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Indian Journal of Pharmacology, Vol. 38, No. 2, March-April, 2006, pp. 149-162 Special Article Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals: Writing and editing for biomedical publication International Committee of Medical Journal Editors Updated October 2005 (www.icmje.org) ICMJE Code Number: ph06040 I. Statement of purpose I. A. About the uniform requirements The ICJME has produced multiple editions of the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals. Over the years, issues have arisen that go beyond manuscript preparation, resulting in the development of a number of Separate Statements on editorial policy. The entire Uniform Requirements document was revised in 1997; sections were updated in May 1999 and May 2000. In May 2001, the ICMJE revised the sections related to potential conflict of interest. In 2003, the committee revised and reorganized the entire document and incorporated the Separate Statements into the text. The committee prepared this revision in 2005. The total content of the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals may be reproduced for educational, not-for-profit purposes without regard for copyright; the committee encourages distribution of the material. Journals that agree to use the Uniform Requirements are encouraged to state in their instructions to authors that their requirements are in accordance with the Uniform Requirements and to cite this version. Journals that wish to be listed on www.ICMJE.org as a publication that follows the Uniform Requirements should contact the ICMJE secretariat office. The ICMJE is a small working group of general medical journals not an open membership organization. Occasionally, the ICMJE will invite a new member or guest when the committee feels that the new journal or organization will provide a needed perspective that is not already available within the existing committee. Open membership organizations for editors and others in biomedical publication include the World Association of Medical Editors www.WAME.org and the Council of Science Editors www.councilofscienceeditors.org. I.B. Potential users of the uniform requirements The Uniform Requirements can provide many other stakeholders-peer reviewers, publishers, the media, patients and their families, and general readers-with useful insights into the biomedical authoring and editing process. I. C. How to use the uniform requirements Authors will find it helpful to follow the recommendations in this document whenever possible because, as described in the explanations, doing so improves the quality ity and clarity of reporting in manuscripts submitted to any journal, as well as the ease of editing. At the same time, every journal has editorial requirements uniquely suited to its purposes. Authors therefore need to become familiar with the specific instructions to authors published by the journal they have chosen for their manuscript-for example, the topics suitable for that journal, and the types of papers that may be submitted (for example, original articles, reviews, or case reports)-and should follow those instructions. The Mulford Library at the Medical College of Ohio maintains a useful compendium of instructions to authors. II. Ethical Considerations in the Conduct and Reporting of Research II.A Authorship and Contributorship While contributorship and guarantorship policies obviously remove much of the ambiguity surrounding contributions, it leaves unresolved the question of the quantity and quality of contribution that qualify for authorship. The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors has recommended the following criteria for authorship; these criteria are still appropriate for those journals that distinguish authors from other contributors.
Some journals now also request that one or more authors, referred to as "guarantors," be identified as the persons who take responsibility for the integrity of the work as a whole, from inception to published article, and publish that information. Increasingly, authorship of multi-center trials is attributed to a group. All members of the group who are named as authors should fully meet the above criteria for authorship. The order of authorship on the byline should be a joint decision of the co-authors. Authors should be prepared to explain the order in which authors are listed. II.A.2. Contributors listed in acknowledgments Groups of persons who have contributed materially to the paper but whose contributions do not justify authorship may be listed under a heading such as "clinical investigators" or "participating investigators," and their function or contribution should be described-for example, "served as scientific advisors," "critically reviewed the study proposal," "collected data," or "provided and cared for study patients." Because readers may infer their endorsement of the data and conclusions, all persons must give written permission to be acknowledged. II.B. Editorship Editors of medical journals should have a contract that clearly states the editor′s rights and duties in addition to the general terms of the appointment and that defines mechanisms for resolving conflict. An independent editorial advisory board may be useful in helping the editor establish and maintain editorial policy. Editors of medical journals should have a contract that clearly states the editor′s rights and duties in addition to the general terms of the appointment and that defines mechanisms for resolving conflict. An independent editorial advisory board may be useful in helping the editor establish and maintain editorial policy. II.B.2. Editorial freedom II.C. Peer review II.D. Conflicts of interest All participants in the peer review and publication process must disclose all relationships that could be viewed as presenting a potential conflict of interest. Disclosure of these relationships is also important in connection with editorials and review articles, because it is can be more difficult to detect bias