Author Instructions
Accepted File Formats
Authors are encouraged to use the Microsoft Word template to prepare their manuscript, which can be downloaded from the journal’s website (www.awarenessjournals.org). Using the template file will substantially shorten the time for copy-editing and publication of accepted manuscripts. The total amount of data for all files must not exceed 120 MB. If this is a problem, please contact the Editorial Office at: Awareness.Horizon@gmail.com, for further instructions.
- Main Manuscript: Manuscripts prepared in Microsoft Word must be converted into a single file before submission. When preparing manuscripts in Microsoft Word, we encourage you to use the Awareness Microsoft Word template file. Please insert your graphics (schemes, figures, etc.) in the main text after the paragraph of its first citation.
- Supplementary files: May be any format, but it is recommended that you use common, non-proprietary formats where possible (see below for further details).
- All references must be in the “Numbered” style, ensuring that you use the consistent formatting all through. It is essential to include author(s) name (s), journal or book title, articles or chapter title (where required), year of publication, volume and issue (where appropriate), first and last page numbers. DOI numbers (Digital Object Identifier) are not mandatory but encouraged. Bibliography software packages like: EndNote, Zotero, Mendeley, and Reference Manager are recommended.
Disclaimer: Usage of the journal’s article templates are exclusively intended for submission to the journal for editorial and peer-review, and strictly limited to this purpose, and cannot be used for posting online on preprint servers or any other websites (including the author’s website).
Cover Letter
A cover letter must be included with each manuscript submission. It should contain the full author names and affiliations, and further details about identifying text removed from the manuscript. It should also be concise and explain why the content of the article is significant, placing the findings in the context of existing work, and why it fits the scope of the journal. Confirm that neither the manuscript nor any parts of its content are currently under consideration or published in any other journal. Any prior submissions of the manuscript to Awareness must be acknowledged.
If a manuscript is accepted for publication, we will add an icon linking to your online ORCID profile in the final version of the published paper.
Author Affiliation
All authors should list their current affiliation and the affiliation where most of the research was performed, which is being described in their manuscripts. We recommend adding as primary the affiliation where most of the research was conducted or supported, but please check with your institution for any contractual agreement requirements. It is very important that author names and affiliations are correct. Incorrect information can mean a lack of proper attribution or incorrect citation and can even lead to problems with promotion or funding. After the publication of an article, updates or corrections to the author's address or affiliation may not be permitted.
Independent Researcher
If any author is not currently affiliated with a university, institution, or company, or have not been affiliated during the development of the manuscript, they should list themselves as an "Independent Researcher".
Manuscript Preparation
General Considerations
Research manuscripts should comprise:
- Front matter: Title, Author list, Affiliations, Abstract (250 words), Keywords (5-7), Main Message (100 words).
- Research Manuscript sections: Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusions (see Awareness: Types of Articles for other section headings).
- Back matter: Supplementary materials, Acknowledgments, Author Contributions, Conflicts of Interest, References, Disclaimer.
Review manuscripts should comprise the front matter, literature review sections, and the back matter. The Word template file can also be used to prepare the front and back matter of your review manuscript. Structured reviews and meta-analyses should use the same structure as research articles and ensure they conform to the PRISMA guidelines.
- Graphical Abstract:
A graphical abstract (GA) is an image that appears alongside the text abstract in the Table of Contents. In addition to summarizing the content, it should represent the topic of the article in an attention-grabbing way. Moreover, it should not be exactly the same as the Figure in the paper or just a simple superposition of several subfigures. Note that the GA must be original and unpublished artwork. Any postage stamps, currency from any country, or trademarked items should not be included in it.
The GA should be a high-quality illustration or diagram in any of the following formats: PNG, JPEG, or TIFF. Written text in a GA should be clear and easy to read, using one of the following fonts: Times New Roman, Arial, Palatino, Helvetica, Calibri. The minimum required size for the GA is 560 × 1100 pixels (height x width). The size should be of high quality in order to reproduce well. - Acronyms/Abbreviations/Initialisms should be defined the first time they appear in each of three sections: the abstract; the main text; the first figure or table. When defined for the first time, the acronym/abbreviation/initialism should be added in parentheses after the written-out form.
