Gut Formatting Requirements: Complete Author Guide

Gut uses a detailed structured abstract that's more granular than most journals. This is a BMJ convention shared across BMJ-published titles.

• Word limit: 250 words maximum

• Required headings for Original Research:

• Objective

• Design

• Setting

• Patients (or Subjects/Participants)

• Interventions (if applicable)

• Main Outcome Measures

• Results

• Conclusions

• Citations: Not permitted

• Trial registration: Clinical trial registration numbers must appear at the end of the abstract

The heading structure is specific and enforced. "Objective" (not "Background" or "Aim"), "Design" (not "Methods"), "Setting" (specifying the hospital or institution type), and "Patients" (not "Subjects" unless non-patient participants) are the expected terms. Using the wrong heading names will generate a formatting correction request.

The "Design" section should name the study design explicitly: "Prospective cohort study," "Randomized double-blind placebo-controlled trial," "Retrospective case-control study," etc. The "Setting" section identifies where the study was conducted (e.g., "Tertiary referral center" or "Six university hospitals in the UK and Germany").

Write the Results section with specific numbers: "Patients receiving treatment A showed a 42% reduction in disease flare rate (HR 0.58, 95% CI 0.41-0.82, P=0.002) compared with placebo over 52 weeks." Abstract reviewers at Gut check that the numerical claims in the abstract match the main text. Discrepancies trigger clarification requests.

Gut allows up to 6 figures and up to 6 tables (counted separately) for Original Research.

Figure specifications:

Color figures: Gut publishes color figures online at no charge. For print, color figures incur a fee unless the editor waives it. Most Gut readers access the journal online, so color is standard in practice. Design your figures for color viewing, but ensure they're interpretable in grayscale as a fallback.

Table formatting: Tables must be submitted as editable text (Word tables), not images. Each table requires a title above the table and footnotes below for abbreviations and statistical details. Use horizontal lines only (top of table, below header row, bottom of table). No vertical lines. BMJ journals are strict about this formatting convention.

Supplementary figures and tables: Additional display items beyond the main limits go in the online supplementary section. These are peer-reviewed and published alongside the article. Label them "Online supplementary figure 1," "Online supplementary table 1," etc. There's no formal limit on supplementary items, but keep them focused.

Endoscopy and histology images: For GI-specific figures, include scale bars on all histology images. For endoscopy images, note the scope type and magnification if relevant. High-resolution endoscopic images should be submitted at native resolution where possible.

Gut uses the Vancouver reference style, which is standard for BMJ journals.

In-text citations: Superscript numbers, assigned in order of first appearance. Multiple references separated by commas (e.g., "^1,2,3"), ranges with a hyphen (e.g., "^4-8"). Numbers come after punctuation (e.g., after a period or comma).

Reference list format. Compare the Gut Vancouver format against the APA habit authors carry over from other journals:

Correct (Gut Vancouver; no periods between initials, MEDLINE abbreviation, truncated page range):
1. Smith JA, Johnson BC, Williams DE. Title of article in sentence case. *Gut* 2025;**74**:123-8.
Wrong (APA habit: surname-comma-initials, parenthetical year, full page range):
Smith, J. A., Johnson, B. C., & Williams, D. E. (2025). Title of article in sentence case. Gut, 74, 123-128.

Key formatting details:

• Author names: Last name followed by initials, no periods between initials

• List the first 3 authors, then "et al." for papers with 4+ authors

• No comma between journal name and year

• Year followed immediately by semicolon and volume number

• Page ranges truncated (e.g., 123-8 not 123-128)

• Journal names abbreviated per MEDLINE/NLM standards

• DOIs are encouraged but not required in the reference list

The reference cap for Original Research is approximately 40. Gut editors enforce this loosely; going to 45 is usually fine, but 55 will prompt a request to trim. Reviews get around 80 references.

One Vancouver-specific detail that catches authors: in the reference list, there are no periods after author initials. Write "Smith JA" not "Smith J.A." This is a small thing, but Gut's production team will correct it, and too many reference formatting errors can delay production.

Gut's online supplementary material is hosted alongside the article on the BMJ website.

