Manuscript Preparation Guidelines

Important Notice on Manuscript Submission


Authors are strongly advised not to submit sections of their academic thesis or dissertation directly to World Nutrition. Manuscripts must be written as original journal articles and formatted according to the journal’s requirements.

Submissions that are direct copies of theses will be returned with a request to rewrite them in proper journal article format.
For guidance on how to transform a thesis into a publishable journal article, authors are encouraged to search online for reputable resources or consult AI tools, using queries such as:


"How do I convert my academic thesis into a manuscript suitable for a biomedical journal?"


These resources provide clear step-by-step instructions and references to guidelines from commercial journal publishers, helping authors restructure, condense, and adapt their work for publication.
Authors are also encouraged to use the World Nutrition manuscript templates available on the journal website to ensure proper formatting and compliance with our submission standards.

 

Scope and Eligibility

World Nutrition publishes scholarly work that directly addresses human nutrition, public health, food systems, and nutrition policy. To maintain a clear biomedical and public health focus:

  • Only human-focused research is considered
  • Studies involving animals, laboratory-based animal experimentation, livestock trials, or experimental feeding studies in animals are not accepted and will be desk-rejected

These guidelines are designed to ensure manuscripts meet the journal’s editorial, ethical, and technical standards, and are aligned with Scopus, Web of Science (WoS) and DOAJ expectations.

Authors are strongly encouraged to use the official World Nutrition Manuscript Preparation Templates (Main Manuscript and Separate Title Page), available on the journal website. Use of the template facilitates peer review, production, and XML conversion, but is not mandatory at initial submission.

Language

  • Manuscripts must be written in clear, scholarly English (British or American spelling accepted; usage must be consistent throughout the manuscript)
  • Authors whose first language is not English are encouraged to seek professional language editing prior to submission

Article Structure (Research Articles)

Research articles should be organised in the following order:

  • Title Page (submitted separately): title, full author names, affiliations, corresponding author details
  • Abstract (structured where appropriate; maximum 300 words)
  • Keywords (4–6)
  • Highlights / Key Messages (mandatory; see below)
  • Introduction
  • Methods
  • Results
  • Discussion
  • Conclusions and/or Implications for Policy and Practice
  • Author Contributions
  • Acknowledgements (if applicable)
  • Funding Statement
  • Data Availability Statement
  • Conflicts of Interest Declaration
  • Declaration of Generative AI and AI-Assisted Technologies in Scientific Writing (if applicable)
  • References

Other article types (systematic or narrative reviews, commentaries, perspectives, letters) should follow a logical structure appropriate to their format while maintaining clarity, transparency, and methodological rigour.

Highlights / Key Messages (Mandatory Editorial Enhancement)

All research articles, reviews, and evidence-based commentaries submitted to World Nutrition must include a Highlights / Key Messages section at initial submission.

Purpose
Highlights are concise bullet points intended to enhance discoverability, accessibility, and policy relevance. They support readers, practitioners, and search engines in quickly identifying the article’s principal contributions.

Editorial Clarification
Highlights are an editorial enhancement. They complement, but do not replace, abstracts or scientific conclusions, and they are not used as a basis for peer-review decisions.

Requirements

  • Provide 3–5 bullet points
  • Each bullet point must not exceed 80 characters (including spaces)
  • Use clear, plain language suitable for a broad international audience
  • Focus on:
    • Novel findings or insights
    • Public health, policy, or equity relevance
    • Methodological innovations (where applicable)
  • Avoid jargon, unexplained acronyms, and abbreviations
  • Do not attempt to summarise the entire manuscript

Placement
The Highlights section should appear immediately after the abstract in the main manuscript file.

Abstracts

Structured abstracts are encouraged for research articles and should include, where appropriate:

  • Background
  • Objective(s)
  • Methods
  • Results
  • Conclusions

Abstracts must clearly state the study rationale, methodology, key findings, and principal conclusions.

Reference Style and Citations

World Nutrition applies a journal house reference style adapted from APA 7th Edition (author–date). This adaptation is designed to improve clarity, consistency, and compatibility with indexing, citation tracking, and XML tagging.

General Requirements

  • References must be arranged in alphabetical order by first author surname
  • Every in-text citation must correspond to an entry in the reference list
  • In-text citations should appear as author surname and year
  • Journal titles should be written in full and italicised (no abbreviations)
  • Journal titles use headline-style capitalisation
  • Article titles are presented in sentence case and formatted according to World Nutrition style
  • DOIs or other persistent identifiers must be provided where available

Examples (World Nutrition style adapted from APA 7)

Popkin, B. M. (2020). Nutrition transition and global dietary change. Public Health Nutrition, 23(1), 1–7. https://doi.org/10.xxxxxx

Akob, F. A., Pillay, K., Wiles, N., & Siwela, M. (2025). Dietary intake and dietary diversity of adults and children in the North West region of Cameroon: A comparative study. World Nutrition, 16(2), 73–86. https://doi.org/10.xxxxx

Submission Requirements

Authors must submit the following:

  • Cover letter
  • Main manuscript file in Microsoft Word format (blinded; no author-identifying information)
  • Separate title page containing:
    • Full author names and affiliations
    • Corresponding author contact details
    • ORCID iDs (mandatory for the corresponding author; encouraged for all authors)
  • Highlights / Key Messages section
  • Completed Conflict of Interest Declaration
  • Ethical approval and informed consent statements (where applicable)
  • Funding statement (or declaration of no external funding)

All submissions must be original, unpublished, and not under consideration elsewhere.

Formatting Requirements

  • File format: Microsoft Word (.doc or .docx)
  • Font: Times New Roman, 12-point
  • Line spacing: Double-spaced
  • Margins: 2.5 cm on all sides
  • Pages numbered consecutively

Use of the official manuscript template is recommended to facilitate peer review and production.

Reporting Standards

Authors must follow internationally recognised reporting guidelines, where applicable:

  • CONSORT – Randomised controlled trials
  • PRISMA – Systematic reviews and meta-analyses
  • STROBE – Observational studies
  • COREQ and SRQR – Qualitative research

A completed reporting checklist may be requested during peer review or prior to acceptance.

Data Availability and Transparency

World Nutrition supports transparency and reproducibility in research.

Authors are required to:

  • Include a Data Availability Statement describing how and where data can be accessed
  • Deposit data in recognised repositories where feasible
  • Clearly justify any restrictions related to ethical, legal, or confidentiality concerns

All data sharing must comply with participant privacy protections and informed consent agreements.

Research Ethics and Informed Consent

Human Studies

  • All research involving human participants must receive prior approval from a recognised ethics review board
  • The approving body and reference number must be stated in the manuscript

Informed Consent

  • Written or verbal informed consent must be obtained from all participants
  • For studies involving minors, consent must be obtained from parents or legal guardians
  • Any waiver of consent must be explicitly justified and approved by an ethics committee

Animal Studies
World Nutrition does not consider manuscripts involving animal research.

Authors are required to ensure that manuscripts include:

  • Complete author and affiliation metadata
  • Funding and grant information
  • Ethics and consent statements
  • Conflicts of interest disclosures
  • Accurate and fully formatted references

 

Compliance Statement

By submitting a manuscript to World Nutrition, authors confirm compliance with:

  • International ethical standards for human research
  • Journal editorial and peer-review policies
  • Data protection and privacy regulations
  • Reporting, transparency, and metadata requirements

Failure to comply with these requirements may result in rejection, correction, or retraction, in accordance with COPE best practices.

 Further information and instructions for authors are available on the Author Guideline page.