Information For Librarians

Authorship

All persons designed as authors should qualify for authorship. Authorship credit should be based on substantial contributions to (i) concept and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; (ii) drafting of the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and (iii) final approval of the version to be published. All such persons whose participation do not satisfy the conditions above should be listed in the acknowledgements with permission obtained from them by the authors. After submission of manuscript, no authors name will be added or deleted without written permission of the editor.

  

Abstract and key words

The second page should carry an abstract in case of original article (250 words), review article (250 words), brief report (100-150 words), and case report (150 words), respectively. For original article and reviews, the abstract should be structured as detailed earlier. For brief reports, the abstract should state the purpose of the study, basic methodology, main findings (giving specific data and statistical significance) and key conclusion(s). Below the abstract, authors should provide 3-6 key words for indexing; terms from the Medical Subject Headings (MESH) list of Index Medicus should be used.

The basic structure of a paper follows the well known acronym IMRAD, which stands for Introduction (what questions was asked), Methods (how was it studied), Results (what was found) and Discussion.

 

Introduction

The introduction must clearly state the question that the author(s) tried to answer in the study. It may be necessary to briefly review the relevant literature. Only cite those references that are essential to justify the proposed study.

 

Methodology

The methods section should describe, in a logical sequence, how the study was designed (e.g., how randomization was done), carried out (e.g., how subjects were chosen or excluded, ethical considerations, accurate details of materials used, exact drug dosage and form of treatment, etc.) and data were analyzed (e.g., an estimate of the power of the study, exact test used for statistical analysis, etc.). For standard methods, appropriate references are sufficient, but if standard methods are modified these should be clearly brought out. Authors should provide complete details of any new methods or apparatus used (manufacturer's name and address in parentheses).

 

Ethics

When reporting experiments on human subjects, authors should 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 1964, as revised in 2000. They should indicate whether the study was approved by the Institutions' Ethical Committee, and whether informed consent was obtained from the study participants. They should not use patients' names, initials, or hospital numbers, especially in illustrative material. This journal reserves the right to reject a manuscript on ethical grounds, on the basis of recommendations of its "Ethical Committee", even if the research has been cleared by the institutional ethical committee. Moreover, when reporting experiments on animals, authors should indicate whether the institutional and national guide for the care and use of laboratory animals was followed.

 

Statistics

Authors should describe statistical methods with enough detail to enable a knowledgeable reader with access to the original data to verify the reported results. When possible, they meet to quantify findings and present them with appropriate indicators of measurement error or uncertainty (such as confidence intervals). Actual P values are provided rather than stating as just <0.05 or >0.05 etc. References for the design of the study and statistical methods should be to standard works when possible (with pages stated) rather than to papers in which the designs or methods were originally reported. Any general-use computer programs used should be specified and statistical terms, abbreviations, and most symbols be defined.

 

Results

This section should include only relevant, representative data and not all information collected during the study. Major findings should be presented clearly and concisely. Text, tables, and illustrations should be used sensibly while avoiding repeating in the text all the data depicted in the tables or illustrations and emphasizing or summarizing only important observations. Tables and figures should be restricted to those needed to explain the argument of the paper and to assess its support. It is necessary to cite the tables in the text and type them on separate sheets. It may also be useful to mention what the study did not find.

 

Discussion

Discussion ordinarily should not be more than one third of the total length of the manuscript. This section should include a summary of the major findings, their relationship to other similar studies, limitations of methods and implications of these findings in future research. Conclusions should be linked to the goals of the study. Unqualified statements and conclusions which are not completely supported by the data should be avoided. Authors should also refrain from making statements on economic benefits and costs unless their manuscript includes economic data and analyses.

 

Acknowledgements

In acknowledgements section, it is suitable to list all contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship, such as a person who provided purely technical help, writing assistance, or a department head who provided only general support. Financial and material support should also be acknowledged. 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 advisers", "critically reviewed the study proposal", "collected data", or "provided and cared for study patients". A written consent is required from all the persons acknowledged, indicating their acceptance for the same.

 

Contributions to joint-authorship

In the case of multiple authorships, authors are expected to state clearly their contributions to the paper being considered for publication in terms of study initiation, design including methodology, data collection, analysis and final write-up. The editorial board reserves the right to remove any author's name if the contribution is insignificant.

 

References

References should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text. References are identified in text, tables, and legends by Arabic numerals in parentheses. References cited only in tables or in legends to figures 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. Authors are required not to use abstracts, unpublished observations and personal communications as references. References to papers accepted but not yet published should be designated as "in press"; authors should obtain written permission to cite such papers as well as verification that they have been accepted for publication.

 

The references must be verified by the author against the original documents. The Uniform Requirements style (the Vancouver style) is based largely on an American National Standards Institute (ANSI) standard style adapted by the NLM for its databases.