Animals
Instructions for Authors
Submission Checklist
Please:
read the Aims & Scope to gain an overview and assess if your manuscript is suitable for this journal;
use the Microsoft Word template or LaTeX template or Free Format Submission to prepare your manuscript;
make sure that issues about publication ethics, research ethics, copyright, authorship, figure formats, data and references format have been appropriately considered;
Ensure that all authors have approved the content of the submitted manuscript.
Authors are encouraged to add a biography (optional) to the submission and publish it.
Manuscript Submission Overview
Types of Publications
Animals has no restrictions on the length of manuscripts, provided that the text is concise and comprehensive. Full experimental details must be provided so that the results can be reproduced. Animals requires that authors publish all experimental controls and make full datasets available where possible (see the guidelines on Supplementary Materials and references to unpublished data).
Manuscripts submitted to Animals should neither be published previously nor be under consideration for publication in another journal. The main article types are as follows:
Articles: Original research manuscripts. The journal considers all original research manuscripts provided that the work reports scientifically sound experiments and provides substantial new information. Authors should not unnecessarily divide their work into several related manuscripts, although Short Communications of preliminary, but significant, results will be considered. The quality and impact of the study will be considered during peer review.
Articles should have a main text of around 3000 words at minimum and should have more than 30 references. Animals has no restrictions on the maximum length of research manuscripts, provided that the text is concise and comprehensive.
For all Western blot figures, densitometry readings/intensity ratio of each band should be included; the whole Western blot showing all bands and molecular weight markers should be included in the Supplementary Materials.
Reviews: These provide concise and precise updates on the latest progress made in a given area of research. Systematic reviews should follow the PRISMA guidelines. Review articles should be comprehensive and submitted by authors who are in the field. The main text of review papers should be around 4000 words at minimum and include at least two figures or tables.
Commentary: Commentaries must provide an in depth, rather than superficial, review of a topic, showing a novel way of interpreting the scientific literature. Articles are usually identified as commentaries rather than scientific papers if they contain material which is deemed to be open to interpretation, rather than empirically proven. Commentaries must contain reasoned arguments, not just arguments expressing the emotions of the author (although the emotional responses from the public may be included as an argument). Commentaries must be concise, well argued, and erudite, as well as being written to a very high standard of English. All submissions will be submitted for peer review.
Registered Reports: a new publication type, broken into two stages: the pre-experimental method stage and the full post-experimental manuscript stage. Full details are given below.
Submission Process
Manuscripts for Animals should be submitted online at susy.mdpi.com. The submitting author, who is generally the corresponding author, is responsible for the manuscript during the submission and peer-review process. The submitting author must ensure that all eligible co-authors have been included in the author list (read the criteria to qualify for authorship) and that they have all read and approved the submitted version of the manuscript. To submit your manuscript, register and log in to the submission website. Once you have registered, click here to go to the submission form for Animals. All co-authors can see the manuscript details in the submission system, if they register and log in using the e-mail address provided during manuscript submission.
Accepted File Formats
Authors must use the Microsoft Word template or LaTeX template to prepare their manuscript. Using the template file will substantially shorten the time to complete copy-editing and publication of accepted manuscripts. The total amount of data for all files must not exceed 120 MB. If this is a problem, please contact the Editorial Office animals@mdpi.com. Accepted file formats are:
Microsoft Word: Manuscripts prepared in Microsoft Word must be converted into a single file before submission. When preparing manuscripts in Microsoft Word, the Animals Microsoft Word template file must be used. Please insert your graphics (schemes, figures, etc.) in the main text after the paragraph of its first citation.
LaTeX: Manuscripts prepared in LaTeX must be collated into one ZIP folder (including all source files and images, so that the Editorial Office can recompile the submitted PDF). When preparing manuscripts in LaTeX, please use the Animals LaTeX template files. You can now also use the online application writeLaTeX to submit articles directly to Animals. The MDPI LaTeX template file should be selected from the writeLaTeX template gallery.
Supplementary files: May be any format, but it is recommended that you use common, non-proprietary formats where possible (see below for further details).
