This journal accepts the following types of article:

Article Type	Limits	Description	Main text components
Overview Review*	The length of the article should be between 5000 - 10 000 words.  Upon submission, you should only select a topic (Maximum 1 selection) from the journal’s topic map.	An overview review provides a broad overview of the current state of knowledge in a major subject field and will not present original (primary) research. Systematic updating of published review content will reflect the progress of research.	1) an introduction, 2) the main text of the article divided into sections, 3) conclusion and possibly future perspectives
Review* (standard review)	3000-5000 words (for extensions, please contact the editorial office) and contain no more than five display items (figures or tables). Upon submission, you should select both a topic and a subtopic (Maximum 5 selections) from the journal’s topic map.	A standard review will outline a specific sub-topic within a major subject area, providing a current review on the current state of knowledge in a major subject field and not present original (primary) research. Systematic updating of published review content will reflect the progress of research.	1) an introduction, 2) the main text of the article divided into sections, 3) conclusion and possibly future perspectives
Research article*	The main text of an original research article, excluding the impact statement, abstract, tables, figures, acknowledgements and references, should be no longer than necessary (up to 5000 words for a long-form article). Articles should contain no more than five display items (figures or tables). Upon submission, you should select both a topic and a subtopic.	A research article is an original piece of research with strong, well-supported conclusions that mark a significant advance in understanding. The text should be divided into the following sections: abstract, impact statement, introduction, methods, results and discussion.	1) an introduction, summarizing the objectives and main conclusions of the work, 2) the main text of the article, 3) a conclusion, summarizing the conclusions that can be drawn, and optionally 4) an experimental or methods section.
Perspective	2000- 3000 words. These type of articles usually do not have display items but if needed no more than three. Upon submission, you should select both a topic and a subtopic.	Perspectives examine the strengths and weaknesses of a hypothesis or scientific theory.	1) an introduction, 2) the main text of the article divided into sections, 3) conclusion and possibly future perspectives
Comment** (invited only)	If you would like to submit a comment, please contact the editorial office for more information.	N/A	N/A
Case Study*	The length of the article should be around 3000 words.  Upon submission, you should select both a topic and a subtopic (Maximum 5 selections) from the journal’s topic map.	Case studies, whether from rapid response projects or progress on long-term projects, should contain critical evaluation of the projects, well-developed discussions that provide constructive information, and recommendations for improvement within the field.	1) an introduction, 2) the main text of the article divided into sections, 3) conclusion and possibly future call for actions
Rapid Communication*	The length of the article should not exceed 2000 words.  An unstructured abstract not exceeding 150 words. These articles may have three display items. Upon submission, select a maximum of 5 topics or subtopics from the journal’s topic map.	Rapid communications, or short communications, are intended to swiftly disseminate significant or time-sensitive findings that could influence policy or raise awareness on pertinent topics. Rapid communications benefit from an expedited publication process. These articles undergo rapid independent peer review by at least one expert in the field. Two levels of Editorship for each rapid communication ensures a thorough and robust peer review process.	Rapid communications use a flexible format. The introduction, methods, results and discussion may be presented under descriptive subheading and combined into a single section. All Rapid communications must have the following: Title page, Abstract, Keywords, Main text, Acknowledgements, Author contribution statement, financial support, Conflict of interest statement, Ethic statement (if appropriate), data availability statement, references.

* All or part of the publication costs for these article types may be covered by one of the agreements Cambridge University Press has made to support open access. For authors not covered by an agreement, and without APC funding, please see this journal's open access options for instructions on how to request an APC waiver. 

** No APCs are required for these article types.

Please note we welcome content from both Academic and Industry backgrounds. If you are a practitioner and would like support for publication, please contact the editorial office.

Article requirements

Authors should note the following:

• Articles can be submitted in either American or British English.
• All articles submitted must contain line numbers. Up to three levels of headings are allowed. Please indicate what level each heading should be. 
• S.I. units should be used throughout in text, figures and tables.
• Authors should spell out in full any abbreviations used in their manuscripts.
• Foreign quotations and phrases should be followed by a translation.

All manuscripts should have the following parts:

• Title page
• Impact Statement
• Abstract
• Keywords (up to 5)
• Main text
• Acknowledgements
• Author Contribution statement
• Financial Support
• Conflict of Interest statement
• Ethics statements (if appropriate)
• Data Availability statement
• References
• Table(s) with caption(s) (on individual pages)
• Figure caption(s) (as a list)

Title page

The title page should include:

• The title of the article, which should be short but informative and accurately reflect the content.
• Authors’ names and contact details: please list a brief affiliation (including town or city and country) for each author (assigned with superscript numbers) below the author names, and in addition, indicate the corresponding author with an asterisk and in this case provide an email address
• Word count, excluding impact statement, abstract, tables, figures, acknowledgements and references.

