Antiviral Therapy

Antiviral Therapy

Manuscript Submission Guidelines

 

This Journal encourages authors to adhere to the guidelines on good publication practice from the Committee on Publication Ethics and GPP3.

This Journal recommends that authors follow the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals formulated by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).

Please read the guidelines below then visit Antiviral Therapy’s submission site https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/avt to upload your manuscript. Please note that manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned. Remember you can log in to the submission site at any time to check on the progress of your paper through the peer review process.

Sage Publishing disseminates high-quality research and engaged scholarship globally, and we are committed to diversity and inclusion in publishing. We encourage submissions from a diverse range of authors from across all countries and backgrounds.

Only manuscripts of sufficient quality that meet the aims and scope of Antiviral Therapy will be reviewed.

As part of the submission process you will be required to warrant that you are submitting your original work, that you have the rights in the work, and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you, that you are submitting the work for first publication in the Journal and that it is not being considered for publication elsewhere and has not already been published elsewhere. Please see our guidelines on prior publication and note that Antiviral Therapy will consider submissions of papers that have been posted on preprint servers; please alert the Editorial Office when submitting (contact details are at the end of these guidelines) and include the DOI for the preprint in the designated field in the manuscript submission system. Authors should not post an updated version of their paper on the preprint server while it is being peer reviewed for possible publication in the Journal. If the article is accepted for publication, the author may re-use their work according to the Journal's author archiving policy. If your paper is accepted, you must include a link on your preprint to the final version of your paper.

If you have any questions about publishing with Sage, please visit the Sage Journal Solutions Portal.

 

1. Open Access
2. Article Processing Charge (APC)
3. What do we publish?
   3.1 Aims & Scope
   3.2 Article types
   3.3 Writing your paper
4. Editorial policies
   4.1 Peer review policy
   4.2 Authorship
   4.3 Acknowledgements
   4.4 Funding
   4.5 Declaration of conflicting interests
   4.6 Research ethics and patient consent
   4.7 Clinical trials
   4.8 Reporting guidelines
   4.9 Research data
5. Publishing policies
   5.1 Publication ethics
   5.2 Contributor's publishing agreement
6. Preparing your manuscript for submission
   6.1 Formatting
   6.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
   6.3 Identifiable information
   6.4 Supplementary material
   6.5 Reference style
   6.6 English language editing services
7. Submitting your manuscript
   7.1 ORCID
   7.2 Information required for completing your submission
   7.3 Permissions
8. On acceptance and publication
   8.1 Sage Production
   8.2 Online First publication
   8.3 Access to your published article
   8.4 Promoting your article
9. Further information
   9.1 Appealing the publication decision       

 

1. Open Access

Antiviral Therapy is an open access, peer-reviewed journal. Each article accepted by peer review is made freely available online immediately upon publication, is published under a Creative Commons license and will be hosted online in perpetuity. Publication costs of the journal are covered by the collection of article processing charges which are paid by the funder, institution or author of each manuscript upon acceptance. There is no charge for submitting a paper to the journal. 

For general information on open access at Sage please visit the Open Access page or view our Open Access FAQs.

 

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2. Article Processing Charge (APC)

If, after peer review, your manuscript is accepted for publication, a one-time article processing charge (APC) is payable. This APC covers the cost of publication and ensures that your article will be freely available online in perpetuity under a Creative Commons license.

The APC for this journal is currently an introductory rate of $1,325, discounted from the full rate of $2,650. The introductory rate is available for a limited time.

The article processing charge (APC) is payable when a manuscript is accepted after peer review, before it is published. The APC is subject to taxes where applicable. Tax-exempt status can be indicated by providing appropriate registration numbers when payment is requested. Please see further details here. 
 

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3. What do we publish?

3.1 Aims & Scope

Before submitting your manuscript to Antiviral Therapy, please ensure you have read the Aims & Scope.

 

3.2 Article types

All manuscripts submitted to Antiviral Therapy must contain a disclosure statement. 

Authors are encouraged to adhere to the below word counts, but a degree of flexibility is allowed at the Editors’ discretion.

Article types:

Review

3,000–5,000 words, ≤100 references, ≤5 display items

Reviews include definitive overviews of a major topic or updates of knowledge in a somewhat narrower field of current interest. References cited in the article should be chosen for their importance, ease of access, and for the ‘further reading’ opportunities they provide.

All reviews should be prefaced by a summary of 100–120 words that contains sufficient information for the reader to be able to appreciate the relevance of the full article when read alone. Summaries are used by abstracting services and many users of these services read only the summary. It should include background information and specific examples of recent advances. References should not be included and abbreviations should be avoided as far as possible in the summary.

