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  Instructions for /Virology Journal/ authors

</manuscript/default.asp?txt_jou_id=10067>
General information <#h1general>
Manuscript text <#h1text>
Illustrations and figures <#h1figures>
Tables <#h1tables>
Additional files <#h1data>
Style and language <#h1style>
	


  General information

Submission process

Manuscripts must be submitted by one of the authors of the manuscript,
and should not be submitted by anyone on their behalf. The submitting
author takes responsibility for the article during submission and peer
review.

To facilitate rapid publication and to minimize administrative costs,
/Virology Journal/ accepts only online submission
</manuscript/default.asp?txt_jou_id=10067>. The submission process is
compatible with version 3.0 or later of Internet Explorer and Netscape
Navigator, and with most other modern web browsers. It can be used from
PC, Mac, or Unix platforms.

Files can be submitted as a batch, or one by one. The submission process
can be interrupted at any time - when users return to the site, they can
carry on where they left off.

See below for examples of acceptable word processor and graphics file
formats. Additional files of any type, such as movies, animations, or
original data files, can also be submitted as part of the publication.

During submission you will be asked to provide a cover letter. Please
use this to explain why your manuscript should be published in the
journal and to elaborate on any issues relating to our editorial
policies detailed in the instructions for authors.

Assistance with the process of manuscript preparation and submission is
available from the customer support team (info@biomedcentral.com
<mailto:info@biomedcentral.com>).

We also provide a collection of links to useful tools and resources for
scientific authors, on our Tools for Authors
<http://www.biomedcentral.com/info/authors/authortools> page.

Publication and peer review processes
/Virology Journal/ uses online peer review to speed up the publication
process. The time taken to reach a final decision depends on whether
reviewers request revisions, and how quickly authors are able to respond.

Once an article is accepted, it is published in /Virology Journal/
immediately as a provisional PDF file. The paper will subsequently be
published in both fully browseable web form, and as a formatted PDF; the
article will then be available through /Virology Journal/, BioMed
Central and PubMed Central, and will also be included in PubMed.

The ultimate responsibility for any decision lies with the
Editor-in-Chief, to whom any appeals against rejection should be addressed.

Article-processing charges
/Virology Journal/ levies an article-processing charge for every
accepted article, to cover the costs incurred by open access
publication. In 2008 the article-processing charge is 850 (?1130,
US$1665). Generally, if the submitting author's institution is a BioMed
Central member <http://www.biomedcentral.com/info/about/instmembership>
the cost of the article processing charge is covered by the membership,
and no further charge is payable. In the case of authors whose
institutions are supporter members
<http://www.biomedcentral.com/info/about/supportersmembership> of BioMed
Central, however, a discounted article processing charge is payable by
the author. Please click here <http://www.biomedcentral.com/inst/> to
check if your institution is a BioMed Central member. We offer a 30
discount for manuscripts formatted with EndNote 5
<http://www.biomedcentral.com/info/ifora/endnote> (or later versions) or
Reference Manager 10 <http://www.biomedcentral.com/info/ifora/refman> or
created using Publicon
<http://www.biomedcentral.com/info/ifora/publicon>. Waivers may be
granted, particularly for authors from developing countries. For further
details, see more information about article-processing charges
</info/faq/apcfaq.asp>.

Editorial policies

Any manuscript submitted to the journal must not already have been
published in another journal or be under consideration by any other
journal, although it may have been deposited on a preprint server.
Manuscripts that are derived from papers presented at conferences can be
submitted unless they have been published as part of the conference
proceedings in a peer reviewed journal. Authors are required to ensure
that no material submitted as part of a manuscript infringes existing
copyrights, or the rights of a third party. Authors who publish in
/Virology Journal/ retain copyright to their work ( more information
</info/license> ). Correspondence concerning articles published in
/Virology Journal/ is encouraged.

