INSTRUCTION TO CONTRIBUTORS

(AOFOG   JOURNAL) 

AIMS AND SCOPE

The Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Research is the official Journal of the Asia and Oceania Federation of Obstetrics and Gynaecology and of the Japan Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

ACCEPTANCE

The acceptance criteria for all papers are the quality and originality of the research and its significance to our readership. Except where otherwise stated, manuscripts are peer reviewed by two anonymous reviewers and the Editor. The Editorial Board reserves the right to refuse any material for publication and advises that authors should retain copies of submitted manuscripts and correspondence as ma-terial cannot be returned. Final acceptance or rejection rests with the Editorial Board.

SUBMISSION OF MANUSCRIPTS

All articles submitted to the Journal must comply with these instructions. Failure to do so will result in return of the manuscript and possible delay in publication. Manuscripts should be written so that they are intelligible to the professional reader who is not a specialist in the particular field. Where contributions are judged as acceptable for publication on the basis of scientific content, the Editor or the Publisher reserve the right to modify typescripts to eliminate ambiguity and repetition and improve communication between author and reader. If extensive alterations are required, the manuscript will be returned to the author for revision.

COVERING LETTER

Papers are accepted for publication in the Journal on the understanding that the content has not been published or submitted for publication else-where. This must be stated in the covering letter. The covering letter must contain an acknowledgment that all authors have contributed significantly, and that all authors are in agreement with the content of the manuscript. In keeping with the latest guidelines of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, each author’s contribution to the paper is to be quantified. Authors must also state that the protocol for the research project has been approved by a

suitably constituted Ethics Committee of the institution within which the work was undertaken and that it conforms to the provisions of the Declaration of Helsinki in 1995 (as revised in Edinburgh 2000). All

investigations on human subjects must include a statement that the subject gave informed consent and patient anonymity should be pre-served.

In general, submission of a case report should be accompa-nied by the written consent of the subject (or parent/guardian) prior to publication; this is particularly important where photographs are to be used or in cases where the unique nature of the incident reported makes it possible for the patient to be identified. While the Editorial Board recognizes that it might not always be possible or appropriate to seek such consent, the onus will be on the authors to demonstrate that this exception applies in their case. Any experiments involving animals must be demonstrated to be ethically acceptable and where rel-evant

conform to national guidelines for animal usage in research. Authors should declare any financial support or relationships that may pose conflict of interest.

SUBMISSION

The original manuscript and three copies should be submitted to: Yuji Murata, Editor-in-Chief: Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Research, Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Osaka University Faculty of Medicine, 2-2 Yamadaoka, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan. N.B. Members of Japan Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology are required to submit the manuscripts to: Japan Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Hokenkaikan Bldg. Annex Ichigaya-Sadoharacho 1-1 Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, 162-0842, Japan.

COPYRIGHT

Papers accepted for publication become copyright of Asia and Oceania Federation of Obstetrics and Gynaecology and of the Japan Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology and authors will be asked to sign a transfer of copyright form. In signing the transfer of copyright it is assumed that authors have obtained permission to use any copy-righted or previously published material. All authors must read and agree to the conditions outlined in the Copyright Assignment Form, before the paper is accepted. It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to ensure that every author of the paper has signed the copyright form.

PREPARATION OF THE MANUSCRIPT

The length of an article (including references, tables and appendices etc.) should not exceed 5000 words. Case Reports should not exceed 5000 words. Submissions should be printed, double-spaced, on one side only of A4 paper. The top, bottom and side margins should be 30 mm. Laser or near-letter quality print is essential. All pages should be numbered consecutively in the top right-hand corner, beginning with the title page. Indent new paragraphs. Turn the hyphenation option off, including only those hyphens that are essential to the meaning.

Style Manuscripts should follow the style of the Vancouver agree-ment detailed in the ‘Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals’, as presented in JAMA 1997; 277: 927–34 (http://www.acponline.org/journals/annals/01jan97/unifreqr.php). The Journal uses US spelling and authors should therefore follow the latest edition of the Merriam–Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. All mea-surements must be given in SI units. Abbreviations should be used sparingly and only where they ease the reader’s task by reducing rep-etition of long, technical terms. Initially use the word in full, followed by the abbreviation in parentheses. Thereafter use the abbreviation. Upon its first use in the title, abstract and text, the common name of a species should be followed by the scientific name (genus, species and authority) in parentheses. However, for well-known species, the scientific name may be omitted from the article title. If no common name exists in English, the scientific name should be used only. Drugs should be referred to by their generic names, rather than brand names.

