Instructions to Authors

• How we publish
• Peer review process
• Publication and research ethics
• C4DISC partnership
• Availability of data and materials
• Digital preservation
• Self-archiving policy
• Publishing Agreement and charges
• Changes to published papers
• Promoting your work
• Preparing your manuscript
• Drug disclaimer
• Disclaimer
• Contact us

How we publish

Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience is a peer reviewed fully open access journal publishing one continuous issue per year online. All papers published in the Journal are made freely available online under open access publishing agreements, with applicable charges. Please refer to the open access section below.

Once a paper is accepted and the publishing agreement is signed, the Journal will publish the Accepted Manuscript version of the paper (before copyediting and review of the final proof) within one week on the Advance Articles page. The Accepted Manuscript will be removed from Advance Articles when the Version of Record of the paper (after copyediting and proof review process) is published in the currently open issue. Substantial changes to the published Accepted Manuscript may require a correction notice. The Version of Record requires a correction notice for any changes after it is published, even if it is not yet placed in an issue. See the definitions of the Version of Record and other versions of the paper for more details.

Peer review process

Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience operates single-anonymized peer review, meaning that the identity of the authors is known to the editors and to the reviewers, but that the reviewers’ identities are known only to the editors and are hidden from the authors. Except where otherwise stated, manuscripts are reviewed by at least two anonymous reviewers and an Associate Editor. Final acceptance or rejection rests with the Editorial Board, who reserves the right to refuse any material for publication.

At submission, please include the names of 3-5 individuals that are qualified to review your manuscript. Indicate the name, institution and email address of each individual. The Journal will try to have at least one reviewer from the set that you have requested. However, there is no guarantee the suggested reviewers will be selected by the Journal. Recommended reviewers should be experts in their field and able to provide an objective assessment of your manuscript without financial or interpersonal conflicts of interest with any authors. We encourage you to consider reviewers from a diverse range of backgrounds, including those from under-represented communities. You may also request a member of the editorial team that you think is best suited to handle your manuscript.

For full details about the peer review process, see Fair editing and peer review or OUP author FAQs.

Manuscript transfer

In some cases, the SCAN editorial team may offer you the option of transferring your manuscript to Oxford Open Neuroscience (OXFNSC). If you accept this offer, the manuscript files and any reviewer reports from consenting reviewers will be sent to OXFNSC. The editorial team of OXFNSC may choose to seek additional peer review. A decision will be made on the manuscript based on the feedback from all reviewers and the judgment of the OXFNSC editorial team.

Screening for misconduct

Manuscripts may be screened using iThenticate to help detect publication misconduct including plagiarism and redundant publication.

Appeals and complaints

Authors may appeal an editorial decision. To do so, please contact the editorial office, providing as much specific detail as possible about why the original decision should be reconsidered. Every appeal will receive a response within a reasonable timeframe. Please do not resubmit your manuscript in the interim.

To register a complaint regarding non-editorial decisions, the Journal’s policies and procedures, editors, or staff, please contact Journals.Ethics@oup.com. Complaints will be taken seriously and will be carried forward following COPE guidelines and processes.

Publication and research ethics

Authorship

Authorship is limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the design and execution of the work described. The order of authorship should be a joint decision of the co-authors. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for the content. Authorship credit should be based on substantial contribution to conception and design, execution, or analysis and interpretation of data. All authors should be involved in drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content and must have read and approved the final version of the manuscript. Assurance that all authors of the paper have fulfilled these criteria for authorship should be given in the covering letter.

Any contributors whose participation does not meet the criteria for authorship should be acknowledged but not listed as an author. For a detailed definition of authorship, please see the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) definitions of authors and contributors.

The Journal does not allow ghost authorship, where an unnamed author prepares the article with no credit, or guest/gift authorship, where an author who made little or no contribution is listed as an author. The Journal follows Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidance on investigating and resolving these cases. For more information, please see the OUP Publication Ethics page.

