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Author Guidelines
Sections
1. Submission
2. Aims and Scope
3. Preparing Your Submission
Data Statement
4. Editorial Policies and Ethical Considerations
5. Author Licensing
6. Publication Process After Acceptance
7. Post Publication
8. Editorial Office Contact Details
Thank you for your interest in The Plant Journal (TPJ). Note that submission implies that the content has not been published or submitted for publication elsewhere except as a brief abstract in the proceedings of a scientific meeting/symposium or on a preprint server such as BioRxiv.
TPJ has removed all formatting requirements for the initial submission of articles to the journal. Under this scheme new manuscripts, or manuscripts previously considered by other journals, can be submitted to TPJ without excessive formatting/reformatting requirements. As long as manuscripts contain a title, author list, abstract, introduction, results/discussion, methods, and bibliography, we will be happy to process the submission through our normal procedures, irrespective of exactly how it is formatted. The aim is to allow swift consideration of the work, with only those manuscripts that have to be resubmitted following review, or which directly go on to be provisionally accepted for publication, needing to be reformatted to TPJ style. The review process itself will proceed in exactly the same way as in previous years.
Once you have prepared your submission, or resubmission in accordance with the Guidelines, manuscripts should be submitted online at https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/tpj
For intial submission, the paper can be submitted as a single pdf or as individual manuscript and figure files.
The submission system will prompt you to use an ORCID iD (a unique author identifier) to help distinguish your work from that of other researchers – its use is optional. Click here to find out more.
Click here for more details on how to use ScholarOne
For help with submissions, please contact: tpj-submissions@wiley.com
We look forward to your submission.
Length guidelines
TPJ has no formal word limits but expects manuscripts to be concise, with the length being the minimum required to adequately describe and discuss the results of the study. Typically, papers are between 7000 and 9000 words with 3 - 7 figures and tables in the main body of the paper. Longer or shorter papers will be considered. For example, the complexity of large datasets in Resource Articles may necessitate more figures and tables and more text to properly convey the work. Alternatively, shorter studies with fewer figures and tables may still represent a sufficiently important advancement of the field as to warrant publication in TPJ. The following sections must be included as part of the word count: summary; introduction; results; discussion; experimental procedures; acknowledgements; table titles; and figure legends. The following sections are excluded from the word count: title page, including author list and author affiliations; running head; any words that form part of a table or figure; references; and supporting information.
The Plant Journal publishes four categories of papers:
Original Research Articles
The aim of TPJ is to publish exciting, high quality science that addresses fundamental questions in plant biology. Typically, the research will provide insight into an as yet unknown mechanism or poorly understood process, will constitute a highly significant contribution to our understanding of plants, and be of general interest to the plant science community. All areas of plant biology are welcome and the experimental approaches used can be wide-ranging and interdisciplinary. TPJ Original Research Articles that use omic- or biotechnological-approaches are welcomed, provided that new insight into the underlying biology is provided.
Technical Advance articles
Technical Advance articles must be useful to a large proportion of the community and not be narrow in scope. Demonstration of how the Technical Advance has led to new insights into a biological mechanism must also be made. Manuscripts that describe significant advances in the use of an already existing technology will be considered, but incremental variations on existing methods, or improvements on vectors, would not qualify for consideration.
Resource Articles
Resource articles will typically be data-rich and provide an important, novel reference source for the field. Such an article could encompass a careful comparative analysis of ecotypes or strains of a model or reference organism, but also large-scale reference datasets derived from transcriptomics, proteomics, or metabolomics that the community will likely continue to use for metadata analysis leading to novel biological insights. First time genome sequences of plant or algal species or specific ecotypes or strains of a reference organism, and the respective comparative genomic analysis, will be welcome under this category. Metabolic flux maps and their computational basis, or newly reconstructed metabolic networks for reference organisms or specific tissues, will also be considered. Resource articles covering large-scale datasets must have a concise conclusion highlighting examples of novel biological insights and/or how these data might lead to such insights in the future through continued metadata analysis.
Review Articles
TPJ publishes an annual special issue, typically comprising specially commissioned review papers on an emerging topic identified by the Editorial Board. Special Issue articles are in-depth, authoritative reviews that aim to provide a synthesis of the current state of knowledge in a specific research area. In addition, the Editorial Board will commission focused review articles that will be published throughout the year in regular issues of the journal. TPJ focused reviews aim to provide a critical and concise overview of the most recent advances in a specific research field or technology with the emphasis on findings published in the last five years. TPJ focused reviews will typically be 4000 – 8000 words in length and contain up to three figures. The article should contain two boxes: one should present a bullet-point summary of the main points covered in the review (maximum of five points; single sentences). A second box should indicate open questions related to the topic reviewed in the article (maximum of five questions; single sentences). The boxes are not included in the total word count.
