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Author guidelines Author guidelines

Physics Education seeks to serve the physics teaching community and we welcome contributions from
What we look for in your article
teachers. We seek to support the teaching of physics to students aged 11 up to introductory undergraduate
level. We aim to provide professional development and support for teachers of physics around the world.
Can I submit an article that has been
posted as a Preprint?

What we look for in your article

Language
If you are an early career researcher you may find our PDF guides (available in both English and Chinese)
Article format and templates helpful.

You can also watch our guide on How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper
Article length

Article structure IOP Publishing (IOP) considers for publication in our journals articles
that:
Figures
1 Report original science and add significantly to research already published
Article multimedia
2 Are of interest to the community

Supplementary material and data in 3 Are scientifically rigorous

journal articles
4 Have sound motivation and purpose

References
5 Have not been published previously in the peer reviewed literature

Preparing your source files for journal 6 Are not under consideration for publication in any other peer reviewed journal or book available
articles through a library or by purchase

7 Comply with our preprint pre-publication policy (see below), and

8 Comply with our ethical policy.

It is particularly important for you to consider whether you have enough new results before starting
to plan and write a paper for submission to an IOP journal. Reporting incremental steps forward from
previous work is usually not sufficient.

Articles based on theses for higher degrees may be submitted. You should take care to ensure that such
articles are prepared in the format of a research paper, which is more concise than is appropriate for a
thesis.

Articles reporting work that was originally presented at a conference may be submitted, provided these
articles do not appear in substantially the same form in a peer reviewed, published conference proceeding.
Again, you should ensure the format of a research paper is used. The article length should also be
appropriate to the content. In case of doubt, please enquire with the relevant journal.

Reports that are not available to the general public are not regarded by IOP as prior publications. Many
journals published by IOP consider a range of different article types in addition to regular research papers,
including special issue articles, topical reviews, comments and replies. However, please check via the
journal homepage that your article is of an acceptable article type and suitable scope before submission.

All articles are judged solely on their scientific merits. Unbiased consideration is given to all manuscripts
offered for publication, regardless of whether or not the authors request publication on a gold open access
basis and regardless of the race, gender, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, political philosophy,
sexual orientation, age or reputation of the authors.

IOP Publishing reserves the right to refuse to publish any content that, in its opinion, could be deemed
distasteful or illegal including, but not limited to, libellous, defamatory, offensive or hate speech.

We treat all submitted articles as confidential until they are published and they will only be shared with
those referees, board members, editors and IOP staff who are directly involved in the peer review of the
article. (An exception to this would be if it is felt necessary to share the article with additional external
parties in order to investigate a possible breach of the ethical policy.)

Can I submit an article that has been posted as a Preprint?

IOPʼs Preprint pre-publication policy allows authors to share a Preprint of their article anywhere at any time,
subject to two restrictions.

This means that IOP will consider articles which have already been posted as a Preprint anywhere online,
provided that (i) you did not and do not transfer (assign) ownership of its copyright, and (ii) you did not and
do not grant an exclusive licence to it.

Additionally, IOP will also consider articles that have been included as a preprint in a thesis or dissertation,
provided (i) you did not and do not transfer (assign) ownership of its copyright, and (ii) you did not and do
not grant an exclusive licence to it.

Language
All papers should be written in English.

Writing
Articles should be clearly and concisely written, and be accessible to an international audience. It is
important to avoid colloquial terms and sayings that may not be widely understood. Short sentences and
paragraphs make for easier reading. You should aim for consistency within your article in matters such as
hyphenation and spelling. All acronyms and abbreviations should be clearly explained when they first
appear in the text. Introduce any ideas that may be unfamiliar to readers early in the paper so that your
results can be easily understood. We encourage authors to use inclusive language (e.g. ‘theyʼ instead of
‘heʼ or ‘sheʼ) wherever possible.

Editing
On completion of the first draft, carefully re-read your paper and make any amendments that will improve
the content. When complete, send the paper to colleagues and co-authors, and use their feedback to
improve the clarity of the text. When all co-authors are satisfied that the draft is ready to be submitted to a
journal, carry out one final spelling and grammar check before submission.

