Author Guidelines

INSTRUCTIONS FOR AUTHORS 

The Journal is founded with the purpose to publish, divulge and stimulate research activities related with the application of microscopy. It will be edited twice a year. The publications are oriented to:

1. Scientific research articles in applications of electron microscopy, optical microscopy, atomic force, scanning tunneling, confocal microscopy or other microscopy techniques, describing ultrastructural studies in biology, medicine and materials science.


2. Innovations in instrumentation, techniques and methods for specimen preparation.


3. Review articles


4. Educational articles describing a specific microscopy technique or preparation method. These articles are directed to students or new users of microscopy. Therefore, the educational orientation should be considered in the writing of the article.

 The articles will be review by at least two (2) referees and the content of the articles should have not being submitted to any other publication.

Graphical Abstract                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   Authors must provide images that clearly represent the work described in the paper. A key, summarising figure taken from the original paper can also be submitted as a graphical abstract.                                                                                                                                                                                           Graphical Abstracts should be submitted as a separate files

Specifications: maximum image size 400x600 pixels (hxw, recommended size 200 x 500 pixels) using Arial font with a size of 10-16 points; preferred file types TIFF, EPS, PDF or MS Office files. A Graphical abstract should be one image file that represent a main idea discuss in the paper

Language                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              .           All manuscripts submitted for publication can be written in English, Spanish or Portuguese. The abstract should be written in English, independently of the language selected for the manuscript.

Cover Letter                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    A cover letter must be included with each manuscript submission. It should be concise and explain why the content of the paper 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 another journal. Three names of proposed reviewers should be provided, indicating full name, affiliation, email and reason why it is recommended.

 Instructions for the manuscripts 

You can find a template  for the final submission in the following link:TEMPLATE FINAL SUBMISSION

Submission Format

For initial submission you could either use the template given above or the manuscripts could be typed 2 spaced using font Times New Roman 12, in  one column using letter size (21,6x28 cm).  The figures should be placed embedded in the text where they are mentioned.

However, once the manuscript if accepted, you will be requested to put it in the final format (download template): The manuscripts should be typed 1 ½ spaced using font Times New Roman 10, in two columns with a margin of 2 cm on all sides, text justified, using letter size (21,6x28 cm).  Figures should be embedded in the text where they are mentioned .    A template is provided in the following link provided above.   

                                                                                                                                                        Divisions                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            The text should be divided in the following order:

1. Title


2. Abstract


3. Keywords


4. Text


5. Acknowledgments


6. References

• Title: The title of your manuscript should be concise, specific and relevant.


• Author List and Affiliations: Authors' full first and last names must be provided. The initials of any middle names can be added. The standard format is used for affiliations: complete address information including city, zip code, state/province, and country. At least one author should be designated as corresponding author, and his or her email address and other details should be included at the end of the affiliation section.


• Abstract: The abstract should be in english a single paragraph and should follow the style of structured abstracts, but without headings:          1) highlight the purpose of the study; 2) Methods: Describe briefly the main methods. 3) Results: Summarize the article's main findings; and  4) Conclusion: Indicate the main conclusions. The abstract should be an objective representation of the article


• Keywords: Three to five keywords need to be added after the abstract, specific to the article

Research Manuscript Sections

The text should be presented in the following order (these instructions does not refer to review articles or educational articles):

1. Introduction


2. Materials and Methods


3. Results and Discussion


4. Conclusions

• 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, specially from the last five years. Finally, the main aim of the work. 


• Materials and Methods: They should be described with sufficient detail to allow others to replicate the results. New methods and protocols should be described in detail . 


• Results: Provide a concise and precise description of the experimental results, their interpretation as well as the experimental conclusions 


• 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. This section may be combined with Results.


• Conclusions: The main conclusions of the work


• Acknowledgments: All sources of funding of the study should be disclosed. Clearly indicate grants that you have received in support of your research work


• Conflicts of Interest: Authors must identify and declare any personal circumstances or interest that may be perceived as inappropriately. If there is no conflict of interest, please state "The authors declare no conflict of interest."


• References: References must be numbered in order of appearance in the text (including table captions and figure legends) and listed individually at the end of the manuscript.


• Abbreviations Scientific names should be typed in italics. When abbreviations are used, the names should be defined in full the first time mention, followed by the abbreviated expression in parentheses, and in figure or table captions and used consistently thereafter.
  
  
  
  
  • SI Units (International System of Units) should be used. 
  
  
  • Equations:   use either the Microsoft Equation Editor or the MathType add-on. Equations should be editable  and not appear in a picture format.
  
  
  
  

 Review articles: for review articles the title should be preceded by the heading in capital letters: REVIEW:

These articles should have a broader technical content than scientific articles, and should have a wide literature review. A free organization of the test is accepted, however keeping the format requirements described above.

 Educational articles: also have a free organization of the text, keeping the format requirements described above.

It should not be forgotten that these articles are directed to students or new users, therefore, it might be useful (although not obligatory) to include practical examples for a clear description of specific topics. 

