Article Type | Limits | Description |
Original research article | The main text of an original research article, excluding the abstract, tables, figures and references, should be no longer than necessary (up to 5000 words for a long-form article). Articles should contain no more than five display items (figures or tables). | A research article is an original piece of research with strong, well-supported conclusions that mark a significant advance in understanding. The text should be divided into the following sections: introduction, methods, results and discussion. |
Perspective | The length of the Perspective article will depend on the scope of the subject area and its topicality but generally articles should not exceed 4,000 words for the main text and should be lightly referenced. | Main body The main body of the text should use appropriate headings and subheadings to break up the text and guide the reader. Outlook Perspectives should end with a short outlook section, of no more than a paragraph or two. |
Report | Reports are intended to be the vehicles for valuable but limited or partly preliminary observations. Articles should not exceed 3000 words (excluding references). | Introduction This should be as short as possible, normally not more than 2-3 paragraphs, and should simply serve to introduce the reader to the purpose and significance of the work described. Materials and methods Sufficient information for the reader to be able to repeat the work must be given, but techniques described in detail in other publications need not be repeated, provided that an adequate reference is cited. Major modifications to methods should be clearly described. The numbers of experiments, replicates, etc. and any statistical tests used should be stated. Results These should be confined to a factual account of the actual results obtained. Where necessary results should be analysed using an appropriate statistical test. Discussion and reference to other work should be left to the Discussion. Discussion The results (including further reference to figures and tables) should neither be repeated in detail nor should new information be introduced. Speculation is encouraged but should not go beyond reasonable and testable hypotheses. The Discussion should not attempt to be a mini-review. Box: Speculation Authors of reports are encouraged to include a box titled "Speculation", which should include no more than four sentences describing the implications of the research presented in the manuscript. Conjecture is encouraged but should not go beyond reasonable and testable hypotheses. This box is not intended to include conclusions from the data presented in the manuscript; a reader should be able to understand the contribution of the work if the box was removed. |
Observation | The length of the Observation article will depend on the scope of the subject area and its topicality but generally articles should not exceed 4,000 words for the main text and should be lightly referenced. | Introduction This should be as short as possible, normally not more than 2-3 paragraphs, and should simply serve to introduce the reader to the purpose and significance of the work described. Main body The main body of the text should use appropriate headings and subheadings to break up the text and guide the reader. |
Commentaries on recently published papers | Commentaries are flexible in format but should generally be limited to 500 words, without figures. | Commentaries responding to original research articles published by the journal are always welcome and readers are encouraged to submit these as soon as possible. Commentaries will be subject to review by the editor responsible for the publication of the original article. |
Reviews | QRB Discovery does not publish Reviews, but please submit to Quarterly Reviews of Biophysics. | If you are interested in submitting a review visit the sister journal webpage here. |
Scope
Examples of central areas of biophysics to be covered by QRB Discovery are:
- Macromolecular structure, function and dynamics
- Theoretical and computational biophysics
- Molecular biophysics of the cell
- Physical systems biology
- Membrane biophysics
- Biotechnology
- Nanotechnology
Emerging techniques in biophysics
Article Types
Guidelines for each article type, including word limits, are included below. All word counts given here are discounting references.
Manuscript Preparation
Journal Style
Authors should note the following:
- S.I. units should be used throughout in text, figures and tables.
- Authors should spell out in full any abbreviations used in their manuscripts.
- Foreign quotations and phrases should be followed by a translation.
- We require that all equations are provided in Mathtype.
Title page
The title page should include:
- The title of the article, which should be short but informative and accurately reflect the content.
- Authors’ names and contact details: please list a brief affiliation (including town or city and country) for each author (assigned with superscript numbers) below the author names, and in addition, indicate the corresponding author with an asterisk and in this case provide an email address
- Word count, including all text but excluding tables, figures and references.
Abstract
Abstracts (200 words max) should summarize the background, findings, and implications of the work.
Social Media summary (final draft only)
Please include a summary of your article in 120 characters or less for use in social media promotion.
