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Instruction for Authors



  • Title Page

    The title page (page 1, do not number) should contain these elements:

    (a) full title; (b) Each authors’ names, academic degrees, and affiliations (if Chinese, give standard English version); (c) the designated corresponding author’s name, mailing address, telephone and fax numbers, and e-mail address; (d) source(s) of financial support of the study; (e) the total word count of the manuscript, including the title page, abstract, text, references, tables, and figures legends.

    Notes: For Chinese name, please list surname first and then given name in pinyin, and uppercase all the letters of the surname and the first letter of the given name (e.g., HE Jianxing, LI Bo).

    Address format: Department of Ophthalmology, the First People’s Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai Jiaotong University, Shanghai 200080, China

    Funding Sources

    All sources of support for the research should be listed under the address, with the serial number in parentheses. All grant funding agency abbreviations should be completely spelled out.

    Peer review process

    Manuscripts that are found suitable for publication in JTCM are sent to two or more expert reviewers. The journal follows a double-blind review process, wherein the reviewers and authors are unaware of each other’s identity. Every manuscript is also assigned to a member of the editorial team, who based on the comments from the reviewers takes a final decision on the manuscript. The comments and suggestions (acceptance/rejection/amendments in manuscript) received from reviewers are conveyed to the corresponding author. If required, the author is requested to provide a point by point response to reviewers’ comments and submit a revised version of the manuscript. This process is repeated till reviewers and editors are satisfied with the manuscript.

    Ethical Policy

    For reports of clinical trails, authors should state the information about institution and ID when the study is registered (e.g., Trial registration: Current Controlled Trials ISRCTN73824458). For reports of randomized controlled trials, authors should refer to the CONSORT 2010 Statement, which can be found at http://www.consort-statement.org.

    When reporting experiments on human subjects, the study must be performed in accordance with international ethical standards and approved by equivalent human ethics committee. For prospective studies involving human participants, authors are expected to mention about approval of regional/national/institutional or independent ethics committee or review board, obtaining informed consent from adult research participants and obtaining assent for children aged over 7 years participating in the trial. The age beyond which assent would be required could vary as per regional and/or national guidelines. Ensure confidentiality of subjects by desisting from mentioning participants’ names, initials or hospital numbers, especially in illustrative material. When reporting experiments on animals, indicate whether the institution’s or a national research council’s guide for, or any national law on the care and use of laboratory animals was followed.

    Evidence for approval by a local ethics committee (for both human as well as animal studies) must be supplied by the authors on demand. Animal experimental procedures should be as humane as possible and the details of anesthetics and analgesics used should be clearly stated. The ethical standards of experiments must be in accordance with the guidelines provided by the CPCSEA and World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki on Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Humans for studies involving experimental animals and human beings, respectively. The journal will not consider any paper which is ethically unacceptable. A statement on ethics committee permission and ethical practices must be included in all research articles under the “Methods” section.

    Conflicts of Interest

    All authors must disclose any and all conflicts of interest, they may have with publication of the manuscript or an institution or product that is mentioned in the manuscript and/or is important to the outcome of the study presented. Authors should also disclose conflicts of interest with products that compete with those mentioned in their manuscript. A conflict of interest may exist when an author (or the author’s institution or employer) has financial or personal relationships or affiliations that could influence (or bias) the author’s decisions, work, or manuscript.

    Abbreviations and Terminology

    Use only standard abbreviations and spell out all abbreviations in full on their first appearance in the text followed by the abbreviation in parentheses. Do not use abbreviations in the title or key words and limit their use in the text.

    Herbs should be presented by their common, pharmaceutical and pinyin or Latin names. All acupoints must be named by its pinyin transliteration followed by the alphanumeric system in parentheses, e.g., Zusanli (ST36) or Hegu (LI4). Acupuncture terms should be conformed to the World Health Organization nomenclature.

    Drugs and Devices

    Recommended international non-proprietary name is required. When the drugs and devices are used in research, the name of the manufacturer and their location (city and country) should be presented in parentheses after the first mention in the Methods section.

