| name | epsl-submission |
| description | Use when running the final pre-submission preflight for Earth and Planetary Science Letters (EPSL) via Editorial Manager — letters-format length check, title page and highlights, declarations (competing interests, authorship, AI use), data-availability statement with repository DOIs, and figure/table file compliance. Final checks; it does not draft content. |
Submission Preflight (epsl-submission)
The last pass before uploading to Editorial Manager, EPSL's Elsevier submission and peer-review
system. The avoidable failures at this stage are mechanical: a main text over the letters cap, a
missing data-availability statement, undeposited data, or incomplete declarations — each can bounce
the manuscript before any science is read. Exact requirements (word cap, highlights, file formats)
are volatile; re-check them on the official Guide for Authors the week you submit.
Templates in this skill: templates/checklist.md and
templates/manuscript_template.md.
When to trigger
- Final pass before upload to Editorial Manager
- Unsure which files, statements, and metadata EPSL expects
- Verifying the letters-format constraints are actually met
Process facts (re-check volatile items on the official page)
- Publisher / system: Elsevier; submission through Editorial Manager (the journal's entry link
is on the ScienceDirect journal page).
- Format: a Letter — main text (introduction through conclusions) capped near 6,500 words
(re-check); concise titles; companion papers discouraged.
- Article types: Letters; invited Frontiers Papers (do not self-select without invitation);
Comments/Replies; Errata/Corrigenda; Special-Issue papers.
- Data: Elsevier research-data policy — a data-availability statement, discipline-repository
deposition (EarthChem, PANGAEA, IRIS/EarthScope, MagIC, NASA PDS, Zenodo), linked at submission.
- Declarations: competing interests, authorship/CRediT contributions, funding, and generative-AI
use per Elsevier policy; ORCID for the corresponding author.
- References: Elsevier author–date house style (re-check the current instructions); DOIs included.
- Supplement: uploaded with the manuscript and reviewed with it.
Preflight checklist
Format & length
Files
Statements & metadata
Bounce-at-upload gates
| Gate | Pass condition | Fixed in |
|---|
| Letters length | main text within cap | epsl-writing-style |
| Data statement | present, identifiers resolve | epsl-reporting-and-reproducibility |
| Declarations | COI / CRediT / funding / AI complete | this skill |
| Figure files | format, resolution, colormaps compliant | epsl-figures-and-tables |
| Article type | Letter (Frontiers only if invited) | epsl-workflow |
Worked micro-example (illustrative — the night-before pass on the slab-fluid Letter)
- Length: main text 6,140 words introduction→conclusions — under the cap with margin for
revision growth. Pass.
- Data: EarthChem DOI for the boron dataset resolves; the tomography model archived with a Zenodo
DOI; both cited in the statement. Pass.
- Declarations: CRediT roles drafted per author; no competing interests; AI-use statement covers
the language-editing tool per Elsevier policy.
- The near-miss: the supplement still cited "Figure S6," deleted two drafts ago — a broken
internal reference reviewers reliably notice. Caught by a final cross-reference sweep.
Anti-patterns
- Counting only the abstract-to-references span and discovering the cap violation after format checks
- "Data available on request" in the statement field
- Declarations copied from another journal's template with the wrong policy names
- Self-selecting the Frontiers type to look invited
- Uploading supplement and manuscript versions that disagree on a number
Output format
【Length】main-text words vs cap (re-check) [count / cap]
【Files】manuscript + figures + supplement compliant? [Y/N]
【Data statement】DOIs resolve? [Y/N]
【Declarations】COI / CRediT / funding / AI / ORCID? [Y/N]
【Reviewers + cover letter】entered and final? [Y/N]
【Next】await decision → epsl-revision-and-rebuttal
Supplementary resources
