1. Submissions must:

1. a. be the original work of the author;
2. b. not be under consideration for publication elsewhere;
3. c. not have been published before, even in part, in print or electronically.

2. Aside from the main text, you will need to provide with your submission:

1. a. an abstract of not more than 200 words;
2. b. a single title which clarifies the subject matter of your paper, and which is no more than 20 words long. Colons and sub-titles are only allowed at the discretion of the co-editors;
3. c. a word count, including notes.

3. Texts must be completely anonymous to allow double-anonymous refereeing; referees consider PDF versions of texts. Revisions and any accompanying material must also be anonymous. Acknowledgements and the like can be added later to submissions which are accepted for publication.

4. Initial submissions should be presented to a high scholarly standard. You must double space the text, paginate, and use arabic (not roman) numerals to indicate footnotes, which should be single spaced at the bottom of the page. Divide submissions into sections, marked by roman numerals not sub-titles. Introductory sections can be left unnumbered. On acceptance, authors will be asked to bring their piece into line with the journal's conventions, details of which can be found in the Historical Journal instructions for authors of accepted papers document.

5. Please try to keep the length of articles to 10,000 words, communications to 5,000 words, historiographical reviews to 8,000 words, and review articles to a maximum of 5,000 words with 700-1,000 words given to each book reviewed - all inclusive of footnotes. We sometimes publish significantly longer contributions, but authors must raise this possibility with the editors at the earliest stage, ideally before submission, via [email protected].

6. We will consider submissions in languages other than English. In the first instance, send a 300 word summary in English of your proposal to [email protected]. When a non-English submission is accepted, a small fund exists to support the author in providing a high-quality English translation. Authors submitting in English for whom English is not their first language may wish to have their manuscript read by a native speaker before submission.

7. Competing interests declaration: Authors should include a competing interests declaration at the end of their manuscripts. However, if a declaration contains identifiable information, authors should email their declaration to the relevant editor instead of including it within their manuscript – to preserve the anonymity of their manuscript. This declaration will be subject to editorial review and may be published in the article. Competing interests are situations that could be perceived to exert an undue influence on the content or publication of an author’s work. They may include, but are not limited to, financial, professional, contractual or personal relationships or situations. If the manuscript has multiple authors, the author submitting must include competing interest declarations relevant to all contributing authors. Example wording for a declaration is as follows: “Competing interests: 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 competing interests exist, the declaration should state “Competing interests: The author(s) declare none”.

8. We encourage the use of illustrations, graphs, and tables where they present essential material or aid understanding. Authors are responsible for obtaining necessary permissions for illustrations. At submission stage, simple scanned images of illustrations are acceptable, but high quality images are required for accepted submissions - for further details please see the Journals artwork guide. Figures may, if appropriate, appear in colour in the digital version of the published article but will be printed in black and white.

9. While much of the content we publish rests on original research and specialist knowledge, contributions should be accessible and stimulating to the non-specialist. It is vital that you provide sufficient historiographical context and make clear the wider significance of your submission.

General notes

Typescripts must be double spaced, paginated, not right-justified (i.e. with a ragged right margin), with margins of at least one inch. Paragraph breaks should be indicated by indents and not line breaks. The first paragraph of an article, and of numbered sub-sections, should not be indented.

Notes must be double spaced, and placed at the end of the article, not at the bottom of the page; but they will be printed in the journal at the bottom of the page and are thus referred to as footnotes below.

If you are including tables, graphs, or illustrations: a) fine copy must be provided; b) number in sequence throughout the article; c) references to sources and descriptive headings must be attached; d) indicate clearly where the material is to appear in the text; e) ensure that there is a reference to it in the text.

For detailed instructions on how to supply illustrations, please see the Journals artwork guide: https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/authors/journals/journals-artwork-guide

Copyright and permissions

Before beginning work on the production of any accepted manuscript, Cambridge requires a signed ‘licence to publish’ (copyright) agreement. The process for creating, signing and submitting these agreements is now managed entirely online, which means that there is no need to print, scan, email, or mail anything. Once a manuscript has been accepted for publication in the journal, the corresponding author will receive an email inviting them to complete an Information Request Form (IRF) via our digital contract management platform, Ironclad. The information submitted via this form (including information on copyright holder, open access status, etc.) will determine the terms and conditions under which the article will be published, and will be used to generate the licence to publish agreement. The corresponding author will be guided through the process to signature and submission.

For more information on author publishing agreements, see here.

