Author Guidelines
INSTRUCTIONS FOR AUTHORS
The International Journal of Health Sciences (IJHS) is a peer-reviewed journal that publishes articles pertaining to different fields of medical sciences, such as medicine, dentistry and applied medical sciences, that provide contribution to medical knowledge. The articles may include new experimental methods of medical importance, new experimentally obtained results, new interpretation of existing results or data pertaining to clinical problems, or epidemiological work of substantial scientific significance. All such articles should aim for the development of medical concepts rather than merely recording the facts. Incomplete studies will be strongly discouraged. The journal categorizes articles into Original, Review, Case Report, Rapid communication and Letter to the Editor. Each type of article has a special format and should comply with the updated IJHS Instructions for Authors, which are published in all issues.
Manuscript Submission: All manuscripts must be submitted through the journal’s online submission system at http://www.ijhs.org.sa. Submissions made via e-mail or mailed to the editorial office will not be processed. If you are submitting a manuscript to IJHS for the first time, you need to first register online and create your profile. After registering and creating your username and password, you can log in and submit your manuscript in an MSWord or WordPerfect file format. Before submission make sure that the manuscript conforms to the journal’s guidelines for the preparation of the manuscript.
Editorial Office Contact Information: IJHS, College of Medicine, P.O. Box 6040, Qassim University, Al-Qassim 51432, Saudi Arabia. Tel.: 966-6-380-1557; Fax: 966-6-380-1557; e-mail: editor@ijhs.org.sa
Original Paper: Manuscript must be in good English, typewritten using Times New Roman font size 12 only, double-spaced with one inch margin on all sides. All manuscripts must be accompanied by a certificate signed by the corresponding author and all coauthors that they have seen and approved the final version of the manuscript and that the article has not been published or submitted to any other journal for publication consideration. The corresponding author is responsible for obtaining permission from the copyright owner for the use of any copyrighted material in the submitted article.
Each manuscript should include:
1. Title page:
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- Complete title of the article
- Name(s) of author(s)
- Department(s)
- Institution(s) at which work was performed
- Official phone/fax no, cell no, personal e-mail address of the corresponding author, and institution’s address.
2. Structured Abstract: The structured abstract should be factual condensation of the entire work and should not exceed 250 words.
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- Objectives
- Methodology
- Results
- Conclusion
3. Text: The text must be arranged under the following headings, where Introduction provides a brief survey of literature, purpose of the study, etc.; the Methodology and procedures should be concise but detailed enough to enable the reader to reproduce the experiment. Commonly used procedures and methods need not be described but require a reference to the original source. In Result section only findings, presented in the form of tables or figures, should be included without duplication of presentation and no discussion of the significance of the data. The Discussion should present the significance of the data under the prevalent understanding of the phenomenon. Speculative discussion is allowed but it should be concise and corroborated by the presented data. Conclusion summarizes the study and is drawn from the results and discussion. Acknowledgements, if any, should be placed at the end of the text and before references.
a. Introduction
b. Methods
c. Results
d. Discussion
e. Conclusion(s)
f. Acknowledgements (if any)
g. References
References: References should be listed consecutively as numerical in parentheses. The final bibliography should be in the order in which they are quoted in the text and written in “Vancouver Style.”
Journals: Standard journal article. List all authors when six or less; for seven or more authors, list only the first six and add et al.
You CH. Lee KY, Chey WY, Manguy R. Electrogastrographic study of patients with unexplained nausea, bloating and vomiting. Gastroenterology 1980;79:311-4.
Strauss JS, Leyden JJ, Lucky AW, Lookingbill DP, Drake LA, Hanifin JM, et al. Safety of a new micronized formulation of isotretinoin in patients with severe recalcitrant nodular acne: A randomized trial comparing micronized isotretinoin with standard isotretinoin. J Am Acad Dermatol. 2001;45:196–207.
Chapter in a book: Weinstein L, Schwartz MN. Pathogenic properties of invading microorganisms. In: Sodeman WA Jr, eds. Pathologic physiology: mechanisms of disease. WB Saunders, Philadelphia 1994; 457-72.
Tables and figures: Tables and figures, complete with legends and footnotes, should be typed on separate pages. The tables and figures pages should be consecutively numbered at the end of the article. There position in the text must be indicated.
Review Article: The purpose of a review is to provide clinicians, scientists and those in training with a clear and up to date concept of a subject of current interest. It should be very informative thoroughly referenced and easily readable with fluency of language. The text should not exceed 3-7 journal pages. For information’s regarding the typing and reference style, please follow the instructions above.
