Review Process

Author Guidelines

Please ensure that you consider the following guidelines when preparing your manuscript. Failure to do so may delay the processing of your submission.

Article types

  • Research articles must describe the outcomes and application of unpublished original research. These should make a substantial contribution to knowledge and understanding in the subject matter and should be supported by relevant figures and tabulated data. Research articles should be no more than 7,000 words in length.
  • Case report Case reports may provide a brief description of up to four cases of a particular condition that is unusual and also provides new insights into diagnosis or clinical management. HMS especially welcomes following types of case reports: Unusual clinical disorder/disease presentation; Unusual associations between clinical disorders and signs & symptoms; Unexpected findings during treatment; Unexpected or rare adverse drug effects or interactions; Studies on novel procedure/diagnostic techniques; Rare diseases presentations and management; New infections or disease outbreak in local community; Clinically significant images. Case Reports should be a maximum of 1,500 words with no more than four tables or figures and 15 references.
  • Case series may be retrospective or prospective and may report an unlimited number of patients. Case Series should be a maximum of 2,000 words with no more than four tables or figures and 15 references.
  • Short communications provide a brief but complete account of work, which presents either new data or existing data to support the conclusions of the author They should in be no more that 1,500 words in length, with a maximum of 2 tables, 1 figure and 15 references.
  • Review Including systematic reviews, literature reviews, scoping reviews and narrative reviews which provide a thorough analysis of the literature on a broad topic. This article type should be 2,500-7,000 words.
  • Commentary can address hot topics which would be of interest to the translational medicine community. Commentaries can discuss scientific advances, healthcare policy issues, industry updates or other similar areas. Commentary should be written in easy to understand format and with a maximum length of 6 pages but no more than 3,000 words. There is no reference limit.
  • News and Views contain updates and newsworthy discussion pieces relevant to the journal's scope. All enquiries regarding the possible publication of News and Views should be sent to the Editor via the Editorial offices at chiefeditor.cibg@gmail.com
  • Conference/Meeting Abstract Proceedings publish the proceedings from international conferences or selected abstract presented at a meeting. All enquiries regarding the possible publication of Meeting Proceedings should be sent to the Editor via the Editorial offices at chiefeditor.cibg@gmail.com
  • Perspectives are usually submissions which which don’t fall under review review or commentary categories. Perspective submissions should not exceed 3,000 words, and references should be limited to 80.
  • Correspondence/Letter to the Editor Can briefly discuss research articles published anywhere or any other topic which would be of interest to the journal’s audience. This format can have a maximum of 2 pages but no more than 1,000 words with up to 15 references.

All word limits include referencing and citation.

Template

An article template is available to download here and an example of a published Case Report can be found here. This provides a summary of the main structural and formatting requirements for submitting to this journal (also detailed below)

Structure

Title page To ensure blind peer review, please only list the title and abstract on the submitted manuscript file.

The names of all authors, affiliations, contact details, biography (optional) and the corresponding author details must be completed online as part of the submission process.

Author names should include a forename and a surname. Forenames cannot include only initials.

  • J. Bloggs is not preferred. The full name, Joe Bloggs is required (this will enhance the 'findability' of your publication)

The affiliation should ideally include ‘Department, Institution, City, Country’, however only the Institution and Country are mandatory.

Abstract

Research articles must have the main text prefaced by an abstract of no more than 250 words summarising the main arguments and conclusions of the article. This must have the heading ‘Abstract’ and be easily identified from the start of the main text.

A list of up to six key words may be placed below the abstract (optional).

The Abstract and Keywords should also be added to the metadata when making the initial online submission.

Main text The body of the submission should be structured in a logical and easy to follow manner. A clear introduction section should be given that allows non-specialists in the subject an understanding of the publication and a background of the issue(s) involved. Methods, results, discussion and conclusion sections may then follow to clearly detail the information and research presented.

Up to three level headings may be present and must be clearly identifiable using different font sizes, bold or italics. We suggest using Headings 1, 2 and 3 in MS-Word’s ‘Style’ section.

Supplementary Files (optional) Any supplementary/additional files that should link to the main publication must be listed, with a corresponding number, title and option description. Ideally the supplementary files are also cited in the main text.

e.g. Supplementary file 1: Appendix. Scientific data related to the experiments.

Note: additional files will not be typeset so they must be provided in their final form. They will be assigned a DOI and linked to from the publication.

Reproducibility If data, structured methods or code used in the research project have been made openly available, a statement should be added to inform the reader how/where to access these files. This should include the repository location and the DOI linking to it. 

