Instructions for Authors

It is important that authors read and follow the instructions for authors in order to expedite the submission process. As a quick guide please also see the author checklist.

Types of Manuscript Submission

Original Articles should report studies originated by the author and should contain important new information of relevance to the aims and scope of the journal.  Manuscripts are limited to 6000 words.

Review Articles should present an overview of existing literature, consolidate old ideas and may suggest new ones.  Reviews on controversial issues are accepted only upon invitation by the Editor-in-Chief.  Manuscripts are limited to 6000 words.

Letters to the Editor should be short (up to 500 words) comments to published articles.  Letters commenting on published articles will be published at the discretion of the Editorial Board.

Online Submission Requirements Via Manuscript Central

Manuscripts must be submitted to oap:single cell analysis on the submission and review web site, at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/oapsca.

Getting Started on Manuscript Central

In order to submit a manuscript on Manuscript Central you will need to set up a user account. If you have previously submitted a manuscript to OpenAccessPublications.com via Manuscript Central you may already have an existing account. If you are unsure whether you have an account, or forgotten your password, enter your email address into the “Password Help” section on manuscript central homepage. If you do not have an account follow the instructions in “Create Account” on the manuscript central homepage.

Once you have logged on to your account follow the Author Centre workflow for submission. If you cannot finish your submission in one visit you can save a draft and re-enter the process.

Preparing Material for Submission:
Please have all your electronic material ready before starting the submission process. If it helps please follow the author checklist. You will be asked for manuscript Type, Title, Running Title and Abstract. Support is available for special characters (α, β, µ etc.). Help buttons are available throughout the submission process.

When submitting a manuscript authors can suggest preferred and non-preferred reviewers.
When recommending reviewers authors should avoid naming more than one scientist from any one institution or from closely related scientists/institutions. For each reviewer, please provide name institution and email address.

The main document with manuscript text should be prepared with an electronic word processing program. If you use Microsoft word the system can directly convert Word (97-2003 Word .doc) formatted file including special characters. Note that Manuscript Central cannot currently accept Word 2007 documents. If you use other word processing software such as Wordperfect files should be saved in RTF (Rich Text Format) format. Please DO NOT include figures or illustrations in the manuscript text file as these need to be up loaded as separate files. We recommend saving each figure as a single image file in either uncompressed TIFF - maximum file size 60KB. JPEG and GIF are acceptable if the image is saved at the highest quality possible. Images created in slide presentation programs such as Microsoft Powerpoint are low resolution and unsuitable for photo reproduction. For review purposes your text and figure files will be converted into HTML so that they can be easily viewed with a browser on the interent. They will also be converted into a PDF document so that they can be viewed and printed with Adobe Acrobat reader. The files in the.PDF document will be presented in the order submitted.


Manuscript Preparation
Manuscripts must be clearly and concisely written in English.  Manuscripts should be carefully checked for errors before they are submitted the correctness of spelling, grammar and typing is the responsibility of the author.  Where English is not the author’s first language they should enlist the help of colleagues who are proficient in scientific English.

Manuscripts must be double spaced with at least 1-inch (2.5cm) margins.  Use a font size of 10 to 12 points throughout the manuscript.  Number all pages consecutively. Type footnotes and figure legends double spaced on separate pages. Manuscripts should be prepared and saved as word 97-2003.doc files. Individual files (figures, tables, main document) should not exceed 60KB. The manuscript should be prepared in the following format:

Title page:

• Full title of the manuscript (25 Word Limit)
• The list of authors (give first name, middle initial and last name of each author)
• The the complete name of the department and institution of each author.
• A short title for use as a running head (no more than 50 characters).

In addition the title page should contain the address, telephone number, fax number and E-mail address of the corresponding author.

Abstract:
An abstract is required for original articles (OA) and review articles (RA).  The abstract should not exceed 200 words and is of great importance to readers.  It should describe briefly in complete sentences the purpose of the investigation, the methods utilized, the results obtained and the authors principle conclusions.   

Key Words:
Five key words characteristic of the contents and relevant field should be listed at the bottom of the abstract page.

Text:
The text of original articles (but not necessarily of other types of manuscripts) should be structured as follows:

• Introduction: Should clearly and concisely review the rationale for the study and identify what issues were addressed in the study. It should clearly place the report within the area being studied. The Introduction should avoid repetition of the results and discussion.
• Materials and Methods: This section should carefully describe the materials and methods used including sample size and statistical approaches. Commonly used techniques should not be described in detail but should be referred to citing appropriate references. However, unique experiments should be described in adequate detail to allow repetition by others. Please provide the manufacturer name of all products mentioned in the paper. It is not necessary to specify the geographical location of the manufacturer.
• Results: This section should succinctly state the results without any lengthy discussion or interpretation of individual data. Statistical tests should be clearly defined and statistical significance should be shown in both figures and tables.
• Discussion: This section should summarize but not repeat the Results. It should distinguish between logical explanations of the results reported and hypotheses drawn from the results. The Discussion should end with a succinct summary of the data and conclusions. Where possible and reasonable, some conclusion should be made about the wider implications of the study findings.

Tables:
Tables must be on separate pages, numbered consecutively using Arabic numerals and have a title explaining the components of the table.  Footnotes to tables should be indicated by superscript lower case letters (or asterisks for significance values and other statistical data) and included beneath the body of the table.   Tables should be understandable independently of the text.

Figures:
Figures should be submitted close to publication size with brief legends (no more than four or five lines).  No more than seven figures per manuscript will be accepted. 

Electronically supplied figures are acceptable as TIFF, GIF or JPEG format, Maximum file size accepted 60Kb.  The minimum resolution for line art is 900dpi (dots per inch).  Use clean black lines, preferably no finer than 1 point.  Grayscale (black and white) or colour figures must be submitted in TIFF format.  The minimum resolution is 3oo dpi.  For colour art please use the CMYJ colour mode. 

References:
Authors are responsible for the accuracy of the reference data.   References should be listed consecutively in order in which they are first mentioned in the text.  In the text they should be indicated by upper case numbers.   

References should be presented in the following style.

Journal articles:
Takai E, Mauck RL, Hung CT, Guo XE. Osteocyte viability and regulation of osteoblast function in a 3D trabecular bone explant under dynamic hydrostatic pressure. J Bone Miner Res 2004; 19:1403-1410.

Articles in books:
Bailey DW. Recombinant inbred strains and bilineal congenic strains. In: Foster HL, Small JD, Fox JG, editors.The Mouse in Biomedical Research, Volume I. New York City: Academic Press; 1981. p. 223-39.

Abbreviations and Symbols:  
Abbreviations and symbols must conform to the recommendations of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) and the International Union in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (IUBMB). 
  
Author charges:
OpenAcessPublications.com journals are free access and have no subscription charges.  Publishing an article in OpenAcessPublications.com journals requires an Article Processing Charge that will be billed to the submitting author upon acceptance of the article for publication.