Guidelines For Authors

Check Your Article For Submission

Copyright Notice:

 We consider that submission of a manuscript to IJSMR itself denotes that all authors have read and agreed to the content of the Cover Letter, and the Terms and Conditions of granting copyright to International Journal of Statistics in Medical Research. By that means authors agree that the manuscripts submitted to IJSMR have not been published earlier; and will not be simultaneously submitted or published elsewhere.

All articles by International Journal of Statistics in Medical Researchare published under the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode), which means that the Licensor

International Journal of Statistics in Medical Researchgrants author(s) a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, and non-commercial perpetual license to exercise below rights in the published article.

• free distribution and reproduction at any platform,provided that the work is properly cited;
• retain the copyright of their published article;
• incorporate the article into one or more collective works;
• Create Derivative Works for educational purposes.

Please note that under this license the right for any commercial application of the work, with prior agreement by the author, is exclusively granted to International Journal of Statistics in Medical Research. 

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MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSION:

An online submission and tracking service at International Journal of Statistics in Medical Research facilitates a speedy and cost-effective submission of manuscripts. The full manuscript has to be submitted online via link https://lifescienceglobal.com/pms/index.php/ijsmr/about/submissions.

Please submit your paper in MS Word (.doc or .docx /LaTeX) file format according to the detailed Manuscript Preparation Guide given below. To ensure rapid review and publication, kindly adhere to these guidelines.

The number of pages is at the authors' discretion; on an average, papers are 10-25 pages long. When developing your article for publication, we firmly advise you to pay particular attention to your research methods, key results, and language.

It is imperative that before submission, authors should carefully proofread the files for special characters, mathematical symbols, Greek letters, equations, tables, and images, to ensure that they emerge in the proper format.

References, figures, tables, etc., should be double checked before submission of the manuscript. The author also should ensure that legends/captions are present for all figures in their manuscript.

Originality:

Submissions must be original work, the copyright to which is not earlier published elsewhere. Originality, creativity, and a cross-disciplinary method or perspectives are greatly encouraged. Translated duplication of papers is not allowed. For detailed please visit: PUBLISHING ETHICS AND INTEGRITY.

Cover letter:

A written statement by the corresponding author should accompany the submitted article/manuscript that all authors agree to submit this manuscript to IJSMR and the manuscript, completely or partially, has not been and will not be published in or submitted to any other journal, simultaneously.

Manuscript Preparation Guide:

Title Page:

The first page of the manuscript submitted to IJSMR should be the title page that will be comprised of article’s title; author (s) full name, affiliation and e-mail address; corresponding author(s) name, institutional affiliation/address, telephone and fax numbers, and e-mail address; as well as a short 'running title' of the manuscript and keywords (same as shown in the original manuscript).

Manuscript:

For preparing and general formatting of your manuscript for IJSMR follow the Vancouver Style Guide. Below given guidelines will help authors to draft their manuscript according to IJSMR requirements.

General instructions:

Manuscripts containing language inconsistencies will not be published. Articles written only in English are published by IJSMR. If the author is not a native English speaker, we recommend proofreading the article for language efficiency. Use clear yet simple language, avoiding jargon, superlatives, wordy phrases and common expressions.Generally, avoid writing in the first person. Pay close attention to essential grammatical issues such as consistent use of verb tenses; and accuracy in spelling, punctuation, sentence construction, and general outline.Use the past tense to explain methods used in the research. Non-assimilated terms from Latin or other languages,unfamiliar words or phrases should be italicized(e.g., per se, et al., etc.).Italics should also be done for Binomial names of organisms (Genus and Species) for emphasis.  Language-editing services are also provided by IJSMR on payment.When numbering a series of items in a list, use the convention (1), (2), (3) rather than 1. or 1).e.g., ‘The study finds that three variables are important predictors of hypertension in adult groups: (1) BMI of the adult, (2) comorbid diseases, and (3) genetic propensity.’

Spell out words such as percent, chi-square and versus, rather than using their abbreviations (except when presenting data in tables or graphs).

