EDITORIAL POLICY

Use of Microbiological Information General Requirements

Use of Microbiological Information

The Council Policy Committee (CPC) of the American Society for Microbiology affirms the long-standing position of the Society that microbiologists will work for the proper and beneficent application of science and will call to the attention of the public or the appropriate authorities misuses of microbiology or of information derived from microbiology. ASM members are obligated to discourage any use of microbiology contrary to the welfare of humankind, including the use of microbes as biological weapons. Bioterrorism violates the fundamental principles expressed in the Code of Ethics of the Society and is abhorrent to ASM and its members.

ASM recognizes that there are valid concerns regarding the publication of information in scientific journals that could be put to inappropriate use as described in the CPC resolution mentioned above. Members of the ASM Publications Board will evaluate the rare manuscript that might raise such issues during the review process. However, as indicated elsewhere in these Instructions, research articles must contain sufficient detail, and material/information must be made available, to permit the work to be repeated by others. Supply of materials should be in accordance with laws and regulations governing the shipment, transfer, possession, and use of biological materials and must be for legitimate, bona fide research needs. Links to, and information regarding, these laws and regulations can be found at http://www.asm.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=10101&Itemid=342. We ask that authors pay particular attention to the NSAR Select Agent/Toxin list on the CDC website and the NSABB criteria for identifying dual use research of concern on the Office of Biotechnology Activities website (see pages 17-22).

General Requirements

By submission of a manuscript to the journal, the authors guarantee that the manuscript, or one with substantially the same content, was not published previously and is not being considered or published elsewhere.

All authors of a manuscript must have agreed to its submission and are responsible for its content (initial submission and any subsequent versions), including appropriate citations and acknowledgments, and must also have agreed that the corresponding author has the authority to act on their behalf in all matters pertaining to publication of the manuscript. The corresponding author is responsible for obtaining such agreements and for informing the coauthors of the manuscript's status throughout the submission, review, and publication processes. For Authors’ Corrections, signed letters of agreement from all of the authors must be submitted (see "Authors’ Corrections," below).

It is expected that the authors will provide written assurance that permission to cite unpublished data or personal communications has been granted.

Compliance

Failure to comply with the policies described in these Instructions may result in a letter of reprimand, a suspension of publishing privileges in ASM journals, and/or notification of the authors’ institutions.

Authors employed by companies whose policies do not permit them to comply with the ASM policies may be sanctioned as individuals and/or ASM may refuse to consider manuscripts having authors from such companies.

Warranties and Exclusions

Articles published in this journal represent the opinions of the authors and do not necessarily represent the opinions of ASM. ASM does not warrant the fitness or suitability, for any purpose, of any methodology, kit, product, or device described or identified in an article. The use of trade names is for identification purposes only and does not constitute endorsement by ASM.

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material intended for posting by ASM should be restricted primarily to large or complex data sets or results that cannot readily be displayed in printed form because of space or technical limitations. Such material may include data from microarray, structural, biochemical, or video imaging analyses. In such cases, the manuscript submitted for review should include a distillation of the results so that the principal conclusions are fully supported without referral to the supplemental material.

Supplemental material intended for posting by ASM must be uploaded as a separate Supplemental Material file(s) in Rapid Review and will be reviewed along with the manuscript. The maximum size permitted for an individual file is 25 MB. If your file exceeds this size, you must use a file compression utility (e.g., WinZip or Stuffit) to reduce the size below 25 MB. The decision to publish (i.e., post online only) the material with the article if it is accepted will be made by the editor. It is possible that a manuscript will be accepted but that the supplemental material will not be.

If the software required for users to view/use the supplemental material is not embedded in the file, you are urged to use shareware or generally available/easily accessible programs.

Unlike the manuscript, supplemental material will not be edited by the ASM Journals staff and proofs will not be made available. References related to supplemental material only should not be listed in the References section of an article; instead, include them with the supplemental material hosted by ASM or posted on a personal/institutional website.

Supplemental material will always remain associated with its article and is not subject to any modifications after publication.

Material that has been published previously (print or online) is not acceptable for posting as supplemental material. Instead, the appropriate reference(s) to the original publication should be made in the manuscript text.

Copyright for the supplemental material remains with the author, but a license permitting the posting by ASM will be sent, along with the article copyright transfer agreement, to the corresponding author for signing. If you are not the copyright owner, you must send directly to the editor, outside the Rapid Review system and no later than the modification stage, signed permission from the owner that allows posting of the material, as a supplement to your article, by ASM. You are responsible for including in the supplemental material any copyright notices required by the owner.

