Instruction for Authors

OAMJMS Guidelines
 

Manuscript Submission

All manuscripts should be submitted to the Open Access Macedonian Journal of Medical Sciences (OAMJMS) electronically.

 

Categories

A - Basic Sciences
B - Clinical Sciences
C - Case Reports
D - Dental Sciences
E - Public Health
F - Review Articles
G - Nursing

T - Thematic Issues

 

Sections

A - Basic Science

• Anatomy
• Genetics
• Biochemistry
• Histology
• Physiology
• Immunology
• Pathophysiology
• Nuclear Medicine
• Pathology
• Microbiology
• Epidemiology
• Pharmacology
• Sports Medicine
• Medical Informatics
• Forensic Medicine

B - Clinical Sciences

• Gastroenterohepatology
• Nephrology
• Cardiology
• Pulmonology
• Neurology
• Psychiatry
• Endocrinology
• Rheumatology
• Hematology
• Oncology
• Dermatology
• Infective Diseases
• Gynecology and Obstetrics
• Pediatrics
• Toxicology
• Surgery
• Ophthalmology
• Ear, Nose and Throat
• Radiology and Radiotherapy
• Anesthesiology
• Intensive Care
• Rehabilitation
• Geriatrics

C- Case Reports

• Case Report in Internal Medicine
• Case Report in Pediatrics
• Case Reports in Gynecology and Obstetrics
• Case Report in Surgery
• Case Report in Dentistry

D - Dental Sciences

• Pedodontics and Preventive Dentistry
• Orthodontics
• Prosthodontics
• Oral Surgery
• Dental Pathology and Endodontics
• Periodontology and Oral Medicine
• Maxillofacial Surgery

E - Public Health

• Public Health Education and Training
• Public Health Legislation
• Public Health Epidemiology
• Public Health Disease Control

F - Review Articles

• Narrative Review Article
• Systematic Review Article
• Meta-analytic Review Article
• Meta-synthesis Review Article

G - Nursing

• Nursing in Internal Medicine
• Nursing in Pediatrics
• Nursing in Gynecology and Obstetrics
• Nursing in in Surgery
• Nursing in Dentistry
• Emergency Nursing
• Nursing Informatics
• Telenursing

T - Thematic Issue

 

Submission Preparation Checklist

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.

• The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
• The submission file is in OpenOffice, Microsoft Word, RTF, or WordPerfect document file format.
• Complete details should be included in the "Submit an Article" (1. Start, 2. Upload Submission, 3. Enter Metadata, 4. Confirmation, and 5. Next Steps), otherwise the Submissions will be declined (Desk Reject).
• Details (incuding User Details with ORCID iD and affiliation) from all Contributors (Authors) should be included in the Submission. Additional modification of the list of authors is not permited.
• Manuscript Title Page contain: title of the manuscript; authors first name, family name, e-mail address, and ORCID iD; affiliations of the authors; *corresponding author: name and family name, affiliation, e-mail, ORCID iD; Short title; and funding.
• Manuscript Main Text contain: title of the manuscript, structured abstract, Keywords, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, References. Authors and affiliations are not included.
• Tables and/or Figures can be included in the Manuscript Main Text or submitted separately. Tables should be in editable format (in document format, not as a picture).
• The text is single-spaced; uses a 12-point font; employs italics, rather than underlining (except with URL addresses); and all illustrations, figures, and tables are placed within the text at the appropriate points, rather than at the end.
• Each reference should be numbered, ordered sequentially as they appear in the text, methods, tables, figure, and legends. When cited in the text, reference numbers are in brackets [1], [2], [3], and so on.
• Section References should be ordered sequentially identical with the citation in the text 1., 2., 3., and so on (Vancouver style).
• References should be in English language, other languages should be translated in English with the original language mentioned in [] at the ed of reference, i.e, [Macedonian].
• Where available, URLs for the references have been provided.
• The text adheres to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), found in Submissions.
• Add one or two preferred reviewers (name, affiliation, e-mail).
• If you intended to publish your manuscript with a fast-track review, please transfer Fast-track Review and Publication Fee. Please, attach document of Online payment on your submission.

 

Preparation of Manuscripts

All manuscripts should be typewritten in English with double spacing throughout (including figure legends and references) and with 2.5 cm (1 in.) margins. All pages should be numbered sequentially, including the Title page, Tables, and References. If your article includes any supplementary material, this should be included in your initial submission for peer review purposes. Divide the article into clearly defined sections. Abbreviations should be defined at first mention and used consistently thereafter.

