AUTHOR INSTRUCTIONS
Guidelines for Manuscript Submission
Manuscript will be reviewed for possible publication with the understanding that it is being submitted to International Journal of Contemporary Medicine, Surgery and Radiology alone at that point in time and has not been published anywhere, simultaneously submitted, or already accepted for publication elsewhere.
Types of Manuscripts
International Journal of Contemporary Medicine, Surgery and Radiology (IJCMSR) accepts
Please follow the instructions relevant to type of manuscript being submitted-
- Original Research Articles,
- Research Letters,
- Review Articles,
- Short Correspondence
- Case Reports
- Letters to the Editor.
Please follow the instructions relevant to type of manuscript being submitted-
Original Research Articles
Original research article reports original research, and is a novel research study. The standard layout is given below.
Original research Articles should be divided into the sections of Abstract, Key words, Introduction, Materials & Methods, Statistical analysis, Results, Discussion, Conclusion, References, Tables and Figure legends.
Manuscripts submitted as original research articles should have a limit of 3000 words (excluding abstract and references). For instructions on references, figures or tables, please refer to the following specific formats in this Instruction to Authors.
Abstract: Abstract should be structured be of 250 words maximum and unreferenced, and must include the following subtitles: Introduction, Material & Methods, Results, and Conclusions. Do not use abbreviations and acronyms.
Key words: Up to 10 key words or short phrases are provided following the Abstract. These should not duplicate key words from the title.
Introduction: Provide an adequate background and state objectives of the work, avoiding a detailed literature survey or a summary of the results.
Materials and Methods: (1) Provide the detailed information to allow the work to be reproduced. The previously reported methods should be indicated by a reference; (2) At beginning of the section, include the details of ethical clearance from local review board and informed consents from patients (if needed); and (3) Include "Statistical Methodology" as a subtitle in the final part of the section, and specify the statistical methods used in the study. Define statistical terms, abbreviations, and most symbols. Specify the computer software used. All P values should be reported as exact numbers to 2 digits past the decimal point, regardless of significance, unless they are lower than 0.01, in which case they should be presented to 3 digits. Express any P values lower than 0.001 as P<.001. P values can never equal 0 or 1. Use upper italics P.
Results: Present your results in a logical sequence in the text, tables and illustrations, giving the main or most important findings first. Do not repeat in the text all the data in the tables or illustrations; emphasize or summarize only important observations.
Discussion: Include summary of key findings, strengths and limitations of the study (Must), interpretation and implications in the context of the totality of evidence, controversies raised by this study, and future research directions. Do not repeat in detail data or other material given in the Introduction or the Results section. Avoid claiming priority and alluding to work that has not been completed. New hypotheses may be stated if needed, however, they should be clearly labeled as such.
Conclusions: The conclusions of the manuscript may be presented in a short Conclusions section, or may stand alone or form a subsection of a Discussion section.
Original research Articles should be divided into the sections of Abstract, Key words, Introduction, Materials & Methods, Statistical analysis, Results, Discussion, Conclusion, References, Tables and Figure legends.
Manuscripts submitted as original research articles should have a limit of 3000 words (excluding abstract and references). For instructions on references, figures or tables, please refer to the following specific formats in this Instruction to Authors.
Abstract: Abstract should be structured be of 250 words maximum and unreferenced, and must include the following subtitles: Introduction, Material & Methods, Results, and Conclusions. Do not use abbreviations and acronyms.
Key words: Up to 10 key words or short phrases are provided following the Abstract. These should not duplicate key words from the title.
Introduction: Provide an adequate background and state objectives of the work, avoiding a detailed literature survey or a summary of the results.
