Manuscript Submission

Manuscript Submission
General Instructions for Table Preparation
General Instructions for Figures
Pre-submission Guidelines
Reference Style Guide
Supplemental Material and Data

eCurater seeks to publish noteworthy journals that present widely substantial information which play a pivotal role in scientific understanding and advancement. The papers selected are expected to present authentic data and syntheses. To ensure plausible forum for knowledge enthusiasts, eCurater has set certain guidelines for its authors in view of preparing their contributions. Each section below throws light on certain directives that assist the authors to brace a legitimate manuscript. Authors are recommended to carefully go through the guidelines to familiarize themselves with eCurater’s drafting policies and please note that any submission that ignores these rules will strictly not be considered for the publication.

A systematic report based on the substantial primary research pooling up theoretical and experimental data analytics that aids in scientific understanding and advancement is a research article. An author’s research paper should section itself into abstract, outline, introduction, literature review, methodology, results, discussion, recommendations, limitations, conclusions, acknowledgements and references. eCurater publishes only those universally relevant, insightful studies with descriptive results that have not been previously published. Also, eCurater strongly recommends that datasets on which the conclusions of the paper rely should be included either in the main manuscript or as additional supporting files and be made available to the readers.

Preparation of Manuscript

The authors should take the following points into consideration before they begin to prepare their manuscript.

It should consist Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusion, acknowledgements and References
The results and conclusions should be supported by relevant data
Conclusions should be in line with the presented data
The data should be original and authentic

The manuscript should essentially contain the following:

Cover Letter: A one-page undersigned cover should be submitted along with the manuscript that must include the following:
- Name of the Journal
- Name of the submitting author with address, contact number and email
- Type of article being submitted. Refer to our Accepted Article Types
- A statement to declare that the manuscript is an original work of the author(s)
- A statement affirming that the similar work has not been previously published elsewhere
- A statement declaring that all the authors involved in the study have read and approved the final draft
- A brief summary of the validity and relevance of study
- If the manuscript is presented at a meeting or conference, specify the complete name of the meeting, the place and the exact date on which the paper was presented
Manuscript: The manuscript should contain the following sections.
- Title: A concise, accurate, comprehensible and informative title with information specific words should be included. The title should be in full and should not contain abbreviations. The full title should have a maximum of 150 characters. Care should be taken in optimal drafting of the title so as to increase the visibility factor of manuscript.
- Authors: All the designated authors who qualified authorship should be listed with their full names in the order of First names, Middle names and Last names. Names of those authors who contributed to the study but did not qualify authorship should be mentioned in the acknowledgements. See Authorship below.
- Abstract: The backbone of any manuscript that decides its readability is its abstract. It should essentially contain in brief, a description of the research. It should include a brief summary of findings in approximately 100-300 words and an accurate description of the article. It should culminate all the important aspects of the study into a concise draft that allows readers to decide upon its validity. The abstract of a research paper should highlight the primary objective of the research, explain the research design and reasons for adopting that methodology, state the methods and main outcomes and results, state the conclusions, including their implications for further research or practice.
- Keywords: An alphabetically ordered and carefully selected keywords list will increase the indexing scope of the journal. Keywords may include the species, tested variables and the descriptive phrases.
- Abbreviations and Symbols: Clear and standard abbreviations should be included and listed to avoid any confusion among the readers.
- Authorship: All the authors who have qualified authorship should be included in the “Authors” section of the manuscript. The author who satisfies the said requirements would qualify for the authorship. They are : 1) substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; 2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; 3) final approval of the version to be published; and 4) agreement to act as guarantor of the work.
- Acknowledgements: In this section acknowledge everyone who contributed towards the study or who was involved in drafting the manuscript but does not meet the criteria for authorship. In acknowledging the assistance of colleagues, their permission should be obtained.
- Funding Information: A list of the sources of funding, as well as the relevant grant numbers, should be provided under Funding Information.
- Conflicts of Interest: All the competing interests, financial or non-financial, should be declared by the authors. See our Publication Ethics page for detailed information.
- References: Published works, accepted works for publication and citable datasets should be included in the reference list. References of unpublished work should be cited in parenthesis within the main text of the article. Follow the author’s surname-year of publication format. References should follow the same order as mentioned in the text. Use Arabic numerals to represent references in text, tables and figures and they should be numbered accordingly in sequence.
- Tables: Concise and efficient display of information is the key to a tabular representation. The inclusion of data in tables rather than in the text format makes it feasible for the readers to access and comprehend the data. See our Table Formatting Guidelines section for details.
- Figures: As figures provide a broader scope for easy comprehension, care should be taken in maintaining accurate quality and exactness of the same. Blurred images or incomplete drawings that create ambiguity should be avoided. See our Figure Preparation Guidelines section. Figures and supplemental material should not be included in the body of the manuscript and to be submitted as separate individual files.
- The title, authors, and affiliations should all be included on a title page as the first page of the manuscript file.
- Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results and Discussion should be included in the body of the manuscript.
Supplemental Data : Additional content that supports the main content but is not critical to its assertions is called Supplemental Data. This additional content enhances the manuscript’s main text and contains complementary information relevant to the content of the article. However, this data should not be significant in comprehending the conclusions of the paper. Authors are recommended to include supplementary information with their submissions as a separate text when they cannot find it inclusive in the main body ensuring that it provides relevant data in expansion to the article with accurate metadata for better accessibility. Authors should make data and materials available to readers right from the date of publication. Prior to that, these data sets should be submitted to editors and peer reviewers for evaluation. Datasets should be catalogued in a field-specific archive or in an institutional repository.

