As of January 2022, all new submissions to JEI must be submitted on our manuscript template. This template is designed to help our student authors address commonly seen mistakes in manuscripts before they have even submitted!
The title page should include:
An abstract should be a short (under 250 words) summary on a separate page, after the title page but before the remainder of the manuscript. This should include:
The article must provide an appropriate and sufficient background on the subject matter and must include references. The introduction provides context for the manuscript. The introduction should:
The authors must describe in paragraph format how they test the scientific question with well-designed scientific experiments. It is important to discuss experimental controls and statistical analysis when appropriate and to draw appropriate and reasonable conclusions from experimental data. For each experiment, the authors must:
Please review our stats guide for helpful advice on performing statistical analysis, including links to free online calculators that can be used
Data figures/tables and statistical analysis are important for making the argument for the conclusions of a manuscript. Through these things, the reader can see the data and information that led to the conclusions, and they can make decisions about whether they believe the conclusions the authors make. First-time authors often make mistakes in how they present this information in the results section by putting too much focus on the figure or statistic itself and not putting the result in the context of the study. Instead, we recommend that authors reference their figures and statistics similar to citing literature in the introduction to support the claims or conclusions drawn from the data.
Examples:
In the discussion section, the authors should discuss the results and their interpretation of the results. It is important that the authors draw appropriate and reasonable conclusions from their scientific data. The authors should:
The authors should describe the methods in enough detail such that a different scientist could perform the same experiments and obtain the same results. Materials should not be listed out but should be mentioned within the context of the respective experiment that the materials were used. For example, when explaining a method within this section, the author could state the materials used: “bacteria were grown in standard LB media (FisherSci) for 24 hours at 37°C while shaking.”
Information on choosing and citing references can be found here.
This is a section to acknowledge people who have made minor contributions to the manuscript. For example, people who have read and commented on your manuscript before submission should be acknowledged. This is also the section to state your funding sources (if any). Authors (such as the mentor, teacher, or professor) should not be acknowledged as outside help because they help write the manuscript. Authorship on the manuscript is in itself an acknowledgement of the work each author put into the project and manuscript.
Figures and tables are important components of scientific articles as a way of visualizing the data. A comprehensive guide for how to make figures for publication can be found here. All figures submitted with the manuscript should be referenced somewhere in the body of the manuscript, probably in the Results or Introduction.
Authors often want to include a diagram depicting an important concept included in their background information or showing their experimental setup. It is important to note that JEI cannot legally publish figures from another source, like a textbook or another article, without proper permissions from the creator of the figure. As an alternative, we suggest that authors make their own diagrams or explain the important concepts in the text, citing a source where readers can find an already published diagram.
Figures showing original data should all be referenced for the first time in the results section. All figures need a descriptive caption located together at the end of the manuscript in a separate section for figure and table captions. Each caption should include the figure number, title, and a description of what the figure shows and any important information necessary to interpret the figure (color coding, what symbols mean, how many replicates the data represents, etc).
Unlike figures, tables should be embedded into the manuscript document (probably in the Results section), ideally in a format that is editable in Word. Each table needs a caption, which should be placed at the end of the manuscript in a section devoted to figure and table captions. Table captions should include the table number, title, and a description of what the table shows, including definitions of any abbreviations used in the table. More guidance on making tables for JEI publication can be found here.
Data must be presented in individually numbered figures with a title and descriptive caption listed at the end of the manuscript. Each figure should be an individual, high-resolution (1000x1000 pixels) JPEG, TIFF or PNG file with each file named clearly with the figure number (e.g. Fig1.jpg). Figures should be numbered in the order in which they are referenced in the text[CO8] . As a manuscript goes through the revision process, the order of figures may change, so make sure to update file names and ensure corresponding figure legends describe the correct figure in the re-submission!
To convert an Excel graph, table or chart into a JPEG, TIFF or PNG, the easiest option is to “right click” on the graph, chart, or table and click “save as picture”. Alternatively, you can “copy” the graph, chart or table and “paste” it into Preview or an Adobe application such as Photoshop. Powerpoint is also a useful tool for making figures, especially ones with multiple components or panels. More information on how to make figures, including important considerations can be found here.
For the purposes of submission, figure captions should appear at the end of the article, after the references. If the article is accepted by JEI for publication, editors will place the figure caption with the appropriate figure during the proofing stage. If you need guidance putting together graphs, charts or tables in Excel, check out this tutorial.
JEI allows appendices on a case-by-case basis depending on the type of research being presented in a manuscript.