Author Guidelines

Criteria

JICNA accepts Research articles (reporting original primary research), Reviews, particularly systemic reviews (web page), commentaries, case reports and series.

Submission process

Manuscripts should be submitted by the corresponding author of the manuscript, who takes responsibility for the paper during submission and peer review.

Please provide a covering letter, to explain why this paper should be published in JICNA and to declare any potential competing interests. You will be also asked to provide the contact details (including email addresses) of potential peer reviewers for your manuscript. These should be experts in their field, who will be able to provide an objective assessment of the manuscript. Any suggested peer reviewers should not have published with any of the authors of the manuscript within the past five years, should not be current collaborators, and should not be members of the same research institution. Suggested reviewers will be considered alongside potential reviewers recommended by the Editorial team.

File formats

The following word processor file formats are acceptable for the main manuscript document:

• Microsoft word (DOC, DOCX)
• Rich text format (RTF)

Other files such as video, animations, or original data files, can also be submitted as part of the paper.

Preparing main manuscript text
General guidelines of the journal's style and language are given below.

Overview of manuscript sections for Research articles
Manuscripts for Research articles submitted to JICNA should be divided into the following sections (in this order):

• Title page
• Abstract
• Keywords
• Background
• Methods
• Results and discussion
• Conclusions
• Acknowledgements
• Competing interests
• Authors' contributions
• References
• Tables and Captions
• Figures
• Additional files

Title page

The title page should contain:

• the title of the article 
• avoid abbreviations
• list the full names, institutional addresses and email addresses for all authors (The ORCID data for authors should be included in the submission form)
• indicate the corresponding author, their e-mail address and telephone number

Abstract

The Abstract should be less than 300 words and structured with the following sections:

• Background, the context and purpose of the study;
• Methods, how the study was performed and statistical tests used;
• Results, the main findings;
• Conclusions, brief summary and potential implications.
• Trial registration: Please list the trial registry and the unique identifying number (e.g. Trial registration: Current Controlled Trials ISRCTN73824458) if appropriate.
  Protocols of randomized controlled trials should follow the CONSORT guidelines and must have a trial registration number included as the last line of the abstract, as described in our editorial policies.
• Restrict the use of abbreviations and do not cite references in the abstract.

Keywords

Three to ten keywords representing the main content of the article.

Background

The Background should provide the rationale and aims of the paper, and should be written so that it can be understood by other clinicians and researchers who do not have specialist knowledge in that area. Reports of clinical research should, where appropriate, include a summary of a search of the literature to indicate why this study was necessary and what it aimed to contribute to the field. The section should end with a brief statement of what is being reported in the article.

Methods

The methods section should include the design of the study, the setting, the type of participants or materials involved, a clear description of all interventions and comparisons, and the type of analysis used, including a power calculation if appropriate. Generic drug names should be used, with the brands names in parentheses if appropriate.

A statement detailing ethical approval and consent should be included in the methods section for all studies involving human participants.

Results 

Results of statistical analysis should include, where appropriate, relative and absolute risks or risk reductions, and confidence intervals. The Results and Discussion sections may also be broken into subsections with short, informative headings.

Discussion

Conclusions

This should state clearly the main conclusions of the research and give a clear explanation of their importance and relevance.

Abbreviations

If abbreviations are used in the text they should be defined in the text at first use, and a list of abbreviations can be provided.

Acknowledgements

Please acknowledge anyone who contributed towards the article by making substantial contributions to conception, design, acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data, or who was involved in drafting the manuscript or revising it critically for important intellectual content, but who does not meet the criteria for authorship.

Please also include the source(s) of funding for each author, and for the manuscript preparation. Authors must describe the role of the funding body, if any, in design, in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript; and in the decision to submit the manuscript for publication.

Please also acknowledge anyone who contributed materials essential for the study. If a language editor has made significant revision of the manuscript, we recommend that you acknowledge the editor by name, where possible.

