Taylor & Francis

Prepare your manuscript for Postgraduate Medicine.

Review the checklist, choose your article type, and turn your draft into a cleaner submission package.

Checked 2026-08-02

Check readiness free Prepare this manuscript

Article types

Review

Clinical Trial

Editorial

Research Article

Letter

Perspective

Review Article

Original Article

Data Note

Protocol

Lectio

Commentary

Letter to the Editor

Case Report

Systematic Review

Book Review

Readiness requirements

Review the key details below, or download the complete checklist with every stored source-backed requirement.

Abstract length

Provide an author-written abstract of no more than 200 words.
Use a structured abstract.

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Should contain a structured abstract of 250 words.
Abstract (maximum 200 words).
The abstract structure should be as follows: Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion.
Abbreviations and units: Abbreviations should be defined on their first appearance both in the abstract and in the text; commonly used abbreviations need not be defined.
References must not be included in the abstract.
Clinical Trial: For clinical trials, the trial registry name, registration identification number, and the URL for the registry must be included at the end of the abstract.
Trial registration numbers should be included in the abstract, with full details in the methods section.
The PLS should be included in the manuscript under its own heading (“Plain Language Summary”) and placed after the Abstract and before the Introduction.
In addition, the PLS should: • Be distinct from the abstract and written in easy-to-understand language rather than complex words (see Universal Patient Language).
Your abstract should focus on what your research is about, what methods have been used, and what you found out.
Abstract: no abstract required.
Clinical Trial: If applicable, please confirm that your clinical trial has been registered in a public repository at the beginning of the research process (prior to patient enrollment) and provide the registry name and trial registration number, which should also be included in the Abstract and Methods sections of the manuscript.
The instructions for authors for each journal will give specific guidelines on what’s required here, including whether it should be a structured abstract or graphical abstract, and any word limits.
Research Article: The abstract for Original Research articles should be structured using the following headings: Objectives, Methods, Results, Conclusion.
Book Review: Place, e.g., [abstract], [book review] or [letter] after the article title: Author K.
Please note that Graphical PLS cannot be indexed on PubMed. → Graphical PLS & Graphical Abstracts While a Graphical PLS serves a different purpose than a Graphical Abstract, the publication process is the same for both.

Keywords

Provide 3-6 keywords chosen by the author.
A typical Practice Pearl for this journal should be no more than 3000 words (excluding summary, keywords and references).

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Should contain between 3 and 6 keywords.
Keywords: should be drawn from the Index Medicus Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) lists or phrases for indexing.

Reference style

Articlo formats your supplied references to the journal's stored style and checks that citations match the reference list; source validity is not verified.
References: Please note: a maximum of 20 references are permitted.

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A maximum of 20 references is permitted.
Use an unspaced en dash between page numbers. Warning | Not controlled when printed Maintained by Head of Copyediting | Taylor & Francis | Journals Page 3 of 11 Information Classification: General In the text and in the reference list NLM uses p. rather than pp. With a quotation Author maintains that “This is author’s quoted text” [1,p.3].
Personal communication References to personal communications are cited only in the text. … and most of these proved to be fatal (2003 letter from RS Grant to me; unreferenced, see “Notes”) … Tables and figures Table and figure captions References cited only in tables or figure captions should be numbered in accordance with the sequence established by the first identification in the text of the particular table or figure.
For example: …and many nurses involved with such cases (Mar 22, 2007 posting by RS Grant to the ANPACC Listserv; unreferenced, see “Notes”) report… Blog Messages posted to discussion lists like a blog are considered a form of personal communication and should not be included in a reference list.
Readers should be able to interpret the table without reference to the text.
If you reply yes, you will be required to provide the DOI, pre-registered DOI, hyperlink, or other persistent identifier associated with the data set(s).
Authors do not need to include DOIs for published journal articles when preparing manuscripts.
Do not include a full point at the end of DOI or URL addresses.
Place the source information in parentheses, using a term or terms to indicate that the citation is not represented in the reference list.
Include the nature and source of the cited information, using terms to indicate that no corresponding citation is in the reference list.
Reference to unpublished data should be kept to a minimum and authors must obtain a signed letter of permission from cited persons to use unpublished results or personal communications in the manuscript.
The DAS should include the hyperlink, DOI or other persistent identifier associated with the data set(s), or information on how the data can be requested from the authors.
A declaration must be included within the submission stating: Confirmation the authors take full responsibility for the integrity of the whole content, including accuracy of references.
If the reference also includes a place of publication, this should follow the rules as given above for book references, with any state or country included placed in brackets.
Please aim for no more than 10 references.
Conference Conference details Please note that in the following reference types the conference name should be followed by the date in [yyyy mm dd–dd] format, followed by the place in which the conference is held.
Place references to such communications within the running text only.
The other graphic will need to be cited as a figure in the manuscript and will then appear in the HTML/typeset articles near the location of the first citation. → Supplementary Material Graphical PLS may also be published as supplementary material, which is published alongside the full- text HTML article under the “Supplemental Material” tab and hosted on Figshare as open access content.

