Annals of Human Genetics

Published in association with University College, London

Edited by:
Andres Ruiz-Linares

Print ISSN: 0003-4800
Online ISSN: 1469-1809
Frequency: Bi-monthly
Current Volume: 74 / 2010
ISI Journal Citation Reports® Ranking: 2008: 84/138 Genetics & Heredity
Impact Factor: 2.195

TopAuthor Guidelines

Instructions for authors

Aims & Scope

Annals of Human Genetics publishes material directly concerned with human genetics or the application of scientific principles and techniques to any aspect of human inheritance. Papers that describe work on other species that may be relevant to human genetics will also be considered. Mathematical models should include examples of application to data where possible.

Authors are welcome to submit Supporting Information, such as data sets or additional figures or tables, that will not be published in the print edition of the journal, but which will be viewable via the online edition and stored on the website.

Submission of manuscripts

Online SubmissionsAnnals of Human Genetics requests authors submit manuscripts online at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ahg.Step-by-step instructions on how to submit your manuscripts online are available during the submission process. You can also email for online submission support (support@scholarone.com) or contact the Editorial Office if you are unable to submit online (see correspondence details below). Further information can be obtained online from the submission site via the 'Get Help Now' button.

Enquiries should be addressed to:

The EditorsAnnals of Human GeneticsDepartment of Genetics, Evolution and EnvironmentUniversity College LondonWolfson House4 Stephenson WayLondon NW1 2HEUK

Tel: +44 (0) 20 7679 5049Fax: +44 (0) 20 7679 5052

Email: anhumgen@ucl.ac.uk

Submitting authors should include a contact email address and fax and phone numbers. Authors must suggest at least three possible referees for their paper; failure to do so may result in delays in the refereeing process. It is the responsibility of the submitting author to ensure that the authorship of the paper reflects the contributions of the authors to the work described, and that all listed authors have been notified and have agreed to the submission of the manuscript in its current form.

Conditions of publication in the Annals are: (a) that the paper has not already been published elsewhere; (b) that it is not currently being considered for publication elsewhere; (c) that, once published in the Annals, it will not be reprinted without permission from the Editors; (d) all persons designated as authors should qualify for authorship, and all those who qualify should be listed. If accepted, the University College London and Blackwell Publishing have the exclusive license to publish.

Pre-submission English-language editing

Authors for whom English is a second language may choose to have their manuscript professionally edited before submission to improve the English. A list of independent suppliers of editing services can be found at http://authorservices.wiley.com/bauthor/english_language.asp. Japanese authors can also find a list of local English improvement services at http://www.wiley.co.jp/journals/editcontribute.html. All services are paid for and arranged by the author, and use of one of these services does not guarantee acceptance or preference for publication.

Copyright Assignment

Authors are no longer required to assign copyright in their paper. Instead authors are required to assign the exclusive license to publish their paper to Blackwell Publishing and the Annals of Human Genetics. Assignment of the exclusive license is a condition of publication and papers will not be passed to the publisher for production unless license has been assigned. (Papers subject to government or Crown copyright are exempt from this requirement.) Please download the Exclusive License Form here and ensure this is returned to:

Melanie Sim
Production Editor
Journal Content Management
Wiley-Blackwell
Blackwell Publishing Services Pte Ltd
#05-01 Parkview Square
600 North Bridge Road
Singapore 188 778

Fax: +65 6511 8288Email: msim@wiley.com

OnlineOpen

OnlineOpen is available to authors of primary research articles who wish to make their article available to non-subscribers on publication, or whose funding agency requires grantees to archive the final version of their article. With OnlineOpen the author, the author's funding agency, or the author's institution pays a fee to ensure that the article is made available to non-subscribers upon publication via Wiley InterScience, as well as deposited in the funding agency's preferred archive. For the full list of terms and conditions, see http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/authorresources/onlineopen.html#OnlineOpen_Terms.

Any authors wishing to send their paper OnlineOpen will be required to complete the payment form available from our website at: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/pdf/AHG_OOF.pdf

Prior to acceptance there is no requirement to inform an Editorial Office that you intend to publish your paper OnlineOpen if you do not wish to. All OnlineOpen articles are treated in the same way as any other article. They go through the journal's standard peer-review process and will be accepted or rejected based on their own merit.

Supporting Information

Supporting Information, such as data sets or additional figures or tables, that will not be published in the print edition of the journal, but which will be viewable via the online edition, can be submitted.

It should be clearly stated at the time of submission that the authors intend for the Supporting Information to be made available through the online edition. Supporting Information will be made available in electronic form free of charge either through the journal's Web pages or on request from Blackwell Publishing. Alternatively, if the size or format of the Supporting Information is such that it cannot be accommodated on the journal's Web site, the author agrees to make the Supporting Information available free of charge on a permanent Web site, to which links will be set up from Annals of Human Genetics' Web site. The author must advise Blackwell Publishing if the URL of the Web site where the Supporting Information is located changes.

The availability of Supporting Information should be indicated in the main manuscript by a paragraph, to appear after the References, headed 'Supporting Information' and providing titles of figures, tables, etc. The Supporting Information should be submitted to the Editorial Office in final form, ready for viewing, or alternatively, if the size or format is such that it cannot be submitted, the author should make the Supporting Information available for viewing in final form via the Web by the Editorial Office and by reviewers. No changes can be made subsequently by the Editorial Office or the Publisher. This Supporting Information is an integral part of the article and will be reviewed accordingly.

Presentation of manuscripts

Manuscripts should be double-spaced throughout and with adequate margins. Footnotes to the text should be avoided. Quotation marks should be single, not double. Italics, as in the case of genotypes or algebraic parameters in the text, should be indicated either by italic type or by underlining. This is not necessary in numbered equations where mathematical symbols will be italicised as a matter of course.

