Manuscript Submission Overview
Submitting your manuscript to International Journal of Innovative Research in Medical Science delivers a comprehensive benefits program that ensures high-quality review of your research and maximum impact for your work. Manuscripts should be submitted by one of the authors of the manuscript through the online submission system. The submitting author, who is generally the corresponding author, is responsible for the manuscript during the submission and peer-review process. For any issue please contact editor@ijirms.in.
Language
Only papers written in English are considered. The articles should be comprehensible to a reader who is fluent in English and should be edited prior to submission to ensure that standard English grammar and usage are observed. Use of a professional language editing service prior to submission can help avoid delays with the review process.
Authorship Criteria
All listed authors must have made a significant scientific contribution to the research in the manuscript and approved all its claims. Authors are generally defined as persons who have contributed sufficiently to a scientific report to be listed on the by line of the published report. We give to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) guidelines.
Responsibility for decisions regarding the authorship of publications lies with those who carried out the work reported in the publication. Researchers should be aware of the authorship practices within their own disciplines and should always abide by any requirements stipulated by journals as part of their instructions to authors.
Manuscript preparation
Types of Publications
IJIRMS has no restrictions on the length of manuscripts, provided that the text is concise and comprehensive. IJIRMS requires that authors publish all experimental controls and make full datasets available where possible. Manuscripts submitted to IJIRMS should neither been published before nor be under consideration for publication in another journal. The main article types are as follows:
Original Article
Review Article
Case Report
Mini Review
Book Review
Original Articles (3500 words max, abstract 300 words max, 30 references max, 3/5 tables and/or figures): In general, this kind of publication should be divided into an Abstract, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusions and References.
Review articles (4000 words max, abstract 300 words max, minimum 40 references, 3/5 tables and/or figures): They should be introduced by a general summary of content in the form of an Abstract. Following a short introduction, putting the study into context and defining the aim, reviews will concentrate on the most recent developments in the field. A review should clearly describe the search strategy followed (key words, inclusion, exclusion criteria, search engines, ...). No particular format is required; headings should be used to designate the major divisions of the paper.
Case Reports (about 2000 words, abstract 180 words max, 20 references max, 3 tables and/or figures): Reports describing observations on clinical cases that can be educational, including adverse effects of drugs or outcomes of a specific treatment. They should be divided into: Abstract, Introduction (optional), Case report(s), Discussion, Conclusions and References.
Brief Reports (about 2000 words, abstract 180 words max, 20 references max, 3 tables and/or figures): Short reports of results from original researches. They should be introduced by a general summary of content in the form of an Abstract. They must provide conclusive findings: preliminary observations or incomplete findings cannot be considered for publication.
Letters to the Editor (800 words max): These are written on invitation, short essays that express the authors’ viewpoint, may respond to published manuscripts in our journals, or deliver information or news regarding an issue related to the Journal scope. If the letter relates to a published manuscript, the authors of the original manuscript will be given the opportunity to provide a respond. Authors of Letters to the Editor should provide a short title.
Book Reviews (no abstract, no references needed): They should be a short critical analysis and evaluation of the quality, meaning, and significance of a short book which addressed at least one of main topics of the Journal (the authors should contact the Editor-in-Chief of the journal for his/her approval before submitting a Book review).
Manuscript Arrangement
Your paper should be compiled in the following order: title page; authors name with affiliations; abstract; keywords; main text introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion; acknowledgments; declaration of interest statement; references; appendices (as appropriate); table(s) with caption(s) (on individual pages); figures; figure captions (as a list).
A downloadable template is available here. We recommend that all manuscripts include line numbers and follow the structure below:
Manuscript Title
Title: Title should be short and enough to explain gist of your research work.
Below the title, list all the authors’ names as outlined in the article sample, which can be downloaded under Article Types. Each listed author must have an affiliation, which comprises the department, university, or organization and its location, city, state/province (if applicable), and country.
Place the full postal address of the corresponding author at the bottom of the first page, including at least one telephone number and e-mail address.
Abstract
Provide an abstract of not more than 250 words. It should consist of four paragraphs, labeled Background e Objectives, Methods, Results, and Conclusions. They should briefly describe, respectively, the problem being addressed in the study, how the study was performed, the remarkable results, and what the authors conclude from the results. No references should be cited. Introduction. Include brief background information on what has been done in the past in this area and the importance of your investigation. End with a statement of the purpose or hypothesis of the study.
Keywords: relevant to the article should be listed below the corresponding author information.
Introduction
Introduction should state the purpose and summarize the research work with no subheadings.
Materials and Methods
It should be elaborative enough to explain all the procedures, methods, observations and data. Use heading and subheading and references wherever needed.
Result and discussion
It is preferred to discuss all the results in detail in case of original research paper. To explain observed data you can use figures, graphs and tables.
