Originality

Only papers that report novel and significant scientific findings in microbiology will be considered and accepted for publication in JM. Thus, any manuscript submitted to JM must report original research. JM accepts a submitted manuscript on the condition that the presented work has not been published and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere.

Authorship

Credit for authorship should be based on the four criteria: (1) substantial contributions to conceptualization, design, and the acquisition, analysis, and interpretation of data; and (2) drafting of the article or revising it critically for significant intellectual content; and (3) final approval of the version to be published; and (4) agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work, ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. Any contributions for the paper which do not fit all four of these criteria should be listed in the “Acknowledgements” of the paper.

- Corresponding author
The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that all the listed authors have agreed to all of the content, including the author list and author contribution statements and approved the manuscript submission to the journal. The corresponding author is also responsible for managing all communication between the journal and all co-authors before and after publication.

- Changes to authorship
To avoid any possible dispute during processing, changes to authorship (e.g., including or excluding an author, changing the order of authors’ names or affiliation number) during revision must be agreed upon by all authors and brought to the editor’s attention in the cover letter submitted with the revised version. New authors must also confirm that they fully comply with the journal’s authorship requirements.

Plagiarism and permission

Authors must do their best to avoid plagiarism. As defined in the 1995 Random House Compact Unabridged Dictionary, plagiarism is the use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and their representation as one’s own original work. Plagiarism is not limited to the text. Author(s) may not use any part of a manuscript, including figures and tables, from another publication without permission. Author(s) cannot reuse their previously published work without a specific address; this is considered self-plagiarism. Fabrication, manipulation, and falsification of data are also viewed as misconduct in JM. Submitted manuscripts are screened for possible plagiarism or duplicate publication using similarity check once received. If plagiarism or duplicate publication is detected, the manuscript may be rejected. Author(s) must respond to requests from the JM editors when the original data and research notes require verification.

Availability of materials

to deposit important strains in publicly accessible culture collections and to refer to these collections and strain numbers in the manuscript (When the paper describes a novel species, the type strain of the species must be deposited in two culture collections in two different countries and the deposit certificates should be simultaneously submitted with the manuscript.). Authors should also indicate laboratory strain designations and donor sources when they distribute culture(s) or subculture specimen(s).

- Nucleic acid and protein sequences
Any novel nucleotide or amino acid sequences described in the manuscript should be available through one of public databases (GenBank, EMBL, DDBJ, and KOBIC), and the accession numbers should be included in the “Materials and Methods” section. Sequence data must be made available on publication.

- Microarray data
Microarray data must be deposited in public databases, such as GEO, ArrayExpress, or CIBEX, and the assigned number must be included in an appropriate section of the manuscript. Microarray data must be made available on publication.

- Structural determination
The atomic coordinates and related experimental data (structure factor amplitudes/intensities and/or NMR restraints) must be deposited at a member site of the Worldwide Protein Data Bank (wwPDB) before publication. The PDB code must be included in a separate paragraph in the “Materials and Methods” section. Atomic coordinates and experimental data must be made available on publication.

Supplementary data

Supplementary data contains experimental data and figures that cannot be presented in the printed version due to space or technical limitations. Supplementary data should be as concise as possible and must be related to the main conclusion(s) of the paper. Data will be reviewed along with the paper and must be approved by the editors and referees. Instead of appearing in the printed version of the journal, it will be published online at the time of publication.

Conflict of interest

Authors are requested to disclose all affiliations, funding sources, and financial or management relationships that could be perceived as potential sources of bias. Conflict of interest should be noted in the manuscript (after the “Acknowledgements”). If an undisclosed competing interest comes to light after publication, JM will take action in accordance with internal policies and the Committee on Research Ethics guidelines of the Microbiological Society of Korea. In cases where the author(s) have no conflicts of interest to report, a statement to that effect can be automatically generated in the final publication version of the article (e.g. The authors have no conflict of interest to report.).

Editorial Board Members are required to declare any competing interests and may be excluded from the peer review process if a competing interest exists. In addition, they should exclude themselves from handling manuscripts in cases where there is a competing interest. Where an Editor or Editorial Board Member is on the author list, we recommend they declare this in the Conflict of Interest section of the manuscript (e.g. Minsu Kim is Editor of Journal of Microbiology and would not have access to the review records of this article. Authors have no conflicts of interest to report either.). If he/she is an author or has any other competing interest regarding a specific manuscript, another Editor or member of the Editorial Board will be assigned. Editor or Editorial Board Member status has no bearing on editorial consideration.

Ethics

Manuscripts dealing with any experimental work on humans or animals should meet the relevant regulations or requirements imposed by institutional or governmental authorities:

- All research on human subjects should be conducted in accordance with the ethical standards outlined in the Helsinki Declaration of 1975 (revised 2013), and the research protocol must be approved by an Institutional Review Board (IRB) prior to conducting experiments.

- All research involving experimental animals should be reviewed and approved by the author(s)’ Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees (IACUC) prior to commencing the study, and should be performed in accordance with relevant institutional and national guidelines and regulations.

Details of the ethical approval status of the research must be described in the “Ethical Statement” section of the manuscript (after “Conflict of Interest”), including the IRB and/or IACUC approval number(s). Should the study be exempt from ethics approval, author(s) should clearly state the reasons in the generated statement.

Sex and gender equity

Ensure correct use of the terms for sex (when reporting biological factors) and gender (identity, psychosocial, or cultural factors), and unless inappropriate, report the sex and/or gender of study participants, the sex of animals or cells, and describe the methods used to determine sex and gender. If the study involved an exclusive population, for example, sex/gender-specific cases such as those of prostate cancer, the author(s) should define how they determined race and ethnicity, justifying their relevance.

As a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), Journal of Microbiology abides by COPE’s principles on how to deal with potential acts of misconduct, which includes formal investigation of all perceived transgressions (https://publicationethics.org/members/journal-microbiology-0).