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Taylor & Francis

Prepare your manuscript for Science and Medicine in Football.

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

Checked 2026-08-02
Check readiness freePrepare this manuscript

Article types

Review
Editorial
Clinical Trial
Systematic Review
Case Report
Letter
Commentary
Registered Report
Protocol
Lectio

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 250 words.
  • Use a unstructured abstract.
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  • Should contain an unstructured abstract of 250 words.
  • Should contain an unstructured abstract of 200 words.
  • Conclusions should always consider the risk of bias (if available), and the risk of bias of included studies should also be reported in the abstract conclusion.
  • Trial registration numbers should be included in the abstract, with full details in the methods section.
  • Hypothesised causal interpretations should be stated explicitly (in the text) and should not be used in the abstract in a way that frames or predisposes readers to a causal interpretation.

Keywords

  • Provide 1-6 keywords chosen by the author.
  • Should contain between 1 and 6 keywords.
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  • Should contain between 1 and 3 keywords.

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.
  • For manuscripts submitted in LaTeX format a.bib reference file must be included.
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  • All bibliographic entries must contain a corresponding in-text citation.
  • Where applicable, this should include the hyperlink, DOI or other persistent identifier associated with the data set(s).
  • Where applicable, this should include the hyperlink, DOI or other persistent identifier associated with the codes.
  • 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).
  • If the requirement for approval and/or informed consent was waived by the ethics committee, this should be reported in the manuscript, and the waiver uploaded on submission (the email from the reference ethics committee is acceptable).
  • If informed consent, for previously collected data, is not considered necessary, a waiver with a declaration of the reference Ethics Committee or Institutional Review Board should be uploaded with the submission (an email from the Ethics Committee or Institutional Review Board, with clear reference to the study, including the title and name of the main investigators, is generally acceptable as well).
  • 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.

Figure and table rules

  • Keep every figure and table numbered, captioned, and cited in 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).
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  • Figures should be of sufficient resolution to enable refereeing.
  • Tables should present new information rather than duplicating what is in the text.
  • 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.

Funding statement

  • Add or confirm the author-written Funding statement; Articlo flags it if author input is still needed.
  • 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.
  • Authors are required to cite any data sets referenced in the article and provide a Data Availability Statement.
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  • Articles need to meet the Open Science Badges criteria in order to earn a badge.

Ethics statement

  • Add or confirm the author-written Ethics statement; Articlo flags it if author input is still needed.
  • In settings where ethics approval for non-interventional studies (e.g. surveys) is not required, authors must include a statement to explain this.
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  • Authors should familiarise themselves with our policy on participant/patient privacy and informed consent.
  • Review: The authors should report that ethics approval and informed consent have been obtained, including the name of the ethics committee (or Institutional Review Board), its respective institution, and the approval number (redacted for the review process).
  • 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).
  • If informed consent was included in the working contract (as may be the case with professional athletes), this should be stated in the manuscript and approved by the Ethics Committee or Institutional Review Board.
  • Case Report: For submissions where patients or participants can be potentially identified (e.g.

Cover letter

  • Using Third-Party Material 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

  • Add or confirm the author-written Author contributions statement; Articlo flags it if author input is still needed.
  • You may be required to provide CRediT roles (contributor details) for yourself and your co-authors.
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  • Please provide the roles of each author's specific contribution to the scholarly output according to the CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy).

Supplementary files

  • Lectio: Include every cited supplementary file and use matching labels in the manuscript.
  • Letter: Include every cited supplementary file and use matching labels in the manuscript.
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  • Protocol: Include every cited supplementary file and use matching labels in the manuscript.
  • Editorial: Include every cited supplementary file and use matching labels in the manuscript.
  • Commentary: Include every cited supplementary file and use matching labels in the manuscript.
  • Case Report: Include every cited supplementary file and use matching labels in the manuscript.
  • Clinical Trial: Include every cited supplementary file and use matching labels in the manuscript.
  • Registered Report: Include every cited supplementary file and use matching labels in the manuscript.
  • Systematic Review: Include every cited supplementary file and use matching labels in the manuscript.
  • Embed or attach the author-supplied supplementary material so Articlo can extract and label it for the package.
  • Review: We remind authors that codes should be available to readers via a repository or as a supplementary file, not only for the review process.
  • Must contain the PRISMA checklist as a supplementary file.
  • Please provide information about where the code used for the statistical analysis presented in the paper can be found (e.g., as a supplementary file or repository).
  • Must contain a link to a repository where codes are available online, or a supplementary file containing the codes (or syntax) of the statistical analysis (e.g., from Python, R, SAS or STATA).