Equations Equations should be numbered sequentially with Arabic numerals; these should be ranged right in parentheses. All variables should appear in italics. Use the simplest possible form for all mathe-matical symbols.

PARTS OF THE MANUSCRIPT

Manuscripts should be presented in the following order: (i) title page, (ii) abstract and key words, (iii) text, (iv) acknowledgments, (v) refer-ences, (vi) appendices, (vii) figure legends, (viii) tables (each table complete with title and footnotes) and (ix) figures. Footnotes to the text are not allowed and any such material should be incorporated into the text as parenthetical matter.

Title page As articles are reviewed double-blind, material that might identify authorship of the paper should be placed on a cover sheet which will be detached before the paper is sent to referees. The title page should contain (i) the title of the paper, (ii) the full names of the authors and (iii) the addresses of the institutions at which the work was carried out together with (iv) the full postal and email address, plus

facsimile and telephone numbers, of the author to whom correspon-dence about the manuscript, proofs and requests for offprints should be sent. The present address of any author, if different from that where

the work was carried out, should be supplied in a footnote. The title should be short, informative and contain the major key words. A short running title (fewer than 40 characters, including spaces) should also be provided.

Abstract and key words All articles except Case Reports must have a structured abstract that states in 250 words or fewer the purpose, basic procedures, main findings and principal conclusions of the study. Divide the abstract with the headings Aim, Methods, Results, Conclusions. Case Reports should have an unstructured abstract of 150 words or fewer. The title of the article should be described on the top of the abstract. The abstract should not contain abbreviations or references. Five key words (for the purposes of indexing) should be supplied below the abstract, in alphabetical order, and should be taken from those recommended by the Index Medicus Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) browser list (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/meshhome.phpl).

Text Authors should use subheadings to divide the sections of their manuscript: Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgments, References.

Acknowledgments The source of financial grants and other fund-ing should be acknowledged, including a frank declaration of the authors’ industrial links and affiliations. The contribution of col-leagues or institutions should also be acknowledged. Thanks to anonymous reviewers are not allowed.

References The Vancouver system of referencing should be used. In the text, references should be cited using superscript Arabic numerals in the order in which they appear. If cited only in tables or figure legends, number them according to the first identification of the table or figure in the text. In the reference list, the references should be numbered and listed in order of appearance in the text. Cite the names of all authors when there are six or fewer; when seven or more list the first three followed by et al. Names of journals should be abbreviated in the style used in Index Medicus. Reference to unpublished data and personal communications should not appear in the list but should be cited in the text only (e.g. Smith A, 2000, unpublished data).

JOURNAL ARTICLE

1. Dunn JM. A large mesenteric cyst complicating pregnancy. JAMA 1967; 200: 1129.

BOOK

2. Rock JA, Thompson JD (eds) Telende’s Operative Gynecology, 8th edn. Philadephia: Lippincott-Raven, 1996.

CHAPTER IN A BOOK

3. Lindheimer MD, Katz AL. Fluid and electroytes metabolism in normal and abnormal pregnancy. In: Arieff AL, DeFronzo RA (eds) Fluid, Electrolytes, and Acid Base Disorders, 2nd edn. New York: Churchill Livingtstone, 1995; 839–875.

Appendices

These should be placed at the end of the paper, num-bered in Roman numerals and referred to in the text. If written by a person other than the author of the main text, the writer’s name should be included below the title.

Tables

Tables should be self-contained and complement, but not duplicate, information contained in the text. Tables should be num-bered consecutively in Arabic numerals. Each table should be pre-sented on a separate sheet of A4 paper with a comprehensive but concise legend above the table. Tables should be double-spaced and ver-tical lines should not be used to separate columns. Column headings should be brief, with units of measurement in parentheses; all abbrevi-ations should be defined in footnotes. Footnote symbols: †, ‡, §, ¶, should be used (in that order) and *, **, *** should be reserved for P-values.

Statistical measures such as SD or SEM should be identified in the headings. The table and its legend/footnotes should be under-standable without reference to the text.

