Author Guidelines

Instructions for Authors

Manuscript Submission Overview

Author Identification

Authors are encouraged to add a biography (300–1500 characters) to the submission and upload it to SciProfiles. This should be a single paragraph and should contain the following points:

1. Authors’ full names followed by current positions;
2. Education background including institution information and year of graduation (type and level of degree received);
3. Work experience;
4. Current and previous research interests;
5. Memberships of professional societies and awards received.

If a manuscript is accepted for publication, we will add an icon linking to your online ORCID profile in the final version of the published paper.

Author Affiliation

All authors should list their current affiliation and the affiliation where most research was carried out for the preparation of their manuscript. We recommend adding as primary the affiliation where most of the research was conducted or supported, but please check with your institution for any contractual agreement requirements.

It is very important that author names and affiliations are correct. Incorrect information can mean a lack of proper attribution or incorrect citation and can even lead to problems with promotion or funding. After the publication of an article, updates or corrections to the author’s address or affiliation may not be permitted.

Independent Researcher

If one or all the authors are not currently affiliated with a university, institution or company, or have not been during the development of the manuscript, they should list themselves as an “Independent Researcher”.

Manuscript Preparation

General Considerations

• Research manuscripts should comprise:
• Front matter: Title, Author list, Affiliations, Abstract, Keywords.
• Research manuscript sections: Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusions (optional).
• Back matter: Supplementary Materials, Acknowledgments, Author Contributions, Conflicts of Interest, References.
• Meeting Reports should comprise the front matter, report text and the back matter. The template file can also be used to prepare the front and back matter of your review manuscript. It is not necessary to follow the remaining structure.
• Case reports should include a succinct introduction about the general medical condition or relevant symptoms that will be discussed in the case report; the case presentation including all of the relevant de-identified demographic and descriptive information about the patient(s), and a description of the symptoms, diagnosis, treatment, and outcome; a discussion providing context and any necessary explanation of specific treatment decisions; a conclusion briefly outlining the take-home message and the lessons learned.
• Graphical Abstract:

  A graphical abstract (GA) is an image that appears alongside the text abstract in the Table of Contents. In addition to summarizing the content, it should represent the topic of the article in an attention-grabbing way. Moreover, it should not be exactly the same as the Figure in the paper or just a simple superposition of several subfigures. Note that the GA must be original and unpublished artwork. Any postage stamps, currency from any country, or trademarked items should not be included in it.

  The GA should be a high-quality illustration or diagram in any of the following formats: PNG, JPEG, or TIFF. Written text in a GA should be clear and easy to read, using one of the following fonts: Times, Arial, Courier, Helvetica, Ubuntu or Calibri.

  The minimum required size for the GA is 560 × 1100 pixels (height × width). The size should be of high quality in order to reproduce well.

• Acronyms/Abbreviations/Initialisms should be defined the first time they appear in each of three sections: the abstract; the main text; the first figure or table. When defined for the first time, the acronym/abbreviation/initialism should be added in parentheses after the written-out form.
• SI Units (International System of Units) should be used. Imperial, US customary and other units should be converted to SI units whenever possible.
• Accession numbers of RNA, DNA and protein sequences used in the manuscript should be provided in the Materials and Methods section. Also see the section on Deposition of Sequences and Expression Data.
• Equations: If you are using Word, please use either the Microsoft Equation Editor or the MathType add-on. Equations should be editable by the editorial office and not appear in a picture format.
• Research Data and supplementary materials: Note that publication of your manuscript implies that you must make all materials, data, and protocols associated with the publication available to readers. Disclose at the submission stage any restrictions on the availability of materials or information. Read the information about Supplementary Materials and Data Deposit for additional guidelines.
• Preregistration: Where authors have preregistered studies or analysis plans, links to the preregistration must be provided in the manuscript.
• Guidelines and standards: MDPI follows standards and guidelines for certain types of research. See https://www.mdpi.com/editorial_process for further information.

