Author guidelines

1. Introduction

Electronic Journal of Medical Research (EJMR) is a peer-reviewed, open access, quarterly published international journal, strives to provide a forum for worldwide scientific researchers for the advancement and dissemination of scientific knowledge. The journal publishes high-quality reviews, research articles and clinical studies in microbiology and its allied disciplines provided they demonstrate new findings of relevance to the field as a whole. To see the aims and scope of the journal Click here.

Submissions fall into the following categories:
a. Research papers (experimental and clinical)
b. Letters to the Editor
c. Review articles, including systematic reviews and meta-analyses
d. Editorials
e. Case reports and case series

a. Research papers (experimental and clinical). These should not exceed ten printed pages (where one page comprises 800 words or the equivalent in illustrative and tabular material). The text file should be presented in the following order: 1) title page, 2) abstract, 3) key words (up to six), main text (introduction, material and methods, results and discussion), references, figure legends. tables (with title and footnotes), acknowledgments, author contribution, conflict of interest. The abstract should be up to 250 words. Abbreviations should be minimized and references not included. The introduction should be concise and depict the background to the subject, its significance and its relationship to earlier works. The introduction should end with the aim of the paper. Materials and methods should be presented with clarity and detail. Results illustrate original and important findings, with figures or tables where necessary. Do not repeat numerical values of any data presented in tables or figures. The discussion should emphasize the principal conclusions drawn from the results and their important implications. End the discussion with a clear conclusion and possibly clinical relevance.

For clinical trials, manuscripts must comply with recognized guidelines for conducting and reporting clinical trials. Medical research involving human subjects must meet the current standards for clinical trials (Declaration of Helsinki, US Federal Policy for the Protection of Human Subjects or European Medicines Agency Guidelines for Good Clinical Practice). When reporting clinical trials, authors must follow the CONSORT and its extensions (for reporting randomised parallel or crossover trials), Strobe (for observational studies) or Care (for case reports) guidelines and provide their checklist and flowchart (documents can be downloaded from the respective website). To ensure transparent and unbiased reporting, clinical trials must be registered prospectively in a publicly accessible database. If they are not registered or have been registered retrospectively, the reasons should be explained. The methods section must state which ethics committee approved the study (including the full reference) and that the work described was conducted in accordance with recognized guidelines. The name of the trial register and the registration number of the clinical study should be stated in the methods section.

b. Letters to the Editor. These have no fixed format (no abstract), are intended for short constructive comments on published work or for putting forward new ideas and are published at the discretion of the Editor. Occasionally, small research reports can be published as a letter to the Editor (max length: 3 double-spaced pages, max 2 figures two figures and/or two tables, max 25 references, No subdivision into Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion).

c. Review articles. These will usually be written at the invitation of the Editors, but unsolicited reviews are welcome. Review articles should include a Table of Contents and will normally be limited to 20,000 words excluding references. No new and unpublished data should be submitted. The text file should be presented in the following order: title page, abstract, key words (up to six), introduction, relevant sections, discussion, conclusions, future directions, references, figure legends, tables (with title and footnotes), acknowledgements, author contribution and conflict of interest.

Systematic reviews should report on a detailed examination of previous research on a particular topic, using “systematic and explicit methods to identify, select and critically appraise relevant primary research and to extract and analyse data from the studies included in the review”. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses must strictly adhere to PRISMA or MOOSE (for observational trials) guidelines. The PRISMA or MOOSE flowchart (as part of the main text) and checklist (as supplementary material) must be submitted. We strongly recommend that authors register their detailed protocols in a public registry such as PROSPERO before starting data mining. A statement reporting compliance with PRISMA guidelines and registration information (if available) should be reported in the methods section. The abstract must be structured into the following sections: 1) background, 2) objective, 3) Search methods, 4) selection criteria, 5) Data collection and analysis, 6) Main results, 7) Conclusions.

d. Editorials. These are written by the Editor-in-Chief or by editorial board members upon invitation. There is no fixed format.

e. Case reports and case series. Case reports and case series should describe rare, unusual, or novel clinical cases that offer educational or scientific value. Submissions must include clear patient consent (if applicable), relevant diagnostic information, and a discussion highlighting the case's significance to existing literature.

