Prepare your manuscript

Format and style

Manuscript text must: 

• be in English or French
• be double-spaced
• be single-column
• include page numbers
• include continuous line numbers (before acceptance only)
• be 8.5 x 11 inches in page size (or ISO A4)
• follow this order: title page, abstract, keywords, body text (Introduction, Materials and methods, Results, Discussion), acknowledgements, references, tables, figure captions, figures, appendices

Abbreviations and acronyms

Define abbreviations and acronyms when they are first mentioned in the text.

Footnotes

In body text, try to avoid footnotes. If unavoidable, cite footnotes using superscript Arabic numbers (^1,2,3), in order of appearance (starting with the title page), and include the footnote at the bottom of the page on which it is cited. Do not include footnotes in the reference list.

In tables, cite footnotes using symbols (in the order *, †, ‡, §, ||, ¶, #) or superscript lowercase italic letters (^a,b,c).

Mathematical expressions

• Identify equations by calling out with numbers in parentheses placed flush with the left margin (for the Canadian Journal of Physics, place on the right).
• A letter or symbol should represent only one entity and be used consistently throughout the paper.
• Each variable (including those representing vectors, matrices, and tensors) must be clearly identified and defined in the text.
• Supply complex equations in an editable format by using LaTeX or a math editor (MathType).
• Supply simple, inline equations in Word, without using MathType. Insert symbols from Word’s “Symbol” palette, using “normal text” or “Symbol” fonts only. Insert symbols using MathType ONLY if they cannot be found in the “Symbol” palette under one of those two fonts.

Reporting guidelines

Study reporting guidelines can help authors report their work transparently and accurately. We encourage their use. Up-to-date guidelines can be found at the EQUATOR Network, where authors can search or consult the GoodReports wizard to identify which guideline(s) to use. A completed copy of the guideline checklist may be submitted with the manuscript as a Supplementary file.

Spelling

Spelling should follow that of Webster's Third New International Dictionary or the Oxford English Dictionary. Authors are responsible for consistency in spelling.

Statistical analyses

The assumptions and (or) the model underlying any statistical analysis should be clearly stated. Do not use symbols such as * and ** to denote levels of significance unless accompanied by actual p values.

Units of measure

Use SI units of measure (Système international d’unités). If non-SI units are used, at first mention, supply the equivalent in SI units in parentheses.

Parts of the manuscript

Title page

Title

Should be accurate, informative, and brief. Include keywords in the title to optimize search engine discovery.

Author list

List all author names on the title page: check author order, spelling, capitalization, initials, and hyphens.

• Format names as: first name (or initial) middle name (or initial) last name (surname/family name).
• List affiliation(s) for each author that include: institution (department and university or organization), city, state or province, country. An author’s affiliations should reflect where the research was conducted. If an author changes institution, the new affiliation can be listed in a footnote.
• Do not include academic degrees and professional titles.

Authorship criteria: We subscribe to the ICMJE definition of authorship in most cases. Any person listed as an author must meet each of these authorship criteria, and anyone who meets these authorship criteria must be listed as an author. Contributors who do not meet authorship criteria should be listed in the Acknowledgements section. Exceptions to our definition of authorship may exist for community-engaged research projects; please see our Publishing Policy for authorship and attribution options.

Corresponding author

Clearly identify the corresponding author and their email address on the title page. The corresponding author is designated to receive post-publication queries from readers.

Note that authors may supply their ORCID iD on submission; these identifiers are not required on the title page itself.

Abstract

Provide the abstract in the manuscript text file on page 2, after the title page. Authors must supply their abstract in English and/or French. (Note that CSP plans to accommodate author-provided abstract translations in other languages in the future.)

The abstract should be a single paragraph that summarizes the article. It helps readers decide whether to keep reading. Briefly describe the study rationale, objectives, methods, findings, and impact. Use keywords (and their plain-language synonyms) in the abstract to optimize search engine discovery. Do not include headings, reference citations, tables, figures, or acronyms.

