Author Guidelines
Please note that the Co-Editors and Executive Editor of Biometrics do not pre-screen papers for their appropriateness for the journal. If you are unsure whether or not your paper is suitable, we ask that you submit it for possible publication. It will be reviewed by the Co-Editor to whom it is assigned, who will make this determination quickly. If the paper is deemed to be inappropriate, you will receive a swift response from the Co-Editor.
If you are unsure whether or not your paper is suitable, you may wish to consider carefully the descriptions of the Types of Sections of Biometrics given below.
Types of Sections
Authors submitting regular articles, i.e., full length papers that would be suitable for Biometric Methdology or Biometric Practice, should indicate in ScholarOne for which of these sections they wish their article to be considered. Authors should select what they believe to be the most appropriate section. If the Co-Editor judges a submission to have merit but to be better suited for the other section, the paper will be reviewed in that context.
Biometric Methodology
The Biometric Methodology section is designed for papers that focus on the development of new methods and results of use in the biological sciences. These should where possible be made accessible to biologists and other subject-matter scientists by the inclusion of an introductory section outlining the application and scientific objectives on which the new methods focus, with discussion of real data or settings that exemplify the issue being addressed. The journal typically insists on illustration of new methods with real data wherever possible. Extensive mathematical derivations and proofs should be removed to an appendix.
Biometric Practice
The Biometric Practice section is designed for the following types of papers:
(i) They demonstrate innovative applications of existing methods to areas in which such a method has not been previously employed. Consequently, substantial new insights or findings are provided.
(ii) They creatively illustrate the proper use of different methods under various explicit/implicit assumptions. Consequently, clearer guidance and understanding of the use of different methods is offered.
(iii) They propose innovative and practical data analysis strategies, based on a combination of experience, intuition, and methodological arguments.
(iv) They re-examine from a new perspective statistical practices that are widely used in biometric applications, providing useful alternatives to the current standard.
Papers in this section may, but do not need to, contain new methodology. The key of a successful publication in the Biometric Practice section is its ability to provide substantial new insight. This means that the paper must present information that goes beyond the existing literature in a way that an expert in the relevant field would regard as significantly eye-opening. Papers consisting primarily of routine simulation-based comparisons of competing methods are generally not suitable for the Biometric Practice section.
Neutral comparisons (guideline manuscripts) will be considered.
Reader Reaction
The Reader Reaction section is designed for papers that refer directly to an article recently published in the journal (including Advance Articles), typically within up to three years of the original publication date. These papers directly respond to a previously published article, either (1) by describing important extensions or improvements to methods developed in the original article; (2) by offering alternative perspectives; or (3) by raising key issues left originally unaddressed. There always should be appropriate justification. In contrast to papers in the Biometric Methodology or Practice sections, where new methods or ideas may be based on a compendium of previous work appearing in several outlets, Reader Reaction papers should be in direct, focused response to the content of a published Biometrics article. The key to a successful publication in this section is the demonstration that the work is clearly a direct reaction to the original article and the provision of important commentary or additions to the topic addressed in that article.
Letter to the Editors
The Letter to the Editors section welcomes letters providing short comments in direct response to articles appearing previously in the journal, typically within two years of publication of the article. The section also accepts letters relating to general scientific/editorial matters within the ambit of the journal.
We will not publish letters dealing with journal format and presentation issues, but readers with comments on such topics may send them to us for our consideration.
Correction
Corrections are very short notes identifying and correcting substantial errors, misstatements, or omissions in articles that have already been published in the journal, submitted by the author(s). Examples include corrections to mathematical content, such as typographical errors or incorrect derivations; additions such as acknowledgements to individuals who played a major supporting role in the work or to funding agencies not included original accepted version of the paper; and explanations of and corrections to flaws in reasoning or interpretation of results. Corrections should be submitted when an error, misstatement, or omission in a published article is serious enough to compromise the integrity or correctness of the article or places it in violation of funding agency requirements.
If an error, misstatement or omission is identified in an article, the authors should contact the Editorial Manager at biometrics@biometricsociety.org.