Natural language processing tools driven by artificial intelligence (AI) do not qualify as authors, and the Journal will screen for them in author lists. The use of AI (for example, to help generate content, write code, or process data) should be disclosed both in cover letters to editors and in the Methods or Acknowledgements section of manuscripts. Please see the COPE position statement on Authorship and AI for more details.

After manuscript submission, no authorship changes (including the authorship list, author order, and who is designated as the corresponding author) should be made without the approval of the editor. All co-authors must agree on the change(s), and neither the Journal nor the publisher mediates authorship disputes. If individuals cannot agree on the authorship of a submitted manuscript, contact the editorial office. The dispute must be resolved among the individuals and their institution(s) before the manuscript can be accepted for publication. If an authorship dispute or change arises after a paper is accepted, contact OUP’s Author Support team. COPE provides guidance for authors on resolving authorship disputes.

If you intend to use Read and Publish funding to publish your manuscript under an open access license, note that changing the corresponding author to access those funds is not permissible. For more information on Read and Publish funding, see the Open access charges section.

ORCID

Submitting authors are required to provide an ORCID iD (Open Researcher and Contributor ID) at submission.

If you do not already have an ORCID iD, you can register for free via the ORCID website.

As ORCID identifiers are collected, they are included in papers and displayed online, both in the HTML and PDF versions of the publication, in compliance with recommended practice issued by ORCID.

ORCID functionality online allows users to link to the ORCID website to view an author’s profile and list of publications. ORCID iDs are displayed on web pages and are sent downstream to third parties in data feeds, where supported.

If you have registered with ORCID, you can associate your ORCID iD with your submission system account by going to your account details, entering your ORCID iD, and validating your details. Learn more about ORCID and how to link it to your account.  

CRediT

The Journal uses the contributor roles taxonomy (CRediT), which allows authors to describe the contributor roles in a standardized, transparent, and accurate way. Authors should choose from the contributor roles outlined on the CRediT website and supply this information upon submission. You may choose multiple contributor roles per author. Any other individuals who do not meet authorship criteria and made less substantive contributions should be listed in your manuscript as non-author contributors with their contributions clearly described. Following manuscript submission, any changes to contributor roles require the approval of the editor.

Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest

Authors

SCAN requires all authors to disclose any potential conflict of interest at the point of submission. It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to ensure that conflicts of interest of all authors are declared to SCAN. If the corresponding author is unable to confirm this information on behalf of all co-authors, the authors in question will then be required to submit a completed ICMJE Disclosure of Interest form to the Editorial Office. It is the corresponding author’s responsibility to ensure that all authors adhere to this policy.

A conflict of interest exists when the position, activities, or relationships of an individual, whether direct or indirect, financial or non-financial, could influence or be seen to influence the opinions or activities of the individual. For more information, refer to OUP’s definition of conflict of interest.

The Journal follows the COPE guidance for any undisclosed conflict of interest that emerges during peer review, production, or after publication.

Peer reviewers

Individuals that have a conflict of interest relating to a submitted manuscript should recuse themselves and will not be assigned to oversee, handle, or peer review the manuscript.

If during peer review an editor, reviewer, or author becomes aware of a conflict of interest that was not previously known or disclosed they must inform the Editor-in-Chief immediately.

Editors and editorial board members

At initial submission, the corresponding author must declare if the Editor-in-Chief, an editor, or an Editorial Board Member of SCAN is an author of or contributor to the manuscript. Another editor without a conflict of interest will oversee the peer review and decision-making process. If accepted, a statement will be published in the paper describing how the manuscript was handled.

Previously published material

You should only submit your manuscript(s) to the Journal if:

• It is original work by you and your co-author(s).

• It is not under consideration, in peer review, or accepted for publication in any other publication.

• It has not been published in any other publication.

• It contains nothing abusive, defamatory, derogatory, obscene, fraudulent, or illegal.

The submitting author must disclose in their cover letter and provide copies of all related or similar preprints, dissertations, manuscripts, published papers, and reports by the same authors (i.e., those containing substantially similar content or using the same, similar, or a subset of data) that have been previously published or posted electronically or are under consideration elsewhere at the time of manuscript submission. You must also provide a concise explanation of how the submitted manuscript differs from these related manuscripts and papers. All related previously published papers should be cited as references and described in the submitted manuscript.