Figures

All illustrations (line drawings and photographs) are classified as figures. Figures should be cited in consecutive order in the text. Each figure should be labelled on the back in very soft marker or china-graph pencil, indicating name of author(s), figure number and orien-tation. (Do not use an adhesive label as this prohibits electronic scanning.) Figures should be sized to fit within the column (78 mm), intermediate (120 mm) or the full text width (164 mm). Line figures should be supplied as sharp, black and white graphs or diagrams, drawn professionally or with a computer graphics package; lettering should be included. Photographs should be supplied as sharp, glossy, black and white photographic prints and must be unmounted. Individual photographs forming a composite figure should be of equal contrast, to facilitate printing, and should be accurately squared. Photographs need to be cropped sufficiently to prevent the subject being recog-nized, or an eye bar used. Magnifications should be indicated using a scale bar on the illustration. If supplied electronically, graphics should be supplied as high resolution (at least 300 d.p.i.) files, saved as .eps or .tif format. A high-resolution print-out must also be provided. Digital images supplied only as low-resolution print-outs and/or files cannot be used.

Colour figures For journals with colour figures: Colour photographs should be submitted as good quality, glossy colour prints. A charge for the first three colour figures and an additional charge for each extra colour figure thereafter will be invoiced to the author.

Figure legends Legends should be self-explanatory and typed on a separate page. The legend should incorporate definitions of any symbols used and all abbreviations and units of measurement should be explained so that the figure and its legend are understandable without reference to the text. (Provide a letter stating copyright authorisation if figures have been reproduced from another source.)

MANUSCRIPTS ON DISK

Authors are required to provide their manuscripts on disk; however, disks should not be sent until the manuscript has been accepted. Use a new disk rather than a reformatted disk; the disk must contain the

relevant file(s) only. Authors should supply their accepted paper as formatted text. It is essential that the hardware and the word processing package are specified on the disk (e.g. IBM, Word 2000 or Mac, Word

5.1), as well as the first author’s surname, the journal title and the manuscript number. The entire article (including tables) should be supplied as a single file; only electronic figures should be supplied as separate files. The following instructions should be adhered to.

• It is essential that the final, revised version of the accepted manuscript and the file saved on disk are identical.

• Do not use the carriage return (enter) at the end of lines within a paragraph.

• Turn the hyphenation option off.

• Specify any special characters used to represent non-keyboard characters.

• Take care not to use l (ell) for 1 (one), O (capital o) for 0 (zero) or ß (German esszett) for b (Greek beta).

• Use a tab, not spaces, to separate data points in tables.

• If you use a table editor function, ensure that each data point is contained within a unique cell, i.e. do not use carriage returns within cells.

• Digital figures must be supplied as .tif or .eps files at a resolution of at least 300 d.p.i. (high-resolution print-outs are also required).

ONLINE GUIDELINES

If possible, authors should visit the Blackwell Science website for authors at http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/authors/journal.asp which details further information on the preparation and submission of articles and figures and gives access to the Blackwell house style guide.

PROOFS

Proofs will be sent via email as an Acrobat PDF (Portable Document Format) file and should be returned within 3 days of receipt. Alter-ations to the text and figures (other than the essential correction of errors) are unacceptable at proof stage and authors may be charged for excessive alterations. Acrobat Reader will be required in order to read the PDF. This software can be downloaded (free of charge) from the

following website: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.phpl Acrobat Reader will enable the file to be opened, read on screen, and printed out in order for any corrections to be added. Further instructions will be sent with the proof. Authors should supply an email address to which PDF page proofs can be emailed. Proofs will be faxed if no email address is available. If absent, authors should arrange for a colleague to access their email, retrieve the PDF page proof and check and return them to the publisher on their behalf.

OFFPRINTS

A minimum of 50 offprints will be provided upon request, at the author’s expense. An Offprint Order Form outlining the cost of off-prints will be sent to the corresponding author with the PDF page proofs. Offprints will be provided only if a completed Offprint Order Form is returned to the publisher by mail by the specified date.

BLACKWELL JOURNALS ONLINE

Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Research is also available online via Blackwell Synergy. Full-text online articles include reference links to cited articles and external databases, and a full search facility, so that you can find the information you are looking for. Keep up to date with the latest tables of contents emailed directly to your desktop by registering for free at http://www.blackwell-synergy.com

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