Author Guidelines  (Updated on 11 September 2024)

• New New article types: Technical Notes, Methods, Protocols, Meeting Report.
• At the first submission, authors may submit their manuscripts in a conventional format (including double spacing and consecutive line numbers for the sake of reviewers)
• Authors are encouraged to post their articles on a preprint server before submitting to DGD.
• Authors may nominate editors and may suggest reviewers.
• No Publication charge.
• Image Checking Upon acceptance of your manuscript, all figures of your manuscript will undergo an integrity check. 

AIMS AND SCOPE

Development Growth & Differentiation (DGD) publishes seven types of articles: original, short, resource, method, protocol, technical notes, and review papers.

Research articles are on any subjects having a context in development, growth, and differentiation processes in animals, plants, and microorganisms, dealing with molecular, genetic, cellular and organismal phenomena including metamorphosis and regeneration, while using experimental, theoretical, and bioinformatic approaches. Papers on other related fields are also welcome, such as stem cell biology, genomics, neuroscience, Evodevo, Ecodevo, and medical science as well as related methodology (new or revised techniques) and bioresources. The total length of the article is basically no more than 8000 words, including the main text and figure legends, but not the title page, abstract, or reference list.

Short research articles are a short version of research articles with (i) 2000~4000 words (not including the title page, abstract, or reference list), (ii) two to four figures/tables, and (iii) a single "Results and Discussion" section.

Resource papers describe a dataset, such as whole genome sequences and expressed sequence tags (ESTs), with some biological insights, which should be valuable for studying the subjects as mentioned above.

Method articles are to report novel methods/techniques or critically improved methods with new findings as articles. Click here to find details.

Protocols are to provide instructions of methods that have already been used in published papers elsewhere but not described in detail yet. Authors are required to send a presubmission inquiry to the Editor-in-Chief before submission.  Click here to find details.

New Technical Notes are are to report a new or improved technique(s), tool(s), or material(s) in a series of experimental methods, providing (i) improvements in the quality of the output, (ii) quantitative improvements in the output, (iii) improvements in labor, cost, or time, and (iv) others.  Click here to find details.

New Meeting Report
A timely review of academic meetings and symposia that are useful to the developmental biology community, by invitation of the editors. The maximum length is 2000 words and an abstract is not required. Up to 3 figures/tables are encouraged and up to 20 references are acceptable.

Review articles and Mini reviews are to provide a new scope based on the authors’ own study, or a summarization of their study series. Historical reviews are to provide a recent or traditional research field or society etc. These reviews are and usually submitted upon invitation by the Editors or Editor-in-Chief.  Authors who wish to contribute review articles should contact the Editor-in-Chief before submission.  Review articles and Historical reviews are usually no more than 8000 words.  Mini reviews are usually no more than 4000 words.

ACCEPTANCE

Manuscripts are accepted whether or not the author is a member of the Japanese Society of Developmental Biologists and on the understanding that the content has not been published or accepted for publication elsewhere except as a brief abstract in the proceedings of a scientific meeting or symposium, or as an article on a preprint server.

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 peer reviewed by two anonymous reviewers and the Editor.

The Editorial Board members reserve the right to refuse any material for publication and advise that authors should retain copies of submitted manuscripts and correspondence as material cannot be returned. Final acceptance or rejection rests with the Editorial Board members.

The review process takes approximately one month, after which the author is notified of the decision and provided with copies of the reviewers’ comments. Depending on the month of publication of the next available issue, manuscripts will usually be published within three months from the date of receipt of the final version by the Editor-in-Chief.

Upon request from the editors, the authors need to share raw data (unprocessed digital images, datasets, etc.). Note that the raw data must be stored for five years after publication.

Preprint policy 
The journal will consider for review articles previously available as preprints. Authors may also post the submitted version of a manuscript to a preprint server at any time. Authors are requested to update any pre-publication versions with a link to the final published article.

Data Sharing and Data Accessibility
The journal encourages authors to share the data and other artefacts supporting the results in the paper by archiving it in an appropriate public repository. Authors should include a data accessibility statement, including a link to the repository they have used, in order that this statement can be published alongside their paper.

