PLOS Genetics - Informace o časopisu

PLOS Genetics publishes human studies as well as research on model organisms—from mice and flies, to plants and bacteria. Our emphasis is on studies of broad interest that provide significant mechanistic insight into a biological process or processes. Topics include (but are not limited to) gene discovery and function, population genetics, genome projects, comparative and functional genomics, medical genetics, disease biology, evolution, gene expression, complex traits, chromosome biology, and epigenetics. Please consult our Frequently Asked Questions for further information.

2. Open Access

PLOS applies the Creative Commons Attribution License (CCAL) to all works we publish. Under the CCAL, authors retain ownership of the copyright for their article, but authors allow anyone to download, reuse, reprint, modify, distribute, and/or copy articles in PLOS journals, so long as the original authors and source are cited. No permission is required from the authors or the publishers.

3. Publication Charges

To provide open access, PLOS journals use a business model in which our expenses—including those of peer review, journal production, and online hosting and archiving—are recovered in part by charging a publication fee to the authors or research sponsors for each article they publish. The fees vary by journal.

PLOS is committed to the widest possible global participation in open access publishing. To determine the appropriate fee, we use a country-based pricing model, which is based on the country that provides 50% or more of the primary funding for the research that is being submitted. Research articles funded by Upper Middle and High Income Countries incur our standard publication fees. Corresponding authors who are affiliated with one of our Institutional Members are eligible for a discount on this fee. Such authors will be informed of the discount applicable after submission of their manuscript.

Fees for Low and Lower Middle Income Countries are calculated according to the PLOS Global Participation Initiative pricing program for manuscripts submitted after 9am Pacific Time on September 4, 2012 (this program is not retroactive).

• Group One: Countries from this list will not be charged for publishing
• Group Two: Countries from this list will be charged a flat 0

Our fee waiver policy, whereby PLOS offers to waive or further reduce the payment required of authors who cannot pay the full amount charged for publication, remains in effect. Editors and reviewers have no access to whether authors are able to pay; decisions to publish are only based on editorial criteria.

4. Criteria for Publication

To be considered for publication in PLOS Genetics, any given manuscript must satisfy the following criteria:

• Originality
• High importance to researchers in the field
• Broad interest to researchers in genetics and genomics
• Rigorous methodology
• Substantial evidence for its conclusions

5. Overview of Editorial Process

Our aim is to provide all authors with an efficient, courteous, and constructive editorial process. To achieve its required level of quality, PLOS Genetics is highly selective in the manuscripts that it publishes; rejection rates are high. To ensure the fairest and most objective decision-making, the editorial process is run as a partnership between the PLOS Genetics Editor-in-Chief, a Deputy Editor, a team of Section Editors (SEs), and a group of academic experts who act as Associate Editors (AEs). These individuals are leaders in their fields and represent the full breadth of genetics and genomics.

Submitted manuscripts are first reviewed by the EIC, Deputy Editor, or one of the SEs, who may decide to reject the paper or send it on to an AE for further review. The AE is most often a member of the PLOS Genetics Editorial Board, but occasionally a guest of the Board is invited to serve in this capacity. The AE evaluates the paper and decides whether it describes a sufficient body of work to support a major advance in a particular field. If so, the paper is sent out for external peer review, at which stage the technical and scientific merits of the work are carefully considered. Once the reviews have been received and considered by the editors, a decision letter to the corresponding author is drafted and sent.

The decision will be within one of the following categories:

• Reject
• Major revision
• Minor revision
• Accept

6. Presubmission Inquiries

Responses to these inquiries are normally provided within a few working days. Responses may take longer if consultation between members of the editorial board is required. If you are invited to submit your manuscript, we will do our best to provide an expeditious initial assessment of the complete manuscript for suitability and then, if warranted, external peer review.

7. Preparation of Research Manuscripts

PLOS Genetics publishes original research that clearly demonstrates novelty, importance to a particular field, biological significance, and conclusions that are justified by the study.

