Abstract

The abstract of the paper/article should not include any references. It should serve both as a general introduction to the topic and as a brief, non-technical summary of the main results and their implications. The abstract must be between 150 and 200 words.

Keywords

Not less than three and not more than ten keywords must be provided.

Manuscript

The manuscript should start with a title page with the author(s)’ affiliations and contact information. Identify the corresponding author with an asterisk.

The main body of the text should adopt the following structure:

Introduction

Background

Literature review

Methodology

Results/Findings (with subheadings)

Discussion (without subheadings)

Summary, limitations (if necessary) and recommendations

References

Acknowledgments (optional)

Author contributions (if needed to specify)

Data availability statement (mandatory)

Conflict of Interests Statement

Figures and Tables (maximum of 5 each, inserted in the text at the appropriate positions)

Footnotes should not be used.

In your submission, please include:

  • A cover letter that includes the affiliation and contact information of the corresponding author;
  • A brief explanation of why the work is appropriate for the Future X journal;
  • Finally, you should state whether you have had any prior discussions with an Editorial Board Member about the work described in your manuscript.

Formatting the manuscript

Format the manuscript file as a single-column (A4) text with justification.

Number the pages using an Arabic numeral in the footer of each page.

Use the Times New Roman, 1.5 line spacing with font 12 for your text.

Include the title of the manuscript and author list on the first page of any Supplementary Information file.

Use numerical references only for citations.

Writing your manuscript

Research Reports are read by a diverse range of researchers or reviewers. Please, therefore, give careful thought to communicating your findings as clearly as possible.  Although you can assume a shared basic knowledge of your discipline, please do not expect that everyone will be familiar with the specialist language or concepts of your particular field. Therefore, avoid technical jargon wherever possible, explain it clearly when it is unavoidable.

Keep abbreviations to a minimum, particularly when they are not standard. If you must use an abbreviation, make sure you spell it out fully in the text or legend the first time it appears.

Clearly explain the background, rationale, and main conclusions of your study. Write titles and abstracts in language that will be readily understood by any reviewer.

We strongly recommend that you request a colleague with different expertise to review your manuscript before you submit it. This will help you to identify concepts and terminologies that non-specialist readers may find hard to grasp.

Copy editing services

Regenesys Future X Journal does not provide in-depth copy editing as part of the production process. It is a suggestion that you use a copy editing or language editing service to submit a manuscript of high quality. Please do this before submission. Also do a spelling and grammar check.

Please note that the use of an editing service is at your own expense, and does not ensure that your article will be selected for peer review or accepted for publication.

Methods

Your methods should include adequate experimental and characterisation data for others to be able to reproduce your work. Include descriptions of standard protocols and procedures, and identify sources for any materials you use in your procedures.

References

Future X journal advises authors to format their references correctly. Regenesys uses the APA7 referencing style.

Examples of referencing published papers:

Printed journals

Schott, D. H., Collins, R. N., & Bretscher, A.  (2002). Secretory vesicle transport velocity in living cells depends on the myosin V lever arm length. J. Cell Biol. 156, 35-39.

Online only

Bellin, D. L. et al. (2016).  Electrochemical camera chip for simultaneous imaging of multiple metabolites in biofilms. Nat. Commun. 7, 10535; 10.1038/ncomms10535.

For papers with more than five authors include only the first author’s name followed by ‘et al.’.

Books:

Smith, J.  (2013). Syntax of referencing in How to reference books (ed. Smith, S.) 180-181;  Macmillan.

Online material:

Babichev, S. A., Ries, J., & Lvovsky, A. I. (2002). Quantum scissors: teleportation of single-mode optical states by means of a nonlocal single photon. Preprint at https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0208066.

Manaster, J. (2014). Sloth squeak. Scientific American Blog Network http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/psi-vid/2014/04/09/sloth-squeak.

Hao, Z., AghaKouchak, A., Nakhjiri, N., & Farahmand, A.  (2014). Global integrated drought monitoring and prediction system (GIDMaPS) data sets. figshare https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.853801 (2014).

Acknowledgments

Please keep any acknowledgments brief, and do not include thanks to anonymous referees and editors, or any effusive comments. You may acknowledge grant or contribution numbers. You should also acknowledge assistance from research assistants, proof-readers and editors.

Author contributions

You must supply an Author Contribution Statement as described in the Author responsibilities section of the Future X Journal Editorial and Publishing Policies.