in these types of publications than in reports of original research. Editors may use information disclosed in conflict of interest and financial interest statements as a basis for editorial decisions. Editors should publish this information if they believe it is important in judging the manuscript. II.D.1. Potential conflicts of interest related to individual authors′commitments Investigators must disclose potential conflicts to study participants and should state in the manuscript whether they have done so. Editors also need to decide when to publish information disclosed by authors about potential conflicts. If doubt exists, it is best to err on the side of publication. II.D.2. Potential conflicts of interest related to project support Scientists have an ethical obligation to submit creditable research results for publication. Moreover, as the persons directly responsible for their work, researchers should not enter into agreements that interfere with their access to the data and their ability to analyze it independently, to prepare manuscripts, and to publish them. Authors should describe the role of the study sponsor(s), if any, in study design; in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the report for publication. If the supporting source had no such involvement, the authors should so state. Biases potentially introduced when sponsors are directly involved in research are analogous to methodological biases of other sorts. Some journals, therefore, choose to include information about the sponsor′s involvement in the methods section. Editors may request that authors of a study funded by an agency with a proprietary or financial interest in the outcome sign a statement such as, "I had full access to all of the data in this study and I take complete responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis." Editors should be encouraged to review copies of the protocol and/or contracts associated with project-specific studies before accepting such studies for publication. Editors may choose not to consider an article if a sponsor has asserted control over the authors′right to publish. II.D.3. Potential conflicts of interest related to commitments of editors, journal staff, or reviewers Reviewers must disclose to editors any conflicts of interest that could bias their opinions of the manuscript, and they should disqualify themselves from reviewing specific manuscripts if they believe it to be appropriate. As in the case of authors, silence on the part of reviewers concerning potential conflicts may mean either that such conflicts exist that they have failed to disclose, or that conflicts do not exist. Reviewers must therefore also be asked to state explicitly whether conflicts do or do not exist. Reviewers must not use knowledge of the work, before its publication, to further their own interests. Editors who make final decisions about manuscripts must have no personal, professional, or financial involvement in any of the issues they might judge. Other members of the editorial staff, if they participate in editorial decisions, must provide editors with a current description of their financial interests (as they might relate to editorial judgments) and disqualify themselves from any decisions where they have a conflict of interest. Editorial staff must not use the information gained through working with manuscripts for private gain. Editors should publish regular disclosure statements about potential conflicts of interests related to the commitments of journal staff. II.E. Privacy and Confidentiality Identifying details should be omitted if they are not essential. Complete anonymity is difficult to achieve, however, and informed consent should be obtained if there is any doubt. For example, masking the eye region in photographs of patients is inadequate protection of anonymity. 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. The requirement for informed consent should be included in the journal′s instructions for authors. When informed consent has been obtained it should be indicated in the published article. II.E.2. Authors and reviewers Editors must not disclose information about manuscripts (including their receipt, content, status in the reviewing process, criticism by reviewers, or ultimate fate) to anyone other than the authors and reviewers. This includes requests to use the materials for legal proceedings. Editors must make clear to their reviewers that manuscripts sent for review are privileged communications and are the private property of the authors. Therefore, reviewers and members of the editorial staff must respect the authors′ rights by not publicly discussing the authors′work or appropriating their ideas before the manuscript is published. Reviewers must not be allowed to make copies of the manuscript for their files and must be prohibited from sharing it with others, except with the permission of the editor. Reviewers should return or destroy copies of manuscripts after submitting reviews. Editors should not keep copies of rejected manuscripts. Reviewer comments should not be published or otherwise made public without permission of the reviewer, author, and editor. Opinions differ on whether reviewers should remain anonymous. Authors should consult the information for authors of the journal they have chosen to learn whether the reviews are anonymous. When comments are not signed the reviewers′ identity must not be revealed to the author or anyone else without the reviewer′s permission. Some journals publish reviewers′ comments with the manuscript. No such procedure should be adopted without the consent of the authors and reviewers. However, reviewers′ comments should be sent to other reviewers of the same manuscript, which helps reviewers learn from the review process, and reviewers may be notified of the editor′s decision. II.F. Protection of Human Subjects and Animals in Research III. Publishing and editorial issues related to publication in biomedical journals III.A. Obligation to publish negative studies III.B.
