Submissions

The PDF version of this document can be downloaded here.

Brief guides: Format main manuscript file | Prepare figures | Prepare supplementary files | Format references

Bladder (ISSN 2327-2120) is an international, open-access journal committed to publishing top-quality peer-reviewed articles describing basic laboratory, translational, and clinical investigations in the broad fields of bladder biology and diseases, including benign and malignant conditions. Subject areas covered by Bladder include, but are not limited to: anatomy, development, diseases of the bladder and urinary tract covering by urothelium, epidemiology, etiology, genomics and precision medicine, neurophysiology, urinary-based liquid biopsies.

Types of Papers

Research articles are peer-reviewed full length reports describing original clinical, translational and/or laboratory investigations.

Brief reports are peer-present timely and highly innovative original observations of immediate impact.

Reviews are peer-reviewed articles that aim to provide a timely, comprehensive and insightful overview of a research topic within the scope of the journal.

Mini reviews offer a brief and focused summary of recent insights or advances in specific research topics within the scope of the journal.

Case reports are peer-reviewed and should present clinically novel and well-documented cases of general interest and educational value to the practitioner.

Perspectives are expert views and opinions on issues of importance to basic research and clinical practice.

Research highlights are short commentaries on one or more recently published journal articles that report novel and significant findings and interest the readers of Bladder. Research highlights are usually commissioned from leading experts in a particular field.

Letters to the Editor are short essays that comment on articles published in the journal up to 3 months after the publication of the articles.

Manuscript Preparation

General Guidelines for Formatting Manuscripts

Manuscripts must be written in clear and concise English and be in accordance with the following length and formatting guidelines. The Editors reserve the right to return manuscripts that are not in accordance with the guidelines. It is highly recommended that prior to submission, manuscripts be proof-read by a native English speaker.

Text

The Editorial Office currently accepts manuscript files in MS Word format. Please submit the full text (including figures and their accompanying legends, tables, and references) as a single MS Word file. However, source files of figures also have to be submitted individually (see below, under "Figures").

Manuscripts should be presented in the following order: i) Title page; ii) Abstract and Key words; iii) Main text; iv) Acknowledgments; v) References; vi) Figure and Figure legends; vii) Tables (with title and footnotes if any). Footnotes to the text are not allowed and such materials should be incorporated into the text. For the convenience of the reviewers, figures should be embedded in MS Word file and their legends should appear immediately below their corresponding figures.

Title page should contain: i) the title of the paper; Title should be short, informative and contain major key words of the manuscript. Abbreviations and all-caps should be avoided in the title. ii) the full names of all authors; iii) authors' affiliations; iv) email address of corresponding author(s); v) a short running title (less than 40 characters); vi) abbreviations used; vii) funding source; viii) financial disclosure; ix) conflict of interest; x) clinical trial registration with registry name and registration number, if any.

Abstract and Key Words: Structured abstracts not exceeding 250 words for Research Articles and Brief Reports should include the following 4 headings Objectives, Methods, Results, and Conclusions. For other types of papers, abstract should be a single paragraph not exceeding 250 words. Abbreviations should be avoided where possible. Reference citations within the abstract are not permitted. The abstract should describe all key novel findings of the study (Research Articles) or key concept and conclusions (Reviews). Up to five keywords should be given in alphabetical order, below the abstract, each separated by a comma.

Figures

Figures and supplementary figures should be presented in the order they are mentioned in the text. All figures should be cited in consecutive order in consecutive Arabic numerals in the text (such as Figure 1, Figure 2 and 3, Figure 3A and 3B, Figure 2A-2C). When figures are cited in parenthesis, figures name should be shortened as Fig. (such as Fig. 1).

The final dimensions of figures will be between 82 mm and 172 mm wide on the printed page. Figures divided into panels should be labeled with an upper-case, bold letter (Helvetica or Arial Font, such as A, B, C). Multi-panel figures should be composed as one single image and be in proportion, with consistently sized lettering so that the whole figure can be proportionally scaled down to the smallest size possible at which the essential details are visible.

For initial submission, apart from embedded in MS Word file (see "Text" above), figures should also be submitted as separate TIFF files with a resolution of at least 300 dpi.

Figure legends should start with a caption for each figure followed by a brief description of the methods for conducting the experiments and the data presented in the figure. When a figure contains multiple panels, each panel should be mentioned as "A.", "B." and etc.

Tables

Tables should be typed on separate pages and numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals (Table 1, Table 2, etc.). Tables should be self-explanatory and include a brief descriptive title. Footnotes to tables indicated by lower-case superscript letters are acceptable, but extensive experimental details should be avoided. Tables should be cited in the text as Table 1, Table 1-3, etc.

References

Only articles that have been published or that are accepted for publication at a named publication should be cited in the reference list. The Vancouver system (also known as "author-number" system) of referencing should be used. References should be numbered consecutively in order of appearance in the text in square brackets. If cited in tables or figure legends, number according to the first identification of the table or figure in the text. Reference to unpublished data and personal communications should not appear in the list but should be cited in the text only (e.g. Smith A, 2000, unpublished data). Names of journals should be abbreviated in the style used in PubMed. Authors are responsible for the accuracy of the references.

If EndNote program is used for formatting references, please use the PLoS-Public Library of Science Style which can be downloaded from this link from the EndNote web site: http://endnote.com/styles/PLoS.ens.

