AIDScience is a weekly, peer-reviewed journal that publishes the best original reviews and analyses of current research and science policy. Our offices in Washington, D.C., welcome submissions from fields of HIV prevention and vaccine research. We are committed to the prompt evaluation and publication of submitted papers.

Categories of Signed Papers

Reports (peer-reviewed):
These approximately 3,000-word papers should be original scientific research, or a thorough review piece about a given topic. Structure your paper into the following sections: Abstract, Introduction, Topic 1, (Topic 2,) Conclusion, References. 4-5 Figures and/or 1-3 tables are expected. Please follow the information for style and format below.

Questions & Answers (peer-reviewed):
This approximately 1,000 words long paper should address relevant questions about a given theme. Structure your paper into 4-5 question and answer sections. 1-2 optional figures or tables can be included. You may end your article with a few unanswered questions to be discussed in the online Discussion section. Please follow the information for style and format below.

Perspectives (non-peer-reviewed):
These articles, commentaries and columns are free format but should include an introductory paragraph and sections with brief subheadings, if appropriate.

Manuscript Selection

Papers are reviewed in depth by two or more outside referees. It is the policy of AIDScience that reviewers are anonymous. Reviewers are contacted before being sent a paper and asked to return comments within 1 week to 10 days for most papers. Selected papers are edited to improve accuracy and clarity and to shorten, if necessary. Papers cannot be resubmitted over a disagreement on interest or relative merit. If a paper was rejected on the basis of serious reviewer error, resubmission will be considered.

Conditions of Acceptance

When a paper is accepted for publication in AIDScience, it is understood that:

1. Authors agree to transfer copyright of the paper (including electronic rights) to Science. U.S. government employees sign the section of the form stating exemption from copyright laws.
2. The paper will remain a privileged document and will not be released to the press or the public before publication. If there is a need in exceptional cases to publicize data in advance of publication, the AAAS News and Information Office (1-202-326-6440) must be consulted.

Authorship

By submitting a manuscript, the corresponding author accepts the responsibility that all authors have agreed to be so listed and have seen and approved the manuscript, its content, and its submission to AIDScience. Any changes in authorship must be approved in writing by all the original authors.

Prior Publication

AIDScience will not consider any paper or component of a paper that has been published or is under consideration for publication elsewhere. Distribution on the Internet may be considered previously published material and may compromise the originality of the paper as a submission to AIDScience.

AIDScience Contact Information

Phone:  (1)-202-326-6721

Fax:  (1)-202-408-8015

E-mail: AIDScience@AAAS.org

Manuscript Preparation

Use double-spacing throughout the text, tables, figure legends, and references and notes and leave margins of at least 2.5 centimeters. Electronic files should be formatted for U.S. letter paper.

Titles and subheadings should be descriptive clauses, not full sentences. The maximum length is 100 characters.

Abstracts explain to the general reader why the research was done and why the results are important. The abstract should be 100 words or less, convey the paper's main point, and outline the results or conclusions.

Text starts with a brief introduction describing the paper's significance, which should be intelligible to readers in various disciplines. Technical terms should be defined. Symbols, abbreviations, and acronyms should be defined the first time they are used. All tables and figures should be cited in numerical order.

References and notes (see examples in AIDScience Reference Style below) are numbered in the order in which they are cited, first through the text and then through the table and figure legends. Each reference should have a unique number; do not combine references or embed references in notes. Any references to unpublished data should be given a number in the text and placed, in correct sequence, in the references and notes. Do not use op. cit. or ibid.

Acknowledgments, including funding information, should be gathered into a brief statement at the end of the references and notes and will be edited to conform to AIDScience style.

Tables should be included at the end of the references and should supplement, not duplicate, the text. Each table should be on a separate page with its legend double-spaced above the table. The first sentence of the legend should be a brief descriptive title. Every vertical column should have a heading consisting of a title with the unit of measure in parentheses. Units should not change within a column.

Figure legends should be double-spaced in numerical order. No single legend should be longer than one page. Nomenclature, abbreviations, symbols, and units used in a figure should match those used in the text. The figure title should be given as the first line of the legend.

Figures should be submitted electronically, or on a disk with three hard copies. Allowable formats for submission are pdf (portable document format), ps (postscript), eps (encapsulated postscript), doc (Microsoft Word, version 6.0 and higher). See http://www.submit2science.org/mtsweb/directions.html for information on preparing art in these formats. Authors of accepted manuscripts will receive more specific information about electronic submission of art for publication. Do not send irreplaceable artwork. Most figures will not be relabeled by AIDScience. Some illustrations (for example, bar graphs, simple line graphs, and gels) may be reduced to a smaller width. Symbols and lettering should be large enough to be legible after reduction. Avoid wide variation in type size within a single figure. In the printed version of the figure, letters should be about 7 points (2 mm) high.

Graphs should be labeled on the ordinate and abscissa with the parameter or variable being measured, the units of measure, and the scale. Scales with large or small numbers should be presented as powers of 10. Definitions of symbols should usually appear in the figure legend and not in the figure. Solid or open simple symbols (, , , , , , , and ) reduce well. Avoid the use of light lines and screen shading. Instead, use black-and-white, hatched, and cross-hatched designs for emphasis. Use heavy lines or boxes for emphasizing or marking off areas of the figure. If possible, use scale bars in place of, or in addition to, magnifications. In gels, the lanes should be numbered and identified by number in the figure legend.

Digital color art should be submitted as CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black) rather than RGB (Red, Green, Blue). Composite figures should be labeled A, B, C.

