The purpose of this checklist is to help authors ensure that their manuscripts are ready for submission to Mass Spectrometry. It does not need to be submitted to anywhere.
Ethics
- ▢ All authors have seen and approved the manuscript.
- ▢ All authors have agreed to its submission to Mass Spectrometry.
- ▢ All authors have permission to publish their work.
- ▢ The manuscript represents original work and contains no plagiarized material.
- ▢ Authors have disclosed any potential conflicts of interest.
- ▢ Experiments using animals or humans (or their material) conform to appropriate ethical guidelines.
- ▢ Digital image processing follows the journal’s guidelines.
Manuscript
- ▢ The manuscript file is formatted in Microsoft Word.
- ▢ Text is written in clear, grammatically correct English.
- ▢ Title page includes the title, authors’ full names, affiliations, abstract, key words, and the name and full address of the corresponding author(s).
- ▢ Main text includes all relevant sections for the article type.
- ▢ The authors have obtained the permission of the copyright holder(s) and relevant publisher to include any previously published material.
- ▢ The authors have cited all funding sources for the work.
- ▢ All the data necessary to support the conclusions of a paper should be included with the main body of the paper. Authors may include as supporting information additional results and data such as extensive MS data including large data sets – e.g., those obtained with omics analysis. Supporting information will be reviewed as a part of the normal manuscript review process and will be judged by the same rigorous criteria as the main body of the paper. Supporting information cannot be added after acceptance.
- ▢ When submitting spectral data with the manuscript, the authors should check if they can open them with MSSJ’s viewing software, Spectrum Viewer Tool.
Submission process
- ▢ The submitting author has the full names, institutional addresses and email addresses for all authors.
- ▢ The submitting author has the names and email addresses of any preferred or non-preferred referees.
- ▢ A cover letter that briefly describes an overview of the work, its significance and justification for publication, as well as suggestions for potential associate editors to handle the manuscript.
- ▢ For the case of a revised manuscript, it is also required to provide a copy of the original manuscript marked with the changes using Track Changes (MS Word), highlighting, or colored text.
- ▢ A point-by-point response to all of the issues raised in the reviews should be made in a separate letter.
Open access
- ▢ The authors understand the Creative Commons and its implications.
- ▢ All authors are aware that accepted manuscripts are published under a CC BY NC license.