Instruction For Authors

Types of Publications

Manuscripts submitted to Trends in Multidisciplinary Research (TMDR) should neither be published previously nor be under consideration for publication in another journal. The main article types are listed below and a comprehensive list of article types can be found. 

  • Article: These are original research manuscripts. The work should report scientifically sound experiments and provide a substantial amount of new information. The article should include the most recent and relevant references in the field.
  • Review: Reviews offer a comprehensive analysis of the existing literature within a field of study, identifying current gaps or problems. They should be critical and constructive and provide recommendations for future research. No new, unpublished data should be presented.

The following guidelines are to be followed while submitting the manuscripts for publication in the Journal.

  • Submit a cover letter as a separate file in the online system. The length limit is 1 page.

The cover letter should include the following information:

Summarize the study’s contribution to the scientific literature, Relate the study to previously published work, Specify the type of article (for example, research article, Review)

  • It may please be noted that the journal manuscripts must be structured according to following pattern:
    • Title page
    • Abstract and keywords
    • Introduction
    • Methods/Materials and Methods
    • Results
    • Discussion
    • Conclusion
    • Acknowledgments
    • Conflict of Interest
    • Author contributions
    • Funding Sources
    • References
    • Figures and Tables
    • Supplementary Information

Title Page

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

Manuscript Title

  • Please select a concise and informative title (composed of no more than 100 characters). The title must not contain any undefined abbreviations.

Author name and affiliations

On the title page, write author names in the following order:

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

Each author on the list must have an affiliation. The affiliation includes department, university, or organizational affiliation and its location, including city, state/province (if applicable), and country. Authors have the option to include a current address in addition to the address of their affiliation at the time of the study.

  • A clear indication and an active e-mail address of the corresponding author
  • If available, the 16-digit ORCID of the author(s)

Corresponding Author

The submitting author is automatically designated as the corresponding author in the submission system. The corresponding author is the primary contact for the journal office and the only author able to view or change the manuscript while it is under editorial consideration.

Correspondence: [Full name of corresponding author.]

[Include full postal address here (please include institution).]

Tel (optional) [Full international phone number, eg, +1 404 234 5433]

Fax (optional) [Full international fax number.]

Email (mandatory)

Abstract:.

For Research Article

The Abstract comes after the title page in the manuscript file.

The Abstract should:

  • Describe the main objective(s) of the study
  • Explain how the study was done, including any model organisms used, without methodological details
  • Summarize the most important results and their significance
  • Not exceed 300 words

Abstracts should not include:

  • Citations
  • Abbreviations, if possible

For Review article

These are for Review articles and should consist of the following:

Abstract (This should give the summary of the review and the message it wants to carry for the

readers and should be about 300 words).

Keywords:

Journal allow the use of up to 4 -6 keywords that can be used. These should represent the main content of the submission.

Graphical abstract

You are required to provide a graphical abstract at submission.

The graphical abstract should summarize the contents of your article in a concise, pictorial, professional form which is designed to appeal to an interdisciplinary audience. A graphical abstract will help draw more attention to your online article and support readers in digesting your research.

Introduction

The introduction should:

  • Provide background that puts the manuscript into context and allows 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
  • Conclude with a brief statement of the overall aim of the work and a comment about whether that aim was achieved

Materials and Methods:

The Materials and Methods 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 cite articles where those protocols are described in detail, but the submission should include sufficient information to be understood independent of these references.

Statistical analysis:

Manuscript contains statistical testing, it should state the name of the statistical test, the n value for each statistical analysis, the comparisons of interest, a justification for the use of that test (including, for example, a discussion of the normality of the data when the test is appropriate only for normal data), the alpha level for all tests, whether the tests were one-tailed or two-tailed, and the actual P value for each test (not merely "significant" or "P < 0.05"). 

Results, Discussion, Conclusions

  • These sections may all be separate, or may be combined to create a mixed Results/Discussion section (commonly labelled “Results and Discussion”) or a mixed Discussion/Conclusions section (commonly labelled “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.

Acknowledgement

Those who contributed to the work but do not meet our authorship criteria should be listed in the Acknowledgments with a description of the contribution.

Author contribution statement

Authors must provide a short description of the contributions made by each listed author (please use initials). This will be published in a separate section in front of the Acknowledgments. For example: AM and DB conceived and designed research. AM and BB conducted experiments. GR contributed new reagents or analytical tools. AM and GR analyzed data. AM wrote the manuscript. All authors read and approved the manuscript. 

Competing interest

The author(s) declare no competing interests.

