Scientific Reports Formatting Requirements: Complete Author Guide

Scientific Reports uses a straightforward unstructured abstract.

• Word limit: 200 words maximum

• Structure: Single paragraph, no subheadings

• Citations: Not allowed

• Keywords: Not required in the abstract. The journal allows up to 6 keywords or key phrases for indexing.

The 200-word abstract should summarize the study's purpose, methods, main results, and conclusions. Don't start with generic field-level statements. Get to the specific question your paper addresses within the first sentence or two.

Unlike some journals in the Nature family, Scientific Reports doesn't require a separate summary or significance statement. The abstract is the only summary component, and the journal explicitly says it does not support graphical abstracts.

Scientific Reports allows up to 8 display items, where figures and tables are counted together. This combined limit matches Nature's approach but is slightly more generous.

Figure specifications:

Scientific Reports-specific detail: Panel labels use lowercase bold letters (a, b, c), not uppercase. This is consistent with the Nature portfolio style. If you've been formatting for journals that use uppercase labels, make sure to change them.

Table requirements:

• Tables should be created in Word or LaTeX, not as images

• Tables go in the manuscript file and are not uploaded as separate files

• Each table has a maximum size of one page

• Tables count toward the 8 display item limit

Color figures: The figure guidelines ask you to put all display items on a white background and to avoid unnecessary colour. As an online journal, Scientific Reports does not accept cover images or table-of-contents figures.

Multi-panel figures: Prepare a multi-panel figure as a single image file that includes all sub-parts (a, b, c, and so on), and do not upload panels individually. The guidelines say a figure should not contain more than one panel unless the parts are logically connected.

Scientific Reports uses the Nature reference style, which is a numbered sequential citation system.

In-text citations: Numbers in square brackets. Numbers are assigned in the order references first appear in the text.

Reference list format:

1. Smith, A. B., Jones, C. D. & Williams, E. F. Title of article in sentence case. Sci. Rep. 14, 12345 (2024).

Key formatting details:

• Author names: Last name, followed by initials (e.g., "Smith, A. B.")

• Use "&" before the last author

• Journal names are in italics and abbreviated according to common usage (with full stops)

• Volume numbers and the comma after them are in bold

• No issue numbers for most journals

• Year in parentheses at the end

Author count: Include all authors unless there are six or more, in which case give only the first author followed by "et al."

The current submission guidelines say references are limited to 60, though not strictly enforced. In practice, that means 30-50 references is still a normal target and a bloated list is still a quality signal editors notice.

Reference manager tip: Most reference managers include "Nature" as a citation style. This works for Scientific Reports. Don't use "Vancouver" style, which is close but not identical (the author format and journal abbreviation rules differ).

Scientific Reports calls supplementary content "Supplementary Information" (SI). It's published online alongside the article.

Supplementary Information structure:

• Supplementary Figures: Supplementary Figure S1, S2, etc.

• Supplementary Tables: Supplementary Table S1, S2, etc.

• Supplementary Notes: Extended discussion or analysis

• Supplementary Methods: Additional experimental details

• Supplementary Videos: provided in the standard video aspect ratios (4:3, 16:9, 21:9)

• Supplementary Data: Datasets (supplementary datasets should be provided as separate .xlsx files)

Formatting rules:

• Supplementary information should be combined into a single separate file, preferably PDF, with a brief title and legend for each figure and a title for each table

• Videos and large datasets are uploaded as separate files

• Each SI item needs a title and brief caption

• In the main text, cite SI items as "Supplementary Fig. S1" or "Supplementary Table S1"

• Keep file sizes as small as possible, with a maximum size of 50 MB

Supplementary Information goes to referees. The journal asks you to submit it together with the manuscript so that it can be sent to referees during peer review.

Data availability: Scientific Reports requires a Data Availability Statement. Authors must specify where the data supporting the findings can be accessed. For large datasets, the journal's preferred route is a public repository, and the statement should give accession codes or other identifiers for publicly available datasets where applicable.

Title page (first page of manuscript):

• Title (no more than 20 words, describing the main message in a single scientifically accurate sentence, with no puns or idioms)

• All author names with affiliations

• Corresponding author designation with email

Cover letter: Required. The journal's guidelines say your submission must include a cover letter, which the Editorial Board Member sees but the peer reviewers do not. It should give the corresponding author's affiliation and contact information, a brief explanation of why the work is appropriate for Scientific Reports, the names and contact information of any reviewers you consider suitable, any referees you would like excluded, and whether you have had prior discussions with a Scientific Reports Editorial Board Member about the work. Don't argue for novelty. That's not what Scientific Reports evaluates.

Scientific validity, not novelty. Scientific Reports evaluates papers for methodological soundness and scientific correctness, not for perceived impact or novelty. This is its core distinction from Nature and other selective journals. Your manuscript doesn't need to argue that the findings are transformative. It needs to demonstrate that the methods are sound and the conclusions are supported by the data.

Nature portfolio branding. Scientific Reports follows the Nature Portfolio editorial policies and the standard Nature referencing style. The formatting conventions are consistent with the broader Nature portfolio.

Author contributions. Required. Must specify the contribution of every author.

Competing interests. Mandatory declaration. If none exist, the journal's example wording is "The author(s) declare no competing interests." The statement must be explicit and unambiguous for each contributing author.

Ethics approvals. Studies involving human participants or live vertebrates and/or higher invertebrates must include an ethics statement in the Methods section that identifies the approving institutional and/or licensing committee and confirms that all experiments were performed in accordance with relevant named guidelines and regulations. Human studies must also confirm informed consent.

Reporting standards. Clinical trials must follow CONSORT 2025 and be registered, randomized controlled trials must submit a completed CONSORT checklist, meta-analyses need a completed PRISMA checklist and flow diagram, Mendelian randomization studies need a completed STROBE-MR checklist, and studies on live animals are asked to follow the ARRIVE guidelines.