Image Checking
Upon acceptance of your manuscript in the Journal, all figures of your manuscript will undergo an integrity check. In case of any doubt, raw data will be requested. Publication will only proceed on the condition that all final files comply with the journal integrity checks. In the event that any file does not comply with our integrity checks, the journal reserves the right to rescind this decision, or, alternatively, you may be contacted to resolve any concerns raised by these checks.

SUBMISSION OF MANUSCRIPTS

Manuscripts should be written so that they are intelligible to a reader who is not a specialist in the particular field. Where contributions are judged as acceptable for publication on the basis of scientific content, the Editor or the Publisher reserve the right to modify typescripts to eliminate ambiguity and repetition and improve communication between author and reader. If extensive alterations are required, the manuscript will be returned to the author for revision.

Online submission

Manuscripts should be submitted online. Use of the online system, ScholarOne Manuscripts, speeds up the review process, improves accuracy, enables immediate distribution of files, and allows authors to track their own manuscripts. If you have any problems using the system, please contact ScholarOne Manuscripts technical support, Clarivate Analytics. (http://mchelp.manuscriptcentral.com/gethelpnow/). 

Authors must supply an email address as all correspondence will be by email. Two files should be supplied: the cover letter and the manuscript (in Word or rich text format (.rtf)). The cover letter should be uploaded as a file not for review.

At the first submission, authors do not need to format their manuscripts according to the journal style, so long as their manuscripts are readable and logical and contain sufficient information regarding the experiments performed and the interpretation of the results.

All articles submitted to the journal must comply with these instructions. Failure to do so will result in return of the manuscript and possible delay in publication.
• Submissions should be double-spaced.
• Font sizes should be 12-14 points; Font types should be Times, Times New Roman, Chicago, Helvetica, Arial, or equivalent.  
• All margins should be at least 30 mm.
• All pages should be numbered consecutively in the top right-hand corner, beginning with the title page.
• All lines should be consecutively numbered on the left side through the entire manuscript for the review process.
• Do not use Enter at the end of lines within a paragraph.
• Turn the hyphenation option off; include only those hyphens that are essential to the meaning.
• Specify any special characters used to represent non-keyboard characters.
• Take care not to use l (ell) for 1 (one), O (capital o) for 0 (zero) or ß (German esszett) for Greek beta.
• Use a tab, not spaces, to separate data points in tables. If you use a table editor function, ensure that each data point is contained within a unique cell (i.e. do not use carriage returns within cells).

Each figure should be supplied at the final size width (the column, 80 mm; intermediate text width, 117 mm; or full text width, 167 mm) as a separate file, with the figure number incorporated in the file name. For submission, low-resolution figures saved as .jpg or .pdf or .bmp files should be uploaded (the total number of pixels must be less than 40 megapixels), for ease of transmission during the review process. Upon acceptance of the article, high-resolution figures (at least 300 d.p.i.) saved as .eps or .tif files should be uploaded. Digital images supplied only as low-resolution files cannot be used.

ORCID

As part of our commitment to supporting authors at every step of the publishing process, the journal requires the submitting author (only) to provide an ORCID iD when submitting a manuscript. This takes around 2 minutes to complete. For more information.

Editors and Reviewers

Authors may suggest up to three editors from the list of editors (see the Editorial Board), and also several reviewers. Suggested editors and reviewers should be experts of or related to the paper's scientific area who have not worked in a close collaboration with the authors for more than 5 years. 

Cover letter and ethics

Papers are accepted for publication in the Journal on the understanding that the content has not been published or submitted for publication elsewhere. This must be stated in the cover letter. Authors must also state that the protocol for the research project has been approved by a suitably constituted Ethics Committee of the institution within which the work was undertaken and that it conforms to the provisions of the Declaration of Helsinki.
All investigations on human subjects must include a statement that the subject gave informed consent, and patient anonymity should be preserved.
Any experiments involving animals must be demonstrated to be ethically acceptable and where relevant conform to the guidelines approved by the institution where the experiments were performed. Authors should declare any financial support or relationships that may pose conflict of interest.

