PLoS ONE Manuscript Guidelines

Format Requirements
Guidelines for Standard Sections
Specific Reporting Guidelines

Human Research
Clinical Trials
Animal Research
Observational and Field Studies
Cell Line Research
Systematic Review/Meta-Analysis
Software Papers
Database Papers
New Zoological Taxon
New Botanical Taxon
New Fungal Taxon

Language Polishing Services

1. Format requirements

PLoS ONE does not consider presubmission inquiries. All submissions should be prepared as follows:

Cover letter

You should supply an approximately one page cover letter that:

Concisely summarizes why your paper is a valuable addition to the scientific literature
Briefly relates your study to previously published work
Specifies the type of article you are submitting (for example, research article, systematic review, meta-analysis, clinical trial)
Describes any prior interactions with PLoS regarding the submitted manuscript
Suggests appropriate PLoS ONE Academic Editors to handle your manuscript (view a complete listing of our academic editors)
Lists any recommended or opposed reviewers

Your cover letter should not include requests to reduce or waive publication fees. You will have the opportunity to include these requests during the manuscript submission process. See the PLoS ONE Editorial Policy regarding publication fees for more information.

Manuscript Organization

PLoS ONE considers manuscripts of any length. There are no explicit restrictions for the number of words, figures, or the length of the supporting information, although we encourage a concise and accessible writing style.

Most articles published in PLoS ONE begin with the ordered sections:

Title
Authors
Affiliations
Abstract
Introduction

and end with the sections of:

Acknowledgments
References
Figure Legends
Tables

The title, authors, and affiliations should all be included on a title page as the first page of the manuscript file.

Between these beginning and ending sections, articles may be organized in different ways according to what authors think is the best way to present and discuss their science. In most cases, internal sections include:

Materials and Methods
Results
Discussion
Conclusions (optional)

PLoS ONE has no specific requirements for the order of these sections, and in some cases it may be appropriate to combine sections. Guidelines for individual sections can be found here.

Abbreviations should be kept a minimum and defined upon first use in the text. Non-standard abbreviations should not be used unless they appear at least three times in the text.

Appropriate standardized nomenclature should be used as appropriate, including appropriate usage of species names and SI units.

File type requirements

Authors may submit their manuscript files in Word (as .doc or .docx), LaTeX (as .pdf), or RTF format. Only RTF and .doc files can be used during the production process.

If you would like to submit your manuscript using LaTeX, you must author your article using the PLoS ONE LaTeX template and BibTeX style sheet. 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.

If your manuscript is or will be in .docx format 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.

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

If, when saving your final document, you see a message saying "Equations will be converted to images," your equations are no longer editable and PLoS will not be able to accept your file.

2. Guidelines for Standard Sections

Title

Manuscripts must be submitted with both a full title and a short title, which will appear at the top of the PDF upon publication if accepted. Only the full title should be included in the manuscript file; the short title will be entered during the online submission process.

The full title must be 150 characters or fewer. It should be specific, descriptive, concise, and comprehensible to readers outside the subject field. Avoid specialist abbreviations if possible. Where appropriate, authors should include the species or model system used (for biological papers) or type of study design (for clinical papers).

Examples:

Impact of Cigarette Smoke Exposure on Innate Immunity: A Caenorhabditis elegans Model
Solar Drinking Water Disinfection (SODIS) to Reduce Childhood Diarrhoea in Rural Bolivia: A Cluster-Randomized, Controlled Trial

The short title must be 50 characters or fewer and should state the topic of the paper.

Authors and Affiliations

All author names should be listed in the following order:

First names (or initials, if used),
Middle names (or initials, if used), and
Last names (surname, family name)

Each author should list an associated department, university, or organizational affiliation and its location, including city, state/province (if applicable), and country. If the article has been submitted on behalf of a consortium, all author names and affiliations should be listed at the end of the article.

This information cannot be changed after initial submission, so please ensure that it is correct.

PLoS ONE bases its criteria for authorship on those outlined by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), summarized below:

Authors should meet conditions 1, 2, and 3 below to be assigned credit for authorship:
All persons designated as authors should qualify for authorship, and all those who qualify should be listed.
When a large, multicenter group has conducted the work, the group should identify the individuals who accept direct responsibility for the manuscript. These individuals should fully meet the criteria for authorship/contributorship defined above. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content.
When submitting a manuscript authored by a group, the corresponding author should clearly indicate the preferred citation and identify all individual authors as well as the group name. The contributions of all authors must be described. Note that acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group alone does not constitute authorship. Contributions that fall short of authorship should be mentioned in the Acknowledgments section of the paper.
The National Library of Medicine (NLM) indexes the group name and the names of individuals the group has identified as being directly responsible for the manuscript. The NLM also lists the names of collaborators if they are listed in Acknowledgments.

