Instructions to Authors

Types of Articles

1. Original Article
2. Short Communication
3. Technical notes
4. Case Report
5. Images in Neurology
6. Review Articles
   • Progress in Medicine (Update on advances in pathophysiology)
   • Management updates (Reviews on advances in treatment)
   • Systematic Reviews (Systematic reviews of a subject)
7. View point
8. History of medicine
9. Letter to Editor (comments on articles published in the journal)

The Journal follows the Uniform requirements for articles submitted to Medical Journals published by the International of Medical Journal Editors. All the authors and the corresponding author in particular take the responsibility to ensure that the text of the article does not contain portions copied from any other published material which amounts to plagiarism. We also request the authors to familiarize themselves with the good publication ethics principles before finalizing their manuscripts. Details are available with ICMR and Committee on Publication Ethics

Original Article
Authors may submit detailed report on original studies that they had carried out. A structured abstract with the subheadings: objectives, methods, results and conclusion should be given at the beginning of the article (250 words). The articles can have up to 4000 words, five tables and three figures. Exceptions are allowed in selected cases. References should be limited to less than thirty.

Short Communication
Brief reports on preliminary studies or case series etc. restricted to 2000 words, three tables and two figures. A structured abstract of 200 words should be given at the beginning of the article. References should be less than twenty five

Technical notes
Technical notes are descriptions on any specific clinical sign, procedure or investigation and should not contain more than 3000 words, four tables and five figure. References can be up to twenty.

Case Report
This section is to present individual case reports that demonstrate clinically relevant and unusual features. The case report need to be communicating a new message. There should be a meaningful abstract of 150 words. The text of the case report should not be more than 2000 words. There can be two tables, four figures and less than 15 references.

Images in Neurology
This section is to present classical imaging findings in common neurological disorders. No abstract is allowed. The clinical description should be less than 200 words. Commentary or discussion on the imaging findings should be less than 600 words. There can be up to four images and ten references.

Review Articles
Journal publishes Review articles that highlight recent advances in pathophysiology or therapy or systematic reviews of a given subject. Review articles can contain up to 6000 words, 7 tables, and 4 figures. An abstract (250 words) should be given at the beginning of the article. References are restricted to less than 70 in number.

View point
This is a review article in which the authors are also permitted to express their individual opinions and protocols with adequate literary support. The word limit is 5000 with four figures or tables and less than 50 references.

Conflict of interest
The current policy in medical journalism is that when authors submit manuscripts, whether as articles or letters, they are responsible for disclosing 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. Authors should do so in the manuscript on a conflict of interest notification page that follows the title page, providing additional detail, if necessary, in a cover letter that accompanies the manuscript. 

Informed consent and Ethical clearance for the study
Patients have a right to privacy that should not be infringed without informed consent. Identifying information, including patients’ names, initials, or hospital numbers, should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, and pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or parent or guardian) gives written informed consent for publication. Informed consent for this purpose requires that a patient who is identifiable be shown the manuscript to be published.

When reporting experiments on human subjects, authors should indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1964 and subsequent amendments till 2004. 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. When reporting experiments on animals, authors would have to indicate whether the institutional and national guide lines for the care and use of laboratory animals was followed.  

Prior registration of clinical trials with registries.
We accept manuscripts based on clinical trials only if the trial was registered with one of the popular clinical trial registries such as Clinical Trial Registry of India  ( http://www.ctri.in/ ) or Clinical trial registry of USA http://clinicaltrials.gov/ . The trial registration number need to be provided in the manuscript.
 

Preparing a Manuscript for Submission

Entire manuscript — including the title page, abstract, text, acknowledgments, references, individual tables, and legends— should be prepared in double spacing and 2.5-centimeter margin. Authors should prepare the manuscript using any of the standard word processing software like MS Word. The right margin should not be justified. Abstract, tables and legends for figures should be typed separately and not in continuation of the main text. It is preferable to use page break rather than typing empty paragraph breaks to create new page. All pages of the manuscript should be numbered consecutively, beginning with the title page. The first three words of the title and page number should be given in the top margin on left and right side respectively
The title page
The title page should carry the following information:

1. 1. The title of the article. Concise titles are easier to read than long, convoluted ones. Authors should include all information in the title that will make electronic retrieval of the article both sensitive and specific. 
   
2. 2. Authors’ names (First, Middle and Last Name in that order) and institutional affiliations. Each author’s highest academic degree can be mentioned after the name. .
   
