Guide for Authors

Welcome to the electronic manuscript submission website for Leukemia. The instructions below are structured so you can quickly and easily answer the following questions:

1. Is my manuscript suitable for Leukemia? (Scope + Editorial Policy)
2. How do I format my manuscript for Leukemia? (Format of Papers)
3. How do I submit my manuscript to Leukemia? (Submission of Papers)

• Index Medicus/MEDLINE
• Current Contents
• Current Contents/Life Sciences
• SCIExpanded
• Science Citation Index
• EMBASE/Excerpta Medica
• Research Alert
• Cambridge Scientific Abstracts
• BIOSIS
• Reference Update
• Elsevier BIOBASE/Current Awareness in Biological Sciences
• SUBIS
• Current Advances in Cell and Developmental Biology
• Current Advances in Genetics and Molecular Biology

Scope

Editorial Policy

C. Nicole Muller-Berat Killmann M.D., Paris, France

The types of communication published in Leukemia reflect the mission of the journal to promote an effective transfer of results and ideas in a cross-fertilizing traffic from bench to clinic and the reverse. Authors should therefore make their manuscripts as accessible as possible, by keeping the needs of this broad-ranging audience in mind. Leukemia has at heart a desire not to expose authors to protracted reviewing periods that sometimes, unfortunately, result in rejection. To this end, we endeavour to provide you with a very rapid answer in the case of rejection; that is, 8 to 20 days after submission. Naturally, this may mean a manuscript is returned to authors without refereeing. This decision, however, is always made on the basis of a thorough scrutiny of each manuscript by the Editor.
In addition to the classical formats of Original Articles, Reviews, Concise Reviews and Editorials, Leukemia is open to communication in different formats such as:
Meeting Report: Please contact the Editor-in-Chief. Occasionally we publish, for a fee, abstracts for Meetings. We usually ask for a commentary from the organisers summarising the data contained in the abstracts.
Commentary: Invited or not. Please contact the Editor-in-Chief. Keynote Address: These are overviews by an expert in the field. They do not encompass all the literature but provide the state of research at this point in time and the author's personal views for the future. They are usually invited.
Letters to the Editor: should not exceed nine typewritten pages (including figures and tables) or contain more than eight references. They must have no title page, no abstract, no headings throughout the text, and no Materials and Methods section. They must be written in the style of a letter with the title at the top of the page and To the Editor underneath. All authors' names and affiliations must be at the end of the manuscript (including Corresponding author's full address, telephone and fax numbers). Processing remains at the discretion of the Editors, and the Authors are immediately informed. The response is very rapid.

We wish to emphasise special features provided by Leukemia:
Debates Round Table (see below)
Spotlight On...a series of reviews, original manuscripts and Correspondence on a specific theme (see below).
Debates Round Table and Spotlight On... both feature papers published over several issues. A co-ordinator is usually commissioned by the Editor-in-Chief. However, please write to the Editor-in-Chief if you are interested in co-ordinating either feature on a particularly stimulating topic.
Meetings Calendar, Grants, News: Please send items for inclusion to the Editor-in-Chief.

Acceptance is based on:
NOVELTY, be it experimental, conceptual, or methodological.
SCIENTIFIC RIGOR as for regular manuscripts.

A manuscript will be considered for publication on the understanding that all named authors have agreed to its submission and that if accepted it will not subsequently be published in the same or similar form in any language without the consent of the publishers. A covering letter should accompany all submissions confirming the above points. The editors also encourage submission of review articles on relevant topics and recent developments.

Format of Papers

Preparation of manuscripts

Type on A4 paper (210 x 297 mm) single-sided and double-lined spacing with 25 mm margins. Be concise and avoid repetition. The uploaded covering letter must state that the material has not been submitted for publication elsewhere while under consideration for Leukemia. Authors are asked to write their manuscripts in English using an easily readable style. Spelling and phraseology should conform either to standard English or to standard American usage and should be consistent throughout the paper (eg haematological, leukaemia, centre or hematologic, leukemia, center).