Front Matter

These sections should appear in all manuscript types

• Title: The title of your manuscript should be concise, specific and relevant. It should identify if the study reports (human or animal) trial data, or is a systematic review, meta-analysis or replication study. Please do not include abbreviated or short forms of the title, such as a running title or head. These will be removed by our Editorial Office.
• Author List and Affiliations: Authors' full first and last names must be provided. The initials of any middle names can be added. The PubMed/MEDLINE standard format is used for affiliations: complete address information including city, zip code, state/province, and country. At least one author should be designated as the corresponding author. The email addresses of all authors will be displayed on published papers. It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to ensure that consent for the display of email addresses is obtained from all authors. If an author (other than the corresponding author) does not wish to have their email addresses displayed in this way, the corresponding author must indicate as such during proofreading. After acceptance, updates to author names or affiliations may not be permitted. Equal Contributions: authors who have contributed equally should be marked with a superscript symbol (†). The symbol must be included below the affiliations, and the following statement added: “These authors contributed equally to this work”. The equal roles of authors should also be adequately disclosed in the author contributions statement. Please read the criteria to qualify for authorship.
• Abstract: The abstract should be a total of about 200 words maximum. The abstract should be a single paragraph and should follow the style of structured abstracts, but without headings: 1) Background: Place the question addressed in a broad context and highlight the purpose of the study; 2) Methods: Describe briefly the main methods or treatments applied. Include any relevant preregistration numbers, and species and strains of any animals used; 3) Results: Summarize the article's main findings; and 4) Conclusion: Indicate the main conclusions or interpretations. The abstract should be an objective representation of the article: it must not contain results which are not presented and substantiated in the main text and should not exaggerate the main conclusions.
• Keywords: Three to ten pertinent keywords need to be added after the abstract. We recommend that the keywords are specific to the article, yet reasonably common within the subject discipline.

Research Manuscript Sections

 

• Introduction: The introduction should briefly place the study in a broad context and highlight why it is important. It should define the purpose of the work and its significance, including specific hypotheses being tested. The current state of the research field should be reviewed carefully and key publications cited. Please highlight controversial and diverging hypotheses when necessary. Finally, briefly mention the main aim of the work and highlight the main conclusions. Keep the introduction comprehensible to scientists working outside the topic of the paper.
• Materials and Methods: They should be described with sufficient detail to allow others to replicate and build on published results. New methods and protocols should be described in detail while well-established methods can be briefly described and appropriately cited. Give the name and version of any software used and make clear whether computer code used is available. Include any pre-registration codes.
• Results: Provide a concise and precise description of the experimental results, their interpretation as well as the experimental conclusions that can be drawn.
• Discussion: Authors should discuss the results and how they can be interpreted in perspective of previous studies and of the working hypotheses. The findings and their implications should be discussed in the broadest context possible and limitations of the work highlighted. Future research directions may also be mentioned. This section may be combined with Results.
• Conclusions: This section is not mandatory but can be added to the manuscript if the discussion is unusually long or complex.
• Patents: This section is not mandatory but may be added if there are patents resulting from the work reported in this manuscript.

Back Matter

 