The formatting requirements of these articles, including reference and abstract, are the same as other standard articles for The Plant Journal. Unsolicited review articles will not be considered.
TPJ Perspectives articles
TPJ Perspectives are concise commentaries bringing attention to novel research directions in the plant sciences. This article type will provide a forum for scientists to outline visionary perspectives of the current plant science research landscape. Articles are expected to provide in-depth, thought-provoking evaluations of important research trends. Descriptions of plans to launch large international research consortia or calls for new research activities are also applicable. TPJ perspectives are invitation only and will typically be 3000–5000 words long and feature one or two figures or tables.
Cover letters
Cover letters are not mandatory however may be supplied at the author’s discretion.
Parts of the Manuscript
The manuscript should be submitted in separate files: main text file; figures; supporting information files (optional) as required.
Text file
The text file should be presented in the following order: (i) Summary, not exceeding 250 words; (ii) Significance statement of up to two sentences of no more than 75 words total; (iii) Introduction; (iv) Results; (v) Discussion; (vi) Experimental procedures; (vii) Accession numbers; (viii) Acknowledgements; (ix) Short legends for Supporting Information; (x) References; (xi) Tables; (xii) Figure legends; (xiii) Figures. The Results and Discussion sections may be combined and may contain subheadings. Figures and Supporting Information should be supplied as separate files, and not incorporated into the main manuscript text file. Authors should also refer to the Editorial Policies section below before preparing their manuscript.
Title
The title should convey the headline finding of the paper in a concise and unambiguous manner. Titles should not be an attempt to list every finding in the paper. The title should be easy to understand by the general readership of The Plant Journal and not just subject-specialists. Use of technical terms and acronyms should be avoided, or spelt out (see Wiley's best practice SEO tips).
Authorship
Please refer to the journal’s authorship policy the Editorial Policies and Ethical Considerations section for details on eligibility for author listing.
Acknowledgments
Contributions from anyone who does not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed, with permission from the contributor, in an Acknowledgments section. Financial and material support should also be mentioned. Thanks to anonymous reviewers are not appropriate.
Conflict of Interest Statement
You will be asked to provide a conflict of interest statement during the submission process. See the section ‘Conflict of Interest’ in the Editorial Policies and Ethical Considerations section for details on what to include in this section. Please ensure you liaise with all co-authors to confirm agreement with the final statement.
Abstract
Please provide an abstract of no more than 250 words containing the major keywords.
Keywords
Please provide up to 10 keywords, listed in order of importance.
Significance Statement
Authors should provide a Significance Statement with their submission. The Significance Statement will be available for reviewers as part of the peer review process and will ultimately appear within the online table of contents. The statement should consist of up to two sentences of no more than 75 words in total and should not repeat the title, as it will appear directly below the title in the online table of contents. The goal of the statement is to explain the significance and relevance of the findings of the manuscript to a broad readership, from undergraduate students to research scientists. Suggested content for Significance Statements includes: an introductory sentence and/or why a problem/unanswered question was important to address; what has been shown/what does the manuscript do to fill a gap in our knowledge; what it means to the field as a whole. References should not be included. NOTE: Significance Statements may undergo editorial revision.
Main text
- The journal uses British/US spelling, however authors may submit using either option as spelling of accepted papers is converted during the production process.
- Footnotes to the text are not allowed and any such material should be incorporated into the text as parenthetical matter.
References
References follow the Harvard style, i.e. the author, date system.
- All citations mentioned in the text, tables or figures must be listed in the reference list.
- In the text give the author’s name followed by the year in parentheses: Smith (2000).
- Joint authors should be referred to by et al. if there are more than two, e.g. Sambrook et al. (1989).
- If several papers by the same authors and from the same year are cited, a,b,c etc should be inserted after the year of publication.
- Listings of references in the text should be chronological, not alphabetical e.g. (Sambrook et al., 1989; Lacomme et al., 1999).
- In the reference list, references should be listed in alphabetical order.
- Reference to ‘unpublished data’ and ‘data not shown’ should should be avoided; instead, the data should be included in the Supporting Information.
- Personal communications should not appear in the reference list, but may be referred to in the text. It is the authors' responsibility to obtain permission from colleagues to include their work as a personal communication. Such letters of permission should be included as Supporting Information when the manuscript is submitted.
