Contact

This Journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

This Journal recommends that authors follow the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals formulated by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).

Please read the guidelines below then visit the journal’s submission site https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/Contact to upload your manuscript. Please note that manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned. Remember you can log in to the submission site at any time to check on the progress of your paper through the peer review process.

Only manuscripts of sufficient quality that meet the aims and scope of Contact will be reviewed.

As part of the submission process you will be required to warrant that you are submitting your original work, that you have the rights in the work, and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you, that you are submitting the work for first publication in the Journal and that it is not being considered for publication elsewhere and has not already been published elsewhere. Please see our guidelines on prior publication and note that Contact will consider submissions of papers that have been posted on preprint servers; please alert the Editorial Office when submitting (contact details are at the end of these guidelines) and include the DOI for the preprint in the designated field in the manuscript submission system. Authors should not post an updated version of their paper on the preprint server while it is being peer reviewed for possible publication in the Journal. If the article is accepted for publication, the author may re-use their work according to the Journal's author archiving policy.

If your paper is accepted, you must include a link on your preprint to the final version of your paper.

If you have any questions about publishing with Sage, please visit the Sage Journal Solutions Portal

Please read the Manuscript Submission Guidelines below before submitting your manuscript here: 

SUBMIT MANUSCRIPT

 

1. Open Access
2. Article processing charge (APC)
3. What do we publish?
   3.1 Aims & scope
   3.2 Article types
   3.3 Writing your paper
   3.3.1 Making your article discoverable 
4. Editorial policies
   4.1 Peer Review Policy
   4.2 Authorship
   4.3 Acknowledgements
   4.3.1 Writing assistance
   4.4 Funding
   4.5 Declaration of conflicting interests
   4.6 Research ethics and patient consent
   4.7 Clinical Trials
   4.8 Reporting guidelines
   4.9 Research Data
5. Publishing policies
   5.1 Publication ethics
   5.1.1 Plagiarism
   5.1.2 Prior publication
   5.2 Contributor's publishing agreement
6. Preparing your manuscript
   6.1 General style guidance
   6.2 Word processing formats
   6.3 Artwork, figures and other graphics
   6.4 Supplemental material
   6.5 Reference style
   6.6 English language editing services
7. Submitting your manuscript
   7.1 How to submit your manuscript
   7.2 Title, keywords and abstracts
   7.3 Information required for completing your submission
   7.4 ORCID
   7.5 Permissions
8. On acceptance and publication
   8.1 Sage Production
   8.2 Continuous publication
   8.3 Promoting your article
9. Further information

 

1. Open Access

Contact is an open access, peer-reviewed journal. Each article accepted by peer reviewis made freely available online immediately upon publication, is published under a Creative Commons licenseand will be hosted online in perpetuity. Publication costs of the journal are covered by the collection of article processing charges which are paid by the funder, institution or author of each manuscript upon acceptance. There is no charge for submitting a paper to the journal.

For general information on open access at Sageplease visit the Open Access page or view our Open Access FAQs.

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2. Article processing charge (APC)

If, after peer review, your manuscript is accepted for publication, a one-time article processing charge (APC) is payable. This APC covers the cost of publication and ensures that your article will be freely available online in perpetuity under a Creative Commons license.

The Article Processing Charge (APC) for this journal is $800 USD.

There is no fee for News and Views.

The APC for Reports and Short Reviews is $250.

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3. What do we publish?

3.1 Aims & scope

Before submitting your manuscript to Contact, please ensure you have read the Aims & Scope.

3.2 Article types

Word limits include the abstract and figure legends, but not the title page, acknowledgements, tables, and references.

Original Research: Limit of 9,000 words, 10 figures, 125 references. Original Research must include the following sections: Introduction, Results and Discussion (can be amalgamated), and Materials and Methods.  A complete abstract should reflect and summarize these sections, though does not need to be formally structured.
Report: Limit of 2,500 words, 3-4 figures. Reports are briefer Original Research articles that may tell a shorter story than a full length article. They must include an Introduction, Results and Discussion (can be amalgamated), and Materials and Methods. A complete abstract should reflect and summarize these sections, though does not need to be formally structured. The APC for Reports is $250. 
Reviews: Limit of 5,000 words, 125 references. The abstract should summarize and reflect the Review's content and structure, but does not need to be formally structured.
Short Reviews: Limit of 2,500 words, 65 references. Briefer Reviews that may tell a shorter story than a full length article. The abstract should summarize and reflect the Review's content and structure, but does not need to be formally structured.The APC for Short Reviews is $250.
Opinions: Limit of 3,000 words, 125 references.
News and Views: Limit of 1,250 words, 10 references. News and Views are by invitation only. Please contact a senior editor if you are interested in contributing one. These are short summaries of significant recent and forthcoming papers, published elsewhere, that provide additional insights, new interpretations or speculation on the relevant topic. These manuscripts may include models, which due to space limitations were not included or discussed in the original paper. They may be written in free form, meaning that they do not need to be structured as a research paper, however, they must include an abstract of 150-200 words. Please include keywords for indexing purposes. Figures are encouraged, but no more than three. Please give your News and Views a brief title.
Addenda: Limit of 2,000 words, 25 references.
Meeting Reports: Limit of 2,000 words.