Non-Native Speakers of English
Authors who are not native speakers of English who submit manuscripts to international journals often receive negative comments from referees or editors about the English-language usage in their manuscripts, and these problems can contribute to a decision to reject a paper. To help reduce the possibility of such problems, we strongly encourage such authors to take at least one of the following steps:

• Have your manuscript reviewed for clarity by a colleague whose native language is English.
• Use a service such as one of those listed below. An editor will improve the English to ensure that your meaning is clear and identify problems that require your review. Note that the use of such a service is at the author's own expense and risk and does not guarantee that the article will be accepted. Nature Publishing Group accepts no responsibility for the interaction between the author and the service provider or for the quality of the work performed.

American Journal Experts

Inter-Biotec

Inter-Biotec also provides a free online writing course to help biomedical scientists whose first language is not English to write and publish their papers in English-language journals.

SPI Professional Editing Services

Write Science Right

Length **IMPORTANT- Please note that due to page budget restrictions, the total length of your paper must not exceed 21 typewritten pages, including all figures and tables. It is however possible to publish supplementary material on the website if you feel that it is necessary (see instructions below on supplementary material). Different rules apply for Correspondence (please see guidelines above).

Presentation Any special points should be emphasised in the covering letter from the submitting author.

Title Page Title page should contain the title, authors' names, name of institution where work was done, running title, acknowledgements for research support, affiliation of all authors (department, institution name, town and country), and title, name, address, email address, and telephone and fax numbers including country code of the author to whom communications should be directed. A blank space of 5 cm should be left at the top of the title page.

Abstract A separate page should contain an abstract of no more than 200 words in the style of Nature.

Keywords A list of 3-6 keywords should be provided in the article file, even if these have already been entered on the electronic submission page.

Abbreviations should be defined in the text when first used.

Text This can be divided into Sections with the headings: Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, and Conclusion. However, whenever suitable, Results and Discussion should be combined to avoid repetition. When Methods are only briefly described send details on separate pages in triplicate labelled 'for referees only.' Commercially available reagents should be accompanied by name of the manufacturer. Personal reagents should be made available to others at the discretion of the authors. Use of subheadings is preferred.

References

Number references consecutively in the order that they are mentioned in the text (Vancouver style). Enclose numbers in parentheses on the line of type. Cite in sequence all authors' names and initials, title of article, name of journal, year of publication, volume number of journal, and first and last pages. All authors should be listed for papers with up to six authors; for papers with more than six authors, the first six only should be quoted followed by et al.

Book references should include up to six authors' names and initials plus et al as necessary, chapter title, name and initials of editor(s), book title, volume, edition, name and location of publisher, year of publication, first and last pages.

Abstracts should be cited in the text and listed in the Reference List in the same format as other cited papers: Up to 6 authors (and et al when necessary). Abstract title. Name of journal year: volume; (abstract [number]).

Personal communications should mention authors' names, month and year (a written authorization of the person cited should accompany the manuscript). Unpublished observations are not to be referenced but inserted in parentheses in the text(Descriptions of the data are required and should accompany the manuscript in triplicate, labelled 'for referees only').

Figures

Figures and images should be labelled sequentially, numbered and cited in the text. Figure legends should be printed, double spaced, on a separate sheet titled ‘Titles and legends to figures’. Figures should be referred to specifically in the text of the paper but should not be embedded within the text. The use of three-dimensional histograms is strongly discouraged when the addition of the third dimension gives no extra information. If a table or figure has been published before, the authors must obtain written permission to reproduce the material in both print and electronic formats from the copyright owner and submit it with the manuscript. This follows for quotes, illustrations and other materials taken from previously published works not in the public domain. The original source should be cited in the figure caption or table footnote. Colour figures can be reproduced if necessary, but the authors will be expected to contribute towards the cost of publication. A quote will be supplied upon acceptance of your paper.

Detailed guidelines for submitting artwork can be found by downloading the guidelines PDF. Using the guidelines, please submit production quality artwork with your initial online submission. If you have followed the guidelines, we will not require the artwork to be resubmitted following the peer-review process, if your paper is accepted for publication.

