Lesson 23 of 30 · The submission package

Meet the reporting and integrity standards

Reporting checklists (CONSORT for trials, PRISMA for reviews, ARRIVE for animal work, STROBE for observational) are not formatting you add at the end. They specify things you decide before and during the study: how you randomized, what you pre-registered, how you powered the sample.

Read the checklist for your study type now and some items are a to-do list you still have months to complete. Read it for the first time at submission and some items are simply impossible to satisfy honestly, because the decision they describe has already passed.

That is the trap: a reviewer asks for the pre-registration you never made, and no amount of writing fixes it. The same logic covers data and code, decide now where they will live and that you are allowed to share them, because "available on request" is increasingly read as "not available" and can hold up acceptance on its own.

Your move

Identify the reporting standard for your study type (CONSORT for trials, PRISMA for reviews, ARRIVE for animal work, STROBE for observational, and so on). Read it and write down every item you cannot currently satisfy. Note where your data and code will live.

Why: These checklists specify things that must be decided before data collection, not written up afterwards. Reading one at submission time is the moment some items become impossible to satisfy honestly, which is exactly the trap this foundation exists to avoid.

Worked example

Many desk rejections are administrative, not scientific: a missing data-availability statement, a cited reference that has been retracted, an absent reporting checklist. These are the cheapest points to lose and the easiest to fix.

The pattern that loses papers here

Treating declarations and reporting standards as paperwork to do last, then tripping a compliance check that stops the paper before the science is even read.

Check it against your draft

Data and code availability stated
No cited reference is retracted (check it)
The field's reporting checklist is met (CONSORT, PRISMA, ARRIVE, as relevant)

Quick check

2 questions, to catch the misconceptions this lesson exists to fix.

1.Reporting checklists (CONSORT, STROBE, PRISMA...) are:
2."Data available on request" is a strong data-availability statement.

Write your answer and keep it

Reading is free and always will be. An account is what lets you write your own answer to this move, get it read back to you, and keep everything you build as you go.