LUTS: Lower Urinary Tract Symptoms

1.5.1 Cover Letter

Cover letters are not mandatory, but you can upload one as a separate document at submission.

Cover letters should be short and indicate the rationale for your submission and how it will advance the community. Cover letters are not shared with reviewers and will remain confidential between authors and editors.

1.5.2 Main Document

The manuscript should be an editable file (.doc/.docx) including text and tables. Please provide figures in the highest resolution possible, whether this means they are embedded or provided separately.

Note: If the manuscript, figures, or tables are difficult for you to read, they will also be difficult for the editors and reviewers, and the editorial office will send them back for revision.

The main document should be presented in the following order:

• A title page
• Abstract(if relevant)
  • Indicate the abstract’s word limit and whether the abstract is structured (include required subheadings) or unstructured.
• Up to 5 keywords
  • Keywords may include acronyms as well as brief phrases common to your field of research
• Main text, formatted as:
  1. Introduction
  2. Methods
  3. Results
  4. Discussion
• Acknowledgements
• Conflict of Interest Statement
• References
• Tables
  • Each table complete with title and footnotes
• Figures
• Figure legends:
  • Figure legends or captions can be included at the end of your main document if figures are submitted as separate files.
• Appendices (if relevant)

Note: Supporting materials should be submitted as separate files.

1.5.3 Title Page

The title page should include:

• A short informative title containing the major key words. The title should not contain abbreviations (see Wiley's best practice SEO tips);
• A short running title of less than 40 characters;
• The full names of the authors
• Co-author details, including affiliation and email address.

Why is this important? We need to keep all co-authors informed of the outcome of the peer review process.

• Any statements relating to our ethics and integrity policies. For this journal, that includes:
  • data availability statement
  • conflict of interest statement
  • ethics approval statement (if relevant)
  • patient consent statement (if relevant)
  • permission to reproduce material from other sources

Why are these important? We need to uphold rigorous ethical standards for the research we consider for publication.

1.5.4 Abstract

The length of abstracts must adhere to the word count specifications for your manuscript category.

The abstract should state the main problem, methods, results, and conclusions. Abstracts may have subheadings, depending on the manuscript category.

Please see the Manuscript Categories section for details on your specific manuscript category.

1.5.5 Keywords

You should provide 3 – 5 keywords below the abstract in alphabetical order.

The keywords should be taken from those recommended by the US National Library of Medicine’s Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) list.

1.5.6 Conflict of Interest

During submission you should disclose any potential conflicts of interests (also referred to as “competing interests” or COI) that might appear to affect your ability to present work objectively.

These might include relevant financial interests (for example, patent ownership, stock ownership, consultancies, or speaker’s fees), or personal, political, or religious interests.

You can read more about conflicts of interest in Wiley’s Best Practices for Research Integrity and Publishing Ethics.

1.5.7 Ethical Approvals and Statements

You must state that the protocol for the research project was approved by the ethics committee of the institution where the work was undertaken.

This journal also requires you do the following, as appropriate:

• State that the research conforms to the provisions of the Declaration of Helsinki
• Provide Institutional Review Board (IRB) approvals
• Provide statements of ethical treatment of human and animal research participants
• Gather informed consent

When reporting randomized control trials, authors must provide a CONSORT flow diagram and are strongly encouraged to refer to the CONSORT guidelines for reporting.

Please review Wiley’s policies surrounding human studies, animal studies, clinical trial registration, biosecurity, and research reporting guidelines.

1.5.8 Reference Style

Since this journal offers Free Format, there is no submission requirement for formatting references.

We do ask that authors use a consistent reference style throughout the manuscript and include:

• Author(s) name(s)
• Journal title/book title
• Article title (where applicable)
• Year of Publication
• Volume & Issue / Book Chapter
• Pagination
• Optional: DOI

If your manuscript is accepted for publication, Wiley will update the formatting into the journal style.

1.5.9 Data Sharing

This journal expects data sharing.

You can learn more about data sharing in Wiley’s Data Sharing Policies resource.

1.5.10 Data Availability Statement

You must include a data availability statement with their submission.

When submitting the manuscript on Research Exchange Submission, the submitting author will be asked to select from several pre-written statements or use the text editor to tell us about data availability with regard to their submission.

You can review Wiley’s Data Sharing Policies resource to understand which data availability statement is right for your submission.

1.5.11 Figures

Figures should be provided in the highest resolution possible, whether this means they are embedded in the main document or provided separately.

Please review Wiley’s general guidelines for figure preparation for manuscripts in peer review, as well as the more detailed post-acceptance figure requirements.

1.5.12 Supporting Materials

Supporting materials and appendices should be provided as separate files.

For help providing supporting materials, you can view Wiley’s FAQs about supporting materials.

1.5.13 ORCID iD

This journal requires [submitting author/all authors] to provide their ORCID iD, a unique, persistent identifier available at no charge to researchers. The submitting author can provide this information in the submission system.

You can refer to Wiley’s resources on ORCID iDs or visit the ORCID site to create or check your identifier number.

1.5.14 Disclosing the use of Artificial Intelligence

If you have used Artificial Intelligence Generated Content (AIGC) tools such as ChatGPT and others based on large language models (LLMs) to develop any portion of a manuscript, their use must be described transparently and in detail in the Methods section.

You can view Wiley’s AI policy in full in the Authorship section of the Best Practices Guidelines on Research Integrity and Publishing Ethics.

1.5.15 Preprint Policy

This journal accepts articles previously published on preprint servers.

You are requested to update any pre-publication versions with a link to the final published article.

You may also post the submitted version of a manuscript to a preprint server at any time. We request authors update any pre-publication versions with a link to the final published article.

1.5.16 Reproduction of Copyright Material

If excerpts from copyrighted works owned by third parties are included, all sources must be credited within the manuscript. At minimum, the title and author should be provided.

The corresponding author is responsible for obtaining written permission to reproduce the material "in print and other media" from the publisher of the original source and for supplying Wiley with that permission upon submission.

For more information, you can review Wiley’s Guidelines for Obtaining Permission to Reproduce Material.

1.5.17 Refer and Transfer Program

Wiley believes that no valuable research should go unshared. This journal participates in Wiley’s Refer & Transfer program.

If a manuscript is not accepted, authors may receive a recommendation to transfer the manuscript to another suitable Wiley journal, either through a referral from the journal’s editor or through our Transfer Desk Assistant.

1.5.18 Author Pronouns

You may now include their personal pronouns in the author bylines of their published articles and on Wiley Online Library. Authors will never be required to include their pronouns; it will always be optional for the author.

You can include their pronouns in their manuscript upon submission and can add, edit, or remove their pronouns at any stage upon request. Submitting/corresponding authors should never add, edit, or remove a coauthor’s pronouns without that coauthor’s consent.

Post-publication changes to pronouns can be made without a correction notice to the paper to protect the author’s privacy, per Wiley’s Name Change Policy.

Terms that fall outside of the scope of personal pronouns (e.g., proper or improper nouns) are not currently supported.

4.5.1 Open Access

This is a subscription journal that offers an Open Access publication option.

After acceptance, you will have the option to make the article Open Access. If authors choose to make the article Open Access, the article will be subject to an article publication charge (APC) unless a waiver applies.

Please read more about APCs and whether you may be eligible for waivers or discounts at Wiley Author Services.