Conclusions
This should clearly explain the main conclusions of the article, highlighting its importance and relevance.
Data Availability
This statement should describe how readers can access the data supporting the conclusions of the study and clearly outline the reasons why unavailable data cannot be released.
Conflicts of Interest
Authors must declare all relevant interests that could be perceived as conflicting. Authors should explain why each interest may represent a conflict. If no conflicts exist, the authors should state this. Submitting authors are responsible for coauthors declaring their interests.
Funding Statement
Please supply all details required by your funding and grant-awarding bodies as follows:
For single agency grants
This work was supported by the [Funding Agency] under Grant [number xxxx].
For multiple agency grants
This work was supported by the [Funding Agency #1] under Grant [number xxxx]; [Funding Agency #2] under Grant [number xxxx]; and [Funding Agency #3] under Grant [number xxxx].
Acknowledgments
All acknowledgments (if any) should be included at the very end of the manuscript before the references. Anyone who made a contribution to the research or manuscript, but who is not a listed author, should be acknowledged (with their permission).
References
It includes all the papers, website, books etc. which is referred by author(s) in the present research work.
The entire document should be in Times New Roman. For page style author should use the sample paper (template), attached with this guideline.
Figures
Upon submission of an article, authors should include all figures and tables in the PDF file of the manuscript. Figures and tables should not be submitted in separate files. If the article is accepted, authors will be asked to provide the source files of the figures. Each figure should be supplied in a separate electronic file. All figures should be cited in the manuscript in a consecutive order. Figures should be supplied in either vector art formats (Illustrator, EPS, WMF, FreeHand, CorelDraw, PowerPoint, Excel, etc.) or bitmap formats (Photoshop, TIFF, GIF, JPEG, etc.). Bitmap images should be of 300 dpi resolution at least unless the resolution is intentionally set to a lower level for scientific reasons. If a bitmap image has labels, the image and labels should be embedded in separate layers.
Preparation of tables
Tables should be cited consecutively in the text. Every table must have a descriptive title and if numerical measurements are given, the units should be included in the column heading. Vertical rules should not be used.
Publishing Process
Step 1 Manuscript reception and registration
Step 2 Initial review by scientific editor
Step 3 Peer-review
Step 4 End of peer-review
Step 5 First round of meeting evaluation
Step 6 To be accepted
Step 7 Revision by the author(s)
Step 8 Second round of meeting evaluation
Step 9 To be accepted/revised/rejected
Step 10 Final review by the Editor-in-Chief (final quality control for academic content and language quality)
Step 11 Final acceptance and charging of publication fee
Step 12 Language editing
Step 13 Production
Step 14 Proofreading by Scientific Editor
Step 15 Proofreading by Deputy Editor
Step 16 Final review by Editor-in-Chief
Step 17 Release of online open-access papers in electronic form on the IJIRMS current issue
Step 18 End of the publication process
Terms & condition of submission
Author should make clear that manuscripts submitted to the journal for consideration of publication should not be previously publish anywhere either in print or electronic format. Submitted manuscript should not be under consideration by another publication or electronic medium. The submitting author is responsible for ensuring that the article’s publication has been approved by all the other coauthors. It is also the submitting author’s responsibility to ensure that the article has all necessary institutional approvals.
Withdrawal Policy
By submission, the author grants the journal right of first publication. Therefore, the journal discourages unethical withdrawal of manuscript from the publication process after peer review.
The corresponding author should send a formal request signed by all co-authors stating the reason for withdrawing the manuscript. Withdrawal of manuscript is only considered valid when the editor accepts, or approves the reason to withdraw the manuscript from publication. Subsequently, the author must receive a confirmation from the editorial office. Only at that stage, authors are free to submit the manuscript elsewhere.
No response from the authors to all journal communication after review and provisional acceptance is also considered unethical withdrawal. Withdrawn manuscripts noted to have already been submitted or published in another journal will be subjected to sanctions in accordance with the journal policy. The journal will take disciplinary measures for unethical withdrawal of manuscripts. An embargo of 5 years will be enforced for the author and co-authors, and their institute and other scientific databases will be notified of this action.
Appeals and Complaints
Any appeal on a decision or complaint during peer-review, or post-publication, must be submitted in writing to the corresponding IJIRMS Journal’s editorial office (see “Journal Contact”). All cases will be handled in line with COPE guidelines.
