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Instructions for Authors

Health Sciences

 

Download a printable PDF

 

The following instructions are in accordance with the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts (the ‘Vancouver’ system). See http://www.icmje.org/index.html.

For further guidance on submitting a paper visit our Author Resources Area. Here you can find information on using copyrighted material, submitting supplementary material and Maney’s plagiarism policy.

Editorial Manager™ Submission Guidelines
Information on the submission procedure is provided online but you will be asked to provide the information and files listed below.

INITIAL SUBMISSIONS:
You will be asked to input separately the title, abstract and keywords for the article and contact details for all authors. You will be required to complete a conflict of Interest notification form as part of the online submission process.

Required files for attachment include:
• Title page (include manuscript title, current institutional affiliations for all authors, as well as affiliations at the time the manuscript was written. Specify sources of funding and support, including any for equipment and medications, and detail any conflicts of interest among the authors, also include an acknowledgement statement)
• Blinded manuscript file (.doc/.docx) (without author names, affiliations, or acknowledgements).

Optional attachments include:
• Table(s) and figure(s)* (each attached as separate file, in CMYK format as .tiff or .eps files).
• Supplementary information such as datasets, animations, models or videos
• Permission to publish personal information form (link can be found at the journal editorial manager homepage).

REVISED SUBMISSIONS:
Please upload:

• Blinded manuscript file (.doc/.docx)
• A separate image file of each figure in CMYK format as .tiff or .eps files. Please refer to the ‘Illustrations and Figures’ section below for resolution guidelines.
• A response to the referees comments as a Word (.doc) or PDF (.pdf) file
• A scanned, signed copyright form. The Maney copyright form and standard licences for UK and US government employees are linked from the online submission site and available via the Maney website.

DO NOT include identifying author information in the manuscript document, please include this information on a separate title page or enter during the submission process. It is not necessary to upload for a second time files that were uploaded with the initial submission and that have not been altered.

Presentation Guidelines
Double spacing should be used throughout all portions of your manuscript and all pages should be numbered consecutively.

Papers should be set out as follows: title page (uploaded as separate to the manuscript doc.), conflict-of-interest notification page (submitted in an online field at submission stage), abstract and key words, text, appendixes (as relevant), references, tables, captions to illustrations.

TITLE PAGE:
The title page should clearly contain the following information:
(1)    Title of the article. Authors should include all information in the title that will make electronic retrieval of the article both sensitive and specific.
(2)    First name(s) or initial(s) and surname of each author and their current institutional affiliations. Include any affiliations at the time the manuscript was written.
(3)    The name and address of the department(s) and institution(s) to which the work should be attributed
(4)    Name, telephone, email address and fax number of the corresponding author. The corresponding author should indicate clearly whether his or her email address can be published.
(5)    Acknowledgements (Please refer to the Conflict-of Interest statement. All sources of funding must be disclosed as an acknowledgement in the text. Concise acknowledgement of contributors not listed as authors is welcome. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, writing assistance, or a department chair who provided only general support. The author(s) are responsible for obtaining written permission from those acknowledged.)

ABSTRACT:
The abstract should consist of not more than 200 words summarising the contents of the article. It is important, especially for indexing services, that this must be intelligible independently of the article.

KEYWORDS:
Authors are asked to supply up to five keywords (in alphabetical order) to be used as an aid to coding and indexing. They must be selected from the NLM Permuted Medical Subject headings (MeSH) at www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh.

TABLES:
Each table should be presented with double spacing on a separate page. Do not use internal horizontal or vertical lines. Care should be taken to ensure that all units are included. Identify statistical measures of variations, such as standard deviation and standard error of the mean. Give each column a short or an abbreviated heading. A short descriptive title should appear above each table and any footnotes, suitably identified, should appear below. 

Tables should be numbered consecutively using Arabic numerals in the order of their first citation in the text. Within the text tables should be referred to by number (e.g. Table 1), and preferred position and groupings in the text should be clearly indicated.

ILLUSTRATIONS (FIGURES):
Illustrations should be numbered consecutively using Arabic numerals in the order of their first citation in the text.  These should be submitted as separate files. Sub-figures should be appropriately lettered in capitals (e.g. A, B); the size of letters should be appropriate to that of the illustration. Each illustration must have a caption and source. Captions should be typed, double-spaced at the end of the manuscript file. Within the text, figures should be referred to by number (e.g. Figure 1), and preferred position and groupings in the text should be clearly indicated.

Figures should be either professionally drawn and photographed or submitted as photographic-quality digital prints. The author will be required to provide all images in CMYK format as TIFF or EPS files at high resolution suitable for printing. As a guideline, images should be submitted at a minimum input scanning resolution of 300 dpi for full colour, 350–400 dpi for half tones, 600 dpi for slides or transparencies, 800 dpi for simple line and 1200 dpi for fine line illustrations. Please note that the final reproduction quality is dependent on the quality of the original illustration. Provide a scale bar or original magnification for any photomicrograph
 
Permission for reproduction of previously published material: The author must obtain written evidence of permission to reproduce images (in all formats, in perpetuity and in all geographical regions world wide) from the copyright owner for the use of any illustrative matter in the journal and will be liable for any fee charged by the owner of the image. The caption should include relevant credit of the permission of the copyright holder to reproduce the image.  For more information please see www.maney.co.uk/authors/copyright.