Contributors are responsible for obtaining permission to reproduce any material, including illustrations, in which they do not hold the copyright and for ensuring that the appropriate acknowledgements are included in the typescript. In quoting from copyright material, contributors should keep in mind that the rule of thumb for ‘fair use’ confines direct quotation to a maximum of 200 words. In obtaining permissions, authors must seek permission to reproduce material not within the author’s copyright for dissemination worldwide in all forms and media, including electronic publication. It should be possible in most cases to obtain permissions for use of copyright material in the context of an academic journal article, but authors in need of advice are encouraged to consult the editors.

Style guide according to different article types

Running heads for all article types will appear with authors’ names on versos and ‘The Historical Journal’ on rectos.

Any acknowledgements should be placed at the end of the article type, with the heading ‘Acknowledgements.’

Where appropriate, details regarding financial support should be placed after the acknowledgements, with the heading ‘Funding Statement.’ Within this section please provide details of the sources of financial support, including grant numbers. 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 semicolon, with ‘and’ before the final funder.

I Articles:

a. Article type (ARTICLE), in small capitals and flush left.

b. The title, in upper and lower case, with maximum capitalization, and flush left.

c. Author’s name, in upper and lower case and flush left. For multi-authored articles, authors’ names should be followed by superscript arabic numbers.

d. Author’s academic institution, consisting of department, institution, city, and country, in upper and lower case and flush left. For multi-authored articles, author affiliations should follow superscript arabic numbers. Run on affiliations, separated by commas.

e. Author’s email address, flush left, preceded by ‘Email:’. Same for multi-authored articles, with email addresses separated by semicolons.

f. Abstract of up to 200 words, in a single paragraph.

g. Sub-sections, marked by roman numerals, flush left, but without sub-titles.

II Communications:

a. Article type (COMMUNICATION), in small capitals and flush left.

b. The title, in upper and lower case, with maximum capitalization, and flush left.

c. Author’s name, in upper and lower case and flush left.

d. Author’s academic institution, consisting of department, institution, city, and country, in upper and lower case and flush left.

e. Author’s email address, flush left, preceded by ‘Email:’.

f. Abstract of up to 200 words, in a single paragraph.

g. Sub-sections, marked by roman numerals, flush left, but without sub-titles.

III Historiographical reviews (books and articles discussed should be footnoted in the ordinary way):

a. Article type (HISTORIOGRAPHICAL REVIEW), in small capitals and flush left.

b. The title, in upper and lower case, with maximum capitalization, and flush left.

c. Author’s name, in upper and lower case and flush left.

d. Author’s academic institution, consisting of department, institution, city, and country, in upper and lower case and flush left.

e. Author’s email address, flush left, preceded by ‘Email:’.

f. Abstract of up to 200 words, in a single paragraph.

g. Sub-sections, marked by roman numerals, flush left, but without sub-titles.

IV Review articles:

a. Article type (REVIEW ARTICLE), in small capitals and flush left.

b. The title, in upper and lower case, with maximum capitalization, and flush left.

c. Author’s name, in upper and lower case and flush left.

d. Author’s academic institution, consisting of department, institution, city, and country, in upper and lower case and flush left.

e. Author’s email address, flush left, preceded by ‘Email:’.

f. List the books reviewed under the title, including ALL the following information for each: title; author; place of publication; publisher; date published; number of pages; ISBN; price. Thus: The right to be king: the succession to the crown of England, 1603–1714. By Howard Nenner. London: Macmillan, 1995. Pp. xiv + 343. ISBN 0333577248. £45.00 hbk.

g. If desired, sub-sections, marked by roman numerals, flush left, but without sub-titles.

h. If desired, footnotes may be used in the usual way. In writing reviews, it is acceptable to give page citations in brackets within the text (instead of footnotes) where there is extensive discussion of a particular book.

V Roundtables:

a. Article type (ROUNDTABLE), in small capitals and flush left.

b. The title, in upper and lower case, with maximum capitalization, and flush left.

c. Author’s name, in upper and lower case and flush left.

d. Author’s academic institution, consisting of department, institution, city, and country, in upper and lower case and flush left.

e. Author’s email address, flush left, preceded by ‘Email:’.

f. List the book reviewed under the title, including ALL the following information: title; author; place of publication; publisher; date published; number of pages; ISBN. Thus: The right to be king: the succession to the crown of England, 1603–1714. By Howard Nenner. London: Macmillan, 1995. Pp. xiv + 343. ISBN 0333577248.

g. If desired, footnotes may be used in the usual way. In writing reviews, it is acceptable to give page citations in brackets within the text (instead of footnotes) where there is extensive discussion of a particular book.

h. No abstracts are required for Roundtables. 