Questions regarding Corrections should be send to the Executive Editor at biometrics@biometricsociety.org. Examples of published Corrections can be found in the December 2014 issue.
Submission of papers
Manuscripts should be submitted at our ScholarOne Manuscripts submission site. A portable document format (pdf) file is preferred. Files containing additional unpublished papers (written by one or more of the authors) relevant to the submitted paper should also be uploaded at the time of submission. If such papers are included, the "Cover Letter" field should include an explanation detailing how the submitted paper differs from these others.
It is understood that the submitted manuscript is not identical or similar in substantial part to a paper being handled by another journal. It is also expected that the submitted manuscript contains no passage of text or other material that is virtually identical to that in a publicly-available or published work by another author(s), unless proper citation to the source is made. The submitted manuscript will be rejected by Biometrics if these requirements are violated (more detail on the Biometrics Policy on Plagiarism).
Authors are required to indicate the section of the journal for which the paper is intended to be reviewed (see above, types of submissions accepted). Submission cannot proceed unless a section is chosen from the Manuscript Type menu.
Open Research and Data Availability Initiatives
Recognizing the importance of research transparency and data sharing to cumulative research, Biometrics encourages the following Open Research practices:
Sharing of data, materials, research instruments, and their accessibility.
Biometrics encourages authors to share the data, materials, research instruments, and other artifacts supporting the results in their study by archiving them in an appropriate public repository. Qualifying public, open-access repositories are committed to preserving data, materials, and/or registered analysis plans and keeping them publicly accessible via the web into perpetuity. Examples include the Open Science Framework (OSF) and the various Dataverse networks. Hundreds of other qualifying data/materials repositories are listed at the Registry of Research Data Repositories (http://www.re3data.org). Personal websites and most departmental websites do not qualify as repositories.
Open Research Badges
In partnership with the non-profit Center for Open Science (COS), Biometrics offers all submitting authors access to the following Open Research Badges - Open Materials and Open Data. We also award all qualifying authors Open Research Badges recognizing their contributions to the Open Research movement. The Open Research practices and associated award badges, as implemented by the Center for Open Science and supported by Biometrics are the following:
The Open Materials Badge recognizes researchers who share their research instruments and materials in a publicly-accessible format, providing sufficient information for researchers to reproduce procedures and analyses of published research studies.
The Open Data Badge recognizes researchers who make their data publicly available, providing sufficient description of the data to allow researchers to reproduce research findings of published research studies. An example of qualifying public, open-access database for data sharing repositories are available through various Dataverse networks (e.g., http://dataverse.org) and hundreds of other databases available through the Registry of Research Data Repositories (http://www.re3data.org). There are, of course, circumstances in which it is not possible or advisable to share publicly. For example, there are cases in which sharing participant data could violate confidentiality. In these cases, the authors may provide an explanation of such circumstances in the Alternative Note section of the disclosure form. The information the authors provide will be included in the article's Open Research note.
Authors will have an opportunity at the time of acceptance to inform themselves of this initiative and to determine whether they wish to participate. Applying and qualifying for Open Research Badges is not a requirement for publishing with Biometrics, but these badges are further incentive for authors to participate in the Open research movement and thus to increase the visibility and transparency of their research.
More information about the Open Research Badges is available from the Open Science Framework wiki.
Data Availability
Biometrics expects that data supporting the results in the paper will be archived in an appropriate public repository. Authors are required to provide a data availability statement to describe the availability or the absence of shared data. When data have been shared, authors are required to include in their data availability statement a link to the repository they have used, and to cite the data they have shared. Whenever possible the scripts and other artefacts used to generate the analyses presented in the paper should also be publicly archived. If sharing data compromises ethical standards or legal requirements then authors are not expected to share it.
See the Standard Templates for Author Use section below to select an appropriate data availability statement for your dataset.
Notes on the preparation of papers
A current issue may be used as a general guide to style. The following notes summarize some of the principal points.