Colour on the web

Authors who wish their articles to have FREE colour figures on the web (only available in the HTML (full text) version of manuscripts) must supply separate files in the following format. These files should be submitted as supplementary information and authors are asked to mention they would like colour figures on the web in their submission letter.

For Single Images:

Width	500 pixels (authors should select "constrain proportions", or equivalent instructions, to allow the application to set the correct height automatically.)
Resolution	125 dpi (dots per inch)
Format	JPEG for photographs GIF for line drawings or charts
Filenaming	Please save image with .jpg or .gif extension to ensure it can be read by all platforms and graphics packages.

For Multi-part Images :

Width	900 pixels (authors should select "constrain proportions", or equivalent instructions, to allow the application to set the correct height automatically.)
Resolution	125 dpi (dots per inch)
Format	JPEG for photographs GIF for line drawings or charts
Filenaming	Please save image with .jpg or .gif extension to ensure it can be read by all platforms and graphics packages.

Tables

These should be labelled sequentially as Table 1, Table 2, etc. Each table should be typed on a separate page, numbered and titled, and cited in the text. Reference to table footnotes should be made by means of Arabic numerals. Tables should not duplicate the content of the text. They should consist of at least two columns; columns should always have headings. Authors should ensure that the data in the tables are consistent with those cited in the relevant places in the text, totals add up correctly, and percentages have been calculated correctly. Unlike figures or images, tables may be embedded into the word processing software if necessary, or supplied as separate electronic files.

House Style

As the electronic submission will provide the basic material for typesetting, it is important that papers are prepared in the general editorial style of the journal.

1. See the artwork guidelines for information on labelling of figures
2. Do not make rules thinner than 1pt (0.36mm)
3. Use a coarse hatching pattern rather than shading for tints in graphs
4. Color should be distinct when being used as an identifying tool
5. Use Si units throughout
6. Spaces, not commas should be used to separate thousands
7. Abbreviations should be preceded by the words for which they stand in the first instance of use
8. Text should be double spacing with a wide margin
9. At first mention of a manufacturer the town, (state if USA) and country should be provided.

File Formats:

File formats for manuscript files, figures and tables that are acceptable for our electronic manuscript submission process are given on the online forms. Further advice on file types is also available from the Tips webpage. Please follow our artwork guidelines for submitting figures, and use a common word-processing package (such as Microsoft Word) for the text. Either embed tables converted into images at the end of your Word document, or as a separate files in the program used generate them. If you submit raw data, this can be done in Excel, or tab/comma delimited format.

Saving files with Microsoft Office 2007

Microsoft Office 2007 saves files in an XML format by default (file extensions .docx, .pptx and xlsx). Files saved in this format cannot be accepted for publication.

Save Word documents using the file extension .doc

• Select the Office Button in the upper left corner of the Word 2007 Window and choose "Save As"
• Select "Word 97-2003 Document"
• Enter a file name and select "Save"

These instructions also apply for the new versions of Excel and PowerPoint.

Equations in Word must be created using Equation Editor 3.0

Equations created using the new equation editor in Word 2007 and saved as a "Word 97-2003 Document" (.doc) are converted to graphics and can no longer be edited. To insert or change an equation with the previous equation editor:

• Select "Object" on the "Text" section of the "Insert" tab
• In the drop-down menu - select "Equation Editor 3.0"

Do not use the "Equation" button in the "Symbols" section of the "Insert" tab.

Supplementary information

Supplementary information is peer-reviewed material directly relevant to the conclusion of an article that cannot be included in the printed version owing to space or format constraints. It is posted on the journal's web site and linked to the article when the article is published and may consist of data files, graphics, movies or extensive tables.

The printed article must be complete and self-explanatory without the supplementary information. Supplementary information enhances a reader’s understanding of the paper but is not essential to that understanding.

Supplementary information must be supplied to the editorial office in its final form for peer review. On acceptance the final version of the peer reviewed supplementary information should be submitted with the accepted paper. Supplementary information is not subedited, so authors should ensure that it is supplied ready for publication online.

