Oxford Journals

Manuscript Preparation Guidelines

Manuscripts are to be submitted to Toxicological Sciences through Toxicological Sciences ScholarOne Manuscripts located at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/toxsci. If you do not have access to the Internet, please contact the editorial office at 302-326-9313.

When a manuscript is submitted, authors will be asked to confirm that: (1) all authors have made a significant contribution to the paper, have read and approved the version submitted and share responsibility for it; (2) no portion of the work has been published or accepted for publication in any other journal; (3) the work will not be submitted to another journal while under consideration by Toxicological Sciences and (4) any potential conflict of interest has been disclosed to the Editor. Any allegations of ethical misconduct regarding possible violations of these requirements will be investigated by the Editorial Office. Failure to conform to these ethical guidelines may result in the paper being withdrawn from consideration by the journal and possible suspension or revocation of an author’s privilege to publish in the journal.

Please read the Guidelines Governing Conflict of Interest, which are posted on this Web site. The Guidelines were also printed as part of the Editorial in the April 2003 (Vol. 72, No. 2) issue of Toxicological Sciences. You will be required to disclose any potential conflicts within your manuscript submission.

Cover letter. A cover letter (if you choose to submit one), saved in Microsoft Word format (.doc) or rich text format (.rtf), may be uploaded in ToxSci MC.

Text File. All manuscripts must be typed double-spaced (including references) with 1-in. margins on all sides. Prepare any text documents using a word-processing program, and save as .doc or .rtf files. Please submit manuscripts in Times New Roman or Arial font. Make sure all tracked-changes comments are removed from the final document. Tables should be saved at the end of the main document. Do not embed figures in the text. Text File order: Title Page, Abstract and Keywords, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Supplementary Data description (if applicable), Funding Information, Acknowledgments, References, Footnotes, Figure Legend, Tables.

Title Page. Page 1 should contain the article title, the names and affiliations (include city, state, postal code and e-mail address) of all authors, and the name and express delivery address (include street or building name) of the corresponding author, along with e-mail address and telephone and fax numbers. Affiliation callout symbols order is: *, †, ‡, §, ¶, ||, lll, llll, #, **, ††. If there are anymore, then lowercase superscript letters are used. It should also contain a short title (not to exceed 40 characters). The article title should be comprehensive and descriptive; proprietary names must not be used in titles, but may be identified at first appearance in text.

Abstract. Page 2 should contain an abstract, limited to 250 words, containing a concise summary of what was done, the results obtained, and valid conclusions drawn therefrom. It must mention the compounds or families of compounds studied, their actions, and the species of animals used in the research. It must not contain proprietary names or reference citations. The abstract should be followed by a list of 3 to 6 key words. Subsequent pages should contain the following sections:

Introduction. State why the investigation was carried out, note any relevant published work, and delineate the objective of the investigation. The significance of this work and its contribution to the area of study should be stated. The Introduction should not exceed 750 words.

Materials and Methods. New methods or significant improvements of methods or changes in old methods should be described. Methods for which adequate reference can be cited are not to be described. In the Materials and Methods section, authors should draw attention to any particular chemical or biological hazards that may be involved in carrying out the experiments described. Any relevant safety precautions should be described; if an accepted code of practice has been followed, a reference to the relevant standards should be given.

Results. Duplication between the text of this section and material presented in tables and figures should be avoided. Tabular presentation of masses of negative data must be avoided and replaced with a statement in the text whenever possible. The statement must include (a) what was done, (b) how it was done, (c) how the data were analyzed, (d) a measure of variability, and (e) the significance of the result.

Discussion. This section must relate the significance of the work to existing knowledge in the field and indicate the importance of the contribution of this study. Needless detailed recapitulation of the results should be avoided. Unsupported hypotheses and speculation should be omitted. The Discussion should not exceed 1500 words.

Supplementary Data (if applicable). This section should contain a brief description of any supplementary data to be published online with your article. The information you provide will be used to describe supplementary data content and will appear in the print version after the main body of the article. Supplementary Data is supporting material that cannot be included in the printed version for reasons of space and that is not essential for inclusion in the full text of the manuscript but would nevertheless benefit the reader. It should not be essential to understanding the conclusions of the paper but should contain data that is additional or complementary and directly relevant to the article content. Please go to http://www.oxfordjournals.org/our_journals/toxsci/for_authors/suppdata.html for more information.