Submission of a manuscript to /Virology Journal/ implies that all
authors have read and agreed to its content, and that any experimental
research that is reported in the manuscript has been performed with the
approval of an appropriate ethics committee. Research carried out on
humans must be in compliance with the Helsinki Declaration
<http://www.wma.net/e/policy/b3.htm>, and any experimental research on
animals must follow internationally recognized guidelines. A statement
to this effect must appear in the Methods section of the manuscript,
including the name of the body which gave approval, with a reference
number where appropriate. Informed consent must also be documented.
Manuscripts may be rejected if the editorial office considers that the
research has not been carried out within an ethical framework, e.g. if
the severity of the experimental procedure is not justified by the value
of the knowledge gained.

Generic drug names should generally be used. When proprietary brands are
used in research, include the brand names in parentheses in the Methods
section.

We ask authors of /Virology Journal/ papers to complete a declaration of
competing interests, <#interests> which should be provided as a separate
section of the manuscript, to follow the Acknowledgements. Where an
author gives no competing interests, the listing will read 'The
author(s) declare that they have no competing interests'. Much has been
written about competing interests (or conflict of interest, as other
journals call it) within scientific research, but the following articles
provide some background:

      R Smith: *Beyond conflict of interest.* /BMJ/ 1998, *317* :291-292
      <http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/317/7154/291>
      R Smith: *Making progress with competing interests.* /BMJ/ 2002,
      *325* :1375-1376
      <http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/325/7377/1375>
      CD DeAngelis, PB Fontanarosa, A Flanagin: *Reporting financial
      conflicts of interest and relationships between investigators and
      research sponsors.* /JAMA/ 2001, *286* :89-9
      <http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/286/1/89>
      K Morin, H Rakatansky, FA Riddick Jr, LJ Morse, JM O'Bannon 3rd,
      MS Goldrich, P Ray, M Weiss, RM Sade, MA Spillman: *Managing
      conflicts of interest in the conduct of clinical trials.* /JAMA/
      2002, *287* :78-84
      <http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/287/1/78> 

For all articles that include information or clinical photographs
relating to individual patients, written and signed consent from each
patient to publish must also be mailed or faxed to the editorial staff.
The manuscript should also include a statement to this effect in the
Acknowledgements section, as follows: "Written consent for publication
was obtained from the patient or their relative."

/Virology Journal/ supports initiatives to improve the performance and
reporting of clinical trials, part of which includes prospective
registering and numbering of trials. While there are initiatives to
ensure that all clinical trials are registered (most notably the recent
statement from the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors -
see http://www.icmje.org/clin_trialup.htm), we are focussing on
controlled trials of healthcare interventions, for now. Authors of
protocols or reports of controlled trials of health care interventions
must register their trial prior to submission in a suitable publicly
accessible registry. The trial registers that currently meet all of the
ICMJE guidelines can be found at http://www.icmje.org/faq.pdf.

The trial registration number should be included as the last line of the
abstract of the manuscript <#abstract>.

/Virology Journal/ also supports initiatives aimed at improving the
reporting of biomedical research. Checklists have been developed for
randomized controlled trials (CONSORT
<http://www.consort-statement.org/index.aspx?o=1065>), systematic
reviews (QUOROM <http://www.consort-statement.org/index.aspx?o=1065>),
meta-analyses of observational studies (MOOSE
<http://www.consort-statement.org/index.aspx?o=1065>), diagnostic
accuracy studies (STARD
<http://www.consort-statement.org/index.aspx?o=1065>) and qualitative
studies (RATS <http://www.biomedcentral.com/info/ifora/rats>). Authors
are requested to make use of these when drafting their manuscript and
peer reviewers will also be asked to refer to these checklists when
evaluating these studies. For authors of systematic reviews, a
supplementary file, linked from the Methods section, should reproduce
all details concerning the search strategy. For an example of how a
search strategy should be presented, see the Cochrane Reviewers'
Handbook
<http://www.cochrane.dk/cochrane/handbook/5_locating_and_selecting_studies/5_2_developing_and_documenting_a_search_strategy_for_studies_and_organizing_search_results.htm>.


