Instructions for Authors
In order to benefit from rapid and efficient publication of your manuscript, please follow these instructions carefully. Manuscripts that are not prepared in accordance with these instructions shall not be reviewed.
Instructions for authors
Manuscripts must be original, not previously published or under consideration for publication elsewhere. Manuscripts will be checked for plagiarism, duplicate publication and text recycling.
Manuscripts will be internally reviewed and, if considered for publication, will be assigned to at least two peer-reviewers with experience on the specific topic of the manuscript. Authors can recommend two peer-reviewers for their manuscript. Upon recommending reviewers, do provide complete affiliations, and information about the specific experience that recommends the reviewer for your particular manuscript.
All manuscripts should respect the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE, available at http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/manuscript-preparation/preparing-for-submission.html). JCCP adheres to the Committee on Publication Ethic (COPE) Code of conduct for editors (available at http://publicationethics.org/resources/code-conduct).
This Journal is Open Access. All content of the Journal is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution, under the Creative Commons License Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND).The entire license can be found at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode.
All submitted articles are checked for plagiarism using iThenticate (R) (www.ithenticate.com). However, the responsibility for the content belongs to the authors.
Preparation of the manuscript.
The manuscript should include the following sections:
Begin each section or component on a new page. Use continuous line numbering throughout the manuscript, to facilitate the review process (MS Word: Page Layout – Line Numbers – Continuous).
The manuscript will make up the "Main document” for submission and it will include all items mentioned in the checklist above. Figures should also be uploaded separately (see detailed information below). As supplementary files, include signed permission to reproduce previously published material or to use illustrations that may identify human subjects, when applicable.
Clear English phrasing is mandatory. Articles can be returned for unclear use of language. Only use standard abbreviations. Abbreviations should be defined upon their first use in the paper – the full term should be spelled out first, followed by the abbreviated term in parentheses. Only SI units are accepted.
The title page should contain: full manuscript title, running head, article byline including full author names (written as First name Last name). Each author will be assigned a consecutive number in the byline and for each author the titles/degrees (e.g.: MD, PhD) and full affiliation(s) should be listed. The name and address of the corresponding author should be separately and clearly indicated with email and telephone details. It is the corresponding author that should upload and submit the manuscript on the online submission site.
Abstract and keywords: Include an abstract that does not exceed 250 words for all types of manuscripts except for Correspondence and Errata. For Original articles, the abstract should be structured as: Introduction, Methods, Results, Conclusions, and for Case reports: Introduction, Case report, Conclusions. For Reviews and Expert opinions, include a non-structured abstract. Keywords should be relevant and should be terms from the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) list of Index Medicus (available at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/meshhome.html). Keywords should not repeat the title.
Text: Authors should submit Word or rich-text files, justified with margins of 2.5 cm, in 12 points. Type a single space at the end of each sentence. Use single hard-returns to separate paragraphs and indent the first line of each paragraph at 10 mm. Do not use colored text, do not use bold for emphasis within text. Headings can be written in bold. Numbers one to ten are written out in words unless they depict laboratory results, except in figures and tables.
According to the type of manuscript, the text should be structured according to appropriate guidelines, e.g., STROBE,CONSORT etc. as relevant. For Original articles, the following sections are required: Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusions. For Case reports, include: Introduction, Case report, Discussion, Conclusions. For Reviews, include: Introduction, Search criteria, Literature review, Discussion.
Authors’ contributions statement: Describe the exact contribution of each author to the study and to the manuscript, respectively.
Conflicts of interest and source of funding statements: Disclose all potential sources of conflict of interest. Mention all funding sources.
Acknowledgment: List contributions that need acknowledging but do not justify authorship, such as general support by a departmental chair; acknowledgments of technical help. Persons who have contributed intellectually to the paper but whose contributions do not justify authorship may be named and their function or contribution described, e.g., "scientific adviser”, "critical review of study proposal”, "data collection” or "participation in clinical trial”. Such persons must have given their permission to be named. Authors are responsible for obtaining written permission from persons acknowledged by name, since readers may infer their endorsement of the data and conclusions.
References: Cite references in the text sequentially in the Vancouver numbered style, as a superscripted number after any punctuation mark. Two cited references should be separated by a comma, with no space. Three or more consecutive references are given as a range, e.g.: cited text,1,2 cited text.3-6 Journal names should be abbreviated according to Index Medicus (NLM catalogue available here:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nlmcatalog/journals).
If there are six authors or fewer, give all six in the form: "surname space initials comma”. If there are seven or more give the first three in the same way, followed by et al. For online material, please cite the author, the URL, and the date when you accessed the website. For books, give editors and the publisher, city and year of publication. For a chapter or section of a book, also include the authors and title of the section, and the page numbers.
We encourage the use of EndNote, Reference Manager or other programs for generating automated reference lists.
Tables and figures: Use Arabic numerals for tables and figures and cite them in the text of the manuscript. Tables should be in editable MS Word format. Figures should be provided at a minimal resolution of 600 dots per inch (dpi) for line drawings and combinations and at a resolution of 300 dpi for grayscale and color. We strongly advise against figure manipulation.
Tables and figures should be included at the end of the manuscript, each starting on a new page. Figures should also be uploaded separately, as high resolution images. All graphs provided should be included as editable figures. Tables and figures should be self-explanatory and should provide titles and legends containing all relevant clarifications and a list of abbreviations in alphabetical order (e.g., HIV human immunodeficiency virus; NRTI nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors).
Statistics: Where applicable, a detailed methodology for the statistical analysis should be described, as well as the statistical software used and the company along with its city and country of headquarters. Exact p-values (to three decimals) should always be provided. Unless particularly relevant for the article, p values below 0.001 should be referenced as p<0.001.
Types of manuscripts
English editing services for non-native speakers
Appropriate use of English language is a requirement for review and publication in JCCP. For non-native speakers, professional English editing services may help improve the presentation of the manuscript prior to journal submission.
An example of such external professional service is Enago, an ISO 9001:2008 certified company, offering English language polishing services for scientific research papers for journal publication. Other than English editing, they offer multiple levels of publication support to authors, including revised rejected editing, journal selection, artwork editing, word count reduction and cover letter editing.
Exclusive regional websites and services of Enago can be accessed at the following external links: Enago Global, Enago Japan, Enago China, Enago Taiwan, Enago Korea, Enago Germany, Enago Turkey, Enago Brazil.
Please note that using an external professional service for English language editing does not facilitate publication in the journal JCCP, nor is it a mandatory step in the publication process. This is not a journal requirement, but for non-native speakers, it may substantially improve the quality of the manuscript presentation prior to peer-review. Even when external services are used, the sole and final responsibility regarding the manuscript content remains with the authors, and the use of any editing service must be disclosed in the Acknowledgment section, together with funding received for these services, when applicable.
Submitting a manuscript to JCCP
All manuscripts should be submitted via the JCCP online submission system on the Journal’s website (www.jccpractice.com/submit-manuescript). The corresponding author should submit the manuscript.