How do I make an account and publish my notes, and how long does it take?
Posting is a breeze! First, you’ll need to create an account using your personal email, and listing an institutional email.
If you register with a cam.ac.uk address as your institutional email: Your account is approved automatically once both emails are confirmed. You can log in, click “Submit a Scribble”, upload your notes, and they will go live right away.
If you use another institutional email: Our team does a quick manual review to approve your account registration. This doesn’t take long! In the meantime you can draft your Scribbles and submit them. Once your account is approved, your published Scribbles will go live right away.
What are some types of notes I can add?
Annotations, addenda, summaries, additional results, thoughts – anything goes, as long as it is professional and appropriate. You could:
- Upload your paper if you want to annotate directly on it – add highlights, comments or sticky notes pointing out whatever you like! If your paper is not open-access, only your annotations will be made available – never the paper.
- Add blank pages at the end to scribble on. For example, reference a section from your published paper and add deep-dive commentary directly below it.
- Answer all the questions you get about your paper – such as advice for replicating experiments – so people will bother you less.
- Provide anything you couldn’t include in the paper, such as supporting experiments and negative results.
- Discuss the concepts behind the project, your journey, or just how you think your work should be interpreted, because the publisher’s word limit wouldn’t let you.
How secure is Manuscribbl?
Manuscribbl uses industry-standard SSL encryption to keep your connection completely secure. When it comes to your notes, you can edit or delete your posts at any time, meaning you maintain 100% control over your data.
Can I edit or delete my submitted notes?
Absolutely. You can continuously edit and re-upload, or even delete your notes, at any time and as many times as you like by going to My Account -> My Scribbles. There is zero pressure and absolutely no permanent commitment.
Does Manuscribbl moderate submissions?
We will periodically make sure that any notes posted are by the actual authors of the paper.
We also want Manuscribbl to be a helpful, frank, and welcoming space for the academic community. To keep the platform safe and valuable for everyone, we reserve the right to remove any posts that contain disrespectful, offensive, or inappropriate material. Let’s keep it professional, insightful, and kind!
Will posting notes here conflict with my publisher’s copyright?
You aren’t uploading or distributing the published paper here, you are simply sharing additional notes and commentary. To ensure you are respecting publisher agreements, please do not upload final figures, tables, or copy-paste large, verbatim blocks of text from the published paper. Instead, simply reference the section you are talking about (e.g., “[Heading] – [Subheading]” or “Fig. 2”) and write your notes below it. Publisher agreements can vary. If you are concerned, we recommend doing a quick check of your specific publisher’s terms.