Submission and Peer Review Process

Once the submission materials have been prepared in accordance with the Author Guidelines, manuscripts should be submitted online at ScholarOne Manuscripts.

For help with submissions, please contact: MSP2@pub.hep.cn

This journal does/does not charge submission fees. 

Article Preparation Support  

Wiley Editing Services offers expert help with English Language Editing, as well as translation, manuscript formatting, figure illustration, figure formatting, and graphical abstract design – so you can submit your manuscript with confidence.  

Also, check out our resources for Preparing Your Article for general guidance about writing and preparing your manuscript. 

 

Preprint your manuscript on Authorea 

You can now opt to seamlessly preprint your manuscript at submission, through Wiley’s Under Review service, powered by Authorea. Make your work citable and discoverable, before it is accepted or published. 

 

Free format submission 

Malignancy Spectrum now offers Free Format submission for a simplified and streamlined submission process.  

Before you submit, you will need: 

• Your manuscript: this should be an editable file including text, figures, and tables, or separate files—whichever you prefer. All required sections should be contained in your manuscript, including abstract, introduction, methods, results, and conclusions. Figures and tables should have legends. Figures should be uploaded in the highest resolution possible. If the figures are not of sufficiently high quality your manuscript may be delayed. References may be submitted in any style or format, as long as it is consistent throughout the manuscript. Supporting information should be submitted in separate files. If the manuscript, figures or tables are difficult for you to read, they will also be difficult for the editors and reviewers, and the editorial office will send it back to you for revision. Your manuscript may also be sent back to you for revision if the quality of English language is poor. 
• An ORCID ID, freely available at https://orcid.org. (Why is this important? Your article, if accepted and published, will be attached to your ORCID profile. Institutions and funders are increasingly requiring authors to have ORCID IDs.) 
• The title page of the manuscript, including: 
• Your co-author details, including affiliation and email address. (Why is this important? We need to keep all co-authors informed of the outcome of the peer review process.) 
• Statements relating to our ethics and integrity policies, which may include any of the following (Why are these important? We need to uphold rigorous ethical standards for the research we consider for publication): 
• data availability statement 
• funding statement 
• conflict of interest disclosure 
• ethics approval statement 
• patient consent statement 
• permission to reproduce material from other sources 
• clinical trial registration 

 

Open Access 

Gold open access title. Submissions will be subject to an APC if accepted and published in the journal. You can read more about APCs and whether you may be eligible for waivers or discounts, through your institution, funder, or a country waiver. 

 

Preprint policy:  

Please find the Wiley preprint policy here. 

This journal accepts articles previously published on preprint servers. 

Wiley's Preprints Policy statement for subscription/hybrid open access journals 

Malignancy Spectrum will consider for review articles previously available as preprints. You may also post the submitted version of a manuscript to a preprint server at any time. You are requested to update any pre-publication versions with a link to the final published article. 

Wiley's Preprints Policy statement for open access journals 

Malignancy Spectrum will consider for review articles previously available as preprints. You are requested to update any pre-publication versions with a link to the final published article. You may also post the final published version of the article immediately after publication. 

Authors are responsible for anonymizing their manuscript in order to remain anonymous to the reviewers throughout the peer review process (see “Main Text File” above for more details). Since the journal also encourages posting of preprints, however, please note that if authors share their manuscript in preprint form this may compromise their anonymity during peer review. 

 

Registered Reports 

See the Registered Reports Author Guidelines for full details. 

 

Data Sharing and Data Availability 

This journal encourages/expects/mandates/mandates and peer reviews data sharing. Review Wiley’s Data Sharing policy where you will be able to see and select the data availability statement that is right for your submission. 

 

Data Citation  

Please review Wiley’s Data Citation policy. 

 

Data Protection 

By submitting a manuscript to or reviewing for this publication, your name, email address, and affiliation, and other contact details the publication might require, will be used for the regular operations of the publication. Please review Wiley’s Data Protection Policy to learn more. 

 

Funding 

You should list all funding sources in the Acknowledgments section. You are responsible for the accuracy of their funder designation. If in doubt, please check the Open Funder Registry for the correct nomenclature. 

 

Authorship 

All listed authors should have contributed to the manuscript substantially and have agreed to the final submitted version. Review editorial standards and scroll down for a description of authorship criteria. 

