This Journal recommends that authors follow the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals formulated by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).

 

Guidelines for the Reviewers

The reviewers are selected on the request of the editorial team and need to respond within the specified number of days.

Review should be done keeping the following points in the mind

• The scope of the journal
• It should qualify the author’s guidelines
• There should be no legal or ethical issues like plagiarism
• The content should be enriching, of good quality, contributory to the medical field and must have clinical utility
• The language used should be fluent and comprehensible

On the basis of these guidelines, the reviewer should give constructive feedback to improve the quality of the content submitted. Reviewers should be asked at the time they are asked to critique a manuscript if they have relationships or activities that could complicate their review. Reviewers must disclose to editors any relationships or activities that could bias their opinions of the manuscript, and should recuse themselves from reviewing specific manuscripts if the potential for bias exists. Reviewers must not use knowledge of the work they're reviewing before its publication to further their own interests.

The reviewer must suggest if the submission needs minor or substantial revision or whether it is unsuitable for publication. The final decision of publication, however, remains with the editorial board.

We encourage the reviewers to register with PUBLONS to get the credits for their reviews.

 

Guidelines for the Authors

When authors submit a manuscript of any type or format, they are responsible for disclosing all relationships and activities that might bias or be seen to bias their work. The ICMJE has developed a Disclosure Form to facilitate and standardize authors' disclosures. ICMJE member journals require that authors use this form, and ICMJE encourages other journals to adopt it.

 

Guidelines for the Editors

The ICMJE adopts the World Association of Medical Editors' definition of editorial freedom (http://wame.org/ editorial-independence), which holds that editors-in-chief have full authority over the entire editorial content of their journal and the timing of publication of that content.

Editors who make final decisions about manuscripts should recuse themselves from editorial decisions if they have relationships or activities that pose potential conflicts related to articles under consideration. Other editorial staff members who participate in editorial decisions must provide editors with a current description of their relationships and activities (as they might relate to editorial judgments) and recuse themselves from any decisions in which an interest that poses a potential conflict exists.

Editorial staff must not use information gained through working with manuscripts for private gain. Editors should regularly publish their own disclosure statements and those of their journal staff. Guest editors should follow these same procedures. Journals should take extra precautions and have a stated policy for evaluation of manuscripts submitted by individuals involved in editorial decisions. Further guidance is available from COPE and WAME.