2. Editorial Policy

For more details, see our Editorial Policy.

2.1. Originality

Authors are expected to adhere to the highest standard with respect to publication ethics, any cases of ethical misconduct are treated very seriously. The acceptance criteria for all papers are the quality, originality of the research work, validity of data, reproducibility of results and papers that demonstrate new findings of relevance to the field as a whole and its significance to our readership will be considered and accepted for publication. EJMR accepts submitted papers on the condition that they have been submitted only to EJMR, that they have not been published already and is not under consideration for publication or in press elsewhere.

2.2. Authorship

All the authors must have agreed to the submission of the final version of the manuscript, the order of their names on the title page and that the contributions of all people involved in the research have been properly acknowledged. They also must have agreed that the corresponding author may act on their behalf throughout the editorial review and publication process. To avoid any possible dispute during the process, changes to authorship (including the order of author’s names, addition or deletion of the name) after submission or acceptance, should be accompanied by signed statements of agreement from all the authors involved as per the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines only. For more details, see our Authorship Contribution Policy.

2.3. Ethical Considerations; Compliance with Ethical Standards

The EJMR follows a strict Publication Ethics and Malpractice Policy; Authors are expected to adhere to the highest standard with respect to publication ethics. The author(s) should declare that all text, data, figures/tables or other illustrations presented in the manuscript are completely original and does not contain or include material taken from other copyrighted sources and wherever such material has been included, proper citation is included in the reference section and also affirm that the work does not violate any proprietary or personal rights of others. Any cases of ethical misconduct are treated very seriously.

Authors should include the following statements (if applicable) in a separate section entitled “Compliance with Ethical Standards” when submitting a paper:

• Conflict of Interest Disclosure
• Ethics of Human and Animal Experimentation
• Informed Consent

2.4. Conflict of Interest Disclosure

At the time of submission, authors must include a disclosure statement in the body of the manuscript. All authors must declare any conflict of interest or any affiliation or involvement in any organization whether it is academic, commercial, financial, personal and professionally relevant to the work under consideration to avoid the potential for bias and accept responsibility for what is said in the manuscript. For more details, see our Conflicts of Interest Policy.

2.5. Ethics of Human and Animal Experimentation

Human Subject Research

The Author should ensure that studies involving experiments on humans must have an institutional review board (IRB) and/or national research ethics committee approval. Manuscripts should include a statement that the informed consent was obtained for experimentation with human subjects and that it conforms to standards currently applied in the country of origin. The name of the authorizing body should be stated in the paper. The privacy rights of human subjects must always be observed.

Animal Research

The Author should ensure that studies involving experiments on animals must include a statement in the manuscript indicating that the international, national, and/or institutional guidelines for the care and use of animals have been followed, and that the study has been approved by a research ethics committee. Procedures should be such that experimental animals do not have to suffer unnecessarily. Papers should include details of the procedures and of anaesthetics used.

Informed Consent

All individuals have individual rights that are not to be infringed. Individual participants in studies have the right to decide what happens to the identifiable data gathered from them during a study. Hence it is important that all participants gave their informed consent in writing prior to inclusion in the study. The manuscripts that include information about participants, written informed consent for the publication of these must be obtained from all the participants.

2.6. Plagiarism Prevention Policy

The EJMR follows a strong plagiarism policy and is committed to protecting the integrity of the scholarly record and feels its duty to help and support the scientific community in all aspects of research and publishing ethics. For more details, see our Plagiarism Prevention Policy.

The EJMR is a participant of Advanced Plagiarism Detection Software (Crossref Similarity Check Powered by iThenticate) to screen published and submitted content for originality.

