Manuscript Pre-submission checklist

INCOMPLETE WORK IN PROGRESS

• Check that the submission includes the ORCIDs for all authors (usually listed on the title page, some journals request these during the submission process).
• All article submissions with a University of Exeter author or co-author must include set text in the acknowledgements section of the manuscript and in any covering letter: ‘For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a ‘Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising’    
• Ensure that there are continuous line numbers (to facilitate the review process)
• Confirm that all figures and tables are mentioned in main text, in the correct order.
• Confirm that there is an Open Research statement (replacing a Data Availability statement) at the end of the manuscript, if appropriate (it usually is!), explaining where data and code can be accessed with unique identifiers (such as DOIs and hyperlinks).
• Confirm that for any multi-authored manuscript includes an explicit statement of contribution for all authors using the Contributor Role Taxonomy (CRediT) (see recent TESS Lab outputs for examples).
• Author first names should normally be written out in full (rather than provided as initials).
• Each affiliation must normally include the institution, city (separate from the institution), and country. The name of the city must be provided separately from the institution even if it is a part of the institution name; e.g. ‘University of Exeter, Exeter, UK’
• At least one corresponding author must be designated, and an e-mail address must be provided for each corresponding author with the list of affiliations.
• Ensure that the Acknowledgements section acknowledges all funding and other material assistance.
• If you include a Supplementary Information document (often appropriate), ensure that all items in it are explicitly referred to in the main text.
• Avoid use of the word “significant” unless refering to the results of a statistical test.
• Embed display items (e.g., figures and tables) within the manuscript, as this presentation is preferred by most editors and reviewers for efficient review.
• In any tables, numeric values should normally be right justified, to facilitate visual comparison.
• Carefully check the journal’s Guidance to Authors for further instructions.
• Ensure that you have communicated with all co-authors, including giving them reasonable time to review and approve the manuscript prior to submission (normally minimum two weeks, often more).
• For the first submission, render a PDF version of the Manuscript and Supplementary Information files, to reduce the risk of document formatting errors during the submission process.