SCAN does not discourage you from presenting your findings at conferences or scientific meetings but recommends that you refrain from distributing complete copies of your manuscripts, which might later be published elsewhere without your knowledge.

For previously published materials including tables and figures, please see the Reusing copyrighted materials section.

Preprints

As an author, you retain the right to make an Author’s Original Version (preprint) available through various channels and this does not prevent submission to the Journal. If accepted, the authors are required to update the status of any preprint, including adding your published paper’s DOI. For full details on allowed channels and updating your preprint, please see our Author self-archiving policy.

Reusing copyrighted material

As an author, you must obtain permission for any material used within your manuscript for which you are not the rightsholder, including quotations, tables, figures, or images. In seeking permissions for published materials, first contact the publisher rather than the author. For unpublished materials, start by contacting the creator. Copies of each grant of permission should be provided to the editorial office of the Journal. The permissions agreement must include the following:

• nonexclusive rights to reproduce the material in your paper in SCAN

• rights for use in print and electronic format at a minimum, and preferably for use in any form or medium

• lifetime rights to use the material

• worldwide English-language rights

If you have chosen to publish under an open access license but have not obtained open access re-use permissions for third-party material contained within the manuscript, this must be stated clearly by supplying a credit line alongside the material with the following information:

• Title of content

• Author, Original publication, year of original publication, by permission of [rightsholder]

• This image/content is not covered by the terms of the Creative Commons license of this publication. For permission to reuse, please contact the rights holder.

Our publisher, Oxford University Press, provides detailed Copyright and Permissions Guidelines, and a summary of the fundamental information.

Misconduct

Authors should observe high standards with respect to research integrity and publication ethics as set out by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Falsification or fabrication of data including inappropriate image manipulation, plagiarism, including duplicate publication of the author's own work without proper citation, and misappropriation of work are all unacceptable practices.  Allegations of ethical misconduct, both directly and through social media, are treated seriously and will be investigated in accordance with the relevant COPE guidance.

If misconduct has been established beyond reasonable doubt, this may result in one or more of the following outcomes, among others:

• If a submitted manuscript is still under consideration, it may be rejected and returned to the author.

• If a paper has already been published online, depending on the nature and severity of the infraction, either a correction notice will be published and linked to the paper, or retraction of the paper will occur, following the COPE Retraction Guidelines.

• The relevant party’s institution(s) and/or other journals may be informed.

Manuscripts submitted to the Journal may be screened with plagiarism-detection software. Any manuscript may be screened, especially if there is reason to suppose that part or all the of the manuscript has been previously published.

COPE defines plagiarism as “when somebody presents the work of others (data, words or theories) as if they were their own and without proper acknowledgment.”

COPE defines redundant/overlapping publication as “when a published work (or substantial sections from a published work) is/are published more than once (in the same or another language) without adequate acknowledgment of the source/cross-referencing/justification,
or
when the same (or substantially overlapping) data is presented in more than one publication without adequate cross-referencing/justification, particularly when this is done in such a way that reviewers/readers are unlikely to realise that most or all the findings have been published before.”

COPE defines citation manipulation as “behaviours intended to inflate citation counts for personal gain, such as: excessive self-citation of an authors’ own work, excessive citation to the journal publishing the citing article, and excessive citation between journals in a coordinated manner.”

Data fabrication is defined as intentionally creating fake data or misrepresenting research results. An example includes making up data sets.

Data falsification is defined as manipulating research data with the purpose of intentionally giving a false representation. This can apply to images, research materials, equipment, or processes. Examples include cropping of gels/images to change context and omission of selected data.

If notified of a potential breach of research misconduct or publication ethics, the Journal editor and editorial office staff may inform OUP and/or the author’s institutional affiliation(s).

Ethical research

SCAN follows Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines on ethical oversight.  We take research integrity seriously, and all research published in SCAN must have been conducted in a fair and ethical manner. Wherever appropriate, SCAN requires that all research be done according to international and local guidelines.