1- Title Page: A title page should have the following sections and it should be uploaded as a separate file.

• Title: Concise and informative. The use of abbreviations and formulae should be minimized. It should be as short as possible, containing adequate information regarding the content.
• Running title: Not over 8 words.
• Author(s) names and affiliations: Please clearly indicate the given name(s) and family name(s) of each author and check that all names are accurately spelled. Present the authors' affiliation addresses (where the actual work was done) below the names. Indicate all affiliations with a lower-case superscript letter immediately after the author's name and in front of the appropriate address. Provide the e-mail addresses and ORCID IDs of ALL authors as well as the fax/telephone numbers of the corresponding author.
• Corresponding author: Clearly state who will be in charge of correspondence throughout the refereeing, publication, and post-publication processes. This duty includes responding to any subsequent questions regarding the Methodology and Materials. Ensure that the e-mail address is given and that contact details are kept up to date by the corresponding author. The Chinese authors are requested to provide one of the Gmail, Yahoo, or Hotmail in addition to their academic email addresses.
• Declaration of interest: Authors must acknowledge and declare all sources of funding and potential conflicting interest. Examples of potential competing interests include employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent applications/registrations, and grants or other funding. Any interests should be disclosed in summary as a statement on the title page. If there are no interests to declare then please state this: “Declarations of interest: None declared”. 
• Funding: In the title page, please list any funding sources that the work may have received. The declaration should detail any grants acquired (please give the name of the funding agency and grant number).

2- Main Manuscript: This file must include the following sections:

• Abstract: A concise and factual abstract is required. The abstract should be at the beginning of the manuscript main file. A Research article should have a structured abstract precisely according to the following organization: BACKGROUND: describing the motivations of the study; AIM: explaining the aim of the current work; METHODS: clarifying how the work was carried out; RESULTS: revealing the main findings and their significance; CONCLUSION: disclosing the main message of the article; Keywords: three to six words in alphabetic order according to the terms recommended in the last version of the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH). Avoid using general or plural keywords as well as various concepts (avoid using words like "and" or "of"). Use abbreviations wisely; only those that are well-known in the field may be acceptable.  These keywords will be used for indexing purposes. The abstract should not exceed 250 words in length. Do not use reference citations in the Abstract. Also, non-standard or uncommon abbreviations should be avoided, but if essential they must be defined at their first mention in the abstract itself. Short papers and Short communications should have the same structure as the abstract as a research article but with no more than 150 words. The abstracts of case reports should be structured with BACKGROUND, CASE PRESENTATION, and CONCLUSION. Only Narrative Review may have an unstructured abstract with one paragraph, not more than 300 words.
• Introduction: Avoid a thorough literature review or a summary of the findings; instead, state the work's aims and provide an acceptable background.
• Material and methods: Give enough information so that a different researcher can repeat the work. Methods that have been previously published should be summarized and referenced. Use quotation marks and include the source if you are directly quoting from a previously published procedure. It is also necessary to indicate any adjustments made to current techniques.
• Results: Clear and precise results are preferred.
• Discussion: Instead of repeating the findings of the work, this should discuss their significance.
• Conclusions: A brief Conclusions section should include the study's principal findings.
• Acknowledgments: The “Acknowledgments” should be placed in a separate section before the "Conflict of Interest" at the end of the article. All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be covered in the acknowledgment section (e.g., providing technical help, writing assistance, or proofreading the article, the departmental head when providing only general support, etc.). Financial and material support should also be acknowledged by citing Grant No.
• References: Each reference should be numbered, ordered sequentially as they appear in the text, methods, tables, figure, and legends. When cited in the text, reference numbers are in brackets []. A number must be used if the authors are named in the sentence/text.

- Bibliographies cited in tables and figures should be numbered according to the site where the corresponding table or figure is first referenced.

- When multiple references are cited at a given place in the text, use commas to separate non-inclusive numbers in multiple citations e.g. [2], [3], [4], [5], [7], [10]. Do not use a hyphen (2-5,7,10).

- Periodicals should be abbreviated according to the Index Medicus (Vancouver Style).

- Include the name of all authors, if there are six or fewer authors. Print the names of the first six authors followed by “et al.” when there are more than six authors.

- References to books should include Author(s), Title, Edition, Place of publication, Publisher, and Year of publication. Chapters in a book should appear as Author(s), Title of chapter, Editor(s), Name of the book, Place of publication, Publisher, Year of publication, and Pages.

