Paper Types

Bioscience Reports considers the following paper types for submission:

Original Research
Research articles can vary greatly in length, there is no strict criteria in the journal for the word count or number of Figures a research paper should contain. If your research article is short (less than 4,000 words) it may be more suited to publication as a Brief Report (see below for more details).

Full guidelines on preparing a research submission can be found via the Submission Checklist.

Brief Reports
New article type for 2022: Brief reports are designed to concisely convey novel research that may not yet be fully explored, or explored in as much depth, as an Original Research paper.

To qualify as a Brief Report, the main body of text should be no more than 4,000 words in length (excluding the Abstract, Figure legends, References, Funding, Author contributions, Data availability statement etc.), and contain no more than 4 Figures. 

The specific content within this article type should follow the general format below:

• A brief introduction or background
• Methodology
• Results, including appropriate statistics 
• Discussion, including the limitations of the study
• Testable hypotheses and direction for future research 

Brief Report submissions undergo the same peer review process as all other submission types, but carry a slightly reduced Article Publishing Charge. More information on Open Access and the Article Publishing Charge can be found on our Open Access Policy page.

Review articles
The majority of review articles in the journal are commissioned by the Editorial team, however the journal does consider non-invited review submissions for consideration. Prospective authors should complete our pre-submission enquiry form or contact the Editorial Office providing a draft of their article if available.

Review articles should be approximately 6,000 words in length. There is no strict limit on the word count, number of references or Figures included. Review articles should be of broad interest and provide a balanced overview of the field. The use of main headings and subheadings to guide readers is encouraged.

Review articles should follow the same general formatting as stated in the Submission Checklist, noting that not all of these sections (such as Methods and Data Availability statements) are a requirement for reviews.

Commentaries
The majority of commentary articles in the journal are commissioned by the Editorial team, however the journal will consider requests to write a commentary on one of our published articles. Prospective authors should contact the Editorial Office stating the article they are interested in writing a commentary for.

Commentaries can be up to 3,000 words in length, should include at least one Figure and should cite the Original Research article they are commenting on. Commentaries are not intended as open reviews of the paper, but rather to guide readers in an informed manner.

Commentaries are intended to:
• be constructive
• put the paper into context and look at the bigger picture
• be lively and moderately speculative
• be accessible to a wide audience

Correspondence
Correspondence pieces (or Letters to the Editor) should be informative and proactive. Any correspondence piece received by the journal regarding a published paper will be sent to the authors of said paper for a response prior to further assessment by the journal.