Submissions

Author Guidelines

Author Instructions

REVIEWS
Review articles are intended to bring together valuable information on a topic of general interest to psychiatry. This section is not intended to be a forum for the presentation of new data or meta-analyses. Review articles are usually solicited by the Editors, but we will consider unsolicited material. The text is usually within 5,000 words with an abstract of no more than 250 words, a maximum of 5 tables and figures (total), and up to 50 references. Word count includes only the main body of text (i.e., not tables, figures, abstracts or references). Additional tables or figures can be submitted in a separate file as supplemental data for posting online. (See Supplemental Data for what types of data and formats are acceptable for posting online.)

ARTICLES
Articles are reports of original work that embodies scientific excellence in psychiatric medicine and advances in clinical research. Typically, articles will contain new data derived from a sizable series of patients or subjects. The text is usually within 3,500 words, which does not include an abstract of no more than 250 words, a maximum of 5 tables and figures (total), and up to 40 references. Word count includes only the main body of text (i.e., not tables, figures, abstracts or references). Additional tables can be submitted in a separate file as supplemental data for posting online. (See Supplemental Data for what types of data and formats are acceptable for posting online.)

OTHER SECTIONS

Editorials: Editorials are primarily solicited by the Editor.

Brief commentaries: Brief commentaries (1000-1200 words) on issues of interest to the field can be submitted for consideration.

Clinical Case Conferences. Clinical case conferences are disguised accounts of the diagnosis and treatment of actual patients who present interesting problems. A critical element is that the case should have been discussed in a departmental forum. Interesting cases seen only by individuals are more suitable for letters to the Editor. Please contact the editorial office before writing a clinical case conference for the Journal. The text of clinical case conferences is usually within 2,000 words; the submission should lead with the case (i.e., no abstract or introduction) and can have up to 20 references.

Letters to the Editor. Brief letters (maximum of 500 words, including references) will be considered if they include a cover letter indicating that the correspondence is “for publication.” Novel case reports and other uncontrolled observations should be submitted as Letters to the Editor. Case reports will be peer reviewed; authors must provide a list of 2-3 suggested reviewers and their e-mail addresses. Letters critical of an article published in the Journal must be received within 6 weeks of the article’s publication. Letters received after the deadline will not be considered for publication; those considered will be sent to the article’s corresponding author to reply on behalf of the group, which will represent the final say on the matter. No additional letters discussing an exchange published in the Journal's Letters to the Editor will be considered. Such letters must include the title and author of the article and the month and year of publication. Letters that do not meet these specifications will be returned unreviewed. Letters will be published on a space-available basis.

Book Forum. Books for review should be sent to the Book Forum Editor, IJBS. Please contact at info@mripub.com for the address for book review. Not all books received can be reviewed. Books are received with the understanding that reviewers selected by the Editor write their independent critical appraisals of the book’s content and presentation. Reprints of reviews are not available.

Manuscript Organization and Format

All parts of the manuscript or letter to the Editor, including case reports, quotations, references, and tables, must be double-spaced throughout. The manuscript should be arranged in the following order, with each item beginning a new page: 1) title page, 2) abstract and full text article (without author/institution name), 3) references, tables, and/or figures. All pages must be numbered. A separate cover letter should also be uploaded.

The author's name and affiliations are to be written only on the cover page. There should be no mention of the author's name and institution in the rest of the manuscript as the manuscript file is sent for blinded review to the reviewers.

COVER LETTER
The cover letters should include statements regarding full name authorship, affiliations, title, Disclosure, conflict of interest, support etc. Preferably, it must include a list of 2-3 suggested reviewers with affiliations and their e-mail addresses. It should be uploaded as a separate file.

Location of work and address for reprints. Provide the department, institution, city, and state where the work was done. Include a full address for the author who is to receive correspondence and reprint requests.

TITLE PAGE

Word count. The number of words in the manuscript (including abstract, text, and references) and the number of tables and figures should be noted in the upper right-hand corner of the title page. Tables and figures are no longer included in the word count.

Title. The title should be informative and as brief as possible. Journal style for titles is not to use declarative sentences.

Previous presentation. If the paper has been presented at a meeting, give the name of the meeting, the location, and the inclusive dates.

Disclosures. All financial relationships with commercial interests for all authors must be disclosed, whether or not directly related to the subject of their paper. Such reporting must include all equity ownership, profit-sharing agreements, royalties, patents, and research or other grants from private industry or closely affiliated nonprofit funds. For income from pharmaceutical companies, the purpose must be specified, e.g., speakers bureau honoraria or other CME activity, travel funds, advisory panel payments, research grants. If an author has no interests to disclose, this must be explicitly stated and will be acknowledged in print as “Dr. X reports no financial relationships with commercial interests.”

Acknowledgments. Grant support should include the full name of the granting agency and grant number.

