Information for Authors

Table of contents

• Aims and scope
• How we publish
• Submitting
• Peer review process
• Publication and research ethics
  • Authorship
  • Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest
  • Previously published material
  • Reusing copyrighted material
  • Misconduct
  • Ethical research
  • C4DISC partnership
  • Inclusive language and images
  • Availability of data and materials
• Digital preservation
• Self-archiving
• Publishing agreements and charges
• Changes to published work
• Promoting your work
• Preparing your manuscript
  • Article types
  • Title page
  • CRediT
  • References
  • Funding
  • Figures, tables and videos
  • Graphical and video abstracts
  • Supplementary material
  • Style
  • Required forms
• Contact us
• Frequently asked questions

Aims and scope

Rheumatology strives to support research and discovery by publishing the highest quality original scientific papers with a focus on basic, clinical and translational research. It is an official journal of the British Society for Rheumatology, and is published by Oxford University Press. The journal covers a wide range of paediatric, adolescent and adult rheumatological conditions from an international perspective.

Rheumatology welcomes proposals from authors on novel and emerging therapies within rheumatology. We are also particularly interested in research that can be followed-up with a series of podcasts, videos and other online media. Keep up to date by following us on X, Instagram and LinkedIn @RheumJnl.

We publish original articles, reviews, editorials, guidelines, concise reports, meta-analyses, original case reports, clinical vignettes, letters and matters arising from published material. Please see our Article types for more detailed information, including word counts.

We encourage our authors and reviewers to add their ORCID IDs to their ScholarOne Manuscripts profile, and track their research impact with Web of Science researcher profile.

Submitted manuscripts are peer reviewed in a two-stage process while aiming for rapid publication of all papers. We also offer Open Access publishing options and support Author Self-Archiving to facilitate the wider dissemination of research.

If you are unsure as to whether your manuscript fits within our Aims and Scope, please send an abstract of no more than 250 words to [email protected].

How we publish

Rheumatology is a peer reviewed journal publishing 12 issues per year online. Once a paper is accepted and the publishing agreement is signed, the journal will publish the Accepted Manuscript version of the paper (before copyediting and review of the final proof) within one week on the Advance articles page. This will be replaced in Advance Access with the Version of Record of the paper (after copyediting and proof review process) when it is available. The Version of Record will be removed from Advance Access when it is published in an issue. Substantial changes to the published Accepted Manuscript may require a correction notice. The Version of Record requires a correction notice for any changes after it is published, even if it is not yet placed in an issue. See the definitions of the Version of Record and other versions of the paper for more details.

Submitting

Providing high-quality publishing for over 70 years, Rheumatology is an international, peer-reviewed journal covering the full breadth of rheumatology, from hypothesis-generating basic results to clinical research. The journal covers adult, paediatric, and adolescent conditions. Rheumatology has a global reach, with over 3.6 million annual downloads in recent years, and is ranked in the top quartile of the rheumatology journals by Impact Factor and CiteScore. We appreciate your interest in submitting your manuscript to Rheumatology and look forward to the opportunity to consider it. Learn more about the benefits of publishing in the journal.

Rheumatology is an official publication of the British Society for Rheumatology (BSR). To publish the journal, BSR partners with Oxford University Press (OUP), a not-for-profit publisher and a department of the University of Oxford. Learn more about how publishing with OUP reinvests in the scholarly community on the OUP For Authors page.

After preparing your manuscript according to the guidance in the Preparing your manuscript section, you can submit your work through the journal’s online submission site. If you have not used our submission site before, you will need to create an account. Please check if your co-authors already have accounts before creating new ones by using the search box during submission. Additional help and instructions are available on the submissions site as you go through the submission process. Please contact us with any questions about submitting your manuscript.

Peer review process

The journal operates single-anonymized peer review, meaning that the identity of the authors is known to the editors and to the reviewers, but that the reviewers’ identities are known only to the editors and are hidden from the authors.

During peer review, reviewers communicate directly with the editors but not the authors or other reviewers.

Reviewers may collaborate with early career researchers from their team on their reports before making a recommendation to the editor. Both reviewers are eligible for the review to be listed on their Web of Science Researcher Profile.

Once a submitted manuscript passes initial assessment by the journal’s Editor-in-Chief, it will then be passed to a handling editor, who will oversee peer review and recommend a final decision. The Editor-in-Chief makes the final decision on the submitted manuscript.

Editors and reviewers must not handle manuscripts if they have a conflict of interest with an author or the content. Editors and editorial office staff make every effort to avoid potential conflicts of interest in the assignment of other editors and peer reviewers. For more information, please see the section on Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest. During the peer review phase, your manuscript is typically sent to two reviewers.

You may suggest potential reviewers at submission. However, there is no guarantee the suggested reviewers will be selected by the journal. Recommended reviewers should be experts in their field and able to provide an objective assessment of your manuscript without financial or interpersonal conflicts of interest with any authors. We encourage you to consider reviewers from a diverse range of backgrounds, including those from under-represented communities.

At the time of submission, you may request that specific individuals not be used as reviewers of your manuscript. Please do so in your cover letter, along with a brief explanation as to why you want them excluded. However, there is no guarantee these individuals will be excluded by the journal.

Statistical methods should be rigorous, and reporting of statistical findings should be accurate and complete. Editors may request an expert statistical review of any submission containing statistical analysis.

If your manuscript is accepted for publication, no information about the review process or editorial decision process is published, unless one of the authors has a role on the journal. See the Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest section for more information in that case. For full details about the peer review process, see Fair editing and peer review.

This journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and recommends that reviewers follow the COPE guidelines for reviewers. These guidelines address important considerations, including potential conflicts, use of generative AI tools, and maintaining confidentiality both throughout and following the review process. In line with these guidelines, reviewers should not share information about manuscripts, their content, or their review with any person or entity, including Large Language Models (LLMs) and AI tools.

Decision

Your manuscript will receive one of the following decisions:

• Reject before review
• Reject after review
• Minor revision
• Major revision
• Accept
• Transfer

In some cases, the editorial team of the journal may offer you the option of transferring your manuscript to Rheumatology Advances in Practice. If you accept this offer, the manuscript files and any reviewer reports from consenting reviewers will be sent to Rheumatology Advances in Practice. The editorial team of Rheumatology Advances in Practice may choose to seek additional peer review. A decision will be made on the manuscript based on the feedback from all reviewers and the judgment of the Rheumatology Advances in Practice editorial team. PLEASE NOTE: There will normally be Article Publication Charges (APCs) applied if your paper is accepted by Rheumatology Advances in Practice. For details of these charges please visit the Rheumatology Advances in Practice website.