Figure and table rules

Keep every figure and table numbered, captioned, and cited in the manuscript. Keep figures embedded; Articlo also extracts numbered source files for the package.
Group figures at the end of the manuscript.

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Group tables at the end of the manuscript.
Figures should be high quality (1200 dpi for line art, 600 dpi for grayscale and 300 dpi for colour, at the correct size).
Tables and figures Show clearly in your article text where the tables and figures should appear, for example, by writing [Table 1 near here].
Authors of original research manuscripts should contact the Editorial Office if they are interested in submitting more than the maximum amount of figures or tables.
Figures and structures should be in separate files to the text.
Figures should be numbered consecutively according to the order in which they have been first cited in the text.
Where structures do not appear as part of a figure, number each structure (using Arabic numerals only) and cite the compound number in the body of the article.
Tables should present new information rather than duplicating what is in the text.
It’s very important that you have been given permission to use any tables or figures you are reproducing from another source before you submit.
Figures should be supplied in one of our preferred file formats: PS, JPEG, TIFF, or Microsoft Word (DOC or DOCX) files are acceptable for figures that have been drawn in Word.
Check the instructions for authors to see how you should supply tables and figures, whether at the end of the text or in separate files, and follow any guidance given on the submission system.

Funding statement

You should declare only the acquired funds and grants that are directly relevant to the work reported in your article; for example, This work was supported by the [Funding Agency #1] under Grant [number xxxx]; [Funding Agency #2] under Grant [number xxxx]; and [Funding Agency #3] under Grant [number xxxx].

Competing interests

Include or confirm the competing interests required by the journal. Articlo checks this item and flags anything that still needs author input.

Data availability statement

Add or confirm the author-written Data availability statement; Articlo flags it if author input is still needed.
Data Note: Further to the data sharing policy for the journal, Data Note submissions must include a data availability statement and describe data available via a repository.

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Depending on the journal’s data sharing policy, authors may be required to provide a data availability statement, even where there is no data associated with the article.
In this instance, the data availability statement should read: “No data are associated with this article.”.
Authors are required to provide a data availability statement, detailing where data associated with a paper can be found and how it can be accessed.
If data cannot be made open, authors should state why in the data availability statement.
Authors are required to cite any data sets referenced in the article and provide a Data Availability Statement.

Ethics statement

Add or confirm the author-written Ethics statement; Articlo flags it if author input is still needed.
Clinical Trial: For clinical trials starting patient enrollment after July 2005, trials must be registered before the onset of enrollment.

