Instructions for Authors

Introduction

These instructions for authors comply with the recommendations formulated by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) on the conduct, reporting, editing and publication of scholarly work in Medical Journals. For further details, authors should consult the following article: International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. “Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals” New Engl J Med 1997, 336:309–315. The complete document appears at http://www.icmje.org. Manuscripts that do not comply with these Instructions cannot be considered for publication and will be sent back to the authors.

The Editorial Office is pleased to answer any questions you may have about preparing your manuscript in accordance with our guidelines. Please contact us.

Other Resources

This page should be read in conjunction with our:

• Peer review process
• Editorial Policies
• Open Access Policy
• Article Transfer policy

Overarching Principles

Premier Science subscribes to the following princples which help guide and shape our policies and behaviour across the board:

1. Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing – version 4 published 15th September 2022 (these guidelines are jointly developed by The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), the Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association (OASPA), and the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME)
2. WAME Professionalism Code of Conduct
3. COPE Guidelines
4. ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly work in Medical Journals

Disclosures

The following disclosures will need to be made during submission:

• Ethical approval
• Patient or participant informed consent
• Sources of funding
• Conflict of interest disclosure
• Author contribution
• Research registration and unique identifying number
• Data availability statement
• Guarantor
• Provenance

If any of the disclosures are not relevant to your manuscript, please state so underneath the heading.

Originality

The Editors require that each manuscript is an original contribution and that it has not been, and will not be, submitted elsewhere while it is under consideration for publication in a Premier Science journal. Editors subject all manuscripts submitted for consideration to plagiarism-detection software. Manuscripts dealing with material that has appeared or is in press, in brief or preliminary form in other publications will not be considered unless the prior publication is a meeting abstract reporting only summarised information and does not exceed one printed page. The ICMJE has provided details of what is and what is not a duplicate or redundant publication. If you are in doubt (particularly in the case of material that you have posted on a web site), we ask you to proceed with your submission but to include a copy of the relevant previously published work or work under consideration by other journals. Authors must draw attention to any published work that concerns the same patients or subjects as the present paper in a covering letter with their article.

Peer Review Process

All articles submitted to the Journal are handled in line with our Peer Review Process. They are subject to an initial screening review by an Editor, Managing Editor or the Editor-in-Chief. Subsequent to this initial review, manuscripts will either be rejected, or two to three independent external peer reviewers will be invited for comment through a single-blind process. Some letters, editorials and commentaries may fall outside this review process if they were invited by the Editor. Authors submitting manuscripts to the Journal may propose suitable reviewers or oppose reviewers who may have competing interests. Manuscripts are accepted on the basis of scientific quality, originality, significance, novelty and interest our readership. All papers must be reported in line with established reporting guidelines where they exist. A paper that has been formally rejected, will not be reconsidered for publication in the Journal.

Authorship

The Journal expects that each person listed as an author has participated sufficiently in the intellectual content, the analysis of data, and/or the writing of the manuscript to take public responsibility for it. Each author must have reviewed the manuscript, believes it represents valid work, and approves it for submission. Moreover, should the Editors request the data upon which the manuscript is based, the authors shall produce it. We ask all authors to confirm that they have met the criteria for authorship as established by the ICMJE, believe that the paper represents honest work, and are able to verify the validity of the results reported.

The ICMJE recommends that authorship be based on the following 4 criteria:

1. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
2. Drafting the work or reviewing it critically for important intellectual content; AND
3. Final approval of the version to be published; AND
4. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Conditions 1, 2, 3, and 4 must all be met. Acquisition of funding, the collection of data or general supervision of the research group, by themselves, do not justify authorship. All others who contributed to the work who are not authors should be named in the Acknowledgements section in the title page file.

All persons designated as authors should qualify for authorship and all those who qualify should be listed. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content. One or more authors should take responsibility for the integrity of the work as a whole, from inception to published article. In addition to being accountable for the parts of the work done, an author should be able to identify which co-authors are responsible for specific other parts of the work. In addition, authors should have confidence in the integrity of the contributions of their co-authors.

Authorship and use of Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence (AI) authoring tools do not meet the requirements for Authorship as recommended by the ICMJE. Authors who use AI tools in the writing of a manuscript, production of images or graphical elements of the paper, or in the collection and analysis of data, must be transparent in disclosing in the Materials and Methods (or similar section) of the paper how the AI tool was used and which tool was used. Authors are fully responsible for the content of their manuscript, even those parts produced by an AI tool, and are thus liable for any breach of publication ethics.

ORCiD

Premier Science is a member of ORCiD.  ORCID, which stands for Open Researcher and Contributor ID, is a global, not-for-profit organisation. ORCiD’s mission is to enable transparent and trustworthy connections between researchers, their contributions, and their affiliations by providing a unique, persistent identifier for individuals to use as they engage in research, scholarship, and innovation activities.

Premier Science identifies authors using their ORCiD as a mandatory part of the submission process through Eworkflow. We then present the ORCiD as a link in the version of record with the symbol  after an author’s name. This ensures greater research integrity and assurance for all stakeholders who trust in Premier Science. Any authors who don’t already have an ORCiD, can register for one.

