Author Guidelines

 Sections

1. Submission

2. Manuscript Categories and Requirements

3. Preparing the Submission

4. Editorial Policies and Ethical Considerations

5. Author Licensing

6. Review process
   

7. Publication Process After Acceptance

8. Post Publication

9. Corrections, retractions, and editorial expressions of concern
   

10. Editorial Office Contact Details

 1. SUBMISSION

     Submission is the first step for the publication of the article. This requires the authors to follow the common rule that the manuscript contains original unpublished work and is not being submitted for publication elsewhere, except as the brief abstracts in the proceedings of a scientific meeting or symposium. The rwesearch article should present novel findings addressing significant biological questions and the review should provide the advanced developments and novel opinions in the field. The manuscripts that fail to do so may be rejected without review. The journal does not publish work on the activities of herb mixtures and unknown chemical composition. Compounds studied must be of known chemical structure and concentration.The study must be reproducible; materials used must be available to other researchers so they can repeat the experiment.

     Once the submission materials have been prepared in accordance with the Author Guidelines, manuscripts should be submitted online at https://www.melatonin-research.net

     When the authors submit their manuscripts to or review for this journal the contact information should be provided as detailed as possible. These include, your name, email address, affiliation, and other contact details,  the publication might require which will be used for the regular operations of the journal. The publisher recognizes the importance of protecting the personal information collected from users in the operation of these services, and has practices in place to ensure that steps are taken to maintain the security, integrity, and privacy of the personal data collected and processed.

2. MANUSCRIPT CATEGORIES AND REQUIREMENTS

• Research Articles: reports of new research findings or conceptual analyses that make a significant contribution to knowledge (no word limit).

• Reviews: critical reviews of the literature, including systematic reviews and meta-analyses (no word limit) which provide advanced information in the related areas.

• Hypotheses: reasonable hypotheses (3,000 words limit) with novel suggestions and opinions.

• Commentaries: evidence-based opinion pieces involving areas of broad interest (1500 word limit) and invited commentaries (1,000 word limit).

• Editorial articles: these are usually commissioned or written by the Editor but unsolicited material may be considered too. Please approach the Editor-in-Chief before submitting this material.

• Special Issues on topics of interest are also regularly published.

The manuscript should have a uniform style and should consist of subdivisions in the following sequence:

     (1) Title page

     (2) Abstract

     (3) Text

     (4) Acknowledgements

     (5) Authorship

     (6) Conflicts of interest 

     (7) References

     (8) Footnotes

     (9) Figure Legends (embodied into text)

     (10) Tables (embodied into text)

     (11) Figures (embodied into  text)

 3. PREPARING THE SUBMISSION

     Parts of the Manuscript

     The manuscript should be submitted in separate files: title page; main text file; figures.

     Title Page:

     The title page should contain:

• Title: A short informative containing the major key words. The title should not contain abbreviations;

• Running Title: A short running title of less than 50 characters;

• Authors: The full names of the authors;

• Contact Information: The author's institutional affiliations where the work was conducted, with a footnote for the author’s present address if different from where the work was conducted;

• Abstract: should provide most important information on the paper including the major findings and significance on the field. No separated sections are required. The length is limited to 300 words.

• Keywords: Please provide 5-10 keywords. Keywords should be taken from those recommended by the US National Library of Medicine's Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) browser list at www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh

• Acknowledgments

Authorship

     Melatonin Research mandates that authors submit a short description of all contributions to their manuscript. The contributions of each author must be summarized in brief, to appear immediately before the references and also as an individual file uploaded during submission. Authorship credit might include contributions to concept/design, acquisition of data, data analysis/interpretation, drafting of the manuscript, critical revision of the manuscript and approval of the article. The list of authors should accurately illustrate who contributed to the work and how. All those listed as authors should qualify for authorship according to the following criteria:

1. Have made substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data;

2. Been involved in drafting the manuscript or revising it critically for important intellectual content;

3. Given final approval of the version to be published. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content; and

4. Agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

5. Contributions from anyone who does not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed, with permission from the contributor, in an Acknowledgments section (for example, to recognize contributions from people who provided technical help, collation of data, writing assistance, acquisition of funding, or a department chairperson who provided general support). Prior to submitting the article all authors should agree on the order in which their names will be listed in the manuscript.