If data used in the research project has not been made available, a statement confirming this should be added, along with reasoning why.

The journal's data policy is available on the Editorial Policies page.

Ethics and consent (if applicable) Research involving human subjects, human material, or human data, must have been performed in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. Where applicable, studies must have been approved by an appropriate ethics committee and the authors should include a statement within the article text detailing this approval, including the name of the ethics committee and reference number of the approval. The identity of the research subject(s) should be anonymised whenever possible. For research involving human subjects, informed consent to participate in the study must be obtained from participants (or their legal guardian) and added to this statement. If a study involving human subjects/tissue/data was exempt from requiring ethical approval, a confirmation statement from the relevant body should be included within the submission.

Experiments using animals must follow national standards of care. For further information, click here.

Acknowledgements (optional) Any acknowledgements must be headed and in a separate paragraph, placed after the main text but before the reference list.

Funding Information (if applicable) Should the research have received a funding grant then the grant provider and grant number should be detailed.

Competing interests If any of the authors have any competing interests then these must be declared. A short paragraph should be placed before the references. If there are no competing interests to declare then the following statement should be present: The author(s) has/have no competing interests to declare.

Authors' contributions A sentence or a short paragraph detailing the roles that each author held to contribute to the authorship of the submission. Individuals listed must fit within the definition of an author, as per our authorship guidelines.

References All references cited within the submission must be listed at the end of the main text file.

Language & Text

Capitalisation For the submission title:

Capitalise all nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs and subordinate conjunctions (i.e. as, because, although). Use lowercase for all articles, coordinate conjunctions and prepositions.

  • Slip-Sliding on a Yellow Brick Road: Stabilization Efforts in Afghanistan

Headings within the main text:

First level headings in the text should follow the same rule as the main title.

For lower-level subheadings, only capitalise first letter and proper nouns.

Headings should be under 75 characters.

Spelling Submissions must be made in English. Authors are welcome to use American or British spellings as long as they are used consistently throughout the whole of the submission.

  • Colour (UK) vs. Color (US)

When referring to proper nouns and normal institutional titles, the official, original spelling must be used.

  • World Health Organization, not World Health Organisation

Grammar American or English grammar rules may be used as long as they are used consistently and match the spelling format (see above). For instance, you may use a serial comma or not.

  • red, white, and blue OR red, white and blue

Font The font used should be commonly available and in an easily readable size. This may be changed during the typesetting process.

Underlined text should be avoided whenever possible.

Bold or italicised text to emphasise a point are permitted, although should be restricted to minimal occurrences to maximise their efficiency.

Lists Use bullet points to denote a list without hierarchy or order of value. If the list indicates a specific sequence then a numbered list must be used.

Lists should be used sparingly to maximise their impact.

Quotation marks Use single quotation marks except for quotes within another speech, in which case double quotation marks are used.

Quotations that are longer than three lines in length must be in an indented paragraph separate from the main text.

The standard, non-italicised font must be used for all quotes.

It must be clear from the text and/or citation where the quote is sourced. If quoting from material that is under copyright then permission will need to be obtained from the copyright holder.

Acronyms & Abbreviations With abbreviations, the crucial goal is to ensure that the reader – particularly one who may not be fully familiar with the topic or context being addressed – is able to follow along. Spell out almost all acronyms on first use, indicating the acronym in parentheses immediately thereafter. Use the acronym for all subsequent references.

  • Research completed by the World Health Organization (WHO) shows …

A number of abbreviations are so common that they do not require the full text on the first instance. Examples of these can be found here.

Abbreviations should usually be in capital letters without full stops.

  • USA, not U.S.A

Common examples from Latin origin do not follow this rule and should be lower case and can include full stops.

  • e.g., i.e., etc.

Use of footnotes/endnotes Use endnotes rather than footnotes (we refer to these as ‘Notes’ in the online publication). These will appear at the end of the main text, before ‘References’.

All notes should be used only where crucial clarifying information needs to be conveyed.

Avoid using notes for purposes of referencing, with in-text citations used instead. If in-text citations cannot be used, a source can be cited as part of a note.

Please insert the endnote marker after the end punctuation.

Data & Symbols

Symbols Symbols are permitted within the main text and datasets as long as they are commonly in use or have explanatory definition on their first usage.

Hyphenation, em and en dashes There is no set rule on the use of hyphenation between words, as long as they are consistently used.

Em dashes should be used sparingly. If they are present, they should denote emphasis, change of thought or interruption to the main sentence and can replace commas, parentheses, colons or semicolons.