Revision

If you receive a minor or major revision decision, you are granted 28 days to revise and re-submit your manuscript. If you require a longer revision period, please contact [email protected].

Post publication commenting

The journal allows open commenting on published articles. Comments are displayed at the bottom of the article pages under the “Comments” section. To comment, users must log-in to their Oxford Academic account or create a new online. Commenter name and affiliations are collected as part of the comment submission process. All comments are reviewed by the editorial team and subject to approval before the comment is published live. During the review stage, the editorial team may contact the authors of either the paper or comment before coming to a decision. The editorial team may also make edits to the comment before publishing.

If a comment is accepted and published, the author of the comment and the corresponding author of the paper are notified of the outcome. If the comment is rejected, the comment author is notified. If you have any questions about submitting a comment, contact the editorial office.

Screening for misconduct

Manuscripts will be screened using iThenticate to help detect publication misconduct including plagiarism and redundant publication.

Reviewer recognition

To promote recognition of the essential work done by reviewers, the journal offers reviewers the option to have their reviews verified and automatically listed on their Web of Science Researcher Profile.

Appeals and complaints

Authors may appeal an editorial decision. To do so, please contact the editorial office providing as much specific detail as possible about why the original decision should be reconsidered. Every appeal will receive a response within a reasonable timeframe. Please do not resubmit your manuscript in the interim.

The appeal should include:

• Author name
• Manuscript title
• Manuscript ID
• Decision date
• An explanation regarding why you feel that the decision was unfair
• Specific comments in relation to the reviewer reports
• Email and contact details

We will endeavor to respond to appeals as quickly as possible. We will consider one appeal per manuscript.

To register a complaint regarding non-editorial decisions, the journal’s policies and procedures, editors, or staff, please contact us. Complaints will be taken seriously and will be carried forward following COPE guidelines and processes and/or sanctions will be enacted if deemed appropriate.

Letters to the Editor (Matters arising) and responses

The journal welcomes Letters to the Editor (Matters arising) from readers offering relevant comments and providing objective and scholarly criticism of recently published articles in the journal. Contributions should be constructive, professional, and polite. The journal will only consider submissions pertaining to papers published in the past three months. After the initial Letter to the Editor and response, no further submissions on the same topic will be considered.

At the discretion of the editors, Letters to the Editor (Matters arising) being considered for publication may be sent to the authors of the original article to give them the opportunity to submit a response. If an author does not submit a response, the journal may publish a statement indicating this to readers. To enable readers to evaluate the arguments presented, Letters to the Editor (Matters arising) and responses are linked to the original article, are typically published online simultaneously, and may be published together in the same issue.

Submitted Letters to the Editor (Matters arising) will undergo an initial assessment by the editors, at which point they may be rejected, sent for revision, or accepted. At the discretion of the editors, Letters to the Editor (Matters arising) may be sent for peer review or may be considered without external peer review. Letters to the Editor (Matters arising) on the same topic or in response to the same article may be grouped, sent to the corresponding author of the original article for reply, and published at the same time. Authors of Letters to the Editor (Matters arising) and responses may be asked to complete authorship forms, disclose conflicts of interest, and sign publishing agreements (if accepted), as with any manuscript submitted or published in the journal. The journal may request revisions to Letters to the Editor (Matters arising) and responses for content, length, clarity, grammar, style, and format. See the article types section for further information.

Publication and research ethics

Authorship

Authorship is limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the design and execution of the work described. Any contributors whose participation does not meet the criteria for authorship should be acknowledged but not listed as an author. The journal may contact all listed authors at the point of submission to confirm their role. For a detailed definition of authorship, please see the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) definitions of authors and contributors.

The journal does not allow ghost authorship, where an unnamed author prepares the article with no credit, or guest/gift authorship, where an author who made little or no contribution is listed as an author. The journal follows Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidance on investigating and resolving these cases. For more information, please see the OUP Publication Ethics page.

Natural language processing tools driven by artificial intelligence (AI) do not qualify as authors, and the journal will screen for them in author lists. The use of AI (for example, to help generate content or images, write code, process data, or for translation) should be disclosed both in cover letters to editors and in the Methods or Acknowledgements section of manuscripts. Please see the COPE position statement on Authorship and AI for more details.

After manuscript submission, no authorship changes (including the authorship list, author order, and who is designated as the corresponding author) should be made unless there is a substantive reason to do so. The editor and all co-authors must agree on the change(s), and neither the journal nor the publisher mediates authorship disputes. If individuals cannot agree on the authorship of a submitted manuscript, contact the editorial office. The dispute must be resolved among the individuals and their institution(s) before the manuscript can be accepted for publication. If an authorship dispute or change arises after a paper is accepted, contact OUP’s Author Support team. COPE provides guidance for authors on resolving authorship disputes.

After submission, changing who is designated as the corresponding author will be permitted only where there is a substantive reason to do so. For the avoidance of doubt, changing the corresponding author in order to access Read and Publish funding is not permissible. For more information on Read and Publish funding, see the Publishing agreements and charges section.

ORCiD

All authors are required to provide their ORCiD iDs (Open Researcher and Contributor IDs) at submission and take advantage of the benefits of participating in ORCiD.

If you do not already have an ORCiD iD, you can register for free via the ORCiD website.

As ORCiD identifiers are collected, they are included in papers and displayed online, both in the HTML and PDF versions of the publication, in compliance with recommended practice issued by ORCiD.

ORCiD functionality online allows users to link to the ORCiD website to view an author’s profile and list of publications. ORCiD iDs are displayed on web pages and are sent downstream to third parties in data feeds, where supported.

If you have registered with ORCiD, you can associate your ORCiD iD with your submission system account by going to your account details, entering your ORCiD iD, and validating your details. Learn more about ORCiD and how to link it to your account.

