ISMJ

Paper Preparations

The manuscript should include: Title page; the Abstract; Introduction; Materials & Methods; Result; Discusion; Acknowledgement; Conflict of Interest and References.

The Title page: The article should include 1) the title of the article; 2) author’s names with their department or institution, the school and university to which they are affiliated, city and country, address for correspondence with telephone numbers, e-mail, and fax number, all in Farsi. The same precise information should be also brought in the English abstract.

The Abstract: should be structured for original and review articles providing Background for the study, Materials and Methods, Results, and Conclusion should not exceeding 250 words altogether. Abstracts of other types of contributions should be non-structured providing the essential information. The abbreviations should not preferably be mentioned in the abstract.

Keywords: Keywords will assist indexer in cross indexing the article as they are published with abstract. Keywords will assist indexers in cross indexing the article as they are published with abstract. each article should provide four to seven keywords selected from the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) Both in Farsi and English abstracts. Auther need to be careful that the abstract reflects the content of the article accurately.

Introduction: This should provide a context or background and specifies the purpose or research objective of the study or observation. It should neither review the subject extensively nor should it have data or conclusions of the study.

Materials & Methods: This should indicate clearly the steps taken to acquire the information. Be sure that it includes only information that was available at the time the plan or protocol for the study was written. It should be detailed (including: controls, inclusion and exclusion criteria, etc) and may be separated into subsections. Repeating the details of standard techniques is best avoided. The software and version of it that used for statistical analysis and description of the actual method should be mentioned. If a drug is used, its generic name, dose and route of administration must be given. For patients, age, sex with mean age ± standard deviation must be given. 

Results: It must be presented in the form of text, tables and illustrations. The contents of the tables should not be all repeated in the text. Instead, a reference to the table number may be given. Long articles may need sub-headings within some sections (especially the Results and Discussion parts) to clarify their contents.

Tables and illustrations: These must be cited in order which they appear in the text; using Arabic numerals. Tables should be simple and should not duplicate information in the text of paper. Figures should be provided only if they improve the article. For radiographic files, scans, and other diagnostic images, as well as picture of pathology specimens or photomicrographs, send the high resolution figures in jpeg format. Color photographs, if found to improve the article, would be published at no extra-charge at the print version of the journal. Type or print out legends for illustrations on a separate page, and identify the method of staining in photomicrographs.

Discussion: This should emphasize the present findings and the variations or similarities with other work done in the field by other workers. The detailed data should not be repeated in the discussion again. Emphasize the new and important aspects of the study and the conclusions that follow from them. It must be mentioned whether the hypothesis mentioned in the article is true, false or no conclusions can be derived.   

Conclusion: This should state the final result that the author(s) has (have) reached. The results of other studies should not be stated in this section.

Acknowledgment: All contributors who don’t meet the criteria for authorship should be covered in the acknowledgment section. It should include persons who provided technical help, writing assistance and departmental head who only provided general support. Finanicial and material support should also be acknowledged.

Conflict of Interest: A conflict of interest statement for categoried all article and research study is necessary. Because of the interests of transparency and assisting reviewers to evaluate any potential bias in a investigation’s design, interpretation of it findings or demonstration of its scientific/medical content, Iran South Med J necessitates all authors of each article to state any conflicting interests (including but not restricted to commercial, individual, political, intellectual, or religious interests) in the title page that are associated to the project submitted for contemplation of publication. Furthermore, reviewers are necessitated to point out any potential conflicting interests they might have associated to any specific article they are requested to review, and a copy of signed declaration should be made available to the Iran South Med J.

Review articles should be prepared according to one of the following styles:

  − Systematic reviews should be in form of meta-analysis, meta synthesis or without statistical analysis. These articles contain original articles’ parts.

  − Non systematic reviews should be written by experts who have at least one published article in the related field in references. Different parts of such articles include abstract, introduction, discussion and conclusion. They should contain at least 20 references and maximum 5000 words.

Short communication can be in form of research article, systematic review or ongoing research which reports its interesting findings. The parts in this type of articles are like those of original one but they are smaller and prepared in maximum 2000 words.