Human subjects

When reporting on human subjects, you should indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the Helsinki Declaration (1964, amended most recently in 2013), which were developed by the World Medical Association. For non-interventional studies, where ethical approval is not required or where a study has been granted an exemption by an ethics committee, this should be stated within the manuscript with a full explanation. Otherwise, manuscripts must include a statement in the Methods section that the research was performed after approval by a local ethics committee, institutional review board and/or local licensing committee, or that such approval was not required. The name of the authorizing body and any reference/permit numbers (where available) should also be stated there. Please be prepared to provide further information to the editorial office upon request.

Human subjects must give written informed consent, or if they are minors or incapacitated, such consent must be obtained from their parents or guardians. Consent forms should cover not only study participation but also the publication of the data collected. Also, any patient or provider information should be anonymized to the extent possible; names and ID numbers should not be used in the text and must be removed from any images (X-rays, photographs, etc.). Please note blanking out an individual’s eyes in a photograph is not an effective way to conceal their identity. In studies where verbal, rather than written, informed consent was obtained, this must be explained and stated within the manuscript. If informed consent is not required or where a study has been granted an exemption, this must be included in the Methods section along with the name of the authorizing body. Please be prepared to provide written consent forms signed by the participants or other appropriate documentation to the editorial office upon request.

PRISMA reporting guidelines

Articles describing meta-analyses must follow the PRISMA reporting guidelines. A formal PRISMA flowchart must be uploaded as a figure in the main manuscript, and the PRISMA 2020 checklist must be uploaded as a supplementary document.

Clinical trials

Clinical trials should be registered before enrollment of the first subject in accordance with the criteria outlined by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). When reporting primary or secondary analyses from a clinical trial, follow these criteria:

• Provide the trial registration number at the end of the Abstract.

• When the trial acronym is first used in the manuscript, provide the registration number and a link to the trial registration, which should be cited as a reference.

• If your data have been deposited in a public repository and/or are being used in a secondary analysis, please state at the end of the Abstract the unique, persistent data set identifier, and repository name and number.

• When submitting the manuscript, you must disclose any protocol alterations and all posting of results of the submitted work or closely related work in registries.

Where available, registration numbers should be provided not only for the trial you are reporting but also for any other trial mentioned in the manuscript. When the trial acronym is first used in the manuscript, provide the registration number and a link to the trial registration, which should be cited as a reference. 

Animal subjects

Studies involving animals require approval from the relevant institutional ethics committee or institutional animal use and care committee, and the research must be conducted in accordance with applicable national and international guidelines. All such manuscripts must include a statement in the Methods section providing details of the name of the committee(s) that approved the study, as well as the permit or animal license numbers where available. Where a study has been granted an exemption, this must be stated in the Methods section along with the name of the authorizing body. Please be prepared to provide further information to the editorial office upon request. The Editorial Board reserves the right to reject papers where the ethical aspects are, in the board's opinion, open to doubt.

ARRIVE guidelines
You are encouraged to consult the ARRIVE guidelines recommended by the National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3R).

Euthanasia or Anesthesia Methods
Where applicable, any euthanasia or anesthesia methods must be carried out in accordance with applicable veterinary guidelines. These methods must be described in detail in the manuscript.

Laboratory Animals
Manuscripts describing research involving laboratory-based animals must include details on housing, husbandry, and steps taken to reduce suffering. In studies where experimental animals were euthanized, details must be provided on humane endpoints. Details on the planned behavioral observations or physiological measurements used to determine the humane endpoint must be described. You are advised to consult the NC3Rs guide on Humane Endpoints and the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) Guidelines for the Humane Slaughter of Animals.

C4DISC partnership

SCAN and OUP aim to create a community that fosters diversity, equity, and inclusion. As part of our commitment to these principles, OUP is a proud partner of the Coalition for Diversity & Inclusion in Scholarly Communications (C4DISC). C4DISC works with organizations and individuals within the scholarly communications landscape to foster equity, inclusion, diversity, and accessibility across the publishing industry and its published outputs.

