Guide to Authors

To download our complete Guide to Authors, please click here

Eye and Springer Nature are pleased to share detailed online Author Tutorials - including interactive quizzes - which cover the following topics:

  • Writing a journal manuscript
  • Submitting a journal and peer review
  • Writing in English
  • Open Access

You can also watch a brief video giving an overview of the tutorials here.

Article Type Specifications

Article: Reports of current clinical research or laboratory research with clinical relevance. Case Series may also be submitted for consideration. Please note that the journal no longer accepts Case Reports unless of particular novel interest, and in all cases these must first be invited by the Editor. Please see ‘Preparation of Original Articles’ for more details of preparing an article for submission.
Specifications: Structured abstract max. 250 words; main body of text (excluding abstract, tables/figures, and references) not to exceed 3,500 words; max. 5 tables or figures.

Review Article: Reviews are comprehensive analyses of specific topics that are solicited by the Editor. Proposals for reviews may be submitted; however, authors should only send an outline of the proposed paper for initial consideration. All review articles will undergo peer review prior to acceptance. Reviews must be invited by the Editor.
Specifications: Unstructured abstract max. 250 words; main body of text (excluding abstract, tables/figures, and references) not to exceed 8,000 words; liberal use of tables or figures is encouraged; max. 100 references.

Correspondence: These are letters to the Editor responding to a specific article published in Eye (only letters relating to articles published in print within the last 6 months will be considered).
Specifications: No abstract; main body of text (excluding tables/figures and references) not to exceed 350 words; max. 2 tables or figures; max. 5 references.

Brief Communication: These short articles are concise studies of high quality and broad interest, that raise new issues (authors must gain approval from the Editor prior to submission). Brief Communications are subject to critical review and editorial policy.
Specifications: No abstract; main body of text (excluding tables/figures and references) not to exceed 500 words; max. 2 tables or figures; max. 5 references.

Comment:  Comment articles are personal viewpoints and discussions of important topics of particular interest to ophthalmology. Comments cover basic science and clinical issues as well as those which bridge the gap between research and practise. Approval must be obtained from the Editor prior to submission.
Specifications: No abstract; main body of text (excluding abstract, tables/figures, and references) not to exceed 1,000 words; max. 2 tables or figures; max. 25 references.

Editorial:  Proposals for Editorials may be submitted; however, authors should only send an outline of the proposed papers for initial consideration.
Specifications: No abstract; main body of text (excluding abstract, tables/figures, and references) not to exceed 1,000 words; max. 2 tables or figures; max. 25 references.

Image: Single or multimodal images (max. 4 composite) of rare or novel clinical conditions or interventions that present an important learning point. Routine cases of common diseases will not be considered.
Specifications: Updated guidelines from 18th March 2025: No abstract; image legend not to exceed 150 words; image resolution must be at least 300dpi; max. 1 image file; max. 5 references; maximum limit of 3 authors. 

Publication charges

All manuscripts will have figures published in colour in the online HTML version free of charge. If you require figures to be published in colour in PRINT and in the online PDF version of your article, a charge will be levied. See the journal Guide to Authors for details. (NOTE: These charges will not apply to corresponding authors who are members of The Royal College of Ophthalmologists and authors who choose to pay an article processing charge to make their paper open access. Members of The Royal College of Ophthalmologists must request free colour figures in their cover letter).