- Authors are responsible for the accuracy of the references.
Submissions are not required to reflect the precise reference formatting of the journal (use of italics, bold etc.), however it is important that all key elements of each reference are included. Please see below for examples of reference content requirements.
Journal Article
Lacomme, C. and Santa Cruz, S. (1999) Bax-induced cell death in tobacco is similar to the hypersensitive response. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA, 96, 7956-7961. https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.12074
Online Article Not Yet Published in an Issue
An online article that has not yet been published in an issue (therefore has no volume, issue or page numbers) can be cited by its Digital Object Identifier (DOI). The DOI will remain valid and allow an article to be tracked even after its allocation to an issue.
Lacomme, C. and Santa Cruz, S. (1999) Bax-induced cell death in tobacco is similar to the hypersensitive response. https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.12074
Book
Sambrook, J., Fritsch, E.F. and Maniatis, T. (1989) Molecular Cloning: A Laboratory Manual 2nd edn. Cold Spring Harbor: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press.
Chapter in a Book
Shah, J. and Klessig, D.F. (1999) Salicylic acid: signal perception and transduction. In Biochemistry and Molecular Biology of Plant Hormones (Hooykaas, P.P.J., Hall, M.A. and Libbenga, K.R., eds). New York: Elsevier Science, pp. 513-541.
When citing or making claims based on data, authors must refer to the data at the relevant place in the manuscript text and in addition provide a formal citation in the reference list. We recommend the format proposed by the Joint Declaration of Data Citation Principles:
[dataset] Authors; Year; Dataset Title; Data repository or archive; Version (if any); Persistant identifier (e.g. DOI)
Add [dataset] immediately before the reference so we can properly identify it as a data reference. The [dataset] identifier will not appear in your published article. Full details of policy regarding data citation is available here (https://authorservices.wiley.com/author-resources/Journal-Authors/open-access/data-sharing-citation/index.html)
Tables
Tables should be self-contained and complement, but not duplicate, information contained in the text. They should be supplied as editable files, not pasted as images. Legends should be concise but comprehensive – the table, legend and footnotes must be understandable without reference to the text. No vertical rules should be used. Units should appear in parentheses in the column headings, not in the body of the table. Repeated words or numerals on successive lines should be written in full. All abbreviations must be defined in footnotes. Footnote symbols: †, ‡, §, ¶, should be used (in that order) and *, **, *** should be reserved for P-values. Statistical measures such as SD or SEM should be identified in the headings.
Figure Legends
Legends should be concise but comprehensive – the figure and its legend must be understandable without reference to the text, but should not contain excessive methodological detail. Each should begin with a short title for the figure. Include definitions of any symbols used and define/explain all abbreviations and units of measurement.
Preparing Figures
Although we encourage authors to send us the highest-quality figures possible, for peer-review purposes we are happy to accept a wide variety of formats, sizes, and resolutions.
Click here for the basic figure requirements for figures submitted with manuscripts for initial peer review, as well as the more detailed post-acceptance figure requirements.
With the exception of composite photographs suitable for full-page reproduction (maximum width, including lettering, 16.8 cm), all other figures will be typeset to a maximum width of 8 cm (including all lettering). Labelling on the figures should be in 8pt Helvetica if possible. Figure sections should be designated with lower case letters. Magnification bars should be given on electron and light microscope photographs. Error bars must be included on graphs, and the method used to derive the error bars included in the legend.
Colour figures: Figures submitted in colour will be reproduced in colour online free of charge.
Use of bar charts: bar charts show summary statistics and do not allow the underlying data to be critically evaluated by the reader. In particular, the distribution of the dataset cannot be assessed. Therefore, for graphical representation of data, TPJ strongly recommends the use of alternative ways of displaying data that show the data distribution. For small datasets (n <20) it is recommended that the individual data points are shown on the bar chart. For larger datasets, box plots, violin plots or combinations of these plots (e.g. box plots or violin plots that show the raw data points) or other plots that emphasise the data distribution are recommended.
Statistics
All statements concerning quantitative differences between experimental conditions should be based on quantitative data and adequate statistical treatment. Where relevant, blots should be scanned to obtain quantitative data. Statistics should be based on independent biological samples. The deviation parameter, the number of biological samples and the statistical procedures should be provided for each dataset either in the Experimental Procedures section or in the figure legends. Technical replicates should be averaged before statistical treatment and not used to calculate deviation parameters. In the case of multiple comparisons (e.g. microarray data), the probability of false positives should be considered in the analysis. Experimental procedures should be sufficiently detailed to enable the experiments to be reproduced.