Our aim is to make the editorial process rigorous and consistent, and to offer the best possible support to our authors throughout this process. Authors are encouraged to decide how best to present their ideas, results, and conclusions, but all research should be presented in a form that is readable to those in the field, easily understood by scientists outside of the immediate discipline, and comprehensible to readers whose first language is not English. The writing style should therefore be concise and accessible. Care should be taken to define abbreviations clearly and to use correct genetic and systematic nomenclature .

We strongly encourage authors to seek input from their co-authors and colleagues with different expertise when preparing their manuscript for submission to ensure that the style of writing, clarity of meaning, and spelling, punctuation, and grammar are at a very high level. A variety of style and writing guides are available, including The Elements of Style (New York: bartleby.com, 1999) and "Preparing a Manuscript for Submission to a Biomedical Journal" (ICMJE). Editors and/or reviewers may also make suggestions for how to achieve optimal quality and clarity of presentation, as well as potential cuts or additions that could strengthen the manuscript.

Although we encourage submissions from around the globe, we require that manuscripts be submitted in English. As a step towards overcoming language barriers, we encourage authors fluent in other languages to provide copies of their full articles or abstracts in other languages. Non-English language versions should be submitted as supporting information and listed, together with other supporting information files, at the end of the article text.

Organization of the Manuscript

Most Research Articles published in PLOS Genetics are organized into the following sections: Title, Authors , Affiliations, Abstract, Author Summary, Introduction, Results, Discussion, Materials and Methods, Acknowledgments, References, Figure Legends, and Tables. Uniformity in format facilitates the experience of readers and users of the journal. To provide flexibility, however, authors are also able to include the Materials and Methods section before the Results section or before the Discussion section. Please also note that the Results and Discussion can be combined into one Results/Discussion section. Although we have no firm length restrictions for the entire manuscript, we urge authors to present and discuss their findings concisely.

Title (150 characters or less)

The title should be specific to the project, yet concise. It should be comprehensible to readers outside your field. Avoid specialist abbreviations, if possible. Titles should be presented in title case, meaning that all words except for prepositions, articles, and conjunctions should be capitalized. Please also provide a brief Short Title (or "running head") of no more than 50 characters.

Example title:
Detection of Specific Sequences among DNA Fragments Separated by Gel Electrophoresis

Authors and Affiliations

Provide the first names or initials (if used), middle names or initials (if used), surnames, and affiliations—department, university or organization, city, state/province (if applicable), and country—for all authors. One of the authors should be designated as the corresponding author. It is the corresponding author's responsibility to ensure that the author list, and the summary of the author contributions to the study, is accurate and complete. If the article has been submitted on behalf of a consortium, all consortium members and affiliations should be listed after the Acknowledgments.

Abstract

The abstract of the paper should be succinct; it must not exceed 300 words. Authors should mention the techniques used without going into methodological detail and should summarize the most important results. While the abstract is conceptually divided into three sections (Background, Principal Findings, and Significance), please do not apply these distinct headings to the abstract within the article file. We would however encourage you to include Background, Principal Findings, and Significance headings within the abstract field of the submission system. Please do not include any citations and avoid specialist abbreviations.

Author Summary

We ask that all authors of research articles include a 150–200 word non-technical summary of the work as part of the manuscript to immediately follow the abstract. This text is subject to editorial change, should be written in the first-person voice, and should be distinct from the scientific abstract. Aim to highlight where your work fits within a broader context; present the significance or possible implications of your work simply and objectively; and avoid the use of acronyms and complex terminology wherever possible. The goal is to make your findings accessible to a wide audience that includes both scientists and non-scientists. Authors may benefit from consulting with a science writer or press officer to ensure they effectively communicate their findings to a general audience. Examples are available at:
Complex Seizure Disorder Caused by Brunol4 Deficiency in Mice
Genome-Wide Association Scan Shows Genetic Variants in the FTO Gene Are Associated with Obesity-Related Traits
A Mutation in the Myostatin Gene Increases Muscle Mass and Enhances Racing Performance in Heterozygote Dogs

Introduction

The introduction should put the focus of the manuscript into a broader context. As you compose the introduction, think of readers who are not experts in this field. Include a brief review of the key literature. If there are relevant controversies or disagreements in the field, they should be mentioned so that a non-expert reader can delve into these issues further. The introduction should conclude with a brief statement of the overall aim of the experiments and a comment about whether that aim was achieved.

