MANUSCRIPT PREPARATION CHECKLIST

This document is a guide covering the technical points required for preparation of your manuscript. Additional
details can be found in the Author Guidelines on the journal homepage.

GENERAL

Please use the Word and LaTeX manuscript templates from the Author Guidelines page to format your manuscript.
In general, the order of the sections in the file is:

Title – Author(s) – (Dedication) – Affiliation(s), – Keywords – Abstract – Main Text [including Figures, Schemes and
Tables] – (Experimental Section/Methods) – Acknowledgements – References – (Biographies) – Table of Contents text
[Sections in brackets are only present in certain article types]

Where appropriate please change/provide/check the following details:

❑ Use American-style English spelling throughout the manuscript.

❑ Use Greek letters in the character font Symbol or as inserted symbols. Do not use an Equation Editor to insert
single characters (unless they are complex characters such as vectors).

❑ Use symbols for equations where possible. If this is not possible, use an Equation Editor and insert the equation
using “Insert – Equation” rather than pasting it in as a graphic.

❑ Italicize letters that symbolize variables and physical quantities, such as T for temperature, E for energy, n for
an unspecified number.

❑ Molar (м) should be in small capitals.

❑ All Figures, Schemes, and Tables should be mentioned in the main text in numerical order.

❑ "Figure 1", "Table 3", etc. should be written out in full.

❑ Tables should be created using a table-function rather than as graphics or using tab spacing. Units should be
enclosed in square brackets. Tables should be provided with a brief caption. For footnotes in tables, Roman
lowercase letters followed by a closing parenthesis should be used. An example is included in the manuscript
template.

❑ If a footnote management system such as EndNote is used for the references, please clear all fields from the
references using “Select All” followed by [ctrl]+[shift]+F9.

❑ References to literature or to endnotes in the text should be typed in square brackets as superscripts, and be
after any punctuation, numbered consecutively, and listed at the end of the main body of text. All references
must be mentioned in the text. Please do not use any footnotes; instead set any notes to the text as endnotes
within the reference list.

❑ In the Experimental Section/Methods, quantities of reactants, solvents, etc., should be included in

parentheses, e.g., triphenylstannyl chloride (0.964 g, 2.5 mmol) in toluene (20 mL).

❑ Physical data should be written with decimal points (not commas) and negative exponents (e.g., 25.8 J K −1
mol−1 as opposed to 25,8 J/Kmol). Plane angles in products of units can have either ° or deg as the unit. Units
should be written in the same order throughout the manuscript. When measurement conditions remain
unchanged, they need only be mentioned once, e.g., in the column headings of a table.

❑ Nomenclature should conform to the current American usage. Adhere to the relevant IUPAC, IUB, or IUPAP
rules and recommendations. See the Author Guidelines for more details.

❑ Abbreviations and acronyms should be used sparingly and consistently. Where they first appear in the text, the
definition should also be given. A list of abbreviations that do not require definition is at the end of this
document.

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❑ If the manuscript describes experiments using animals, the approval of the national or local authorities (giving
the approval or the accreditation number of the laboratory and of the investigator) should be stated. If no such
rules or permission are stipulated in the particular country, this must also be mentioned in the manuscript. The
ARRIVE guidelines, which are hosted on the NC3Rs website at http://www.nc3rs.org.uk/ARRIVEpdf, should be
followed.

❑ For manuscripts containing experiments with human subjects or tissue samples from human subjects,
a statement regarding appropriate Ethical Committee approval and that the informed consent of all
participating subjects was obtained must be included. When reporting phase II and III clinical trials,
reporting on tumor marker studies, or describing human biospecimens, authors should refer, respectively,
to the relevant CONSORT statement, REMARK, or BRISQ guidelines [as appropriate].

❑ Keywords: Please include 3 to 7 keywords.

❑ Conflict of Interest: Please state whether any authors have a financial/commercial Conflict of Interest.

❑ Acknowledgements: Remember to acknowledge all funding sources relevant to the work reported.

LITERATURE SECTION

Journal references should be cited as follows: [no.] A. B. Author1, C. D. Author2, E. F. Author3, Abbrev. Journal Title
Year, Vol. no., first page no. (if a journal does not use page nos., the article no. should be cited). All authors must be
listed (not "et al."). Examples are provided below and in the manuscript templates:

Journals Articles: [1] a) Y. Zou, M. Zheng, W. Yang, F. Meng, K. Miyata, H. J. Kim, K. Kataoka, Z. Zhong Adv. Mater.
2017, 29, 1703285; b) E. Branscomb, M. J. Russell, BioEssays 2018, 40, 1700179; c) A. Behrens, K. Foremny, T. Doll,
Phys. Status Solidi A., https://doi.org/10.1002/pssa.201700873; d) A. Jones, B. Smith, unpublished.