Supplementary data will be made available by the publisher as online-only content linked to the online manuscript. Such information includes more detailed methods, extended data sets/data analysis, tables, or additional figures (including color). In addition, other material, including video clips and sound files, that enhance or extend the context of the paper beyond that which can appear in print are welcome.

Supplementary data will be subject to the same editorial standards and peer review process as the printed article and must be submitted along with the main manuscript. The information should be submitted in separate files and clearly designated as "Supplementary." Also ensure that the supplementary data is referred to in the main manuscript at an appropriate point in the text.

We also ask that you provide a brief description of the supplementary data. The information you provide will be used to describe supplementary data content and will appear in the print version after the main body of the article.

When a revised manuscript (after peer review) is submitted, the supplementary data should again be uploaded. It must be supplied to the production department with the article for publication, not at a later date. It cannot be altered or replaced after the paper has been accepted for publication. Supplementary data will not be copyedited, so it is important that the data are clearly and succinctly presented, and that the style of terms conforms with the rest of the paper. The authors should also ensure that the presentation will work on any Internet browser. Please go to http://www.oxfordjournals.org/our_journals/toxsci/for_authors/suppdata.html for more information.

Acceptable formats for Supplementary Data
Files for supplementary data should be clearly marked as such and be accompanied by a summary of the file names and types. A maximum of 5 files is acceptable to make up the supplementary data unit for an article. The maximum size per file should not exceed 2 MB (although text files should be a great deal smaller), and files should be as small as possible, so that they can be downloaded quickly. An HTML index page is created to link the supplementary data file(s) to the article. Please provide short (2-4 word) titles for each individual file--these will be used to create links to the files from the index page.

Recommendations for Supplementary Data

Use a common cross-platform (PC, Mac, Linux/UNIX, etc.) format for supplementary data to allow the greatest access for your readers.
Provide text files in Portable Document Format (.pdf), Microsoft Word (.doc), HTML (.html), or Rich Text Format (.rtf). Files supplied in Word or RTF may be used to create a PDF file.
Provide spreadsheet files in Microsoft Excel (.xls) or CSV (.csv) format.
Provide image files as Tagged Image Format (.tif), Graphic Image Format (.gif), or JPEG (.jpg). Images should be a maximum size of 640 x 480 pixels (9 x 6.8 inches at 72 pixels per inch).
The preferred and most common format for movie clips is MPEG Movie (.mpg), although QuickTime Video (.mov) and Microsoft AVI Video (.avi) formats are also acceptable.

If you require further help or information regarding submission or preparation of supplementary data, please contact the Managing Editor at ToxSci@toxicology.org or the Production Editor at toxsci@oxfordjournals.org.

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. ‘the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health’ or simply 'National Institutes of Health' not ‘NCI' (one of the 27 subinstitutions) or 'NCI at NIH’ (full RIN-approved list of UK funding agencies) Grant numbers should be given in brackets as follows: ‘[grant number xxxx]’
Grant numbers should be complete and accurate and provided in brackets as follows: ‘[grant number ABX CDXXXXXX]’
Multiple grant numbers should be separated by a comma as follows: ‘[grant numbers ABX CDXXXXXX, EFX GHXXXXXX]’
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 [P50 CA098252 and CA118790 to R.B.S.R.] and the Alcohol & Education Research Council [HFY GR667789].

Oxford Journals will deposit all NIH-funded articles in PubMed Central. See http://www.oxfordjournals.org/for_authors/repositories.html for details. Authors must ensure that manuscripts are clearly indicated as NIH-funded using the guidelines above.

Acknowledgements.

References. Authors are responsible for the accuracy of their references. The references should be cited in the text by author name with the year of publication in parentheses using the following format: (Able and Baker, 2000) or Able and Baker (2000). The order for multiple citations within parentheses in the text should be alphabetical. When there are more than two authors for a reference, use the first author's name followed by et al. in the citation. References are limited to 40 references and should be listed alphabetically and typed double-spaced on separate sheets at the end of the paper with all authors included. All papers cited in the text must be listed in the reference list and vice versa.

