CURATIO – Submission Guidelines

Author Guidelines

Curatio journal‘s mission is to stimulate, encourage and empower medical students, doctors, researchers, and other health professionals to publish high-quality research in order to promote evidence-based medicine and improve health care. The Curatio journal is an open access, peer-reviewed journal.

Ethical Responsibilities

All authors must read the Ethical Responsibilities of the journal before submitting their articles.

Conflict of interests

The Curatio Journal requires that all authors declare any relevant financial and non-financial conflicts of interest and the journal publishes those that might influence a reader’s perception of the paper alongside the paper. The Curatio Journal requires that all funding sources of the research are declared and published and the role of the funding source in the conception, conduct, analysis, and reporting of the research is stated and published.

TYPES OF ARTICLES

The Curatio journal publishes a wide variety of articles that have relevance to medicine and allied health sciences.

Original articles

Original articles report the results of original research, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses. Observational studies (cohort, case-control, or cross-sectional designs) must be reported according to the STROBE statement. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses must be reported according to PRISMA guidelines. Reports of randomised trials must conform to CONSORT 2010 guidelines. Diagnostic accuracy studies must report according to the STARD guidelines. The guidelines on reporting sex and gender information (SAGER) should also be considered. Original articles should have less than 2500 words, 5 tables/illustrations, and should include a structured abstract of fewer than 250 words.

Brief reports

This category includes preliminary reports, novel patient management methods, and reports of new techniques and devices. They should be limited to 1000 words, 3 tables/illustrations, and 10 references, and should include an unstructured abstract of fewer than 100 words.

Case reports

Acceptance of case reports is based strictly on originality and whether there is an important new lesson to be learnt or a new message from the report. It should not contain more than 750 words, one table/illustration, and 5 references. Authorship should be limited to five. Case reports may be accepted as contributions to the picture-story series (not more than 300 words of text, 3 references, and 2-3 clear black and white or colour photographs). Case reports must be prepared according to the Consensus-based Clinical Case Reporting (CARE) guidelines.

Perspectives

Curatio journal also welcomes essays expressing opinions, presenting hypotheses, broaching controversial issues, clarifying recent advances in the basic sciences, and essays on medical education, history of medicine, health politics, and patients’ rights. Interesting experiences and reflections of students are also welcomed in this section. They should not have more than 750 words and 10 references.

ETHICAL RESPONSIBILITIES

Criteria for authorship

Only persons who contributed to the intellectual content of the paper should be listed as authors. According to the ICMJE recommendations authorship should be based on the following 4 criteria:

• Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
• Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
• Final approval of the version to be published; AND
• Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

In addition to being accountable for the parts of the work he or she has done, an author should be able to identify which co-authors are responsible for specific other parts of the work. In addition, authors should have confidence in the integrity of the contributions of their co-authors.

All those designated as authors should meet all four criteria for authorship, and all who meet the four criteria should be identified as authors. Contributors who meet fewer than all 4 of the above criteria for authorship should not be listed as authors, but they should be acknowledged.

Only persons who contributed to the intellectual content of the paper should be listed as authors. The contribution of each author should be indicated on the title page. All persons who have contributed to the work (http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html) should be acknowledged.

Conflict of interests

Please download and complete a copy of the disclosure form. The form should be signed by all authors. The corresponding author must insert within the submitted manuscript a summary statement under the heading “Conflicts of Interest” which describes authors’ conflicts of interest, sources of support for the work including sponsor names, and whether the authors had access to the study data. Authors of a study sponsored by a funder with a proprietary or financial interest in the outcome should include a statement, such as “I had full access to all of the data in this study and I take complete responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis.”

Funding

All sources of funding should be declared in the cover letter under the heading “Funding”. Authors must describe the role of the study sponsor(s), if any, in the study design; in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of the data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the paper for publication. If the funder(s) had no such involvement, this should be stated.

Previous publication

In the cover letter give full details on any possible previous publication of any content of the paper. (e.g.)

1. Reworked data already reported.
2. Patients in a study already described and published.
3. Content already published or to be published in another format.

Previous publication of some content of a paper does not necessarily preclude it being published in the Curatio journal, but the editors need this information when deciding how to make efficient use of space in the journal, and regard failure of full disclosure by authors of the possible prior publication as a breach of scientific ethics.

