The journal publishes concise original research reports, authoritative reviews, technical developments and commissioned book reviews of the effects produced by low temperatures on a wide variety of biophysical and biological processes, or studies involving low temperature techniques in the investigation of biological and ecological topics. The Journal will accept papers that reach a high standard of scientific endeavour as judged by international peer review.

Contributions are peer-reviewed by an international editorial board and referees, and normally published within eight weeks of receiving an acceptable manuscript.

There are no page charges (unless the author opts for Open Access publishing) and we offer a free PDF file to authors.

Circulation is world-wide and the journal is abstracted by all major services.

Manuscript Layout

1. Papers will be edited directly from authors' electronic submissions, using the downloadable template which therefore must conform to a standardised house-style, be accurate, clear and well laid out. For speed of publication, no proofs are printed, and final responsibility for accuracy rests with author(s) who may be contacted by the editor for clarification during sub-editing.
2. Authors have access to a downloadable template for authors which must be used for submission of their article . Double column format is directed simply by the using template (see Template Instructions below - point 17 onwards) with page numbering .
3. Research articles must be concise, and preferably between 8 – 12 pages long, including Figures, Tables and References. Manuscripts longer than 12 pages will be returned to the author for shortening unless prior agreement has been reached with the Executive or Associate Editors.
4. PERSPECTIVE articles are timely, insightful reviews. The topics are agreed with the Executive Editor in advance. These reviews should be about 12 pages long and include up to 100 references. PERSPECTIVE articles are made available as Open Access at no cost to the authors.
5. Electronic submission is essential, using the downloadable template. Manuscripts should be single line spaced with the text in Times (New) Roman 11 point font. Manuscripts which do not conform to this specification may be returned for resetting. (In the event of difficulty in conforming to the specification, contact the Editorial Office for help; editor@cryoletters.org). All Final Printing will normally be in Black and White. Images can only be accepted for Colour Printing by prior arrangement to pay the costs of printing (£150 per page). Images should only be submitted in colour if the authors state that they agree to pay for the colour images in the Letter of Submission. This decision must be taken by the authors before submitting the manuscript for assessment to ensure consistency in the refereeing procedure.
6. Author Open Access. Authors may choose to select Open Access option at the time of manuscript submission. A modest fee is charged to cover administrative costs. You will be asked to confirm that you will pay the open access fee (600 Euros ) when invoiced. You will need to choose the 'Open Access' option when you first submit your paper to the Editorial Office.  The article will be made available by Ingenta Open Access on receipt of the fee.
7. The title page should have:
1. The TITLE (in 14-point font) in BOLD CAPITALS CENTRED on the page with a 50 mm top margin
2. This should be followed by the Author(s)' names (regular font) separated from the title by a single line space, centred and indicated by an asterisk* the author to whom correspondence should be addressed. The last author name should be preceded by 'and'. To assist information retrieval, titles should be specific and informative
3. The full correspondence address(es) should be left-aligned and separated by a single line space from the author names. Additionally, a valid E-mail contact address must be given. Superscripted numerals^1,2,3 should be used to indicate which addresses are associate with which authors.