- SI Units (International System of Units) should be used. Imperial, US customary and other units should be converted to SI units whenever possible.
- Equations: If you are using Word, please use either the Microsoft Equation Editor or the MathType add-on. Equations should be editable by the editorial office and not appear in a picture format.
- Research Data and supplementary materials: Note that publication of your manuscript implies that you must will all materials, data, and protocols associated with the publication available to readers unless justified otherwise. Disclose at the submission stage any restrictions on the availability of materials or information. Read the information about Supplementary Materials and Data Deposit for additional guidelines.
- Preregistration: Where authors have preregistered studies or analysis plans, links to the preregistration must be provided in the manuscript.
Front Matter
These sections should appear in all manuscript types
- Title: The title of your manuscript should be concise, specific and relevant. It should identify if the study reports (human or animal) trial data, or is a systematic review, meta-analysis, or replication study. Please do not include abbreviated or short forms of the title, such as a running title or header. These will be removed by our Editorial Office.
- Author List and Affiliations: Authors' full first and last names must be provided. The initials of any middle names can be added. The PubMed/MEDLINE standard format is used for affiliations: complete address information including city, state/province, and country. At least one author should be designated as the Corresponding Author. The email addresses of all authors will be displayed on published papers and hidden by Captcha on the website as a standard. It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to ensure that consent for the display of email addresses is obtained from all authors. If an author (other than the corresponding author) does not wish to have their email addresses displayed in this way, the corresponding author must indicate as such at proofreading stages. After acceptance, updates to author names or affiliations will not be permitted.
- Equal Contributions: Authors who have contributed equally should be marked with a superscript symbol (*). The symbol must be included below the affiliations, and the following statement added: "These authors contributed equally to this work". The equal roles of authors should also be adequately disclosed in the author contributions statement. Please read the criteria to qualify for authorship.
- Abstract: The abstract should be a total of about 250 words maximum. The abstract should be a single paragraph and should follow the style of structured abstracts, but without headings: 1) Background: Place the question addressed in a broad context and highlight the purpose of the study; 2) Methods: Describe briefly the main methods or treatments applied. Include any relevant preregistration numbers, and species and strains of any animals used; 3) Results: Summarize the article's main findings; and 4) Conclusion: Indicate the main conclusions or interpretations. The abstract must be an objective representation of the article: it must not contain results which are not presented and substantiated in the main text and should not exaggerate the main conclusions.
- Main Message: Summarize the main “take-home” message from the article in a brief statement (up to 100 words).
- Keywords: Five to seven pertinent keywords need to be added after the abstract. We recommend that the keywords are specific to the article, yet reasonably common within the subject discipline.
- Corresponding Author: Add the contact details of the Corresponding Author here.
Research Manuscript Sections
- Introduction: The introduction should briefly place the study in a broad context and highlight why it is important. It should define the purpose of the work and its significance, including specific hypotheses being tested. The current state of the research field should be reviewed carefully and key publications cited. Please highlight controversial and diverging hypotheses when necessary. Finally, briefly mention the main aim of the work and highlight the main conclusions. Keep the introduction comprehensible to scientists working outside the topic of the paper.
- Materials and Methods: They should be described with sufficient detail to allow others to replicate and build on published results. New methods and protocols should be described in detail while well-established methods can be briefly described and appropriately cited. Give the name and version of any software used and make clear whether computer code used is available. Include any pre-registration codes.
- Results: Provide a concise and precise description of the experimental results, their interpretation as well as the experimental conclusions that can be drawn.
- Discussion: Authors should discuss the results and how they can be interpreted in perspective of previous studies and of the working hypotheses. The findings and their implications should be discussed in the broadest context possible, and limitations of the work highlighted. Future research directions may also be mentioned. This section may be combined with Results.