Results

The results section should provide details of all of the experiments that are required to support the conclusions of the paper. There is no specific word limit for this section, but details of experiments that are peripheral to the main thrust of the article and that detract from the focus of the article should not be included. The section may be divided into subsections, each with a concise subheading. Large datasets, including raw data, should be submitted as supporting files; these are published online alongside the accepted article. The results section should be written in the past tense.

Discussion

The discussion should spell out the major conclusions of the work along with some explanation or speculation on the significance of these conclusions. How do the conclusions affect the existing assumptions and models in the field? How can future research build on these observations? What are the key experiments that must be done? The discussion should be concise and tightly argued. The results and discussion may be combined into one section, if desired.

Materials and Methods (also called Methods or Models)

This section should provide enough detail for reproduction of the findings. Protocols for new methods should be included, but well-established protocols may simply be referenced. While we do encourage authors to submit all appendices, detailed protocols, or details of the algorithms for newer or less well-established methods, please do so as Supporting Information files. These are not included in the typeset manuscript, but are downloadable and fully searchable from the HTML version of the article.

Acknowledgments

People who contributed to the work but do not fit the criteria for authors should be listed in the Acknowledgments, along with their contributions. You must also ensure that anyone named in the Acknowledgments agrees to being so named.

Details of the funding sources that have supported the work should be confined to the funding statement provided in the online submission system. Do not include them in the Acknowledgments.

References

Only published or accepted manuscripts should be included in the reference list. Papers that have been submitted but not yet accepted should not be cited. Limited citation of unpublished work should be included in the body of the text only as “unpublished data.” All “personal communications” citations should be supported by a letter from the relevant authors.

Style information:

• PLOS uses the numbered citation (citation-sequence) method and first five authors, et al.
• References are listed and numbered in the order that they appear in the text.
• In the text, citations should be indicated by the reference number in brackets.
• The parts of the manuscript should be in the correct order before ordering the citations: body, boxes, figure captions, tables, and supporting information captions.
• Abstracts and author summaries may not contain citations.
• Journal name abbreviations should be those found in the NCBI databases: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nlmcatalog/journals.

Published Papers
1. Hou WR, Hou YL, Wu GF, Song Y, Su XL, et al. (2011) cDNA, genomic sequence cloning and overexpression of ribosomal protein gene L9 (rpL9) of the giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca). Genet Mol Res 10: 1576-1588.

Note: Use of a DOI number for the full-text article is acceptable as an alternative to or in addition to traditional volume and page numbers.

Accepted, unpublished papers
Same as above, but “In press” appears instead of the page numbers.

Electronic Journal Articles
1. Huynen MMTE, Martens P, Hilderlink HBM (2005) The health impacts of globalisation: a conceptual framework. Global Health 1: 14. Available: http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/1/1/14. Accessed 25 January 2012.

Books
1. Bates B (1992) Bargaining for life: A social history of tuberculosis. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 435 p.

Book Chapters
1. Hansen B (1991) New York City epidemics and history for the public. In: Harden VA, Risse GB, editors. AIDS and the historian. Bethesda: National Institutes of Health. pp. 21-28.

