ?" . Please note that we welcome studies - even with "negative" results - as long as their research questions are important, new, and relevant to general readers and their designs are appropriate and robust.

Word count and style

To encourage full and transparent reporting of research we do not set fixed word count limits for research articles. Nonetheless, we ask you to make your article concise and make every word count. You will be prompted to provide the word count for the main text (excluding the abstract, references, tables, boxes, or figures) when you submit your manuscript.

Original research articles should follow the IMRaD style (introduction, methods, results, and discussion) and should include a structured abstract (see below), a structured discussion, and a succinct introduction that focuses - in no more than three paragraphs - on the background to the research question.

For an intervention study, the manuscript should include enough information about the intervention(s) and comparator(s) (even if this was usual care) for reviewers and readers to understand fully what happened in the study. To enable readers to replicate your work or implement the interventions in their own practice, please also provide any relevant detailed descriptions and materials (uploaded as one or more supplemental files, including video and audio files where appropriate). Alternatively, please provide in the manuscript URLs to openly accessible websites where these materials can be found.

Please ensure that the discussion section of your article comprises no more than a page and a half and follows this overall structure, although you do not need to signpost these elements with subheadings:

• Statement of principal findings • Strengths and weaknesses of the study • Strengths and weaknesses in relation to other studies, discussing important differences in results • Meaning of the study: possible explanations and implications for clinicians and policymakers • Unanswered questions and future research

This video gives more detailed advice on writing each section of a research paper for The BMJ .

Structured abstract

Please ensure that the structured abstract is as complete, accurate, and clear as possible and has been approved by all authors. We may screen original research articles by reading only the abstract.

Abstracts should be 250- 300 words long: you may need up to 400 words, however, for a CONSORT or PRISMA style abstract. MEDLINE can now handle up to 600 words. Abstracts should include the following headings, but they may be modified for abstracts of clinical trials or systematic reviews and meta-analyses according to the requirements on the the CONSORT extension for abstracts and the PRISMA extension for abstracts , respectively.

• Objectives - a clear statement of the main aim of the study and the major hypothesis tested or research question posed • Design - including factors such as prospective, randomisation, blinding, placebo control, case control, crossover, criterion standards for diagnostic tests, etc. • Setting - include the level of care, eg primary, secondary; number of participating centres. Be general rather than give the name of the specific centre, but give the geographical location if this is important • Participants (instead of patients or subjects) - numbers entering and completing the study, sex, and ethnic group if appropriate. Give clear definitions of how selected, entry and exclusion criteria. • Interventions - what, how, when and for how long. This heading can be deleted if there were no interventions but should normally be included for randomised controlled trials, crossover trials, and before and after studies. • Main outcome measures - those planned in the protocol, those finally measured (if different, explain why). • Results - main results with (for quantitative studies) 95% confidence intervals and, where appropriate, the exact level of statistical significance and the number need to treat/harm. Whenever possible, state absolute rather than relative risks. • Conclusions - primary conclusions and their implications, suggesting areas for further research if appropriate. Do not go beyond the data in the article. Conclusions are important because this is often the only part that readers look at. • Trial registration - registry and number (for clinical trials and, if available, for observational studies and systematic reviews).

When writing your abstract, use the active voice but avoid "we did" or "we found". Numbers over 10 do not need spelling out at the start of sentences. p-values should always be accompanied by supporting data, and denominators should be given for percentages. Confidence intervals should be written in the format (15 to 27) within parentheses, using the word "to" rather than a hyphen. Abstracts do not need references.

Statistical issues

We want your piece to be easy to read but also as scientifically accurate as possible. We encourage authors to review the "Statistical Analyses and Methods in the Published Literature or The SAMPL Guidelines" while preparing their manuscript.

Whenever possible, state absolute rather than relative risks. Please include in the results section of your structured abstract (and in the article's results section) the following terms, as appropriate:

For a clinical trial:

• Absolute event rates among experimental and control groups. • RRR (relative risk reduction). • NNT or NNH (number needed to treat or harm) and its 95% confidence interval (or, if the trial is of a public health intervention, number helped per 1000 or 100,000).

For a cohort study:

• Absolute event rates over time (eg 10 years) among exposed and non-exposed groups • RRR (relative risk reduction)

For a case control study:

• OR (odds ratio) for strength of association between exposure and outcome

For a study of a diagnostic test:

• Sensitivity and specificity • PPV and NPV (positive and negative predictive values)

The box stating 'what is known' and 'what this study adds' should also reflect accurately the above information. Under what this study adds, please give the one most useful summary statistic eg NNT.

Please do not use the term 'negative' to describe studies that have not found statistically significant differences, perhaps because they were too small. There will always be some uncertainty, and we hope you will be as explicit as possible in reporting what you have found in your study. Using wording such as "our results are compatible with a decrease of this much or an increase of this much" or 'this study found no effect' is more accurate and helpful to readers than "there was no effect/no difference." Please use such wording throughout the article, including the structured abstract and the box stating what the paper adds.

Provide one or more references for the statistical package(s) used to analyse the data - for example, RevMan for a systematic review. There is no need to provide a formal reference for a very widely used package that will be familiar to general readers - for example, Stata - but please say in the text which version you used.

Reporting guidelines

Reporting guidelines promote clear reporting of methods and results to allow critical appraisal of the manuscript. We ask that all manuscripts be written in accordance with the appropriate reporting guideline. Please submit as supplemental material the appropriate reporting guideline checklist showing on which page of your manuscript each checklist item appears. A complete list of guidelines can be found in the website of the Equator Network . Below is the list of most often used checklists but others may apply.

For a clinical trials , use the CONSORT checklist and also include a structured abstract that follows the CONSORT extension for abstract checklist, the CONSORT flowchart and, where applicable, the appropriate CONSORT extension statements (for example, for cluster RCTs, pragmatic trials, etc.). A completed TIDieR checklist is also helpful as this helps to ensure that trial interventions are fully described in ways that are reproducible, usable by other clinicians, and clear enough for systematic reviewers and guideline writers.

For systematic reviews or meta-analysis of randomised trials and other evaluation studies, use the PRISMA checklist and flowchart and use the PRISMA structured abstract checklist when writing the structured abstract.

For studies of diagnostic accuracy , use the STARD checklist and flowchart.

For observational studies , use the STROBE checklist and any appropriate extension STROBE extensions.

For genetic risk prediction studies, use GRIPS .

For economic evaluation studies , use CHEERS .

For studies developing, validating or updating a prediction model , use TRIPOD .

For articles that include explicit statements of the quality of evidence and strength of recommendations, we prefer reporting using the GRADE system.

For studies using data from electronic health records, please use CODE-EHR .

Cover letter

A cover letter is your opportunity to introduce your study to the editor, highlighting the most important findings and novelty. Please also include in the letter the following information:

Mandatory patient and public involvement reporting

The BMJ is encouraging active patient and public involvement in clinical research as part of its patient partnership strategy . This is research which is "co produced" with patients, carers, or members of the public. Patient involvement in this context is not about being a research participant, answering surveys, or being an interviewee. It encompasses setting research priorities, defining research questions and outcome measures, providing input into study design and conduct, dissemination of results, and evaluation.

To support co production of research we request that authors provide a short paragraph as a subsection within the methods section of their papers entitled Patient and Public Involvement detailing how they involved the patients and the public in their research. We request this to both encourage the movement and ensure that BMJ readers can easily see whether, and if so how, patients and the public were involved in the research. If they were not involved in any way this information should be formally documented in the Patient and Public Involvement section.