Original article

≤4,000 words, ≤50 references, ≤5 display items

Original articles include any novel research, encompassing randomized and non-randomized trials, observational studies (e.g., cohort, case-control and cross-sectional studies) and systematic reviews.

Original articles are prefaced by a structured abstract (maximum 250 words) that includes the following sections: ‘Background’, ‘Methods’, ‘Results’ and ‘Conclusions’. The main body of text should include the following sections: ‘Introduction’, ‘Methods’, ‘Results’ and ‘Discussion’.

Systematic reviews should be identified as ‘systematic review’ or ‘meta-analysis’, as appropriate, within the title (see Systematic reviews, above).

Short communication

≤1,500 words, ≤20 references, ≤3 display items

Original research findings that do not require a full paper, but are completed studies, may be submitted as a short communication.

All short communications should follow the format of an original article and should be prefaced by a structured abstract under the headings: ‘Background’, ‘Methods’, ‘Results’ and ‘Conclusions’ (maximum 250 words). The main body of text should include the following sections: ‘Introduction’, ‘Methods’, ‘Results’ and ‘Discussion’.

Case report

≤1,500 words, ≤20 references, ≤3 display items

A case report should cover the details of an unusual case or any case that warrants discussion in the journal. However, a case report can be published as an original article if the Editor feels that the author has adequately extended the report into a topic discussion that meets the criteria for an original article, or if the case report itself is used as an example of a point in the author’s article. Case reports are prefaced by a brief unstructured summary (maximum 100 words).

Commentary

≤1,500 words, ≤20 references, ≤2 display items

Commentaries are based on a paper published in Antiviral Therapy, or another journal, which is often of particular interest or importance. Commentaries are prefaced by a brief unstructured summary (maximum 100 words).

Workshop report

≤1,500 words, ≤20 references

Antiviral Therapy encourages submissions on written reports from relevant and recent workshops and conferences. Workshop reports are prefaced by an unstructured summary (maximum 150 words).

Letter

≤1,000 words, ≤15 references, ≤2 display items

Letters are articles that address issues or exchange views on topics arising from published articles in Antiviral Therapy. They should contain original data. An abstract is not required.

 

3.3 Writing your paper

The Sage Author Gateway has some general advice and on how to get published, plus links to further resources. Sage Author Services also offers authors a variety of ways to improve and enhance their article including English language editing, plagiarism detection, and video abstract and infographic preparation.

3.3.1 Make your article discoverable

For information and guidance on how to make your article more discoverable, visit our Gateway page on How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online.

 

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4. Editorial policies

4.1 Peer review policy

Antiviral Therapy operates a conventional single-anonymize reviewing policy in which the reviewer’s name is always concealed from the submitting author.

Papers will be peer-reviewed and assessed statistically before acceptance. Priority and time of publication of accepted material will be decided by the Editors. The Editors retain the right to shorten material accepted for publication. This can include subediting the text for style. The Editors endorse the guidelines on good publication practice from the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and GPP3.

Sage does not permit the use of author-suggested (recommended) reviewers at any stage of the submission process, be that through the web-based submission system or other communication.

Reviewers should be experts in their fields and should be able to provide an objective assessment of the manuscript. Our policy is that reviewers should not be assigned to a paper if:

• The reviewer is based at the same institution as any of the co-authors.
• The reviewer is based at the funding body of the paper.
• The author has recommended the reviewer.
• The reviewer has provided a personal (e.g. Gmail/Yahoo/Hotmail) email account and an institutional email account cannot be found after performing a basic Google search (name, department and institution).

Antiviral Therapy is committed to delivering high quality, fast peer-review for your paper, and as such has partnered with Publons. Publons is a third-party service that seeks to track, verify and give credit for peer review. Reviewers for Antiviral Therapy can opt in to Publons in order to claim their reviews or have them automatically verified and added to their reviewer profile. Reviewers claiming credit for their review will be associated with the relevant journal, but the article name, reviewer’s decision and the content of their review is not published on the site. For more information visit the Publons website.

The Editor or members of the Editorial Board may occasionally submit their own manuscripts for possible publication in Antiviral Therapy. In these cases, the peer review process will be managed by alternative members of the Board and the submitting Editor/Board member will have no involvement in the decision-making process.

 

4.2 Authorship

All submissions must be accompanied by a covering letter signed by all the authors (or the corresponding author on behalf of all authors) stating that all authors have contributed to the paper, are familiar with the contents of the final draft and agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work, and that all authors meet the criteria for authorship as established by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. The letter should also state whether any author has any conflict of interest.