As The Plant Journal is an advocate of open science we expect authors to follow the FAIR guiding principles for scientific data management and stewardship (https://www.nature.com/articles/sdata201618), when manuscripts include large-scale data of the types detailed in the full guidelines. It is expected that large-scale datasets, genome sequences and computational models are made freely available in an appropriate public repository at time of publication. For TPJ Resource Articles, this is mandatory. Given that we expect reviewers to evaluate the datasets and not merely the extracted results, it is also expected that these datasets are deposited in a relevant repository prior to submission (provided the repository has a mechanism for private access) to enable referees to consider these data as part of the peer review process. For full detailed guidelines please click here.
In addition to the requirements for data statements in the Material and Methods section, as outlined in the full detailed guidelines, it is mandatory for all manuscripts to include a Data Statement section within their manuscript. The statement should state where the article's supporting data and materials can be accessed. If the Authors choose not to archive their data and material, for article types for which this is not mandatory, the data statement must explicitly provide an explanation of why the information will not be made publicly available. In these instances the data statement must include details of who can be contacted should a request be made for access to data.
All data depositions and links will be verified upon submission. Absence of a data statement, invalid links, and/or contact details for data requests, may result in the manuscript being unsubmitted and returned to the authors at submission.
Supporting Information
Supporting information is information that is not essential to the article but that provides greater depth and background. It is hosted online only, and appears without editing or typesetting. It may include datasets, tables, figures, videos, datasets, etc. Click here for Wiley’s FAQs on supporting information. Only material that is a valuable addition to the article should be included. Supporting Information will be reviewed.
Note, if data, scripts or other artefacts used to generate the analyses presented in the paper are available via a publicly available data repository, authors should include a reference to the location of the material within their paper.
The availability of Supporting Information should be indicated in the main manuscript by a paragraph, to appear after the Acknowledgements, headed 'Supporting Information'. Short legends should be included here, listing the titles of all supporting figures, tables, data etc. Full (more detailed) legends for Supporting Information must also be uploaded as a separate Word document. This version will be used online, alongside where the Supporting Information is hosted, but not in the manuscript text, which instead uses the short versions of the legends. In order to protect reviewer anonymity, material posted on authors’ websites cannot be reviewed.
Supporting Information items should be referred to in the text as follows:
Supporting figures: Figure S1, Figure S2 etc.
Supporting tables: Table S1, Table S2 etc.
Supporting data: Data S1, Data S2 etc.
Supporting experimental procedures: Methods S1, Methods S2 etc.
Supporting animations: Movie S1, Movie S2 etc.
Any other text-based Supporting Information: Appendix S1, Appendix S2 etc.
The above order should be used when listing the Supporting Information legends, both in the short versions in the main manuscript text file, as well as in the separate full legends file.
General Style Points
The following links provide general advice on formatting and style.
• Abbreviations: In general, terms should not be abbreviated unless they are used repeatedly and the abbreviation is helpful to the reader. Initially use the word in full, followed by the abbreviation in parentheses. Thereafter use the abbreviation only. Acceptable abbreviations that do not need to be defined are listed here: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/pdf/em1.pdf.
• Units of measurement: Measurements should be given in SI or SI-derived units. Visit the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (BIPM) website at http://www.bipm.fr for more information about SI units.
• Numbers: numbers under 10 are spelt out, except for: measurements with a unit (8 mmol/l); age (6 weeks old), or lists with other numbers (11 dogs, 9 cats, 4 gerbils).
• Scientific, protein, gene and trade names: Complete scientific names should be given when organisms are first mentioned. The genus name may subsequently be abbreviated to the initial. It is important to differentiate between genes and proteins. All gene names and loci should be written in italic type; proteins should be upright. Chemical substances should be referred to by the generic name only. Trade names should be capitalized, and the manufacturer’s name and website given.
Wiley Author Resources
Wiley has a range of resources for authors preparing manuscripts for submission available here. In particular, authors may benefit from referring to Wiley’s best practice tips on Writing for Search Engine Optimization.
Editing, Translation and Formatting Support: Wiley Editing Services can greatly improve the chances of your manuscript being accepted. Offering expert help in English language editing, translation, manuscript formatting and figure preparation, Wiley Editing Services ensures that your manuscript is ready for submission.
Double blind review
In addition to the default single blind review processing of manuscripts submitted to the journal, The Plant Journal now provides optional double-blind review.