Ethics Approval

Authors should adhere to relevant national and international laws and best practice guidelines in conducting research. Medical research in humans should be conducted according to the Declaration of Helsinki. The Curatio Journal requires approval of all studies involving human participants, human material or human data by an ethics committee (or institutional review board). For studies involving human participants, a statement detailing ethics approval and consent should be included in the methods section. Every research article should include a statement that the study obtained ethics approval (or a statement that it was not required and why), including the name of the ethics committee(s) or institutional review board(s), the number/ID of the approval(s), and a statement that participants gave informed consent before taking part. Proof of approval from an ethics committee must be provided on the submission of the manuscript. All clinical trials should be registered in an internationally recognized Clinical Trials Registry and authors should submit the Trial Registration Number along with the manuscript. For case reports, small case series and images of humans signed consent for publication by the patient is required.

If a study has been granted an exemption from requiring ethics approval, this should also be detailed in the manuscript (including the name of the ethics committee that granted the exemption).

Research involving animals and plants should have been conducted in accordance with the accepted institutional, national and international guidelines. Ethics approval should have been obtained from an appropriate Ethics Review Committee, where relevant.
Manuscripts that contain personal details, images and videos related to an individual should be submitted after obtaining informed written consent for publication from the individual concerned (or parent/legal guardian/next of kin). The manuscript must state that such consent was obtained.

Studies involving hazardous chemicals and microorganisms are expected to have carried out in compliance with the institutional biosafety and biosecurity protocols. The manuscript must state that such protocols were adhered to.

Scientific misconduct

The journal will deal with scientific misconduct on a case by case basis.
The following are some forms of scientific misconduct:

• Falsification of data
• Plagiarism
• Improper authorship
• Use of ideas of others without attribution
• Failure to comply with legislative and regulatory requirements

Patient’s consent for images

For case reports, signed consent by the patients must be submitted with the manuscript if the patient’s identity is recognizable. If the person described in the case report has died, then consent for publication must be sought from their next of kin. If the individual described in the case report is a minor, or unable to provide consent, then consent must be sought from their parents or legal guardians.  If consent cannot be obtained because the patient cannot be traced then publication will be possible only if the information can be sufficiently anonymised. Anonymisation means that neither the patient nor anyone else could identify the patient with certainty.

SUBMITTING MANUSCRIPT

Cover letter

Manuscripts should be submitted with a letter stating

1. that the contents have not been published elsewhere;
2. that the paper is not being submitted elsewhere (or provide information on previous publication);
3. the contributorship, competing interests, data sharing, and ethical approval

The letter should acknowledge any potential conflict of interest (see Ethical Responsibilities above) and call the editors’ attention to any possible overlap with prior publications. Include the name, full mailing address, telephone number, and email address of the corresponding author.

Editorial correspondence

Address all editorial correspondence to (editorfms.usj@gmail.com).

PREPARATION OF MANUSCRIPT

The Curatio Journal will consider all manuscripts prepared in accordance with the uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals developed by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. A summary is given below.

Manuscript typing

All parts of the manuscript, including tables and figure legends, must be typed with double spacing. The computer language must be set to English (UK).
References must also be double spaced. Manuscripts should be typed in sentence case (capital and lower case letters), on white paper of A4 size (212x 297 mm) and the font should be in 12 point Times New Roman.
Arrange components in the following order: title page, abstract, text, references, tables in numerical sequence, and figures in numerical sequence. Begin each component on a separate page.
Number all pages consecutively, starting with the title page.

Style

The British Medical Journal, Lancet, and Annals of Internal Medicine are recommended to authors as guides to style, clarity of presentation, and conciseness.

Name of drugs and instruments

Generic (nonproprietary) names should be used for all drugs. When proprietary brands are used in research, include the brand (proprietary or trade) name and the name of the manufacturer in parentheses after the first mention of the generic name in the ‘methods’ section. Thereafter the generic name should be used.
Instruments may be referred to by proprietary name, giving the name and location of the manufacturer in the text in parentheses.