3.3 Writing your paper

The Sage Author Gateway has some general advice and on how to get published, plus links to further resources. Sage Author Services also offers authors a variety of ways to improve and enhance their article including English language editing, plagiarism detection, and video abstract and infographic preparation.

3.3.1 Making your article discoverable 

For information and guidance on how to make your article more discoverable, visit our Gateway page on How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online.

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4. Editorial policies

4.1 Peer review policy

The journal’s policy is to have manuscripts reviewed by three expert reviewers. Contact utilizes a double-anonymized peer review process in which the reviewer and authors’ names and information are withheld from the other. All manuscripts are reviewed as rapidly as possible, while maintaining rigor. Reviewers make comments to the author and recommendations to the Editor-in-Chief who then makes the final decision.

The Editor or members of the Editorial Board may occasionally submit their own manuscripts for possible publication in the journal. In these cases, the peer review process will be managed by alternative members of the Board and the submitting Editor / Board member will have no involvement in the decision-making process. 

4.2 Authorship

Papers should only be submitted for consideration once consent is given by all contributing authors. Those submitting papers should carefully check that all those whose work contributed to the paper are acknowledged as contributing authors. The list of authors should include all those who can legitimately claim authorship. This is all those who:

(i) Made a substantial contribution to the concept or design of the work; or acquisition, analysis or interpretation of data,
(ii) Drafted the article or revised it critically for important intellectual content,
(iii) Approved the version to be published,
(iv) Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content.

Authors should meet the conditions of all of the points above. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content.

When a large, multicentre group has conducted the work, the group should identify the individuals who accept direct responsibility for the manuscript. These individuals should fully meet the criteria for authorship.

Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group alone does not constitute authorship, although all contributors who do not meet the criteri a for authorship should be listed in the Acknowledgments section. Please refer to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) authorship guidelines for more information on authorship. 

Please note that AI chatbots, for example ChatGPT, should not be listed as authors. For more information see the policy on Use of ChatGPT and generative AI tools.

4.3 Acknowledgements

All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an Acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, or a department chair who provided only general support.

Acknowledge all reagents shared. Assign responsibility to each author for all aspects of the work they contributed to (for example: concept, design, experimentation, writing).

4.3.1 Third party submissions

Where an individual who is not listed as an author submits a manuscript on behalf of the author(s), a statement must be included in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript and in the accompanying cover letter. The statements must:

•    Disclose this type of editorial assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input 
•    Identify any entities that paid for this assistance 
•    Confirm that the listed authors have authorized the submission of their manuscript via third party and approved any statements or declarations, e.g. conflicting interests, funding, etc.

Where appropriate, Sage reserves the right to deny consideration to manuscripts submitted by a third party rather than by the authors themselves.

4.3.2 Writing assistance

Individuals who provided writing assistance, e.g. from a specialist communications company, do not qualify as authors and so should be included in the Acknowledgements section. Authors must disclose any writing assistance –including the individual’s name, company and level of input – and identify the entity that paid for this assistance.

It is not necessary to disclose use of language polishing services. Please supply any personal acknowledgements separately to the main text to facilitate anonymous peer review.

4.4 Funding

Contact requires all authors to acknowledge their funding in a consistent fashion under a separate heading. Please visit the Funding Acknowledgements page on the Sage Journal Author Gateway to confirm the format of the acknowledgment text in the event of funding, or state that: This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

4.5 Declaration of conflicting interests

It is the policy of Contact to require a declaration of conflicting interests from all authors enabling a statement to be carried within the paginated pages of all published articles.

Please ensure that a ‘Declaration of Conflicting Interests’ statement is included at the end of your manuscript, after any acknowledgements and prior to the references. If no conflict exists, please state that ‘The Author(s) declare(s) that there is no conflict of interest’.