Photographs of potentially identifiable people must be accompanied by written permission to use the photograph. Please see www.maney.co.uk/publishingethics.

COLOUR POLICY:
Colour illustrations will be published in the online version of the Journal free of charge. Authors should bear this in mind when preparing the format of the images for submission and when obtaining permission to use material from third parties. For more information please see www.maney.co.uk/authors/copyright.

Style Guidelines
 

GENERAL STYLE:
Do not use abbreviations unless necessary.

Quotation marks - please use double, not single, inverted commas for reported speech. Use single inverted commas for text quotations. Full stops and commas should go inside double quotation marks.

Reference numbers go after commas and full stops, before semicolons and colons.

Use minimal capitalisation. Use capitals only for names and proper nouns. Do not capitalise names of studies.

UNITS OF MEASUREMENT:
Measurements of length, height, weight, and volume should be reported in metric units (meter, kilogram or litre) or their decimal multiples.

Temperatures should be in degrees Celsius.
Scientific measurements should be given in SI units, except for blood pressure, which should be expressed in mm Hg.

Raw numbers should be given alongside percentages, and as supporting data for P values.

For P values use the upper case roman P (P<0.05).

PROPRIETARY NAMES & IDENTIFICATION OF PRODUCT MANUFACTURERS:
Proprietary names of drugs and instruments should be indicated by the use of capital letters. Any medications, materials and devices must be identified by full non-proprietary names as well as brand name and the manufacturer’s name, city, state and country should be included in parentheses in the text, not in a footnote. When using a word which is, or is asserted to be, a proprietary term or trade mark authors must use the symbol ® or ™.

For technical and scientific terms, spell the name in full at first appearance. Acronyms or abbreviations should be introduced in parentheses following the first appearance of the full term.

LANGUAGE EDITING
Submissions are vetted for quality of English and may be rejected on these grounds before being sent for review. Authors may wish to use a language-editing service to refine the use of English in their manuscript before submission. For information about language-editing services and discounts for Maney authors, please visit www.maney.co.uk/languageediting.

Use of an editing service does not guarantee that your paper will be accepted for publication. A decision will be made following the usual peer review process.

Publishing and Editorial Policies

PEER REVIEW
All manuscripts are reviewed with due respect for authors’ confidentiality. Contributions considered relevant to the aims and scope of the Journal will be sent out for external peer review. The Journal’s policy is to obtain at least two reviews of each article. The peer review process is ‘double blind’ i.e. neither reviewers nor authors will be informed of the identity of the other.

Referees are encouraged to provide substantive, constructive reviews and provide suggestions for improving the work, and distinguish between mandatory and non-mandatory recommendations.

Following peer review, authors are notified of acceptance, acceptance pending major/minor revision, need for revision and resubmission, or rejection.

COPYRIGHT
Authors who wish to reproduce sections of text, tables or images from previously published sources or where the copyright is owned by a third party must obtain written permission from the copyright holder (usually the publisher) and the author(s)/artist(s) of the original material. A line giving the full source of the material should be included in the manuscript, including any specific wording stipulated by the copyright holder. Copyright is required for use in all formats (including digital, and (where appropriate) colour), in perpetuity and in all geographical regions worldwide. The author will be liable for any fee charged by the owner of the image. For more information and advice please see www.maney.co.uk/authors/copyright.

PERMISSIONS
Any reproduction from this journal apart from for the purposes of review, private research or “fair dealing,” must have the permission of the copyright holder. Requests for such permission must be addressed to permissions@maney.co.uk, who act on behalf of the copyright holder. In all cases, acknowledgement of the journal must be made.

Instructions on Acceptance for Publication

PAGE PROOFS
Proofs will be supplied by email in PDF format to the first-named or nominated author. Proofs are supplied for checking and making essential typographical corrections only, not for general revision, alteration, or changes to illustrations. Revised proofs will not be supplied to authors.

EPRINTS
Authors receive a screen-resolution PDF file (Eprint) of the published version of their paper that they may circulate to colleagues, but may not use for commercial purposes or place into an institutional or subject specific repository. Pre- and post-print versions of an article may be posted in repositories, subject to full acknowledgement of the journal. Visit the Copyright and Permissions page www.maney.co.uk/authors/copyright for full details, including exceptions to this policy. More information is also provided in the Assignment of Copyright Form. The Maney copyright form and standard licences for UK and US government employees are linked from the online submission site and are available via the Maney website.

REPRINTS
Reprints of articles published in the Journal can be purchased through the Publisher. Please contact Esme Loukota at Maney Publishing for information and quotes: e.loukota@maney.co.uk

FAST TRACK PUBLICATION
Maney offers the facility for fast track publication, whereby accepted papers are made available online immediately following final correction. This enables papers to be published ahead of formal distribution of the printed and online issue in which papers will subsequently appear, and allows greater opportunities for authors' accepted contributions to be accessed and cited in subsequent research. See the fast track website pages.