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Materials and Methods - The study design, patient populations, selection criteria and any statistical analyses should be clearly described.
Patient authors should be aware that they must provide an email address during submission to allow communications relating to the progress of their paper.
Ethics and Consent: All research must be conducted within an appropriate ethical framework.
Details of approval by the authors’ institution or an ethics committee must be provided in the Methods section of the Study Protocol.
In settings where ethics approval for non-interventional studies (e.g. surveys) is not required, authors must include a statement to explain this.
Authors should familiarise themselves with our policy on participant/patient privacy and informed consent.
Patient authors should carefully consider whether to use an existing personal email address or to create an alternate email address that can be used for their authored works.
All original research papers involving humans, animals, plants, biological material, protected or non-public datasets, collections or sites, must include a written statement in the Methods section, confirming ethical approval has been obtained from the appropriate local ethics committee or Institutional Review Board and that where relevant, informed consent has been obtained.
Consent All authors are required to follow the ICMJE requirements and Taylor & Francis Editorial Policies on privacy and informed consent from patients and study participants.
Authors must include a statement to confirm that any patient, service user, or participant (or that person’s parent or legal guardian) in any type of qualitative or quantitative research, has given informed consent to participate in the research.
Case Report: a clinical case report detailing their medical history, identifiable images or media content, etc), authors must include a statement to confirm that they have obtained written informed consent to publish the details from the affected individual (or their parents/guardians if the participant in not an adult or unable to give informed consent; or next of kin if the participant is deceased).
Case Report: For submissions where patients or participants can be potentially identified (e.g.

Blinded manuscript

Include or confirm the blinded manuscript required by the journal. Articlo checks this item and flags anything that still needs author input.

Cover letter

Using third-party material in your paper You must obtain the necessary permission to reuse third-party material in your article.
The use of short extracts of text and some other types of material is usually permitted, on a limited basis, for the purposes of criticism and review without securing formal permission.

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If you wish to include any material in your paper for which you do not hold copyright, and which is not covered by this informal agreement, you will need to obtain written permission from the copyright owner prior to submission.

Author contributions

Submitting authors should be prepared to submit CRediT roles for themselves and their co-authors (where applicable) as part of the submission process.

Supplementary files

Include every cited supplementary file and use matching labels in the manuscript.

Title page and author information

All authors of a manuscript should include their full name and affiliation on the cover page of the manuscript.
One author will need to be identified as the corresponding author, with their email address normally displayed in the article PDF (depending on the journal) and the online article.

Article structure and word limits

Research Article: A typical Original Research article for this journal should be more than 3000 and no more than 6000 words.
A typical Review for this journal should be more than 4000 and no more than 6000 words.

