Submission guidelines

Scope and policy

Current Bioscience aims to promote basic and clinical research by publishing articles in the field of microbiology, immunology, pathology, and biochemistry.

Types of articles

Research articles

Research articles report new findings of broad interest and describe significant and original results to be critically evaluated. The total number of words of an research article must be under 5000 (not including the abstract, references and figure legends) and no more than 70 references. There should be no more than six figures and/or tables. The abstract should not have more than 250 words.

Letters

‘Letters’ of exceptional interest or with novel findings will be rapidly accepted and published. Letters should be no more than 2000 words in length with up to 20 references and 1 supplemental figure. The abstract should not have more than 100 words.

Reviews

Reviews are commissioned by the Editor-in-Chief or the Editors. Reviews are usually 5,000 – 7,000 words in length, up to 100 references, and three or four display items, which can be either figures or tables. The abstract should not have more than 250 words.

Preparation of the manuscript

Title

The title should not contain more 60 characters in length in order to be SEO friendly. Include your keywords in your title. Start your title with your most important keyword and best described your article and work.

Keywords

Your keywords are the words and short phrases in your article content that make it possible for people to find your article via search engines. Choose 6 keywords that describe best your work. The most important keyword first, the second most important in the second place, etc. Make sure that the two or three most important keywords appear in your title, in some subtitles, and at the beginning of the first paragraph.

Length

The length of the article, the abstract and number of references is depending of the type of article. Please, check the section “Type of articles” to see the length corresponding to each type of article.

Abbreviations

Avoid the use excessive of abbreviations.

Use thos abbreviations that are well-stablished in a broad field of the scientific community such as PCR, DNA, ELISA, etc. Avoid abbreviations that used in a specific field or when they are mentioned less than ten times in the main text.

General format

All manuscripts should be typed double-spaced, including title page, abstract, text, references, tables and figure legends in 12 point type and in Times New Roman. Pages should have margins of 2.5 cm (about 1 inch).

The simplest way to submit to manuscript to Current Bioscience is to upload a single PDF including the text and any figures/tables. All manuscripts should include the title, author names and affiliations, and abstract on the title page. Supplemental data should be created in a separate file or files. Add lines and page numbers to your manuscripts.

Once your manuscript has been accepted, you will need to upload a Word file containing the main text (plus any tables) and separate figure files. The figures file can be submitted as JPEG, TIFF, EPS, PowerPoint.

Spelling

UK or US spelling is acceptable, but should be used consistently

Title page

All manuscript title pages must include the following: a title, full given and last name of each contributor followed by their affiliations, address, E-mail address, and ORCID number if it is available. Name of the author designated as the corresponding author with contact details (affiliation, adress, e-mail, and ORCID number if it is available).

Sections

Articles should start with an “Abstract”, followed by a brief “Introduction”, which outlines the historical or logical origins of the study, a section on “Methods” (put this section after the conclusions) and one on “Results”, in which the findings are presented in a compact form with minimal reference to earlier literature or to possible interpretations. The “Discussion” should be devoted to interpreting the results from various viewpoints and to considering their biological significance. “Conclusions” are obligatory.  Letters and reviews can have an organization decided by own the author to best adapted to the presentation of the study.

References

Current Bioscience use the citation style Vancouver following DOI for each reference. The DOI is important to be indexed by Crossref. Please, use Mendeley as reference management software which is free available at https://www.mendeley.com/download-desktop-new/. Choose the Current Bioscience citation style.

Tables

Tables should be typed on separate sheets and numbered consecutively with Roman numerals. They should be self-explanatory. Please supply your tables in the same file as the main text of your manuscript.

Figures

High-resolution figures that meet the following specifications must be submitted:
Color: Color figures must be within the RGB color spectrum.
File Sizes: Figure files should not exceed 5 MB (average size is approximately 2 MB).
Image Sizes: Figure images should be prepared with the PDF layout in mind, individual figures should not be longer than one page and with a width of 18 cm.
Numbering: Figures must be numbered as they appear in the text.
File Format: Figures should be in TIFF (this is better for halftone art, e.g., blots or photographs); EPS (this is better for line art or monochrome art, i.e., anything that involves sharply delineated lines); JPG (JPEG) and PowerPoint format are suitable.

Declaration of competing interest

All authors must disclose any financial and personal relationships with other people or organizations that could inappropriately influence (bias) their work. Examples of potential conflicts of interest include employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent applications/registrations, and grants or other funding.

Submission checklist

You can use this list to carry out a final check of your submission before you send it to the journal for review.

Ensure that the following items are present and in this order in your PDF file:

  1. Page 1: manuscript title, authors, authors’ affiliation , corresponding author (including E-mail address and ORCID number if it is available).
  2. Page 2: abstract and keywords (max 6)
  3.  Page 3: abbreviations
  4. Rest of the pages with main text (including introduction, results, discussion, conclusion, material and methods).
  5. Declarations (Funding, conflict of interest, etc).
  6. Tables
  7. Figures (as separated files when the manuscript is submited as word file)
  8. Figure legends
  9. References (formated with mandeley) in Current Bioscience style (Vancouver and DOI).

All necessary information is provided:

Manuscript:
• Include keywords
• All figures (include relevant captions)
• All tables (including titles, description, footnotes)
• Ensure all figure and table citations in the text match the files provided

Further considerations
• Manuscript has been ‘spell-checked’ and ‘grammar checked’
• All references mentioned in the Reference List are cited in the text, and vice versa
• Permission has been obtained for use of copyrighted material from other sources (including the Internet)
• A competing interests statement is provided, even if the authors have no competing interests to declare
• Journal policies detailed in this guide have been reviewed
• Referee suggestions and contact details provided (suggest 5 reviewers).

Peer Review Information

Peer Review Process

By submitting a manuscript to Current Bioscience, the authors agree to subject it to a confidential peer review process. Editors and reviewers are informed that the manuscript must be considered confidential. After a manuscript is received, the Editor-in-Chief selects at least two reviewers, which may include some suggested by the authors. Authors can name specific individuals whom they would like to have included or excluded as reviewers.

All potential reviewers are contacted individually to determine their availability. Manuscript files are sent to at least two expert reviewers. Reviewers are asked to complete their review of the manuscript within four weeks and to return a short review form.
Based on the reviewers’ comments, the Editor-in-Chief takes a final decision. The comments are shared with the authors with the final decision concerning the manuscript.

Decisions

There are four categories for initial decisions: accept, accept with minor revisions, return for revisions, and reject.  For many manuscripts, authors are invited to resubmit if the revisions or additional experimentation can be addressed. All revised manuscripts are carefully re-examined, and final acceptability is not guaranteed.