For guidance on conflict of interest statements, please see the ICMJE recommendations.

4.6 Research ethics and patient consent

Contact does not publish any research involving human or animal subjects.

4.7 Clinical trials

Contact conforms to the ICMJE requirement that clinical trials are registered in a WHO-approved public trials registry at or before the time of first patient enrolment as a condition of consideration for publication. The trial registry name and URL, and registration number must be included at the end of the abstract.

4.8 Reporting guidelines

The relevant EQUATOR Network reporting guidelines should be followed depending on the type of study. For example, all randomized controlled trials submitted for publication should include a completed CONSORT flow chart as a cited figure and the completed CONSORT checklist should be uploaded with your submission as a supplementary file. Systematic reviews and metaanalyses should include the completed PRISMA flow chart as a cited figure and the completed PRISMA checklist should be uploaded with your submission as a supplementary file. The EQUATOR wizard can help you identify the appropriate guideline.

Other resources can be found at NLM’s Research Reporting Guidelines and Initiatives.

4.9 Research Data

The journal is committed to facilitating openness, transparency and reproducibility of research, and has the following research data sharing policy. For more information, including FAQs please visit the Sage Research Data policy pages.

Subject to appropriate ethical and legal considerations, authors are encouraged to:

• share your research data in a relevant public data repository
• include a data availability statement linking to your data. If it is not possible to share your data, we encourage you to consider using the statement to explain why it cannot be shared.
• cite this data in your research

 

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5. Publishing policies

5.1 Publication ethics

Sage is committed to upholding the integrity of the academic record. We encourage authors to refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics’ International Standards for Authors and view the Publication Ethics page on the Sage Author Gateway.

5.1.1 Plagiarism

Contact and Sage take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. We seek to protect the rights of our authors and we always investigate claims of plagiarism or misuse of published articles. Equally, we seek to protect the reputation of the journal against malpractice. Submitted articles may be checked with duplication-checking software. Where an article, for example, is found to have plagiarized other work or included third-party copyright material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgement, or where the authorship of the article is contested, we reserve the right to take action including, but not limited to: publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction); retracting the article; taking up the matter with the head of department or dean of the author's institution and/or relevant academic bodies or societies; or taking appropriate legal action.

5.1.2 Prior publication

If material has been previously published, it is not generally acceptable for publication in a Sage journal. However, there are certain circumstances where previously published material can be considered for publication. Please refer to the guidance on the Sage Author Gateway or if in doubt, contact the Editor at the address given below.

5.2 Contributor's publishing agreement

Before publication Sage requires the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement. Contact publishes manuscripts under Creative Commons licenses. The standard license for the journal is Creative Commons by Attribution Non-Commercial (CC BYNC), which allows others to re-use the work without permission as long as the work is properly referenced and the use is non-commercial. For more information, you are advised to visit Sage's OA licenses page.

Alternative license arrangements are available, for example, to meet particular funder mandates, made at the author’s request. 

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6. Preparing your manuscript

Word limits include the abstract and figure legends, but not the title page, acknowledgements, tables, and references.

Original Research: Limit of 9,000 words, 10 figures, 125 references. Original Research must include the following sections: Introduction, Results and Discussion (can be amalgated), and Materials and Methods.  A complete abstract should reflect and summarize these sections, though does not need to be formally structured.
Report: Limit of 2,500 words, 3-4 figures. Reports are briefer Original Research articles that may tell a shorter story than full length article. They must include an Introduction, Results, Discussion, and Materials and Methods. A complete abstract should reflect and summarize these sections, though does not need to be formally structured. 
Reviews: Limit of 5,000 words, 125 references. The abstract should summarize and reflect the Review's content and structure, but does not need to be formally structured.
Opinions: Limit of 3,000 words, 125 references.
News and Views: Limit of 1,250 words, 10 references. News and Views are by invitation only. Please contact a senior editor if you are interested in contributing one. 
Addenda: Limit of 2,000 words, 25 references.
Meeting Reports: Limit of 2,000 words.

6.1 General style guidance

Use the active voice ("we studied …"), not the passive voice ("… was studied"). Avoid nonstandard abbreviations. For example use "sites of membrane contact" and similar phrases instead of "membrane contact sites (MCS)", even if you had intended to use the novel three letter acronym repeatedly. Provide a list of essential non-standard abbreviations on the title page.