Papers should only be submitted for consideration once consent is given by all contributing authors. Those submitting papers should carefully check that all those whose work contributed to the paper are acknowledged as contributing authors.

The list of authors should include all those who can legitimately claim authorship. This is all those who:

1. Made a substantial contribution to the concept or design of the work; or acquisition, analysis or interpretation of data,

2. Drafted the article or revised it critically for important intellectual content,

3. Approved the version to be published,

4. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content.

Authors should meet the conditions of all of the points above. When a large, multicentre group has conducted the work, the group should identify the individuals who accept direct responsibility for the manuscript. These individuals should fully meet the criteria for authorship.

Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group alone does not constitute authorship, although all contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in the Acknowledgments section. Please refer to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) authorship guidelines for more information on authorship.

Please note that AI chatbots, for example ChatGPT, should not be listed as authors. For more information see the policy on Use of ChatGPT and generative AI tools.

 

4.3 Acknowledgements

All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an Acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, or a department chair who provided only general support.

Any acknowledgements should appear first at the end of your article prior to your Declaration of Conflicting Interests (if applicable), any notes and your References.

Per ICMJE recommendations, it is best practice to obtain consent from non-author contributors who you are acknowledging in your paper.          

4.3.1 Third party submissions
Where an individual who is not listed as an author submits a manuscript on behalf of the author(s), a statement must be included in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript and in the accompanying cover letter. The statements must:

• Disclose this type of editorial assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input
• Identify any entities that paid for this assistance
• Confirm that the listed authors have authorized the submission of their manuscript via third party and approved any statements or declarations, e.g. conflicting interests, funding, etc.

Where appropriate, Sage reserves the right to deny consideration to manuscripts submitted by a third party rather than by the authors themselves.

 

4.3.2 Writing assistance

Individuals who provided writing assistance, e.g. from a specialist communications company, do not qualify as authors and so should be included in the Acknowledgements section. Authors must disclose any writing assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input – and identify the entity that paid for this assistance. It is not necessary to disclose use of language polishing services.

 

4.4 Funding

Antiviral Therapy requires all authors to acknowledge their funding in a consistent fashion under a separate heading.  Please visit the Funding Acknowledgements page on the Sage Journal Author Gateway to confirm the format of the acknowledgment text in the event of funding, or state that: This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. 

 

4.5 Declaration of conflicting interests

It is the policy of Antiviral Therapy to require a declaration of conflicting interests from all authors enabling a statement to be carried within the paginated pages of all published articles.

Please ensure that a ‘Declaration of Conflicting Interests’ statement is included at the end of your manuscript, after any acknowledgements and prior to the references. If no conflict exists, please state that ‘The Author(s) declare(s) that there is no conflict of interest’. For guidance on conflict of interest statements, please see the ICMJE recommendations.

 

4.6 Research ethics and patient consent

Medical research involving human subjects must be conducted according to the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki. Reports describing data obtained from experiments performed on animals must clearly indicate that humane standards were adhered to.

Submitted manuscripts should conform to the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, and all papers reporting animal and/or human studies must state in the methods section that the relevant ethics committee or institutional review board provided (or waived) approval. Please ensure that you have provided the full name and institution of the review committee, in addition to the approval number.

For research articles, authors are also required to state in the methods section whether participants provided informed consent and whether the consent was written or verbal.

Information on informed consent to report individual cases or case series should be included in the manuscript text. A statement is required regarding whether written informed consent for patient information and images to be published was provided by the patient(s) or a legally authorized representative. Please do not submit the patient’s actual written informed consent with your article, as this in itself breaches the patient’s confidentiality. The Journal requests that you confirm to us, in writing, that you have obtained written informed consent but the written consent itself should be held by the authors/investigators themselves, for example in a patient’s hospital record. The confirmatory letter may be uploaded with your submission as a separate file.

Please also refer to the ICMJE Recommendations for the Protection of Research Participants.

All research involving animals submitted for publication must be approved by an ethics committee with oversight of the facility in which the studies were conducted. The Journal has adopted the ARRIVE guidelines.

 

4.7 Clinical trials

Antiviral Therapy conforms to the ICMJE requirement that clinical trials are registered in a WHO-approved public trials registry at or before the time of first patient enrolment as a condition of consideration for publication. The trial registry name and URL, and registration number must be included at the end of the abstract.

 

4.8 Reporting guidelines

The relevant EQUATOR Network reporting guidelines should be followed depending on the type of study, see examples below. The EQUATOR wizard can help you identify the appropriate guideline. If your research involves animals, you will be asked to confirm that you have carefully read and adhered to the ARRIVE guidelines.

