INSTRUCTION FOR AUTHORS

Iranian Red Crescent Medical Journal (Iran Red Crescent Med J) publishes editorials, original articles, short communications, clinical challenges, review articles, research reports, case reports, letters, and meeting reports bimonthly. Contributions in any of these formats are invited for editorial consideration following peer review by at least three experts in the field. Submissions should conform to the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals. The papers in all fields of medicine and surgery, especially in disaster medicine and health policy, are welcomed. It is noteworthy that Iranian Red Crescent Medical Journal is currently indexed in several worldwide known directories. The latest indexing sources can be seen in the website at www.irmj.ir .

ONLINE SUBMISSION: Iranian Red Crescent Medical Journal accepts only manuscripts through the online submission system, easy to use and easy to track, thus by conducting all procedures electronically your submission will be done rather faster. Keep our website in mind: www.irmj.ir. Once you submit an article, it will be forwarded to one of the editors and afterwards to 3 peer-reviewers. At once after submission, the author will be notified of both the submission process by means of email and the follow-up code. It is recommended to save the sent code for all the future correspondence regarding each article separately. Unsolicited manuscripts will be reviewed for publication with the following understanding that: They represent original work, The paper neither was published already nor is being under review elsewhere, Submitted papers may be examined for the evidence of plagiarism using some automated plagiarism detection services and In cases of suspected plagiarism necessary actions as recommended by the COPE Guidelines will be followed.

MANUSCRIPT PREPARATION: To send electronically, manuscripts should be in Word Document and well-written in English. Please double check the article for spelling, structure and format mistakes. What follows is a series of recommendations on how the article should be like in order to process it faster and more efficiently.

WORD COUNT LIMITS: These numbers shows Iranian Red Crescent Medical Journal word count limitations:

CLINICAL CHALLENGE: Clinical challenges present a striking clinical image that is meant to challenge and inform readers and to illustrate and teach important medical points and the diagnosis and discussion should make an important medical teaching point. Clinical challenges need no abstract but should include 3 to 5 references.

CLINICAL TRIALS: Clinical trials should have a NT registration code which can be starting on July 2010, Iranian Red Crescent Medical Journal will be including the ClinicalTrials.gov identifier number in Clinical Trials' articles. This rule is concluded from the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) Web site for their editorial and updates on the topic of registering clinical trials before publication of the results. The ICMJE recommends that the clinical trial registration number be included at the end of the article's abstract. The general display format for the data is: an alphabetic label of ClinicalTrials.gov followed by a slash and then an 11-digit alphanumeric string starting with NCT followed by eight numbers. An example in the Citation format display would be: ClinicalTrials.gov/NCT00000161.

HEALTH POLICY CHALLENGE: Health policy challenge identify and discuss important issues in medicine and surgery especially in disaster medicine, linked to health policies of a country or region as well as analysis of social, economical, ethical and political issues. Health policy challenge should normally not be more than 2500 words with an unstructured abstract of no more than 150 words.

 · ORIGINAL REPORTS: 2500 -3500 words (Maximum number of references is 55, Maximum Number of illustrations/Tables is 5)

 · REVIEW ARTICLES: 3,500 - 5,000 words (Maximum number of references is 80, Maximum Number of illustrations/Tables is 5)

 · SHORT COMMUNICATIONS: are treated like original articles, except that they should be limited to 1400 words, with an abstract of 150 words or fewer. Short reports should comprise sections of Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results and Discussion with not more than 3 tables or figures and up to 25 references.

 · CASE REPORT: 1,500-2,000 words (Maximum number of references is 20, Maximum Number of illustrations/Tables is 2)

 · EDITORIALS: Unsolicited editorials will be reviewed for publication as short commentaries on topics of current interest to medical public health practitioners. Editorials should be 1,200 words or fewer.

 · LETTERS TO EDITOR: Letters to the editor will be considered if they give significant comments on recent articles published in Iranian Red Crescent Medical Journal or they contain relevant preliminary data providing new insights. Letters need no abstract and must cite the previous article in Iranian Red Crescent Medical Journal that is being discussed, and should have no more than 10 references. Letters should be double spaced and limited to 800 words.

 · FIGURE LEGENDS (including multiple figure parts): 55-75 words

 · ACKNOWLEDGMENTS (not including research funding): 45 - 55 words

COVER LETTER : By an official letter corresponding author should state that the manuscript has not been and will not be published elsewhere or submitted elsewhere for publication. This letter should be uploaded through online system.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST: To prevent the information on potential conflict of interest for authors from being overlooked or misplaced, mention this information in the cover letter.

ETHICS OF EXPERIMENTATION/INFORMED CONSENT : The cover letter must include a statement declaring that the study complies with current ethical considerations. Authors reporting experimental studies on human subjects must include a statement of assurance in the Materials and Methods section of the manuscript reading that: (1) informed consent was obtained from each patient included in the study and (2) the study protocol conforms to the ethical guidelines of the 1975 Declaration of Helsinki as reflected in a priori approval by the institution's human research committee. In studies involving animal experimentation, provide assurance that all animals received humane care according to the criteria outlined in the "Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals" prepared by the National Academy of Sciences and published by the National Institutes of Health (NIH publication 86-23 revised 1985).

TITLE PAGE: All the following should be clearly stated on the title page:

 · TITLE: choose a title that is long enough to cover the main points and by considering the importance of shortness.

 · AUTHOR(S): Name of all authors should be mentioned.

 · INSTITUTION(S): all institutions should be written for each author.

 · CORRESPONDING AUTHOR: one of the authors should be picked out for possible correspondence before and after publication. Their address, telephone and fax number and email should be written.