For authors who select double-blind peer review, two versions of the manuscript should be prepared; one 'blinded’ version, which should not contain any information that identifies the authors, and one full version. When uploading the two versions to the submission centre, authors should indicate which is the blind version (e.g. by adding the word 'blind' to the file name and selecting the file designation ‘Manuscript text – anonymized (double blind only)’ in ScholarOne). The full version should be given the designation of ‘Manuscript text – full (double blind only)’.
Once we receive your submission, the full (non-blinded version) will be hidden from the reviewers. Although all submitted files are checked, it is the responsibility of the authors to ensure that the blind version does not reveal identifying information.
To facilitate this, authors need to ensure that their manuscript is prepared in a way that does not reveal their identity. To help with this preparation please ensure the following when submitting to the journal:
- • Submit 2 versions of the manuscript main text file in separate files – one containing the authors’ names and affiliations on the title page, and a second blinded manuscript from which the authors’ details have been removed.
Information to help prepare the Title Page of the full manuscript
This should include the title, authors' names and affiliations, and a complete address for the corresponding author including telephone and e-mail address.
Information to help prepare the blinded manuscript
Besides the obvious need to remove names and affiliations under the title within the manuscript, there are other steps that need to be taken to ensure the manuscript is correctly prepared for double-blind peer review. To assist with this process the key items that need to be observed are as follows:
- Use the third person to refer to work the Authors have previously undertaken, e.g. replace any phrases like “as we have shown before” with “… has been shown before [Anonymous, 2007]” .
- Make sure figures do not contain any affiliation related identifier.
- Do not eliminate essential self-references or other references but limit self-references only to papers that are relevant for those reviewing the submitted paper.
- Cite papers published by the Author in the text as follows: ‘[Anonymous, 2007]’.
- For blinding in the reference list: ‘[Anonymous 2007] Details omitted for double-blind reviewing.’
- Remove references to funding sources.
- Do not include acknowledgments.
- Remove any identifying information, including author names, from file names and ensure document properties are also anonymized.
Double Blind and pre-print repositories
Submitting authors should note that whilst deposition of their manuscript in a pre-print repository does not disqualify an author from submission under double blind review, doing so may compromise the anonymity of the authors during peer review.
4. EDITORIAL POLICIES AND ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS
Editorial Review and Acceptance
The acceptance criteria for all papers are the quality and originality of the research and its significance to our readership. Except where otherwise stated, manuscripts are single-blind peer reviewed.
All submissions will be considered by the Editorial Board to determine whether they fall within the scope of the journal and to ensure homogeneity in terms of scientific standards. Submissions that do will be sent out for full external review; those that do not will be returned to the submitting author quickly so that submission elsewhere will not be delayed. Manuscripts sent out for external review will typically be assessed by at least two experts; however, in extenuating circumstances (e.g. because of a delay caused by an overdue reviewer), the Handling Editor may make a decision based on the comments of only one reviewer, plus his/her own assessment of the manuscript.
Resubmissions of previously rejected manuscripts will typically be sent to the same reviewers who saw the original version, providing those reviewers are available. However, in some cases, the Handling Editor may decide that it is not appropriate to re-invite one or more of the original reviewers and/or may judge that a fresh reviewer is needed. There is no time deadline for resubmissions. However, authors should bear in mind that the impact of their work, and hence its suitability for TPJ, may be lessened as knowledge advances.
Wiley's policy on confidentiality of the review process is available here.
What TPJ does not publish
TPJ does not publish manuscripts that extend previously published work to another species; nor those that provide no fundamental advance in basic plant biology or technology. Manuscripts that mostly include descriptive work, lacking mechanistic insights, or large-scale datasets without highlighting the current or future biological significance, will be declined.
If authors have any questions as to whether their manuscript falls within the scope of TPJ, they should email a summary highlighting the significance of their study to the Editorial Office (tpj-general@wiley.com) for advice prior to full submission.
Use of ‘unpublished’ or ‘not shown’ data
The statements ‘data not shown’ or ‘unpublished’ should be avoided; instead, the data should be included in the Supporting Information.
Use of priority statements / claims of novelty
Whilst TPJ prides itself in only publishing basic mechanistic insights into important biological problems that go beyond the current state of knowledge, making explicit priority statements or claims of novelty in the manuscript text should be avoided. The novelty of the work should be left to the reader to judge. In this context, authors should consider carefully their use of words such as ‘novel’, ‘new’ and ‘first’ throughout the manuscript. In particular, direct priority statements (e.g. “This is the first demonstration of…”) are not allowed.