By submitting articles to the Electronic Journal of Medical Research the author(s) attest the following:
• All author of the article has thoroughly checked and approved the content of the article before submission
• No part of the manuscript is plagiarized from other sources
• Proper reference is provided wherever contents extracted from other sources
• If plagiarism is found strong action will be taken

All the papers submitted have to pass through an initial screening and will be checked through the Advanced Plagiarism Detection Software (Crossref Similarity Check Powered by iThenticate)

3. Preparation of Manuscript

Free Format submission

The Electronic Journal of Medical Research now offers Free Format submission for a simplified and streamlined submission process.

Before you submit, you will need:

• Your manuscript: this should be an editable file including text, figures, and tables, or separate files – whichever you prefer. All required sections should be contained in your manuscript, including abstract, introduction, materials and methods, and results and discussion. Figures and tables should have legends. Figures should be uploaded in the highest resolution possible. References may be submitted in any style or format, as long as it is consistent throughout the manuscript. Supporting information should be submitted in separate files. If the manuscript, figures or tables are difficult for you to read, they will also be difficult for the editors and reviewers, and the editorial office will send it back to you for revision. Your manuscript may also be sent back to you for revision if the quality of English language is poor.

• The title page of the manuscript, including:

a. Your co-author details, including affiliation and email address. (Why is this important? We need to keep all co-authors informed of the outcome of the peer review process.)

b. Statements relating to our ethics and integrity policies, which may include any of the following (Why are these important? We need to uphold rigorous ethical standards for the research we consider for publication):
i. data availability statement
ii. funding statement
iii. author contribution statement
iv. conflict of interest disclosure
v. ethics approval statement, if relevant
vi. patient consent statement
vii. permission to reproduce material from other sources

To submit, login at the journal’s submission portal and create a new submission. Follow the submission steps as required and submit the manuscript.

Manuscripts submitted for publication should meet the following criteria: validity of data, clarity, conciseness, reproducibility of results, and compliance with typescript requirements. In discussing the results, it is mandatory to set forth a sound conclusion on the novelty of the materials submitted for publication.

The following should be used as a guide in preparing papers for publication.

3.1. Manuscript Text

Files should be formatted double-spaced with no hyphenation and automatic word-wrap (no hard returns within paragraphs). Please type your text consistently, e.g. take care to distinguish between ‘1’ (one) and ‘l’ (lower-case L) and ‘0’ (zero) and ‘O’ (capital O), etc.

3.2. Title Page

The title page should contain (i) the title of the paper (ii) full names of all the authors, their complete affiliations, ORCID IDs and email addresses (iii) Place an asterisk after the name of the corresponding author, and provide an e-mail address and telephone for correspondence.

Title

A title should be concise and informative and contain the major keywords that accurately describe the content of the paper. Do not use ‘&’ symbol and other non-standard abbreviations in the title. Omit all waste words such as “A study of ….”, “Investigations of ….”, “Observations on ….” etc. in the title.

Abstract

The Abstract should be concise and briefly reflect all the aspects of the study, containing at most 250 words. The Abstract should be unstructured, i.e., it should not contain sections or subheadings. Minimize using abbreviations, and do not cite references, figures or tables in your Abstract.

Keywords

Each paper should have four to seven keywords, in addition to those already present in the title. Keywords are used by the indexing and abstracting services.

3.3. Introduction

The introduction should present sufficient background information and the object of the investigation to understand the purpose of the current work and its significance.

3.4. Materials and Methods

The Materials and Methods section should provide sufficient technical details to allow others to replicate and build on published results. New procedures should be described in detail while previously published procedures can be briefly described and appropriately cited. Sources of all important chemicals, equipment, or microbial strains should be indicated.

3.5. Results

Results should provide a concise description and can be presented in the form of figures, tables, and text which should clearly and accurately describe the experimental findings of the study. It is recommended to use past indefinite verb tense in describing the results.