• Supplementary Materials: Describe any supplementary material published online alongside the manuscript (figure, tables, video, spreadsheets, etc.). Please indicate the name and title of each element as follows Figure S1: title, Table S1: title, etc.
• Author Contributions: Each author is expected to have made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data; or the creation of new software used in the work; or have drafted the work or substantively revised it; AND has approved the submitted version (and version substantially edited by journal staff that involves the author’s contribution to the study); AND agrees to be personally accountable for the author’s own contributions and for ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work, even ones in which the author was not personally involved, are appropriately investigated, resolved, and documented in the literature.
  For research articles with several authors, a short paragraph specifying their individual contributions must be provided. The following statements should be used "Conceptualization, X.X. and Y.Y.; Methodology, X.X.; Software, X.X.; Validation, X.X., Y.Y. and Z.Z.; Formal Analysis, X.X.; Investigation, X.X.; Resources, X.X.; Data Curation, X.X.; Writing – Original Draft Preparation, X.X.; Writing – Review & Editing, X.X.; Visualization, X.X.; Supervision, X.X.; Project Administration, X.X.; Funding Acquisition, Y.Y.”, please turn to the CRediT taxonomy for the term explanation. For more background on CRediT, see here. "Authorship must include and be limited to those who have contributed substantially to the work. Please read the section concerning the criteria to qualify for authorship carefully".
• Funding: All sources of funding of the study should be disclosed. Clearly indicate grants that you have received in support of your research work and if you received funds to cover publication costs. Note that some funders will not refund article processing charges (APC) if the funder and grant number are not clearly and correctly identified in the paper. Funding information can be entered separately into the submission system by the authors during submission of their manuscript. Such funding information, if available, will be deposited to FundRef if the manuscript is finally published.
  Please add: “This research received no external funding” or “This research was funded by [name of funder] grant number [xxx]” and “The APC was funded by [XXX]” in this section. Check carefully that the details given are accurate and use the standard spelling of funding agency names at https://search.crossref.org/funding, any errors may affect your future funding.
• Data Availability Statement: In this section, please provide details regarding where data supporting reported results can be found, including links to publicly archived datasets analyzed or generated during the study. Please refer to suggested Data Availability Statements in section “MDPI Research Data Policies”. You might choose to exclude this statement if the study did not report any data.
• Acknowledgments: In this section you can acknowledge any support given which is not covered by the author contribution or funding sections. This may include administrative and technical support, or donations in kind (e.g., materials used for experiments).
• Conflicts of Interest: Authors must identify and declare any personal circumstances or interest that may be perceived as influencing the representation or interpretation of reported research results. If there is no conflict of interest, please state "The authors declare no conflict of interest." Any role of the funding sponsors in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publish the results must be declared in this section. If there is no role, please state “The funding sponsors had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, and in the decision to publish the results”. For more details please see Conflict of Interest.
• References: References must be numbered in order of appearance in the text (including table captions and figure legends) and listed individually at the end of the manuscript. We recommend preparing the references with a bibliography software package, such as EndNote, ReferenceManager or Zotero to avoid typing mistakes and duplicated references. We encourage citations to data, computer code and other citable research material. If available online, you may use reference style 9. below.
• Citations and References in Supplementary files are permitted provided that they also appear in the main text and in the reference list.

In the text, reference numbers should be placed in square brackets [ ], and placed before the punctuation; for example [1], [1–3] or [1,3]. For embedded citations in the text with pagination, use both parentheses and brackets to indicate the reference number and page numbers; for example [5] (p. 10). or [6] (pp. 101–105).

The reference list should include the full title, as recommended by the ACS style guide. Style files for Endnote and Zotero are available.

References should be described as follows, depending on the type of work:

• Journal Articles:
  1. Author 1, A.B.; Author 2, C.D. Title of the article. Abbreviated Journal Name Year, Volume, page range.
• Books and Book Chapters:
  2. Author 1, A.; Author 2, B. Book Title, 3rd ed.; Publisher: Publisher Location, Country, Year; pp. 154–196.
  3. Author 1, A.; Author 2, B. Title of the chapter. In Book Title, 2nd ed.; Editor 1, A., Editor 2, B., Eds.; Publisher: Publisher Location, Country, Year; Volume 3, pp. 154–196.
• Unpublished materials intended for publication:
  4. Author 1, A.B.; Author 2, C. Title of Unpublished Work (optional). Correspondence Affiliation, City, State, Country. year, status (manuscript in preparation; to be submitted).
  5. Author 1, A.B.; Author 2, C. Title of Unpublished Work. Abbreviated Journal Name year, phrase indicating stage of publication (submitted; accepted; in press).
• Unpublished materials not intended for publication:
  6. Author 1, A.B. (Affiliation, City, State, Country); Author 2, C. (Affiliation, City, State, Country). Phase describing the material, year. (phase: Personal communication; Private communication; Unpublished work; etc.)
• Conference Proceedings:
  7. Author 1, A.B.; Author 2, C.D.; Author 3, E.F. Title of Presentation. In Title of the Collected Work (if available), Proceedings of the Name of the Conference, Location of Conference, Country, Date of Conference; Editor 1, Editor 2, Eds. (if available); Publisher: City, Country, Year (if available); Abstract Number (optional), Pagination (optional).
• Thesis:
  8. Author 1, A.B. Title of Thesis. Level of Thesis, Degree-Granting University, Location of University, Date of Completion.
• Websites:
  9. Title of Site. Available online: URL (accessed on Day Month Year).
  Unlike published works, websites may change over time or disappear, so we encourage you create an archive of the cited website using a service such as WebCite. Archived websites should be cited using the link provided as follows:
  10. Title of Site. URL (archived on Day Month Year).

