Indian Journal of Rheumatology

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 at https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ijr. Please note that manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned. 

Only manuscripts of sufficient quality that meet the aims and scope of Indian Journal of Rheumatology 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 (either in full or in part; kindly refer to: https://publicationethics.org/case/salami-publication), and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you.

1. Open Access
2. Article processing charge (APC)
3. What do we publish?

3.1 Aims & Scope
3.2 Article types
3.3 Writing your paper
3.3.1 Making your article discoverable

4. Editorial policies

4.1 Peer review policy
4.2 Authorship
4.3 Acknowledgements
4.3.1 Writing assistance
4.4 Funding
4.5 Declaration of conflicting interests
4.6 Research ethics and patient consent
4.7 Clinical trials
4.8 Reporting guidelines
4.9 Research data

5. Publishing policies

5.1 Publication ethics
5.1.1 Plagiarism
5.1.2 Prior publication
5.2 Contributor’s publishing agreement

6. Preparing your manuscript

6.1 Formatting 
6.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
6.3 Supplemental material
6.4 Reference style

7. Submitting your manuscript

7.1 How to submit your manuscript
7.2 Title, keywords and abstracts
7.3 Information required for completing your submission
7.4 ORCID
7.5 Information required for completing your submission
7.6 Permissions

8. On acceptance and publication

8.1 Sage Production
8.2 Online publication
8.3 Promoting your article

9. Further information

1. Open Access

Indian Journal of Rheumatology (JRH) is an open access, peer-reviewed journal. Each article accepted following peer review is made freely available online immediately upon publication, is published under a Creative Commons license and will be hosted online in perpetuity. 

For general information on open access at Sage please view our Open Access FAQs. 

2. Article processing charge (APC)

There is no article processing charge to publish in Indian Journal of Rheumatology

3. What do we publish?

3.1 Aims & Scope

Before submitting your manuscript to Indian Journal of Rheumatology, please ensure you have read the Aims & Scope.

3.2 Article types

Manuscripts can be submitted under various headings viz. Original Research, Brief Communication, Review Articles, Perspectives/Commentary/Debate/ Point of View, Management Guidelines, Letter to Editor, Book Review, Obituary.

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3.3 Writing your paper

The Sage Author Gateway has some general advice on how to get published, plus links to further resources.

3.3.1 Make your article discoverable
For information and guidance on how to make your article more discoverable, visit our Gateway page on How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online.

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4. Editorial policies

4.1 Peer review policy

Indian Journal of Rheumatology adheres to a rigorous double-anonymized reviewing policy in which the identity of both the reviewer and author are always concealed from both parties. Two independent reviews are required for a manuscript to reach a Revise or Accept decision, with the exception of invited reviews, editorials and letters to editors.

All manuscripts are reviewed initially by the Editor-in-Chief and/or Executive Editor and only those papers that meet the editorial standards of the journal, and fit within the aims and scope of the journal, will be sent for outside review by them. Editor-in-Chief and the Executive Editor make the decisions on a manuscript and the final decisions lie with the Editor-in-Chief. 

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4.2 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 include all those who:

(i)    Made a substantial contribution to the concept or design of the work; or acquisition, analysis or interpretation of data, 
(ii)    Drafted the article or revised it critically for important intellectual content,
(iii)    Approved the version to be published, 
(iv)    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 as mentioned above. 

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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4.3 Acknowledgements

All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in the 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. 

4.3.1 Third party submissions
Where an individual who is not listed as an author submits a manuscript on behalf of the author(s), a statement must be included in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript and in the accompanying cover letter. The statements must:

• Disclose this type of editorial assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input 
• Identify any entities that paid for this assistance 
• Confirm that the listed authors have authorized the submission of their manuscript via third party and approved any statements or declarations, e.g. conflicting interests, funding, etc. 

Where appropriate, Sage and COJ reserves the right to deny consideration to manuscripts submitted by a third party rather than by the authors themselves.

4.3.2 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.

4.4 Funding 

Indian Journal of Rheumatology  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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4.5 Declaration of conflicting interests

It is the policy of Indian Journal of Rheumatology 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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4.6. 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 do not submit the patient’s actual written informed consent with your article, as this in itself breaches the patient’s confidentiality. The Journal requests that you confirm to us, in writing, that you have obtained written informed consent but the written consent itself should be held by the authors/investigators themselves, for example in a patient’s hospital record. The confirmatory letter may be uploaded with your submission as a separate file.

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

4.7. Clinical trials

Indian Journal of Rheumatology 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.

4.8. 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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4.9. Research data

At Sage we are committed to facilitating openness, transparency and reproducibility of research. Where relevant, Indian Journal of Rheumatology encourages authors to share their research data in a suitable public repository subject to ethical considerations and where data is included, to add a data accessibility statement in their manuscript file. Authors should also follow data citation principles. For more information please visit the Sage Author Gateway, which includes information about Sage’s partnership with the data repository Figshare.

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5. Publishing Policies

5.1 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 

5.1.1 Plagiarism

Indian Journal of Rheumatology 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.

5.1.2 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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5.2 Contributor’s publishing agreement

Before publication Sage requires the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement. Indian Journal of Rheumatology 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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6. Preparing your manuscript for submission

6.1 Formatting

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.