3.6. Discussion

The Discussion section should be focused on the interpretation of the results, but not reiterate the results. Discussion should be completed with a major conclusion that answers the question specified in the introductory part of the article. The Results and Discussion sections may be combined into one section.

3.7. Tables

Tables should be provided in Word or Excel format and must be editable (not pasted in as a picture). Each table should be numbered consecutively in numerals and should include a caption and column headings that contain enough information. Units of measurement should be abbreviated and placed below the column headings. Explanatory footnotes should be related to the legend or table using superscript, lower-case letters. All abbreviations should be defined after the footnotes, beneath the table body.

3.8. Figures

Figures should also be provided separately from the main text. Figures must be cited in the order that they appear. The figure number must appear well outside the boundaries of the image itself. Include a legend describing the figure and it should be below the figure. Provide each axis with a brief but informative title (including units of measurement). It is the author’s responsibility to ensure that figures are provided at a sufficiently high resolution to ensure high-quality reproduction in the final article. Please note that it is the responsibility of the author(s) to obtain permission from the copyright holder to reproduce figures or tables that have previously been published elsewhere.

Acceptable file formats: JPEG(.jpg) and PNG.

3.9. Declarations (following statements to be added just before References)

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements of any financial support and personal assistance for the work being published must be indicated.

Conflict of Interest

All authors must declare any conflict of interest or any affiliation or involvement in any organization whether it is academic, commercial, financial, personal and professionally relevant to the work under consideration to avoid the potential for bias and accept responsibility for what is said in the manuscript.

Authors’ Contribution

All authors should have made substantial contributions to all of the following:
1. The conception and design of the study, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data.
2. Drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content.
3. Final approval of the version to be submitted.

Authors should appoint a corresponding author to communicate with the journal during the editorial process. All authors should agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work to ensure that the questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Funding

Authors must disclose any funding sources who provided financial support for the conduct of the research and/or preparation of the article. The role of sponsors, if any, should be declared in relation to the study design, collection, analysis and interpretation of data, writing of the report and decision to submit the article for publication. If funding sources had no such involvement this should be stated in your submission.

List funding sources in this standard way to facilitate compliance to funder's requirements:

Funding: This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health [grant numbers xxxx, yyyy]; the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Seattle, WA [grant number zzzz]; and the United States Institutes of Peace [grant number aaaa].

It is not necessary to include detailed descriptions on the program or type of grants, scholarships and awards. When funding is from a block grant or other resources available to a university, college, or other research institution, submit the name of the institute or organization that provided the funding.

If no funding has been provided for the research, it is recommended to include the following sentence:

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Ethics Statement

If the study involves an experiment on humans and animals; then the name of the authorizing body should be stated in the paper.

Informed Consent

If the study involves an experiment on humans and animals; Manuscripts should include a statement that the informed consent was obtained for experimentation and that it conforms to the standards currently applied in the country of origin. The privacy rights of human subjects must always be observed.

Data Availability

Kindly mention the database or the repository name(s) along with the Accession number(s) if all datasets generated or analyzed during this study are not included in the manuscript and/or the Supplementary files.

3.10. References

The reference list must be numbered in the order they appear in the text; not in alphabetic order. In text, tables, and legends, identify references with superscript Arabic numerals. Authors are responsible for the accuracy and completeness of their references and for correct text citations. Please mention the DOI number/HTML link for every reference that is available. When listing references, follow the AMA (American Medical Association) style. Journal titles should be abbreviated according to NLM Title Abbreviation or List of Title Word Abbreviations (LTWA). List all authors up to 6; if more than 6, list the first 3 followed by “et al.” Note: Journal references should include the issue number in parentheses after the volume number.

The referencing styles shown in the examples below should be used.

Print Journal Article:

El-Naggar MY, Yousry MG, Khouloud M, Nowara SA. Title. RES J. Med. Res.. 2016;10(3):1797-1808.

