Formal Requirements

1. General requirements for all submissions

The following requirements apply to all submissions independent of their specific type.

a) Formatting of your manuscript and additional files

  • File format: All manuscripts must be submitted in Word-readable document formats (e.g. odt, doc, docx, rtf, txt). Due to IT security reasons, compressed file formats like zip or rar will not be accepted.
  • Language: All manuscripts, figures and tables must be written and labeled in English. Please make sure that the usage of American or British English is consistent throughout the manuscript. Please use a period (.) for the decimal space and a comma (,) to indicate groups of thousands.
  • Font: Please use a plain font, e.g., Times New Roman (12 point) for the text, and bold font for section headings.
    • Font for mathematical equations: Please use Cambria Math for equations. All expressions should be kept simple so that they can be displayed in a single line, including common formatting options such as subscript or superscript. In the case that more complex formatting is required, use any Microsoft Word equation editor.
  • Title page: The first page of your main manuscript contains the article title, all author names and their affiliation(s), and the corresponding author with a specified postal address, including their E-mail address. (Note: ORCID IDs and the E-mail addresses of the other contributing authors do not have to be stated here, but have to be added to the submission metadata during the upload process – cf. How to Upload your Submission)
  • Abbreviations: All abbreviations should be explained when used for the first time.
  • Units: Please use standard units where possible. If the units are not commonly used, please explain the abbreviations when using them for the first time.
  • Abstract: An abstract of 150 to 300 words summarizing the presented work must be included into the main manuscript. Please do not include any references or undefined abbreviations in the abstract.
  • Headings: Please use no more than three levels of displayed headings.
  • Figures and tables: For figures and tables, adhere to the rules below in section 1. d) A guide to figures and tables
  • If previously published figures, tables or text passages are used in your submission, make sure that you have permission to use them from the copyright owner (except in case of CC-by-licenses without restrictions, or when you are the copyright owner yourself). Confirmation of use must be included at the time of initial submission. Please be aware that some publishers do not grant electronic rights without extensive costs. Any material received without such documentation will be assumed to be original work created by the authors. Previously published material must be identified by stating the original source in the form of a reference. In case of illustrations, an additional reference to the original source must be included at the end of the caption.
  • Data supplements: Please provide all supplementary material in Word-readable document formats (e.g. odt, doc, docx, rtf, txt). In the case of raw data, you can also use Excel/CSV files.
    • Please include in each file the following information:
      • Article title
      • Journal name
      • Author names
      • Affiliation and email address of the corresponding author
    • To accommodate user downloads, authors should consider that larger-sized files may require long download times and that some users may experience problems during downloading.
    • Figures in online appendices (Electronic Supplementary Material) should be numbered separately, e.g. “Figure S1”. Keep the captions and the illustrations in the same file, but as separate objects.

b) Statements

Your primary manuscript must include the following statements between the main text and the reference list:

  • “Conflict of interest” - specifying whether there is any conflict of interest to declare.
  • “Artificial Intelligence (AI) – assisted technology” – specifying whether and in what way the authors have used artificial intelligence (such as Large Language Models, chatbots, or image creators) in the production of the submitted work. If figures contain AI-generated graphical elements, the used tool and version have to be stated in the corresponding figure captions.
  • If applicable to your work: an Ethics Statement and/or Statement of Informed Consent as specified in the journal's Ethical Standards

The following additional statements are not mandatory but a welcome addition to your submission:

c) A guide to references

The list of references should only include works that are cited in the text and have been published or accepted for publication. Personal communications and unpublished works should only be mentioned in the text. Do not use footnotes or endnotes as a substitute for a reference list.

The reference list is positioned at the end of the main manuscript. All entries are listed alphabetically according to the family name of the first author mentioned. The required citation style is that of the National Library of Medicine (NLM) – see here for a description and here for a selection of different samples. Regarding optional elements of the NLM citation style, EXCLI Journal uses the following specifications:

  • If an entry has more than six authors, only list the first six, followed by “et al.”
  • For journals with continuous pagination, please omit the month and issue number
  • Please do not include the optional PubMed PMID and PubMed Central PCMID

IMPORTANT: As of August 1st, 2026, the inclusion of the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) for every entry in the reference list that has a DOI will be mandatory for all submissions published after this date. The inclusion of the DOIs must follow the official display guidelines of the Crossref registration agency, requiring the full https-link not preceded by "doi:". We encourage you to integrate DOIs into the reference lists of your new submissions from now on.

