Author Guidelines
All manuscripts should be addressed to the Editorial Office of the African Journal of Medicine and Medical Sciences, Institute for Advanced Medical Research and Training (IMRAT), College of Medicine, University College Hospital, Ibadan, Nigeria. African Journal of Medicine and Medical Sciences is an official journal of the College of Medicine, University of Ibadan, Nigeria and it is published four times a year in March, June, September and December. The journal is an educational and training resource integrating clinical, translational and educational research towards promotion of innovations in medicine and medical sciences. The Journal endorses the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts (URM) issued by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE): details of their current recommendations on the conduct, reporting, editing and publication of scholarly works in medical journals can be accessed at: http://www.icmje.org/recommendations.
Manuscripts are accepted on the understanding that no substantial part has been or will be published elsewhere. This does not refer to abstracts of oral communications that are printed in proceedings of societies or symposia.
Manuscripts should be submitted online through the journal submission system, accessible through: http://www.ajmms.com. The corresponding author will be required to register as an author on the submission site prior to submitting the manuscript. The type of manuscript must be specified during the submission process. Cover Letter: Manuscripts being submitted must be accompanied by a covering letter affirming that the manuscript is being submitted only to this Journal. In the case of a manuscript with more than one author, all authors must sign the covering letter confirming that they participated sufficiently in the work.
Formatting: Manuscripts, in English Language, should be submitted typed double-spaced with margins of at least 2.5cm. Microsoft Word or similar software should be used to prepare the manuscript. The main text (excluding abstract, tables and references) of original research articles, review articles and case reports should not exceed 3,000 words, 5,000 words and 2,000 words respectively. Workshop and conference reports are welcome and should not exceed 3 to 10 double-spaced A4-sized pages. Viewpoints, which could be papers expressing personal or group opinion on political, socio-economic and other matters as they relate to the practice of medicine should be limited to 2,500 words. Letters to the Editor may be comments on articles published in the Journal or clinical observations, replies to comments, or other matters of importance and relevance to medicine and related professions. Such letters should not exceed 500 words with not more than eight references and one or two tables and figures.
Original research articles should include the following sections: title page, abstract, introduction, methods, results, discussion, references, acknowledgements, tables and figures.
The title page is submitted as a separate document and should contain the following: (a) title, (b) author(s)’s names and initials, (c) department(s) in which the work was done, (d) the name and address (including email address and phone number) of the author to whom correspondence should be addressed, (e) author(s)’s present address if different from the department(s) in which the work was done, (f) if the paper was presented at a meeting, the name of organization, city, month and year should be provided.
The title should be short, specific and clear. Omit phrases such as “The use of, “observations on”. Authors should provide a short running title and four to six keywords that are arranged in alphabetical order. Manuscripts should include a structured abstract not exceeding 250 words on a separate page. The abstract will be translated into French by the journal office at a cost to the author. The numbers of photographs and illustrations in the manuscript should be kept to a minimum. The legends for figures and tables should be numbered in Arabic numerals and should appear on a separate page after the references. Any footnotes to tables should be indicated by superscript characters and tables must be referred to in the main text in running order. Tables must be simple and not duplicate information given in the text. Authors should not use abbreviations in headings and figure legends.
All figures should be clear and of reproducible quality. All details on charts and graphs must be legible when reduced to the size used in this journal. The author(s) will be required to pay for publication of coloured figures at the time of acceptance.
The onus of preparing a manuscript in a suitable form for publication rests with the author(s). The need for editorial revision for badly prepared typescripts or diagrams may lead either to rejection of the manuscript or delay in publication.
Ethics: Authors should indicate by a statement in the body of the manuscript that they complied with the standard requirements of the Ethics Committee of the institution in which the work was done. A Letter of Ethics Committee approval must also accompany the manuscript at the time of submission. In addition, the Helsinki Declaration principles as revised should be followed strictly. In all research involving experimental animals, evidence of ethical approval by the appropriate ethics review committee must be provided. The details of anaesthesia, housing and husbandry in experimental animals must be provided in relevant manuscripts. The authors are required to comply with the US National Research Council’s “The Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals” or similar international approved guidelines.