4.8.1 Randomized controlled trials

Authors are requested to report randomized controlled trials in accordance with the CONSORT (Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials) statement. This ensures that enough information is provided for Editors, peer-reviewers and readers to see how the study was performed and to judge whether the findings are likely to be reliable. All randomized controlled trials submitted for publication should include a completed CONSORT flow chart as a cited figure and the completed CONSORT checklist should be uploaded with your submission as a supplementary file. For behavioural and public health evaluations involving non-randomized designs, authors should include with their submission a complete checklist from the TREND statement.

4.8.2 Systematic reviews

Authors are requested to report these in accordance with the PRISMA statement and the Cochrane Collaboration guidelines. When conducting any literature review, it is important that there is complete transparency concerning the choice of material included. All systematic reviews must therefore contain a brief section entitled Search strategy and selection criteria. This should state clearly the sources (databases, journals or book reference lists, etc.) of the material covered and the criteria used to include or exclude studies. Systematic reviews should fit the submission category of Original article as outlined below. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses should include the completed PRISMA flow chart as a cited figure and the completed PRISMA checklist should be uploaded with your submission as a supplementary file.

4.8.3 Observational studies

Observational studies (cohort, case-control or cross-sectional designs) should be reported according to the STROBE recommendations.

 

Other resources can be found at NLM’s Research Reporting Guidelines and Initiatives.

 

4.9 Research data

At Sage we are committed to facilitating openness, transparency and reproducibility of research. Antiviral Therapy expects authors to share their research data in a suitable public repository. This is subject to ethical considerations and in such cases the Journal editor may grant an exception and authors should contact Antiviral Therapy editorial office. Authors are also required to include a data accessibility statement in their manuscript file, indicating if data is present or absent, and to follow data citation principles. For more information please visit the Sage Author Gateway, which includes information about Sage’s partnership with the data repository Figshare.

 

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5. Publishing Policies

5.1 Publication ethics

Sage is committed to upholding the integrity of the academic record. We encourage authors to refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics’ International Standards for Authors and view the Publication Ethics page on the Sage Author Gateway.

5.1.1 Plagiarism

Antiviral Therapy and Sage take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. We seek to protect the rights of our authors and we always investigate claims of plagiarism or misuse of published articles. Equally, we seek to protect the reputation of Antiviral Therapy against malpractice. Submitted articles may be checked with duplication-checking software. Where an article, for example, is found to have plagiarized other work or included third-party copyright material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgement, or where the authorship of the article is contested, we reserve the right to take action including, but not limited to: publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction); retracting the article; taking up the matter with the head of department or dean of the author's institution and/or relevant academic bodies or societies; or taking appropriate legal action.

5.1.2 Prior publication

If material has been previously published it is not generally acceptable for publication in a Sage journal. However, there are certain circumstances where previously published material can be considered for publication. Please refer to the guidance on the Sage Author Gateway or if in doubt, contact the Editor at the address given below.

 

5.2 Contributor’s publishing agreement      

Before publication Sage requires the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement. Antiviral Therapy publishes manuscripts under Creative Commons licenses. The standard license for the journal is Creative Commons by Attribution Non-Commercial (CC BY-NC), which allows others to re-use the work without permission as long as the work is properly referenced and the use is non-commercial. For more information, you are advised to visit Sage's OA licenses page. 

Alternative license arrangements are available, for example, to meet particular funder mandates, made at the author’s request. 

 

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6. Preparing your manuscript for submission                       

6.1 Formatting

The preferred format for your manuscript is Word. LaTeX files are also accepted. A LaTex template is available on the Manuscript Submission Guidelines page of our Author Gateway.

Key features of manuscripts are listed below:

• Title
• Authors and affiliations
• Corresponding author details
• Running head
• Structured abstract (original articles and short communications)
• Main text
• Acknowledgements
• Disclosure statement
• References
• Display items (optional)
• Additional material (optional)

 

6.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics

For guidance on the preparation of illustrations, pictures and graphs in electronic format, please visit Sage’s Manuscript Submission Guidelines.

 

6.3 Identifiable information

Where a journal uses double-anonymize peer review, authors are required to submit:

1. A version of the manuscript which has had any information that compromises the anonymity of the author(s) removed or anonymised. This version will be sent to the peer reviewers.
2. A separate title page which includes any removed or anonymised material. This will not be sent to the peer reviewers.

 

See https://sagepub.com/Manuscript-preparation-for-double-anonymize-journal for detailed guidance on making an anonymous submission.

Figures supplied in colour will appear in colour online regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced in colour in the printed version. For specifically requested colour reproduction in print, you will receive information regarding the costs from Sage after receipt of your accepted article.

