16 Free Reference Guides Your Researchers Will Actually Use
Acceptance rates, review timelines, open access policies, and submission specs for 57 biomedical journals. Written by researchers who review for Cell, Nature, and Science. Permanently hosted. No login. CC BY 4.0.
Reference highlights
Core reference pages for LibGuides
These are the strongest permanent-reference pages in the Manusights ecosystem: datasets, templates, and trust material that work better as standing library resources than as one-off announcements.
Journal Intelligence Dataset
A stable, citation-friendly journal benchmark that works as a front door to selectivity, timing, and submission reference data.
Desk Rejection Report
A reusable report explaining why manuscripts are rejected before review and how authors can reduce avoidable editorial failure.
Library Resource Bundles
A librarian-facing collection of CC BY 4.0 publishing guides organized by common LibGuide use cases.
Peer Review Timelines by Journal
A permanent URL for review-time data that fits naturally into ‘where to publish’ and ‘peer review basics’ guides.
Biomedical Journal Acceptance Rates
An easy-to-cite overview of selectivity by journal and field, especially useful for early-career author support.
Cover Letter Guide
An author-support page for common submission questions that does not need a PDF handout.
Elite Submission Checklist
A final-pass submission checklist that libraries and writing programs can point authors to before upload.
How Scoring Works
A trust-oriented methodology page that helps institutional audiences understand the product’s analytical scope and limitations.
Start here
The fastest way to place Manusights in a LibGuide or workshop
Most librarians and writing-center teams do not need every page at once. Start with one of these small, high-utility collections depending on the author question you hear most often.
Submission-readiness starter set
Use these when researchers need a high-quality pre-submission package rather than general publishing education.
Journal-choice starter set
Use these when the real question is where to send the paper and how selective the target should be.
Workshop / LibGuide starter set
Use these when you need a reusable short list of the highest-value resources for workshops, scholarly communications pages, or author-support guides.
What makes these different
🧬
Written by active CNS reviewers
Every guide is written by researchers who actively review for Cell, Nature, Science, and related journals. Not scraped from publisher FAQs. Not generated by AI. Built by the same 35+ CNS-caliber reviewers and authors who run Manusights.
📋
57 journals in one reference
Instead of linking to 57 different publisher pages for acceptance rates, review timelines, or APC costs, each guide aggregates everything into a single sortable table. One link replaces dozens.
🔄
Maintained and updated
Every page shows its last review date. When funder policies change, journal requirements shift, or reporting guidelines update, the content is revised. Not a static PDF that goes stale.
Resources by category
Each category maps to a common LibGuide section. Click any title to preview the resource, or use the direct URL to link from your guide.
50+ Individual Journal Guides
Detailed submission guides for 50+ biomedical journals. Each covers impact factor, acceptance rate, review timeline, scope, APC, and formatting requirements. One page per journal, all free.
manusights.com/journals
Who built these
Manusights is a pre-submission manuscript review service. Our team of 35+ researchers have published in and review for Cell, Nature, Science, The Lancet, NEJM, and related journals. These reference guides are a free byproduct of that work, built from the same data and expertise we use when reviewing manuscripts.
All resources are reviewed and updated when funder policies, journal requirements, or reporting guidelines change. The last review date appears on each page.
Corrections & requests
We welcome corrections, policy updates, and suggestions for new resources from librarians and subject specialists.
For corrections, resource requests, and institutional partnerships.