Journal of International Medical Research

 

1. Open Access
2. Open Access publication charge
3. Article types
4. Editorial policies
   1. Peer Review Policy
   2. Authorship
   3. Acknowledgments
   4. Funding
   5. Declaration of conflicting interests
   6. Research ethics and patient consent
   7. Clinical Trials
   8. Reporting guidelines
   9. Data
5. Publishing policies
   1. Publication ethics
   2. Contributor’s publishing agreement
6. Preparing your manuscript
   1. Word processing formats
   2. Title, keywords and abstracts
   3. Artwork, figures and other graphics
   4. Reference style
   5. English language editing services
7. Submitting your manuscript
   1. ORCID
   2. Information require for completing your submission
   3. Corresponding author contact details
   4. Permissions
8. On acceptance and publication - Technical Edit
   1. Proofs
   2. SAGE Production
   3. Continuous publication
   4. Promoting your article
9. Further information

 

This Journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics

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).

Please read the guidelines below then visit the journal’s submission site https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jimr to upload your manuscript. Please note that manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned.

Only manuscripts of sufficient quality that meet the aims and scope of Journal of International Medical Research will be reviewed.

As part of the submission process you will be required to warrant that you are submitting your original work, that you have the rights in the work, that you are submitting the work for first publication in the Journal and that it is not being considered for publication elsewhere and has not already been published elsewhere, and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you.

Journal of International Medical Research is a leading international journal for rapid publication of original medical, pre-clinical and clinical research and reviews on a page charge basis.

As a service to authors, every article accepted by peer review will be given a full technical edit to make papers as accessible and readable to the international medical community as rapidly as possible.

1. Open Access

Journal of International Medical Research is an open access, peer-reviewed journal. Each article accepted by peer review is made freely available online immediately upon publication, is published under a Creative Commons license and will be hosted online in perpetuity. Publication costs of the journal are covered by the collection of a page charge which is paid by the funder, institution or author of each manuscript upon acceptance. There is no charge for submitting a paper to the journal.

For general information on open access at SAGE please visit the Open Access page or view our Open Access FAQs.

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2. Open access publication charge

Publication in the journal is on a page charge basis, the current rate being 325 GBP (+VAT where applicable) per printed journal page, assuming no colour figures in the print edition of the journal are required (print colour figures are subject to an additional fee). This page charge is estimated upon submission, payable on acceptance and there are no further charges or refunds granted to reconcile any difference between the page charge fee paid for upon acceptance and the final printed page count.

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3. Article types

Journal of International Medical Research welcomes original articles which demonstrate strong evidence of clinical applicability, are scientifically robust and highly appropriate for an international general medical readership. The text should be divided into Introduction, Patients & Methods/Materials & Methods, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgements, Declaration of Conflicting Interests and References.

Case reports should be of general interest rather than specialist interest. They must be likely to change routine clinical practice in some meaningful way. Rarity alone is not an appropriate criterion for acceptance. Retrospective case record analyses are discouraged and unlikely to be accepted. Case reports should be divided into Introduction, Case Report, Discussion, Acknowledgements, Declaration of Conflicting Interests and References.

Review articles and other types of papers may take their own relevant main headings.

Traditional Chinese Medicine studies are considered if it is clear what the active ingredient is. It must have been isolated and shown to have an acceptable standard of efficacy and safety through randomized controlled trials.

Symposium proceedings, summaries of presentations or collections of medical, pre-clinical or clinical data on a specific topic are welcome for consideration as Supplements and are subject to peer review.

Studies involving cell cultures and animal models are considered if they are supported by a clinical study.

Please note that small-scale, localized and pilot studies are discouraged and unlikely to be accepted. Replication in a local sample is not a reason for acceptance – the rationale for the study must be demonstrated.

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4. Editorial policies

5. Peer review policy

Please explain within your cover letter why you think the paper suitable for publication. Following a preliminary triage to select submissions suitable for Journal of International Medical Research, papers are sent out for external peer review by the Managing Editor to at least two relevant specialists. This process will be executed in a robust fashion but in as short a time as possible. After peer review, the paper may be accepted, revisions requested, or rejected; this decision is taken by the Managing Editor, in consultation with the Consultant Editor when required.

Journal of International Medical Research utilizes a single-blind peer-review process in which the reviewer’s name and information are withheld from the author.  Please note that the Editors are not obliged to invite any recommended/opposed reviewers to assess your manuscript.