All acronyms should be accompanied by the full their terms (with the acronym in parenthesis) where they appear first in the article. Afterward, only the acronyms may be used.

Greek Symbols and Special Characters: Greek symbols and special characters often undergo formatting changes and get corrupted or lost while preparing a manuscript for publication. Authors are advised to thoroughly check for these characters while submitting and later on during galley proof of their articles.

Frame work of the manuscript:

The structure of the manuscript submitted to IJSMR should be in following order:

• MAIN TEXT

• Title
• Authors names and affiliations
•  Abstract
• Keywords
• text of the article(with subsections according to the type of article)
• Conclusion
• List of Abbreviations (if any)
• Funding
• Conflict of Interest
• Acknowledgments(if  any)
• Use of artificial intelligence (AI)
• Appendices (if any)
• Supportive/Supplementary Material (if any)
• References
• Figures/Illustrations (if any)
• Tables (if any)

MAIN TEXT

The main text should begin on a separate page and split into below sections:

• Title:

The title should be specific, appropriately projecting the focus of the study yet concise; it must not contain more than 15 words. 

• Authors:

 All co-authors and their current affiliations must be present after the title. The corresponding author(s) should be identified with an asterisk and his/her details should be provided in footnote.

The corresponding author is responsible to ensure that all individuals listed as authors have devoted substantially to the conception/execution/analysis/scholarly presentation of the work; their particular contribution should be indicated in title page accompanying the article. All authors should also approve the submitted and the final version of the article to be published. All listed authors are considered to be accountable for their respective contribution in the article.

• Abstract:

An article's abstract should be a clear, concise, and precise summary of the work presented in the article. Abstract should not contain more than 250 words, and must be devoid of any sub-headings and references. 

The abstract must concisely state purpose of the study, method of the work, principal results and conclusion.

• Keywords:

The author must provide 6 to 8 keywords relevant to their work submitted to IJSMR.The words that appear in the abstract and title should be used as ‘keywords’, and  frequently used in the main text of the article. However, avoid general/plural terms and multiple concepts (for example, 'and', 'of'). If authors use abbreviations as keywords, they should only include those that are firmly established in the field.

• Text of the article:

The text may be subdivided further according to the type of the article (Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion and Conclusion—for research articles; Introduction/Background, Discussionand Conclusion—for review articles.).

For Research Articles, the manuscript should begin with the title page and abstract followed by the key words and main text which needs to be structured into separate sections of Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusion, Ethics Approval, Conflict of Interest, Acknowledgements(if any), and References.

For Review Articles, authors are free to further partition the text in appropriate subheadings according to the fields to be explained.  The review articles should start with the general background of the field and then broadly discussing notable previous and current reviews in the area. Subsequently, it should discuss the remarkable features of recent developments. Authors should avoid presenting material already declared in a former review rather, they are advised to show and discuss their own observations.

All randomized clinical investigations must include a flow diagram, and authors should give a completed randomized trial checklist (see CONSORT Flow Diagram and Checklist; www.consort-statement.org) and a test protocol.

For case reports, the authors should follow the CARE guidelines. The CARE checklist should be provided as a separate file.

It is reiterated that all articles should be accompanied by the Conclusion and Reference sections at the end of the article.

Non-assimilated terms from Latin or other languages should be italicized(e.g., per se, et al., etc.).

Introduction:

The Introduction section should comprehensively include the background and aims of the research. Abbreviations should always be accompanied by their full term where they appear for the first time in the article (except when it is a standard unit of measurement). In subsequently sections, using abbreviations alone will suffice. The length of the introduction must be reasonably appropriate in comparison to the discussion section;avoid making itoverly-short or -long. Authors must ensure that all referencesare numbered consecutively.

• If Illustrations are provided at the end of the article or as separate files, their appropriate placement should be clearly indicated within the text. The author may also submit illustrations embedded appropriately in the manuscript at the time of submission.