Abbreviations and symbols

The use of nonstandard abbreviations can be confusing to readers. Avoid abbreviations in the title of the manuscript. The spelled-out abbreviation followed by the abbreviation in parenthesis should be used on the first mention unless the abbreviation is a standard unit of measurement.

Units of Measurement

Measurements of length, height, weight, and volume should be reported in metric units (meter, kilogram, or litre) or their decimal multiples. Temperatures should be in degrees Celsius. Blood pressures should be in millimeters of mercury.

Headings in text

Use only two levels of headings in the text. Clearly indicate the levels of headings by using different typographic conventions. Keep headings short.

Title page

The title page should contain the following:

1. The main title, running title (less than 50 characters), and a maximum of 5 index words (or phrases).
2. Authors listed in the order in which they are to appear in the published article. List authors’ names as surname and maximum of 2 initials.
3. Institutional affiliation for each author and email address. The institutions listed should reflect the affiliations of the authors at the time of the study, not their present affiliations if they differ.
4. Name, address, e-mail, and telephone number of the author responsible for correspondence.
5. Source(s) of support. These include grants, equipment, drugs, and/or other support that facilitated the conduct of the work described in the article or the writing of the article itself.
6. Include a conflict-of-interest statement that describes authors’ conflicts of interest, sources of support for the work including sponsor names, and whether the authors had access to the study data. This statement should be signed by all authors.
7. The number of words in the manuscript, exclusive of the abstract, acknowledgments, references, tables, figures, and figure legends.

Abstract

The abstract should provide the context or background for the study and should state the study’s purpose, basic procedures (selection of study participants, settings, measurements, analytical methods), main findings (giving specific effect sizes and their statistical and clinical significance, if possible), and principal conclusions. Clinical trial abstracts should include items that the CONSORT group has identified as essential. Clinical trials should give the clinical trial registration number at the end of the abstract. Authors are recommended to consult the SAGER guidelines for the reporting of sex and gender information.
The abstract should include the sub-headings: Introduction, Objectives, Methods, Results, and Conclusions. The number of words should be less than 250 words. Brief Reports should have an unstructured abstract limited to 150 words.

Main text

The text should contain the following categories; Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgements, Conflicts of Interests, References, Tables, and Figures.

Under the subheading “Conflicts of Interests “, all authors must disclose any financial and personal relationships with other people or organisations that could inappropriately influence (bias) their work. If there are no conflicts of interest, authors should state that “There are no conflicts of interest”.

Introduction: State the purpose of the article and summarise the rationale for the study or observation.

Methods: This section should include only information that was available at the time the plan or protocol for the study was written; all information obtained during the conduct of the study belongs in the Results section. An overview of your methodology should be given concisely according to the approximate areas depicted below.
Selection and Description of Participants: Describe your selection of the observational or experimental participants clearly, including eligibility and exclusion criteria and a description of the source population.
Since the relevance of variables such as age and sex to the object of research is not always clear, authors should explain their use when they are included in a study report; for example, authors should explain why only subjects of certain ages were included or why women were excluded. The guiding principle should be clarity about how and why a study was done in a particular way.

Results: Present your results in logical sequence in the text and tables, 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.

Discussion: Include Summary of key findings (primary outcomes, secondary outcomes, results as they relate to a prior hypothesis); Strengths and limitations of the study (study question, study design, data collection, analysis, and interpretation); Controversies raised by this study; and future research directions. Do not repeat in detail data or other material given in the Introduction or the Results section.

References

Number references in the order in which they are first cited in the text. Use Arabic numerals within parentheses e.g. [2]. Use the PubMed abbreviation of the journal-title (or a similar abbreviation if the journal is not indexed in PubMed), NOT the COMPLETE name of the journal. Include the year, volume, and first and last page numbers.
References to articles or books accepted for publication but not yet published must include the title of the journal (or name of the publisher) and the year of expected publication.
Unpublished work (personal communication) may be cited by inserting a reference within parentheses in the text.
Sample references below are in the style required by the journal.

Journal articles

Jayatissa R, Gunathilaka MM, Fernando DN. Iodine nutrition status among school children after salt iodisation. Ceylon Med J 2005; 50: 144-6.
List all authors when six or fewer; when more than six, list only the first 3 and add et al.
Eg: Lagerqvist B, Fröbert O, Olivecrona GK, et al. Outcomes 1 year after thrombus aspiration for myocardial infarction N Engl J Med2014; 371:1111-20

Books

List all authors when 6 or fewer; when more than 6 list only the first 3 and add et al.