Authors from pharmaceutical companies, or other commercial organizations
that sponsor clinical trials, should adhere to the Good Publication
Practice guidelines for pharmaceutical companies
<http://www.gpp-guidelines.org/>, which are designed to ensure that
publications are produced in a responsible and ethical manner. The
guidelines also apply to any companies or individuals that work on
industry-sponsored publications, such as freelance writers, contract
research organizations and communications companies.

The involvement of medical writers or anyone else who assisted with the
preparation of the manuscript content should be acknowledged, along with
their source of funding, as described in the European Medical Writers
Association (EMWA) guidelines on the role of medical writers in
developing peer-reviewed publications
<http://www.emwa.org/Mum/EMWAguidelines.pdf>. If medical writers are not
listed among the authors, it is important that their role be
acknowledged explicitly. We suggest wording such as 'We thank Jane Doe
who provided medical writing services on behalf of XYZ Pharmaceuticals
Ltd.'.

Submission of a manuscript to /Virology Journal/ implies that readily
reproducible materials described in the manuscript, including all
relevant raw data, will be freely available to any scientist wishing to
use them for non-commercial purposes. Nucleic acid sequences, protein
sequences, and atomic coordinates should be deposited in an appropriate
database in time for the accession number to be included in the
published article. In computational studies where the sequence
information is unacceptable for inclusion in databases because of lack
of experimental validation, the sequences must be published as an
additional file with the article.

Any 'in press' articles cited within the references and necessary for
the reviewers' assessment of the manuscript should be made available if
requested by the editorial office.

*Nucleotide sequences*
Nucleotide sequences can be deposited with the DNA Data Bank of Japan
<http://www.ddbj.nig.ac.jp/> (DDBJ), European Molecular Biology
Laboratory (EMBL/EBI) Nucleotide Sequence Database
<http://www.ebi.ac.uk/>, or GenBank <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/>
(National Center for Biotechnology Information).

*Protein sequences*
Protein sequences can be deposited with SwissProt
<http://www.expasy.org/sprot/> or the Protein Information Resource
<http://pir.georgetown.edu/> (PIR).

*Structures*
Protein structures can be deposited with one of the members of the
Worldwide Protein Data Bank <http://www.wwpdb.org/>. Nucleic Acids
structures can be deposited with the Nucleic Acid Database
<http://ndbserver.rutgers.edu/> at Rutgers. Crystal structures of
organic compounds can be deposited with the Cambridge Crystallographic
Data Centre <http://www.ccdc.cam.ac.uk/products/csd/deposit/>.

*Chemical structures and assays*
Structures of chemical substances can be deposited with PubChem
Substance <http://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/>. Bioactivity screens of
chemical substances can be deposited with PubChem BioAssay
<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pcassay>.

*Microarray data*
Where appropriate, authors should adhere to the standards proposed by
the Microarray Gene Expression Data Society <http://www.mged.org/> and
must deposit microarray data in one of the public repositories, such as
ArrayExpress <http://www.ebi.ac.uk/arrayexpress>, Gene Expression
Omnibus <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/projects/geo/> (GEO) or the Center
for Information Biology Gene Expression Database
<http://cibex.nig.ac.jp/> (CIBEX).

*Computional modeling*
We encourage authors to prepare models of biochemical reaction networks
using the Systems Biology Markup Language <http://sbml.org/> and to
deposit the model with the BioModels database
<http://www.ebi.ac.uk/biomodels/>, as well as submitting it as an
additional file with the manuscript.

*Plasmids*
We encourage authors to deposit copies of their plasmids as DNA or
bacterial stocks with Addgene <http://www.addgene.org/>, a non-profit
repository, or PlasmID <http://plasmid.hms.harvard.edu/>, the Plasmid
Information Database at Harvard.

