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INFORMATION FOR AUTHORS

Editorial policies

Pediatric rheumatology online journal is a refereed publication designed to help meet the educational, reference, and communication needs of the international pediatric rheumatology community. It's goal is clinical and educational, not reporting research.   PROJ is attempting to serve as an excellent source of relevant information for this international community and as a way to improve how pediatric rheumatologic information is transferred and accessed.

The journal is directed at pediatric rheumatologists, adult rheumatologists, rheumatology trainees, residents, students, parents the lay public.  This journal endeavors to assist development of this subspecialty and improve medical care for children with rheumatic diseases. The journal will be found at http://www.pedrheumonlinejournal.org.

Features of Pediatric Rheumatology Online Journal

  • Continuing Medical Education: Review articles on clinical and basic science topics for the continuing medical education of the practicing pediatric rheumatologist.
  • Therapy Reviews: In-depth critical reviews of therapeutic modalities or a review of treatment options for a rheumatic disease.
  • Brief Clinical Research or Basic Research Studies: Original clinical and investigative laboratory research articles.
  • Review of Clinical Studies: Recent clinical publications of importance to the pediatric rheumatologist published in the last two months.
  • Review of Basic Science Studies: Review of interesting new manuscripts in a selected area of basic research published in last two months.
  • Commentaries: Discussions of note of topics of interest to the pediatric rheumatologist.
  • Editorials: Brief, substantiated commentary on subjects of topical interest.
  • Case Reports: Brief, unique individual case reports or grouping of case reports.
  • Case Presentation: Simultaneous online discussion of the diagnosis and treatment options of a case by several expert pediatric rheumatologists.
  • Photo-essay: Demonstrations of information and physical exam findings by the use of images.
  • Practice of Pediatric Rheumatology: Reports on the issues of interest for the academic and private practice of a pediatric rheumatologist.
  • Meeting Reports: Reports from national and international rheumatologic meetings.
  • Fellows Corner: Topics of interest for pediatric rheumatology fellows.
  • Correspondence: Brief Letters to the Editor that comment on previous articles.
  • Job/fellowship listings: Listing of open jobs and available fellowships in pediatric rheumatology

Editorial policies Pediatric Rheumatology Online journal is a refereed journal. Original manuscripts will be considered for publication. Information that has already been published or is being considered by another journal will not be accepted for review. Manuscripts that appear to meet the goals of the journal will be critically reviewed by two independent reviewers before a decision is made on publication. Authors who have a novel and out of the box concept for online presentation should contact the Managing Editor.

Style: Manuscripts must conform to acceptable English language usage. Abbreviations must be limited to those in general usage. Generic drug names must be used. Weights and measurements should be expressed in metric units and temperatures in degrees centigrade. The Editors encourage the use of more than one presentation pathway that allows the reader greater flexibility in viewing. Items that are given as linked material may link back to the primary manuscript and/or provide additional linked material.

Preparation of Manuscripts

By submitting your article for publication, you grant Pediatric Rheumatology Online Journal the copyright to reproduce that work and associated images in electronic format (on the Internet or a CD_ROM version of the Internet site). The author otherwise retains copyright to the written material and any associated images.

Original articles may be submitted only in English for now. Send your manuscript in digital formal in simple text, Microsoft Word. The Journal uses the accepted standard scientific format:

GENERIC FORMAT
The title page

TITLE
AUTHOR(s)
AFFLIATIONS(s)
KEY WORDS
CONTACT

The body of the manuscript

ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION
METHOD
RESULTS
CONCLUSIONS
REFERENCES

The appendices

FIGURE LEGENDS
TABLES

Maximum length of manuscripts

Continuing Education Reviews: 4000 words
Therapy Reviews: 4000 words
Brief Clinical Research or Basic Research Studies: 4000 words
Commentaries: 2000 words; limit 5 references
Editorials: 1000 words
Practice of Pediatric Rheumatology: 2000 words
Case Reports: 2000 words (abstract, introduction, cases, discussion, references)
Practice of Pediatric Rheumatology: 2000 words

References: Reference citations within the article must be noted with square brackets following punctuation like this [3,4,5]. List references in the following fashion:

REFERENCES

  1. Done, In A, Roberts JJ, Low C. Systemic JRA in a 17 year old with sickle cell anemia and diabetes, J Pediatr 1975; 31(4): 549-555
  2. LeRoy EC. Systemic sclerosis (scleroderma) In: Wyngaarden JB, Smith, LH, Bennett JC, editors. Cecil text book of medicine. 19th ed. Philadelphia: WB Saunders: 1992, p.1530-5

Tables and figures may be included in the e-mailed document. Images must be transferred as a separate file. The standard size for images is 768*512 pixels. We will derive smaller inline versions to be linked to the full manuscript version. Clinical photographs should be saved in medium JPEG/JFIF compression format. Line drawings or tables should be in Compuserve GIF format. Please limit the width of any online material to 434 pixels. Please avoid spaces when numbering your images and use the extension to indicate the compression aligorithm (e.g., figure1.jpeg, figure2.gif, etc.).

This electronic journal is dedicated to following the "Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals: Writing and Editing for Biomedical Publication" of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors available at http://www.icmje.org

Special issues:

Conflicts of Interest:

The authors and all participants in the peer review process must disclose all relationships, particularly financial but also personal, academic, or intellectual, that could be viewed as presenting a potential conflict of interest. Grant support must be disclosed as well. Editors may use the conflict information for decisions of acceptance of a manuscript and may require publication of the conflict of interest information with the manuscript. If an author has a conflict of interest, it is expected that the author or authors submit a letter with the manuscript delineating the conflict. The Editors have the right to request detailed information of the conflicts concerned.

Protection of Human Subjects, Informed Consent, and Animals in research:

When reporting experiments on human subjects, the authors must indicate that the research has been approved by an Institutional Review Body or another responsible commitee on human experimentation that is in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975 (revised 2000). If there is any doubt regarding the research meeting the necessary ethical guidelines, the authors must explain their rationale in their manuscript or submission letter, and that their IRB explicited approved the doubtful parts of the study. The requirement for informed consent for all human experimentation is absolute and authors must indicate in their methods section of a manuscript that informed consent has been obtained. In Manuscripts that report animal experimentation, the authors must indicate whether the institutional and national guide for the care and use of laboratory animals was followed.

PROJ Formatting 6/2005

First Page:

1. Feature in caps, bold, upper case, Font 14, in color (turquoise), and left aligned.
     Titles of each article type must be uniform between issues. Caption above with journal name,
     volume number, issue number, page numbers, to be in turquoise color.
2. Titles and authors and location to left margin. Authors in font 10.
3. Title in upper and lower case (first letter upper case); Font 12; bold but not colored.
4. If abstract, then abstract in structured abstract format, all in bold, font 10 Ariel.
5. If objective, results, conclusions included, these words are in italics.

Text

6. Font of text: 10 Arial; Spacing is 1½ spacing.
7. Paragraphs indented 10 spaces.
8. No extra line between paragraphs in a section.
9. Title of sections in bold and upper and lower case mixed (sentence case).
10. Subsections are in italics, sentence cased, and left-aligned.
11. One line between end of a section and next title of a section.
12. No line between title of a section and beginning of the first paragraph.
13. References in brackets and not superscript. At end of sentence, a full stop or period before
       a bracketed reference. Consecutive references are separated by a dash, e.g., [31-34], while
       non-consecutive references are to separated by commas, e.g., [31, 35, 48]
14. Tables and figures (including photos) to be part of text. Each should be inserted in the text in it's appropriate position
       after the paragraph in which it is mentioned.