Impact Statements

Impact statements are required for all articles submitted to the journal and should provide a short summary on the wider beneficial use of the research presented in your article. This statement should not give a mere comparison to existing literature, but instead give a wider perspective on the contribution this research is making to the field. The reported impact can be local, regional, or international in its reach. Please note these statements may be used in promotional activities to increase the visibility of your published article. Impact statements should not exceed 300 words and be comprehensible to a broad, potentially non-academic audience.

Abstract

Abstracts (200 words max for a research article, and 350 words maximum for a review article) should summarize the background, findings, and implications of the work.

Second language abstracts

In full acknowledgement and celebration of the diversity of the field, we welcome inclusion of a translation of the original abstract into any second language.

Please note:

• The translated abstract should be included in the main abstract field on the submission system, underneath the English text. This is how the abstracts will appear in the published article.
• Authors are responsible for the content of their article, including any second language abstract, but we encourage appropriate transparency and crediting of any non-author contributions to the translation in the Acknowledgements of the article.
• Reviewer and editor assessment during peer review of second language abstracts is not expected. Language translation software may be used at Cambridge’s discretion.
• No typesetting or post acceptance editing will be conducted to the second language abstract. The translated abstract must be updated by the authors to always reflect any changes to the English language abstract.
• Further non-English abstracts (beyond one) may be provided as supplementary material, but will not be included in the text of the article.

Figures and tables

Tables should be supplied as editable files only.  Resolution: halftone images must be saved at 300 dpi at approximately the final size. Line drawings should be saved at 1000 dpi, or 1200 dpi if very fine line weights have been used. Combination figures must be saved at a minimum of 600 dpi. Cambridge recommends that only TIFF, EPS, or PDF formats are used for electronic artwork. For more detailed guidance on the preparation of illustrations, pictures and graphs in electronic format please see the Cambridge Journals Artwork Guide.

Please note that once your paper is accepted, you will have the option to reinsert your figures before the accepted manuscript is posted online.

Main text

Main body of the article.

Acknowledgements

You may acknowledge individuals or organisations that provided advice, support (non-financial). Formal financial support and funding should be listed in the Financial Support section (see below).

Author Contribution statement

Authorship should be based on the following principles, as outlined in the Cambridge University Publishing Ethics Guidelines:

• Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work;
• Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content;
• Final approval of the version to be published;
• Agreement 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.

In the process of submitting the article through the ScholarOne system, the corresponding author is prompted to provide further details about contributions to the article using the CRediT taxonomy. People who have contributed to the article but do not meet the full criteria for authorship should be recognised in the acknowledgements section; their contribution can be described in terms of the CRediT taxonomy. 

Our default position is that the corresponding author has the authority to act on behalf of all co-authors, and we expect the corresponding author to confirm this at the beginning of the submission process.

Financial Support

Please provide details of the sources of financial support for all authors, including grant numbers. For example, "This work was supported by the National Science Foundation (grant number XXXXXXX)". Multiple grant numbers should be separated by a comma and space, and where research was funded by more than one agency the different agencies should be separated by a semi-colon, with 'and' before the final funder. Grants held by different authors should be identified as belonging to individual authors by the authors' initials. For example, "This work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (A.B., grant numbers XXXX, YYYY), (C.D., grant number ZZZZ); the Natural Environment Research Council (E.F., grant number FFFF); and the Australian Research Council (A.B., grant number GGGG), (E.F., grant number HHHH)".

Where no specific funding has been provided for research, please provide the following statement: "This research received no specific grant from any funding agency, commercial or not-for-profit sectors."

Conflict of Interest statement

Authors should include a Conflicts of Interest declaration in their manuscript.

• Conflicts of Interest are situations that could be perceived to exert an undue influence on an author’s presentation of their work. They may include, but are not limited to, financial, professional, contractual or personal relationships or situations.
• Conflicts of Interest do not necessarily mean that an author’s work has been compromised. Authors should declare any real or perceived Conflicts of Interest in order to be transparent about the context of their work.
• If the manuscript has multiple authors, the author submitting the manuscript must include Conflicts of Interest declarations relevant to all contributing authors.
• Example wording for a Conflicts of Interest declaration is as follows: “Conflicts of Interest: Author A is employed at company B. Author C owns shares in company D, is on the Board of company E and is a member of organisation F. Author G has received grants from company H.” If no Conflicts of Interest exist, the declaration should state “Conflicts of Interest: None”.

