Author
Guide for authors
Submission of a manuscript to the journal "Biomics" implies that the work is closely related to the journal's aims and scope and has not been published before; that it is not under consideration anywhere else; that its publication has been approved by all co-authors (if any), and that its publication will not create a conflict with the interests of the organization(s) where the work was performed. The publisher will not be held legally responsible should authors violate these terms.
The manuscripts prepared in accordance with all the requirements listed below should be sent to the editorial office by e-mail biomics@anrb.ru. The submission date of the article shall be the date of receiving the complete documentation of the manuscript in the required format.
The manuscript can be written in English and sent in Microsoft Word format with file extensions *.doc or *.rtf with margins of 2.0 cm, a font size of 12 pt, at 1.5 intervals. The text of the manuscript is aligned to the left and should not contain surplus spaces between words, as well as hyphenation. To verify the originality of the manuscript, it is mandatory to check for plagiarism. Drawings (color or monochrome) should be both in the text of the manuscript and sent separately in the formats of files in the *.jpg or *.tiff with image resolution >300 dpi. The image files must be given a name consisting of the name of the first author and the number of the image in the text. Due to the fact that the text of the journal is typed in a two-column format (this is done by the editors!), it is recommended that the width of the figures and tables correspond to one or two columns (8 or 16 cm wide). The "text wrap" option for figures and tables should not be used.
Authors intending to include already published figures or images must obtain permission of the copyright holder and provide proof of such permission. Please obtain the necessary permission from the copyright holder to publish under the CC-BY license. Any illustrative material obtained without such evidence, will be considered by the editors of Biomics as the original work of the authors. If a research article describes a study involving humans it should be noted that informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study. All animal experiments must meet the requirements of humanity and the authors must indicate this in the manuscript.
The structure of the manuscripts themselves may be somewhat arbitrary, with the mandatory allocation of only summary and cited literature as well as "Materials and Methods" section for experimental articles. The latter section may be absent in short reports. Three to ten appropriate keywords need to be added after the summary separated from each other by commas.
Summary placed before the main text should be a total of about 250 words maximum. It is necessary to note that the author's summary of a scientific article is in fact, an independent work providing a shortened version of the main text, from which the essence of conducted researches or review material should be generally clear to the readers who may be able to decide if they need (or not) to get acquainted with the full text of the article. A summary that repeats the structure of the article is welcome, with a division into introduction, goals and objectives, methods, results, and conclusion. At the same time, the methodological component should be described only if it is new and of particular interest. Using abbreviations and symbols should be avoided in the resume (except for common ones). In exceptional cases, it is necessary to give interpretation and definition at the first use of a term. Citation of literature in the summary is not allowed.
After the title of the article, the author(s) are to be listed on the next line. The following line contains the name(s) of the institutions(s) where the work was carried out, including the country, city and postal address, and (at the end) the email address of the author(s) for correspondence after publication. It is permissible to indicate in a footnote that two or more authors have made an equal contribution to this work. If research was performed by authors from different institutions, affiliations should be indicated with an upper-case digital index immediately after the author’s name and in front of the appropriate address. Authorship must include and be limited to those who have contributed substantially to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data and/or preparation of the manuscript. At least one author should be designated as corresponding author, who is responsible for the manuscript during the submission and peer-review process, and his or her email address and other details should be included at the end of the affiliation section. All correspondence with Editorial Board is conducted by e-mail. Any addition, deletion, or rearrangement of authors' names in the authorship list can only be done with the approval of the journal editor-in-chief. In the case of adding or removing authors, this requires confirmation from the authors who were added or removed.
In addition to the full title, authors are required to give (at the end of the manuscript) a running title of their article (from 3 to 5 words).
The biological, physical, chemical, mathematical, and other terms, symbols, and units of measurement used in the articles should be generally accepted. Latin names of living organisms should be given in italics with an indication of the author who described them at the first mention in the text of the article footer, for example - Triticum sinskajae A. Filat. et Kurk. and then briefly - T.sinskajae. Nucleotide sequences without any analysis exceeding 1/3 of an A4 page are not published.
The size of articles and the number of illustrations in them do not have strict restrictions, assuming that manuscript of experimental works is usually not more than 25 pages, and reviews and theoretical articles - not more than 50. It is also possible to publish mini-reviews of up to 15 pages in the manuscript version. Short reports should be limited to 10 pages with one or two illustrations. The cited literature in articles of different types should not exceed (preferably) 20 references (experimental works), 100 (reviews and theoretical papers), 40 (mini-reviews) and 10 references (short reports). When presenting significant amount of experimental data is important, it should be submitted in the form of additional material immediately following the main article. In all exceptional cases that do not fit into the above framework, it is recommended to contact the editor-in-chief or his deputies by e-mail. Other materials (materials of scientific events; reviews of monographs and books; reports on scientific events, etc.) sent for publication should be limited to the minimum possible volumes.
References in the text of the article are given in square brackets - [Watson, Crick, 1953; 1953a]. References to your own unpublished materials and to personal communications of colleagues such as [Smith A., unpublished] or [Smith B., personal communication] should not be given in the list of cited literature. It is allowed to cite articles that have not yet been published and are in print [Smith C. Title. Journal. In press]. Links to web pages with an indication of the time of access can be given in the text of the article in parentheses or mentioned as footnotes at the end of the corresponding page, and can also be included into the list of cited literature, and here everything depends on the logic of choosing one or another option in each particular case, and in the same article all these citation options are allowed. At the same time, any footnotes should not be abused.