Online Journal Article with DOI:

Hamed A, Nedal A, Al-Mnayyis A, et al. Title, RES J. Med. Res. 2020;14(1):17-24. DOI.

Online Journal Article without DOI:

Salman SA, Gokcen D, Baldan R, et al. Title, RES J. Med. Res. 2016;10(3):1675-1682. https://microbiologyjournal.org/molecular-characterization-of-carbapenem-resistant-acinetobacter-baumannii-and-investigation-of-genetic-diversity-between-local-and-international-clones. Accessed November 25, 2019.

Books:

Brock TD, Madigan MT. Biology of Microorganisms, 5th Ed. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. 1988.

Specific Chapter in books:

Gershon AA, Russa P La, Steinberg SP. Title. In Murray PR, Baron EJ, Pfaller MA, Tenover FC, Yolken RH (eds.), Manual of Clinical Microbiology, 7th Ed. American Society of Microbiology, Washington, D.C. 1999:900-911.

Patents:

Aviv H, Friedman K and Vered V. Submicron emulsions as ocular drug delivery vehicles. U.S. Patent US 5496811; 1996.

Websites:

Quick dissolving tablets. http://www.biospace.com, Accessed 27 may, 2001.

The list of references should only include works that are cited in the text and that have been published or accepted for publication. Personal communications and unpublished works should only be mentioned in the text not in references.

Nomenclature:

Nomenclature for chemical and biochemical agents, microorganisms, proteins, enzymes and genetic should be used.

Abbreviations:

Abbreviations should be defined at their first use in the text and to be used consistently thereafter.

4. Submission of Manuscripts

Manuscripts should only be submitted online through Article Submission Form in Word format only. Author(s) must provide an email address as all correspondence, notification and comments regarding the manuscript will be through email.

4.1. Cover letter

The cover letter must contain a statement that the content is submitted only to EJMR and has not published already, neither it is under consideration for publication or in press elsewhere. All authors acknowledge that they have substantially participated in research work and in preparation of the manuscript and do not contain any material taken from other copyright sources and wherever such material has been included, proper citation is included in the reference section.

4.2. Manuscript Checklist for Final Submission

1. The complete manuscript should be properly formatted in Microsoft Word format and include each and every section. Ensure the manuscript is spell and grammar checked and that the words do not join together. Figures must be embedded, in place, in your manuscript-text file for the reviewer’s reference.
2. A title shouldn’t contain the ‘&’ symbol and other non-standard abbreviations.
3. All author’s names, their complete affiliations and ORCID IDs are provided in the manuscript. Ensure every author who has significantly contributed to a manuscript is given credit as an author.
4. One author is designated as the corresponding author, and his/her email address is included.
5. Abstract should not be more than 250 words.
6. Keywords (minimum 4) are provided in addition to those present in the title.
7. Tables must be provided in an editable format, such as .docx.
8. Each figure must also be separately supplied in JPEG (.jpg) or PNG format with a resolution of at least 300 DPI. For figures with more than one panel, panels should be clearly indicated using labels (A), (B), (C), (D), etc.
9. Ensure that each table and figure is properly numbered and cited in the text in sequential order.
10. In-text citations are numbered in superscript and in order of citation (the first citation is 1, the next is 2 and so on).
11. Ensure all sources are appropriately cited. All references mentioned in the reference list are to be arranged numerically and are cited in the text and vice versa. References and in-text citations are formatted according to EJMR’s requirements, i.e., according to the AMA (American Medical Association) reference style.
12. Whether the manuscript is posted as preprints on any preprint server? If yes, please provide details.
13. Page numbers have been included on each page.
14. Declaration statements are included:
• Acknowledgement
• Conflict of Interest Disclosure
• Funding Source Statement
• Authors’ Contribution
• Data Availability Statement
• Ethical Approval Statement
• Informed Consent Statement