Additional Authorship Options:

     Joint first or senior authorship: In the case of joint first authorship, a footnote should be added to the author listing, e.g. "X and Y should be considered joint first author" or "X and Y should be considered joint senior author". The joint first or senior authorship is limited to two in each category.

Acknowledgments:

     Contributions from anyone who does not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed, with permission from the contributor, in an Acknowledgments section. Financial and material support should also be mentioned. Thanks to anonymous reviewers are not appropriate.

Conflict of Interest Statement:

     Authors will be asked to provide a conflict of interest statement during the submission process. For details on what to include in this section, see the ‘Conflict of Interest’ section in the Editorial Policies and Ethical Considerations section below. Submitting authors should ensure they liaise with all co-authors to confirm agreement with the final statement.

Main Text File

The main text file should be in the following order:

• Title.

• Abstract: the abstract must be written in complete sentences and succinctly state the objectives, experimental design of the paper, principal observations and conclusions; it should be intelligible without reference to the rest of the paper.

• Keywords: Please provide 5-10 keywords. Keywords should be taken from those recommended by the US National Library of Medicine's Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) browser list at www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh.

• Main text - Introduction: this should present the nature of the problem addressed by the study and place the work in the broader context of the field. An extensive review of the literature is not expected, but background material important for understanding the nature and impact of the study should be presented and appropriately referenced (see References). A detailed summary of the findings of the paper is not appropriate, but a brief statement of the major findings of the paper may provide an appropriate transition to the Results section. In this and all other sections of the main text, authors are encouraged to organize the text into appropriately sized paragraphs with topic sentences to aid readers.

• Materials and Methods: must contain sufficient detail such that, in combination with the references cited, all experiments reported can be fully reproduced. All experiments using either experimental animals or human subjects must be approved by the appropriate review boards of the host institution. For experiments using experimental animals, a statement clearly indicating that appropriate measures were taken to reduce the pain or discomfort of experimental animals must be included in the Materials and Methods. For studies involving the use of human subjects, the Materials and Methods must indicate that the studies were performed according to the principles outlined by the Helsinki Declaration, and that appropriate informed consent was obtained.

• Results: this section should describe the key findings of the work with reference to Tables, Figures, and Supporting Information as appropriate. Results not requiring extensive supporting documentation can be stated in the text and, if appropriate, numerical values indicated parenthetically. References to "data not shown" are allowed, but referees may request that such material be added if it is deemed important for the conclusions of the study. The Results section can be divided into sub-sections separated by headings (in italics). Readers should be able to understand the general nature of the experiments, the results, and the immediate conclusions from each aspect of the study without reference to either the Experimental Procedures or Supporting Information. Relevant details should be accessible in the Results section and the Figure and Table legends. Strains should be referred to by the relevant genotype with strain names and numbers indicated parenthetically (rather than the converse). Strain descriptions can be included in the Experimental Procedures or, if necessary, the key strains summarized in a Table. However, details of strain constructions including oligonucleotide primer sequences, plasmids, and complete strain lists are more appropriately included as Supporting Information.

• Discussion: this section should place the work in a broader context and elaborate on the implications of the major findings. Authors should reference related work completely including both primary literature and review articles as appropriate. The Discussion can be divided into sub-sections separated by headings (in italics). Extensive overlap with the Results section is to be avoided. In some cases, it may improve the presentation to discuss the findings as they are presented in which case a combined Results and Discussion section may be appropriate. In such cases, a final short section may be used to present Conclusions.

     The journal uses British/US spelling; however, authors may submit using either option, as spelling of accepted papers is converted during the production process.

• Acknowledgements: All sources of institutional, private and corporate financial support for the work within the manuscript must be fully acknowledged, and any potential conflicts of interest noted.

• References must be in MR style. For references to in-press articles, please confirm with the cited journal that the article is in press and include a DOI number and online publication date if available. Unpublished abstracts of papers presented at meetings or references to "data not shown" are not permitted. References should be cited in numerical order as they appear in text, and all references cited in the main text should be included in the main manuscript file. Because tables and figures will be inserted in the text at the appropriate points , references in these sections should be numbered accordingly. Include the full title for each cited article. All authors are named in the citation for the submissions, if there are mor than 5 authors, after the name of the 5th author "et al " can be used. Provide volume numbers for journal articles as applicable; provide DOI numbers if volume numbers are not available. Provide inclusive page ranges for journal articles and book chapters. Provide date of access for online sources.

