MBoC has been piloting the use of structured Significance Statements and visual Badges in our Preprint Highlights since 2022. We are now ready to introduce these objects to regular articles in MBoC, providing readers with additional context and providing authors with the added value of broader accessibility of their work.
Starting this week, authors of Research Articles and Brief Reports will be able to provide a Significance Statement along with their manuscript’s abstract and other information at submission. The handling editor can assign Badges indicating features such as the development of New Methods, the proposal of a New Hypothesis, having Open Datasets or Software linked to the paper, and more. For the full list with definitions, please visit molbiolcell.org/curation-tools. Of course, not every paper will receive Badges, and the absence of a certain Badge does not mean a paper is of lesser quality. Authors are welcome to suggest in their cover letter which Badges they would like an editor to consider for their article, but the decision will be made by the editor.
As these items are now being introduced into the submission workflow, they will gradually appear with published articles in the coming months.
About the Author:
Michael Lacy is ASCB's Curation Manager.
