The mission of Annual Reviews is to provide critical, scholarly reviews of important topics in selected branches of science. Each manuscript must be originally written for publication in Annual Reviews.

The preparation of a review must, by its very nature, rely heavily on the ideas, observations, and reports of others. Therefore, it is important for authors to exercise care in citing and quoting other publications. This precaution applies also to the use of the author’s own previous writing. The following guidelines are intended primarily to protect new Annual Reviews authors from inadvertent infringements of copyright, any appearance of plagiarism, or accidental bias in assembling bibliographies.

Extra vigilance is required of literature review authors, for whom the task of materials-assembly (today often a software cut-and-paste operation) must be separated carefully from those of information synthesis and fresh expression.

In view of the historic importance of Annual Reviews articles in defining the current state of scientific knowledge, authors should strive to be fair, yet discriminating, in their selection of references. Include only those papers you consider to be genuinely important: Do not clutter the bibliography with citations of marginal relevance to your topic merely for the sake of "completeness." On the other hand, do not be so sparing with your references that you might appear to have minimized or disregarded the work of your competitors or newcomers to the field. The preparation of an appropriate bibliography is a difficult and ultimately subjective task. Nonetheless it is important for authors to be sensitive to the pitfalls of either too many or too few citations in review articles.

If you have any questions about these guidelines, do not hesitate to contact your Production Editor or the Editor-in-Chief of Annual Reviews.