Last updated 02May 2018
AUTHOR QUERIES FOR COPY-EDITORS
- Use these as far as possible for your queries, butyou may need to adapt them to suit the particular paper and to make them more specific. It’s especially useful to provide specific examples of the styling of genes or proteins mentioned in the paper.
- Please make your queries as succinct and specific as possible to reduce the number/length of queries.
Ctrl + click on any of the following topics to take you straight to the query:
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Last updated 02May 2018
TITLE
Modification of title (general)
Modification of title (animal)
AFFILIATIONS
Author names
Affiliation
Affiliations (order)
Two corresponding authors
Study Group
Study Group on PubMed
CIBERDEM and CIBERESP
DZD
Singapore in affiliations
China in affiliations
Hong Kong in affiliations
Particles
RESEARCH IN CONTEXT AND TWITTER
Research in context
ABBREVIATIONS
Abbreviations (standard)
Abbreviations (written-out)
Abbreviations (gene symbols)
THROUGHOUT TEXT
Subjects vs participants
Patients
Caucasians
Triglyceride/triacylglycerol
Free fatty acids/NEFA
HDL/LDL
Gender/Sex
Male/Female
Latin terms
Wt or vol.
High-/low-calorie and isocaloric
Parameters/variables
Websites
Antidiabetic drugs
Prediabetes
Diabetic foot
Utilise
Optical density
ALT/AST
ETHICS PERMISSION
Ethics permission (animals)
Ethics permission (humans)
Ethics permission (organ donors)
Ethics permission (donated human cells)
Ethics permission (database studies)
BRIEF ADDRESSES FOR SOURCES
Address (animals)
Address (chemicals/equipment)
Trademarks and company type
UNITS
SI units
Reporting of HbA1c units
Units for area under the curve (AUC)
HOMA equation
MINMOD program (insulin sensitivity)
Molecular weight/mass
Normal (N) values for solutions
Units (U)/International Units (IU)
PRECLINICAL STUDIES
Replicates
Data expression
Statistics
Randomisation
Blinding
Exclusion
Animal strain
Antibodies
GENES/PROTEINS
Styling: genes vs proteins
Styling: human vs rat/mouse
Styling: mRNA
Styling: western blots
Styling: northern blots
Styling: knockdown studies
Expressed vs produced (general)
Expressed vs produced (cell surface markers)
Expressed vs produced (mRNA)
Old vs up-to-date symbol (human)
Keywords: Add old and up-to-date symbols
HLA allele format
HLA gene family styling
Gene set analyses
PCR primers
STATISTICS
Statistics: r values
Data expression
Statistical tests
Trend
RANDOMISED CONTROLLED TRIALS
CONSORT guidelines: abstract
CONSORT guidelines: flow diagram
Trials mentioned in other types of article
MISCELLANEOUS
Unpublished observations/results/data
Personal communication
Animal models of diabetes
Matching
Logarithms
Logarithms (ln)
Exponents
ICD-9 and -10
Read codes
Drug names
Sacrificed vs killed
Abstracts in commentaries
Data in the abstract
qRT-PCR
ORCID IDs
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS, AUTHOR CONTRIBUTION STATEMENT AND DUALITY OF INTEREST
Acknowledgements
Funding
Funding by UK research councils
Funding by the Wellcome Trust
Springer Compact
Contribution statement
Guarantor
Duality of interest
Research data
REFERENCES
Converting EndNote to plain text
Author name/reference mismatch
Abstract out-of-date
Reference in preparation/submitted
In press
Accepted for publication
ePub ahead of print
Websites
Cochrane reviews
FIGURES
Figure part labelling
Deletion of legend
Deletion of p values
Figures not cited in rising order
Explanation of statistical symbols
Change of statistical symbols
p values
Graph plotted on logarithmic scale
High-resolution figures
Forest plots
Individual data points
n values
Scale bars
Downloadable slidesets
MULTIMEDIA MANUSCRIPTS
TABLES
Tables not cited in rising order
Formatting (gridlines)
Formatting (rows of space)
Formatting (bold type)
Formatting changes
Large tables
ESM
COMMENTS (LETTERS)
Comment title
Reply to comment, title
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Last updated 02May 2018
REVIEWS
Subheadings
Figures to illustrator
Permissions
Text box
Page 1 of 46
Last updated 02May 2018
TITLE
Modification of title (general)
The title has been modified slightly in line with journal style [details]. Please use the amended title if you refer to this paper elsewhere, or if you use the title in any electronic supplementary material.