Protection of Human Subjects and Animals in Research
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 1975, as revised in 2013 (https://www.wma.net/policies-post/wma-declaration-of-helsinki-ethical-principles-for-medical-research-involving-human-subjects). 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 should indicate whether institutional and national standards for the care and use of laboratory animals were followed. Further guidance on animal research ethics is available from the World Medical Association (2016 revision, https://www.wma.net/policies-post/wma-statement-on-animal-use-in-biomedical-research) and from the International Association of Veterinary Editors’ Consensus Author Guidelines on Animal Ethics and Welfare (http://www.veteditors.org/consensus-author-guidelines-on-animal-ethics-and-welfare-for-editors). When reporting experiments on ecosystems involving non-native species, Authors are bound to ensure compliance with the institutional and national guide for the preservation of native biodiversity.
Obligation to Register Clinical Trials (http://www.icmje.org/#clin_trials)
The ICMJE believes that it is important to foster a comprehensive, publicly available database of clinical trials. The ICMJE defines a clinical trial as any research project that prospectively assigns human subjects to intervention or concurrent comparison or control groups to study the cause-and-effect relationship between a medical intervention and a health outcome. Medical interventions include drugs, surgical procedures, devices, behavioral treatments, process-of-care changes, etc. Our journals require, as a condition of consideration for publication, registration in a public trials registry. The journal considers a trial for publication only if it has been registered before the enrollment of the first patient. The journal does not advocate one particular registry, but requires authors to register their trial in a registry that meets several criteria. The registry must be accessible to the public at no charge. It must be open to all prospective registrants and managed by a non-profit organization. There must be a mechanism to ensure the validity of the registration data, and the registry should be electronically searchable. An acceptable registry must include a minimum of data elements (http://www.icmje.org/#clin_trials). For example, ClinicalTrials.gov (http://www.clinicaltrials.gov), sponsored by the United States National Library of Medicine, meets these requirements.
Copyright of all articles published in IJIRMS Journal is retained by the authors. The articles are licensed under the open access Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 license, which means that anyone can download and read the paper for free. In addition, the article may be reused and cited, provided the original published version is cited. These conditions allow for maximum use and exposure of the work, while ensuring that the authors receive proper credit.
The Process for Handling Cases Requiring Corrections, Retractions, and Editorial Expressions of Concern
IJIRMS Publisher journal follow the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) (http://www.icmje.org/icmje-recommendations.pdf) and the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) (https://publicationethics.org/guidance).
We aim to ensure the integrity of the academic record of all published or potential publications. Whenever it is recognized that a significant inaccuracy, misleading statement, or distorted report has been published, it must be corrected promptly and with due prominence. If, after an appropriate investigation, an item proves to be fraudulent, it should be retracted. The retraction should be clearly identifiable to readers and indexing systems.
Corrections
Errors in published papers may be identified in the form of a corrigendum or erratum when the Editor-in-Chief considers it appropriate to inform the journal readership about a previous error and makes a correction to the error in the published article. The corrigendum or erratum will appear as a new article in the journal, and will cite the original published article.
Retractions
Retractions are considered and published when there are severe errors in an article that invalidate the conclusions. Retractions are also made in cases where there is evidence of publication malpractice, such as plagiarism, duplicate publication, or unethical research.
According to industry best practice and in accordance with COPE guidelines, IJIRMS implements the following procedure if a retraction is confirmed:
Editorial expressions of concern
Where substantial doubt arises as to the honesty or integrity of a submitted or published article, journal editors may consider issuing an expression of concern. However, expressions of concern should only be issued if an investigation into the problems relating to the article has proven inconclusive, and if there remain strong indicators that the concerns are valid. Under some rare cases, an editorial expression of concern may also be issued when an investigation is underway but a judgement will not be available for a considerable time.
The expression of concern will be linked back to the published article it relates to.
Where necessary, we encourage authors to share data to support the publication of studies and to interlink data with their published articles. “Research data” refers to the results of observations or experiments that confirm research findings, including but not limited to raw data, processed data, software, algorithms, protocols, models, methods, and other related materials.
In following this policy, if authors have made their study data accessible in a data repository, they can link their articles directly to the dataset.
Specifically, authors are required to fill in a data-sharing statement form, which should be submitted along with their manuscript. If the article is accepted for publication, the Data Availability Statement will be published (online only) alongside the article. Data sharing statements include information regarding whether individual de-identified participant data (including data dictionaries) will be shared (n.b. “undecided” is not an acceptable answer) and/or what data in particular will be shared. They may also indicate whether additional related documents will be available (e.g., study protocol or a statistical analysis plan) as well as when and for how long the data will be available and what access criteria data will be shared (including with whom, for what types of analyses, and by what mechanism).
Meanwhile, as a member of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), we require clinical trials that began enrolling participants on or after January 1, 2019, to include a data-sharing plan in the trial’s registration. The ICMJE’s policy regarding trial registration is explained at www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/publishing-and-editorial-issues/clinical-trial-registration.html. Should the data-sharing plan change after registration, this should be reflected in the statement submitted and published with the manuscript, and updated in the registry record.