CRediT

The journal uses the contributor roles taxonomy (CRediT), which allows authors to describe the contributor roles in a standardized, transparent, and accurate way. Authors should choose from the contributor roles outlined on the CRediT website and supply this information upon submission. You may choose multiple contributor roles per author. Any other individuals who do not meet authorship criteria and made less substantive contributions should be listed in your manuscript in the CRediT disclosure and in the acknowledgements as non-author contributors with their contributions clearly described. Following manuscript submission, any changes to contributor roles require the approval of the editor.

Group authorship

Groups (also known as corporate, organization, or collective names) who meet authorship criteria should be included in the main author list. Every individual in the group should fully meet the criteria for authorship. At least one individual must be designated on behalf of the group as the primary point of contact during the peer-review and production processes, as well as for correspondence following publication. You may list this individual separately in the main author list if desired. A complete list of the individual members of the group must be included in the manuscript under Acknowledgements.

The involvement of a group in the authorship list should be indicated by the connector ‘and’, e.g.

Eric Hachulla, Patrick Carpentier, Virginie Gressin, Elisabeth Diot, Yannick Allanore, Jean Sibilia, David Launay, Luc Mouthon, Patrick Jego, Jean Cabane, Pascal de Groote, Amélie Chabrol, Isabelle Lazareth, Loïc Guillevin, Pierre Clerson, Marc Humbert, and the ItinérAIR-Sclérodermie Study Investigators

When the study has been carried out on behalf of a group, the connector ‘for’ should be used in the authorship list, e.g.

Raashid Luqmani, Sheena Hennell, Cristina Estrach, Damian Basher, Fraser Birrell, Ailsa Bosworth, Frank Burke, Carole Callaghan, Jaime Candal-Couto, Chris Fokke, Nicola Goodson, Dawn Homer, John Jackman, Paula Jeffreson, Susan Oliver, Mike Reed, Luis Sanz, Zoe Stableford, Peter Taylor, Nick Todd, Louise Warburton, Chris Washbrook, and Mark Wilkinson for the British Society for Rheumatology and British Health Professionals in Rheumatology Standards, Guidelines and Audit Working Group

In this instance, the members of the group may be listed in the supplementary files.

The group name will be entered for a PubMed citation. The names of the individual members of the group will be entered as collaborator names for PubMed citation, in the order in which they are published in the paper. If an individual is named both in the main author list and as a member of the group, they will appear in PubMed as both an author and a collaborator. In order to be indexed as collaborators, the names of the consortium or working group members should be listed in an Appendix in the main text document, before the Reference list. The consortium or working group should also be included in the main author list. PubMed will list the names of individual group members who are authors or collaborators. There should be a note associated with the author list clearly stating that the individual names are elsewhere in the paper and whether those names are authors or collaborators. Collaborator names are searchable on PubMed in the same way as authors. PubMed rules for this can be found here.

Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest

Authors

The journal requires all authors to disclose any potential conflict of interest at the point of submission. It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to ensure that conflicts of interest of all authors are declared to the journal.

A conflict of interest exists when the position, activities, or relationships of an individual, whether direct or indirect, financial or non-financial, could influence or be seen to influence the opinions or activities of the individual. For more information, refer to OUP’s definition of conflict of interest.

The journal follows the COPE guidance for any undisclosed conflict of interest that emerges during peer review, production, or after publication.

The corresponding author must submit a disclosure form for each author by revision stage at the latest. A form must be submitted even if there are no conflicts of interest to disclose, in which case the form and manuscript should state “none declared.” In addition, the manuscript must include a concise and accurate summary of any conflicts of interest declared in the forms in a funding section of the manuscript.

For additional information on the different types of conflict of interest, see the World Association of Medical Editors’ (WAME) policy statement on conflicts of interest.

Peer reviewers

Individuals that have a conflict of interest relating to a submitted manuscript should recuse themselves and will not be assigned to oversee, handle, or peer review the manuscript.

If during peer review an editor, reviewer, or author becomes aware of a conflict of interest that was not previously known or disclosed they must inform the Editor-in-Chief immediately.

Editors and editorial board members

At initial submission, the corresponding author must declare if the Editor-in-Chief, an editor, or an Editorial Board Member of the journal is an author of or contributor to the manuscript. Another editor without a conflict of interest will oversee the peer review and decision-making process. If accepted, a statement will be published in the paper describing how the manuscript was handled. The statement will read “[Author name] holds the position of [role] for Rheumatology and has not peer reviewed or made any editorial decisions for this paper.”

Previously published material

You should only submit your manuscript(s) to the journal if:

• It is original work by you and your co-author(s).
• It is not under consideration, in peer review, or accepted for publication in any other publication.
• It has not been published in any other publication.
• It contains nothing abusive, defamatory, derogatory, obscene, fraudulent, or illegal.

The submitting author must disclose in their cover letter and provide copies of all related or similar preprints, dissertations, manuscripts, published papers, and reports by the same authors (i.e., those containing substantially similar content or using the same, similar, or a subset of data) that have been previously published or posted electronically or are under consideration elsewhere at the time of manuscript submission. You must also provide a concise explanation of how the submitted manuscript differs from these related manuscripts and papers. All related previously published papers should be cited as references and described in the submitted manuscript.

The journal does not discourage you from presenting your findings at conferences or scientific meetings but recommends that you refrain from distributing complete copies of your manuscripts, which might later be published elsewhere without your knowledge.

For previously published materials including tables and figures, please see the Reusing copyrighted materials section.

Preprints

As an author, you retain the right to make an Author’s Original Version (preprint) available through various channels and this does not prevent submission to the journal. If accepted, the authors are required to update the status of any preprint, including adding your published paper’s DOI. For full details on allowed channels and updating your preprint, please see our Author self-archiving policy.

Reusing copyrighted material

As an author, you must obtain permission for any material used within your manuscript for which you are not the rightsholder, including quotations, tables, figures, or images. In seeking permissions for published materials, first contact the publisher rather than the author. For unpublished materials, start by contacting the creator. Copies of each grant of permission should be provided to the editorial office of the journal. The permissions agreement must include the following:

• nonexclusive rights to reproduce the material in your paper in Rheumatology
• rights for use in print and electronic format at a minimum, and preferably for use in any form or medium
• lifetime rights to use the material
• worldwide English-language rights

If you have chosen to publish under an open access licence but have not obtained open access re-use permissions for third-party material contained within the manuscript, this must be stated clearly by supplying a credit line alongside the material with the following information:

• Title of content
• Author, Original publication, year of original publication, by permission of [rightsholder]
• This image/content is not covered by the terms of the Creative Commons licence of this publication. For permission to reuse, please contact the rights holder.

