PLOS ONE Title Page and Author List Checklist Before Submission

A PLOS ONE title page can look finished while still disagreeing with the submission record in small, consequential ways: an affiliation appears in the manuscript but not the portal, a corresponding-author email is missing, or a name is punctuated differently across files. The journal’s current instructions make the first page, online author record, and contribution details a connected submission package.

This guide turns the official requirements into a practical pre-upload check. Always confirm the current PLOS ONE submission guidelines before submitting, because the journal’s instructions control and can change.

Put the beginning section in the required order

PLOS ONE asks authors to begin the manuscript with these required elements in order:

1. title page;
2. abstract; and
3. introduction.

That means the title, author list, and affiliations belong on the first page of the manuscript file rather than in a separate cover sheet that never reaches the compiled manuscript. The abstract follows the title page. The same abstract text is also entered into a separate field in the submission system.

Before checking individual names, confirm that the manuscript actually opens in this order. A clean first page gives editors one visible place to reconcile the study title, authors, affiliations, and corresponding-author information.

Check the full title and short title separately

The guidelines request both a full title and a short title. PLOS ONE currently limits the full title to 250 characters and the short title to 100 characters. The full title should be specific, descriptive, concise, and understandable outside the immediate specialty. The short title should state the topic of the study.

Titles should use sentence case: capitalize the first word, proper nouns, and genus names rather than treating every important word as a heading. Avoid specialist abbreviations where possible. For a clinical trial, systematic review, or meta-analysis, the subtitle should identify the study design.

Run four title checks before upload:

• Count the full and short titles independently.
• Confirm that the wording in the manuscript matches the submission fields.
• Expand or remove an abbreviation that a broader reader may not recognize.
• Confirm that any required study-design wording is present without adding a claim the study does not support.

Formatting can make titles consistent, but the authors remain responsible for accurately describing the work.

Freeze the author list before duplicating it

PLOS ONE says author names should appear on the manuscript title page and in the online submission system. On the title page, names should follow the order first name or initials, middle name or initials, and last name. The journal warns that names will be published as they appear in the manuscript file, so spelling, punctuation, initials, diacritics, and order deserve a deliberate review.

Use one author-approved list as the source of truth, then compare every destination against it. Check:

• the exact author order;
• the form of each name;
• each affiliation marker;
• the corresponding-author designation; and
• the online author record.

Do not infer a contributor, change an author’s preferred name form, or reorder the list during a formatting pass. Authorship is an author and journal-policy decision, not a layout decision.

Reconcile affiliations with the portal’s different rule

Each author should be associated with an affiliation. The title-page affiliation needs at least the department, institution, city, state where applicable, and country. If an author has a current address in addition to the address held during the study, the guidelines allow that address to be listed and clearly labeled as a current address.

Multiple affiliations need special attention because the manuscript and portal do not use exactly the same representation. PLOS ONE says to enter all affiliations on the title page, but to enter only the preferred or primary affiliation in the submission system. That is an intentional difference, not automatically an error.

A useful reconciliation table kept outside the manuscript can contain one row per author with:

• title-page affiliation or affiliations;
• the preferred portal affiliation;
• any clearly labeled current address; and
• the author’s confirmation that the mapping is correct.

Keep that working table private. Its purpose is to prevent accidental mismatch, not to add internal notes to the submitted manuscript.

Separate corresponding-author display from portal control

The submitting author is automatically designated as the corresponding author in the PLOS submission system and becomes the primary journal contact. Only one corresponding author can be designated in the system. The manuscript itself may list more than one corresponding author for publication, and an email address should be included for each corresponding author named on the title page.

Before upload, ask two distinct questions:

1. Who should control and communicate through the live submission record?
2. Who should be identified as a corresponding author on the manuscript?

Those answers may overlap without being identical. Confirm them with the author team rather than assuming the asterisk or current portal account settles both questions. PLOS ONE also requires the corresponding author to provide an ORCID iD through the submission profile; that is an account-level task the corresponding author must complete.

Handle consortium and group authorship deliberately

If the manuscript is submitted on behalf of a consortium or group, the guidelines say to include the group name in the manuscript byline but not add the group name to the submission system’s author list. The full member list may appear in the acknowledgments or a supporting-information file.

This is another valid difference between the manuscript and portal. Record it in the pre-submission check so nobody “fixes” the difference by adding a group name to the wrong field. Any individually named group member still has to meet the journal’s authorship criteria if included as an author.

Prepare contribution information before the portal session

PLOS ONE requests at least one contribution for every author in the submission system and uses the CRediT taxonomy. The submitting author is responsible for entering these details, and the journal expects the author group to have reviewed and agreed to the contributions beforehand.

Do not leave this discussion for the final upload screen. Confirm the contribution roles against the frozen author list, make sure every author has at least one accurate role, and resolve discrepancies with the author team. A readiness or formatting check can identify a missing entry; it cannot decide who performed a contribution.

Compare the abstract in both places

The abstract appears after the title page and is also pasted into the submission system. The current guidelines say it should describe the study objectives, explain how the study was done without unnecessary methodological detail, summarize the most important results and their significance, and stay within 300 words. It should not contain citations and should avoid abbreviations where possible.

After the authors approve the abstract, copy it from the final manuscript rather than from an older email or review document. Then compare the manuscript and portal versions for missing symbols, changed paragraph breaks, and last-minute edits.

Run one cross-surface check before submission

Use this final sequence after substantive editing is complete:

1. Confirm the title page is the first manuscript page.
2. Check the full and short title limits, sentence case, and study-design wording where applicable.
3. Compare every author name, order, and affiliation marker with the approved author list.
4. Confirm all title-page affiliations and the preferred portal affiliation for each author.
5. Verify the manuscript corresponding-author names and emails, plus the single portal contact.
6. Record any intentional consortium or group-author difference.
7. Confirm at least one agreed CRediT contribution for each author in the portal workflow.
8. Compare the final abstract in the manuscript and submission field.
9. Remove comments, tracked changes, placeholder text, and private reconciliation notes from the upload file.

The aim is not to make every surface mechanically identical. It is to make every difference intentional, supported by the journal’s instructions, and approved by the authors.

Keep formatting within the author’s responsibility boundary

Articlo formats author-provided manuscripts and checks them against stored journal requirements. It does not write research, decide authorship, assign contribution roles, verify references, make submission decisions, or guarantee acceptance. Authors remain responsible for the research content, author and affiliation information, declarations, and the current journal instructions.

You can review the PLOS ONE preparation path or run a free readiness check to find packaging and formatting issues before upload.