Inclusive language and images

As defined by the Linguistic Society of America, “Inclusive language acknowledges diversity, conveys respect to all people, is sensitive to differences, and promotes equal opportunities”. We encourage you to consider using inclusive language and images when preparing your manuscript. For guidelines, please see the C4DISC Guidelines on inclusive language and images.

Accessibility

Written, visual, and audio content in your submission should be accessible to all.  Please see the C4DISC guidelines for making text, images, charts, tables, and audio and video accessible.

Availability of data and materials

Where ethically feasible, the Journal strongly encourages authors to make all data and software code on which the conclusions of the paper rely available to readers. Authors are required to include a data availability statement in their paper. When data and software underlying the research article are available in an online source, authors should include a full citation in their reference list. For details of the minimum information to be included in data and software citations see the OUP guidance on citing research data and software.

Whenever possible, data should be presented in the main manuscript or additional supporting files or deposited in a public repository. Visit OUP’s Research data page for information on general repositories for all data types, and resources for selecting repositories by subject area.

Data availability statement

The inclusion of a data availability statement is a requirement for papers published in the Journal. Data availability statements provide a standardized format for readers to understand the availability of original and third-party data underlying the research results described in the paper. The statement should describe and provide means of access, where possible, by linking to the data or providing the required unique identifier.

More information and example data availability statements.

Digital preservation

Content published in the Journal will automatically be deposited into digital preservation services, including CLOCKSS, the Global LOCKSS Network, and Portico. This ensures the long-term preservation of your work. Through LOCKSS, participating institutions can sustain access to content if the Journal were to otherwise be unavailable, even for a short period of time. Should the Journal ever cease to publish, or content would otherwise become permanently unavailable, long-term access to the archives of CLOCKSS and Portico would be triggered. Until such a trigger event were to occur, this content is not available to the public through CLOCKSS and Portico.

Self-archiving

Self-archiving refers to posting a copy of your work on a publicly accessible website or repository. Under certain circumstances, you may self-archive versions of your work on your own webpages, on institutional webpages, and in other repositories. For information about the Journal's policy, and to learn which version(s) of your paper are acceptable for self-archiving, please see our Author self-archiving policy.

Publishing agreement and charges 

Authors, please read each section on the publishing agreement and charges carefully.

Publishing agreement

After your manuscript is accepted, you will be asked to sign a licence to publish through the Journals Licencing and Online Payments portal. The Journal is fully open access, meaning all papers in the Journal are published under an open access licence. The corresponding author will need to arrange payment of an open access charge to publish in the Journal. This charge allows all published papers to be immediately and freely available to all readers immediately upon online publication. Editorial decisions occur prior to this step and are not influenced by payment or ability to pay.

Papers can be published under the following:

• Creative Commons Attribution licence (CC BY)

• Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial licence (CC BY-NC)

• Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives licence (CC BY-NC-ND)

Please see the OUP guidance on Licences, copyright, and re-use rights for more information regarding these publishing agreement options.

Complying with funder mandates

Please note that some funders require open access publication as a condition of funding. If you are unsure whether you are required to publish open access, please do clarify any such requirements with your funder or institution before selecting your licence.

Further information on funder mandates and direct links to a range of funder policies.

Charges

Open access charges

Please see the details of open access licenses and charges. SCAN’s current open access charges are also below. In selecting an open access license, you must pay the open access charge or request to use an institutional agreement to pay the open access charge through the Journals Licensing and Online Payments portal.

CC BY, CC BY-NC, or CC BY-NC-ND license - $2,379

OUP has a growing number of open access agreements with institutions and consortia, which provide funding for open access publishing (also known as Read and Publish agreements). This means corresponding authors from participating institutions can publish open access, and the institution may pay the charge. Find out if your institution has an open access agreement.

To be eligible for one of OUP’s Read and Publish agreements, the corresponding author must provide their qualifying institution as their primary affiliation when they submit their manuscript. After submission, changing the corresponding author in order to access Read and Publish funding is not permissible.

Corresponding authors based in countries and regions that are part of the developing countries initiative receive a full waiver of their open access charge. For further details, please see our open access waiver policy. Please note that a request for APC waiver must be made at time of article submission (not acceptance) and does not guarantee approval of waiver or article acceptance.

