Common Mistakes

 This guide explains several common issues noted by our editors at each stage of the publishing process. Avoiding/addressing these kinds of mistakes before submitting will make things easier for you in that you will get less extraneous comments and more high-level feedback on your science. 

1.  Senior author missing. All manuscripts at eiRxiv are required to have a senior author. More information is provided on our Author Eligibility and Information page.
2. Inclusion of previously published figures. Figures that have been previously published cannot be used in your manuscript unless you have written permission from the author of the figure and the place of previous publication due to copyright reasons. If you feel that a previously published figure is absolutely essential to your manuscript please contact our editorial team where we will work with you to determine if the figure is necessary to include and provide guidance on the process of getting approval.
3. Manuscript is written like a lab report. One of the hardest things is transforming your work from a standard lab report format into a polished manuscript for publication! Our review process is aimed at helping our student authors with this, but here are some tips and tricks to help get you started:
   1. Use our manuscript template as you write your manuscript!
      1. We developed this template to specifically help our authors during the writing process and give examples of common mistakes in various sections of a manuscript.
   2. Look at previously published manuscripts at eiRxiv.
      1. We launched the server in April of 2025 and expect to have examples for you to review by the summer of 2025.