Keywords

List keywords after the abstract. Good keywords are common to your field and accurately describe your topic. Use keywords in the title, abstract, and manuscript text to optimize search engine discovery. (Consider what words you would enter in a search box to find your work online.)

Graphical abstract

(Optional) Authors are encouraged to submit an illustration, diagram, equation, or other informative visual that explains the central message of the article and entices readers. The maximum allowable size is 40 mm (150 pixels) high by 85 mm (320 pixels) wide. Graphical abstracts appear online only.

Main body of the article

Introduction

In 1–3 paragraphs, explain the study rationale and objective(s).

• What is the problem, and why is it important?
• What is known on the topic? Establish context: provide background, briefly review the key literature, and mention existing gaps or controversies in the field.
• What is the overall aim of the study? State your research question, hypotheses, and predictions.

Materials and methods

Describe what you did (and how you did it) clearly and comprehensively enough for the study to be replicated.

• Include as appropriate the study design; primary and secondary outcome measures; computational, experimental, and statistical methods; materials; locations.
• Specify materials used (e.g., laboratory or field equipment, chemicals, biologic materials) and their sources (provide company name, city, and country in parentheses).

Ethics approval
Information about Ethics Approvals should be reported in the Materials and methods section (usually the first paragraph).

For studies involving human participants:

• name the institutional ethics review committee that approved the study; and
• confirm that participants gave informed consent before participating in the study.

For studies involving animals:

• name the animal care review committee that approved the study;
• name the animal care guidelines that were followed (must be in line with the Canadian Council on Animal Care guidelines or the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals);
• confirm that research involving endangered species was conducted in accordance with all applicable laws; and
• if permits were required for fieldwork, supply the research permit and (or) license numbers.

For studies involving collection of specimens:

• confirm that research involving collection of specimens was conducted in accordance with all applicable laws, guidelines, regulations; and
• if permits were required for fieldwork, supply the research permit and (or) license numbers.

Results

Report results that are directly relevant to your research question. Raw data and other observations may be submitted with the manuscript as Supplementary files or uploaded to a recognized data repository.

• Use subheadings, tables, and figures to organize and communicate your findings.
• Begin sections and (or) sentences with high-level observations, followed by statistical data.
• State the statistical tests used (if applicable), and when reporting numbers:
  • define the values provided (e.g., mean and standard deviation or standard error, median, and interquartile range), and
  • include the absolute value of N when describing frequencies (i.e., percentages, proportions, ratios).

Discussion or Conclusion

Compare your findings with previously published work; include points of agreement and difference. Describe the limitations and main contributions of your work. Propose avenues of future study. Speculation should be clearly identified and based on observations related to the manuscript.

Author statements

Acknowledgements

(Optional) The names and contributions of institutions and people who contributed to the work but do not meet authorship criteria may be listed in the Acknowledgements section. This section should be written in the third person. Authors are responsible for ensuring that people named in the Acknowledgements agree to be named.

Competing interests statement

Authors are responsible for disclosing all financial and non-financial relationships that might bias or be seen to bias their work. Supply a statement of competing interests during submission and on the article title page. Authors who are unsure what to list may wish to consult the ICMJE form for disclosure of competing interests.

• If there is nothing to declare, the statement should read: “Competing interests: The authors declare there are no competing interests.”
• If there are competing interests to declare, specify authors by full name. Statements should take the form of “Competing interests: AUTHOR is an employee and shareholder of COMPANY. AUTHOR has received speaker fees and travel honoraria from COMPANY.”

Author contribution statement

Supply an author contribution statement, identifying authors by their initials and specifying contributions using the Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT) roles as selected for each author in the peer-review system during submission.

Community involvement statement

(Optional) For studies involving Indigenous communities or community-engaged research, authors may supply a community involvement statement that describes how the community was involved throughout the research process and how the study benefits the community. For guidelines on what to include in the statement and how to transparently report other features of the project in the article, refer to our community-engaged research page.

