Guidelines for Notes, Comments, and Corrections

1. Overview of Notes, Comments, and Ratings
2. Terms of Use
3. Who can Contribute?
4. How to Add and View Notes
5. How to Add and View Comments
6. How to Add and View Corrections
7. Responding to Notes, Comments, and Corrections
8. Good Practice
9. Requesting Review of Inappropriate Content

1. Overview of Notes, Comments, and Ratings

The PLoS journal Web sites provide a number of 'Web 2.0' tools to facilitate community evaluation and discourse around published articles. There are three major components to our Web 2.0 tools:

1. Notes: Notes apply to a specific point in the online version of the article text and should be used to highlight a minor point, to make additions or clarifications, or to identify and link to material, including more extensive discussions, presented elsewhere.
2. Comments: Comments are of a more general nature and can also be added to the article, leading to threaded discussions concerning the content, conclusions, and consequences of a specific article.
3. Ratings: Users can assign individual ratings to articles, which are then aggregated to provide overall ratings and rankings of articles. Users are not allowed to rate the same article more than once, but they can subsequently revise individual ratings. For more details, see the Guidelines for Ratings.

Authors of all Notes, Comments, and Ratings will be identified by their PLoS 'user name'.

2. Terms of Use

All Notes, Comments, Ratings and other post-publication activity in the PLoS Web sites are subject to the PLoS Terms of Use.

3. Who Can Contribute?

All registered users are able to add Notes, Comments, and Ratings to any article. Anyone can register as a user. Users are required to unambiguously identify themselves with their first and last names, their geographic location, and a valid e-mail address in order to register. First and last name and geographic location are made public; however, email addresses are private. The email address and other registration fields that the user chooses to make private will be kept strictly confidential by PLoS staff unless otherwise indicated. Discussion and ratings are not anonymous. PLoS reserves the right to suspend the privileges of any registered user. Any registered user who is found to have provided false name or location information will have their account suspended and any postings or ratings removed.

4. How to Add and View Notes

To make a Note, first make sure you are logged into the Web site and viewing the full text HTML version of the paper (as opposed to the PDF). Highlight the text to be annotated and then click "Continue". The drop-down list should already have "Note" selected. If it is not, then select "Note" from the drop-down list. Enter a title and text for your Note and declare any competing interests as appropriate. When you are satisfied with the text, click "Post" to attach the Note to the article. Any correctly formed URLs in the Note text field will automatically become working links.

Notes can be started at any point within the text, but for ease of reading we ask that you do not begin Notes in the middle of words. We advise that longer Notes are first written in a word-processing program that allows for spell checking before they are copied and pasted into the Note field.

Notes are represented by the small blue "clouds" within the online text. The number in the cloud indicates the number of Notes that begin at that point in the text. To see what selection of text is associated with a Note, run the cursor over the cloud, and the text will be transiently highlighted. Click on the cloud to view the title, date, contributor, and first 250 characters of the Note. To view the complete text of a Note, click "View/respond to this" or view all Notes and Comments in the Comments tab. You can also suppress the display of Notes by choosing the "Hide notes" option within the navigation menu of the article.

5. How to Add and View Comments

To add a general Comment about the article as a whole, first make sure you are logged into the Web site. To create a Comment, click the "Make a general comment" link located within the navigation menu of the article. Alternatively, click on the "Comments" tab and use "Make a new comment on this article". Enter a title and text for your comment and declare any competing interests as appropriate.

We advise that Comments are first written in a word-processing program that allows for spell checking before they are copied and pasted into the Comment field. When you are satisfied with the text, click "Post" to attach the Comment to the article. Any correctly formed URLs in the Comment text field will automatically become working links.

To view all Comments and Notes on an article, along with any replies, click on the "Comments" tab at the top of the article.