• Materials and Methods:

This section provides details of the methodology used, along with information on any previous efforts with corresponding references. The author should include details for further modifications and research. Sufficient information should be provided to the reader about the original data source to enable the analysis, appropriateness, and verification of the results reported in the study.

The Method Section needs to be sufficiently detailed regarding the data presented and the results produced from it. This section should include all the materials, information and protocol gathered for the study. Tools/equipment used in the study should be fully mentioned(including their model’s and manufacturers’ brief details). If materials used in the study had been supplied by some organization/company the name(s) and location of supplier(s) (town, state/county) should be included in this section. Types of statistical methods, and software must be satisfactorily stated.Methods must be result-oriented.

If the submitted work presents studies involving human participants, the statement regarding the approval by an independent review committee (local, regional or national e.g., the ethics committee or institutional review board) should be a part of this section including the name and location of relevant Ethics Review Committee/ institutional review board.Description of demographic characteristics of participants should be considered. Satisfactory rational must be provided for selection of specific groups in the study. The place and time period of the study is mandatory to be described in this section. A clear statement of obtaining written or verbal consent of participants to participate in and later publish the study should always be a part of this section. For further details in this regard see Consent for Publication.

• Results:

Results of the study should always be presented appropriately with the essential and main findings of the research coming first in the Results Section. The tables, figures, and references should be given in sequence to emphasize the vital information or observations related to the research. The author should avoid the repetition of data presented in tables/figures however, these should be sufficiently explained under this section. If the research yields some negative/unsupportive results, authors should ethically also mention these in this section.However, presenting studies with negative results only is discouraged, although permitted.

Only SI units are allowed to be used in articles. If other units are necessary, include the conversion factor and add the non-standard unit in parenthesis.

• Discussion:

In this section the results of the study should be interpreted and their significanceshould be explored in the light of previously published literature on the subject matter. Proper reference of the previous studies must be provided. Important/new findings of the study should be specially discussed. Information already presented in the introduction/results section should not be repeated in detail in this section. Results should be compatible with the objective of the study. Possible reasons for unexpected findings should be provided however, extensive discussion of previously published studies must be avoided.

This section may be presented separately, or combined with previous section under a single heading (Results and Discussion).

• Conclusion:

All manuscripts should contain a Conclusion section at the end of the article in which author must give a small paragraph summarizing the article's contents and research outcome.Real world impact of the research and future recommendations for propagating further research on the subject of the article may also be included in this section.

• List of Abbreviations (if any):

If abbreviations are used in the text, these should either be specified in the text where first used, or the author should provide a complete list of abbreviations after the Main text.

• Funding Statement:

If the work presented in the submitted article had received any funding, authors should clearly declare the source(s) of funding (e.g., institutional/private/corporate financial support). The funding statement should contain the name of the funding organization(s) along with the grant number, mentioned in round brackets, such as:

"This work was financially supported by [name of the funding agency] (Grant number XXX).

Multiple grant numbers or funding from more than one agency should also be clearly mentioned.

If the work was not supported by any financial funding, this should also be specified and authors may appropriately mention that the research received no specific grant from any funding agency whether in public, commercial, or not-for-profit segments.

• Declaration of Conflict of Interest:

Conflict of interest includes any direct/indirect concern that may have an influence on the conducting/assessment/reading of the research presented in the article.

Following COPE guidance on declaration of conflict of interest we make it mandatory that authors submitting their work to IJSMR must acknowledge any possible conflict of interest (financial/non-financial) under the heading 'Conflict of Interest' before REFERENCES.  This will help our editors and reviewers to fairly judge any potential bias in the submitted work. 

The interests that may be considered as potential conflicts are listed below (the  list is not exhaustive, however.)

Financial Interests

• Receiving of Grants from any funding agency or commercial body;
• any type of payment(consulting fees, reimbursement etc.) that authors received from organizations/institutions/individuals for conducting the research, that/who may be possibly considered to gain financial benefit from the research; 
• any form of financial holdings(stocks, shares etc.) that may seem to be benefitted from the publication/dissemination of the research;  
• any Employment relation with or affiliation to an organization that may be possibly considered to have an interest in the research and/or may gain benefit from its publication/dissemination; 
• Close (family/work)relatives who may likely be considered for gaining financial benefits from the research and its publication.