General Instructions for Table Preparation

All the tables either in the main or supplemental text must be self-explanatory, relevant to the text content and should be comprehensible.
Well described metadata helps in discoverability.
Each table should appear in a separate page.
Each table should be numbered appropriately in the order of citation in the text.
The table numbers should be cited in the text at suitable places after the punctuation marks and in parenthesis. For example : (Table 1)
The tables should be submitted in editable files like Microsoft Word or Excel. If you wish to submit tables in non-editable files, you can still do it but should be included only as additional files to the editable files as references.
The title of the table should be included above it. It should describe the table content in brief.
The table notes should be included underneath the tables.
The table content should stand on its own. It should not duplicate the data present in the text or figures.
In case of inclusion of any materials from previously published literature, references to the same are to be provided at the end of the table caption and citation should be included in the list of references.
The tables should be prepared using the table function of Microsoft Word. Refrain from using spaces or tabs while preparing tables.
Charts should be sent as Excel or PowerPoint.
Explanations, comments and full form of non-standard abbreviations should be included in footnotes below each table.
Instead of using colour, shading or cell borders for emphasis or highlighting main content, use notes, italics or bold text with explanatory footnotes.
eCurater can copy-edit the table to match the journal’s style.
Each table should be referred to in the text.
Tables are best viewed with left alignment, no first-line indent, and single space between lines. Select each table and apply these format settings.
Explanations must be displayed as footnotes, and not in the title, and are identified with symbols in the following order: *, †, ‡, §, ||, ¶, **, ††, ‡‡. Do not underline or draw lines inside tables and do not use spaces to separate columns.
Tables must have heading/subheading levels in separate columns.
Tables must not have text boxes or pictures inside them. There shouldn’t be any empty rows or cells. A table should not contain tables within them or cells within cells. They should not include hyperlinked text.

Any table that deviates from the above general rules will be sent back for formatting.

General Instructions for Figures

Relevant clinical, radiological and pathological images should be included with the manuscript to increase the impact of the work on the readers.
The following file formats are accepted for figures: JPEG, PNG, TIFF, BMP, GIF, and Power Point.
For previously published text or figures, permission must be obtained from the rightful party and all the expenses for obtaining such permission will have to be borne by the authors(s). If not, you are suggested to use alternative work available for free to cite in your manuscript.
Figures should be numbered consecutively according to the order of citation in the text.
Figure numbers are to be mentioned in the text at the appropriate places in parenthesis. For example: (Figure 1) or (Figure 1A, 2).
Images should not be included in the main manuscript.
All figures should be provided as separate files.
Colour figures can be included wherever possible.
The name of the separate figure file should include the figure number. Examples of File names: Figure1, Figure2 etc.
Figure files should have a minimum of 300 pixels per inch (ppi) if in color or halftone, or at 1200 ppi if as line art. Digital scanned line drawings should have a minimum resolution of 800 dpi. Figures containing color should be in RGB (millions of colors), 8 bits per channel. No other color space is allowed, such as CMYK, indexed, or bitmap. Save grayscale or RGB files with a depth of 8 bits per channel, not 16.
Multiple figures can be combined into one composite figure by denoting the figure parts on the figure by uppercase letters (A, B, C etc.). Label each figure in the lower left hand corner. Labels should not include the word ‘Figure'. Letters should be easily visible and the consistency of their size should be ensured all through. Title of figures or explanations should be mentioned only in the figure legends.
Figure legend should be included in the main manuscripts following the References.
Figure legend should begin with the term 'Figure' followed by figure number (e.g. 'Figure 1').
Refrain from using abbreviations.
Text within a figure should be Arial, Times, and/or Symbol 6-12 point to ensure legibility.
TIFF files with multiple layers are not acceptable. Please provide a flattened version of any multiple layered file.
Use Tahoma font (size 10 maximum) for all items in your graphs (Title, legend, axes etc).
Stereograms must be sized so that the centers of each of these images are 63 mm apart. Make sure that the stereogram figure is at the size you would like them to display.

The journal seeks the right to modify, crop, rotate, reduce, or enlarge the photographs to an acceptable size.

Reference Style Guide

Consistency and readability are the key aspects of accessing any reference list and bibliography. To provide easy access to the citations, eCurater has chosen APA, MLA and Harvard Styles of referencing. Once the article is accepted by eCurater, it will be formatted as per the Journal format. But submission of the paper should follow the following guidelines to ensure readability and smooth review.

APA Reference Style Guide: The format that APA holds is author/date. This means emphasis is laid on the author’s name and the date of the work to identify it. The following points provide a brief outline of the style that helps authors in formatting their manuscript.

