Instructions for authors

Thank you for choosing to submit your paper to us. These instructions will ensure we have everything required so your paper can move through peer review, production and publication smoothly. Please take the time to read and follow them as closely as possible, as doing so will ensure your paper matches the journal's requirements.

We offer a range of editing, manuscript preparation and post publication services to assist you in preparing your manuscript for submission, increase your chance of acceptance, or broaden the readership of your article. General guidance on every stage of the publication process is available at our  Author Services website.

About the Journal

Functional Diamond is an Open Access international, peer-reviewed journal publishing high-quality, original research. Please see the journal's Aims & Scope for information about its focus and peer-review policy.

Open Access means you can publish your research so it is free to access online as soon as it is published, meaning anyone can read (and cite) your work. Please see our guide to Open Access for more information. Many funders mandate publishing your research open access; you can check open access funder policies and mandates here.

Please note that this journal only publishes manuscripts in English.

Functional Diamond accepts the following types of article:

Research Article
Research Letter
Comment
Perspective
Mini Review
Review
Report

A statement of Author Contribution is required for Functional Diamond. The Author Contribution statement should be included in the submitted manuscript and formatted as follows:

[Author Name]: conceptualization, methodology, validation, data curation, writing—original draft. [Author Name]: data curation, methodology, writing—original draft, visualization. [Author Name]: methodology, formal analysis, investigation, writing— reviewing and editing. [Author Name]:software, validation. [Author Name]:formal analysis, visualization. [Author Name]: formal analysis, writing—review & editing. [Author Name]: conceptualization, writing-reviewing and editing, supervision, funding acquisition.

Article Publishing Charge

The standard article publishing charge (APC) for this journal is £0, plus VAT or other local taxes where applicable in your country. There is no submission charge.

Publication is currently free of charge thanks to the support of Zhengzhou Research Institute for Abrasives & Grinding Co., Ltd. An APC will not apply to any new submissions. There is no submission charge.

Please visit the APC Cost Finder page to find the APC applicable to your specific country and article type.

If you are based at an institution or associated with a funder that has an open access publishing agreement with Taylor & Francis, you might be eligible for APC support. Please see details here.

We offer discounts and waivers for authors in developing countries as defined by the World Bank, either 50% or 100% depending on where the institution of the corresponding author is located. Please see details here.

We will consider requests for discretionary waivers from researchers who aren’t eligible under the above policies. Please note that discounts must be applied at the Charges stage of the submission process when the APC quote is confirmed and may not be considered after submission.

If you have any questions about eligibility, please use the Contact Us form.

Peer Review and Ethics

Taylor & Francis is committed to peer-review integrity and upholding the highest standards of review. Once your paper has been assessed for suitability by the editor, it will then be single anonymous peer reviewed by two independent, anonymous expert. If you have shared an earlier version of your Author’s Original Manuscript on a preprint server, please be aware that anonymity cannot be guaranteed. Further information on our preprints policy and citation requirements can be found on our Preprints Author Services page. Find out more about what to expect during peer review and read our guidance on publishing ethics.

Preparing Your Paper

All authors submitting to medicine, biomedicine, health sciences, allied and public health journals should conform to the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals, prepared by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).

Article Types

Research Article

Should be written with the following elements in the following order: title page; abstract; keywords; main text (introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion); acknowledgments; declaration of interest statement; references; appendices (as appropriate); table(s) with caption(s) (on individual pages); figures; figure captions (as a list)
Should be no more than 5500 words.
Should contain an unstructured abstract of 250 words.
Should contain between 3 and 6 keywords. Read making your article more discoverable, including information on choosing a title and search engine optimization.

The word limits for the main text and abstract are recommended but not mandatory.

Research Letter

Should be written with the following elements in the following order: : title page; abstract; keywords; main text (introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion); acknowledgments; declaration of interest statement; references; appendices (as appropriate); table(s) with caption(s) (on individual pages); figures; figure captions (as a list)
Should be no more than 3850 words.
Should contain an unstructured abstract of 250 words.
Should contain between 3 and 6 keywords. Read making your article more discoverable, including information on choosing a title and search engine optimization.

The word limits for the main text and abstract are recommended but not mandatory.