Format guidelines
Papers should be prepared using one column, with one-inch margins, in 12-point size letters and no more than 25 lines per page, double-spaced throughout. A one-paragraph summary should be included, followed by a list of key words, in alphabetical order. The summary should not exceed 225 words. The author's name should be followed by a full postal address and email address. Authors should use the [{( )}] convention in delimiting equations. To save space, display equations only if necessary. References should be typed in the same Biometrics style, and should be double-spaced throughout. Figures and tables should be separated from the main text, and placed at the end of the manuscript. Detailed algebraic derivations should be placed in an appendix. No footnotes should be used.
Biometrics has a limited number of journal pages. Newly-submitted and revised Biometric Methodology or Biometric Practice papers exceeding 25 pages and Reader Reaction papers exceeding 12 pages in the style described above will be returned to the authors without review. These page counts include acknowledgements, references, and brief appendices, but not tables and figures. The page counts do not include the title page and abstract. During the review process, it is common for Editors to request that papers be shortened, and authors should be aware that the typical accepted Biometrics paper is usually considerably shorter than 25 pages. It is also common for Editors to ask that most appendices be removed as Supplementary Materials. Authors are encouraged to move appendices and other appropriate content to Supplementary Materials at the time of submission in order to achieve a shorter main paper (the page count applies to the main paper only and not to Supplementary Materials).
Papers appearing in the journal rarely have more than six (6) tables or figures combined; about three-fourths have 4 or less. When papers contain numerous tables and figures, editors will always ask that the number be reduced or that some tables and figures be moved to Supplementary Materials. Authors are strongly encouraged to be judicious in the use of tabular and graphical displays and should not combine what ought to be several tables or figures into very large single ones. Authors should also consider moving some tables and figures to Supplementary Materials at the time of submission. Papers with an extreme number of tables and/or figures may be returned by the co-editor without review. It is recognized that graphical depictions or images are essential for conveying the message in some substantive areas. In such circumstances, more figures than in the typical submission may be appropriate, and authors should note this explicitly in a covering letter.
CORRECTIONS: Corrections should be no more than 2 manuscript pages in the format described above. The title should be of the form: Correction to "Title of Paper," by Authors; Volume No., xxx-xxx, Month Year. See the December 2014 issue for examples.
Listing a "Group" in the Author List
As research increasingly is a multidisciplinary enterprise, situations will arise where papers in Biometrics will report on methodological developments that were conceived in the context of research conducted by a formal research group. In this case, the primary authors of such a paper may list the authors of the papers as themselves (explicitly) along with the name of the formal research group; e.g., a standard presentation would be
Author1, Author2, ..., and AuthorN for the XXXXX Study Group
and the goal is to acknowledge the contributions of members of the research group. Such listings are commonplace in journals in medicine and other areas where articles report on results of large cooperative projects.
This sort of listing has not been traditional in Biometrics nor, more generally, statistics journals. Biometrics recognizes that there may be situations where such a listing is warranted. The following are guidelines on how authors should proceed if they wish to include such an author listing.
(i) Biometrics only allows such an author listing when the primary authors of the article, who are listed explicitly, make an acceptable case that there is a genuine reason for listing the group in the author list and when the group is a formal entity with official standing. For example, the group may be a cooperative group running a clinical trial, or a formal group created and sanctioned by a grant or contract to carry out work in a specific area or on a specific research project.
If members of the group mainly provided data used in the article but did not contribute intellectually in a significant way to the methods development reported, then listing of the group is not appropriate. If the primary authors feel very strongly that members of the group played a key intellectual role in the conception of the methods through substantial interactions taking place in the group, this may be an acceptable reason. If the group is merely a collection of individuals who are working together on a research project, this is not acceptable as a "group."
The primary authors should provide a written explanation to the Co-Editor handling the paper that (a) provides evidence that the group is a formal, official entity and (b) states clearly their reasons for wishing to include a "group" as part of the author list. The Co-Editor will make the final determination of whether the listing will be permitted.
(ii) If the Co-Editor agrees that inclusion of the group in the author list is appropriate, the author listing should simply state, e.g., "for the XXXX Group." The names of the primary authors whose names are listed explicitly and their affiliations should be listed as usual for a Biometrics article. However, there should be no footnote on "for the XXXX Group" connecting to a listing either at the bottom of the first page or in the affiliations part of the title section of the article of members of the groups and their roles. The explicit listing of names of group members contributing to the article and their roles should be placed in the Acknowledgements section of the article.
