--- name: elife description: Use when targeting eLife or deciding whether a life-sciences manuscript fits this open-access venue. Encodes eLife's unique Reviewed-Preprint model, fit, framing, method-and-evidence bar, house style, official-submission re-check, and desk-reject heuristics. --- # eLife (elife) ## Journal positioning eLife is a non-profit open-access journal covering all of life sciences and biomedicine, operated by an independent board and funded by major research foundations. Its defining structural feature is the **Reviewed-Preprint model**: most submissions are posted as preprints on bioRxiv and receive a public eLife assessment plus full peer-review reports — the journal does not issue a binary accept/reject decision in the traditional sense. The eLife assessment uses a controlled vocabulary (landmark, fundamental, important, valuable, useful, incomplete, inadequate) to characterize significance and evidential strength. The readership is the global life-sciences research community, and the ethos strongly favors rigor, reproducibility, transparency, and open science over prestige signaling. This skill is a **fit / venue-selection / re-framing** tool. It does not replace the journal's current official submission guidelines. Before submitting, re-check the live author instructions on elifesciences.org. ## When to trigger - The author names eLife as the target venue or is considering an open-access life-sciences outlet with public peer review. - A manuscript is strong on rigor and reproducibility but may not carry the single-advance framing required by Nature/Cell flagship journals. - The author wants the manuscript posted as a preprint and reviewed publicly, with transparent reviewer reports and eLife assessments visible to readers. - The author needs guidance on eLife's Reviewed-Preprint workflow, assessment vocabulary, and what determines a "featured" eLife paper. ## Scope & topic fit - All areas of life sciences and biomedicine: cell biology, developmental biology, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, genetics/genomics, structural biology, microbiology, immunology, computational biology, and clinical/translational work. - Methods and resources: new tools, datasets, or software with demonstrated utility in life-sciences research are explicitly welcomed as a first-class article type. - Negative results, replication studies, and resource papers are more welcome here than at flagship journals — eLife's ethos explicitly values rigor over novelty hype; the assessment vocabulary rewards evidential strength independent of whether results are positive. - Quantitative and computational biology, biophysics, and cross-disciplinary work that does not fit a single specialty journal. - Review and opinion content is published but typically commissioned; editors select topics where a synthesis would serve the community — unsolicited reviews should be proposed before full preparation. ## Method & evidence bar - eLife assesses **evidential strength** explicitly using its assessment vocabulary: claims must be matched by appropriate experimental or computational evidence; overclaiming relative to evidence is a primary editorial concern and results in a lower significance or strength rating. - Reproducibility practices are expected: data deposition (raw data, processed data), code availability, detailed methods — eLife pushes authors toward full transparency more forcefully than most traditional journals. - Statistical rigor: pre-registration is not mandatory but is valued; sample sizes must be justified; effect sizes and confidence intervals preferred over significance thresholds alone. - For animal studies, ARRIVE reporting guidelines apply; for human studies, CONSORT/STROBE as appropriate and ethics declarations. - Revised manuscripts under the Reviewed-Preprint model are re-assessed publicly; the revision letter and author response are posted alongside the paper. - The assessment distinguishes significance (landmark → important → valuable → useful) from evidential strength (exceptional → compelling → convincing → inadequate) independently — authors should calibrate which dimension their manuscript excels on. ## Structure & house style - eLife uses a structured-summary abstract format (editor's evaluation is posted separately; author's abstract is standard unstructured). - Article types include Research Articles, Short Reports, Tools and Resources, Research Advances, Feature Articles, and Reviews — each has distinct scope expectations (verify current definitions on the live site). - The **eLife digest** (plain-language summary for a non-specialist audience) is expected with most research articles; it is public-facing. - Figures should be publication-ready and accompanied by source data files (underlying numerical data for each panel). - The public peer-review reports and author responses form part of the published record — draft the response letter with this in mind from submission. ## Official-submission checklist - Before giving submission-ready advice, read `../../resources/source-basis.md` and `../../resources/official-source-map.md`; start from the official source anchors for this journal family, then cite the current journal-specific page you checked. - Search the live site for "eLife author guide" or "eLife submission process" and follow the current version at elifesciences.org. - Re-check the current Reviewed-Preprint model workflow, including preprint posting consent, assessment timeline, and the distinction between "eLife Reviewed Preprint" and a "Version of Record." - Confirm data deposition requirements: raw data, processed data, and code repositories (Zenodo, GitHub, Dryad, GEO, SRA, RCSB, etc.) expected before publication. - Check reporting guidelines: ARRIVE (animal), CONSORT/STROBE (clinical), MIQE (qPCR), or other community standards relevant to the study type. - Verify open-access licensing (eLife publishes under CC-BY), funding and competing-interests disclosure, and AI-use policy. - If the live official instructions conflict with this skill, the official instructions win. ## Pre-submission self-check - [ ] One sentence matching the claimed significance level ("landmark," "fundamental," "important," or "valuable") to the actual evidence presented — do not overstate. - [ ] All raw data, processed data, and analysis code are deposited or will be deposited, with accession numbers/links ready. - [ ] The eLife digest is drafted and accessible to a scientifically literate non-specialist. - [ ] The manuscript is posted or is ready to be posted as a preprint (bioRxiv or equivalent); consent for public posting is confirmed. - [ ] Reporting guidelines relevant to the study type have been applied and a checklist is ready. ## Common desk-reject triggers - Scope entirely outside life sciences or biomedicine (physics, chemistry without biological application, social science). - Manuscripts where the significance claim is drastically mismatched with evidential strength — editors use the assessment vocabulary to flag this explicitly. - Clinical trials or large-scale human studies without the appropriate reporting compliance (registration, CONSORT, ethics). - Refusal to post a preprint or to participate in the Reviewed-Preprint workflow may affect routing (verify current policy on whether non-preprint submissions are accepted). - Studies reporting software or databases without working, documented, publicly accessible code/data. ## Re-routing decision - Flagship-level conceptual advance across life sciences → `nature`, `science`, `cell`, or `pnas`. - Open-access general biology with a more pronounced methods/transparency culture → `plos-biology`. - Genomics or computational biology focus → `genome-biology`. - Neuroscience with field-leading conceptual advance → `nature-neuroscience` or `neuron`. ## Output format ```text [Fit] High / Medium / Low (one-line reason) [Target] eLife [Topic tags] <2–3 closest topics> [Method/evidence] [Top risk] [Official items to re-check] [Re-route suggestion] ```