Changes to published papers

The Journal will only make changes to published papers if the publication record is seriously affected by the academic accuracy of the published information. Changes to a published paper will be accompanied by a formal correction notice linking to and from the original paper.

As needed, we follow the COPE guidelines on retractions.

For more information and details of how to request changes, including for authors who wish to update their name and/or pronouns, please see OUP’s policy on changes to published papers.

Promoting your work

As the author, you are the best advocate for your work, and we encourage you to be involved in promoting your publication. Sharing your ideas and news about your publication with your colleagues and friends could take as little as 15 minutes and will make a real difference in raising the profile of your research.

You can promote your work by:

• Sharing your paper with colleagues and friends. If your paper is published open access, it will always be freely available to all readers, and you can share it without any limitations. Otherwise, use the toll-free link that is emailed to you after publication. It provides permanent, free access to your paper, even if your paper is updated.

• Signing up for an ORCID iD author identifier to distinguish yourself from any other researchers with the same name, create an online profile showcasing all your publications, and increase the visibility of your work.

• Using social media to promote your work. To learn more about self-promotion on social media, see our social media guide for authors.

Find out how Oxford University Press promotes your content.

Preparing your manuscript

General guidelines on preparing your manuscript for publication can be found on OUP’s Preparing and submitting your manuscript page. Specific instructions for SCAN can be found below.

All manuscripts must be submitted online. Once you have prepared your manuscript according to the instructions below please visit the online submission web site. Instructions on submitting your manuscript online can be viewed on our Submitting Your Manuscript page.

Types of manuscript

For more detail on SCAN’s scope, please refer to the about the journal page.

SCAN publishes several article types.

Original research – neuroscience

A full article that utilizes neuroscience and/or neuroimaging techniques to present new research results and interpretations that advance our understanding of the social and emotional aspects of the human mind and behavior.

Original research – non-neuroscience

A full article that utilizes non-neuroscience (e.g. behavioral, computational, physiological) techniques to present new research results and interpretations that directly build on insights and paradigms from neuroscience research or speaks to issues of concern in the social and affective neuroscience literatures.

Review

A comprehensive assessment and synthesis of a selected topic of interest to the journal's readership.

Editorial/Letter to the Editor

These may be invited by the Editor-in-Chief to facilitate specific discussions around published content in the journal. Authors should contact the Editor-in-Chief prior to submitting a Letter to the Editor.

Please refer to this section for submission requirements of reporting guidelines.

Additional tables, graphics and other material useful for enhancing the understanding of the manuscript may be submitted for publication alongside the manuscript as supplementary material and would not be subject to these length constraints.

Please note that submissions describing meta-analyses must follow the PRISMA reporting guidelines. A formal PRISMA flowchart must be uploaded as a figure in the main manuscript, and the PRISMA 2020 checklist must be uploaded as a supplementary document.

Preparation of manuscripts

Manuscripts should be in an editable file format such as .doc and should be double-spaced, including text, tables, legends and references. The full address, telephone and fax numbers of the corresponding author should appear on the title page. In addition to the full title of the paper, which should not exceed 100 characters including spaces, authors should supply a running title which will appear at the heads of the pages. This should not exceed 40 characters, including spaces. An abstract, not exceeding 200 words, followed by appropriate keywords up to a maximum of five, to appear at the beginning of the paper, should also be provided and must be written in English. The total number of words in the text (excluding references, tables and figure legends) should also be indicated.

References should be listed at the end of the paper in alphabetical order and not numbered. Multiple publications by the same author(s) are listed chronologically by year of publication. Multiple works by the same author(s) published in the same year are ordered alphabetically by title, and should be listed a, b, c, etc. If there are four or more authors, use the first three followed by et al.

Barkovich AJ. Disorders of neuronal migration and organization. In: Kuzniecky RI, Jackson GD (eds.), Magnetic Resonance in Epilepsy. New York: Raven Press, 1994, 235-55.