BioMed Central is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics
(COPE). Authors who have appealed against a rejection but remain
concerned about the editorial process can refer their case to COPE. For
more information, visit www.publicationethics.org.uk
<http://www.publicationethics.org.uk>.

BioMed Central endorses the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME)
Policy Statement on Geopolitical Intrusion on Editorial Decisions
<http://www.wame.org/wamestmt.htm#geopolitical>.

	return to top <#top>
General information <#h1general>
Manuscript text <#h1text>
Illustrations and figures <#h1figures>
Tables <#h1tables>
Additional files <#h1data>
Style and language <#h1style>
	


  Preparing main manuscript text

File formats
The following word processor file formats are acceptable for the main
manuscript document:

    * Microsoft Word (version 2 and above)
    * WordPerfect (version 5 and above)
    * Rich text format (RTF)
    * Portable document format (PDF)
    * TeX/LaTeX (use BioMed Central's TeX template)
      <http://www.biomedcentral.com/info/ifora/tex>
    * DeVice Independent format (DVI)
    * Publicon Document (NB)

Users of other word processing packages should save or convert their
files to RTF before uploading. Many free tools are available which ease
this process.

TeX/LaTeX users: We recommend using BioMed Central's TeX template and
BibTeX stylefile <http://www.biomedcentral.com/info/ifora/tex>. If you
use this standard format, you can submit your manuscript in TeX format
(after you submit your TEX file, you will be prompted to submit your BBL
file). If you have used another template for your manuscript, or if you
do not wish to use BibTeX, then please submit your manuscript as a DVI
file. We do not recommend converting to RTF.

Publicon users: Information about Publicon
<http://www.biomedcentral.com/info/ifora/publicon> and instructions for
authoring in Publicon
<http://www.biomedcentral.com/info/ifora/publiconinstructions> are
available.

Note that figures <#h1figures> must be submitted as separate image
files, not as part of the submitted DOC/ PDF/TEX/DVI file.

Article types
When submitting your manuscript, you will be asked to assign one of the
following types to your article:

Research <#defaulttype>

Book report <?txt_jou_id=10067&txt_mst_id=19705>

Case Report <?txt_jou_id=10067&txt_mst_id=19704>

Commentary <?txt_jou_id=10067&txt_mst_id=31714>

Debate <?txt_jou_id=10067&txt_mst_id=19706>

Hypothesis <?txt_jou_id=10067&txt_mst_id=19709>

Methodology <?txt_jou_id=10067&txt_mst_id=19708>

Review <?txt_jou_id=10067&txt_mst_id=19710>

Short report <?txt_jou_id=10067&txt_mst_id=19711>

Study protocol <?txt_jou_id=10067&txt_mst_id=19712>

Please read the descriptions of each of the article types, choose which
is appropriate for your article and structure it accordingly. If in
doubt, your manuscript should be classified as Research , the structure
for which is described below.

Manuscript sections for Research articles
Manuscripts for Research articles submitted to /Virology Journal/ should
be divided into the following sections:

    * Title page <#title>
    * Abstract <#abstract>
    * Background <#background>
    * Results <#results>
    * Discussion <#discussion>
    * Conclusions <#conclusions>
    * Methods <#mandm>
    * List of abbreviations used <#abbreviations>(if any)
    * Competing interests <#interests>
    * Authors' contributions <#authorscon>
    * Acknowledgements <#acknowledgements>
    * References <#references>
    * Figure legends <#legends> (if any)
    * Tables and captions <#h1tables> (if any)
    * Description of additional data files <#h1data> (if any)

You can download a template
<http://biomedcentral.com/download/templates/BMC153d.dot> (Mac and
Windows compatible; Microsoft Word 98/2000) for your article. For
instructions on use, see below <#template>.

