TYPES OF MANUSCRIPTS

PEDS invites submission of papers in the following categories:

• Original research articles should be divided into the following sequence of sections: Title page, Abstract, Keywords, Introduction, Materials and methods, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgements, References, Legends to figures, Tables. They should ideally be six printed pages in total. Publication of longer manuscripts is at the discretion of the editors. To estimate the length of a paper or protocol in typescript, allow 1400 words for each full page of printed text, remembering to allow sufficient space for tables/illustrations within the six-page limit.
• Reviews should inform readers of the state-of-the-art of a particular area, provide a critical view, or a historical perspective. They should be comprehensive, critical, and balanced. Although the focus may be the author's own work, references to the works of others should be included. Reviews should follow the guidelines of research papers. They should normally contain no more than 2,000 words and up to 5 figures and tables. A brief abstract (<150 words) should also be included. Suggestions and outlines for potential contributions (including: title, abstract and key references) may be sent to the Reviews Editor
• Mini-reviews, Highlights and Opinions. These include a range of short articles that focus on recent developments in protein engineering and discuss their broader implications. Mini-reviews concentrate on the last 12 months or less of research efforts as described in the scientific literature; Highlights pertain to specific articles published in PEDS or other journals; while Opinion articles are meant to provide an opportunity for discussion of new topics, commentary, controversy and/or criticism. These include topics of purely theoretical or speculative nature, manuscripts that focus on new interpretations of existing experimental results; and other manuscripts that discuss issues that are of interest to the community of protein engineers. Manuscripts in any of these categories should normally contain no more than 1000 words and two figures. A brief abstract (<60 words) should also be included. Suggestions and outlines for potential contributions (including: title, abstract and key references) may be sent to the Reviews Editor
• Short communications comprise announcements of useful computer software, along with a description of relevant applications and Internet/World Wide Web usage and the announcement of novel protocols. Short communications should not exceed 2500 words in length, excluding references, tables and figures. Authors have the opportunity to present their work in the same format as an original research article, or may combine methods, results and discussion in a single section. A short abstract (100 words) may be included.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

At the point of submission, Protein Engineering, Design and Selection's policy requires that each author reveal any financial interests or connections, direct or indirect, or other situations that might raise the question of bias in the work reported or the conclusions, implications, or opinions stated - including pertinent commercial or other sources of funding for the individual author(s) or for the associated department(s) or organization(s), personal relationships, or direct academic competition. When considering whether you should declare a conflicting interest or connection please consider the conflict of interest test: Is there any arrangement that would embarrass you or any of your co-authors if it was to emerge after publication and you had not declared it?

As an integral part of the online submission process, Corresponding authors are required to confirm whether they or their co-authors have any conflicts of interest to declare, and to provide details of these. If the Corresponding author is unable to confirm this information on behalf of all co-authors, the authors in question will then be required to submit a completed Conflict of Interest form to the Editorial Office. It is the Corresponding author’s responsibility to ensure that all authors adhere to this policy.

If the manuscript is published, Conflict of Interest information will be communicated in a statement in the published paper.

GENERAL FORMAT

Please note: This journal does not accept Microsoft Word 2007 documents at this time. Please use Word's "Save As" option to save your document as an older (.doc) file type.
While we can accept most word processor formats, the preferred options are Word or WordPerfect. The manuscript should be saved as a .doc or .rtf file. The page set-up should be set to A4 or American quarto paper sizes. Use one-and-a-half spacing throughout the manuscript and insert page numbers. Avoid using footnotes.

Abbreviations should be defined in parentheses after their first mention in the text. Standard units of measurements and chemical symbols of elements may be used without definition in the body of the paper.

SECTIONS OF THE MANUSCRIPT

Title page should include the full title, the surname and initials of each author, plus their department, institution, city with postal code and country. Any changes of address may be given as numbered affiliations. The corresponding author should be indicated, and their e-mail address provided. Finally, provide a running title of not more than 50 characters.

Abstract The second page of the manuscript must contain only the Abstract, which should be a single paragraph not exceeding 200 words. Reference citations should be avoided.