What goes in the online supplement:

• Additional figures, tables, and datasets that exceed the main article limits

• Extended methods descriptions

• Sensitivity analyses and subgroup analyses

• CONSORT diagrams, STROBE checklists, or PRISMA flow charts (often in the supplement if not in the main text)

• Videos (endoscopy footage, surgical procedures)

• Patient-level data summaries

Formatting rules:

• Label as "Online supplementary figure 1," "Online supplementary table 1," etc.

• Reference each supplementary item in the main text

• Provide titles and legends for all supplementary figures and tables

• Videos should be MP4 format, under 25 MB

• All supplementary material is peer-reviewed

Data sharing: Gut, following BMJ policy, has a data sharing statement requirement. For clinical trials, individual participant data should be made available upon reasonable request. For other study types, the data availability statement should specify what data are available and how to access them.

BMJ journals use Dryad as their preferred data repository. If you're depositing large datasets, Dryad is the path of least resistance. GEO, ArrayExpress, and EGA are also acceptable for genomic data.

Gut requires a title page as the first page of the manuscript. BMJ journals have specific title page requirements.

Required title page elements:

• Full title (informative, under 150 characters for Original Research)

• Short title / running head (under 50 characters)

• All author names with full first names and surnames

• Author affiliations with department, institution, city, and country

• Corresponding author name, address, and email

• Word count for the body text

• Word count for the abstract

• Number of figures and tables

• Keywords (3-6, using MeSH terms where possible)

Separate declarations (in the manuscript or submission system):

• Competing interests statement

• Funding statement with grant numbers

• Ethics approval statement with committee name and approval number

• Patient and public involvement statement (BMJ-specific requirement)

• Contributors (author contributions using CRediT-style categories)

Patient and public involvement (PPI) statement: This is a BMJ requirement that other publishers don't typically enforce. You must describe whether patients or members of the public were involved in the design, conduct, reporting, or dissemination of the research. If they weren't involved, you must state that explicitly: "Patients or the public were not involved in the design, conduct, reporting, or dissemination plans of this research."

This PPI requirement surprises authors who are used to other publishers. It's not a formality. BMJ reviewers can and do comment on the PPI statement, especially for clinical research where patient engagement would have been appropriate.

For manuscripts targeting Gut, four patterns generate the most consistent desk-rejection outcomes.

Abstract exceeds BMJ/Gut word limit or uses wrong structured headings. Gut uses BMJ-style structured abstracts with a 250-word limit and specific headings: Objective, Design, Setting, Participants (or Patients), Interventions (where relevant), Main outcome measures, Results, and Conclusions. Papers using generic headings (Background, Methods, Results) or exceeding the word limit are returned before peer review. The structured format applies to all original research; case reports use a separate unstructured format.

Significance statement for GI or liver biology not translated to clinical implication. Gut publishes at the interface of gastrointestinal science and clinical practice. Papers that present mechanistic or basic science findings without articulating the clinical implication for gastroenterology, hepatology, or IBD management are desk-rejected unless the mechanistic advance is truly exceptional. The editorial standard explicitly requires relevance to clinical gastroenterology.

Reporting checklist absent for trial or observational design. Gut requires CONSORT for randomized trials, STROBE for observational studies, PRISMA for systematic reviews, and CARE for case reports. These must be submitted as supplementary documents with line-number references. Missing checklists cause administrative return through ScholarOne Manuscripts.

Microbiome data lacks required controls and compositional analysis standards. For microbiome papers, Gut applies community standards: rarefaction curves showing adequate sequencing depth, alpha- and beta-diversity analysis, compositional-aware analysis (e.g., ANCOM, ALDEx2) rather than naive fold-change, and delineation of exact sequencing platform and primers used. Papers reporting 16S data without these elements are sent back for methodological revision.

Across these four patterns, the common thread in our review work is that the gastroenterology science is usually strong but a BMJ-specific convention is missing. The abstract uses the wrong structured headings, the significance box never translates the mechanism into a clinical implication, the reporting checklist is absent, or the microbiome methods and statistics fall short of the compositional standard.

Each is a formatting-and-rigor convention a Gut editor checks before peer review, and each is fixable in the manuscript before submission rather than discovered as an administrative return through ScholarOne.

A Gut submission readiness check evaluates manuscript scope, BMJ abstract format, and microbiome reporting standards against these desk-rejection patterns.