Funding statement

Supply a funding statement that lists what support the authors received to carry out the research.

• If the study was unfunded, state “Funding: The authors declare no specific funding for this work.”
• If the study received funding, include each funding agency name written out in full, followed by its grant or award number in parentheses. E.g., “Funding: This research was supported by FUNDING AGENCY NAME (grant No. ###).”

Data availability statement

Supply a data availability statement that says whether any, all, or portions of the data underpinning the work are available to others.

• If data are available, specify how data can be accessed and under what conditions data can be reused. Supply repository name, persistent unique identifier (PID: DOI/compact identifier/accession number), and web link.
• If data are not available, explain why (e.g., describe the ethical, legal, or commercial restrictions).

For complete instructions, see How to write a data availability statement.

References

See journal-specific guidelines for information on preferred citation style. Note the following:

• Unpublished reports, private communications, and submitted manuscripts do not belong in the reference list. Include them as footnotes or parenthetically in the body text, e.g., (J. Jones, personal communication, 2010).
• Books and articles that are in press (accepted but not yet published) should be cited in text and included in the reference list.
• Publicly available datasets should be cited in text and included in the reference list (see How to cite datasets).

Tables and Figures

In general:

• Cite each figure and table, and name them in order of first appearance in the text (Figure 1, Figure 2, Table 1, Figure 3, Table 2, etc.).
• Figures and tables should add information to the article, not duplicate results that are (or could be) explained briefly in the text.
• Figures and tables should be understandable without having to read the article. Any abbreviations or symbols used should be defined in the caption (figures) or in the Note (tables).

Table specifications:

• Supply tables in an editable format, i.e., Word (table function in DOC or DOCX) or Excel (spreadsheet in XLS or XLSX). Each data point should be in a separate cell.
• Provide a table caption (e.g., Table 1. Xxx).
• Footnotes should be designated by symbols (order: *, †, ‡, §, ||, ¶, #) or superscript lowercase italic letters (^a,b,c).
• Use a Note under the table for additional information.

Figure specifications:

See How to prepare figures for figure specifications and guidance.

• There are specific reporting requirements for Western blots/immunoblots and gels.

A caption explains how to read a figure, independent of the article text. Follow the guidelines below:

• Terms, abbreviations, and symbols used must be defined and correspond with those in the text.
• List tools and settings used for image capture.
• Maps: captions must credit all sources used to produce the map: base map if used (e.g., Google Map attribution guidelines), and data plotted on the map (e.g., geological units and contacts, shape file data, boundary file data, data from other studies). List map projection (e.g., NAD83) and coordinate system (e.g., UTM) used, if applicable.
• Include a permission statement for figures adapted, modified, or republished from elsewhere. Upload a copy of your permission from the original copyright holder with your files, or send by email to the journal editorial office.

Appendices

An appendix should be able to stand alone, as a separate, self-contained document. Figures, equations, and tables used in an appendix should be numbered sequentially but separately from those used in the main body of the paper, e.g., Fig. A1, eq. (A1), Table A1.

Supplementary files

Supplementary files consist of extra tables, figures (maps), detailed calculations, and data sets produced by the authors as part of their research, but not essential for understanding or evaluating the manuscript.

• Number figures, equations, and tables in a supplementary file sequentially but separately from the numbering used in the manuscript (e.g., Fig. S1, eq. S1, Table S1).
• Cite supplementary files in the manuscript in a footnote.
• During submission, use the “Supplementary Material” file designation when uploading supplementary files.
• Supplementary files are not edited or converted and, therefore, will appear exactly as submitted.
• Supplementary files should be named by manuscript number followed by “suppla”, “supplb” etc. e.g., APNM-2019-0401suppla.

Multimedia files

Authors may incorporate audio and video clips into their paper; these are published online, adding dimension to the paper. For submission guidelines and accepted formats, see technical specifications under How to prepare a video abstract.