PREPARATION OF THE MANUSCRIPT

Article Preparation Support: Wiley Editing Services offers expert help with English Language Editing, as well as translation, manuscript formatting, figure illustration, figure formatting, and graphical abstract design – so you can submit your manuscript with confidence.
Also, check out our resources for Preparing Your Article for general guidance about writing and preparing your manuscript.

Style
The journal uses US spelling and authors should therefore follow the latest edition of Merriam–Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (e.g. “in vivo,” “in vitro,” and “et al.” are not italicized).　
All measurements must be given in SI units as outlined in the latest edition of Units, Symbols and Abbreviations: A Guide for Medical and Scientific Editors and Authors (Royal Society of Medicine Press, London).
Abbreviations should be used sparingly and only where they ease the reader’s task by reducing repetition of long, technical terms. Initially use the word in full, followed by the abbreviation in parentheses. Thereafter use the abbreviation. Click here for a list of abbreviations that can be used without definition.
At the first mention of a chemical substance, give the generic name only. Trade names should not used. Drugs should be referred to by their generic names, rather than brand 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. However, for well-known species, the scientific name may be omitted from the article title. If no common name exists in English, the scientific name should be used only.
Nucleotide sequence data must 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.”

Parts of the manuscript

Manuscripts should be presented in the following order: (i) title page; (ii) abstract and keywords; (iii) text (introduction, materials and methods, results, and discussion in case of Research Article); (iv) acknowledgements; (v) author contributions; (vi) references; (vii) tables (each table complete with title and footnotes); and (viii) figure legends; and (xv) figures. Footnotes to the text are not allowed and any such material should be incorporated into the text as parenthetical matter.

Title page
The title page should contain: (i) the title of the paper; (ii) the full names of the authors; (iii) the addresses of the institutions at which the work was carried out together with (iv) the full postal and email address, plus facsimile and telephone numbers, of the author to whom correspondence about the manuscript, proofs and requests for offprints should be sent.
In keeping with the latest guidelines of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, each author’s contribution to the paper is to be quantified.
The title should be short, informative and contain the major keywords. 

Abstract and keywords
Articles must have an abstract that states in 250 words or less the purpose, basic procedures, main findings and principal conclusions of the study. The abstract should be self-contained and sentences should be logically connected. The abstract should not contain references.
Five keywords should be supplied below the abstract, in alphabetical order, for the purposes of indexing and should be taken from those recommended by the US National Library of Medicine’s browser list.

Introduction
This section should include sufficient background information to set the work in context. The aims of the manuscript should be clearly stated. The Introduction should not contain either findings or conclusions.

Materials and methods
This should be concise but provide sufficient detail to allow the work to be repeated by others and also to be validated. The source of material should be given in detail (i.e. company/institution, state/province, country) where possible.

Results
Results should be presented in a logical sequence in the text, tables and figures; repetitive presentation of the same data in different forms should be avoided. The Results should not contain material appropriate to the Discussion.

Discussion
This should consider the results in relation to any hypotheses advanced in the Introduction and place the study in the context of other work.

Author contributions
List the specific contributions of each author to the published work, such as designed research, performed research, analyzed data, and wrote the paper.

Acknowledgements
The source of financial grants and other funding should be acknowledged, including a frank declaration of the authors’ industrial links and affiliations. The contribution of colleagues or institutions should also be acknowledged. Thanks to anonymous reviewers are not allowed.

References

List all sources in the reference list alphabetically by name. In text citations should follow the author-date method. This means that the author's last name and the year of publication for the source should appear in the text, for example, (Jones, 1998), and a complete reference should appear in the reference list at the end of the paper.

References are styled according to Wiley's APA Style (see pages 15-19 for reference style).

A sample of the most common entries in reference lists appears below. Please note that for journal articles, issue numbers are not included unless each issue in the volume begins with page one.

References should be listed in the following form.

Journal article

Berridge, M. J. (1993). Inositol trisphosphate and calcium signalling. Nature, 361, 315–325.