 

Author Pronouns  

Authors may now include their personal pronouns in the author bylines of their published articles and on Wiley Online Library. Authors will never be required to include their pronouns; it will always be optional for the author.  Authors can include their pronouns in their manuscript upon submission and can add, edit, or remove their pronouns at any stage upon request. Submitting/corresponding authors should never add, edit, or remove a coauthor’s pronouns without that coauthor’s consent. Where post-publication changes to pronouns are required, these can be made without a correction notice to the paper, following Wiley’s Name Change Policy to protect the author’s privacy. Terms which fall outside of the scope of personal pronouns (e.g. proper or improper nouns), are currently not supported. 

 

ORCID 

This journal requires ORCID. Please refer to Wiley’s resources on ORCID. 

 

Reproduction of Copyright Material 

If excerpts from copyrighted works owned by third parties are included, credit must be shown in the contribution. It is your responsibility to also obtain written permission for reproduction from the copyright owners. For more information visit Wiley’s Copyright Terms & Conditions FAQ. 

The corresponding author is responsible for obtaining written permission to reproduce the material "in print and other media" from the publisher of the original source, and for supplying Wiley with that permission upon submission. 

 

Title Page  

The title page should contain:  

1. A brief informative title containing the major key words. The title should not contain abbreviations (see Wiley's best practice SEO tips);  
2. A short running title of less than 40 characters; 
3. The full names of the authors;  
4. The author's institutional affiliations where the work was conducted, with a footnote for the author’s present address if different from where the work was conducted;  
5. Acknowledgments.  

 

Main Text File 

The file should be in Word and include: 

Manuscripts can be uploaded either as a single document (containing the main text, tables and figures), or with figures and tables provided as separate files. Should your manuscript reach revision stage, figures and tables must be provided as separate files. The main manuscript file can be submitted in Microsoft Word (.doc or .docx)  format. 

Your main document file should include: 

• A short informative title containing the major key words. The title should not contain abbreviations.
• The full names of the authors with institutional affiliations where the work was conducted, with a footnote for the author’s present address if different from where the work was conducted.
• Acknowledgments
• Abstract structured (intro/methods/results/conclusion) or unstructured 
• Up to seven keywords
• Practitioner Points (optional) Authors will need to provide no more than 3 ‘key points’, written with the practitioner in mind, that summarize the key messages of their paper to be published with their article.  
• Main body: formatted as introduction, materials & methods, results, discussion, conclusion. 
• References
• Tables (each table complete with title and footnotes)
• Figure legends: Legends should be supplied as a complete list in the text. Figures should be uploaded as separate files (see below). 

 

Reference Style 

This journal uses AMA reference style (reference style guidelines); as the journal offers Free Format submission, however, this is for information only and you do not need to format the references in your article. This will instead be taken care of by the typesetter. 

 

Figures and Supporting Information 

Figures, supporting information, and appendices should be supplied as separate files. You should review the basic figure requirements for manuscripts for peer review, as well as the more detailed post-acceptance figure requirements. View Wiley’s FAQs on supporting information. 

 

Peer Review  

This journal operates under a single-blind peer review model. Papers will only be sent to review if the Editor-in-Chief determines that the paper meets the appropriate quality and relevance requirements. 

In-house submissions, i.e. papers authored by Editors or Editorial Board members of the title, will be sent to Editors unaffiliated with the author or institution and monitored carefully to ensure there is no peer review bias. 

Wiley's policy on the confidentiality of the review process is available here. 

This journal is participating in a pilot on Peer Review Transparency and you have the choice to opt-out during the submission process. By submitting to this journal, you agree that the reviewer reports, their responses, and the editor’s decision letter will be linked from the published article to where they appear on Publons in the case that the article is accepted. Reviewers can choose to remain anonymous unless they would like to sign their report.  

 

Appeals and complaints 

Authors may appeal an editorial decision if they feel that the decision to reject was based on either a significant misunderstanding of a core aspect of the manuscript, a failure to understand how the manuscript advances the literature or concerns regarding the manuscript-handling process. Differences in opinion regarding the novelty or significance of the reported findings are not considered as grounds for appeal. To raise an appeal, please contact the journal by email, quoting your manuscript ID number and explaining your rationale for the appeal. The editor’s decision following an appeal consideration is final.  

To raise a complaint regarding editorial staff, policy or process please contact the journal in the first instance. If you believe further support outside the journal’s management is necessary, please refer to Wiley’s Best Practice Guidelines on Research Integrity and Publishing Ethics. 

 

Refer and Transfer Program 

Wiley believes that no valuable research should go unshared. This journal participates in Wiley’s Refer & Transfer program. If your manuscript is not accepted, you may receive a recommendation to transfer your manuscript to another suitable Wiley journal, either through a referral from the journal’s editor or through our Transfer Desk Assistant. 

