Instructions for Authors
Authors should prepare complete, original and ethically compliant manuscripts using the structure, reporting standards and evidence requirements appropriate to their study design.
Before submission
- Confirm that the manuscript fits the JBSS aims and one or more of its eight stated scope domains.
- Obtain approval from all authors and confirm that the work is not under consideration elsewhere.
- Confirm that every listed author satisfies all four requirements in the JBSS Authorship and Contribution Policy; contributors who do not qualify for authorship should be acknowledged transparently.
- Prepare ethical approval, informed-consent, funding, conflicts-of-interest and data-availability statements where applicable.
- For human, clinical or dental studies, report the approving ethics committee/IRB and approval identifier where available; informed consent must be stated when applicable.
- For multicentre studies, ensure that required institutional, site-specific and data-use permissions have been obtained and are available for editorial verification.
- Remove author-identifying information from the review manuscript when double-anonymous review is used.
Medical, dental and health-sciences reporting
Clinical and health-sciences submissions must use the reporting guideline appropriate to the study design and provide the relevant checklist or flow diagram when requested by the editors.
- Randomized clinical trials: follow CONSORT and provide prospective trial registration in a recognized public registry when applicable.
- Observational studies: follow STROBE; routinely collected health-data studies should also consider RECORD where relevant.
- Systematic reviews and meta-analyses: follow PRISMA and report protocol registration when applicable.
- Diagnostic-accuracy studies: follow STARD.
- Prediction-model studies: follow TRIPOD or its current applicable extension.
- Case reports: follow CARE when this article type is accepted under current journal policy.
- Other study designs should follow the relevant EQUATOR Network or internationally recognized reporting guidance.
Study design, sample size, statistical analysis, effect estimates, uncertainty, missing data, limitations and clinically relevant interpretation must be reported transparently. Conclusions must not exceed the evidence.
Manuscript structure
- Title page: article title, complete author names, affiliations, corresponding-author information and ORCID identifiers where available.
- Abstract: concise background, methods, principal results and conclusion. Clinical and original research should use a structured abstract when appropriate.
- Keywords: normally 4–8 terms that support discovery; health-sciences authors should use recognized biomedical terminology where possible.
- Main text: Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion and Conclusions, or an appropriate discipline-specific structure.
- Declarations: author contributions, funding, ethics approval, informed consent, trial registration where applicable, data availability, conflicts of interest, acknowledgements and AI-use disclosure.
- References, tables, figure legends and supplementary-material descriptions.
References
References must be numbered consecutively in order of first citation. Journal references should follow an NLM-based citation sequence and include a complete https://doi.org/ URL whenever available. Authors are responsible for checking every author name, title, year, volume, issue, page range or article number and DOI.
Scientific names and nomenclature
- Italicize genus and species names wherever they occur, including the title, abstract, keywords, main text, tables and figure legends; for example, Hydrocotyle asiatica.
- Write the genus in full at first mention. A recognized abbreviation may be used thereafter, for example, H. asiatica, when it cannot be confused with another genus.
- Use the same font size as the surrounding text. Italics indicate nomenclature; they must not be made smaller or larger for emphasis.
- Keep strain, isolate, accession and culture-collection designations in roman type after the italicized organism name; for example, Escherichia coli K-12 and E. coli ATCC 25922.
- Follow the authoritative nomenclature code or database for the discipline. Gene, protein, virus and higher-taxon styling must follow the applicable international convention because these terms do not all use the same italicization rule.
Figures, tables and files
- Submit legible, publication-quality figures with descriptive legends.
- Do not manipulate images in a way that changes the scientific interpretation.
- Tables should be editable, self-explanatory and cited in numerical order.
- Upload the manuscript, figures, supplementary files, reporting checklists and required declarations through the submission portal.
Accepted manuscript types
Standard peer-reviewed submissions
- Original Research Articles; Short Communications; and Case Reports following CARE guidance.
- Review Articles, Narrative Reviews, Mini Reviews, Systematic Reviews, Scoping Reviews and Rapid Reviews.
- Systematic Reviews with Meta-analysis and standalone Meta-analyses.
- Methods Articles, Protocols, Technical Notes, Validation Articles, Data Articles and Software Articles.
- Perspectives, Hypotheses, Opinions, Policy Briefs, Commentaries and Letters to the Editor.
Commissioned or editorially controlled content
- Editorials, News and Views, newsletters, editor news and obituaries normally require invitation or prior editorial approval.
- Corrections and Errata are post-publication notices issued through the editorial office.
JBSS does not publish book chapters as journal articles. Authors may adapt suitable chapter material into an accepted review or original research manuscript, with transparent attribution and no duplicate publication. “Summary” and “Other/Custom Manuscript” submissions require written approval from the editorial office before submission.
External recognition and article type
JBSS publishes article types permitted by its editorial policy. Authors seeking promotion, appointment or other academic credit from a professional or national regulator are responsible for confirming that the article type and journal recognition status satisfy that regulator’s current requirements. JBSS does not claim regulator recognition unless it appears on the regulator’s official list.
Submission
Use the official online submission portal. The system generates a manuscript tracking number for later correspondence.