Preparation of a manuscript
To Accompany Manuscript at Submission
ORCID iDs are required for corresponding authors of all manuscripts submitted to Human Reproduction and are recommended for all other authors. The Journal will include all supplied iDs in the published paper. ORCID provides a persistent digital identifier that is unique to individual authors. Learn more at orcid.org. ORCID iDs can be requested at ORCID.org and linked to User Accounts on the journal's submission website.
The following authorship form must be completed and should include the following:
Authorship
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 adheres strictly to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) guidelines regarding ‘Authorship and Contributorship’ (see http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.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, 3) final approval of the version to be published, and (4) agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. . All authors must meet contributions (1), (2), (3) and (4). Authors’ roles must be detailed in the paper in a titled section immediately after the discussion.
Conflict of Interest
Human Reproduction 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):
- 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;
- personal competing interests, such as membership of lobbying organizations and relationships with editors of Human Reproduction;
- 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.
Human Reproduction now uses the ICMJE uniform disclosure of conflict of interest form. Each author declaring the existence of a conflict of interest on the author signature form must complete and sign an ICMJE disclosure form, which should be included with your original submission.
All authors must disclose any commercial or financial interest and/or any other relationships with pharmaceutical manufacturers. Commercial Interest : any proprietary entity producing, re-selling, distributing or otherwise participating in or profiting from the distribution, promotion or sale of goods or services used by or on patients.
Financial interests/relationships : whereby an individual benefits by receiving salary, royalty intellectual property rights, consulting fees, honoraria, ownership interests (stocks, shares, etc) or other financial benefit. Financial benefits are usually, but not exclusively, associates with employment/management status, contractual work, consulting, teaching and speaking, advisory committee membership, review panel and board membership and other activities for which remuneration is expected or awarded. Declaration of such financial relationships covers the preceding 12 month period, and all such financial relationships of a spouse or partner.
Authorship Order : The order of authorship should be a joint decision of the co-authors, and should be agreed upon before submission to the journal. Changes to authorship (order or addition or removal of an author) after initial submission, must be agreed by all authors.
Joint First Authorship : A superscript identifier (Ϯ) and footnote declaring joint first authorship is allowed. The joint first authors should be the first names in the list of authors. A footnote containing the statement: " Ϯ The authors consider that the first two authors should be regarded as joint First Authors" will be added. Other statements concerning joint authorship will not be published. Joint senior/last authorship is not permitted.
* 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.
Human Reproduction no longer requires authors to cover the cost of printing colour figures. The use of colour in all figures including graphs and schematics is encouraged.
Figure accessibility and alt text
Incorporating alt text (alternative text) when submitting your paper helps to foster inclusivity and accessibility. Good alt text ensures that individuals with visual impairments or those using screen readers can comprehend the content and context of your figures. The aim of alt text is to provide concise and informative descriptions of your figure so that all readers have access to the same level of information and understanding, and that all can engage with and benefit from the visual elements integral to scholarly content. Including alt text demonstrates a commitment to accessibility and enhances the overall impact and reach of your work.
Alt text is applicable to all images, figures, illustrations, and photographs.
Alt text is only accessible via e-reader and so it won’t appear as part of the typeset article.
Detailed guidance on how to draft and submit alt text.
Open Access Option for Authors
Human Reproduction offers the option of publishing under either a standard licence or an open access licence. Please note that some funders require open access publication as a condition of funding. If you are unsure whether you are required to publish open access, please do clarify any such requirements with your funder or institution.
Should you wish to publish your article open access, you should select your choice of open access licence in our online system after your article has been accepted for publication. You will need to pay an open access charge to publish under an open access licence.
Details of the open access licences and open access charges.
OUP has a growing number of Read and Publish agreements with institutions and consortia which provide funding for open access publishing. This means authors from participating institutions can publish open access, and the institution may pay the charge. Find out if your institution is participating.
Instructions for Preparation of a Manuscript
Each manuscript submission should be accompanied by a covering letter. This letter should be addressed to the Editor-in-Chief and should set out:
- The scientific question asked
- The principal new findings
- The significance of these findings to the field
Specific Instruction by manuscript type
Original Articles
Mini-reviews
Opinions and Debates
Case Reports
Letters to the Editor
Instructions for the resubmission of revised manuscripts
General instructions for all manuscripts
- Manuscript length Papers should be of a length appropriate for the amount of information they contain. Failure to restrict the length of manuscripts, especially Introduction and Discussion sections, can negatively influence the reviewers’ and the editor’s decisions.
- Style Manuscripts should be written using clear and concise English, with English standard spelling and conventions. Non-English speaking authors are advised to enlist the assistance of a native English speaker, familiar with biomedical terminology. The editors reserve the right to return without review manuscripts that can not be adequately assessed due to a poor standard of English. For Biochemical and Bacterial terminology follow the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) and International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (IUBMB) recommendations Genotypes must be italicized; phenotypes should not.
- Units of measurement and abbreviations Units of measurement should be in Systéme International (SI) units and those recommended by the IUPAC should be used wherever possible. Standard units of measurements and chemical symbols of elements may be used without definition in the body of the paper. Abbreviations should be given in brackets after their first mention in the text, and used thereafter. For centrifugation rates give g values rather than rpm, as this will vary according to rotor diameter.
- Format Text should be double spaced. A page number is required on each page in the top right corner. Number lines must be added and should be continuous. Avoid underlining. Differentiate clearly letters O, I and numbers 0, 1. Ensure unusual symbols are written clearly.
Crossref Funding Data Registry
In order to meet your funding requirements authors are required to name their funding sources, or state if there are none, during the submission process. For further information on this process or to find out more about CHORUS, visit the CHORUS initiative.
Author Self-Archiving/Public Access policy from May 2005
For information about Human Reproduction's policy, please visit our Author Self-Archiving policy page.
Availability of Data and Materials
Where ethically feasible, Human Reproduction strongly encourages authors to make all data and software code on which the conclusions of the paper rely available to readers. Authors are required to include a Data Availability Statement in their article.
We suggest that data be presented in the main manuscript or additional supporting files, or deposited in a public repository whenever possible. For information on general repositories for all data types, and a list of recommended repositories by subject area, please see Choosing where to archive your data.
Data Availability Statement
The inclusion of a Data Availability Statement is a requirement for articles published in Human Reproduction. Data Availability Statements provide a standardised format for readers to understand the availability of data underlying the research results described in the article. The statement may refer to original data generated in the course of the study or to third-party data analysed in the article. The statement should describe and provide means of access, where possible, by linking to the data or providing the required unique identifier.
The Data Availability Statement should be included in the endmatter of your article under the heading ‘Data availability’.
More information and examples of Data Availability Statements.
Data Citation
Human Reproduction supports the Force 11 Data Citation Principles and requires that all publicly available datasets be fully referenced in the reference list with an accession number or unique identifier such as a digital object identifier (DOI). Data citations should include the minimum information recommended by DataCite:
- [dataset]* Authors, Year, Title, Publisher (repository or archive name), Identifier
*The inclusion of the [dataset] tag at the beginning of the citation helps us to correctly identify and tag the citation. This tag will be removed from the citation published in the reference list.
Preprint Policy
Authors retain the right to make an Author’s Original Version (preprint) available through various channels, and this does not prevent submission to the journal. For further information see our Online Licensing, Copyright and Permissions policies. If accepted, the authors are required to update the status of any preprint, including your published paper’s DOI, as described on our Author Self-Archiving policy page.