The list of cited literature is a mandatory element of all types of articles. It should be present in the form of References section. The names of the journals should be given in italics. It is mandatory to indicate the doi.
For example –
1. Watson J.D., Crick F.H.C. A structure for deoxyribose nucleic acid. Nature. 1953. V. 171(4356). P. 737-738. doi:10.1038/171737a0
2. Watson J.D., Crick F.H.C. Genetic implication of the structure of deoxyribonucleic acid. Nature. 1953a. V. 171(4361). P. 964-967. doi:10.1038/171964b0
We draw the attention of the authors to the fact that the citation of literature should be treated very carefully, since the presentation of incomplete and / or inaccurate information about any work will not allow it to be correlated with the information available in various databases. It is also necessary to specify all the authors of the cited article. In the case of citation of articles prepared by a Consortium that exceeds 20 co-authors, in addition to the name of the Consortium itself, the first three and last three authors should be indicated in angle brackets with an ellipsis <...> between them. The names of the journals are given in abbreviated form according to generally accepted standards.
Books in the list of cited literature should be given as follows –
Watson J.D. (Gann A., Witkowski J. – eds.) Annotated and Illustrated Double Helix. Simon and Schuster Group USA. 2012. 350 P.
Patents should be cited as follows: in the text of the article - [Mullis et al., 1987], and in the section "References" should be cited as – Mullis K. B., Erlich H. A., Arnheim N., Horn G. T., Saiki R. K., Scharf S. J. Process for amplifying, detecting, and/or-cloning nuclear acid sequences. US Patent # 4,683,195. July 28, 1987.
For an objective assessment of each submitted manuscript, it is reviewed.
Authors are invited to indicate three potential peer-reviewers with their places of work and email addresses for the submitted manuscript. However, the editorial board reserves the right to make a final choice of reviewers. Proposals of the editorial board of specific scientists, potentially able to review the submitted manuscript, pursues the main goal of expanding the base of reviewers willing to cooperate with the journal. To avoid conflicts of interests and to take into account possible reluctance of authors to acquaint some part of the scientific community with the material before it is published, the authors are invited, if necessary, to indicate reviewers to whom the submitted manuscript should not be send for review, and the editors undertake to follow this strictly.
The final decision on publication of an article, including the choice of a concrete issue of the journal, where it is to be published, is made by the Editorial Board.
The journal "Biomics" practices one-sided anonymous (“blind”) peer review. The editorial board reserves the right to reject manuscripts that do not correspond to the aims and scope of the journal without a peer-review, and immediately notifies the authors about it.
The review of the manuscripts is carried out by three peer-reviewers, leading experts in the relevant field. The decision on the selection of reviewers for the examination of the manuscript is made by the Editor-in-Chief, Deputy chief editors, Head of the editorial office. The reviewer has the right to refuse to review if there is an obvious conflict of interest that may affect the perception and interpretation of the manuscript materials.
The review period should usually not exceed three weeks at each of the possible stages of the review process (there should be no more than three stages in the procedure), but depending on the situation and at the request of the reviewer, it can be extended for a short time.
Based on the results of the consideration of the manuscript, the reviewer makes an informed decision on the further fate of the article:
- recommends to accept the manuscript for publication in the presented form;
- recommends accepting the manuscript for publication after eliminating the deficiencies noted by the reviewer;
- recommends of rejection of the manuscript.
To obtain the most complete and objective review of the manuscript, the editors have developed a special form for peer-reviewers, with which the authors of the article will then be familiarized with the exception of the part intended only for the editors.
If there are recommendations for the revision of the manuscript, the editors suggest taking them into account when preparing a new version of the manuscript because one of the goals of peer review is to improve manusrcipts.
The recommended revision of the manuscript should not take more than two months from the date of sending an electronic message to the authors about the need for changes. The revised manuscript, if necessary, is re-sent for review. If the authors disagree with any recommendations (comments) they must clearly explain the reason for refusing to make the appropriate corrections (additions) in the response letter. In case of unsolvable contradictions between the authors and peer-reviewers regarding the manuscript, the editorial board has the right to send the manuscript for additional review.
If authors do not return the revised version after two months from the date of sending them the reviews, the editors remove the manuscript from the register due to the expiration of the time allotted for revision, and the corresponding notification will be sent to the authors.
A positive review is not a sufficient reason for the publication of the manuscript. The final decision on the publication is made by the editorial board. In conflict situations, the decision is made by the Editor-in-Chief. Editorial board members are not involved in making decisions about articles that they have written themselves or that have been written by family members or colleagues, or that relate to products or services in which they are interested. Any submission of a manuscript is subject to all the usual journal procedures. After the editorial board of the journal makes a decision on the acceptance of the manuscript for publication, the editorial board informs the author about it and specifies the terms and preliminary output data of the publication.
A notification of refusal of publication is sent to the author by e-mail, the letter contains reviews and reasons for refusal of publication.