Preparation of Articles

House Style: Authors should adhere to the following formatting guidelines

  • Manuscripts should be written in British English.
  • Text should be double spaced with a wide margin.
  • All pages and lines are to be numbered.
  • Do not make rules thinner than 1pt (0.36mm).
  • Use a coarse hatching pattern rather than shading for tints in graphs.
  • Colour should be distinct when being used as an identifying tool.
  • Spaces, not commas should be used to separate thousands.
  • At first mention of a manufacturer, the town (and state if USA) and country should be provided.
  • Statistical methods: For normally distributed data, mean (SD) is the preferred summary statistic. Relative risks should be expressed as odds ratios with 95% confidence interval. To compare two methods for measuring a variable the method of Bland & Altman (1986, Lancet 1, 307–310) should be used; for this, calculation of P only is not appropriate.
  • Units: Use metric units (SI units) as fully as possible. Preferably give measurements of energy in kiloJoules or MegaJoules with kilocalories in parentheses (1 kcal = 4.186kJ). Use % throughout.
  • Abbreviations: On first using an abbreviation place it in parentheses after the full item. Very common abbreviations such as FFA, RNA, need not be defined. Note these abbreviations: gram g; litre l; milligram mg; kilogram kg; kilojoule kJ; megajoule MJ; weight wt; seconds s; minutes min; hours h. Do not add ‘s’ for plural units.  Terms used less than four times should not be abbreviated.

Language Editing: Eye is read by scientists from diverse backgrounds, and many are not native English speakers. In addition, the readership of Eye is multidisciplinary; therefore, authors need to ensure their findings are clearly communicated. Language and concepts that are well known in one subfield may not be well known in another. Thus, technical jargon should be avoided as far as possible and clearly explained where its use is unavoidable. Abbreviations, particularly those that are not standard, should also be kept to a minimum. The background, rationale, and main conclusions of the study should be clearly explained and understandable by all working in the field. Titles and abstracts, in particular, should be written in language that will be readily understood by all readers.

Authors who are not native speakers of English sometimes receive negative comments from referees or editors about the language and grammar usage in their manuscripts, which can contribute to a paper being rejected. To reduce the possibility of such problems, we strongly encourage such authors to take at least one of the following steps:

  • Have your manuscript reviewed for clarity by a colleague whose native language is English.
  • Visit the English Language Tutorial, which covers the common mistakes when writing in English.
  • Use a professional language editing service where editors will improve the English to ensure that your meaning is clear and identify problems that require your review. Visit our Author Services page to read more about options to help you with your manuscript.

Please note that the use of a language editing service is at the author's own expense and does not guarantee that the article will be selected for peer review or accepted.

Cover Letter: Authors should provide a cover letter that includes the affiliation and contact information for the corresponding author. Authors should briefly discuss the importance of the work and explain why it is considered appropriate for the diverse readership of the journal.  The cover letter should confirm the material is original research, has not been previously published and has not been submitted for publication elsewhere while under consideration. If the manuscript has been previously considered for publication in another journal, please include the previous reviewer comments, to help expedite the decision by the Editorial team. Please also include a Competing Interests statement - see Editorial Policies for more details.

Title Page: The title page should contain:

  • Title of the paper - brief, informative, of 150 characters or less and should not make a statement or conclusion
  • Running title – should convey the essential message of the paper in no more than 50 characters.  Should not contain any abbreviations
  • Full names of all the authors and their affiliations, together with e-mail address of the corresponding author. If authors regard it as essential to indicate that two or more co-authors are equal in status, they may be identified by an asterisk symbol with the caption ‘These authors contributed equally to this work’ immediately under the address list.

Large Language Models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, do not currently satisfy our authorship criteria. Notably an attribution of authorship carries with it accountability for the work, which cannot be effectively applied to LLMs. Use of an LLM should be properly documented in the Methods section (and if a Methods section is not available, in a suitable alternative part) of the manuscript.

Abstract:  Articles must be prepared with a structured abstract designed to summarise the essential features of the paper in a logical and concise sequence under the following mandatory headings.

  • Background/Objectives: What was the main question or hypothesis tested?
  • Subjects/Methods: How many subjects were recruited, how many dropped out? Was the study randomised, case-controlled etc? Interventions/methods used and duration of administration.
  • Results: Indicate 95% confidence intervals and exact P value for effects.
  • Conclusions: Answer (significant or not) to main question.

Introduction: The Introduction should assume that the reader is knowledgeable in the field and should therefore be as brief as possible but can include a short historical review where desirable.

Materials/Subjects and Methods:  This section should contain sufficient detail, so that all experimental procedures can be reproduced, and include references. Methods, however, that have been published in detail elsewhere should not be described in detail. Authors should provide the name of the manufacturer and their location for any specifically named medical equipment and instruments, and all drugs should be identified by their pharmaceutical names, and by their trade name if relevant.