We would like to suggest [details] as our press officer has suggested that shorter titles can have a greater impact.
Modification of title (animal)
The animal species has been added to the title in line with journal policy. Please use the amended title if you refer to this paper elsewhere, or if you use the title in any electronic supplementary material.
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AFFILIATIONS
Author names
Diabetologia style is to include given (first) name, initials and family name in the author list, e.g. John M.Smith, Yu-fei Shan, Soo Heon Kim, J. Edgar Hoover. Please ask your co-authors to amend their names in line with this, as appropriate.
[Copyeditors and proofreadersplease note that Korean given names are often unhyphenated two-part names such as Soo Heon, Sung Hee; similarly Italian names often have unhyphenated two-part first names, such as Gian Paolo; in such cases both names should be retained in the author list. Please check with the Editorial Office or raise an author query if you are unsure.]
Please could you confirm whether [X] is a middle name that should be abbreviated to the initial, or whether it is part of a two-part first name or two-part family name? We will then ensure it is coded correctly in the metadata and should appear correctly on PubMed.
Affiliation
In line with journal style, affiliation XXX has been replaced with the address for correspondence.
Please check that this address applies to all authors listed as having this affiliationand modify if necessary.
OR
In line with journal style, affiliation XXX has been amended to include the full address for correspondence.
Please check that this address applies to all authors listed as having this affiliation and modify if necessary.
Affiliation (more than one)
Different affiliations, including different departments within the same institution (but not joint departments) should be listed separately.
Should affiliation [?] therefore be rewritten as …?
Affiliation (postal details)
Full postal details are only needed for the address of the corresponding author, and have been deleted from other affiliations.
Affiliations (order)
The publisher requires that affiliations should be given in the order: department/division, institution/organisation, town/city, country. Please amend affiliation XXX in line with this.
Affiliations (ask co-authors to check all affiliations have been included)
Please check with your co-authors that they have included all their affiliations, as it is difficult to add additional affiliations at the proof stage.
Affiliations (corporate affiliation moved from footnotes/acknowledgements)
In order to include full affiliation details for each author, we do not include affiliation details as footnotes or acknowledgements. Therefore the details of (COMPANY NAME) have been added as an additional affiliation. Please check with your co-author that this is acceptable. Please note that this change might need to be checked and approved by the compliance team of the company in question; let us know if this change contravenes compliance guidelines.
Two corresponding authors
The copyright link and proofs are sent by automated process to one author only. Which of the two corresponding authors would you like to nominate to receive these?
[Ed Office only]: Corresponding author/ScholarOne mismatch [NB consider open access eligibility first – CTS may need to go to corresponding author to qualify for Springer Compact]
The copyright link and proofs are sent by automated process to one author only. Should they be sent to [X] (corresponding author on the paper) or [Y] (contact author on ScholarOne)?
Study Group
Please check with your co-authors and/or trial co-ordinators to ensure that any guidelines for the representation of the Study Group in the title, author list and affiliations are followed.
For more information, see the NLM Fact Sheet Authorship in MEDLINE at
Study Group members on PubMed (applies if study group is sole author or listed as author [‘and’]; may also apply for ‘on behalf of’ but this is less clear)
If you wish the study group members to be listed as collaborators, please include full affiliation details of study group members, with details of institution, city, state (USA, Canada and Australia) and country.
You include XXX Study Group in the author list and in the [footnotes/acknowledgements/appendix/ESM] you have identified people as authors or as members of the writing group/writing committee for this study group. They will therefore be added as authors on MEDLINE/PubMed (and will be appear after any authors listed in the main author list on the paper). For more information, see the NLM Fact Sheet Authorship in MEDLINE at
Please include full affiliation details of study group authors/members of the writing group, with details of department, institution, city, state (USA, Canada and Australia) and country.
