Instruction for Authors
FORMAT OF CONTRIBUTIONS
The Journal of Research
in Health Sciences (JRHS)
welcomes submissions of the following types of paper:
original articles, review articles ,short communication,case report and letters
to the editor. Only articles in English are considered for publication.
Prepare your manuscript,
including tables
and Figures, using a word processing
program and save it as a .doc file. Use a minimum font size of 12, double-spaced
and paginated throughout including references and tables, with margins of at least
2.5 cm. The text should be left justified and not hyphenated. Number pages consecutively,
beginning with the title page. Begin each of the sections on separate pages.
Original articles
Original articles should
be presented in the following format: title page; abstract with keywords; introduction;
methods; results; discussion; acknowledgements; conflicts of interest; key-points;
references; tables (complete with title and footnotes); figure legends; figures.
The Title page
should carry A) the title of the article, which should be concise but informative;
B) first name, middle initial, and last name of each author, with highest academic
degree(s) and institutional affiliation; C) name of Dept.(s) and Institution(s)
to which the work should be attributed if not already stated under b); D) disclaimers,
if any; E) name, address, telephone and fax numbers of Corresponding author about
the manuscript; F) source(s) of support in the form of grants, equipment, drugs,
etc.
The Abstract should be structured under the following headings: Background, Methods, Results,
Conclusion. The word limit is 200
words. Add three to five key words or short
phrases to the bottom of the abstract page, which will assist us in indexing the
article and which may be published with the abstract. Use terms from the Medical
Subject Headings (MeSH) list of Index Medicus when possible.
The main text
should be divided into the following sections: Introduction, Methods, Results and
Discussion. More information on the structure and content of these sections can
be found in the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts (www.icmje.org).
In the Acknowledgements,
all sources of funding for research must be explicitly stated, including grant numbers
if appropriate. Other financial and material support, specifying the nature of the
support, should be acknowledged as well. Authors are responsible for obtaining written
permission from persons acknowledged by name because readers may infer their endorsement
of the data and conclusions.
For the References,
see the separate guidelines at the end of the author instructions.
Type each Table with double spacing on a separate page, and provide a title for each. Do not
use internal horizontal and vertical rules. Abbreviations in tables should be explained.
Excessive tabular data are discouraged: a maximum of four medium-sized tables/illustrations
is allowed. Do not duplicate data in graphs and tables. Additional tables/figures
can be presented on the Journals’ web-page if needed. Do not repeat in the text
all the data in the tables or illustrations; emphasize or summarize only important
observations. If you use data from another published or unpublished source, obtain
permission and acknowledge fully.
Figures
should be professionally designed, using a well-known software package for standard
personal computers. Three-dimensional figures are not allowed. If a spreadsheet
programme has been used to produce the chart, the spreadsheet containing the underlying
data should be supplied on diskette. Provide the figures in separate files, not
as part of the main text. Symbols, lettering, and numbering should be clear and
large enough to remain legible after the figure has been reduced to fit the width
of a single column, i.e. 7 cm. Legends for illustrations should be typewritten (double-spaced)
on a separate sheet and should not appear on the illustrations. If a figure has
been published earlier, acknowledge the original source and submit written permission
from the copyright holder to reproduce the material. If photographs of patients
are used, their pictures must be accompanied by written permission to use the picture,
whether the patient is identifiable or not. For useful information on preparing
your figures for publication, go to
http://cpc.cadmus.com/da.
Colour figures
are accepted, alternatively, if the colour is not critical for the image's scientific
understanding, colour can be published online only, as supplementary data, with
a black and white version being published in the print version of the Journal.
Commentaries are opinion
pieces which reflect on papers previously or currently published in the Journal of Research in Health Sciences, or
on issues of general interest to public health science or policy.
Letters to the
editor
Letters to the editor
should be a maximum of 500 words and do not need an abstract. However, a short heading
should be suggested.
Editorials
Editorials are usually commissioned. Editorials are opinion
pieces which reflect on papers previously or currently published in the Journal of
Research in Health Sciences, or on
issues of general interest to public health science or policy. They should be written
in a crisp and lively style. They should have a maximum of 800 words, and not more
than 5 references.
Book reviews
Book reviews are usually commissioned. They should have a
maximum of 500 words.
AUTHORSHIP
All persons designated
as authors should qualify for authorship. The order of authorship should be a joint
decision of the coauthors. Each author should have participated sufficiently in
the work to take public responsibility for the content. One author will be asked
to act as the corresponding author.
Increasingly, multicentre
trials are attributed to a corporate author. All members of the group who are named
as authors should fully meet the criteria for authorship as defined in the Uniform
Requirements (www.icmje.org).
During the submission
procedure, authors will be asked to grant a licence to publish to the Journal of Research in Health Sciences, the owner of the JRHS, and to declare copyright
ownership (author, public domain, and employer).
After acceptance of the
paper, all authors will be requested to sign an authorship statement.
PERMISSIONS
Authors are reminded
that it is their responsibility to comply with copyright laws. It is essential to
ensure that no parts of the submission have or are due to appear in other publications
without prior permission from the copyright holder and the original author. Materials,
e.g tables, taken from other sources must be accompanied by a written statement
from both author and publisher giving permission to the JRHS for reproduction.
PEER REVIEW
All original papers are
evaluated by two or three external referees, who are asked to comment on originality,
validity, presentation, importance and interest.
JRHS is working towards a system of open peer review. Manuscripts are blinded to
reviewers. Reviewers are asked to sign their reviews.
CONFLICTS OF INTEREST
JRHS policy requires
that authors of all manuscripts reveal any financial interests or connections, direct
or indirect, or other situations
that might raise the question of bias
in the work reported or the conclusions, implications, or opinions stated - including
pertinent commercial or other sources of funding for the individual author(s) or
for the associated Dept.(s) or organization(s), personal relationships, or direct
academic competition. When considering whether you should declare a conflicting
interest or connection please consider the conflict of interest test: Is there any
arrangement that would embarrass you or any of your co-authors if it was to emerge
after publication and you had not declared it?
Please provide details of potential conflicts of interest to the editorial office.
If the manuscript is published, this information will be communicated in a statement
in the published paper.
TECHNICAL INFORMATION
Abbreviations and footnotes
Do not use abbreviations
in the title or the abstract. Except for units of measurement, abbreviations are
discouraged. Use only standard abbreviations. The first time an abbreviation appears
it should be preceded by the words for which it stands.
Footnotes are permitted only in tables. Use lower case characters - a, b, c, etc.
- to indicate each footnote.
Units of measurement
Authors of articles must
express all measurements in terms of the International System of Units (SI units),
but they may include older conventional units in parentheses if they desire.
Numbers and percentages
All numbers in the text
should be written in numeric form except numbers 0-10. Use % symbol instead of writing
out the words percent.
Drug names
Generic names should
be used. Authors who wish to do so may insert brand names in parentheses.