If you are a non-native English speaker, it is important to get help from a fluent English speaker before
submitting. IOP Editing Services in partnership with Editage, provides editorial support if you need it. We
also have support for authors based in China with our China IOP Editing Services.

You can choose from a range of options, including:

• English-language editing

• Translation services

• Plagiarism checking

• Technical review.

Visit our language editing service to find out more.

Article format and templates

You can format your paper in the way that you choose! It is not necessary to try to produce pages that look
like published journal pages, as the detailed design (typesetting) work will be undertaken by IOP as part of
the production process.

If you would prefer to work from a template, we do provide this for both LaTeX and Word.

LaTeX template
Word template

When submitting a new article, we only require you to upload a single PDF file (and any relevant
supplementary data). Check the peer review model for the journal you are submitting to. If the peer
review model is single-anonymous then your PDF will need to contain the names and institutes of
authors at the start of the text. Figures and tables also need to be included within the text. If double-
anonymous then you will need to anonymise your manuscript.

We do ask that you consider the readability for referees when formatting your manuscript. For example,
please use a reasonable font size (at least 12 point) and line spacing. There is no need for you to include
line numbers in your manuscript as these will automatically be added on submission. Figures and tables
should be embedded at the appropriate point within the text, rather than placed at the end of the
manuscript. Papers must be written in English.

Need help formatting your paper?

IOP Editing Services, in partnership with Editage, also provides formatting and artwork services if you
would like help preparing your paper for submission.

Article length
Some of our journals have guidelines for the maximum recommended length for each different type of
article (see the ‘About the journalʼ section of the Journal you are submitting to on IOPscience).

If there is a maximum article length then it is important that you follow this guidance when preparing your
submission. Articles that are longer than the length limit may still be considered for publication, provided
the length is clearly justified by the scientific content.

Article structure
You should consider the best way to structure your article before you begin writing. If you wish to use a
LaTeX template to format your manuscript (this is optional, you are not obliged to do so) then the files are
available in zipped format and Unix tar gzipped format here. Your article should follow the Introduction,
Methods, Results and Discussion system, and usually consist of the following sections:

Title
The title should be concise, informative and meaningful to the whole readership of the journal. It should
include key terms, to help make it more discoverable when people search online. Please avoid the use of
long systemic names and non-standard or obscure abbreviations, acronyms or symbols.

Authors
Check the peer review model for the journal you are submitting to when preparing the PDF version of your
manuscript. If double-anonymous then you will need to anonymise your manuscript. If single-
anonymous then you need to list all authorsʼ full names and institutions. Authors in all IOP journals have the
option to include names in Chinese, Japanese or Korean characters in addition to the English name. The
names will be displayed in parentheses after the English name.During the submission process, we
recommend you supply ORCID identifiers for all authors to avoid ambiguity. If an authorʼs current address is
different from the address where the work was carried out, this should be explained in a footnote or
acknowledgement. We encourage authors to make specific attributions of contribution and responsibility in
the acknowledgements of the article, otherwise all co-authors will be taken to share full responsibility for all
of the paper. Authors may wish to use a taxonomy such as CRediT to describe the contributions of each
author.

Keywords
When you submit an article, you will be asked to supply some keywords relevant to your work. If your article
is accepted for publication, we will display these keywords on the published article, and they will be used to
index your article, helping to make it more discoverable. When choosing keywords, think about the kinds of
terms you would use when searching online for related articles.

Abstract
Your abstract should give readers a brief summary of your article. It should concisely describe the contents
of your article, and include key terms (especially in the first two sentences, to increase search engine
discoverability). It should be informative, accessible and not only indicate the general aims and scope of the
article, but also state the methodology used, main results obtained and conclusions drawn. The abstract
should be complete in itself; it should not contain undefined acronyms/abbreviations and no table numbers,
figure numbers, references or equations should be referred to. Articles relying on clinical trials should quote
the trial registration number at the end of the abstract. The abstract should be suitable for direct inclusion
in abstracting services and should not normally be more than 300 words. If you submit an article with an
abstract longer than 300 words, we may rescind the manuscript and ask you to re-write it. Some journals
ask for abstracts to follow a particular structure. Check the instructions for specific journals to see if you
need to submit a structured abstract.