For works by the same author(s) in the same year, order the works alphabetically in the reference list by title and append a lowercase a, b, c, etc. to the year of publication. Journal titles should be abbreviated according to the latest edition of Chemical Abstracts Service Source Index or Index Medicus; each abbreviated title should be followed by volume number in boldface type. Note the following styles for references:

Research article
Karanth, S., and Pope, C. (2000). Carboxylesterase and A-esterase activities during maturation and aging: Relationship to the toxicity of chlorpyrifos and parathion in rats. Toxicol. Sci. 58, 282-289.

Book chapter
Frank, A. A., Blythe, L. L., and Spencer, P. S. (2000). Aspects of veterinary toxicology. In Experimental and Clinical Neurotoxicology (P. S. Spencer, H. S. Schaumberg, and A. C. Ludolph, Eds.), 2nd ed., pp. 83-105. Oxford University Press, New York.

Abstract
Yee, S. B., Ganey, P. E., and Roth, R. A. (1998). Temporal relationships in the augmentation of monocrotoline hepatotoxicity by bacterial endotoxin. Toxicol. Sci. 42(Suppl.), 366 (Abstract).

Advance Access
Gilad, Y. and Lancet, D. March 5, 2003. Population Differences in the Human Functional Olfactory Repertoire. Mol. Biol. Evol. 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, 10.1093/molbev/msg013

Please follow AMA Manual of Style for citations that are not listed above.

Only published material or material accepted for publication should be listed in the references; personal communications, unpublished data, manuscripts in preparation, etc., should be incorporated into the text in parentheses.

Footnotes should be kept to a minimum and identified in the text by superscript Arabic numerals and cited consecutively throughout the paper. All footnotes should be listed in order and typed double-spaced on a separate sheet. Proprietary names of substances and names and locations of suppliers should not be identified in footnotes; rather, put this information inside parentheses within the Materials and Methods section. If the paper has been presented orally in whole or in part, the date and occasion should be included in an unnumbered footnote.

Tables should be prepared in a word-processing program and included in the main manuscript .doc or .rtf file, double-spaced on a separate page with the title directly above the table. Do not use abbreviations in the title. The title and footnotes must contain all the information necessary to understand and interpret the table without reference to the text. Number tables consecutively with arabic numerals. Information applicable to the title or to full columns or rows may be placed in a general Note. Other footnotes should be identified by superscript lowercase italic letters and placed below the table, after the general Note (if any).

Letters should be assigned to table footnotes alphabetically in order of appearance as the table is read horizontally. Tables should be placed after the figure legends at the end of the manuscript. All tables must be cited in the text.

Figures.

Presentation. Figures should be numbered consecutively with arabic numerals. All legends should be included in the main document and should define all symbols and abbreviations used in each figure; each figure should also be cited within the text itself. All figures should be planned to fit within the proportions of the printed page (7 1/8 in. wide x 9 in. deep); wherever possible, they should be submitted in their desired final size, and need to be at least the width of a single column of text (3.5 in). Lettering on the original figure should be professional quality or generated by high-resolution computer graphics and should be large enough (10-12 points) to be legible after reduction of the figure to single-column width. Differences in type size within a single figure should be no more than approximately 15%, and freehand, penciled, or typewritten lettering is not acceptable.

Symbols used to identify points within a graph should be large enough to be easily distinguishable after reduction. Please note that in line drawings, faint shading and stippling will be lost upon reproduction and should therefore be avoided. Multipart figures should have the parts labeled with letters (A, B, C, etc.) and should be combined onto one page. Include the figure number within the file but not as part of the image. No artwork, redrawing, or typesetting changes can be made to submitted figures, so it is extremely important that all elements of a figure be correct at submission. If opting for the Flexible Online Color option (see below), please ensure that figure legends indicate that the color image is available in the online version of the article, and that the text is an accurate description of both the black and white and color versions of the figure

Creation and format. Figures should be created as Encapsulated Postscript (.eps) or Tagged Image Format (.tif) files at resolutions of 300 dpi (dots per square inch) for photographic, color images and grayscale images or 600 dpi for black and white line drawings (such a black and white only graphs). Use CMYK colors only. PowerPoint may also be used for graphs created in PowerPoint only. Electron micrographs should be no larger than 6.5 x 4.5 in, and magnification should be indicated by a bar on the micrograph. Please use high-resolution original sources, such as scanned original artwork or original image files, to create your .tif or .eps figures, with fonts embedded. For EPS submissions, please use the following fonts only: Arial, Courier, Times New Roman, Helvetica, and Symbol.