Corrections, retractions and "Expressions of Concern" First, errors may be noted in published articles that require the publication of a correction or erratum of part of the work. The corrections should appear on a numbered page, be listed in the contents page, include the complete original citation, and link to the original article and vice versa if online. It is conceivable that an error could be so serious as to vitiate the entire body of the work, but this is unlikely and should be handled by editors and authors on an individual basis. Such an error should not be confused with inadequacies exposed by the emergence of new scientific information in the normal course of research. The latter require no corrections or withdrawals. The second type of difficulty is scientific fraud. If substantial doubts arise about the honesty or integrity of work, either submitted or published, it is the editor′s responsibility to ensure that the question is appropriately pursued, usually by the authors′sponsoring institution. However, it is not ordinarily the task of editors to conduct a full investigation or to make a determination; that responsibility lies with the institution where the work was done or with the funding agency. The editor should be promptly informed of the final decision, and if a fraudulent paper has been published, the journal must print a retraction. If this method of investigation does not result in a satisfactory conclusion, the editor may choose to conduct his or her own investigation. As an alternative to retraction, the editor may choose to publish an expression of concern about aspects of the conduct or integrity of the work. The retraction or expression of concern, so labeled, should appear on a numbered page in a prominent section of the print journal as well as in the online version, be listed in the contents page, and include in its heading the title of the original article. It should not simply be a letter to the editor. Ideally, the first author should be the same in the retraction as in the article, although under certain circumstances the editor may accept retractions by other responsible persons. The text of the retraction should explain why the article is being retracted and include a full original citation reference to it. The validity of previous work by the author of a fraudulent paper cannot be assumed. Editors may ask the author′s institution to assure them of the validity of earlier work published in their journals or to retract it. If this is not done editors may choose to publish an announcement expressing concern that the validity of previously published work is uncertain. III.C. Copyright III.D. Overlapping Publications However, editors of different journals may decide to simultaneously or jointly publish an article if they believe that doing so would be in the best interest of the public′s health. III.D.2. Redundant Publication Readers of primary source periodicals, whether print or electronic, deserve to be able to trust that what they are reading is original unless there is a clear statement that the article is being republished by the choice of the author and editor. The bases of this position are international copyright laws, ethical conduct, and cost-effective use of resources. Duplicate publication of original research is particularly problematic, since it can result in inadvertent double counting or inappropriate weighting of the results of a single study, which distorts the available evidence. Most journals do not wish to receive papers on work that has already been reported in large part in a published article or is contained in another paper that has been submitted or accepted for publication elsewhere, in print or in electronic media. This policy does not preclude the journal considering a paper that has been rejected by another journal, or a complete report that follows publication of a preliminary report, such as an abstract or poster displayed at a professional meeting. Nor does it prevent journals considering a paper that has been presented at a scientific meeting but not published in full or that is being considered for publication in a proceedings or similar format. Press reports of scheduled meetings will not usually be regarded as breaches of this rule, but additional data or copies of tables and illustrations should not amplify such reports. When submitting a paper, the author must always make a full statement to the editor about all submissions and previous reports that might be regarded as redundant or duplicate publication of the same or very similar work. The author must alert the editor if the manuscript includes subjects about which the authors have published a previous report or have submitted a related report to another publication. Any such report must be referred to and referenced in the new paper. Copies of such material should be included with the submitted paper to help the editor decide how to handle the matter. If redundant or duplicate publication is attempted or occurs without such notification, authors should expect editorial action to be taken. At the least, prompt rejection of the submitted manuscript should be expected. If the editor was not aware of the violations and the article has already been published, then a notice of redundant or duplicate publication will probably be published with or without the author′s explanation or approval. Preliminary reporting to public media, governmental agencies, or manufacturers, of scientific information described in a paper or a letter to the editor that has been accepted but not yet published violates the policies of many journals. Such reporting may be warranted when the paper or letter describes major therapeutic advances or public health hazards such as serious adverse effects of drugs, vaccines, other biological products, or medicinal devices, or reportable diseases. This reporting should not jeopardize publication, but should be discussed with and agreed upon by the editor in advance. III.D.3. Acceptable Secondary Publication
