Information For Readers
Types of Manuscripts:
Original articles: Randomised controlled trials, intervention studies, studies of screening and diagnostic test, outcome studies, cost effectiveness analyses, case-control series, and surveys with high response rate.
Review Articles and Educational Forum: Review articles are written by researchers of considerable experience in the field concerned. The author should review the recent trend or advances in that field in the light of his own work. However, when an author has not done enough original work on a topic but nevertheless wants to share the knowledge on recent advances/trends which may be useful for post-graduate students, he may do so by writing an article for Educational Forum.
Case reports: New/interesting/very rare cases can be reported. Cases with clinical significance or implications will be given a priority; whereas, mere reporting of a rare case may not be considered. Up to 1000 words excluding references and abstract, and up to 10 references should be used.
Letter to the Editor: Should be short, decisive observation. They should not be preliminary observations that need a later paper for validation.
The Editorial Process:
A manuscript will be reviewed for possible publication with the understanding that it is being submitted to IJCMG alone on time and has not been published anywhere. Simultaneously submission, or already accepted paper for publication elsewhere would be rejected.
The journal expects that one of the related authors will be permitted to correspond with the Journal for all matters related to the manuscript. On submission, editors review all submitted manuscripts initially for suitability of 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 found suitable for publication in IJCMG are sent to two or more expert reviewers. 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 editor. 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, 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 short period. It may not be possible to incorporate corrections received after that period. The whole process of submission of the manuscript to final decision and sending and receiving proofs is completed online.
Authorship Criteria and Ethical Considerations:
Authorship credit should be based only on substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; drafting the article and/or revising it critically for important intellectual content. Acquisition of funding, the collection of data, or general supervision of the research group, by themselves, do not justify authorship.
Evidence for approval by a local Ethics Committee (for both human as well as animal studies) must be supplied by the authors on demand. Animal experimental procedures should be as humane as possible and the details of anesthetics and analgesics used should be clearly stated. The ethical standards of experiments must be in accordance with the guidelines provided by the CPCSEA and World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki on Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Humans and animals.
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.
Submission of the Manuscript:
Manuscripts, or the essence of their content, must be previously unpublished and should not be under simultaneous consideration by another journal. The authors should also declare if any similar work has been submitted to or published by another journal. They should also declare that it has not been submitted/published elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other language, without the written consent of the Publisher. In addition, it should be claimed that the paper is the original work of the author(s) and not copied (in whole or in part) from any other work.
By virtue of the submitted manuscript, the corresponding author acknowledges that all the co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the manuscript. The corresponding author should provide all co-authors with information regarding the manuscript, and obtain their approval before submitting any revisions. The submitted papers should be in Times New Roman font, double spaced (14 pt) for the titles and (12 pt) for the text. Any paper not follow the instructions will not enter the editorial and peer-reviewing process.
The submitted paper should be prepared as three main separate files:
First Page File: composed of the following:
Covering letter: include the type and title of the article, prior publications of the authors, support, conflicts of interest, permissions and address of the corresponding author.
Contribution details: contribution of each other to the concepts, design, literature search, clinical studies, experimental studies, data acquisition, data analysis, statistical analysis, manuscript preparation, manuscript editing and manuscript review.
Title page: this include the following:
Type of manuscript (Original/Review/Case); the title of the article, which should be concise, but informative; running title or short title not more than 50 characters; the name by which each contributor is known (Last name, First name and initials of middle name), with his or her highest academic degree(s) and institutional affiliation; the name of the department(s) and institution(s) to which the work should be attributed; the name, address, phone numbers, and email address of the contributor responsible for correspondence about the manuscript; the total number of pages, total number of photographs and word counts separately for abstract and for the text (excluding the references and abstract) and finally the Acknowledgements.
The Article File: this file composed of the Abstract and Key words, Introduction, Material and Methods, Results, Discussion and Conclusions, References, and finally Tables and Figures.
Blinded 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. Manuscripts not in compliance with The Journal’s blinding policy will be returned to the corresponding author. The main text of the article, beginning from Abstract till References (including tables) should be in this file. Do not zip the files. Do not incorporate images in the file. The pages should be numbered consecutively, beginning with the first page of the blinded article file.
Images: Graphs and Contributors’ Form assignment.
Detailed Description of the Article File
Abstract:
This page should contain the full title of the manuscript and an abstract.
The abstract must be concise, clear and informative.
Not exceed 150 words for case reports or review articles (unstructured).
Not exceed 250 words for original articles (structured).
The abstract must be in a structured form (background, Aims, Materials and Methods, Results, and conclusions).
The abstract should explain briefly what was intended, done, observed and concluded.
The conclusions and recommendations not found in the text of the article should not be given in the abstract.