CRediT

The Journal has integrated CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) in the Eworkflow manuscript submission system. CRediT allows researchers to identify manuscript contributions roles during submission that go beyond just name identification. CRediT enables more transparency to the published work and allows authors to receive credit for individual contributions towards the manuscript.

During submission when a corresponding author adds additional authors to the author list, they can select each individual author’s contribution roles from a list of 14 selections. More than one contribution can be selected for each author.

Role	Definition
Conceptualization	Ideas; formulation or evolution of overarching research goals and aims.
Data curation	Management activities to annotate (produce metadata), scrub data and maintain research data (including software code, where it is necessary for interpreting the data itself) for initial use and later re-use.
Formal analysis	Application of statistical, mathematical, computational, or other formal techniques to analyse or synthesize study data.
Funding acquisition	Acquisition of the financial support for the project leading to this publication.
Investigation	Conducting a research and investigation process, specifically performing the experiments, or data/evidence collection.
Methodology	Development or design of methodology; creation of models.
Project administration	Management and coordination responsibility for the research activity planning and execution.
Resources	Provision of study materials, reagents, materials, patients, laboratory samples, animals, instrumentation, computing resources, or other analysis tools.
Software	Programming, software development; designing computer programs; implementation of the computer code and supporting algorithms; testing of existing code components.
Supervision	Oversight and leadership responsibility for the research activity planning and execution, including mentorship external to the core team.
Validation	Verification, whether as a part of the activity or separate, of the overall replication/reproducibility of results/experiments and other research outputs.
Visualization	Preparation, creation and/or presentation of the published work, specifically visualization/data presentation.
Writing – original draft	Preparation, creation and/or presentation of the published work, specifically writing the initial draft (including substantive translation).
Writing – review & editing	Preparation, creation and/or presentation of the published work by those from the original research group, specifically critical review, commentary or revision – including pre- or post-publication stages.

Changes to Authorship

Premier Science considers the final author list to be complete at the time of the first revision submission. Please be sure to check that all authors are properly listed on the revision submission; this includes the spelling of author names, their designated degrees, their affiliations, and the order of authors listed. Premier Science has a strict policy on changes to authorship and will not consider authorship change requests after acceptance of the article.

Authors are expected to consider carefully the list and order of authors before submitting their manuscript and provide the definitive list of authors at the time of the original submission. Any addition, deletion or rearrangement of author names in the authorship list should be made only before the manuscript has been accepted and only if approved by the journal Editor. To request such a change, the Editor must receive the following from the corresponding author: (a) the reason for the change in author list and (b) written confirmation (e-mail, letter) from all authors that they agree with the addition, removal or rearrangement. In the case of addition or removal of authors, this includes confirmation from the author being added or removed.

Only in exceptional circumstances will the Editor consider the addition, deletion or rearrangement of authors after the manuscript has been accepted. While the Editor considers the request, publication of the manuscript will be suspended. If the manuscript has already been published in an online issue, any requests approved by the Editor will result in a corrigendum.

English Language Assistance

Authors who are not native speakers of English who submit manuscripts to international journals often receive negative comments from referees or editors about the English–language usage in their manuscripts, and these problems can contribute to a decision to reject a paper. To help reduce the possibility of such problems, we encourage such authors to consider using Premier Science’s Author Services.

Premier Science Author Services

Premier Science, offers a unique range of editorial services to help you prepare a submission-ready manuscript:

• Premium Editing: Intensive language and structural editing of academic papers to increase chances of journal acceptance.
• Advanced Editing: A complete language, grammar, and terminology check to give you a publication-ready manuscript.
• Plagiarism Check: Helps ensure that your manuscript contains no instances of unintentional plagiarism.
• Artwork Preparation: Save precious time and effort by ensuring that your artwork is viewed favorably by the journal without you having to incur the additional cost of purchasing special graphics software.

Please note that the use of such a service is at the author’s own expense and risk and does not guarantee that the article will be accepted.

Abbreviations, Nomenclature and Symbols

Abbreviations, nomenclature and symbols should conform to those found in the AMA Manual of Style. Use Standard International (SI) units. Abbreviations should be used sparingly and should be spelled out the first time they are used.

Research Ethics and Ethical Approval

Premier Science requires all research manuscripts to have the relevant ethical approval. This is crucial to ensure the protection of participants, the upholding of scientific integrity and the maintenance of public trust. The clear demonstration that research adheres to accepted ethical standards and norms protects both participants from harm and researchers from allegations of misconduct. The respect for the rights, dignity, and welfare of all subjects involved is paramount. 

Declaration of Helsinki (human participants)

Work on human beings that is submitted to a Premier Science journal should comply with the principles laid down in the World Medical Association’s Declaration of Helsinki – ethical principles for medical research involving human participants. The manuscript should contain a statement that the work has been approved by the appropriate ethical committees related to the institution(s) in which it was performed and that you obtained written informed consent from the study participants.

Ethical approval for animal studies

Similarly, for experiments involving animals you must state the care of animal and licensing guidelines under which the study was performed and report these in accordance with the ARRIVE (Animals in Research: Reporting In Vivo Experiments) statement. If ethics clearance was not necessary, or if there was any deviation from these standard ethical requests, please state why it was not required. Please note that the editors may ask you to provide evidence of ethical approval. If you have approval from a National Drug Agency (or similar), please state this and provide details, this can be particularly useful when discussing the use of unlicensed drugs.

