Guide for authors*

• A manuscript submitted to the journal must 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.
• On submission, editors review all submitted manuscripts initially for suitability for formal review.
• Manuscripts with insufficient originality, serious scientific or technical flaws, or lack of a significant message are rejected before proceeding for formal peer-review.
• Manuscripts that are unlikely to be of interest to the Journal are also liable to be rejected at this stage itself.
• Manuscripts that are found suitable for publication 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 editors.
• The journal follows a double-blind review process, wherein the reviewers and authors are unaware of each other’s identity.
• Every manuscript is also assigned to a member of the editorial team (section editor), 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 7 days. It may not be possible to incorporate corrections received after that period. 

Conflicts of Interest

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.

Submission of Manuscripts

• Manuscripts should be submitted as hard copies
• 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.

[1] Title Page/First Page File/covering letter: includes

• The type of manuscript (original article, short study, case report, review article, New perspective, Education Forum, Post-graduate section, Letter to editor etc.)
• title of the manuscript
• 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
• 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.
• Conflicts of Interest of each author/ contributor. A statement of financial or other relationships that might lead to a conflict of interest.
• Source(s) of support in the form of grants, equipment, drugs, or all of these;
• Acknowledgement, if any. One or more statements should specify 1) contributions that need acknowledging
• 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

[2] 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.
• Do not incorporate images in the file.
• The pages should be numbered consecutively, on the upper right corner, beginning with the first page of the blinded article file.

[3] Images:

• Submit good-quality images.
• Legends for the figures/images should be included.

 Original articles:

• 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.
• Abstract: Structured (Background, aim, methods, results, conclusion), maximum 250 words
• 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). For prospective studies involving human participants, authors are expected to mention about approval of ethical committee (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 institution’s or a national research council’s guide for, or any national law on the care and use of laboratory animals was followed and approval of the ethical committee was taken.
• Animal experimental procedures should be as humane as possible and the details of anesthetics and analgesics used should be clearly stated.
• 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.

Study design:

• 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.
• 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; 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, and assignment of interventions (methods of randomization, concealment of allocation to treatment groups).

Statistics:

Whenever possible quantify findings and present them with appropriate indicators of measurement error or uncertainty (such as confidence intervals). Authors should 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 (up to two decimal points) and not less than 0.05 (unless it is less than 0.001). Mean differences in continuous variables, proportions in categorical variables and relative risks including odds ratios and hazard ratios should be accompanied by their confidence intervals.

Results:

• 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.
• 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.

New Perspectives:
Newly detected diagnostic method, new drug or indication, any new finding or anything still under research that is going to beavailable very shortly can be discussed here. Word count should be maximum 800, six references, two tables/figures and four authors.

Volume with supplement: Shen HM, Zhang QF. Risk assessment of nickel carcinogenicity and occupational lung cancer. Environ Health Perspect 1994; 102 Suppl 1:275-82. 

1. Issue with supplement: Payne DK, Sullivan MD, Massie MJ. Women's psychological reactions to breast cancer. Semin Oncol 1996; 23(1, Suppl 2):89-97. 

Books and Other Monographs

1. Personal author(s): Ringsven MK, Bond D. Gerontology and leadership skills for nurses. 2nd ed. Albany (NY): Delmar Publishers; 1996. 
2. Editor(s), compiler(s) as author: Norman IJ, Redfern SJ, editors. Mental health care for elderly people. New York: Churchill Livingstone; 1996. 
3. 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. 

Electronic Sources as reference

• Journal article on the Internet

• Abood S. Quality improvement initiative in nursing homes: the ANA acts in an advisory role. Am J Nurs [serial on the Internet]. 2002 Jun [cited 2002 Aug 12];102(6):[about 3 p.]. Available from: http://www.nursingworld.org/AJN/2002/june/Wawatch.htm

• Monograph on the Internet

• Foley KM, Gelband H, editors. Improving palliative care for cancer [monograph on the Internet]. Washington: National Academy Press; 2001 [cited 2002 Jul 9]. Available from: http://www.nap.edu/books/0309074029/html/.

• Homepage/Web site

• Cancer-Pain.org [homepage on the Internet]. New York: Association of Cancer Online Resources, Inc.; c2000-01 [updated 2002 May 16; cited 2002 Jul 9]. Available from: http://www.cancer-pain.org/.

• Part of a homepage/Web site

• American Medical Association [homepage on the Internet]. Chicago: The Association; c1995-2002 [updated 2001 Aug 23; cited 2002 Aug 12]. AMA Office of Group Practice Liaison; [about 2 screens]. Available from: http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/1736.html

Tables 

• 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.
• Use only horizontal rules for the tables; to separate the column headings. No vertical rules should be used in the tables. Make sure that all columns and rows are aligned.
• 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.

Illustrations (Figures) 

• 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.
• 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 should be written in the legends for illustrations, and 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.
• Send digital X-rays, digital images of histopathology slides, where feasible.
• The photographs and figures should be trimmed to remove all the unwanted areas.
• If photographs of individuals are used, 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.
• 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 written informed consent for publication. Authors should remove patients' names from figures unless they have obtained written informed consent from the patients. When informed consent has been obtained, it should be indicated in the article and copy of the consent should be attached with the covering letter. 

Sending a revised manuscript 

Authors are expected to mark the changes as underlined or colored text in the article 

Reprints and proofs