VI Retrospects:

a. Article type (RETROSPECT), in small capitals and flush left.

b. The title, in upper and lower case, with maximum capitalization, and flush left.

c. Author’s name, in upper and lower case and flush left.

d. Author’s academic institution, consisting of department, institution, city, and country, in upper and lower case and flush left.

e. Author’s email address, flush left, preceded by ‘Email:’.

f. List the articles included in the digital collection, including ALL the following information: author; article title; volume number; date; page numbers. Thus: J. G. A. Pocock, ‘Burke and the ancient constitution: a problem in the history of ideas’, 3 (1960), pp. 125–43. For articles published between 1923 and 1957, include ‘[Cambridge Historical Journal] after the article title. Thus: Catherine Behrens, ‘The Whig theory of the constitution in the reign of Charles II’, [Cambridge Historical Journal], 7 (1941), pp. 42–71.

g. Abstract of up to 200 words, in a single paragraph.

h. Sub-sections, marked by roman numerals, flush left, but without sub-titles.

Text conventions

Copyediting can be a lengthy and complex business, so please observe the Journal’s stylistic conventions closely. Note that the Journal uses British not American conventions and spelling.

Quotations

Follow the punctuation, capitalization, and spelling of the original. Use single quotation marks (except that quotations within quotations take double quotation marks). Long quotations of fifty words or more should be typed as a displayed extract, i.e. a separate block with a line space above and below, double spaced, without quotation marks.

Use three point ellipses ... when omitting material within quotations. Do not put brackets around ellipses; and rarely is there any purpose in placing ellipses at the beginning or end of quotations. Punctuation should come after closing quotation marks, except for exclamation marks and question marks belonging to the quotation, or a full stop if the quotation is (or ends with) a grammatically complete sentence beginning with a capital. Some examples:

He declared that ‘the sergemakers are rebelling’.

He made his report. ‘The sergemakers are rebelling.’

He stated that ‘Mr Ovington told me, "the sergemakers will rebel", but I did not believe him’.

Use square brackets for editorial interpolations within quoted matter.

Spelling

Follow British English rather than American English (e.g. defence, labour, programme, sceptical). Note the following preferences:

-ize -tion acknowledgement appendixes connection dispatch elite (no accent) focused

inquiry judgement medieval premise reflection regime (no accent) role (no accent)

Note especially the use of -ize not -ise, as in criticize, emphasize, organize.

Titles cited in the text

Titles of books should be italicized; do not use inverted commas. Use inverted commas and roman type if naming a part of a book or an individual chapter. E.g. ‘This point is strongly made in the fourth chapter, ‘Of sincerity’, in Maxim Pirandello’s Princely government (1582).’

Foreign words and phrases

Foreign words and phrases should be italicized, except when they are naturalized, i.e. have become normalized in English usage. E.g. phronesis, ius naturale, status quo, ex officio. Some words that are naturalized may nonetheless still carry accents, if it affects pronunciation, e.g. protégé, whereas ‘regime’ and ‘role’ have lost their accents. Short foreign phrases that are italicized should not also carry inverted commas. Longer foreign passages should be treated as quotations, i.e. should be in roman with quotation marks. Avoid using too much untranslated foreign material: many readers will not have a reading knowledge of foreign languages.

Numerals

Spell out all numbers up to ninety-nine, except when used in groups or in statistical discussion, e.g. ‘75 voted for, 39 against, and 30 abstained’. Precise measurements should be in figures (£3.54, 7 stone, 23.4 mm). Percentages should be in figures, with the words ‘per cent’ spelt out (25 per cent). Thousands take a comma: ‘5,000'. Note the use of elisions: 156–9 (except that teens are not fully elided: 115–16).

Punctuation

Use the serial comma: ‘red, white, and blue’ not ‘red, white and blue’. The addition of a possessive ’s following a name ending in -s is preferred (e.g. Dickens’s not Dickens’), except that people in the ancient world do not carry the possessive final ‘s, e.g. Sophocles’, Jesus’. Note that plainly parenthetical clauses or phrases require commas both before and after them; authors in doubt about comma placement in these and other cases are advised to consult Fowler’s English Modern Usage. Round (not square) brackets should be used for brackets within brackets. Square brackets should be reserved for editorial interpolation within quoted matter. Spaced en rules ( – ) should be used for parenthetical dashes. Closed-up en rules should be used between numbers, e.g. 156–9, 115–16, 1834–5, 1816–17.