Keywords Up to five keywords should be given in alphabetical order separated by an oblique (/).

Funding information
Details of all funding sources for the work in question should be given in a separate section entitled 'Funding'. This should appear before the 'Acknowledgements' section.

The following rules should be followed:

• The sentence should begin: ‘This work was supported by …’
• The full official funding agency name should be given, i.e. ‘National Institutes of Health’, not ‘NIH’ (full RIN-approved list of UK funding agencies) Grant numbers should be given in brackets as follows: ‘[grant number xxxx]’
• Multiple grant numbers should be separated by a comma as follows: ‘[grant numbers xxxx, yyyy]’
• Agencies should be separated by a semi-colon (plus ‘and’ before the last funding agency)
• Where individuals need to be specified for certain sources of funding the following text should be added after the relevant agency or grant number 'to [author initials]'.

An example is given here: ‘This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health [AA123456 to C.S., BB765432 to M.H.]; and the Alcohol & Education Research Council [hfygr667789].

Acknowledgments should be included at the end of the text and not in footnotes. Personal acknowledgements should precede those of institutions or agencies, include any grant numbers where appropriate.

References Authors are responsible for the accuracy of the References. Published articles and those in press (state the journal which has accepted them) may be included. In the text, a reference should be cited by author and date. Not more than two authors may be cited per reference; if there are more than two authors use et al. At the end of the manuscript, the citations should be in alphabetical order by first author surnames. References should include, in the following order: author names, year, journal title, volume number, inclusive page numbers (or, where published online but not yet paginated, use DOI instead of volume number and page numbers). Book references should also include the title and the name and address of publisher. Not more than 10 authors may be cited per reference; if there are more than 10 authors use et al. The name of the journal should be abbreviated according to the Index Medicus. References should therefore be listed as follows:

Hershberg,R., Altuvia,S. and Margalit,H. (2003) Nucleic Acids Res., 31, 1813-1820.
Lesk,A.M. (ed) (2000) An Introduction to Protein Architecture. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Norris,K.E., Norris,F. and Brunfeldt,K. (1980) In Köster,H. (ed), Nucleic Acids Synthesis: Applications to Molecular Biology and Genetic Engineering. IRL Press, London, pp. 233-241.
Gilad,Y. and Lancet,D. March 5, 2004. Population Differences in the Human Functional Olfactory Repertoire. Mol. Biol. Evol. doi:10.1093/molbev/msg013.
[The same paper in its final form would be cited:
Gilad,Y. and Lancet,D. (2003) Population differences in the human functional olfactory repertoire. Mol. Biol. Evol. 20: 307-314. First published on March 5, 2003, doi:10.1093/molbev/msg013.]

Figure legends should be on a separate page. Define all symbols and abbreviations used in the figure. Common abbreviations and others in the preceding text should not be redefined in the legend.

Tables should be in table format, not inserted as graphics, on separate sheets and numbered consecutively with Roman numerals. They should be self-explanatory, with a brief descriptive title. Footnotes to tables indicated by lower case letters are acceptable, but they should not include extensive experimental detail.

ILLUSTRATIONS

All illustrations (line drawings and photographs) should be referred to in the text as Figure 1, etc., which should be abbreviated to 'Fig. 1.' only in the figure legend. Illustrations should be submitted in Adobe Photoshop compatible formats, preferably .tif, or alternatively .eps or .jpg, and saved as separate files, not embedded in the text file.

Colour figures

The inclusion of colour figures is encouraged, particularly for the reproduction of computer graphics displays or protein structures. Colour figures should be in CMYK colour mode with a resolution of at least 300 dpi. There is a charge of £350/$665 for each colour figure. Orders from the UK will be subject to a 17.5% VAT charge. For orders from elsewhere in the EU you or your institution should account for VAT by way of a reverse charge. Please provide us with your or your institution’s VAT number. Alternatively, there is no charge for figures that appear in black in white in print but colour in Supplementary data online. Note that there are no colour charges for invited reviews.