Move study group list to ESM (only if very long/Ed Office to raise this query of needed)
Please remove all lists of names (Program Office; Clinical Coordinating Center: Clinical Centers etc) from the manuscript and instead allow us to publish them as electronic supplementary material (ESM) on our website. Please supply the lists in a separate Word document and insert a reference to the electronic supplementary material at relevant places in the text.
CIBERDEM, CIBERESP etc.
Please confirm that we can insert the URL for the umbrella organisation CIBERDEM, as an alternative to the physical address:
Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Diabetes y Enfermedades Metabólicas Asociadas (CIBERDEM), Spain
Please confirm that we can insert the URL for the umbrella organisation CIBERDEM, as an alternative to the physical address:
Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Epidemiología y Salud Pública (CIBERESP), Spain
[Copy-editors: if full location details are given by the author, e.g. ‘Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII), Madrid, Spain’,there is no need to add the URL as well.]
German Center for Diabetes Research (DZD)
The DZD affiliation has been amended in line with instructions received from the DZD on standard layout.
Singapore in affiliations
We are required to provide both city and country for affiliations. ‘Republic of Singapore’ has therefore been inserted after ‘Singapore’.
China in affiliations
Can ‘China’ be replaced by ‘People’s Republic of China’?
Hong Kong in affiliations
Can ‘Hong Kong’ be replaced by ‘Hong Kong Special Administrative Region’?
Particles in author names (de, de la, von, van, del, etc.)
Author name: XXX
It is important that you check with your co-author exactly how they would like their name to appear in the author list (this will determine how it appears in PubMed).
[Insert specific example]
For example:
Jane von Braun: appear as ‘von Braun, J, ‘Von Braun, J’ or ‘Braun, JV’ or ‘Braun, J’?
In particular, please confirm lower or uppercase for von/Von.
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RESEARCH IN CONTEXT
Thank you for supplying text for a Research in context box. We have carried out a light edit, and it will be formatted using our standard template before typesetting.
Add if word count is >230 words
Please reduce the length of your ‘Research in context’ summary to <200 words (excluding our questions).
Please re-phrase point 2 (What is the key question?) in the form of a question.
Thank you for supplying a tweet to accompany your paper. It has been passed to our social media coordinator to use when your article is published.
Please identify which figure/figure part best summarises your paper and we will include this in the tweet where possible.
We are committed to making your research as widely accessible as possible and will tweet about accepted papers ( Please include a tweet and any hashtags or handles (maximum of 250 characters, including spaces) on the title page of your article. Your tweet can be based on the title of your paper or the main finding(s). Please also identify which figure part best summarises your paper and we will include this in the tweet where possible.
ABBREVIATIONS
Abbreviations (standard)
XXX is a standard abbreviation (see that can be used without definition. Your paper has been amended accordingly
If used more than once, the abbreviation has been added to the abbreviations list.
Please note that abbreviations used only once in the paper will not be included in the abbreviations list.
Journal style is to avoid most two-letter abbreviations, such as XX. These have been expanded in your paper.
[NB copy-editors – if you are unsure (e.g. a new abbreviation you haven’t encountered before) please check with the Editorial Office before making changes, or add it to the checklist as a query and we can make the change if we think it is appropriate.]
Abbreviations (written-out)
Please give written-out versions of:
XXX
Abbreviations (gene symbols)
Gene symbols are not, strictly speaking, abbreviations and so have been deleted from the abbreviations list.
[List here]
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THROUGHOUT TEXT
Subjects vs participants
To make it clear to readers that participation in the study was voluntary, Diabetologia prefers that ‘subject’ is replaced by another term such as ‘participant’, ‘individual’ or ‘volunteer’. This change has been made for you throughout. (An exception is made for people who are studied by use of a database where permission is not sought from each individual.)
Patients
The text has been modified as we prefer to avoid unnecessary use of the term ‘patient’ (‘patient’ can be used when discussing a person in terms of their treatment, but ‘participant’ or ‘individual’ is more appropriate when discussing study participation).
Cases
Changes have been made to avoid use of term ‘case’ to describe a person, when another term, such as ‘individual’ or ‘participant’, would be more appropriate.