5. Editorial Review and Acceptance

Manuscripts should be written in order that it is understandable to the professional reader and it should be clear and concise. All contributions will be initially assessed by the editor for their suitability. Papers deemed suitable are then typically sent to expert reviewers to assess the scientific quality of the paper. The editor reserves the right to modify typescripts to eliminate errors and repetitions and improve communication between author and reader. A paper may be accepted in its original form or subject to revision. If extensive alterations are required, the manuscript will be returned to the author for revision. The Editor reserves the right to accept or reject any article. The Editor’s decision is final. Author(s) must provide an email address as all correspondence, notification and comments regarding the manuscript will be through email.

6. Manuscripts Accepted for publication

6.1. Proofs

Galley proofs (PDF format) for an accepted article will be sent by e-mail to the corresponding author for corrections. The core content of an article cannot be changed during galley proofreading; only corrections should be restricted to typesetting errors. Authors are advised to check their proofs very carefully before return; since the subsequent changes are not acceptable. The proofs should be corrected and mailed to the Editorial office.

6.2. Publication Charges

There are no article submission or processing charges for this journal.

6.3. Copyright

Copyright on any open access article published in EJMR is retained by the author(s). Authors grant EJMR a license to publish the article and identify itself as the original publisher. Authors also grant any third party the right to use the article freely as long as its integrity is maintained and its original authors, citation details and publisher are identified. For more details, see our Copyright and Licensing Policy.

6.4. Publishing Rights

EJMR allows its author(s) to retain publishing rights without restrictions.

6.5. Licensing Policy

EJMR an open access journal follows Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For more details, see our Open Access Policy.

6.6. Preprint Policy

EJMR will consider for review articles previously posted as preprints on any preprint server provided that:
• Author(s) should inform the journal at the time of submission if and where their article has been previously posted.
• The version posted has not been peer-reviewed, edited, or typeset.
• The articles have not previously been published in part or in whole within a scientific journal, book, or similar entity.
• Upon acceptance of their article for publication in the EJMR the author(s) is still able to grant the journal License to publish the article, and agree to pay the article processing charge (APC).
• Author(s) are requested to update any pre-publication versions with a link to the final published article via its Digital Object Identifier (DOI). For more details, see our Preprint Policy.

6.7. Self-Archiving

EJMR actively supports the author(s) self-archiving process. Journal encourages author(s) to self-archive any version of their manuscript to personal or institutional websites, in repositories and similar, prior to and after the publication of their manuscripts, provided that the author(s) must acknowledge the published source with citation and link the final published article via its Digital Object Identifier (DOI).

6.8. Article Corrections, Retractions, and Withdrawal Policy

Article Corrections Policy

Authors are encouraged to report errors in their articles with regard to the accuracy of published information. Only errors that impact the article significantly will be considered. Corrections are made at the journal’s discretion. The correction procedure depends on the publication stage of the article. Corrections will be published under corrections and addendum in a later issue of the journal. For more details, see our Article Correction, Retraction and Withdrawal Policy.

Article Retractions Policy

The article may be retracted because of scientific misconduct in cases such as multiple submissions, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, or fraudulent use of data. A signed statement from the concerned authors will be required to be submitted before an article can be retracted. Agreement of all authors of a paper is required before a retraction can be published. A notice of retraction will be published and linked to the original article clearly marked as retracted. The notice will also include the reason for the retraction and who is retracting the article. The original article will not be removed from online or print versions of the journal but will be identified as a retracted article. Retractions will also be listed on the contents page.

Article Withdrawal Policy

Articles can be withdrawn by the authors only for the most compelling and unavoidable reasons, after submitting a letter signed by all the authors of the article to the editorial office stating the reason for article withdrawal. Authors must not assume that their article has been withdrawn until they have received appropriate notification to this effect from the editorial office. For more details, see our Policy for Article Withdrawal Request from Authors.