Our publisher, Oxford University Press, provides detailed Copyright and Permissions Guidelines, and a summary of the fundamental information.

Misconduct

Authors should observe high standards with respect to research integrity and publication ethics as set out by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Falsification or fabrication of data including inappropriate image manipulation, plagiarism, including duplicate publication of the author's own work without proper citation, and misappropriation of work are all unacceptable practices. Allegations of ethical misconduct, both directly and through social media, are treated seriously and will be investigated in accordance with the relevant COPE guidance.

If misconduct has been established beyond reasonable doubt, this may result in one or more of the following outcomes, among others:

• If a submitted manuscript is still under consideration, it may be rejected and returned to the author.
• If a paper has already been published online, depending on the nature and severity of the infraction, either a correction notice will be published and linked to the paper, or retraction of the paper will occur, following the COPE Retraction Guidelines.
• The relevant party’s institution(s) and/or other journals may be informed.

Manuscripts submitted to the journal may be screened with plagiarism-detection software. Any manuscript may be screened, especially if there is reason to suppose that part or all the of the manuscript has been previously published.

COPE defines plagiarism as “when somebody presents the work of others (data, words or theories) as if they were their own and without proper acknowledgment.”

COPE defines redundant/overlapping publication as “when a published work (or substantial sections from a published work) is/are published more than once (in the same or another language) without adequate acknowledgment of the source/cross-referencing/justification,
or
when the same (or substantially overlapping) data is presented in more than one publication without adequate cross-referencing/justification, particularly when this is done in such a way that reviewers/readers are unlikely to realise that most or all the findings have been published before.”

COPE defines citation manipulation as “behaviours intended to inflate citation counts for personal gain, such as: excessive self-citation of an authors’ own work, excessive citation to the journal publishing the citing article, and excessive citation between journals in a coordinated manner.”

Data fabrication is defined as intentionally creating fake data or misrepresenting research results. An example includes making up data sets.

Data falsification is defined as manipulating research data with the purpose of intentionally giving a false representation. This can apply to images, research materials, equipment, or processes. Examples include cropping of gels/images to change context and omission of selected data.

If notified of a potential breach of research misconduct or publication ethics, the journal editor and editorial office staff may inform OUP and/or the author’s institutional affiliation(s).

Ethical research

The journal follows Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines on ethical oversight. We take research integrity seriously, and all research published in the journal must have been conducted in a fair and ethical manner. Wherever appropriate, the journal requires that all research be done according to international and local guidelines.

Human subjects and patient consent

When reporting on human subjects, you should indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the Helsinki Declaration, which were developed by the World Medical Association. For non-interventional studies, where ethical approval is not required or where a study has been granted an exemption by an ethics committee, this should be stated within the manuscript with a full explanation. Otherwise, manuscripts must include a statement in the Methods section that the research was performed after approval by a local ethics committee, institutional review board and/or local licensing committee, or that such approval was not required. The name of the authorizing body and any reference/permit numbers (where available) should also be stated there. Please be prepared to provide further information to the editorial office upon request.

Rheumatology follows the ICMJE guidelines for patient reporting. Human subjects must give written informed consent, or if they are minors or incapacitated, such consent must be obtained from their parents or guardians. Consent forms should cover not only study participation but also the publication of the data collected. Also, any patient or provider information should be anonymized to the extent possible; names and ID numbers should not be used in the text and must be removed from any images (X-rays, photographs, etc.). Please note blanking out an individual’s eyes in a photograph is not an effective way to conceal their identity. In studies where verbal, rather than written, informed consent was obtained, this must be explained and stated within the manuscript. If informed consent is not required or where a study has been granted an exemption, this must be included in the Methods section along with the name of the authorizing body. The journal does not routinely collect consent forms, but authors should be prepared to provide written consent forms signed by the participants or other appropriate documentation to the editorial office upon request. In order to proceed with publication in Rheumatology, the authors must sign this declaration and enclose it with their submission. The paper will not be published without this confirmation. For further guidance and examples, please refer to COPE’s guidance on consent.

Clinical trials

Clinical trials should be registered before enrolment of the first subject in accordance with the criteria outlined by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). Please refer to the ICMJE for full guidance, we have included an overview below. When reporting primary or secondary analyses from a clinical trial, follow these criteria:

• Provide the trial registration number at the end of the Abstract.
• When the trial acronym is first used in the manuscript, provide the registration number and a link to the trial registration, which should be cited as a reference.
• If your data have been deposited in a public repository and/or are being used in a secondary analysis, please state at the end of the Abstract the unique, persistent data set identifier, and repository name and number.
• When submitting the manuscript, you must disclose any protocol alterations and all posting of results of the submitted work or closely related work in registries.
• In reporting randomized clinical trials, you must comply with published CONSORT guidelines.
• Systematic reviews or meta-analyses of RCTs should be based on the Quality of Reporting of Meta-analyses (QUOROM) guidelines.
• Meta-analysis of observational studies should be developed according to the Meta-analysis of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (MOOSE) guidelines.
• Reports of studies of diagnostic accuracy should be prepared according to the Studies of Diagnostic Accuracy (STARD) guidelines.
• Complete the recommended checklist and be prepared to provide it to the editorial office upon request.
• Present the recommended trial flow diagram as a figure in the manuscript or as supplementary material.
• If your manuscript reports on a randomized Phase II/III trial, you must provide a brief description of the statistical plan of the original study that includes the primary and secondary endpoints, power calculation, and sample size.
• To ensure the highest quality of research reporting, Rheumatology follows the EQUATOR networkresource centre for good research reporting. Rheumatology strongly advises authors to follow the standard formats and guidelines provided.

Where available, registration numbers should be provided not only for the trial you are reporting but also for any other trial mentioned in the manuscript. When the trial acronym is first used in the manuscript, provide the registration number and a link to the trial registration, which should be cited as a reference.

Animal subjects

Studies involving animals require approval from the relevant institutional ethics committee or institutional animal use and care committee, and the research must be conducted in accordance with applicable national and international guidelines. All such manuscripts must include a statement in the Methods section providing details of the name of the committee(s) that approved the study, as well as the permit or animal license numbers where available. Where a study has been granted an exemption, this must be stated in the Methods section along with the name of the authorizing body. Please be prepared to provide further information to the editorial office upon request.

