Overleaf is a cloud-based tool that helps authors to quickly and easily prepare manuscripts and also collaborate and submit their final papers to partner journals. The American Society for Microbiology (ASM) has more than 50,000 members. It is the largest single life science organization in the world. Overleaf and ASM have started partnership that will benefit members of the mSystems research community.
New Academic Authorship Tool
mSystems is ASM’s open-access journal. Overleaf and ASM have created a LaTeX template for this journal. This template will simplify the writing and submission process for mSystems authors. The template allows authors to write on the left and see their finished typeset document on the right in real time. Since the author-publishing tool follows the pre-formatted mSystems’ specifications template, it enables researchers to view changes immediately.
The ASM template is currently available in the Overleaf template gallery. The tool also displays the Instructions to Authors. It only shows the instructions relevant to the current section of the paper. This means that all the requirements for each section of the journal article are visible when you need it—as you are actually writing.
ASM and Overleaf have also made it possible for authors to submit their final document to mSystems with one click. This tool will send all the files and metadata belonging to the paper to the eJournalPress submission system within mSystems.
Making the submission process easier for mSystems authors is one of the reasons that Jack Gilbert (mSystems’ Editor in Chief) is excited to work with Overleaf. He also stated that he is looking forward to receiving submissions written in LaTeX. John Hammersley (Overleaf’s CEO) was delighted to work with ASM to make it even easier for the mSystems research community to publish.
ASM focuses on promoting and advancing the microbial sciences. It does this through conferences, publications, and educational opportunities. ASM does all this to help diverse audiences understand microbiology. Overleaf has over 750,000 registered users. Their web application helps authors write, collaborate, and publish their papers. They have also partnered with publishers and institutions to create custom templates, reference tool links, and one click paper submission.
They are therefore an ideal partner for ASM, and the mSystems research community. Their ASM template will remind mSystems authors of the relevant journal instructions as they write, automatically format their text, and allow one click submission of the final manuscript possible.