• Non-financial interests

• Any association or affiliation (including honorary) to an organization as members of advisory board/committees that may have an interest in the results of the research work.
• Authors’ membership of social organizations or societies that carry out sponsorship work 
• Political engagement, activism or other advocacy work related to the research  
• Present close working relationships with editorial board members of IJSMR
• Editorial responsibilities or membership of the editorial board of the journal 

Even if authors are confident that they have no conflict of interest to declare, they should explicitly disclose this as, “the author(s) declare no conflict of interest regarding the research/authorship/ publication of this article’”

Notably, all submissions to IJSMR are evaluated fairly irrespective to whether authors have declared the presence or absence of conflicting interests. However, if a potential conflict of interest (not clearly declared by authors) is discovered during the peer review or publishing process, the handling Editor/EiC reserves the right to reject the submission right away.

Acknowledgments:

Acknowledging anyone (individual/company/institution) who has considerably contributed to studying important intellectual content or was involved in drafting the manuscript- but could not be listed as author- is an ethical responsibility of authors and IJSMR encourages that they must be mentioned properly at the end of the article.

Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) by authors:

If authors have used AI-assisted tools (tools to improve language, grammar or structure of the manuscript) method in preparing the manuscript, their use should be limited for grammatical and spelling corrections only, to improve the readability of the manuscript while simultaneously being conscious to the potential of plagiarism. The model and purpose of such assistance, however, requires to be declared in the methods or acknowledgement section of the manuscript, as appropriate. IJSMR discourages the use of generative AI tools to produce content for any section of the manuscript, partially or wholly. Nevertheless, if such tools have been used for preparing the manuscript this should be specifically disclosed to the editor at the time of submission of the article. Authors must ensure that they have verified all claims in the article prior to submission because ultimately they are responsible and accountable for any content of the manuscript that was prepared by AI. In references section, original source- rather than Generative AI tools- should be cited as primary sources.

This above policy regarding use of AI is, however, subject to be amended with the evolving role of AI in future.

Please note that though submissions are not subject to rejection based solely on the disclosed use of generative AI, if at any stage of publishing process, inappropriate use of AI in preparation of manuscript is discovered by the editor(s)/reviewer(s) without an appropriate disclosure, the EiC holds the authority to reject such submission. The generation of incorrect text or content, plagiarized content, or improper attribution to prior sources are considered as inappropriate use of Generative AI.

Appendixes:

If there is a need to present lengthy but essential methodological details, or an extensive list of symbols, authors may use appendices, which can be a part of the article. A single appendix should be titled as APPENDIX, while more than one can be titled APPENDIX A, APPENDIX B, and so on.

Supportive/Supplementary Material (if any):

Supportive/Supplementary material intended for publication must be numbered and referred to in the manuscript, but should not be a part of the submitted paper. The author should provide In-text citations and a section with the heading "Supportive/Supplementary Material" before the "References" section. 

References:

The author should submit preferably in the Vancouver style. All references must be complete and accurate. The references should be relevant to the study and should refer to the original research sources. The authors, editors, and peer-reviewers should avoid Self-citation and self-interest.

Below are a few examples of references listed in the Vancouver Style:

Vancouver Style

All references should be numbered sequentially [in square brackets] in the text and listed in the same numerical order in the reference section in Vancouver style. Punctuation should be appropriately applied, as mentioned in the examples given above.

Reference Lists:

Different reference formats have different citation rules. See below for some basic format standards.

Journal Article

The required information for a journal article is the author's name, abbreviated journal title, year, publication, volume number, and initial page of cited article, though full pagination is reasonable. It is essential to list all authors if the total number of authors is six or less, and for more than six authors, use three authors and then et al. (the term "et al." should be in italics). Journal abbreviations should follow the Index Medicus/MEDLINE. The author must capitalize the first letter of the first word in the title. The rest of the title should be in lower-case, except for proper names.

