Author GuidelinesAuthor GuidelinesAbout the Journal
Indian Journal of Medical Sciences is a quarterly journal published as a medium for the advancement of scientific knowledge in all the branches of Medicine and allied Sciences and publication of scientific investigation in these fields. It is also intended to present this as a form suitable to the general practitioner and primary care physician. The journals full text is available online at www.ijmsweb.com. The journal allows free access (Open Access) to its contents and permits authors to self-archive final accepted version of the articles on any OAI-compliant institutional / subject-based repository.
Scope of the Journal
The journal will cover technical, clinical and bioengineering studies related to human well being including ethical and social issues. The journal caters to the need to practicing clinicians. Hence, articles with clinical interest and implications will be given preference. Traditionally, articles from social science, epidemiology, psychology, and traditional medicine have found place in the journal.
The Editorial Process
A manuscript will be reviewed for possible publication with the understanding that it is being submitted to IJMS alone at that point in time and has not been published anywhere, simultaneously submitted, or already accepted for publication elsewhere. The journal expects that authors would authorize one of them to correspond with the Journal for all matters related to the manuscript. All manuscripts received are duly acknowledged. On submission, editors review all submitted manuscripts initially for suitability for formal review. Manuscripts that are found suitable for publication in IJMS are sent to two or more expert reviewers. During submission, the contributor is requested to provide names of two or three qualified reviewers who have had experience in the subject of the submitted manuscript, but this is not mandatory. The reviewers should not be affiliated with the same institutes as the contributor/s. However, the selection of these reviewers is at the sole discretion of the editor. The journal follows a double-blind review process, wherein the reviewers and authors are unaware of each others identity. Every manuscript is also assigned to a member of the editorial team, who based on the comments from the reviewers takes a final decision on the manuscript. The comments and suggestions (acceptance/ rejection/ amendments in manuscript) received from reviewers are conveyed to the corresponding author. If required, the author is requested to provide a point by point response to reviewers comments and submit a revised version of the manuscript. This process is repeated till reviewers and editors are satisfied with the manuscript.
Manuscripts accepted for publication are copy edited for grammar, punctuation, print style, and format. Page proofs are sent to the corresponding author. The corresponding author is expected to return the corrected proofs within three days. It may not be possible to incorporate corrections received after that period. The whole process of submission of the manuscript to final decision and sending and receiving proofs is completed online. To achieve faster and greater dissemination of knowledge and information, the journal publishes articles online as Ahead of Print immediately on acceptance.
Clinical trial registry
IJMS favors registration of clinical trials and is a signatory to the Statement on publishing clinical trials in Indian biomedical journals. From January 2009 issue, IJMS would publish clinical trials that have been registered with a clinical trial registry that allows free online access to public. Registration in the following trial registers is acceptable:http://www.ctri.in/ ; http://www.actr.org.au/; http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/; http://isrctn.org/; http://www.trialregister.nl/trialreg/index.asp; and http://www.umin.ac.jp/ctr. This is applicable to clinical trials that have begun enrollment of subjects in or after June 2008. Clinical trials that have commenced enrollment of subjects prior to June 2008 would be considered for publication in IJMS only if they have been registered retrospectively with clinical trial registry that allows unhindered online access to public without charging any fees.
Authorship Criteria
Authorship credit should be based only on substantial contributions to each of the three components mentioned below:
1) Concept and design of study or acquisition of data or analysis and interpretation of data;
2) Drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and
3) Final approval of the version to be published.
Participation solely in the acquisition of funding or the collection of data does not justify authorship. General supervision of the research group is not sufficient for authorship. Each contributor should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content of the manuscript. The order of naming the contributors should be based on the relative contribution of the contributor towards the study and writing the manuscript. Once submitted the order cannot be changed without written consent of all the contributors. The journal prescribes a maximum number of authors for manuscripts depending upon the type of manuscript, its scope and number of institutions involved (vide infra). The authors should provide a justification, if the number of authors exceeds these limits.
Manuscript submission, processing and publication charges
Other Author side fees:
Fees for including images/ tables/ figures/ photos: May apply
Contribution Details
Contributors should provide a description of contributions made by each of them towards the manuscript. Description should be divided in following categories, as applicable: concept, design, definition of intellectual content, literature search, clinical studies, experimental studies, data acquisition, data analysis, statistical analysis, manuscript preparation, manuscript editing and manuscript review. Authors’ contributions will be printed along with the article. One or more author should take responsibility for the integrity of the work as a whole from inception to published article and should be designated as ‘guarantor’.
Conflicts of Interest/ Competing Interests
All authors of must disclose any and all conflicts of interest they may have with publication of the manuscript or an institution or product that is mentioned in the manuscript and/or is important to the outcome of the study presented. Authors should also disclose conflict of interest with products that compete with those mentioned in their manuscript.
