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0International journal of Surgery Case Reports 4 (2013) i—ii
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
International journal of Surgery Case Reports
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijscr
Guide for Authors
International Journal of Surgery Case Reports is the companion journal to International Journal of Surgery
International Journal of Surgery Case Reports is an online general surgical journal dedicating to publishing case reports only which must be authentic, understandable, educational and clinically interesting to an international audience of surgeons and clinicians in related specialties.
All case reports will be peer reviewed and if accepted for publication in the Journal, Authors will be notified of this decision and at the same time requested to pay an Author Processing Fee of £250 (exclusive of VAT/Sales Tax). Following payment of this fee, case reports will be made universally available at no further charge through ScienceDirect ScienceDirect and through the Journal's own website, www.casereports. com.
In addition to the article appearing on ScienceDirect, Elsevier will send to PubMed Central (PMC) the final authoritative version of the published article. Elsevier will authorize its public posting on PMC, and PMC mirror sites, immediately and these sites will also link directly to the journal article which will be made universally accessible on Elsevier's websites Online Submission of Case Report Manuscripts http://ees.elsevier.com/ijscasereports.com Submission and peer review of all papers is conducted entirely online, increasing efficiency for editors, authors, and reviewers, and enhancing publication speed. Authors requesting further information on online submission are strongly encouraged to view the system, including a tutorial, at http://ees.elsevier.com/ijscr. A comprehensive Author Support service is also available to answer additional enquiries: authorsupport@elsevier.com.
You may also provide the names and contact addresses (including e-mail) of two potential reviewers that have not been involved with the case and are not a co-worker. These may or may not be used at the Editor's discretion.
Uniform Requirements
These guidelines generally follow the "Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals , published by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). The complete document appears at http://www.icmje.org.
Authorship
All authors should have made substantial contributions to all of the following: (1) the 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.
Acknowledgements
All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship as defined above should be listed in an acknowledgements section.
Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, writing assistance, or a department chair who provided only general support. Authors should disclose whether they had any writing assistance and identify the entity that paid for this assistance.
Conflict of Interest
At the end of the text, under a subheading "Conflict of interest statement' , all authors must disclose any financial and personal relationships with other people or organisations that could inappropriately influence (bias) their work. Examples of potential conflicts of interest include employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent applications/registrations, and grants or other funding.
Role of the Funding Source
All sources of funding should be declared as an acknowledgement at the end of the text. Authors should declare the role of study sponsors, if any, in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript; and in the decision to submit the manuscript for publication. If the study sponsors had no such involvement, the authors should so state.
Consent
Studies on patients or volunteers require ethics committee approval and fully informed written consent which should be documented in the paper. Authors must obtain written and signed consent to publish the case report from the patient (or, where applicable, the patient's guardian or next of kin) prior to submission. Authors will be asked to confirm as part of the submission process that such consent has been obtained, and the manuscript must include a statement to this effect in a consent section at the end of the manuscript, as follows: "Written informed consent was obtained from the patient for publication of this case report and accompanying images. A copy of the written consent is available for review by the Editor-in-Chief of this journal on request" . Patients have a right to privacy. Patients' and volunteers' names, initials, or hospital numbers should not be used. Images of patients or volunteers should not be used unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and explicit permission has been given as part of the consent If such consent is made subject to any conditions, the Editor in Chief must be made aware of all such conditions. Even where consent has been given, identifying details should be omitted if they are not essential. If identifying characteristics are altered to protect anonymity, such as in genetic pedigrees, authors should provide assurance that alterations do not distort scientific meaning and editors should so note.
Article Structure
In general, articles should conform to the conventional structure of Abstract, Introduction, Presentation of Case, Discussion, Conclusion, Consent, Conflict of Interest Statement and References plus figures and/or tables.
doi:10.1016/S2210-2612(13)00003-5
Guide for Authors
Word Limits
Papers should not exceed 1500 words, 20 references or 5 figures. An abstract of no more than 250 words should also be included.
Your title page, numbered as 1, should give the title in capital letters (not exceeding 100 letters), a running title (not exceeding 50 letters) and the authors names (as they are to appear), affiliations and complete addresses, including postal (zip) codes. The author and address to whom correspondence should be sent must be clearly indicated. Please supply telephone, fax and e-mail numbers for the corresponding author.