One author should be designated as the corresponding author, and his or her email address or other contact information should be included on the manuscript cover page. This information will be published with the article if accepted.

See the PLoS ONE Editorial Policy regarding authorship criteria for more information.

Abstract

The abstract should not exceed 300 words. It should:

Describe the main objective(s) of the study
Explain how the study was done, including any model organisms used, without methodological detail
Summarize the most important results and their significance

Abstracts should not include:

Citations
Specialist abbreviations, if possible

Introduction

The introduction should:

Provide some background to put the manuscript into context and allow readers outside the field to understand the purpose and significance of the study
Define the problem addressed and why it is important
Include a brief review of the key literature
Note any relevant controversies or disagreements in the field
Conclude with a brief statement of the overall aim of the work and a comment about whether that aim was achieved

Materials and Methods

This section should provide enough detail to allow suitably skilled investigators to fully replicate your study. Specific information and/or protocols for new methods should be included in detail. If materials, methods, and protocols are well established, authors may refer to other papers where those protocols are described in detail, but the submission should include sufficient information to be understood independent of these references.

We encourage authors to submit detailed protocols for newer or less well-established methods as Supporting Information. These are published online only, but are linked to the article and are fully searchable. For more information about formatting Supporting Information files, click here.

Methods sections of papers on research using human or animal subjects and/or tissue or field sampling must include required ethics statements. See the Reporting Guidelines for human research, clinical trials, animal research, and observational and field studies for more information.

Methods sections of papers with data that should be deposited in a publicly available database should specify where the data have been deposited and provide the relevant accession numbers and version numbers, if appropriate. Accession numbers should be provided in parentheses after the entity on first use. If the accession numbers have not yet been obtained at the time of submission, please state that they will be provided during review. They must be provided prior to publication.

Methods sections of papers using cell lines must state the origin of the cell lines used. See the Reporting Guidelines for cell line research for more information.

Methods sections of papers adding new taxon names to the literature must follow the Reporting Guidelines below for a new zoological taxon, botanical taxon, or fungal taxon.

Results, Discussion, and Conclusions

These sections may all be separate, or may be combined to create a mixed Results/Discussion section (commonly labeled "Results and Discussion") or a mixed Discussion/Conclusions section (commonly labeled "Discussion"). These sections may be further divided into subsections, each with a concise subheading, as appropriate. These sections have no word limit, but the language should be clear and concise.

Together, these sections should describe the results of the experiments, the interpretation of these results, and the conclusions that can be drawn. Authors should explain how the results relate to the hypothesis presented as the basis of the study and provide a succinct explanation of the implications of the findings, particularly in relation to previous related studies and potential future directions for research.

PLoS ONE editorial decisions do not rely on the novelty or perceived impact, so authors should avoid overstating their conclusions. See the PLoS ONE Publication Criteria for more information.

Acknowledgements

People who contributed to the work but do not fit the PLoS ONE authorship criteria should be listed in the acknowledgments, along with their contributions. You must ensure that anyone named in the acknowledgments agrees to being so named.

Funding sources should not be included in the acknowledgments, or anywhere in the manuscript file. You will provide this information during the manuscript submission process.

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.

Because all references will be linked electronically as much as possible to the papers they cite, proper formatting of the references is crucial. For convenience, a number of reference software companies supply PLoS style files (e.g., Reference Manager, EndNote).

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

Figures should not be included in the manuscript file, but figure legends should be.

Figure legends should describe the key messages of a figure. Legends should have a short title of 15 words or less. The full legend should have a description of the figure and allow readers to understand the figure without referring to the text. The legend itself should be succinct, avoid lengthy descriptions of methods, and define all non-standard symbols and abbreviations.

Further information can be found in the Figure Guidelines.

Tables

Tables should be included at the end of the manuscript. 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 occupying more than one printed page should be avoided, if possible. Larger tables can be published as Supporting Information. Please ensure that table formatting conforms to our Guidelines for table preparation.

3. Specific Reporting Guidelines

Additional information about reporting guidelines for specific article types can be found at the PLoS Editorial and Publishing Policies.

