Article structure

You should consider the best way to structure your article before you begin writing. If you wish to use a LaTeX template to format your manuscript (this is optional, you are not obliged to do so) then the files are available in zipped format and Unix tar gzipped format here. Your article should follow the Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion system, and usually consist of the following sections:

Title

The title should be concise, informative and meaningful to the whole readership of the journal. It should include key terms, to help make it more discoverable when people search online. Please avoid the use of long systemic names and non-standard or obscure abbreviations, acronyms or symbols.

Authors

Check the peer review model for the journal you are submitting to when preparing the PDF version of your manuscript. If double-anonymous then you will need to anonymise your manuscript. If single-anonymous then you need to list all authors’ full names and institutions. Authors in all IOP journals have the option to include names in Chinese, Japanese or Korean characters in addition to the English name. The names will be displayed in parentheses after the English name. During the submission process, we recommend you supply ORCID identifiers for all authors to avoid ambiguity. If an author’s current address is different from the address where the work was carried out, this should be explained in a footnote or acknowledgement. We encourage authors to make specific attributions of contribution and responsibility in the acknowledgements of the article, otherwise all co-authors will be taken to share full responsibility for all of the paper. Authors may wish to use a taxonomy such as CRediT to describe the contributions of each author. More guidance on authorship, including the responsibilities of the corresponding author, can be found here.

Keywords

When you submit an article, you will be asked to supply some keywords relevant to your work. If your article is accepted for publication, we will display these keywords on the published article, and they will be used to index your article, helping to make it more discoverable. When choosing keywords, think about the kinds of terms you would use when searching online for related articles.

Abstract

Your abstract should give readers a brief summary of your article. It should concisely describe the contents of your article, and include key terms (especially in the first two sentences, to increase search engine discoverability). It should be informative, accessible and not only indicate the general aims and scope of the article, but also state the methodology used, main results obtained and conclusions drawn. The abstract should be complete in itself; it should not contain undefined acronyms/abbreviations and no table numbers, figure numbers, references or equations should be referred to. Articles relying on clinical trials should quote the trial registration number at the end of the abstract. The abstract should be suitable for direct inclusion in abstracting services and should not normally be more than 300 words. If you submit an article with an abstract longer than 300 words, we may rescind the manuscript and ask you to re-write it. Some journals ask for abstracts to follow a particular structure. Check the instructions for specific journals to see if you need to submit a structured abstract.

Introduction

This should be concise and describe the nature of the problem under investigation and its background. It should also set your work in the context of previous research, citing relevant references. Introductions should expand on highly specialised terms and abbreviations used in the article to make it accessible for readers.

Method

This section should provide sufficient details of the experiment, simulation, statistical test or analysis carried out to generate the results such that the method can be repeated by another researcher and the results reproduced.

Results

The results section should detail the main findings and outcomes of your study. You should use tables only to improve conciseness or where the information cannot be given satisfactorily in other ways such as histograms or graphs. Tables should be numbered serially and referred to in the text by number (table 1, etc.). Each table should have an explanatory caption which should be as concise as possible.

Discussion

This should discuss the significance of the results and compare them with previous work using relevant references.

Conclusion

This section should be used to highlight the novelty and significance of the work, and any plans for future relevant work.

Acknowledgements

Check the peer review model for the journal you are submitting to when preparing the PDF version of your manuscript. If double-anonymous then do not include any author names or institution information in the Acknowledgements section of your manuscript. Author names and Funding information should be removed and can be re-added later in the peer review process. For single-anonymous please include an acknowledgements section before the References section in your PDF manuscript.

During the submission process all authors and co-authors are required to disclose any potential conflict(s) of interest when submitting an article (e.g. employment, consulting fees, research contracts, stock ownership, patent licences, honoraria, advisory affiliations, etc). This information should be included in an acknowledgements section at the end of the manuscript (before the references section). All sources of financial support for the project must also be disclosed in the acknowledgements section. The name of the funding agency and the grant number should be given, for example: This work was partially funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) through a National Cancer Institute grant R21CA141833. When completing the online submission form, we also ask you to select funders and provide grant numbers in order to help you meet your funder requirements. We encourage authors to use the acknowledgements section of the article to make specific attributions of author contribution and responsibility, otherwise all co-authors will be taken to share full responsibility for all of the paper.

Ethical statement

Some articles will require an ethical statement, particularly those that are reporting research involving humans or animals. This should state if the research was approved by any ethical committee, and which national or international standards were complied with.

References

This section should be used to list all relevant work. More information on referencing. However, check the peer review model for the journal you are submitting to. If double-anonymous then when referring to thesis/unpublished work, please avoid identifying information. You should include non-identifiable information e.g. journal name, year etc...

If you need more information or guidance about any of the above then please contact the journal to which you are submitting.