Submit Your Paper to PLoS Medicine

It is essential that authors submit a presubmission inquiry before submitting a full paper. Presubmission inquiries allow authors to quickly find out whether their paper is likely to be broadly suitable for PLoS Medicine. To submit a presubmission inquiry please log on or register at our online submission site and then click the link "Submit Presubmission Inquiry." You'll be asked to enter a brief abstract and a referenced cover letter explaining why you think the work is appropriate for PLoS Medicine. We aim to respond to presubmission inquiries within 2 working days. However, if you do not receive a response in 1 week please phone +44 1223 463330 (UK) or +1 415 624 1234 (USA) or e-mail plosmedicine [at] plos.org.

Ready to submit your full manuscript? Follow our submission checklist below and use our online manuscript submission system. Please note: At this time we cannot accept for review or revision any documents created in Microsoft Office 2007. Please see the Author Guidelines for more details.

When you submit your article to PLoS Medicine, you will be asked to provide some information in addition to the manuscript itself, as well as some associated files. This checklist will ensure that you have gathered all the relevant information and that the manuscript is formatted appropriately. Details can be found in our Guidelines for Authors. If you have questions prior to submission, please contact us at plosmedicine [at] plos.org.

• Have you read the license agreement and are you able to sign it on behalf of all the authors?
• Have you prepared a cover letter explaining why you consider this manuscript suitable for publication in PLoS Medicine?
• Are all authors aware of and do they approve the submission of the manuscript, its content, authorship, and order of authorship? All authors will be e-mailed a request to acknowledge that they are authors on the paper, that the work is original and has not been submitted elsewhere, and that they agree to the publishing and editorial policies of PLoS Medicine. In addition, all authors will be asked to specify the nature of their contribution to the submitted work, and whether they have any competing interests.
• Does your study comply with the guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki?
• Do you have a copy of the statement from the relevant institutional review board or ethics committee indicating their approval of the research reported in the manuscript?
• If your submission contains content that could identify individual patients (such as photos, descriptions, pedigrees), do you have copies of informed consent forms (23 KB PDF) from those patients? Have the patients been informed that under open access this published information can be used for any lawful purpose?
• Have you prepared a statement indicating who funded the study, and the role of the funding agency in conducting the study and in preparing the manuscript? You will be asked to enter this into the relevant section of the submission form.
• Does your paper comply with the Guidelines for Authors?
• Are you ready to enter authors in the correct order in the system and make sure that names, institutions, and e-mail addresses are correct?
• Is the manuscript file in DOC, RTF, or PDF? (Note: At this time we cannot accept for review or revision any documents created in Microsoft Office 2007. Please see the Author Guidelines for more details).
• Do your figures conform to the Guidelines for Figure Preparation?
• Have your original figures been created as EPS or TIFF files in a high enough resolution to provide for adequate review? Please note that individual files should not exceed 10MB.
• Have non-standard abbreviations been listed as well as defined in the text?
• Have you used standard nomenclature?
• Have you used SI values?
• If reporting a clinical trial have you provided the registration number, do you have a copy of the protocol that you can upload as supporting information, and are you reporting it according to the CONSORT guidelines? Have you completed and attached the CONSORT checklist and flow diagram?
• If your manuscript comprises a systematic review of randomized controlled trials, are you reporting it according to the PRISMA Guidelines? Have you included a PRISMA checklist and flow diagram?
• If the study describes a diagnostic technique, are you reporting it according to the STARD guidelines?
• If reporting an epidemiological study are you reporting it according the STROBE requirements?
• If your study includes microarray data, are you reporting it according to the MIAME guidelines and have you deposited the data in a public database?
• Have you included detailed descriptions of the statistical methods employed in your study and do you provide a measure of error in any data reported?
• Are related manuscripts by any of the authors submitted or in press elsewhere? If so, are you prepared to provide PDFs as supporting information?
• Have you identified potential reviewers whose e-mail addresses you can provide?