A letter to the editor should be about criticism of previous articles, criticism or review over books, analysis of a related topic with medical education, a report and criticism of medical education congresses, expansion and explanation about an idea or a complicated problem. This should be prepared in maximum 1000 to 1500 words. These articles need no structure but an English abstract is necessary.

 Editorial article should be written by either the Editor-in-Chief or the editorial board. The Editor-in-Chief could also ask an expert to do such a thing. The context of such articles could involve a deep analysis about the up to date topics in medical education, challenging systems or proposing solutions in medical education field. They should be prepared in maximum 2000 words and have at least 5 references. These articles should have an English abstract printed in the journal and the whole article in English in the journal site.

References: all manuscripts should be accompanied by relevant references. The author should ensure reference to locally published studies by doing proper literature search. It may not be possible for the editor and reviewers to check the accuracy of all reference citations. To minimize such errors author should verify references against the original documents. The Reference should provide the following information as stated in the presented models as follow:

*Article:

(Family name, first letter of name & middle name, after the third one “et al”, title of paper, title of journal in abbreviations [N Eng J Med Peotocol], year, volume supplement no., pages)

1.Baharloei M, khodabandeh S. Assessment of hemolytical activity of proteins from tentacles of sea anemone, Stichodactyla haddoni. Iran South Med J 2016; 19: 27-36. (Persian)

2.Alimoradi K, Moeini B, Pakizeh A, et al. Predictive Factors of Aggressive Behaviors in Guidance and High School Male Students, Based on the Theory of Planned Behavior. Iran South Med J 2016; 19: 106-18. (Persian)

*Chapter of Book:

(Family name, first letter of name & middle name, after the third one “et al”, title of chapter, In: editor(s) of book, title of book. No. of edition, place of publication, publication co., year, pages)

1.Nabipour I. Megatrends in medicine. Bushehr: Bushehr University of Medical Sciences press, 2014, 127.

2.Phillips H, Rogers B, Bernheim KL, Liu H, Hunter PG, Evans J, et al. Epidemiology of late complications of diabetes. In: Kahn CR, Weir GC, editors. Joshlins diabetes mellitus. 13th ed. Philadelphia: Lea & Febiger, 1994, 605-19.

*Dissertation:

  (Family name,first letter of name & middle name, after the third one "et al". title of paper [dissertation]. place of publication, publication co., year.

  3. Kaplan SJ. Post-hospital home health care: the elderly’s access and utilization [dissertation]. St. Louis (MO): Washington Univ., 1995.

*Electronic:

  (Topic, title of web page, date of access, year, web address)

  4. The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. Polls face growing resistance, but still representative: survey experiment shows. (Accessed August 19, 2004, at http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3? ReportID=211.)

 *Conference:

  (Family name, first letter of name & middle name, after the third one "et al", editors.Title of Speech. Title of Conference. Year month. Day of Conference, place of Conference. Place of publication, publication co., year)

  5. Kimura J, Shibasaki H, editors. Recent advances in clinical neurophysiology. Proceedings of the International Congress of EMG and Clinical Neurophysiology. 1995 Oct. 15-19, Kyoto, Japan. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1996.

Proof Reading: A computer print out is sent to the corresponding author for proof reading  befor publication in irder to avoid any mistakes. Corrections should be marked clearly and sent immediately to the journal office.

Abbreviations and Symbols: Use only standard abbreviations. Avoid using them in the title and abstract. The full term for which an abbreviation stands should precede its first use in the text unless it is a standard unit of measurement.

Page Charge: There are no charges for publication in this Journal.

 The Final Checklist

The authors must ensure that before submitting the maniscript for publication, they have taken care of the following:

1. Title page should contain title, name of the author/ co-author, their qualifications, designation & institutions they are affiliated with and mailing address for future correspondence, E-mail address, Phone & Fax number.
2. Abstract in Structured format up to 250 words.
3. References mentioned as stated in the Instruction to Authors section.
4. Tables should be typed on separate pages.
5. Make sure for Headings of Tables, their numbers and Captions of illustrations. Do not repeat the information in tables if it covered in the text.
6. Photographs/ illustrations along with their captions.
7. Manuscript in Triplicate.
8. Letter of Undertaking signed by all the authors.
9. Disclosure regarding source of funding and conflict of interest if any besides approval of the study from respective Ethics Committee/ Institution Review Board.
10. Covering Letter.