Q: For the character count of a manuscript, does 'all inclusive' include references and figures/tables?

For most journals, the character/word* count (stipulated by the term ‘all inclusive’) includes figures/tables but not the references. However, you can go through the journal guidelines as this may be mentioned there. If needed, you may also wish to have a look at some recent papers published by the journal to get an idea of whether the word counts are similar. Having said that, most journals allow some ‘grace’ count. On the other hand, they may also charge more (if it’s open access) if the word count exceeds considerably. This is for the additional time and effort involved in reviewing, editing, and formatting your paper.

Hope that helps. For more information, you may refer to these related queries by other researchers.

• Does the word count of a manuscript include numbered references?
• Are scientific names included in the word count for a research paper title?
• What does it mean if the journal requires a word count of less than 20,000 types?

Also, for help with other submission guidelines, if needed, you may wish to know more about our submission service here.

For now though, all the best for your submission!

*Based on the language of the paper/journal, ‘character’ may refer to an individual letter in a word that does not have a complete meaning on its own (for example, c-e-l-l in the word ‘cell,’ when for instance submitting to an English journal) – unless it’s a word like ‘a’ – or it may refer to a character with a complete meaning (such as in languages like Chinese and Japanese).