Image for thumbnail
Please suggest one of the images from your article or an alternative to be used in social media as well as an identifier of your paper on the volume page online
Text
For all types of articles, please make sure the manuscript is presented with figures incorporated in roughly the correct place if possible, with legends. Also please submit a document with numbered lines. All these requests are made to facilitate the reviewing process.
Figures and tables
For guidance on producing figures and tables, please visit the Cambridge Journals Artwork Guide.
References
The references should in an author and year style. When a paper cited has three or more authors the style 'Smith et al. 2013' should be used on all occasions.
At the end of the paper, references should first be listed alphabetically, with a full title of each paper, and the first and last pages. Journal titles should be given in full.
Accuracy of references is the responsibility of the author(s). References must be checked against the text to ensure (a) that the spelling of authors' names and the dates given are consistent and (b) that all authors quoted in the text (in date order if more than one) are given in the reference list and vice versa.
Authors should follow the examples below for layout and punctuation:
In-text citation:
(Royo et al., 1988; Sherry, 1969; Gardiner, 1985)
Journal article:
- Mustafi M and Weisshaar JC (2018) Simultaneous binding of multiple EF-Tu copies to translating ribosomes in live Escherichia coli. mBio 16, e02143–17.
- Smith DA and Jones RM (2008) The sulfonamide group as a structural alert: a distorted story? Current Opinion in Drug Discovery & Development 11, 72–79.
- Tourigny DS, Fernández IS, Kelley AC and Ramakrishnan V (2013) Elongation factor G bound to the ribosome in an intermediate of translocation. Science 340, 1235490
Section in edited book:
Sherry HS (1969). The ion-exchange properties of zeolites. In Ion Exchange, (ed. J. Marinsky), pp. 89-133. New York: Marcel Dekker.
Book:
Blankenship RE (2014) Molecular Mechanisms of Photosynthesis. Chichester: Wiley
Footnotes
This journal does not normally accept footnotes.
Required Statements
The below statements below must be included. These statements should be included at the end of the manuscript, before the References section.
1) Acknowledgements
You may acknowledge individuals or organisations that provided advice, support (non-financial). Formal financial support and funding should be listed in the Financial Support section (see below).
2) Author Contributions
A short statement should be provided indicating how each author contributed to the work. For example: AB and CD conceived and designed the study. CD and EF conducted data gathering. GH performed statistical analyses. AB, EF and GH wrote the article.
3) Financial Support
Please provide details of the sources of financial support for all authors, including grant numbers. For example, "This work was supported by the National Science Foundation (grant number XXXXXXX)". Multiple grant numbers should be separated by a comma and space, and where research was funded by more than one agency the different agencies should be separated by a semi-colon, with 'and' before the final funder. Grants held by different authors should be identified as belonging to individual authors by the authors' initials. For example, "This work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (A.B., grant numbers XXXX, YYYY), (C.D., grant number ZZZZ); the Natural Environment Research Council (E.F., grant number FFFF); and the Australian Research Council (A.B., grant number GGGG), (E.F., grant number HHHH)".
Where no specific funding has been provided for research, please provide the following statement: "This research received no specific grant from any funding agency, commercial or not-for-profit sectors."
4) Conflicts of Interest declarations
Authors should include a Conflicts of Interest declaration in their manuscript.
• Conflicts of Interest are situations that could be perceived to exert an undue influence on an author’s presentation of their work. They may include, but are not limited to, financial, professional, contractual or personal relationships or situations.
• Conflicts of Interest do not necessarily mean that an author’s work has been compromised. Authors should declare any real or perceived Conflicts of Interest in order to be transparent about the context of their work.
• If the manuscript has multiple authors, the author submitting the manuscript must include Conflicts of Interest declarations relevant to all contributing authors.
• Example wording for a Conflicts of Interest declaration is as follows: “Conflicts of Interest: Author A is employed at company B. Author C owns shares in company D, is on the Board of company E and is a member of organisation F. Author G has received grants from company H.” If no Conflicts of Interest exist, the declaration should state “Conflicts of Interest: None”.