To cite a reference in your manuscript, use the author-year system, naming the author(s) and the year of publication in parentheses according to the following rules:

  • One author: (name, year) – e.g. (Meier, 2012)
  • Two authors: (name1 and name2, year) – e.g. (Schmitt and Huber, 2010)
  • More than two authors: (name1 et al., year) – e.g. (Kaminsky et al., 2013)
  • When naming the authors in the text, only set the year in parentheses – e.g. “In a recent study, Kaminsky et al. (2013) found out that […]”
  • When citing several references at the same time, order them alphabetically divided by a semicolon (;) – e.g. (Kaminsky et al., 2013; Schmitt and Huber, 2010)
  • If the combination of authors and years would lead to two or more references having identical in-text citations, differentiate between them by adding the letters a, b, c, … directly after the year, both in the reference list and in the in-text citation – e.g. “One study (Hein et al., 2012a) found out that […] while another (Hein et al., 2012b) declares that […]”

NOTE: If you are using Endnote or a similar reference management system, choose the following options to automatically insert the correct citation style: Style: "NLM" | in-Text Citation: Author-Year-system

In the following, you will find additional examples of references compatible with the EXCLI standard.

Journal articles:

Hein DW. Molecular genetics and function of NAT1 and NAT2: role in aromatic amine metabolism and carcinogenesis. Mutat Res. 2002;506-507:65-77. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0027-5107(02)00153-7

Hein DW, Doll MA. A four-SNP NAT2 genotyping panel recommended to infer human acetylator phenotype. Pharmacogenomics. 2012a;13:855. https://doi.org/10.2217/pgs.12.47

Hein DW, Doll MA. Accuracy of various human NAT2 SNP genotyping panels to infer rapid, intermediate and slow acetylator phenotypes. Pharmacogenomics. 2012b;13:31-41. https://doi.org/10.2217/pgs.11.122

Kiemeney LA, Thorlacius S, Sulem P, Geller F, Aben KK, Stacey SN, et al. Sequence variant on 8q24 confers susceptibility to urinary bladder cancer. Nat Genet. 2008;40:1307-12. https://doi.org/10.1038/ng.229

Selinski S, Lehmann ML, Blaszkewicz M, Ovsiannikov D, Moormann O, Guballa C. Rs11892031[A] on chromosome 2q37 in an intronic region of the UGT1A locus is associated with urinary bladder cancer risk. Arch Toxicol. 2012;86:1369-78. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00204-012-0854-y

In a text passage, these examples might appear like this:

“Recently, several single nucleotide polymorphisms have also been identified that are associated with urinary bladder cancer risk, all of which have been confirmed in independent follow-up studies (Hein, 2002; Hein and Doll, 2012a, b; Kiemeney et al., 2008). As Selinski and colleagues (2012) summarized, in total 13 novel SNPs have been identified.”

NOTE: Using a citation style different from the one described above will not lead to an immediate formal rejection, but you will have to retroactively change all references to the required style if your submission gets accepted, consequently leading to a delay in the publishing process. Therefore, we recommend using the correct citation style with your initial submission.

d) A guide to figures and tables

All figures and tables must include a self-explanatory legend that summarizes the findings of the figure. Please ensure that all colors, symbols and abbreviations are explained either in the image itself or in the legend. All illustrations and tables are numbered using Arabic numerals in order of their appearance in the text. If your manuscript contains a graphical abstract, refer to it as Figure 1.