- Conclusions: This section is not mandatory but can be added to the manuscript if the discussion is unusually long.
- Patents: This section is not mandatory but may be added if there are patents resulting from the work reported in this manuscript.
Back Matter
- Supplementary Materials: Describe any supplementary material published online alongside the manuscript (figure, tables, video, spreadsheets, etc.). Please indicate the name and title of each element as follows Figure S1: title, Table S1: title, etc.
- Author Contributions: Each author is expected to have made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data; or the creation of new software used in the work; or have drafted the work or substantively revised it; AND has approved the submitted version (and version substantially edited by journal staff that involves the author's contribution to the study); AND agrees to be personally accountable for the author's own contributions and for ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work, even ones in which the author was not personally involved, are appropriately investigated, resolved, and documented in the literature.
For research articles with several authors, a short paragraph specifying their individual contributions must be provided. The following statements should be used "Conceptualization, X.X. and Y.Y.; Methodology, X.X.; Software, X.X.; Validation, X.X., Y.Y. and Z.Z.; Formal Analysis, X.X.; Investigation, X.X.; Resources, X.X.; Data Curation, X.X.; Writing - Original Draft Preparation, XX.; Writing - Review & Editing, X.X.; Visualization, X..; Supervision, X..; Project Administration, X.X.; Funding Acquisition, Y.Y.”. "Authorship must include and be limited to those who have contributed substantially to the work. Please read the section concerning the criteria to qualify for authorship carefully". - Funding: All sources of funding of the study must be disclosed. Clearly indicate grants that you have received in support of your research work and if you received funds to cover publication costs. Note that some funders will not support your contribution(s) if the funder and grant number are not clearly and correctly identified in the paper. Funding information can be entered separately into the submission system by the authors during submission of their manuscript. Such funding information, if available, will be deposited to FundRef if the manuscript is finally published.
Please add: "This research received no external funding" or "This research was funded by [name of funder] grant number [xxx]" and "The author was funded by [XXX]" in this section. Check carefully that the details given are accurate and use the standard spelling of funding agency names at https://search.crossref.org/funding, any errors may affect your future funding. - Institutional Review Board Statement: In this section, please add the Institutional Review Board (IRB) Statement and approval number for studies involving humans or animals. The IRB is equivalent to the Research Ethics Committee in some institutes. Please note that the Editorial Office might ask you for further information. Please add "The study was conducted according to the guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki, and approved by the Institutional Review Board (or Ethics Committee) of NAME OF INSTITUTE (protocol code XXX and date of approval)." OR
"Ethical review and approval were waived for this study, due to REASON (please provide a detailed justification)." OR "Not applicable" for studies not involving humans or animals. You might also choose to exclude this statement if the study did not involve humans or animals. - Informed Consent Statement: Any research article describing a study involving humans should contain this statement. Please add "Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study." OR "Patient consent was waived due to REASON (please provide a detailed justification)." OR "Not applicable" for studies not involving humans. You might also choose to exclude this statement if the study did not involve humans.
Written informed consent for publication must be obtained from participating patients who can be identified (including by the patients themselves). Please state "Written informed consent has been obtained from the patients) to publish this paper" if applicable. - Data Availability Statement: In this section, please provide details regarding where data supporting reported results can be found, including links to publicly archived datasets analyzed or generated during the study. Please refer to suggested Data Availability Statements in the Journal’s “Research Data Policies". You might exclude this statement if the study did not report any data.
- Acknowledgments: In this section you can acknowledge any support given which is not covered by the author contribution or funding sections. This may include administrative and technical support, or donations in kind (e.g., materials used for experiments), and acknowledge the participations of patients, their families, hospital staff, and others who supported this research.