Lettering in Helvetica font is preferable for figures. Use boldface type for axis labels and for the labels A, B, C in composite figures; use italic type only as it would be used in the text (for example, for variables and genes). The first letter of each entry should be uppercase; otherwise, use uppercase letters as they would be used in the text (for example, for acronyms).

Sequences may be reduced considerably, so the typeface in the original should be clear. There should be about 130 characters and spaces per line for a sequence occupying the full width of the printed page and about 84 characters and spaces per line for a sequence occupying two columns.

Units should be metric and follow SI convention.

Submitting a Manuscript

For most rapid processing, submit your manuscript plus the information listed below as an e-mail to: AIDScience@aaas.org. Files should be in the following formats: pdf, ps, prn, eps, doc (MSWord), or wpd (Wordperfect). Figures can be included in the text file (preferred) or sent separately.

AIDScience can also receive manuscripts by mail. Submit a disk copy of the text and figures in the formats above and three paper copies. We can access Mac- and PC-formatted disks, Zip and Jaz disks, and CDs. Mail to:

AIDScience, Room 1132
Science
1200 New York Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20005
United States

Include with your submission a cover letter containing:

1. The title of the paper and a statement of its main point.
2. Any information needed to ensure a fair review process and to avoid potential conflicts of interest.
3. Names of colleagues who have reviewed the paper.
4. Information about the authors' professional and financial affiliations that may be perceived to have biased the presentation.

For mail submissions, also include in the cover letter:

1. Names, telephone and fax numbers, postal and e-mail addresses for all authors.
2. A statement that none of the material has been published or is under consideration for publication elsewhere, including the Internet.
3. Names, postal and e-mail addresses, telephone and fax numbers, and fields of interest of five potential referees.

Also send to AIDScience:

1. Three copies of any paper of yours or your co-authors that is in press or under consideration elsewhere that relates to the work submitted to AIDScience.
2. Written permission from any author whose work is cited as a personal communication, unpublished work, or work in press, but is not an author of your manuscript.

AIDScience Reference Style

Some general guidelines:

1. Place reference numbers on the line, italicized: (18, 19) (18-20) (18, 20-22).
2. References and notes are numbered sequentially, first in the text, then through the references and notes, and then through table and figure captions. The last note contains the acknowledgements and is not cited.
3. Each reference can be listed only once. Separate individual references from other references and from any text notes. This is to facilitate online linking of references.
4. Notes should be used for information aimed at the specialist (for example, procedures) or to provide definitions or further information to the general reader that are not essential to the data or arguments.
5. Please do not place tables in notes.

Style guidelines for listing references:

1. List initials first for all authors, separated by a space: A. B. Opus, B. C. Hobbs, . . .
2. Do not use "and"; use "et al." for more than five authors.
3. Journal volumes are listed in bold.
4. Do not place a comma before the journal volume listing or before any parentheses.
5. Journal years are in parentheses: (1996)
6. End listings with a period.
7. Do not use ibid or op. cit. (these cannot be linked online).

Journals:

1. N. Tang, Atmos. Environ. 14, 819 (1980). [one author]
2. J. C. Smith, M. Field, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 51, 930 (1964). [two authors]
3. J. C. Cheeseborough III, S. Trajmar, J.-T. Yang, EMBO J., in press. [three to five authors]

4. G. Sunshine et al., Lancet I, 711 (1975). [more than five authors]
5. M. Schmidt, Sci. Am. 251, 58 (November 1984). [journal paginated by issue]

Technical reports:

1. D. E. Shaw, Tech. Rep. No. CUCS-29-82 (Columbia Univ., New York, 1982).
2. F. Press, "A report on the computational needs for physics" (National Science Foundation, Washington, DC, 1981). [unpublished or access by title]
3. "Assessment of the carcinogenicity and mutagenicity of chemicals," WHO Tech. Rep. Ser. No. 556 (1974).

Proceedings:

1. Proceedings of the Fifth IEEE Pulsed Power Conference, Arlington, VA, inclusive dates of meeting, editor(s) if any (publisher, publisher's location, year).
2. Proc. IEEE 88, 452 (1968). [published regularly]
3. Title of symposium published as a book, sponsoring organization, location of meeting, dates, editor(s) if any (publisher, publisher's location, year).

Paper presented at a meeting (not published):

1. M. Konishi, paper presented at the 14th Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, Anaheim, CA, 10 October 1984. [sponsoring organization should be mentioned if it is not part of the meeting name]

Theses and unpublished material:

1. B. Smith, thesis, Georgetown University (1973).
2. J. A. Norton, unpublished data.

Books:

1. M. Lister, Fundamentals of Operating Systems (Springer-Verlag, New York, ed. 3, 1984), pp. 7-11. [third edition]
2. J. B. Carroll, Ed., Language, Thought and Reality, Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1956).
3. R. Davis, J. King, in Machine Intelligence, E. Acock, D. Michie, Eds. (Wiley, New York, 1976), vol. 8, chap. 3.
4. D. Curtis et al., in Clinical Neurology of Development, B. Walters, Ed. (Oxford Univ. Press, New York, 1983), pp. 60-73. [use et al. for more than five authors]
5. F. R. Sabier, Contributions to Embryology (Publ. 18, Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington, DC, 1917), p. 61.
6. Principles and Procedures for Evaluating the Toxicity of Household Substances (National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC, 1977). [organization as author and publisher]

Acknowledgments:

Acknowledgments, including funding information, should be gathered into a brief statement at the end of the references and notes and will be edited to conform to Science style.

(Updated: April 16, 2001)