If the paper is accepted, the page charge fee is due. After payment is received the next phase is an in-depth, detailed technical edit by two, sometimes three, medical Technical Editors.  The editorial and scientific queries they raise must be answered to the satisfaction of the journal, before a final typeset proof is produced.

The final manuscript will be published online here: http://imr.sagepub.com/content/early/recent.

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6. Authorship

Papers should only be submitted for consideration once consent is given by all contributing authors. Those submitting papers should carefully check that all those whose work contributed to the paper are acknowledged as contributing authors.

The list of authors should include all those who can legitimately claim authorship. This is all those who:

1. Made a substantial contribution to the concept or design of the work; or acquisition, analysis or interpretation of data,
2. Drafted the article or revised it critically for important intellectual content,
3. Approved the version to be published,
4. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content. Authors should meet the conditions of all of the points above. When a large, multicentre group has conducted the work, the group should identify the individuals who accept direct responsibility for the manuscript. These individuals should fully meet the criteria for authorship. Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group alone does not constitute authorship, although all contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in the Acknowledgments section. Please refer to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) authorship guidelines for more information on authorship. 

Authors should meet the conditions of all of the points above. When a large, multicentre group has conducted the work, the group should identify the individuals who accept direct responsibility for the manuscript. These individuals should fully meet the criteria for authorship.

Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group alone does not constitute authorship, although all contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in the Acknowledgments section. Please refer to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) authorship guidelines for more information on authorship. 

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7. Acknowledgements

All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an Acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, or a department chair who provided only general support.

7.1 Writing assistance

Individuals who provided writing assistance, e.g. from a specialist communications company, do not qualify as authors and so should be included in the Acknowledgements section. Authors must disclose any writing assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input – and identify the entity that paid for this assistance.

It is not necessary to disclose use of language polishing services. 

Any acknowledgements should appear first at the end of your article prior to your Declaration of Conflicting Interests (if applicable), any notes and your References.

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8. Funding

Journal of International Medical Research requires all authors to acknowledge their funding in a consistent fashion under a separate heading. Please visit the Funding Acknowledgements page on the SAGE Journal Author Gateway to confirm the format of the acknowledgment text in the event of funding, or state that: This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. 

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9. Declaration of conflicting interests                   

It is the policy of Journal of International Medical Research to require a declaration of conflicting interests from all authors enabling a statement to be carried within the paginated pages of all published articles.

Please ensure that a ‘Declaration of Conflicting Interests’ statement is included at the end of your manuscript, after any acknowledgements and prior to the references. If no conflict exists, please state that ‘The Author(s) declare(s) that there is no conflict of interest’.

For guidance on conflict of interest statements, please see the ICMJE recommendations.

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10. Research ethics and patient consent

Medical research involving human subjects must be conducted according to the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki.

Submitted manuscripts should conform to the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, and all papers reporting animal and/or human studies must state in the methods section that the relevant Ethics Committee or Institutional Review Board provided (or waived) approval. Please ensure that you have provided the full name and institution of the review committee, in addition to the approval number.

For research articles, authors are also required to state in the methods section whether participants provided informed consent and whether the consent was written or verbal.

Information on informed consent to report individual cases or case series should be included in the manuscript text. A statement is required regarding whether written informed consent for patient information and images to be published was provided by the patient(s) or a legally authorized representative.

Please also refer to the ICMJE Recommendations for the Protection of Research Participants

All research involving animals submitted for publication must be approved by an ethics committee with oversight of the facility in which the studies were conducted. The journal has adopted the Consensus Author Guidelines on Animal Ethics and Welfare for Veterinary Journals published by the International Association of Veterinary Editors.

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11. Clinical trials

Journal of International Medical Research endorses the ICMJE requirement that clinical trials are registered in a WHO-approved public trials registry at or before the time of first patient enrolment. However, consistent with the AllTrials campaign, retrospectively registered trials will be considered if the justification for late registration is acceptable. The trial registry name and URL, and registration number must be included at the end of the abstract.

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12. Reporting guidelines

The relevant EQUATOR Network reporting guidelines should be followed depending on the type of study. For example, all randomized controlled trials submitted for publication should include a completed CONSORT flow chart as a cited figure and the completed CONSORT checklist should be uploaded with your submission as a supplementary file. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses should include the completed PRISMA flow chart as a cited figure and the completed PRISMA checklist should be uploaded with your submission as a supplementary file. The EQUATOR wizard can help you identify the appropriate guideline.

