Authors often spend most of their time drafting and editing the main text of the manuscript, paying close attention to the methods, figures and data presented, the results, and discussion. However, the front and back matter are just as important to get right during manuscript preparation and are often overlooked.

While the front matter helps increase the manuscript’s visibility and discoverability, the back matter plays a critical role in research transparency, ethical compliance and scholarly credibility.

The content of the back matter is field-specific and tends to vary between publishers. It will typically include statements regarding author contributions, funding, data availability, ethics approval declarations, and references, among other items. Together, these items ensure adherence with publication ethics guidelines.

Here, we will explore what the back matter in research articles includes and why it is essential for meeting the journal’s submission requirements and avoiding delays during peer review.

What is the back matter?

The back matter includes all the content that appears after the main text of a research article. Its purpose is to supplement the main text and provide further information and context.

Traditionally, the back matter would only contain supplementary files with additional data that support the main findings, acknowledgements and references. With publishers, institutions and funding agencies placing a greater emphasis on open science practices and transparency, back matter content has grown to include specific disclosures related to open science principles.

Most publishers will include a combination of the following common back matter elements:

• Supplementary Materials
• Author Contributions
• Funding
• Institutional Review Board Statement
• Informed Consent Statement
• Data Availability Statement
• Acknowledgments
• Conflicts of Interest/Disclaimer
• Glossary/Nomenclature/Abbreviations
• Appendix
• References

Each journal will have specific requirements regarding the sequence, formatting and content requirements for each of these items. Instructions on how to correctly fill out these sections are typically provided in author guidelines or manuscript formatting guidelines.

Core components of the back matter

Here, we will look at each component of the back matter, highlighting how it contributes to integrity, transparency, reproducibility and compliance with funding requirements.

Author contributions

To promote accountability and visibility of the diverse research contributions authors have, many publishers including MDPI have adopted the Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT) system to standardize author contributions statements.

The CRediT system uses 14 key contribution roles, including various elements from conceptualization to data collection and analysis, as well as roles such as supervision or funding and project administration. This system allows for a more holistic view of the contributions of researchers and can help funders and institutions better evaluate researchers.

This system should not be used to determine authorship, but can encourage a more open discussion regarding contributions, which may resolve potential authorship disputes and promote transparency.

For further information regarding authorship, read our blog post on who to include as an author and who to acknowledge.

Funding statement

Declaring all funding sources is crucial for transparency and allows readers to identify any bias or conflicts of interest related to the funding received. Funders also track how grant money is spent and use this information to prevent fraud.

Funding can come in many forms, such as salaries for the authors, support for research activities, tuition support, or even for paying the article processing fees. Authors should carefully list all sources and how the support was used.

Funding agencies have specific requirements regarding the format and what should be included within the funding statement. It is the author’s responsibility to carefully check and fulfill the terms of their funding agency.

The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) provides guidance as well as several examples of funder statement requirements from agencies in the US, UK and Europe.

Ethics approval and informed consent statements

The Declaration of Helsinki requires researchers to obtain approval from an Institutional Review Board before conducting research involving human participants. These participants must also freely provide their consent to participate in the research.

To ensure that editors, reviewers and authors can find and review this information, many publishers have included a section in the back matter to standardize statements and ensure all relevant information is included.

Statements should include the name of the review board that approved the study protocol, project code and date of approval and are recommended to adhere to the following structure:

“The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, and the protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee of XXX (Project identification code) on [date of approval].”

Read our blog on publishing human studies ethically and responsibly for more information on specific documentation that may be requested during submission.

Data availability statement

Data availability statements let readers know how to access the data associated with the research presented. This is important to ensure the reproducibility of the study and also enhance the reuse of datasets for further analysis. In return, authors will benefit from an increase in visibility and citations, expanding the impact of their work.

Many journals, funders or institutions require data availability statements to comply with open science policies.

MDPI is committed to supporting open scientific exchange and encourages authors to comply with best practices for sharing and archiving research data by ensuring their data adheres to FAIR principles.

To help authors correctly complete the data availability statement, MDPI also provides a comprehensive list of statement options that address the most common cases.

Data availability statement examples.

Conflicts of interest

Authors must carefully identify and declare all circumstances or interests that may influence or be perceived to influence the representation or interpretation of the results.

Common potential conflicts of interest include financial interests (such as employment, consultancies, stocks/shares ownership, honoraria, grants or other funding, patent-licensing arrangements) and non-financial interests (such as personal or professional relationships, affiliations, personal beliefs).

The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors provides guidance on conflicts of interest disclosure and also warns authors against entering agreements where the funder may interfere with the author’s ability to analyze and interpret the data independently.

To align with this recommendation, MDPI asks authors to declare if the funding sponsor had any role in the study design, data collection, analysis or interpretation, writing of the manuscript and decision to publish the results.

References

The references section is a core component of the back matter in research articles. It lists the sources that informed the study and puts it within the context of existing literature. Readers will also use the references to gain further insight into the topic as well as verify and build upon the findings presented.

Accurate and complete references are essential for research integrity, helping to prevent plagiarism and ensuring proper credit is given to prior work. To avoid errors, authors should consider using reference management tools such as EndNote, Mendeley or Zotero.

Authors should also:

• Ensure that where material is taken from other sources, the source is clearly cited and permission is obtained;
• Not engage in excessive self-citation of their own work;
• Not preferentially cite their own or their friends’, peers’, or institution’s publications;
• Not copy references from other publications if they have not read the cited work;
• Not cite advertisements or advertorial material.

COPE have produced a discussion document on citation manipulation with recommendations for best practices, which MDPI encourages authors to read.

Supplementary materials, appendixes and acknowledgements

Authors are also given the opportunity to provide additional, optional information that may help support or clarify the main text. Authors can use supplementary materials, appendices, glossary, etc., to include extended datasets, further detailed methodology or terminology, or additional experiments that are not essential to include in the main text but are valuable to further understand the research presented.

And finally, within the acknowledgements section, authors can recognize individuals, institutions or organizations that contributed to the research but did not meet the authorship criteria.

Although optional, if these sections are included, they will be carefully evaluated by reviewers as part of the peer review process. Therefore, authors should carefully check all supplementary files to ensure they are complete and to avoid delays.

Using the back matter to strengthen your research

The back matter in research articles plays a central role in ensuring transparency, accountability and trust. This section provides authors with the opportunity to demonstrate that their research meets the highest ethical standards expected in scientific publications, boosting the impact of their work.

Carefully preparing the back matter is essential to avoid delays in the peer review process or even desk rejection due to missing information and inadvertently breaching journal publication ethics policies. Therefore, authors should treat the back matter with just as much care as the main text, carefully checking that all information is complete and accurate.

Before submitting to an MDPI journal, we encourage authors to check our Research and Publication Ethics page for guidance on back matter statements. Further journal-specific information can also be found under the ‘Information for Authors’ section on each journal’s webpage.