Wording an ethical approval statement

All articles dealing with original human or animal data must include a statement on ethical approval at the beginning of the Methods section. This paragraph must contain the following information: the name and address of the ethics committee responsible; the protocol number that was attributed by this ethics committee; and the date of approval by the ethics committee.

The paragraph could read, for example:

Ethical approval for this study (Ethical Committee N° NAC 207) was provided by the Ethical Committee NAC of Geneva University Hospitals, Geneva, Switzerland on 12 February 2015 with the following reference number XXXYYY. All patients who participated give written informed consent (consent process detailed in methods).

If ethical approval was not needed, during submission authors can state “not applicable” or “N/a”. The ethical approval statement will be published along with other meta data on the left hand side of the manuscript.

Informed Consent and Patient Details

The protection of a patient’s right to privacy is essential. Studies on patients or volunteers require ethics committee approval and informed consent, which should be documented in the ‘Methods’ section of your paper. Appropriate consents, permissions and releases must be obtained where an author wishes to include case details or other personal information or images of patients and any other individuals. Written consents must be retained by the author and copies of the consents or evidence that such consents have been obtained must be provided to the Journal on request. For a sample consent form that can be used to gather patient consent, please see the Premier Science Patient Consent Form and state it has been used in the manuscript. Unless you have written permission from the patient (or, where applicable, the next of kin), the personal details of any patient included in any part of the article and in any supplementary materials (including all illustrations and videos) must be removed before submission.

Registration of Research

The World Medical Association’s Declaration of Helsinki 2024 states in article 35: ‘Every research study involving human subjects must be registered in a publicly accessible database before recruitment of the first subject’. All types of research studies involving human participants should be registered prospectively (but failing that retrospectively). Once registered, you will need to submit your assigned Unique Identifying Number (UIN) from the registry as a mandatory part of your submission.

There are many places to register your research, and you can choose which is the most suitable for your needs from the options below (set out in alphabetical order):

• Clinicaltrials.gov – for all human studies – free
• ISRCTN.com – for all human studies – incurs a charge
• Prospero – for systematic reviews – free
• Researchregistry.com – for all human studies – incurs a charge

Reporting Guidelines

All Premier Science journals encourage the use of reporting guidelines where they exist for the relevant study type. The relevant reporting guideline can be stated at the end of the introduction or in the methods section and be cited formally in the references.

Reporting Guidelines and the Equator Network

All recommended guidelines are also available via the Equator Network, which Premier Science endorses.

Compliance with the relevant reporting guideline (where one exists) is mandatory for submission. You need to:

1. Submit a completed checklist, indicating the page numbers where compliance was achieved
2. Mention in your methods section that the research is being reported in line with the relevant guideline which should be named and cited.

Specific guidelines for specific article types are mentioned below.

Randomised Controlled Trials and Protocols

Premier Science requires a completed SPIRIT 2025 checklist as a condition of submission when reporting a protocol of a randomised trial, and a completed CONSORT 2025 checklist and flow diagram as a condition of submission when reporting the results of a randomised trial. Templates for these can be found on the SPIRIT–CONSORT website: consort-spirit.org. At a minimum, your article should report the content addressed by each item of the checklist. Meeting these basic reporting requirements will greatly improve the value of your trial report and may enhance its chances for eventual publication.

Systematic Reviews

Systematic reviews should be reported in accordance with the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) Guidelines (The PRISMA 2020 statement: An updated guideline for reporting systematic reviews) and must include the flow diagram as a figure and the checklist as supplemental material (https://prisma-statement.org/PRISMAStatement/Checklist.aspx).

Please also upload a completed AMSTAR 2 checklist to aid the methodological quality of your article: https://amstar.ca/Amstar_Checklist.php or https://amstar.ca/docs/AMSTAR-2.pdf.

Cohort, Case-control and Cross-sectional studies

Cohort, Case-control and Cross-sectional studies involving procedures, should all be compliant with the STROCSS 2025 Guideline: Strengthening the reporting of cohort studies in surgery with more information at www.strocssguideline.com. Each study type has its own checklist and should be uploaded as a supplemental file. Please use the STROBE Statement for non-procedural studies.

Diagnostic studies

Diagnostic Studies should be reported in accordance with the STARD statement criteria (Standards for the Reporting of Diagnostic accuracy studies) and must include the flow diagram and checklist. Please see (https://www.equator-network.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/STARD-2015-flow-diagram.pdf and https://www.equator-network.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/STARD-2015-checklist.pdf.

Quality Improvement studies

Quality Improvement studies should comply with the Standards for Quality Improvement Reporting Excellence (SQUIRE) criteria: http://squire-statement.org.

Health Economic Evaluation

Health Economic Evaluation studies should conform to the CHEERS statement: http://www.bmj.com/content/346/bmj.f1049.pdf%2Bhtml

Tumour Marker Prognostic study

Tumour Marker Prognostic studies should be reported in accordance with the REMARK criteria: https://www.equator-network.org/reporting-guidelines/reporting-recommendations-for-tumour-marker-prognostic-studies-remark/

Before and after studies

Before and After studies measuring particular characteristics of a population or group of individuals at the end of an event or intervention, compares them with those characteristics before the event or intervention: then gauges the effects of the event or intervention. These studies should conform to the STROCCS Guideline for procedural interventions: STROCSS 2025 Guideline: Strengthening the reporting of cohort studies in surgery and www.strocssguideline.com or the STROBE Statement for non-interventional studies.

