Nature Communications Pre-Submission Checklist: Is Your Paper Ready?

1. Does the paper report a significant advance in your field?

Nature Communications publishes research that represents "significant advances in a specific area of research." Unlike Nature, the advance does not need to be interdisciplinary or of broad general interest. But it does need to be more than incremental. If the paper extends previous work without a clear step forward, it belongs in a field journal.

Check: can you state the advance in one sentence without using the words "novel" or "first"?

2. Is the manuscript within Nature Communications' scope?

Nature Communications covers natural sciences, including physical sciences, life sciences, earth sciences, and all areas of clinical research. It does not publish pure mathematics, pure engineering applications, or social science research without a natural science component.

Check: would your paper be evaluated by a scientist, or would it need an engineer, mathematician, or social scientist to assess its contribution?

3. Is the paper framed for a broader audience than your immediate subfield?

Nature Communications editors are generalists within their division. They may not be specialists in your exact subfield. If the introduction requires deep specialist knowledge to understand why the result matters, the framing needs to be broader.

Check: would a scientist in a related but different subfield understand why this paper matters after reading the abstract?

4. Is the data availability statement concrete and specific?

Nature Communications requires a data availability statement. "Data available upon request" without further detail is increasingly insufficient. Editors expect data to be deposited in a public repository with accession numbers or DOIs, or available as supplementary files.

Check: does your data availability statement include a specific repository name, accession number, or DOI? If data cannot be fully shared, are the restrictions explained specifically?

5. Is custom code deposited and accessible?

If the paper reports results generated by previously unreported custom code, that code must be available to editors and reviewers at submission. This means a public repository (GitHub, Zenodo, Figshare) with a DOI, not "available upon request."

Check: is the code in a public repository with a persistent identifier?

6. Have you completed the appropriate reporting checklist?

Nature Communications requires the Nature Portfolio reporting summary for all submissions. Additionally, specific study types require specific checklists: CONSORT for trials, STROBE for observational studies, PRISMA for systematic reviews, ARRIVE for animal studies.

Check: have you downloaded and completed the Nature Portfolio reporting summary? Is the study-specific checklist complete if applicable?

7. Are the methods detailed enough for reproduction?

The methods section should allow another researcher in your field to reproduce the experiments. For computational work, this means specifying software versions, parameters, and algorithms. For experimental work, this means reagents, protocols, and equipment with enough detail that a competent researcher could replicate the study.

Check: if you removed the authors' names, could another lab reproduce the work from the methods section alone?

8. Is the statistical analysis appropriate and fully reported?

Editors check statistical methods carefully. Sample sizes must be justified. Tests must be appropriate for the data type and distribution. Exact p-values should be reported (not just "p<0.05"). Effect sizes and confidence intervals strengthen the paper.

Check: is every statistical test named, justified, and matched to the data structure? Are sample sizes justified by power analysis or practical constraints?

9. Does the first figure communicate the key result?

Editors and reviewers look at figures before reading the full text. The first figure should make the central finding visible at a glance. If the most important result is buried in Figure 4, the paper's first impression is weaker than it could be.

Check: can a scientist outside your immediate subfield understand the main result from Figure 1 and its caption?

10. Are all figures referenced and necessary?

Every figure should be cited in the text. Every panel within a figure should be discussed. Unreferenced panels signal that the figure was not prepared specifically for this manuscript.

Check: does every panel in every figure have a corresponding discussion in the results section?

11. Are ethics approvals documented?

Human subjects research requires IRB approval. Animal research requires institutional animal care committee approval. Both must be stated explicitly in the methods section with the approving institution named.

Check: does the methods section name the approving ethics body and the approval number?

12. Is the conflict of interest declaration complete?

All authors must declare conflicts of interest. "No conflicts" is acceptable only if true. Patent applications, consulting relationships, and funding from companies with interests in the research must be disclosed.

Check: has every author confirmed their declaration?

13. Is the manuscript in an acceptable format?

First submissions can be a single file (Word, LaTeX, or PDF) up to 30 MB with figures embedded or grouped at the end. Detailed formatting is not required for the initial submission. Nature Communications will request formatted files if the paper is sent for review.

Check: is the file under 30 MB? Are all figures included in the file?

14. Are related manuscripts disclosed?

If any author has a manuscript with overlapping content under consideration or in press elsewhere, copies must be provided. Nature Communications takes simultaneous submission seriously.

Check: are there any manuscripts from any author with overlapping data, methods, or conclusions under consideration elsewhere?

15. Have you considered double-anonymized review?

Nature Communications offers anonymous peer review. If you want this, the manuscript must be prepared to conceal all author identities. This is the authors' responsibility, not the editors'.

Check: if requesting anonymous review, have you removed all identifying information from the manuscript, figures, and supplementary files?

This checklist covers 15 items manually. The Nature Communications submission readiness check evaluates your manuscript against Nature Communications' editorial standards automatically. Upload your paper, select Nature Communications as the target journal, and get a readiness score, desk-reject risk signal, and the top issues in about 1-2 minutes.

If the scan surfaces concerns about methodology, citations, or journal fit, the Nature Communications submission readiness check provides a full report with 15+ verified citations, figure-level feedback, and a prioritized revision checklist. Every citation in the report is verified against 500M+ live academic papers.

The most common reasons, based on editorial patterns:

• the advance is incremental rather than significant for the field
• the paper is framed too narrowly for the journal's editorial scope
• the data availability statement is vague or absent
• the reporting checklist is missing or incomplete
• the methods are too sparse to evaluate
• the claims exceed what the evidence supports
• the manuscript has obvious overlap with another submission

For a deeper analysis, see How to Avoid Desk Rejection at Nature Communications and the Nature Communications Submission Guide.

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