(iii) Each of the primary authors of the article will be asked to complete a specialized copyright assignment form that includes the following additional stipulation:
"In signing this Agreement, you hereby warrant that in the case of an article acknowledging in the list of authors a study group or other cooperative body that you have obtained from all members whose names are listed in the Acknowledgements section of the Article, in writing, authorization to enter into this Agreement on their behalf and that all have read and agreed to the terms of this Agreement."
Please note that the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) has allowed Biometrics authors an exception to their policy of requiring that "for the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative" appear in the author byline with a footnote when data from the ADNI database have been used for an illustrative example. Under these conditions, ADNI has granted permission for the footnote information to appear in the Acknowledgements section of the article, along with a brief sentence at the end of the Summary stating that the data were provided by ADNI. Thus, if your paper uses data from ADNI only for illustration, please do not include ADNI in the author listing. Rather, please include the following text in your Acknowledgements section:
"Data used in preparation of this article were obtained from the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) database (adni.loni.usc.edu <http://adni.loni.usc.edu>). As such, the investigators within the ADNI contributed to the design and implementation of ADNI and/or provided data but did not participate in analysis or writing of this report. A complete listing of ADNI investigators can be found at:
http://adni.loni.usc.edu/wp-content/uploads/how_to_apply/ADNI_Acknowledgement_List.pdf."
along with a statement along the lines of "Data used in preparation of this article were obtained from the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) database." in your Summary.
If your use of ADNI data is a byproduct of a more substantial collaboration with ADNI investigators, then the guidelines above should be followed to determine if ADNI should be listed in the author byline.
Summary or abstract
A summary, one paragraph long, should be included completely summarizing the paper without repeating, verbatim, sentences from the paper. The summary should not exceed 225 words. Mathematical symbols should be avoided and any references to previous work should be given in full.
A list of up to six key words should follow the summary, typed in alphabetical order using exactly the style and punctuation in a recent issue. The main purpose of key words is to ensure a paper is identified by search engines, so please choose key words that are descriptive of and specific to the content rather than generic (e.g., "model," "inference"). Words/phrases from the title may be used as long as they are descriptive. Include one key word that is a high-level descriptor of the broad area in which the work falls, e.g., "longitudinal data analysis."
Acknowledgments
Acknowledgements should be placed at the end of the text before the Supplementary Materials section. You may thank the Co-Editor, however you may not thank him/her by name.
References
Citations to references in journals, books, and other traditionally published materials: Citations to references in the text should be ordered by author's surname and publication date. For publications by three authors, all are listed the first time the reference is cited, and et al. used subsequently. For four or more authors, et al. is used throughout. In the list of references at the end of the paper, authors should be listed alphabetically by last name. For references with more than six (6) authors, only the first six (6) authors should be listed, followed by "et al." Journal titles should be complete and not abbreviated. A recent issue should be consulted for the format used for the reference list.
Citations to URLs: Citations to material available on the internet, such as software packages, databases, technical reports, and articles in online journals where citation is by URL or digital object identifier (DOI) are increasingly common. Ordinarily, such references should be included in the list of references and cited in the text. As much information as possible should be given. For software, list the name of the package, the date of the version used if available, the URL, and the date last accessed by the authors; for example
The survival package (2017). The Comprehensive R Archive Network, https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/survival/ (accessed May 31, 2017).
and cite in the text as "we used the survival package (2017) in R..."
SAMON. R software for global sensitivity analysis, version 4.0, MissingDataMatters, http://www.missingdatamatters.org/ (accessed May 31, 2017).
"we used the SAMON software for global sensitivity analysis..."
For reports, list the author(s), year, title, and URL; for example,
Scharf, H. R., Hooten, M. B., and Johnson, D. S. (2017). Imputation approaches for animal movement modeling. https://arxiv.org/abs/1705.10310.