Primary Publication

A scientific paper or its substance published in a serial, periodical, book, conference report, symposium proceeding, or technical bulletin, posted on a nonpersonal website, or made available through any other retrievable source, including CD-ROM and other electronic forms, is unacceptable for submission to an ASM journal on grounds of prior publication. Work, or its substance, presented as a meeting poster and subsequently reproduced or distributed as a "company white paper" is also unacceptable for submission on grounds of prior publication.

Posting of a method/protocol on a nonpersonal website should not interfere with the author's ability to have a manuscript utilizing that technique considered for publication in an ASM journal; however, ultimately, it is an editorial decision whether the method constitutes the substance of a paper.

Posting of a limited amount of original data on a personal/university/company website or websites of small collaborative groups working on a problem does not preclude subsequent submission to, and publication by, an ASM journal. The posted data, however, may not constitute the substance of the submission. Specific questions about this policy may be referred to the Publications Board chairman on a case-by-case basis.

Posting of theses and dissertations on a personal/university-hosted website does not preclude subsequent submission to, and publication by, an ASM journal. Similarly, posting for sale on a commercial or similar website of an original, unmodified thesis or dissertation (i.e., as submitted to, and accepted by, the thesis/dissertation committee) does not preclude subsequent submission to, and publication by, an ASM journal.

Posting of unpublished sequence data on the Internet is usually not considered prior publication; however, the address (URL) where the sequence is posted should be included in the text.

Preliminary disclosures of research findings webcast as meeting presentations or published in abstract form as adjuncts to a meeting, e.g., part of a program, are not considered prior publication.

It is incumbent upon the author to acknowledge any prior publication, including his/her own articles, of the data contained in a manuscript submitted to an ASM journal. A copy of the relevant work should be submitted with the paper as supplemental material.

Ultimately, it is an editorial decision whether the material constitutes the substance of a paper.

Permissions

The corresponding author is responsible for obtaining permission from both the original author and the original publisher (i.e., the copyright owner) to reproduce or modify figures and tables and to reproduce text (in whole or in part) from previous publications. This also applies to the author's own work published in non-ASM journals. Figures, tables, and discrete portions of text from the author's own prior ASM journal publication may be republished in MMBR without permission on the condition that appropriate credit is given to the original ASM publication.

Written, signed permissions must be secured at the modification stage and submitted with the revised manuscript in Rapid Review. They should be scanned and submitted as supplemental material. If they cannot be scanned and transmitted this way, they should be mailed or faxed to the editor. Permissions should be identified as to the relevant item in the ASM manuscript (e.g., "permissions for Fig. 1 in submitted manuscript"). In addition, a statement indicating that the material is being reprinted with permission must be included in the relevant figure legend or table footnote of the manuscript. Reprinted text must be enclosed in quotation marks, and the permission statement must be included as running text or indicated parenthetically.

For supplemental material intended for posting by ASM (see "Supplemental Material"), if the authors of the MMBR manuscript are not also the owners of the supplemental material, the corresponding author must submit, no later than the modification stage, signed permission from the copyright owner that allows posting of the material, as a supplement to the article, by ASM. The corresponding author is also responsible for incorporating in the supplemental material any copyright notices required by the owner.

Copyright

To maintain and protect the Society's ownership and rights and to continue to afford scientists the opportunity to publish in high-quality journals, ASM requires the corresponding author to sign a copyright transfer agreement on behalf of all the authors. This agreement is sent to the corresponding author when the manuscript is accepted and scheduled for publication. Unless this agreement is executed (without changes and/or addenda), ASM will not publish the manuscript.

In the copyright transfer agreement signed by an author, ASM grants to that author (and coauthors) the right to republish discrete portions of his/her (their) article in any other publication (print, CD-ROM, and other electronic forms) of which he/she is (they are) the author(s) or editor(s), on the condition that appropriate credit is given to the original ASM publication. This republication right also extends to posting on a host computer to which there is access via the Internet. Except as indicated below, significant portions of the article may not be reprinted/posted without ASM's prior written permission, however, as this would constitute duplicate publication.

Authors may post their own published articles on their personal or university-hosted (but not corporate, government, or similar) websites without ASM's prior written permission provided that appropriate credit is given (i.e., either the copyright lines shown at the top of the first page of the PDF version or "Copyright © American Society for Microbiology, [insert journal name, volume number, page numbers, and year]" for the HTML version).

The copyright transfer agreement asks that authors who were U.S. government employees and who wrote the article as part of their employment duties be identified. This is because works authored solely by such U.S. government employees are not subject to copyright protection, so there is no copyright to be transferred. The other provisions of the copyright transfer agreement, such as author representations of originality and authority to enter into the agreement, apply to U.S. government employee-authors as well as to other authors.