Dates

12 December 1970 (no comma) in the text (not December 12th, 1970). Elisions: 1834–5, 1816–17, except that in article headings and in citing titles of books and articles use 1834–1835, i.e. without elision. Place a comma before dates when citing titles of books and articles: A history of Hungary, 1810–1890. Decades: 1850s not 1850's. ‘Sixteenth century’ (noun, without hyphen); ‘sixteenth-century’ (adjective, with hyphen). ‘From 1785 to 1789', not ‘from 1785–9'; likewise ‘between 1785 and 1789', not ‘between 1785–9'.

In footnotes use the standard abbreviations for months: Jan., Feb., Mar., Apr., May, June, July, Aug., Sept., Oct., Nov., Dec.

Abbreviations

MS MSS v (verso) r (recto) f ff (= the following page(s)) fo. fos. (= folio(s)) ed. eds. vol. vols. 2nd edn Mr Dr St (i.e. without points where the abbreviation ends with the last letter of the word). BBC BL ODNB EU MP NATO UK USA TNA etc. (i.e. without points). Provide an explanation for any unusual abbreviations at the first mention, e.g. ‘CPGB (Communist Party of Great Britain)’; ‘Somerset Record Office (SRO)’. Initials in personal names retain points, and should be spaced: ‘A. G. Smith’.

Capitalization

The Journal uses lower case wherever possible. We do not insist on total consistency across all articles. It might be appropriate, for example, in one article to use Whig and Tory, but in another to use whig and tory. The cardinal rule is to be self-consistent within each article.

Use lower case for titles of books and articles (except for the initial letter), but not for journals and newspapers, where each significant word carries a capital. E.g. ‘In his book The making of peace he argued in favour; but, writing in The Sheffield Gazette, he declared that ...’ Note that newspapers include the definite article in their titles when cited in the text, e.g. The Guardian, The Observer, The Lancet; but without the definite article in footnotes, e.g. Guardian, 14 Aug. 1964, p. 8.

Use lower case for titular offices: the king, sultan, monarch, pope, lord mayor, prime minister, foreign secretary, bishop of Durham, chiefs of staff, duke of Portland. But upper case to avoid ambiguity (the Speaker, the British Resident).

Use upper case in personal titles only when they immediately preface names (Pope John, King William, Duke Richard, Viscount Andover, Bishop Outhwaite). E.g. ‘The earl of Lovelace conveyed the king’s command to the bishops ordering them to refrain from preaching, but Bishop Outhwaite was not dissuaded.’

In general, use lower case for institutions, government agencies, etc.: the cabinet, privy council, royal commission, select committee, member of parliament (but MP), the opposition. But upper case to avoid ambiguity or where convention insists: the Bank of England, King’s Bench, the Inner Temple, the House of Commons.

Political parties carry lower case unless there is ambiguity or other good reason: whig, tory, the Conservative government, the Liberal party.

Use lower case for historical systems, periods, events, and religions, wherever possible: Washington treaty, the British empire, home rule, the commonwealth, puritans. But use upper case to avoid ambiguity or where convention insists: the Congress of Vienna, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the First World War, the French Revolution, the Third Republic, the Second Empire, the Union; Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Jewish, Wesleyan, Quaker.

Note that words derived from names of persons take upper case: Jesuit, Calvinism, Bonapartist, Marxism.

Use lower case for official publications (e.g. the report of the select committee on agriculture, a bill, an act, the act, the bill), except for the names of specific items (e.g. the Stamp Act).

Examples:

an act Anglican, Baptists battle of Waterloo bishop of Durham, Bishop Tenison British empire cabinet chiefs of staff the church the Commons commonwealth Congregational continent council of state crown deist dissenter duke of Portland, Duke William evangelical First World War prime minister privy council Prussian Diet puritan Seven Years’ War the state

foreign secretary great council high church houses of parliament king King’s Bench Kirk Labour opposition lord mayor member of parliament Methodists middle ages ministry of defence nonconformists nonjuror papacy, papists parliament, parliamentarians popery, popish Presbyterian tory Trinitarian the Union Unitarian Washington treaty whig

Hyphens

Hyphenate compound adjectives and adverbs that precede a noun (eighteenth-century architecture, slow-sailing vessel, well-made books) except for compounds with adverbs ending in -ly (expertly written books).