Introduction
This should be concise and describe the nature of the problem under investigation and its background. It
should also set your work in the context of previous research, citing relevant references. Introductions
should expand on highly specialised terms and abbreviations used in the article to make it accessible for
readers.

Method
This section should provide sufficient details of the experiment, simulation, statistical test or analysis
carried out to generate the results such that the method can be repeated by another researcher and the
results reproduced.

Results
The results section should detail the main findings and outcomes of your study. You should use tables only
to improve conciseness or where the information cannot be given satisfactorily in other ways such as
histograms or graphs. Tables should be numbered serially and referred to in the text by number (table 1,
etc.). Each table should have an explanatory caption which should be as concise as possible.

Discussion
This should discuss the significance of the results and compare them with previous work using relevant
references.

Conclusion
This section should be used to highlight the novelty and significance of the work, and any plans for future
relevant work.

Acknowledgements
Check the peer review model for the journal you are submitting to when preparing the PDF version of your
manuscript. If double-anonymous then do not include any author names or institution information in the
Acknowledgements section of your manuscript. Author names and Funding information should be removed
and can be re-added later in the peer review process. For single-anonymous please include an
acknowledgements section before the References section in your PDF manuscript.

During the submission process all authors and co-authors are required to disclose any potential conflict(s)
of interest when submitting an article (e.g. employment, consulting fees, research contracts, stock
ownership, patent licences, honoraria, advisory affiliations, etc). This information should be included in an
acknowledgements section at the end of the manuscript (before the references section). All sources of
financial support for the project must also be disclosed in the acknowledgements section. The name of the
funding agency and the grant number should be given, for example: This work was partially funded by the
National Institutes of Health (NIH) through a National Cancer Institute grant R21CA141833. When
completing the online submission form, we also ask you to select funders and provide grant numbers in
order to help you meet your funder requirements. We encourage authors to use the acknowledgements
section of the article to make specific attributions of author contribution and responsibility, otherwise all co-
authors will be taken to share full responsibility for all of the paper.

Ethical statement
Some articles will require an ethical statement, particularly those that are reporting research involving
humans or animals. This should state if the research was approved by any ethical committee, and which
national or international standards were complied with.

References
This section should be used to list all relevant work. More information on referencing. However, check the
peer review model for the journal you are submitting to. If double-anonymous then when referring to
thesis/unpublished work, please avoid identifying information. You should include non-identifiable
information e.g. journal name, year etc...

If you need more information or guidance about any of the above then please contact the journal to which
you are submitting.

Figures
Carefully chosen and well-prepared figures, such as diagrams and photographs, can greatly enhance your
article. You are encouraged to prepare figures that are clear, easy to read and of the best possible quality
and resolution.

Figures are converted and sized to the journal template as part of the production process for accepted
articles, but they are not normally edited further. It is your responsibility to ensure that the figures you
supply are legible and technically correct. Micrographs should include a scale bar of appropriate size, e.g. 1
µm.

Characters should appear as they would be set in the main body of the article.

Figures should be numbered in the order in which they are referred to in the text, using sequential numerals
(e.g. figure 1, figure 2, etc.).

If there is more than one part to a figure (e.g. figure 1(a), figure 1(b), etc.), the parts should be identified by
a lower-case letter in parentheses close to or within the area of the figure.

File types
For articles prepared using LaTeX2e, please make sure that your figures are all supplied as vector
Encapsulated PostScript (EPS) and linked to your main TeX files using appropriate figure inclusion
commands such as \includegraphics. For articles prepared using Word, where possible please also supply
all figures as separate graphics files (in addition to being embedded in the text). Our preferred graphics
format is EPS. These files can be used directly to give high-quality results, and file sizes are small in
comparison with most bitmap forms.

If you are unable to send us images in EPS, we can also accept:

• TIFF

• JPEG

• PDF (and images embedded within PDF files)

• Images/drawings coded using TeX/LaTeX package

• Images/figures embedded in MS Word, Excel or PowerPoint

• Graphics application source files (Photoshop, Illustrator, CorelDraw).