       Journal articles are cited as follows:

   1. Neuhaus J-M, Sitcher L, Meins F, Jr, Boller T (1991) A short C-terminal sequence is necessary and sufficient for the targeting of chitinases to the plant vacuole. Proc. Natl .Acad. Sci. USA 88: 10362-10366 (DOI is optional).

      Cite research datasets in the references and list the authors, title, publisher (repository name), and identifier (DOI in URL format) as follows:

   2. van Sebille E, Doblin M (2016) Data from “Drift in ocean currents impacts intergenerational microbial exposure to temperature.” Figshare.https://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.3178534.v2.

Use MEDLINE/PubMed abbreviations of journal titles or use the full journal title for any journals not indexed in MEDLINE. Articles or chapters in books are cited as follows:

   3. Hill AVS (1991) HLA associations with malaria in Africa: some implications for MHC evolution. Molecular Evolution of the Major Histocompatibility Complex, eds Klein J, Klein D (Springer, Heidelberg), pp 403-420.

Preprints are cited as follows with a DOI or preprint ID number, “Preprint,” and the date posted:

   4. Luetkens H, et al. (2008) Electronic phase diagram of the LaO1–xFxFeAs superconductor. arXiv:0806.3533v1. Preprint, posted June 21, 2008.

• Tables: (each table complete with title and footnotes) All tables must be cited in the text and must have titles. Table titles should be complete but brief. Information other than that defining the data should be presented as footnotes. Tables should be self-contained and complement, not duplicate, information contained in the text. They should be supplied as editable files, not pasted as images. Legends should be concise but comprehensive – the table, legend, and footnotes must be understandable without reference to the text. All abbreviations must be defined in footnotes. Footnote symbols: †, ‡, §, ¶, should be used (in that order) and *, **, *** should be reserved for P-values. Statistical measures such as SD or SEM should be identified in the headings.

• Figure legends: Legends should be concise but comprehensive – the figure and its legend must be understandable without reference to the text. Include definitions of any symbols used and define/explain all abbreviations and units of measurement. Number figure legends consecutively, e.g., Fig. 1., Fig. 2. Figures and  tables are placed within the text at the appropriate places, rather than at the end of the main text .

• Figures: Although authors are encouraged to send the highest-quality figures possible, for peer-review purposes, a wide variety of formats, sizes, and resolutions are accepted. The images must be final size, preferably one column width (8.7 cm). Figures wider than one column should be sized to 11.4 cm or 17.8 cm wide. Numbers, letters, and symbols should be no smaller than 6 points (2 mm) and no larger than 12 points (6 mm) after reduction and must be consistent. Composite figures must be preassembled. Figures should be embedded in manuscript text. However, it is also required an additional set of figures being submitted as separate files as the metadata. 

• Figures submitted in color may be reproduced in color online free of charge. Please note, however, that it is preferable that line figures (e.g. graphs and charts) are supplied in black and white so that they are legible if printed by a reader in black and white. If an author would prefer to have figures printed in color in hard copies of the journal, a fee will be charged by the Publisher.

Additional Files

Appendices

     Appendices will be published after the references. For submission they should be supplied as separate files but referred to in the text

Supplementary Materials:

     To short the main text, some important results which can strengthen the arguments of the study can be published as the supplementary materials. It will appear online.

Supporting Information

     Supporting information is information that is not essential to the article, but provides greater depth and background. It is hosted online and appears without editing or typesetting. It may include tables, figures, videos, datasets, etc. If you have previously provided Supporting Information with your article, please note it will not be edited or altered from its original format during the Production process. Although a proof of your Supporting Information is not available, it will appear online when your article is published.

     Note: if data, scripts, or other artefacts used to generate the analyses presented in the paper are available via a publicly available data repository, authors should include a reference to the location of the material within their paper.

General Style Points

      The following points provide general advice on formatting and style.

• Abbreviations: In general, terms should not be abbreviated unless they are used repeatedly and the abbreviation is helpful to the reader. Initially, use the word in full, followed by the abbreviation in parentheses. Thereafter use the abbreviation only.