4. An Abstract of no more than 250 words, with bold, initial capital centred heading. The abstract should be specific and informative to assist retrieval
5. Up to six Keywords: (heading left-aligned) continuing the line. Words should be arranged in alphabetical order with a semi-colon between them.
8. The text should normally be divided into conventional sub-sections under the following main HEADINGS: INTRODUCTION, MATERIALS AND METHODS, RESULTS, DISCUSSION and REFERENCES. These headings should be BOLD, CAPITAL and CENTRED. Any Acknowledgements: (heading left-aligned) should appear after the text (before the References) continuing the line.
9. The text (see Template Instructions - point 17 onwards) should be fully justified and continuous with no spaces between paragraphs. The Title, Abstract and Keywords are to be in single column format. The remainder of the text (including Acknowledgements and References) should be in two columns. Paragraph first lines should be indented 0.8 cm. Subheadings should be in lower case bold, italic with initial capital. Sub, subheadings should be in regular script underlined with initial capital and conclude with colon or full stop; text should then continue the line. Leave a 24 pt space prior to a main HEADING, and 12 pt afterwards. Leave a 12 pt space before a sub-heading. If you use a font other than Times Roman or Arial to prepare the document, please ensure that all characters are properly converted to Times Roman or Arial before submitting the document to the Editorial Office. Please use the correct characters for degree Celsius (ºC) not the superscripted "o".  Statistical symbols should be italicised according to this example (P, F, t ,χ). The correct formatting is the Author(s) responsibility.
10. Tables should be included in the text. All tables (titles, footnotes, table entries) should be clearly distinguished from the main text by changing to a sans-serif font such as Arial 10-point. The tables should be separated by at least one line from the text above and below. Do not include vertical lines, and keep horizontal lines to the minimum to distinguish the column headings..
11. Figures, graphs, structural formulae etc., should be prepared by computer using a common spreadsheet or graphics package such as Microsoft Excel (see Template Instructions - point 17 onwards). Remove all horizontal scale lines from graphs and do not box in either the axes or the whole figure. Line drawings should be sufficiently bold to remain clear after 10% reduction. Figure legends (axis labels, keys) should be clearly distinguished from the main text by changing to a sans-serif font such as Arial 10-point (like this). There will be a small reduction in text size on printing and labelling with sufficiently large typeface is important to the final appearance of the dataset. In general unless there is reason to choose 'standard deviation' for error bars, standard error of the mean (abbreviated SEM) is preferred. Figure legends should carry enough information to be understood without detailed reference to the text. Numbers of replicates for calculation of the statistical significance should be given. Figures should be included directly in the text. IT IS VERY IMPORTANT THAT YOU CHECK THE APPEARANCE OF THE FONTS USED AFTER IMPORTING THE FIGURE INTO THE FILE TO ENSURE THEY ARE OF SUFFICIENT SIZE STILL TO BE LEGIBLE AFTER A 10% REDUCTION..
12. Photographs should be submitted electronically embedded in the text (see Template Instructions - point 17 onwards). Authors should bear in mind that the page size before reduction is 160 x 250 mm and the photograph should fit within that area allowing space for legend. If at all possible, photographs should be grouped together, bearing in mind the maximum possible size. Good contrast is imperative. Labelling should be black or white according to maximum contrast in Arial 10-point font, or similar. For micrographs, a scale bar indicating magnification should be shown on the photographic print. If several images are used in a figure, they should be electronically grouped 
    Units: SI units are preferred. Consistency is essential
     