[1]     Smith SD, Jones, AD. Organ donation. N Engl J Med 2001; 657: 230-5.

[2]     Brown JG. Asphyxiation. Med J Aust 2003; 432:120-4.

Typical Chapter Reference:

[3]     Blaxter PS, Farnsworth TP. Social health and class inequalities. In: Carter C, Peel JR, editors. Equalities and inequalities in health. 2nd ed. London: Academic Press 1976; p. 165-78.

Book Reference:

[4]     Carlson BM. Human embryology and developmental biology. 3rd ed. St. Louis: Mosby; 2004.

Edited Book:

[5]     Brown AM, Stubbs DW, Eds. Medical physiology. New York: Wiley 1983.

Conference Paper and Proceedings:

[6]     Anderson JC. Current status of chorion villus biopsy. In: Tudenhope D, Chenoweth J, editors. Proceedings of the 4th Congress of the Australian Perinatal Society; 1986: Brisbane, Queensland: Australian Perinatal Society; 1987: p. 190-6.

[7]     Harris AH, Editor. Economics and health: 1997: Proceedings of the 19th Australian Conference of Health Economists; 1997: Sep 13-14; Sydney, Australia. Kensington, N.S.W.: School of Health Services Management, University of New South Wales; 1998.

Journal Article on the Internet:

[8]     Aylin P, Bottle A, Jarman B, Elliott, P. Paediatric cardiac surgical mortality in England after Bristol: descriptive analysis of hospital episode statistics 1991-2002. BMJ [serial on the Internet]. 2004 Oct 9;[cited 2004 October 15]; 329:[about 10 screens]. Available from: https://www.bmj.com/content/329/7470/825.full

Book/Monograph on the Internet: 

[9]     Dungworth D, Editor. Iron Age and Roman Copper Alloys from Northern Britain [monograph on the Internet]. Washington: Digital Monograph Series; [cited 1997]: Available from https://intarch.ac.uk/journal/issue2/dungworth_index.html.

Web site/Homepage:

[10]   Aylin P, Bottle A, Jarman B, Elliott, P. Paediatric cardiac surgical mortality in England after Bristol: descriptive analysis of hospital episode statistics 1991-2002. BMJ [serial on the Internet]. 2004 Oct 9; [cited: 15 October 2004]; 329: [about 10 screens]. Available from: sis.nlm.nih.gov/Tox/ToxMain.html.

Journal with Part/Supplement:

If a journal carries continuous pagination throughout the volume, then the issue number can be omitted.

Issue with Supplement:

[11]   Glauser TA. Integrating clinical trial data into clinical practice. Neurology 2002; 58(12 Suppl 7): S6-12.

Volume with Part:

[12]   Abend SM, Kulish N. The psychoanalytic method from an epistemological viewpoint. Int J Psychoanal 2002; 83(Pt 2): 491-5.

Issue with Part:

[13]   Ahrar K, Madoff DC, Gupta S, Wallace MJ, Price RE, Wright KC. Development of a large animal model for lung tumours. J VascIntervRadiol 2002; 13(9 Pt 1): 923-8.

Patent:

[14]   Pagedas AC, inventor; Ancel Surgical R&D Inc., assignee. Flexible endoscopic grasping and cutting device and positioning tool assembly. United States patent US 20020103498. 2002 Aug.

E-citations:

[15]   Citations for articles/material published exclusively online or in open access (free-to-view) must contain the exact Web addresses (URLs) at the end of the reference(s), except those posted on an author's Web site unless editorially essential, e.g. 'Reference: Available from: URL'.

• Figures/Illustrations:

• The authors are expected to submit good-quality figure(s) in PDF, PPT, MS Word, TIFF, or JPEG versions.
• All figures should be in vector scale (except half tone, photograph.)

• Photographs, charts, and diagrams are all to be referred to as "Figure(s)" and these should appear consecutively in manuscript. All illustrations should be clearly numbered according to their sequencing order in the text. Figures are required to have a caption.
• If text is needed to be embedded in the illustrations, it should be kept at a minimum but, explained in the caption.