For databases, list the name of the database, the URL, a descriptive phrase or record locator (such as a data marker or accession number if available), indicating the part of the database being cited or explaining the nature of the reference, and an access date; for example
GenBank. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Genbank/ (for RP11-322N14 BAC [accession number AC017046]; accessed August 6, 2016).
and cite in the text as "we used the XXX data from the Genbank database."
Note that some databases instruct authors to acknowledge the entity maintaining the database; in Biometrics, this is done in the Acknowledgements section.
In general, authors should include as much information as possible in citing a URL and should strive to cite only online materials that are likely to be available over the long term. Please note that Biometrics and the publisher are not responsible for outdated URLs. Readers will be directed to follow up with an article's corresponding author for assistance.
Citations to traditional references in journals, books, and other publications that are also available online should be cited as noted above and not by URL or DOI.
Appendices
Appendices should be placed after references.
Tables and figures
Tables and figures should represent only essential material. They should be placed on separate sheets at the end of the paper after appendices and identified by Arabic numerals and a short descriptive title. Figure resolution must be a minimum of 300 dpi. Diagrams or graphs created by common computer software packages such as SAS, Splus, R,MATLAB,GAUSS, etc. are usually acceptable, and should be in black on white. The only lines appearing on a table should be horizontal. No vertical lines are allowed. All decimals and numbers should be aligned in columns. For printing, illustrations may be reduced to 1/2 or 1/3 their original dimensions; therefore, for all types of illustrations, lines should be of sufficient thickness, and lettering, numbering, decimal points, periods, dots, and plotting symbols should be large enough to reproduce well and be legible when reduced in size.
Software and data
Biometrics strongly encourages authors to include software implementing proposed methodology with their papers at the time of submission, such as code implementing simulations or data analyses presented in the paper or, preferably, more generic software (e.g., a R package or SAS macro). Co-Editors are likely to ask authors to provide code during the editorial process, and in many cases, where it is deemed important, the Co-Editor will make provision of code a condition of acceptance. In this case, authors will be asked to prepare and include accessible such software with the final versions of their articles, preferably packaged in a zip or other permanent archive with a README file describing the archive contents and providing instructions for use of the software. Code will be posted as Supplementary Material with the published paper; see below.
Biometrics also encourages authors to submit data used in their illustrative examples if at all possible (along with code used for the analysis). Data will be posted as Supplementary Material with the published paper; see below.
Code and data are not subject to formal review and will be posted "as-is." IBS will not own copyright of these materials.
Data Availability Section and referencing
Authors are required to provide a 'Data Availability Statement' to describe the availability or the absence of shared data. Please ensure your main manuscript contains this statement which should be a new, unnumbered section placed immediately before the list of references. Please also ensure the information in this statement is not duplicated in the Supplementary Materials section. This website provides a list of sample statements, plus additional information on the statements:
https://academic.oup.com/pages/open-research/research-data?login=false#data2
When data is available and linked, you also will need to provide a citation of the data in your reference list, as follows:
Authors; Year; Dataset title; Data repository or archive; Version (if any); Persistent identifier (e.g. DOI)
Supplementary Materials
Biometrics posts online Supplementary Materials with published papers. These instructions describe the general policy and guidelines for Supplementary Materials. Specific questions regarding Supplementary Materials should be sent to us.
Supplementary Materials should be submitted by the authors at the time of submission of a manuscript by uploading it with the main paper at our ScholarOne submission site. Before submission, it is in the interest of authors to consider what material can be extracted from the main body of the paper and posted on the website. It is important that authors should retain the readability and integrity of a paper while implementing this process.
As discussed in detail below, Supplementary Materials may include some or all of: additional written exposition, tables, and figures. All such Supplementary Materials should be placed in a single document entitled "Supplementary Materials for (title of manuscript) by (authors)." This document should then have sections entitled "Web Appendix A," "Web Appendix B," and so on for written appendix material (e.g., technical derivations and proofs, see below); followed by "Web Table 1," "Web Table 2," etc. for supplementary tables; and "Web Figure 1," etc., for supplementary figures. Web Tables and Figures should have descriptive captions in the same style as those for tables and figures included in a main manuscript. Web Appendices, Tables, and Figures may be referenced in the main manuscript as, for example, "See Web Appendix A for the derivation of Equation (1)" or "Web Tables 1-4 present results of additional simulations."