 

Guidelines on Publishing and Research Ethics in Journal Articles 

The journal requires that you include in the manuscript details IRB approvals, ethical treatment of human and animal research participants, and gathering of informed consent, as appropriate. You will be expected to declare all conflicts of interest, or none, on submission. Please review Wiley’s policies surrounding human studies, animal studies, clinical trial registration, biosecurity, and research reporting guidelines. 

This journal follows the core practices of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and handles cases of research and publication misconduct accordingly (https://publicationethics.org/core-practices).  

This journal uses iThenticate’s CrossCheck software to detect instances of overlapping and similar text in submitted manuscripts. Read Wiley’s Top 10 Publishing Ethics Tips for Authors and Wiley’s Publication Ethics Guidelines.  

 

 

Author Contributions 

For all articles, the journal mandates the CRediT (Contribution Roles Taxonomy)—more information is available on our Author Services site. 

 

 

Article Types

Article Type		Description	Word Limit	Abstract / Structure	Other Requirements
Original Papers		reports of new research findings or conceptual analyses that make a significant contribution to knowledge	3500 limit	Yes, Structured	Data Availability Statement  IRB Statement
Commentaries		evidence-based opinion pieces involving areas of broad interest and invited commentaries.	broad interest 1500 limit / invited 1000 limit	No
Comprehensive Reviews		critical reviews of the literature, including systematic reviews and meta-analyses	5000 limit	Yes, unstructured
Brief Reports		preliminary findings of research in progress or a case report of particular interest	1500 limit	Yes, structured	Data Availability Statement  IRB Statement
Letter to the Editor		Must email editorial office requesting to submit	1000 limit	No

 

 

After Acceptance

First Look 

After your paper is accepted, your files will be assessed by the editorial office to ensure they are ready for production. You may be contacted if any updates or final files are required. Otherwise, your paper will be sent to the production team. 

 

Wiley Author Services 

When an accepted article is received by Wiley’s production team, the corresponding author will receive an email asking them to login or register with Wiley Author Services. You will be asked to sign a publication license at this point as well as pay for any applicable APCs. 

 

Copyright & Licensing 

 

WALS + standard CTA/ELA and/or Open Access for hybrid titles 

You may choose to publish under the terms of the journal’s standard copyright agreement, or Open Access under the terms of a Creative Commons License.  

Standard re-use and licensing rights vary by journal. Note that certain funders mandate a particular type of CC license be used. This journal uses the CC-BY/CC-BY-NC/CC-BY-NC-ND Creative Commons License. 

Self-Archiving Definitions and Policies: Note that the journal’s standard copyright agreement allows for self-archiving of different versions of the article under specific conditions. 

 

WALS + Full Open Access 

Malignancy Spectrum is an Open Access journal: authors of accepted papers pay an Article Publication Charge and their papers are published under a Creative Commons license. This journal uses the CC-BY/CC-BY-NC/CC-BY-NC-ND Creative Commons License. Note that certain funders mandate a particular type of CC license be used. 

 

Accepted Articles 

The journal offers Wiley’s Accepted Articles service for all manuscripts. Manuscripts accepted ‘in press’ are published online shortly after acceptance, prior to copy-editing or typesetting and appear in PDF format only. After the final version article is published (the article of record), the DOI remains valid and can still be used to cite and access the article. 

 

Early View 

Upon publication, articles are available as full text HTML or PDF in Early View prior to inclusion in an issue and can be cited as references using their Digital Object Identifier (DOI) number. 

 

Proofs 

Authors will receive an e-mail notification with a link and instructions for accessing HTML page proofs online/with their proofs included as a pdf. Authors should also make sure that any renumbered tables, figures, or references match text citations and that figure legends correspond with text citations and actual figures. Proofs must be returned within 48 hours of receipt of the email.  

 

Article Promotion Support  

Wiley Editing Services offers professional video, design, and writing services to create shareable video abstracts, infographics, conference posters, lay summaries, and research news stories for your research – so you can help your research get the attention it deserves. 

 

Author Name Change Policy  

In cases where authors wish to change their name following publication, Wiley will update and republish the paper and redeliver the updated metadata to indexing services. Our editorial and production teams will use discretion in recognizing that name changes may be of a sensitive and private nature for various reasons including (but not limited to) alignment with gender identity, or as a result of marriage, divorce, or religious conversion. Accordingly, to protect the author’s privacy, we will not publish a correction notice to the paper, and we will not notify co-authors of the change. Authors should contact the journal’s Editorial Office with their name change request. 

