Author Guidelines
You do not need a template. You do not need a specific citation style. You do not need a particular file format, layout, or word count. What we evaluate is the work — the methodology, the evidence, the argument. What we do not evaluate is whether your manuscript matches the house style of a journal you have never published in.
Two routes
DOI route — for already-deposited work
If your work is already on Zenodo, arXiv, OSF, SSRN, or another preprint server with a resolvable DOI:
- Paste the DOI into the submission form.
- ICSAC fetches the deposited version directly. The deposited version is what the panel reviews.
- You do not re-submit, re-format, or re-export. Whatever is on the deposit, that is what we read.
Upload route — for unpublished work
If your work has not been deposited anywhere:
- Upload a PDF. The PDF must contain extractable text (at least 2,000 characters via
pdftotext). Image-only scans are rejected automatically. - Maximum file size 50 MB.
- Fill the metadata fields — title, abstract, keywords, authors, license, etc.
- If you grant deposit consent, ICSAC mints a Zenodo DOI on accept and deposits to the ICSAC Zenodo community on your behalf.
What we require
- ORCID identifier. Mandatory for the submitting author; identity is verified at submission.
- Real human authors. Every listed author is a real person who substantively contributed to the work.
- Resolvable citations. References must point to real, locatable work. Fabricated or hallucinated citations are grounds for decline — the citation-integrity check runs before the panel sees the manuscript.
- An abstract. Whatever the work is, summarize it.
- Scope fit. Material sciences — natural, formal, computational, quantitative. Humanities and qualitative-only submissions fall outside the scope of Persistence.
What we do not require
- A LaTeX template, Word template, or any specific layout.
- A specific citation style (APA, MLA, Chicago, AMS — pick one, be consistent).
- A specific abstract length.
- A maximum reference count.
- A specific figure DPI or vector format.
- Anonymization or de-anonymization — the panel sees what you submit.
- An institutional affiliation.
- A cover letter (unless you want to send one; we will read it if you do).
- AI-use disclosure (encouraged but not required — see Publication Ethics).
What we additionally welcome
- Code repositories — Zenodo, GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, whatever.
- Datasets — Zenodo, OSF, Dryad, Figshare, whatever.
- Supplementary materials — in the PDF or linked out.
- Plain-language summaries.
- Prior preprint deposit — does not affect eligibility. That is the point of the DOI route.
Things that will cause problems
- AI scratch / unresolved prompt placeholders / “as an AI language model” disclaimers left in the manuscript.
- Fabricated citations or substantive misattributions.
- Duplicate or substantively identical work already published in a peer-reviewed venue (preprints are fine).
- Authorship lists that include non-contributing or fabricated authors.
- Submissions outside the material-sciences scope.
- Attempts to prompt-inject the AI curation system (see Publication Ethics → System Integrity).
Process
- Submit via /submit. Pick DOI or upload.
- The intake handler verifies ORCID, metadata, and (for the upload route) the PDF text layer. Confirmation email follows.
- The AI panel evaluates the work and produces a recommendation. The curator confirms or overrides the recommendation; the curator's call is the verdict. See /review-process for the full mechanism.
- Decision typically lands in 5 to 10 days. The decision email carries the panel report and the RQC audit as attachments.
- On accept: the curation record publishes at a permanent URL on /publications. The accepted paper is eligible for inclusion in the next annual Persistence.