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Author Guidelines for Creating and Publishing Infographics
Infographics guidelines | Video abstracts guidelines | Plain language summaries guidelines
Author Guidelines for Creating and Publishing Infographics
- Infographics – what are they and why should you use them?
- When should I start preparing/submit an infographic?
- Where will the published infographic appear?
- Creating the infographic
Infographics – what are they and why should you use them?
- An infographic is a graphic visual representation that provides a snapshot of an article.
- Infographics provide readers with condensed and simplified information that will be viewed and shared by researchers, clinicians, the general public, as well as the media.
- It makes for a great promotional tool that can be shared on a variety of social media channels.
- It’s a very effective means of making your article stand out, encouraging readership of your work.
When should I start preparing/submit an infographic?
- In order for an infographic to be published as part of your article, it must be submitted at some point during the peer-review process prior to official article acceptance. This is so that the infographic can be peer-reviewed by the same reviewers who are reviewing your manuscript.
- If you think that you would like to prepare an infographic to accompany your paper, please let your Sage Editor know as soon as possible, and definitely in advance of final article acceptance.
- We understand that you may not wish to invest time preparing an infographic until you have a certain degree of confirmation that your paper will be accepted for publication. A good time to let your Sage Editor know that you wish to create an infographic is upon receipt of your initial decision letter, especially if minor or easily addressable reviewer comments have been received. You may then submit the infographic with your revised submission so that it can be peer-reviewed with your revised manuscript.
- Once your infographic and revised paper have been accepted, the infographic and your accepted manuscript files will be sent to the production team together to make sure that the infographic is published as part of your article.
Where will the published infographic appear?
- Your Infographic will be embedded into the HTML full text-version of your paper immediately underneath the text abstract.
- It will also be hosted as Supplementary Material and so should be cited in the main text, to enable easy access and shareability.
Using Sage Author Services for creation of infographics
- Sage Author Services is partnered with an external professional vendor if you wish to use them. Read more here.
- View an example infographic created by the partnered vendor.
- You can upload any files that you think will be useful for creation of an infographic when you utilise this service (e.g., sketches, which data you want to include, etc).
- Once you have requested an infographic on our website, the vendor will share a first draft with you within 7 days. You will subsequently have the opportunity to provide feedback: any minor changes to the infographic can be requested free of charge; any significant changes will incur a fee. Once your requested revisions have been addressed, you will be provided with the final file.
- The service takes 2 weeks to complete.
- Please note: Sage will peer-review the infographic prior to article acceptance, so the infographic must be requested from Sage Author Services prior to acceptance of your paper if you wish for the infographic to be published alongside the article. We cannot publish infographics that have been created after publication of your article, as these cannot be peer reviewed.
- Please also note: the fee to create an infographic using our professional vendor will be payable even if your paper is not accepted for publication, so it is advisable not to embark on the creation of an infographic using this service until you are sure that your paper will be accepted following revisions. As mentioned above, please make sure that your Sage Editor knows that you intend to create an infographic prior to article acceptance.
- Infographics produced by the professional vendor should be submitted with your revised paper to allow for peer review.
- We recommend creating an infographic after first decision to ensure it reflects any peer review comments received.
- Please create your infographic in a JPEG or PNG format. Infographics should be in the English language.
- Infographics can be presented in any dimension (portrait or landscape). Widths usually range between 600-1000 pixels and heights between 1000-5000 pixels. The most common width to height ratio for vertical infographics is 1:4.
- Infographics should convey a message with images, hence they should be visual and data-driven, without too much text.
- Please submit the infographic alongside the revised manuscript for peer-review. Infographics are reviewed with the revised manuscript, so authors must ensure that all material in the infographic directly support the information and conclusions of the revised article.