The Open Virology Journal is an Open Access online
journal, which publishes Research articles, Reviews and Letters
in the field of virology, aiming at providing the most complete
and reliable source of information on current developments
in the field.
Manuscripts may be submitted directly to tovj@benthamopen.org.
Each peer-reviewed article that is published in a Bentham
OPEN Journal is universally and freely accessible via
the Internet in an easily readable and printable PDF format.
Online Manuscript Submission: An online submission
and tracking service via Internet facilitates a speedy
and cost-effective submission of manuscripts.
The full manuscript has to be submitted online via
Bentham's Content Management System (CMS) at http://www.bentham-editorial.org/
View
Submission Instructions
Alternatively, you may also submit your full manuscript by
e-mail to tovj@benthamopen.org
Manuscripts must be submitted by one of the authors of the
manuscript, and should not be submitted by anyone on their
behalf. The principal/corresponding author will be required
to submit a Covering Letter along with the manuscript, on
behalf of all the co-authors (if any). The author(s) will
confirm that the manuscript (or any part of it) has not been
published previously or is not under consideration for publication
elsewhere. Furthermore, any illustration, structure or table
that has been published elsewhere must be reported, and copyright
permission for reproduction must be obtained.
For all online submissions, please provide your complete manuscript
in the form of a single zipped folder containing soft copies
of all the materials (main text in MS Word or Tex/LaTeX),
figures/illustrations in TIFF, PDF or JPEG, and chemical structures
drawn in ChemDraw (CDX)/ISISDraw (TGF) as separate files,
while a PDF version of the entire manuscript must also be
included, embedded with all the figures/illustrations/tables/chemical
structures etc.
A successful electronic submission of a manuscript will be
followed by a system-generated acknowledgement to the principal/corresponding
author within 72 hours of the dispatch of
the manuscript. Any questions with regards to the preparation
of and submission of your manuscript to the journal should
be addressed to tovj@benthamopen.org
and copied to managingeditor@benthamopen.org
NOTE: Any queries therein should be addressed
to oa@benthamscience.org
and copied to Jalil@benthamscience.org
Manuscript Preparation:
The manuscript should be written in English in a clear, direct
and active style. All pages must be numbered sequentially,
facilitating in the reviewing and editing of the manuscript.
For further convenience, the customer support team available
at Bentham Publishing Services (www.benthampublishingservices.com)
can provide assistance to authors for the preparation of manuscripts.
Manuscript Length:
Research Articles: The total number of words
for a published research article is from 4000 to 8000 words.
Review Articles: The total number of words
for a published comprehensive review article article is from
8000 to 40000 words, and for mini-review articles from 3000
to 6000 words.
Letter Articles: The total number of words
for a published letter/short communication article is from
3000 to 6000 words.
There is no restriction on the number of figures, tables or
additional files e.g. video clips, animation and
datasets, that can be included with each article online. Authors
should include all relevant supporting data with each article.
Manuscripts Published: The journal accepts letters,
original research articles, and mini- and full-length review
articles written in English. Supplements, proceedings of conferences
and Open Access book reviews may also be considered for publication.
Supplements/Single Topic Issues: The journal
also considers Supplements/Single topic issues for publication.
A Supplement/Single topic issue will be a collection of review
articles (minimum of 6, maximum of 20 articles) based on a
contemporary theme or topic of great importance to the field.
Mini-supplements consisting of between 3 to 5 articles are
also welcome. The Guest Editors' main editorial task is to
invite the contributors to the Supplement and to manage the
peer review of submitted manuscripts. A short summary or proposal
for editing a supplement should be submitted to the Editor-in-Chief
at e-mail to tovj@benthamopen.org
with a copy to specialissue@benthamopen.org
Conference Proceedings: For proposals to
publish conference proceedings in this journal, please contact
us at email: proceedings@benthamscience.org
Open Access Book Reviews: This journal publishes
open access reviews on recently published books (both print
and electronic) relevant to the journal. Publishers and authors
of books are invited to contact our book reviews editor at
to tovj@benthamopen.org
with book review requests. All submitted books will be reviewed
by an independent expert in the field.