Please be aware:

  • The author’s name you give as the corresponding author will be the main contact during the review process and should not change.
  • The information you provide in the submission system will be used as the source of truth when your paper is published.

Conflict of Interests

You must supply a conflict of interest statement. If there is no conflict of interest, you should include a statement declaring this.

Your statement must be explicit and unambiguous, describing any potential competing interest (or lack thereof) for EACH contributing author. The information you provide in the submission system will be used as the source of truth when your paper is published.

Examples of declarations are:

  • Conflict of interests

The author(s) declare no competing interests.

  • Competing interests

Dr X’s work has been funded by A. He has received compensation as a member of the scientific advisory board of B and owns stock in the company. He also has consulted for C and received compensation. Dr. Y and Dr. Z declare no potential conflict of interest.

Ethics declarations

If your research includes human or animal subjects, you will need to include the appropriate ethics declarations in the Methods section of your manuscript.

Tables

All tables must appear in the main article document in an editable format (Word or TeX/LaTeX, as appropriate), and not as images. Tables that include statistical analysis of data should describe their standards of error analysis and ranges in a table legend.

Equations

Include any equations and mathematical expressions in the main text of the paper. Use parenthetical numbers, such as (1) to identify equations that are referred to in the text, and refer to them in the manuscript as “equation (1)” etc.

For submissions in a .doc or .docx format, please make sure that all equations are provided in an editable Word format. You can produce these with the equation editor included in Microsoft Word.

General figure guidelines

Obtain permission to publish any figures or illustrations that are protected by copyright, including figures published elsewhere and pictures taken by professional photographers. Future X will not publish images downloaded from the internet without appropriate permission.

State the source of any images used. If you or one of your co-authors has drawn the images, please mention this in your acknowledgments. For software, you should state the name, version number, and URL.

Number any figures separately with Arabic numerals in the order they occur in the text of the manuscript. Include a description of the statistical treatment of error analysis in the figure legend.

Figures divided into parts should be labelled with a lower-case, bold letter (a, b, c, and so on) in the same type size as used elsewhere in the figure.

Lettering in figures should be in lower-case type, with only the first letter of each label capitalised.

Units should have a single space between the number and the unit, and follow SI nomenclature (for example, ms rather than msec) or the nomenclature common to a particular field.

Thousands should be separated by commas (1,000).

Unusual units or abbreviations should be spelled out in full or defined in the legend.

Scale bars should be used rather than magnification factors, with the length of the bar defined on the bar itself rather than in the legend.

In legends, please use visual cues rather than verbal explanations such as “open red triangles”. Avoid unnecessary figures: Data presented in small tables or histograms, for instance, can generally be stated briefly in the text instead. Figures should not contain more than one panel unless the parts are logically connected; each panel of a multipart figure should be sized so that the whole figure can be reduced by the same amount and reproduced at the smallest size at which essential details are visible.

Statistical guidelines

If your paper contains statistical testing, it should state the name of the statistical test, the n value for each statistical analysis, the comparisons of interest, a justification for the use of that test (including, for example, a discussion of the normality of the data when the test is appropriate only for normal data), the alpha level for all tests, whether the tests were one-tailed or two-tailed, and the actual P-value for each test (not merely “significant” or “P < 0.05”). Please make it clear what statistical test was used to generate every P-value. Use of the word “significant” should always be accompanied by a P-value; otherwise, use “substantial,” “considerable,” etc.

Data sets should be summarised with descriptive statistics, which should include the n value for each data set, a clearly labelled measure of centre (such as the mean or the median), and a clearly labelled measure of variability (such as standard deviation or range).

Ranges are more appropriate than standard deviations or standard errors for small data sets. Graphs should include clearly labelled error bars. You must state whether a number that follows the ± sign is a standard error (s.e.m.) or a standard deviation (s.d.).

You must justify the use of a particular test and explain whether the data conforms to the assumptions of the tests. Three errors are particularly common:

  • Multiple comparisons: when making multiple statistical comparisons on a single data set, you should explain how you adjusted the alpha level to avoid an inflated Type I error rate, or you should select statistical tests appropriate for multiple groups (such as ANOVA rather than a series of t-tests).
  • Normal distribution: Many statistical tests require that the data be approximately normally distributed; when using these tests, you should explain how you tested your data for normality. If the data does not meet the assumptions of the test, you should use a non-parametric alternative instead.
  • Small sample size: when the sample size is small (less than about 30), you should use tests appropriate to small samples or justify the use of large-sample tests.