Results:  The Results section should briefly present the experimental data in text, tables or figures. Tables and figures should not be described extensively in the text.

Discussion:  The Discussion should focus on the interpretation and the significance of the findings with concise objective comments that describe their relation to other work in the area. It should not repeat information in the results. The final paragraph should highlight the main conclusion(s), and provide some indication of the direction future research should take.

Acknowledgements: These should be brief, and should include sources of support including sponsorship (e.g. university, charity, commercial organisation) and sources of material (e.g. novel drugs) not available commercially.

Conflict of Interest:  Authors must declare whether or not there are any competing financial interests in relation to the work described. This information must be included at this stage and will be published as part of the paper, but should also be noted in the cover letter. Please see the Competing Interests definition in the Editorial Policies section for detailed information.

Funding: The funding section is mandatory. Authors must declare sources of study funding including sponsorship (e.g. university, charity, commercial organization) and sources of material (e.g. novel drugs) not available commercially.

Author Contribution Statement: Authors must include a statement about the contribution of each author to the manuscript (see section on Authorship). The initials of each author may be used.

This is an example for a systematic review:

MAJ was responsible for designing the review protocol, writing the protocol and report, conducting the search, screening potentially eligible studies, extracting and analysing data, interpreting results, updating reference lists and creating ’Summary of findings’ tables. SBM was responsible for designing the review protocol and screening potentially eligible studies. She contributed to writing the report, extracting and analysing data, interpreting results and creating ’Summary of findings’ tables. DIH conducted the meta-regression analyses and contributed to the design of the review protocol, writing the report, arbitrating potentially eligible studies, extracting and analysing data and interpreting results. NAL contributed to data extraction and provided feedback on the report. FRT and RAL provided feedback on the report.

To understand more about authorship definitions, please refer to the ICMJE Authorship Guidelines.

References:  Only papers directly related to the article should be cited. Exhaustive lists should be avoided. References should follow the Vancouver format. In the text they should appear as numbers starting at one and at the end of the paper they should be listed (double-spaced) in numerical order corresponding to the order of citation in the text. Where a reference is to appear next to a number in the text, for example following an equation, chemical formula or biological acronym, citations should be written as (ref. X) and not as superscript. Example “detectable levels of endogenous Bcl-2 (ref. 3), as confirmed by western blot”.

All authors should be listed for papers with up to six authors; for papers with more than six authors, the first six only should be listed, followed by et al. Abbreviations for titles of medical periodicals should conform to those used in the latest edition of Index Medicus. The first and last page numbers for each reference should be provided. Abstracts and letters must be identified as such. Papers in press may be included in the list of references. Personal communications can be allocated a number and included in the list of references in the usual way or simply referred to in the text; the authors may choose which method to use. In either case authors must obtain permission from the individual concerned to quote his/her unpublished work.

Examples:

Journal article:
Nguyen D, Soygur B, Peng S, Malki S, Hu G & Laird DJ. Apoptosis in the fetal testis eliminates developmentally defective germ cell clones. Nat Cell Biol. 2020;22:1423-1435.

Journal article, e-pub ahead of print:
Basar, MA, Beck DB & Werner A. Deubiquitylases in developmental ubiquitin signaling and congenital diseases. Cell Death Differ. 2020. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41418-020-00697-5

Complete book:
Atkinson K, Champlin R, Ritz J, Fibbe W, Ljungman P, Brenner MK (eds). Clinical Bone Marrow and Blood Stem Cell Transplantation. 2004;3rd edn. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Chapter in book:
Coccia PF. Hematopoietic cell transplantation for osteopetrosis. In: Blume KG, Forman SJ, Appelbaum FR (eds). Thomas' Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation. 2004;3rd edn. Blackwell Publishing Ltd, Malden. pp 1443–1454.