The Supplementary Materials will be regarded as part of the submission for the review process and may need to be modified in the same way as the material in the main body of the paper. Such revisions may be requested during the review process. Authors should be aware that well thought out, clear and concise Supplementary Materials is likely to speed up the review process, whereas lengthy, unclear materials could slow down the process. Accordingly, authors preparing Web Appendices should pay careful attention to length. Although there is no strict page limit for such material, excessively long web appendices may be returned by the Co-Editor for shortening prior to review of the paper. Full tabular and/or graphical presentation of numerical results from a set of extensive simulation studies (see below) is acceptable, but authors should be mindful of excessive length by avoiding reporting of results over many scenarios where the results and their implications are very similar.
Supplementary Materials may also result from a request by the Co-Editor during the review process. S/he may ask that some material submitted originally as part of the main manuscript be extracted and reformulated as Supplementary Materials. This material would be referenced in the revision of the manuscript as described above.
Authors whose papers reference Supplementary Materials should create an unnumbered section labeled "Supplementary Materials" immediately following the list of references. The wording should be as follows (completing the information in parentheses):
"Web Appendices, Tables, and Figures (limit to the types of material actually in question), and data and code (limit to the type actually shared, and including its description) referenced in Sections (give section numbers) are available with this paper at the Biometrics website on Oxford Academic." If you refer to "supporting information" in your paper, please change this to "Supplementary Materials." Please also describe the availability of data/code (see below) in this Supplementary Materials section, and/or if you refer to software found on a public repository such as Github or CRAN, please mention the URL and a brief description.
It is sufficient to provide this information only in this section; it should not be provided each time a Web Appendix, Table, or Figure is referenced in the body of the main paper.
After a paper is accepted, the Supplementary Materials will be published "as is" and will not be subject to copy-editing.
The following are four examples of the type of Supplementary Materials appropriate for posting on the web. Authors should consider posting any materials that are relevant, but not central, to the main development of the paper.
(1) Technical details of mathematical results.
We encourage authors to post on the web in a Web Appendix technical assumptions, proofs and detailed calculations involved in their results.
This does not eliminate the possibility of appendices appearing in the parent paper. Although most technical appendices will best suited to appear as Supplementary Materials on the web, short appendices (ordinarily no more than a few paragraphs) may still be appropriate for inclusion in the main paper. The length of appendices suitable for inclusion will depend on the overall length of the main paper.
(2) Results from simulation studies
Detailed descriptions of, and some results from, simulation studies may be appropriate for posting on the web. Authors ordinarily might present in the main paper a representative subset of a larger body of simulation studies and post the remainder as Supplementary Materials, providing key summaries and relevant points from all simulation studies in the main paper. The availability of this facility can be particularly helpful when faced with difficult choice of which results to include from extensive simulation studies. Alternatively, in some circumstances, it may be appropriate for a written summary of the main implications of simulations to appear in the paper, with the actual numerical results available as Supplementary Materials. In either case, the Supplementary Materials can be more extensive than that appearing in a conventional publication.
(3) Figures and Graphs
While it is important that essential figures are included in the main body of a paper, there may be additional graphs and figures that support statements made but that are not part of the central development. The IBS will own the copyright for all Supplementary Materials described above, as it will for the parent paper.
(4) Software/Code
On acceptance of a paper, authors are encouraged to submit to Biometrics the data used in their illustrative examples and also any computer code used in the analysis. Data and code are not subject to review and will be posted "as-is." IBS will not own copyright of these materials.
Data and code should be referenced in the main manuscript as described above (by adding a section labeled "Supplementary Materials" immediately following the list of references.
The author may refer to data/code posted on a public repository such as Github or CRAN, but may not include a personal URL. Any public repository should be mentioned in the Supplementary Materials section in the main paper.
LaTeX Document Class
A LaTeX document class, biom.cls, is provided for use by authors.