5) Ethical Standards statement (if research involves human and/or animal experimentation)
Where research involves human and/or animal experimentation, the following statements should be included (as applicable): "The authors assert that all procedures contributing to this work comply with the ethical standards of the relevant national and institutional committees on human experimentation and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2008." and "The authors assert that all procedures contributing to this work comply with the ethical standards of the relevant national and institutional guides on the care and use of laboratory animals." Any other specific ethical clearance with details of the granting institution should be given in the Methods section.
6) Data availability statement
Authors must follow the journal’s policy for supporting research transparency and reproducibility. Authors must make all data, materials, protocols and software available to readers without undue barriers to access. A data availability statement should be included and provide URLs for any available datasets or code.
BioImage Archive
As part of an additional service to authors, the journal is partnering with the BioImage Archive
- Please note that any changes to links to images or references to images on BioImage Archive must be completed before publication of the article. The record cannot be corrected after publication of the paper.
- To use the BioImage Archive site, authors can submit their data and receive an accession identifier, which can then be referenced in the publication and released at the same time. The BIA can also link from the dataset to its associated publication. Please see the instructions on submission here.
- Linking to the whole dataset or individual image files is possible at the moment. Linking/visualisation of subcomponents of images (for example particular 2D planes within a 3D image) is not currently possible.
- There are no associated charges for using the BioImage Archive.
- The BioImage Archive can provide metrics on both whole dataset and individual file access - the frequency of these metrics is to be determined.
Accepted Manuscripts
Accepted manuscripts are published online as is (before copy-editing or typesetting) within approximately a week of final acceptance, provided we have received all final files and a completed license to publish form. At this point, the article will have a DOI and be considered published and citable. You will subsequently receive a proof of your typeset, edited article, which will eventually replace the accepted manuscript online and be considered the final version of record.
The AM file must be a single Word (or similar word processor) file with the abstract, main text, references, tables and figures. It does not need to be laid out as the final article will be published but it must include all those elements in the single file. You cannot upload a zip or other format file as the AM file. It must be word processor and a single file. The AM file is processed in a different (and more rapid) way than the other source files which are copy edited and typeset. We need all the source files and the AM file.
For more information on the AM process, please click here.
Author affiliations
Author affiliations should represent the institution(s) at which the research presented was conducted and/or supported and/or approved. For non-research content, any affiliations should represent the institution(s) with which each author is currently affiliated.
For more information, please see our author affiliation policy and author affiliation FAQs.
Author Hub
You can find guides for many aspects of publishing with Cambridge at Author Hub, our suite of resources for Cambridge authors.
Authorship and contributorship
All authors listed on any papers submitted to this journal must be in agreement that the authors listed would all be considered authors according to disciplinary norms, and that no authors who would reasonably be considered an author have been excluded. For further details on this journal’s authorship policy, please see this journal's publishing ethics policies.
CRediT taxonomy for contributors
When submitting a manuscript, the corresponding author will be prompted to provide further details concerning contributions to the manuscript using the CRediT taxonomy. CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) is a high-level taxonomy, including 14 designated options, that can be used to represent the roles typically played by contributors to scholarly output. All parties who have contributed to the scholarly work, but do not meet the full criteria for authorship, should be recognised with their contributions described in terms of the CRediT taxonomy.
Our default position is that the corresponding author has the authority to act on behalf of all co-authors, and we expect the corresponding author to confirm this at the beginning of the submission process. When preparing your manuscript you should also ensure that you obtain permission from all contributors to describe their contributions using the CRediT taxonomy.
English language editing services
Authors, particularly those whose first language is not English, may wish to have their English-language manuscripts checked by a native speaker before submission. This step is optional, but may help to ensure that the academic content of the paper is fully understood by the Editor and any reviewers.
In order to help prospective authors to prepare for submission and to reach their publication goals, Cambridge University Press offers a range of high-quality manuscript preparation services, including language editing. You can find out more on our language services page.
Please note that the use of any of these services is voluntary, and at the author's own expense. Use of these services does not guarantee that the manuscript will be accepted for publication, nor does it restrict the author to submitting to a Cambridge-published journal.