As co production of research with patients and the public is relatively new we appreciate that not all authors will have involved them in their studies. We also appreciate that patient / public involvement may not be feasible or appropriate for all papers. We therefore continue to consider papers where they were not involved.

The Patient and Public Involvement section should provide a brief response to the following questions, tailored as appropriate for the study design reported:

• At what stage in the research process were patients/public first involved in the research and how? • How were the research question(s) and outcome measures developed and informed by their priorities, experience, and preferences? • How were patients/public involved in the design of this study? • How were they involved in the recruitment to and conduct of the study? • Were they asked to assess the burden of the intervention and time required to participate in the research? • How were (or will) patients and the public be involved in choosing the methods and agreeing plans for dissemination of the study results to participants and wider relevant communities? You may find this link helpful.

In addition to considering the points above we advise authors to look at guidance for best reporting of patient and public involvement as set out in the GRIPP2 reporting checklist.  

If information detailing whether there was patient and public involvement, or not, is missing in the submitted manuscript we will request authors to provide it.

Where they have been involved we consider it good practice for authors to name and thank them in the contributorship statement after seeking their permission to do so; and to clearly identify them as patient/public contributors. When they have contributed substantially and meet authorship criteria they should be invited to coauthor the manuscript.

Links to selected examples of Patient and Public Involvement statements in published BMJ research papers showing patient and carer involvement at various stages of the research process.

Comparison of the two most commonly used treatments for pyoderma gangrenosum: results of the STOP GAP randomised controlled trial

Evidence based community mobilization for dengue prevention in Nicaragua and Mexico

Computerised cognitive behaviour therapy (cCBT) as treatment for depression in primary care (REEACT trial): large scale pragmatic randomised controlled trial .

Real world effectiveness of warfarin among ischemic stroke patients with atrial fibrillation: observational analysis from Patient-Centered Research into Outcomes Stroke Patients Prefer and Effectiveness Research (PROSPER) study.

Example PPI statements to adapt for use in a paper

Examples to guide the wording for PPI statements

Data sharing

We require a data sharing statement for all research papers. For papers that do not report a trial, we do not require that the authors agree to share the data, just that they say whether they will.

For reports of clinical trials, we ask that the authors commit to making the relevant anonymised patient level data available on reasonable request (see editorial ). This policy applies to any research article that reports the main endpoints of a randomised controlled trial of one or more drugs or medical devices in current use, whether or not the trial was funded by industry.

"Relevant data" encompasses all anonymised data on individual patients on which the analysis, results, and conclusions reported in the paper are based. As for "reasonable request," The BMJ is not in a position to adjudicate, but we will expect requesters to submit a protocol for their re-analysis to the authors and to commit to making their results public. We will encourage those requesting data to send a rapid response to thebmj.com, describing what they are looking for. If the request is refused we will ask the authors of the paper to explain why.

In addition, we will follow the new ICMJE data sharing policy that goes into place on July 1, 2018 (see editorial ): manuscripts submitted to ICMJE journals that report the results of clinical trials must contain a data sharing statement that indicates whether individual de-identified participant data (including data dictionaries) will be shared; what data in particular will be shared; whether additional, related documents will be available (study protocol, statistical analysis plan, etc); when the data will become available and for how long; by what access criteria data will be shared (including with whom, for what types of analyses, and by what mechanism). Clinical trials that begin enrolling participants on or after January 1, 2019 must also include a data sharing plan in the trial’s registration. If the data sharing plan changes after registration this should be reflected in the statement submitted and published with the manuscript, and updated in the registry record.

We encourage authors of all research articles in The BMJ to link their articles to the raw data from their studies. For clinical trials, we require data sharing on request as a minimum and- if authors of such trials are willing to go further and share the data openly, so much the better. The BMJ has partnered with the Dryad digital repository datadryad.org to make open deposition easy and to allow direct linkage by doi from the dataset to The BMJ 's article and back (for The BMJ 's articles' datasets see here ).

Data requesters should do the following: • Submit a rapid response to the paper and email the corresponding author for the paper to request the relevant data. • Be prepared to provide the authors of the paper a detailed protocol for your proposed study, and to supply information about the funding and resources you have to carry out the study. • If appropriate, invite the original author[s] to participate in the re-analysis. • If a month elapses without a response from the authors, please email the head of research for The BMJ (presently [email protected] ) and cc [email protected] . • The BMJ will assess the request and if appropriate we will encourage the authors or their institution to share the data, although we are not in a position to compel data release or broker agreements. Our role is limited to making the request process public, and all correspondence related to the request may be made public through rapid responses to the paper.

Mandatory disaggregation of research data by sex and gender

The BMJ requires that research data be disaggregated by sex and gender. If that is not possible, please include a detailed explanation of the reasons for this, and mention it as a limitation in the discussion section.

Statements that must be included in Research submissions (Ethics approval, funding, and transparency)

Ethics approval

All research studies published in The BMJ should be morally acceptable, and must follow the World Medical Association's Declaration of Helsinki . To ensure this, we aim to appraise the ethical aspects of any submitted work that involves human participants, whatever descriptive label is given to that work including research, audit, and sometimes debate. This policy also applies on the very rare occasions that we publish work done with animal participants. The manuscript must include a statement that the study obtained ethics approval (or a statement that it was not required), including the name of the ethics committee(s) or institutional review board(s), the number/ID of the approval(s), and a statement that participants gave informed consent before taking part.

Transparency statement

Please include in your manuscript a transparency declaration : a statement that the lead author (the manuscript's guarantor) affirms that the manuscript is an honest, accurate, and transparent account of the study being reported; that no important aspects of the study have been omitted; and that any discrepancies from the study as originally planned (and, if relevant, registered) have been explained.

The BMJ is committed to making the editorial process transparent and ethical. The BMJ ’s transparency policies are accessible from this link .

Role of the funding source

Please include in the manuscript a statement giving the details of all sources of funding for the study. As appropriate, the statement must include a description of the role of the study sponsor(s) or funder(s), if any, in the study design; in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the article for publication. In addition, the statement must confirm the independence of researchers from funders and that all authors, external and internal, had full access to all of the data (including statistical reports and tables) in the study and can take responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis is also required.

If you are submitting an original article reporting an industry sponsored clinical trial, postmarketing study, or other observational study please follow the guidelines on good publication practice (GPP2) and on properly reporting the role of professional medical writers. Another resource, the Authors' Submission Toolkit: A practical guide to getting your research published summarises general tips and best practices to increase awareness of journals' editorial requirements, how to choose the right journal, submission processes, publication ethics, peer review, and effective communication with editors - much of which has traditionally been seen as mysterious to authors.

The BMJ will not consider for publication any study that is partly or wholly funded by the tobacco industry, as explained in this editorial .

Patient and Public Involvement statement

Within the Methods section of your paper, please state if and how patients and the public were involved in the research you are describing. For more information, please see the specific guidance on mandatory reporting of patient and public involvement above. If patients and the public were not involved this information should be formally documented in the Patient and Public Involvement statement.

Dissemination to participants and related patient and public communities

For accepted papers we will ask you to confirm when and how the results of your study were (or will be) sent to research participants and whether they are also being sent to relevant patient and public communities, as applicable. If you have not disseminated and have no plans to do so, please state why.

