Preparation of Manuscript
The text of original articles should be divided into sections with the headings: Abstract, Key-words, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, References, Tables and Figure legends. For a brief report include Abstract, Key-words, Introduction, Case report, Discussion, Reference, Tables and Legends in that order. Do not use subheadings in these sections. Use double spacing throughout. Number pages consecutively, beginning with the title page. The language should be American English.
The title page should carry
Type of manuscript (e.g. Original article, Case Report)
The title of the article, which should be concise, but informative;
Running title or short title, not more than 50 characters;
The name by which each contributor is known (First name and initials of a middle name, Last name), with his or her highest academic degree(s) and institutional affiliation;
The name of the department(s) and institution(s) to which the work should be attributed;
The name, address, phone numbers, facsimile numbers and e-mail address of all authors (contributor) including the corresponding author;
The total number of pages, total number of photographs and word counts separately for abstract and for the text (excluding the references and abstract);
Source(s) of support in the form of grants, equipment, drugs, or all of these;
Acknowledgment, 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.
If the manuscript was presented as part of a meeting, the organization, place, and exact date on which it was read.
Registration number of clinical trials.
The second page should carry the full title of the manuscript and an abstract (of no more than 150 words for brief reports, case series, case report and 250 words for original research articles and other article types). The abstract should be structured for original articles. State the context (background), aims, settings and design, materials and methods, statistical analysis used, results and conclusions. Below the abstract should provide 3 to 8 keywords. The abstract should not be structured for a brief report, review article, symposia and research methodology. Do not include references in the abstract.
State the purpose and summarize the rationale for the study or observation. It includes the background of the study planned, its objectives and the major outcome expected at the end of the study.
The Methods section should only include information that was available at the time the study was planned or protocol written; all information obtained during the conduct of the study belongs to the results section.
This includes setting, duration and type of study, sampling methods, sample size calculation, inclusion criteria, exclusion criteria, Data collection procedure, Data analysis, Ethical consideration & permission, Any scoring system, Surgical procedure if any, etc
Put all subheadings with details of each.
Technical information: Identify the methods, apparatus (give the manufacturer's name and address in parentheses), and procedures in sufficient detail to allow other workers to reproduce the results. Give references to established methods, including statistical methods (see below); provide references and brief descriptions for methods that have been published but are not well known; describe new or substantially modified methods, give reasons for using them, and evaluate their limitations. Identify precisely all drugs and chemicals used, including generic name(s), dose(s), and route(s) of administration.
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 ).
Reporting Guidelines for Specific Study Designs
http://www.consort-statement.org
STARD
Studies of diagnostic accuracy
http://www.equator-network.org/reporting-guidelines/stard/
Systematic reviews and meta-analyses
http://www.prisma-statement.org
Observational studies in epidemiology
http://www.strobe-statement.org
Meta-analyses of observational studies in epidemiology
https://www.equator-network.org/reporting-guidelines/meta-analysis-of-observational-studies-in-epidemiology-a-proposal-for-reporting-meta-analysis-of-observational-studies-in-epidemiology-moose-group/
https://www.care-statement.org/
Note: Authors submitting a review article should include a section describing the methods used for locating, selecting, extracting, and synthesizing data. These methods should also be summarized in the abstract.
When reporting studies on humans, 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 WMA Declaration of Helsinki ). 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 were 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 (animal) and ICMR (human). 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.
Whenever 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). When data are summarized in the Results section, specify the statistical methods used to analyze them. Avoid non-technical uses of technical terms in statistics, such as 'random' (which implies a randomizing device), 'normal', 'significant', 'correlations', and 'sample'. Define statistical terms, abbreviations, and most symbols. Specify the computer software used. Use upper italics (P 0.048). For all P values include the exact value and not less than 0.05 or 0.001.
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.
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. "Where scientifically appropriate, analyses of the data by variables such as age and sex should be included.
Include summary of key findings (primary outcome measures, secondary outcome measures, results as they relate to a prior hypothesis); Strengths and limitations of the study (study question, study design, data collection, analysis, and interpretation); Interpretation and implications in the context of the totality of evidence (is there a systematic review to refer to, if not, could one be reasonably done here and now?, what this study adds to the available evidence, effects on patient care and health policy, possible mechanisms); Controversies raised by this study; and Future research directions (for this particular research collaboration, underlying mechanisms, clinical research).
