Accepted Manuscripts
Accept Decisions
There are two types of accept decisions: editorial accept and formal accept.
Editorial accept
Editorial acceptance means that the manuscript is provisionally accepted pending final checks for formatting and technical requirements. You will be notified of these requirements by email. See details of our final checks below.
The editorial acceptance date is the acceptance date that will appear on the published article.
Formal accept
Formal acceptance is issued when the final checks are complete. At this time, the manuscript will be sent to our production department.
All communication about editorial accept decisions and final checks will be sent to the corresponding author.
Final Checks
When a manuscript is editorially accepted, it will go through a final round of checks to ensure the formatting and content meet our technical requirements. Some of the manuscript elements checked at this stage include:
- Author names and affiliations
- Funding statement
- Competing interests statement
- Data availability statement
- Figure and table formatting
- File names for figures, tables, and supporting information
You can expedite the progress of your manuscript during this stage by reviewing our submission guidelines beforehand and by responding promptly to our queries.
Peer Review History
If your submission is accepted for publication, you’ll be invited to opt-in to publish the peer review history of your manuscript using a form in our submission system. The peer review history package includes the editorial decision letter for each revision, with reviews, and your responses to reviewer comments, including attachments. Read more about published peer review history.
Author Proof
To ensure prompt publication, your manuscript will not be subject to detailed copyediting and you will not receive a typeset proof for review. You will be able to review the final version of your manuscript when it is returned to you at editorial accept.
Linking to Preprints
If you chose to forward your manuscript to bioRxiv or medRxiv for consideration for posting as a preprint and you received confirmation of its posting, then the preprint will automatically link to your article when it appears online. Read more about preprints at PLOS.
CrossMark
PLOS Journals participate in the CrossMark service, which is a multi-publisher initiative to provide a standard way for readers to locate the most up-to-date version of an article. By applying the CrossMark logo PLOS is committing to maintaining the content it publishes and to alerting readers to changes if and when they occur.
Clicking on the CrossMark logo will tell you the current status of a document and may also give you additional publication record information about the document.
Press and Media
Accepted manuscripts are under embargo until 2 p.m. Eastern Time, USA, on the date of publication. This is the time when the article becomes available online.
A manuscript is considered “in press” when it has been formally accepted by the journal.
Every week, the journal will identify research to be featured in a press release. You may also choose to issue a press release yourself or through your institution. Read more about press releases.
You may discuss your research prior to publication for scientific purposes only. This includes talking about your research at conferences and on preprint servers.
Please do not discuss your research with the press until after your manuscript has been accepted and assigned a publication date.
Indexing and Archiving
All published articles will be deposited in PubMed Central. Read about our other indexing and archiving services.