To format a paper in APA Style, writers can use the default settings and automatic formatting tools of their word-processing program
Arrange the pages in the order as Title Page, Abstract, Text, References, Footnotes, Tables, Figures, Appendices
Font options include : sans serif fonts 11-point Calibri, 11-point Arial, or 10-point Lucida Sans Unicode ; serif fonts 12-point Times New Roman, 11-point Georgia, or normal (10-point) ; For Figures : sans serif font with a type size between 8 and 14 points; For computer code: Use a monospace font such as 10-point Lucida Console or 10-point Courier New; For footnotes: When inserting footnotes with the footnotes function of your word-processing program, use the default font settings
Use the page-numbering function of your word-processing program to insert page numbers.
Insert page numbers on the top right corner of every page. Title page should be numbered as 1
Provide a Running head of not more than 50 characters in all capital letters. Align it to the left margin of the page header
Provide a double-space in the paper, including the abstract, text, block quotations, table and figure numbers, titles, and notes, and reference list (including between and within entries)
Use 1-inch margins on every side of the page for an APA Style paper
Align the text to the left margin. Leave the text right margin uneven
Indent the first line of each paragraph of text at 0.5 inch from the left margin. Use the tab key for this process (the default setting is likely already 0.5 in.). Do not use the space bar to create indentation
There are five levels of heading in APA Style. Level 1 is the main level of heading, Level 2 is a subheading of Level 1, Level 3 is a subheading of Level 2, and so on through Levels 4 and 5
To find the exhaustive list of formatting guidelines, we strongly recommend authors to click here to ensure concise, powerful, and persuasive scholarly communication

MLA Reference Style Guide: MLA is often applied by the Arts and Humanities, particularly in the USA. The following are a few quick guidelines that help authors cite using MLA style of formatting that can be applied to the entire paper.

One-inch margins should be made on the top, bottom, and sides
The first word in every paragraph should be indented by 0.5 inch
Indent set-off quotations one inch from the left margin
Use any type of font that is easy to read, such as Times New Roman with 12-point size
Double space the entire research paper, even the works cited page
Leave one space after periods and other punctuation marks

Authors are recommended to go through the complete detailed explanation of the MLA style guidelines here or here

Harvard Reference Style: Harvard is very similar to APA. It is primarily used in the Humanities and Social sciences.

There are two types of citation in Harvard referencing: in-text citations that are found in the main body of the work and reference lists, which are located at the end of the main work and list full information for all sources mentioned within the work
In-text citations for a research paper format: Last name, First initial. (Year). Article Title. Journal name, Volume (Issue), Page/s
The citation in the reference list format: Last name, First initial. (Year). Article Title. Journal name, Volume (Issue), Page/s. Available from: URL. [Accessed: date]
If more than one work is cited, the citations should be separated with semicolons
For more than two authors of a single work, use “et al.”: (Yogman et al. 1976)
For two works published in the same year by the same author, use “a” and “b” (Gould 1995a,b)
Arrange citations in either chronological or alphabetical order
Double-check all citations in the text against the references for accuracy

Authors are recommended to go through the complete detailed explanation of the Harvard style guidelines here.

Supplemental Material and Data

Additional content that supports the main content but is not critical to its assertions is called Supplemental Data. This additional content enhances the manuscript’s main text and contains complementary information relevant to the content of the article. However, this data should not be vital in understanding the conclusions of the paper. Authors are recommended to include supplementary information as a separate text when they don’t find it to fit into the main body ensuring that it provides relevant data in expansion to the article with accurate metadata for better accessibility.

Supplementary data should be submitted along with the main manuscript as it should also undergo the peer review process. The authors should ensure referring the Supplementary material as “Supporting Material” or “Additional Material”. Also, this supplementary information should be referred to in the main manuscript. Supplementary data should be submitted in separate files. The style of Supplemental data file should conform to that of the test of the paper. The same publishing rules will apply to the supplemental data just like that of the main manuscript.

Supplemental Material should be relevant to the main article and should provide useful and accessible additional information that helps the reader gain additional relevant scientific knowledge. Well defined consistent naming of figures, tables, images etc is highly recommended to ensure better discoverability. The file number should be preceded by S and must end with a period. For example: Figure S1 or Table S1 or Text S1 etc.

The titles for Figures, Tables, etc should be provided clearly in bold using sentence case and not exceeding 15 characters. The caption that describes the Figure should not exceed 300 words. This is to ensure easy understanding without the readers referring back to the main text.

Supplementary text should be submitted as text files in MS Word, HTML or RTF format. Any spreadsheets should be submitted in MS Excel or CSV format. Supplementary Figures should be submitted as tif, gif or jpg files. The maximum file size is 5MB and the maximum dimension is 1200 x 1200 pixels. Multiple files should not be zipped (compressed, packed) together, they should be uploaded as separate supplementary files.

eCurater recommends its authors to make the data promptly available to the readers without any restrictions. Any such unavoidable restrictions on the availability of information should be disclosed to the editors at the time of submission. Data sets must be submitted for evaluation and will be made accessible right from the date of publication.

Manuscript Submission