Human Research

Methods sections of papers on research using human subject or samples must include ethics statements that specify:

The name of the approving institutional review board or equivalent committee(s). If approval was not obtained, the authors must provide a detailed statement explaining why it was not needed
Whether informed consent was written or oral. If informed consent was oral, it must be stated in the paper:
- Why written consent could not be obtained
- That the Institutional Review Board (IRB) approved use of oral consent
- How oral consent was documented

For studies involving humans categorized by race/ethnicity, age, disease/disabilities, religion, sex/gender, sexual orientation, or other socially constructed groupings, authors should:

Explicitly describe their methods of categorizing human populations
Define categories in as much detail as the study protocol allows
Justify their choices of definitions and categories, including for example whether any rules of human categorization were required by their funding agency
Explain whether (and if so, how) they controlled for confounding variables such as socioeconomic status, nutrition, environmental exposures, or similar factors in their analysis

In addition, outmoded terms and potentially stigmatizing labels should be changed to more current, acceptable terminology. Examples: "Caucasian" should be changed to "white" or "of [Western] European descent" (as appropriate); "cancer victims" should be changed to "patients with cancer."

For papers that include identifying, or potentially identifying, information, authors must download the Consent Form for Publication in a PLoS Journal (PDF), which the individual, parent, or guardian must sign once they have read the paper and been informed about the terms of the PLoS open-access license. The signed consent form should not be submitted with the manuscript, but authors should securely file it in the individual's case notes and the methods section of the manuscript should explicitly state that consent authorization for publication is on file, using wording like:

"The individual in this manuscript has given written informed consent (as outlined in the PLoS consent form) to publish these case details."

For more information about PLoS ONE policies regarding human subject research, see the Publication Criteria and Editorial Policies.

Clinical Trials

Authors of manuscripts describing the results of clinical trials must adhere to the CONSORT reporting guidelines appropriate to their trial design, available on the CONSORT Statement website. Before the paper can enter peer review, authors must:

Provide the registry name and number in the methods section of the manuscript
Provide a copy of the trial protocol as approved by the ethics committee and a completed CONSORT checklist as Supporting Information (which will be published alongside the paper, if accepted)
Include the CONSORT flow diagram as the manuscript's "Figure 1"

Any deviation from the trial protocol must be explained in the paper. Authors must explicitly discuss informed consent in their paper, and we reserve the right to ask for a copy of the patient consent form.

The methods section must include the name of the registry, the registry number, and the URL of your trial in the registry database for each location in which the trial is registered.

For more information about PLoS ONE policies regarding clinical trials, see the Editorial Policies.

Animal research

Methods sections of papers reporting results of animal research must include required ethics statements that specify:

The full name of the relevant ethics committee that approved the work, and the associated permit numbers; where ethical approval is not required, the article should include a clear statement of this and the reason why
Relevant details for efforts taken to ameliorate animal suffering

Example: "This study was carried out in strict accordance with the recommendations in the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals of the National Institutes of Health. The protocol was approved by the Committee on the Ethics of Animal Experiments of the University of Minnesota (Permit Number: 27-2956). All surgery was performed under sodium pentobarbital anesthesia, and all efforts were made to minimize suffering."

The organism(s) studied should always be stated in the abstract. Where research may be confused as pertaining to clinical research, the animal model should also be stated in the title.

We encourage authors to use the ARRIVE (Animal Research: Reporting of In Vivo Experiments) guidelines as a reference.

For more information about PLoS ONE policies regarding animal research, see the Publication Criteria and Editorial Policies.

Observational and field studies

Methods sections for submissions reporting on any type of field study must include ethics statements that specify:

Permits and approvals obtained for the work, including the full name of the authority that approved the study; if none were required, authors should explain why
Whether the land accessed is privately owned or protected
Whether any protected species were sampled
Full details of animal husbandry, experimentation, and care/welfare, where relevant

For more information about PLoS ONE policies regarding observational and field studies, see the Publication Criteria and Editorial Policies.

Work using cell lines

Methods sections for submissions reporting on research with cell lines should state the origin of any cell lines. For established cell lines it should be stated from where/who the cell line was obtained, and references must also be given to either a published paper or to a commercial source. If previously unpublished de novo cell lines were used, including those gifted from another laboratory, details of institutional review board or ethics committee approval must be given, and confirmation of written informed consent must be provided if the line is of human origin.

For more information about PLoS ONE policies regarding observational and field studies, see the Publication Criteria.

Systematic Review/Meta-Analysis

A systematic review paper, as defined by The Cochrane Collaboration, is a review of a clearly formulated question that uses explicit, systematic methods to identify, select, and critically appraise relevant research, and to collect and analyze data from the studies that are included in the review. These reviews differ substantially from narrative-based reviews or synthesis articles. Statistical methods (meta-analysis) may or may not be used to analyze and summarize the results of the included studies.