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A typical Perspective for this journal should be more than 3000 and no more than 7000 words.
A typical Editorial for this journal should be more than 1000 and no more than 1500 words.
Use an unspaced en dash to join inclusive first and last numbers, e.g. [2,3,4,5,7,10] would be abbreviated to [2–5,7,10].
Margins Margins should be at least 2.5cm (1 inch).
Should be no more than 3000 words.
London: Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew; 1998. p. 75–81. Warning | Not controlled when printed Maintained by Head of Copyediting | Taylor & Francis | Journals Page 9 of 11 Information Classification: General Presentation Presentations and posters should also include the stream in which they were presented if available.
These instructions will ensure we have everything required so your paper can move through peer review, production and publication smoothly.
Perspective: Perspectives Perspectives have the same basic structure and length as review articles, however they should be more speculative and very forward looking, even visionary.
The intention is very much that these articles should represent a personal perspective.
The intention is very much that the article should offer a personal perspective on a topic of recent interest.
The author should discuss the various therapeutic strategies which have been, and are being, explored, providing the reader with an overview of the research field.
Protocol: Study Protocols should be submitted for publication prior to the research activity beginning.
Your research funder or your institution may require you to publish your article open access.
Use our APC finder to view the APC for this journal.
It should also discuss how the findings are applicable to current clinical practice.
Body - Body of the paper covering the subject under review, using numbered subsections as required.
Use SI units or quote SI equivalents where possible.
Drug brand names should not appear in paper titles.
In the body of the review, the generic name should be used in preference to brand names.
Please note, brand names should take an upper case first letter; generic names lower case.
Formatting and templates File formatting: Keep all formatting to a minimum.
Therefore, it must describe the nature and objective of the paper.
All article types should have a concise, informative title that contains no brand names.
This could be adapted from your departmental website or academic networking profile and should be relatively brief.
Provide editable, electronic copies if possible; otherwise, please ensure that the camera-ready copy is of the highest resolution available.
Chemical structures Please submit structures drawn in ISISDraw or Chemdraw and ensure that you submit these in their original, editable format.
For all NIH/Wellcome-funded papers, the grant number(s) must be included in the disclosure of interest statement.
Clinical Trial: Clinical trials should be registered prospectively – i.e. before participant recruitment.
Authors of retrospectively registered trials must be prepared to provide further information to the journal editorial office if requested.
Clinical Trial: The clinical trial registry should be publicly accessible (at no charge), open to all prospective registrants, and managed by a not-for-profit organization.
All research studies on humans (individuals, samples, or data) must have been performed in accordance with the principles stated in the Declaration of Helsinki.
Please include all relevant safety precautions; and cite any accepted standard or code of practice.
The PDF should be uploaded as the “Manuscript - with author details” file.
You will also need to upload your LaTeX source files, which should be uploaded as a single zip file alongside your submission and marked as “LaTeX Source Files”.
Queries Should you have any queries, please visit our Author Services website or contact us here.
A declaration must be included within the submission stating: Originality and accuracy of content has been confirmed by the authors.
Authors must provide full methodological details and adhere to relevant reporting guidelines where applicable.
Authors must retain the original and revised versions which must be shared upon request.
The PLSP guidelines for authors must be followed at all times.
Please note that Taylor & Francis does not require the inclusion of all optional elements, so you should match the samples below.
Use the dates for the individual journal article being cited.
Use an unspaced en dash between page numbers.
Do not include as forthcoming any articles that have been submitted for publication but have not yet been accepted for publication.
Forthcoming book Do not include as forthcoming any books that have been submitted for publication but have not yet been accepted for publication.
The nature and source of the cited information should be identified by an appropriate statement.
Include the report series and number if available.
Provide answers to the questions: Why was the study done?
Before you submit your article, make sure you’ve checked the instructions for authors for your chosen journal, so you are aware of everything required.
Most journals create image descriptions during the production process, but a minority may require authors to provide image descriptions.
Review: Running heads and received dates These aren’t required when submitting a manuscript for review.
Data Note: Data Notes should only describe the data.
Clinical Trial: As a condition of consideration for publication, all clinical trials must be registered at an appropriate online public registry before submission of a manuscript based on the trial.
Clinical Trial: Clinical trials: If the study protocol relates to a clinical trial then the Trial Registration details must be provided: name of registry, registry number, registration date and URL of the trial in the registry database.
In such a case, when referring to a lead compound (or compounds claimed in patents) for the first time, please ensure that the ® or ™ symbols are used as required, and that the name of the relevant company is also stated.
Please use SI units (non-italicized).
Clinical Trial: Clinical Trials Registry In order to be published in a Taylor & Francis journal, all clinical trials must have been registered in a public repository, ideally at the beginning of the research process (prior to participant recruitment).
The process of obtaining consent to publish should include sharing the article with the individual (or whoever is consenting on their behalf), so that they are fully aware of the content of the article before it is published.
Please note that data should only be shared if it is ethically correct to do so, where this does not violate the protection of human subjects, or other valid ethical, privacy, or security concerns.
Include the country name for other countries only to avoid ambiguity: Cambridge (MA) Cambridge (UK) If more than one place of publication is found, use the first listed place of publication.
The conference place should include the town or city followed by the US state code or country after a comma rather than in brackets. [authors or editors] [Conference title]; [year] [abbreviated month] [day(s)]; [town or city], [state or country].
Use the active voice rather than the passive voice (for example, “Dr Smith’s team report several improvements” rather than “Several improvements were reported by Dr Smith’s team”).
Special characters If you are preparing your manuscript in Microsoft Word and your article contains special characters, accents, or diacritics, we recommend you follow these steps: European accents (Greek, Hebrew, or Cyrillic letters, or phonetic symbols): choose Times New Roman font from the dropdown menu in the “Insert symbol” window and insert the character you require.
Special characters If you are preparing your manuscript in Microsoft Word and your article contains special characters, accents, or diacritics, we recommend you follow these steps: Asian languages (such as Sanskrit, Korean, Chinese, or Japanese): choose Arial Unicode font from the dropdown menu in the “Insert symbol” window and insert the character you require.
Place: Publisher; Year. p. 000–000.
We cannot improve resolution beyond that of the file submitted.
Place family designations of rank after the initials, without punctuation, e.g. Author AA Jr.
Do not abbreviate journal titles consisting of a single word.
Add the phrase “Accompanied by:” followed by a description of the medium.
Place: Publisher; Year. (Series editor(s) optional).
Place: Institution; Year. (Report series; Report number).
Keep statements factual and avoid providing opinions or speculation on the study’s findings and significance.
If you are at the early stage of your research, you may also need to read how to start writing a journal manuscript.
Image descriptions are typically used by systems such as pronouncing screen readers to make images accessible to people that cannot read or see the object due to a visual disability.
Do not elide page number ranges.
Place: Publisher; Year.
Place: Publisher.
Place: Publisher; Year [cited Date].
Place within the running text only.
Place the source information in parentheses.