Use of ‘regulate’ or ‘control’
It is the opinion of the Editorial Board that, in some cases, a title or sentence including the word ‘regulate’ (or similar; e.g. ‘regulator’, ‘regulates’ etc.), or ‘control’, can imply that one thing regulates or controls another, when it might not be true. For example, based on the inactivation of a gene and the resulting phenotype one might conclude that the encoded enzyme is essential for the metabolic process. However, this does not necessarily mean that the enzyme has a regulatory role in the process. In general, the terms ‘regulate’ or ‘control’ should be restricted to widely recognized, truly regulatory proteins, e.g. transcription factors. Principally, this policy concerns the 'headline' elements of a paper (i.e. title, running title, summary), but authors are asked to consider this instruction throughout the manuscript.
Use of 'crosstalk'
Although "crosstalk" is frequently used as shorthand for communication between two pathways (e.g. between two different hormone signalling pathways), it is the opinion of the Editorial Board that it can be applied too broadly, perhaps when the investigator is unsure as to exactly what kind of interaction occurs between different pathways. Authors are therefore asked to avoid ‘crosstalk’ and instead provide a more precise definition of what the interaction entails.
Species Names
Upon its first use in the title, abstract and text, the common name of a species should be followed by the scientific name (genus, species and authority) in parentheses. For well-known species, however, scientific names may be omitted from article titles. If no common name exists in English, the scientific name should be used only.
Genetic Nomenclature
Sequence variants should be described in the text and tables using both DNA and protein designations whenever appropriate. Sequence variant nomenclature must follow the current HGVS guidelines; see http://varnomen.hgvs.org/, where examples of acceptable nomenclature are provided.
Data storage and documentation
TPJ encourages data sharing wherever possible, unless this is prevented by ethical, privacy or confidentiality matters.
To faciliate data access, TPJ fully supports the use of preprint servers such as BioRXiv.
In general, the broad and systematic analysis of microarray datasets or RNA sequence datasets in papers published by TPJ must be accompanied by a complete dataset deposited in a publicly accessible repository (see below for Arabidopsis gene functional annotation data). However, if the function of a specific gene or gene family is described that became first apparent in a microarray or RNA sequence experiment, and no further description of the analysis of the full dataset is provided in the manuscript, public deposition of the full dataset is not necessary for publication by TPJ.
For all data made publicly available authors should ensure that appropriate linking details and identifier(s) are included in the publication and where possible the repository, to facilitate linking between the journal article and the deposited data. If such a repository does not exist, data should be included as supporting information to the published paper or authors should agree to make their data available upon reasonable request.
If the study includes original data, at least one author must confirm that he or she had full access to all the data in the study, and takes responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis.
Availability of biological and chemical material
Publication of a paper in TPJ explicitly requires that authors will provide, for non-profit research, all the biological and chemical materials not commercially available that are used for the experiments reported. To ensure complete transparency of this requirement, TPJ requires authors to state that these materials will be available on request. Requests must be reasonable with regard to the amount of material that can be provided and the sharing of costs, particularly when materials have required substantial effort for their production.
Arabidopsis gene functional annotation data
TPJ encourages authors whose manuscripts contain information on Arabidopsis genes to submit functional annotation data to The Arabidopsis Information Resource (TAIR) database. TPJ and TAIR are collaborating to collect one or more of the following types of information about the Arabidopsis gene/s described in papers submitted to TPJ:
- molecular function (for example: kinase activity, ATP synthase activity)
- biological process (for example: endosperm development, threonine biosynthesis)
- subcellular location (for example: nucleus, endoplasmic reticulum) - expression pattern (for example: leaf, ovule, flower stage 10, seedling stage)
- protein-protein interaction (for example: AT1G01010 interacts with AT1G01020)
Authors are asked upon submission whether their manuscript contains one or more of the above types of information. If the answer is 'yes', and the manuscript is accepted for publication, authors will be reminded in the letter of acceptance to submit their data to TAIR, if they have not done so already. A link to TAIR's online submission tool is provided.
Registration of Nucleotide Sequence Data
Nucleotide sequence data can be submitted in electronic form to any of the three major collaborative databases: DDBJ, EMBL or GenBank. It is only necessary to submit to one database as data are exchanged between DDBJ, EMBL and GenBank on a daily basis. The suggested wording for referring to accession-number information is: ‘These sequence data have been submitted to the DDBJ/EMBL/GenBank databases under accession number U12345’. Addresses are as follows:
DNA Data Bank of Japan (DDBJ) http://www.ddbj.nig.ac.jp
EMBL Nucleotide Sequence Submissions http://www.ebi.ac.uk
GenBank http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Papers containing amino acid sequences must supply a UniProt/Swiss-Prot accession number. To obtain an accession number, please use the UniProt/Swiss-Prot data submission tool (SPIN) at http://www.ebi.ac.uk/swissprot/Submissions/submissions.html.