The *Accession Numbers* of any nucleic acid sequences, protein sequences
or atomic coordinates cited in the manuscript should be provided, in
square brackets and include the corresponding database name; for
example, [EMBL:AB026295, EMBL:AC137000, DDBJ:AE000812, GenBank:U49845,
PDB:1BFM, Swiss-Prot:Q96KQ7, PIR:S66116].

The databases for which we can provide direct links are: EMBL Nucleotide
Sequence Database (EMBL <http://www.ebi.ac.uk/embl/>), DNA Data Bank of
Japan (DDBJ <http://www.ddbj.nig.ac.jp> ), GenBank at the NCBI (GenBank
<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Genbank/index.html>), Protein Data Bank
(PDB <http://www.rcsb.org/pdb/>), Protein Information Resource (PIR
<http://pir.georgetown.edu/>) and the Swiss-Prot Protein Database
(Swiss-Prot <http://us.expasy.org/sprot/>).

*Title page*
This should list the title of the article. The title should include the
study design, for example:

*A versus B in the treatment of C: a randomized controlled trial*

*X is a risk factor for Y: a case control study*

The full names, institutional addresses, and e-mail addresses for all
authors must be included on the title page. The corresponding author
should also be indicated.

*Abstract*

The abstract of the manuscript should not exceed 350 words and must be
structured into separate sections: *Background*, the context and purpose
of the study; *Results*, the main findings; *Conclusions*, brief summary
and potential implications. Please minimize the use of abbreviations and
do not cite references in the abstract. *Trial Registration*, if your
research article reports the results of a controlled health care
intervention, please list your trial registry, along with the unique
identifying number, e.g. *Trial registration*: Current Controlled Trials
ISRCTN73824458. Please note that there should be no space between the
letters and numbers of your trial registration number.

*Background*
The background section should be written from the standpoint of
researchers without specialist knowledge in that area and must clearly
state - and, if helpful, illustrate - the background to the research and
its aims. Reports of clinical research should, where appropriate,
include a summary of a search of the literature to indicate why this
study was necessary and what it aimed to contribute to the field. The
section should end with a very brief statement of what is being reported
in the article.

*Results and Discussion*

The Results and Discussion may be combined into a single section or
presented separately. Results of statistical analysis should include,
where appropriate, relative and absolute risks or risk reductions, and
confidence intervals. The results and discussion sections may also be
broken into subsections with short, informative headings.

*Conclusions*
This should state clearly the main conclusions of the research and give
a clear explanation of their importance and relevance. Summary
illustrations may be included.

*Methods*
This should be divided into subsections if several methods are described.

*List of abbreviations*
If abbreviations are used in the text either they should be defined in
the text where first used, or a list of abbreviations can be provided,
which should precede the competing interests and authors' contributions.

*Competing interests*
A competing interest exists when your interpretation of data or
presentation of information may be influenced by your personal or
financial relationship with other people or organizations. Authors
should disclose any financial competing interests but also any
non-financial competing interests that may cause them embarrassment were
they to become public after the publication of the manuscript.

Authors are required to complete a declaration of competing interests.
All competing interests that are declared will be listed at the end of
published articles. Where an author gives no competing interests, the
listing will read 'The author(s) declare that they have no competing
interests'.

When completing your declaration, please consider the following questions:

/Financial competing interests/

    * In the past five years have you received reimbursements, fees,
      funding, or salary from an organization that may in any way gain
      or lose financially from the publication of this manuscript,
      either now or in the future? Is such an organization financing
      this manuscript (including the article-processing charge)? If so,
      please specify.
    * Do you hold any stocks or shares in an organization that may in
      any way gain or lose financially from the publication of this
      manuscript, either now or in the future? If so, please specify.
    * Do you hold or are you currently applying for any patents relating
      to the content of the manuscript? Have you received
      reimbursements, fees, funding, or salary from an organization that
      holds or has applied for patents relating to the content of the
      manuscript? If so, please specify.
    * Do you have any other financial competing interests? If so, please
      specify.