Footnotes

Notes are referred to here as footnotes and will be printed as such, but should be presented as double-spaced endnotes in the final version of the typescript. In the text, footnote indicators should come after and not before punctuation and be in the form of superscript numerals, without brackets. Keep notes brief. They are primarily for the citation of sources and should only very rarely be used to provide additional commentary or information.

The Journal’s method of citation is to give a full bibliographical reference at the first citation, and then author-plus-short-title in subsequent citations.

First references to manuscript sources, books, dissertations and articles are to be punctuated, spelt out or abbreviated, and capitalized as in the following examples:

Cardwell to Russell, 3 Nov. 1865, London, The National Archives (TNA), Russell papers, 30/22/156, fo. 23.

John Morley, The life of William Ewart Gladstone (2 vols., London, 1988), II, pp. 121–34.

M. Cowling, 1867: Disraeli, Gladstone and revolution: the passing of the second Reform Bill (Cambridge, 1967), pp. 41–5, 140–7.

David Harris Sacks, The widening gate: Bristol and the Atlantic economy, 1450–1700 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA, 1991), pp. 54ff.

Sverre Bagge, ‘The individual in medieval historiography’, in Janet Coleman, ed., The individual in political theory and practice (Oxford, 1996), p. 45.

C. M. Williams, ‘The political career of Henry Marten’ (D.Phil. thesis, Oxford, 1954), ch. 6, passim.

W. G. Hynes, ‘British mercantile attitudes towards imperial expansion’, Historical Journal, 19 (1976), pp. 969–76.

Edmund Ludlow, A voyce from the watch tower, ed. A. B. Worden (Camden Fourth Series, vol. 21, London, 1978).

Note the following points:

• lower case in titles (except for journals and newspapers)
• lower case for ‘bk’, ‘ch.’.
• place of publication but not publisher; US place names to be followed by abbreviated state names, in the form CA, MA, NY, etc. authors’ forenames or initials as they appear in the original (though it is permissible to reduce all forenames to initials)
• ‘p.’ or ‘pp.’ are always used before page references
• a space follows ‘p.’ and ‘pp.’
• volume but not issue number of journals given (except that for pre-twentieth century journals it is often necessary to provide issue numbers)
• volume numbers of journals in arabic not roman numerals
• volume numbers for multi-volume books in roman capitals
• subtitles separated by colons
• dates in titles of books and articles separated by commas
• elision of page numbers
• ‘ed.’ and ‘eds.’ not ‘(ed.)’ and ‘(eds.)’
• editors’ names come before and not after a book title, except where the book carries an author’s name, in the case of memoirs, autobiographies, etc.
• ‘ch.’ not ‘chap.’
• a space follows initials of names
• supply full page ranges for articles in journals
• anglicize foreign places of publication, e.g. Cologne rather than Kőln.

Note also:

Where a quotation or particular fact needs referencing, and the work in question is a journal article needing the full page range at a first citation, then use the following form: Phyllis Deutsch, ‘Moral trespass in Georgian London’, Historical Journal, 39 (1996), pp. 637–56, at p. 642.

Be especially careful in citing multi-volume works. Avoid ambiguity about whether the date given is the date of a particular volume or of the whole series. Use the form: E. S. de Beer, ed., The Correspondence of John Locke (8 vols., Oxford, 1976–89), V, p. 54. Multi-volume works occur in so many different guises – e.g. general editors and volume editors, series titles and individual volume titles – that it is not possible to prescribe a universal form of citation; the priorities should be swift direction of the reader to the correct volume and the avoidance of ambiguity.

Even where an historian’s name is given in the text, it should be repeated in the footnote citation, i.e. do not leave a footnote citation bereft of an author.

In a series of citations within a single footnote, items should generally be separated by a semi-colon rather than a point.

For early modern printed works place of publication may be omitted providing there is a covering note at the beginning, e.g., ‘All pre-1800 works were published in London unless otherwise stated.’ Use ‘n.d.’ (no date) and ‘n.p.’ (no place of publication) where the information is not known. Use signature numbers (‘sig.’) where pagination is absent.

The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography should be cited in this form:

Julian Hoppit, 'King, Gregory (1648–1712)', ODNB.

Internet and microfilm citations

Where these accurately reproduce the original printed work (e.g. in a PDF) or manuscript source (e.g. in a microfilm), cite the original source, not the copy.

Cite internet sources by using a stable URL with the date at which the resource was last accessed where appropriate. URLs should not be preceded with ‘http://’ if they begin with ‘www’.