Nucleotide and amino acid sequence accession numbers should be incorporated into manuscripts after the Material and Methods section. Any paper that does not have accession number(s) by proof stage will not be published until they have been provided.
Conflict of Interest
The journal requires that all authors disclose any potential sources of conflict of interest. Any interest or relationship, financial or otherwise that might be perceived as influencing an author's objectivity is considered a potential source of conflict of interest. These must be disclosed when directly relevant or directly related to the work that the authors describe in their manuscript. Potential sources of conflict of interest include, but are not limited to, patent or stock ownership, membership of a company board of directors, membership of an advisory board or committee for a company, and consultancy for or receipt of speaker's fees from a company. The existence of a conflict of interest does not preclude publication. If the authors have no conflict of interest to declare, they must also state this at submission and include a statement in the Acknowledgements section. It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to review this policy with all authors and collectively to disclose with the submission ALL pertinent commercial and other relationships.
Funding
Authors should list all funding sources in the Acknowledgments section. Authors are responsible for the accuracy of their funder designation. If in doubt, please check the Open Funder Registry for the correct nomenclature: https://www.crossref.org/services/funder-registry/
Authorship
The list of authors should accurately illustrate who contributed to the work and how. All those listed as authors should qualify for authorship according to the following criteria:
1. Have made substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data;
2. Been involved in drafting the manuscript or revising it critically for important intellectual content;
3. Given final approval of the version to be published. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content; and
4. Agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
Contributions from anyone who does not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed, with permission from the contributor, in an Acknowledgments section (for example, to recognize contributions from people who provided technical help, collation of data, writing assistance, acquisition of funding, or a department chairperson who provided general support). Prior to submitting the article all authors should agree on the order in which their names will be listed in the manuscript.
Additional authorship options
Joint first or senior authorship: In the case of joint first authorship a footnote should be added to the author listing, e.g. ‘X and Y should be considered joint first author’ or ‘X and Y should be considered joint senior author.’
ORCID
As part of our commitment to supporting authors at every step of the publishing process, The Plant Journal encourages the submitting author (only) to provide an ORCID iD when submitting a manuscript. This takes around 2 minutes to complete. Find more information.
Publication Ethics
This journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Note this journal uses iThenticate’s CrossCheck software to detect instances of overlapping and similar text in submitted manuscripts. Read our Top 10 Publishing Ethics Tips for Authors here. Wiley’s Publication Ethics Guidelines can be found at https://authorservices.wiley.com/ethics-guidelines/index.html
Note to NIH grantees
Pursuant to the NIH mandate, Wiley will post the accepted version of contributions authored by NIH grant holders to PubMed Central upon acceptance. This accepted version will be made publicly available 12 months after publication. For further information see http://www.wiley.com/go/nihmandate.
Open Research initiatives. Recognizing the importance of research transparency and data sharing to cumulative research, The Plant Journal encourages the following Open Research practices.
Sharing of data, materials, research instruments and their accessibility. The Plant Journal encourages authors to share data, materials, research instruments, and other artifacts supporting the results in their study by archiving them in an appropriate public repository. Qualifying public, open-access repositories are committed to preserving data, materials, and/or registered analysis plans and keeping them publicly accessible via the web into perpetuity. Examples include the Open Science Frameowrk (OSF) and the various Dataverse networks. Hundred of other qualifying data/materials repositories are listed at the Registry of Research Data Repositories (http://www.re3data.org). Personal websites and most departmental websites do not qualilfy as repositories.
Open Research Badges. In partnership with the non-profit Center for Open Science (COS), The Plant Journal offer all submitting authors access to the following Open Research Badges - Open Materials and Open Data. we also award all qualifying authors Open research Badges recognizing their contributions to the Open Research movement. The Open Research practices and associated award badges, as implemented by the Centre for Open Science and supported by The Plant Journal, are the following:
The Open Materials Badge recognizes researchers who share their research instruments and materials in a publicly-accessible format, providing sufficient information for researchers to reproduce procedures and analyses of published research studies.
The Open Data Badge recognizes researchers who make their data publicly available, providing sufficient description of the data to allow researchers to reproduce research findings of published research studies. An example of a qualifying public, open-access database for data sharing in the Open Science Framework repository. Numerous other data-sharing repositories are available through various Dataverse networks (e.g., http://dataverse.org) and hundreds of other databases abailable through the Registry of Research Data Repositories (http://www.r3data.irg). There are, of course, circumstances in which it is not possible or advisable to share data publicly. For example, there are cases in which sharing participant data could violate confidentiality. In these cases, the authors may provide an explanation of such cirumstances in the Alternative Note section of the disclosure form. The information the authors provide will be included in the articles's Open Research note.