6. How to Add and View Corrections

Two kinds of Corrections can be posted directly to an article: Minor Corrections and Formal Corrections. Minor Corrections indicate small errors and clarifications to the article, whereas Formal Corrections are reserved for errors that significantly affect the utility or understanding of the article. Formal Corrections are also sent to PubMed Central and PubMed. In both cases, the decision to indicate a posting as a Minor or Formal Correction is the responsibility of PLoS staff.

To post a Correction, first make sure you are logged into the Web site. Highlight the text to be corrected, click "Continue", and select "Correction" from the drop-down list. Enter a title and text for your Correction and declare any competing interests as appropriate. When you are satisfied with the text, click "Post" to attach the Correction to the article.

The Correction will initially appear as a Note but will be promptly reviewed by PLoS staff. After the Note is reviewed, it will either stay as a Note or be changed to a Minor Correction or Formal Correction. Once a Note is changed to a Correction, the Correction is represented by a small red triangle "cloud" within the online text.

The number in the cloud indicates the number of Corrections that begin at that point in the text. To see what selection of text is associated with a Correction, run the cursor over the cloud, and the text will be transiently highlighted. Click on the cloud to view the title, date, contributor, and first 250 characters of the Correction. To view the complete text of a Correction or the citation information of a Correction, click "View/respond to this" or view all Notes, Comments, and Corrections in the Comments tab.

Formal Corrections are also listed below the title of the article, with a link to access the full text of the Correction, and within the "Comments" tab at the top of the article

7. Responding to Notes, Comments, and Corrections

To respond to a Note, Comment, or Correction click the "Respond to this Posting" link in the bottom-right corner of the window. Enter a title and text for your response and declare any competing interests as appropriate. We advise that responses are first written in a word-processing program that allows for spell checking before they are copied and pasted into the comment field. When you are satisfied with the text, click "Post" to attach the response to the Note, Comment, or Correction. Any correctly formed URLs in the response text field will automatically become working links.

Following this procedure, an unlimited number of branching threads can be anchored to an initial Note, Comment, or Correction. If any contribution is removed following moderation, all subsequent responses along its thread will also be removed.

8. Good Practice

All contributions must conform to the norms of civilized scientific discussion. Any contributions that do not meet these standards will be removed. Any users who consistently transgress these conventions will have their user privileges removed. The following list offers guidance:

1. Language that is insulting, inflammatory, or obscene will not be tolerated.
2. Unsupported assertions or statements should be avoided. Comments must be evidence-based, not authority-based.
3. When previously published studies are cited, they must be accurately referenced and, where possible, a DOI and link to a publicly accessible version supplied.
4. Unpublished data should be provided with sufficient methodological detail for those data to be assessed. Alternatively, a permanent Web link to such information should be provided.
5. Arguments based on belief are to be avoided. For example, the assertion "I don't believe the results in Figure 2" must be supported.
6. Discussions should be confined to the demonstrable content of articles; avoid speculation about the motivations or prejudices of authors.
7. Questions about experimental data are appropriate, but need to be phrased in a way that does not imply any misconduct on the part of the authors. If a reader is concerned about potential misconduct, such concerns must always be raised with senior editorial staff at PLoS (see Journal Contact Information).

PLoS is the final arbiter of the suitability of content for inclusion in the PLoS Web sites.

9. Requesting Review of Inappropriate Content

We encourage you to request a review of a Note or Comment you believe to be inappropriate using the "Report a Concern" link in the bottom-right corner of the window. Log in to the Web site, indicate why the content should be reviewed ("Spam," "Offensive," "Inappropriate," or "Other"), enter additional information in the text box, and click "Submit". The information provided will only be visible to PLoS staff, who will investigate the content—this may involve consulting external experts if necessary. Any content that PLoS staff deems to be inappropriate will be removed. Any users who consistently post inappropriate material will have their user privileges removed. If any contribution is removed, all subsequent responses along its thread will also be removed.

PLoS is the final arbiter of the suitability of content for inclusion in the PLoS Web sites.