The role of a scientific (medical) writer must be included in the acknowledgements section, including their source(s) of funding.

Authors should obtain permission to acknowledge from all those mentioned in the Acknowledgements section.

Competing interests

A competing interest exists when your interpretation of data or presentation of information may be influenced by your personal or financial relationship with other people or organizations. Authors must disclose any financial competing interests. They should also reveal any non-financial competing interests that may cause them embarrassment were they to become public after the publication of the manuscript.

Authors are required to complete a declaration of competing interests. All competing interests that are declared will be listed at the end of published articles. Where an author gives no competing interests, the listing will read 'The author(s) declare that they have no competing interests'.

When completing your declaration, please consider the following questions:
Financial competing interests

• In the past five years have you received reimbursements, fees, funding, or salary from an organization that may in any way gain or lose financially from the publication of this manuscript, either now or in the future? Is such an organization financing this manuscript (including the article-processing charge)? If so, please specify.
• Do you hold any stocks or shares in an organization that may in any way gain or lose financially from the publication of this manuscript, either now or in the future? If so, please specify.
• Do you hold or are you currently applying for any patents relating to the content of the manuscript? Have you received reimbursements, fees, funding, or salary from an organization that holds or has applied for patents relating to the content of the manuscript? If so, please specify.
• Do you have any other financial competing interests? If so, please specify.
• Non-financial competing interests. Are there any non-financial competing interests (political, personal, religious, ideological, academic, intellectual, commercial or any other) to declare in relation to this manuscript? If so, please specify.
• If you are unsure as to whether you, or one your co-authors, has a competing interest please contact the editorial staff.

Authors' contributions

In order to give appropriate credit to each author of a paper, the individual contributions of authors to the manuscript should be specified in this section. An 'author' is generally considered to be someone who has made substantive intellectual contributions to a published study.

To qualify as an author one should:

1. have made substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data;
2. have been involved in drafting the manuscript or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and
3. have given final approval of the version to be published.

Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content. All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, writing assistance, or a senior member of the depatment who provided only general support.

References

All references, including URLs, must be numbered consecutively, in square brackets, in the order in which they are cited in the text, followed by any in tables or legends. Each reference must have an individual reference number. Please avoid excessive referencing. If automatic numbering systems are used, the reference numbers must be finalized and the bibliography must be fully formatted before submission.

Only articles, datasets and abstracts that have been published or are in press, or are available through public e-print/preprint servers, may be cited; unpublished abstracts, unpublished data and personal communications should not be included in the reference list, but may be included in the text and referred to as "unpublished observations" or "personal communications" giving the names of the involved researchers. Obtaining permission to quote personal communications and unpublished data from the cited colleagues is the responsibility of the author.

Journal abbreviations follow Index Medicus/MEDLINE. Citations in the reference list should include all named authors, up to the first 10 before adding 'et al.'.

Any in press articles cited within the references and necessary for the reviewers' assessment of the manuscript should be made available if requested by the editorial office.

Examples of the JICNA Vancouver reference style are shown below.
All web links and URLs, including links to the authors' own websites, should be given a reference number and included in the reference list rather than within the text of the manuscript.

Examples of the JICNA Vancouver reference style

Article within a journal
1. Authors: Title.Journal .Year, Supplement Number, vol: pages.

Berg AT, Berkovic SF, Brodie MJ, Buchhalter J, Cross JH, van Emde Boas W, Engel J, French J, Glauser TA, Mathern GW, Moshé SL, Nordli D, Plouin P, Scheffer IE. Revised terminology and concepts for organization of seizures and epilepsies: Report of the ILAE Commission on Classification and Terminology.. Epilepsia.. 2010; 51(4):676-85.

Article within a journal supplement
2. Authors: Title.Journal .Year, Supplement Number, vol: pages.

In press article
3. Authors: Title.Journal .Year: in press.

Published abstract
4. Authors: Title (abstract).Journal .Year, Vol: pages.

