Understanding what the editors look for in a proposal is the first step towards preparing a successful pitch.
Researchers can suggest review or opinion articles to us by submitting proposals directly to our submission platform.
To put some numbers to this statement: our team has taken forward 11% of the review articles and 19% of the opinion articles that have been proposed to us without prior invitation.
Should your pitch fit these criteria, the best way to gauge our interest in a potential review article is with a synopsis, rather than a full draft.
Although synopses vary between submissions, there are core elements that we expect to see and consider essential to a strong proposal.
Nature Reviews Biodiversity mainly publishes commissioned articles, but we also welcome proposals. Understanding what the editors look for in a proposal is the first step towards preparing a successful pitch.
Most of the articles you read in Nature Reviews Biodiversity have been commissioned by our editorial team. When deciding what to commission, we consider active trends in the literature, international policy activity or conversations we’ve had with researchers at conferences and lab visits. Sometimes, we even invite Comment or World View articles after seeing interesting, opinionated conference talks or social media posts! However, we are a small team trying to balance editorial coverage across the breadth of biodiversity science, and sometimes we might miss the signs that a topic is primed for a review.
Researchers can suggest review or opinion articles to us by submitting proposals directly to our submission platform. Given the journal has a finite capacity of 50 Reviews and Perspectives per year, we are highly selective with both our commissions and the proposals we consider further. To put some numbers to this statement: our team has taken forward 11% of the review articles and 19% of the opinion articles that have been proposed to us without prior invitation.
Nature Reviews Biodiversity publishes narrative reviews, using diverse author voices and expertise to synthesize knowledge into progressive and insightful articles. We do not publish systematic reviews or meta-analyses, which present novel empirical analysis and fall beyond our scope. Our aim is to publish timely articles exploring areas of active research that would benefit from a scholarly and accessible synthesis. Given the journal’s broad scope and diverse readership, we favour relatively broad topics of interest to a wide audience, rather than niche angles on a subject that would be appreciated by only a small range of researchers. We expect authors to demonstrate a command of their subject area (demonstrated by a publication history in that topic), with a vision to progress the field.
Should your pitch fit these criteria, the best way to gauge our interest in a potential review article is with a synopsis, rather than a full draft.
Synopses are a vital part of our process for both commissioned articles and proposals, and are a helpful tool for authors planning to write a review. A synopsis crystallizes the vision for the article into a concise and structured document, before committing the tens of hours demanded by a draft manuscript. The synopsis is an integral part of our collaborative editorial process that sees articles evolve through iterative drafts and feedback before peer review. Although synopses vary between submissions, there are core elements that we expect to see and consider essential to a strong proposal.
“A synopsis crystallizes the vision for the article into a concise and structured document”
A synopsis should detail the goals and scope of the proposed review, often with a draft abstract and detailed rationale. Synopses should also outline the basic structure for the article, defining section headings and content. We expect to see references to relevant and timely primary literature (published in the past ~5 years) and discussion of how your article will differ from previous reviews on the topic. Finally, we like to see ideas for or descriptions of figures, tables and boxes that will complement the text and bring the article to life. Should the proposal indicate that the topic would be a good fit for us, we’ll then proceed with inviting a full draft and may offer some editorial feedback to guide the writing process.
We also welcome full drafts of proposed Comments that call attention to timely issues and — importantly — offer expert opinion on potential solutions to the challenges raised. Part of the reason why we take forward a larger percentage of proposed Comments than Reviews or Perspectives is that it can be difficult — without a prior interaction — to invite someone to share an opinion, and authors are typically more attuned to emerging events, such as biodiversity-relevant local or regional policy changes, than we are. On this note, we offer a piece of advice: when proposing a time-sensitive opinion piece that is anchored to a particular event (such as a large international policy meeting or an impending national policy change), we encourage you to plan well ahead. We operate on much slower timelines than news outlets and have had to turn down promising submissions because we would not have been able to edit and publish the piece in time for it to be relevant to a specific event.