Manuscript structure. The journal sets no specific requirements for the main body of the text. Its suggested structure is Introduction, Results (with subheadings), Discussion (without subheadings), and Methods.

No structured abstract. Unlike journals that require Background/Methods/Results/Conclusions headings, Scientific Reports uses a single unstructured paragraph.

Title length. The title should be no more than 20 words, describe the main message of the article in a single scientifically accurate sentence, and not contain puns or idioms.

The live author instructions add a few small details that are easy to miss and expensive to ignore.

• Data Availability Statement placement. Scientific Reports requires the statement in every submitted manuscript and specifies that it belongs at the end of the main text before the References section.

• Competing interests language. The journal requires an explicit competing-interests statement for each contributing author, not a vague global sentence.

• Line and page numbering. The journal says those numbers are not added automatically for editors and reviewers, so including them yourself makes review easier.

• No footnotes and no graphical abstract. These are easy copy-over errors when authors recycle files from other journals.

• Table and legend sprawl. Figure legends are capped at 350 words each and tables are expected to stay within one page.

These are not prestige-journal flourishes. They are the small formatting decisions that determine whether your file package feels submission-ready the first time an editor opens it.

Scientific Reports is fully open access. Articles are published under a CC BY-NC-ND or CC BY Creative Commons licence.

The current APC for Scientific Reports is £2,290 / $2,850 / €2,490, subject to VAT or local taxes where applicable. Fee waivers and discounts are available through institutional agreements and for researchers from qualifying countries.

The APC is charged upon acceptance. It doesn't influence editorial decisions.

1. Panel labels are lowercase. Use (a), (b), (c) in figures, not (A), (B), (C). This is Nature portfolio convention.

1. Display items cap is combined. The 8-item limit includes both figures and tables. Plan your visual strategy early.

1. Data Availability Statement is mandatory. It must say where the data supporting the results can be found, with accession codes or links for public datasets and the conditions for access where data cannot be shared publicly.

1. Reporting guidelines must be followed. CONSORT for clinical trials, PRISMA for meta-analyses, STROBE-MR for Mendelian randomization, and ARRIVE for studies on live animals. Complete the relevant checklist and submit it with your manuscript where the journal requires one.

1. Line numbers. The journal does not add page or line numbers automatically to the materials sent to Editorial Board Members and reviewers and asks you to consider including them yourself.

1. Manuscript file. Word is preferred, and LaTeX or PDF are also accepted at first submission. Text and figures may be combined in a single file up to 3 MB.

1. Supplementary Information goes to referees. Don't treat it as a data dump. Submit it with the manuscript, as the journal sends it to referees during peer review.

For Scientific Reports-targeted manuscripts, three patterns consistently predict formatting desk-screen failure at Scientific Reports (Nature Publishing Group). The patterns below are the same ones the journal's handling editors and outside reviewers flag at first-pass triage.

Scope-fit ambiguity in the abstract. Scientific Reports editors move fastest on manuscripts whose contribution is obviously aligned with research evaluated on technical soundness rather than perceived novelty; multidisciplinary Nature-Publishing-Group megajournal. The named failure pattern: manuscripts without explicit data-availability statements extend revision rounds. Check whether your abstract reads to Scientific Reports's scope

Methods package incomplete for the journal's reviewer pool. Scientific Reports reviewers expect specific methodological detail. Methodology sections deferring statistical-analysis detail extend reviewer assignment. Check if your methods package is reviewer-complete

Reference-list and clean-citation failure mode. A reference list that cites retracted papers is an avoidable problem. Check whether your reference list is clean against Crossref + Retraction Watch

Manusights submission-corpus signal for Scientific Reports (Nature Publishing Group). Of the manuscripts our team screened before submission to Scientific Reports and peer venues in 2025, the editorial-culture mismatch most consistent across the cohort is scientific reports academic editors enforce reproducibility-first review; manuscripts without explicit data-availability and statistical-methodology extend revision. In our analysis of anonymized Scientific Reports-targeted submissions,

For manuscripts targeting Scientific Reports, three formatting patterns generate the most consistent production returns and editorial revision requests.

Panel labels submitted in uppercase instead of lowercase bold. Scientific Reports author guidelines say figures divided into parts should be labelled with a lower-case, bold letter (a, b, c and so on). Authors preparing figures for journals that conventionally use uppercase (A), (B), (C) frequently submit panels with the wrong case. The journal's figure guidelines warn that not following them can significantly delay publication of your work.

Data Availability Statement that does not say where the data are. Scientific Reports requires a Data Availability Statement in all submitted manuscripts, at the end of the main text before the References section. It should say where the data supporting the results can be found, including accession codes or links for publicly available datasets and any conditions for access. The journal's policy lists "available from the corresponding author on reasonable request" as one permitted form, but it also states that the preferred way to share large datasets is via public repositories, so a bare "on request" line is a weak statement for a data-rich paper. Manuscripts that do not comply with the journal's initial-submission checklist may be returned for changes before they are assigned to an Editorial Board Member.

Reporting guideline checklist missing from the submission package. Scientific Reports asks for the relevant reporting checklist: a completed CONSORT checklist for randomized controlled trials, a completed PRISMA checklist and flow diagram for meta-analyses, a completed STROBE-MR checklist for Mendelian randomization studies (the journal says submissions without it will not be considered), and ARRIVE reporting for studies on live animals. Authors frequently treat these checklists as post-acceptance documentation rather than submission requirements.

A Scientific Reports formatting compliance check can verify your panel labels, Data Availability Statement, and reporting checklist compliance against Scientific Reports requirements before you submit.