III.D.4. Competing manuscripts based on the same study Two kinds of competing submissions are considered: submissions by coworkers who disagree on the analysis and interpretation of their study, and submissions by coworkers who disagree on what the facts are and which data should be reported. Setting aside the unresolved question of ownership of the data, the following general observations may help editors and others dealing with these problems. III. D.4.a. Differences in analysis or interpretation If the dispute cannot be resolved and the study merits publication, both versions should be published. Options include publishing two papers on the same study, or a single paper with two analyses or interpretations. In such cases it would be appropriate for the editor to publish a statement outlining the disagreement and the journal′s involvement in attempts to resolve it. III.D.4. b. Differences in reported methods or results III.D.5. Competing manuscripts based on the same database III.E. Correspondence Published correspondence may be edited for length, grammatical correctness, and journal style. Alternatively, editors may choose to publish correspondence unedited for length or style, as for example in rapid response sections on the Internet; the journal should declare its editorial practice in this regard. Authors should approve editorial changes that alter the substance or tone of a letter or response. Although editors have the prerogative to sift out correspondence material that is irrelevant, uninteresting, or lacking in cogency, they have a responsibility to allow a range of opinion to be expressed. The correspondence column should not be used merely to promote the journal′s, or the editors′, point of view. In all instances, editors must make an effort to screen out discourteous, inaccurate, or libelous statements, and should not allow ad hominem arguments intended to discredit opinions or findings. In the interests of fairness and to keep correspondence within manageable proportions, journals may want to set time limits for responding to articles and correspondence, and for debate on a given topic. Journals should also decide whether they would notify authors when correspondence bearing on their published work is going to appear in standard or rapid response sections. Journals should also set policy with regard to the archiving of unedited correspondence that appears on line. These policies should be published both in print and electronic versions of the journal. III.F. Supplements, theme issues, and special series
III.G. Electronic publishing The nature of electronic publication requires some special considerations, both within and beyond this document. At a minimum, websites should indicate the following: names, appropriate credentials, affiliations, and relevant conflicts of interest of editors, authors, and contributors; documentation and attribution of references and sources for all content; information about copyright; disclosure of site ownership; and disclosure of sponsorship, advertising, and commercial funding. Linking from one health or medical Internet site to another may be perceived as an implicit recommendation of the quality of the second site. Journals thus should exercise caution in linking to other sites; when users are linking to another site, it may be helpful to provide an explicit message to that they are leaving the journal′s site. If links to other sites are posted as a result of financial considerations, such should be clearly indicated. All dates of content posting and updating should be indicated. In electronic layout as in print, advertising and promotional messages should not be juxtaposed with editorial content, and commercial content should be clearly identifiable as such. · Electronic publication is an area that is in flux. Editors should develop, make available to authors, and implement policies on issues unique to electronic publishing. These issues include archiving, error correction, version control, and choice of the electronic or print version of the journal as the journal of record, publication of ancillary material, and electronic publication. In no instance should a journal remove an article from its website or archive. If an article needs to be corrected or retracted, the explanation must be labeled appropriately and communicated as soon as possible on a citable page in a subsequent issue of the journal. Preservation of electronic articles in a permanent archive is essential for the historical record. Access to the archive should be immediate and it should be controlled by a third party, such as a library, instead of a publisher. Deposition in multiple archives is encouraged. III.H. Advertising Where independent bodies for reviewing advertising exist editors should make use of their judgments. Readers should be able to distinguish readily between advertising and editorial material. The juxtaposition of editorial and advertising material on the same products or subjects should be avoided. Interleafing advertising pages within articles discourages readers by interrupting the flow of editorial content, and should be discouraged. Advertising should not be sold on the condition that it will appear in the same issue as a particular article. Journals should not be dominated by advertising, but editors should be careful about publishing advertisements from only one or two advertisers, as readers may perceive that these advertisers have influenced the editor. Journals should not carry advertisements for products that have proved to be seriously harmful to health-for example, tobacco. Editors should ensure that existing regulatory or industry standards for advertisements specific to their country are enforced, or develop their own standards. The interests of organizations or agencies should not control classified and other non-display advertising, except where required by law. Finally, editors should consider all criticisms of advertisements for publication. III. I. Medical journals and the general media The public is entitled to important medical information without unreasonable delay, and editors have a responsibility to play their part in this process. Biomedical journals are published primarily for their readers, but the general public has a legitimate interest in their content; an appropriate balance should therefore guide journals′ interaction with the media between these complementary interests. Doctors in practice need to have reports available in full detail before they can advise their patients about the reports′conclusions. Moreover, media reports of scientific research before the work has been peer reviewed and fully published may lead to the dissemination of inaccurate or premature conclusions. An embargo system has been established in some countries to prevent publication of stories in the general media before the original paper on which they are based appears in the journal. The embargo creates a "level playing field," which most reporters appreciate since it minimizes the pressure on them to publish stories which they have not had time to prepare carefully. Consistency in the timing of public release of biomedical information is also important in minimizing economic chaos, since some articles contain information that has great potential to influence financial markets. On the other hand, the embargo system has been challenged as being self-serving of journals′interests, and impeding the rapid dissemination of scientific information. Editors may find the following recommendations useful as they seek to establish policies on these issues.
