Applied Immunohistochemistry & Molecular Morphology
Online Submission and Review System

SCOPE
Applied Immunohistochemistry & Molecular Morphology is a peer reviewed, multidisciplinary journal directed to an audience of applied immunohistochemists and molecular morphologists. The journal publishes original articles in the form of clinical and basic research, scientific advances, and selected abstracts from international journals.

Instructions for Authors (this page)
Copyright Transfer (PDF)
Reprint Ordering
Permissions Requests
ePrints
Reprints

Manuscript Submission
A submitted manuscript must be an original contribution not previously published (except as an abstract or preliminary report), must not be under consideration for publication elsewhere, and, if accepted, must not be published elsewhere in similar form, in any language, without the consent of Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. Each person listed as an author is expected to have participated in the study to a significant extent. Although the editors and referees make every effort to ensure the validity of published manuscripts, the final responsibility rests with the authors, not with the Journal, its editors, or the publisher.

All manuscripts should be submitted on-line through the new Web site at http://aimm.edmgr.com. See submission instructions under “On-line manuscript submission.”

First-time users: Please click the Register button from the main menu and enter the requested information. On successful registration, you will be sent an e-mail indicating your user name and password. Print a copy of this information for future reference. Note: If you have received an e-mail from us with an assigned user ID and password, or if you are a repeat user, do not register again. Just log in. Once you have an assigned ID and password, re-registration is unnecessary, even if your status changes (that is, author, reviewer, or editor). Authors: Please click the login button from the menu at the top of the page and log in to the system as an Author. Submit your manuscript according to the author instructions. You will be able to track the progress of your manuscript through the system. If you experience any problems, contact: Susan Taylor, Managing Editor; Fax 626-799-1643; E-mail: AIMMJOURNAL@aol.com.

Authors without internet access, see Preparation of Manuscript instructions below.

Ethical/Legal Considerations
A submitted manuscript must be an original contribution not previously published (except as an abstract or a preliminary report), must not be under consideration for publication elsewhere, and, if accepted, must not be published elsewhere in similar form, in any language, without the consent of Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. Each person listed as an author is expected to have participated in the study to a significant extent. Although the editors and referees make every effort to ensure the validity of published manuscripts, the final responsibility rests with the authors, not with the Journal, its editors, or the publisher.

Patient anonymity and informed consent: It is the author's responsibility to ensure that a patient's anonymity be carefully protected and to verify that any experimental investigation with human subjects reported in the manuscript was performed with informed consent and following all the guidelines for experimental investigation with human subjects required by the institution(s) with which all the authors are affiliated. Authors should mask patients' eyes and remove patients' names from figures unless they obtain written consent from the patients and submit written consent with the manuscript.

Copyright: All authors must sign a copy of the journal's "Authorship Responsibility, Financial Disclosure, and Copyright Transfer" form and submit it with the original manuscript.

Compliance with NIH and Other Research Funding Agency Accessibility Requirements
A number of research funding agencies now require or request authors to submit the post-print (the article after peer review and acceptance but not the final published article) to a repository that is accessible online by all without charge. As a service to our authors, LWW will identify to the National Library of Medicine (NLM) articles that require deposit and will transmit the post-print of an article based on research funded in whole or in part by the National Institutes of Health, Wellcome Trust, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, or other funding agencies to PubMed Central. The revised Copyright Transfer Agreement provides the mechanism.

Permissions: Authors must submit written permission from the copyright owner (usually the publisher) to use direct quotations, tables, or illustrations that have appeared in copyrighted form elsewhere, along with complete details about the source. Any permissions fees that might be required by the copyright owner are the responsibility of the authors requesting use of the borrowed material, not the responsibility of Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.

Preparation of Manuscript
Manuscripts that do not adhere to the following instructions will be returned to the corresponding author for technical revision before undergoing peer review.

Manuscript submission (for authors without internet access): Authors should submit manuscripts in English in triplicate (one original and two copies) along with a disk containing a text file of the manuscript and the digital figures.

For immunohistochemistry and/or clinical-related articles, send materials to: Clive Taylor, MD, PhD, Department of Pathology, The Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, 2011 Zonal Avenue, HMR 204, Los Angeles, CA 90089.

For molecular morphology and/or research-related articles, send materials to: Jiang Gu, MD, PhD, Dean, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Professor and Chair, Department of Pathology, Peking University, 38 Xueyan Road, Beijing, China 100083.