Materials and Methods: (1) Provide the detailed information to allow the work to be reproduced. The previously reported methods should be indicated by a reference; (2) At beginning of the section, include the details of ethical clearance from local review board and informed consents from patients (if needed); and (3) Include "Statistical Methodology" as a subtitle in the final part of the section, and specify the statistical methods used in the study. Define statistical terms, abbreviations, and most symbols. Specify the computer software used. All P values should be reported as exact numbers to 2 digits past the decimal point, regardless of significance, unless they are lower than 0.01, in which case they should be presented to 3 digits. Express any P values lower than 0.001 as P<.001. P values can never equal 0 or 1. Use upper italics P.
Results: Present your results in a logical sequence in the text, tables and illustrations, giving the main or most important findings first. Do not repeat in the text all the data in the tables or illustrations; emphasize or summarize only important observations.
Discussion: Include summary of key findings, strengths and limitations of the study (Must), interpretation and implications in the context of the totality of evidence, controversies raised by this study, and future research directions. Do not repeat in detail data or other material given in the Introduction or the Results section. Avoid claiming priority and alluding to work that has not been completed. New hypotheses may be stated if needed, however, they should be clearly labeled as such.
Conclusions: The conclusions of the manuscript may be presented in a short Conclusions section, or may stand alone or form a subsection of a Discussion section.
Research Letters or Correspondence
All the Research Letters or Correspondence are published in the journal, like Original Research Articles.
The word count of Research Letters should be within 2,000 words (excluding the Abstract, references and figure legends). There should be maximum of 4 figures and tables. The Standard layout is given below.
It should have an Abstract with 250 words maximum, and must include the following subtitles: Introduction, Material & Methods, Results, and Conclusions. For instructions on references, figure or table, please refer to the following specific formats in this Instruction to Authors.
The word count of Research Letters should be within 2,000 words (excluding the Abstract, references and figure legends). There should be maximum of 4 figures and tables. The Standard layout is given below.
It should have an Abstract with 250 words maximum, and must include the following subtitles: Introduction, Material & Methods, Results, and Conclusions. For instructions on references, figure or table, please refer to the following specific formats in this Instruction to Authors.
Review Articles
International Journal of Contemporary Medicine, Surgery and Radiology (IJCMSR) welcomes Reviews of recent developments in medical and allied sciences. The layout is given below.
An unstructured Abstract should be included not more than 250 words. The Introduction as first section should be included in the text, the subtitles of other sections would depend upon the topic reviewed. Review article should take a broad view of the field and use evidence-based systematic approaches. Review papers should be should be limited to 3000 words (excluding title page and references) and illustrations are encouraged.
An unstructured Abstract should be included not more than 250 words. The Introduction as first section should be included in the text, the subtitles of other sections would depend upon the topic reviewed. Review article should take a broad view of the field and use evidence-based systematic approaches. Review papers should be should be limited to 3000 words (excluding title page and references) and illustrations are encouraged.
Case Reports
International Journal of Contemporary Medicine, Surgery and Radiology (IJCMSR) welcomes Case Reports and Case series. They should have the following sections:
An abstract including titles Introduction, Case Report, and Conclusion, with 250 (maximum) do not use nonstandard abbreviations, footnotes or references.
- Key words or short phrases (up to 5) are provided following the Abstract.
- Introduction: Summarize the context for the report.
- Case Report: Report the data of the patient(s) in a logical sequence in the text, tables, and illustrations. Do not duplicate data in graphs or tables.
- Discussions: Emphasize the novel situation and add important insights into mechanisms or diagnosis or treatment, as well as, the conclusions that follow them.
Case Reports and case series are papers that present one or more well-documented unique clinical cases which provide clinically valuable information for medical or dental students. Case reports and case series should not exceed 2000 words with 10 references.
An abstract including titles Introduction, Case Report, and Conclusion, with 250 (maximum) do not use nonstandard abbreviations, footnotes or references.
- Key words or short phrases (up to 5) are provided following the Abstract.
- Introduction: Summarize the context for the report.
- Case Report: Report the data of the patient(s) in a logical sequence in the text, tables, and illustrations. Do not duplicate data in graphs or tables.