III.J. Obligation to register clinical trials The ICMJE member journals will require, as a condition of consideration for publication in their journals, registration in a public trials registry. The details of this policy are contained under editorials. The ICMJE encourages editors of other biomedical journals to adopt similar policy. The ICMJE does not advocate one particular registry, but its member journals will require authors to register their trial in a registry that meets several criteria. The registry must be accessible to the public at no charge. It must be open to all prospective registrants and managed by a not-for-profit organization. There must be a mechanism to ensure the validity of the registration data, and the registry should be electronically searchable. An acceptable registry must include at minimum the data elements in the following table. Trial registration with missing fields or fields that contain uninformative terminology is inadequate. The ICMJE recommends that journals publish the trial registration number at the end of the Abstract. IV. Manuscript preparation and submission IV.A. Preparing a manuscript for submission to a biomedical journal IV.A.1.a. General principles Publication in electronic formats has created opportunities for adding details or whole sections in the electronic version only, layering information, cross-linking or extracting portions of articles, and the like. Authors need to work closely with editors in developing or using such new publication formats and should submit material for potential supplementary electronic formats for peer review. Double spacing of all portions of the manuscript- including the title page, abstract, text, acknowledgments, references, individual tables, and legends-and generous margins make it possible for editors and reviewers to edit the text line by line, and add comments and queries, directly on the paper copy. If manuscripts are submitted electronically, the files should be double spaced, because the manuscript may need to be printed out for reviewing and editing. During the editorial process reviewers and editors frequently need to refer to specific portions of the manuscript, which is difficult unless the pages are numbered. Authors should therefore number all of the pages of the manuscript consecutively, beginning with the title page. IV.A.1.b. Reporting Guidelines for Specific Study Designs IV.A.2. Title Page
IV.A.3. Conflict of interest notification page IV.A.4. Abstract and key words Because abstracts are the only substantive portion of the article indexed in many electronic databases, and the only portion many readers read, authors need to be careful that abstracts reflect the content of the article accurately. Unfortunately, many abstracts disagree with the text of the article (6). The format required for structured abstracts differs from journal to journal, and some journals use more than one structure; authors should make it a point prepare their abstracts in the format specified by the journal they have chosen. Some journals request that, following the abstract, authors provide, and identify as such, 3 to 10 key words or short phrases that capture the main topics of the article. These will assist indexers in cross-indexing the article and may be published with the abstract. Terms from the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) list of Index Medicus should be used; if suitable MeSH terms are not yet available for recently introduced terms, present terms may be used. IV.A.5. Introduction IV.A.6. Methods IV.A.6.a. Selection and description of participants IV.A.6.b. Technical information Authors submitting review manuscripts should include a section describing the methods used for locating, selecting, extracting, and synthesizing data. These methods should also be summarized in the abstract. IV.A.6.c. Statistics IV.A.7. Results When data are summarized in the Results section, give numeric results not only as derivatives (for example, percentages) but also as the absolute numbers from which the derivatives were calculated, and specify the statistical methods used to analyze them. Restrict tables and figures to those needed to explain the argument of the paper and to assess its support. Use graphs as an alternative to tables with many entries; do not duplicate data in graphs and tables. Avoid non-technical uses of technical terms in statistics, such as "random" (which implies a randomizing device), "normal," "significant," "correlations," and "sample." Where scientifically appropriate, analyses of the data by variables such as age and sex should be included. IV.A.8. Discussion Link the conclusions with the goals of the study but avoid unqualified statements and conclusions not adequately supported by the data. In particular, authors should avoid making statements on economic benefits and costs unless their manuscript includes the appropriate economic data and analyses. Avoid claiming priority and alluding to work that has not been completed. State new hypotheses when warranted, but clearly label them as such. IV.A.9. References Avoid using abstracts as references. References to papers accepted but not yet published should be designated as "in press" or "forthcoming"; authors should obtain written permission to cite such papers as well as verification that they have been accepted for publication. Information from manuscripts submitted but not accepted should be cited in the text as "unpublished observations" with written permission from the source. Avoid citing a "personal communication" unless it provides essential information not available from a public source, in which case the name of the person and date