Please note that Human Reproduction journals adhere strictly to the
Committee of Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines on good publication practice (http://www.wma.net/e/policy/pdf/17c.pdf) (see Human Reproduction Update 2001, 7, pp 437 442). Submission of a paper implies that it reports unpublished work and that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere. If previously published tables, illustrations or text are to be included, then this should be clearly indicated in the manuscript and the copyright holder's permission must be obtained. Copies of such permission letters should be enclosed with the paper. Previously published material can be cited in a later review or commentary article, but must be expressly indicated using quotation marks if necessary. Republication of an English language translation is (under certain circumstances) acceptable, provided that full and prominent disclosure of the original source is made.

Failure to comply with these guidelines will be considered a double publishing offence and treated appropriately.

Plagiarism of text from a previously published manuscript by the same or another author is a serious publication offence. Small amounts of text may be used, but only where the source of the material quoted is clearly acknowledged. Fraudulent data or data stolen from other authors is also unethical and will be treated accordingly. Any alleged offence is considered initially by the Editorial Team (comprising the Editor-in-Chiefs of HR, HRU and MHR; the Deputy Editor of HR and members of the Editorial Office) and later by the ESHRE Publication Committee. ESHRE reserves the right to reject papers on this basis alone, to bar authors from advisory positions on the journal or from membership of ESHRE, and to publish details of any transgression both in the printed and online versions of the journal. Other sanctions as recommended by COPE (such as informing the author's institutional head, publishing a notice of retraction etc) may also be considered.

The editors draw the authors' attention to the Declaration of Helsinki for Medical Research involving Human Subjects (http://www.wma.net/e/policy/pdf/17c.pdf) and also to the Guiding Principles in the Care and Use of Animals (DHEW Publication, NIH, 80 23). Studies involving humans and animals or human or animal material should have appropriate ethical approval and, where relevant, the patients' written informed consent. The editors reserve the right to refuse publication where the required ethical approval/patient consent is lacking.

The following must be completed and can all be found on the Author signature form:

* Signatures from each author agreeing to their inclusion in the list of authors in order of appearance on the manuscript, along with a brief description of each author=s role in the study. Human Reproduction Update adheres strictly to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) guidelines regarding Authorship and Contributorship (see http://www.icmje.org/index.html). All authors must indicate their individual contribution to the paper. Justification of authorship includes 1) substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data, 2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content, and 3) final approval of the version to be published. All authors must meet contributions (1), (2) and (3). Authors' roles will appear on the paper as part of the title page.

* Human Reproduction Update is committed to ensuring that all papers submitted to the journal are treated in a fair and unbiased way. As such, authors must declare any interests that they (or others) could consider to lead to a perceived bias. These biases (or perceived biases) can be of a financial, personal or professional nature, including (but not restricted to):

• Signatures from each author agreeing to their inclusion in the list of authors in order of appearance on the manuscript, along with a brief description of each author's role in the study.
• Declaration of any vested interests, e.g. large gifts, directorships, sponsorships. If in doubt please declare any potential interests. This will be included in an appropriate position in the published manuscript.
• As of January 2005, we will no longer require authors to cover the costs of printing 'essential' colour figures. Included are any figures that cannot easily be interpreted in black and white, for example photomicrographs and FACS scans. Non-essential figures may be reproduced in colour, but at a cost to the author of £350/$600 per page. The Editor-in-Chief/Editorial Office reserve the right to decide upon whether or not a figure needs to be reproduced in colour.
• Note that it is the responsibility of the corresponding author to obtain permission to publish previously published material and submit with their manuscript the permission from the copyright holder.

1) financial competing interests, such as stock ownership, paid employment, board membership, patent application (pending and actual), research grants (from whatever source), travel grants and honoraria for speaking or participation at meetings and gifts;
2) personal competing interests, such as membership of lobbying organizations and relationships with editors of Human Reproduction Update;
3) professional competing interests, such as acting as an expert witness, membership of Government advisory board and organizations and funding bodies.
Competing interest statements should be included in an appropriate position in the manuscript.
The above statements are in line with the recommendations of the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) with regard to funding of research (www.wame.org/wamestmt.htm) and competing interests (http://www.wame.org/resources/publication-ethics-policies-for-medical-journals).

* Human Reproduction Update no longer requires authors to cover the costs of printing 'essential' colour figures. Included are any figures that can not easily be interpreted in black and white, for example photomicrographs and FACS scans. Non essential figures may be reproduced in colour, but at a cost to the author of £350/$600 per page. The Editor in Chief / Editorial Office reserve the right

* Note that it is the responsibility of the corresponding author to obtain permission to publish previously published material and submit with their manuscript the permission from the copyright holder.

It is a condition of publication that authors assign a 'licence to publish' to ESHRE. Upon acceptance, a 'licence to publish' form must be completed. Authors may use their own material in future publications provided the Journal is acknowledged as the original place of publication and permission agreed.

Page charges are NOT levied.

OPEN ACCESS OPTION FOR AUTHORS

From January 2006, authors of accepted papers in Human Reproduction Update have had the option, at an additional charge, of making their papers freely available online immediately upon publication, under the Oxford Open initiative. After your manuscript is accepted, as part of the mandatory licence form required of all corresponding authors, you will be asked to indicate whether or not you wish to pay to have your paper made freely available immediately. If you do not select the Open Access option, your paper will be published with standard subscription based access and you will not be charged.