- Conflicts of Interest: All authors must state any direct or indirect conflicts of interest related to the research performed and reported in this article. A conflict of interest in research is defined as a situation in which any individual has “interests in the outcome of the research that may lead to a personal advantage and that might therefore, in actuality or appearance, compromise the integrity of the research”. Examples of conflicts of interest include, but are not limited to:
- Accepting gratuities or special favors from companies doing business or sponsoring one's research
- Accepting honoraria for lectures at companies whose economic or political interests are affected by an investigator's research
- Performing evaluative research for a company in which the investigator has a financial interest
- Accepting a paid consultancy with a company having an interest in your research
- Using students to perform services for a company in which you have a financial interest
- Assigning as the required text for a course a book for which you receive royalties
- Accepting a research contract with a restrictive publication clause
- Providing privileged access to the research information developed or getting independent sponsorship to another entity in which you have a financial interest
- Negotiating on behalf of your institution for the purchase of materials from a company in which you have a financial interest
- Directly influencing the negotiation of contracts, including research contracts or licensing contracts, between your institution and a company in which you have a financial interest
- Accepting gifts from a student or trainee in order to provide authorship or research credit
- Providing or receiving financial bonuses for meeting subject recruitment targets or achieving results stated in your article
- Holding office or membership on a board or committee of an entity supporting your research
- Holding equity interests, including stock options, in an entity which supports your research
- Receiving royalties or other licensing proceeds from intellectual property you invented and are evaluating or further developing
- Imposition of restrictions on the actions of students or trainees, including disclosure of research findings, at the request of a sponsor or financially interested company.
- References: References must be numbered in order of appearance in the text (including in table captions and figure legends) and listed individually at the end of the manuscript. We recommend preparing the references with a bibliography software package, such as EndNote, ReferenceManager or Zotero to avoid typing mistakes and duplicated references. The Awareness journal does not endorse or serve as an agent for any of these software programs. We encourage citations to data, computer code and other citable research material. You must use the reference style noted below.
- Citations and References in Supplementary files are permitted provided that they also appear in the main text and in the article’s reference list.
In the text, reference numbers should be placed in square brackets [], and placed before the punctuation; for example [1], [1-3] or [1,3]. For embedded citations in the text with pagination, use both parentheses and brackets to indicate the reference number and page numbers; for example [5] (p. 10). or [6] (pp. 101-105).
References should be described as follows, depending on the type of work:
- Journal Articles:
1. Author 1, A.B.; Author 2, C.D. Title of the article. Abbreviated Journal Name Year, Volume, page range.
- Books and Book Chapters:
2. Author 1, A.; Author 2, B. Book Title, 3rd ed.; Publisher: Publisher Location, Country, Year; pp. 154-196.
3. Author 1, A.; Author 2, B. Title of the chapter. In Book Title, 2nd ed.; Editor 1, A., Editor 2, B., Eds.; Publisher: Publisher Location, Country, Year; Volume 3, pp. 154-196.
- Unpublished materials intended for publication:
4. Author 1, A.B.; Author 2, C. Title of Unpublished Work (optional). Correspondence Affiliation, City, State, Country. year, status (manuscript in preparation; to be submitted).
5. Author 1, A.B.; Author 2, C. Title of Unpublished Work. Abbreviated Journal Name year, phrase indicating stage of publication (submitted; accepted; in press).
- Unpublished materials not intended for publication:
6. Author 1, A.B. (Affiliation, City, State, Country); Author 2, C. (Affiliation, City, State, Country). Phase describing the material, year. (phase: Personal communication; Private communication; Unpublished work; etc.)
- Conference Proceedings:
7. Author 1, A.B.; Author 2, C.D.; Author 3, E.F. Title of Presentation. In Title of the Collected Work (if available), Proceedings of the Name of the Conference, Location of Conference, Country, Date of Conference; Editor 1, Editor 2, Eds. (if available);
Publisher: City, Country, Year (if available); Abstract Number (optional), Pagination (optional).
- Thesis:
8. Author 1, A.B. Title of Thesis. Level of Thesis, Degree-Granting University, Location of University, Date of Completion.