- Inclusive page numbers should be given for all references. Articles in the press might appear in the reference list, however, unpublished material and personal communications should not be cited in the reference list, though they could be mentioned in parentheses in the text.

- References to electronic journals should include Author(s), Title of article, Abbreviated title of the electronic journal, [serial online], Publication year, month(s), [cited year month (abbreviated) day], Volume number, Issue number, Page numbers or the number of screens, available from, URL address underlined.

Citing article in journal:

1. Van der Slik AR, Koeleman BPC, Verduijn W, Bruining GJ, Roep BO, Giphart MJ. KIR in type 1 diabetes: disparate distribution of activating and inhibitory natural killer cell receptors in patients versus HLA-matched control subjects. Diabetes. 2003:52:2639–42.
2. Sharp AJ, Hansen S, Selzer RR, et al. Discovery of previously unidentified genomic disorders from the duplication architecture of the human genome. Nat Genet. 2006;38:1038-42.

Citing a book:

McEvoy GK, ed. AHFS: Drug Information. Bethesda, MD: American Society of Health-System Pharmacists; 2007:1125-1126.

Chapter in book:

Wallace RJ Jr, Griffith DE. Antimycobacterial agents. In: Kasper DL, Fauci AS, Longo DL, Braunwald E, Hauser SL, Jameson JL, eds. Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine. 16th ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill; 2005:946.

Online Journals (journal article) on Internet

Seal A, Kerac M. Operational implications of using 2006 World Health Organization growth standards in nutrition programmes: secondary data analysis. BMJ. 2007; 334:733. http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/334/7596/733. Accessed April 12, 2007.

General Internet

FDA/CEDR resources page. Food and Drug Administration Web site. http://www.fda.gov/ cder/approval/index.htm. Accessed April 7, 2007.

Note: the basic format for Web sites is: Author(s), if any; title of the specific item cited, if any; name of the Web site; URL; published and/or update, if any; accessed date.3- Tables: The tables should be self-explanatory, clearly designed, and not duplicate text. Please submit tables as editable text and not as images. Tables should be numbered with Arabic numerals and appear after References or they could be uploaded as separate files (in .xlsx or .docx format). Tables should be numbered consecutively according to where they appear in the text, and any table notes should be positioned below the table content. Table footnotes should be presented below the table body and identified by superscript lowercase letters (or an asterisk for significance values and other statistical data). Vertical rules and shading should not be used in table cells.

4- Figure legends: A caption should be included with each illustration. A caption should include the illustration's description and a concise title that is not on the figure itself. Reduce the amount of text in the drawings themselves but be sure to define all symbols and abbreviations. The references must be followed by the figure legends.

5- Figures: Should be submitted separately from the text in TIFF or JPEG format and should have a resolution of at least 300 dpi. Manuscripts that do not conform to these specifications may not be accepted at the editor's discretion. Graphs should be submitted as separate files.

• Make sure that all of the lines and letters inside the figures are readable at the final size and avoid using thin lines and/or lettering.
• Vector graphics containing fonts must have the fonts embedded in the files.
• Use scale bars within the figures themselves to indicate any magnification that was applied to the pictures.
• All figures are to be numbered using Arabic numerals.
• Figure parts should be denoted by lowercase letters (a, b, c, etc.).

6- Supplementary material: To improve your work, you can post supplementary materials such as more technique descriptions, supplemental figures, or tables. Submitted supplementary items should be according to the IJI format as previously mentioned. Please submit your material together with the article and supply a brief, informative caption for each supplementary file. Tables and figures must be labeled with an S, as in “Table S1” and “Figure S1.” Please be sure to provide an updated version if you decide to make modifications to the supplementary material at any point in the process. Supporting data will be published exactly as it is submitted; it will not be edited or reviewed for accuracy or functionality. The authors are indeed responsible for the scientific validity and file functionality. Supporting data should always be submitted in its final form since it won't be copyedited or altered.

7- Cover letter: A covering letter to the Editor-in-Chief, containing the title and the authors' names which states that the manuscript has not been published or submitted for publication elsewhere. In the cover letter, clearly indicate the exact contribution of everyone who is listed as an author.

Important Note: All the guides above should be followed in case of any revisions, but authors must include two copies of their manuscript. One copy should be clean, and the other should show all the edits made. These should be uploaded using the correct file designation in the system. Additionally, they must provide a “Response to Reviewers” file that provides a point-by-point response to the reviewer’s/editor’s comments.

