Privacy Statement

Make a new submission to the Research Article section.

Section default policy: Article Types

All articles are assigned a type, depending on the content of the article. This is useful to readers, informing them of the style of content to expect (original research, review, communication, etc.) and for indexing services when applying filters to search results. This section details the most common article types, although is not exhaustive. Editors have the final say on which type should be assigned to a published article. Scientists are encouraged to publish their experimental, theoretical, descriptive studies and observations in as much detail as possible so the results can be reproduced. Manuscripts that are not comprehensive may be found not suitable for peer review.

Research Article

These are original research manuscripts. The work should report scientifically sound experiments and provide a substantial amount of new information. The article should include the most recent and relevant references in the field.  Please refer to the journal webpages for specific instructions and templates.

Review

Reviews offer a comprehensive analysis of the existing literature within a field of study, identifying current gaps or problems. They should be critical and constructive and provide recommendations for future research. No new, unpublished data should be presented. 

A Scoping Review type can be submitted as a Review. The structure is similar to that of a review. Scoping reviews should strictly follow the PRISMA extension for scoping reviews checklist (https://www.prisma-statement.org/scoping) and submit the checklist as non-published material during submission. Templates for the flow diagram can be downloaded from the PRISMA website and the diagram should be included in the main text. We strongly encourage authors to register their detailed protocols, before data extraction commences, in a public registry such as the Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/) or Inplasy (https://inplasy.com/). Authors must include a statement about following the PRISMA guidelines and registration information (if available) in the Methods section.

Systematic Review

Systematic review articles present a detailed investigation of previous research on a given topic that use clearly defined search parameters and methods to identify, categorize, analyze, and report aggregated evidence on a specific topic. 

Systematic reviews should strictly follow the PRISMA checklist (https://www.prisma-statement.org/prisma-2020-statement) and include a completed PRISMA flow diagram as part of the main text or Supplementary Materials. Templates for the flow diagram can be downloaded from the PRISMA website. We strongly encourage authors to register their detailed protocols before data extraction commences, in a public registry such as PROSPERO (https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/). Authors must include a statement about following the PRISMA guidelines and registration information (if available) in the Methods section.

Book Review

Book reviews are short literary criticisms analyzing the content, style, and merit of a recently published book. Full book details should be provided at the beginning of the article. The structure should only include an Introduction and be a discussion of critical points with no sections or conclusions.

Editorial

These are non-peer-reviewed texts used to announce the launch of a new journal, a new section, a new Editor-in-Chief, a Special Issue, or an invited editorial. The main text should provide a brief introduction of the purpose and aim of the Editorial—to present the new journal, close the Special Issue, report on a pressing topic, etc. Editorials should not include unpublished or original data, although must provide a Conflict of Interest statement. Editorials prepared for the launch of new journals may also include a short biography of the Editor-in-Chief.