    Abstract and Keywords

    Provide a structured abstract of not more than 350 words for original articles. Abstracts of original experimental and clinical research papers should consist of four paragraphs, Objective, Methods, Results and Conclusions. They should state the purpose of the study or investigation, basic procedures, main findings (give specific data and their statistical significance), and the conclusions. Do not cite references in the abstract.

    Provide 3-8 key words that capture the main topics of the article below the abstract. Use terms from the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) list of MEDLINE/PubMed, and Chinese traditional medicine and materia medica subject headings.

    Text

    Text should be Word text document in Times New Roman font, single spaced, with page numbers. The text is usually divided into sections with typical main headings such as Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, and Discussion. For the format details, authors can refer to latest articles published in 2013.

    Tables

    Be sparing in the use of tables and ensure that the data presented in tables do not duplicate results described elsewhere in the article. Limit tables to those that adequately and concisely present findings without redundancy. Do not use vertical lines between columns. Use horizontal lines above and below the column headings and at the bottom of the table only.

    Number tables consecutively in accordance with their first citation in the text using Arabic numerals and supply a brief descriptive title for each table. Identify statistical measures of variations, such as standard deviation and standard error of the mean. Identify statistical significance by superscripts in front of the probabilities (P), as in: aP > 0.05, bP < 0.05, cP < 0.01 vs A. Define all abbreviations used in the table in footnotes to the table.

    Figures and Legends

    Submit publication quality figures (graphs, charts, photographs, and illustrations) in TIF file format with a minimum resolution of 300 dpi. Do not embed figures in word, create a separate figure file together with a reference set of annotated versions, and send it as an attachment. Name each figure as the following format: Author name space figure number (in sequence, using Arabic numerals - i.e. Figures 1, 2, 3 etc.). The graphs and charts imported into the word-processing program from spreadsheet programs (e.g., Microsoft Excel) should be left in its original format and not converted to graphic elements, so that we can modify or redraw it to meet our specifications for publication when pertinent.

    Number all figures consecutively in the text. Figures should be professionally drawn or photographed. Titles and detailed explanations should be given in the figure legend. Abbreviations must be explained. Figures with multiple parts should be labeled and referred to as A, B, C, etc. For photomicrographs, include the type of specimen, original magnification or a scale bar, and stain should be identified. For gross pathology specimens, label any rulers with unit of measure.

    Statistical Methods and Units of Measurement

    Statistical methods should be described in sufficient detail to assess the appropriateness of the statistical analysis used. Statistical terms, abbreviations, and symbols must be defined, and computer software must be specified. Exact P values should be provided, unless P < 0.0001.

    Units of measurement should be reported in terms of International System of Units (SI). Measurement of length, height, weight and volume should be written in metric units (meter, kilogram, or liter) or their decimal multiples.

    References

    Cite references in the text sequentially in the Vancouver numbering style, as a superscripted number after any punctuation mark. For example: DZP has an anti-tumor effect in clinical observation14 and experimental research.15 Note: For the continuous references, if three or more, just mark the first and last ones with hyphen, while only two, separated by a comma.

    References should be numbered sequentially in the order in which they are first cited in the text, under half width punctuation input mode. List the authors (surname, initials), title of the article, name of the journal or book, year, volume, and the first and last pages. List all authors when there are six or fewer; when there are seven or more, list the first three, followed by "et al". The titles of journals should be abbreviated according to the style used in MEDLINE/PubMed. Besides English, other western languages can be listed directly. Chinese should be translated into English, with the journal title in pinyin.

    Authors are responsible for the accuracy and completeness of their references and for correct text citation. References must be current, and links should be added for the references included in PubMed. Use of references more than 10 years old is discouraged unless they are classic or unique works. Do not cite personal communications, unpublished observations, and submitted manuscripts.

    The following are sample references:

    For journal articles

    1.        Jung EM, Clevert DA, Schreyer AG, et al. Evaluation of quantitative contrast harmonic imaging to assess malignancy of liver tumors: A prospective controlled two-center study. World J Gastroenterol 2007; 13: 6356-64.