- Websites:
9. Title of Site. Available online: URL (accessed on Day Month Year). Unlike published works, websites may change over time or disappear, so we encourage you create an archive of the cited website using a service such as WebCite. Archived websites should be cited using the link provided as follows:
10. Title of Site. URL (archived on Day Month Year).
See the Reference List and Citations Guide for more detailed information.
Preparing Figures, Schemes and Tables
- File for Figures and Schemes must be provided during submission in a single zip archive and at a sufficiently high resolution (minimum 1000 pixels width/height, or a resolution of 300 dpi or higher). Common formats are accepted; however, TIFF, JPEG, EPS, and PDF are preferred.
- Awareness can publish multimedia files in articles or as supplementary materials. Please contact the editorial office for further information.
- All Figures, Schemes and Tables should be inserted into the main text close to their first citation and must be numbered following their number of appearance (Figure 1, Scheme I, Figure 2, Scheme II, Table 1, etc.).
- All Figures, Schemes, and Tables must have a short explanatory title and caption.
- All table columns should have an explanatory heading. To facilitate the copy-editing of larger tables, smaller fonts may be used, but no less than 8 pt. in size. Authors should use the Table option of Microsoft Word to create tables.
- Authors are encouraged to prepare figures and schemes in color (RGB at 8-bit per channel). There is no additional cost for publishing full color graphics.
Awareness Research Data Policies
Awareness is committed to supporting open scientific exchange and enabling our authors to achieve best practices in sharing and archiving research data. We encourage all authors of articles published in the Awareness journal to share their research data. Individual journal guidelines can be found at the journal 'Instructions for Authors' page. Data sharing policies concern the minimal dataset that supports the central findings of a published study. Generated data should be publicly available and cited in accordance with journal guidelines.
Where ethical, legal or privacy issues are present, data should not be shared. The authors should make any limitations clear in the Data Availability Statement upon submission. Authors should ensure that data shared are in accordance with consent provided by participants on the use of confidential data.
Data Availability Statements provide details regarding where data supporting reported results can be found, including links to publicly archived datasets analyzed or generated during the study. Below are suggested Data Availability Statements:
- Data available in a publicly accessible repository
The data presented in this study are openly available in [repository name e.g., FigShare] at [doil, reference number [reference number].
- Data available in a publicly accessible repository that does not issue DOls
Publicly available datasets were analyzed in this study. This data can be found here: [link/accession number] - Data available on request due to restrictions eg privacy or ethical
The data presented in this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available due to [insert reason here] - 3rd Party Data
Restrictions apply to the availability of these data. Data was obtained from [third party] and are available [from the authors/at URL] with the permission of [third party]. - Data sharing not applicable
No new data were created or analyzed in this study. Data sharing is not applicable to this article. - Data is contained within the article or supplementary material
The data presented in this study are available in [insert article or supplementary material here]
Data citation:
[dataset] Authors. Year. Dataset title; Data repository or archive; Version (if any); Persistent identifier (e.g., DOl).
Computer Code and Software
For work where novel computer code was developed, authors should release the code either by depositing in a recognized, public repository or uploading as supplementary information to the publication. The name and version of all software used should be clearly indicated.
Supplementary Material
Additional data and files can be uploaded as "Supplementary Files" during the manuscript submission process. The supplementary files will also be available to the referees as part of the peer-review process. Only Word or PDF file formats are acceptable.
Unpublished Data
Restrictions on data availability should be noted during submission and in the manuscript. "Data not shown" should be avoided: authors are encouraged to publish all observations related to the submitted manuscript as Supplementary Material. "Unpublished data" intended for publication in a manuscript that is either planned, "in preparation" or "submitted" but not yet accepted, should be cited in the text and a reference should be added in the References section. "Personal Communication" should also be cited in the text and reference added in the References section. (see also the Awareness reference list and citations style guide).
