Instructions to Authors

Entire manuscript must be in Microsoft word typed in times new roman and a 12 point font with pages sequentially numbered.

First Page File: Prepare the title page, covering letter, acknowledgement, etc. using a word processor program. All information which can reveal your identity should be here. Use doc/docx files.

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. Use Word doc/docx files. You may incorporate images in the file. If file size is large, images can be submitted separately without incorporating them in the article file to reduce the size of the file.

Images: Submit good quality color images. Each image should be less than 400 kb in size. Size of the image can be reduced by decreasing the actual height and width of the images (keep up to 1024x760 pixels or 5 inches). 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.

Preparation of the Manuscript

The text of observational and experimental articles should be divided into sections with the headings: Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, References, Tables, Figures, Figure legends, and Acknowledgment. Do not make subheadings in these sections. Use double spacing throughout. Number pages consecutively, beginning with the title page. The language should be British English.

Title Page

The title page should carry

1. Type of manuscript (e.g. Original article, Review article, Case Report)

2. The title of the article, which should be concise, but informative;

3. Running title or short title not more than 50 characters;

4. The name by which each contributor is known (Last name, First name and initials of middle name), with his or her highest academic degree(s) and institutional affiliation;

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

6. The name, address, phone numbers, facsimile numbers and e-mail address of the contributor responsible for correspondence about the manuscript;

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

8. Acknowledgement, if any; and

Abstract Page

The second file should carry the full title of the manuscript and a structured abstract, consisting of four paragraphs, with the headings Background (the primary research question must be clearly stated here), Methods, Results and Conclusion. An abstract is not needed for case reports. Below the abstract provide three to ten key words or short phrases that will assist indexers in cross indexing your article. Use terms from the medical subject heading list from the Index Medicus whenever possible.

Introduction

State the purpose of the article and summaries the rationale for the study or observation. State your hypothesis or primary research question and the purpose of the study.

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.

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. Because the relevance of such variables as age and sex to the object of research is not always clear, authors should explain their use when they are included in a study report; for example, authors should explain why only subjects of certain ages were included or why women were excluded. 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.

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, including generic name(s), dose(s), and route(s) of administration.

Authors submitting review manuscripts should include a section describing the methods used for locating, selecting, extracting, and synthesizing data. These methods should also be summarized in the abstract. Reports of randomised clinical trials should present information on all major study elements, including the protocol, assignment of interventions (methods of randomization, concealment of allocation to treatment groups), and the method of masking (blinding), based on the CONSORT Statement (Moher D, Schulz KF, Altman DG: The CONSORT Statement: Revised Recommendations for Improving the Quality of Reports of Parallel-Group Randomised Trials. Ann Intern Med. 2001;134:657662, also available at http://www.consort-statement.org). Authors submitting review article should include a section describing the methods used for locating, selecting, extracting, and synthesising data. These methods should also be summarised in the abstract.

Ethics

When reporting experiments on human subjects, indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional or regional) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000 (available at http://www.wma.net/e/policy/17-c_e.html). Do not use patients' names, initials, or hospital numbers, especially in illustrative material. When reporting experiments on animals, indicate whether the institution's or a national research council's guide for, or any national law on the care and use of laboratory animals was followed.

Statistics

Statistical methods should be described in brief. Use of the word significant requires reporting of a p value. Ninety-five percent confidence intervals are required whenever the results of survivorship analysis are given in the text or graphs. Use of the word correlation requires reporting of the correlation coefficient.

Results

These must be clearly expressed in simple language. Tables or similar diagrams can be used but must not duplicate material already expressed in the text. Provide a detailed report on the data obtained during the study. Results obtained after less than two years of follow-up are rarely accepted. For studies pertaining to joint replacement a minimum of five years follow up is desirable. All data in the text must be consistent throughout the manuscript, including any illustrations, legends, or tables. For studies of less than 20 subjects percentages should not be used. Extra or supplementary materials and technical detail can be placed in an appendix where it will be accessible but will not interrupt the flow of the text; alternatively, it can be published only in the electronic version of the journal.

Use graphs as an alternative to tables with many entries; do not duplicate data in graphs and tables. Avoid non-technical uses of technical terms in statistics, such as "random" (which implies a randomizing device), "normal," "significant," "correlations," and "sample." Where scientifically appropriate, analyses of the data by variables such as age and sex should be included.