MANUSCRIPT SECTIONS FOR PAPERS: Manuscripts for research
articles and letters submitted to the journal should be divided
into the following sections; however, there can be an extension
in the number of sections in review articles in accordance
with the requirements of the topic.
Covering letter
Title
Title Page
Abstract
Keywords
Text organization
List of abbreviations (if any)
Conflict of interest (if any)
Acknowledgements (if any)
References
Appendices
Figures/illustrations (if any)
Chemical structures (if any)
Tables (if any)
Supportive/supplementary material (if any)
COVERING LETTER: It is a mandatory requirement
that a signed covering letter also be submitted along with
the manuscript by the author to whom correspondence is to
be addressed, delineating the scope of the submitted article
declaring the potential competing interests, acknowledging
contributions from authors and funding agencies, and certifying
that the paper is prepared according to the 'Instructions
for Authors'. All inconsistencies in the text
and in the reference section, and any typographical errors
must be carefully checked and corrected before the submission
of the manuscript. The article contains no such material or
information that may be unlawful, defamatory, fabricated,
plagiarized, or which would, if published, in any way whatsoever,
violate the terms and conditions as laid down in the agreement.
The authors acknowledge that the publishers have the legal
right to take appropriate action against the authors for any
such violation of the terms and conditions as laid down in
the agreement. Download
the Covering letter
TITLE: The title should be precise and brief
and must not be more than 120 characters. Authors should avoid
the use of non-standard abbreviations. The title must be written
in title case except for articles, conjunctions and prepositions.
Authors should also provide a short ‘running title’.
TITLE PAGE: Title page should include paper
title, author(s) full name and affiliation, corresponding
author(s) names complete affiliation/address, along with phone,
fax and email.
ABSTRACT: The abstract should not exceed
250 words for review and research papers and should be limited
to only 150 words for letters, summarizing the essential features
of the article. The use of abbreviations should be reduced
to a minimum and the references should not be cited in the
abstract.
KEYWORDS: Please provide 6-8 keywords in
alphabetical order
TEXT ORGANIZATION: The main text should begin
on a separate page and should be divided into title page,
abstract and the main text. The text may be subdivided further
according to the areas to be discussed, which should be followed
by the Acknowledgements (if any) and Reference sections. The
review article should mention any previous important reviews
in the field and contain a comprehensive discussion starting
with the general background of the field. It should then go
on to discuss the salient features of recent developments.
The authors should avoid presenting material which has already
been published in a previous review. The authors are advised
to present and discuss their observations in brief. The manuscript
style must be uniform throughout the text and 10 pt Times
New Roman font should be used. The full term for an abbreviation
should precede its first appearance in the text unless it
is a standard unit of measurement. The reference numbers should
be given in square brackets in the text.
Trial Registration: If your article
reports the results of a controlled health care intervention,
list your trial registry, along with the unique identifying
number, e.g. Trial registration:
Current Controlled Trials ISRCTN73824458. Note that there
should be no space between the letters and numbers of your
trial registration number. For this purpose, a clinical trial
is any study that prospectively assigns human subjects to
intervention or comparison groups to evaluate the cause-and-effect
relationship between a medical intervention and a health outcome.
All clinical trials, regardless of when they were completed,
and secondary analyses of original clinical trials must be
registered before submission of a manuscript based on the
trial. Studies designed for other purposes, such as to study
pharmacokinetics or major toxicity (e.g., phase 1
trials), are exempt. Trial registry name, registration identification
number, and the URL for the registry should be included at
the end of abstract and also in the space provided on the
online manuscript submission form.
Authors will submit the Trial Protocols along
with their manuscript. The CONSORT (Consolidated
Standards of Reporting Trials) Checklist
and Flowchart is also required when submitting
the results of randomized control trials (RCTs).
The authors are advised to present and discuss their observations
in brief. The manuscript style must be uniform throughout
the text and 10 pt Times New Roman fonts should be used. The
full term for an abbreviation should precede its first appearance
in the text unless it is a standard unit of measurement. The
reference numbers should be given in square brackets in the
text. Italics should be used for Binomial names of organisms
(Genus and Species), for emphasis and for unfamiliar words
or phrases. Non-assimilated words from Latin or other languages
should also be italicized e.g. in vivo, in vitro,
per se, et al. etc.