- Discussions: Emphasize the novel situation and add important insights into mechanisms or diagnosis or treatment, as well as, the conclusions that follow them.
Case Reports and case series are papers that present one or more well-documented unique clinical cases which provide clinically valuable information for medical or dental students. Case reports and case series should not exceed 2000 words with 10 references.
Expert Commentary
Commentaries are written on invitation of the Editors, and are short and narrowly focused on the articles published by the journal.
Letter to the editor
Letters are the papers which offer constructive criticism on articles published in the Journal. They should discuss articles published in the last issue of the journal, and they must be submitted within three months of the article’s publication date. Letters should not exceed 1000 words.
Announcements of conferences, meetings, courses, awards
Announcements of conferences, meetings, courses, awards and other items likely to be of interest to the readers should be submitted with the name and address of the person from whom additional information can be obtained. Up to 100-200 words.
Manuscript format and Structure
International Journal of Contemporary Medicine, Surgery and Radiology (IJCMSR) accepts manuscripts which are prepared in accordance with the “Uniform requirements for Manuscripts submitted to Biomedical Journal” developed by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors(ICMJE). Manuscripts must be in English and should be written in a clear, concise, and direct style. They should be typed as a Microsoft Word document in double space on the A-4 size page set up with margins of at least 1 inch (25 mm). All pages should be numbered consecutively beginning with the title page. Tables and figures should not be embedded in the body of the text, but they should be placed after the references. Each of the following sections should begin on a separate page:
Title page:
The title page should carry the following items: (1) the complete title of the paper; (2) the full names of the authors, with the highest academic degree; (3) the academic affiliation of the authors; (4) a short title of no more than 40 characters; (5) the full name, postal address, telephone number, and email address for the corresponding author.
The title must be concise, informative and contain the major key words. Please avoid abbreviations in the title. It is also available in the copyright section as a pre - formatted page.
Abstract and Keywords:
The abstract should provide an accurate summary of the study. For original Research Articles, the abstract should be structured and organized into the following headings: Introduction, methods, results, and conclusions. The abstract should not contain abbreviations, table, or references. Five to ten key words should be provided below the abstract in alphabetical order. Use terms from the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) list of Index Medicus when possible (available at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/mesh home.html).
Introduction:
This should summarize the rationale and provide a background for the study. The specific purpose of the study must be clearly stated at the final paragraph of the introduction.
Materials and Methods:
This section must describe the methods used in the research in sufficient detail so that other researchers would be able to fully reproduce the study. If established methods are used, authors should give reference and present the method only briefly. Statistical method should be described in adequate detail. When the materials or devices are first identified, specific proprietary name, manufacturer, and the location of manufacturer (city and country) should be given in parenthesis.
Results:
It should be presented in a logical sequence in the text, tables, and illustrations. The contents that appear in the tables should not be repeated in the text. Authors should provide exact p-values where they report statistically significant differences.
Statistics:
When possible, quantify findings and present them with appropriate indicators of measurement error or uncertainty (such as confidence intervals). Report losses to observation (such as dropouts from a clinical trial). Put a general description of methods in the Methods section. When data are summarized in the Results section, specify the statistical methods used to analyse them. Avoid non-technical uses of technical terms in statistics, such as 'random' (which implies a randomising device), 'normal', 'significant', 'correlations', and 'sample'. Define statistical terms, abbreviations, and most symbols. Use upper italics (P < 0.05).
Discussion:
It should emphasize the new and important findings of the research and relate the present findings to those of other relevant studies conducted in the field. In addition, the discussion should provide implications of the findings and describe the strengths and limitations of the study.
Conclusion:
Conclusion must be based on the data presented in the study, and it should be closely linked to the objectives of the study. Unqualified statements and conclusions not adequately supported by data must be avoided.
Reporting guidelines:
International Journal of Contemporary Medical Research (IJCMR) encourages authors to follow the reporting guidelines during manuscript preparation. The relevant guidelines are listed.