Second and subsequent references

Use the author’s surname and short title: not author’s name alone

Use ‘Ibid.’-: see under Latinisms below

Use abbreviations (e.g. for archive repositories) only if the abbreviation has been explained in the initial reference

For example:

BN n.a.fr. 20628 (Thiers Papers), fo. 279

TNA, Russell papers, 30/22/156, fo. 41.

Morley, Gladstone, II, pp. 147ff.

Cowling, 1867, p. 91.

Ibid., p. 108.

Hynes, ‘Mercantile attitudes’, pp. 971–4; Sacks, Widening gate, p. 19.

Abbreviations in footnotes

Note the following common abbreviations used in citations of source materials in footnotes (see also under Latin abbreviations below):

• ed. or eds. = editor(s)
• edn = edition
• ff = the following pages, e.g. pp. 54ff (but pp. 54–5 for one page following)
• fo. or fos. = folio(s)
• MS or MSS = manuscript(s)
• p. or pp. = page(s)
• qu. = quoted
• r = recto (the front side of a foliated manuscript leaf)
• sig. = signature number, where there is no pagination in an early modern book
• trans. = translation, or translator
• v = verso (the reverse side of a foliated manuscript leaf)
• vol. or vols. = volume(s)

Latin abbreviations

Only three may be used (and none is italicized).

a. Ibid. This is used to denote a repetition of the immediately preceding item, where only a different page (or volume) number needs to be recorded. Do not use if the preceding footnote contains two or more references because of the ambiguity.

b. Idem. This is used to denote a repetition of the immediately preceding author’s name, where only a different book or article title (and page references) needs to be recorded.

c. Passim. This is used to denote that a topic is referred to periodically throughout the source cited.

Do not use ‘op. cit.’, ‘loc. cit.’, ‘infra’, or ‘cf.’

Use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools

We acknowledge the increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools in the research and writing processes. To ensure transparency, we expect any such use to be declared and described fully to readers, and to comply with our plagiarism policy and best practices regarding citation and acknowledgements. We do not consider artificial intelligence (AI) tools to meet the accountability requirements of authorship, and therefore generative AI tools such as ChatGPT and similar should not be listed as an author on any submitted content.

In particular, any use of an AI tool:

• to generate images within the manuscript should be accompanied by a full description of the process used, and declared clearly in the image caption(s).
• to generate text within the manuscript should be accompanied by a full description of the process used, include appropriate and valid references and citations, and be declared in the manuscript’s Acknowledgements.
• to analyse or extract insights from data or other materials, for example through the use of text and data mining, should be accompanied by a full description of the process used, including details and appropriate citation of any dataset(s) or other material analysed in all relevant and appropriate areas of the manuscript.
• must not present ideas, words, data, or other material produced by third parties without appropriate acknowledgement or permission.

Descriptions of AI processes used should include at minimum the version of the tool/algorithm used, where it can be accessed, any proprietary information relevant to the use of the tool/algorithm, any modifications of the tool made by the researchers (such as the addition of data to a tool’s public corpus), and the date(s) it was used for the purpose(s) described. Any relevant competing interests or potential bias arising as a consequence of the tool/algorithm’s use should be transparently declared and may be discussed in the article.

Acknowledgements

Authors can use this section to acknowledge and thank colleagues, institutions, workshop organisers, family members, etc. that have helped with the research and/or writing process. It is important that that any type of funding information or financial support is listed under ‘Financial Support’ rather than Acknowledgements so that it can be recorded separately (see here).

We are aware that authors sometimes receive assistance from technical writers, language editors, artificial intelligence (AI) tools, and/or writing agencies in drafting manuscripts for publication. Such assistance must be noted in the cover letter and in the Acknowledgements section, along with a declaration that the author(s) are entirely responsible for the scientific content of the paper and that the paper adheres to the journal’s authorship policy. Failure to acknowledge assistance from technical writers, language editors, AI tools and/or writing agencies in drafting manuscripts for publication in the cover letter and in the Acknowledgements section may lead to disqualification of the paper. Examples of how to acknowledge assistance in drafting manuscripts:

• “The author(s) thank [name and qualifications] of [company, city, country] for providing [medical/technical/language] writing support/editorial support [specify and/or expand as appropriate], which was funded by [sponsor, city, country]."
• “The author(s) made use of [AI system/tool] to assist with the drafting of this article. [AI version details] was accessed/obtained from [source details] and used with/without modification [specify and/or expand as appropriate] on [date(s)].