Elsevier Journal Manuscript Formatting Guidelines

Elsevier is the world's largest academic publisher, home to more than 2,600 peer-reviewed journals spanning every scientific and medical discipline — from The Lancet and Cell toJournal of Cleaner Production and Computers & Education. With that breadth comes a frequently misunderstood submission policy: the “Your Paper Your Way” (YPYW) programme. YPYW gives authors considerable formatting latitude at the initial submission stage — but this flexibility is not a blanket pass. Elsevier's mandatory disclosure requirements remain strictly enforced, and missing them is the single most common cause of desk rejection across the entire Elsevier portfolio. This guide gives you the complete, accurate picture so that neither a formatting lapse nor a missing declaration blocks your manuscript from reaching peer review.

2. Core Document Formatting

While YPYW relaxes stylistic prescriptions during initial submission, the following baseline settings are expected across all Elsevier journals and should be applied before you upload your manuscript. Failure to meet these basics can slow the editorial process even if the paper is not outright desk-rejected.

Continuous line numbering deserves special emphasis. Unlike page-restarted or section-restarted numbering, continuous line numbers run sequentially from line 1 on the first page to the last line of the references, with no resets between sections. This is what peer reviewers depend on when they write comments like “Line 247: the claim here is unsupported.” See the step-by-step guide to inserting continuous line numbers in Microsoft Word if you need help configuring this.

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Figure 1: Microsoft Word Layout tab showing Line Numbers set to ContinuousClose

Figure 1: Figure 1: Enable continuous line numbering via Layout → Line Numbers → Continuous in Microsoft Word before submitting to any Elsevier journal.

3. Understanding Your Paper Your Way (YPYW)

Launched by Elsevier to reduce administrative burden on authors, the Your Paper Your Way policy applies to the initial submission phase only. Under YPYW, your manuscript will not be returned solely because it does not match a journal-specific style guide — provided the content is scientifically complete, readable, and all mandatory sections are present.

What YPYW does waive for initial submission:

• Strict reference formatting style (e.g., numbered vs. author-year)
• Exact font size and typeface beyond basic legibility
• Position of figures and tables (embedded vs. end-of-document)
• Specific heading capitalisation or numbering conventions

What YPYW does not waive — these are enforced at every stage:

• Presence of an abstract and keywords
• Declaration of Competing Interests (mandatory even when none exist)
• Funding Statement listing all sources
• Data Availability Statement (increasingly required; check the journal page)
• Ethics Statement for studies involving human participants or animals
• Author Contributions using CRediT taxonomy (required by most Elsevier journals)
• Continuous line numbering for reviewers

After acceptance, the journal's production team will contact you to supply source files formatted to the journal-specific house style. At that stage, figures must be provided as separate high-resolution files, references must match the journal's citation format, and the document must pass Elsevier's production checklist. Authors who submit a well-structured initial submission significantly reduce the round-trip time during production.

YPYW Compliant

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1Continuous line numbers down left margin

2Times New Roman 12pt with Double Spacing (2.0x)

33-line academic table with no vertical gridlines

Figure 2: Submission-ready Elsevier manuscript layout in Microsoft WordClose

Figure 2: Figure 2: A submission-ready Elsevier manuscript layout in Microsoft Word with continuous line numbering, double line spacing, and clear section hierarchy.

1Continuous line numbers down left margin

2Times New Roman 12pt with Double Spacing (2.0x)

33-line academic table with no vertical gridlines

4. Mandatory Manuscript Structure

The following section sequence is the standard for original research articles across the Elsevier portfolio. Clinical, review, and methods articles may vary; always check the Guide for Authors on the journal's homepage. The sequence below is the correct order for a standard IMRaD article:

1. Title Page — Full title, all author names in order, institutional affiliations (department, institution, city, country), corresponding author contact details, ORCID iDs, running title (≤50 characters), and any acknowledgement of prior conference presentations.
2. Abstract — Maximum 250 words for most journals. Structured abstracts (with Background, Methods, Results, Conclusions subheadings) are required for clinical and health science journals; unstructured for basic science. Word count limits vary — always verify on the journal page.
3. Keywords — 4–6 keywords immediately following the abstract. Should not duplicate words already in the title. Use MeSH terms for biomedical journals or field-standard terminology.
4. Introduction — Context, rationale, and research question/hypothesis.
5. Materials and Methods (or Methods) — Sufficient detail for replication. For clinical studies, include ethics approval reference number.
6. Results — Data and statistical outcomes. Tables and figures referenced here.
7. Discussion — Interpretation, limitations, and situating findings in the literature.
8. Conclusions — Optional standalone section summarising the contribution.
9. Declaration of Competing Interests — Mandatory. Required even when there are no competing interests. See the Mandatory Disclosure Statements section below for exact phrasing.
10. Acknowledgements — Thank individuals who contributed but do not meet authorship criteria. Must not include funding (that goes in the Funding section).
11. Funding Statement — Mandatory. List all funding sources with grant numbers. Write “This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.” if unfunded.
12. Data Availability Statement — Increasingly mandatory. State where data supporting the findings are available (repository name, DOI, or access conditions).
13. References — Formatted consistently per journal style; double-spaced.
14. Appendices — Supplementary material not critical to the main narrative. Label alphabetically (Appendix A, Appendix B).