Please see the checklist at the end of these Instructions before mailing manuscripts. The editorial office will acknowledge receipt of your manuscript and will give you a manuscript number for reference. Address questions regarding preparation or disposition of manuscripts to Susan Taylor, Managing Editor; Fax 626-799-1643; E-mail: AIMMJOURNAL@aol.com

General format: Submit manuscripts in English in triplicate (one original and two copies) and printed on standard 8 1/2 × 11-inch (21 × 28-cm) paper with at least a 1-inch (2.5 cm) margin on all sides. Double space all copy, including legends, footnotes, tables, and references, and print on one side of the sheet only. If a manuscript is accepted for publication, the authors must then submit the final, accepted version of the manuscript on disk.

Title page: Include on the title page (a) complete manuscript title; (b) authors' full names, highest academic degrees, and affiliations; (c) name and address for correspondence, including fax number, telephone number, and e-mail address; (d) address for reprints if different from that of corresponding author; and (e) sources of support that require acknowledgment.
The title page must also include disclosure of funding received for this work from any of the following organizations: National Institutes of Health (NIH); Wellcome Trust; Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI); and other(s).

Unstructured abstract and key words: Limit the abstract to 250 words. It must be factual and comprehensive. Limit the use of abbreviations and acronyms, and avoid general statements (e.g., "the significance of the results is discussed"). List three to five key words or phrases.

Text: Organize the manuscript into four main headings: Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, and Discussion. Define abbreviations at first mention in text and in each table and figure. If a brand name is cited, supply the manufacturer's name and address (city and state/country). Acknowledge all forms of support, including pharmaceutical and industry support, in an Acknowledgments paragraph.

Abbreviations: For a list of standard abbreviations, consult the Council of Biology Editors Style Guide (available from the Council of Science Editors, 9650 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, MD 20814) or other standard sources. Write out the full term for each abbreviation at its first use unless it is a standard unit of measure.

References: The authors are responsible for the accuracy of the references. Key the references (double-spaced) at the end of the manuscript. Cite the references in text in the order of appearance. Cite unpublished data, such as papers submitted but not yet accepted for publication or personal communications, in parentheses in the text. If there are more than three authors, name only the first three authors and then use et al. Refer to the List of Journals Indexed in Index Medicus for abbreviations of journal names, or access the list at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/tsd/serials/lji.html. Sample references are given below:

Journal article
1. Grabau DA, Nielson O, Hansen S, et al. Influence of storage temperature and high-temperature antigen retrieval buffers on results of immunohistochemical staining in sections stored for long periods. Appl Immunohistochem 1998;6:209 213.

Book chapter
2. Stehman FB, Perez CA, Kurman RJ, et al. Uterine cervix. In: Hoskins WJ, Perez CA, Young RC, eds. Principles and practice of gynecologic oncology, 2nd ed. Philadelphia: Lippincott-Raven, 1997:785-857.

Entire book
3. Kellman RM, Marentette LJ. Atlas of craniomaxillofacial fixation. Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 1999.

Software
4. Epi Info [computer program]. Version 6. Atlanta: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; 1994.

Online journals
5. Friedman SA. Preeclampsia: a review of the role of prostaglandins. Obstet Gynecol [serial online]. January 1988;71:22 37. Available from: BRS Information Technologies, McLean, VA. Accessed December 15, 1990.

Database
6. CANCERNET-PDQ [database online]. Bethesda, MD: National Cancer Institute; 1996. Updated March 29, 1996.

World Wide Web
7. Gostin LO. Drug use and HIV/AIDS [JAMA HIV/AIDS web site]. June 1, 1996. Available at: http://www.ama-assn.org/special/hiv/ethics. Accessed June 26, 1997.

Figures: Cite figures consecutively in the text, and number them in the order in which they are discussed. Write the first author's last name, the figure number and figure part (1A, 1B, 1C), and an arrow to indicate the top edge of the figure on a label pasted to the back of each figure. Submit all artwork in triplicate in camera-ready form; illustrations should be glossy prints or high-quality, laser-printed illustrations. Photocopies are unacceptable. Lettering should be large enough that it will remain legible after figure reduction; typewritten or unprofessional lettering is unacceptable. Figure parts (A, B, C) may be left unlabeled (but clearly marked on back) for professional placement by the journal's printer.

Figure legends: Legends must be submitted for all figures. They should be brief and specific, and they should appear on a separate manuscript page after the references. Use scale markers in the image for electron micrographs, and indicate the type of stain used.