13. References should be referred to in the text by number in parenthesis, starting with (1), (2), etc., for the first ones mentioned. This is the order in which the references should appear in the list at the end of the manuscript (not in alphabetical order). All authors should be listed and the general formatting should be as follows:
1. Withers LA & Engelmann F (1997) in Agricultural Biotechnology, (ed) A Altman, Marcel Dekker Inc, New York, pp 57-88.
2. Reed BM (2001) CryoLetters 22, 97-104.
3. Thurston LM, Watson PF & Holt WV (2003) Theriogenology 60, 101-113.
4. Songsasen N, Tong J & Leibo S (1998) Journal of Experimental Zoology 280, 189-196.
   
   Include the doi when possible
14. The Journal maintains its high standard by means of expert refereeing by an international panel. After review, if considered worthy of publication the manuscript will normally be returned for revision as recommended by the referee(s).
15. Revised manuscripts must be marked up to show revisions as requested by the Editorial Office. The Executive Editor will work on the draft PDF with the corresponding author. The responsibility for the appearance of the final revised article rests with the Authors
16. Ethical standards
1. All experimental work involving animals should conform to European Convention on the use of Experimental Animals and the Directive (PDF) that seeks to implement it. Where appropriate, authors should state that animal experiments were conducted in accordance with a named National Policy or Licensing Authority and were approved by the Institutional Ethics Committee. Experimental methods should include details of anaesthetic (generic name, dose, route of administration) and surgical procedures. Chilling alone is not an acceptable method for rendering vertebrates insentient; an anaesthetic agent must be used. Work on isolated tissues, including primary cell cultures, must state from where and how the materials were derived.
2. All work involving humans or human tissues or cells must contain in the text a statement that approval for the study has been obtained from the appropriate National or Institutional Ethics Committee and conforms to the standards set by the Declaration of Helsinki (last modified in 2004), and that material was obtained only with Informed Consent in writing for each individual in the study.
3. The editors reserve the right to refuse publication of any work which  does not conform to these essential ethical standards.
17. How to use the new CryoLetters templates

Download templates:

• Main Text template (.doc)
• Tables, Photos and Figures template (.doc)

Using the Main Text template

1. The template was designed to facilitate the authors of CryoLetters to prepare their camera-ready typescripts in a standardized format. This template makes it easy for authors to layout the text, figures, tables, pictures and legends. It conforms to the format of the journal.
2. The template is written in Microsoft Office 2010 and is compatible with later versions. Copy the file to C: programs/ Microsoft office/templates. To use it, open Word first, go to File, click New, and browse the template. Alternatively, you can copy it in any file folder where you would like to store. To use it, you simply click the template file twice.
3. Click on any macrobutton [words in the brackets] and start typing (e.g. title, bylines, abstract, introduction, subtitles and etc.). When a macrobutton is clicked, it will be highlighted. When you start to type, the macro will disappear automatically. Macrobuttons specify certain formats, therefore do not delete them before writing. The specification though is fixed (e.g. font type, font size, spacing, margin etc.). Treat the template as a regular file, subscript, superscript, special symbols and other variations could be done just like in any Word document. As long as the template is not altered, the format will be maintained.
4. Not every manuscript follows the same sequence: Summary, INTRODUCTION, MATERIALS AND METHODS, RESULTS, and DISCUSSION. The words in the heading can be changed as you wish. Macrobuttons can be copied and pasted to elsewhere.
5. For references, the number will be listed automatically. The authors can add or delete freely any reference without bothering to change the numbering of the references. If cut/copy and paste functions are used to sort out the alphabetical order of the references, the number of each reference will change automatically. If you are using any reference software to prepare your list of references, convert the plain text file first, you can then use the copy and paste function.
6. Blue frames are included at the end of the template for the layout of figures and legends. You can insert one or more display items into one frame. But the simplest way is to use one frame for each display item. Should you need more frames, click the frame and point the cursor to the shade border of the frame, use copy/paste function to have more. To save your time, you are advised to finish your text first, and then to layout the display item with frames. Aim the curse to the border, press the mouse and move the frame to where you wish to place in the paper.
7. If the display item (including photo) is too big and you need to reduce its size, the frame will do it for you. Drag the corner of a blank frame to the required size, copy you over-sized display item and place onto the frame. You will see that your over-sized item is now fitted perfectly. To allow you write a legend, drag the bottom edge of the frame down to have more space (the size of the figure will not change). Note the edge of the frame is different from the edge of the display item. If you drag the edge of a display item, the shape of the display item will change.

If you cannot derlete the last page, leave it there

Submission of Manuscripts

Electronic submission is essential to the Editorial Office or the appropriate Regional Associate Editor, together with a completed copy of the  Declaration and Copyright Transfer form (Microsoft Word document).

Executive Editor

• Prof. Hugh W Pritchard, Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, Wakehurst Place, UK. Email: editor@cryoletters.org

Associate Editors

• Dr Florent Engelmann, Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, Montpellier, France
• Prof. Glyn N Stacey, International Stem Cell Banking Initiative, Barley, UK & National Stem Cell Resource Centre/Institute of Stem Cells and Regeneration, Beijing, P. R. China
• Dr Wendell Sun, Beijing, P. R. China

Reprints

A free .pdf file will be sent to the author marked by an asterisk*.

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