5. Mandatory Disclosure Statements — The #1 Desk Rejection Cause

Across the Elsevier portfolio, incomplete or missing disclosure statements are the leading driver of desk rejection and editorial returns — ahead of scope mismatch, reference formatting, and word count violations. Every disclosure listed below must appear explicitly in every submission, regardless of whether it applies.

1. Declaration of Competing Interests

This section is non-negotiable. Elsevier requires an explicit statement for every paper, even when the authors have no competing interests to declare. The exact approved phrasing for a clean declaration:

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

If competing interests exist, they must be disclosed specifically: employment relationships, patent holdings, consultancy arrangements, stock ownership, honoraria, or speaker's bureau membership with organisations whose products are relevant to the manuscript. Vague disclosures (“Author X consults in the industry”) are insufficient — name the companies.

2. Funding Statement

All funding sources must be named with grant numbers. The Funding Statement is a distinct section from Acknowledgements and must not be merged with it. Required format:

This work was supported by the [Agency Name] [Grant Number]; and the [Agency Name] [Grant Number].

For unfunded research: “This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.”

3. Data Availability Statement

A growing number of Elsevier journals now mandate a Data Availability Statement. Even for journals where it is not yet compulsory, including one is considered best practice for research integrity. Acceptable forms include:

• Link to a public repository (Zenodo, Figshare, Dryad, OSF) with a persistent DOI
• Statement that data are available on request from the corresponding author
• Explanation that data cannot be shared due to legal or ethical restrictions

4. Ethics Statement

For any study involving human participants or animal subjects, include a dedicated Ethics Statement naming the institutional review board (IRB) or ethics committee and the approval number. For studies with human participants, also confirm that written informed consent was obtained. Missing ethics approval documentation is an immediate desk rejection at Elsevier health science journals.

5. Author Contributions (CRediT Taxonomy)

Elsevier strongly encourages (and many journals require) author contribution statements using the CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) framework. Each author should be mapped to one or more of the 14 standardised roles:

Example format: “J. Smith: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing – Original Draft. A. Kumar: Formal Analysis, Software, Visualization. P. Chen: Supervision, Funding Acquisition.”

6. Tables and Figures

Elsevier follows the three-line academic table convention for all journals. A three-line table uses only three horizontal rules: a top border above the header row, a mid-rule separating the header from the body, and a bottom border beneath the last data row. No vertical lines are used.Table captions are placed above the table, not below.

The academic standard is straightforward to implement but easy to get wrong — most Word users default to the All Borders grid format. See the complete guide to formatting 3-line academic tables in Microsoft Word for step-by-step instructions.

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Figure 3: Microsoft Word Table Design ribbon showing 3-line academic table bordersClose

Figure 3: Figure 3: Apply 3-line academic table borders (Top border, Bottom border, and Inside horizontal border; no vertical lines) via Word's Table Design ribbon.

Figure Requirements

• Initial submission (YPYW): Figures may be embedded directly in the Word file for reviewer convenience. Low-resolution copies are acceptable at this stage.
• After acceptance: High-resolution separate files are required — minimum 300 DPI for halftone photographs, 600–1200 DPI for line art. Preferred formats are TIFF and EPS; JPEG is acceptable for photographs only (not for graphs or line art, which suffer compression artefacts).
• Figure captions appear below the figure, unlike table captions which appear above.
• Colour figures: Confirm whether the journal charges for colour printing. Many Elsevier journals offer free colour in the online version but charge for print.

7. 5 Most Common Desk Rejection Causes at Elsevier

Based on the patterns Elsevier's editorial offices have publicly documented, and author-reported experiences across the Elsevier portfolio, the five most common grounds for desk rejection are:

1. Missing or incomplete disclosure statements — Competing Interests, Funding, and Data Availability statements are all mandatory. Even one missing section can trigger an automatic return before the paper reaches an editor. This is the most common cause by a substantial margin.
2. Scope mismatch — Elsevier publishes 2,600+ journals, and editors are highly selective about scope. A paper on computational biology submitted to a clinical epidemiology journal will be returned regardless of quality. Use the Elsevier Journal Finder tool and read at least five recent articles in your target journal before submitting.
3. References not formatted consistently — While YPYW does not enforce a specific reference style, the references must be internally consistent. Mixing numbered and author-year citations within the same manuscript, or inconsistently including/omitting DOIs, signals poor preparation and may prompt editorial return.
4. Word count significantly exceeding the stated limit — Most Elsevier journals publish explicit word count limits on their Guide for Authors page. Exceeding these limits (even under YPYW) by a substantial margin suggests the authors have not read the author guidelines and can result in a return without review.
5. Missing keywords or abstract not matching requirements — Structured abstracts (Background / Methods / Results / Conclusions) are required by clinical and health sciences journals. Submitting an unstructured abstract where a structured one is required, or providing fewer than the required number of keywords, are mechanical errors that are quickly caught during the editorial check.

Need a comparison with another major publisher? See the Springer Nature manuscript formatting guide for a side-by-side look at how the Declarations section differs between the two publishers.

Further reading: 3-line academic table formatting · Continuous line numbers in Word · Desk rejection turnaround guide · Springer Nature formatting guide