 

Writing Style

1. Articles should be written in English (spellings as in the Oxford English Dictionary), double spaced, using left alignment, a no proportional font, and 12-pt. type. Include the title of the paper, an abstract of no more than 250 words, and 3 to 5 keywords. Cyrillic names should be transliterated.
2. Set all margins to 2,54 cm.
3. Format for A4 paper.
4. Please type all copy upper and lower case—do not use all capitals or small capitals.
5. Place all figures and tables in a separate file. Indicate the location of tables and figures in text in boldface, enclosed in angle brackets, on a separate line.

Example: <Fig. 1 here>

6. Please use your tab key and centering functions to do head alignment, paragraph indents, etc. DO NOT USE THE SPACE BAR.
7. Use endnotes as sparingly as possible. Number them with Arabic numerals starting with 1 and continuing through the article; for example:

“(See Note 1).” Do not use footnotes.

 

Artwork

Figures must be provided as production-ready. Do not use rules or tick marks smaller than 1 point in size. Acceptable electronic formats for figures or other art are: TIFF, EPS, Word, or Excel. If you have trouble loading Excel files, copy and paste them into a Word document. Scans must be at least 300 dpi. Scans done at lower resolutions will have a very poor print quality even if they look crisp and clear on a laser printout.

Increasingly many readers prefer to read articles on the web. You therefore need to visualize how the article will look on the web, not just on paper. You should try to use the many advantages of web publishing such as links to other sources of information, extra photographs, figures, tables, or sometimes even a short video.

 

Permissions

Obtaining written permissions for material such as figures, tables, art, and extensive quotes taken directly—or adapted in minor ways—from another source is the author’s responsibility, as is payment of any fees the copyright holder may require. Because permissions often take a considerable amount of time to be granted, authors should start the request process as soon as possible. Authors should never assume that material taken from software or downloaded from the Internet may be used without obtaining permission. Each source must be investigated on a case-by-case basis. Failure to obtain permission will result in either removal of the particular item or the article being pulled from the journal issue.

 

Acceptance Criteria and Conditions of Publication

Authors are encouraged to write in a manner that is maximally communicative, interesting, and informative. Manuscripts should be submitted solely to OAMJMS and should not be considered for publication elsewhere, nor should they have been previously published. Consideration for publication can be given to material that has previously had limited circulation elsewhere. If an article has appeared previously in any form, authors must clearly indicate this in their cover letter. Include copies of potentially duplicative material that has been previously published and provide links to duplicative material on the Internet.

 

Copyright (Open Access Policy)

Open Access Macedonian Journal of Medical Sciences (OAMJMS) endorses the definition of open access publication drafted by the Bethesda Meeting on Open Access Publishing. However, OAMJMS has chosen to apply the less-restrictive Creative Commons Attribution License (CCAL) to all works we publish. Unlike the Bethesda Convention, the CCAL allows commercial re-use of all OAMJMS journals' content.

An Open Access Publication^[1] is one that meets the following two conditions:

1. The author(s) and copyright holder(s) grant(s) to all users a free, irrevocable, worldwide, perpetual right of access to, and a license to copy, use, distribute, transmit and display the work publicly and to make and distribute derivative works, in any digital medium for any responsible purpose, subject to proper attribution of authorship,^[2]as well as the right to make small numbers of printed copies for their personal use.
2. A complete version of the work and all supplemental materials, including a copy of the permission as stated above, in a suitable standard electronic format is deposited immediately upon initial publication in at least one online repository that is supported by an academic institution, scholarly society, government agency, or other well-established organization that seeks to enable open access, unrestricted distribution, interoperability, and long-term archiving (for the biomedical sciences, PubMed Central is such a repository).

^[1] Open access is a property of individual works, not necessarily journals or publishers.

^[2] Community standards, rather than copyright law, will continue to provide the mechanism for enforcement of proper attribution and responsible use of the published work, as they do now.

We are using
CC BY-NC

This license enables reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. CC BY-NC includes the following elements:

BY: credit must be given to the creator.
NC: Only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted.

 

Ethics in publishing

Human and animal studies: Ethics-related issues need to be covered in the “Materials and Methods” section.