Article within conference proceedings
5. Authors: Title. In Proceedings of Conference: Dates of meeting; City of Meeting. Edited by Editor’s name. Publisher; Town, Year: page.

Book chapter, or article within a book
6. Authors: Title. In Book Title. Volume Number. XX edition. Edited by Editor’s name. Publisher; Town, Year: pages.

Whole issue of journal
7. Editors (Eds): Title.Journal .Year, Vol: pages.

Whole conference proceedings
8. Authors: Title. In Proceedings of Conference: Dates of meeting; City of Meeting. Edited by Editor’s name. Publisher; Town, Year: page.

Complete book
9. Authors: Title. Publisher; Town, Year: page.

Monograph or book in a series
10. Authors: Title. In Book Title. Volume Number. XX edition. Edited by Editor’s name. Publisher; Town, Year: pages. [Series Editor: Series Name, Volume]

Report
11. Name of Committee: Title.

PhD thesis
12. Authors: Title.PhD thesis. University, Year.

Link / URL
13. Name of Database [web address]

Preparing tables

Each table should be numbered and cited in sequence using Arabic numerals (i.e. Table 1, 2, 3 etc.). Tables should have a title (above the table) that summarizes the whole table; in less than 15 words. Detailed legends may then follow, but they should be concise. Tables should always be cited in text in consecutive numerical order.

Tables should be formatted using the 'Table object' in a word processing program to ensure that columns of data are kept aligned when the file is sent electronically for review. Columns and rows of data should be made visibly distinct by ensuring that the borders of each cell display as black lines. Commas should not be used to indicate numerical values. Colour and shading may not be used; parts of the table can be highlighted using symbols or bold text, the meaning of which should be explained in a table legend. Tables should not be embedded as figures or spread sheet files.

Larger datasets or tables too wide for a portrait page can be uploaded separately as additional files. Additional files will not be displayed in the final, laid-out PDF of the article, but a link will be provided to the files as supplied by the author.

Tabular data provided as additional files can be uploaded as an Excel spreadsheet (.xls) or comma separated values (.csv). As with all files, please use the standard file extensions.

Preparing illustrations and figures

Illustrations should be provided as separate files, not embedded in the text file. Each figure should include a single illustration and should fit on a single page in portrait format. If a figure consists of separate parts, it is important that a single composite illustration file be submitted which contains all parts of the figure. There is no charge for the use of color figures.

Formats
The following file formats can be accepted:

• PDF (preferred format for diagrams)
• DOCX/DOC (single page only)
• PPTX/PPT (single slide only)
• EPS
• PNG (preferred format for photos or images)
• TIFF
• JPEG
• BMP
  Figure legends

The legends should be included in the main manuscript text file at the end of the document, rather than being a part of the figure file. For each figure, the following information should be provided: Figure number (in sequence, using Arabic numerals - i.e. Figure 1, 2, 3 etc); short title of figure (maximum 15 words); detailed legend, up to 300 words.

Please note that it is the responsibility of the author(s) to obtain permission from the copyright holder to reproduce figures or tables that have previously been published elsewhere.

Preparing additional files

Although JICNA does not restrict the length and quantity of data included in an article, there may still be occasions where an author wishes to provide data sets, tables, movie files, or other information as additional files. Results that would otherwise be indicated as "data not shown" can and should be included as additional files. Since many weblinks and URLs rapidly become broken, JICNA requires that all supplementary data are included as additional files rather than as a link to your own website. These files can be uploaded using the 'Additional Material files' button in the manuscript submission tool.

The maximum file size for additional files is 20 MB each, and files will be virus-scanned on submission.

Additional files will be linked to the final published article in the form supplied by the author, but will not be displayed within the article. They will be made available in exactly the same form as originally provided by the authors.