Rapid Communication: Rapid/Special/Short communication should be complete work, such as complete results of a short pilot study, not merely a preliminary report and should not exceed 1500 words with one figure and/or one table. An editorial decision will be provided rapidly without reviews. For writing and references style, follow the same instructions listed above.
Case Report: Short case reports of clinical significance, new adverse effect(s) of a drug or other unique first time observations will be considered for publication. They should not exceed 500 words, 5 bibliographic references and either one concise table or one figure. The report must contain genuinely new information.
Letter to the Editor: Opinions on topics and articles recently published in the journal will be considered for publication if they are objective and constructive in nature and provide some academic/clinical interest to the readers. These letters may also be forwarded to the author of the cited article for possible response. The editor reserves the right to shorten these letters, delete objectionable comments, make other changes, or take any other suitable decision to comply with the style and policies of the journal.
The journal will conform to the “Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to Biomedical journals” (Br Med J, 1988; 296: 400-5). The authors will be required to assist the editors for reviewing the proof before publication.
Authorship and Contributorship
An “author” is generally considered to be someone who has made substantive intellectual contributions to a study. Authorship credit should be based on and meet all the following criteria:
- Substantial contributions from the inception and design to acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data.
- Drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content.
- Final approval of the version to be published.
All persons designated as authors should qualify for authorship, and all those who qualify should be listed as authors. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content.
Manuscript Processing
Upon initial submission of the manuscript, the author is acknowledged of the receipt via e-mail. The manuscript is categorized according to the type of article into Original, Review, Case Report and so forth. Each type of article has a special format and should comply with the updated IJHS Instruction to Authors, which are published in all issues. Normally an article is initially reviewed by one member of the Editorial team to judge the quality of the paper. Articles written in poor English language or not conforming to IJHS guidelines are either rejected or returned to the authors to rectify the shortcomings. Manuscripts deemed proper are forwarded to at least two subject experts to provide their unbiased input. Acceptable manuscripts are checked for data analysis and verification of references before the author is notified about the status of the paper with any suggestions for modifications. Finally accepted articles are forwarded to the printer for typeset and formatting, etc. and the proof is sent to the authors for proof reading, before it is published.
Peer Review Policy
Unbiased, independent, critical assessment is an intrinsic part of all scholarly work, including the scientific process. Peer review is the critical assessment of manuscripts submitted to journals by experts who are not part of the editorial staff, and is, therefore, an important extension of the scientific process. Each article submitted to IJHS for publication is reviewed by at least two senior specialists of the concerned specialty. The “double blind” process is strictly followed and, in certain controversial cases, the opinion of a 3rd reviewer can also be sought.
Conflict of Interest
Conflict of interest exists when as author (or the author’s institution), reviewer, or editor has financial or personal relationships that inappropriately influences (bias) his or her actions (such relationship are also known as dual commitments, competing interests, or competing loyalties). However, conflicts can also occur for other reasons, such as personal relationships, academic competition, and intellectual passion. Increasingly, individual studies receive funding from commercial firms, private foundations, and the government. The conditions of this funding have the potential to bias and otherwise discredit the research.
When authors submit a manuscript, they are required to disclose all financial and personal relationships that might bias their work. To prevent ambiguity, authors must state explicitly whether potential conflicts do or do not exist.
It is the discretion of editorial committee of IJHS to resolve any conflict of interest between the author(s) and reviewers. Editors may choose not to consider an article for publication if they feel that the research is biased by the sponsors funding the research project.
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and representing them as one’s own original work. Within the academia, it is considered academic dishonesty or academic fraud and offenders are subject to academic censure. Plagiarism can be unintentional or intentional, reproducing academic material without appropriate credit to the original authors. Similarly self plagiarism is the re-use of significant, identical or near identical portions of one’s own work without citing the original work. This is also known as “Recycling fraud.” Worst form of plagiarism is to steal the whole article from some journal and publish it under one’s own name in another journal. The Editorial Committee of IJHS will blacklist any author found to be guilty of plagiarism. The name of author(s) committing plagiarism will also be disseminated to editors of other medical journals.
Ethical Issues
Human clinical trials and studies conducted in animals must have been approved by an Institutional Review Board (IRB). In the absence of such a formal ethics review committee, the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000 and/or the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals, as adopted and promulgated by the United States National Institutes of Health, must be followed. If doubt exists whether the research was conducted in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration, the authors must explain the rationale for their approach, and demonstrate that the institutional review body explicitly approved the doubtful aspects of the study. In case of any study involving clinical trial, taking of informed consent of patients is mandatory. Whenever editorial committee of IJHS feels necessary, the research paper will be referred to the ethical committee at the College of Medicine, Qassim University for its evaluation and approval.