  • Tables: Please clearly label the data presented in each table, including the type of data presented and the number of replicates.
  • Plotted data: Please indicate the number of biological replicates, animals, or samples and explain the data plotted (e.g., mean or median) and error bars (e.g., standard deviation, standard error means, confidence interval, interquantil range) where applicable.
  • Western, Northern or Southern Blots: Please clearly label the relevant bands.
  • Brightfield, histological or immunofluorescence images: Please include a scale bar and state the magnification and staining in the legend.
  • Radiological or sonographic images: Please state the weighting or mode of the image and any contrast aging given in the legend. Please ensure that no confidential patient data is shown.
  • Images or videos of patients or healthy volunteers: Please ensure that the patient or healthy volunteer cannot be identified.
  • Please clearly state concentrations or dosages and the name of drugs or compounds utilized where relevant and use standard units where applicable. Please also state incubation times, the name of cell lines or the species in the legends.
  • Individual graphs or images making up a multi-panel figure/illustration should be denoted by lowercase letters (a, b, c, etc.).

When submitting your manuscript, figures have to be uploaded as separate PNG-files with a minimum resolution of 300 dpi and a maximum file size of 4 MB each.

e) Additional information

In addition to the files belonging to your submission, keep the following information at hand as you will need them in the process of uploading your submission in the next step.

  • For each contributing author, the following information will be needed:
    • Their given name and family name
    • An active E-mail address
    • The country they are currently working in
    • Their ORCID ID – if they don’t have one already, please encourage them to register via https://orcid.org/ before submitting
  • Please define a number of 1 to 6 keywords describing your contribution which can be used for indexing purposes.

 

2. Specific requirements for different types of articles

a) Original articles

  • Graphical abstract: In order to provide our readers with a visual and easily accessible overview of the submissions’ content, we expect a graphical summary with the following properties:
  • If data or samples from patients, healthy volunteers or animals were used, an ethics statement must be included.
  • Reagents, kits, dyes, antibodies: Please state the source and product number as well as dilution where applicable.
  • Test compounds and drugs: Please state source, product number and solvent.
  • Cell culture experiments: The Methods section should provide the source of the cells, the method used to verify the identity of the cell lines, the cell culture format, the number of cells seeded, and the source and composition of all culture media.
  • Animal studies: The source, strain, sex, age and body weight range, housing conditions and access to food and water must be provided.
  • For pharmacological interventions, the dosage, route and frequency of administration and vehicle must be provided.
  • For studies in patients or healthy volunteers, the demographic data as well as inclusion and exclusion criteria must be provided. Also, the data on which the classification as “healthy” is based on must be stated (e.g., what was the extent of the physical examination and review of prior medical history or medications).
  • Software and online tools: Please state any software and online tools used in analysis.
  • Statistics: Please explain the statistical analysis in detail.

b) Review articles

  • Graphical abstract: In order to provide our readers with a visual and easily accessible overview of the submissions’ content, we expect a graphical summary with the following properties:
  • Meta analysis systematic reviews: Please state the search terms as well as inclusion and exclusion criteria and provide a PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) flowchart.

c) Clinical case reports

  • Patients must be anonymized and consent for publication must be obtained.
  • Demographic data, case history, medical history, medication, clinical findings and lab results, instrument-based diagnostics and histopathological findings as well as the treatment and outcome must be provided where relevant.
  • The special relevance to field should be discussed.

d) Letters to the editor

  • Letters to the editor should be concise and clearly structured.
  • An abstract of up to 150 words may be included, although most letters are published without an abstract.
  • The maximum length is four printed pages, corresponding to approximately 2,250 words, excluding the abstract and references.
  • Typically, up to 10 references are included. A higher number of references may be accepted in justified exceptional cases.
  • Subheadings may be used where appropriate to improve clarity and structure.
  • Figures and tables should not be included in the main manuscript. However, authors may include up to three supplementary items (figures or tables). These should be provided as supplementary material. Supplementary items should be cited in the main manuscript using the following format: “… (Suppl. Figure 1)”; “… (Suppl. Table 1)”.

e) Scientific Forum

  • Contributions to the Scientific Forum follow the same requirements as Letters to the editors outlined above. Exceptions may be considered if scientifically justified. Authors wishing to exceed these limits are requested to communicate with the editors prior to submission.