Figure Legends

The aim of the figure legend should be to describe the key messages of the figure, but the figure should also be discussed in the text. An enlarged version of the figure and its full legend will often be viewed in a separate window online, and it should be possible for a reader to understand the figure without switching back and forth between this window and the relevant parts of the text. Each legend should have a concise title of no more than 15 words that can stand alone, without the use of figure part labels. The overall legend itself should be succinct, while still explaining all figure parts, symbols and abbreviations. Avoid lengthy descriptions of methods.

Tables

Tables should be included at the end of the manuscript file and cited sequentially in the text. All tables should have a concise title. Footnotes can be used to explain abbreviations. Citations should be indicated using the same style as outlined above. Tables should not occupy more than one printed page; larger tables can be published as online supporting information. Tables must be cell-based; do not use picture elements, text boxes, tabs, or returns in tables. Please ensure that all tables conform to our Guidelines for Figure and Table Preparation when preparing them.

Nomenclature

The use of standardized nomenclature in all fields of science and medicine is an essential step toward the integration and linking of scientific information reported in published literature. We will enforce the use of correct and established nomenclature wherever possible:

• We strongly encourage the use of SI units. If you do not use these exclusively, please also provide the SI value in parentheses after each value.
• Species names should be italicized (e.g., Homo sapiens) and the full genus and species must be written out in full, both in the title of the manuscript and at the first mention of an organism in a paper; after that, the first letter of the genus name, followed by the full species name may be used.
• Genes, mutations, genotypes, and alleles should be indicated in italics. Use the recommended name by consulting the appropriate genetic nomenclature database, e.g., HUGO for human genes. It is sometimes advisable to indicate the synonyms for the gene the first time it appears in the text. Gene prefixes such as those used for oncogenes or cellular localization should be shown in roman: v-fes, c-MYC, etc.
• The Recommended International Non-Proprietary Name (rINN) of drugs should be provided.

Accession Numbers

All appropriate datasets, images, and information should be deposited in public resources. Please provide the relevant accession numbers (and version numbers, if appropriate). Accession numbers should be provided in parentheses after the entity on first use. Suggested databases include, but are not limited to:
ArrayExpress
BioModels Database
Database of Interacting Proteins
DNA Data Bank of Japan [DDBJ]
DRYAD
EMBL Nucleotide Sequence Database
GenBank
Gene Expression Omnibus [GEO]
Protein Data Bank
UniProtKB/Swiss-Prot
ClinicalTrials.gov

In addition, as much as possible, please provide accession numbers or identifiers for all entities such as genes, proteins, mutants, diseases, etc., for which there is an entry in a public database, for example:
Ensembl
Entrez Gene
FlyBase
InterPro
Mouse Genome Database (MGD)
Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (OMIM)
PubChem

Providing accession numbers allows linking to and from established databases and integrates your article with a broader collection of scientific information.

Abbreviations

Please keep abbreviations to a minimum and define them upon first use in the text. Non-standard abbreviations should not be used unless they appear at least three times in the text.

8. Materials Required for Manuscript Submission

Cover Letter

It is important that you include a cover letter with your manuscript. Please explain why this manuscript is suitable for publication in PLOS Genetics; why will your paper inspire the other members of your field, and how will it drive research forward? You are free to recommend a suitable Associate Editor to handle your submission; however, the editors reserve the right to contact an alternative—either from the board or a guest editor—if it is considered more appropriate. Please note that the cover letter will be available to the editors and to external peer reviewers as necessary, so be careful not to reveal anything of a confidential nature.

Author Status

It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to ensure that all authors are aware of and approve the submission of the manuscript, its content, authorship, and order of authorship. Confirmation of this action is required at submission of all manuscripts.

The involvement of any professional medical writer in publication must be declared. We encourage authors to consult the European Medical Writers' Association Guidelines on the role of medical writers. For all PLOS journals, the corresponding author must submit the manuscript, related files, and all required data and information. From the point of submission through to publication, all communication related to that manuscript will be directed to and received from the corresponding author only.

PLOS Genetics bases its criteria for authorship on those outlined in the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals, which are summarized below. The contributions of all authors must be described. Contributions that fall short of authorship should be mentioned in the acknowledgments.