The authors must declare any conflicts of interest in a sentence after the Acknowledgement section. The authors must comply with ICMJE guidelines on authorship and the roles of each author in a multi-authored manuscript should be specified. All allegations of research misconduct reported to the African Journal of Medicine and Medical Sciences will be investigated.
Plagiarism: The Journal does not tolerate plagiarism of any sort. All listed authors must indicate that the work being submitted is original. Any concerns about plagiarism will be investigated comprehensively and misconducts may lead to rejection, sanctions and/or retraction of article.
References: This Journal will only consider manuscripts with references prepared in accordance with the Vancouver style. Citation of references within the body of the article should be in block form, i.e., [1,2].
References should be numbered in the order in which they are cited in the text. At the end of the manuscript, the references should be listed as numbered in the text. Each reference should give the names and initials of all authors (unless there are more than six, when only the first three should be given, followed by et al.). The authors’ names should be followed by the title of the article, the journal title (abbreviated according to the style of Index Medicus), the year of publication, the volume number and the first and last page numbers. Titles of books should be followed by the publisher, place of publication, and year. Examples of the format for references are as follows:
Edington GM, Osunkoya BO and Smith JA. Immunopathology of Burkitt’s lymphoma. West Afr Med J 1986; 85: 76 – 87.
Brown A. Primary Health Care and the Medical Curriculum Edinburgh: Universities Press. 1977.
Lewis A. Primary liver cell carcinoma. In: Ajose A. and Odeku E.L. (Eds.) Priorities in Health Planning. Ibadan: University Press, 1983; 110 - 117
Reference to tables should be in Arabic numerals, e.g. Table 3, and tables should include titles, which are easily understood without reference to text. Tables should be typed separately from the text.
Processing fees: A non-refundable processing fee of N10,000.00 (£100.00, $160.00) per article will be charged authors who do not subscribe to the Journal while subscribers will pay N5,000.00 only. Furthermore, a non-refundable acceptance fee of N25,000.00 (£100.00, $160) per article is charged author(s) who do not subscribe to the Journal while subscriber will pay N15,000.00. In addition, the fee for abstract translation is N2,500.00 ($50.00) non-refundable, which shall be paid when manuscript is found acceptable for publication. Payment should be made through electronic transfer or bank deposit on www.remita.net The payment should be in favour of College of Medicine, University of Ibadan while the service type is “grant processing and admin. fee.” Generated receipt and bank teller should be presented at the Finance Department where College receipt will be issued. Non-Ibadan resident contributors can forward the remita receipt to afrijmed@yahoo.com. In addition, authors of manuscripts submitted from Nigeria should send N500.00 worth of postage stamps for subsequent correspondence.
Peer Review: The African Journal of Medicine and Medical Sciences operates a double-blind peer review system. “Blinded” versions of the manuscript, which do not contain any author details, must accompany the submission and will be reviewed by the Editor in Chief and sectional Editor. Submissions that are considered suitable at this stage will then be sent to a minimum of two independent experts in fields relevant to the subject of the manuscript to evaluate the scientific quality, merit and integrity. The reports of the reviewers will be communicated to the corresponding authors. The decision to accept or reject manuscripts is entirely that of the editorial team of the Journal and such decision is final.
After acceptance of manuscripts, galley proofs are sent to the corresponding author for review. Correction of proofs other than printers’ errors should be kept to a minimum. Authors must return proof corrections within three days of receipt. Failure to do this will result in the article being published with the Editor’s corrections only. Articles accepted for publication remain the copyright of the Journal.
Offprints, which will be available in the Editorial office of the Journal must be paid for at the time of final acceptance of the paper. Four journal pages will be printed at four hundred and fifty naira (N450.00). Extra pages will attract page-printing charges at the rate of N700.00 (£5, $7) per page (approximately 5 quarto-size pages of manuscript).