Title page

(a) Titles should be as concise as possible and should wherever possible directly relate to the major finding(s) of the paper. Titles should be in lower case roman type, capitals and italics being employed only where necessary.(b) Authors' names should be in capitals. Full first names, middle initials and surnames are required, no qualifications.(c) Authors' addresses should be adequately stated for postal communication, and the fax number and email address of the author to whom correspondence should be addressed should be supplied.(d) A short 'running head', to be used at the top of subsequent right-hand pages, should be suggested.(e) A short list of key words should be included.

Summary

This must contain a summary of the major findings and conclusions of the paper, and should not exceed 200 words. If any human gene is discussed the approved gene symbol must be mentioned. An absolute requirement of all papers will be that a general reader of the journal can understand from the summary of the paper what problem the authors are trying to solve.

Subsequent sections

Wherever possible, papers should be arranged with the following headings, centred and in capitals:

INTRODUCTION, MATERIALS AND METHODS, RESULTS, DISCUSSION

Sub-headings are normally to the left of the page in lower case italics.

Acknowledgements

Besides personal acknowledgements, sources of financial support should be mentioned in this smaller-type section, if desired.

References

References in Articles

We recommend the use of a tool such as EndNote or Reference Manager for reference management and formatting.

EndNote reference styles can be searched for here: http://www.endnote.com/support/enstyles.asp

Reference Manager reference styles can be searched for here: http://www.refman.com/support/rmstyles.asp

References should be submitted in Harvard style, cited in the text by author's name and year of publication. An ampersand (&) is used to link two co-authors and et al. for three or more. References should be checked carefully before submission to make sure that all references given in the text (and no others) appear in the list of references and that the spelling of authors' names and the dates are correct in both text and reference list. Responsibility for accuracy rests entirely with the authors.

The reference list should be presented double-spaced and in alphabetical order. The titles of journals should be abbreviated according to the World List of Scientific Periodicals. The references should be arranged and punctuated along the following lines:

Ott, J. (1991) Analysis of human genetic linkage. Baltimore, London: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Rao, D.C. (1983) Path analysis of pairs of relatives. In: Methods in genetic epidemiology (eds. N.E. Morton, D.C. Rao & J.-M. Lalouel), pp. 23-60. Basel: S. Karger.

Sham, P.C. & Curtis, D. (1995) Monte Carlo tests for associations between disease and alleles at highly polymorphic loci. Ann. Hum. Genet. 59, 97-105.

Appendices

Detailed sets of data or proofs of mathematical propositions may be given in the form of APPENDIX I, APPENDIX II, etc., following the reference list, if they are likely to prove valuable to other workers. Since such data may actually be more useful electronically than on paper, they may be submitted as 'Supplementary Material'.

Tables

Each table should be on an unnumbered separate page and have a concise title in italics. Other information may either follow the title in parenthesis (in smaller roman type) or be given beneath the table in footnotes. The table will be inserted as near as possible to its first mention in the text. The space limitations of the printed page should be borne in mind when composing tables.

Figures

Figures must be submitted electronically (please see below for details). Illustrations should be in black and white unless colour is essential to the scientific point. Authors will be asked to contribute to the cost of colour printing if colour is required in the print version of the journal. Colour reproduction charges are currently £150 for the first figure and £50 for each subsequent figure. Please note there are no colour charges for review articles. Please download and complete the Colour Work Agreement Form, available from http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/pdf/SN_sub2000_F_CoW.pdf. The completed form should be returned to Melanie Sim (see address above). If an author chooses not to pay the colour reproduction charge, figures will be in colour in the online HTML and PDF versions of the article, but will be reproduced in black and white in the print version. Failure to complete and return this form may delay publication. Grey-shaded areas on computer-drawn figures (tinting) should be avoided. Preferably figures should require no alteration in scale; in particular authors should note that various levels of stippling and cross-hatching are often indistinguishable when the size is reduced. Legends to figures should be given, double-spaced, as continuous text, on a separate page in the main text file.

Electronic artwork

Please upload digital versions of your figures. Line illustrations should be provided at 600 dots per inch (dpi) and photographs at 300 dots per inch in either Tagged Image File Format (TIFF) or as Encapsulated Postscript (EPS). Detailed information on our digital illustration standards is available at: http://authorservices.wiley.com/bauthor/illustration.asp

Nomenclature

For human genes, authors should use nomenclature approved by the HUGO Gene Nomenclature Committee (HGNC), European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridgeshire CB10 1SA, UK; Fax: +44 (0)1223 494468; Email: hgnc@genenames.org. For further information and a list of approved symbols see http://www.genenames.org. Published guidelines are available in Wain et al.(2001) Guidelines for human gene nomenclature. Genomics 79, 464-70. In referring to genes in other species authors should consult the appropriate nomenclature authority. Links to most of these can be found at the web address given above.

Proofs

Notification that proofs are ready to download will be sent via email to the corresponding author. The proof will then be available to download as an Acrobat PDF (portable document format) file. Therefore, the corresponding author should supply their email address when they submit their manuscript. Acrobat Reader will be required in order to read this file. This software can be downloaded (free of charge) from the following Web site: www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readermain.html.

This will enable the file to be opened, read on screen and printed out in order for any corrections to be added. Further instructions will be sent with the proofs. Proofs will be posted if no email address is available; in your absence, please arrange for a colleague to access your email to retrieve the proofs.

Major alterations to the text will be charged to the author and may delay publication.

Offprints

Electronic (PDF) offprints of each article will be supplied free to the corresponding author. Paper offprints may be purchased if ordered on the form supplied with the proofs. Orders from all authors collaborating in one paper should be returned on the same form.