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

  • Should be no more than 4500 words (longer may be considered if justified, e.g., to comply with the reporting guidelines).
  • Should be no more than 6000 words (longer may be considered if justified, e.g., to comply with the reporting guidelines).
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  • Should be no more than 2500 words (longer may be considered if justified; please contact the editors before submitting a longer manuscript).
  • Should be no more than 3000 words (longer may be considered if justified; please contact the Editor before submitting a longer manuscript).
  • Should be no more than 1000 words.
  • It should be a maximum width of 525 pixels.
  • These instructions will ensure we have everything required so your paper can move through peer review, production and publication smoothly.
  • 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.
  • Must contain a precise and clear research question.
  • Exploratory studies are accepted, but their nature should be transparently reported in the manuscript.
  • Should be pre-registered (mandatory for intervention studies).
  • Should use the appropriate risk of bias tools (i.e., adequate to the research question).
  • Must contain a clear and precise research question (for scoping and mapping reviews, the research question can be broader).
  • Meta-analyses using random effects models should also present prediction intervals whenever appropriate.
  • If prediction intervals are considered not necessary, the reasons should be reported in the manuscript.
  • Recommendations are not necessary but if provided, the authors should refer to the GRADE or other appropriate guidelines.
  • Review: We remind authors that codes should be available in the published manuscript, not only for the review process.
  • The manuscript must meet all the requirements for "Original Investigations".
  • Must follow the reporting guidelines appropriate to the research design.
  • Note that, regardless of the file format of the original submission, an editable version of the article must be supplied at the revision stage.
  • If data are not available, the reasons should be reported.
  • For all NIH/Welcome-funded papers, the grant number(s) must be included in the declaration 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.
  • 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”.
  • 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.
  • If you submit a paper to a participating journal, you will then receive an email upon submission with: Details of the badges offered by the journal.
  • If you submit a paper to a participating journal, you will then receive an email upon submission with: Links to additional information.
  • If you submit a paper to a participating journal, you will then receive an email upon submission with: An open practices disclosure form.
  • If you submit a paper to a participating journal, you will then receive an email upon submission with: The journal editor’s email address.
  • Every submission will undergo the standard editorial checks, and will be subject to the standard peer review processes of the journal, which may or may not include PCI reviews.
  • Exploratory and descriptive studies should not be used to provide practical recommendations for practitioners unless their limitations and tentative nature are explicitly acknowledged.
  • Must contain the research design.
  • Preliminary Reports are required to comply with all the criteria applicable to Original Investigations, in addition to the specific requirements detailed in the instructions.
  • Must be pre-registered.
  • Expertise should be domain-specific; for instance, a commentary on prognostic models should not merely include a statistician or an epidemiologist, but an author with specific expertise in the development and evaluation of prognostic models.
  • There are no strict formatting requirements, but all manuscripts must contain the essential elements needed to evaluate a manuscript as indicated above for each submission category.
  • 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.
  • Such as: The standards on Data, Materials, and Analytical Code Transparency speak to the items generated over the course of the study and how you should preserve or share them.
  • Please do not embed it in the manuscript file but save it as a separate file, labelled GraphicalAbstract1.
  • The title of replies should be in the following format: “Reply to [authors of the letter; et al for more than two authors]: Comment on: [title of the original paper recipient of the letter]”.
  • Underpowered studies cannot be submitted as short communications.
  • Experimental studies cannot be presented as short communications.
  • Science and Medicine in Football publishes a limited number of commentaries and applies strict criteria to determine which commentaries progress to peer review.
  • 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.
  • COS currently offers three badges in its program: The Open Materials badge is earned by making publicly available the components of the research methodology needed to reproduce the reported procedure and analysis.