 

Correction to authorship  

In accordance with Wiley’s Best Practice Guidelines on Research Integrity and Publishing Ethics and the Committee on Publication Ethics’ guidance, Malignancy Spectrum will allow authors to correct authorship on a submitted, accepted, or published article if a valid reason exists to do so. All authors – including those to be added or removed – must agree to any proposed change. To request a change to the author list, please complete the Request for Changes to a Journal Article Author List Form and contact either the journal’s editorial or production office, depending on the status of the article. Authorship changes will not be considered without a fully completed Author Change form. [Correcting the authorship is different from changing an author’s name; the relevant policy for that can be found in Wiley’s Best Practice Guidelines under “Author name changes after publication.”] 

 

Appendix 

 

Open Research Badges 

This journal is part of Wiley’s Open Research Badges program.  

 

Graphical TOC/Abstract 

The journal’s table of contents/abstract will be presented in graphical form with a brief abstract.  

The table of contents entry must include the article title, the authors' names (with the corresponding author indicated by an asterisk), no more than 80 words or 3 sentences of text summarizing the key findings presented in the paper and a figure that best represents the scope of the paper.  

Table of contents entries should be submitted to ScholarOne as ‘Supplementary material for review’ during the initial manuscript submission process.  

The image supplied should fit within the dimensions of 50mm x 60mm and be fully legible at this size.  

 

Resource Identification Initiative 

The journal supports the Resource Identification Initiative, which aims to promote research resource identification, discovery, and reuse. This initiative, led by the Neuroscience Information Framework and the Oregon Health & Science University Library, provides unique identifiers for antibodies, model organisms, cell lines, and tools including software and databases. These IDs, called Research Resource Identifiers (RRIDs), are machine-readable and can be used to search for all papers where a particular resource was used and to increase access to critical data to help researchers identify suitable reagents and tools. 

You will be asked to use RRIDs to cite the resources used in your research where applicable in the text, similar to a regular citation or Genbank Accession number. For antibodies, you should include in the citation the vendor, catalogue number, and RRID both in the text upon first mention in the Methods section. For software tools and databases, please provide the name of the resource followed by the resource website, if available, and the RRID. For model organisms, the RRID alone is sufficient. 

Additionally, you must include the RRIDs in the list of keywords associated with the manuscript. 

 

To Obtain Research Resource Identifiers (RRIDs): 

1. Use the Resource Identification Portal, created by the Resource Identification Initiative Working Group. 
2. Search for the research resource (please see the section titled “Search Features and Tips” for more information). 
3. Click on the “Cite This” button to obtain the citation and insert the citation into the manuscript text. 

If there is a resource that is not found within the Resource Identification Portal, you are asked to register the resource with the appropriate resource authority. Information on how to do this is provided in the “Resource Citation Guidelines” section of the Portal. 

If any difficulties in obtaining identifiers arise, please contact rii-help@scicrunch.org for assistance. 

 

Example Citations: 

Antibodies: "Wnt3 was localized using a rabbit polyclonal antibody C64F2 against Wnt3 (Cell Signaling Technology, Cat# 2721S, RRID: AB_2215411)" 

Model Organisms: "Experiments were conducted in c. elegans strain SP304 (RRID:CGC_SP304)" 

Cell lines: "Experiments were conducted in PC12 CLS cells (CLS Cat# 500311/p701_PC-12, RRID:CVCL_0481)" 

Tools, Software, and Databases: "Image analysis was conducted with CellProfiler Image Analysis Software, V2.0 (http://www.cellprofiler.org, RRID:nif-0000-00280)" 

 

Species Names 

Upon its first use in the title, abstract, and text, the common name of a species should be followed by the scientific name (genus, species, and authority) in parentheses. For well-known species, however, scientific names may be omitted from article titles. If no common name exists in English, only the scientific name should be used.  

 

Genetic Nomenclature 

Sequence variants should be described in the text and tables using both DNA and protein designations whenever appropriate. Sequence variant nomenclature must follow the current HGVS guidelines; see varnomen.hgvs.org, where examples of acceptable nomenclature are provided. 

