Submissions

Author Guidelines

Please download the links below to see SMJ manuscript template:

Preparation of Manuscripts

Manuscripts must be submitted only in English and should be written according to sound grammar and proper terminology. Manuscript submission must be applied once in order to obtain only one submission ID number. More than one submission for a single manuscript can lose the chance of the manuscript consideration. The manuscript must be accompanied by a covering letter including the title and author(s) name.

English Language Writing

Authors whose first language is not English should make sure their manuscript is written in idiomatic English before submission. Please write your text in good English (American or British usage is accepted, but not a mixture of these).

New Submissions

Submission to SMJ proceeds totally online and authors will be guided stepwise through the creation and uploading of the manuscript files. As part of the manuscript, authors may choose to submit the manuscript as a single file to be used in the refereeing process. This can be a Word document (*.doc or *.docx), that can be used by referees to evaluate the manuscript. All figures, tables, and supplementary data should be embedded and included in the main manuscript file.

References

References list must be provided according to the SMJ references format (See manuscript template). Where applicable, author(s) name(s), year of publication, journal abbreviated title/book title, chapter title/article title, volume number/book chapter and the pagination must be present. Use of DOI is highly encouraged.

Formatting requirements

There are no strict formatting requirements but all manuscripts must contain the essential elements needed to convey your manuscript, for example, Abstract, Keywords, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results and Discussion, Conclusion, Funding & Acknowledgement and Conflict of Interest. Artwork and Tables with Captions.

Revised Submissions

Regardless of the file format of the original submission, at revision the authors are instructed to submit their manuscript with SMJ format and it may be editable. Keep the layout of the text as simple as possible. To avoid unnecessary errors the authors are strongly advised to use the 'spell-check' and 'grammar-check' for the submitted manuscript.

Manuscript Submission and Verification

Manuscripts are assumed not to be published previously in print or electronic versions and are not under consideration by another publication. Copies of related or possibly duplicated materials (including those containing significantly similar content or using the same data) that have been published previously or are under consideration for another publication must be provided at the time of online submission.

Manuscript Structure

Manuscript literature and tenses must be structured as Title; Abstract; Keywords; Introduction; Materials and Methods; Results and Discussion; Conclusion; Acknowledgements and References submitted in a file with limited size.

Reporting Guidelines

Authors are strongly encouraged to use appropriate reporting guidelines when preparing and submitting manuscripts, to maximize transparency and reproducibility. Our editors and reviewers are also encouraged to use them in the review process. Completed checklists should be provided in the supplementary files on submission. We particularly encourage the use of:

• CONSORT for randomized controlled trials;
• TREND for non-randomized trials;
• PRISMA for systematic review and meta-analyses;
• CARE for case reports;
• STROBE for observational studies;
• STREGA for genetic association studies;
• SRQR for qualitative studies;
• STARD for diagnostic accuracy studies;
• ARRIVE for animal experiments.

Authorship Criteria

Authorship should be reserved for those, and only those, who have made a significant intellectual contribution to the research.  Participation solely in the acquisition of funding or general supervision of the research group is not sufficient for authorship. Honorary authorship is not acceptable.

1) Everyone who is listed as an author should have made a substantial direct academic contribution (i.e. intellectual responsibility and substantive work) to at least two of the four main components of a typical scientific project or paper:

a) Conception or design.
b) Data collection and processing.
c) Analysis and interpretation of the data.
d) Writing substantial sections of the paper (e.g. synthesizing findings in the literature review or the findings/results section).

2) Everyone who is listed as an author should have critically reviewed successive drafts of the paper and should approve the final version.

3) Everyone who is listed as an author should be able to defend the paper as a whole (although not necessarily all the technical details).

The SciMedicine Journal follows The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals (ICMJE Recommendations 2019) with regards to authorship, contributorship and group authorship.

Order of Authors

1) The person who has made the major contribution to the paper and/or taken the lead in writing is entitled to be the first author

2) Decisions about who should be an author, the order of authors and those included in the acknowledgments should usually be made by the first author in consultation with other authors.

3) Those who have made a major contribution to analysis or writing (i.e. more than commenting in detail on successive drafts) are entitled to follow the first author immediately; where there is a clear difference in the size of these contributions, this should be reflected in the order of these authors.

4) All others who fulfill the criteria for authorship should complete the list in alphabetical order of their surnames.

5) If all the authors feel that they have contributed equally to the paper, this can be indicated in a footnote.

Data Sharing and Data Availability Policy

Data sharing and other artefacts supporting the results in the paper are encouraged by the SciMedicine Journal, but a Data Availability Statement may be required and published with the manuscript. The following options are provided for the authors during the submission process:

- Data available in a publicly accessible repository: The data presented in this study are openly available in [repository name e.g., FigShare] at [doi], reference number [reference number].

- The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are not publicly available due [Reason Why Data Are Not Public] but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

- Data available on request due to restrictions eg privacy or ethical: The data presented in this study are available on reasonable request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available due to [insert reason here].

- Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analyzed during the current study.

- All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article [and its supplementary information files].

- 3rd Party Data: Restrictions apply to the availability of these data. Data was obtained from [third party] and are available [from the authors/at URL] with the permission of [third party].