Preparing and submitting your manuscript

Our journals have different formatting requirements, so please see individual journal websites to find out more about word limits, structure, or house style. Before you submit your manuscript make sure you have gone through the below checklist and preparation and submission guides.

Essential checks

1. Make sure you submit the final version of your manuscript. Once your manuscript is accepted for publication and received at Oxford University Press no further changes can be made.
2. Do not submit papers to Oxford University Press if they have been published somewhere else, or are being considered for publication elsewhere.
3. If your paper uses figures, tables, or parts of text that have been published elsewhere, you need permission from the copyright holder. Please see Rights and Permissions for details.
4. Submit your paper as a Word or LaTeX file.
5. Remember to include a title, all author names and affiliations, and the corresponding author’s email address.
6. Check the journal website for any journal-specific or subject-specific style elements, such as keywords or JEL codes.
7. Provide an abstract that avoids abbreviations or reference citations. 
8. Define all non-standard abbreviations when they first appear.
9. Number tables and figures, ensure they all have a legend. Define the meaning of any bold or italic formatting in your tables. Figures should be high-resolution and in a common image format (e.g. .eps or .tif).
10. All references should be readable and accurate. You do not need to format references to the journal’s style when you first submit your paper.
11. Include acknowledgements, conflict-of-interest declarations and details of funding sources and grant numbers at the end of your paper. Include the full funder name. Use author initials to indicate which authors received grants.
12. Check the journal’s Data Availability policy, and ensure your paper follows it.
13. Include all supplementary data files with your submission. 
14. Use Word’s ‘Insert equation’ and ‘Insert symbol’ functions to insert symbols or special characters. Do not use images. Times New Roman and Arial Unicode MS typically provide the widest range of symbols and special characters.

After we have reviewed your manuscript, we may ask for editable files, higher resolution figures, or edited files to fit journal style.

Guide to preparing your manuscript

Language services

Information about available language services

Oxford University Press partners with Enago, a leading provider of author services. Prospective authors are entitled to a discount of 30% for editing services at Enago, via the Specialist English Editing Services for Oxford University Press Authors page. Our partnership with Enago also entitles you to discounted support for abstract and layperson summary writing, graphical abstract, illustration and video creation, and rejected-paper editing.

• Chinese language support
• Japanese language support
• Korean language support

If you are not confident in the quality of your English, you may wish to use a language-editing service to ensure that editors and reviewers understand your paper. Language editing is optional and does not guarantee that your manuscript will be accepted. Edited manuscripts will still need to undergo peer review by the journal.

Figures

For a simple guide to preparing figure files, please see our short guidelines. These guidelines cover recommended file formats, resolution, sizing, and colour management options, to help you achieve the best outcomes online and in print. They should be read in conjunction with any specific guidelines provided on the website of your chosen journal.

Please also consider accessibility when designing your figure, so that your images can be easily understood by colour-blind and visually-impaired readers. Guidelines for preparing different image-types, including recommendations for colour palettes, colour contrast, image layout, and text accessibility.

Tables

• Supply any tables in an editable format (such as Microsoft Word), not as an image file.
• Avoid excessive formatting, such as the use of colour and shading which are not replicated in the published web version, and the use of tabbed spacing to indicate alignment.
• Ensure that any formatting or superscript symbols such as asterisks are explained in the table footnote.
• Provide units in column or row headers, rather than in the table body.
• All tables provided should be cited within the article text.

Supplementary material

If you are considering including Supplementary Material in your paper, bear the following online

• Supplementary material should enhance the written article without being necessary to understand it. 
• Supplementary material will only be available online and will not be copyedited.
• Supplementary material should be submitted in a separate file to the main article.
• Filenames should be self-explanatory (e.g. Supplementary Figure 1). 
• Supplementary material must be cited in the text of the main manuscript.
• Supplementary material files should be no larger than 2MB each.
• Style and formatting of supplementary material should be consistent with that of the manuscript. 
• Supplementary material should be formatted to function on any internet browser.
• Supplementary material may be hosted on OUP’s website or at one of our preferred partner sites, such as Dryad. Material hosted elsewhere (e.g. the author’s personal or institutional website, Google Docs, YouTube) is not allowed as links may expire.

Funding

Cite all funding for your research, providing the grant number and the funder name. If the funder is listed in the Crossref funder registry, the funder name should appear exactly as it appears in that database. Where grants were received by specific members of the author group, they should be identified by initial.

More information on funding agency requirements

LaTeX

If you are using LaTeX, then please note the following:

• Some journals provide a LaTeX templates and class files: check the journal websites for details. Many OUP journals also have templates available at Overleaf. 

• If the journal does not make a LaTeX template available, compile a PDF output using article.cls, follow the journal’s referencing system using \bibitem and the bibliography environment. Do not use locally-created macros or style files.

• Use common LaTeX tags like \ref, \cite, etc., for the automatic referencing to figures, tables and reference citations. 

• Send us all supporting files (including any .bib files used) alongside the main .tex file. Only submit macros used in the manuscript, and do not submit entire macro libraries.

OUP LaTex Template

The OUP LaTeX template produces manuscripts matching the formatting requirements of the journals listed at the following link: Journals supported by the OUP LaTeX template. The template is available on Overleaf.com, at CTAN, and as a direct download.

1. Check whether the journal you have chosen is supported by referring to the list linked above
2. Access the LaTeX package on Overleaf.com or download by following the links above
3. Select the appropriate class options from the list at the start of the main .tex file, commenting out the other options
4. If required, adjust the headings and citation style using the instructions below
5. Check the journal website for any additional requirements before submitting

If the journal you have chosen is not listed here, check the journal website in case a dedicated LaTeX package is available. If no package is available, we recommend you generate your output using article.cls, where possible avoiding any local macros or special formatting that may be difficult to replicate in the final publication process.

Specific sections within the template may need to be added or removed to match the requirements of the journal. If any elements within your manuscript (e.g. figures, tables, display equations) fit poorly within the page design, consider re-scaling, introducing a new float environment, or inserting a hard break. Elements may be adjusted to achieve an optimal page layout during the publication process. Received/revised/accepted date fields can be ignored: these will be populated during the production process. Any redundant files from the package should be removed prior to submission.

Further guidance is available within the file package. Find general help in using LaTeX.

The table below describes how to adjust core formatting options within the template:

Videos

Videos should be submitted as an .mp4 file-type, at the highest possible resolution, and include a still image to represent the video in the print PDF. 

If supplied alongside the manuscript and cited within the article text, published videos will appear as streamable content within the article body. We cannot use videos hosted on third-party sites such as YouTube, as the link may expire.

3D Figures

On some of our journals, authors may submit 3D models for online publication as part of the article. Check the Author Guidelines of the relevant journal to see whether this is an option and to find further instructions.

Guide to submitting your manuscript

To submit your manuscript go to your journal’s website and click ‘Submit’.

Online submission support

If you need help with submissions to ScholarOne, please contact them or see the ScholarOne userguides. For Editorial Manager submissions please see their support pages or video guides.

ORCiD

We encourage authors to supply ORCiD IDs during manuscript submission. See our ORCiD page for more information.