"Authorship credit should be based on

1. substantial contribution 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; and
3. final approval of the version to be published

PLOS journals follow the COPE guidelines covering changes in authorship. Please note that if any changes to the list of authors of a manuscript are necessary after the initial submission of a manuscript to a PLOS journal but before its publication, the corresponding author may be asked to provide written confirmation that all authors consent to the change(s). The journal also reserves the right to request written confirmation from all authors (including those added, removed, or moved in the author order). Such written consent may be required before the revised submission is sent to the editors.

Financial Disclosure

This section should describe sources of funding that have supported the work. Please include relevant grant numbers and the URL of any funder's Web site. Please also include this sentence: "The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript." If this statement is not correct, you must describe the role of any sponsors or funders, and amend the aforementioned sentence as needed.

Competing Interests

The submitting author is asked at submission to declare, on behalf of all authors, whether there are any financial, personal, or professional interests that could be construed to have influenced the paper. The information entered here will appear in the published version, so please do not include the same in the manuscript file.

Reviewers are also asked to declare any interests that might interfere with their objective assessment of a manuscript. Any relevant competing interests of authors must be available to editors and reviewers during the review process and will be stated in published articles. Read more about PLOS's Competing Interests Policy.

Electronic Formats

Our submission system supports a limited range of formats for text and graphics. The following file formats/types and manuscript information are required before submission. If you are concerned about the suitability of your files, please contact us at plosgenetics [at] plos.org.

Manuscript and Table Files

Articles can be submitted for review in DOC, DOCX, RTF, or PDF. Any articles that have been prepared in LaTeX will be accepted for review, but only in PDF format. After acceptance, only text files (RTF or DOC) of the revised manuscript and tables can be accepted for use in the production process.

Math Equations and DOCX

If your manuscript is or will be in DOCX and contains equations, you must follow the instructions below to make sure that your equations are editable when the file enters production.

If you have not yet composed your article, you can ensure that the equations in your DOCX file remain editable in DOC by enabling “Compatibility Mode” before you begin. To do this, open a new document and save as Word 97-2003 (*.doc). Several features of Word 2007/10 will now be inactive, including the built-in equation editing tool. You can insert equations in one of the two ways listed below.

If you have already composed your article as DOCX and used its built-in equation editing tool, your equations will become images when the file is saved down to DOC. To resolve this problem, re-key your equations in one of the two following ways.

1. Use MathType to create the equation. MathType is the recommended method for creating equations.
2. Go to Insert > Object > Microsoft Equation 3.0 and create the equation.

LaTeX

Articles prepared in LaTeX may be submitted in PDF format for use during the review process. After acceptance, however, .tex files and formatting information will be required as a zipped file. Please consult our LaTeX Guidelines for a list of what will be required.

Tables

Tables must conform to our Guidelines for Figure and Table Preparation and placed at the end of the article DOC or RTF file. Accepted LaTeX submissions only should have table files—which must also conform to these guidelines—uploaded individually into the online submission system.

Figure Files

For the article to be accepted for publication, the author will need to supply high-resolution versions of the figures in TIF or EPS format only. When preparing your figures, please ensure that the files conform to our Guidelines for Figure and Table Preparation. Please do not upload panels for a single figure separately (for example, Figure 1A, Figure 1B-1D, Figure 1E); each figure file should be a single montage of all panels. Queries can be sent to figures [at] plos.org.

If you are uploading your files in EPS format, please use the "create outlines" option under the type menu in Illustrator so that all text and fonts appear as intended in print. If you need additional help with figure preparation, please contact figures [at] plos.org.

PLOS does not accept vector EPS figures generated using LaTeX. We only accept LaTeX generated figures in TIFF format. Export your LaTeX files as PDFs, and then open them in GIMP or Photoshop and save as TIFF. In general, Figures must be generated in a standalone graphics application such as Adobe Illustrator, InkScape, PyMol, MatLab, SAS, etc. Please see our Figure Guidelines for more information.