Remote Hosting and Large Data Sets
Data may be deposited with specialized service providers or institutional/subject repositories, preferably those that use the DataCite mechanism. Large data sets and files greater than 60 MB must be deposited in this way. For a list of other repositories specialized in scientific and experimental data, please consult databib.org or redata.org. The data repository name, link to the data set (URL) and accession number, doi or handle number of the data set must be provided in the paper. The journal Data also accepts submissions of data set papers.
References in Supplementary Files
Citations and References in Supplementary files are permitted provided that they also appear in the reference list of the main text.
Clinical Trials Registration
Registration
Awareness follows the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) guidelines which require and recommend registration of clinical trials in a public trials registry at or before the time of first patient enrollment as a condition of consideration for publication.
Purely observational studies do not require registration. A clinical trial not only refers to studies that take place in a hospital or involve pharmaceuticals, but also refer to all studies which involve participant randomization and group classification in the context of the intervention under assessment.
Authors are strongly encouraged to pre-register clinical trials with an international clinical trials register and cite a reference to the registration in the Methods section. Suitable databases include clinicaltrials.gov, the EU Clinical Trials Register and those listed by the World Health Organization International Clinical Trials Registry Platform.
Approval to conduct a study from an independent local, regional, or national review body is not equivalent to prospective clinical trial registration. Awareness reserves the right to decline any paper without trial registration for further peer-review. However, if the study protocol has been published before the enrolment, the registration can be waived with correct citation of the published protocol.
CONSORT Statement
Awareness requires a completed CONSORT checklist and flow diagram as a condition of submission when reporting the results of a randomized trial. Templates for these can be found here or on the CONSORT website (http://www.consort-statement.org) which also describes several CONSORT checklist extensions for different designs and types of data beyond two group parallel trials. At minimum, your article should report the content addressed by each item of the checklist.
Sex and Gender in Research
We encourage all Awareness authors to follow the ‘Sex and Gender Equity in Research – SAGER – guidelines’ and to include sex and gender considerations where relevant. Authors should use the terms sex (biological attribute) and gender (shaped by social and cultural circumstances) carefully in order to avoid confusing both terms. Article titles and/or abstracts should indicate clearly what sex(es) the study applies to. Authors should also describe in the background, whether sex and/or gender differences may be expected; report how sex and/or gender were accounted for in the design of the study; provide disaggregated data by sex and/or gender, where appropriate; and discuss respective results. If a sex and/or gender analysis was not conducted, the rationale should be given in the Discussion. We suggest that all authors consult the full guidelines before submission.
Publication Ethics Statement
The editors of this journal enforce a rigorous peer-review process together with strict ethical policies and standards to ensure to add high quality scientific works to the field of scholarly publication. Unfortunately, cases of plagiarism, data falsification, image manipulation, inappropriate authorship credit, and the like, do arise. The editors of Awareness take such publishing ethics issues very seriously and are trained to process in such cases with a zero-tolerance policy.
Authors wishing to publish their papers in Awareness must abide to the following:
- Any facts that might be perceived as a possible conflict of interest of the author(s) must be disclosed in the paper prior to submission.
- Authors should accurately present their research findings and include an objective discussion of the significance of their findings.
- Data and methods used in the research need to be presented in sufficient detail in the paper, so that other researchers can replicate the work.
- Raw data should preferably be publicly deposited by the authors before submission of their manuscript. Authors need to at least have the raw data readily available for presentation to the referees and the editors of the journal, if requested. Authors need to ensure appropriate measures are taken so that raw data is retained in full for a reasonable time after publication.
- Simultaneous submission of manuscripts to more than one journal is not tolerated.
- The journal accepts exact translations of previously published work. All submissions of translations must conform with our policies on translations.
- If errors and inaccuracies are found by the authors after publication of their paper, they need to be promptly communicated to the editors of this journal so that appropriate actions can be taken.
Your manuscript should not contain any information that has already been published. If you include already published figures or images, please obtain the necessary permission from the copyright holder to publish under the CC-BY license.
- Plagiarism, data fabrication and image manipulation are not tolerated.
