How the Journal Requirements Observatory is built

Version 1.0 contains six journals audited on 22 August 2026. They were selected from existing Manusights submission-guide owners where a current official publisher or society page was available and where one distinctive, package-changing requirement could be stated without inferring from a sibling journal.

This is a purposive pilot, not a random sample of scholarly journals. It should not be used to estimate how common a requirement is across publishing as a whole.

The evidence hierarchy is intentionally narrow:

1. The journal’s current Guide for Authors or information-for-authors page.
2. A current publisher policy page explicitly governing that journal.
3. The official submission portal when it is the only place the route is stated.

Third-party aggregators, search snippets, and instructions for related journals do not establish a record. They may help locate a source, but the final requirement must be visible on an official publisher-controlled page.

A researcher reads the official source and records one concise requirement that would change what an author prepares, selects, declares, or submits. Manusights then assigns comparison labels such as “Data statement” or “Article structure.” Those labels are Manusights editorial classifications; the requirement statement itself is a summary of the cited source.

The audit favors decision value over completeness. Generic instructions—upload a manuscript, provide author details, follow research-ethics rules—are not featured unless the journal applies them in a distinctive way.

Official page verified

The governing page was accessible and the summarized requirement was visible during review.

Official page partially accessible

The official page was identified, but access or rendering was incomplete. The record remains visible with a recheck warning rather than being presented with false certainty.

• Publisher instructions can change after the recorded review date.
• The featured requirement is not the journal’s full submission checklist.
• Article types, special issues, invited content, and regional policies may introduce additional rules.
• Publisher pages can be dynamically rendered, geographically variable, or temporarily inaccessible.
• The pilot has broad publisher coverage but too few journals for prevalence claims.

Authors should treat the official page as the administrative source of truth and confirm the live instruction immediately before submission.

Each record carries a source-review date. Future releases will preserve review history rather than silently overwriting it, so changes in publisher requirements can become a useful research artifact of their own.

Suspected errors should include the journal name, the affected requirement, and the governing publisher URL. Corrections are evaluated against the live official source before the public record is changed.

Email hello@manusights.com with a correction or source update.