Standard Protocol on Approvals, Registrations,
Patient Consents & Animal Protection: All
clinical investigations must be conducted according to the
Declaration of Helsinki principles. For all manuscripts reporting
data from studies involving human participants, formal review
and approval by an appropriate institutional review board
or ethics committee is required. For research involving animals,
the authors should indicate whether the procedures followed
were in accordance with the standards set forth in the eighth
edition of Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals
(http://grants.nih.gov/grants/olaw/Guide-for-the-care-and-use-of-Laboratory-animals/;
published by the National Academy of Sciences, The National
Academies Press, Washington, D.C.).
A specific declaration of such approval must be made in the
cover letter and in a stand-alone paragraph at the end of
the Methods section especially in the case of human studies
where inclusion of a statement regarding obtaining the written
informed consent from each subject or subject's guardian is
a must. The original should be retained by the guarantor or
corresponding author. Editors may request to provide the original
forms by fax or email
Greek Symbols and Special Characters:
Greek symbols and special characters often undergo formatting
changes and get corrupted or lost during preparation of manuscript
for publication. To ensure that all special characters used
are embedded in the text, these special characters should
be inserted as a symbol but should not be a result of any
format styling (Symbol font face) otherwise they
will be lost during conversion to PDF/XML.
Authors are encouraged to consult reporting guidelines. These
guidelines provide a set of recommendations comprising a list
of items relevant to their specific research design. All kinds
of measurements should be reported only in International System
of Units (SI). Chemical equations, chemical names, mathematical
usage, unit of measurements, chemical and physical quantity
& units must conform to SI and Chemical Abstracts or IUPAC.
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS: If abbreviations are
used in the text either they should be defined in the text
where first used, or a list of abbreviations can be provided.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST: Financial contributions
to the work being reported should be clearly acknowledged,
as should any potential conflict of interest.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Please acknowledge anyone (individual/company/institution)
who has contributed to the study by making substantial contributions
to conception, design, acquisition of data, or analysis and
interpretation of data, or who was involved in drafting the
manuscript or revising it critically for important intellectual
content. Please list the source(s) of funding for the study,
for each author, and for the manuscript preparation in the
acknowledgements section.
This journal complies with the International Committee of
Medical Journal Editors' Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts
Submitted to Biomedical Journals www.icmje.org
and the FDA's Good Reprint Practices for the Distribution
of Medical Journal Articles and Medical or Scientific Reference
Publications on Unapproved New Uses of Approved Drugs and
Approved or Cleared Medical Devices http://www.fda.gov/oc/op/goodreprint.html
REFERENCES: References must be listed in
the numerical system (Vancouver). All references should be
numbered sequentially [in square brackets] in the text and
listed in the same numerical order in the reference section.
The reference numbers must be finalized and the bibliography
must be fully formatted before submission.
See below few examples of references listed in the correct
Vancouver style:
Typical Paper Reference:
[1] Jones SA, Sherman GG, Varga CA. Exploring socio-economic
conditions and poor follow-up rates of HIV-exposed infants
in Johannesburg, South Africa. AIDS Care 2006; 17: 466-70.
[2] Newell M-L, Cortina BM, Peckham C. Height, weight and
growth in children born to mothers with HIV-1 infection in
Europe. Pediatrics 2003; 111: 52-60.
Typical Chapter Reference:
[3] Jeffery K, Pillay D. In: Zuckerman AJ, Banatvala JE, Pattison
JR, Griffiths PD, Schoub BD, Eds. Diagnostic approaches. Chichester;
John Wiley & Sons 2004; 1-21.
Book Reference:
[4] Carlson BM. Human embryology and developmental biology.
3rd ed. St. Louis: Mosby 2004.
Edited Book:
[5] Margulis L, Ed. Origin of Eukaryotic Cells. New Haven:
Yale University Press; 1970.