Reports of systematic reviews and meta-analyses should use the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) statement as a guide, and must include a completed PRISMA checklist and flow diagram to accompany the main text. Blank templates of the checklist and flow diagram can be downloaded from the PRISMA website. Authors must also state in their "Methods" section whether a protocol exists for their systematic review, and if so, provide a copy of the protocol as Supporting Information and provide the registry number in the abstract.

If your article is a Systematic Review or a Meta-Analysis you should:

State this in your cover letter
Select 'Research Article' as your article type when submitting
Upload your PRISMA flowchart as Figure 1 (required where applicable)
Include the PRISMA checklist as Supporting Information.

Software Papers

Manuscripts describing software should provide full details of the algorithms designed. Describe any dependencies on commercial products or operating system. Include details of the supplied test data and explain how to install and run the software. A brief description of enhancements made in the major releases of the software may also be given. Authors should provide a direct link to the deposited software from within the paper.

See the PLoS ONE Editorial Policies and the PLoS Editorial and Publishing Policies for more information about submitting papers describing software.

Database Papers

For descriptions of databases, provide details about how the data were curated, as well as plans for long-term database maintenance, growth, and stability. Authors should provide a direct link to the database hosting site from within the paper.

See the PLoS ONE Editorial Policies for more information about submitting papers describing databases.

New Zoological Taxon

PLoS ONE aims to comply with the requirements of the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) when publishing papers that describe a new zoological taxon name. However, the ICZN does not yet recognize online-only journals. There is a proposal to amend the Code to accommodate such publications.

Until acceptance of this amendment, the ICZN has proposed an interim solution for authors publishing in PLoS ONE to ensure that the scientific animal name is be considered "available" (legally published) under the rules of the Code. PLoS ONE provides a limited hardcopy print-run of the article and makes it publicly obtainable. Therefore, for all papers that include the naming of a new zoological taxon, PLoS will make a printed version available for outside parties (at a cost of $10, to cover postage and printing) at the same time as the publication of the online-only article (which remains freely available).

The printed version of the article contains the text below in the footer of the first page. This text will be added by PLoS staff, and does not need to be included by the authors:

Footer text: "This printed document was produced by a method that assures numerous identical and durable copies, and those copies were simultaneously obtainable for the purpose of providing a public and permanent scientific record, in accordance with Article 8.1 of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature. Date of publication: XXXXXXXX. This document is otherwise identical to DOI: XXXXX

For proper registration of the new taxon, we also require two specific statements to be included in your manuscript.

In the Results section, the globally unique identifier (GUID), currently in the form of a Life Science Identifier (LSID), should be listed under the new species name, for example:

Anochetus boltoni Fisher sp. nov. urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act:B6C072CF-1CA6-40C7-8396-534E91EF7FBB

You will need to contact Zoobank to obtain a GUID (LSID). Please do this as early as possible to avoid delay of publication upon acceptance of your manuscript. It is your responsibility to provide us with this information so we can include it in the final published paper.

Please also insert the following text into the Methods section, in a sub-section to be called "Nomenclatural Acts":

The electronic version of this document does not represent a published work according to the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN), and hence the nomenclatural acts contained in the electronic version are not available under that Code from the electronic edition. Therefore, a separate edition of this document was produced by a method that assures numerous identical and durable copies, and those copies were simultaneously obtainable (from the publication date noted on the first page of this article) for the purpose of providing a public and permanent scientific record, in accordance with Article 8.1 of the Code. The separate print-only edition is available on request from PLoS by sending a request to PLoS ONE, Public Library of Science, 1160 Battery Street, Suite 100, San Francisco, CA 94111, USA along with a check for $10 (to cover printing and postage) payable to "Public Library of Science".

In addition, this published work and the nomenclatural acts it contains have been registered in ZooBank, the proposed online registration system for the ICZN. The ZooBank LSIDs (Life Science Identifiers) can be resolved and the associated information viewed through any standard web browser by appending the LSID to the prefix "http://zoobank.org/". The LSID for this publication is: (insert here). The online version of this work is archived and available from the following digital repositories: [INSERT NAMES OF DIGITAL REPOSITORIES WHERE ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT WILL BE SUBMITTED (PubMed Central, LOCKSS etc)].

All PLoS ONE articles are deposited in PubMed Central and LOCKSS. If your institute, or those of your co-authors, has its own repository, we recommend that you also deposit the published online article there and include the name in your article.