More details on these and other reporting guidelines are also available on the website of US National Library of Medicine.
Randomized controlled trials:
All randomized controlled trials submitted for publication in I.J.C.M.R should include a completed Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) flow chart. Submitted manuscripts that do not include this flow chart, where appropriate, will be rejected without entering the review process. Please refer to the CONSORT statement website at http://www.consort-statement.org for more information. International Journal of Contemporary Medical Research has adopted the proposal from the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) which require, as a condition of consideration for publication of clinical trials, registration in a public trials registry. Trials must register at or before the onset of patient enrollment. The clinical trial registration number should be included at the end of the abstract of the article. For this purpose, a clinical trial is defined as any research study that prospectively assigns human participants or groups of humans to one or more health-related interventions to evaluate the effects of health outcomes. Health-related interventions include any intervention used to modify a biomedical or health-related outcome (for example drugs, surgical procedures, devices, behavioral treatments, dietary interventions, and process-of-care changes). Health outcomes include any biomedical or health-related measures obtained in patients or participants, including pharmacokinetic measures and adverse events. Purely observational studies (those in which the assignment of the medical intervention is not at the discretion of the investigator) will not require registration. Further information can be found at http://www.icmje.org
Disclosure of Clinical Trial Results:
In line with the position of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, the journal will not consider results posted in the same clinical trials registry in which primary registration resides to be prior publication if the results posted are presented in the form of a brief structured (less than 500 words) abstract or table. However, divulging results in other circumstances (eg, investors' meetings) is discouraged and may jeopardise consideration of the manuscript. Authors should fully disclose all posting in registries of results of the same or closely related work.
Patient consent:
Studies on patients or volunteers require ethics committee approval and informed consent which should be documented in your paper. Patients have a right to privacy. Therefore identifying information, including patients images, names, initials, or hospital numbers, should not be included in videos, recordings, written descriptions, photographs, and pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and you have obtained written informed consent for publication in print and electronic form from the patient (or parent, guardian or next of kin where applicable). If such consent is made subject to any conditions, I.J.C.M.R must be made aware of all such conditions. Written consents must be provided to I.J.C.M.R on request. Even where consent has been given, identifying details should be omitted if they are not essential. If identifying characteristics are altered to protect anonymity, such as in genetic pedigrees, authors should provide assurance that alterations do not distort scientific meaning and editors should so note. If such consent has not been obtained, personal details of patients included in any part of the paper and in any supplementary materials (including all illustrations and videos) must be removed before submission.
Ethics:
When reporting experiments on human subjects, indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional or regional) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000 (available at http://www.wma.net/e/policy/17-c_e.html). Do not use patients' names, initials, or hospital numbers, especially in illustrative material. When reporting experiments on animals, indicate whether the institution's or a national research council's guide for, or any national law on the care and use of laboratory animals was followed.
Acknowledgement:
Acknowledgments may be made to individuals who contributed specify contributors to the article other than the authors accredited. Acknowledgments should also specify the source of any funding for the study.
References:
References must be listed at the end of the paper and numbered consecutively in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text. All references must be cited in text or tables by Arabic numerals in superscript after the end of a sentence.Example- The lesion was found to be granulomatous type.2(in Superscript) . Authors are encouraged to use only English references. In addition, authors are responsible for the accuracy of the references and for their correct citation.
International Journal of Contemporary Medical Research (IJCMR) follows Uniform Requirements style for references offered by International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Examples can be found at: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/uniform_requirements.html
Examples as follows:
Journal Articles:
Brennan TA, Shrank WH. Costs of New Treatments for Hepatitis C Infection-Reply. JAMA.2014;312:2168-2169.
More than six authors:
Baron JA, Sandler RS, Bresalier RS, Lanas A, Morton DG, Riddell R, et al. Cardiovascular events associated with rofecoxib: final analysis of the APPROVe trial. Lancet. 2008;372:1756-64.