• Units of measurement: Measurements should be given in SI or SI-derived units. Visit the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (BIPM) website for more information about SI units.

• Numbers: numbers under 10 are spelt out, except for: measurements with a unit (8mmol/l), age (6 weeks old), or lists with other numbers (11 dogs, 9 cats, 4 gerbils).

• Trade Names: Chemical substances should be referred to by the generic name only. Trade names should not be used. Drugs should be referred to by their generic names. If proprietary drugs have been used in the study, refer to these by their generic name, mentioning the proprietary name and the name and location of the manufacturer in parentheses.

 Resource Identification Initiative

     The journal supports the Resource Identification Initiative, which aims to promote research resource identification, discovery, and reuse. This initiative, led by the Neuroscience Information Framework and the Oregon Health & Science University Library, provides unique identifiers for antibodies, model organisms, cell lines, and tools including software and databases. These IDs, called Research Resource Identifiers (RRIDs), are machine-readable  and can be used to search for all papers where a particular resource was used and to increase access to critical data to help researchers identify suitable reagents and tools. Authors are asked to use RRIDs to cite the resources used in their research where applicable in the text, similar to a regular citation or Genbank Accession number.

For antibodies, authors should include in the citation the vendor (city and country), catalogue number, and RRID both in the text upon first mention in the Methods section.

For software tools and databases, please provide the name of the resource followed by the resource website, if available, and the RRID. For model organisms, the RRID alone is sufficient.

 Additionally, authors must include the RIIDs in the list of keywords associated with the manuscript.

To Obtain Research Resource Identifiers (RRIDs):

     1. Use the Resource Identification Portal, created by the Resource Identification Initiative Working Group.

     2. Search for the research resource (please see the section titled “Search Features and Tips” for more information).

     3. Click on the “Cite This” button to obtain the citation and insert the citation into the manuscript text.

If there is a resource that is not found within the Portal, authors are asked to register the resource with the appropriate resource authority. Information on how to dothis is provided in the “Resource Citation Guidelines” section of the Portal.

 If any difficulties in obtaining identifiers arise, please contact rii-help@scicrunch.org for assistance.

 Example Citations:

Antibodies: "Wnt3 was localized using a rabbit polyclonal antibody C64F2 against Wnt3 (Cell Signaling Technology, Cat# 2721S, RRID: AB_2215411)"

Model Organisms: "Experiments were conducted in c. elegans strain SP304 (RRID:CGC_SP304)"

Cell lines: "Experiments were conducted in PC12 CLS cells (CLS Cat# 500311/p701_PC-12, RRID:CVCL_0481)" Tools, Software, and Databases: "Image analysis was conducted with CellProfiler Image Analysis Software, V2.0 (http://www.cellprofiler.org, RRID:nif-0000-00280)"

4. EDITORIAL POLICIES AND ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS

Peer Review and Acceptance:

Preprint servers

Subscription/hybrid journals

     Melatonin Research will consider for review articles previously available as preprints on non-commercial servers such as ArXiv, bioRxiv, psyArXiv, SocArXiv, engrXiv, etc.  Authors may also post the submitted version of a manuscript to non-commercial servers at any time. Authors are requested to update any pre-publication versions with a link to the final published article.

Data Sharing and Data Accessibility

    Melatonin Research allows authors to share the data and other artefacts supporting the results in the paper by archiving it in an appropriate public repository. Authors should include a data accessibility statement, including a link to the repository they have used, in order that this statement can be published alongside their paper.

Human Studies and Subjects

     For manuscripts reporting medical studies that involve human participants, a statement identifying the ethics committee that approved the study and confirmation that the study conforms to recognized standards is required, for example: Declaration of Helsinki; US Federal Policy for the Protection of Human Subjects; or European Medicines Agency Guidelines for Good Clinical Practice. It should also state clearly in the text that all persons gave their informed consent prior to their inclusion in the study. In addition, the protocol number of this human study approved by the authority(ies) must be provided. 

      Patient anonymity should be preserved. Photographs need to be cropped sufficiently to prevent human subjects being recognized (or an eye bar should be used). Images and information from individual participants will only be published where the authors have obtained the individual's free prior informed consent. Authors do not need to provide a copy of the consent form to the publisher; however, in signing the author license to publish, authors are required to confirm that consent has been obtained.