See the Reference List and Citations Guide for more detailed information.

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Preparing Figures, Schemes and Tables

 

• File for Figures and Schemes must be provided during submission in a single zip archive and at a sufficiently high resolution (minimum 1000 pixels width/height, or a resolution of 300 dpi or higher). Common formats are accepted, however, TIFF, JPEG, EPS and PDF are preferred.
• Engineering Proceedings can publish multimedia files in articles or as supplementary materials. Please contact the editorial office for further information.
• All Figures, Schemes and Tables should be inserted into the main text close to their first citation and must be numbered following their number of appearance (Figure 1, Scheme 1, Figure 2, Scheme 2, Table 1, etc.).
• All Figures, Schemes and Tables should have a short explanatory title and caption.
• All table columns should have an explanatory heading. To facilitate the copy-editing of larger tables, smaller fonts may be used, but no less than 8 pt. in size. Authors should use the Table option of Microsoft Word to create tables.
• Authors are encouraged to prepare figures and schemes in color (RGB at 8-bit per channel). There is no additional cost for publishing full color graphics.

 

Data Deposit and Software Source Code

Data availability statements

Data availability statements are required for all articles published with MDPI. During the peer review and editorial decision process, authors can be asked to share existing datasets or raw data that have been analyzed in the manuscript, and whether they will be made available to other researchers following publication. Authors will also be asked for the details of any existing datasets that have been analyzed in the manuscript.

Below are the recommended Data Availability Statements:

Data availability status	Recommended Data Availability Statement
Data available in a publicly accessible repository	The original data presented in the study are openly available in [repository name, e.g., FigShare] at [DOI/URL] or [reference/accession number].
Data available on request due to restrictions (e.g., privacy, legal or ethical reasons)	The data presented in this study are available on request from the corresponding author due to (specify the reason for the restriction).
3rd Party Data	Restrictions apply to the availability of these data. Data were obtained from [third party] and are available [from the authors/at URL] with the permission of [third party].
Embargo on data due to commercial restrictions	The data that support the findings will be available in [repository name] at [URL / DOI link] following an embargo from the date of publication to allow for commercialization of research findings.
Restrictions apply to the datasets	The datasets presented in this article are not readily available because [include reason, e.g., the data are part of an ongoing study or due to technical/ time limitations]. Requests to access the datasets should be directed to [text input].
Data derived from public domain resources	The data presented in this study are available in [repository name] at [URL/DOI], reference number [reference number]. These data were derived from the following resources available in the public domain: [list resources and URLs]
Data sharing is not applicable (only appropriate if no new data is generated or the article describes entirely theoretical research	No new data were created or analyzed in this study. Data sharing is not applicable to this article
Data is contained within the article or supplementary material	The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/supplementary material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author/s.
Dataset available on request from the authors	The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors on request.

Data preservation

MDPI acknowledges that researchers, institutions, journals, and data repositories have a shared responsibility to ensure long-term data preservation, and MDPI encourages authors to select data repositories with this goal in mind.

MDPI encourages authors to commit to preserving their datasets on their laboratory or institutional servers, for at least five years after publication. If, during that time, the repository to which the data were originally submitted disappears or experiences data loss, we may ask the authors to upload the data to another repository and publish a correction or update to the original publication.

If authors remove their data from the original public repository or change access criteria in a manner that is inconsistent with the publication, we may ask authors to notify the editorial office as soon as possible.

How to choose an appropriate data repository

MDPI encourages the submission of data to community-recognized data repositories where possible. We recommend the authors visit re3data.org or fairsharing.org to help identify registered and certified data repositories relevant to their subject area if no community resource is available. If the authors’ institution has its generalist data repository this can be used to host authors’ data as long as the repository can mint DataCite DOIs, and allows for data to be shared under open terms of use (for example the CC0 waiver).

Data repository criteria

The following criteria should be considered when selecting an appropriate repository, ensuring that platforms:

• Ensure long-term persistence and preservation of datasets in their published form;
• Provide stable identifiers for submitted datasets (DOIs in most cases);
• Allow public access to data without barriers, such as logins or paywalls;
• Support open licenses (CC0 and CC-BY, or their equivalents, are required in most cases);
• Provide confidential review of submitted datasets without the requirement for reviewers to provide identifying information.