If additional material is provided, please list the following information in a separate section of the manuscript text, immediately following the tables (if any):

File name (e.g. Additional file 1)

File format including the three-letter file extension (including name and a URL of an appropriate viewer if format is unusual)
• Title of data
• Description of data

Additional files should be named "Additional file 1" and so on and should be referenced explicitly by file name within the body of the article, e.g. 'An additional movie file shows this in more detail [see Additional file 1]'.

Additional file formats
Ideally, file formats for additional files should not be platform-specific, and should be viewable using free or widely available tools. The following are examples of suitable formats.

Additional documentation 
o PDF (Adode Acrobat)
o Animations 
o SWF (Shockwave Flash)
o Movies 
o MOV (QuickTime)
o MPG (MPEG)
Tabular data 
o XLS, XLSX (Excel Spreadsheet)
o CSV (Comma separated values)

As with figure files, files should be given the standard file extensions. This is especially important for Macintosh users, since the Mac OS does not enforce the use of standard extensions. Please also make sure that each additional file is a single table, figure or movie (please do not upload linked worksheets or PDF files larger than one sheet).

Mini-websites
Small self-contained websites can be submitted as additional files, in such a way that they will be browsable from within the full text HTML version of the article.

In order to do this, please follow these instructions:
1. Create a folder containing a starting file called index.html (or index.htm) in the root.
2. Put all files necessary for viewing the mini-website within the folder, or sub-folders.
3. Ensure that all links are relative (ie "images/picture.jpg" rather than "/images/picture.jpg" or "http://yourdomain.net/images/picture.jpg" or "C:\Documents and Settings\username\My Documents\mini-website\images\picture.jpg") and no link is longer than 255 characters.
4. Access the index.html file and browse around the mini-website, to ensure that the most commonly used browsers (Internet Explorer and Firefox) are able to view all parts of the mini-website without problems, it is ideal to check this on a different machine.
5. Compress the folder into a ZIP, check the file size is under 20 MB, ensure that index.html is in the root of the ZIP, and that the file has .zip extension, then submit as an additional file with your article.

Style and language

General
JICNA will accept manuscripts written in any language, provided there is an English translation. Spelling can be in either US English or British English, but not a mixture.
There is no explicit limit on the length of articles submitted, but authors are encouraged to be concise. There is also no restriction on the number of figures, tables or additional files that can be included with each article online. Figures and tables should be numbered in the order in which they are referred to in the text. Authors should include all relevant supporting data with each article.

JICNA will not edit submitted manuscripts for style or language; reviewers may advise rejection of a manuscript if it is compromised by grammatical errors. Authors are advised to write clearly and simply, and to have their article checked by colleagues before submission. In-house copyediting will be minimal. Non-native speakers of English may choose to make use of a copyediting service.

Language editing
For authors who wish to have the language in their manuscript edited by a native-English speaker with scientific expertise, we may be able to help if the paper is to be published in JICNA. Otherwise there are commercial companies.

Abbreviations
Abbreviations should be used as sparingly as possible. They should be defined when first used and a list of abbreviations can be provided following the main manuscript text.

Typography

• Please use double line spacing.
• Type the text unjustified, without hyphenating words at line breaks.
• Use hard returns only to end headings and paragraphs, not to rearrange lines.
• Capitalize only the first word, and proper nouns, in the title.
• All pages should be numbered.
• Use the JICNA reference format.

• Footnotes are not allowed, but endnotes are permitted.

• Please do not format the text in multiple columns.
• Greek and other special characters may be included. If you are unable to reproduce a particular special character, please type out the name of the symbol in full. Please ensure that all special characters used are embedded in the text, otherwise they will be lost during conversion to PDF.
• Units- SI units should be used throughout (liter and molar are permitted, however).

ORCID

ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID) and ResearcherID are unique persistent digital identifiers that distinguish you from every other researcher and automatically links you and your professional activities – ensuring that your work is recognised.

We require the submitting author to provide an ORCID iD when submitting a manuscript, and we also encourage all co-authors to link their ORCID iD to their account on our submission system.