Experimental Animal Studies

Animal studies must be reported in accordance with the ARRIVE guidelines (Animals in Research: Reporting In Vivo Experiments) and must include the checklist as supplemental material. An example of a completed checklist can be found at http://www.nc3rs.org.uk/page.asp?id=1357. (The example checklist is based on an original publication by Kilkenny C, Browne WJ, Cuthill IC, Emerson M, Altman DG (2010) Improving Bioscience Research Reporting: The ARRIVE Guidelines for Reporting Animal Research. PLoS Biol 8(6): e1000412. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1000412). The institutional protocol number should be included at the end of the abstract of the article.

Qualitative Surveys

Qualitative Surveys should be reported in accordance with the following criteria:

• Standards for Reporting Qualitative Research – SRQR Guidelines http://www.equator-network.org/reporting-guidelines/srqr/.
• Consolidated criteria for reporting qualitative research (COREQ): a 32-item checklist for interviews and focus groups – COREQ – http://www.equator-network.org/reporting-guidelines/coreq/
• Enhancing transparency in reporting the synthesis of qualitative research: ENTREQ: http://www.equator-network.org/reporting-guidelines/entreq/.

Case Series

All case series with procedural interventions should follow the PROCESS Guideline (www.processguideline.com) or an equivalent guideline and submit a completed PROCESS checklist which must be uploaded as supplemental material. Please ensure you state that the work has been reported in line with the PROCESS criteria. For non-interventional studies, authors can use STROBE Statement.

Case Reports

All medical case reports should be reported in line with the CARE reporting guideline. Please state this is the case in your methods section.

All surgical case reports should be reported in line with the SCARE reporting guideline. Please state this is the case in your methods section.

Financial Support and Conflicts of Interests

All authors must disclose any financial and personal relationships with other people or organizations that could inappropriately influence (bias) their work. A financial disclosure questionnaire must be completed by the corresponding author on behalf of all co-authors at initial submission. The primary purpose of the disclosure section is to determine whether authors have received any commercial financial support that could create a conflict of interest. In addition to monetary interests, a potential for conflict of interest can exist whether or not an individual believes that a relationship (such as dual commitments, competing interests, or competing loyalties) affects his or her scientific judgment. Please review ICMJE Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals with reference to disclosure of interest. 

Guarantor

The guarantor is a designated author who takes full responsibility for the integrity of the entire published work, including its conduct, data access, and the final decision to publish. The guarantor ensures the scientific accuracy and ethical conduct of the study from its inception to the final paper. 

Provenance

You will need to state clearly during submission whether the article was commissioned or unsolicited.

Data Availability Statement

Manuscripts must contain a data availability statement on whether data is available or not, as outlined in the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors policy. A data availability plan must be included in a trial’s registration for those that begin enrolling participants on or after 1 January 2019. Authors of secondary analyses using shared data must reference the source of the data and attest that their use was in accordance with any terms agreed.

What should a data availability statement include?

Your data availability statement should describe how the data supporting the results reported in your paper can be accessed. 

• Include both original data generated in your research and any secondary data reuse that supports your results and analyses.
• If your data are in a repository, include hyperlinks and persistent identifiers (e.g. DOI or accession number) for the data where available.  
• If your data cannot be shared openly, for example to protect study participant privacy, then this should be explained. 

Citing data sources

You should cite any publicly available data on which the conclusions of the paper rely. This includes novel data shared alongside the publication and any secondary data sources. 

Data citations should include a persistent identifier (such as a DOI), should be included in the reference list using the minimum information recommended by Crossref or DataCite (Dataset Creator, Dataset Title, Publisher [repository], Publication Year, Identifier [e.g. DOI, Handle or ARK]) and follow journal style.

Sample Data Availability Statements

Below is a list of standardised, suggested text for the statements that will appear in the “Data Availability Statement” of your article. This will form part of your submission’s metadata. These statements are samples and considered guidance to help authors. Specific situations may require alterations to them or a combination of the relevant parts e.g. when combining data sets from different sources (commercial and non-commercial). These sample statements are provided courtesy of Yale University’s Journal of Industrial Ecology (published by Wiley).

Statement number	Availability of data	Template for data availability statement
1	Data openly available in a public repository that issues datasets with DOIs	The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in [repository name e.g, “figshare”] at http://doi.org/%5Bdoi%5D, reference number [reference number].
2	Data openly available in a public repository that does not issue DOIs	The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in [repository name] at [URL], reference number [reference number].
3	Data derived from public domain resources	The data that support the findings of this study are available in [repository name] at [URL/DOI], reference number [reference number]. These data were derived from the following resources available in the public domain: [list resources and URLs].
4	Embargo on data due to commercial restrictions	The data that support the findings will be available in [repository name] at [URL / DOI link] following an embargo from the date of publication to allow for commercialisation of research findings.
5	Data available on request due to privacy/ethical restrictions	The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available due to privacy or ethical restrictions.
6	Data subject to third party restrictions	The data that support the findings of this study are available from [third party]. Restrictions apply to the availability of these data, which were used under license for this study. Data are available [from the authors / at URL] with the permission of [third party] or directly from the third party.
7	Data available on request from the authors	The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
8	Data sharing not applicable – no new data generated	Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analysed in this study.
9	Author elects to not share data	Research data are not shared.
10	Data available in article supporting information	The data that supports the findings of this study are available in the supporting information of this article.
11	Data sharing not applicable – no new data generated, or the article describes entirely theoretical research	Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analysed during the current study