If references must be cited in the abstract they must include the authors, journal title, year of publication, volume number and page range.
The use of the abbreviations in the abstract should be avoided.
Key words: Provide 3-5 keywords which will help readers or indexing agencies in cross-indexing the study (the words found in title should not be given as key words).
Introduction
It should start on a new page. The body of the research articles should start with a brief introduction, which outlines the historical origins of the study and stating the aim of the study and/or hypothesis to be tested.
Essentially this section must introduce the subject and briefly say how the idea for research originated.
Give a concise background of the study. Do not review literature extensively but provide the most recent work that has a direct bearing on the subject.
Justification for research aims and objectives must be clearly mentioned without any ambiguity.
The purpose of the study should be stated at the end.
The introduction should not discuss the results.
Materials and Methods
The methods section should be written such that another researcher is able to reproduce the research work.
Important methodological aspects of your work should be described, even if such descriptions can also be found in prior publications.
The number of subjects, the number of groups, the study design, sources of drugs with dosage regimen or instruments used, statistical methods and ethical aspects must be mentioned under this section.
Give explicit descriptions of modifications or new methods so that the readers can judge their accuracy, reproducibility and reliability.
Drugs and chemicals should be precisely identified using their non-proprietary names or generic names.
If necessary, the proprietary or commercial name may be inserted once in parentheses. The first letter of the drug name should be small for generic name (e.g., dipyridamole, propranolol) but capitalized for proprietary names (e.g., Persantin, Inderal).
Statistical Analysis: The details of statistical tests used and the level of significance should be stated. If more than one test is used it is important to indicate which groups and parameters have been subjected to which test.
Results
The Results should contain both positive and negative results supported by valid statistical methods.
The results should be stated concisely without comments.
They should be presented in logical sequence in the text with appropriate reference to tables and/or figures.
The data given in tables or figures should not be repeated in the text.
The same data should not be presented in both tabular and graphic forms.
Simple data may be given in the text itself instead of figures or tables. Avoid discussions and conclusions in the results section.
Discussion
The Discussion could contain the summary of the major findings, (primary outcome measures, secondary outcome measures, results as they relate to a prior hypothesis); while avoiding repetition of the statements in Abstract or the Results.
Citing literature supporting or defying the findings should be provided.
The Discussion should be able to project a major advancement of scientific concept, method or effect.
Strengths and limitations of the study (study question, study design, data collection, analysis and interpretation) should be stated.
Controversies raised by this study along with possible future research directions (for this particular research collaboration, underlying mechanisms, clinical research) could also be mentioned.
Do not repeat in detail data or other material given in the Introduction or the Results section.
Conclusions must be drawn considering the strengths and weaknesses of the study. They must be conveyed in the last paragraph under Discussion. Make sure conclusions drawn should count with the objectives stated under Introduction.
References
Vancouver style should be followed for all the references.
Only published manuscripts should be included in the reference list.
Avoid using abstracts as references.
References should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text (not in alphabetic order).
Identify references in text, tables, and legends by Arabic numerals in superscript with square bracket after the punctuation marks. Multiple citations within a single set of brackets should be separated by commas. Where there are three or more sequential citations, they should be given as a range. Example: “...has been shown previously. [1,4-6,22]”
The titles of journals should be abbreviated according to the style used in Index Medicus or the PubMed. Use complete name of the journal for non-indexed journals.
Example of Journal Reference:
Authors (use et al. after 6 authors, if there are more than six authors, complete names should not be written), article title (should be exact as existing), journal name (should be in standard PubMed abbreviations, full journal name should not be written), year, volume, page numbers (445-447 to be written as 445-47).
Singh JK, Bawa M, Kanojia RP, Ghai B, Menon P, Rao KL. Idiopathic simultaneous intussusceptions in a neonate. Pediatr Surg Int 2009;25:445-7.
Example of Book References:
Personal author(s):
Ringsven MK, Bond D. Gerontology and leadership skills for nurses. 2nd ed. Albany (NY): Delmar Publishers; 1996.
Editor(s), compiler(s) as author:
Norman IJ, Redfern SJ, editors. Mental health care for elderly people. New York: Churchill Livingstone; 1996.
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.
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.
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.
For footnotes use the following symbols, in this sequence: *, , , , ||, , **, ,
Tables with their legends should be provided at the end of the text after the references. (Should state in the main text the exact position of the tables and figures).
Figures
Each figure must be numbered and a short descriptive caption must be provided. A computer drawn figure with good contrast is acceptable.
Sometimes, raw data for graphs may be requested in Excel sheet when the article is accepted for publication.
Graphic files for diagrams and figures may be converted to *.pcx, *.tiff, *.jpg format.