of communication should be cited in parentheses in the text. For scientific articles, authors should obtain written permission and confirmation of accuracy from the source of a personal communication. Some journals check the accuracy of all reference citations, but not all journals do so, and citation errors sometimes appear in the published version of articles. To minimize such errors, authors should therefore verify references against the original documents. IV.A.9.b. Reference style and format References should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text. Identify references in text, tables, and legends by Arabic numerals in parentheses. References cited only in tables or figure legends should be numbered in accordance with the sequence established by the first identification in the text of the particular table or figure. The titles of journals should be abbreviated according to the style used in Index Medicus. Consult the list of Journals Indexed for MEDLINE, published annually as a separate publication by the National Library of Medicine. The list can also be obtained through the Library′s web site. Journals vary on whether they ask authors to cite electronic references within parentheses in the text or in numbered references following the text. Authors should consult with the journal that they plan to submit their work to. Journals vary on whether they ask authors to cite electronic references within parentheses in the text or in numbered references following the text. Authors should consult with the journal that they plan to submit their work to. IV.A.10. Tables Type or print each table with double spacing on a separate sheet of paper. Number tables consecutively in the order of their first citation in the text and supply a brief title for each. Do not use internal horizontal or vertical lines. Give each column a short or abbreviated heading. Authors should place explanatory matter in footnotes, not in the heading. Explain in footnotes all nonstandard abbreviations. For footnotes use the following symbols, in sequence: Identify statistical measures of variations, such as standard deviation and standard error of the mean. Be sure that each table is cited in the text. If you use data from another published or unpublished source, obtain permission and acknowledge them fully. Additional tables containing backup data too extensive to publish in print may be appropriate for publication in the electronic version of the journal, deposited with an archival service, or made available to readers directly by the authors. In that event an appropriate statement will be added to the text. Submit such tables for consideration with the paper so that they will be available to the peer reviewers. IV.A.11. Illustrations Figures For x-ray films, scans, and other diagnostic images, as well as pictures of pathology specimens or photomicrographs, send sharp, glossy, black-and-white or color photographic prints, usually 127 x 173 mm (5 x 7 inches). Although some journals redraw figures, many do not. Letters, numbers, and symbols on Figures should therefore be clear and even throughout, and of sufficient size that when reduced for publication each item will still be legible. Figures should be made as self-explanatory as possible, since many will be used directly in slide presentations. Titles and detailed explanations belong in the legends, however, not on the illustrations themselves. Photomicrographs should have internal scale markers. Symbols, arrows, or letters used in photomicrographs should contrast with the background. 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 (see Section III.D.4.a). Whenever possible permission for publication should be obtained. Figures should be numbered consecutively according to the order in which they have been first cited in the text. If a figure has been published, acknowledge the original source and submit written permission from the copyright holder to reproduce the material. Permission is required irrespective of authorship or publisher except for documents in the public domain. For illustrations in color, ascertain whether the journal requires color negatives, positive transparencies, or color prints. Accompanying drawings marked to indicate the region to be reproduced might be useful to the editor. Some journals publish illustrations in color only if the author pays for the extra cost. Authors should consult the journal about requirements for figures submitted in electronic formats. IV.A.12. Legends for illustrations Figures IV.A.13. Units of measurement Temperatures should be in degrees Celsius. Blood pressures should be in millimeters of mercury, unless other units are specifically required by the journal. Journals vary in the units they use for reporting hematological, clinical chemistry, and other measurements. Authors must consult the information for authors for the particular journal and should report laboratory information in both the local and International System of Units (SI). Editors may request that the authors before publication add alternative or non-SI units, since SI units are not universally used. Drug concentrations may be reported in either SI or mass units, but the alternative should be provided in parentheses where appropriate. IV.A.14. Abbreviations and symbols IV.B. Sending the manuscript to the journal If a paper version of the manuscript is submitted, send the required number of copies of the manuscript and figures; they are all needed for peer review and editing, and editorial office staff cannot be expected to make the required copies. Manuscripts must be accompanied by a cover letter, which should include the following information.