Ownership/Permissions

All figures submitted must be owned solely by the author(s). For Figures not meeting this requirement, authors must obtain permission for the use of the figure by Premier Science. Obtaining this permission is the sole responsibility of the author(s). Credit must be included in the figure legend for all figures being printed with permission.

These requirements apply to the following materials:

• Previously published materials such as figures and adapted tables or direct quotations of more than 50 words require permission from copyright holder (usually the original publisher).
• Unpublished data (i.e., from a personal conversation or a manuscript in preparation) require permission from the appropriate investigator.
• Photographs revealing unmasked faces require permission from the subject(s) of the photograph. If subject- or patient-consent cannot be reached, photographs must be unidentifiable.

Product Information

Medications, materials, and devices must be identified by full non-proprietary name as well as brand name if appropriate and the manufacturer’s name. Place this information in parentheses in the text, not in a footnote.

Retractions

We follow the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), and also refers to the ICMJE advice on Scientific Misconduct, Expressions of Concern, and Retraction as well as on Overlapping Publications.

Disclaimer

The information and opinions presented in the Journal reflect the views of the authors and not of the Journal or its Editorial Board or the Publisher. Publication does not constitute endorsement by the journal. Neither Premier Science nor its publishers nor anyone else involved in creating, producing or delivering Premier Science or the materials contained therein, assumes any liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information provided in Premier Science, nor shall they be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages arising out of the use of Premier Science. Premier Science, nor its publishers, nor any other party involved in the preparation of material contained in Premier Science represents or warrants that the information contained herein is in every respect accurate or complete, and they are not responsible for any errors or omissions or for the results obtained from the use of such material. Readers are encouraged to confirm the information contained herein with other sources.

Submission Checklist

You can use this list to carry out a final check of your submission before you send it to the journal for review. Please check the relevant section in this Guide for Authors for more details.

Ensure that the following items are present:

One author has been designated as the corresponding author with contact details:

• E-mail address
• Full postal address

All necessary files have been uploaded:

Manuscript:

• Include keywords
• Include an abstract
• All figures (include relevant captions)
• All tables (including titles, description, footnotes)
• Ensure all figure and table citations in the text match the files provided
• Indicate clearly if colour should be used for any figures in print

Graphical Abstracts / Highlights files (where applicable)

Supplemental files (where applicable)

Further considerations

• Manuscript has been ‘spell checked’ and ‘grammar checked’
• All references mentioned in the Reference List are in Vancouver format and cited in the text, and vice versa
• Permission has been obtained for use of copyrighted material from other sources (including the Internet)
• A competing interests statement is provided, even if the authors have no competing interests to declare
• Journal policies detailed in this guide have been reviewed
• Referee suggestions and contact details provided, based on journal requirements

For Original Research articles, please ensure you choose the relevant article type for your study design when submitting the manuscript, i.e. Systematic Review, Meta-analysis, Randomized Controlled Trial, Cohort Study, Case Controlled Study, Observational, Case Series etc.

Article Types

Original Research Article: Full-length reports of completed basic, clinical and experimental research reported in accordance with the Reporting Guidelines stated above. The manuscript must be no more than 4,000 words (excluding references) and contain the following a structured Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Theory/Calculation, Discussion, Conclusion, Appendices, Acknowledgements, and References. Authors are encouraged to publish additional material (for instance, large tables, figures with forest plots, data from subgroup analyses etc.) as Supplemental Digital Content.

Review Article: These are conventional, non-systematic reviews and should be no more than 4,000 words (excluding references). Please provide an unstructured abstract (250 words) as well as an Acknowledgement statement. Cohort/Case control/Cross Sectional/Diagnostic/Quality Improvement/ Qualitative studies: Papers should not exceed 4,000 words (excluding references).

Experimental Research: Full-length reports of completed basic or cadaveric research reported in accordance with the Reporting Guidelines stated above. The manuscript must be no more than 4,000 words (excluding references) and contain the following a structured Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Theory/Calculation, Discussion, Conclusion, Appendices Acknowledgements, and References. Authors are encouraged to publish additional material (for instance, large tables, figures with forest plots, data from subgroup analyses etc.) as Supplemental Digital Content.

Editorial: These discuss issues of importance to clinical surgery that are not directly related to published material. Editorials are usually invited. Editorials should not exceed 4,000 words. Please include a title page giving all authors’ names, addresses, email addresses, phone and fax numbers, as well as an Acknowledgement statement.

Letter: A letter to the Editor that raises issues of importance to clinical surgery and is in regard to an article recently published in the journal. If accepted, the letter is sent to the authors of the article who have an opportunity to respond. Letters should not exceed 750 words. The title should reflect the content of the letter and not be titled the same as the targeted article. Please include a title page giving the author’s name, address, email address, and phone number, as well as an Acknowledgement statement. Correspondence should have only one table or figures, three authors and five references.