Bushby KMD, Gardner-Medwin D. The clinical, genetic and dystrophin characteristics of Becker muscular dystrophy. J Neurol 1993;240:98-104. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00858725

Costa DC, Morgan GF, Lassen NA (eds). New Trends in Neurology and Psychiatry. London: John Libbey, 1993.

Handwerker HO, Kobal G. Psychophysiology of experimentally induced pain. Physiol Rev 1993;73:639-71. https://doi.org/10.1152/physrev.1993.73.3.639

In the text, the author's name and year of publication are given in parentheses. If there are three or more authors, the name of the first is followed by et al. References to papers 'in press' must give the name of the journal or book. Reference citations should not include 'personal communications' or other inaccessible information; information derived from personal communications or from unpublished work by the authors should be referred to in the text.

In published SCAN articles, there are automatic links from the reference section of each article to cited articles in Medline. This is a useful feature for readers but is only possible if the references are accurate. It is the responsibility of the author to ensure the accuracy of the references in the submitted article. Downloading references direct from Medline is highly recommended.

Note: If your manuscript has previously been submitted elsewhere and already meets the word limits for SCAN, you may submit the manuscript as is, without reformatting it for SCAN. Although SCAN will not have a supplementary methods section, you can include the supplementary methods from a previous submission with your submission to SCAN. If your article is accepted for publication in SCAN, you will be asked to reformat the article to be consistent with SCAN formatting standards.

SCAN participates in a uniform requirement agreement on submission of manuscripts (International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to Biomedical Journals. BMJ 1988; 296 : 401-405).

Suggesting reviewers

Please also include the names of 3-5 individuals that are qualified to review your manuscript. Indicate the name, institition and email address of each individual. We will try to have at least one reviewer from the set that you have requested. You may also request a member of the editorial team that you think is best suited to handle your manuscript.

The acceptance criteria for a manuscript are the quality and originality of the research and its significance to our readership. Except where otherwise stated, manuscripts are single-blind peer reviewed by at least two anonymous reviewers and an Associate Editor. Final acceptance or rejection rests with the Editorial Board, who reserves the right to refuse any material for publication.

Figures

Figures should be supplied in an electronic format at a suitable size for printing with the following resolutions: 600 dots per inch (dpi) for line drawings and combinations; 300 dpi for greyscale and color. All figures submitted in color will be freely published in the online version of SCAN in color. Please note that all labels used in figures should be in upper case in both the figure and the legend. The journal reserves the right to reduce the size of illustrative material. All micrographs must carry a magnification bar.

Legends for figures should be listed on a separate sheet. All tables must bear a title. Footnotes may be used in the tables but not in the text.

Abbreviations for scientific units should conform to the Systeme Internationale (SI units). The statistical guidelines advocated by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (Ann Intern Med 1988; 108: 266-73) should be followed.

Figure accessibility and alt text

Incorporating alt text (alternative text) when submitting your paper helps to foster inclusivity and accessibility. Good alt text ensures that individuals with visual impairments or those using screen readers can comprehend the content and context of your figures. The aim of alt text is to provide concise and informative descriptions of your figure so that all readers have access to the same level of information and understanding, and that all can engage with and benefit from the visual elements integral to scholarly content. Including alt text demonstrates a commitment to accessibility and enhances the overall impact and reach of your work.  

Alt-text is applicable to all images, figures, illustrations, photographs, and it isn’t required for tables and large datasets (unless the tables are provided as figures). 

Alt-text is only accessible via e-reader and so it won’t appear as part of the typeset article. 

Detailed guidance on how to draft and submit alt text. 

Supplementary material

Supporting material that is not essential for inclusion in the full text of the manuscript, but would nevertheless benefit the reader, can be made available by the publisher as online-only content, linked to the online manuscript. The material should not be essential to understanding the conclusions of the paper, but should contain data that is additional or complementary and directly relevant to the article content. Such information might include more detailed methods, extended data sets/data analysis, or additional figures (including colour).