Discussion

This section must be succinct, pointing out the relevance of the work described in the paper and its contribution to current knowledge. The results must be interpreted clearly, and deficiencies expressed. Discussion of pertinent references must be concise and short. Be succinct. What does your study show? Is your hypothesis affirmed or refuted? Discuss the importance of this article with regard to the relevant world literature; a complete literature review is unnecessary. Analyze your data and discuss their strengths, their weaknesses, and the limitations of the study.

Acknowledgments

As an appendix to the text, one or more statements should specify

1. Contributions that need acknowledging but do not justify authorship, such as general support by a departmental chair;

2. Acknowledgments of technical help; and

3. Acknowledgments of financial and material support, which should specify the nature of the support. This should be included in the title page of the manuscript.

References

References in the text should include only those that are important and have been studied in full by the authors. References should only be used from published work. Proof of acceptance is required for references cited "in press". References should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text (not in alphabetic order). Identify references in text, tables, and legends by Arabic numerals in square bracket (e.g. [10]). 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. Use the style of the examples below, which are based on the formats used by the NLM in Index Medicus. The titles of journals should be abbreviated according to the style used in Index Medicus. Use complete name of the journal for non-indexed journals. Avoid using abstracts as references. Information 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, contributors should obtain written permission and confirmation of accuracy from the source of a personal communication. The commonly cited types of references are shown here, for other types of references such as electronic media, newspaper items, etc. please refer to ICMJE Guidelines (http://www.icmje.org or http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/uniform_requirements.html).

Download a PowerPoint presentation on common reference styles and using the reference checking facility on the manuscript submission site.

Articles in Journals

Standard journal article:

Shyam AK, Song HR, An H, Isaac D, Shetty GM, Lee SH. The effect of distraction-resisting forces on the tibia during distraction osteogenesis. J Bone Joint Surg Am. 2009 Jul;91(7):1671-82.

List the first six contributors followed by et al.

Chapter in a book: Morrey BF, An KN. Functional evaluation of the elbow. In: Morrey BF, Sanchez-Sotelo J, eds. The elbow and its disorders. Fourth ed. Philadelphia: WB Saunders, 1993:86-97.

Tables

• Tables should be self-explanatory and should not duplicate textual material.

• Tables with more than 10 columns and 25 rows are not acceptable.

• Type or print out each table with double spacing on a separate sheet of paper. If the table must be continued, repeat the title on a second sheet followed by "(contd.)".

• Number tables, in Arabic numerals, consecutively in the order of their first citation in the text and supply a brief title for each.

• Place explanatory matter in footnotes, not in the heading.

• Explain in footnotes all non-standard abbreviations that are used in each table.

• Obtain permission for all fully borrowed, adapted, and modified tables and provide a credit line in the footnote. For footnotes use the following symbols, in this sequence: *, †, ‡, §, ||, , **, ††, ‡‡

Illustrations (Figures)

These have to be submitted as separate file with specifications as mentioned earlier

Figure legends

These have to be included at the end of manuscript after the tables on a separate page or submitted as separate files as email attachment

Copyrights

The whole of the literary matter in the journal is copyright and cannot be reproduced without the written permission of the Editorial Board.

Checklist

(to be tick marked as applicable and one copy attached with the manuscript)

Manuscript Title

concise and appropriate

Covering letter

• Source of funding mentioned

• Conflicts of interest disclosed

Authors

• Middle name initials provided

• Author for correspondence, with e-mail address provided

• Number of contributors restricted as per the instructions

• Identity not revealed in paper except title page (e.g. name of the institute in Methods, citing previous study as 'our study', names on figure labels, name of institute in photographs, etc.)

Presentation and format

• Double spacing

• Margins 2.5 cm from all four sides

• Title page contains all the desired information

• Running title provided (not more than 50 characters)

• Abstract page contains the full title of the manuscript

• Abstract provided (about 150 words for case reports and 250 words for original articles)

• Structured abstract provided for an original article

• Key words provided (three or more)

• Introduction of 75-100 words

• Headings in title case (not ALL CAPITALS)

• References cited in square brackets

• References according to the journal's instructions, punctuation marks checked

Language and grammar

• Uniformly English

• Abbreviations spelt out in full for the first time

• Numerals from 1 to 10 spelt out

• Numerals at the beginning of the sentence spelt out

Tables and figures

• No repetition of data in tables and graphs and in text

• Actual numbers from which graphs drawn, provided

• Figures necessary and of good quality (colour)

• Table and figure numbers in Arabic letters (not Roman)

• Figure legends provided (not more than 40 words)

• Patients' privacy maintained (if not permission taken)

• Credit note for borrowed figures/tables provided