1. Author.
   Eisen HN. Immunology: An Introduction to Molecular and Cellular Principles of the Immune Response. 5th ed. New York: Harper and Row, 1974.
2. Editors.
   Dausset J. Colombani J, eds. Histocompatibility Testing 1972. Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1973.
3. Chapter in a book.
   Hellstrom I, Helstrom KE. Lymphocyte-mediated cytotoxic reactions and blocking serum factors in tumor-bearing individuals. In: Brent L, Holbrow J, eds. Progress in Immunology II. v. 5. New York: American Elsevier, 1974: 147–57.

Websites

Preminger GM, Tiselius HG, Assimos DG, et al. Guideline for the management of ureteral calculi. American Urological Association, 2007. http://www.auanet.org/education/guidelines/ureteralcalculi (accessed on Feb 20, 2013)

Other citations in Reference List

In press (must-have journal-title).

1. Sara JD, Holmes DR Jr, Jaffe AS Fundamental Concepts of Effective Troponin Use- Important Principles For Internists. Am J Med. 2014. In press.
2. Magazine article. Roueche B. Annals of Medicine: the Santa Claus culture. The New Yorker 1971. Sep 4: 66–81.

In-text citations of unpublished material (to be placed within parentheses):

1. Personal communication. (Strott CA, Nugent CA. Personal communication).

Tables

All tables must be typed double-spaced. Tables should be numbered with Arabic numerals, in the order in which they are cited in the text. A table title should describe concisely the content of the table.

Figures and illustrations

Figures or illustrations should be professionally drawn or prepared digitally. A high resolution (300dpi) digital copy of the figure or illustration should be submitted. Lettering should be uniform in style. Freehand or typewritten lettering is not acceptable. Number the figures in the order in which they are cited in the text. Colour figures may be submitted if essential.

Legends for figures

Reduce the length of legends by using partial sentences. Explain all abbreviations and symbols on the figure, even if they are explained in the text. Stain and magnification should be given at the end of the legend for each part of the figure.

Acknowledgements

Acknowledge only persons who have contributed to the scientific content and provided financial or technical support. Authors must submit written permission from persons acknowledged for other than financial or technical support.

PRE-SUBMISSION CHECKLIST

To reduce the chance of your manuscript being returned to you, please check:

Author information: Have you provided details of all of your co-authors?

Manuscript length and formatting: Is text double-spaced? Does it use a 12-point Times New Roman font; employs italics, rather than underlining (except with URL addresses)? Have you checked that your manuscript doesn’t exceed the requirements for word count, number of tables and/or figures, and number of references? Have you provided your abstract in the correct format? Have you supplied any required additional information for your article type?

Tables: Have they been cited in the text? Have you provided appropriate table legends?

Figures: Have you uploaded any figures separately from the text? Have they been supplied in an acceptable format and are they of sufficient quality? Have the files been labeled appropriately? Have the figures been cited in the text? Have you provided appropriate figure legends?

References: Have all of the references been cited in the text? Is it in the correct style requested by the journal?

Statements: Have you included the necessary statements relating to contributorship, conflicts of interests, data sharing, clinical trial registration, and ethical approval? 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).

Permissions: Have you obtained from the copyright holder to re-use any previously published material? Has the source been acknowledged?

Revised manuscripts: Have you supplied both a marked copy and a clean copy of your manuscript? Have you provided a point-by-point response to the reviewers’ and editor’s comments?

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. The submission file is in Microsoft Word file format.
3. Where available, URLs for the references have been provided.
4. The text is double-spaced; uses a 12-point font; employs italics, rather than underlining (except with URL addresses); and all illustrations, figures, and tables are placed within the text at the appropriate points, rather than at the end.
5. The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the author guidelines.

Copyright Notice

The Journal is published under the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0. Authors of articles retain the copyright of their articles. They are free to reproduce and disseminate their work. The source Curatio Journal) should be cited when articles published in this journal are reproduced or stored in a repository.

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.

Publication Fees

None