Animal Studies:

     A statement indicating that the protocol and procedures employed were ethically reviewed and approved, as well as the name of the body giving approval, must be included in the Methods section of the manuscript. Authors are encouraged to adhere to animal research reporting standards, for example the ARRIVE guidelines for reporting study design and statistical analysis; experimental procedures; experimental animals and housing and husbandry. Authors should also state whether experiments were performed in accordance with relevant institutional and national guidelines for the care and use of laboratory animals:

• US authors should cite compliance with the US National Research Council's Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals, the US Public Health Service's Policy on Humane Care and Use of Laboratory Animals, and Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals.

• UK authors should conform to UK legislation under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 Amendment Regulations (SI 2012/3039).

• European authors outside the UK should conform to Directive 2010/63/EU

Plant Studies:

      Experimental research on plants (either cultivated or wild) including collection of plant material, must comply with institutional, national, or international guidelines. We recommend that authors comply with the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Convention on the Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. For each submitted manuscript supporting genetic information and origin must be provided. For research manuscripts involving rare and non-model plants (other than, e.g., Arabidopsis thaliana, Nicotiana benthamiana, Oriza sativa, or many other typical model plants), voucher specimens must be deposited in an accessible herbarium or museum. Vouchers may be requested for review by future investigators to verify the identity of the material used in the study (especially if taxonomic rearrangements occur in the future). They should include details of the populations sampled on the site of collection (GPS coordinates), date of collection, and document the part(s) used in the study where appropriate. For rare, threatened or endangered species this can be waived but it is necessary for the author to describe this in the cover letter.

  Editors reserve the rights to reject any submission that does not meet these requirements.

An example of Ethical Statements:

Torenia fournieri plants were used in this study. White-flowered Crown White (CrW) and violet-flowered Crown Violet (CrV) cultivars selected from ‘Crown Mix’ (XXX Company, City, Country) were kindly provided by Dr. XXX (XXX Institute, City, Country). Arabidopis mutant lines (SALKxxxx, SAILxxxx,…) were kindly provided by Dr. XXX , institute, city, country).

Cell studies

     Methods sections for submissions reporting on research with cell lines should state the origin of any cell lines. For established cell lines the provenance should be stated and references must also be given to either a published paper or to a commercial source. If previously unpublished de novo cell lines were used, including those gifted from another laboratory, details of institutional review board or ethics committee approval must be given, and confirmation of written informed consent must be provided if the line is of human origin.

An example of Ethical Statements:

     The HCT116 cell line was obtained from XXXX. The MLH1⁺ cell line was provided by XXXXX, Ltd. The DLD-1 cell line was obtained from Dr. XXXX. The DR-GFP and SA-GFP reporter plasmids were obtained from Dr. XXX and the Rad51K133A expression vector was obtained from Dr. XXXX.

 Clinical Trial Registration

      The journal requires that clinical trials are prospectively registered in a publicly accessible database and clinical trial registration numbers should be included in all papers that report their results. Authors are asked to include the name of the trial register and the clinical trial registration number at the end of the abstract. If the trial is not registered, or was registered retrospectively, the reasons for this should be explained.

 Research Reporting Guidelines

 Accurate and complete reporting enables readers to fully appraise research, replicate it, and use it. Authors are encouraged to adhere to recognised research reporting standards. The EQUATOR Network collects more than 370 reporting guidelines for many study types, including for:

• Randomised trials: CONSORT

• Observational studies: STROBE

• Systematic reviews: PRISMA

• Case reports: CARE

• Qualitative research: SRQR

• Diagnostic / prognostic studies: STARD

• Quality improvement studies: SQUIRE

• Economic evaluations: CHEERS

• Animal pre-clinical studies: ARRIVE

• Study protocols: SPIRIT

• Clinical practice guidelines: AGREE

 We also encourage authors to refer to and follow guidelines from:

• Future of Research Communications and e-Scholarship (FORCE11)

• National Research Council's Institute for Laboratory Animal Research guidelines

• The Gold Standard Publication Checklist from Hooijmans and colleagues

• Minimum Information Guidelines from Diverse Bioscience Communities (MIBBI) website

• FAIRsharing website

Species Names:

      Upon its first use in the title, abstract, and text, the common name of a species should be followed by the scientific name (genus, species, and authority) in parentheses which should be written in italics, such as (Chenopodium rubrum, Lingulodinium, Rattus). For well-known species, however, scientific names may be omitted from article titles. If no common name exists in English, only the scientific name should be used.