Research and Publication Ethics

Research Ethics

Research Involving Human Subjects

When reporting on research that involves human subjects, human material, human tissues, or human data, authors must declare that the investigations were carried out following the rules of the Declaration of Helsinki of 1975 (https://www.wma.net/what-we-do/medical-ethics/declaration-of-helsinki/), revised in 2013. According to point 23 of this declaration, an approval from the local institutional review board (IRB) or other appropriate ethics committee must be obtained before undertaking the research to confirm the study meets national and international guidelines. As a minimum, a statement including the project identification code, date of approval, and name of the ethics committee or institutional review board must be stated in Section ‘Institutional Review Board Statement’ of the article.

Example of an ethical statement: "All subjects gave their informed consent for inclusion before they participated in the study. The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, and the protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee of XXX (Project identification code)."

For non-interventional studies (e.g. surveys, questionnaires, social media research), all participants must be fully informed if the anonymity is assured, why the research is being conducted, how their data will be used and if there are any risks associated. As with all research involving humans, ethical approval from an appropriate ethics committee must be obtained prior to conducting the study. If ethical approval is not required, authors must either provide an exemption from the ethics committee or are encouraged to cite the local or national legislation that indicates ethics approval is not required for this type of study. Where a study has been granted exemption, the name of the ethics committee which provided this should be stated in Section ‘Institutional Review Board Statement’ with a full explanation regarding why ethical approval was not required.

A written informed consent for publication must be obtained from participating patients. Data relating to individual participants must be described in detail, but private information identifying participants need not be included unless the identifiable materials are of relevance to the research (for example, photographs of participants’ faces that show a particular symptom). Patients’ initials or other personal identifiers must not appear in any images. For manuscripts that include any case details, personal information, and/or images of patients, authors must obtain signed informed consent for publication from patients (or their relatives/guardians) before submitting to an MDPI journal. Patient details must be anonymized as far as possible, e.g., do not mention specific age, ethnicity, or occupation where they are not relevant to the conclusions. A template permission form is available to download. A blank version of the form used to obtain permission (without the patient names or signature) must be uploaded with your submission. Editors reserve the right to reject any submission that does not meet these requirements.

You may refer to our sample form and provide an appropriate form after consulting with your affiliated institution. For the purposes of publishing in MDPI journals, a consent, permission, or release form should include unlimited permission for publication in all formats (including print, electronic, and online), in sublicensed and reprinted versions (including translations and derived works), and in other works and products under open access license. To respect patients’ and any other individual’s privacy, please do not send signed forms. The journal reserves the right to ask authors to provide signed forms if necessary.

If the study reports research involving vulnerable groups, an additional check may be performed. The submitted manuscript will be scrutinized by the editorial office and upon request, documentary evidence (blank consent forms and any related discussion documents from the ethics board) must be supplied. Additionally, when studies describe groups by race, ethnicity, gender, disability, disease, etc., explanation regarding why such categorization was needed must be clearly stated in the article.

Dual Use Research of Concern

MDPI follows the practical framework defined in Guidance for Editors: Research, Audit and Service Evaluations and introduced by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Research that could pose a significant threat, with broad potential consequences to public health or national security, should be clearly indicated in the manuscript, and potential dual-use research of concern should be explained in the cover letter upon submission. Potential areas of concern include but are not limited to biosecurity, nuclear and chemical threats, and research with a military purpose or application, etc. For these manuscripts to be considered for peer review, the benefits to the general public or public health must outweigh the risks. The authors have a responsibility to comply with relevant national and international laws.

 

Sex and Gender in Research

We encourage our authors to follow the ‘Sex and Gender Equity in Research – SAGER – guidelines’ and to include sex and gender considerations where relevant. Authors should use the terms sex (biological attribute) and gender (shaped by social and cultural circumstances) carefully in order to avoid confusing both terms. Article titles and/or abstracts should indicate clearly what sex(es) the study applies to. Authors should also describe in the background, whether sex and/or gender differences may be expected; report how sex and/or gender were accounted for in the design of the study; provide disaggregated data by sex and/or gender, where appropriate; and discuss respective results. If a sex and/or gender analysis was not conducted, the rationale should be given in the Discussion. We suggest that our authors consult the full guidelines before submission.

