GUIDELINES FOR SUBMISSION

The Scottish Medical Journal is published four times per year - in February, May, August and November - and is devoted to the publication of original investigations in all branches of medicine, review articles, historical subjects of medical interest, and clinical memoranda. Papers are accepted for publication on condition that they are offered to this journal alone and that they become the property of the Scottish Medical Journal.

MANUSCRIPTS SHOULD BE SUBMITTED AS FOLLOWS.

One copy on paper sent to:

Professor R Carachi, Editor, Scottish Medical Journal,

Department of Surgical Paediatrics

Royal Hospital for Sick Children

Yorkhill

Glasgow

G3 8SJ

AND

An email attachment in Word or Text to smjsubmit@yahoo.co.uk

Papers

Papers should be written in clear concise English. Manuscripts should be typed, double spaced including title page, abstract, text, acknowledgements, references, figures, tables and legends. Number pages consecutively beginning with the title page. Total word count should not exceed 2500 words.

The title page should include the name(s) and address(es) of all author(s) and a word count. The corresponding author’s email address should be included. Authors should include any declaration of any financial or commercial interest. Proofs will be sent to the corresponding author’s address unless otherwise stated.

The second page should carry an abstract of not more than 200 words (Background and Aims, Methods and Results and Conclusion). Below the abstract include three to five key words or short phrases for indexing.

The description of methods and results should be in sufficient detail to allow repetition by others. Data should not be repeated unnecessarily in text, tables and figures. The discussion should simply repeat the results, but should present their interpretation against the background of existing knowledge.

References

References should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they appear in the text. Identify references in text, tables and legends by arabic numerals in superscript e.g. 3 or 2-4. Use the style of references adopted by Index Medicus. The titles of journals should be abbreviated and when there are more than six authors, it should be abbreviated to three authors followed by et al. The title of article, abbreviated name of journal, year, volume, first and last page numbers. ‘Personal communications’ and ‘unpublished observations’ (including information from manuscripts submitted but not yet accepted) should be so identified in parenthesis in the text and not included as references. Reference to books should include surname and initials of author(s), title of chapter, editor(s), title of book, place of publication, name of publisher, year, volume and page numbers.

Tables

Tables numbered in roman numerals should be submitted on separate sheets and should be designed to appear in either one column or across the whole page. Omit internal horizontal and vertical rules and do not submit tables as photographs.

Illustrations

Images should be supplied seperately to the manuscript as high resolution JPEG at 300dpi. Please indicate clearly in the copy where figures should be inserted. Illustrations both half tone and line, should be referred to as ‘Figures’ and should be numbered in arabic numerals. They should be technically excellent. Each figure and table should be accompanied on a separate sheet by a short legend as a heading with explanatory matter in footnotes. The name(s) of the author(s) should be written on the reverse side of the paper copy.

Case Reports

These will be summarised in the Journal and full text will be available on the Journal website. The authors should not include names, initials or hospital numbers of patients, which might lead to their recognition. A patient must not be recognisable in any photograph unless written consent has been obtained.

The Scottish Medical Journal is indexed in MEDLINE, Current Contents (Clinical Practice), Science Citation Index and EMBASE/Excerpta Medica.