If you experience problems with the top margin of your pdf file created using the document class being "cut off," please click here.
We ask that authors prepare their manuscript using the “referee” option, to ensure an article is produced in the preferred journal submission format of 25 lines per page, with 1 inch margins and 12 point typeface, in one-column format. Manuscripts in two-column format will be returned to the author(s) for reformatting.
Practically, the referee option is invoked in the \documentclass statement of your LaTeX source document as follows:
\documentclass[referee]{biom}
Other options may also be included within the brackets. PLEASE REVIEW THE USER GUIDE FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THE USE OF THE referee OPTION. PLEASE DO NOT USE THE table*, tabular*, and figure* ENVIRONMENTS WITH THE referee OPTION; THIS WILL PRODUCE AN ERROR.
Use of the document class for submission to Biometrics is optional, and the distribution, which is described in more detail below, is provided without guarantees. However, if you are a LaTeX user, we encourage you to try it. Although it has been tested and has been used by authors since April 2007, there may still be glitches. If you encounter any problems, please send an e-mail to biometrics@biometricsociety.org describing the problem (and include the LaTeX source as an attachment if possible), and we will do our best to diagnose the issue. Ultimately, we hope that all submissions prepared using LaTeX will use the document class, which will help to speed the appearance of accepted articles in the journal.
The use of documentclass without the “referee” option produces a version that resembles the way an article appears in the journal. However, it will not be exactly the same as in the published version a number of enhancements are added to ensure efficient use and navigation of the article in electronic format.
If your article in this format is longer than 10 journal pages, it is too long, and you should shorten it and/or remove some figures or tables to a Supplementary Materials section (see the guidelines). Similarly, if the text of your manuscript using the referee option (including references but not title, summary, keywords, and tables/figures) exceeds 25 pages, then this is also a sign that you should streamline and/or remove parts of the presentation to Supplementary Materials.
We assume that users of the document class are familiar with LaTeX. PLEASE DO NOT WRITE TO US FOR HELP WITH LaTeX; limit your communications to specific problems with the document class.
Supplementary Materials materials may be prepared using any format you choose but should adhere to the 25 lines/page, 12 point type convention. Use of the document class for this purpose should be via the referee option.
The distribution consists of the following:
The document class <biom.cls (save this file with the name biom.cls)>
A detailed User Guide <biomguide.pdf>
A special style file <endrotfloat.sty - save this file with the name endrotfloat.sty> for use with the document class (needed only if you are producing tables in landscape format; see the User Guide).
A template LaTeX source document <biomtemplate.tex> that authors can use as the basis for creating their own manuscripts.
A bibliography style file <biom.bst - save this file with the name biom.bst> for authors who use BibTeX to produce reference lists and citations - Please note that your .bib file should list authors by their full names, for example John Richard Smith or Smith, John Richard, or should include a space between initials, for example Smith, J. R. or J. R. Smith, to work properly with biom.bst. If authors are listed with no space between initials, for example, Smith, J.R., the second initial will be dropped in your reference list.
A sample LaTeX source file <biomsample2.tex> and figures <tteken185.eps> <tteken21.eps> (this source produces an article previously published in Biometrics)
A sample LaTeX source document <biomsample.tex - save this file with the name biomsample.tex> and figure <mouse.eps> - and an alternative version of the sample document <biomsample_bib.tex> that uses BibTeX and biom.bst, and the accompanying bibliography file <biomsample_bib.bib - save this file with the name biomsample_bib.bib>
PLEASE DO NOT USE THESE FILES AS TEMPLATES FOR YOUR OWN LATEX DOCUMENT, AS THEY INCLUDE FEATURES THAT WILL NOT WORK WITH THE referee OPTION. INSTEAD, USE THE TEMPLATE FILE ABOVE. These files are provided only as additional examples.
