Nature article author information websites

A central resource for author services offered by Nature and Nature Portfolio journals. Access our journals, their impact factors and editorial scope. Find author and submission information and benefits for published Nature journal authors.

About Nature Portfolio journals

Listed here are the journals published by Nature Portfolio for scientific communities and societies.

Why publish with Nature Portfolio?

Publishing in the Nature journals or other Nature Portfolio journals brings a wide range of author benefits.

How to write your paper

A brief guide to writing for Nature Portfolio journals.

How to publish your paper

A description of the Nature Portfolio publishing and editorial processes.

How to transfer manuscripts

About Nature Portfolio's manuscript transfer service for authors.

Communication and media benefits

About the Nature press office and the benefits it provides for authors, their funders, their employers and their institutions.

Funder Compliance

Guidance on how authors can meet the OA policy requirements of their funders and institutions when publishing their research articles.

About indexing/abstracting

Nature Portfolio journals are indexed by many abstracting and indexing services.

Author reprints

How to order author reprints.

Permissions

Information on how to re-use material published by Nature Portfolio.

The sections below provide essential information for authors and we recommend that you take the time to read them before submitting a contribution to Nature. These instructions refer to Articles, Reviews and Perspectives. Separate guidelines are available for Matters Arising and for other types of submission. 

Editorial criteria and processes

Please read this section before submitting anything to Nature. This section explains Nature's editorial criteria, and how manuscripts are handled by our editors between submission and acceptance for publication.

Formatting guide

This section provides a description of all types of contribution published in Nature, and detailed instructions for preparing, formatting and writing all types of manuscripts published by Nature.

Presubmission enquiries

Presubmission enquiries are provided purely as a service to authors to see if a manuscript is likely to be of interest to the journal and are not compulsory.

Initial submission

Please read this section before proceeding with a submission to Nature. Here you can find information on how to prepare and submit your manuscript and any Supplementary Information.

Final submission

This section contains information about how to prepare a final resubmission for publication in Nature.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information (SI) is peer-reviewed material directly relevant to the conclusion of a paper that cannot be included in the printed version for reasons of space or medium. This section includes information on SI categories and acceptable file formats, size constraints for individual files and how SI should be presented.

Forms and declarations

On this page are the forms to download and complete before publication. These include ‘licence to publish’ forms, manuscript checklists, structure templates and links to reprint order forms.

This guide describes how to prepare contributions for submission. We recommend you read this in full if you have not previously submitted a contribution to Nature. We also recommend that, before submission, you familiarize yourself with Nature’s style and content by reading the journal, either in print or online, particularly if you have not submitted to the journal recently.

Formats for Nature contributions

Articles are the main format for original research contributions to Nature. In addition, Nature publishes other submitted material as detailed below.

Articles

Articles are original reports whose conclusions represent a substantial advance in understanding of an important problem and have immediate, far-reaching implications. In print, physical sciences papers do not normally exceed 6 pages on average, and biological, clinical and social-sciences papers do not normally exceed 8 pages on average. However, the final print length is at the editor’s discretion.

Articles start with a fully referenced summary paragraph, ideally of no more than 200 words, which is separate from the main text and avoids numbers, abbreviations, acronyms or measurements unless essential. It is aimed at readers outside the discipline. This summary paragraph should be structured as follows: 2-3 sentences of basic-level introduction to the field; a brief account of the background and rationale of the work; a statement of the main conclusions (introduced by the phrase 'Here we show' or its equivalent); and finally, 2-3 sentences putting the main findings into general context so it is clear how the results described in the paper have moved the field forwards. Please refer to our annotated example  to see how the summary paragraph should be constructed.

The typical length of a 6-page article with 4 modest display items (figures and tables) is 2500 words (summary paragraph plus body text). The typical length of an 8-page article with 5-6 modest disp

Open access (OA) articles in Springer Nature journals are published under Creative Commons licences. These provide an industry-standard framework to support re-use of OA material. Details of the OA licences offered to authors can be found on our individual journal websites, and more information about Creative Commons licence terms is available in this guide and on the Creative Commons website.

Articles published under the subscription publishing model in Springer Nature journals have different terms of use.

Read on to learn more about how others can make use of your work, and your rights as an author.

What are the differences between publishing licences?

All licences used by Springer Nature require that all authors and the article version is credited when anyone reuses your publication. This means you are always recognised for your work. Depending on the licence you choose for your publication, the rights that others have to share and reuse your work will vary.

The two main OA licences used by Springer Nature journals are:

• CC BY-NC-ND - Creative Commons Attribution, Non Commercial, No Derivatives: The article can be shared for non-commercial purposes as long as the authors are credited. Permission is needed for commercial re-use or sharing adapted and derivative versions.
• CC BY - Creative Commons Attribution: The article may be shared and adapted for any purpose, including commercially, so long as the authors are credited.

Rights for reuse