3. The name of the department(s) and institution(s) to which the work should be attributed.
   
4. Disclaimers, if any.
   
5. 5. Corresponding author. The name, mailing address, telephone and fax numbers, and e-mail address of the author responsible for correspondence about the manuscript. The “corresponding author;” would be the “guarantor” for the integrity of the study as a whole. The corresponding author should indicate clearly whether his or her e-mail address is to be published. .
   
6. 6. The name and address of the author to who requests for reprints should be addressed or a statement that reprints will not be available from the authors..
   
7. Source(s) of support in the form of grants, equipment, drugs, or all of these.
   
8. A running head no more than 40 characters (count letters and spaces).
   
9. Word counts.
   A word count for the text only (excluding abstract, acknowledgments, figure legends, and references) allows editors and reviewers to assess whether the information contained in the paper warrants the amount of space devoted to it, and whether the submitted manuscript fits within the journal’s word limits. A separate word count for the Abstract is also useful for the same reason. 
   
10. The number of figures and tables. It is difficult for editorial staff and reviewers to tell if the figures and tables that should have accompanied a manuscript were actually included unless the numbers of figures and tables that belong to the manuscript are noted on the title page. 

Competing Interest Notification Page
To prevent the information on potential conflict of interest for authors from being overlooked or misplaced, it is necessary for that information to be part of the manuscript. It should therefore also be included on a separate page or pages immediately following the title page.

Declaration of originality, authorship and competing interest on behalf of all authors of the manuscript.
This manuscript is based on original work and had not been published in whole or part, in any print or electronic media or is under consideration of publication in any print or electronic media other than as abstract of conference proceedings. Persons designated as authors must meet all of the following criteria: 

1. contributing to the conception and design, or analyzing and interpreting data;
   
2. drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and
   
3. 3. Approving the final version to be published. Supporting the study or collecting data does not constitute authorship. Authorship based solely on position (e.g., research supervisor, department head) is not permitted.

All persons listed as authors in the manuscript have made substantial contribution, so as to take public responsibility to it, in the production of this manuscript as detailed below:
 

No person who had contributed substantially to the production of this manuscript had been excluded from authorship.

Persons who have contributed partially have been acknowledged in the manuscript.

As corresponding author of this manuscript, I have recorded the statements of each author regarding any competing interest as per the checklist provided. Authors need to disclose details of any financial assistance they have received in order to carry out the study. The role of sponsoring agency in the design, and conduct of the study should be explained.

Check list for competing interest for each of the authors
 

There is nothing to declare as competing interest for any of the authors including the corresponding author.
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.

Signature with nameDate
 

Abstract and Key Words

A structured abstract under the subheadings background, objective, material and methods, results, discussion and conclusion should be given. The word limit for the abstract varies according to the type of manuscript. Because abstracts are the only substantive portion of the article indexed in many electronic databases, and the only portion many readers read, authors need to be careful that abstracts reflect the content of the article accurately. .

Key words.
Authors may provide 3 – 5 keywords preferably terms from the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) list of Index Medicus, after the abstract.

Body of the article
Whenever possible, the text of observational and experimental articles should be divided into sections with the headings Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion.

Material and methods
The material and methods section should be written very carefully. It should reflect the authenticity of the work that formed the foundation of the manuscript. The details of the institution where the study was carried out, period of study, whether it was prospective or retrospective, should be mentioned. The source of the subjects, departments, inpatient service or outpatient service that contributed the subjects, source of pathological samples, if drawn from archives etc need to be clearly mentioned. A responsible person from these departments could be one of the authors or they should be acknowledged appropriately. The laboratory methods, source of specific reagents if applicable (for eg. Immunohistochemical studies) should be provided. The authors should clearly state whether informed consent was taken for each subject, and approval of the Institutional Ethics committee was available. (The corresponding author would have to provide documentary evidence to support their claims if they are contested later) In the case of clinical trials, the trials should have been registered with one of the registries. We accept papers on clinical trials only if it had been pre registered with one of the approved registries. See above Kindly mention who had carried out the statistical analysis.

References
The Uniform Requirements style is based largely on an ANSI standard style adapted by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) for its databases. (7) For samples of reference citation formats, authors should consult National Library of Medicine web site. References (print as well as electronic only ) should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text. Identify references in text, tables, and legends by Arabic numerals in parentheses. References cited only in tables or figure legends should be numbered in accordance with the sequence established by the first identification in the text of the particular table or figure. The titles of journals should be abbreviated according to the style used in Index Medicus. Consult the list of Journals Indexed for MEDLINE, published annually as a separate publication by the National Library of Medicine. The list can also be obtained through the  Library's web site.
Download a PowerPoint presentation on common reference styles and using the reference checking facility on the manuscript submission site.