Vector formats
The advantage of vector graphics is that they give the best possible quality at all output resolutions. In
order to get the best possible results, please note the following important points:

• Fonts used should be restricted to the standard font families (Times, Helvetica, Courier or Symbol)

• Certain proprietary vector graphics formats such as Origin, Kaleidagraph, Cricket Graph and Gnu Plot
should not be sent in their native format. If you do use these applications to create your figures, please
export them as EPS.

Permissions
Note that it is also your responsibility to obtain written permission from the copyright holder for any figures
you have reused from elsewhere. This will also include any figures that you created yourself but have
previously been published by another publisher, unless that publisher allows you to reuse them without
permission under their author rights policy. Check individual publisherʼs policies for details. Many scientific,
technical and medical publishers use RightsLink to grant permission. Information on how to request
permission can usually be found on the website of each publisher. For further information about
permissions and when permission is required, please see the Permissions section.

Inappropriate images
Please carefully consider both the subject matter and provenance of images included in your work before
submitting to the journal. If the submitted images could be potentially offensive to the journalʼs readership,
IOP Publishing reserves the right to request that authors seek alternative images or other means to express
the same results before the final version is published.

IOP Publishing will not consider submissions which feature the Lena/Lenna image (a crop of an image of
Lena Söderberg from a 1972 issue of Playboy magazine), as the image and its history conflicts with our
commitment to inclusivity in science. Alternatives to the Lena image are widely available,
see https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09500340.2016.1270881 for examples.

Figure captions
Captions should be included in the text and not in the graphics files. Figure captions should contain relevant
key terms and be self-contained (avoiding acronyms) so that a reader can understand the figure without
having to refer to the text. Figure captions should also reference the source of the figure if the figure has
been reused from elsewhere.

Colour figures
The use of colour in figures can enhance the effective presentation of results, and there are no restrictions
on the use of colour in the online version of your article. However, please note that readers of the journal
may download and print out on a black-and-white printer, which may make coloured lines difficult to
distinguish.

Unless you are submitting to one of our online-only journals, please note that because conventional full-
colour printing remains an expensive process, we usually ask you (or your institution) to pay the additional
costs incurred (i.e. the costs over and above the cost of normal black-on-white reproduction) if you require
colour in the printed version of your article. There is no charge for colour in the online version of an article.

The price for colour print is £250 per figure, capped at £2000 per article. If you would like your figures to
be reproduced in colour in the printed journal, please let us know who will be responsible for paying the
additional costs, and supply the relevant VAT number (if appropriate) and purchase order number (if
necessary).

Need help with your figures?

IOP Editing Services, in partnership with Editage, can help to check and refine all technical aspects of your
artwork to adhere to journal requirements, including resolution, colour and image and file size. Find out
more about our figure preparation services.

Article multimedia
IOPscience allows inline presentation of multimedia files within journal articles, with videos, animations or
sound files that are supplied by authors as part of the main article treated as figures (please note that
multimedia files must not include any music). Multimedia figures are represented in the PDF by a static
image with appropriate caption. In the HTML the same image and caption are displayed, readers can
click/tap the image to play the multimedia file inline.

If a figure has more than one multimedia file, there must be a separate image for each file (e.g. parts a and
b for a figure with two videos). This is necessary so that the files both display in the HTML.

Technical specifications

We strongly recommend video files be delivered in the MPEG-4 container, encoded with the H264 codec.
Other formats may be provided, but using MPEG-4 will provide the most faithful rendering of your video in
the HTML journal article.

Video files should be a maximum of 10 MB file size each. Exceptions can be made in cases where larger
files are essential for the science being presented.

Recommended settings:

• Frame rate: 15 frames s-1

• Frame size: 480 x 360 pixels

• Data rate: 150 kB s-1

Interactive figures

Authors may prepare interactive models to enhance the communication of their research. These models are
treated as figures in the article. Each model is represented in the PDF by a static image with an appropriate
caption. The HTML in IOPscience displays the figure and caption with a ‘Start interactionʼ button which
loads the interactive model within the flow of the article.