Comment

Should be written with the following elements in the following order: title page; abstract; keywords; main text (typically a brief introduction followed by discussion and analysis); acknowledgments; declaration of interest statement; references; appendices (as appropriate); table(s) with caption(s) (on individual pages); figures; figure captions (as a list)
Should contain an unstructured abstract of 250 words.
Should contain between 3 and 6 keywords. Read making your article more discoverable, including information on choosing a title and search engine optimization.

The word limits for the main text and abstract are recommended but not mandatory.

Perspective

Should be written with the following elements in the following order: title page; abstract; keywords; main text (introduction and thematically organized sections, with emphasis on the author’s viewpoint, future directions, and concluding remarks); acknowledgments; declaration of interest statement; references; appendices (as appropriate); table(s) with caption(s) (on individual pages); figures; figure captions (as a list)
Should contain an unstructured abstract of 250 words.
Should contain between 3 and 6 keywords. Read making your article more discoverable, including information on choosing a title and search engine optimization.

The word limits for the main text and abstract are recommended but not mandatory.

Mini Review

Should be written with the following elements in the following order: title page; abstract; keywords; main text (introduction and thematic sections, concluding remarks); acknowledgments; declaration of interest statement; references; appendices (as appropriate); table(s) with caption(s) (on individual pages); figures; figure captions (as a list)
Should be no more than 6600 words.
Should contain an unstructured abstract of 250 words.
Should contain between 3 and 6 keywords. Read making your article more discoverable, including information on choosing a title and search engine optimization.

The word limits for the main text and abstract are recommended but not mandatory.

Review

Should be written with the following elements in the following order: title page; abstract; keywords; main text (introduction and thematically organized sections, concluding remarks); acknowledgments; declaration of interest statement; references; appendices (as appropriate); table(s) with caption(s) (on individual pages); figures; figure captions (as a list)
Should be no more than 11000 words.
Should contain an unstructured abstract of 250 words.
Should contain between 3 and 6 keywords. Read making your article more discoverable, including information on choosing a title and search engine optimization.

The word limits for the main text and abstract are recommended but not mandatory.

Report

Should be written with the following elements in the following order: title page; abstract; keywords; main text (introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion); acknowledgments; declaration of interest statement; references; appendices (as appropriate); table(s) with caption(s) (on individual pages); figures; figure captions (as a list)
Should contain an unstructured abstract of 250 words.
Should contain between 3 and 6 keywords. Read making your article more discoverable, including information on choosing a title and search engine optimization.

The word limits for the main text and abstract are recommended but not mandatory.

Format-Free Submission

Authors may submit their paper in any scholarly format or layout. Manuscripts may be supplied as single or multiple files. These can be Word, rich text format (rtf), open document format (odt), PDF, or LaTeX files. Figures and tables can be placed within the text or submitted as separate documents. Figures should be of sufficient resolution to enable refereeing.

There are no strict formatting requirements, but all manuscripts must contain the essential elements needed to evaluate a manuscript: abstract, author affiliation, figures, tables, funder information, and references. Further details may be requested upon acceptance.
References can be in any style or format, so long as a consistent scholarly citation format is applied. For manuscripts submitted in LaTeX format a .bib reference file must be included. Author name(s), journal or book title, article or chapter title, year of publication, volume and issue (where appropriate) and page numbers are essential. All bibliographic entries must contain a corresponding in-text citation. The addition of DOI (Digital Object Identifier) numbers is recommended but not essential.
The journal reference style will be applied to the paper post-acceptance by Taylor & Francis.
Spelling can be US or UK English so long as usage is consistent.

Note that, regardless of the file format of the original submission, an editable version of the article must be supplied at the revision stage.

Taylor & Francis Editing Services

To help you improve your manuscript and prepare it for submission, Taylor & Francis provides a range of editing services. Choose from options such as English Language Editing, which will ensure that your article is free of spelling and grammar errors, Translation, and Artwork Preparation. Taylor & Francis Editing Services can also help you create research promotion materials, including infographics, video abstracts, lay summaries and graphical abstracts, to support your article’s impact. For more information, including pricing, visit this website.