ARRIVE guidelines

You are encouraged to consult the ARRIVE guidelines recommended by the National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3R).

Euthanasia or Anesthesia Methods

Where applicable, any euthanasia or anesthesia methods must be carried out in accordance with applicable veterinary guidelines. These methods must be described in detail in the manuscript.

Laboratory Animals

Manuscripts describing research involving laboratory-based animals must include details on housing, husbandry, and steps taken to reduce suffering. In studies where experimental animals were euthanized, details must be provided on humane endpoints. Details on the planned behavioral observations or physiological measurements used to determine the humane endpoint must be described. You are advised to consult the NC3Rs guide on Humane Endpoints and the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) Guidelines for the Humane Slaughter of Animals.

C4DISC partnership

The journal, British Society for Rheumatology, and OUP aim to create a community that fosters diversity, equity, and inclusion. As part of our commitment to these principles, OUP is a proud partner of the Coalition for Diversity & Inclusion in Scholarly Communications (C4DISC). C4DISC works with organizations and individuals within the scholarly communications landscape to foster equity, inclusion, diversity, and accessibility across the publishing industry and its published outputs.

The journal is proud to adopt the Joint Statement of Principles of C4DISC.

Inclusive language and images

As defined by the Linguistic Society of America, “Inclusive language acknowledges diversity, conveys respect to all people, is sensitive to differences, and promotes equal opportunities”. We encourage you to consider using inclusive language and images when preparing your manuscript. For guidelines, please see the C4DISC Guidelines on inclusive language and images.

Accessibility

Written, visual, and audio content in your submission should be accessible to all. Please see the C4DISC guidelines for making text, images, charts, tables, and audio and video accessible.

Availability of data and materials

The journal requires all authors, where ethically possible, to publicly release all data and software code underlying any published paper as a condition of publication. Authors are required to include a data availability statement in their paper. When data and software underlying the research article are available in an online source, authors should include a full citation in their reference list. For details of the minimum information to be included in data and software citations see the OUP guidance on citing research data and software.

Whenever possible, data should be presented in the main manuscript or additional supporting files or deposited in a public repository. Visit OUP’s Research data page for information on general repositories for all data types, and resources for selecting repositories by subject area.

Data availability statement

The inclusion of a data availability statement is a requirement for papers published in the journal. Data availability statements provide a standardized format for readers to understand the availability of original and third-party data underlying the research results described in the paper. The statement should describe and provide means of access, where possible, by linking to the data or providing the required unique identifier.

More information and example data availability statements.

Authors may request an exception to the policy due to legal, privacy, ethical, or other limitations or restrictions. Exceptions will be made at the discretion of the journal. Please notify the editorial office at [email protected] when submitting your manuscript if you wish to request an exception. If an exception is granted, a data availability statement must still be included in your paper specifying what cannot be shared and explaining why.

Choosing where to archive your data

Authors are highly encouraged to select a repository that issues DOIs as this helps to facilitate persistent linking to the dataset from the research article. You may refer to online resources such as FAIRsharing.org and re3data.org for lists of data repositories, including information on certification status and services offered.

Information on general repositories for all data types, and a list of recommended repositories by subject area, is available on OUP's Research data page. Other databases that aggregate published data for the use of the scientific community are supported by Rheumatology.

Useful links:

• Genbank
• International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration
• EMBL
• DDBJ
• SWISS-PROT
• Worldwide Protein Data Bank
• BioMag Res Bank
• Electron Microscopy Data Bank
• MIAME
• ArrayExpress
• Gene names

Digital Preservation

Content published in the journal will automatically be deposited into digital preservation services, including CLOCKSS, the Global LOCKSS Network, and Portico. This ensures the long-term preservation of your work. Through LOCKSS, participating institutions can sustain access to content if the Journal were to otherwise be unavailable, even for a short period of time. Should the journal ever cease to publish, or content would otherwise become permanently unavailable, long-term access to the archives of CLOCKSS and Portico would be triggered. Until such a trigger event were to occur, this content is not available to the public through CLOCKSS and Portico.

Self-archiving

Self-archiving refers to posting a copy of your work on a publicly accessible website or repository. Under certain circumstances, you may self-archive versions of your work on your own webpages, on institutional webpages, and in other repositories. For information about the journal's policy, and to learn which version(s) of your paper are acceptable for self-archiving, please see our Author self-archiving policy.

Publishing agreement and charges

Authors, please read each section on the publishing agreement and charges carefully. Even if your publishing agreement (also called a licence) does not carry a charge, colour charges may have applied if you submitted your paper prior to 1 September 2024.

If you have any questions relating to your publishing agreement or charges, please contact OUP Support.

Publishing agreement

After your manuscript is accepted, you will be asked to sign a licence to publish through our licencing and payment portal, SciPris. The journal offers the option of publishing under either a non-open access (standard) licence or an open access (Creative Commons) licence. There is a charge to publish under an open access licence, which allows your paper to be freely accessible to all readers immediately upon online publication. Editorial decisions occur prior to this step and are not influenced by payment or ability to pay. The standard licence makes your paper available only to Journal subscribers and there is no licence charge. This licence grants OUP an exclusive licence to publish and distribute the content. There is no transfer of ownership of the copyright. You, the author, retain copyright for the content.

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 check with your funder or institution before selecting your licence.

Papers can be published under the following:

• Standard licence to publish (Oxford University Press (OUP) Journals, Standard Publication Model)
• Creative Commons Attribution licence (CC BY)
• Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial licence (CC BY-NC)

Please see the OUP guidance on Licences, copyright, and re-use rights for more information regarding these publishing agreement options.

Complying with funder mandates

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 before selecting your licence.

Further information on funder mandates and direct links to a range of funder policies.

Charges

Open access charges

Please see the details of open access licences and charges. If you select an open access licence, you must pay the open access charge or request to use an institutional agreement to pay the open access charge through our licencing and payment portal, SciPris.

OUP has a growing number of open access agreements with institutions and consortia, which provide funding for open access publishing (also known as Read and Publish agreements). This means corresponding authors from participating institutions can publish open access, and the institution may pay the charge. Find out if your institution has an open access agreement.