Disclaimer: Usage of these templates is exclusively intended for submission to the journal for peer-review, and strictly limited to this purpose and it cannot be used for posting online on preprint servers or other websites.
Free Format Submission
Animals now accepts free format submission:
We do not have strict formatting requirements, but all manuscripts must contain the required sections: Author Information, Abstract, Keywords, Introduction, Materials & Methods, Results, Conclusions, Figures and Tables with Captions, Funding Information, Author Contributions, Conflict of Interest and other Ethics Statements. Check the Journal Instructions for Authors for more details.
Your references may be in any style, provided that you use the consistent formatting throughout. It is essential to include author(s) name(s), journal or book title, article or chapter title (where required), year of publication, volume and issue (where appropriate) and pagination. DOI numbers (Digital Object Identifier) are not mandatory but highly encouraged. The bibliography software package EndNote, Zotero, Mendeley, Reference Manager are recommended.
When your manuscript reaches the revision stage, you will be requested to format the manuscript according to the journal guidelines.
Cover Letter
A cover letter must be included with each manuscript submission. It should be concise and explain why the content of the paper is significant, placing the findings in the context of existing work and why it fits the scope of the journal. Confirm that neither the manuscript nor any parts of its content are currently under consideration or published in another journal. Any prior submissions of the manuscript to MDPI journals must be acknowledged. The names of proposed and excluded reviewers should be provided in the submission system, not in the cover letter.
Author Biography
Authors are encouraged to add a biography (maximum 150 words) to the submission and publish it. This should be a single paragraph and should contain the following points:
Authors’ full names followed by current positions;
Education background including institution information and year of graduation (type and level of degree received);
Work experience;
Current and previous research interests;
Memberships of professional societies and awards received.
Note for Authors Funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH)
This journal automatically deposits papers to PubMed Central after publication of an issue. Authors do not need to separately submit their papers through the NIH Manuscript Submission System (NIHMS, http://nihms.nih.gov/).
Registered Reports
Registered Reports are scientific articles which are peer-reviewed before the research is performed and the data are collected.
The ideas that meet high scientific standards, such as rigor, soundness, significant importance and implications for the science community, are then provisionally accepted for publication before data collection starts.
This format helps to considerably reduce publication bias and to avoid researchers having to invest much time and effort into questionable research studies, while allowing enough flexibility to perform unregistered experiments and report serendipitous findings.
The review process for Registered Reports can be briefly summarize into two main stages.
Stage 1:
Submission: Authors propose a clear hypothesis (including background, experimental methods and analyses) that they plan to investigate.
Peer review: Reviewers evaluate the registered study proposal before data are collected (research importance, rigor, soundness, etc.)
Following in-principle acceptance (IPA), the authors are asked to perform the experiments, following exactly the peer-reviewed procedures.
Stage 2:
Submission: Authors come back with a complete study, including the results and analyses.
Peer review: Reviewers conduct a full, conventional review, this time considering the full study and assessing compliance with the original protocol.
Guidelines for Authors
Registered Reports are a form of empirical article in which the methods and proposed analyses are pre-registered and reviewed prior to research being conducted. This format is designed to minimise bias in deductive science, while also allowing complete flexibility to conduct exploratory (unregistered) analyses and report serendipitous findings.
The cornerstone of the Registered Reports format is that a significant part of the manuscript will be assessed prior to data collection, with the highest quality submissions accepted in advance. Initial submissions will include a description of the key research question and background literature, hypotheses, experimental procedures, analysis pipeline, a statistical power analysis (or Bayesian equivalent), and pilot data (where applicable).
Initial submissions will be triaged by an editorial team for suitability. Those that pass triage will then be sent for in-depth peer review (Stage 1). Following review, the article will then be either rejected or accepted in principle for publication. Following in principle acceptance (IPA), the authors will then proceed to conduct the study, adhering exactly to the peer-reviewed procedures. When the study is complete the authors will submit their finalised manuscript for re-review (Stage 2) and will upload their raw data, digital study materials, and laboratory log to a publicly accessible file-sharing service. Pending quality checks and a sensible interpretation of the findings, the manuscript will be published regardless of the results.
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https://www.mdpi.com/journal/animals/instructions