    Chinese journal

    2.        Li KM, Wu JB, Sui ZY, Wang AJ. Effect of hirudo micropowder on ICAM, VCAM and PDGF in rats with cerebral ischemia-reperfusion injury. Zhong Yao Xin Yao 2009; 20: 136-8.

    In press

    3.        Tian D, Araki H, Stahl E, Bergelson J, Kreitman M. Signature of balancing selection in Arabidopsis. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 2006; In press.

    Corporate author

    4.        Diabetes Prevention Program Research Group. Hypertension, insulin, and proinsulin in participants with impaired glucose tolerance. Hypertension 2002; 40: 679-86.

    5.        Vallancien G, Emberton M, Harving N, van Moorselaar RJ; Alf-One Study Group. Sexual dysfunction in 1274 European men suffering from lower urinary tract symptoms. J Urol 2003; 169: 2257-61.

    Lack of author

    6.        21st century heart solution may have a sting in the tail. BMJ 2002; 325: 184.

    Supplement

    7.        Geraud G, Spierings EL, Keywood C. Tolerability and safety of frovatriptan with short- and long-term use for treatment of migraine and in comparison with sumatriptan. Headache 2002; 42 Suppl 2: S93-9.

    Lack of volume/issue

    8.        Banit DM, Kaufer H, Hartford JM. Intraoperative frozen section analysis in revision total joint arthroplasty. Clin Orthop Relat Res 2002: 230-8.

    9.        Outreach: Bringing HIV-positive individuals into care. HRSA Careaction 2002; 1-6.

    For whole books/monographs or chapters in edited books

    10.     Sherlock S, Dooley J. Diseases of the liver and billiary system. 9th ed. Oxford: Blackwell Sci Pub, 1993: 258-96.

    Chapter in book

    11.     Lam SK. Academic investigator’s perspectives of medical treatment for peptic ulcer. In: Swabb EA, Azabo S. Ulcer disease: investigation and basis for therapy. New York: Marcel Dekker, 1991: 431-50.

    Author and editor

    12.     Breedlove GK, Schorfheide AM. Adolescent pregnancy. 2nd ed. Wieczorek RR, editor. White Plains (NY): March of Dimes Education Services, 2001: 20-34.

    For proceedings

    13.     Harnden P, Joffe JK, Jones WG, editors. Germ cell tumours V. Proceedings of the 5th Germ cell tumours Conference; 2001 Sep 13-15; Leeds, UK. New York: Springer, 2002: 30-56.

    Article in proceeding

    14.     Christensen S, Oppacher F. Ananalysis of Koza's computational effort statistic for genetic programming. In: Foster JA, Lutton E, Miller J, Ryan C, Tettamanzi AG, editors. Genetic programming. EuroGP 2002: Proceedings of the 5th European Conference on Genetic Programming; 2002 Apr 3-5; Kinsdale, Ireland. Berlin: Springer, 2002: 182-91.

    For online materials

    15.     Morse SS. Factors in the emergence of infectious diseases. Emerg Infect Dis serial online, 1995-01-03, cited 1996-06-05; 1: 24 screens. Available from URL: http//www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/eid.htm.

    For patents

    16.     Pagedas AC, inventor; Ancel Surgical R&D Inc., assignee. Flexible endoscopic grasping and cutting device and positioning tool assembly. United States patent US 20020103498. 2002 Aug 1.

    Acknowledgements

    Acknowledgments may briefly include assistance from (a) contributors that do not warrant authorship (e.g., data collection, analysis, or writing or editing assistance); (b) technical help. Authors should obtain permission to acknowledge from all those mentioned in the acknowledgements.

    Copyright

    The articles published in the Journals of Traditional Chinese Medicine (JTCM) are protected by copyright, and cannot be legally published elsewhere in any form without written permission from JTCM. All author(s) should sign the Copyright Transfer Statement after the paper is accepted and before it is published in JTCM.



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