To be eligible for one of OUP’s Read and Publish agreements, the corresponding author must provide their qualifying institution as their primary affiliation when they submit their manuscript. After submission, changing the corresponding author in order to access Read and Publish funding is not permissible.

Colour charges

You must pay any applicable colour charges through our licencing and payment portal, SciPris, when production of your paper is complete.

Submissions prior to 1 September 2024

The journal charged £100 per printed colour image for submissions prior to 1 September 2024. The price is exclusive of value added tax, goods and services tax, and any similar sales or excise taxes. Any applicable taxes will be added to the invoiced charge at the prevailing rate. Colour charges can be avoided by submitting grayscale images for print along with full colour images for the online paper. If you choose to publish under an open access licence, colour charges still apply.

Submissions after 1 September 2024

For submissions after 1 September 2024, the journal does not charge for colour.

Page charges

The journal does not have page charges.

Changes to published papers

The journal will only make changes to published papers if the publication record is seriously affected by the academic accuracy of the published information. Changes to a published paper will be accompanied by a formal correction notice linking to and from the original paper.

As needed, we follow the COPE guidelines on retractions.

For more information and details of how to request changes, including for authors who wish to update their name and/or pronouns, please see OUP’s policy on changes to published papers.

Name Change Policy

Rheumatology is committed to working with authors who wish to update their name and/or pronouns following article publication and will make such changes upon request. To update their article(s), authors should contact OUP directly at [email protected]. OUP and Rheumatology will respect authors’ privacy throughout the process, and a correction will not be issued. Further information on changing published articles.

Promoting your work

As the author, you are the best advocate for your work, and we encourage you to be involved in promoting your publication. Sharing your ideas and news about your publication with your colleagues and friends could take as little as 15 minutes and will make a real difference in raising the profile of your research.

You can promote your work by:

• Sharing your paper with colleagues and friends. If your paper is published open access, it will always be freely available to all readers, and you can share it without any limitations. Otherwise, use the toll-free link that is emailed to you after publication. It provides permanent, free access to your paper, even if your paper is updated.
• Signing up for an ORCID iD author identifier to distinguish yourself from any other researchers with the same name, create an online profile showcasing all your publications, and increase the visibility of your work.
• Using social media to promote your work. To learn more about self-promotion on social media, see our social media guide for authors.

Find out how Oxford University Press promotes your content.

Press releases

If you would like to arrange an embargo date so that a press release can be issued simultaneously with the publication of your paper, you must do so before your manuscript is accepted. The journal publishes the accepted manuscript shortly after acceptance, and this process cannot be interrupted. No version of a paper may be temporarily withdrawn once published. Please contact the editorial office.

Press releases are also issued by Oxford University Press for selected content. If you feel your article is suitable for a press release please highlight this to the editorial office, as soon as the article has been accepted.

Author interviews

Your paper may be selected for a podcast or video interview. If so, the Editorial Office will contact you to arrange an interview to discuss your paper. For examples of author interviews, see our podcasts and videos.

Social media

Selected articles published in Rheumatology are shared on the @RheumJnl Instagram and X feeds and Oxford University Press social media channels. Sharing your article online helps to increase the impact of your article.

Preparing your manuscript

General guidelines on preparing your manuscript for publication can be found on OUP’s Preparing and submitting your manuscript page. Specific instructions for Rheumatology can be found below.

All manuscripts must contain a title page, disclosure statement, funding statement and data availability statement. An ethics statement must be included if applicable. For more information on statements, please go to Study funding.

Article types

Title page

Your manuscript must contain a title page with the following information:

• Manuscript title (no more than 140 characters, including spaces)
• Authorship list with author names in the following format: first name, middle initial (if desired), last name (e.g. John E. Smith)
• Author affiliations in the following format: department, institution, town, state (for USA, CAN, AUS), country (e.g. Department of Academic Rheumatology, King’s College London, London, UK)
• One corresponding author, with a full postal address, e-mail address and ORCiD iD provided. This information will be published if the article is accepted.

CRediT

The journal uses the contributor roles taxonomy (CRediT), which allows authors to describe the contributor roles in a standardized, transparent, and accurate way. Authors should choose from the contributor roles outlined on the CRediT website and supply this information upon submission. You may choose multiple contributor roles per author. Any other individuals who do not meet authorship criteria and made less substantive contributions should be listed in your manuscript in the CRediT disclosure and in the acknowledgements as non-author contributors with their contributions clearly described. Following manuscript submission, any changes to contributor roles require the approval of the editor.

References

Referencing should be in the Vancouver style, wherein references are identified in the text by Arabic numerals and numbered in the order cited. A reference list should be provided at the end of the manuscript’s main text. Complete information should be given for each reference, including the title of the article, abbreviated journal title, and page numbers. In instances where there are more than six authors, ‘et al’ should be used, otherwise all authors should be listed.

Personal communications, manuscripts in preparation, and other unpublished data should not be cited in the reference list but may be mentioned in parentheses in the text, along with the name of the person and the institution. Authors should obtain permission from the source to cite unpublished data.

Titles of journals should be abbreviated in accordance with Medline. If a journal is not listed in Medline, its name should be written out in full. The University of Manchester has good examples of Vancouver references.

The accuracy and completeness of the references is the responsibility of the authors.

Article citation examples can be seen below.

Journal article

Hirayama T, Danks L, Sabokbar A, Athanasou N A. Osteoclast formation and activity in the pathogenesis of osteoporosis in rheumatoid arthritis. Rheumatology 2002;41:1232-9.

When an article has been published online but is not yet assigned to an issue the digital object identifier (DOI) number should be used as in the following example:

Bastin S, Bird H, Gamble G, Cundy T. Paget's disease of bone—becoming a rarity? Rheumatology 2009 published on 16 July 2009. doi:10.1093/rheumatology/kep212

Website

Cancer-Pain.org [Internet]. New York: Association of Cancer Online Resources, Inc.; c2000-01 [updated 2002 May 16; cited 2002 Jul 9]. Available from: http://www.cancer-pain.org/.

Book

Mitchell SC, Waring RH. S-Oxygenase III human harmacogenetics. In: Damani LA, ed. Sulphur-containing drugs and related organic compounds, Vol. 2B. New York: Ellis Horwood, 1989:101-19.

Study funding

All manuscripts must contain a funding statement, even if no funding was received for the paper. 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.