6.2 Word processing formats

The preferred format for your manuscript is Word. LaTeX files are also accepted. Word and (La)Tex templates are available on the Manuscript Submission Guidelines page of our Author Gateway.

6.3 Artwork, figures and other graphics

For guidance on the preparation of illustrations, pictures and graphs in electronic format, please visit Sage’s Manuscript Submission Guidelines.

Artwork font: Any lettering within a figure must be in Helvetica or Arial, or a very closely matching sans serif font, except for sequence alignments, which should be in Courier or a similar fixed-width font.

Figures supplied in color will appear in color online.

6.4 Supplemental material

This journal is able to host additional materials online (e.g. datasets, podcasts, videos, images etc) alongside the full-text of the article. For more information please refer to our guidelines on submitting supplemental files. 

6.5 Reference style

Only published articles (including “in press” if accepted but not yet published), books or web resources should be listed in the References section. Please follow the guidelines below for formatting your citations and reference list.

If you use EndNote to manage references, you can download the Contact output file here.

Preprints, etc
Articles under review and in revision, including preprints on servers such as BioRxiv should not be included in the list of references. The same applies to unpublished results, including personal communications, both of which should be kept to a minimum, and the latter should be accompanied by written permission from the person quoted. All information in these categories should be referred to in parentheses in the main text, formatted similar to references in the main list (see below). For example:

(Smith ML, Jones JFX (2018). Manuscript under review)
(Simpson B (2019) Multiple Locations for Springfield outside Illinois. bioRxiv, 123456)
(First A, Second B, Third C, Fourth D, Fifth E, Sixth F, Seventh G, Eighth H, Ninth I, Tenth J … Last Z (2019). Manuscript in revision)

During revision and proofing, authors should update any such citation to the most recent version of the manuscript available especially replacing it with a full citation if the article is accepted or published. 

Citations
Cite references in the text by author name and date, ordered by date of publication then author name. For example:

(Smith and Jones, 2018)
(Smith and Jones, 2018; Nipp and Drin, 2019)
(HIPHOP chemogenomics database: YGL079W_p / KXD1, 2014)

Reference List
References in alphabetical order should contain complete titles, full page numbers and in particular: digital object identifier (doi) for every case where possible, as these will never change in future. For references with 11 authors or fewer, list all authors. For references with 12 or more authors, list the first 10 authors followed by "et al.". Abbreviate journal titles as in the National Library of Medicine Catalog (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=journals). Examples:

Journal Article:
Smith ML, Jones JFX (2018). Dual-extrusion 3D printing of anatomical models for education. Anat Sci Educ 11, 65–72. doi: 10.1002/ase.1730

NB Volume italicized

Book Chapter:
Nipp NF, Drin G (2019). In Vitro Strategy to Measure Sterol/Phosphatidylinositol-4-Phosphate Exchange Between Membranes. In: Intracellular Lipid Transport, ed. G. Drin, New York: Humana Press, 269-292. doi: 10.1007/978-1-4939-9136-5_19

Web Site:
Cite the title of cited page, full URL, and date of access. Optionally (If data can be retrieved) include authors and year page created. Place at end of reference list with a subheading “Web References”.

HIPHOP chemogenomics database: YGL079W_p / KXD1. Downloaded from http://chemogenomics.pharmacy.ubc.ca/ycs/index.php?q=KXD1&f=fixed&fr=0&r...\ accessed 19/04/2019 (created 2014)

Co-Authorships:
Along with other journals, we aim to increase the visibility of co-authorships that identify equal contributions, especially first and last authorships. This should be done when the manuscript is in the proofing stage. In the Reference List: The names of co-first or co-last authors should be converted to bold, and a footnote added to that reference section explaining that these authors contributed equally as first/last authors. For Citations: co-first authors should all be considered as one in the naming. Example:

(Hamilton et al., 1787)  (Hamilton, Johnson, King , Madison , Morris et al., 1787)

6.6 English language editing services

Authors seeking assistance with English language editing, translation, or figure and manuscript formatting to fit the journal’s specifications should consider using Sage Language Services. Visit Sage Language Services on our Journal Author Gateway for further information. 

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7. Submitting your manuscript

7.1 How to submit your manuscript

Contact is hosted on Sage Track, a web based online submission and peer review system powered by ScholarOne™ Manuscripts. Visit https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/Contact to login and submit your article online.

IMPORTANT: Please check whether you already have an account in the system before trying to create a new one. If you have reviewed or authored for the journal in the past year it is likely that you will have had an account created. For further guidance on submitting your manuscript online please visit ScholarOne Online Help.