Checklist: What to Include

Author details. Please ensure everyone meeting the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) requirements for authorship is included as an author of your paper. Please ensure all listed authors meet the Taylor & Francis authorship criteria. All authors of a manuscript should include their full name and affiliation on the cover page of the manuscript. Where available, please also include ORCiDs and social media handles (Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn). One author will need to be identified as the corresponding author, with their email address normally displayed in the article PDF (depending on the journal) and the online article. Authors’ affiliations are the affiliations where the research was conducted. If any of the named co-authors moves affiliation during the peer-review process, the new affiliation can be given as a footnote. Please note that no changes to affiliation can be made after your paper is accepted. Read more on authorship.
Graphical abstract (optional). This is an image to give readers a clear idea of the content of your article. It should be a maximum width of 525 pixels. If your image is narrower than 525 pixels, please place it on a white background 525 pixels wide to ensure the dimensions are maintained. Save the graphical abstract as a .jpg, .png, or .tiff. Please do not embed it in the manuscript file but save it as a separate file, labelled GraphicalAbstract1. Taylor & Francis Editing Services provides a graphical abstract creation service for a fee.
You can opt to include a video abstract with your article. Find out how these can help your work reach a wider audience, and what to think about when filming. Taylor & Francis Editing Services provides a video abstract creation service for a fee.
Funding details. Please supply all details required by your funding and grant-awarding bodies as follows:
For single agency grants
This work was supported by the [Funding Agency] under Grant [number xxxx].
For multiple agency grants
This work was supported by the [Funding Agency #1] under Grant [number xxxx]; [Funding Agency #2] under Grant [number xxxx]; and [Funding Agency #3] under Grant [number xxxx].
Disclosure statement. This is to acknowledge any financial or non-financial interest that has arisen from the direct applications of your research. If there are no relevant competing interests to declare please state this within the article, for example: The authors report there are no competing interests to declare. Further guidance on what is a conflict of interest and how to disclose it.
Biographical note. Please supply a short biographical note for each author. This could be adapted from your departmental website or academic networking profile and should be relatively brief (e.g. no more than 200 words).
Supplemental online material. Supplemental material can be a video, dataset, fileset, sound file or anything which supports (and is pertinent to) your paper. Articles with extenders, such as infographics or video summaries, are up to 108% more likely to be downloaded (based on data in May 2024 from Plain Language Summary of Publication and Clinical Trial Protocol articles published in Future Oncology in 2023). We publish supplemental material online via Figshare. Find out more about supplemental material and how to submit it with your article. Taylor & Francis Editing Services can help you create research promotion materials, including infographics, video abstracts, lay summaries and graphical abstracts, to support your article’s impact. For more information, including pricing, visit this website.
Figures. Figures should be high quality (1200 dpi for line art, 600 dpi for grayscale and 300 dpi for colour, at the correct size). Figures should be supplied in one of our preferred file formats: PS, JPEG, TIFF, or Microsoft Word (DOC or DOCX) files are acceptable for figures that have been drawn in Word. For information relating to other file types, please consult our Submission of electronic artwork document.
Tables. Tables should present new information rather than duplicating what is in the text. Readers should be able to interpret the table without reference to the text. Please supply editable files.
Equations. If you are submitting your manuscript as a Word document, please ensure that equations are editable. More information about mathematical symbols and equations.
Units. Please use SI units (non-italicized).

Using Third-Party Material

You must obtain the necessary permission to reuse third-party material in your article. The use of short extracts of text and some other types of material is usually permitted, on a limited basis, for the purposes of criticism and review without securing formal permission. If you wish to include any material in your paper for which you do not hold copyright, and which is not covered by this informal agreement, you will need to obtain written permission from the copyright owner prior to submission. More information on requesting permission to reproduce work(s) under copyright.

Disclosure Statement

Please include a disclosure statement, using the subheading “Disclosure of interest.” If you have no interests to declare, please state this (suggested wording: The authors report there are no competing interests to declare). For all NIH/Welcome-funded papers, the grant number(s) must be included in the declaration of interest statement. Read more on declaring conflicts of interest.

Clinical Trials Registry

In order to be published in a Taylor & Francis journal, all clinical trials must have been registered in a public repository, ideally at the beginning of the research process (prior to participant recruitment). Trial registration numbers should be included in the abstract, with full details in the methods section. Clinical trials should be registered prospectively – i.e. before participant recruitment. However, for clinical trials that have not been registered prospectively, Taylor & Francis journals requires retrospective registration to ensure the transparent and complete dissemination of all clinical trial results which ultimately impact human health. Authors of retrospectively registered trials must be prepared to provide further information to the journal editorial office if requested. The clinical trial registry should be publicly accessible (at no charge), open to all prospective registrants, and managed by a not-for-profit organization. For a list of registries that meet these requirements, please visit the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP). The registration of all clinical trials facilitates the sharing of information among clinicians, researchers, and patients, enhances public confidence in research, and is in accordance with the ICMJE guidelines.