If no funding was received, the funding statement should be as follows: ‘No specific funding was received from any bodies in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors to carry out the work described in this article.’

If funding was received, 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 sub-institutions) or 'NCI at NIH’ (full RIN-approved list of UK funding agencies).

Grant numbers should be complete, accurate and provided in brackets, with a comma to separate multiple grant numbers, e.g. ‘[grant numbers ABX CDXXXXXX, EFX GHXXXXXX]’.

Agencies should be separated by a semi-colon (plus ‘and’ before the last funding agency).

Where individuals must be specified for certain sources of funding, the following text should be added after the relevant agency or grant number: ‘to [author initials]’.

A full example of a funding statement 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].’

OUP will deposit all NIH-funded articles in PubMed Central. Authors must ensure that manuscripts are clearly indicated as NIH-funded using the guidelines above.

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 the CHORUS initiative, please visit OUP’s Complying with funder policies on open access page.

Figures, tables and videos

Figures and tables should be included at the end of the main document or uploaded as separate files. All figures and tables must be referenced in the text and numbered consecutively in the order in which they appear.

• Each figure/table must have a legend beginning with a brief title (up to 15 words)
• Titles should be included as part of the legend, not as part of the figure/table
• Legends should be a concise description of the data in the figure/table (up to 100 words each)
• All symbols, error bars and abbreviations used in the figure/table should be defined
• Common abbreviations form the standard list need not be defined, all others, including those that have been defined in the text will need to be defined in the figure/table legend
• Data should only be presented in one form, either a table or figure

Preparing your figures

Prepare your figures at print quality resolution .tif files:

• 1200 dpi [dots per inch] for line drawings
• 600 dpi for colour and half-tone artwork
• Parts of a figure should be labelled with upper case A, B, C, etc.
• Figures should not contain more than one section unless the parts are logically connected
• Scale bars should be used instead of magnification factors.
• Graphs: 3D graphs should not be used unless necessary. If using hatching, please keep it simple
• Forest plots: Please include the tabular information in the figure file with the forest plot.

If the figure files are too large to be submitted online, please email them to the Editorial Office using a free transfer service such as DropBox or WeTransfer.

For useful information on preparing your figures for publication, go to Cadmus or the OUP Preparing your manuscript page.

For online submission, please also prepare a second version of your figures at low-resolution (72 dpi) for use in the review process only; these figures can be saved as .jpg, .gif, .tif or .eps format.

Colour figures

Colour illustrations are accepted and for submissions after 1 September 2024, the journal does not charge for colour.

For submissions prior to 1 September 2024, authors were required to pay the cost of reproduction of colour figures in the print journal (£100 per figure).

Line drawings

No additional artwork, redrawing or typesetting will be done. Faint or fine-grained stippling or shading or continuous-tone shading will be lost or may appear black on reproduction. Please use a coarse stippling or hatching.

Any previously published material should have relevant written permission of the author and copyright holder for its reproduction for both print and electronic perpetuity. Please include a statement in the figure legend acknowledging the original source.

Image manipulations

Rheumatology does not allow certain electronic enhancements or manipulations of micrographs, gels, or other digital images. Figures assembled from multiple photographs or images must indicate the separate parts with the lines between them. Any adjustments of contrast, brightness or colour must be applied to an entire image or plate equally. Selective enhancements or alterations of one part of an image are not acceptable.

When suspicions are raised regarding the authenticity of an image it is the journal’s policy to investigate. Rheumatology may ask authors to provide additional documentation of their primary data and/or for copies of the original figures.

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. 

Preparing your tables

• Each table should be typed on a separate sheet with an appropriate legend and footnotes explaining any abbreviations (footnotes should be indicated with an alphabetical letter a, b, c, etc.)
• Tables must be numbered in consecutive order in order of appearance in the text
• Must be in an editable format (e.g. Word file)
• Each table should have a brief, descriptive title (up to 15 words) that is self-explanatory
• Data provided in the table must be fully defined including units and a description of how the data is represented (e.g. mean (S.D.); n, %)
• All P values must be defined. Bold text can be used to highlight particular information along if an explanation is given in the footnote. Shading in tables is not allowed

Videos

Videos can be published as part of the article. Authors should submit videos in mp4 or avi format. Still images to be used in the article must be provided and should represent as best as possible the main subject of the video. Video files should be clearly named as video 1, video 2 etc, and still images should be named ‘video 1 still image’. Any supplementary videos not published in the article should be uploaded as supplementary data. For more information about preparing videos for publication, please see our video and media guide.

Text abstracts

Text abstracts must be written in English.

Graphical and video abstracts

Authors of Original articles, Reviews and Concise reports are encouraged to submit a graphical abstract or video as part of the article, in addition to the text abstract. The graphical/video abstract should clearly summarize the focus and findings of the article, and will be published as part of the article online and in PDF (videos will appear in PDFs as stills). The graphical/video abstract should be submitted for peer review as a separate file, selecting the appropriate file-type designation in the journal’s online submission system. The file should be clearly named, e.g. graphical_abstract.tiff, video_abstract.mp4. See Preparing and submitting your manuscript for guidance on appropriate file format and resolution for graphics and videos, and our handy guide for creating and submitting video abstracts.

Note that graphical abstracts will be subject to any print reproduction charges that the journal levies for colour figures.

Not sure how to create a graphical abstract? Download our template to access examples and instructions.

Supplementary material

Supporting material that is not essential for inclusion in the main text of the manuscript, but would benefit the reader, can be made available as online-only content. The material 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. Such information might include more detailed methods, extended data sets/data analysis, list of investigators, or additional figures.

All supplementary material must be provided in suitable electronic formats, in a separate file, in its final form. All files to be considered as supplementary material must be submitted at the same time as the main manuscript for peer review. It cannot be altered or replaced after the paper has been accepted for publication. Please ensure that the files intended as supplementary material are clearly indicated as such upon submission and are referred to in the main manuscript.

• All supplementary material must be referenced in the main manuscript.
• Tables should be labelled as ‘Supplementary Table S1’, ‘Supplementary Table S2’ etc.
• Figures should be labelled as ‘Supplementary Figure S1’, ‘Supplementary Figure S2’ etc.
• Text (e.g. supplementary methods) should be labelled as ‘Supplementary Data S1’, ‘Supplementary Data S2’ etc.
• All supplementary tables, figures and data should have titles, as well as legends where appropriate.