Other resources can be found at NLM’s Research Reporting Guidelines and Initiatives.

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13. Data

SAGE acknowledges the importance of research data availability as an integral part of the research and verification process for academic journal articles.

Journal of International Medical Research requests all authors submitting any primary data used in their research articles if the articles are accepted to be published in the online version of the journal, or provide detailed information in their articles on how the data can be obtained. This information should include links to third-party data repositories or detailed contact information for third-party data sources. Data available only on an author-maintained website will need to be loaded onto either the journal’s platform or a third-party platform to ensure continuing accessibility. Examples of data types include but are not limited to statistical data files, replication code, text files, audio files, images, videos, appendices, and additional charts and graphs necessary to understand the original research. [The editor may consider limited embargoes on proprietary data.] The editor can also grant exceptions for data that cannot legally or ethically be released. All data submitted should comply with Institutional or Ethical Review Board requirements and applicable government regulations. For further information, please contact the editorial office at JIMR.editor@sagepub.co.uk.

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14. Publishing policies

15. Publication ethics

SAGE is committed to upholding the integrity of the academic record. We encourage authors to refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics’ International Standards for Authors and view the Publication Ethics page on the SAGE Author Gateway.

15.1 Plagiarism

Journal of International Medical Research and SAGE take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. We seek to protect the rights of our authors and we always investigate claims of plagiarism or misuse of published articles. Equally, we seek to protect the reputation of the journal against malpractice. Submitted articles may be checked with duplication-checking software. Where an article, for example, is found to have plagiarized other work or included third-party copyright material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgement, or where the authorship of the article is contested, we reserve the right to take action including, but not limited to: publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction); retracting the article; taking up the matter with the head of department or dean of the author's institution and/or relevant academic bodies or societies; or taking appropriate legal action.

15.2 Prior publication

If material has been previously published, it is not generally acceptable for publication in a SAGE journal. However, there are certain circumstances where previously published material can be considered for publication. Please refer to the guidance on the SAGE Author Gateway or if in doubt, contact the Editor at the address given below.

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16. Contributor’s publishing agreement

Before publication SAGE requires the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement.  Journal of International Medical Research publishes manuscripts under Creative Commons licenses. The standard license for the journal is Creative Commons by Attribution Non-Commercial (CC BY-NC), which allows others to re-use the work without permission as long as the work is properly referenced and the use is non-commercial. For more information, you are advised to visit SAGE's OA licenses page.

Alternative license arrangements are available, for example, to meet particular funder mandates, made at the author’s request.

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17. Preparing your manuscript

18. Word processing formats

The preferred format for your manuscript is Word. LaTeX files are also accepted. Word and (La)Tex templates are available on the Manuscript Submission Guidelines page of our Author Gateway.

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19. Title, keywords and abstracts

Please supply a title, short title, an abstract and keywords to accompany your article. The title, keywords and abstract are key to ensuring readers find your article online through online search engines such as Google.

The abstract should be a summary of no more than 200 words, and should state its purpose, the basic procedure, main findings and principal conclusions. New and important observations or aspects of the study should be emphasised. Summaries for all papers except narrative review articles and case reports should be structured with the following headings: OBJECTIVE, METHODS (include type of study/experimental design and type of participant), RESULTS, CONCLUSIONS. Summaries of narrative review articles and case reports should be a brief overview of the main points.

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20. Artwork, figures and other graphics

For guidance on the preparation of illustrations, pictures and graphs in electronic format, please visit SAGE’s Manuscript Submission Guidelines.

Figures supplied in colour will appear in colour online regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced in colour in the printed version. For specifically requested colour reproduction in print, please request these when you submit your article to the journal.

Graphs and images that are unsuitable may be returned to the author for amendment, causing delay in publication.

Tables must be prepared in Word using proper table formatting with columns and rows. Tables created using tabs or any other type of formatting may be returned to the author for amendment as they cannot be worked on by the journal, causing delay in publication.

As many tables as necessary may be included as long as there is no repetition of data. For example do not include the same data as both a table and a figure. They should be numbered consecutively using Arabic numbers, e.g. TABLE 2, and they must have a brief caption and be referred to in the main body of the text.