Funding sources

Authors must disclose any funding sources who provided financial support for the conduct of the research and/or preparation of the article. The role of sponsors, if any, should be declared in relation to the study design, collection, analysis and interpretation of data, writing of the report and decision to submit the article for publication. If funding sources had no such involvement this should be stated in your submission.

References

  • Published or accepted manuscripts

Do not cite the following sources in the reference list:

  • Unavailable and unpublished work,
  • You should avoid citing retracted articles
  • Personal communications.

Ensure that your reference list includes full and current bibliography details for every cited work at the time of your article’s submission (and publication, if accepted). If cited work is corrected, retracted, or marked with an expression of concern before your article is published, and if you feel it is appropriate to cite the work even in light of the post-publication notice, include in your manuscript citations and full references for both the affected article and the post-publication notice. Email the journal office if you have questions.

Source

Format

Published articles

Hou WR, Hou YL, Wu GF, Song Y, Su XL, Sun B, et al. cDNA, genomic sequence cloning and overexpression of ribosomal protein gene L9 (rpL9) of the giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca). Genet Mol Res. 2011;10: 1576-1588.

Devaraju P, Gulati R, Antony PT, Mithun CB, Negi VS. Susceptibility to SLE in South Indian Tamils may be influenced by genetic selection pressure on TLR2 and TLR9 genes. Mol Immunol. 2014 Nov 22. pii: S0161-5890(14)00313-7. doi: 10.1016/j.molimm.2014.11.005.


Note: A DOI number for the full-text article is acceptable as an alternative to or in addition to traditional volume and page numbers. When providing a DOI, adhere to the format in the example above with both the label and full DOI included at the end of the reference (doi: 10.1016/j.molimm.2014.11.005). Do not provide a shortened DOI or the URL.

Accepted, unpublished articles

Same as published articles, but substitute “Forthcoming” for page numbers or DOI.

Online articles

Huynen MMTE, Martens P, Hilderlink HBM. The health impacts of globalisation: a conceptual framework. Global Health. 2005;1: 14. Available from: http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/1/1/14

Books

Bates B. Bargaining for life: A social history of tuberculosis. 1st ed. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press; 1992.

Book chapters

Hansen B. New York City epidemics and history for the public. In: Harden VA, Risse GB, editors. AIDS and the historian. Bethesda: National Institutes of Health; 1991. pp. 21-28.

Deposited articles (preprints, e-prints

Krick T, Shub DA, Verstraete N, Ferreiro DU, Alonso LG, Shub M, et al. Amino acid metabolism conflicts with protein diversity. arXiv:1403.3301v1 [Preprint]. 2014 [cited 2014 March 17]. Available from: https://128.84.21.199/abs/1403.3301v1​

Kording KP, Mensh B. Ten simple rules for structuring papers. BioRxiv [Preprint]. 2016 bioRxiv 088278 [posted 2016 Nov 28; revised 2016 Dec 14; revised 2016 Dec 15; cited 2017 Feb 9]: [12 p.]. Available from: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/088278v5 doi: 10.1101/088278

 

Figures, Schemes and Tables

Our guidance regarding various aspects of figures, schemes and tables is described below.

Resolution, color and format:

  • All figures should be of a high quality (preferably no less than 600 dpi) in PNG, JPEG or TIFF formats.
  • 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.
  • Images should be combined to avoid any issues during formatting changes. There should be no editable parts in the images.
  • All table columns should have an explanatory heading. To facilitate the copy-editing of larger tables, smaller fonts (no smaller than 8 pt.) may be used. Authors should use the “Table” option in Microsoft Word to create tables.

Order:

  • All figures, schemes and tables should be inserted into the main text close to their first citation and must be numbered following their order of appearance (e.g., Figure 1, Scheme 1, Figure 2, Scheme 2, Table 1, etc.).

Content:

  • Generally, figures should contain only English text and the correct mathematical symbols, e.g., - instead of — and decimal points instead of commas.
  • The figure content should be complete and the characters should not be masked. Unnecessary marks such as red wavy lines and hard (soft) returns are not allowed.
  • A comma should be added in numbers of five or more digits in all figures, schemes and tables. The scientific enumeration should be correct.
  • All figures, schemes and tables should have a short explanatory title and caption. Any special characters or icons in an image, e.g., *, **, and #, need to have a corresponding explanation in the caption.

Supplementary Information

Authors should submit any Supplementary Information together with the manuscript so that we can send it to referees during peer-review. We do not support inclusion of any additional information or appendices in the main body of the paper; all supplementary information should be included in the dedicated Supplementary Information files. This will be published online with accepted manuscripts.