Summary boxes

Please produce a box offering a thumbnail sketch of what your article adds to the literature. The box should be divided into two short sections, each with 1-3 short sentences.

Section 1: What is already known on this topic

In two or three single sentence bullet points, please summarise the state of scientific knowledge on this topicbefore you did your study, and why this study needed to be done. Be clear and specific, not vague.

Section 2: What this study adds

In one or two single sentence bullet points, give a simple answer to the question “What do we now know as a result of this study that we did not know before?” Be brief, succinct, specific, and accurate. For example: "Our study suggests that tea drinking has no overall benefit in depression." You might use the last sentence to summarise any implications for practice, research, policy, or public health. For example, your study might have asked and answered a new question (one whose relevance has only recently become clear); contradicted a belief, dogma, or previous evidence provided a new perspective on something that is already known in general; or provided evidence of higher methodological quality for a message that is already known. DO not make statements that are not directly supported by your data.

Additional information that must be included with reports of Clinical Trials

Trial registration

In accordance with the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors' Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals , The BMJ will not consider reports of clinical trials unless they were registered prospectively before recruitment of any participants. This policy on prospective registration applies to trials that started after 1 July 2005; for older trials retrospective registration will be acceptable, but only if completed before submission of the manuscript to the journal. The trial registration number and name of register should be included as the last line of the structured abstract. The BMJ accepts registration in any registry that is a primary register of the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP) or in ClinicalTrials.gov , which is a data provider to the WHO ICTRP.

In your submission, please include details about registration: registry, date registered, affirmation that registration was prospective before enrolling the first patient (if applicable) and registry number. The BMJ relies on information contained in trial registries. If authors believe that information in the registry is incorrect they should make their case to registry officials.

Eligible trials have been defined by ICMJE since 1 July 2008 as trials "where human participants are prospectively assigned to one or more health-related interventions (including health services and behavioural interventions) to evaluate the effects on health outcomes," and before that were defined more narrowly as trials "where human participants are prospectively assigned to investigate the cause and effect relationship between a medical intervention and health outcome." The ICMJE further states that, "Some trials assign healthcare providers, rather than patients, to intervention and comparison/control groups. If the purpose of the trial is to examine the effect of the provider intervention on the health outcomes of the providers' patients, then investigators should register the trial. If the purpose is to examine the effect only on the providers (for example, provider knowledge or attitudes), then registration is not necessary." We will take these definitions into account when evaluating if trials were adequately registered.

The BMJ does not consider posting of protocols and results in clinical trial registries to be prior publication. We also will consider research articles that have been posted on preprint servers, provided this is clearly disclosed on submission of the paper.

The BMJ encourages but does not require registration of protocols and posting of results in publicly accessible registries for studies that are not clinical trials if they involve human participants, particularly observational studies . If the study was registered, please provide the registration details, explaining whether the study was registered before data acquisition or analysis began.

The BMJ expects authors of clinical trials to report their findings in accordance with the outcomes listed in the trial registry. Outcomes that were not pre-specified in the registration should be identified as such in the text of the paper and in any tables. All registered outcomes should be described in the BMJ paper. If results for any outcomes will be or have been reported in another publication this should be made clear to readers. The timing and reasons for any changes in registered outcomes should also be disclosed.

The BMJ requires authors of clinical trials to upload a protocol for their study. This protocol will be published alongside other materials if the article is accepted. Any discrepancies between the protocol-specified outcomes and those listed in the trial registry or reported in the paper should be explained in the paper. In cases where pre-specified outcomes differ between the trial registration and the protocol, our policy is to consider the outcomes listed in the registry as pre-specified. Outcomes listed in the protocol but not the trial registry can be reported in the paper, but should be identified as post-hoc outcomes. Protocols vary in completeness and content. There are often multiple versions of a protocol and the timing of decisions about outcomes in relation to the onset of a trial cannot easily be determined. This is in contrast to trial registries, where date stamps are reliable and can be easily verified by readers.Trial registry entries should be updated if new outcomes are added or existing ones deleted, promoted, or demoted.

The BMJ requires authors of clinical trials to upload a statistical analysis plan (SAP) for their study. The SAP will be published alongside other materials if the article is accepted. A SAP provides more detailed information about statistical analysis than a protocol, including detailed descriptions of procedures used to execute the analyses. Please follow the guidance on producing a SAP contained in the table of this document: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2666509

Open access

Research papers in The BMJ are published with open access. Moreover, The BMJ immediately fulfils the requirements of the US National Institutes of Health, the UK Medical Research Council, the Wellcome Trust, and other funding bodies by making the full text of publicly funded research freely available to all on bmj.com and sending it directly to PubMed Central, the National Library of Medicine's full text archive. The BMJ occasionally publishes as open access other types of (non-research) articles arising from work funded by a funder who mandates open access publication.

Open access articles may be reused according to the relevant Creative Commons licence. The BMJ 's default licence for open access publication of research is the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial licence (CC BY-NC 4.0) . But where the funder requires it the author can select the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence during the submission process (funders who mandate CC BY include the Wellcome Trust, RCUK, and MRC).

To support this, we ask authors to pay an open access article processing charge - you can find our author charges for open access here . We can offer discounts and waivers for authors who cannot pay. Consideration of the paper is not related to whether authors can or cannot pay the fee. We will ask for the fee only once we have accepted a paper, and we will send an invoice only once authors tell us (via [email protected] ) they can claim the fee. Seeking and processing fees will not delay editing or publication. Please do not contact editors about open access fees: neither editors nor reviewers will know whether a fee is payable, and administrative staff will handle payments and all associated correspondence. For non-research articles published with open access we will ask authors to pay the open access fee. We do not offer refunds for Open Access once articles have been published. For further information, contact [email protected] .

A number of institutions have open access institutional memberships with BMJ (the publishing group), which either cover the whole cost of open access publishing for authors at participating institutions or allow authors to receive a discount on the article processing charge. For a list of member institutions and their policies on how to receive a discount or to publish free of charge, please visit http://journals.bmj.com/site/authors/openaccess.xhtml

For articles not published with open access, The BMJ 's publication licence allows each author to post their article's URL (provided above) on either their own or their employer's website, thereby giving users free access to the full text of the article on bmj.com. Authors will need to use the toll free link to ensure visitors have free access to the article. Alternatively, authors can post the full text of their published article on their own website or their employer's website.

For additional information, please see the section of instructions to authors on copyright, open access, and permission to reuse .

Living systematic reviews

The BMJ will pilot a small number of living systematic reviews

Duration : We will typically host a living systematic review which is live for up to 2 years after initial publication. The triggers for updates, and their frequency, will be decided with authors on a case by case basis. Communication : The title will reflect the living nature of the review and the most recent update will become the default publication on bmj.com. Reviews will have a single digital object identifier (DOI) to keep the information in one place. However, previous versions will remain available as data supplements. An updates table will be included in the review to make tracking the history of the review easier and to signal planned changes. Updates will be flagged on bmj.com, including in rapid responses. They will also be communicated to third parties including PubMed and PubMedCentral. Updates : Updates should be submitted as a “track changes” version of the final MIcrosoft Word version of the previous iteration of the review. A clean version should also be submitted via the ScholarOne manuscript system. Subsequent internal or external peer review reports will be added to the pre-publication history tab on bmj.com with each version of the paper. The approach to any authorship changes should be negotiated before the first version of the paper is published. Resources : The usual BMJ article open access processing fee will be charged for the initial version of the review and an additional fee will be added to cover the cost of up to three updates per year (£2000 per update). After the first year the price may be revised based on the scope of the revisions and the work done on each one.