For those selecting the Open Access option, the charges for Human Reproduction Update vary depending on the institution at which the Corresponding author is based:

Optional Oxford Open charges:
For a Corresponding author based at an institution with an online subscription to Human Reproduction Update
Regular charge per paper - £800 / $1500
List B developing country charge* - £400 / $750
List A developing country charge* - £0 / $0

For a Corresponding author based at an institution that does not subscribe to the online journal:
Regular charge per paper - £1500 / $2800
List B developing country charge* -£750 / $1400
List A developing country charge* - £0 / $0

*Visit http://www.oxfordjournals.org/jnls/devel/ for list of qualifying countries.

The above Open Access charges are in addition to any non essential colour figure charges that might apply.

If you choose the Open Access option you will also be asked to complete an Open Access charge form online. You will be automatically directed to the appropriate version of the form depending on whether you are based at an institution with an online subscription to Human Reproduction. Therefore please make sure that you are using an institutional computer when accessing the form. To check whether you are based at a subscribing institution please use the Subscriber Test link for Human Reproduction Update.

The methods section should state the search criteria and the criteria for the inclusion and exclusion of studies. Systematic reviews, with or without a meta analysis should be reported in accordance with QUOROM (Quality of Reporting of Meta analyses), [Moher D., Cook, D.J., Eastwood, S., Olkin, I., Rennie D. and Stroup, D.F. (1999) Improving the quality of reports of meta analyses of randomised controlled trials: the QUOROM statement. Quality of Reporting of Meta analyses. Lancet, 354, 1896 1900]. [www.consort statement.org]
Authors must provide the following: (i) a flow chart and (ii) a checklist. Please click here for the flowchart and here for the checklist.

RESULTS

Comprehensive reviews should use appropriate sub-headings to summarize the findings and the authors’ synthesis of the literature. Tables and Figures would normally be necessary to summarise and illustrate the text. Systematic reviews should use sub-headings to summarize the important characteristics of the included studies, summarize the key observations across the studies and the give the results of combined analyses, if any. Tables of included studies should contain summary data only. Additional material can be published online only. Where possible the study and summary observations should present the primary effects as absolute numbers and differences, with numbers needed to treat or harm when appropriate, all with confidence intervals.

DISCUSSION

The discussion should begin with a succinct statement of the principal findings, outline the strengths and weaknesses of the study, discuss the findings in relation to other studies, provide possible explanations and indicate questions which remain to be answered in future research.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Personal acknowledgements should precede those of institutions or agencies.

FUNDING

With respect to funding of research, in line with the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) guidelines, http://www.wame.org/wamestmt.htm#fundres the journal considers it the responsibility of the author to protect the integrity of the research record from bias related to the source of funding by fully declaring all sponsorships, the roles played by sponsors in the research as well as institutional affiliations and relevant financial ties. These should be listed in the manuscript after the ‘Acknowledgements’.

REFERENCE CITATIONS WITHIN THE TEXT

Authors are responsible for the accuracy of the references. Each reference should be cited by author and date. If there are two authors please list both, if more than two please use first author then et al. Permission to cite personal communications (J.Smith, personal communication) should be obtained by the corresponding author. Unpublished data should be cited as (unpublished data) and should not be included in the reference list. Either of the above should be used only when essential.

References to papers accepted for publication, but not yet published, should be cited as such in the reference list e.g. Bloggs A (2007) In vitro fertilization. Hum Reprod, in press.

Papers published in Advance Access are citeable using the DOI and publication date. An example of an Advance Access citation is given below:
Gilad, Y. and Lancet, D. Population Differences in the Human Functional Olfactory Repertoire. Mol. Biol. Evol. Advance Access published March 5, 2003, doi:10.1093/molbev/msg013

The same paper in its final form would be cited:
Gilad, Y. and Lancet, D. Population Differences in the Human Functional Olfactory Repertoire. Mol Biol Evol 2003; 20: 307-314. First published March 5, 2003, doi:10.1093/molbev/msg013

REFERENCE LIST

Please use the following style. Note that correct punctuation and journal abbreviations must be used in order to run the search programs used to edit the manuscript. Incorrectly typed references take a lot of time to correct, for which we reserve the right to charge. Up to 10 authors should be included after which et al. should be used. Refer to the following examples. Abbreviate scientific journals according to established publications.

Balen AH, Laven JSE, Tan SL, and Dewailly D (2003) Ultrasound assessment of the polycystic ovary: international consensus definitions Hum Reprod Update 9, 505-514.
te Velde ER and Pearson PL (2002) The variability of female reproductive ageing Hum Reprod Update 8, 141-154.
Elliot WH and Elliot DC (2001) Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. 2nd edn, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.
Warren MA, Li TC and Klentzeris D (1994) Cell biology of the endometrium: histology, cell types and menstrual changes. In Chard T and Grudzinskas JG (eds) The Uterus. Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK, pp.94 125.

TABLES

Each table should be numbered consecutively with Roman numerals. Please avoid complex constructions. Each item of data should be in a separate cell and should be produced using Word or Excel format. Each table should be self explanatory and include a brief descriptive title. Footnotes to the table indicated by superscript lowercase letters are acceptable but should not include extensive detail. References to the tables in the text should be indicated in the margins and referenced sequentially as Table I, II etc. Where more than three tables are submitted there is a possibility that some tables may be published only on the journal’s website.

FIGURE LEGENDS

Each legend must be self contained, with all symbols and abbreviations used in the figure defined. Care should be taken to present data clearly and without unnecessary descriptive detail (e.g Forest plots)

FIGURES

Full instructions on preparing the figures are available as part of the online submission instructions. Please follow these instructions carefully as failure to do so will delay publication of your manuscript (please note: the editors reserve the right to charge for extensive changes). In preparing graphs authors should avoid background tints and 3D effects and maintain a consistent label size and aspect ratio (the x/y axis ratio) throughout a paper. Figure and axes titles should be clear and NOT in bold text.