Color figures: The journal accepts for publication color figures that will enhance an article. The journal will assume the cost of publishing one page of color illustrations per manuscript. Author costs for color illustrations beyond the one page allowance will be estimated on an individual basis. If they decide not to pay for color reproduction, they can request that the figures be converted to black and white at no charge.

Digital figures: Electronic art should be submitted as either a TIFF (tagged image file format) or an EPS (encapsulated postscript) file. Line art must have a resolution of at least 1200 dpi (dots per inch), and electronic photographs—radiographs, CT scans, and so on—and scanned images must have a resolution of at least 300 dpi. If fonts are used in the artwork, they must be converted to paths or outlines or they must be embedded in the files. Color images must be saved and submitted as CMYK files. All electronic art must be accompanied by high-resolution laser prints of the images. Files can be submitted on a 3?-inch high-density disk, a CD-ROM, or an Iomega Zip disk. Please note that artwork generated from office suite programs such as Power Point, Corel Draw, and MS Word and artwork downloaded from the Internet (JPEG or GIFF files) cannot be used.

Tables: Group all tables at the end of the manuscript, or supply them together in a separate file. Cite tables consecutively in the text and number them in that order. Key each on a separate sheet, and include the table title, appropriate column heads, and explanatory legends (including definitions of any abbreviations used). Do not embed tables within the body of the manuscript. They should be self-explanatory and should supplement, rather than duplicate, the material in the text.

Style: Pattern manuscript style after the American Medical Association Manual of Style (9th edition). Stedman's Medical Dictionary (27th edition) and Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (10th edition) should be used as standard references. Refer to drugs and therapeutic agents by their accepted generic or chemical names, and do not abbreviate them. Use code numbers only when a generic name is not yet available. In that case, supply the chemical name and a figure giving the chemical structure of the drug is required. Copyright or trade names of drugs should be capitalized and placed in parentheses after the name of the drug. Names and locations (city and state in USA; city and country outside USA) of manufacturers of drugs, supplies, or equipment cited in a manuscript are required to comply with trademark law and should be provided in parentheses. Units of measure should be expressed in the metric system, and temperatures should be expressed in degrees Celsius. Conventional units should be written as SI units as appropriate.

After Acceptance (For authors without internet access)
Disk submission: Authors must submit an electronic version of the final accepted manuscript along with a printout of the final accepted manuscript. Electronic files should be submitted in a standard word processing format; Microsoft Word (or Corel WordPerfect) is preferred. Although conversions can be made from other word processing formats, the vagaries of the conversion process may introduce errors. Do not submit ASCII text files. Do not use automatic numbering or footnotes for references. The journal does not assume responsibility for errors in the conversion of customized software, newly released software, and special characters. Authors preparing manuscripts on Macintosh computers should not use the Fast Save option. Each submitted disk must be clearly labeled with the name of the author, item title, journal title, word processing program and version, and file name used. The disk should contain only one file–the final version of the accepted manuscript.

Page proofs and corrections: Corresponding authors will receive electronic page proofs to check the copyedited and typeset article before publication. Portable document format (PDF) files of the typeset pages and support documents (eg, reprint order form) will be sent to the corresponding author via e-mail. Complete instructions will be provided with the e-mail for downloading and printing the files and for faxing the corrected pages to the publisher. Those authors without an e-mail address will receive traditional page proofs.

It is the author's responsibility to ensure that there are no errors in the proofs. Changes that have been made to conform to journal style should be allowed to stand if they do not alter the authors' meaning. Authors may be charged for alterations to the proofs beyond those required to correct errors or to answer queries. Proofs must be checked carefully and corrections faxed within 24 to 48 hours of receipt, as requested in the cover letter accompanying the page proofs.

Reprints: Authors will receive a reprint order form and a price list with the page proofs. Reprint requests should be faxed with the corrected proofs, if possible. Reprints are normally shipped 6 to 8 weeks after publication of the issue in which the item appears. For any questions regarding reprints or publication fees, contact the Reprint Department by mail at Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 351 West Camden Street, Baltimore, MD 21201; by phone at 1-800-341-2258; by fax at 410-528-4434; or by e-mail at: reprints@wolterskluwer.com.

Publisher's contact: Fax corrected page proofs and any other related materials to Proof Manager, Applied Immunohistochemistry & Molecular Morphology, 1-866-978-5767.

Manuscript Checklist (before submission)