Policy on prior publication
When authors submit manuscripts to this journal, these manuscripts should not be under consideration, accepted for publication or in press within a different journal, book or similar entity, unless explicit permission or agreement has been sought from all entities involved. However, deposition of a preprint on the author’s personal website, in an institutional repository, or in a preprint archive shall not be viewed as prior or duplicate publication. Authors should follow the Cambridge University Press Preprint Policy regarding preprint archives and maintaining the version of record.
Supplementary materials
Material that is not essential to understanding or supporting a manuscript, but which may nonetheless be relevant or interesting to readers, may be submitted as supplementary material. Supplementary material will be published online alongside your article, but will not be published in the pages of the journal. Types of supplementary material may include, but are not limited to, appendices, additional tables or figures, datasets, videos, and sound files.
Supplementary materials will not be typeset or copyedited, so should be supplied exactly as they are to appear online. Please see our general guidance on supplementary materials for further information.
Where relevant we encourage authors to publish additional qualitative or quantitative research outputs in an appropriate repository, and cite these in manuscripts.
Use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools
We acknowledge the increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools in the research and writing processes. To ensure transparency, we expect any such use to be declared and described fully to readers, and to comply with our plagiarism policy and best practices regarding citation and acknowledgements. We do not consider artificial intelligence (AI) tools to meet the accountability requirements of authorship, and therefore generative AI tools such as ChatGPT and similar should not be listed as an author on any submitted content.
In particular, any use of an AI tool:
- to generate images within the manuscript should be accompanied by a full description of the process used, and declared clearly in the image caption(s)
- to generate text within the manuscript should be accompanied by a full description of the process used, include appropriate and valid references and citations, and be declared in the manuscript’s Acknowledgements.
- to analyse or extract insights from data or other materials, for example through the use of text and data mining, should be accompanied by a full description of the process used, including details and appropriate citation of any dataset(s) or other material analysed in all relevant and appropriate areas of the manuscript
- must not present ideas, words, data, or other material produced by third parties without appropriate acknowledgement or permission
Descriptions of AI processes used should include at minimum the version of the tool/algorithm used, where it can be accessed, any proprietary information relevant to the use of the tool/algorithm, any modifications of the tool made by the researchers (such as the addition of data to a tool’s public corpus), and the date(s) it was used for the purpose(s) described. Any relevant competing interests or potential bias arising as a consequence of the tool/algorithm’s use should be transparently declared and may be discussed in the article.
ORCID
We require all corresponding authors to identify themselves using ORCID when submitting a manuscript to this journal. ORCID provides a unique identifier for researchers and, through integration with key research workflows such as manuscript submission and grant applications, provides the following benefits:
- Discoverability: ORCID increases the discoverability of your publications, by enabling smarter publisher systems and by helping readers to reliably find work that you have authored.
- Convenience: As more organisations use ORCID, providing your iD or using it to register for services will automatically link activities to your ORCID record, and will enable you to share this information with other systems and platforms you use, saving you re-keying information multiple times.
- Keeping track: Your ORCID record is a neat place to store and (if you choose) share validated information about your research activities and affiliations.
See our ORCID FAQs for more information.
If you don’t already have an iD, you will need to create one if you decide to submit a manuscript to this journal. You can register for one directly from your user account on ScholarOne, or alternatively via https://ORCID.org/register.
If you already have an iD, please use this when submitting your manuscript, either by linking it to your ScholarOne account, or by supplying it during submission using the "Associate your existing ORCID iD" button.
ORCIDs can also be used if authors wish to communicate to readers up-to-date information about how they wish to be addressed or referred to (for example, they wish to include pronouns, additional titles, honorifics, name variations, etc.) alongside their published articles. We encourage authors to make use of the ORCID profile’s “Published Name” field for this purpose. This is entirely optional for authors who wish to communicate such information in connection with their article. Please note that this method is not currently recommended for author name changes: see Cambridge’s author name change policy if you want to change your name on an already published article. See our ORCID FAQs for more information.