Reference Format
Manuscripts should use the Vancouver style for references, which should be numbered consecutively (using superscript numerals) in the order in which they are first cited in the text and listed at the end of the paper. For journal references, all authors should be included when there are six or fewer (first three followed by "et al. when seven or more), followed by the title of article, name of journal abbreviated according to Index Medicus (see http://www.nih.nlm.gov), year, volume, and first and last pages. For example:
1. Tockman MS, Anthonisen MD, Wright EC et al. Airways obstruction and the risk of lung cancer. Ann Intern Med 1987;106:512 18.
For book references, the author(s) should be followed by the chapter title (if appropriate), editor(s) (if applicable), book title, place of publication, publisher, year and (if relevant) page numbers. For example:
2. Colby VT, Carrington CB. Infiltrative lung disease. In: Thurlbeck WM, ed. Pathology of the Lung. New York: Thieme Medical Publishers, 1988.
Figures
Figures of good quality should be submitted online as separate files. For detailed instructions on the preparation of electronic artwork, consult the Artwork Instructions to Authors: http://www.elsevier.com/ artworkinstructions. Permission to reproduce illustrations should always be obtained before submission and details included with the captions.
To help authors submit high-quality artwork early in the process, the Artwork Quality Control Tool automatically checks the submitted artwork and other file types when they are first uploaded against the artwork requirements outlined in the Artwork Instructions to Authors. Each figure/file is checked only once, so further along in the process only new uploaded files will be checked.
Tables
Tables should be submitted online as a separate file, bear a short descriptive title, and be numbered in Arabic numbers. Tables should be cited in the text.
Keywords
A list of three to six keywords should be supplied; full instructions are provided when submitting the article online.
Units and Abbreviations
Systeme Internationale (SI) units should be used, with the traditional equivalent in parentheses where appropriate. Conventions for abbreviations should be those detailed in: Baron DN, ed. Units, Symbols, and Abbreviations: A Guide for Biological and Medical Editors and Authors. 5th edition. London: Royal Society of Medicine Services, 1994.
Copyright
Upon acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to sign a Journal Publishing Agreement. This includes details of the rights that you retain as author (for more information on this and copyright see http:// www.elsevier.com/wps/find/authorsview.authors/authorsrights). An e-mail will be sent to the corresponding author confirming receipt of the manuscript together with a Journal Publishing Agreement form. Following signature of this form and payment of the Author Fee, case reports will be made universally accessible through ScienceDirect ScienceDirect and through the Journal's own website, www.casereports.com.
If excerpts from other copyrighted works are included, the author(s) must obtain written permission from the copyright owners and credit the source(s) in the article. Elsevier has preprinted forms for use by authors in these cases; contact Elsevier s Rights Department, Philadelphia, PA, USA: Tel. (+1) 215 238 7869; Fax (+1) 215 238 2239; e-mail healthpermissions@elsevier.com. Requests may also be completed online via the Elsevier homepage (http://www.elsevier. com/locate/permissions).
Proofs
One set of page proofs in PDF format will be sent by e-mail to the corresponding author, which they are requested to correct and return within 48 hours. Elsevier sends PDF proofs that can be annotated; for this you will need to download Adobe Reader version 7 available free from http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html. Instructions on how to annotate PDF files will accompany the proofs. The exact system requirements are given at the Adobe website: http:// www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/acrrsystemreqs.html#70win
If you do not wish to use the PDF annotations function, you may list the corrections (including replies to the Query Form) in an e-mail. Please list your corrections quoting line number. If, for any reason, this is not possible, then mark the corrections and any other comments (including replies to the Query Form) on a printout of your proof and return by fax, or scan the pages and e-mail, or by post.
Please use this proof only for checking the typesetting, editing, completeness and correctness of the text, tables and figures. Significant changes to the article as accepted for publication will only be considered at this stage with permission from the Editor. We will do everything possible to get your article published quickly and accurately. Therefore, it is important to ensure that all of your corrections are sent back to us in one communication: please check carefully before replying, as inclusion of any subsequent corrections cannot be guaranteed. Proofreading is solely your responsibility. Note that Elsevier may proceed with the publication of your article if no response is received.
Offprints
The corresponding author, at no cost, will be provided with a PDF file of the article via e-mail. The PDF file is a watermarked version of the published article and includes a cover sheet with the journal cover image and a disclaimer outlining the terms and conditions of use.
Accepted Articles
Visit http://www.elsevier.com/authors for the facility to track accepted articles and set email alerts to inform you of when an article s status has changed. The website also provides detailed artwork guidelines, copyright information, frequently asked questions and more. Contact details for questions arising after acceptance of an article, especially those related to proofs, are provided after registration of an article for publication.