/Non-financial competing interests/

Are there any non-financial competing interests (political, personal,
religious, ideological, academic, intellectual, commercial or any other)
to declare in relation to this manuscript? If so, please specify.

If you are unsure as to whether you, or one your co-authors, has a
competing interest please discuss it with the editorial office.

*Authors' contributions*
In order to give appropriate credit to each author of a paper, the
individual contributions of authors to the manuscript should be
specified in this section.

An "author" is generally considered to be someone who has made
substantive intellectual contributions to a published study. To qualify
as an author one should 1) have made substantial contributions to
conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and
interpretation of data; 2) have been involved in drafting the manuscript
or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and 3)
have given final approval of the version to be published. Each author
should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public
responsibility for appropriate portions of the content. Acquisition of
funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research
group, alone, does not justify authorship.

We suggest the following kind of format (please use initials to refer to
each author's contribution): AB carried out the molecular genetic
studies, participated in the sequence alignment and drafted the
manuscript. JY carried out the immunoassays. MT participated in the
sequence alignment. ES participated in the design of the study and
performed the statistical analysis. FG conceived of the study, and
participated in its design and coordination and helped to draft the
manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be
listed in an acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be
acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help,
writing assistance, or a department chair who provided only general support.

*Acknowledgements*
Please acknowledge anyone who contributed towards the study by making
substantial contributions to conception, design, acquisition of data, or
analysis and interpretation of data, or who was involved in drafting the
manuscript or revising it critically for important intellectual content,
but who does not meet the criteria for authorship. Please also include
their source(s) of funding. Please also acknowledge anyone who
contributed materials essential for the study.

The role of a medical writer must be included in the acknowledgements
section, including their source(s) of funding.

Authors should obtain permission to acknowledge from all those mentioned
in the Acknowledgements.

Please list the source(s) of funding for the study, for each author, and
for the manuscript preparation in the acknowledgements section. Authors
must describe the role of the funding body, if any, in study design; in
the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; in the writing of
the manuscript; and in the decision to submit the manuscript for
publication.

*References*
All references must be numbered consecutively, in square brackets, in
the order in which they are cited in the text, followed by any in tables
or legends. Reference citations should not appear in titles or headings.
Each reference must have an individual reference number. Please avoid
excessive referencing. If automatic numbering systems are used, the
reference numbers must be finalized and the bibliography must be fully
formatted before submission.

Only articles and abstracts that have been published or are in press, or
are available through public e-print/preprint servers, may be cited;
unpublished abstracts, unpublished data and personal communications
should not be included in the reference list, but may be included in the
text. Notes/footnotes are not allowed. Obtaining permission to quote
personal communications and unpublished data from the cited author(s) is
the responsibility of the author. Journal abbreviations follow Index
Medicus/MEDLINE. Citations in the reference list should contain all
named authors, regardless of how many there are.

We encourage authors to use a recent version of EndNote (version 5 and
above) or Reference Manager (version 10) when formatting their reference
list, as this allows references to be automatically extracted. Authors
submitting articles in EndNote 5 or higher or Reference Manager 10
format will save 30 on the 850 (?1130, US$1665) article processing
charge. In order to obtain this discount, you should upload the
manuscript file containing your EndNote or Reference Manager-formatted
bibliography as a .doc file. Please ensure you do not convert to another
format (e.g. RTF or PDF). On upload, the discount will be automatically
granted and you will receive a confirmation on-screen and by email. You
will also be able to preview an HTML version of the extracted references
during submission, and we urge authors to check this. EndNote or
Reference Manager users should also make sure that any changes made to
the reference list are done within their reference management program,
rather than by manually editing the formatted bibliography. This is
because manually introduced changes will not be picked up in the
automatically extracted list.

Further details about EndNote
<http://www.biomedcentral.com/info/endnote.asp> and Reference Manager
<http://www.biomedcentral.com/info/ifora/refman> are available on the
BioMed Central site, including style files that conform to the BioMed
Central style and information about how to upgrade. Users of other
reference management programs should be able to select other journal
styles that output a numeric list styled similarly to the guide below.

