Highlights are a short collection of three to five bullet points that:

• Provide readers with a quick textual overview of the article.
• Convey the core findings.
• Describe the essence of the research (i.e. results or conclusion).
• Highlight what's distinctive about it.

Answer

Highlights are mandatory for some journals and optional for others. You can check the requirements for the journal you're submitting to by reading the Guide for Authors. To find the Guide for Authors:

1. Navigate to the journal's Homepage. To find the journal's Homepage search for the journal using the search box under 'Find by journal title' on the journal author's page.
2. Click on 'Guide for Authors' in the left-hand menu.

Highlights should be submitted in the following way:

Unless otherwise instructed in the Guide for Authors, Highlights should be included as a separate source file (i.e. Microsoft Word not PDF).

• Select 'Highlights' from the drop-down file list when uploading files.
• Use 'Highlights' as the file name.

With these specifications:

• Include 3 to 5 highlights.
• Each individual Highlight should be a maximum of 85 characters long, including spaces.
• Only the core results of the paper should be covered.

Examples

Example 1:

Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (BBA), Bioenergetics, Volume 1807, Issue 10, October 2011, 1364-1369 

Highlights

• A conformational two-state mechanism for proton pumping complex I is proposed.
• The mechanism relies on stabilization changes of anionic ubiquinone intermediates.
• Electron-transfer and protonation should be strictly controlled during turnover.

Example 2:

Learning and Instruction, Volume 21, Issue 6, December 2011, 746-756 

Highlights

• Fading of a script alone does not foster domain-general strategy knowledge.
• Performance of the strategy declines during the fading of a script.
• Monitoring by a peer keeps performance of the strategy up during script fading.
• Performance of a strategy after fading fosters domain-general strategy knowledge.
• Fading and monitoring by a peer combined foster domain-general strategy knowledge.