7.2 Title, keywords and abstracts

Please supply a title, an abstract and keywords to accompany your article. The title, keywords and abstract are key to ensuring readers find your article online through online search engines such as Google. Please refer to the information and guidance on how best to title your article, write your abstract and select your keywords by visiting the Sage Journal Author Gateway for guidelines on How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online.

The title should be no more than 100 characters, including spaces. A running title of an additional 40 characters including spaces, may also be added.

The title page should include contact details and email addresses for all authors. Identify the corresponding author(s). Include the keywords on the title page (see below).

The abstract should be an unstructured, single paragraph that gives a clear synopsis of the article’s content and its significance. The word limit is 250 words or less for Original Research, Reports, Reviews, and Opinions, and less than 150 words for News and Views, Meeting Reports, and Addenda. Abstracts should not include references. Avoid abbreviations in the abstract wherever possible.

The keywords should include up to 6 key general topics to which the article can be related. Ideally, these are terms absent from the title and abstract, thus providing additional search terms by which the paper may be discovered through database searches. However, if this is not possible, keywords may appear in the title and/or abstract.

7.3 Information required for completing your submission

Provide full contact details for the corresponding author including email, mailing address and telephone numbers. Academic affiliations are required for all co-authors. These details should be presented separately to the main text of the article to facilitate anonymous peer review.

You will be asked to provide contact details and academic affiliations for all co-authors via the submission system and identify who is to be the corresponding author. These details must match what appears on your manuscript. The affiliation listed on the manuscript should be the institution where the research was conducted. If an author has moved to a new institution since completing the research, the new affiliation can be included in a manuscript note at the end of the paper. At this stage please ensure you have included all the required statements and declarations and uploaded any additional supplementary files (including reporting guidelines where relevant).

7.4 ORCID

As part of our commitment to ensuring an ethical, transparent and fair peer review process Sage is a supporting member of ORCID, the Open Researcher and Contributor ID. ORCID provides a unique and persistent digital identifier that distinguishes researchers from every other researcher, even those who share the same name, and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between researchers and their professional activities, ensuring that their work is recognized.

The collection of ORCID iDs from corresponding authors is now part of the submission process of this journal. If you already have an ORCID iD you will be asked to associate that to your submission during the online submission process. We also strongly encourage all co-authors to link their ORCID ID to their accounts in our online peer review platforms. It takes seconds to do: click the link when prompted, sign into your ORCID account and our systems are automatically updated. Your ORCID iD will become part of your accepted publication’s metadata, making your work attributable to you and only you. Your ORCID iD is published with your article so that fellow researchers reading your work can link to your ORCID profile and from there link to your other publications.

If you do not already have an ORCID iD please follow this link to create one or visit our ORCID homepage to learn more.

7.5 Permissions

Authors are responsible for obtaining permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. For further information including guidance on fair dealing for criticism and review, please visit our Frequently Asked Questions on the Sage Journal Author Gateway.

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8. On acceptance and publication

If your paper is accepted for publication after peer review, you will first be asked to complete the contributor’s publishing agreement. Once your manuscript files have been checked for Sage Production, the corresponding author will be asked to pay the article processing charge (APC) via a payment link. Once the APC has been processed, your article will be prepared for publication and can appear online within an average of 30 days. Please note that no production work will occur on your paper until the APC has been received.

8.1 Sage Production

Your Sage Production Editor will keep you informed as to your article’s progress throughout the production process. Proofs will made available to the corresponding author via our editing portal Sage Edit, or by email to the corresponding author and should be returned promptly.  Authors are reminded to check their proofs carefully to confirm that all author information, including names, affiliations, sequence and contact details are correct, and that Funding and Conflict of Interest statements, if any, are accurate. 

8.2 Online publication

One of the many benefits of publishing your research in an open access journal is the speed to publication. Your article will be published online in a fully  citable form with a DOI number as soon as it has completed the production process. At this time it will be completely free to view and download for all. 

8.3 Promoting your article

Publication is not the end of the process! You can help disseminate your paper and ensure it is as widely read and cited as possible. The Sage Author Gateway has numerous resources to help you promote your work. Visit the Promote Your Article page on the Gateway for tips and advice.  

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9. Further information

Any correspondence, queries or additional requests for information on the Manuscript Submission process should be sent to the Editor-in-Chief as follows:

Tim Levine | tim.levine@ucl.ac.uk 

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