Preliminary reporting guidance for living reviews

COVER LETTER: This should explain and defend the need for the review to be “living.” Briefly describe other extant reviews, in particular any other living systematic reviews that have recently been published. The cover letter should acknowledge the authors’ acceptance of the following special conditions that apply to living reviews: 1) the need to provide current conflict of interest declarations or updates for all authors at each revision; 2) the single DOI for the paper and updates; agreement that open access fees cannot be waived for living reviews and that additional fees apply to cover the extra work of producing and maintaining living reviews.

TITLE: The phrase “living systematic review” should appear in the title. If additional terms apply, those may be included as appropriate (e.g. “network meta-analysis,” “meta-analysis,” “critical appraisal,” etc.).

ABSTRACT: The abstract should include: 1) A statement of the research question or objective, including a statement that one objective is to provide regular updates and keep the review live. 2) The rationale for a living systematic review should be described, e.g. rapidly evolving evidence base, anticipated impact on policy or practice, etc. 3) A “Readers’ note” at the end of the abstract that provides information about the version of the paper, the date it went live, and gives notice of planned updates. For example: “Readers’ note: This article is a living systematic review that will be updated periodically over the next 2 years to reflect emerging evidence. This version is update XXX of the original article published XXXXXX (give BMJ DOI), and previous updates can be found as data supplements (give link). When citing this paper please consider adding the version number and date of access for clarity.”

MAIN PAPER: Please address the following matters in the appropriate section of the paper: Introduction: -- Include the information required in the abstract (see above paragraph) at the end of the introduction section. -- In updates, consider including a short paragraph that describes how the living review has evolved. For example, what are the key developments since the previous version of the review, and what developments might be expected? Methods -- Mention and include a reference to any published or publicly available protocol for this review. If not registered, consider registering the review. -- Describe the methods that will be used to keep the review living, including the processes that will be used to search for new evidence, anticipated triggers for updates, and the circumstances under which the review might end before the 2 year time limit for BMJ Living Reviews. -- In updated versions of the review, make clear when and why any methods have evolved over time. If these descriptions are lengthy or complex, consider doing this in a table that can be included in an appendix or supplemental file. Such a table will ideally describe important changes to the review protocol, statistical analyses, or other aspects of the review, along with the dates of these changes. -- A table at the end of the discussion section might be used to highlight new evidence that was not included in the review. Results -- Clearly state the updated dates of the search. Discussion -- Consider additional subheadings to separate, e.g. What remain the important findings so far? Versus what are the main new findings to highlight? -- Consider additional table updates to this article. This will make clear historical and anticipated change. Columns trigger, date and action. Declaration of competing interests -- All authors must complete the ICMJE Competing Interests form with the initial submission. At each revision, we will ask the corresponding author to state whether there have been any changes to competing interests among any of the existing authors. If there are changes or if new authors have been added, the corresponding author is responsible for ensuring the this information is up to date. Otherwise there will be no change to the declaration of interests. Supplementary files -- Previous versions of the paper

Please contact Dr. Elizabeth Loder ( [email protected] ) with any questions.

Supplemental material, video

You may submit the following materials as supplemental files if you think they will help the authors and reviewers make a decision or readers better understand your study:

Original raw data if you think they will help our reviewers (and maybe readers), or if we specifically request them. Please note our policy on data sharing, explained above.

Video and audio files that will add educational value to your article, for example by explaining the intervention in a trial.

A video abstract that summarizes your findings and that will be posted on bmj.com with your paper. You can find additional information about video abstracts here and here .

Public and patient involvement materials used in your research.

Copies of any non-standard questionnaires and assessment schedules used in the research.

Copies of patient information sheets used to obtain informed consent for the study or to comprise or deliver the intervention in a clinical trial.

Copies of closely related articles you have published (this is particularly important when details of the study methods are published elsewhere).

Copies of any previous reviewers' reports on this article . We appreciate that authors may have tried other journals before sending their work to The BMJ , and find it helpful if you let us know how you have responded to previous reviewers' comments.

Research Methods and Reporting (RMR)

We are willing to consider papers that present new or updated research reporting guidelines, but only if the guideline pertains to a study type that we publish in The BMJ. The checklist itself must be included as part of the paper. We prefer to be the only journal publishing the guideline, but under some circumstances we will consider co-publication with up to two other journals. For an example of how to format a reporting guideline to appear in our research methods and reporting section, see http://www.bmj.com/content/346/bmj.f1049.full.pdf+html .

Preparing a RMR article

Word count We do not set fixed word count limits for RMR articles. Nonetheless, we ask you to make your article concise and make every word count. For some submissions this might be published in full on bmj.com with a shorter version in the print BMJ 

Overall structure Research Methods and Reporting should have the following elements:

Title and standfirst A short title is followed by an 100-150 word italicised single sentence (the standfirst) which encapsulates the article’s central message.

Introduction Articles should begin with a brief paragraph that captures readers’ attention and explains the aim of the piece.

Text The body of the text should be broken up under subheadings that provide a logical narrative structure. Avoid acronyms and abbreviations unless they are universally recognised e.g. DNA. The evidence on which key statements are based should be explicit and referenced, and the strength of the evidence (published trials, systematic reviews, observational studies, expert opinion etc.) addressed.

Boxes, tables and figures Include tables, boxes, or illustrations (clinical photographs, imaging, line drawings, and figures) to enhance the text and add to or substantiate key points made in the body of the article. Figures may be in color. Worked out examples that use specific methods under discussion can be included as additional boxes. If appropriate, include a box of linked information such as website urls for those who want to pursue the subject in more depth.

Web extras We may be able to publish on bmj.com some additional boxes, figures, and references (in a separate reference list numbered w1, w2,w3, etc. and marked as such in the main text of the article). Also may include suggestions for linked podcasts or video clips, as appropriate.

Contributors and sources We ask for a 100-150 word supplementary paragraph (excluded from word count) to explain the article’s provenance. It should include the relevant experience and expertise of each author, his or her contribution to the paper, and the sources of information used to prepare it. One author must be nominated as the guarantor of the article. Include a statement of sources and selection criteria.

Summary points Include up to four sentences, in the form of bullet points, highlighting the article's main points.

References Must be in Vancouver style and should be kept to a minimum; ideally no more than 20.

“Analysis” is a distinct article type at The BMJ , and differs from other sections such as research, education, editorials, and opinion. A great analysis article makes an argument and supports it with data. It has academic heft yet is a journalistic read. Academic heft means the argument is scholarly, evidence-based, and supported by data. Journalistic read means the article is written in clear, active language, avoids technical jargon, and is pitched to our international audience of general medical readers.

We receive many manuscripts that are not a good fit for the analysis section. We generally do not consider:

• Case studies or articles mostly concerning the author’s writing about their own work • Manuscripts containing primary research data (such papers should be submitted as research) • Narrative reviews • Articles presenting a new hypothesis

If you are unsure if your work is suitable for The BMJ 's analysis section we are willing to consider succinct pre-submission inquiries, please complete the form in this link and await a response from Jocalyn Clark, Head of Scholarly Comment, or one of the analysis editors.