For EndNote users, we provide a detailed technical guide
<http://www.biomedcentral.com/info/ifora/endnote/#technicalhelp> to help
with resolving problems that are encountered with the automated
reference extraction process. Please check that your reference
extraction is accurate after uploading the manuscript text file.

We are also working towards integrating data from RefWorks referencing
software. We are working in partnership with the development team of
RefWorks <http://www.refworks.com/> to produce a high quality extraction
process.

Examples of the /Virology Journal/ reference style are shown below.
Please take care to follow the reference style precisely; references not
in the correct style may be retyped, necessitating tedious proofreading.

Links
Web links and URLs should be included in the reference list. They should
be provided in full, including both the title of the site and the URL,
in the following format: *The Mouse Tumor Biology Database*
[http://tumor.informatics.jax.org/cancer_links.html]

/Virology Journal/ reference style

/Article within a journal/
1. Koonin EV, Altschul SF, Bork P: *BRCA1 protein products: functional
motifs.* /Nat Genet/ 1996, *13:*266-267.

/Article within a journal supplement /
2. Orengo CA, Bray JE, Hubbard T, LoConte L, Sillitoe I: *Analysis and
assessment of ab initio three-dimensional prediction, secondary
structure, and contacts prediction.* /Proteins/ 1999, *Suppl 3:*149-170.

/In press article/
3. Kharitonov SA, Barnes PJ: *Clinical aspects of exhaled nitric
oxide.* /Eur Respir J/, in press.

/Published abstract/
4. Zvaifler NJ, Burger JA, Marinova-Mutafchieva L, Taylor P, Maini RN:
*Mesenchymal cells, stromal derived factor-1 and rheumatoid arthritis
[abstract].* /Arthritis Rheum/ 1999, *42:*s250.

/Article within conference proceedings/
5. Jones X: *Zeolites and synthetic mechanisms.* In /Proceedings of the
First National Conference on Porous Sieves: 27-30 June 1996; Baltimore./
Edited by Smith Y. Stoneham: Butterworth-Heinemann; 1996:16-27.

/Book chapter, or article within a book/
6. Schnepf E: *From prey via endosymbiont to plastids: comparative
studies in dinoflagellates.* In /Origins of Plastids. Volume 2./ 2nd
edition. Edited by Lewin RA. New York: Chapman and Hall; 1993:53-76.

/Whole issue of journal/
7. Ponder B, Johnston S, Chodosh L (Eds): *Innovative oncology.* In
/Breast Cancer Res/ 1998, *10:*1-72.

/Whole conference proceedings/
8. Smith Y (Ed): /Proceedings of the First National Conference on Porous
Sieves: 27-30 June 1996; Baltimore./ Stoneham: Butterworth-Heinemann; 1996.

/Complete book/
9. Margulis L: /Origin of Eukaryotic Cells./ New Haven: Yale University
Press; 1970.

/Monograph or book in a series/
10. Hunninghake GW, Gadek JE: *The alveolar macrophage.* In /Cultured
Human Cells and Tissues./ Edited by Harris TJR. New York: Academic
Press; 1995:54-56. [Stoner G (Series Editor): /Methods and Perspectives
in Cell Biology,/ vol 1.]

/Book with institutional author/
11. Advisory Committee on Genetic Modification: /Annual Report./ London;
1999.

/PhD thesis/
12. Kohavi R: *Wrappers for performance enhancement and oblivious
decision graphs.* /PhD thesis./ Stanford University, Computer Science
Department; 1995.