Manuscript Preparation and Formatting Instructions

Manuscripts must be written in clear, grammatical English (see English Language Assistance above). Manuscripts not conforming to Journal format will be returned to authors for modification.

• Text should be 1.5-spaced.
• Body text size should be no smaller than 10 pt and no larger than 12 pt.
• Do not add line numbers as the system will generate those when the PDF is built.
• Authors should avoid repeating the same information in the Abstract, Introduction, and Discussion.

Footnotes, abbreviations, and abstract pages must be included in the main body file. Please do not upload separate copies of these documents. Please ensure the Title Page is uploaded separately to the main body file, to comply with our double-blind peer review process; the main body file should not include any identifiable author information.

Acceptable document file types for text and tables include .DOC and .DOCX; do not submit a PDF.

Title Page

The following elements are required for every submission:

• Title. Include a concise, descriptive and informative title. Titles are often used in information-retrieval systems. Avoid abbreviations and formulae where possible. The title should not be a sentence. No proprietary or brand names for drugs or agents may be used in article titles. Titles should be also be descriptive of the study type for example
  – “Drug A vs drug B in patients with hypertension” should be:
  – “Drug A vs drug B in patients with hypertension: A Prospective Cohort Study”
• Authors. Author names should be listed in the following order: the full first name, middle initials, last name of each author, medical and/or highest academic degrees. The name(s) of the department(s) and institution(s) to which the work should be attributed.
  When a large group or centre has conducted the work, the author list should include the individuals whose contributions meet the authorship criteria defined above, as well as the group name. If the article has been submitted on behalf of a consortium, all author names and affiliations should be listed in the Acknowledgements section.
• Address for Correspondence. One author should be designated as the corresponding author. A current email and full mailing address for the corresponding author must be provided.
• Acknowledgements statement: The acknowledgements section should contain the following distinct statements in separate paragraphs:
  • Assistance with the study. Acknowledgements should be made only to those who have made a substantial contribution to the study. Authors are responsible for obtaining written permission from people acknowledged by name in case readers infer their endorsement of data and conclusions. If there was no assistance state: ‘Assistance with the study: none.’
  • Financial support and sponsorship. You must make reference to all relevant sources of funding concerning this article. If there were no sources of funding, please state: ‘Financial support and sponsorship: none.’
  • Conflicts of interest. You must make reference to all relevant conflicts of interest concerning this article including financial, consultant, institutional and other relationships that might lead to bias or a conflict of interest. If there are no conflicts of interest, please state: ‘Conflicts of interest: none.’
  • Presentation (for original articles only). Presentations of preliminary data at, for example, international meetings should be acknowledged separately. If preliminary data was not previously presented, please state: ‘Presentation: none’.

Abstract

A concise and factual abstract is required. The abstract should briefly describe the purpose of the research, the principal results and major conclusions.

A structured abstract should be a maximum of 300 words. For all original research articles, the abstract should be structured using the following headings: Background; Materials and Methods; Results; Conclusion. They should briefly describe, respectively, the problem being addressed in the study, how the study was performed, the salient results, and what the authors conclude from the results.

Conventional non-systematic reviews should include an unstructured abstract of no more than 250 words.

Graphical abstract

Although a graphical abstract is optional, its use is encouraged as it draws more attention to the online article. The graphical abstract should summarize the contents of the article in a concise, pictorial form designed to capture the attention of a wide readership. Graphical abstracts should be submitted as a separate file in the online submission system. Preferred file types: TIFF, JPEG, EPS or MS Office files.

Highlights

Highlights are concise bullet points that convey the core findings and provide readers with a quick textual overview of the article. These bullet points describe the essence of the research. Highlights are mandatory for all original research articles.

Keywords

Immediately after the abstract, provide a maximum of 6 keywords, avoiding general and plural terms and multiple concepts. Be sparing with abbreviations: only abbreviations firmly established in the field may be eligible. These keywords will be used for indexing purposes.

Main Body
Introduction. The introduction contains a statement of the purpose of the work, the problem that stimulated it, and a brief summary of relevant published investigations.

Material and Methods. Provide sufficient detail to allow the work to be reproduced. Methods already published should be indicated by a reference: only relevant modifications should be described. Include appropriate ethical and statistical information. If quoting directly from a previously published method, use quotation marks and cite the source.

Theory/Calculation. A Theory section should extend, not repeat, the background to the article already provided in the Introduction and lay the foundation for further work. In contrast, a Calculation section represents a practical development from a theoretical basis.

Results. The results should be concise, avoiding redundant tables and figures illustrating the same data.

Discussion. This should explore the significance of the results of the work, not repeat them. A combined Results and Discussion section is often appropriate. Avoid extensive citations and discussion of published literature.

Conclusion. The main conclusions of the study may be presented in a short Conclusions section, which may stand alone or form a subsection of a Discussion or Results and Discussion section.

References: The style of references should conform to the guidelines set forth by the AMA Manual of Style. For specific examples and information regarding references, see the manual or visit online. Authors using other forms of reference management software should use JAMA style or Vancouver.