Preparing an Analysis article

We recommend looking at this Analysis article template and using it as a basis for your work before considering submission.

Word count and style The BMJ has an international readership that includes policy makers, health professionals, and doctors of all disciplines. Authors are advised to keep this readership in mind and to write their article for the non-expert. It’s important to avoid jargon. Specialised terminology and references to organisations or practices that are specific to one country need to be explained. Clear writing and active language are essential. Analysis papers should be 2000 words with 20 references and up to 3 non-text items (box, figure, or table).

Overall structure The manuscript should have the following elements:

Title and standfirst A short title is followed by an italicised single sentence (the standfirst), which encapsulates the article’s central message.

Introduction Articles should begin with a brief paragraph that captures readers’ attention and explains the aim of the piece and “why now”.

Text The body of the text should be broken up under sub-headings that provide a logical narrative structure. Avoid acronyms and abbreviations unless they are universally recognised e.g. DNA. The evidence on which key statements are based should be explicit and referenced, and the strength of the evidence (published trials, systematic reviews, observational studies, expert opinion, etc.) made clear. Articles should present a balanced, even-handed look at the evidence rather than selectively citing evidence that supports a particular view.

Boxes, tables and figures These should extend and substantiate points made in the body of the paper. Words in boxes and tables are excluded from the word count of the body of the text but the additional material should be concise.

Key messages box This should be at the end of the article and include 3-4 points summing up the main conclusions. When submitting your article please enter your key messages when prompted to enter the abstract.

Contributors and sources We ask for a 100-150 word supplementary paragraph (excluded from word count) to explain the article’s provenance. It should include the relevant experience and expertise of each author, his or her contribution to the paper, and the sources of information used to prepare it. One author must be nominated as the guarantor of the article.You are welcome to invite co-authors to work with you on the article. We suggest including 2-3 co-authors with different locations and perspectives to help ensure articles are international in scope and accessible to our broad readership online and in print, and we encourage diversity in co-authorship including gender balance and the inclusion of colleagues from low and middle income countries.

Report of patient involvement As The BMJ is seeking to advance partnership with patients, we also ask authors to seek their input into articles wherever relevant, and document their involvement as patient contributors or coauthors.

Conflicts of Interest All authors should read our competing interests policy and include relevant declarations for all authors in their manuscript. We seek to publish independent Scholarly Comment and require competing interests to be declared upon submission. Where a competing interest exists that you think might disqualify an author from contributing, please discuss it with a BMJ editor before writing the article.

Licence We require the manuscript to include the following statement:

Peer review The BMJ has fully open peer review for analysis articles. This means that every accepted analysis article submitted from February 2016 onwards will have its prepublication history posted alongside it on thebmj.com. This prepublication history comprises all previous versions of the manuscript, the report from the manuscript committee meeting, the reviewers’ signed comments, and the authors’ responses to all the comments from reviewers and editors. Authors are welcome to suggest names of suitable reviewers, including patient reviewers.

What happens after submission

Analysis articles progress through several stages:

• All submissions are read in full by one or more members of the editorial team. • Articles that pass the initial editorial screen are sent for external peer review. • Articles are then discussed at a regular analysis committee meeting where editors make one of three decisions: reject; major revision; or minor revision with aim to accept.

What happens after publication

In most cases we will publish the prepublication history alongside an accepted analysis article. This prepublication history comprises all previous versions of the manuscript, the report from the manuscript committee meeting, the reviewers’ comments, and the authors’ responses to all the comments from reviewers and editors. In rare instances we may determine after careful consideration that we should not make certain portions of the prepublication record publicly available. For example, in cases of stigmatised illnesses we seek to protect the confidentiality of reviewers who have these illnesses. In other instances there may be legal or regulatory considerations that make it inadvisable or impermissible to make available certain parts of the prepublication record. In all instances in which we have determined that elements of the prepublication record should not be made publicly available, we expect that authors will respect these decisions and also will not share this information.

Rapid responses are electronic letters to the editor and offer readers a way to interact with our content. Sometimes responses may be critical of an article. We believe that authors have an academic duty to respond to substantive criticism of their work and we expect authors to post their own rapid responses on bmj.com in reply to any such substantive comments. Editors may send reminders about this.

Education (inc. Minerva Pictures and Endgames)

The BMJ publishes different types of educational articles to engage and challenge a range of postgraduate doctors and clinical researchers internationally. We strive to publish articles that are original in their content and/or presentation, and cannot be found elsewhere or in textbooks. We prioritise topics and situations that are common or have serious consequences, have international appeal, and that interest a variety of doctors, including GPs and specialists.

We encourage authors to write in teams, including those from other specialties, professions, and countries. We ask that one author is routed in the clinical environment of the intended reader. We encourage authors to write in plain English, to be clear about where there is uncertainty, and to include numbers and phrases where possible that will help doctors in conversation with their patients.

Our educational articles are shaped by two initiatives:

• We believe that financial interests can distort education articles and we minimise or exclude authors who we judge have such a conflict.

• We believe that patient involvement strengthens content. We encourage authors to seek input from patients either to inform the scope, develop the content, contribute to, or co-author articles. For help with this, please read our guidance on what we mean by patient involvement and co-production . Author guidance for Education articles can be found here.

Submission process and presubmission enquiries

We receive more articles and suggestions than we can publish. We require all authors to contact us before submitting a manuscript to us. Send us your proposal using our Education Article Proposal Form , together with your completed Declaration of Financial Interests .

The proposal form will guide you through the following questions:

• What is your idea? • Can you sum up the aim of your article in a sentence? • Why is the topic important to The BMJ 's readers? • What is the prevalence of the symptom/condition/situation you wish to write about? • Why cover it now? Has something new happened? • What has The BMJ 's Education section covered on this topic in the last five years? What will your contribution add? • Can you provide the key evidence/references you might use? • Why are your writing team well placed to cover the topic? • Have you thought about what a patient would say about your idea?

Policies for Education articles

Authorship Education articles can have can have up to four authors. One author should be from the relevant specialty or setting, unless agreed otherwise. For example, if the article discusses presentation to the emergency department one author should be an emergency care doctor. All authors should meet authorship criteria . We welcome authors or contributions from allied health professions and patient authors, and actively encourage authors from a primary care background.

Competing interests The BMJ will not consider authors with financial interests when writing Education articles. It is important that we understand the financial interests of every author, and can judge to what extent we believe that they may be relevant to the article that you propose. We do not publish content from authors who we judge have relevant financial ties to the industry (excluding State of the Art reviews, Therapeutics articles, and Summaries of NICE Guidelines). The relevance of declared interests are judged by the BMJ team. This applies to every author. Any additional authors and their financial interests must be discussed and agreed with the commissioning editor before the article is submitted.

Patient involvement As part of our drive to co-produce our content with patients we ask that you seek patient input into articles at the planning stage. We believe that their experience and perspectives will make articles more useful for doctors in their quest to help improve patients well being and outcomes.

We ask all authors to what extent patients have been involved in their article and how their involvement changed the article. We ask that all writing encourages honesty and partnership with patients. Where uncertainty exists, share it. Where data exists present the numbers in a way that can be shared with the patient (use absolute numbers, natural frequencies, and graphics where you can). Use language that empowers patients to make the right choices for them in their situation (write that a doctor should/could offer a test, rather than should do a test).