To ensure that the contents of the supplementary information files can be viewed by the editor(s), referees and readers, please also submit a ‘read-me’ file containing brief instructions on how to use the file.

Supplying supplementary information files

Authors should ensure that supplementary information is supplied in its FINAL format because it is not subedited and will appear online exactly as originally submitted. It cannot be altered, nor new supplementary information added, after the paper has been accepted for publication.

Please supply the supplementary information via eJP, the electronic manuscript submission and tracking system, in an acceptable file format (see below).
Authors should:

Adobe Acrobat

We recommend that for accessing the PDF files, best results are achieved if you have access to Adobe Acrobat Reader (4.0 or above). Should you require installation of this FREE program, please download from the link here and follow the on-screen instructions. (We recommend that on completion of installation, you amend one of the default settings. Select: File - Preferences - General, and UNCHECK Web Browser Integration. This will open PDF files in Acrobat Reader itself rather than in your browser. The amendment will not affect any functionality of either Acrobat Reader or your browser software.)
Please refrain from submitting your manuscript by e-mail attachment. If the site replicates your details on screen, then your paper has been successfully submitted.

Once you have submitted your files and the conversion is in progress, you may log off the Internet and come back later to check and approve the conversion. This process can take up to 5 - 10 minutes before the PDF, created in the conversion process, is ready for approval. Please remember that your manuscript will not be submitted until you have approved the converted files.

Getting Help

If you need additional help, you can click on the help signs spread throughout the system. A help dialogue will pop up with context sensitive help. Should further assistance be required, then please contact leukemia@leukemianature.com.

Manuscript Status

After you approve your manuscript it is submitted and you will receive an acknowledgement email. You can check the status of your manuscript at any time in the review process by:

1. Accessing the system with your password or link sent to you in the acknowledgement email
2. Clicking on the link represented by your manuscript tracking number and abbreviated title.
3. Clicking on the "Check Status" link at the bottom of the displayed page.

Licence to Publish

The corresponding author must complete and sign the Licence to Publish form upon acceptance of the manuscript and return it to the editorial office. Failure to do so will result in delays to the publication of your paper. A copy of the Licence to Publish form can be found at http://mts-leu.nature.com/letters/leu_copyright.pdf

Nature Publishing Group does not require authors of original research papers to assign copyright of their published contributions. Authors grant NPG an exclusive licence to publish, in return for which they can re-use their papers in their future printed work. NPG's author licence page provides details of the policy and a sample form. Authors are encouraged to submit their version of the accepted, peer-reviewed manuscript to their funding body's archive, for public release six months after publication. In addition, authors are encouraged to archive their version of the manuscript in their institution's repositories (as well as on their personal web sites), also six months after the original publication. Authors should cite the publication reference and doi number on any deposited version, and provide a link from it to the published article on the NPG website. This policy complements the policies of the US National Institutes of Health, the Wellcome Trust and other research funding bodies around the world. NPG recognizes the efforts of funding bodies to increase access of the research they fund, and strongly encourages authors to participate in such efforts.

Advance Online Publication

All original articles are published ahead of print on Advance Online Publication. This will be the final version of the manuscript and will subsequently appear, unchanged, in print.

Proofs

An e-mail will be sent to the corresponding author with a URL link from where proofs can be collected. Proofs must be returned by fax within 48 hours of receipt. Failure to do so may result in a delay to publication. Extensive corrections cannot be made at this stage.

Offprints

Offprints may be ordered using the order form available for download with the proofs. Later orders submitted after the journal is printed are subject to increased reprint prices.

Page Charges

Manuscripts accepted for publication in Leukemia will incur a page charge of £55 (US$99) per printed page for pages 1 to 6. Each additional page over 6 printed pages will incur a page charge of £110 (US$198) per printed page.

Colour charges

The colour charges for Leukemia are as follows:

Business Matters

To find out who to contact for business correspondence and enquiries such as advertising, subscriptions, permissions, papers in production or publishing a supplement, please visit our publisher’s contacts page.

Alternatively, you can write to: Leukemia, Nature Publishing Group, The Macmillan Building, 4 Crinan Street, London, N1 9XW, UK.

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