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

• Main text within the letters cap (count introduction → conclusions; re-check the figure)
• Title concise and process-forward; abstract self-contained with the headline number
• Highlights prepared if the current guide requires them (re-check)

Files

• Manuscript source file per the guide; figures at required resolution/format, vector line art
• Supplementary material assembled and internally referenced (Fig. S1, Table S1…)
• Full data tables deposited; DOIs/accessions resolve

Statements & metadata

• Data-availability statement with repository DOIs
• Competing-interest, authorship-contribution, funding, and AI-use declarations written
• Corresponding-author ORCID linked; all coauthors approved this version
• Suggested (and any opposed) reviewers entered; cover letter final (see epsl-cover-letter)

Bounce-at-upload gates

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

• templates/checklist.md — the full itemized preflight
• templates/manuscript_template.md — a letters-format manuscript skeleton
• ../../resources/official-source-map.md — Guide for Authors and Editorial Manager entry links