ABSTRACT
Abstracts are sent to various archiving and indexing services and aid in your article’s discoverability by providing more detail than would a simple listing of just citation information. The abstract is a single paragraph no longer than 250 words in the active voice and third person. All Review Articles and New Research submissions should include structured abstracts with the following information, under the headings indicated: Objective—the primary purpose of the article; Methods—data sources, subjects, design, measurements, data analysis; Results and Discussion—key findings; and Conclusions—implications, future directions.

TEXT
The contents of the text should include four major sections: introduction, methods, results, and discussion. The methods section should provide a comprehensive description of the nature of the study group, methods for recruitment, measurement and evaluation techniques (including information about reliability as appropriate), and data analysis. At the end of the section describing the study subjects, it should be clearly stated that subjects provided written informed consent after receiving a complete description of the study. Strengths and weaknesses of the study should be presented in the discussion.

Data analysis. Adequate description of statistical analysis should be provided, including the names of the statistical tests and whether tests were one- or two-tailed. Standard deviations, rather than standard errors of the mean, are required. Statistical tests that are not well-known should be referenced. All significant and important nonsignificant results must include the test value, degree(s) of freedom, and probability. For manuscripts that report on randomized clinical trials, authors should provide a flow diagram in CONSORT format and all of the information required by the CONSORT checklist. When word limits prevent the inclusion of some of this information in the manuscript, it should be provided in a separate document submitted with the manuscript for posting online. The CONSORT statement, checklist, and flow diagram can be found at http://www.consort-statement.org. (See Supplemental Data for what types of data and formats are acceptable for posting online.)

Abbreviations. The Journal is distributed to a broad psychiatric readership, therefore only a very small number of abbreviations are considered “standard” and thus acceptable for use. Spell out all abbreviations (other than those for units of measure) the first time they are used; idiosyncratic abbreviations should never be used.

Drugs. Generic rather than trade names of drugs should be used.

REFERENCES

References are numbered in the text, either in line with the text within brackets (1) or using superscript¹ , in the order in which they appear. A reference which is cited more than once is given the same number. The references are then listed at the end of the text in numerical order by their order of appearance in text. Do not arrange the list alphabetically. References in tables and figures are numbered as though the tables and figures were part of the text. References should be restricted to closely pertinent material. Accuracy of the citation is the author’s responsibility. References should conform exactly to the original spelling, accents, punctuation, etc. Authors should be sure that all references listed have been cited in text. Personal communications, unpublished manuscripts, manuscripts submitted but not yet accepted, and similar unpublished items should not appear in the reference list. Such citations may be noted in text. It is the author’s responsibility to obtain permission to refer to another individual’s unpublished observations. Manuscripts that are in press may be cited as such in the reference list; the name of the journal or publisher and location must be included. References to the editions of DSM should not be included in the reference list. DOI of the references should be included wherever available.

Type references in the Vancouver style shown below. Abbreviations of journal names should conform to the style used in “NLM Catalog: Journals referenced in the NCBI Databases” (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nlmcatalog/journals); journals not indexed there should not be abbreviated.

1. Zinbarg RE, Barlow DH, Liebowitz M, et al: The DSM-IV field trial for mixed anxiety-depression. Am J Psychiatry 1994; 151:1153-1162
   
   
2. Beahrs JO: The cultural impact of psychiatry: the question of regressive effects, in American Psychiatry After World War II: 1944-1994. Edited by Menninger RW, Nemiah JC. Washington, DC, American Psychiatric Press, 2000, pp 321-342
   
   
3. Burrows GD, Norman TR, Judd FK, et al: Short-acting versus long-acting benzodiazepines: discontinuation effects in panic disorders. J Psychiatr Res 1990; 24(suppl 2):65-72
   
   

TABLES
The Journal does not publish tables that have been submitted elsewhere or previously published. Tables that duplicate material contained elsewhere in the manuscript (in text, figures, or other tables) will not be used. Authors should delete tables containing data that could be given succinctly in text. A copy of each table must be submitted with the manuscript in an editable format and must be accessible for copyediting. Tables cannot be embedded within the document or provided as figure art. Authors providing tables in such a manner will be required to resubmit tables in a format that allows for copyediting. In terms of data presentation, values expressed in the same unit of measurement should read down, not across; when percentages are presented, the appropriate numbers must also be given. In preparing the tables, each cell should contain only one item of data. In rows, subcategories should be in separate cells; in columns, Ns and %s or Means and SDs should be in separate cells. For optimum readability and presentation, tables should not exceed 120 characters in width. For other guidelines, consult recent issues of the Journal.

FIGURES
Figures express trends or relationships between data. Consult recent issues of the Journal and the following guidelines for format. Figures that contain numerical data that could be expressed more succinctly or clearly in tabular form should be converted to tables. Submission of previously published figures is discouraged. Multiple figures for the same article should be prepared as a set, consistent in color and size across all figures.

Submission

1. A copy of each figure must accompany the manuscript.
   
   
2. Figure titles and footnotes should be provided within the text of the manuscript.
   
   
3. If figures have been previously adapted from an earlier publication, the author must secure written permission from the holder of copyright for use in the Journal. The author should submit a copy of the permission release and credit lines if the manuscript is accepted for publication.
   