New Botanical Taxon

When publishing papers that describe a new botanical taxon name, PLoS aims to comply with the requirements of the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (ICN). In association with the International Plant Names Index (IPNI), the following guidelines for publication in an online-only journal have been agreed such that any scientific botanical name published by us is considered effectively published under the rules of the Code. Please note that these guidelines differ from those for zoological nomenclature.

Effective January 2012, "the description or diagnosis required for valid publication of the name of a new taxon" can be in either Latin or English. This does not affect the requirements for scientific names, which are still to be Latin.

Also effective January 2012, the electronic PDF represents a published work according to the ICN for algae, fungi, and plants. Therefore the new names contained in the electronic publication of a PLoS ONE article are effectively published under that Code from the electronic edition alone, so there is no longer any need to provide printed copies.

Additional information describing recent changes to the Code can be found here.

For proper registration of the new taxon, we require two specific statements to be included in your manuscript.

In the Results section, the globally unique identifier (GUID), currently in the form of a Life Science Identifier (LSID), should be listed under the new species name, for example:

Solanum aspersum S.Knapp, sp. nov. [urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:77103633-1] Type: Colombia. Putumayo: vertiente oriental de la Cordillera, entre Sachamates y San Francisco de Sibundoy, 1600-1750 m, 30 Dec 1940, J. Cuatrecasas 11471 (holotype, COL; isotypes, F [F-1335119], US [US-1799731]).

You will need to contact IPNI to obtain the GUID (LSID) after your manuscript is accepted for publication. You must then make sure to provide us with this information so we can include it in the final published paper.

In the Methods section, include a sub-section called "Nomenclature" using the following wording:

The electronic version of this article in Portable Document Format (PDF) will represent a published work according to the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants, and hence the new names contained in the electronic version are effectively published under that Code from the electronic edition alone.

In addition, new names contained in this work have been submitted to IPNI, from where they will be made available to the Global Names Index. The IPNI LSIDs can be resolved and the associated information viewed through any standard web browser by appending the LSID contained in this publication to the prefix http://ipni.org/. The online version of this work is archived and available from the following digital repositories: [INSERT NAMES OF DIGITAL REPOSITORIES WHERE ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT WILL BE SUBMITTED (PubMed Central, LOCKSS etc)].

New Fungal Taxon

When publishing papers that describe a new fungal taxon name, PLoS aims to comply with the requirements of the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (ICN). The following guidelines for publication in an online-only journal have been agreed such that any scientific fungal name published by us is considered effectively published under the rules of the Code. Please note that these guidelines differ from those for zoological nomenclature.

Additional information describing recent changes to the Code can be found here.

For proper registration of the new taxon, we require two specific statements to be included in your manuscript.

In the Results section, the globally unique identifier (GUID), currently in the form of a Life Science Identifier (LSID), should be listed under the new species name, for example:

Hymenogaster huthii. Stielow et al. 2010, sp. nov. [urn:lsid:indexfungorum.org:names:518624]

You will need to contact either Mycobank or Index Fungorum to obtain the GUID (LSID). Please do this as early as possible to avoid delay of publication upon acceptance of your manuscript. It is your responsibility to provide us with this information so we can include it in the final published paper. Effective January 2013, all papers describing new fungal species must reference the identifier issued by a recognized repository in the protologue in order to be considered effectively published.

In the Methods section, include a sub-section called "Nomenclature" using the following wording (this example is for taxon names submitted to MycoBank; please substitute appropriately if you have submitted to Index Fungorum):

The electronic version of this article in Portable Document Format (PDF) will represent a published work according to the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants, and hence the new names contained in the electronic version are effectively published under that Code from the electronic edition alone.

In addition, new names contained in this work have been submitted to MycoBank from where they will be made available to the Global Names Index. The unique MycoBank number can be resolved and the associated information viewed through any standard web browser by appending the MycoBank number contained in this publication to the prefix http://www.mycobank.org/MycoTaxo.aspx?Link=T&Rec=. The online version of this work is archived and available from the following digital repositories: [INSERT NAMES OF DIGITAL REPOSITORIES WHERE ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT WILL BE SUBMITTED (PubMed Central, LOCKSS etc)].

4. Language polishing services

Prior to submission, authors who believe their manuscripts would benefit from professional editing are encouraged to use language-editing and copyediting services. Obtaining this service is the responsibility of the author, and should be done before initial submission. Submissions are not copyedited before publication. Please contact plosone [at] plos.org for assistance if needed. Submissions that do not meet the PLoS ONE Publication Criteria for language standards may be rejected.