 References

A list of references should be numbered in square brackets according to the order of the citation in the text. Each reference should be typed in this order: author’s name, year of publication in brackets, full title of the reference , name of the journal in italics, volume and pages, as follows

[1] Faridani A., Ritman E.L., Smith K.T. (1992) “Local Tomography. SIAM” J Appl Math 52:459–484 If the reference is a book, the information of publisher should be typed in this order: author’s name, year of publication in brackets, full title, place of publication, editor and pages, as follows

 [2] Cao G, (2004) Nanostructures & Nanomaterials. Synthesis, Properties & Applications, London, Imperial College Press, pp. 135–138

In the reference list “et al.” is unacceptable, the full authors should be listed. References to personal communications, unpublished data and manuscripts in preparation are unacceptable.

 Figures and tables                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Figures should be good quality photographs or drawings. Symbols, letters, numbers and scale bars should be of sufficient size to be clear recognizable. Symbols and letters used in micrographs and tables must be explained in the legend.

• File for Figures and Schemes must be provided and included in the text  with sufficiently high resolution (minimum 1000 pixels width/height, or a resolution of 300 dpi or higher). formats accepted: TIFF, JPEG, EPS


• 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 should 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).                                                                                         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                    If irregular image manipulation is identified and confirmed after publication, we may correct or retract the paper.

Manuscript Submission Overview

• read the Aims & Scope to gain an overview and assess if your manuscript is suitable for this journal;


• use the Microsoft Word   to prepare your manuscript;


• make sure that issues about publication ethics, authorship, figure formats, and references format have been appropriately considered;


• ensure that all authors have approved the content of the submitted manuscript.


• Manuscripts submitted  should neither be published previously nor be under consideration for publication in another journal.

Submission Process

The corresponding author, (submitting author) is responsible for the manuscript during the submission and peer-review process. The submitting author must ensure that all eligible co-authors have been included in the author list and that they have all read and approved the submitted version of the manuscript.

The corresponding author’s roles and responsibilities are as follows:

4. Inform all co-authors of the submission


5. Manage correspondence between Acta Microscopica and co-authors, keeping the full co-author group informed throughout the submission, announcement, and update process.


6. Take full responsibility for answering questions/comments regarding the reviewing process


7. Reviewers Recommendation


8. Authors must recommend three potential peer reviewers. Journal editors will check to make sure there are no conflict of interests before contacting those reviewers.

Research Involving Human Subjects

When reporting on research that involves human subjects, human material, human tissues, or human data, authors must declare that the investigations were carried out following the rules of the Declaration of Helsinki of 1975 (https://www.wma.net/what-we-do/medical-ethics/declaration-of-helsinki/), An approval from an ethics committee should have been obtained before undertaking the research. At a minimum, a statement including the project identification code, date of approval, and name of the ethics committee or institutional review board should be cited in the Methods Section of the article. Editors reserve the right to reject any submission that does not meet these requirements.

Example of an ethical statement: "All subjects gave their informed consent for inclusion before they participated in the study. The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, and the protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee of XXX (Project identification code)."

A written informed consent for publication must be obtained from participating patients who can be identified (including by the patients themselves). 

Research Involving Cell Lines

Methods sections for submissions reporting on research with cell lines should state the origin of any cell lines. For established cell lines the provenance should be stated and references must also be given to either a published paper or to a commercial source. If previously unpublished de novo cell lines were used, including those gifted from another laboratory, details of institutional review board or ethics committee approval must be given, and confirmation of written informed consent must be provided if the line is of human origin.

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.

Unfortunately, cases of plagiarism, data falsification, image manipulation, inappropriate authorship credit, and the like, could arise. The editors of Acta Microscopica take such publishing ethics issues very seriously and in such cases proceed with a zero tolerance policy.

Authors submitting the papers to publish in Acta Microscopica must know:

• Simultaneous submission of manuscripts to more than one journal is not tolerated.


• Republishing content that is not novel is not tolerated (for example, an English translation of a paper that is already published in another language will not be accepted).


• 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




• Plagiarism is not acceptable .

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.

If plagiarism is detected during the peer review process, the manuscript may be rejected. If plagiarism is detected after publication, we may publish a correction or retract the paper

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.

To facilitate proper peer-reviewing of your manuscript, it is essential that it is submitted in grammatically correct language (English, or Spanish or Portuguese.)

Authorship

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 revising 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 acknowledgements.

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

Initial Checks

All submitted manuscripts received by the Editorial Office will be checked  to determine whether they are properly prepared and whether they follow the ethical policies of the journal. Manuscripts that do not fit the journal's ethics policy or do not meet the standards of the journal will be rejected before peer-review. Manuscripts that are not properly prepared will be returned to the authors for revision and resubmission.

Peer-Review

Once a manuscript passes the initial checks, it will be assigned to at least two independent experts for peer-review. 

Potential reviewers suggested by the authors may be considered. Reviewers be from a different institution of any of the coauthors  and should not currently work or collaborate with any of  the co-authors of the submitted manuscript.

Editorial Decision and Revision

All the articles, reviews and communications go through the peer-review process and receive at least two reviews. The editor will communicate the decision to the author, 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 five 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. Usually, not more than two rounds of major revisions is allowed. 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.


• 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:
  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 response.