Authors will have an opportunity at the time of manuscript submission and at the time of acceptance to inform themselves of this initiative and to determine whether they want to participate. Authors will be required to complete and submit an Open Research disclosure form found here. Applying and qualifying for Open Research Badges is not a requirement for publishing with The Plant Journal, but these badges are further incentive for authors to participate in the Open Research movement and thus to increase the visibility and transparency of their research.
More information about the Open Research Badges is available from the Open Science Framework wiki (http://osf.io/tvyxz/wiki/home/).
If your paper is accepted, the author identified as the formal corresponding author will receive an email prompting them to log in to Author Services, where via the Wiley Author Licensing Service (WALS) they will be required to complete a copyright license agreement on behalf of all authors of the paper.
Authors may choose to publish under the terms of the journal’s standard copyright agreement, or OnlineOpen under the terms of a Creative Commons License.
General information regarding licensing and copyright is available here. To review the Creative Commons License options offered under OnlineOpen, please click here. (Note that certain funders mandate that a particular type of CC license has to be used; to check this please click here.)
Self-Archiving definitions and policies. Note that the journal’s standard copyright agreement allows for self-archiving of different versions of the article under specific conditions. Please click here for more detailed information about self-archiving definitions and policies.
Open Access fees: If you choose to publish using OnlineOpen you will be charged a fee. A list of Article Publication Charges for Wiley journals is available here.
Funder Open Access: Please click here for more information on Wiley’s compliance with specific Funder Open Access Policies.
6. PUBLICATION PROCESS AFTER ACCEPTANCE
Accepted article received in production
When your accepted article is received by Wiley’s production team, you (corresponding author) will receive an email asking you to login or register with Author Services. You will be asked to sign a publication license at this point.
Accepted Articles
The journal offers Wiley’s Accepted Articles service for all manuscripts. This service ensures that accepted ‘in press’ manuscripts are published online very soon after acceptance, prior to copy-editing or typesetting. Accepted Articles are published online a few days after final acceptance, appear in PDF format only, are given a Digital Object Identifier (DOI), which allows them to be cited and tracked, and are indexed by PubMed. After publication of the final version article (the article of record), the DOI remains valid and can continue to be used to cite and access the article.
Accepted Articles will be indexed by PubMed; submitting authors should therefore carefully check the names and affiliations of all authors provided in the cover page of the manuscript so it is correct for indexing. Subsequently the final copyedited and proofed articles will appear in an issue on Wiley Online Library; the link to the article in PubMed will automatically be updated.
Proofs
Once your paper is typeset you will receive an email notification of the URL from where to download a PDF typeset page proof, associated forms and full instructions on how to correct and return the file.
Please note that you are responsible for all statements made in your work, including changes made during the editorial process and thus you must check your proofs carefully. Note that proofs should be returned 48 hours from receipt of first proof.
Colour figures.
Colour figures are published online free of charge.
Early View
The journal offers rapid publication via Wiley’s Early View service. Early View (Online Version of Record) articles are published on Wiley Online Library before inclusion in an issue. Note there may be a delay after corrections are received before your article appears online, as Editors also need to review proofs. Once your article is published on Early View no further changes to your article are possible. Your Early View article is fully citable and carries an online publication date and DOI for citations.
Access and sharing
When your article is published online:
- You receive an email alert (if requested).
- You can share a link to your published article through social media.
- As the author, you will have free access to your paper (after accepting the Terms & Conditions of use, you can view your article).
- The corresponding author and co-authors can nominate colleagues to receive a publication alert and free online access to your article.
Now is the time to start promoting your article. Find out how to do that here.
Measuring the Impact of your Work
Wiley also helps you measure the impact of your research through our specialist partnerships with Kudos and Altmetric.
8. EDITORIAL OFFICE CONTACT DETAILS
The Plant Journal
Editorial Office
John Wiley & Sons, Inc
9600 Garsington Road
Oxford, OX4 2DQ,
UK
Editorial Office Staff
Jim Ruddock, Managing Editor
Email: tpj-editor@wiley.com
Lauren Dawson, Editorial Assistant
Email: tpj-submissions@wiley.com
Author Guidelines updated 11th November 2019
Tools
Published in association with the Society for Experimental Biology
