PLOS Journal Submission Checker

PLOS (Public Library of Science) pioneered open-access academic publishing and remains one of the most-submitted-to publishers in science. PLOS ONE alone receives over 200,000 submissions annually. PLOS journals enforce strict transparency and reproducibility standards that go beyond what many subscription journals require. Meeting these standards at submission — not after peer review — saves weeks of revision cycles.

The PLOS Open Data Policy

PLOS has the most comprehensive data availability policy in academic publishing: all data underlying the findings described in your manuscript must be fully available without restriction. This isn't a suggestion — it's a hard requirement enforced at submission.

Acceptable data availability options:

• Deposited in a public repository with a DOI or accession number (preferred)
• Included as supplementary files with the manuscript
• Available on request from a named contact (only for legal or ethical restrictions, and you must explain why)

"Data available on request from the corresponding author" is not acceptable at PLOS without a specific justification tied to participant privacy, legal restrictions, or third-party ownership. This catches many first-time PLOS authors off guard and is a leading cause of desk rejection.

CheckMyManuscript flags manuscripts submitted without a data availability statement and checks that the statement matches PLOS-acceptable templates.

Reporting Checklists

PLOS requires authors to complete the appropriate reporting checklist for their study type at submission:

• CONSORT — randomized controlled trials
• PRISMA — systematic reviews and meta-analyses
• STROBE — observational studies
• ARRIVE — animal research
• STARD — diagnostic accuracy studies
• CARE — case reports
• CHEERS — health economic evaluations

Your manuscript must reference the checklist in the Methods section and include line numbers showing where each checklist item is addressed. Omitting the checklist is an automatic "revise before review" decision.

Author Summary (PLOS-Specific)

PLOS Biology, PLOS Medicine, PLOS Genetics, and PLOS Computational Biology require an "Author Summary" — a 150-word accessible summary written for non-specialist readers. This is separate from the abstract and should avoid technical jargon. PLOS ONE does not require an Author Summary but does require a plain-language abstract for some article types.

The Author Summary is a unique PLOS feature that many authors either omit or write too technically. It should answer: What did you study? Why does it matter to someone outside your field? What did you find?

Ethics and Competing Interests

All PLOS journals require:

• Ethics statement with IRB/IACUC committee name and approval number for human/animal research
• Informed consent documentation for studies involving identifiable human participants
• Competing interests declaration (even if "The authors have declared that no competing interests exist")
• Funding statement listing all sources with grant numbers

PLOS cross-references your funding statement against your data availability statement. If your funder requires open data and your data availability statement restricts access, editors will flag the inconsistency.

Formatting and Structural Standards

PLOS journals require specific structural elements that differ from subscription publishers. All PLOS articles must include:

• Title: maximum 250 characters, no abbreviations unless widely recognized
• Abstract: up to 300 words, unstructured for PLOS ONE (structured for PLOS Medicine)
• Keywords: not required (PLOS uses its own subject taxonomy)
• Figures and tables: embedded in the manuscript at first mention, not appended at the end
• Supporting information: labeled as S1 Fig, S1 Table, S1 Text — not "Supplementary Figure 1"

The PLOS naming convention for supporting information trips up authors who are accustomed to "Supplementary" labeling used by Nature and Elsevier. Using the wrong naming convention triggers a formatting revision request that delays your paper by 1–2 weeks.

Also see: [Clinical trials checker](/for/clinical-trials) | [Biology paper checker](/for/biology-papers) | [Medical paper checker](/for/medical-papers)