Even when saved as .tif or .eps files, graphics downloaded or saved from Web pages (and other low-resolution materials) will not meet print quality standards and are therefore unacceptable for figure creation. Blurry, illegible, or other low-quality figures will be returned to you for recreation and may delay publication of your paper.

We recommend that you produce your figures with high-quality graphics software, such as Adobe Photoshop, to help ensure appropriate resolution and workability. For instructions on how to use Photoshop and other supported graphics software to prepare figures, please visit http://cpc.cadmus.com/da/applications.asp. If the software available to you cannot generate .tif or .eps files, you may wish to print a high-quality copy of the figure, scan it, and then save it as a .tif. For instructions on scanning, please visit http://cpc.cadmus.com/da/scanning.asp.

For useful information on preparing figures visit http://dx.sheridan.com where you can also test whether your figures are suitable for production by using the proflight tool at http://dx.sheridan.com/onl/.

Flexible Online Color Option. For manuscripts accepted for publication, all color figures will be published in color online at no cost, and authors may choose to publish figures in color in the print journal for $600 per figure. You may chose to have color figures converted to black and white images for the print journal, for which there is no cost. Authors will be contacted by e-mail after your article is accepted for publication to confirm your preferences and to approve any costs incurred for printing color figures. For color figures published in the printed journal, you will be issued an invoice at the time of publication. If you wish to publish color figures in the printed journal but are not able to cover the cost of color figures, please contact the Editor.

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.

To ensure that your color resolutions and space requirements meet the journal's standards, please visit http://cpc.cadmus.com/da/guidelines.asp#rez.

Index terms suitable for use in the subject index may be submitted on a separate page. The list should include chemical name, generic name, and common name and may include the proprietary name of each important substance used in experiments. It should also include biological activity of each substance investigated. Terms should elucidate important relationships.

Nanomaterials. Studies on nanoparticle toxicity or fate are of considerable interest in toxicology and are highly relevant to the readership of the journal. However, it is essential that manuscripts summarizing the actions, fate or toxicity of nanomaterials provide information on the physicochemical characteristics of the nanoparticle-types under study in order to allow adequate assessment of the work along with integration of new data with previous research. Manuscripts must provide details on particle size and size distribution (wet state) and surface area (dry state) in the relevant media being utilized (depending upon the route of exposure). Additional physicochemical information such as crystal structure/crystallinity; aggregation status in the relevant media; composition/surface coatings; surface reactivity; method of nanomaterial synthesis and/or preparation including postsynthetic modifications; and purity of sample is highly desired (see Warheit, Tox Sci, 101:183, 2008)

Microarrays. Manuscripts summarizing the results of microarray experiments must provide all microarray data at the time of submission. Authors should provide a complete summary of the experimental results. These data can be submitted to the journal as supplementary data or to a reliable, unrestrictive archive for microarray results. If not submitted to the journal, location information for the data must be provided. Microarray experiments should also conform to standards outlined by the Microarray Gene Expression (MGED) Society www.mged.org/Workgroups/MIAME/miame_checklist.html. Authors may be required to provide additional supporting evidence (such as real-time PCR, in situ hybridization, Northern or Western blots or other methods) to verify changes in genes deemed important to the interpretation of the results.

Nomenclature. For styling of isotope, enzyme, and biomedical nomenclature, consult the extended Instructions to Authors published in each January issue of Archives of Biochemistry and Biophysics.