Editorial Committee
The Editorial committee consisting of the Editor- in-Chief, Associate Editor, Editors, Assistant Editor(s) and the editorial secretaries meet at least twice a month to expedite the business of the journal. The editorial committee follows the guidelines provided by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors in “Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals: Writing and Editing for Biomedical Publication” which can be downloaded from http://www.icmje.org/
Editorial
Each editorial is written by one member of the editorial board as solicited by the Editor-in-Chief. The editorial is generally a scientific review on one or two of the current topics pertaining to medical sciences. Preference is given to current health problems and healthcare issues in Saudi Arabia.
Advisory Board
An advisory board comprising of members with significant professional experience in different fields of medical sciences helps the Editorial Committee in policy matters when needed. Senior specialists from Saudi Arabia, as well as professionals from foreign countries are members of the Board.
GUIDELINES FOR REVIEWERS
- An unpublished manuscript is a privileged document. Please protect it from any form of exploitation. Don’t cite a manuscript or refer to the work it describes before it has been published and don’t use the information that it contains for the advancement of your own research or in discussions with colleagues.
- Adopt a positive, impartial attitude toward the manuscript under review, with the aim of promoting effective and accurate scientific communication. If you believe that you cannot judge a given article impartially, please return it immediately to the editor.
- Reviews must be completed by the date stipulated on the review form. If you know that you cannot finish the review within that time, immediately return the manuscript to the editor.
- In your review, consider the following aspects of the manuscript:-
- Significance of research question or subject studied.
- Originality of work.
- Appropriateness of approach or Methodology.
- Adequacy of experimental techniques.
- Soundness of conclusions and interpretation.
- Relevance of discussion
- Soundness of organization.
- Adherence to style as set forth in instructions to authors.
- Adequacy of title and abstract.
- Appropriateness of figures and tables.
- Length of article.
- Adherence to correct nomenclature (genetic, enzyme, drug, biochemical etc).
- Appropriate literature citations.
- Any help you can give in clarifying meaning will be appreciated. If you wish to mark the text of the manuscript, use a pencil or make a photocopy, mark it, and return it together with the original.
- You can be particularly helpful in pointing out unnecessary illustrations and data that are presented in both tabular (and graphic) form and in detail in the text. Such redundancies are a waste of space and readers time.
- A significant number of authors have not learnt how to organize data and will be benefit from your guidance.
- Do not discuss the paper with its authors.
- In your comments intended for transmission to the author, don’t make any specific statement about the acceptability of a paper. Suggested revision should be stated as such and not expressed as conditions of acceptance. Present criticism dispassionately and avoid offensive remarks.
- Organize your review so that an introductory paragraph summarizes the major findings of the article, gives your overall impression of the paper and highlights the major shortcomings. This paragraph should be followed by specific numbered comments which if appropriate may be subdivided into major and minor points.
- Confidential remarks directed to the editor should be typed (or handwritten) on a separate sheet, not on the review form. You might want to distinguish between revisions considered essential and those judged merely desirable.
- Your criticisms, arguments and suggestions concerning the paper will be most useful to the editor and to the author if they are carefully documented. Do not make dogmatic, dismissive statements, particularly about the novelty of work. Substantiate your statements.
- Reviewer’s recommendations are gratefully received by the editor. However, since editorial decisions are usually based on evaluations derived from several sources, reviewers should not expect the editor to honor every recommendation.
- Categories of recommendation: accept, reject, modify, or convert to some other form. Very few papers qualify for “accept” upon original submission for publication except for minor style changes.
- Keep a copy of the review in your files. The manuscript may be returned to you for a second review. You might require this copy to evaluate the author’s responses to your criticisms.
Image Quality Requirements
Because our journal is published with the National Library of Medicine, These image requirements are essential
All images MUST be at or above intended display size, with the following image resolutions: Line Art 800 dpi, Combination (Line Art + Halftone) 600 dpi, Halftone 300 dpi. See the Image quality specifications chart for details. Image files also must be cropped as close to the actual image as possible.
What we do not want are 72 dpi web-quality graphics in which colors are not realistic, text is illegible, or images are pixilated. These undesirable qualities are usually caused by applied compression from a jpg or gif format. Although tif and eps files are the most desirable formats for archiving, it is important to stress that the real objective is to obtain the highest quality images available, regardless of format.
PubMed images specs: (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/about/PMC_Filespec.html)
International Journal of Health Sciences is a scientific publications by Qassim University, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.