  • The president’s niece—daughter of his younger brother—caused a media scandal when…

En dashes can be used to replace ‘to’ when indicating a range. No space should surround the dash.

  • 10-25 years
  • pp. 10-65

Numbers For numbers zero to nine please spell the whole words. Please use figures for numbers 10 or higher.

We are happy for authors to use either words or figures to represent large whole figures (i.e. one million or 1,000,000) as long as the usage is consistent throughout the text.

If the sentence includes a series of numbers then figures must be used in each instance.

  • Artefacts were found at depths of 5, 9, and 29 cm.

If the number appears as part of a dataset, in conjunction with a symbol or as part of a table then the figure must be used.

  • This study confirmed that 5% of…

If a sentence starts with a number it must be spelt, or the sentence should be re-written so that it no longer starts with the number.

  • Fifteen examples were found to exist…
  • The result showed that 15 examples existed…

Do not use a comma for a decimal place.

  • 2.43 NOT 2,43

Numbers that are less than zero must have ‘0’ precede the decimal point.

  • 0.24 NOT .24

Units of measurement Symbols following a figure to denote a unit of measurement must be taken from the latest SI brochure. See http://www.bipm.org/utils/common/pdf/si_brochure_8_en.pdf for the full brochure.

Formula Formulae must be proofed carefully by the author. Editors will not edit formulae. If special software has been used to create formulae, the way it is laid out is the way they will appear in the publication.

Figures & Tables

Figures Figures, including graphs and diagrams, must be professionally and clearly presented. If a figure is not easy to understand or does not appear to be of a suitable quality, the editor may ask to re-render or omit it.

All figures must be cited within the main text, in consecutive order using Arabic numerals (e.g. Figure 1, Figure 2, etc.).

Each figure must have an accompanying descriptive main title. This should clearly and concisely summarise the content and/or use of the figure image. A short additional figure legend is optional to offer a further description.

  • Figure 1: 1685 map of London.
  • Figure 1: 1685 map of London. Note the addition of St Paul’s Cathedral, absent from earlier maps.

Figure titles and legends should be placed within the text document, either after the paragraph of their first citation, or as a list after the references.

The source of the image should be included, along with any relevant copyright information and a statement of authorisation (if needed).

  • Figure 1: Firemen try to free workers buried under piles of concrete and metal girders. Photo: Claude-Michel Masson. Reproduced with permission of the photographer.

If your figure file includes text then please present the font as Ariel, Helvetica, or Verdana. This will mean that it matches the typeset text.

NOTE: All figures must be uploaded separately as supplementary files during the submission process, if possible in colour and at a resolution of at least 300dpi. Each file should not be more than 20MB. Standard formats accepted are: JPG, TIFF, GIF, PNG, EPS. For line drawings, please provide the original vector file (e.g. .ai, or .eps). Tables Tables must be created using a word processor's table function, not tabbed text.

Tables should be included in the manuscript. The final layout will place the tables as close to their first citation as possible.

All tables must be cited within the main text, numbered with Arabic numerals in consecutive order (e.g. Table 1, Table 2, etc.).

Each table must have an accompanying descriptive title. This should clearly and concisely summarise the content and/or use of the table. A short additional table legend is optional to offer a further description of the table. The table title and legend should be placed underneath the table.

Tables should not include:

  • Rotated text
  • Colour to denote meaning (it will not display the same on all devices)
  • Images
  • Vertical or diagonal lines
  • Multiple parts (e.g. ‘Table 1a’ and ‘Table 1b’). These should either be merged into one table, or separated into ‘Table 1’ and ‘Table 2’.

NOTE: If there are more columns than can fit on a single page, then the table will be placed horizontally on the page. If it still can't fit horizontally on a page, the table will be broken into two.

References

In-text citations Every use of information from other sources must be cited in the text so that it is clear that external material has been used.

If the author is already mentioned in the main text then the year should follow the name within parenthesis.

  • Both Jones (2013) and Brown (2010) showed that …

If the author name is not mentioned in the main text then the surname and year should be inserted, in parenthesis, after the relevant text. Multiple citations should be separated by semi-colon and follow alphabetical order.

  • The statistics clearly show this to be untrue (Brown 2010; Jones 2013).

If three or fewer authors are cited from the same citation then all should be listed. If four or more authors are part of the citation then ‘et al.’ should follow the first author name.

  • (Jones, Smith & Brown 2008)
  • (Jones et al. 2008)

If citations are used from the same author and the same year, then a lowercase letter, starting from ‘a’, should be placed after the year.