When patients are involved in the manuscript, we ask for their consent. We have two types of consent forms for BMJ education articles:

• A patient consent form is required if any anonymised patient information is included in the review. Consent is needed for images even if the patients are not identifiable for example, in X-rays and histology slides, and for patients’ stories/vignettes even if details are anonymised.

• A patient contributor form is required for any patients who are named within the review, for example, patient co-authors, patient contributors or named authors of patient stories.

Preparing your manuscript

We want our readers to have the ability to share decisions with their patients and make clear for them the degree of certainty ( or lack of it) about a potential course of action. We therefore ask that, in addition to the format and instructions detailed below for the specific Education article that you are writing, you follow these recommendations:

• Consider including in your manuscript a box explaining your strategy to search for evidence. It should include a search date, the sources searched, and brief inclusion criteria. • Clearly distinguish suggestions made based on your experience, standard practice, guidelines, and evidence. • Provide specifics about the evidence you discuss. For example, for key statements, please say: "A large, well conducted, randomised controlled trial showed INSERT number [CI] and or p value". "The findings of a small case series suggest...". “A subgroup analysis found…”. etc. • Use absolute numbers or explain why you have not used them. • Consider how these numbers can be communicated by the clinician read to their patient in a clear way. • Where evidence is lacking or of poor quality make this clear. • Write about known and unknown benefits and harms.

"What you need to know" box . No more than three bullet points for practice articles and five for clinical updates encapsulating the specific take home messages from this article.

"How patients were involved in the creation of this article" box. Please include: Which patients were asked (e.g. patient advocates, networked patient communities and organisations, patients in your clinic etc). What they said (e.g. include more practical advice on how to inject insulin.) How you changed your article as a result (e.g. we included a box to address this.)

"Education into practice" box . Include two to three bullet points about how a reader might at an individual or organisational level improve their practice (e.g. do you offer lifestyle advice to all patients with newly diagnosed hypertension?)

At least one other box or table and at least one figure or image that complement the text of the article.

Article types

We accept pitches for the following article types. Once our editors have made a decision to encourage a pitch, we will provde authors will a full, detailed set of instructions on how best to format your content.

Additional requirements for all other article types

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• v.13(Suppl 1); 2019 Apr

Writing the title and abstract for a research paper: Being concise, precise, and meticulous is the key

Milind s. tullu.

Department of Pediatrics, Seth G.S. Medical College and KEM Hospital, Parel, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

This article deals with formulating a suitable title and an appropriate abstract for an original research paper. The “title” and the “abstract” are the “initial impressions” of a research article, and hence they need to be drafted correctly, accurately, carefully, and meticulously. Often both of these are drafted after the full manuscript is ready. Most readers read only the title and the abstract of a research paper and very few will go on to read the full paper. The title and the abstract are the most important parts of a research paper and should be pleasant to read. The “title” should be descriptive, direct, accurate, appropriate, interesting, concise, precise, unique, and should not be misleading. The “abstract” needs to be simple, specific, clear, unbiased, honest, concise, precise, stand-alone, complete, scholarly, (preferably) structured, and should not be misrepresentative. The abstract should be consistent with the main text of the paper, especially after a revision is made to the paper and should include the key message prominently. It is very important to include the most important words and terms (the “keywords”) in the title and the abstract for appropriate indexing purpose and for retrieval from the search engines and scientific databases. Such keywords should be listed after the abstract. One must adhere to the instructions laid down by the target journal with regard to the style and number of words permitted for the title and the abstract.

Introduction

This article deals with drafting a suitable “title” and an appropriate “abstract” for an original research paper. Because the “title” and the “abstract” are the “initial impressions” or the “face” of a research article, they need to be drafted correctly, accurately, carefully, meticulously, and consume time and energy.[ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 ] Often, these are drafted after the complete manuscript draft is ready.[ 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 9 , 10 , 11 ] Most readers will read only the title and the abstract of a published research paper, and very few “interested ones” (especially, if the paper is of use to them) will go on to read the full paper.[ 1 , 2 ] One must remember to adhere to the instructions laid down by the “target journal” (the journal for which the author is writing) regarding the style and number of words permitted for the title and the abstract.[ 2 , 4 , 5 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 12 ] Both the title and the abstract are the most important parts of a research paper – for editors (to decide whether to process the paper for further review), for reviewers (to get an initial impression of the paper), and for the readers (as these may be the only parts of the paper available freely and hence, read widely).[ 4 , 8 , 12 ] It may be worth for the novice author to browse through titles and abstracts of several prominent journals (and their target journal as well) to learn more about the wording and styles of the titles and abstracts, as well as the aims and scope of the particular journal.[ 5 , 7 , 9 , 13 ]

The details of the title are discussed under the subheadings of importance, types, drafting, and checklist.

Importance of the title

When a reader browses through the table of contents of a journal issue (hard copy or on website), the title is the “ first detail” or “face” of the paper that is read.[ 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 13 ] Hence, it needs to be simple, direct, accurate, appropriate, specific, functional, interesting, attractive/appealing, concise/brief, precise/focused, unambiguous, memorable, captivating, informative (enough to encourage the reader to read further), unique, catchy, and it should not be misleading.[ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 9 , 12 ] It should have “just enough details” to arouse the interest and curiosity of the reader so that the reader then goes ahead with studying the abstract and then (if still interested) the full paper.[ 1 , 2 , 4 , 13 ] Journal websites, electronic databases, and search engines use the words in the title and abstract (the “keywords”) to retrieve a particular paper during a search; hence, the importance of these words in accessing the paper by the readers has been emphasized.[ 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 12 , 14 ] Such important words (or keywords) should be arranged in appropriate order of importance as per the context of the paper and should be placed at the beginning of the title (rather than the later part of the title, as some search engines like Google may just display only the first six to seven words of the title).[ 3 , 5 , 12 ] Whimsical, amusing, or clever titles, though initially appealing, may be missed or misread by the busy reader and very short titles may miss the essential scientific words (the “keywords”) used by the indexing agencies to catch and categorize the paper.[ 1 , 3 , 4 , 9 ] Also, amusing or hilarious titles may be taken less seriously by the readers and may be cited less often.[ 4 , 15 ] An excessively long or complicated title may put off the readers.[ 3 , 9 ] It may be a good idea to draft the title after the main body of the text and the abstract are drafted.[ 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 ]

Types of titles

Titles can be descriptive, declarative, or interrogative. They can also be classified as nominal, compound, or full-sentence titles.

