Accepted file types
The preferred format for your manuscript is Word. You do not need to follow a template, but please ensure your heading levels are clear, and the sections clearly defined.
The LaTeX files are also accepted.
Title
Your manuscript’s title should be concise, descriptive, unambiguous, accurate, and reflect the precise contents of the manuscript. A descriptive title that includes the topic of the manuscript makes an article more findable in the major indexing services.
Abstract
Please include an unstructured abstract of maximum 300 words between the title and main body of your manuscript that concisely states the purpose of the research, major findings, and conclusions. If your research includes clinical trials, the trial registry name and URL, and registration number must be included at the end of the abstract. Submissions that do not meet this requirement will not be considered.
For clinical trials, the trial registry name and URL, and registration number must be included at the end of the abstract.
Keywords
Please include a minimum of 3-10 keywords, listed after the abstract. Keywords should be as specific as possible to the research topic.
Artwork, figures, and other graphics
For guidance on the preparation of illustrations, pictures, and graphs in electronic format.
Figures supplied in color will appear in color online.
Please ensure that you have obtained any necessary permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures, or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. For further information including guidance on fair dealing for criticism and review.
Title page
To ensure fair and anonymous peer review, your manuscript must be fully anonymized. Please ensure any identifying information is removed from the main manuscript document and included on the Title Page instead. Do not include any author names in the manuscript file name and remove names from headers and footers. This version of the manuscript will be sent to the peer reviewers. The Title Page will not be sent to peer reviewers.
The Title Page should include:
- Article title
- The full list of authors including names and affiliations of each
- The listed affiliation should be the institution where the research was conducted. If an author has moved to a new institution since completing the research, the new affiliation can be included in a note at the end of the manuscript – please indicate this on the title page.
- All persons eligible for authorship must be included at the time of submission (please see the authorship section for more information).
- Contact information for the corresponding author: name, institutional address, phone, email
- Acknowledgments section
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- Declaration of conflicting interest
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- Funding statement
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- Ethical approval and informed consent statements
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- Data availability statement
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- Any other identifying information related to the authors and/or their institutions, funders, approval committees, etc, that might compromise anonymity.
Acknowledgments
If you are including an Acknowledgements section, this will be published at the end of your article. The Acknowledgments section should include all contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship.
Statements and declarations
To ensure proper anonymization, please include a section with the heading ‘Statements and Declarations’ on your title page, after the Acknowledgements section [and Author Contributions section if applicable] including each of the sub-headings listed below. If a declaration is not applicable to your submission, you must still include the heading and state ‘Not applicable’ underneath. Please note that you may be asked to justify why a declaration was not applicable to your submission by the Editorial Office. This information will be added to the end of your published paper.
Data availability
The Journal is committed to facilitating openness, transparency and reproducibility of research, and has the following research data sharing policy.
Subject to appropriate ethical and legal considerations, authors are encouraged to:
- Share your research data in a relevant public data repository
- Include a data availability statement linking to your data. If it is not possible to share your data, use the statement to confirm why it cannot be shared.
- Cite this data in your research
Reference style and citations
The journal follows the APA reference style.
Every in-text citation must have a corresponding citation in the reference list and vice versa. Corresponding citations must have identical spelling and year.
Authors should update any references to preprints when a peer reviewed version is made available, to cite the published research. Citations to preprints are otherwise discouraged.
Funding statement
All articles need to include a funding statement, under a separate heading, even if you did not receive funding.
Declaration of conflicting interest
The journal requires a declaration of conflicting interests from all authors so that a statement can be included in your article.
If no conflict exists, your statement should read: ‘The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article’.