Caucasians
In line with AMA recommendations (AMA Manual of Style, 10th edn, ch 11.10.2 Race/Ethnicity, p. 415), Diabetologia does not use the term ‘Caucasian’, which is considered to be non-specific and inaccurate. The term ‘white’ is a suitable alternative: this change has been made for you throughout (‘Europid’ or ‘of European descent’ are also acceptable terms).
Triglyceride/triacylglycerol
In line with IUPAC recommendations ( p. 129), ‘triglyceride’ has been changed to ‘triacylglycerol’ throughout the paper.
[Note that the exception to this is the enzyme ‘adipose triglyceride lipase’, which should not be changed to ‘adipose triacylglycerol lipase’.]
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Free fatty acids/NEFA
In line with IUPAC recommendations ( ‘free fatty acid’ has been replaced by ‘NEFA’ (non-esterified fatty acid)
HDL/LDL
Where you use the terms ‘HDL’ and ‘LDL’ are you referring to HDL-cholesterol and LDL-cholesterol, respectively? Please change where appropriate.
Gender/sex
‘Gender’ (cultural term) has been replace by ‘sex’ (biological term) throughout.
Males/females
Males/females used as nouns have been replaced with men/women (male/female are generally used as adjectives when referring to people).
Latin terms
In line with journal style, Latin terms that appear in the Oxford English Dictionary, e.g. in vitro, will be formatted in upright type, not italics.
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Wt or vol.
Please specify whether % concentrations are by weight or by volume (e.g. wt/vol., wt/wt, etc.):
[e.g. Provide a single example here]
High-/low-calorie and isocaloric
‘Calorie’ has been changed to ‘energy’ throughout, as calorie is a (non-SI) unit, whereas energy is the thing being measured.
[Note that the term VLCD, very low calorie diet, is allowed because it is widely used in the literature. It should be described as a ‘diet very low in energy (very low calorie diet [VLCD])’ at first mention]
‘Isocaloric’ has been replaced by ‘isoenergetic’ throughout (calorie is a [non-SI] unit, whereas energy is the thing being measured).
Parameters/variables
‘Parameter’ is used for an arbitrary constant within an experiment or mathematical term, whereas ‘variable’ is used for an expression that can be assigned any of a set of values. In line with this standard English usage, parameters has been replaced by variables where appropriate.
Websites
Please give the date that the site was accessed (day/month/year).
Antidiabetic drugs
In line with journal policy, ‘antidiabetic’ drugs has been replaced by ‘glucose-lowering’ drugs.
Prediabetes: type 2
Diabetologia prefers to avoid the terms ‘prediabetes’ and ‘prediabetic’ except in a purely temporal sense. As prediabetes does not have an accepted definition, please replace with, for example, ‘impaired glucose tolerance’ and/or ‘impaired fasting glucose’.
Prediabetes: type 1
Diabetologia prefers to avoid the terms ‘prediabetes’ and ‘prediabetic’ except in a purely temporal sense. As prediabetic does not have an accepted definition, please replace with, for example, ‘at risk of diabetes’ or ‘with diabetes-related autoantibodies’.
[NB: copy-editors – if this term is used throughout the paper, it is OK to define it at first mention, and then continue to use it].
Diabetic foot
Diabetologia prefers to avoid the term ‘diabetic foot’, where possible. Please replace with a more precise term, such as ‘osteomyelitis of the foot in diabetes’ or ‘soft-tissue foot infection in diabetes’. Where the term occurs throughout the paper, it can be retained, but must be clearly defined at an appropriate place in the text.
Utilise
Strictly speaking, ‘utilise’ means to make the best use of something not intended for the job. Instances of ‘utilise’ have been changed to ‘use’ throughout.
Optical density
The Oxford Dictionary of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology no longer recommends the use of ‘optical density’ as an alternative for ‘absorbance’. Can OD450 and OD690 be changed to absorbance at 450 and 690 nm respectively? [change these wavelengths as appropriate]
ALT and AST
Alanine transaminase has been changed to alanine aminotransferase in line with AMA recommendations and journal style.
Aspartate transaminase has been changed to aspartate aminotransferase in line with AMA recommendations and journal style.
[Combine as appropriate]
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ETHICS PERMISSION