The entire distribution is available here as a zip archive <biomlatex300719.zip>
Link to the natbib package http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/natbib/ (See the User Guide)
Link to the rotating package http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/rotating (See the User Guide)
Advance Articles
The Advance Article service has been designed to ensure the earliest possible circulation of linked research papers after acceptance, for example, Discussion papers, Reader Reaction with Rejoinder, and Letter to the Editors with Rejoinder will appear as Advance Articles. These articles have been accepted for publication and undergone full peer review but have not been assigned to a volume or issue, they have been through the copyediting, typesetting, and proofreading process, and are given a Digital Object Identifier (DOI), which allows them to be cited and tracked. The DOI remains unique to a given article in perpetuity. More information about DOIs can be found online at http://www.doi.org/faq.html.
Advance Articles will be indexed by PubMed; therefore the submitting author must carefully check the names and affiliations of all authors provided in the cover page of the manuscript, as it will not be possible to alter these once a paper is made available online in Advance Article format.
How to Cite Papers Appearing in Advance Articles
Advance Articles are considered fully complete, and once posted online are considered to be published. All articles that are published in Advance Articles in 2024 must therefore have 2024 copyright dates, even if they appear in an issue dated 2025.
How To Cite Articles That Appeared Online In 2024 And In Print In 2025:
It is fine to cite the 2024 Advance Article using the full reference as usual, but with the DOI in place of the Vol/Issue/Page Range information (Example A). It is equally fine to cite the 2025 article using the full reference followed by the usual bibliographic data (Example B). However it would be incorrect to cite the article by full reference with usual bibliographic info with a 2024 date (Example C). It would be acceptable to cite the paper just by DOI with a 2025 date, as this is technically correct. However just to avoid confusion it is probably best to use the bibliographic information if it is available.
Example A. Correct citation of an Advance Article version:
1) Smith, A., Jones, B. (2024) A Paper On Worms. Worm Journal doi:10.1111/j.1234-4321.2004.01234.x
Example B. Correct citation of print version:
1) Smith, A., Jones, B. (2025) A Paper On Worms. Worm Journal 1 (1), 10-20.
Example C. Incorrect citation of print version:
1) Smith, A., Jones, B. (2024) A Paper On Worms. Worm Journal 1 (1), 10-20
In a nutshell the citation information must relate precisely to what is being cited, i.e. the advance version from 2024 *or* the issue version from 2025. The citation cannot be a mix of information from the two sources. The year that appears in a citation is also completely unrelated to the year of copyright, so an article with a 2025 citation could quite legally and correctly be copyrighted 2024.
Advance Article Publication, Copyright and Citation
The Advance Article publication offered by Oxford University Press means that some articles may appear first online in 2024, then in an issue in 2025. Advance Articles are considered fully complete and published as soon as they are put online, therefore copyright dates for these articles will be 2024 even if they subsequently appear in a 2025 issue. This is legally correct and ensures that it is clear when your work was first published whether it is viewed as an Advance Article or in an issue.
Some articles in an issue may have a mix of 2024 and 2025 dates in copyright lines and catchlines. This is because catchlines must show the year of the volume and issue. Therefore the mixing of dates is also correct.
When citing an article where the publication is ‘split’ between 2024 and 2025, please ensure you are using the correct details for the version you wish to cite. If you are citing the Advance Article that appeared in 2024 then you must not use the bibliographic (volume/issue/page range) information from the issue, but rather use the article doi number instead, e.g.:
Smith, A., Jones, B. (2004) A Paper On Worms. Worm Journal doi:10.1111/j.1234-4321.2004.01234.x
If you are citing the issue article that appeared in 2025 then you may use the bibliographic information (or the doi if you wish), but you cannot give 2024 as the date in the reference and must use 2025, e.g.:
Smith, A., Jones, B. (2005) A Paper On Worms. Worm Journal 1 (1), 10-20.
i.e. the information you give needs to match up with the version of the article you are citing. The issue version did not appear in 2024, so it is incorrect to use 2024 as the date (it will also not match the volume/issue/page numbers in the reference). Similarly, the volume/issue/page no. information was not available in 2024 when the article was published in Advance Articles, so it is incorrect to include that in the citation of an Advance Article - even if it is now known.
We appreciate this may be confusing at first glance, but as advance online publication becomes ever more popular we will do our best to ensure your work is correctly cited and copyrighted, and that you are kept informed of any related new developments.