Ethics of Experimentation

Please ensure that all research reported in submitted papers has been conducted in an ethical and responsible manner, and is in full compliance with all relevant codes of experimentation and legislation. All original research papers involving humans, animals, plants, biological material, protected or non-public datasets, collections or sites, must include a written statement in the Methods section, confirming ethical approval has been obtained from the appropriate local ethics committee or Institutional Review Board and that where relevant, informed consent has been obtained. For animal studies, approval must have been obtained from the local or institutional animal use and care committee. All research studies on humans (individuals, samples, or data) must have been performed in accordance with the principles stated in the Declaration of Helsinki. In settings where ethics approval for non-interventional studies (e.g. surveys) is not required, authors must include a statement to explain this. In settings where there are no ethics committees in place to provide ethical approval, authors are advised to contact the Editor to discuss further. Detailed guidance on ethics considerations and mandatory declarations can be found in our Editorial Policies section on Research Ethics.

All authors are required to follow the ICMJE requirements and Taylor & Francis Editorial Policies on privacy and informed consent from patients and study participants. Authors must include a statement to confirm that any patient, service user, or participant (or that person’s parent or legal guardian) in any type of qualitative or quantitative research, has given informed consent to participate in the research. For submissions where patients or participants can be potentially identified (e.g. a clinical case report detailing their medical history, identifiable images or media content, etc), authors must include a statement to confirm that they have obtained written informed consent to publish the details from the affected individual (or their parents/guardians if the participant in not an adult or unable to give informed consent; or next of kin if the participant is deceased). The process of obtaining consent to publish should include sharing the article with the individual (or whoever is consenting on their behalf), so that they are fully aware of the content of the article before it is published. Authors should familiarise themselves with our policy on participant/patient privacy and informed consent. They may also use the Consent to Publish Form, which can be downloaded from the same Author Services page.

Health and Safety

Please confirm that all mandatory laboratory health and safety procedures have been complied within the course of conducting any experimental work reported in your paper. Please ensure your paper contains all appropriate warnings on any hazards that may be involved in carrying out the experiments or procedures you have described, or that may be involved in instructions, materials, or formulae.

Please include all relevant safety precautions; and cite any accepted standard or code of practice. Authors working in animal science may find it useful to consult the International Association of Veterinary Editors’ Consensus Author Guidelines on Animal Ethics and Welfare and Guidelines for the Treatment of Animals in Behavioural Research and Teaching. When a product has not yet been approved by an appropriate regulatory body for the use described in your paper, please specify this, or that the product is still investigational.

Submitting Your Paper

This journal uses Taylor & Francis' Submission Portal to manage the submission process. The Submission Portal allows you to see your submissions across Taylor & Francis' journal portfolio in one place. To submit your manuscript please click here.

Please note that Functional Diamond uses Crossref™ to screen papers for unoriginal material. By submitting your paper to Functional Diamond you are agreeing to originality checks during the peer-review and production processes.

On acceptance, we recommend that you keep a copy of your Accepted Manuscript. Find out more about sharing your work.

Copyright Options

Copyright allows you to protect your original material, and stop others from using your work without your permission. Taylor & Francis offers a number of different license and reuse options, including Creative Commons licenses when publishing open access. Read more on publishing agreements.

This journal uses the CC-BY Creative Commons license. Others can remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, and although their new works must also credit you for the original creation and be non-commercial, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.

Complying with Funding Agencies

We will deposit all National Institutes of Health or Wellcome Trust-funded papers into PubMedCentral on behalf of authors, meeting the requirements of their respective open access policies. If this applies to you, please tell our production team when you receive your article proofs, so we can do this for you. Check funders’ open access policy mandates here. Find out more about sharing your work.

My Authored Works

On publication, you will be able to view, download and check your article’s metrics (downloads, citations and Altmetric data) via My Authored Works on Taylor & Francis Online. This is where you can access every article you have published with us, as well as your free eprints link, so you can quickly and easily share your work with friends and colleagues.

We are committed to promoting and increasing the visibility of your article. Here are some tips and ideas on how you can work with us to promote your research.

Queries

If you have any queries, please visit our Author Services website or contact us here.

Updated 28th April 2025

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