Reporting guidelines

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

Statistical reporting

  • Studies should also include (as an appendix) the original full output generated by the statistical software.
  • For example, articles addressing topics such as data analysis, statistics, or epidemiology should include, respectively, statisticians, data or computer scientists, and epidemiologists.

Preprints and prior publication

  • Authors should refer to the PCI recommendation in the cover letter and ensure the preprint is cited in the manuscript.
  • If you have shared an earlier version of your Author’s Original Manuscript on a preprint server, 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

  • This should be clearly reflected in the conclusions of both the abstract and the main text.
  • Must be written with the following elements in the following order: title page; abstract; keywords; main text introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion (with a limitation section); acknowledgments; author contribution (according to the CRediT ); funding details; disclosure statement; data availability statement; code availability statement; data deposition; ethics approval and informed consent; references; appendices (as appropriate); table(s) with caption(s) (on individual pages); figures; figure captions (as a list).
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  • Must be written with the following elements, if applicable, in the following order: title page; abstract; keywords; main text introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion (with a limitation section); acknowledgments; author contributions (according to CRediT ); disclosure statement; data availability (for meta-analysis); code availability (for meta-analysis); ethics approval and informed consent; references; appendices (as appropriate); table(s) with caption(s) (on individual pages); figures; figure captions (as a list).
  • Must be written with the following elements in the following order: title page; abstract; keywords; main text introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion (with a limitation section); acknowledgments; author contributions (according to the CRediT ); disclosure of interests; data availability; code availability; ethics approval and informed consent; references; appendices (as appropriate); table(s) with caption(s) (on individual pages); figures; figure captions (as a list).
  • Must be written with the following elements in the following order: title page; abstract; keywords; main text introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion; acknowledgments; author contributions (according to the CRediT ); disclosure of interests; ethics approval and informed consent; references; appendices (as appropriate); table(s) with caption(s) (on individual pages); figures; figure captions (as a list).
  • Should be written with the following elements in the following order: title page; main text, acknowledgments; disclosure of interest; references; appendices (as appropriate).
  • Should be written with the following elements in the following order: stated herein: title page; keywords; main text; acknowledgments; disclosure of interests statement; references; appendices (as appropriate); table(s) with caption(s) (on individual pages); figures; figure captions (as a list).

Authorship and originality

  • Preparing Your Paper 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).

Manuscript structure

  • If hypotheses are presented, these should be supported in the introduction.
  • Should not necessarily contain a practical application section.
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  • Authors should not comment in this section on whether their financial or non-financial conflict (competing) interests are a potential source of bias.
  • Please provide information about where the data supporting the results or analyses presented in the paper can be found.
  • Methodological commentaries should typically include, among the authors, recognised experts in the relevant domains addressed by the article, particularly when these relate to specific methods or research frameworks.
  • 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.
  • 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.

Language and text style

  • Must avoid causal language and interpretation if not supported by the design and/or analysis.

Study reporting guidelines

  • Must follow the reporting guidelines appropriate to the research design (e.g., CONSORT, STROBE, TRIPOD, CARE, COREQ, etc.).
  • 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).
  • Each item of the checklist should be addressed by reporting the exact text (copied and pasted) used in the manuscript to address the PRISMA requirement (not just the page).
  • Systematic Review: Must be presented according to established reporting guidelines such as Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses ( PRISMA ) statement and extensions (e.g., PRISMA for scoping reviews): http://www.prismastatement.org/PRISMAStatement/.

Blinded manuscript

  • The PDF should be uploaded as the “Manuscript - with author details”/”Manuscript - anonymous” file.
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What your package checks

Abstract: 250 words
Paper: 2,500 words
Keywords: 1-6 keywords
Declarations: Data availability, Funding, Ethics, Author contributions, Artificial intelligence

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