Example images:

http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/0004-637X/818/2/115 figures 2 and 3

http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/0004-637X/819/2/113 figures 1 and 5

Interactive models should use the X3D standard. This is an open-source, XML-based format curated by the
International Organisation for Standardization (ISO). By using the X3DOM javascript/CSS combination, X3D
models can be incorporated directly into HTML without the need for browser plug-ins. This can be
downloaded at https://www.x3dom.org.

We strongly recommend the use of X3D/X3DOM but stand-alone interactive figures produced using
alternative packages (such as Plotly https://plot.ly/ or Bokeh http://bokeh.pydata.org/) are also accepted.

Authors interested in using this functionality need to create and supply the interactive model and an HTML
file that presents the model, along with all .JS and .CSS files used.

Supplementary material and data in journal articles

IOP Publishing encourages authors to submit supplementary material at submission that will enhance the
online version of a published research article and aid its discoverability. Supplementary material typically
includes relevant material that does not form part of the main article, which may include additional data
such as computer code, large tables, additional figures or appendices. It may also include multimedia files,
such as video clips, animations or sound files, which are not suitable to form part of the main article (please
note that multimedia files must not include any music). Supplementary material can include primary
datasets where they fall within the file size limits outlined below. If the material is integral to the article then
it should be submitted as part of the article rather than as supplementary material.

Supplementary material is not included in the PDF of the article or in any print version and does not form
part of the Version of Record. As it is not considered integral to the article it is not subject to peer review
and cannot be formally cited. Supplementary material is hosted for free with an article on IOPscience, in the
format supplied by the author, and is accessible to the whole readership. Supplementary material is not
formatted or edited by our production team, and so proofs are not provided to authors.

Files for supplementary material can be up to a maximum of 10 MB each. Authors wishing to associate
larger amounts of supplementary material with their article are recommended make use of a data
repository.

Authors should ensure the necessary permissions are obtained before including any third party
supplementary material with their submission.

References
It is vitally important that you fully acknowledge all relevant work. You should also consult the IOP ethical
policy for journals for general guidance on compiling your reference list. You can find information on how to
structure and format your references in the style guide for journal articles. Please note it is not necessary
to format your references in the ways shown in the guidelines, however we find some authors like to have a
style to work to. We will ensure your references adhere to house style during the production process,
whatever format you submit them in.

A reference should give your reader enough information to locate the article concerned, and you should
take particular care to ensure that the information is correct so that links to referenced articles can be made
successfully.

Please also note the following:

• Material that is really a footnote to the text should not be included in the reference list.

• Copies of cited publications not yet available publicly should be submitted for the benefit of the
referees.

• Unpublished results and lectures should be cited for exceptional reasons only.

• Please reference and link to the original Version of Record (where it was first published) rather than to
other versions of an article and/or a link to a repository or third party database

• We discourage the referencing of online material hosted at web addresses that have no guarantee of
perpetuity. Permanent or persistent web links should be used, as these are intended to remain
unchanged for many years into the future, yielding hyperlinks that are less susceptible to ‘link rotʼ.
Examples of acceptable links include: Digital Object Identifier (DOI), PubMed identifier (PMID),
PubMed Central reference number (PMCID), SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Bibliographic Code, and arXiv e-print number. If you have any questions regarding what constitutes an
acceptable web link then please email the journal.

• Before submitting your article, please ensure you have conducted a literature search to check for any
relevant references you may have missed.

Be sure to check the ‘About the journalʼ page for the journal your submitting to see if you need to list page
numbers, article titles or a particular reference style in your submission.

Reference labelling systems

There are two main systems for labelling references.

In the Vancouver numerical system, references are numbered sequentially through the text. The numbers
should be given in square brackets, e.g. [1], [4-7] etc., and one number can be used to refer to several
instances of the same reference. The reference list at the end of the article then lists the references in
numerical order, not alphabetically.