 · SUPPORT: sources of any supports should be mentioned.

 · RUNNING TITLE: a shorter version of the title (40 characters at most) is needed for page footer.

 · WORD COUNTS: especially for long articles, it is necessary to mention the total number of words.

ABSTRACT AND KEY WORDS: An abstract should be limited to 250-300 words for original or review articles and 100 words for short communication or case report and should be provided to state the reason for the study, the main findings and the conclusions drawn from the observation. Abstract of original articles and brief reports should be structured under the following headings: background, methods, results and conclusion. A list of 3-10 keywords must be provided for indexing purposes. Key words should conform to the Medical Subject Headings used in Index Medicus if possible.

ARTICLE BODY: The rest of the article differs according to the article type you are submitting but generally includes the following headings: introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion and references.

 · INTRODUCTION: This should summarize the purpose and the rationale for the study. It should neither review the subject extensively nor should it have data or conclusions of the study.

 · MATERIALS AND METHODS: This should include exact method or observation or experiment. If an apparatus is used, its manufacturer's name and address should be given in parenthesis. If the method is established, give reference but if the method is new, give enough information so that another author is able to perform it. If a drug is used, its generic name, dose and route of administration must be given. Statistical method must be mentioned and specify any general computer program used. The Info system used should be clearly mentioned. In the case of clinical trials informed consent should be obtained from the participants, or in the case of minors from the parents. This should be explicitly indicated in the published article at the very beginning of the method section. When reporting experiments on human subjects, authors should indicate whether the procedures followed, were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional or national) and with the last update of Helsinki Declaration (Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals). If doubt exists whether the research was conducted in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration, the authors must explain the rationale for their approach, and demonstrate that the institutional review body explicitly approved the doubtful aspects of the study. When reporting experiments on animals, authors should indicate whether the institutional and national guide for the care and use of laboratory animals was followed.

 · RESULTS: It must be presented in the form of text, tables and illustrations. The contents of the tables should not be all repeated in the text. Instead, a reference to the table number may be given. Long articles may need sub-headings within some sections (especially the Results and Discussion parts) to clarify their contents.

 · DISCUSSION: This should emphasize the present findings and the variations or similarities with other work done in the field by other workers. The detailed data should not be repeated in the discussion again. Emphasize the new and important aspects of the study and the conclusions that follow from them. It must be mentioned whether the hypothesis mentioned in the article is true, false or no conclusions can be derived.

 · ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be covered in the acknowledgment section. It should include persons who provided technical help, writing assistance and departmental head who only provided general support. Financial and material support should also be acknowledged.

 · TABLES: All tables must be included within the text of the manuscript in the appropriate section (i.e. in introduction, materials and methods, results or discussion). Please do not put the tables at the end of the manuscript and do not upload them as separate files.

 · FIGURES: All figures, charts and so forth come at the end of the article with references in the article. Figures should be uploaded as separate PNG, JPEG, or GIF files.

 · Authors' Contribution: Type and extent of contribution of each author should be explicitly stated in the Authors' Contribution section of the manuscript.

 · REFERENCES: References should be numbered and listed in order of appearance in the text. Cite the names of all author. Names of journals should be abbreviated in the style used in Index Medicus. Manuscripts with references in EndNote format have more approval chance.

 · JOURNAL: Einollahi B, Hajarizadeh B, Bakhtiari Sl. Pre-transplant hepatitis C virus infection and its effect on the post-transplant course of renal allograft recipients. J Gastroenterol Hepatol 2003;18:836-840.

 · BOOK: Roberts NK. The Cardiac Conducting System and the His Bundle Electrogram. Appleton-Century-Crofts, New York, 1981; 49-56.

 · CHAPTER IN A BOOK: Kitchen AD, Barbra JAJ. Prevention. In: Zuckerman AG, Thomas HC. Viral Hepatitis. 2nd edition. Churchill Livingstone, Edinburgh: 1998;347-56.

To see the exact form of reference style, we recommend you to have a look at the last articles published in Iranian Red Crescent Medical Journal .

FONTS : To distinguish different parts of the article, it is recommended to use the font Times New Roman size 12 for the body, size 12 bold for subheadings, size 14 for headings and size 14 bold for the title.

NEW GUIDELINES FOR AUTHORS: To improve success rate of publishing articles, authors can have a look at these checklists which will be considered as a checklist by Reviewers in the review process.

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REVIEW PROCESS: All submitted manuscripts are examined by the Editorial Board and sent to two or three peer-reviewers. The reviewers are masked as to the identity of the authors and their affiliation. Authors are usually notified within 2 months about the acceptability of their manuscript. On receiving reviewers comments, authors are requested to send the revised article, and a copy of their reply to the reviewers, including the comment and explaining the replies to questions and changes made to the revised version.

COPYRIGHT FORM: All authors should fill their complete names and specifications in the copyright form which is available in www.irmj.ir . Author should print, sign, scan and send this form by email to Iranian Red Crescent Medical Journal .

PROOFS: Proofs will be sent to the corresponding author. Galley proofs should be returned within 72 hours from receipt with clear indication of any changes.

To make sure your article meets all the requirements, please use the following checklist.
Full names and affiliates of all authors are added.
Corresponding author is determined.
Email, mailing address, telephone numbers (fixed, mobile and fax) are added.
Names of all institutions involved in the project are mentioned.
Conflict of interest and ethical consideration have been clearly stated.
Title is short and informative.
Abstract does not exceed the limit.
3-10 keywords are picked.
Body has introduction, materials and methods, results and discussion.
References are put in the right place through the text as superscript.
References follow the style described in the ‘manuscript preparation’ section.
Copyright form has been signed by all authors and mailed or faxed.