Books: [2] R. J. Farrauto, L. Dorazio, C. H. Bartholomew, Introduction to Catalysis and Industrial Catalytic Processes,
Wiley, Hoboken, NJ 2016.

Chapter in a Multi-Authored Book: [3] J. Lienemann, A. Greiner, J. G. Korvink, X. Xiong, Y. Hanein, K. F.

Böhringer, in Sensors Update, Vol. 13 (Eds: H. Baltes, G. K. Fedder, J. G. Korvink), Wiley-VCH, Weinheim, Germany
2004, Ch. 1.

Proceedings Volumes: [4] a) C. D'silva, V. Parthasarathy, S. N. Rao, in Proc. 2016 Workshop Wearable Systems
Applications (Eds: E. H. Lee, A. L. Copley), ACM, New York 2016, 13; b) C. D’silva, presented at 14th Annual Int.
Conf. Mobile Systems, Applications, Services, New York, NY, June 2016.

Thesis and Patents: [5] a) Y. Sheima, Master Thesis, Universität Freiburg 2017.; b) H.-S. Seo, D.-C. Kim (Samsung
Electronics Co., Ltd.), Ger. 2016122271, 2016.

Preprints: [6] A. Bag, M. Neugebauer, U. Mick, S. Christiansen, S. A. Schulz, P. Banzer, (Preprint)

arXiv:1909.04478, v2, submitted: Sept 2019.

GRAPHICAL MATERIAL

❑ Formulas, figures, and schemes can be submitted as individual files or in the main file. They should not have
borders. Please see the “Graphics” FAQ (available from the Author Guidelines page) for detailed information on
the preparation of figures.

❑ Acceptable formats are: TIFF, JPG, EPS, DOCX, WMF, PDF, XLSX, PPTX, CDX, PNG, AI.

❑ Axes should be labeled with physical quantities separated from their units; for example, λ [nm]. Labels should
be oriented along the axis directions.

❑ Inset diagrams should be avoided (when possible, consider a multipart figure as an alternative). If an inset is
necessary, use the same font size as in the main diagram to ensure legibility.

❑ Use only one font size in any one figure, adjusting the size of the writing relative to the overall size of the figure.

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❑ For structural formulas the line width should be explicitly defined (at least 0.2 pt or 0.1 mm).

❑ Comprehensive experimental details should be given in the captions for schemes.

❑ Where figures have been reproduced from previously published articles/sources, permission must be obtained
to reuse/reproduce these figures. Include permission statements in figure captions where relevant:
Reproduced (or Adapted) with permission.[Ref.] Copyright Year, Publisher. For more details, please see the guide
“Copyright Permissions” (available on the Author Guidelines page).

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Please provide a short text for the Table of Contents (ToC) along with a graphic.

❑ ToC text: Briefly describe the main results of your manuscript (50–60 words). Use plain English that is accessible
to a general audience and focus on the central message of the manuscript. Please be concise, using short
sentences.

❑ ToC figure: please choose the figure that best conveys the main message of the article. This doesn’t need to be
one of the figures in the article but could be one that you composed yourself to best represent the topic. You
must hold the copyright to this figure and any images used to create it. Size of the image should be either 55
mm × 50 mm (w × h) or 110 mm × 20 mm (w × h).

SUPPORTING INFORMATION

Succinct text and the necessary graphics should be submitted as one file (i.e., Word file or PDF), when possible. Use
the templates to prepare the first page if possible. Other types of Supporting Information, e.g., multimedia files, raw
data, code, etc., should be provided separately, with large files provided in a zip file. If you experience difficulty
uploading large files, please contact the editorial office for assistance.

BIOGRAPHIES

For Reviews, and Perspectives, authors are asked to provide short biographies (no more than 100 words) and
photographs for those authors who should be highlighted in the author biography section at the end of the article.

COVER LETTER

Manuscripts should be accompanied by a cover letter from the corresponding author. The cover letter should
highlight the novelty and importance of the work and inform the editor of any special considerations and be included
in the appropriate field in the manuscript submission system.

COVER PICTURE

After acceptance, authors are encouraged to submit an image as a candidate to appear on the cover of the journals.
Further information can be found in the Additional Services tab – “Guidelines for Cover Suggestion Submission” – on
the Author Guidelines page or contact the editorial office for details.

COMMON ABBREVIATIONS/ACRONYMS

anal. equiv NMR vol

at. wt. equiv wt ref(s) vs
bp et al. RNA w/v
ca. etc. sp., spp. w/w
DNA i.e. UK wt
e.g. in. USA
ed., eds. IR UV
Ed., Eds: Mr v/v

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