Requirement

• Width = 8.5 inches (In-between the required size)
• Height = 11 inches (In-between the required size)

• Tables:

Data Tables should be submitted in Microsoft Word or Excel format.

Tables should be numbered consecutivelyin Arabic numerals as they are cited in the body of the text. Each table should include a title/caption explaining the details discussed in the table. Detailed legends may then follow. Tables should be clearly arranged and each column of the table should bear a heading. Footnotes to tables should be present below the tables and referred to by superscript lowercase letters. All arithmetic (percentages, totals, differences) should be accurate. Any abbreviation used in the table must be explained in the footnote. Tables should not duplicate the results presented elsewhere in the manuscript (e.g. in the graph).All symbols used in tables should be defined in text. If there is an extensive list of symbols, these should be placed in the appendix at the end of the manuscript. In case of mathematical numbers’ presentation, be careful for punctuation (percentages, decimals etc.).

PEER REVIEW:

All submissions to IJSMR are subject to a double-blind peer review process by field experts. For further details see, peer-review policy.

PROOF CORRECTIONS:

Authors are required to proofread the PDF versions of their manuscripts before submission. To avoid delays in publication, proofs should be checked immediately for typographical errors and returned within 48 hours. Authors should seek professional assistance for correcting grammatical and typographical errors before submitting the revised version of the article for publication. 

The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that the revised manuscript, including all proposed amendments, is endorsed by all authors.

Research Ethics and Policies

Conflict of Interest:

The author must acknowledge financial contributions and any possible conflict of interest under the heading 'Conflict of Interest'. In case of no conflict of interest it should also be declared in words. For further details see, Conflict of interest section above.

Acknowledgments:

Acknowledging anyone (individual/company/institution) who has considerably contributed to studying important intellectual content or was involved in drafting the manuscript- but could not be listed as author- is an ethical responsibility of authors and IJSMR encourages that they must be mentioned properly at the end of the article.

Consent for Publication:

If the manuscript has human individuals' data, such as personal details, audio-video material, etc., the individual's consent should be taken by the author. In children's cases, such permission should be obtained from the parent or the legal guardian of the child. A clear statement about obtaining written or verbal consent of participants to participate in, and later publish the study should always be a part of articles involving human participants.

Ethics Committee Approval:

If the submitted work presents studies involving human participants, a statement regarding the approval by an independent review committee (local, regional or national e.g., the ethics committee or institutional review board) should be included in the article’s method section including the name and location of relevant Ethics Review Committee/institutional review board.

Research ethics for studies on Human participants:

The author should conduct all clinical investigations according to the Declaration of Helsinki principles. For all manuscripts reporting data from studies involving human participants, formal review and approval by an appropriate institutional review board or ethics committee are required.

Gender,Race and Ethnicity

Unless gendered terms are important to the analysis or demographics, non-gendered terms should be used wherever possible (i.e., use person, people, individual, or humankind in place of man, men, or mankind). Authors should as long avoid specific racial and ethnical labeling as possible; Avoid using the terms Negro, Afro-American, Oriental etc.; rather use African-American, Asian, Asian-American etc.

Plagiarism prevention policy:

Whenever authors use data that someone else collected; or refer to that data; or use another person’s ideas (whether published, or available electronically) proper citation to the author(s) of that data/work should be provided. This also applies if authors quote their work precisely or paraphrase it.

All articles submitted to IJSMR go through a plagiarism checking system by which our team detects any piece of overlapping or similar text in submitted manuscripts by using an up-to-date software. This software controls submitted content against a database of periodicals, the Internet, and an extensive article database. It generates a similarity report, highlighting the percentage overlap between the uploaded article and the published material. Less than 19% similarity is permissible in articles submitted to IJSMR. For further details please see editorial policies.

Permission for Reproduction:

Authors are prohibited to include any published/reproduced material unless an appropriate written permission has been obtained from the copyright holder; editors of IJSMR should be informed about it in the cover letter accompanying the submission.

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