 Genetic Nomenclature

      Sequence variants should be described in the text and tables using both DNA and protein designations whenever appropriate. Sequence variant nomenclature must follow the current HGVS guidelines; see varnomen.hgvs.org, where examples of acceptable nomenclature are provided. A protein should be written in capitals of normal lettering (examples: PER1, CRY2,SIRT1), whereas the respective genes, mRNAs, antisense RNAs or siRNAs have to be written in italics (first letter may be uppercase, the other letters in lower case) (examples: Per1, Cry2, Sirt1, asSirt1, siSirt1). 

 Sequence Data:

     Nucleotide sequence data can be submitted in electronic form to any of the three major collaborative databases: DDBJ, EMBL, or GenBank. It is only necessary to submit to one database as data are exchanged between DDBJ, EMBL, and GenBank on a daily basis. The suggested wording for referring to accession-number information is: ‘These sequence data have been submitted to the DDBJ/EMBL/GenBank databases under accession numberU12345’.

Addresses are as follows:

• DNA Data Bank of Japan (DDBJ): www.ddbj.nig.ac.jp

• EMBL Nucleotide Archive: ebi.ac.uk/ena

• GenBank: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genbank

 Proteins sequence data should be submitted to either of the following repositories:

• Protein Information Resource (PIR): pir.georgetown.edu

• SWISS-PROT: expasy.ch/sprot/sprot-top

Structural Data:

    For papers describing structural data, atomic coordinates and the associated experimental data should be deposited in the appropriate databank (see below). Please note that the data in databanks must be released, at the latest, upon publication of the article. We trust in the cooperation of our authors to ensure that atomic coordinates and experimental data are released on time.

• Organic and organometallic compounds: Crystallographic data should not be sent as Supporting Information, but should be deposited with the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre (CCDC) at ccdc.cam.ac.uk/services/structure%5Fdeposit.

• Inorganic compounds: Fachinformationszentrum Karlsruhe (FIZ; fiz-karlsruhe.de).

• Proteins and nucleic acids: Protein Data Bank (rcsb.org/pdb).

• NMR spectroscopy data: BioMagResBank (bmrb.wisc.edu).

Publication Ethics Statement:

     This journal requires peer-review process to ensure the academic quality of all papers published in the journal. The plagiarism including copying text, ideas, images, or data from another source, even from your own publications, without giving any credit to the original source,  data falsification, image manipulation that could lead to misinterpretation of the information provided by the original image, the reuse of text that is copied from another source witout quotes and the original source cited, inappropriate authorship credit are zero tolerated by the journal. Once found, the submission will be rejected, if the paper(s) has been published the paper(s) will be retracted immediately from the journal. In addition, the simultaneous submission of manuscripts to more than one journal, republishing content that is not novel or a translation of a paper that is already published in different languages will not be allowed.

     If errors and inaccuracies are found by the readers or authors their selves after publication, the immediate responses from the authors are required. The addenda and corrections should take place as soon as possible.

Conflict of Interest

      Melatonin Research requires that all authors disclose any potential sources of conflict of interest. Any interest or relationship, financial or otherwise that might be perceived as influencing an author's objectivity is considered a potential source of conflict of interest. These must be disclosed when directly relevant or directly related to the work that the authors describe in their manuscript. Potential sources of conflict of interest include, but are not limited to: patent or stock ownership, membership of  a company board of directors, membership of an advisory board or committee for a company, and consultancy for or receipt of speaker's fees from a company. The existence of a conflict of interest does not preclude publication. If the authors have no conflict of interest to declare, they must also state this at submission. It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to review this policy with all authors and collectively to disclose with the submission ALL pertinent commercial and other relationships. Even after publication, these conflict of interests have been detected the paper would be retracted from the publication.

     In addition, the raw data are required to be publicly deposited by the authors before manuscriptsubmission. These raw data should be readily available for presentation to the referees and the editors of the journal when they are requested and also should be retained after publication. Submission of manuscripts to other journal at the same time is not acceptable. The manuscript could not contain any information that has already been published  including already published figures or images. If it is necessary, the authors need to obtain the permission from the copyright holder to publish under the CC-BY license.

