Submission Preparation Checklist

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.

• The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
• The text is single-spaced; uses a 12-point font; employs italics, rather than underlining (except with URL addresses); and all illustrations, figures, and tables are placed within the text at the appropriate points, rather than at the end and generally aligns to the writing style stipulated by the Journal.
• The submission file is in OpenOffice, Microsoft Word, or RTF document file format.
• A Blind Manuscript with no indication of authors to be submitted for purposes of the peer review. The blind manuscript should include all figures, tables and illustrations where applicable.
• An Abstract in a single paragraph and of less than 300 words has been provided
• A Title Page will be separately submitted upon acceptance of the article. This should include the names of authors and their institutions of affiliation, a declaration of funding sources of funding, ethics approvals sought (where possible) as well as acknowledgements
• The list of references only contains items that have been cited in the manuscript and where possible URLs and DOIs have been provided
• Appendices may also be separated separately but clearly marked with no indication of authors