Do not repeat in detail data or other material given in the Introduction or the Results section. In particular, contributors should avoid making statements on economic benefits and costs unless their manuscript includes 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.
References should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text (not in alphabetic order). Identify references in text, tables, and legends by Arabic numerals in superscript with square bracket after the punctuation marks. 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. Use the style of the examples below, which are based on the formats used by the NLM in Index Medicus. The titles of journals should be abbreviated according to the style used in Index Medicus. Use the complete name of the journal for non-indexed journals. Avoid using abstracts as references. 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.
The commonly cited types of references are shown here, for other types of references such as electronic media; newspaper items, etc. please refer to ICMJE Guidelines (Reffer guidelines or Reffer guidelines ).
Use Vancouver guidelines for reference writing. Visit link: Reffer guidelines Or link: Reffer guidelines
Articles in Journals
a. Standard journal article: Bavdekar SB, Gogtay NJ, Muzumdar D, Vaideeswar P, Salvi V, Sarkar M. The path ahead. J Postgrad Med 2007;53(3):153-3 List the first six contributors followed by et al.
Books and Other Monographs
Personal author(s): Ringsven MK, Bond D. Gerontology and leadership skills for nurses. 2nd ed. Albany (NY): Delmar Publishers; 1996.
Editor(s), compiler(s) as author: Norman IJ, Redfern SJ, editors. Mental health care for elderly people. New York: Churchill Livingstone; 1996.
Chapter in a book: Phillips SJ, Whisnant JP. Hypertension and stroke. In: Laragh JH, Brenner BM, editors. Hypertension: pathophysiology, diagnosis, and management. 2nd ed. New York: Raven Press; 1995. pp. 465-78.
Tables should be self-explanatory and should not duplicate textual material.
Tables with more than 10 columns and 25 rows are not acceptable.
Number tables, in Arabic numerals, consecutively in the order of their first citation in the text and supply a brief title for each.
Place explanatory matter in footnotes, not in the heading.
Explain in footnotes all non-standard abbreviations that are used in each table.
Obtain permission for all fully borrowed, adapted, and modified tables and provide a credit line in the footnote.
For footnotes use the following symbols, in this sequence: *, †, ‡, §, ||,¶, **, ††, ‡‡
Tables with their legends should be provided at the end of the text after the references. The tables along with their number should be cited at the relevant place in the text.
Illustrations (Figures)
Upload the images in JPEG format. The file size should be within 4 MB in size while uploading.
Figures should be numbered consecutively according to the order in which they have been first cited in the text.
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.
Symbols, arrows, or letters used in photomicrographs should contrast with the background and should be 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 elsewhere, 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 such figures.
Legends for illustrations: Type or print out legends (maximum 40 words, excluding the credit line) for illustrations using double spacing, with Arabic numerals corresponding to the illustrations. When symbols, arrows, numbers, or letters are used to identify parts of the illustrations, identify and explain each one in the legend. Explain the internal scale (magnification) and identify the method of staining in photomicrographs.
Final figures for print production: If the images uploaded are not printable quality, the publisher office may request for higher resolution images which can be sent at the time of acceptance of the manuscript.
The Journal reserves the right to crop, rotate, reduce, or enlarge the photographs to an acceptable size.
Protection of Patients' Rights to Privacy
Identifying information should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, sonograms, CT scans, etc., and pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or parent or guardian, wherever applicable) gives informed consent for publication. Authors should remove patients' names from figures unless they have obtained informed consent from the patients. The journal abides by ICMJE guidelines:
1) Authors, not the journals nor the publisher, need to obtain the patient consent form before the publication and have the form properly archived. The consent forms are not to be uploaded with the cover letter or sent through email to editorial or publisher offices.
2) If the manuscript contains patient images that preclude anonymity or a description that has an obvious indication of the identity of the patient, a statement about obtaining informed patient consent should be indicated in the manuscript.
Case Reports/ Case series
Case reports must meet all of the following criteria:
the case should be one that is highly unusual, very unique, underreported in the literature and;
the case report must present as a challenging diagnostic and therapeutic problem and;
the case report must have significant educational value including the ability to perhaps change a clinician's traditional method of handling such a case and;
the case report's interest to the reader should be significant.
Preparation of Case Reports
Follow the standard format for the article (Abstract, Key-words, Introduction, Case History, Discussion and Refer