<Example of reference with 2 to 7 authors>
Sakane, Y., Sakuma, T., Kashiwagi, K., Kashiwagi, A., Yamamoto, T., & Suzuki, K. T. (2014). Targeted mutagenesis of multiple and paralogous genes in Xenopus laevis using two pairs of transcription activator like effector nucleases. Development, Growth & Differentiation, 56, 108–114.

<Example of reference with more than 7 authors>
Choi, J. W., Herr, D. R., Noguchi, K., Yung, Y. C., Lee, C. W., Mutoh, T., … Chun, J. (2010). LPA receptors: Subtypes and biological actions. Annual Review of Pharmacology and Toxicology, 50, 157–186.

Book edition

Baskin, C. C. & Baskin, J. M. (1998). Seeds. London: Academic Press.

Chapter in a book

Wylie, C. C., Scott, D. & Donnovan, P. J. (1986). Primordial germ cell migration. In L. W. Browder (Ed.), Developmental Biology, Vol. 2 (pp. 433–448). New York: Plenum Press.

Appendices
These should be placed at the end of the paper, numbered in Arabic numerals and referred to in the text. If written by a person other than the author of the main text, the writer’s name should be included below the title.

Tables

Tables should be numbered consecutively in Arabic numerals. Each table should be presented on a separate page with a comprehensive but concise legend above the table. Tables should be double-spaced and vertical lines should not be used to separate columns. Column headings should be brief, with units of measurement in parentheses; all abbreviations should be defined in footnotes (using symbols †,‡,§,¶ in that order); and table legend/footnotes should be understandable without reference to the text.

Figures

All illustrations (line drawings and photographs) are classified as figures. Figures should be cited in consecutive order in the text. If it is considered necessary by the author that a figure be cited earlier in the text (i.e. out of numerical order) then the citation should read “cf. Fig. 5”. Figures should be sized to fit within the column (80 mm), intermediate text width (117 mm) or full text width (167 mm).

Line figures should be sharp, black and white graphs or diagrams, drawn professionally or with a computer graphics package. Lettering must be included and should be sized to be no larger than the journal text.

Individual photographs forming a composite figure should be of equal contrast, to facilitate printing, and should be accurately squared. When labeling parts of composite figures, authors are encouraged to use lower case letters; however, the labels in the legends will be changed by the Publisher to match that used in the figure. Magnifications should be indicated using a scale bar on the illustration.

Figures should be supplied as high resolution (at least 300 d.p.i.) files, saved as .eps or .tif format. Please use LZW Compression when saving as tif. Do not embed figures in the Word document – they must be supplied in separate files. Digital images supplied only as low-resolution print-outs cannot be used. 

Color art should be in RGB mode. RGB stands for Red, Green and Blue - there are the colors that are displayed by computer monitors.

Although authors are encouraged to send the highest-quality figures possible, for peer-review purposes, a wide variety of formats, sizes, and resolutions are accepted. 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.

Color figures

While color is a significant and effective vehicle for delivering information in figures, not all people perceive color information in the same way. To ensure that readers with most color-vision types will be able to comprehend your data, the Editor-in-Chief strongly recommends the following guidelines for preparation of color figures:
• Avoid using red characters on a dark background.
• In panels showing fluorescent double-staining micrographs and DNA chips, do not use the combination of red and green; use magenta and green instead.
• In micrographs with three or more channels, include either a grayscale image of each channel or a combination of magenta and green for the two most important channels.
• In color graphs and line drawings, use both color and shape (solid and dotted lines, different symbols, various hatchings etc.) so that communication does not rely on color information alone.
Additional information can be found here.

Color photographs will be published at no charge to the author.

Suggestions for cover photographs are welcomed. Usually one or two photographs are included on the cover. Photographs must appear in a submitted manuscript.

Figure legends

Legends should be self-explanatory and typed on a separate page. The legend should incorporate definitions of any symbols used and all abbreviations and units of measurement should be explained so that the figure and its legend is understandable without reference to the text. (Provide a letter stating copyright authorization if figures have been reproduced from another source.)