 

6.4 Supplemental material

This Journal is able to host additional materials online (e.g. datasets, podcasts, videos, images etc.) alongside the full-text of the article. For more information please refer to our guidelines on submitting supplemental files.

 

6.5 Reference style

Antiviral Therapy adheres to the Sage Vancouver reference style. View the Sage Vancouver guidelines to ensure your manuscript conforms to this reference style.

If you use EndNote to manage references, you can download the Sage Vancouver EndNote output file.

 

6.6 English language editing services

Authors seeking assistance with English language editing, translation, or figure and manuscript formatting to fit Antiviral Therapy’s specifications should consider using Sage Language Services. Visit Sage Language Services on our Journal Author Gateway for further information.

 

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7. Submitting your manuscript

Antiviral Therapy is hosted on Sage Track, a web based online submission and peer review system powered by ScholarOne™ Manuscripts. Visit https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/avt to login and submit your article online.

IMPORTANT: Please check whether you already have an account in the system before trying to create a new one. If you have reviewed or authored for the Journal in the past year it is likely that you will have had an account created.  For further guidance on submitting your manuscript online please visit ScholarOne Online Help.

7.1 ORCID

As part of our commitment to ensuring an ethical, transparent and fair peer review process Sage is a supporting member of ORCID, the Open Researcher and Contributor ID. ORCID provides a unique and persistent digital identifier that distinguishes researchers from every other researcher, even those who share the same name, and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between researchers and their professional activities, ensuring that their work is recognized.

The collection of ORCID IDs from corresponding authors is now part of the submission process of this Journal. If you already have an ORCID ID you will be asked to associate that to your submission during the online submission process. We also strongly encourage all co-authors to link their ORCID ID to their accounts in our online peer review platforms. It takes seconds to do: click the link when prompted, sign into your ORCID account and our systems are automatically updated. Your ORCID ID will become part of your accepted publication’s metadata, making your work attributable to you and only you. Your ORCID ID is published with your article so that fellow researchers reading your work can link to your ORCID profile and from there link to your other publications.

If you do not already have an ORCID ID please follow this link to create one or visit our ORCID homepage to learn more.

 

7.2 Information required for completing your submission

You will be asked to provide contact details and academic affiliations for all co-authors via the submission system and identify who is to be the corresponding author. These details must match what appears on your manuscript. The affiliation listed in the manuscript should be the institution where the research was conducted. If an author has moved to a new institution since completing the research, the new affiliation can be included in a manuscript note at the end of the paper. At this stage please ensure you have included all the required statements and declarations and uploaded any additional supplementary files (including reporting guidelines where relevant).

 

7.3 Permissions

Please also ensure that you have obtained any necessary permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. For further information including guidance on fair dealing for criticism and review, please see the Copyright and Permissions page on the Sage Author Gateway.

 

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8. On acceptance and publication

8.1 Sage Production

Your Sage Production Editor will keep you informed as to your article’s progress throughout the production process. Proofs will be made available to the corresponding author via our editing portal Sage Edit or by email, and corrections should be made directly or notified to us promptly. Authors are reminded to check their proofs carefully to confirm that all author information, including names, affiliations, sequence and contact details are correct, and that Funding and Conflict of Interest statements, if any, are accurate.

 

8.2 Online First publication

Online First allows final articles (completed and approved articles awaiting assignment to a future issue) to be published online prior to their inclusion in a journal issue, which significantly reduces the lead time between submission and publication. Visit the Sage Journals help page for more details, including how to cite Online First articles.

 

8.3 Access to your published article

Sage provides authors with online access to their final article.

 

8.4 Promoting your article

Publication is not the end of the process! You can help disseminate your paper and ensure it is as widely read and cited as possible. The Sage Author Gateway has numerous resources to help you promote your work. Visit the Promote Your Article page on the Gateway for tips and advice.

 

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9. Further information

Any correspondence, queries or additional requests for information on the manuscript submission process should be sent to the Antiviral Therapy editorial office as follows:

AVT@sagepub.com

 

9.1 Appealing the publication decision

Editors have very broad discretion in determining whether an article is an appropriate fit for their journal. Many manuscripts are declined with a very general statement of the rejection decision. These decisions are not eligible for formal appeal unless the author believes the decision to reject the manuscript was based on an error in the review of the article, in which case the author may appeal the decision by providing the Editor with a detailed written description of the error they believe occurred.

If an author believes the decision regarding their manuscript was affected by a publication ethics breach, the author may contact the publisher with a detailed written description of their concern, and information supporting the concern, at publication_ethics@sagepub.com

 

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