Understanding the Flowchart

Version of 25 May 2026; CC BY-SA 4.0.

The Flowchart is one of the three main components of the Editorial Reference Handbook.

The Flowchart is available as a downloadable visualisation (CC BY-SA 4.0), where each step is also hyperlinked to this specific section in this Guidance page to provide definitions and help with the implementation of the checks.

The arrows in the Flowchart illustrate the path to follow depending on the result of assessing a particular manuscript. This may be to continue with the flowchart or perform a corrective action.

The Flowchart contains 'stop' conditions that say 'Contact Author' and that only occur when a manuscript Fails one of the elements. A manuscript is presumed to be compliant with the Handbook if all elements either Pass or are N/A. If any element fails, your journal should take appropriate action. The action taken is dependent upon the particular internal protocols for your journal. Some examples of corrective action include contacting authors separately upon each failure, or collating all failures and pass them on to the authors for correction through a single communication. The corrective activity undertaken will be specific to your journal guidelines.