The letter should give any additional information that may be helpful to the editor, such as the type or format of article in the particular journal that the manuscript represents. If the manuscript has been submitted previously to another journal, it is helpful to include the previous editor′s and reviewers′ comments with the submitted manuscript, along with the authors′responses to those comments. Editors encourage authors to submit these previous communications and doing so may expedite the review process. Many journals now provide a pre-submission checklist that assures that all the components of the submission have been included. Some journals now also require that authors complete checklists for reports of certain study types (e.g., the CONSORT checklist for reports of randomized controlled trials). Authors should look to see if the journal uses such checklists, and send them with the manuscript if they are requested. Copies of any permission to reproduce published material, to use illustrations or report information about identifiable people, or to name people for their contributions must accompany the manuscript. [Table] V. References A. References cited in this document
B. Other sources of information related to biomedical lournals World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) www.WAME.org Council of Science Editors (CSE) www.councilscien ceeditors.org European Association of Science Editors (EASE) www.ease.org.uk Cochrane Collaboration www.cochrane.org The Mulford Library, Medical College of Ohio www.mco.edu/lib/instr/libinsta.html VI. About The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) is a group of general medical journal editors whose participants meet annually and fund their work on the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts. The ICMJE invites comments on this document and suggestions for agenda items.VII. Authors of The Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals The ICMJE participating journals and organizations and their representatives who approved the revised Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts in July 2005 include Annals of Internal Medicine, British Medical Journal, Canadian Medical Association Journal, Croatian Medical Journal, Journal of the American Medical Association, The Dutch Medical Journal (Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde), New England Journal of Medicine, New Zealand Medical Journal, The Lancet, The Medical Journal of Australia, Tidsskrift for Den Norske Laegeforening, Journal of the Danish Medical Association (Ugeskrift for Laeger), and the U.S. National Library of Medicine.VIII. Use, Distribution, and Translation of the Uniform Requirements Users may print, copy, and distribute this document without charge for not-for-profit, educational purpose. The ICMJE does not stock paper copies (reprints) of this document. The ICMJE policy is for interested organizations to link to the official English language document at www .ICMJE.org. The ICMJE does not endorse posting of the document on web sites other than www.ICMJE.org. The ICMJE welcomes organizations to reprint or translate this document into languages other than English for non-profit purposes. However, the ICMJE does not have the resources to translate, to back translate, or to approve reprinted or translated versions of the document. Thus, any translations should prominently include the following statement: "This is a (reprint /(insert language name) language translation) of the ICMJE Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals. (insert name of organization) prepared this translation with support from (insert name of funding source, if any). The ICMJE has neither endorsed nor approved the contents of this reprint/ translation. The ICMJE periodically updates the Uniform Requirements, so this reprint/translation prepared on (insert date) may not accurately represent the current official version at www.ICMJE.org. The official version of the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals is located at www.ICMJE.org." We do not require individuals or organizations that reprint or translate the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals to obtain formal, written permission from the ICMJE. However, the ICMJE requests that such individuals or organizations provide the ICMJE secretariat with the citation for that reprint or translation so that the ICMJE can keep a record of such versions of the document. IX. Inquiries Inquiries about the Uniform Requirements should be sent to Christine Laine, MD, MPH at the ICMJE Secretariat office, American College of Physicians, 190 N. Independence Mall West, Philadelphia, PA 19106-1572, USA. fax 215-351-2644; e-mail claine@acponline.org. Please do not direct inquiries about individual journal styles or policies to the ICMJE secretariat office.Copyright 2006 - Indian Journal of Pharmacology The following images related to this document are available:Photo images[ph06040t1.jpg] |
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