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21. Reference style

Journal of International Medical Research adheres to the SAGE Vancouver reference style. Please review the guidelines on SAGE Vancouver to ensure your manuscript conforms to this reference style.

If you use EndNote to manage references, you can download the SAGE Vancouver output file here.

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22. English language editing services

Authors seeking assistance with English language editing, translation, or figure and manuscript formatting to fit the journal’s specifications should consider using SAGE Language Services. Visit SAGE Language Services on our Journal Author Gateway for further information.

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23. Submitting your manuscript

Journal of International Medical Research is hosted on SAGE Track, a web based online submission and peer review system powered by ScholarOne™ Manuscripts. Visit https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jimr to login and submit your article online.

IMPORTANT: Please check whether you already have an account in the system before trying to create a new one. If you have reviewed or authored for the journal in the past year it is likely that you will have had an account created. For further guidance on submitting your manuscript online please visit ScholarOne Online Help.

24. ORCID

As part of our commitment to ensuring an ethical, transparent and fair peer review process SAGE is a supporting member of ORCID, the Open Researcher and Contributor ID. ORCID provides a persistent digital identifier that distinguishes researchers from every other researcher and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between researchers and their professional activities ensuring that their work is recognised.

We encourage all authors to add their ORCIDs to their SAGE Track accounts and include their ORCIDs as part of the submission process. If you don’t already have one you can create one here.

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25 Information required for completing your submission

You will be asked to provide contact details and academic affiliations for all co-authors via the submission system and identify who is to be the corresponding author. These details must match what appears on your manuscript. At this stage please ensure you have included all the required statements and declarations and uploaded any additional supplementary files (including reporting guidelines where relevant).

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26. Corresponding author contact details

Provide full contact details for the corresponding author including email, mailing address and telephone numbers. Academic affiliations are required for all co-authors. These details should be presented separately to the main text of the article to facilitate anonymous peer review.

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27. Permissions                                                                                               

Please also ensure that you have obtained any necessary permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. For further information including guidance on fair dealing for criticism and review, please see the Copyright and Permissions page on the SAGE Author Gateway.

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28. Technical Edit

Once the paper has been accepted, the page charge fee is payable. Publication in the journal is on a page charge basis, the current rate being 325 GBP (+VAT where applicable) per printed journal page, assuming no colour figures (colour figures are subject to an additional fee). This charge is based on the page count estimate made upon submission.

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29. Proofs

Once payment is received, the next phase is an in depth, detailed technical edit by two, sometimes three, medical Technical Editors.  The corresponding author will be emailed by a Technical Editor with an accompanying list of queries in a Word document. On average, there are 50-80 queries raised during the technical edit stage. These should be answered clearly and quickly, with the agreement of all co-authors and to the satisfaction of the journal.  Following that, a final typeset proof will be produced for final checks before publication.  No further charges or refunds will be granted to reconcile any difference between the page charge fee paid for upon acceptance and the final printed page count.

30. SAGE Production

Your SAGE Production Editor will keep you informed as to your article’s progress throughout the production process. Proofs will be sent by PDF to the corresponding author and should be returned promptly. Authors are reminded to check their proofs carefully to confirm that all author information, including names, affiliations, sequence and contact details are correct, and that Funding and Conflict of Interest statements, if any, are accurate. Please note that if there are any changes to the author list at this stage all authors will be required to complete and sign a form authorising the change.

We value your feedback to ensure we continue to improve our author service levels. On publication all corresponding authors will receive a brief survey questionnaire on your experiences of publishing in Journal of International Medical Research with SAGE.

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31. Online publication

One of the many benefits of publishing your research in an open access journal is the speed to publication. With no page count constraints, your article will be published online in a fully citable form with a DOI number as soon as it has completed the production process. At this time it will be completely free to view and download for all.

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32. Promoting your article

Publication is not the end of the process! You can help disseminate your paper and ensure it is as widely read and cited as possible. The SAGE Author Gateway has numerous resources to help you promote your work. Visit the Promote Your Article page on the Gateway for tips and advice. In addition, SAGE is partnered with Kudos, a free service that allows authors to explain, enrich, share, and measure the impact of their article. Find out how to maximise your article’s impact with Kudos.

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33. Further information

Any correspondence, queries or additional requests for information on the manuscript submission process should be sent to the Journal of International Medical Research editorial office as follows:

JIMR.admin@sagepub.com

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