Reporting guidelines

Include or confirm the reporting guidelines required by the journal. Articlo checks this item and flags anything that still needs author input.

Preprints and prior publication

If you have shared an earlier version of your Author’s Original Manuscript on a preprint server or registered your study with a registry (e.g. ClinicalTrials.gov), please be aware that anonymity cannot be guaranteed.

Artificial intelligence disclosure

Add or confirm the author-written Artificial intelligence statement; Articlo flags it if author input is still needed.
Please include a statement disclosing whether and how generative AI has been used in the research and manuscript preparation process.

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Use of AI tools as part of ethical research studies is permitted.
A declaration must be included within the submission stating: The name and version number of the AI tool used.
Systematic Review: Use of AI tools as part of ethically conducted literature reviews, systematic reviews, meta-analysis and bibliometrics studies is permitted.
Use of AI tool assisted plain language summaries (PLS) of authors own work is permitted.
Please read our guidance on using AI tools in your research and manuscript preparation to understand scenarios where their use may be permissible, and the required information that must be disclosed.
A declaration must be included within the submission stating: Confirmation the authors have checked terms of use for the specific AI tool used, and therefore confirm suitability for publication.

Article type and manuscript length

Review: The abstract for Reviews should not exceed 300 words.
Editorial: The abstract for Editorials should not exceed 150 words and must describe the nature and objective of the paper.

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Perspective: Word limit: a typical patient perspective should be no more than 1000 words; this limit includes the title; author names and affiliations; tables; references; and figure captions.
Main text: does not require a specific structure.
Data Availability: In general, this article type should not include new research and data.
A structured or unstructured (depending on article type) abstract of no more than 300 words.
Should be written with the following elements in the following order: Title page, Abstract, Keywords, Main text (Introduction, Materials and Methods, Data Description, Discussion), Acknowledgments, Declaration of Interest Statement, Data Availability Statement, References, Appendices (as appropriate), Table(s) with caption(s) (on individual pages), Figures, Figure captions (as a list).
Protocol: Study Protocols are a peer reviewed article type that describe in detail high level/large scale study design, including (but not limited to) experimental design of applied research, or protocols defining research questions and empirical methods.

Manuscript structure

Please use numbers (Arabic numerals) to indicate a hierarchy of headings/sub-headings (i.e., 1.0, 1.1, 2.0, 2.1, 2.1.1, 2.1.2 and so on).
Data Note: Data Notes do not include any interpretation or conclusion of the data (see preparing your paper).