Plagiarism is not acceptable in Awareness submissions. Plagiarism includes copying text, ideas, images, or data from another source, even from your own publications, without giving any credit to the original source. Reuse of text that is copied from another source must be between quotes and the original source must be cited. If a study's design or the manuscript's structure or language has been inspired by previous works, these works must be explicitly cited.
All Awareness submissions are checked for plagiarism using the industry standard software iThenticate. If plagiarism is detected during the peer review process, the manuscript may be rejected. If plagiarism is detected after publication, an investigation will take place and action taken in accordance with our policies.
Image files must not be manipulated or adjusted in any way that could lead to misinterpretation of the information provided by the original image.
Irregular manipulation includes: 1) introduction, enhancement, moving, or removing features from the original image; 2) grouping of images that should obviously be presented separately (e.g., from different parts of the same gel, or from different gels); or 3) modifying the contrast, brightness or color balance to obscure, eliminate or enhance some information.
If irregular image manipulation is identified and confirmed during the peer review process, we may reject the manuscript. If irregular image manipulation is identified and confirmed after publication, we may correct or retract the paper.
Our in-house editors will investigate any allegations of publication misconduct and may contact the authors' institutions or funders if necessary. If evidence of misconduct is found, appropriate action will be taken to correct or retract the publication. Authors are expected to comply with the best ethical publication practices when publishing with Awareness.
Citation Policy
Authors should ensure that where material is taken from other sources (including their own published writing) the source is clearly cited and that where appropriate permission is obtained.
- Authors should not engage in excessive self-citation of their own work.
- Authors should not copy references from other publications if they have not read the cited work.
- Authors should not preferentially cite their own or their friends', peers', or institution's publications.
- Authors should not cite advertisements or advertorial material.
In accordance with COPE guidelines, we expect that "original wording taken directly from publications by other researchers should appear in quotation marks with the appropriate citations." This also applies to an author's own work. COPE have produced a discussion document on citation manipulation with recommendations for best practice.
Reviewer Suggestions
During the submission process, please suggest three potential reviewers with the appropriate expertise to review the manuscript. The editors will not necessarily approach these referees. Please provide detailed contact information (address, homepage, phone, e-mail address). The proposed referees should neither be current collaborators of the co-authors nor have published with any of the co-authors of the manuscript within the last three years. Proposed reviewers should be from different institutions to the authors. You may identify appropriate Editorial Board members of the journal as potential reviewers. You may suggest reviewers from among the authors that you frequently cite in your paper.
Preprints and Conference Papers
Awareness may consider submissions that were previously made available as preprints provided that they have not undergone peer review. A preprint is a draft version of a paper made available online before submission to a journal. Expanded and high-quality conference papers can be considered as articles if they fulfill the following requirements: (1) the paper should be expanded to the size of a research article; (2) the conference paper should be cited and noted on the first page of the paper; (3) if the authors do not hold the copyright of the published conference paper, authors should seek the appropriate permission from the copyright holder; (4) authors are asked to disclose that it is conference paper in their cover letter and include a statement on what has been changed compared to the original conference paper. Except in the Inaugural Issue or Special Issues, Awareness will not publish pilot studies or studies with inadequate statistical analysis.
Authorship
Awareness follows the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) guidelines which state that, in order to qualify for authorship of a manuscript, the following criteria should be observed:
- Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
- Drafting the work or reviewing it critically for important intellectual content; AND
- Final approval of the version to be published; AND
- Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
Those who contributed to the work but do not qualify for authorship should be listed in the acknowledgments. More detailed guidance on authorship is given by the International Council of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).
Any change to the author list should be approved by all authors including any who have been removed from the list. The corresponding author should act as a point of contact between the editor and the other authors and should keep co-authors informed and involve them in major decisions about the publication. We reserve the right to request confirmation that all authors meet the authorship conditions.