Alternatively, in the Harvard alphabetical system, the name of the author appears in the text together with
the year of publication, e.g. (Smith 2001) or Smith (2001) (as appropriate). Where there are only two
authors, both names should be given in the text, e.g. (Smith and Jones 2001) or Smith and Jones (2001).
However, if there are more than two authors only the first name should appear followed by et al: (Smith et al
2001) or Smith et al (2001). If you refer to different works by one author or group of authors in the same
year they should be differentiated by including a, b, etc, after the date (e.g. 2001a). If you refer to different
pages of the same article, the page number may be given in the text, e.g. Smith (2001, p 39). The reference
list at the end of your article using this system should be in alphabetical order.

Please use a single referencing system consistently throughout your article. You may use either of these
two systems for your references (unless you are submitting to Fluid Dynamics Research, Physics in
Medicine and Biology or Physiological Measurement, which require all references to be written using the
Harvard alphabetical style), or Nuclear Fusion, which requires all references to be written using the
Vancouver numerical system).

Preparing your source files for journal articles

The guidelines below provide the essential information you need to prepare your article source files (i.e. the
files that you use to create your complete PDF).

Naming your files

Please name all your files according to the following guidelines:

1 Use only characters from the set a to z, A to Z, 0 to 9 and underscore (_)

2 Do not use spaces in file names

3 Include an extension to indicate the file type (for example, .doc, .txt, .eps, etc)

4 Do not use any accented characters (for example, à, ê, ñ, ö, ý, etc) because these can cause
difficulties when processing your files.

In addition to the above points, please give figure files names indicating the numbers of the figures they
contain; for example, figure1.eps, figure2.tif, figure2a.gif, etc. If a figure file contains a figure with multiple
parts, for example figure 2(a) to 2(e), give it a name such as figure2a_2e.jpg, and so forth.

Article text files

TeX and LaTeX

The text of articles may be submitted in any common variant of TeX including LaTeX2e, REVTeX, AmSTeX,
AmSLaTeX and plain TeX (including pdfTeX/pdfLaTeX).

A LaTeX2e class file is available to help authors prepare articles for consideration by IOP Journals, should
you wish to use it. The files are available in zipped format and Unix tar gzipped format:

ioplatexguidelines

ioplatexguidelines.tar

Note that there is an incompatibility between amsmath.sty and iopart.cls which cannot be completely
worked around. If your article relies on commands in amsmath.sty that are not available in iopart.cls, you
may wish to consider using a different class file.

Microsoft Word

• Articles can be prepared using Microsoft Word for Windows or Mac

• Fonts used should be restricted to the standard font families (Times, Helvetica, Courier or Symbol)

• If special symbols are needed (e.g. Greek characters, accented characters or mathematical symbols),
these should be typed using the appropriate TrueType font. Do not use the Symbol facility on the ‘Insertʼ
menu as this often results in font conversion problems

• Equations must be prepared using Microsoft Word Equation Editor or the full commercial MathType
package.

Figure files
For articles prepared using LaTeX2e, please make sure that your figures are all supplied as vector
Encapsulated PostScript (EPS) and linked to your main TeX files using appropriate figure inclusion
commands such as \includegraphics. For articles prepared using Word, where possible please also supply
all figures as separate graphics files (in addition to being embedded in the text). Our preferred graphics
format is EPS. These files can be used directly to give high-quality results, and file sizes are small in
comparison with most bitmap forms.

Vector formats
The advantage of vector graphics is that they give the best possible quality at all output resolutions.

In order to get the best possible results, please note the following important points:

• Fonts used should be restricted to the standard font families (Times, Helvetica, Courier or Symbol)

• Certain proprietary vector graphics formats such as Origin, Kaleidagraph, Cricket Graph and Gnu Plot
should not be sent in their native format. If you do use these applications to create your figures, please
export them as EPS.

Archive and compress your files

You may combine all your files (article text, graphics files and, if applicable, the readme.txt file) into a single
compressed archive file for ease of handling and to save you time and space. Please archive your files into a
zip file. To upload this file type, choose the ‘source filesʼ designation when you submit. If you have any
difficulty archiving or submitting files, please contact us for assistance.

Copyright and Permissions

The following information is available to help you with our copyright and permissions policies.

• Copyright

• Reusing IOP Published content

• Reusing third party material in new IOP content

• Creative Commons Licences

• CCC Republication service

• STM Permissions guidelines

• Permissions FAQs

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