Abbreviations. Units will be in general accordance with the International Systems (SI) as adopted by the 11th General Conference on Weights and Measures. Periods are not used after abbreviations (note exceptions, e.g., in. for inches). Please spell out all abbreviations at first use. Common abbreviations to be used in this journal are:

(Please note, some browsers are unable to render these characters. The use of square brackets and the name of a symbol/Greek letter in this HTML version signifies the use of that symbol/letter.)

m - meter
cm - centimeter
mm - millimeter
[mu]m - micrometer
nm - nanometer
kg - kilogram
g - gram
mg - milligram
[mu]g - microgram
ng - nanogram
ml - milliliter
[mu]l - microliter
mol - mole
M - molar
mM - millimolar
[mu]M - micromolar
N - normal
Ci - Curie
[italic x with bar above it] - mean
ppm - parts per million
cpm - counts per minute
dpm - disintegrations per minute
sc - subcutaneous
ic - intracutaneous
im - intramuscular
ip - intraperitoneal
iv - intravenous
po - oral
LD[subscript 50] - medial lethal dose
LC[subscript 50] - medial lethal concentration
Hz - hertz
[degree]C - centigrade
s - seconds
min - minutes
h - hours
SD - standard deviation
SE - standard error

Submission Checklist

Initial submission

Your initial submission for review should include:
- __ One .doc or .rtf file containing text, tables, and figure legend
- __ Individual figure files in .tif or .eps format
- __ Supplementary data, if applicable.

Revision submission

Your revised submission should contain the following:
- __ Your revised .doc or .rtf text file, highlighted to show changes to the original submission.
- __ A fair copy of the same file, excluding highlighting.
- __ Individual figure files in .tif or .eps format
- __ Supplementary data as appropriate.

Granting of License. Copyright of any article published in Toxicological Sciences will belong to the author or his or her designee. However, it is a condition of publication in the journal that authors assign an exclusive license to the Society of Toxicology. Requests for permission to reprint material found in the journal should be directed 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. In assigning an exclusive license, authors may use their own material in other publications written or edited by themselves provided that the journal is acknowledged as the original place of publication and Oxford University Press is notified in writing and in advance.

Upon submitting an article to the journal for review and possible publication, authors are requested to add the following notice to the first screen of any posted electronic preprint versions: "This work has been submitted to Toxicological Sciences for possible publication. Exclusive license to publish may be granted without notice, after which this version may no longer be accessible." Posting of the entire work is regarded as prior publication.

When the editors of Toxicological Sciences accept the work for publication, it is posted in its accepted form as an Advance Access article on the journal's Web site. New papers are put into Advance Access at regular intervals and are then removed from the Advance Access page once they have been copyedited, formatted, and paginated, at which point the issue into which they are incorporated will be posted online. Advance Access papers are fully integrated into the journal's online system. Abstracts and titles are searchable and accessible within the journal's Web pages, the entire HighWire archive, and PubMed.

Open Access Option

Toxicological Sciences 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 license 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. Oxford Journals automatically deposits Open Access articles in PubMed Central (PMC).

For those selecting the Open Access option, the charges for Toxicological Sciences vary depending on the institution at which the Corresponding author is based: see http://www.oxfordjournals.org/oxfordopen/charges.html for details.

The Open Access charges are in addition to any color 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 Toxicological Sciences. 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 Toxicological Sciences.

Orders from UK will be subject to a 15% 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.

Content reproduction. Permission to reproduce copyright material, for print and online publication in perpetuity, must be cleared and if necessary paid for by the author; this includes applications and payments to DACS, ARS, and similar licensing agencies where appropriate. Evidence in writing that such permissions have been secured from the rights-holder must be made available to the editors. It is also the author's responsibility to include acknowledgements as stipulated by the particular institutions. Oxford Journals can offer information and documentation to assist authors in securing print and online permissions: please see the Guidelines for Authors section. Information on permissions contacts for a number of main galleries and museums can also be provided. Should you require copies of this, please contact the editorial office of the journal in question or the Oxford Journals Rights department.

Proofs and offprints. Authors are sent PDF page proofs. To avoid delay in publication, proofs should be checked immediately for typographical errors and returned to the publisher by fax (preferred) or express delivery. A URL for unique access to the online version of each article is supplied free of charge. An offprint order form will accompany the proofs, and authors may purchase offprints and journal copies at a discount (50%) using the form provided.