All figures will be published under a Creative Commons Attribution License, which allows them to be freely used, distributed, and built upon as long as proper attribution is given. Please do not submit any figures that have been previously copyrighted unless you have express written permission from the copyright holder to publish under the CCAL license.

Multimedia Files and Supporting Information

We encourage authors to submit essential supporting files and multimedia files along with their manuscripts. All supporting material will be subject to peer review, and should be smaller than 10 MB in size because of the difficulties that some users will experience in loading or downloading files of a greater size.

Supporting files should fall into one of the following categories: Dataset, Figure, Table, Text, Protocol, Audio, or Video. All supporting information should be referred to in the manuscript with a leading capital S (e.g., Figure S4 for the fourth supporting information figure). The numbered title and caption for each supporting information file should be included in the main article file, after the titles and captions for the main figures.

Supporting files will not be included in the typeset PDF, but will be referenced in the text and hosted online.

Supporting files may be submitted in a variety of formats, but should be publication-ready, as these files are not copyedited. Carefully consider whether your supporting information needs to be searchable and/or editable, and choose the most suitable format accordingly. See the Supporting Information Guidelines for more detail about our requirements for multimedia files and the file formats we accept.

Striking Images

Authors are encouraged to upload a "striking image" that may be used to represent their paper online in places like the journal homepage or in search results. Striking images should ideally be high resolution, eye-catching, single panel images, and should ideally avoid containing added details such as text, scale bars, and arrows. If no striking image is uploaded, a figure from the paper will be designated as the striking image.

Please keep in mind that PLOS's Creative Commons Attribution License applies to striking images. As such, do not submit any figures or photos that have been previously copyrighted unless you have express written permission from the copyright holder to publish under the CCAL license. Note that all published materials in PLOS Genetics are freely available online, and any third party is permitted to read, download, copy, distribute, and use these materials in any way, even commercially, with proper attribution.

Ready to Submit Your Manuscript?

We have provided a Submission Checklist to help you prepare your materials for submission and to make the online submission process as straightforward as possible. Please take the time to look through the list before submitting your article.

Please login or register at our online submission system to begin the submission process. Files can be uploaded individually or together in a single ZIP file, and are automatically combined into a single PDF file, which must be approved by the author at the end of the submission process. This merged PDF is for internal and external peer review only. Original source files will be used to prepare accepted articles for publication.

9. Editorials, Interviews, Viewpoints, Perspectives, and Reviews

In addition to weekly Research Articles, PLOS Genetics also provides a forum for the publication of other article types of broad interest to the genetics and genomics community. These articles are by invitation only; however, you can send feedback and ideas to plosgenetics [at] plos.org and we encourage readers to add notes, comments, and ratings to all articles. Publication charges do not apply to the article types outlined in this section.

Editorials

Written by the journal's editors, these occasional pieces can cover announcements, highlights of journal content, position statements, and journal updates.

Interviews

Jane Gitschier brings her unique conversational style to an ongoing Collection of Interviews of interesting people in the world of science and genetics. Past Interviews have included exchanges with such luminaries as Nicholas Wade, Sir John Sulston, David Botstein and Shirley Tilghman.

Viewpoints

These articles serve primarily as a forum for the discussion of controversial, emerging, or topical issues in the field; occasionally, the discussion surrounds a challenge to findings in a published Research Article. In some Viewpoints, an expert will cover all sides of a controversial topic in about 2,500 words, with a concise list of the most relevant references. In others, opinions or statements will be sought from two authors with different points of view – a point–counterpoint format. In the latter case, the usual format is for each author to express his or her opinion within 700 words, with one display item, if available, and a concise list of the most relevant references. Each piece will then be sent to the other participant(s), who may choose to respond briefly (~300 words) to the opposing position. Should the editor recruit a series of points of view (three or more), soliciting counterpoints will be at his or her discretion.