Funding

       Authors should list all funding sources in the Acknowledgments section. Authors are responsible for the accuracy of their funder designation. If in doubt, please check the Open Funder Registry for the correct nomenclature: https://www.crossref.org/services/funder-registry/ When the authors submit their manuscripts to or review for this journal the contact information should be provided as detail as possible. These include, your name, email address, and affiliation, and other contact details the publication might require which will be used for the regular operations of the journal. The publication and the publisher recognize the importance of protecting the personal information collected from users in the operation of these services, and have practices in place to ensure that steps are taken to maintain the security, integrity, and privacy of the personal data collected and processed.

Declaration of generative AI in scientific writing:
     Melatonin Research askes the authors to disclose whether generative artificial intelligence (AI) assisted technologies has been used in the writing process. The authors should only use these technologies to improve readability and language, but not use the AI tools to analyse and draw insights from data as part of the research process. Applying the technology should be done with human oversight and control, and authors should carefully review and edit the result, as AI can generate authoritative-sounding output that can be incorrect, incomplete or biased. AI and AI-assisted technologies should not be listed as an author or co-author, or be cited as an author. Authorship implies responsibilities and tasks that can only be attributed to and performed by humans.

5. AUTHOR LICENSING

    If a paper is accepted for publication, the author identified as the formal corresponding author will receive an email prompting them to log in to the journal and they will be required to complete a copyright license agreement on behalf of all authors of the paper. For all articles published in MR, copyright is retained by the authors. Articles are licensed under an open access Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 license (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License) , meaning that any one may download and read the paper for free. In addition, the article may be reused and quoted provided that the original published version is cited. These conditions allow for maximum use and exposure of the work, while ensuring that the authors receive proper credit.

 In exceptional circumstances articles may be licensed differently. If you have specific condition (such as one linked to funding) that does not allow this license, please mention this to the editorial office of the journal at submission. Exceptions will be granted at the discretion of the publisher.

 Open Access fees:  The articles will be published for free of charge.

 Reproducing published material from other publishers

    It is absolutely essential that authors obtain permission to reproduce any published material (figures, schemes, tables or any extract of a text) which does not fall into the public domain, or for which they do not hold the copyright. Permission should be requested by the authors from the copyright holder (usually the Publisher, please refer to the imprint of the individual publications to identify the copyright holder).

Permission is required for:

1. Your own works published by other Publishers and for which you did not retain copyright.

2. Substantial extracts from any ones' works or a series of works.

3. Use of Tables, Graphs, Charts, Schemes and Artworks if they are unaltered or slightly modified.

4. Photographs for which you do not hold copyright.

Permission is not required for:

1. Reconstruction of your own table with data already published elsewhere. Please notice that in this case you must cite the source of the data in the form of either "Data from..." or "Adapted from...".

2. Reasonably short quotes are considered fair use and therefore do not require permission.

3. Graphs, Charts, Schemes and Artworks that are completely redrawn by the authors and significantly changed beyond recognition do not require permission.

Obtaining Permission

     In order to avoid unnecessary delays in the publication process, you should start obtaining permissions as early as possible. If in any doubt about the copyright, apply for permission. MDPI cannot publish material from other publications without permission.

The copyright holder may give you instructions on the form of acknowledgement to be followed; otherwise follow the style: "Reproduced with permission from [author], [book/journal title]; published by [publisher], [year].' at the end of the caption of the Table, Figure or Scheme.

6. REVIEW PROCESS

1 Invitation to Review

   Manuscripts submitted to Melatonin Resesearch will be reviewed by at least two experts from the randomly selected 6-8 reviewers. If the subject is very special and is difficult to identify the reviewers, the Editorial Office may invite th reviewers from the editorial board member(s) who are the experties on the topic.  

2. Potential Conflicts of Interests

     We ask reviewers to inform the journal editor if they hold a conflict of interests that may prejudice the review report, either in a positive or negative way. The editorial office will check as far as possible before invitation, however we appreciate the cooperation of reviewers in this matter. Reviewers who are invited to assess a manuscript they previously reviewed for another journal should not consider this as a conflict of interest in itself. In this case, reviewers should feel free to let us know if the manuscript has been improved or not compared to the previous version.