Abstract:
Syrjala KL, Abrams JR, Storer B, Heiman JR. Prospective risk factors for five-year sexuality late effects in men and women after haematopoietic cell transplantation. Abstracts of the 32nd Annual Meeting of the European Group for Blood and Marrow Transplantation. Bone Marrow Transplant. 2006;37:O107.

Website:
Kassambara A. rstatix: pipe-friendly framework for basic statistical tests. 2020. https://rpkgs.datanovia.com/rstatix/.

Preprint:
Babichev SA, Ries J & Lvovsky AI. Quantum scissors: teleportation of single-mode optical states by means of a nonlocal single photon. 2002. Preprint at http://arXiv.org/quant-ph/0208066.

Tables:  Tables should only be used to present essential data; they should not duplicate what is written in the text. All tables must be editable, ideally presented in Excel.  Each must be uploaded as a separate workbook with a title or caption and be clearly labelled, sequentially. Please make sure each table is cited within the text and in the correct order, e.g. (Table 3).  Please save the files with extensions .xls / .xlsx / .ods / or .doc or .docx. Please ensure that you provide a 'flat' file, with single values in each cell with no macros or links to other workbooks or worksheets and no calculations or functions.

Figure Legends:  These should be brief, specific and appear on a separate manuscript page after the References section.

Figures:  Figures and images should be labelled sequentially and cited in the text. Figures should not be embedded within the text but rather uploaded as separate files. The use of three-dimensional histograms is strongly discouraged unless the addition of the third dimension is important for conveying the results. Composite figures containing more than three individual figures will count as two figures. All parts of a figure should be grouped together.  Where possible large figures and tables should be included as supplementary material.

Detailed guidelines for submitting artwork can be found by downloading our Artwork Guidelines. Using the guidelines, please submit production quality artwork with your initial online submission. If you have followed the guidelines, we will not require the artwork to be resubmitted following the peer-review process, if your paper is accepted for publication.

Graphs, Histograms and Statistics
Plotting individual data points is preferred to just showing means, especially where N<10
If error bars are shown, they must be described in the figure legend
Axes on graphs should extend to zero, except for log axes
Statistical analyses (including error bars and p values) should only be shown for independently repeated experiments, and must not be shown for replicates of a single experiment
The number of times an experiment was repeated (N) must be stated in the legend.

Summary Box: Authors of Articles will be asked to include additional summary information on the submission form*. This is divided into two parts; firstly, 'What was known before'; and secondly, 'What this study adds'. There should be two or three bullet points for each heading, with one or two short sentences for each bullet point. The objective of this is to provide the reader with a brief, quick and focused summary of your work in the perspective of other data. *Please note this summary information will not be requested for Reviews or Correspondence.

Availability of Data and Materials Please see our Editorial Policies for information regarding data, protocols, sequences, or structures.

Supplementary Information:  Supplementary information is material directly relevant to the conclusion of an article that cannot be included in the printed version owing to space or format constraints. The article must be complete and self-explanatory without the Supplementary Information, which is posted on the journal's website and linked to the article. Supplementary Information may consist of data files, graphics, movies or extensive tables. Please see our Artwork Guidelines for information on accepted file types.
Authors should submit supplementary information files in the FINAL format as they are not edited, typeset or changed, and will appear online exactly as submitted. When submitting Supplementary Information, authors are required to: 

  • Include a text summary (no more than 50 words) to describe the contents of each file.
  • Identify the types of files (file formats) submitted.

Please note: We do not allow the resupplying of Supplementary Information files for style reasons after a paper has been exported in production, unless there is a serious error that affects the science and, if by not replacing, it would lead to a formal correction once the paper has been published. In these cases we would make an exception and replace the file, however there are very few instances where a Supplementary Information file would be corrected post publication.

Subject Ontology 
Upon submission authors will be asked to select a series of subject terms relevant to the topic of their manuscript from our subject ontology. Providing these terms will ensure your article is more discoverable and will appear on appropriate subject specific pages on nature.com, in addition to the journal’s own pages.  Your article should be indexed with at least one, and up to four unique subject terms that describe the key subjects and concepts in your manuscript.  Click here for help with this.