Ethics statements (if appropriate)

See Publishing Ethics for more information.

Data Availability statement

See Data Availability Statements for more information.

References

All citations should follow the Cambridge A style which can be found on EndNote and Zotero.

Accuracy of references is the responsibility of the author(s). References must be checked against the text to ensure (a) that the spelling of authors' names and the dates given are consistent and (b) that all authors quoted in the text (in date order if more than one) are given in the reference list and vice versa.

Authors should follow the examples below for layout and punctuation:

In-text citation:

(Royo et al., 1988; Sherry, 1969; Gardiner, 1985)

Royo et al. (1988) found that...

Journal article:

Mustafi M and Weisshaar JC (2018) Simultaneous binding of multiple EF-Tu copies to translating ribosomes in live Escherichia coli. mBio 16, e02143–17. https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/mbio.02143-17.

Smith DA and Jones RM (2008) The sulfonamide group as a structural alert: a distorted story? Current Opinion in Drug Discovery & Development 11, 72–79. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18175269.

Tourigny DS, Fernández IS, Kelley AC and Ramakrishnan V (2013) Elongation factor G bound to the ribosome in an intermediate of translocation. Science 340, 1235490. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23812720.

Section in edited book:

Sherry HS (1969). The ion-exchange properties of zeolites. In Ion Exchange, (ed. J. Marinsky), pp. 89-133. New York: Marcel Dekker.

Book:

Blankenship RE (2014) Molecular Mechanisms of Photosynthesis. Chichester: Wiley.

Please note that all authors should be listed for each reference in the reference list at the end of your article.

Graphical Abstracts

In addition to the standard abstract, submission of graphical abstracts is also encouraged for all articles to help promote their impact online. A Graphical Abstract is a single image that summarises the main findings of a paper, allowing readers to quickly gain an overview and understanding of your work.  Well-designed and prepared graphical abstracts are an important way to publicise your research, attracting readers, and helping to disseminate your work to a wider audience. Ideally, the graphical abstract should be created independently of the figures already in the paper, but it could include a (simplified version of) an existing figure or a combination thereof. 

Post-publication the graphical abstracts will be used for journal article social media promotion and will be displayed at article level and on the article landing page online.

The graphical abstract should be submitted separately from the main paper using the ‘Graphical Abstract’ file designation on ScholarOne. Graphical abstracts should be clear and easy for the viewer to read and should illustrate the main pointers of your manuscript. The Editors will decide if your Graphical Abstract is satisfactory or needs improvement, but this will not determine the result of the peer-review findings. 

Technical specifications for graphical abstracts

• We recommend that only TIFF, EPS or PDF formats are used for electronic artwork. Other non-preferred but usable formats are JPG, PPT and GIF files and images created in Microsoft Word
• Single panel
• Landscape orientation
• Simple, clean design with minimal text (if it must be used, it should be legible in a small thumbnail (2.4cmx2cm))
• Aspect ratio 1.2:1 (e.g. 6cm x 5cm)
• GIF or high-resolution JPEG format (300 dpi) - unless very large, vector graphics are preferred to ensure image sharpness regardless of sizing
• Captions and titles are not required
• A graphical abstract does not need the text ‘graphical abstract’ on it!

The image may be scaled to fit the appropriate space on Cambridge Core, so please ensure that any font used is clear to read, and that any text is included as part of the image file (although text should ideally be kept to a minimum).

For further information about how to prepare your figures, including sizing and resolution requirements, please see our artwork guide. 

Peer Reviewing Responses

Author responses to peer reviewer comments should be added in the response to reviewers free text box upon article resubmission, not as an attached file or in an email to the editorial office. All author responses to peer reviewer comments will be published alongside their articles.

Online Repositories

We strongly recommend that all datasets, code, software tools, and other research materials are submitted to an appropriate repository to ensure these materials are easily discoverable and citeable. Cambridge Open Engage is available as a repository for all Prisms authors. If you wish to use another repository more appropriate for your research materials, please ensure that it follows repository best practices, in particular that it provides a DOI and that this is correctly referenced in your paper. We do not recommend sharing research materials as supplementary material to a paper.

You can access the Plastics Overleaf template here. There is a direct link to submit your manuscript from within the Overleaf authoring environment. Once you have completed writing your article, please use the "Submit to Journal" button and select the link for Plastics to be directed to the journal's submission system.

Seeking permissions for copyrighted material

Please see further guidance here.