Acceptable formats

A maximum of 10 files is acceptable to make up the supplementary material unit for the article. The maximum size per file should not exceed 1.5 MB, and files must be as small as possible, so that they can be downloaded quickly. An HTML index page is usually created to link in the supplementary material file(s). 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

• Pick a common cross-platform (PC, Mac, Linux/UNIX, Amiga etc.) format for your supplementary data to allow the greatest access.
• Provide text files in MS Word (.doc), HTML files (.html) or RTF (.rtf) format. Files supplied in Word or RTF may be used to create a PDF file.
• Provide spreadsheet files in MS Excel (.xls) or CSV format. Please send these to the editorial office to upload for you.
• Provide image files in tif, gif or jpg format. Images should be a maximum size of 640 x 480 pixels (9 x 6.8 inches at 72 pixels per inch).
• Provide movie or sound clips preferably in mpeg format.*

*Sound clips and movie clips can now be submitted via ScholarOne; there is no limit on file size.

Style

Style and spelling

Oxford English spelling should be used. Authors whose first language is not English are requested to have their manuscripts checked carefully before submission. This will greatly help expedite the review process by helping to ensure that the academic content of the paper is fully understood by journal editors and reviewers. There are many specialist language editing companies that offer editing services and you can use any of these. Authors are liable for all costs associated with such services. You may wish to contact AuthorAid, a network which provides free mentoring and English-language editing for researchers in low-and middle-income countries.

Abbreviations

Standard SI units of measurement should only be used. For all other abbreviations please refer to the journal-approved list.

Measurements

Measurements of length, height, weight and volume should be reported in metric units (metre [m], kilogram [kg], litre [l]) or their decimal multiples. Temperatures should be given in degrees Celsius and blood pressure in mmHg. All other measurements including laboratory measurements should be reported in the metric system in terms of the International System of Units (SI).

Materials

When quoting specific materials or proprietary drugs, authors must state in parentheses the name, town/city and state/country of the manufacturer. Drug names should only be referred to by their generic non-proprietary names.

Statistics

Statistical methods must be detailed and should conform to published statistical guidelines.

Required forms

Conflict of interest forms

At the revision stage, we will ask the corresponding author to complete the conflict of interest form on behalf of all authors. The corresponding author should contact all authors to ensure the most up to date information is provided.

Patient consent forms

Rheumatology follows the ICMJE guidelines for patient reporting. The patient must be shown the manuscript to be published, and they must also read and sign this patient consent form. This consent form must be archived by the authors for seven years. In order to proceed with publication in Rheumatology, the authors must sign this declaration and enclose it with their submission. The paper will not be published without this confirmation.

Contact us

For questions regarding submission and review, including appeals, you can reach the editorial office by email at [email protected].

After your paper has been sent to production, you can contact [email protected] for questions regarding the production process or publication. Please see Changes to published papers if you need to request a substantive change to your published paper.

Frequently asked questions

Q: Am I allowed two corresponding authors?
A: We recommend only one corresponding author to prevent confusion for readers. However, two corresponding authors can be arranged when necessary. Please contact the editorial office to arrange this.

Q: Can we have joint first or last authors?
A: No, but you are welcome to include a statement of equal contribution instead (see below).

Q: Can authors contribute equally to a paper?
A: Yes. On the manuscript, please use an * to indicate which authors have contributed equally on the title page, and add a statement e.g. *Dr John Smith and Dr Elaine Jones contributed equally to this paper.

Q: How do I check the status of my submission on ScholarOne Manuscripts?
A: Log in to your account and go to the ‘Submitted Manuscripts’ tab within your Author Center. There will be a ‘Status’ update. If you have any queries about your paper, please contact the Editorial Office, remembering to include your Manuscript ID number.

Q: Can I make a change to my paper after it has been submitted?
A: Depending on where your paper is in the ScholarOne system, and the nature of the query, the Editorial Office may be able to make changes on your behalf. Please email the Editorial Office with your manuscript ID and a description of the change required.

Q: Can I have an extension on my reviewer report or my manuscript revision?
A: The Editorial Office will deal with these queries on a case-by-case basis. Please contact the Editorial Office remembering to include your Manuscript ID, and how long you wish to have an extension for. The Editorial Office will then do their best to accommodate your wishes.

Q: I am having trouble adding certain files to my manuscript submission.
A: Please contact the Editorial Office who will be able to help you, including the Manuscript ID (if applicable) and the files that you wish to upload. If they are large files over 2MB, please send them to the Editorial Office using a free transfer service such as DropBox or WeTransfer.

Q: I have noticed a mistake on my paper after publication, what can I do to fix it?
A: Please send your corrections to the Editorial Office, who then liaise with the Production team at Oxford University Press on the next steps.

Q: How long will it take to peer review my manuscript?
A: Rheumatology aims to provide a quick service, without compromising a thorough peer review process. The exact time taken depends on many factors, such as responding to Editorial Office queries quickly, finding peer reviewers to accept a review request, how quickly reviews are returned. The usual length of the process is around 6-8 weeks but this may take longer on occasion.

Q: Is there a word limit on my manuscript?
A: Yes, please see our article types section. The word count applies to the main body of text only – that is from the first word of the introduction to the last word of the conclusion. Title pages, abstracts, disclosure and funding statements, acknowledgements, tables and figures and references do not count towards the word limit.

Q: Where is the disclosure form and when do I need to use it?
A: Download the disclosure form. It should be completed by the corresponding author in consultation with all authors. Please upload this form when submitting a revised manuscript. For first submissions, a disclosure statement in the main manuscript document is sufficient.

Q: Why has my manuscript been withdrawn?
A: Your manuscript may have been a duplicate submission, or the Editorial Office may have received no response to queries. On occasion, manuscripts are withdrawn because they do not meet our aims and scope. If you are unsure as to why your manuscript was withdrawn, please email [email protected]with your manuscript ID number.

Q: I have presented my work at a conference in the form of a poster/abstract. Can I still publish the full paper?
A: Yes, you can still publish the full paper. However, please include a note in the manuscript acknowledgements section to confirm that the work has previously been presented elsewhere, e.g. “This work was presented as a poster at the BSR Annual Conference 2020.”

More FAQs and guidance can be found within the Author Resource Centre.