Submission of Manuscripts
All manuscripts must be submitted on-line through the website: http://journal.indianjmedsci.com/index.php/ijms/about/submissions#onlineSubmissions
The submitted manuscripts that are not as per the Instructions to Authors would be returned to the authors for technical correction, before they undergo editorial/ peer-review. Generally, the manuscript should be submitted in the form of two separate files:
[1] Title Page/First Page File/covering letter:
This file should provide
a) The type of manuscript (original article, case report, review article, Ethics Forum, Education Forum, Letter to editor, Images, etc.) title of the manuscript, running title, names of all authors/ contributors (with their highest academic degrees, designation and affiliations) and name(s) of department(s) and/ or institution(s) to which the work should be credited. All information which can reveal your identity should be here. Use text/rtf/doc files. Do not zip the files.
b) The total number of pages, total number of photographs and word counts separately for abstract and for the text (excluding the references, tables and abstract), word counts for introduction + discussion in case of an original article;
c) Source(s) of support in the form of grants, equipment, drugs, or all of these;
d) Acknowledgement, if any. One or more statements should specify 1) contributions that need acknowledging but do not justify authorship, such as general support by a departmental chair; 2) acknowledgments of technical help; and 3) acknowledgments of financial and material support, which should specify the nature of the support. This should be included in the title page of the manuscript and not in the main article file.
e) If the manuscript was presented as part at a meeting, the organization, place, and exact date on which it was read. A full statement to the editor about all submissions and previous reports that might be regarded as redundant publication of the same or very similar work. Any such work should be referred to specifically, 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.
f) Registration number in case of a clinical trial and where it is registered (name of the registry and its URL)
g) Conflicts of Interest of each author/ contributor. A statement of financial or other relationships that might lead to a conflict of interest, if that information is not included in the manuscript itself or in an authors’ form
h) Criteria for inclusion in the authors/ contributors list
i) A statement that the manuscript has been read and approved by all the authors, that the requirements for authorship as stated earlier in this document have been met, and that each author believes that the manuscript represents honest work, if that information is not provided in another form (see below); and
j) The name, address, e-mail, and telephone number of the corresponding author, who is responsible for communicating with the other authors about revisions and final approval of the proofs, if that information is not included on the manuscript itself.
[2] Blinded Article file: The manuscript must not contain any mention of the authors’ names or initials or the institution at which the study was done or acknowledgements. Page headers/running title can include the title but not the authors’ names. Manuscripts not in compliance with The Journal’s blinding policy will be returned to the corresponding author. The main text of the article, beginning from Abstract till References (including tables) should be in this file. Use rtf/doc files. Do not zip the files. Limit the file size to 1024 kb (1 MB). Do not incorporate images in the file. The pages should be numbered consecutively, beginning with the first page of the blinded article file.
[3] Images: Submit good quality color images. Each image should be less than 4 MB in size. Size of the image can be reduced by decreasing the actual height and width of the images (keep up to 1800 x 1200 pixels or 5-6 inches). Images can be submitted as jpeg files. Do not zip the files. Legends for the figures/images should be included at the end of the article file.
Preparation of Manuscripts
Manuscripts must be prepared in accordance with “Uniform requirements for Manuscripts submitted to Biomedical Journals” developed by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. The uniform requirements and specific requirement of IJMS accepts manuscripts written in American English.
Copies of any permission(s)
It is the responsibility of authors/ contributors to obtain permissions for reproducing any copyrighted material. A copy of the permission obtained must accompany the manuscript. Copies of any and all published articles or other manuscripts in preparation or submitted elsewhere that are related to the manuscript must also accompany the manuscript. The material should be sent to any of the two addresses given above.
Types of Manuscripts
Original articles:
These include randomized controlled trials, intervention studies, studies of screening and diagnostic test, outcome studies, cost effectiveness analyses, case-control series, and surveys with high response rate. The text of original articles amounting to up to 3000 words (excluding Abstract, references and Tables) should be divided into sections with the headings Abstract, Key-words, Introduction, Material and Methods, Results, Discussion, References, Tables and Figure legends.
Introduction: State the purpose and summarize the rationale for the study or observation.
Materials and Methods: It should include and describe the following aspects:
Ethics: When reporting studies on human beings, 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 ). For prospective studies involving human participants, authors are expected to mention about approval of (regional/ national/ institutional or independent Ethics Committee or Review Board, obtaining informed consent from adult research participants and obtaining assent for children aged over 7 years participating in the trial. The age beyond which assent would be required could vary as per regional and/ or national guidelines. Ensure confidentiality of subjects by desisting from mentioning participants names, initials or hospital numbers, especially in illustrative material. When reporting experiments on animals, indicate whether the institutions or a national research councils guide for, or any national law on the care and use of laboratory animals was followed.
Evidence for approval by a local Ethics Committee (for both human as well as animal studies) must be supplied by the authors on demand. Animal experimental procedures should be as humane as possible and the details of anesthetics and analgesics used should be clearly stated. The ethical standards of experiments must be in accordance with the guidelines provided by the CPCSEA and World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki on Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Humans for studies involving experimental animals and human beings, respectively). The journal will not consider any paper which is ethically unacceptable. A statement on ethics committee permission and ethical practices must be included in all research articles under the Materials and Methods section.
Selection and Description of Participants: Describe your selection of the observational or experimental participants (patients or laboratory animals, including controls) clearly, including eligibility and exclusion criteria and a description of the source population. Reports of randomized clinical trials should present information on all major study elements, including the protocol, assignment of interventions (methods of randomization, concealment of allocation to treatment groups), and the method of masking (blinding), based on the CONSORT Statement ( http://www.consort-statement.org ).
Submission Preparation Checklist
As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission’s compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.
- The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
- The submission file is in Microsoft Word, OpenOffice, RTF, or WordPerfect document file format.
- Where available, URLs for the references have been provided.
- The text is single-spaced; uses a 12-point font; employs italics, rather than underlining (except with URL addresses); and all illustrations, figures, and tables are placed within the text at the appropriate points.
- The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines, which is found in About the Journal.
- If submitting to a peer-reviewed section of the journal, the instructions in Ensuring a Blind Review have been followed.
Privacy Statement
The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.