Books:
Personal author(s):
Murray PR, Rosenthal KS, Kobayashi GS, Pfaller MA. Medical microbiology. 4th ed. St. Louis: Mosby; 2002.
Author(s) and editor(s):
Breedlove GK, Schorfheide AM. Adolescent pregnancy. 2nd ed. Wieczorek RR, editor. White Plains (NY): March of Dimes Education Services; 2001.
Chapter in a book:
Meltzer PS, Kallioniemi A, Trent JM. Chromosome alterations in human solid tumors. In: Vogelstein B, Kinzler KW, editors. The genetic basis of human cancer. New York: McGraw-Hill; 2002;93-113.
Tables:
Each table should be typed on a separate sheet of paper and headed by a brief descriptive title. Tables should be numbered consecutively in Arabic numbers in the order of their citation in the text. Authors should list explanations, including abbreviations, as footnotes, not in the heading.
Illustrations (Figures)
For online submission
AFTER ACCEPTANCE
Upon acceptance of a manuscript for publication, acceptance letter will be forwarded to you. Then the manuscript will be forwarded to the Production Editor who is responsible for the production of the journal.
PROOF CORRECTION
The corresponding author will receive an email containing a designed article. Hence a working email address must therefore be provided for the corresponding author. The proof will be in PDF (portable document format) format. This will enable the file to be opened, read on screen, and printed out in order for any corrections to be added. Further instructions will be sent with the proof. Proofs must be returned within three days of receipt. Please note that the author is responsible for all statements made in his work, including changes made by the copy editor.
Title page:
The title page should carry the following items: (1) the complete title of the paper; (2) the full names of the authors, with the highest academic degree; (3) the academic affiliation of the authors; (4) a short title of no more than 40 characters; (5) the full name, postal address, telephone number, and email address for the corresponding author.
The title must be concise, informative and contain the major key words. Please avoid abbreviations in the title. It is also available in the copyright section as a pre - formatted page.
Abstract and Keywords:
The abstract should provide an accurate summary of the study. For original Research Articles, the abstract should be structured and organized into the following headings: Introduction, methods, results, and conclusions. The abstract should not contain abbreviations, table, or references. Five to ten key words should be provided below the abstract in alphabetical order. Use terms from the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) list of Index Medicus when possible (available at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/mesh home.html).
Introduction:
This should summarize the rationale and provide a background for the study. The specific purpose of the study must be clearly stated at the final paragraph of the introduction.
Materials and Methods:
This section must describe the methods used in the research in sufficient detail so that other researchers would be able to fully reproduce the study. If established methods are used, authors should give reference and present the method only briefly. Statistical method should be described in adequate detail. When the materials or devices are first identified, specific proprietary name, manufacturer, and the location of manufacturer (city and country) should be given in parenthesis.
Results:
It should be presented in a logical sequence in the text, tables, and illustrations. The contents that appear in the tables should not be repeated in the text. Authors should provide exact p-values where they report statistically significant differences.
Statistics:
When possible, quantify findings and present them with appropriate indicators of measurement error or uncertainty (such as confidence intervals). Report losses to observation (such as dropouts from a clinical trial). Put a general description of methods in the Methods section. When data are summarized in the Results section, specify the statistical methods used to analyse them. Avoid non-technical uses of technical terms in statistics, such as 'random' (which implies a randomising device), 'normal', 'significant', 'correlations', and 'sample'. Define statistical terms, abbreviations, and most symbols. Use upper italics (P < 0.05).
Discussion:
It should emphasize the new and important findings of the research and relate the present findings to those of other relevant studies conducted in the field. In addition, the discussion should provide implications of the findings and describe the strengths and limitations of the study.
Conclusion:
Conclusion must be based on the data presented in the study, and it should be closely linked to the objectives of the study. Unqualified statements and conclusions not adequately supported by data must be avoided.
Reporting guidelines:
International Journal of Contemporary Medical Research (IJCMR) encourages authors to follow the reporting guidelines during manuscript preparation. The relevant guidelines are listed.