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Each manuscript should clearly state an objective or hypothesis towards the end of the introduction.
Conclusion - The conclusion should summarize the scope and findings of the manuscript.
The presented evidence should support the conclusion.
Conclusion - The conclusion for all articles should contain a brief summary of the data presented in the article.
Spacing and headings: Headings, sub-headings and title paragraphs should be used to divide the text.
They should find it interesting and be able to understand the study, its conclusions, and the potential impact of the research.
Research Article / Data Note: Data Notes do not include any interpretation or conclusions of the data but may be linked to a research article incorporating analysis of the published dataset, as well as the results and conclusions.
Authors must retain full records of the methods undertaken, including full descriptions and records of the prompts used, which must be shared with the journal upon request.
Headings This will show you the different levels of the heading section in your article: First-level headings (e.g. Introduction, Conclusion) should be in bold, with an initial capital letter for any proper nouns.
Discussion guide requires 5-6 talking points with 3-5 bullet points within each talking point.
Do not assign 'styles' to headings, extracts or paragraphs.
Place explanatory matter in the footnotes, not in the header.
Clinical Trial: However, for clinical trials that have not been registered prospectively, Taylor & Francis journals requires retrospective registration to ensure the transparent and complete dissemination of all clinical trial results which ultimately impact human health.

Authorship and originality

All authors submitting to medicine, biomedicine, health sciences, allied and public health journals should conform to the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals, prepared by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).

Study reporting guidelines

Protocol: Study Protocols should follow the relevant reporting guideline for the study.
For animal studies, approval must have been obtained from the local or institutional animal use and care committee.

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Authors must provide full methodological details and adhere to relevant reporting guidelines where applicable (e.g. CONSORT-AI, STARD-AI, GAMER, TRIPOD-AI, etc).
Clinical Trial: All randomized clinical trials should include a CONSORT flow diagram, and authors should provide a completed randomized trial CONSORT statement checklist and a trial protocol.

Language and text style

Plain language summary (optional; maximum 250 words).
If you need to use a technical term or abbreviation, explain it the first time you use it. 2 Once your PLS is complete (or during the writing process), ask someone who doesn’t have any knowledge of the subject to read the PLS and provide feedback.

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Please use American spelling style consistently throughout your manuscript.
Please use single quotation marks, except where 'a quotation is "within" a quotation'.
Please note that long quotations should be indented without quotation marks.
Author Instructions To facilitate indexing on PubMed, the plain language summary should be written in English and submitted in plain text, continuous prose format.
Use short, clear sentences and phrase sentences in neutral language, remaining as objective as possible.
Use person-centered language rather than focusing on the condition/illness or disability.
Headings This will show you the different levels of the heading section in your article: Fourth-level headings should be in bold italics, at the beginning of a paragraph.
Headings This will show you the different levels of the heading section in your article: Fifth-level headings should be in italics, at the beginning of a paragraph.
Capitalize only the first word of the title, proper nouns, proper adjectives, acronyms, and initialisms unless the conventions of a particular language require other capitalization.
Graphical Plain Language Summaries As mentioned previously, plain language summaries must be submitted in a plain text, continuous prose format; this is important to ensure that the PLS can be indexed on PubMed.
Headings This will show you the different levels of the heading section in your article: Second-level headings should be in bold italics, with an initial capital letter for any proper nouns.
Headings This will show you the different levels of the heading section in your article: Third-level headings should be in italics, with an initial capital letter for any proper nouns.
See http://www.issn.org/services/online-services/access-to-the-ltwa/ Journal title abbreviations should not include full points, except at the end of the title; see examples below.
Place the original language title or romanized title before the translation.

Save journal and get updates Download complete checklist

What your package checks

Abstract: 200 words

Paper: 6,000 words

Keywords: 3-6 keywords

Declarations: Data availability, Ethics, Artificial intelligence

Format: Times New Roman

Source transparency

This preparation guide uses published journal-specific author requirements. Journal instructions can change, so authors should complete a final review before submission.

Open official guideline source