Copyright for supplemental material (see "Supplemental Material") remains with the author, but a license permitting the posting by ASM will be sent, along with the article copyright transfer agreement, to the corresponding author for signing at the acceptance stage. If the author of the article is not also the copyright owner of the supplemental material, the corresponding author must send directly to the editor, outside the Rapid Review system and no later than the modification stage, signed permission from the owner that allows posting of the material, as a supplement to the article, by ASM. The corresponding author is also responsible for incorporating into the supplemental material any copyright notices required by the owner.

Authorship

An author is one who made a substantial contribution to the article; therefore, ASM considers all authors responsible for the entire paper. Individuals who provided assistance, e.g., supplied strains or critiqued the paper, need not be listed as authors but may be recognized in the Acknowledgments section.

A study group, surveillance team, working group, consortium, or the like (e.g., the Active Bacterial Core Surveillance Team) may be listed as a coauthor in the byline if its contributing members satisfy the requirements for authorship and accountability as described in these Instructions. The names (and institutional affiliations if desired) of the contributing members only may be given in a footnote keyed to the study group name in the byline or as a separate paragraph in the Acknowledgments section.

If the contributing members of the group associated with the work do not fulfill the criteria of substantial contribution to and responsibility for the paper, the group may not be listed in the author byline. Instead, it and the names of its contributing members may be listed in the Acknowledgments section.

All authors must agree to the order in which their names are listed in the byline. Statements regarding equal contributions by two or more authors (e.g., "X.J. and Y.S. contributed equally to ...") are permitted as footnotes to bylines and must be agreed to by all of the authors. Other statements of attribution may be included in the Acknowledgments section.

A change in authorship (order of listing, addition or deletion of a name, or corresponding author designation) after submission of the manuscript will be implemented only after receipt of signed statements of agreement from all parties involved.

Disputes about authorship may delay or prevent review and/or publication of the manuscript. Should the individuals involved be unable to reach an accord, review and/or publication of the manuscript can proceed only after the matter is investigated and resolved by the authors’ institution(s) and an official report of such and signed statements of agreement are provided to ASM.

Conflict of Interest

All authors are expected to disclose, in the manuscript submittal letter, any commercial affiliations as well as consultancies, stock or equity interests, and patent-licensing arrangements that could be considered to pose a conflict of interest regarding the submitted manuscript. (Inclusion of a company name in the author address lines of the manuscript does not constitute disclosure.)

Details of the disclosure to the editor will remain confidential. However, it is the responsibility of authors to provide, in the Acknowledgments section, a general statement disclosing financial or other relationships that are relevant to the study. Examples of potentially conflicting interests that should be disclosed include relationships that might detract from an author's objectivity in presentation of study results, and interests whose value would be enhanced by the results presented. All funding sources for the project, institutional and corporate, should be credited in the Acknowledgments section. In addition, if a manuscript concerns a commercial product, the manufacturer's name must be indicated in the text in an obvious manner.

Manuscript Review and Publication Process

Review Process

All manuscripts are considered to be confidential and are reviewed by the editors, members of the editorial board, or qualified ad hoc reviewers.

To expedite the review process, authors must recommend at least two reviewers who have expertise in the field, who are not members of their institution(s), who have not recently been associated with their laboratory(ies), and who could not otherwise be considered to pose a conflict of interest regarding the submitted manuscript. Please provide their contact information where indicated on the submission form.

Copies of in-press and submitted manuscripts that are important for judgment of the present manuscript should be included as supplemental material to facilitate the review.

When a manuscript is submitted to the journal, it is given a number (e.g., MMBR00047-09 version 1) and assigned to the editor in chief. (Always refer to this number in communications with the editor and the Journals Department.) It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to inform the coauthors of the manuscript's status throughout the submission, review, and publication processes. The reviewers operate under strict guidelines set forth in "Guidelines for Reviewers" (http://www.journals.asm.org/misc/reviewguide.dtl) and are expected to complete their reviews expeditiously.

The corresponding author is notified by the editor in chief of her decision to accept, reject, or require modification. When modification is requested, the corresponding author must either submit the modified version within 2 to 3 months or withdraw the manuscript. A point-by-point response to the reviews must be provided in the designated section of the Rapid Review submission form for the revised manuscript, and a compare copy of the manuscript (without figures) should be included as supplemental material if the editor in chief requested one.

Manuscripts that have been rejected, or withdrawn after being returned for modification, may be resubmitted if the major criticisms have been addressed. The cover letter must state that the manuscript is a resubmission. A point-for-point response to the reviews and a compare copy of the revised manuscript showing the changes must be included as supplemental material (the Rebuttal section appears in the submission form only if the manuscript is a modification). Rejected manuscripts may be resubmitted only once unless permission has been obtained from the editor in chief.

