INTRODUCTION

        The new Editorial Board of Annals of King Edward Medical University during its first meeting held on 14.06.2007 decided to adopt the “Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to Biomedical Journals: writing & Editing for Biomedical Publications, updated in February 2006 by  International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. A brief account of minimum requirements is given below for assisting the authors, reviewers and editors, the full text can be read at, (www.icmje.org).

GENERAL PRINCIPLES

1.  Title Page

The title page should carry the following information:

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.  Authors’ names and Title of the Program.

3. The name of the department(s) and institution(s) to which the work should be attributed.

4.  Disclaimers, if any.

5.  Corresponding authors. The name, mailing address, telephone and fax numbers, and e-mail address of the author responsible for correspondence about the manuscript.

6.  The name and address of the Supervisor / Co-Supervisor (s)

7.  Source(s) of support in the form of grants, equipment, drugs, or all of these.

8. Word counts. A word count for the text only (excluding abstract, acknowledgments, figure legends, and references). A separate word count for the Abstract is also useful for the same reason.

9.  The number of figures and tables.

2.  Conflict of 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.

3.  Abstract and Key Words

An abstract (requirements for length and structured format vary by journal) should follow the title page. The abstract should provide the context or background for the study and should state the study’s purposes, basic procedures (selection of study subjects or laboratory animals, observational and analytical methods), main findings (giving specific effect sizes and their statistical significance, if possible), and principal conclusions. It should emphasize new and important aspects of the study or observations.

        Authors are requested to provide, and identify as such, 3 to 10 key words or short phrases that capture the main topics of the article. These will assist indexers in cross-indexing the article and may be published with the abstract. Terms from the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) list of Index Medicus should be used.

4.  Introduction

Provide a context or background for the study (i.e., the nature of the problem and its significance). State the specific purpose or research objective of, or hypothesis tested by, the study or observation; the research objective is often more sharply focused when stated as a question. Both the main and secondary objectives should be made clear, and any pre-specified subgroup analyses should be described. Give only strictly pertinent references and do not include data or conclusions from the work being reported.

5.     Material and Methods

The Methods section should include only information that was available at the time the plan or protocol for the study was written; all information obtained during the conduct of the study belongs in the Results section.

(a)  Selection and Description of Participants

        Describe your selection of the observational or experimental participants (patients or laboratory animals, including controls) clearly, including eligibility and exclusion criteria and a description of the source population. The guiding principle should be clarity about how and why a study was done in a particular way. When authors use variables such as race or ethnicity, they should define how they measured the variables and justify their relevance.

(b)  Technical information

        Identify the methods, apparatus (give the manufacturer’s name and address in parentheses), and procedures in sufficient detail to allow other workers to reproduce the results. Give references to established methods, including statistical methods (see below); provide references and brief descriptions for methods that have been published but are not well known; describe new or substantially modified methods, give reasons for using them, and evaluate their limitations. Identify precisely all drugs and chemicals used, includ-ing generic name(s), dose(s), and route(s) of administration. Also describe diagnostic or therapeutic procedures if part of the study design.

(c)  Statistics

        Describe statistical methods with enough detail to enable a knowledgeable reader with access to the original data to verify the reported results. When possible, quantify findings and present them with appropriate indicators of measurement error or uncertainty (such as confidence intervals). Define statistical terms, abbreviations, and most symbols. Specify the computer soft-ware used.

6.     Results

Present your results in logical sequence in the text, tables, and illustrations, giving the main or most important findings first. Do not repeat in the text all the data in the tables or illustrations; emphasize or summarize only important observations.

        When data are summarized in the Results section, give numeric results not only as derivatives (for example, percentages) but also as the absolute numbers from which the derivatives were calculated, and specify the statistical methods used to analyze them. Restrict tables and figures to those needed to explain the argument of the paper and to assess its support. Use graphs as an alternative to tables with many entries; do not duplicate data in graphs and tables.

7.     Discussion

Emphasize the new and important aspects of the study and the conclusions that follow from them. Do not repeat in detail data or other material given in the Introduction or the Results section. For experimental studies it is useful to begin the discussion by summarizing briefly the main findings, then explore possible mechanisms or explanations for these find-ings, compare and contrast the results with other relevant studies, state the limitations of the study, and explore the implications of the findings for future research and for clinical practice.

        Link the conclusions with the goals of the study but avoid unqualified statements and conclusions not adequately supported by the data. Avoid claiming priority and alluding to work that has not been completed. State new hypotheses when warranted.

8      References

(a)  General Considerations Related to References

        Although references to review articles can be an efficient way of guiding readers to a body of literature, review articles do not always reflect original work accurately. Small numbers of references to key original papers will often serve.

        Avoid using abstracts as references. References to papers accepted but not yet published should be designated as “in press” authors should obtain written permission to cite such papers as well as verification that they have been accepted for publication. Informa-tion from manuscripts submitted but not accepted should be cited in the text as “unpublished observations” with written permission from the source.

        Avoid citing a “personal communication” unless it provides essential information not available from a public source, in which case the name of the person and date of communication should be cited in parentheses in the text. For scientific articles, authors should obtain written permission and confirmation of accuracy from the source of a personal communication.

        For articles published in journals indexed in MEDLINE, the Annals of KEMU considers PubMed (http://www.pubmed.gov) the authoritative source for information about retractions.

(b)  Reference Style and Format

        The Uniform Requirements style is based largely on an ANSI standard style adapted by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) for its databases. For samples of reference citation formats, authors should consult National Library of Medicine web site.

        References 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. 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.

9.  Tables

Tables capture information concisely, and display it efficiently; they also provide information at any desired level of detail and precision. Including data in tables rather than text frequently makes it possible to reduce the length of the text.

        Type or print 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. Be sure that each table is cited in the text.

10.  Illustrations (Figures)

Figures should be either professionally drawn and photo-graphed, or submitted as photographic quality digital prints. In addition to requiring a version of the figures suitable for printing, Annals of KEMU ask authors for electronic files of figures in a format (e.g., JPEG or GIF) that will produce high quality images in the web version of the journal; authors should review the images.

        For x-ray films, scans, and other diagnostic images, as well as pictures of pathology specimens or photomicrographs, send sharp, glossy, black-and-white or color photo-graphic prints, usually 127 x 173 mm (5 x 7 inches). Letters, numbers, and symbols on Figures should therefore 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, since many will be used directly in slide presentations. Titles and de-tailed explanations belong in the legends, however, not on the illustrations themselves.

        Photomicrographs 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. When-ever 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.

11.  Legends for Illustrations (Figures)

Type or print out legends for illustrations using double spacing, starting on a separate page, with Arabic numerals cor-responding 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.

12.   Units of Measurement

Measurements of length, height, weight, and volume should be reported in metric units (meter, kilogram, or liter) or their decimal multiples.

        Temperatures should be in degrees Celsius. Blood pressures should be in millimeters of mercury, unless other units are specifically required.

13.  Abbreviations and Symbols

Use only standard abbreviations; the use of non-standard abbreviations can be extremely confusing to readers. Avoid abbreviations in the title. The full term for which

ARTICLE PUBLICATION FEE

If the authors wish to get the article published in the print version of the journal (which is the case most of the times), there is a fee  of Rs. 1000/- (US $ 12 approximately) to cover for the publication charges.