 

Borders and Territories

Potential disputes over borders and territories may have particular relevance for authors in describing their research or in an author or editor correspondence address, and should be respected. Content decisions are an editorial matter and where there is a potential or perceived dispute or complaint, the editorial team will attempt to find a resolution that satisfies parties involved.

MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Publication Ethics Statement

MDPI is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). We fully adhere to its Code of Conduct and to its Best Practice Guidelines.

The editors of this journal enforce a rigorous peer review process together with strict ethical policies and standards to ensure to add high quality scientific works to the field of scholarly publication. Unfortunately, cases of plagiarism, data falsification, image manipulation, inappropriate authorship credit, and the like, do arise. The editors of Engineering Proceedings take such publishing ethics issues very seriously and are trained to proceed in such cases with a zero tolerance policy.

Authors wishing to publish their papers in Engineering Proceedings must abide to the following:

• Any facts that might be perceived as a possible conflict of interest of the author(s) must be disclosed in the paper prior to submission.
• Authors should accurately present their research findings and include an objective discussion of the significance of their findings.
• Data and methods used in the research need to be presented in sufficient detail in the paper, so that other researchers can replicate the work.
• Raw data should preferably be publicly deposited by the authors before submission of their manuscript. Authors need to at least have the raw data readily available for presentation to the referees and the editors of the journal, if requested. Authors need to ensure appropriate measures are taken so that raw data is retained in full for a reasonable time after publication.
• Simultaneous submission of manuscripts to more than one journal is not tolerated.
• The journal accepts exact translations of previously published work. All submissions of translations must conform with our policies on translations.
• If errors and inaccuracies are found by the authors after publication of their paper, they need to be promptly communicated to the editors of this journal so that appropriate actions can be taken. Please refer to our policy regarding Updating Published Papers.
• Your manuscript should not contain any information that has already been published. If you include already published figures or images, please obtain the necessary permission from the copyright holder to publish under the CC-BY license. For further information, see the Rights and Permissions page.
• Plagiarism, data fabrication and image manipulation are not tolerated.
• Plagiarism is not acceptable in Engineering Proceedings submissions.

  Plagiarism includes copying text, ideas, images, or data from another source, even from your own publications, without giving any credit to the original source.

  Reuse of text that is copied from another source must be between quotes and the original source must be cited. If a study's design or the manuscript's structure or language has been inspired by previous works, these works must be explicitly cited.

  All MDPI submissions are checked for plagiarism using the industry standard software iThenticate. If plagiarism is detected during the peer review process, the manuscript may be rejected. If plagiarism is detected after publication, an investigation will take place and action taken in accordance with our policies.

• Image files must not be manipulated or adjusted in any way that could lead to misinterpretation of the information provided by the original image.
  

  Irregular manipulation includes: 1) introduction, enhancement, moving, or removing features from the original image; 2) grouping of images that should obviously be presented separately (e.g., from different parts of the same gel, or from different gels); or 3) modifying the contrast, brightness or color balance to obscure, eliminate or enhance some information.

  If irregular image manipulation is identified and confirmed during the peer review process, we may reject the manuscript. If irregular image manipulation is identified and confirmed after publication, we may correct or retract the paper.

Our in-house editors will investigate any allegations of publication misconduct and may contact the authors' institutions or funders if necessary. If evidence of misconduct is found, appropriate action will be taken to correct or retract the publication. Authors are expected to comply with the best ethical publication practices when publishing with MDPI.

Citation Policy

Authors should ensure that where material is taken from other sources (including their own published writing) the source is clearly cited and that where appropriate permission is obtained.

Authors should not engage in excessive self-citation of their own work.

Authors should not copy references from other publications if they have not read the cited work.

Authors should not preferentially cite their own or their friends’, peers’, or institution’s publications.

Authors should not cite advertisements or advertorial material.

In accordance with COPE guidelines, we expect that “original wording taken directly from publications by other researchers should appear in quotation marks with the appropriate citations.” This condition also applies to an author’s own work. COPE have produced a discussion document on citation manipulation with recommendations for best practice.