Notification of Acceptance

When a manuscript has been found acceptable for publication on the basis of scientific merit, the author and the Journals Department are notified by the editor in chief. The text files undergo an automated preediting, cleanup, and tagging process specific to the particular article type, and the illustrations are examined. If all files have been prepared according to the criteria set forth in these Instructions and those in Rapid Review, the acceptance procedure will be completed successfully. If there are problems that would cause extensive corrections to be made at the copyediting stage or if the files are not acceptable for production, ASM Journals staff will contact the corresponding author.

Once all the material intended for publication has been determined to be adequate, the manuscript is scheduled for the next available issue and an acceptance letter indicating the month of publication and approximate page proof dates is mailed to the corresponding author; a copyright transfer agreement is also included, as is a license to permit posting of supplemental material (if applicable). The editorial staff of the ASM Journals Department completes the editing of the manuscript to bring it into conformity with prescribed standards.

Page Proofs

Page proofs, together with a query sheet and instructions for handling proofs, will be made available to the corresponding author electronically via a PDF file that can be accessed through a unique password. Since corresponding authors will be notified of the availability of their PDF proofs, instructed how to access information about reprints, and assigned their unique password via e-mail, an e-mail address must be supplied in the correspondent footnote. Failure to do so may result in a delay in publication. The PDF page proofs must be printed out, and corrections must be written on the hard copy. Queries must be answered on the query page or on a separate sheet of paper, and any changes related to the queries must be indicated on the proofs. Note that the copy editor does not query at every instance where a change has been made. Queries are written only to request necessary information or clarification of an unclear passage or to draw attention to edits that may have altered the sense. It is the author's responsibility to read the entire text, tables, and figure legends, not just items queried. As soon as the page proofs are corrected and signed by the person who proofread them (within 48 h), they should be mailed or sent by a courier service such as FedEx, not faxed or sent as an e-mail attachment, to the ASM Journals Department, 1752 N St., N.W., Washington, DC 20036-2904.

The proof stage is not the time to make extensive corrections, additions, or deletions. Figures as they appear in the proofs are for validation of content and placement, not quality of reproduction or color accuracy. Print output of figures in the PDF page proofs will be of lower quality than the same figures viewed on a monitor. Please avoid making changes to figures based on quality of color or reproduction in proof. Starting in 2009, the online version will be considered the journal of record for all ASM journals. If you submit RGB color files, the figures published online in the final version should be a very close color match to your figure source files; color figures in the printed issue may not look exactly like the online versions or the data as originally captured because the RGB files will be converted to CMYK color for print production. If you submit CMYK color files, the figures published in print should be a close color match to your source files, but CMYK files are not optimal for online color reproduction.

Important new information that has become available between acceptance of the manuscript and receipt of the proofs may be inserted as an addendum in proof with the permission of the editor in chief. If references to unpublished data or personal communications are added, it is expected that written assurance granting permission for the citation will be provided. Limit changes to correction of spelling errors, incorrect data, and grammatical errors and updated information for references to articles that have been submitted or are in press. If URLs have been provided in the article, recheck the sites to ensure that the addresses are still accurate and the material that you expect the reader to find is indeed there.

Questions about late proofs and problems in the proofs should be directed to the ASM Journals Department (telephone, 202-942-9384). Questions about accessing or viewing your PDF proofs should be directed to Katie Gay of Cadmus Communications at 804-261-3155 or gayk{at}cadmus.com.

Reprints

The corresponding author may receive up to 300 free reprints of his/her contribution; additional reprints (in multiples of 100) may be purchased if desired. In the proof notification e-mail, the corresponding author will be instructed how to access information about reprints.

PDF Files

A corresponding author who has included an e-mail address in his/her "corresponding author" footnote will have limited access (10 downloads, total) to the PDF file of his/her published article. An e-mail alert will automatically be sent to him/her on the day the issue is posted. It will provide a URL, which will be required to obtain access, and instructions. An article may be viewed, printed, or stored, provided that it is for the author's own use.

Should coauthors or colleagues be interested in viewing the paper for their own use, the corresponding author may provide them with the URL; a copy of the article may not be forwarded electronically. However, they must be made aware of the terms and conditions of the ASM copyright. (For details, go to http://www.journals.asm.org/misc/terms.dtl.) Note that each such download will count toward the corresponding author's total of 10. After 10 downloads, access will be denied and can be obtained only through a subscription to the journal (either individual or institutional) or after the standard access control has been lifted (i.e., 1 year after publication).

Editorial Style

The editorial style of ASM journals conforms to the ASM Style Manual for Journals (American Society for Microbiology, 2009, in-house document) and How To Write and Publish a Scientific Paper, 6th ed. (Greenwood Press, Westport, CT, 2006), as interpreted and modified by the editors and the ASM Journals Department.

The editors and the Journals Department reserve the privilege of editing manuscripts, whether invited or not, to conform with the stylistic conventions set forth in the aforesaid publications and in these Instructions. Any deviations from this style must be approved by the Journals Department.

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