Ten simple rules for making the supplement increase your paper's impact.

Area of Science:

• Scientific communication
• Research integrity
• Scholarly publishing

Background:

• Supplementary Information (SI) often presents challenges due to inconsistent formatting, poor accessibility, and fragmented organization.
• These issues impede understanding and hinder the potential of SI to support research transparency, credibility, and reproducibility.
• Effective SI is crucial for advancing scientific understanding and validating research findings.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose 10 actionable rules for authors to improve the design and impact of supplementary information.
• To guide researchers in creating SI that genuinely enhances research transparency, credibility, and reproducibility.
• To promote best practices for supplementary information that support, rather than obstruct, scientific communication.

Main Methods:

• Development of 10 simple rules for designing effective supplementary information.
• Emphasis on treating SI with the same rigor as the main research text.
• Recommendations include creating single master documents, ensuring cross-referencing, and promoting machine-readability.

Main Results:

• The proposed rules aim to transform SI from an obstacle into a valuable asset for scientific communication.
• Adherence to the rules can lead to more transparent, credible, and reproducible research.
• Authors can increase their research impact and contribute to sustainable research practices by improving SI.

Conclusions:

• Implementing the 10 rules for supplementary information can significantly enhance research transparency and reproducibility.
• Well-designed SI, treated with the same care as the main text, boosts scientific credibility and impact.
• Adopting these guidelines promotes more effective and sustainable research practices across disciplines.