A few points to be kept in mind while preparing your manuscript:

1. Submit good quality images of at least 300 dpi and 1500 pixels. All image formats (jpeg, tiff, gif, bmp, png, eps, etc.) are acceptable; jpeg is most suitable.
2. Original articles and brief reports would require structured abstracts. Review articles would have unstructured abstracts. Below the abstract one should provide 3 to 6 keywords.
3. UK spellings (s variant).
4. Tables should be self-explanatory and should not duplicate textual material. Tables with more than 10 columns and 25 rows are not acceptable. Limit the number to minimum required.
5. Number tables in Arabic numerals, consecutively in the order of their first citation in the text and supply a brief caption for each.
6. Place explanatory matter in table notes, not in the heading. Explain in notes all non-standard abbreviations that are used in each table. Please use superscripts a, b, c, …, for this purpose.
7. Figures should be numbered consecutively according to the order in which they have been first cited in the text.
8. Figure captions (maximum 40 words, excluding the credit line) should be given in Arabic numerals. When symbols, arrows or letters are used to identify parts of the illustrations, identify and explain each one clearly in the caption. Explain the internal scale and identify the method of staining in photomicrographs.
9. Avoid abbreviations in abstracts, at the beginning of sentences, and as definitions in headings.
10. Don’t use commas for 4-digit numbers.

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6.2 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 must be in editable formats like png, excel etc. and must have a minimum resolution of 300 dpi and 1500 pixels. Figures supplied in colour will appear in colour online.

6.3 Supplemental material

This journal is able to host additional materials online (e.g. datasets, podcasts, videos, images etc) alongside the full-text of the article. For more information please refer to our guidelines on submitting supplemental files.

6.4 Reference style

Indian Journal of Rheumatology adheres to the AMA reference style. View the AMA guidelines to ensure your manuscript conforms to this reference style.

Reference citations represented by superscripted numbers; the numbers are ordered in sequence from the first mention of the cite in text and correspond to a numbered reference list:

In a study by Smith et al,1 ….

Smith and Jones21 demonstrated that …

… according to studies12,14-17; in addition …

In the reference list, names of all the authors should be given unless there are more than 6, in which case the names of the first 3 authors should be used, followed by “et al.”

Examples:

Journal article (in print, published ahead of print):
Crews DW, Gartska WR, Meyer B, et al. The physiology of the garter snake: an analysis. Sci Am. 1981;245:158-159.

Armstrong DD. Rett syndrome neuropathology review [published online May 3, 2001]. Brain Dev. doi:10.1002/CD1023.

Book:

Voet D, Voet JG. The Science of Biochemistry. 3rd ed. New York, NY: J Wiley; 1990.

Chapter in a book:

Kuret JA, Murad F. Adenohypophyseal hormones. In: Gilman AG, Taylor P, eds. The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics. 8th ed. Orlando, FL: Grune & Stratton; 1976:1334-1360.

Paper presented at a conference:
Eisenberg J. Market forces and physician workforce reform: why they may not work. Paper presented at: Annual Meeting of the Association of American Medical Colleges; October 28, 1995; Washington, DC.

Online journals
Blackburn TA. Updating autologous chondrocyte implantation knee rehabilitation. Orthopedic Tech Review. 2003;5:30-33. http://www.orthopedictechreview.com/issues/julaug03/pg30.htm. Accessed January 7, 2005.

Websites:

FDA resources page. Food and Drug Administration website. http://vm.cfsan.fda.gov/sodium.txt. Accessed June 23, 2000.

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7. Submitting your manuscript

7.1.  How to submit your manuscript

Indian Journal of Rheumatology is hosted on ScholarOne, a web-based online submission and peer review system. Visit https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ijr 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. 

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7.2.  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. Please refer to the information and guidance on how best to title your article, write your abstract and select your keywords by visiting the Sage Journal Author Gateway for guidelines on How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online.

7.3 Information required for completing your submission

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.

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).

7.4 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 unique and persistent digital identifier that distinguishes researchers from every other researcher, even those who share the same name, 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 recognized. 

The collection of ORCID IDs from corresponding authors is now part of the submission process of this Journal. If you already have an ORCID ID you will be asked to associate that to your submission during the online submission process. We also strongly encourage all co-authors to link their ORCID ID to their accounts in our online peer review platforms. It takes seconds to do: click the link when prompted, sign into your ORCID account and our systems are automatically updated. Your ORCID ID will become part of your accepted publication’s metadata, making your work attributable to you and only you. Your ORCID ID is published with your article so that fellow researchers reading your work can link to your ORCID profile and from there link to your other publications.

If you do not already have an ORCID ID please follow this link to create one or visit our ORCID homepage to learn more.

7.5 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. The affiliation listed in the manuscript should be the institution where the research was conducted. If an author has moved to a new institution since completing the research, the new affiliation can be included in a manuscript note at the end of the paper. 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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7.6 Permissions

Please 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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8. On acceptance and publication

8.1. Sage Production

Your Sage Production Editor will keep you informed as to your article’s progress throughout the production process. Proofs will made available to the corresponding author by email to the corresponding author and should be returned promptly in the time-period so specified.   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 authorizing the change.

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8.2. 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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8.3. 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 maximize your article’s impact with Kudos. 

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9. Further information

Any correspondence, queries or additional requests for information on the Manuscript Submission process should be sent to the Indian Journal of Rheumatology editorial office as follows: 

Editor, Indian Journal of Rheumatology
E-mail Id: injorheumat@gmail.com