Conference Proceedings:
[6] Barolow-Mosha L, Musoke P, Eds. Early effectiveness of
triomune in HIV infected Ugandan children: 2005: Proceedings
of the 3rd IAS Conference
on HIV Pathogenesis and Treatment 2005 July 24-7; Rio de Janeiro,
Brazil 2005.
Journal Article on the Internet:
[7] Dunn D. Time trends in primary resistance to HIV drugs
in the United Kingdom: multicentre observational study. BMJ
[serial on the Internet]. Dec 2005; [cited 2005 December 10];
331: [about 10 screens]. Available from: http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/331/7529/1368
Patent:
[8] Wu W-Y, Dowle MD, Jin B, Macdonald SJF, Mason AM, McConnell
D, Watson K, inventor. Multivalent neuraminidase inhibitor
conjugates. United States patent US7205333. 2007 Apr.
E-citations:
[9] Citations for articles/material published exclusively
online or in open access (free-to-view), must contain the
exact Web addresses (URLs) at the end of the reference(s),
except those posted on an author’s Web site unless editorially
essential, e.g. ‘Reference: Available from:
URL’.
Some important points to remember:
*All references must be complete and accurate.
*If the number of authors exceeds six then et al.
will be used after three names (the term “et al.”
should be in italics).
*Online citations should include the date of access.
*Journal abbreviations should follow the Index Medicus/MEDLINE.
*Take special care of the punctuation convention as described
in the above-mentioned examples.
*Avoid using superscript in the in-text citations and reference
section.
*Abstracts, unpublished data and personal communications (which
can only be included if prior permission has been obtained)
should not be given in the reference section but they may
be mentioned in the text and details provided as footnotes.
*The authors are encouraged to use a recent version of EndNote
(version 5 and above) or Reference Manager (version 10) when
formatting their reference list, as this allows references
to be automatically extracted.
APPENDICES: In case there is a need to present
lengthy, but essential methodological details, use appendices,
which can be a part of the article. An appendix must not exceed
three pages (Times New Roman, 12 point fonts, 900 max. words
per page).The information should be provided in a condensed
form, ruling out the need of full sentences. A single appendix
should be titled APPENDIX, while more than one can be titled
APPENDIX A, APPENDIX B, and so on.
FIGURES/ILLUSTRATIONS: The authors should provide
the illustrations as separate files, as well as embedded in
the text file, numbered consecutively in the order of their
appearance. Each figure should include a single illustration.
No charges will be levied on the use of color figures except
in the reprints. Each figure should be closely cropped to
minimize the amount of white space surrounding the illustration.
If a figure consists of separate parts, it is important that
a single composite illustration file be submitted, containing
all parts of the figure.
Photographs should be provided with a scale bar if appropriate,
as well as high-resolution component files.
Scaling/Resolution:
For Line Art image type, which is generally an image based
on lines and text and does not contain tonal or shaded areas,
the preferred file format is TIFF or EPS, with colour mode
being Monochrome 1-bit or RGB, in a resolution of 900-1200
dpi.
For Halftone image type, which is generally a continuous tone
photograph and contains no text, the preferred file format
is TIFF, with colour mode being RGB or Grayscale, with a minimum
resolution of 300 dpi.
For Combination image type, which is generally an image containing
halftone in addition to text or line art elements, the preferred
file format is TIFF, with colour mode being RGB or Grayscale,
in a resolution of 500-900 dpi.
Formats:
For illustrations, the following file formats are acceptable:
• Illustrator
• EPS (preferred format for diagrams)
• PDF (also especially suitable for
diagrams)
• PNG (preferred format for photos
or images)
• Microsoft Word (version 5 and above;
figures must be a single page)
• PowerPoint (figures must be a single
page)
• TIFF
• JPEG (conversion should be done
using the original file)
• BMP
• CDX (ChemDraw)
• TGF (ISISDraw)
Bentham OPEN does not process figures submitted in
GIF format.
If the large size of TIFF or EPS figures acts as an obstacle
to online submission, authors may find that conversion to
JPEG format before submission results in significantly reduced
file size and upload time, while retaining acceptable quality.
JPEG is a ‘lossy’ format, however in order to maintain acceptable image quality, it is recommended that JPEG files
are saved at High or Maximum quality.