   

Format

1. Specific file formats are required for different types of figure images. For photos or brain scans, high resolution (300 dpi) raster images in .jpg, .png, or .tiff formats are preferred. For charts and graphs, scalable and editable vector images in .eps, .pdf, or .svg formats should be provided. We can also accept native files for charts and graphs created in Word, PowerPoint, or Adobe Illustrator.
2. Definitions of symbols appearing in the figure should be presented in a key within the figure, rather than in the title or footnotes.
   
   
3. Except for the key, avoid using internal type (e.g., placing statistical values within a graph).
   
   
4. Two-dimensional graphs should not be represented in three dimensions.
   
   

Content

1. Each complete figure (including titles and footnotes) should be understandable without reference to the text.
   
   
2. Figures should represent data visually rather than numerically.
   
   
3. If error bars are included, standard deviations, rather than standard errors of the mean, should be used.
   
   
4. Only the most widely recognized abbreviations may be used.
   
   
5. In a graph comparing different groups of subjects, the number of subjects in each group should appear with the name of the group—in the key, in the headings below the horizontal axis, or in the title.
   
   
6. Ordinary footnotes should be cited with lower-case superscript letters. Footnote citations may be given in both the title and the body of the figure; within the body of the figure, they should proceed from left to right.
   
   
7. For statistical comparisons noted in figures, provide complete statistical data in footnotes. If numerous analyses are presented, simple p values may be given in the footnotes, in which case the footnotes should be indicated by single asterisk, double asterisk, etc.

SUPPLEMENTAL DATA
The Journal now allows authors to submit supplemental data to be posted online in support of their printed articles. To be accepted for posting, supplemental material must be essential to the scientific integrity and excellence of the manuscript. The material is subject to the same editorial standards as the printed Journal and will be submitted for peer review. Supplemental material will not be formatted or edited by in-house editorial staff to the extent as performed for material appearing in the print version. The Editor may select material submitted for publication in the print version to be posted online only. The Journal will accept the following categories of supplemental data:

• Detailed tables (up to 3) that contain data of use to other investigators. Data should be summarized in the text of the print version
  
  
• The CONSORT table and figure for clinical trials are also appropriate for online publication only.
  
  
• Questionnaires, tests, checklists, etc., should be submitted as supplemental data.
  
  

Supplemental data should be uploaded in a separate file from the for-print manuscript. Please remember that the larger the file size the longer it will take users to download. For this reason, please limit your files to 10 MB. The Journal can accept the following formats:

• Plain text (.txt)
• HTML page (.html)
• JPEG image (.jpg)
• GIF image (.gif)
• Adobe PDF (.pdf)
• Excel spreadsheet (.xls)
• ZIP compressed file (.zip)
• Word document (.doc)
• Tiff image (.tif)
• PowerPoint presentation (.ppt)
• Encapsulated Postscript document (.eps)
• Mp3 file (.mp3)
• QuickTime video
  
  

If your document type is not listed here, please contact the editorial office at eicijbs@gmail.com. Please name your files and cite within the printed text as ST1 for tables, SF1 for figures, SR1 for references, and SA1 for appendices.

Processing of Accepted Manuscripts

Manuscripts are accepted with the understanding that the Editor and the editorial staff have the right to make revisions aimed at greater conciseness, clarity, and conformity with Journal style. Preliminary page proofs will be sent to the corresponding author. Authors who will be away from their offices for a long period or who change address after notification of acceptance should inform the Journal staff.

Reviewers

Becoming a Reviewer
Individuals interested in reviewing should visit IJBS manuscript review system and create an account by registering themselves.

Abstracts of articles within a reviewer’s given area of expertise are sent via e-mail to the reviewer. Usually, within 3 days, the reviewer is asked to indicate willingness to review and availability to perform the review within a 2-week time frame.

Competing Interests
Most competing interests, financial or otherwise, do not disqualify one from participating in the peer-review process, but the Journal requests that you indicate any conflict that you may have in reviewing any particular manuscript. You can also notify the Journal if you feel that you cannot review a manuscript because of a competing interest. This will not affect your reviewer status in any way.

Confidentiality
Manuscripts must be reviewed with due respect for authors’ confidentiality. In submitting their manuscripts for review, authors entrust the Journal with the results of their scientific work and creative effort, on which their reputation and career may depend. Authors’ rights may be violated by disclosure of the confidential details of the review of their manuscript. Reviewers should never copy, share, or discuss a manuscript under review or the data within with anyone without expressed written permission of the Journal’s Editor and the authors.

The authors are required to share the author/affiliation details in only cover letter as separate file.

Plagiarism policy:

Plagiarism, including duplicate publication of the author's own work, in whole or in part without proper citation is not accepted by the journal. Manuscripts submitted to the journal may be checked for originality using anti-plagiarism software. Usually, plagiarism of 10-15% (as reported by iThenticate) can be accepted by the journal depending on the manuscript type. However, the final decision is taken by the editors on case-to-case basis.