• All references cited in the text must be both listed and cited by the reference number (footnotes are not accepted).
• Each reference should be cited in the text, tables, or figures in consecutive numerical order by means of superscript Arabic numerals. Use superscript numerals outside periods and commas, inside colons and semicolons. When more than 2 references are cited at a given place in the manuscript, use hyphens to join the first and last numbers of a closed series; use commas without space to separate other parts of a multiple citation (e.g., As reported previously,1,3-8,19…The derived data were as follows3,4,12:)
• References should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they are cited in the text.
• References in tables and in figure legends must appear in the reference page(s).
• In listed references, use the author’s surname followed by initials without periods. (e.g., Doe JF)
• For references with 6 or fewer authors, list all authors. For references with more than 6 authors, list the first 3 authors followed by “et al.”
  • 1 author Doe JF.
  • 2 authors Doe JF, Roe JP III.
  • 6 authors Doe JF, Roe JP III, Coe RT Jr, Loe JT Sr, Poe EA, van Voe AE.
  • >6 authors Doe JF, Roe JP III, Coe RT Jr, et al.
• Full-page ranges should be given in expanded form (eg, 426-429, not 426-9).
• If non-English-language titles are translated into English, bracketed indication of the original language should follow the title.
• Abbreviate and italicize names of journals according to the style in PubMed; refer to the National Library of Medicine (NLM) Journals Database (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nlmcatalog/journals) if needed.
• In references to journals that have no volume or issue numbers, use the issue date, as shown in example 1 below. If there is an issue number but no volume number, use the style shown in example 2. Conversely, if there is a volume number but no issue number, follow example 3.
  • 1. Author(s). Article Title. Journal Name. Month Year: inclusive pages.
  • 2. Author(s). Article Title. Journal Name. Year;(Issue No.): inclusive pages.
  • 3. Author(s). Article Title. Journal Name. Year; vol: inclusive pages.
• Papers “submitted for publication” but not yet accepted and citations such as “personal communication” or “unpublished data” are not acceptable as listed references and instead should be included parenthetically in the text. This material, with its date, should be noted in the text as “unpublished data” as follows: (J. F. Doe, MD, unpublished data, January 2010).
• Papers denoted “in press” (accepted for publication) should appear in the references.
• Authors are responsible for the accuracy and completeness of the references

Tables: References to tables should be made in order of appearance in the text and should be in Arabic numerals in parentheses, e.g. (Table 1). Each table should be typed on a separate word processing document in 1.5 spacing and uploaded individually. Tables should not be submitted as photographs. Do not embed tables within the manuscript file. Tables are text-only. Do not embed images within the table file. Each table should have a brief title as a heading, appropriate column heads, and any legends. Vertical rules should not be used. Place explanatory matter in footnote, not in the heading. Abbreviations are not permitted in table titles. Any abbreviation(s) used in the body of the table, including dashes, must be defined in the footnotes, listed in reading order. Be sure that each table is cited in the text. If you use data from another published or unpublished source, obtain permission and acknowledge the source fully, using the name of the first author of the previous series, and include the reference number and year along-side the author’s name. Each series mentioned in a table must be listed in the Reference section.

Authors are encouraged to submit non-essential tables as supplemental digital content for publication online only. See Supplemental Digital Content section for more details.

For further information on table formatting, please see the AMA Manual of Style.

Figures and Legends: Figures should be uploaded in the highest resolution available. Legends should be supplied for all figures. They are numbered to correspond with the figures and typed double-spaced on a separate page. Figure legends for any supplemental figures being submitted are to be provided separately; see section, Supplemental Digital Content (SDC).

• Do not embed figures into the main body file
• Each figure must be uploaded as a separate file. Each file should be saved as the appropriate figure number (e.g., Figure 1.tif). Label figures using the Description field provided in the Attach Files section of Editorial Manager (e.g., Figure 1, Figure 2). This provides a label for each figure in the PDF generated by Editorial Manager. Do not include the author’s name in the figure file name.
• Cite figures consecutively in the manuscript and number them in the order in which they are discussed.
• All final digital figures for accepted manuscripts must be submitted in EPS, TIFF, or MS Office (DOC, PPT, XLS).
• Art should be created and scaled to the size intended for publication. Image orientation should be the same as intended for publication.
• Artwork generated from office suite programs such as CorelDRAW, MS Word, MS PowerPoint and artwork downloaded from the Internet (low resolution JPEG or GIF files) cannot be used.
• All figures must be designated GRAYSCALE (black and white) or RBG (colour).
• Diagrams, drawings, graphs, and other line art (purely black and white figures with no shades of grey) should be prepared at a resolution of 1200 DPI.
• Halftones images (black/white or colour) should be prepared at a resolution of at least 300 DPI.
• Combination halftones (images containing both pictures and text labelling) should be prepared at 600 DPI.
• Digital art files should be cropped to remove non-printing borders (such as unnecessary white or black space around an image) and should not include embedded “legend” text, figure titles, or figure numbers.
• Composite figures may be either submitted as one single print-quality image that is neatly labelled with uppercase letters using Arial/Helvetica bold font or submitted as separate panels (without labels), et, Figure 1A.tif, Figure 1B.tif, to be combined during production if accepted for publication.
• Legends for all figures should be brief and specific and should appear on a separate page at the end of the manuscript document, following the list of references. Legends should indicate the figure number and must be numbered correctly.
• All symbols or abbreviations appearing in an illustration must be defined in the legend; arrows appearing in a figure should be mentioned in the legend.
• Legends of composite figures should be formatted as a single legend containing necessary information about each part/panel.
• Your manuscript may be returned to you for correction if the images are of insufficient quality.
• If photographs of people are used, their identities must be obscured or their written consent to use the photograph must have been obtained. If necessary, the Editors may request copies of any consent forms.
• If a figure has been published before, the original source must be acknowledged and written permission from the copyright holder for both print and electronic formats should be submitted with the material. Permission is required regardless of authorship or publisher, except for documents in the public domain.
• Figures may be reduced, cropped, or deleted at the discretion of the editor.
• Carefully review the PDF conversion of your submission files to ensure that the figures uploaded without error and appear as intended.