 

Sequence Data 

Nucleotide sequence data can be submitted in electronic form to any of the three major collaborative databases: DDBJ, EMBL, or GenBank. It is only necessary to submit to one database as data are exchanged between DDBJ, EMBL, and GenBank on a daily basis. The suggested wording for referring to accession-number information is: ‘These sequence data have been submitted to the DDBJ/EMBL/GenBank databases under accession number U12345’. Addresses are as follows: 

• DNA Data Bank of Japan (DDBJ): www.ddbj.nig.ac.jp 
• EMBL Nucleotide Archive: ebi.ac.uk/ena 
• GenBank: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genbank 

Proteins sequence data should be submitted to either of the following repositories:  

• Protein Information Resource (PIR): pir.georgetown.edu 
• SWISS-PROT: expasy.ch/sprot/sprot-top 

 

Structural Data 

For papers describing structural data, atomic coordinates and the associated experimental data should be deposited in the appropriate databank (see below). Please note that the data in databanks must be released, at the latest, upon publication of the article. We trust in the cooperation of our authors to ensure that atomic coordinates and experimental data are released on time.  

• Organic and organometallic compounds: Crystallographic data should not be sent as Supporting Information, but should be deposited with the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre (CCDC) at ccdc.cam.ac.uk/services/structure%5Fdeposit. 
• Inorganic compounds: Fachinformationszentrum Karlsruhe (FIZ; fiz-karlsruhe.de). 
• Proteins and nucleic acids: Protein Data Bank (rcsb.org/pdb).  
• NMR spectroscopy data: BioMagResBank (bmrb.wisc.edu).  

 

Cover Image Submissions  

This journal accepts artwork submissions for Cover Images. This is an optional service you can use to help increase article exposure and showcase your research. For more information, including artwork guidelines, pricing, and submission details, please visit the Journal Cover Image page.  

Wiley Editing Services offers a professional cover image design service that creates eye-catching images, ready to be showcased on the journal cover. 

 

Additional Guidelines for Cover Pictures, Visual Abstracts, Frontispieces and Table of Contents Graphics 

• Concepts illustrated in graphical material must clearly fit with the research discussed in the accompanying text. 
• Images featuring depictions or representations of people must not contain any form of objectification, sexualization, stereotyping, or discrimination. We also ask authors to consider community diversity in images containing multiple depictions or representations of people. 
• Inappropriate use, representation, or depiction of religious figures or imagery, and iconography should be avoided. 
• Use of elements of mythology, legends, and folklore might be acceptable and will be decided on a case-by-case basis. However, these images must comply with the guidelines on human participants when they are present. 
• Generally, authors should consider any sensitivities when using images of objects that might have cultural significance or may be inappropriate in the context (for example, religious texts, historical events, and depictions of people). 

• Legal requirements: 
• All necessary copyright permission for the reproduction of the graphical elements used in visuals must be obtained prior to publication. 
• Clearance must be obtained from identifiable people before using their image on the cover or the like and such clearance must specify that it will be used on the cover. Use within text does not require such clearance unless it discloses sensitive personal information such as medical information. In all situations involving disclosure of such personal info, specific permission must be obtained. And images of individuals should not be used in a false manner. 

Graphics that do not adhere to these guidelines will be recommended for revision or will not be accepted for publication. 

 

Embedded Rich Media 

This journal has the option for authors to embed rich media (i.e. video and audio) within their final article. These files should be submitted with the manuscript files online, using either the “Embedded Video” or “Embedded Audio” file designation. If the video/audio includes dialogue, a transcript should be included as a separate file. The combined manuscript files, including video, audio, tables, figures, and text must not exceed 350 MB. For full guidance on accepted file types and resolution please see here. 

Ensure each file is numbered (e.g. Video 1, Video 2, etc.) Legends for the rich media files should be placed at the end of the article. 

The content of the video should not display overt product advertising. Educational presentations are encouraged. 

Any narration should be in English, if possible. A typed transcript of any speech within the video/audio should be provided. An English translation of any non-English speech should be provided in the transcript.  

All embedded rich media will be subject to peer review. Editors reserve the right to request edits to rich media files as a condition of acceptance. Contributors are asked to be succinct, and the Editors reserve the right to require shorter video/audio duration. The video/audio should be high quality (both in content and visibility/audibility). The video/audio should make a specific point; particularly, it should demonstrate the features described in the text of the manuscript. 

Participant Consent: It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to seek informed consent from any identifiable participant in the rich media files. Masking a participant’s eyes, or excluded head and shoulders is not sufficient. Please ensure that a consent form (https://authorservices.wiley.com/author-resources/Journal-Authors/licensing/licensing-info-faqs.html) is provided for each participant.  

 

Plain Language Summary 

The Plain Language Summary (PLS) should convey the same information as the Abstract but in a completely different language and tone. It should summarize your scientific study, its results, and their broader relevance without using jargon so that it is understandable by scientists from outside of your discipline, as well as science journalists and science educators. The PLS should be a single paragraph no more than 200 words long.