3.  Confidentiality and Anonymity

     Reviewers should keep the content of the manuscript, including the abstract, confidential. Reviewers must inform the Editorial Office if they would like a student or colleague to complete the review on their behalf. MR operates single blind peer review. Reviewers should be careful not to reveal their identity to the authors, either in their comments or in metadata for reports submitted in Microsoft Word or PDF format. Note that reviewers are given access to all review reports for manuscripts they review via the online submission system after the final decision has been made.

4.  Timely Review Reports

     Melatonin Research aims to provide an efficient and high quality publishing service to authors and to the scientific community. We ask reviewers to assist by providing review reports in a timely manner. Please contact the editorial office if you require an extension to the review deadline.

5. Peer-Review and Editorial Procedure

     All manuscripts sent for publication in our journal are strictly and thoroughly peer-reviewed by experts (this includes research and review articles, spontaneous submissions, and invited papers). The Managing Editor of the journal will perform an initial check of the manuscript’s suitability upon receipt. The Editorial Office will then organize the peer-review process performed by independent experts and collect at least two review reports per manuscript. We ask our authors for adequate revisions (with a second round of peer-review if necessary) before a final decision is made. The final decision is made in the routine meeting (trice a month) among  several editorial board members and Editor-in-Chiefs to discuss the acceptance of the revised manuscripts. If majority of the participators agree to accept the manuscripts, the Editor-in-Chiefs will make the final decision to accept the manuscript. Accepted articles are copy-edited and English-edited. Note that your recommendation is visible only to journal editors, not to the authors.

7.  PUBLICATION PROCESS AFTER ACCEPTANCE

 Accepted Article Received in Production

      When an accepted article is received by production team, the corresponding author will receive an email asking them to login and the author will be asked to sign a publication license at this point.

Accepted Articles

     Accepted Articles will be published online after final acceptance and appear in PDF format and HTML format both. They are given a Digital Object Identifier (DOI), which allows them to be cited and tracked and are indexed by Crossref, DOAJ, Goodle Scholar, PubMed. After the final version article is published (the article of record), the DOI remains valid and can still be used to cite and access the article.

 Proofs

     Once the paper is typeset, the author will receive an email notification with full instructions on how to provide proof corrections. Please note that the author is responsible for all statements made in their work, including changes made during the editorial process – authors should check proofs carefully. Note that proofs should be returned within 48 hours from receipt of first proof.

 Publication Charges

      Color figures: Color figures will be published online free of charge.

 8. POST PUBLICATION

 Access and Sharing

When the article is published online:

• The author receives an email alert (if requested).

• The link to the published article can be shared through social media.

• The author will have free access to the paper (after accepting the Terms & Conditions of use, they can view the article).

• The corresponding author and co-authors can nominate up to ten colleagues to receive a publication alert and free online access to the article.

9. Corrections, retractions, and editorial expressions of concern   

Corrections:

Errors can be identified by authors, readers, editors, or peer reviewers. The common errors include typographical mistakes, mislabeling, or incorrect data. The editor will assesse the significance of the error. Minor errors (e.g., typos) might be corrected directly, while significant errors require a more formal process. If necessary, A formal correction notice is issued.This notice is linked to the original article and clearly describes the error and the correction, The corrected version of the article is typically updated online.

Retractions:

     Retractions are considered when there is evidence of misconduct, such as plagiarism or fabrication of data, or significant errors that invalidate the results. A thorough investigation is conducted by the journal, often involving the authors and possibly the institution(s) involved. This may include an ethics committee or other relevant bodies. If the authors cannot provide the reasonable answers for the concerning, the related article will be retracted from the journal. A formal retraction notice is published. The notice explains the reasons for the retraction and is linked to the original article. The retracted article is marked as such but remains available for transparency.

Editorial Expressions of Concern:

     Concerns might arise about the integrity of an article, often due to ongoing investigations or allegations. The editor evaluates the concerns and determines if an expression of concern is warranted. This is typically done when an investigation is pending or inconclusive but the issues raised are significant. A notice is published to inform readers of the concerns. The notice is linked to the original article and provides an explanation of the issues under consideration.

10. EDITORIAL OFFICE CONTACT DETAILS

melatonineditor@gmail.com

Updated: June 28, 2024