Artwork submitted to the Journal will be checked for quality. Authors submitting a revised paper will have the opportunity to check the quality of their images and make the necessary changes. This step is required for all revisions.

Supplemental Digital Content (SDC): Authors may submit Supplemental Digital Content to supplement the information provided in the manuscript. SDC may include the following types of content: text, tables, figures, references peripheral to information provided as SDC, audio, and video. SDC should be consecutively cited in the Main Body text of the submitted manuscript. SDC files will be available via URL(s) placed at the citation points within the article and are not copyedited by the publisher. They will be presented digitally as submitted. Note that Journal policies for manuscript submission relating to peer review, patient anonymity, ethics, financial disclosure, copyright, and permissions also apply to SDC. Authors should mask patients’ eyes and remove patients’ names from supplemental digital content unless they obtain written consent from the patients and submit them as supplemental files at the time of the manuscript submission.

Format, File Type and Size Requirements: SDC may be presented in any format (PDF is preferred) and should indicate the article title and first author for clarity. Supplemental content should include a sequential number if submitting more than one (1, 2, 3, etc.). Each SDC in the file should have a visual header in the following name format (e.g., “SDC, Figure 1”; “SDC, Materials and Methods”) and a corresponding citation must appear consecutively in the Main Body text. Note that SDC is numbered separately from non-SDC material. If providing SDC figure(s), a figure legend should be included on the figure itself. When uploading SDC select “Supplemental Digital Content” as the file designation. For audio and video files, also include the author’s name, videographer, participants, length (minutes), and size (MB). Video files should be formatted with a 320×240 pixel minimum screen size. Supplemental videos should be submitted using .wmv, .mov, .flv, .qt, .mpg, .mpeg, .mp4 formats only. Videos should not exceed 10 minutes of runtime. Videos must include embedded audio narration in English. For each submission, the SDC file cannot exceed a total size of 10 MB.

Online manuscript submissions, forms and licences

New Submissions

Once the manuscript has been created, visit the submission site at https://app.eworkflow.com/ to upload the manuscript. Once the manuscript has been vetted for compliance to the Journal’s requirements, a manuscript number will be assigned to the submission. Failure to adhere to these guidelines will result in your manuscript being returned to you for correction. Emailed copies of manuscripts will not be accepted.

Article Processing Charges

Premier Science journals are open access, peer reviewed journals. Authors of accepted peer-reviewed articles pay an article processing charge (APC) to allow perpetual unrestricted online access to their published article to readers globally, immediately upon publication.

The APCs for Premier Science can be found here: https://premierscience.com/open-access/. The APC is charged on acceptance of the article and should be paid within 30 days by credit card by the author, funding agency or institution. Payment must be received in full for the article to be published.

Creative Commons’ license

Open access articles will be freely available to read, download and share from the time of publication. Premier Science provides authors the choice of applying any of the Creative Commons 4.0 licenses defined below, to be determined after acceptance.

Attribution: CC-BY
This license lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation. This is the most accommodating of licenses offered.

Compliance with NIH and other research funding agency accessibility requirements

A number of research funding agencies now require or request authors to submit the post-print (the article after peer review and acceptance but not the final published article) to a repository that is accessible online by all without charge. As a service to our authors, Premier Science identifies to the National Library of Medicine (NLM) articles that require deposit and transmits the post-print of an article based on research funded in whole or in part by the National Institutes of Health, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, or other funding agencies to PubMed Central. The License to Publish provides the mechanism. We ensure that authors can fully comply with the public access requirements of major funding bodies worldwide.

Page Proofs / Electronic Proofs

Authors will receive notification via email that the PDF (portable document format) proofs of their article are available. Authors are urged to carefully examine the proofs, correct any inadequacies or inaccuracies, and answer all queries. Only the most critical changes to the accuracy of the content will be made. Changes that are stylistic or are a reworking of previously accepted material will be disallowed. Rewriting sections of text, adapting tables and figures, and/or adding/subtracting references are not permitted at this point in the process. Within 48 hours, corrections or approval should be sent to the Production Editor.

Withdrawing

Articles can be withdrawn up to the point of a final decision such as acceptance. This can be done through an email from the corresponding author to the Managing Editor or Editorial Office staff of the journal.

How to submit a revision

Our commitment to research integrity

All papers submitted to Premier Science go through the following series of checks as standard.