- STROBE (for reporting of observational studies in epidemiology)
- COREQ Checklist (for reporting of qualitative research)
- CONSORT Statement (for reporting of randomized controlled trials)
- STARD (for reporting of diagnostic accuracy studies)
- PRISMA (for reporting of systematic reviews)
- MOOSE (for reporting of meta-analyses of observational studies)
- ARRIVE (for reporting of animal research)
More details on these and other reporting guidelines are also available on the website of US National Library of Medicine.
Randomized controlled trials:
All randomized controlled trials submitted for publication in I.J.C.M.R should include a completed Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) flow chart. Submitted manuscripts that do not include this flow chart, where appropriate, will be rejected without entering the review process. Please refer to the CONSORT statement website at http://www.consort-statement.org for more information. International Journal of Contemporary Medical Research has adopted the proposal from the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) which require, as a condition of consideration for publication of clinical trials, registration in a public trials registry. Trials must register at or before the onset of patient enrollment. The clinical trial registration number should be included at the end of the abstract of the article. For this purpose, a clinical trial is defined as any research study that prospectively assigns human participants or groups of humans to one or more health-related interventions to evaluate the effects of health outcomes. Health-related interventions include any intervention used to modify a biomedical or health-related outcome (for example drugs, surgical procedures, devices, behavioral treatments, dietary interventions, and process-of-care changes). Health outcomes include any biomedical or health-related measures obtained in patients or participants, including pharmacokinetic measures and adverse events. Purely observational studies (those in which the assignment of the medical intervention is not at the discretion of the investigator) will not require registration. Further information can be found at http://www.icmje.org
Disclosure of Clinical Trial Results:
In line with the position of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, the journal will not consider results posted in the same clinical trials registry in which primary registration resides to be prior publication if the results posted are presented in the form of a brief structured (less than 500 words) abstract or table. However, divulging results in other circumstances (eg, investors' meetings) is discouraged and may jeopardise consideration of the manuscript. Authors should fully disclose all posting in registries of results of the same or closely related work.
Patient consent:
Studies on patients or volunteers require ethics committee approval and informed consent which should be documented in your paper. Patients have a right to privacy. Therefore identifying information, including patients images, names, initials, or hospital numbers, should not be included in videos, recordings, written descriptions, photographs, and pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and you have obtained written informed consent for publication in print and electronic form from the patient (or parent, guardian or next of kin where applicable). If such consent is made subject to any conditions, I.J.C.M.R must be made aware of all such conditions. Written consents must be provided to I.J.C.M.R on request. Even where consent has been given, identifying details should be omitted if they are not essential. If identifying characteristics are altered to protect anonymity, such as in genetic pedigrees, authors should provide assurance that alterations do not distort scientific meaning and editors should so note. If such consent has not been obtained, personal details of patients included in any part of the paper and in any supplementary materials (including all illustrations and videos) must be removed before submission.
Ethics:
When reporting experiments on human subjects, indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional or regional) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000 (available at http://www.wma.net/e/policy/17-c_e.html). Do not use patients' names, initials, or hospital numbers, especially in illustrative material. When reporting experiments on animals, indicate whether the institution's or a national research council's guide for, or any national law on the care and use of laboratory animals was followed.
Acknowledgement:
Acknowledgments may be made to individuals who contributed specify contributors to the article other than the authors accredited. Acknowledgments should also specify the source of any funding for the study.
References:
References must be listed at the end of the paper and numbered consecutively in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text. All references must be cited in text or tables by Arabic numerals in superscript after the end of a sentence.Example- The lesion was found to be granulomatous type.2(in Superscript) . Authors are encouraged to use only English references. In addition, authors are responsible for the accuracy of the references and for their correct citation.
International Journal of Contemporary Medical Research (IJCMR) follows Uniform Requirements style for references offered by International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Examples can be found at: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/uniform_requirements.html
Examples as follows:
Journal Articles:
Brennan TA, Shrank WH. Costs of New Treatments for Hepatitis C Infection-Reply. JAMA.2014;312:2168-2169.