  • (Jones 2013a; Jones 2013b)

If specific pages are being cited then the page number should follow the year, after a colon.

  • (Brown 2004: 65; Jones 2013: 143)

For publications authored and published by organisations, use the short form of the organisation’s name or its acronym in lieu of the full name.

  • (ICRC 2000) NOT (International Committee of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies 2000)

Please do not include URLs in parenthetical citations, but rather cite the author or page title and include all details, including the URL, in the reference list.

Reference list All citations must be listed at the end of the text file, in alphabetical order of authors’ surnames.

All reading materials should be included in ‘References’ – works which have not been cited within the main text, but which the author wishes to share with the reader, must be cited as additional information in endnotes explaining the relevance of the work. This will ensure that all works within the reference list are cited within the text.

NOTE: If multiple works by the same author are being listed, please re-type the author’s name out for each entry, rather than using a long dash.

NOTE: DOIs should be included for all reference entries, where possible.

Reference format This journal uses the Harvard system – see below for examples of how to format:

  • Books:

Author, A A Year Title. Place of publication: Publisher. Adam, D J 1984 Stakeholder analysis. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Silverman, D F and Propp, K K (eds.) 1990 The active interview. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Achebe, C 1995 Colonialist Criticism. In: Ashcroft, B et al The Post Colonial Studies Reader. London: Routledge. pp. 57–61.

NOTE: If multiple works by the same author are being listed, please re-type the author’s name out for each entry, rather than using a long dash.

  • Journal articles:

Author, A Year Title. Journal name, vol(issue): page. DOI Martin, L 2010 Bombs, bodies and biopolitics: Securitizing the subject at airport security. Social and Cultural Geography, 11(1): 17-34. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14649360903414585

NOTE: Please include DOIs for all journal articles where possible.

  • Conference papers:

Author, A Year Title of chaper. In: Title of conference proceedings, location, date, pp. page. Lynch, M 2003 Dialogue in an age of terror. In: The Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Philadelphia, PA on 18 August 2003, pp. 4-7.

  • Organisational publications/Grey literature:

Author group Year Title. Place of publication: Publisher World Health Organization 2010 The world health report – Health systems financing: the path to universal coverage. Geneva, Switzerland: WHO.

  • Theses and dissertations:

Author, A Year Title. Unpublished thesis (PhD), institution. Yudis, A 2004 Failed responsibility of the media in the war on Iraq. Unpublished thesis (PhD), University of Manchester.

  • Webpages / PDFs:

Author, A Year Title, date of publication. Available at URL [Last accessed date month year].  Pascual, Amb. C  2005 Stabilization and Reconstruction: Building peace in a hostile environment. Prepared statement to Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, 16 June 2005. Available at http://2001-2009.state.gov/s/crs/rls/rm/48644.htm [Last accessed 14 August 2012].

  • Newspaper articles [print]:

Author, A Year Title. Newspaper, date of publication, page. Tate, P 2007 Illicit organ trade increasing. The Jordan Times, 6 June, p. 3.

  • Newspaper articles [online]:

Author, A Year Title. Newspaper, date of publication, [URL and last accessed date]. Patel, S S 2005 Climate; In a Marsh, Sifting the Past And Seeing the Future. The New York Times, 6 November [online access at http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9800EEDF173EF935A35752C1A9639C8B63 last accessed 28 April 2014].

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.

  1. 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).
  2. Any third-party-owned materials used have been identified with appropriate credit lines, and permission obtained from the copyright holder for all formats of the journal.
  3. All authors qualify as authors, as per the authorship guidelines, and have given permission to be listed on the submitted paper.
  4. The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines. Every effort has been made to ensure that author names are removed from the manuscript (following the instructions to ensure blind peer review).
  5. Tables are all cited in the main text and are included within the text document.
  6. Figures are all cited in the main text and are uploaded as supplementary files. Figures/images have a resolution of at least 150dpi (300dpi or above preferred). The files are in one of the following formats: JPG, TIFF, GIF, PNG, EPS (to maximise quality, the original source file is preferred).
  7. All patients included within case reports or other article types in which an individual or a group of individuals can be identified have signed consent forms, or had had their guardian do so, giving permission to publish the submitted content under a CC-BY licence.
  8. Research has been approved by an appropriate ethics committee, with the name of the committee and reference number of approval included within the submitted file.

Copyright Notice

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

  1. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
  2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
  3. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).

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.

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.

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.