Tables
Type each table with double spacing on a separate sheet of paper. Number tables consecutively in the order of their first citation in the text and supply a brief title for each. Do not use internal horizontal or vertical lines. Give each column a short or abbreviated heading. Authors should place explanatory matter in footnotes, not in the heading. Explain in footnotes all nonstandard abbreviations. For footnotes use the following symbols, in sequence:
*,†,‡,§,||,¶,**,††,‡‡
Identify statistical measures of variations, such as standard deviation and standard error of the mean.
Be sure that each table is cited in the text. Do not duplicate data in the table and text.

Illustrations (Figures)
Figures should be either professionally drawn and photographed, or submitted as photographic quality digital files. (e.g. JPEG, GIF) Authors should review the images of such files on a computer screen before submitting them, to be sure they meet their own quality standard. The width of image should be 7.5 cm. Resolution 300 dots per inch, Image should be saved in grey scale unless it is a color image. The image should be cropped to eliminate all unwanted area. No lettering or numbers that reveal the source of the image should be visible on the finished image. Letters, numbers, and symbols on Figures should be clear and even throughout, and of sufficient size that when reduced for publication each item will still be legible. Figures should be made as self-explanatory as possible. Titles and detailed explanations belong in the legends, however, not on the illustrations themselves. Photomicrographs, EEG and EMG traces should have internal scale markers. Symbols, arrows, or letters used in photomicrographs should contrast with the background..

If photographs of people are used, either the subjects must not be identifiable or their pictures must be accompanied by written permission to use the photograph. Whenever possible permission for publication should be obtained.

Figures should be numbered consecutively according to the order in which they have been first cited in the text.

Legends for Illustrations (Figures)
Type or print out legends for illustrations using double spacing, starting on a separate page, with Arabic numerals corresponding to the illustrations. When symbols, arrows, numbers, or letters are used to identify parts of the illustrations, identify and explain each one clearly in the legend. Explain the internal scale and identify the method of staining in photomicrographs.
Cover letter
Manuscripts must be accompanied by a cover letter, which should include the following information.
 

1. A statement that the submission is based on original work and had not been published elsewhere in whole or part (except as abstract in conference proceedings) or is under consideration of another journal for publication.
2. A statement that the manuscript has been read and approved by all the authors, that the requirements for authorship as stated earlier in this document have been met, and that each author believes that the manuscript represents honest work.
3. A statement that all authors have submitted their statements of possible competing interest as per the checklist appended.
4. The name, address, and telephone number of the corresponding author, who is responsible for communicating with the other authors about revisions and final approval of the proofs.

Online Submission of the Manuscripts

We recommend that all manuscripts be submitted online at http://www.journalonweb.com/aian/ . New authors will have to register as author, which is a simple two step procedure. For online submission, articles should be prepared using a word processor program e.g. Word (MS Office) and saved as text/rtf/doc/pdf files. Do not zip the files or use any file compressor software. The manuscript should submitted in two files (first page file and article file). Images should be submitted separately. .

First Page File:
Include
 

1. the title page
2. the declaration regarding authorship and competing interest
3. covering letter and
4. acknowledgement, etc. that may reveal the identity of the authors.
    

Article file:
The main text of the article, beginning from Abstract till References (including tables) should be in this file. Do not include any information (such as acknowledgement, your names in page headers, etc.) in this file. Limit the file size to 400 kb. Do not incorporate images in the file. If file size is large, graphs can be submitted as images separately without incorporating them in the article file to reduce the size of the file.

Images:
Submit good quality color or black and white images. Each image should be less than 400 kb in size. Size of the image file can be reduced by trimming the image smaller size and to the relevant portion. All image formats (jpeg, tiff, gif, bmp, png, eps, etc.) are acceptable; jpeg is most suitable. Do not zip the files.

Legends:
Legends for the figures/images should be included at the end of the article file.

When the manuscript is submitted online, the contributors' form and copyright transfer form with the signatures of all the contributors have to be submitted through the website (as scanned copy). In rare instances, hard copies of the images may be requested if the rendering from the digital version is unsatisfactory.

We encourage all authors to contact us at editor@annalsofian.org  for any clarifications