Line drawings

These should be clear and sharp, suitable for reproduction as submitted. No additional artwork, redrawing or typesetting is done. Faint shading or stippling will be lost upon reproduction and should be avoided. Heavy shading or stippling may appear black on reproduction. All line and labels should be black. Ensure that the size of lettering is in proportion with the overall dimensions of the drawing. Ideally, line drawings should fit either a single (88 mm) or a double column width (183 mm). If submitting line drawings which require reduction, please check that the lettering will be clearly legible after the drawing has been reduced to the size at which it will be printed. After reduction, letters should not be smaller than 1.5 mm in height.

Stereoscopic images

PEDS employs a 3-picture system to enable readers with normal and cross-over stereo vision to visualize stereoscopic images. Figures may be submitted in this format whether they are line drawings or photographs (including colour figures). The centre image should be a right-hand image flanked by two left-hand images, with a spacing of 64 mm between image centres (maximum overall width 183 mm).

SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL

When appropriate, material such as large tables and datasets can be published online only as supplementary material permanently linked to an article in the online journal. Supplementary material should be referred to where appropriate in the text.

Supplementary material should be submitted in separate files from the manuscript in the first instance. Appropriate suffixes must be included with the file name. The following formats are acceptable: plain text (.txt), HTML (.html, htm), Jpeg (.jpg, .jpeg), GIF (.gif), QuickTime video (.mov), MPEG Movie (.mpg), Microsoft AVI Video (.avi), Adobe PDF (.pdf), Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet (.xls).

PROOFS

Page proofs are sent to authors as a pdf file by e-mail. To avoid delays in publication, proofs should be checked immediately for typographical errors and returned to the publishers by fax (no. +44 1865 353773) or express (special delivery) post to the Production Editor, PEDS, Oxford University Press. Essential additions of an extensive nature may be made only by insertion of a Note added in proof. A charge may be made to authors for amendments at the proof stage.

OFFPRINTS

The publishers supply 25 offprints and a URL for online access to the article free of charge. Offprint order forms are sent out with the proofs, and should be returned with the proofs to Oxford University Press. Late orders submitted after the journal is printed are subject to increased prices. Orders from the UK will be subject to a 17.5% VAT charge. For orders from elsewhere in the EU you or your institution should account for VAT by way of a reverse charge. Please provide us with your or your institution’s VAT number.

Authors may retain the copyright of their material, but it is a condition of publication in PEDS that authors assign an exclusive licence to Oxford University Press. This ensures that requests from third parties to reproduce articles are handled efficiently and consistently and will also allow the article to be as widely disseminated as possible. As part of the licence agreement, authors may use their own material in other publications provided that the Journal is acknowledged as the original place of publication, and Oxford University Press as the Publisher.

Information about the New Creative Commons licence can be found here.

OPEN ACCESS OPTION FOR AUTHORS

PEDS authors have the option, at an additional charge, to make their paper 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 PEDS 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 PEDS:
Regular charge per paper - £800 / $1500
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.

Please note that from July 2008 the new open access charges will be:

Regular Subscribers - £900/€1350/$1800
Regular Non-subscribers - £1500/€2250/$3000

Orders from UK will be subject to a 17.5% VAT charge. For orders from the rest of the EU, we will assume that the service is provided for business purposes, please provide a VAT number for yourself or your institution and ensure you account for your own local VAT correctly.

The above Open Access charges are in addition to any page charges and colour charges that might apply.

If you choose the Open Access option you will also be asked to complete an Open Access charge form online 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 PEDS. 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 PEDS.

POLICY CONCERNING AVAILABILITY OF MATERIALS

It is understood that by publishing a paper in PEDS the authors agree, where feasible, to make freely available to colleagues in academic research any of the cells, nucleic acids, proteins, etc. that were used in the research reported and that are not available from commercial suppliers.

AUTHOR SELF-ARCHIVING/PUBLIC ACCESS POLICY

For information about this journal's policy, please visit our Author Self-Archiving policy page.