Descriptive or neutral title

This has the essential elements of the research theme, that is, the patients/subjects, design, interventions, comparisons/control, and outcome, but does not reveal the main result or the conclusion.[ 3 , 4 , 12 , 16 ] Such a title allows the reader to interpret the findings of the research paper in an impartial manner and with an open mind.[ 3 ] These titles also give complete information about the contents of the article, have several keywords (thus increasing the visibility of the article in search engines), and have increased chances of being read and (then) being cited as well.[ 4 ] Hence, such descriptive titles giving a glimpse of the paper are generally preferred.[ 4 , 16 ]

Declarative title

This title states the main finding of the study in the title itself; it reduces the curiosity of the reader, may point toward a bias on the part of the author, and hence is best avoided.[ 3 , 4 , 12 , 16 ]

Interrogative title

This is the one which has a query or the research question in the title.[ 3 , 4 , 16 ] Though a query in the title has the ability to sensationalize the topic, and has more downloads (but less citations), it can be distracting to the reader and is again best avoided for a research article (but can, at times, be used for a review article).[ 3 , 6 , 16 , 17 ]

From a sentence construct point of view, titles may be nominal (capturing only the main theme of the study), compound (with subtitles to provide additional relevant information such as context, design, location/country, temporal aspect, sample size, importance, and a provocative or a literary; for example, see the title of this review), or full-sentence titles (which are longer and indicate an added degree of certainty of the results).[ 4 , 6 , 9 , 16 ] Any of these constructs may be used depending on the type of article, the key message, and the author's preference or judgement.[ 4 ]

Drafting a suitable title

A stepwise process can be followed to draft the appropriate title. The author should describe the paper in about three sentences, avoiding the results and ensuring that these sentences contain important scientific words/keywords that describe the main contents and subject of the paper.[ 1 , 4 , 6 , 12 ] Then the author should join the sentences to form a single sentence, shorten the length (by removing redundant words or adjectives or phrases), and finally edit the title (thus drafted) to make it more accurate, concise (about 10–15 words), and precise.[ 1 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 9 ] Some journals require that the study design be included in the title, and this may be placed (using a colon) after the primary title.[ 2 , 3 , 4 , 14 ] The title should try to incorporate the Patients, Interventions, Comparisons and Outcome (PICO).[ 3 ] The place of the study may be included in the title (if absolutely necessary), that is, if the patient characteristics (such as study population, socioeconomic conditions, or cultural practices) are expected to vary as per the country (or the place of the study) and have a bearing on the possible outcomes.[ 3 , 6 ] Lengthy titles can be boring and appear unfocused, whereas very short titles may not be representative of the contents of the article; hence, optimum length is required to ensure that the title explains the main theme and content of the manuscript.[ 4 , 5 , 9 ] Abbreviations (except the standard or commonly interpreted ones such as HIV, AIDS, DNA, RNA, CDC, FDA, ECG, and EEG) or acronyms should be avoided in the title, as a reader not familiar with them may skip such an article and nonstandard abbreviations may create problems in indexing the article.[ 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 9 , 12 ] Also, too much of technical jargon or chemical formulas in the title may confuse the readers and the article may be skipped by them.[ 4 , 9 ] Numerical values of various parameters (stating study period or sample size) should also be avoided in the titles (unless deemed extremely essential).[ 4 ] It may be worthwhile to take an opinion from a impartial colleague before finalizing the title.[ 4 , 5 , 6 ] Thus, multiple factors (which are, at times, a bit conflicting or contrasting) need to be considered while formulating a title, and hence this should not be done in a hurry.[ 4 , 6 ] Many journals ask the authors to draft a “short title” or “running head” or “running title” for printing in the header or footer of the printed paper.[ 3 , 12 ] This is an abridged version of the main title of up to 40–50 characters, may have standard abbreviations, and helps the reader to navigate through the paper.[ 3 , 12 , 14 ]

Checklist for a good title

Table 1 gives a checklist/useful tips for drafting a good title for a research paper.[ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 12 ] Table 2 presents some of the titles used by the author of this article in his earlier research papers, and the appropriateness of the titles has been commented upon. As an individual exercise, the reader may try to improvise upon the titles (further) after reading the corresponding abstract and full paper.

Checklist/useful tips for drafting a good title for a research paper

Some titles used by author of this article in his earlier publications and remark/comment on their appropriateness

The Abstract

The details of the abstract are discussed under the subheadings of importance, types, drafting, and checklist.

Importance of the abstract

The abstract is a summary or synopsis of the full research paper and also needs to have similar characteristics like the title. It needs to be simple, direct, specific, functional, clear, unbiased, honest, concise, precise, self-sufficient, complete, comprehensive, scholarly, balanced, and should not be misleading.[ 1 , 2 , 3 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 13 , 17 ] Writing an abstract is to extract and summarize (AB – absolutely, STR – straightforward, ACT – actual data presentation and interpretation).[ 17 ] The title and abstracts are the only sections of the research paper that are often freely available to the readers on the journal websites, search engines, and in many abstracting agencies/databases, whereas the full paper may attract a payment per view or a fee for downloading the pdf copy.[ 1 , 2 , 3 , 7 , 8 , 10 , 11 , 13 , 14 ] The abstract is an independent and stand-alone (that is, well understood without reading the full paper) section of the manuscript and is used by the editor to decide the fate of the article and to choose appropriate reviewers.[ 2 , 7 , 10 , 12 , 13 ] Even the reviewers are initially supplied only with the title and the abstract before they agree to review the full manuscript.[ 7 , 13 ] This is the second most commonly read part of the manuscript, and therefore it should reflect the contents of the main text of the paper accurately and thus act as a “real trailer” of the full article.[ 2 , 7 , 11 ] The readers will go through the full paper only if they find the abstract interesting and relevant to their practice; else they may skip the paper if the abstract is unimpressive.[ 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 13 ] The abstract needs to highlight the selling point of the manuscript and succeed in luring the reader to read the complete paper.[ 3 , 7 ] The title and the abstract should be constructed using keywords (key terms/important words) from all the sections of the main text.[ 12 ] Abstracts are also used for submitting research papers to a conference for consideration for presentation (as oral paper or poster).[ 9 , 13 , 17 ] Grammatical and typographic errors reflect poorly on the quality of the abstract, may indicate carelessness/casual attitude on part of the author, and hence should be avoided at all times.[ 9 ]

Types of abstracts

The abstracts can be structured or unstructured. They can also be classified as descriptive or informative abstracts.

Structured and unstructured abstracts

Structured abstracts are followed by most journals, are more informative, and include specific subheadings/subsections under which the abstract needs to be composed.[ 1 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 13 , 17 , 18 ] These subheadings usually include context/background, objectives, design, setting, participants, interventions, main outcome measures, results, and conclusions.[ 1 ] Some journals stick to the standard IMRAD format for the structure of the abstracts, and the subheadings would include Introduction/Background, Methods, Results, And (instead of Discussion) the Conclusion/s.[ 1 , 2 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 17 , 18 ] Structured abstracts are more elaborate, informative, easy to read, recall, and peer-review, and hence are preferred; however, they consume more space and can have same limitations as an unstructured abstract.[ 7 , 9 , 18 ] The structured abstracts are (possibly) better understood by the reviewers and readers. Anyway, the choice of the type of the abstract and the subheadings of a structured abstract depend on the particular journal style and is not left to the author's wish.[ 7 , 10 , 12 ] Separate subheadings may be necessary for reporting meta-analysis, educational research, quality improvement work, review, or case study.[ 1 ] Clinical trial abstracts need to include the essential items mentioned in the CONSORT (Consolidated Standards Of Reporting Trials) guidelines.[ 7 , 9 , 14 , 19 ] Similar guidelines exist for various other types of studies, including observational studies and for studies of diagnostic accuracy.[ 20 , 21 ] A useful resource for the above guidelines is available at www.equator-network.org (Enhancing the QUAlity and Transparency Of health Research). Unstructured (or non-structured) abstracts are free-flowing, do not have predefined subheadings, and are commonly used for papers that (usually) do not describe original research.[ 1 , 7 , 9 , 10 ]

The four-point structured abstract: This has the following elements which need to be properly balanced with regard to the content/matter under each subheading:[ 9 ]