More than six authors:
Baron JA, Sandler RS, Bresalier RS, Lanas A, Morton DG, Riddell R, et al. Cardiovascular events associated with rofecoxib: final analysis of the APPROVe trial. Lancet. 2008;372:1756-64.
Books:
Personal author(s):
Murray PR, Rosenthal KS, Kobayashi GS, Pfaller MA. Medical microbiology. 4th ed. St. Louis: Mosby; 2002.
Author(s) and editor(s):
Breedlove GK, Schorfheide AM. Adolescent pregnancy. 2nd ed. Wieczorek RR, editor. White Plains (NY): March of Dimes Education Services; 2001.
Chapter in a book:
Meltzer PS, Kallioniemi A, Trent JM. Chromosome alterations in human solid tumors. In: Vogelstein B, Kinzler KW, editors. The genetic basis of human cancer. New York: McGraw-Hill; 2002;93-113.
Tables:
Each table should be typed on a separate sheet of paper and headed by a brief descriptive title. Tables should be numbered consecutively in Arabic numbers in the order of their citation in the text. Authors should list explanations, including abbreviations, as footnotes, not in the heading.
Illustrations (Figures)
- Figures should be numbered consecutively according to the order in which they have been first cited in the text.
- Symbols, arrows, or letters used in photomicrographs should contrast with the background and should marked neatly with transfer type or by tissue overlay and not by pen.
- Titles and detailed explanations belong in the legends for illustrations not on the illustrations themselves.
- When graphs, scatter-grams or histograms are submitted the numerical data on which they are based should also be supplied.
- The photographs and figures should be trimmed to remove all the unwanted areas.
- If photographs of people are used, either the subjects must not be identifiable or their pictures must be accompanied by written permission to use the photograph.
- If a figure has been published, acknowledge the original source and submit written permission from the copyright holder to reproduce the material. A credit line should appear in the legend for figures for such figures.
- The Journal reserves the right to crop, rotate, reduce, or enlarge the photographs to an acceptable size.
For online submission
- Submit good quality color images.
- Each image should be less than 100 kb in size. Size of the image can be reduced by decreasing the actual height and width of the images (keep up to 400 pixels or 3 inches).\
- All image formats (jpeg, tiff, gif, bmp, png, eps, etc.) are acceptable; jpeg is most suitable.
- The images should be scanned at 72 dpi, size not more than 3x4 inches (or 300x400 pixels), with only the necessary portion of the photographs. Wherever necessary, scan at greyscale (e.g. x-rays, ECGs).
For hard copies (to be submitted only after acceptance of the manuscript) - Send sharp, glossy, un-mounted, colour photographic prints, with height of 4 inches and width of 6 inches.
- Each figure should have a label pasted (avoid use of liquid gum for pasting) on its back indicating the number of the figure, the running title, top of the figure and the legends of the figure. Do not write the contributor/s' name/s. Do not write on the back of figures, scratch, or mark them by using paper clips.
- Labels, numbers, and symbols should be clear and of uniform size. The lettering for figures should be large enough to be legible after reduction to fit the width of a printed column.
- Label the disc with first authors' name, short title of the article, type of image (eg. Jpeg, tiff), and file name.
AFTER ACCEPTANCE
Upon acceptance of a manuscript for publication, acceptance letter will be forwarded to you. Then the manuscript will be forwarded to the Production Editor who is responsible for the production of the journal.
PROOF CORRECTION
The corresponding author will receive an email containing a designed article. Hence a working email address must therefore be provided for the corresponding author. The proof will be in PDF (portable document format) format. This will enable the file to be opened, read on screen, and printed out in order for any corrections to be added. Further instructions will be sent with the proof. Proofs must be returned within three days of receipt. Please note that the author is responsible for all statements made in his work, including changes made by the copy editor.
