Manuscripts should fall into one of the following categories: original articles, review articles, commentaries, case series, and letters to the editor. The following are a set of specific guidelines for each category:
“Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions.”
Research involving human subjects should comply with the “WMA Declaration of Helsinki – Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects.” Protocols for research studies should have received approval from the ethics committee of the concerned institution prior to implementation, and this should be documented. An informed written consent should have been obtained before research on human subjects, and the manuscript must contain a statement affirming this. Authors should retain the written consents and make them available to the publisher upon request. Most case series, however, do not require ethics committee approval or informed written consents due to the fact that they are usually a retrospective description of cases that were not part of an outlined study. Privacy rights of human subjects must be respected; thus, no personal identifiers are permitted in the manuscript without the subject’s informed written consent, which must be submitted with the manuscript.
Research involving animal subjects should comply with the “Guidelines for Ethical Conduct in the Care and Use of Nonhuman Animals in Research,” outlined by the American Psychological Association.
All authors must disclose any financial and personal relationships with certain individuals or institutions that may result in work bias. The following are examples of potential conflicts of interest: employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent applications/registrations, and grants or other funding. All authors are required to complete the “ICMJE Form for Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest” and submit it with the manuscript.
Submission of an article implies that it has not been previously published (except in the form of an abstract, or an academic thesis, or as part of a published lecture, or as an electronic preprint), nor is it before another publisher for consideration, and that all authors approve its publication in the journal. Submission of an article also implies the approval of the responsible authorities where the work was conducted, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, whether in English or in any other language, without the written consent of the copyright holder.
In order to qualify for authorship, the concerned individual must meet all of the following criteria established by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors:
The list and order of authors should be considered carefully before submission of a manuscript. Authors who wish to make changes to authorship are required to send a completed “Change of Authorship Request Form” to the Editor in Chief via e-mail. Changes to authorship can only be made before acceptance of the article. All authors are required to complete and submit a new “ICMJE Form for Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest.”
Acknowledgements are intended to credit those who contributed to the work at a level that did not qualify for authorship, and should be made at the end of the manuscript, preceding the references. In order to make an acknowledgment, a written consent should be obtained from the individual or institution being acknowledged. It should be noted that acknowledgements must also include any funding sources.
Images may be manipulated for clarity purposes. However, it is strictly forbidden to enhance, obscure, move, remove, or introduce a specific feature within an image for the purpose of deception or fraud.
Illustrations should be numbered according to their sequence in the text, and should be submitted in the desired size for publishing. They should be submitted in one of the following file formats with the following specifications:
Tables should be numbered according to their sequence in the text. Footnotes should be placed below the table body, and should be denoted with superscript lowercase letters.
Perio J accepts videos and animations to support and enhance articles when appropriate. Most standard video formats are acceptable. Videos should be provided in properly labeled files, and their desired location should be mentioned within the text. Authors are responsible for editing the videos to remove extraneous material.
Other supporting material such as applications, sound clips, and background datasets may be published if deemed appropriate. The same guidelines as those mentioned in the videos section apply.
The authors are fully responsible for the accuracy of the bibliographic citations.
Please ensure that the citation style conforms to that of the American Medical Association. The following is a detailed description of the American Medical Association citation style:
Example:
Spencer J. Physician, heal thyself – but not on your own please. Med Educ. 2005; 89: 548-549.
Example:
Salwachter AR, Freischlag JA, Sawyer RG, Sanfey HA. The training needs and priorities of male and female surgeons and their trainees. J AM Coll Surg. 2005; 201: 199-205.
Example:
Fukushima H, Cureoglu S, Schachern P, et al. Cochlear changes in patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus. Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg. 2005; 133: 100-6.
Example:
Coppinger T, Jeanes YM, Hardwick J, Reeves S. Body mass, frequency of eating and breakfast consumption in 9-13-year-olds. J Hum Nutr Diet. 2012;
25(1): 43-49. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-277X.2011.01184.x
Example:
Calhoun D, Trimarco T, Meek R, Locasto D. Distinguishing diabetes: Differentiate beween type 1 & type 2 DM. JEMS [serial online]. November 2011; 36
(11): 32-48. Available from: CINAHL Plus with Full Text, Ipswich, MA. Accessed February 2, 2012.
Example:
Wolf W. State’s mail-order drug plan launched. Minneapolis Star Tribune. May 14, 2004: 1B.
Example:
Pollack A. FDA approves new cystic fibrosis drug. New York Times. January 31, 2012. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/01/business/fda-approvescystic-fibrosis-drug.html?ref=health. Accessed February 1, 2012.
Example:
Outbreak notice: Cholera in Haiti. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Website. http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/notices/outbreak-notice/haiticholera.htm. Published October 22, 2010. Updated January 9, 2012. Accessed February 1, 2012.
Example:
Modlin J, Jenkins P. Decision Analysis in Planning for a Polio Outbreak in the United States. San Francisco, CA: Pediatric Academic Societies; 2004.
Example:
Solensky R. Drug allergy: desensitization and treatment of reactions to antibiotics and aspirin. In: Lockey P, ed. Allergens and Allergen Immunotherapy. 3rd ed. New York, NY: Marcel Dekker; 2004: 585:606.
Authors should ensure that references cited in the text are present in the reference list, and vice versa. Unpublished works and personal communications may be mentioned in the text, but are not to be included in the reference list. Citations should be numbered, using superscript Arabic numerals, in consecutive order according to the sequence in which they appear in the text. Commas should be used to separate multiple citation numbers in text. Superscript numbers should be placed outside commas and periods, and inside colons and semicolons. When the same source is cited more than once, the number of the original reference should be used, followed by the page number (in parentheses) where the information was found.
It is recommended that authors use Mendeley Desktop, a reference management software, which contains a readily available template for the American Medical Association’s citation style. This software automatically formats citations and bibliographies to the desired citation style.
Authors will be required to sign a “Journal Licensing Agreement” upon acceptance of an article. Authors will retain copyright but will be required to license exclusive rights in their article to the publisher. Thus, authors will have the following rights:
Noncommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) License.
The rights granted to the publisher are as follows:
Authors are requested to review the Creative Commons AttributionNoncommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) License Deed and Legal Code.
Perio J does not condone plagiarism. Manuscripts will be checked for plagiarism by the Editor upon submission with the aid of a similarity check software. Similarity reports indicate the percentage of overlap that the text being assessed has with other published articles. Although a similarity score does not necessarily indicate plagiarism, the score will be interpreted based on the type of article being assessed, the sections of the manuscript in which the similarities appear, and the number of sources with which the matches coincide. Manuscripts that have been deemed to be plagiarized will be automatically rejected before proceeding to the peer-review process.
Perio J employs a single blind review process. Upon submission, the Editor decides as to whether or not the manuscript is appropriate for the journal. If the manuscript is deemed suitable, it is assessed by a minimum of two expert reviewers in the field of periodontology, and when applicable, a statistical reviewer. Authors are then sent reviewer comments as well as the additional comments and observations of the Editor. The Editor makes the final decision as to whether or not to accept the article once the final revisions of the authors are received.
Perio J will send one set of page proofs, in PDF format, to the corresponding author following acceptance. These may be annotated by the authors using the Adobe Reader software, version 9 (or higher). As an alternative to using the Adobe Reader annotation function, authors may send an e-mail listing the corrections, which should indicate page and line numbers.