Editorial Procedures and Peer-Review
Pre-check
Immediately after submission, the Awareness journal's Editor will perform the technical pre-check to assess:
- Overall suitability of the manuscript to the journal/section/Special Issue;
- Manuscript adherence to high-quality research and ethical standards;
- Standards of rigor to qualify for further review.
The academic or section editor, or an Editorial Board member in the case of a conflict of interest and of regular submissions will be notified of the submission and invited to perform an editorial pre-check. During the editorial pre-check phase, the academic editor will assess the suitability of the submission with respect to the scope of the journal, as well as the overall scientific soundness of the manuscript, including the relevance of the references and the correctness of the applied methodology. Section editors can decide to reject the manuscript, request revisions before peer-review, or continue with the peer-review process and recommend suitable reviewers.
Peer-Review
Once a manuscript passes the initial checks, it will be assigned to at least two independent experts for peer-review. A double-blind peer-review process is applied, where authors' identities are not known to reviewers.
In the case of regular submissions, in-house assistant editors will invite experts, including recommendations by an Academic Editor. These experts may also include Editorial Board Members and Guest Editors of the journal. Potential reviewers suggested by the authors may also be considered. Reviewers should not have published with any of the co-authors during the past three years and should not currently work or collaborate with any of the institutions of the co-authors of the submitted manuscript. To guarantee impartial refereeing, the names of referees will be revealed only if the referees agree to do so, and after a paper has been accepted for publication.
Editorial Decision and Revision
All the articles, reviews and communications published in Awareness go through the peer-review process and receive at least two reviews. The in-house Editor will communicate the decision of the Academic Editor, which will be one of the following:
- Accept after Minor Revisions:
The paper is in principle accepted after revision based on the reviewer's comments. Authors are given 5-7 days for minor revisions. - Reconsider after Major Revisions:
The acceptance of the manuscript would depend on the revisions. The author needs to provide a point-by-point response or provide a rebuttal if some of the reviewer's comments cannot be revised. A maximum of two rounds of major revision per manuscript are provided. Authors will be asked to resubmit the revised paper within a suitable time frame, and the revised version will be returned to the reviewer for further comments. If the required revision time is estimated to be longer than 2 months, we will recommend that authors withdraw their manuscript before resubmitting so as to avoid unnecessary time pressure and to ensure that all manuscripts are sufficiently revised. - Reject and Encourage Resubmission:
If additional experiments are needed to support the conclusions, the manuscript will be rejected and the authors will be encouraged to re-submit the paper once further experiments have been conducted. - Reject and Decline Resubmission:
The article has serious flaws, and/or makes no original significant contribution. No offer of resubmission to the journal is provided. - All reviewer comments should be responded to in a point-by-point fashion. Where the authors disagree with a reviewer, they must provide a clear justification (with references, if needed).
Author Appeals
Authors may appeal a rejection by sending an e-mail to the Editorial Office of the journal. The appeal must provide a detailed justification, including point-by-point responses to the reviewers' and/or Editor's comments using an appeal form. Appeals can only be submitted following a "reject and decline resubmission" decision and should be submitted within one (1) month from the decision date. Failure to meet these criteria will result in the appeal not being considered further. The Managing Editor will forward the manuscript and related information (including the identities of the referees) to a designated Editorial Board Member.
The Academic Editor being consulted will be asked to provide an advisory recommendation on the manuscript and may recommend acceptance, further peer-review, or uphold the original rejection decision. This decision will then be validated by the Editor-in-Chief. A reject decision at this stage is final and cannot be reversed.
Promoting Equity, Diversity, Inclusiveness, & Justice in the Awareness Journal
The management and all Editors of Awareness are committed to appointing a diverse expert Editorial Board. Active promotion of Equity, Diversity, Inclusiveness, and Justice are also reflective in our multi-national and inclusive workplace. We are proud to create equal opportunities without regard to gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age, religion, socio-economic status, or national origin. There is no place for discrimination in our workplace all stakeholders of the Awareness journal are required to uphold these principles in high regard.