Writing & Formatting Guidelines

• Submit editable source files for manuscript text, tables, figures and graphical elements.
• Save Word submissions as .doc or .docx; provide LaTeX submissions in .text format.
• Do not submit a PDF as the primary source file.
• Use a single-column layout in Word. Double-column formatting is permitted only for LaTeX.
• Remove strikethroughs and underlining unless they have a specific scientific meaning.
• Run spelling and grammar checks before submission.

Article title

Make it concise, informative and representative of the content. Avoid abbreviations and formulae unless they are widely recognised and essential.

Author names

List every author’s full given name and family name in the correct order, accurately spelled and matching the submission system. Native-script names may be added in parentheses after the English transliteration.

Affiliations

Place institutional affiliations below the names. Use lowercase superscript letters to connect authors and affiliations; include the full postal address and country. Email addresses may be included where appropriate.

Corresponding author

Clearly identify the author managing correspondence during review, publication and after publication. Their contact details must remain current.

Present or permanent address

Where an author has moved, add the current address as a footnote using superscript Arabic numerals; retain the research location as the primary affiliation.

Supplementary material

• Submit relevant, accurate supplementary material and cite it in the manuscript.
• Submit files with the main article; they will be published as received.
• Give every file a concise descriptive caption.
• Replace earlier versions when revising and disable tracked changes.

Video and animation

• Refer clearly to video content in the manuscript.
• Name files appropriately and keep each file within 150 MB, with a 1 GB total limit.
• Provide a representative still image for each video.
• Include descriptive text for accessibility and print usability.

Research data and linking

• Deposit datasets, software, code and protocols in an appropriate repository, cite them in the article, and supply a data-availability statement at submission.
• Link data through repository links during submission or recognised database identifiers in the manuscript.
• Companion data, methods or protocol articles may be co-submitted to Data in Brief or MethodsX using the required templates.

• Organise manuscripts in clearly numbered sections and subsections, such as 1, 1.1 and 1.1.1. Use the numbering consistently for cross-references; keep headings on separate lines. Do not number the abstract.
• Use a theory section to extend the earlier conceptual background; use calculation sections for applied development. Supply a separate glossary where relevant.
• Use footnotes sparingly and number them consecutively; they may be generated automatically or listed at the end.
• Place acknowledgements immediately before the references and use them only for non-authorship support.
• Use CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) to specify individual author contributions. Authors may hold multiple roles and not every role applies to every paper.
• Clearly identify all funding sources and each funder’s role in the work. If there was no role, state this explicitly. Use a standardised funding format.
• Identify appendices sequentially (Appendix A, Appendix B, etc.). Independently number appendix equations, tables and figures, for example Eq. (A.1), Table A.1 and Fig. A.1.

• Every source cited in the manuscript must appear in the reference list, and every listed reference must be cited in the text.
• Include references cited in the abstract in full. Avoid unpublished data and personal communications in the list unless necessary; label them “unpublished results” or “personal communication.”
• Use “in press” only for work formally accepted for publication.
• Verify authors, titles, years and pagination. Accurate metadata supports linking in services such as Scopus, Crossref and PubMed. DOI use is strongly encouraged.
• At submission, any consistent style is acceptable if it contains author names, year, article/chapter title, journal/book title, and volume, issue, article number or page range where applicable.
• The house reference style is applied after acceptance; authors may be asked to correct missing information at proof stage.

• For one author, cite surname and year; for two authors, cite both surnames and year; for three or more, cite the first surname followed by et al. and year.
• Use narrative or parenthetical citations. Group multiple citations alphabetically or chronologically. Add a, b, c to same-author, same-year works.
• Abbreviate journal titles according to the List of Title Word Abbreviations (LTWA).
• For web references, include the full URL and date last accessed. For data, include creator, dataset title, repository, version, year and persistent identifier, preceded by [dataset]. Clearly identify preprints and cite the peer-reviewed article if available.
• You may use Mendeley Reference Manager or other CSL-compatible tools. Select the journal template where available and remove all field codes before submission.