Supporting information

The author may supply supporting materials, such as tables, figures, movies, etc. as Supporting information, which is not included in the printed article (pdf), but can be downloaded from the article website. View Wiley’s FAQs on supporting information.

PAGE CHARGES

No publication and color charges. 

COPYRIGHT, LICENSING AND OPEN ACCESS

Accepted papers will be passed to Wiley’s production team for publication. The author identified as the formal corresponding author for the paper will receive an email prompting them to login into Wiley’s Author Services, where via the Wiley Author Licensing Service (WALS) they will be asked to complete an electronic license agreement on behalf of all authors on the paper.

This journal is a subscription journal that offers an open access option (Open Access advantage). You’ll have the option to choose to make your article open access after acceptance, which will be subject to an APC. You can read more about APCs and whether you may be eligible for waivers or discounts, through your institution, funder, or a country waiver. JSDB member discount APC is available when a corresponding author of an article in Development, Growth & Differentiation is the JSDB society member. Please contact the society office for the member discount code.

You may choose to publish under the terms of the journal’s standard copyright agreement (CTA), or Open Access under the terms of a Creative Commons License. 
Standard re-use and licensing rights vary by journal. Note that certain funders mandate a particular type of CC license be used. This journal uses the CC-BY/CC-BY-NC/CC-BY-NC-ND Creative Commons License.

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.

Standard Copyright Transfer Agreement: FAQs about the terms and conditions of the standard CTA in place for the journal, including standard terms regarding archiving of the accepted version of the paper, are available at: Copyright Terms and Conditions FAQs.

Note that in signing the journal’s licence agreement authors agree that consent to reproduce figures from another source has been obtained.

PUBLICATION PROCESS AFTER ACCEPTANCE

Accepted article received in production

When an accepted article is received by Wiley’s production team, the corresponding author will receive an email asking them to login or register with Wiley Author Services. The author will be asked to sign a publication license at this point.

Proofs

Authors will receive an e-mail notification with a link and instructions for accessing HTML page proofs online. Page proofs should be carefully proofread for any copyediting or typesetting errors. Online guidelines are provided within the system. No special software is required, all common browsers are supported. Authors should also make sure that any renumbered tables, figures, or references match text citations and that figure legends correspond with text citations and actual figures. Proofs must be returned within 48 hours of receipt of the email. Return of proofs via e-mail is possible in the event that the online system cannot be used or accessed.

Early View

The journal offers rapid speed to 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 the article appears online, as Editors also need to review proofs. Once the article is published on Early View, no further changes to the article are possible. The Early View article is fully citable and carries an online publication date and DOI for citations.

POST PUBLICATION

Access and sharing

When the article is published online:

• The author receives an email alert (if requested.)
• The link to the published article can be shared through social media.
• The author will have free access to the paper (after accepting the Terms & Conditions of use, they can view the article).
• The corresponding author and co-authors can nominate up to ten colleagues to receive a publication alert and free online access to the article.

Please see Wiley's article sharing policy from here.

Print copies of the article can now be ordered (instructions are sent at proofing stage).

Promoting the Article

Maximize the impact of your published research – free Promotional Toolkit
The marketing team at Wiley will do everything they can to make sure your research is discovered, but did you know there are ways you can help too? Download this useful Promotional Toolkit as a quick reference to discover how you can implement some tried and tested techniques to make sure your research is read, cited and shared. Wiley also has a dedicated website to support you throughout your publishing journey that I would urge you to visit: wileyauthors.com.

To find out how to best promote an article, click here.

Article Promotion Support

Wiley Editing Services offers professional video, design, and writing services to create shareable video abstracts, infographics, conference posters, lay summaries, and research news stories for your research – so you can help your research get the attention it deserves.

Measuring the Impact of an Article

Wiley also helps authors measure the impact of their research through specialist partnerships with Kudos and Altmetric.

EDITORIAL OFFICE CONTACT

DGD Editorial Office
Email: [email protected]

Updated on 11 September 2024