Files should not be compressed with tools such as Zipit
or Stuffit prior to submission as these tools will in any
case produce negligible file-size savings for JPEGs and
TIFFs, which are already compressed.
Please do not:
1. Supply embedded graphics in your word processor (spreadsheet,
presentation) document;
2. Supply files that are optimized for screen use (like
GIF, BMP, PICT, WPG); the resolution is too low;
3. Supply files that are too low in resolution;
4. Submit graphics that are disproportionately large for
the content.
Image Conversion Tools:
There are many software packages, many of them freeware
or shareware, capable of converting to and from different
graphics formats, including PNG.
Good general tools for image conversion include GraphicConverter
on the Macintosh, PaintShop Pro, for Windows, and ImageMagick,
which is available on Macintosh, Windows and UNIX platforms.
Note that bitmap images (e.g. screenshots) should not be
converted to EPS, since this will result in a much larger
file size than the equivalent JPEG, TIFF, PNG or BMP, with
no increase in quality. EPS should only be used for images
produced by vector-drawing applications such as Adobe Illustrator
or CorelDraw. Most vector-drawing applications can be saved
in, or exported as, EPS format. In case the images have
been originally prepared in an Office application, such
as Word or PowerPoint, then the original Office files should
be directly uploaded to the site, instead of being converted
to JPEG or another format that may be of low quality.
Chemical Structures: Chemical structures must be prepared according to the guidelines below.
Structures should be prepared in ChemDraw and provided as separate file, submitted both on disk and in printed formats.
Structure Drawing Preferences:
[As according to the ACS style sheet]
Drawing Settings:
Chain angle 120°
Bond spacing 18% of width
Fixed length 14.4 pt (0.500cm, 0.2in)
Bold width 2.0 pt (0.071cm, 0.0278in)
Line width 0.6 pt (0.021cm, 0.0084in)
Margin width 1.6 pt (0.096cm)
Hash spacing 2.5 pt (0.088cm, 0.0347in)
Text settings:
Font Times New Roman
Size 8 pt
Under the Preference Choose:
Units points
Tolerances 3 pixels
Under Page Setup Use:
Paper US letter
Scale 100%
TABLES:
*Data Tables should be submitted in Microsoft Word table
format.
*Each table should include a title/caption being explanatory
in itself with respect to the details discussed in the table.
Detailed legends may then follow.
*Table number in bold font i.e. Table 1,
should follow a title. The title should be in small case
with the first letter in caps. A full stop should be placed
at the end of the title.
*Tables should be embedded in the text exactly according
to their appropriate placement in the submitted manuscript.
*Columns and rows of data should be made visibly distinct
by ensuring that the borders of each cell are displayed
as black lines.
*Tables should be numbered in Arabic numerals sequentially
in order of their citation in the body of the text.
*If a reference is cited in both the table and text, please
insert a lettered footnote in the table to refer to the
numbered reference in the text.
*Tabular data provided as additional files can be submitted
as an Excel spreadsheet.
SUPPORTIVE/SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: We do
encourage to append supportive material, for example a PowerPoint
file containing a talk about the study, a PowerPoint file
containing additional screenshots, a Word, RTF, or PDF document
showing the original instrument(s) used, a video, or the
original data (SAS/SPSS files, Excel files, Access Db files
etc.) provided it is inevitable or endorsed by the journal's
Editor.
Supportive/Supplementary material intended for publication
must be numbered and referred to in the manuscript but should
not be a part of the submitted paper. In-text citations as
well as a section with the heading "Supportive/Supplementary
Material" before the "References" section should
be provided. Here, list all Supportive/Supplementary Material
and include a brief caption line for each file describing
its contents.
Any additional files will be linked into the final published
article in the form supplied by the author, but will not be
displayed within the paper. They will be made available in
exactly the same form as originally provided only on our Web
site. Please also make sure that each additional file is a
single table, figure or movie (please do not upload linked
worksheets or PDF files larger than one sheet). Supportive/Supplementary
material must be provided in a single zipped file not larger
than 4 MB.