It is standard practice for appendices to be made available online-only as supplementary material. All text and figures must be provided in suitable electronic formats. All material to be considered as Supplementary material must be submitted at the same time as the main manuscript for peer review. It cannot be altered or replaced after the paper has been accepted for publication, and will not be edited. Please indicate clearly the material intended as Supplementary material upon submission. Also ensure that the Supplementary material is referred to in the main manuscript where necessary, for example as '(see Supplementary material)' or '(see Supplementary Figure 1)'.

Study Funding

You must fully declare all funding information relevant to the study, including specific grant numbers, under a separate subheading following the acknowledgements.

NIH Funding

OUP will deposit all NIH-funded articles in PubMed Central. Authors must ensure that manuscripts are clearly indicated as NIH-funded using the guidelines below.

An example is given here: ‘This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health [AA123456 to C.S., BB765432 to M.H.]; and the Alcohol & Education Research Council [hfygr667789].

• The sentence should begin: ‘This work was supported by …’

• The full official funding agency name should be given, i.e. ‘National Institutes of Health’, not ‘NIH’ (full RIN-approved list of UK funding agencies) Grant numbers should be given in brackets as follows: ‘[grant number xxxx]’

• Multiple grant numbers should be separated by a comma as follows: ‘[grant numbers xxxx, yyyy]’

• Agencies should be separated by a semi-colon (plus ‘and’ before the last funding agency)

• Where individuals need to be specified for certain sources of funding the following text should be added after the relevant agency or grant number ‘to [author initials]’.

Pre-Submission Technical Checks

In partnership with Cactus, we are offering authors free usage of their Paperpal Preflight tool pre-submission. This is an AI-driven tool that performs technical checks tailored to SCAN. Authors are given a markup of suggested corrections to match their paper to journal requirements. Before submission, we encourage authors to run their paper through this tool. Please note that this is not mandatory and suggested corrections are optional.

Authors also have the option to pay for additional language checking – again, this is not mandatory and all suggested corrections are optional.

Pre-submission language editing

You may wish to use a language-editing service before submitting to ensure that editors and reviewers understand your manuscript. Our publisher, Oxford University Press, partners with Enago, a leading provider of author services. Through the OUP-Enago partner page, prospective authors are entitled to a discount for language editing, abstract and layperson summary writing, rejected manuscript editing, and creation of graphical abstracts, illustrations, and videos.

Enago is an independent service provider, which will handle all aspects of this service, including payment. As an author you are under no obligation to take up this offer. Language editing and other services from Enago are optional and do not guarantee that your manuscript will be accepted. Edited manuscripts will undergo the regular review process of the Journal. For more details and a list of additional resources, please see OUP’s page on language services.

Drug disclaimer

The mention of trade names, commercial products or organizations, and the inclusion of advertisements in the journal does not imply endorsement by the Editor-in-Chief, the editorial board, Oxford University Press or the organization to which the authors are affiliated. The Editor-in-Chief and publishers have taken all reasonable precautions to verify drug names and doses, the results of experimental work and clinical findings published in the journal. The ultimate responsibility for the use and dosage of drugs mentioned in the Journal and in interpretation of published material lies with the medical practitioner, and the editors and publishers cannot accept liability for damages arising from any errors or omissions in the journal. Please inform the editors of any errors.

Disclaimer

Statements of fact and opinion in the articles in SCAN are those of the respective authors and contributors and not of SCAN or Oxford University Press. Neither Oxford University Press nor SCAN make any representation, express or implied, in respect of the accuracy of the material in this journal and cannot accept any legal responsibility or liability for any errors or omissions that may be made. The reader should make his/her own evaluation as to the appropriateness or otherwise of any experimental technique described.

Contact us

For questions regarding submission and review, including appeals, you can reach the editorial office by email at socafn.editorialoffice@oup.com.

To register a complaint regarding non-editorial decisions, the Journal’s policies and procedures, editors, or staff, please contact Journals.Ethics@oup.com. Complaints will be taken seriously and will be carried forward following COPE guidelines and processes.

After your paper has been sent to production, you can contact oupsupport@scipris.com for questions regarding the production process or publication. Please see Changes to published papers if you need to request a substantive correction to your published paper.