Use the Instructions for Authors (IFA) as a guide. IFAs are journal-specific, but there are common elements. Springer has adopted a uniform IFA for all of its journals and then lists separately the elements unique to each of its journals. We will refer to the Springer IFA as an example.

A Getting started

C. Methods Section

1. Now the writer is perfectly set up for the methods section. List the methods and reagents used in the chosen figures and tables. Present each one in a section of the methods along with appropriate references and identified abbreviations. Journals often have an approved list of abbreviations of commonly used terms and chemicals that can be used without identification. These are either part of the IFA or their location is listed there. The cities and countries in which are located the companies from which reagents were purchased are still required by most journals. Purchased antigens and antibodies need to be identified by company product number to avoid confusion. The same is true of commercial kits.
2. If humans and/or animals are used, the methods must include a statement regarding permission or humane treatment according to national or international guidelines, identified by name or document number. Also, the institutional committees from which approval was obtained must be listed.
3. Experimental methods that have been described in detail in previous publications can be briefly named and/or described along with the appropriate reference.
4. One of the most frequently misused sentence structures is in this example: 5 mg/ml of NaCl was used. This literally means 5 mg of an unidentified substance per ml of salt. So, it should be NaCl at a concentration of 5 mg/ml of solution or NaCl (5 mg/ml) was used. We all have our pet peeves when it comes to methods. The point is to read what you have written and don’t make short cuts that do not make sense in order to “concise” the methods. Yes, I once had a reviewer write that a section I wrote needed to be “concised”. Obviously, this reviewer was a master of the craft!

D. Discussion Section

E. Introduction

This section only has two goals. One is to state the purpose of the study and the second goal is to provide sufficient information from the published literature to allow the reader to follow the new work presented. I also like to clearly state how the present work goes beyond the published literature. It should be brief, one or two double-spaced pages. Resist the temptation to present results and discuss them in the introduction. You have sections in which to do that well.

F. A note on the Title, Abstract and Keywords

These items all share two characteristics: First, they are often thrown together as an afterthought almost, and second, they are the source of terms used to cross-reference and index your published paper in databases. In the case of articles that are not open access, that is, not freely available to the public immediately, these three items are still freely available and serve to advertise your article. An interesting title or abstract may determine whether or not a reader bothers to buy your article on-line or search it out at a library website.

1. The title should be a clear and concise representation of the major thrust of the paper.
2. The abstract should include a statement of the purpose of the work, the major methods used, and the major conclusions reached. It should end with a statement of the significance of the work.
   
   

G. References and in-text citations

One of the best products of the computer age is bibliographic software. Start making your library using EndNote, RefManager, or whatever you prefer, the day you start working in the laboratory. Major word processing programs like Word have plug-ins that allow writers to create in-text citations and a reference list as they write the manuscript. Virtually all journal styles, and there are many hundreds of them, are now available as small files as part of the major bibliographic software packages. They also make it easy to download citations for journal sites and on-line databases directly into your custom library.

H. Acknowledgements

Mention colleagues who provided key reagents and helped in various ways such as reading and commenting on the manuscript. List and thank the granting agencies. No need to thank mentor and co-authors.

I. Odds and ends