Authors must clearly indicate if these files are not for
publication but meant for the reviewers'/editors' perusal
only.
PERMISSION FOR REPRODUCTION: Published/reproduced
material should not be included unless you have obtained
written permission from the copyright holder, which should
be forwarded to the Editorial Office in case of acceptance
of your article for publication.
For obtaining permission for reproducing any material published
in an article by Bentham Science Publishers, please fill in
the request FORM
and send to tovj@benthamopen.org
for consideration.
AUTHORS AND INSTITUTIONAL AFFILIATIONS: The
author will be required to provide their full names, the institutional
affiliations and the location, with an asterisk in front of
the name of the principal/corresponding author. The corresponding
author(s) should be designated and their complete address,
business telephone and fax numbers and e-mail address must
be stated to receive correspondence and galley proofs.
REVIEWING AND PROMPTNESS OF PUBLICATION:
All manuscripts submitted for publication will be immediately subjected to peer-reviewing, usually in consultation with the members of the Editorial Advisory Board and a number of external referees. Authors may, however, provide in their Covering Letter the contact details (including e-mail addresses) of four potential peer reviewers for their paper. Any peer reviewers suggested should not have recently published with any of the authors of the submitted manuscript and should not be members of the same research institution.
All peer-reviewing will be conducted via the Internet to facilitate rapid reviewing of the submitted manuscripts. Every possible effort will be made to assess the manuscripts quickly with the decision being conveyed to the authors in due course. Papers which are delayed by authors in revision for more than 30 days will have to be re-submitted as a new submission.
LANGUAGE AND EDITING: Manuscripts submitted
containing many English typographical errors will not be published.
Manuscripts which are accepted for publication on condition
that the written English submitted is corrected, will be sent
a quote by Eureka
Science, a professional language editing company. Authors
from non-English language countries who have poor English
language written skills, are advised to contact the language
editing company prior to submitting their manuscript to the
journal. Please contact Eureka
Science for a language editing quote at e-mail: info@eureka-science.com stating the total number of words of the article to be edited.
PROOF CORRECTIONS: Authors are required
to proofread the PDF versions of their manuscripts before
submission. To avoid delays in publication, proofs should
be checked immediately for typographical errors and returned
within 48 hours. Major changes are not
acceptable at the proof stage. If unable to send corrections
within 48 hours due to some reason, the
author(s) must at least send an acknowledgement on receiving
the galley proofs or the article will be published exactly
as received and the publishers will not be responsible for
any error occurring in the manuscript in this regard.
The corresponding author will be solely responsible for
ensuring that the revised version of the manuscript incorporating
all the submitted corrections receives the approval of all
the authors of the manuscript.
COPYRIGHT: Authors who publish in Bentham
OPEN Journals retain copyright to their work. Submission
of a manuscript to the respective journals implies that
all authors have read and agreed to the content of the Covering
Letter or the Terms and Conditions. It is a condition of
publication that manuscripts submitted to this journal have
not been published and will not be simultaneously submitted
or published elsewhere. Plagiarism is strictly forbidden,
and by submitting the article for publication the authors
agree that the publishers have the legal right to take appropriate
action against the authors, if plagiarism or fabricated
information is discovered. Once submitted to the journal,
the author will not withdraw their manuscript at any stage
prior to publication.
Articles are licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution non-commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/)
which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution
and reproduction in any medium, providing that the work is
properly cited.
PUBLICATION FEES: The publication fee details
for each article published in the journal are given below:
Letters: The publication fee for each published
Letter article submitted is US $600.
Research Articles: The publication fee for
each published Research article is US $800.
Mini-Review Articles: The publication fee
for each published Mini-Review article is US $600.
Review Articles: The publication fee for
each published Review article is US $900.
Book Reviews: The open access fee for a published
book review is US $450.
Once the paper is accepted for publication, the author will
receive by email an electronic invoice. The fee form is also
available on the Web site at www.benthamscience.com/open/feeform.
MEMBERSHIP: Join as a member of Bentham OPEN
today to obtain great discounts on your article publication
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REPRINTS: High quality printed reprints
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with a minimum number of 100 reprints.