• The author should ensure that the work has been conducted in accordance with the Code of Ethics of the World Medical Association (Declaration of Helsinki) if the research involves the use of human subjects. Please state that informed consentwas obtained from all human adult participants and the parents or legal guardians of minors. Include the name of the appropriate institutional review board as well as the approved ethical code of the project. Human subjects' privacy rights must always be respected.
• The person, or in the case of children, the child's parent or legal guardian, must give their agreement for publication if your work contains any individual's data in any form (including any individual details, photographs, or videos). Case studies in particular can benefit from this. The manuscript should contain a statement indicating that permission to publish has been obtained from each participant.
• The National Institute of Health guidelines or the National Research Council's Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals should be followed in all animal research, and the authors should make it explicit in their manuscripts that they did so. The sex of the animals must be noted, as well as any influence (or association) that sex may have had on the study's findings.

Submission declaration and verification: Submission of an article implies that the work described has never been published before (except as an abstract, a published lecture, a preprint version, or an academic thesis), that it has not been accepted for publication elsewhere, that it has been approved for publication by all authors and, implicitly or explicitly, by the responsible authorities where the work was done, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or another language, including electronically without the written consent of the copyright holder. Please keep in mind that posting your preprints online, for example, on a preprint server, does not imply prior publication.

Author contributions: We invite authors to provide an author statement file detailing their unique contributions to the paper using the appropriate CRediT roles: conceptualization, data management, formal analysis, funding acquisition, research, methodology, project management, resources, software, supervision, validation, and visualization; Writing: original draft; writing: editing and review. Please write the authors' names and the CRediT role(s) in authorship declarations.

Authorship criteria: Open Access Macedonian Journal of Medical Sciences follows the Uniform Guidelines for Biomedical Journals Requirements of the ICMJE (International Committee of Medical Journal Editors) for determining authorship (http://www.icmje.org). The right to authorship is determined based on the direct contribution of an individual to the conception, design, data (or sample) collection, performing experiments, analysis or interpretation of data, and writing the article. It is a requirement that all authors have appropriate approval upon submission of the manuscript. Contributors who do not qualify as authors should be mentioned in the acknowledgments section. According to the ICMJE's Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, a person who simultaneously meets the following criteria is commonly referred to as an "Author":

1. Significant contributions to the work's conception or design; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
2. Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
3. Final approval of the version to be published; AND
4. Consent to take responsibility for all aspects of the work in order to guarantee that any concerns about the accuracy or integrity of any part of the project are properly investigated and addressed.

Changes to authorship: Before submitting their work, authors are asked to carefully evaluate the order of the authors and to include the final author list at the time of the original submission. Before the manuscript has been accepted and only with the journal editor's permission, author names in the authorship list may be added, deleted, or rearranged. The Editor must get the following information from the corresponding author in order to request such a change: the rationale behind the change in the author list, and (b) documented confirmation (e.g., a letter or email) from all authors confirming their agreement with the addition, deletion, or reorganization. This involves consent from the author who is being added to or removed from the list of authors. The Editor will only take into account changing the order of authors after the paper has been accepted in exceptional cases. The manuscript won't be published while the Editor evaluates the request.

 

After Acceptance

Upon acceptance, your article must be exported to the production department of the journal to undergo English editing and typesetting. To start this process, you will receive an email asking you to pay for the processing costs. Once you have completed this, your article will be processed and you will receive the proofs.

Proofreading: The proof's objective is to check the text, tables, and figures for completeness and accuracy as well as any typesetting or conversion mistakes. Significant material modifications, such as new findings, corrected values, title, and author changes are not permitted without the Editor's approval.

English editing services: Presenting your work in well-written English gives it a better chance for editors and reviewers to understand it and evaluate it fairly. Therefore, all accepted manuscripts will undergo a process of English editing by a native English editor.

Disposal of Material: Once published, all copies of the manuscript, the correspondence, and the artwork will be held for 6 months before disposal.

Authors should be ready to provide supporting information or data upon request in order to confirm the accuracy of the results reported. This could appear in the form of unprocessed data, documents, etc. Sensitive data that is confidential or proprietary is not included.

 

Ordering Reprints

All research articles published in OAMJMS are made available and publicly accessible via the Internet without any restrictions or payment by the user. PDF versions of all research articles in OAMJMS are available for download. This is a convenient way for users to print high quality copies of articles. Research articles may be reproduced without formal permission or payment of permission fees. As a courtesy, however, anyone wishing to reproduce large quantities of a research article (50+) or to use for pharmacovigilance and similar, should inform the copyright holder and we suggest a contribution (Copyright Publication Fee) in support of open access publication.

 

ICMJE Author Guidelines