Examples of references:

Journal articles

1. Lamin E, Parrillo LM, Newman DK, Smith AL. Pelvic Floor Muscle Training: Underutilization in the USA. Curr Urol Rep. 2016 Feb;17(2):10. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11934-015-0572-0. PMID: 26757904.

2. Zhao Y, Wei R, Liu CM, Zhang XP, Feng DJ, Gao XJ, et al. [Cloning and Sequencing of Complete BoNT Gene of Clostridium botulinum Type A for Therapy]. Chin J Biologicals. 2010;23(06):598-601. Chinese. https://doi.org/10.13200/j.cjb.2010.06.43.zhaoyj.010.

Books

1. Murray PR, Rosenthal KS, Kobayashi GS, Pfaller MA. Medical microbiology. 4th ed. St. Louis: Mosby; 2002.

Book Chapters

1. Meltzer PS, Kallioniemi A, Trent JM. Chromosome alterations in human solid tumors. In: Vogelstein B, Kinzler KW, editors. The genetic basis of human cancer. New York: McGraw-Hill; 2002. p. 93-113.

Websites

Website citations should be formatted to include the following components: name of the web page or entire site, the organization creating or owning the site, date of the site is cited, and the URL to the page or site. For example:

1. Abood S. Quality improvement initiative in nursing homes: the ANA acts in an advisory role. Am J Nurs [Internet]. 2002 Jun [cited 2002 Aug 12];102(6):[about 1 p.]. Available from: https://journals.lww.com/ajnonline/Fulltext/2002/06000/Quality_Improvement_Initiative_in_Nursing_Homes.31.aspx Subscription required.

Section Specific Guidelines

Research articles should have the following sections: abstract, introduction, materials and methods (for clinical papers: patients and methods), results, discussion, conclusions and references, and a maximum of 5,000 words (plus 250 word abstract) with no more than 6 display items including figures and tables and a maximum of 50 references.

Brief reports should have the following sections: abstract, introduction, materials and methods (for clinical papers: patients and methods), results and discussion, conclusions and references, and a maximum of 2,500 words (plus 250 word abstract) with no more than 4 display items including figures and tables and a maximum of 30 references.

Reviews should have the following sections: abstract, main text and references, and a maximum of 5,000 words (plus 250 word abstract) with no more than 4 display items including figures and tables and a maximum of 100 references.

Mini reviews should have the following sections: abstract, main text and references, and a maximum of 2,500 words (plus 100 word abstract) with no more than 2 display items including figures and tables and a maximum of 20 references.

Case reports should be written in a maximum of 600 words (plus 125 word abstract) with no more than 2 figures or tables and a maximum of 10 references. Only case reports dealing directly with bladder will be considered.

Perspectives should be written in a maximum of 2,500 words (plus 250 word abstract) with no more than 4 figures or tables and a maximum of 50 references.

Research highlights should have a maximum word count of 1,500 with no more than 1 display item, up to 10 references and a 30 word abstract.

Letters to the Editor should be written in a maximum of 600 words and 10 references. No abstract and display items are needed.

Supplementary Information

Supplementary information is peer-reviewed material directly relevant to the conclusions of an article. Supplementary information should enhance, but not be essential to, a reader's understanding of the paper and may consist of additional text, materials, figures, tables and movies.

Supplementary information should be combined into a single PDF file except for large Excel tables (see below) and video files. This PDF file should be labeled "Supplementary Information" and should start with a Table of Content that provides a clear and easy access to the sections of supplementary information, as cited in the main text.

All supplementary figures, tables and movies should be cited as "Figure S1", "Figure S2", "Table S1", "Table S2", Movie S1, etc., throughout the text. Each figure legend should be typed beneath its figure.
Large supplementary tables (more than 50 rows) can be submitted as MS Excel spreadsheet documents (.xls or .xlsx).

Movies can be submitted as Flash Movie (.swf), Audio Video Interleave (.avi), Quicktime (.mov), Windows Media (.wmv), and animated GIF (gif). A brief legend for each movie should be included at the end of the main manuscript file.

File sizes must be as small as possible. In general, a supplementary information file should not exceed 20 MB. For video files, the maximum size of each file is 2 GB.

Supplementary information is not copy-edited, so authors should ensure that it is supplied accurately and is ready for publication. It cannot be modified, nor can new supplementary information be added after the paper has been accepted for publication.

How to Submit

Initial Submission: We use an online manuscript submission and tracking system: https://www.polscientific.com/bladder. To submit a paper to Bladder, you must have registered for an account

We will acknowledge receipt of a submitted manuscript by e-mail as soon as the quality check (appropriate manuscript format and image quality) has been completed. All further correspondence will also be by e-mail. Please contact us if you do not receive an acknowledgement e-mail within a few days of submission.

Manuscript Status: You can check the status of your manuscript at any time in the review process by accessing the system with your password or link sent to you in the acknowledgement e-mail.

Submission of Revisions: When a manuscript is returned to authors for revision, the revised version should be submitted within three months of the authors' receipt of the referee reports, unless another date is specified in the decision letter. Please contact the editor prior to the deadline date if extra time is required for revision. Additional time may be granted upon request at the Editors' discretion.

Revisions should be submitted by following the same guidelines for initial submission and be accompanied by a point-by-point response to the referees' comments as well as the editorial decision letter, in PDF or MS Word format.

Cover Image Suggestions During submission, authors are welcome to submit images as supplementary information for consideration by the editors as cover images. At initial submission, the images can be at low resolution (72 dpi). If an image is chosen for the cover, you will be asked to supply a high-resolution file of the image (300 dpi at final size).