Background and/or Objectives: This states why the work was undertaken and is usually written in just a couple of sentences.[ 3 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 12 , 13 ] The hypothesis/study question and the major objectives are also stated under this subheading.[ 3 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 12 , 13 ]

Methods: This subsection is the longest, states what was done, and gives essential details of the study design, setting, participants, blinding, sample size, sampling method, intervention/s, duration and follow-up, research instruments, main outcome measures, parameters evaluated, and how the outcomes were assessed or analyzed.[ 3 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 17 ]

Results/Observations/Findings: This subheading states what was found, is longer, is difficult to draft, and needs to mention important details including the number of study participants, results of analysis (of primary and secondary objectives), and include actual data (numbers, mean, median, standard deviation, “P” values, 95% confidence intervals, effect sizes, relative risks, odds ratio, etc.).[ 3 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 17 ]

Conclusions: The take-home message (the “so what” of the paper) and other significant/important findings should be stated here, considering the interpretation of the research question/hypothesis and results put together (without overinterpreting the findings) and may also include the author's views on the implications of the study.[ 3 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 17 ]

The eight-point structured abstract: This has the following eight subheadings – Objectives, Study Design, Study Setting, Participants/Patients, Methods/Intervention, Outcome Measures, Results, and Conclusions.[ 3 , 9 , 18 ] The instructions to authors given by the particular journal state whether they use the four- or eight-point abstract or variants thereof.[ 3 , 14 ]

Descriptive and Informative abstracts

Descriptive abstracts are short (75–150 words), only portray what the paper contains without providing any more details; the reader has to read the full paper to know about its contents and are rarely used for original research papers.[ 7 , 10 ] These are used for case reports, reviews, opinions, and so on.[ 7 , 10 ] Informative abstracts (which may be structured or unstructured as described above) give a complete detailed summary of the article contents and truly reflect the actual research done.[ 7 , 10 ]

Drafting a suitable abstract

It is important to religiously stick to the instructions to authors (format, word limit, font size/style, and subheadings) provided by the journal for which the abstract and the paper are being written.[ 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 13 ] Most journals allow 200–300 words for formulating the abstract and it is wise to restrict oneself to this word limit.[ 1 , 2 , 3 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 22 ] Though some authors prefer to draft the abstract initially, followed by the main text of the paper, it is recommended to draft the abstract in the end to maintain accuracy and conformity with the main text of the paper (thus maintaining an easy linkage/alignment with title, on one hand, and the introduction section of the main text, on the other hand).[ 2 , 7 , 9 , 10 , 11 ] The authors should check the subheadings (of the structured abstract) permitted by the target journal, use phrases rather than sentences to draft the content of the abstract, and avoid passive voice.[ 1 , 7 , 9 , 12 ] Next, the authors need to get rid of redundant words and edit the abstract (extensively) to the correct word count permitted (every word in the abstract “counts”!).[ 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 13 ] It is important to ensure that the key message, focus, and novelty of the paper are not compromised; the rationale of the study and the basis of the conclusions are clear; and that the abstract is consistent with the main text of the paper.[ 1 , 2 , 3 , 7 , 9 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 17 , 22 ] This is especially important while submitting a revision of the paper (modified after addressing the reviewer's comments), as the changes made in the main (revised) text of the paper need to be reflected in the (revised) abstract as well.[ 2 , 10 , 12 , 14 , 22 ] Abbreviations should be avoided in an abstract, unless they are conventionally accepted or standard; references, tables, or figures should not be cited in the abstract.[ 7 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 13 ] It may be worthwhile not to rush with the abstract and to get an opinion by an impartial colleague on the content of the abstract; and if possible, the full paper (an “informal” peer-review).[ 1 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 11 , 17 ] Appropriate “Keywords” (three to ten words or phrases) should follow the abstract and should be preferably chosen from the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) list of the U.S. National Library of Medicine ( https://meshb.nlm.nih.gov/search ) and are used for indexing purposes.[ 2 , 3 , 11 , 12 ] These keywords need to be different from the words in the main title (the title words are automatically used for indexing the article) and can be variants of the terms/phrases used in the title, or words from the abstract and the main text.[ 3 , 12 ] The ICMJE (International Committee of Medical Journal Editors; http://www.icmje.org/ ) also recommends publishing the clinical trial registration number at the end of the abstract.[ 7 , 14 ]

Checklist for a good abstract

Table 3 gives a checklist/useful tips for formulating a good abstract for a research paper.[ 1 , 2 , 3 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 17 , 22 ]

Checklist/useful tips for formulating a good abstract for a research paper

Concluding Remarks

This review article has given a detailed account of the importance and types of titles and abstracts. It has also attempted to give useful hints for drafting an appropriate title and a complete abstract for a research paper. It is hoped that this review will help the authors in their career in medical writing.

Financial support and sponsorship

Conflicts of interest.

There are no conflicts of interest.

Acknowledgement

The author thanks Dr. Hemant Deshmukh - Dean, Seth G.S. Medical College & KEM Hospital, for granting permission to publish this manuscript.

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Are bibliographies/reference lists generally included in page/word counts?

I regularly assign my undergraduate students papers with a range of expected page/word length (e.g. 10-12 pages or 2500-3000 words). Is there any sort of rule as to whether or not to count a works cited page(s0 (and its equivalent in the other citation styles) in determining if a paper meets this limit? I've discussed this with colleagues and heard varying answers.

• undergraduate
• research-undergraduate
• 1 The general rule I have always seen is only intro+body+conclusion counts. Appendixes, reference lists, tables of contents/figures/etc. do not count. –  earthling Commented Dec 2, 2014 at 22:54
• 3 I don't understand what sort of rule you mean. If you are setting the assignment, you can choose whether to count the references towards the page limit. It really doesn't matter whether you make the same choice as others, as long as you make it clear to the students (which you should do anyway, since they won't necessarily know what's common). Are you asking instead which choice is better educationally? For example, regarding incentives to pad the bibliography. If so, it would help to clarify the question. –  Anonymous Mathematician Commented Dec 2, 2014 at 22:56
• Agreed, it's your call. If you have your own expectations then just be as specific as possible in the assignment as to whether or not the bibliography counts towards the page count. It's also a good idea to be clear about how many sources you expect them to cite, and where you expect the source material to come from (e. g. "...at least ten sources and no more than three of them can be Web sites..."). –  Raydot Commented Dec 3, 2014 at 0:05

2 Answers 2

In the scientific world, whether citations count against length limits or not varies wildly by publication, including hybrid models like AAAI which allows six pages text and up to one page of citations.

I think that which way you go depends on what you want the students to learn. Some examples that would push you one way or another:

If you want them to focus on prose, don't count citations in the length.

If you want them to learn to express complicated thoughts concisely, use a short page limit and count citations (e.g., the IEEE six-page format)

If you want them to focus on referencing, count citations and text separately.

Either way it shouldn't matter too much, because you're using a range and probably have some flexibility in how you apply your rubric, so you can adjust for common sense.

Should not count.

A six-line main text can pack more convincing arguments compared to a one-line main text. That's why it's important to make sure all students have an equal share of area or real property to build upon.

A six-line citation does not necessarily bring any advantage compared to a one-line citation. For that reason, I don't see why we should penalize students who had identified some information with more authors or a longer title; that is not how we teach them to examine the credibility of a paper.

If you're concerned about them citing too many things or citing mindlessly, you may put a limit on the number of citations like some journals do. However, I wouldn't include them in the word count.

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