Reviews

These succinct, synthetic, well-focused, and engaging Reviews should appeal to a broad genetics readership. Aim for no more than 3,000 words, two or three display items, and a concise list of the most relevant references. The article should include an overview of the existing literature that places the topic within a broader context, but it should also focus on the future: where is the field going and what exciting developments are expected? It is particularly important to highlight critical new advances, open questions, and standing controversies or paradoxes as these are especially valued by a general readership.

Structure the Review as such: Title, Authors, Affiliations, Abstract, Introduction, Main Text (broken into subsections as appropriate), Conclusions, Acknowledgments, References, Figure Legends, and Tables. Please refer to the information elsewhere in the Author Guidelines about the specifics of manuscript, figure, and table preparation. E-mail plosgenetics [at] plos.org if you are in any doubt about how our guidelines for Research Articles differ from those of Reviews. Examples: Genomic Disorders: Molecular Mechanisms for Rearrangements and Conveyed Phenotypes, Genetics of Aging in Caenorhabditis elegans, and Recent Developments in Yeast Aging.

Perspectives

These commentaries, which are by invitation only, frame the content and implications of Research Articles published in the journal. They should be short and engaging; aim for no more than 1,000 words, one display item, and a concise list of the most relevant references. As guidance, you should take our broad readership through the following:

1. The background: what did we know before; why was the study conducted? In particular, place the specific article in a broader context for readers who may not be experts in the field – explain why they should pay attention to the highlighted article.
2. The article itself: what did the researchers do and find; strengths and limitations; what are the implications?
3. The future: what are the next steps; are there unanswered questions?

You are welcome to use subheadings to structure the article as you see fit.

Please refer to the information elsewhere in the Author Guidelines for the specifics of manuscript, figure, and table preparation. E-mail plosgenetics [at] plos.org if you are in any doubt about how our guidelines for Research Articles differ from those of Perspectives. Examples: Rise of the Machines, Chromosome Mechanics and Meiotic Engine Maintenance, and Leaving the Past Behind.

10. Overview of the Production Process

Before formal acceptance of the article for publication, the manuscript and all related files will be checked by PLOS staff to ensure that they comply with all essential formatting and manuscript preparation requirements. Please note that manuscripts are not subject to detailed copyediting. Therefore, please carefully review your manuscript, paying special attention to spelling, punctuation, and grammar, as well as scientific content. Authors who believe their manuscripts would benefit from in-depth professional copyediting are encouraged to use language-editing and copyediting services, such as the ones offered below (in alphabetical order):

• American Journal Experts
• Asia Science Editing
• Bioedit Ltd
• BiomEditor
• BioScience Writers
• Blue Pencil Science
• Boston BioEdit
• Carpe Diem Biomedical Writing and Editing
• English Manager Science Editing
• International Science Editing
• Life Science Publishing
• Online English
• Professional Editing Services
• Scienceditors.com
• SciTechEdit International
• Scitext Cambridge
• Scribendi
• Squirrel Scribe
• Stallard Scientific Editing
• Write Science Right

PLOS neither endorses nor takes responsibility for contracting with any of these individuals/companies, but we do recognize the value of the services they provide.

When an article has been accepted for publication, the manuscript files are transferred into our production system and will be published in PDF and HTML formats, with an XML download option. Articles are published online on a weekly schedule and archived in PubMed Central/PubMed within 5 to 10 days of publication.

11. Blogs, Wikis, Embargoes, and the Media

Authors are of course at liberty to present their findings at medical or scientific conferences ahead of publication. We recommend, however, that authors not contact the media or respond to such contact unless an article has been accepted for publication and an embargo date has been established. Respect for press embargoes will help to ensure that your work is reported accurately in the popular media. If a journalist has covered a piece of work ahead of publication, this will not affect consideration of the work for publication. See also our embargo guidelines for journalists.