/Link / URL/
13. *The Mouse Tumor Biology Database*
[http://tumor.informatics.jax.org/cancer_links.html]

Microsoft Word template
Although we can accept manuscripts prepared as Microsoft Word, Word
Perfect, RTF or PDF files, we have designed a Microsoft Word template
that can be used to generate a standard style and format for your
article. It can be used if you have not yet started to write your paper,
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Download the template
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How to use the /Virology Journal/ template
The template consists of a standard set of headings that make up a
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    * Replace the dummy text for Title, Author details, Institutional
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For extra convenience, you can use the template as one of your standard
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Note - From version 6, EndNote includes a full set of structured article
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Formats
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The legends should be included in the main manuscript text file
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*Please note that it is the responsibility of the author(s) to obtain
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Each table should be numbered in sequence using Arabic numerals (i.e.
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Smaller tables considered to be integral to the manuscript can be pasted
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Larger datasets can be uploaded separately as additional files.
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Tabular data provided as additional files can be uploaded as an Excel
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  Preparing additional files

Although /Virology Journal/ does not restrict the length and quantity of
data in a paper, there may still be occasions where an author wishes to
provide data sets, tables, movie files, or other information as
additional information. These files can be uploaded using the
'Additional Material files' button in the manuscript submission process.

The maximum file size for additional files is 20 MB each, and files will
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Any additional files will be linked into the final published article in
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paper. They will be made available in exactly the same form as
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If additional material is provided, please list the following
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Additional datafiles should be referenced explicitly by file name within
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original data used to perform this analysis'.

Formats and uploading
Ideally, file formats for additional files should not be
platform-specific, and should be viewable using free or widely available
tools. The following are examples of suitable formats.

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          o PDF (Adobe Acrobat)
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As with figure files, files should be given the standard file
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sure that each additional file is a single table, figure or movie
(please do not upload linked worksheets or PDF files larger than one sheet).

Mini-websites
Small self-contained websites can be submitted as additional files, in
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   4. Access the index.html file and browse around the mini-website, to
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   5. Compress the folder into a ZIP, check the file size is under 20
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  Style and language

General
Currently, /Virology Journal/ can only accept manuscripts written in
English. Spelling should be US English or British English, but not a
mixture .

Gene names should be in italic, but protein products should be in plain
type.

There is no explicit limit on the length of articles submitted, but
authors are encouraged to be concise. There is no restriction on the
number of figures, tables or additional files that can be included with
each article online. Figures and tables should be sequentially
referenced. Authors should include all relevant supporting data with
each article.

/Virology Journal/ will not edit submitted manuscripts for style or
language; reviewers may advise rejection of a manuscript if it is
compromised by grammatical errors. Authors are advised to write clearly
and simply, and to have their article checked by colleagues before
submission. In-house copyediting will be minimal. Non-native speakers of
English may choose to make use of a copyediting service.

Help and advice on scientific writing
The abstract is one of the most important parts of a manuscript. For
guidance, please visit our page on "Writing titles and abstracts for
scientific articles"
<http://www.biomedcentral.com/info/ifora/abstracts_independent>.
Tim Albert has produced for BioMed Central a list of tips
<http://www.biomedcentral.com/info/ifora/report> for writing a
scientific manuscript. MedBioWorld
<http://www.medbioworld.com/advice/presenting.html> also provides a list
of resources for science writing.

Abbreviations
Abbreviations should be used as sparingly as possible. They can be
defined when first used or a list of abbreviations can be provided
preceding the acknowledgements and references.

Typography

    * Please use double line spacing.
    * Type the text unjustified, without hyphenating words at line breaks.
    * Use hard returns only to end headings and paragraphs, not to
      rearrange lines.
    * Capitalize only the first word, and proper nouns, in the title.
    * All pages should be numbered.
    * Use the /Virology Journal/ reference format.
    * Footnotes to text should not be used.
    * Greek and other special characters may be included. If you are
      unable to reproduce a particular special character, please type
      out the name of the symbol in full.
      *Please ensure that all special characters used are embedded in
      the text, otherwise they will be lost during conversion to PDF.*

Units
SI Units should be used throughout (liter and molar are permitted,
however).

Last revised: 3 October 2005

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