GUIDELINES FOR AUTHORS

GUIDELINES FOR AUTHORS
The FUMJ agrees to accept articles prepared in accordance with the “Uniform Requirements of manuscripts” prepared by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) in Vancouver in 1978 and revised in 2010. Detailed requirements are available at their website www.icmje.org. Salient requirements are reproduced here for guidance of the authors.

SUBMISSION OF AN ARTICLE
All material submitted for publication should be sent exclusively to the Foundation University Medical Journal. Work that has already been reported in a published paper or is described in a paper, sent or accepted elsewhere for publication of a preliminary report, usually in the form of an abstract, or a paper that has been presented at a scientific meeting, if not published in a full proceedings or similar publication, may be submitted. Press reports of meeting will not be considered as breach of this rule but such reports should not be amplified by additional data or copies of tables and illustrations. In case of doubt, a copy of published material should be included with a manuscript to help the editors decide how to deal with the matter.

ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS
If the article includes tables, illustrations or photographs, which have been previously published, a letter of permission for publication should be obtained from author(s) as well as the editor of the journal where it was previously printed. Written permission to reproduce photographs of patients whose identity is not disguised should be sent with the manuscript; otherwise the eyes will be blackened out.

FORMAT OF ARTICLES
The material submitted for publication may be in the form of an original research, a review article, a case report, recent advances, adverse drug reports or letter to the editor. Original Articles should normally report original research of relevance to basic or clinical medicine and may appear either as papers or as short communications. The papers should be of about 2000 words, with nor more than six tables or illustrations; short communications should be about 600 words, with one table or illustration and not more than five references. Review article should consist of structured overview of a relatively narrow topic providing background and recent developments with reference of original literature. An author is eligible to write a review article only if he/she has published at least three original research articles and some case reports on the same topic.
Letters should normally not exceed 400 words, have not more than 5 references and be signed by all the authors; preference is given to those that take up points made in articles published in the journal. Editorials are written by invitation.
Clinical case reports must be of academic and education value and provide relevance of the disease being reported as unusual. Brief or negative research findings may appear in this section. The word count of case report should be 800 words with a minimum of 3 key words. It should have a non-structured abstract of about 100 – 150 words (case specific) with maximum of 5 ­– 6 references. Not more than 2 figures shall be accepted.
Authors should keep one copy of their manuscripts for reference, and send three copies to the Editor FUMJ. The author should also submit an electronic copy of the manuscript typed in MS Word. Any illustration or photographs should also be sent in duplicate.

Each manuscript should include a title page (containing mail address, fax and phone numbers of the corresponding author), structured abstract, text, acknowledgements (if any), references, tables and legends. Each component should begin on a new page, in the following sequence; title page, abstract and 3-5 key words; text; acknowledgement; references; tables and legends for illustrations. The manuscript should be typed in double spacing on 8” x 11” white bond paper with one inch margin on both sides. There should be no more than 40 references in an Original Article and no more than 60 in a Review Article. The CD containing soft copy of the article should be sent with the manuscript.

TABLES, GRAPHS AND ILLUSTRATIONS
Tables and illustrations should be merged within the text of the paper, and legends to illustrations should be typed on the same sheet. Tables should be simple, and should supplement rather than duplicate information in the text; tables repeating information will be omitted. Each table should have a title and be typed in double space without horizontal and vertical lines on an 8 1/2” x 11's paper. Tables should be numbered consecutively with Roman numerals in the order they are mentioned in the text. Page number should be in the upper right corner. If abbreviations are used, they should be explained in foot notes and when they first appear in text. When graphs, scattergrams, or histogram are submitted, the numerical data on which they are based should also be provided. All graphs should be prepared on MS Excel and sent as a separate Excel file. For scanned photographs highest resolution should be used.

SI UNIT
System International Unit (SI Unit) measurements should be used. All drugs should be mentioned by their generic names. Trade names may however, be mentioned in brackets, if necessary.

ABSTRACT
Abstracts of original article, comprising of upto 250 words, should be in structured format with following
sub-headings.
i. Objective, ii. Design, iii-Place and duration of study, iv. Patients/materials & Methods, v. Results, vi.

Conclusion.
Review article, case reports and others require a short, unstructured abstract.

INTRODUCTION
This should include the purpose of the study. The rationale for the study should be summarized. Only pertinent references should be cited; the subject should not be extensively reviewed. Data or conclusions from the work being reported should not be presented.

METHODS
Study design and sampling methods should be mentioned. The selection of the observational or experimental subjects (patients or experimental animals, including controls) should be described clearly. The methods and the apparatus used should be identified (manufacturer's name and address in parentheses), and procedures described in sufficient detail to allow other workers to reproduce the results. References to established methods should be given, including statistical methods; references and brief description for methods that have been published but are not well known should be provided, new or substantially modified methods should be described, giving reason for using them, and evaluating their limitations all drugs and chemicals used should be identified precisely, including generic name(s), dose(s) and route(s) of administration.

RESULTS
Results should be presented in a logical sequence in the text, tables and illustrations. All the data in the tables or illustrations should not be repeated in the text; only important observations should be emphasized or summarized.

DISCUSSION
The author's comment on the results supported with contemporary references. Critical analysis of similar
work done by other workers, its comparison with own work with possible reasons for any differences found should be included.

CONCLUSION
Conclusion should be provided under separate heading and highlight new aspects emerging from the study. It should be in accordance with the objectives.

REFERENCES
Reference should be numbered in the order in which they are cited in the text. At the end of the article, the full list of the references should give the names and initials of all authors (unless there are more than six when only the first six should be given followed by et al). The author's names are followed by the title of the article; title of the journal abbreviated according to the style of the Index Medicus (see “List of Journals Indexed”, printed yearly in the January issue of Index Medicus); year volume and page number; e.g. Farrell RJ.
Rational approach to iron deficiency anaemia in pre menopausal women. Lancet 1998; 352:1953-4. References to books should give the names of editors, place of publication, publisher and year. The author must verify the references against the original documents before submitting the article.

PEER REVIEW
Every paper will be read by two staff editors or members of the editorial board. The papers selected will then be sent to 2-3 reviewers. If statistical analysis is included, further examination by a statistician will be carried out.

COPYRIGHT
Material printed in this journal is copyright of the FUMJ and may not be reproduced without the permission of the editors or publishers. The Editorial Board makes every effort to ensure that accuracy and authenticity of material printed in the journal. However, conclusions and statements expressed are views of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Editorial Board.