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Blood Coagulation and Fibrinolysis
Online Submission and Review System
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Guidance for Authors on the Preparation and Submission of Manuscripts to Blood Coagulation and Fibrinolysis
Note: These instructions comply with those formulated by the International
Committee of Medical Journal Editors. For further details, authors should
consult the following article: International Committee of Medical Journal
Editors. ‘‘Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to
Biomedical Journals’’ N Engl J Med 1997;336:309–315.
The complete document appears at www.icmje.org.
Full details concerning many of the points below, including standard forms,
are provided in the guidelines on the journal’s web site (www.bloodcoagulation.com).
Scope
Blood Coagulation and Fibrinolysis is an international fully refereed
journal that features review and original research articles on all clinical,
laboratory and experimental aspects of haemostasis and thrombosis. The journal
is devoted to publishing significant developments worldwide in the field
of blood coagulation, fibrinolysis, thrombosis, platelets and the kininogen-kinin
system, as well as dealing with those aspects of blood rheology relevant
to haemostasis and the effects of drugs on haemostatic components. The journal
publishes mutation reports detailing the mutated gene and giving a brief
clinical history of the propositus. The journal also publishes correspondence,
technical reports, mutation reports and reviews of books, software and new
products. The emphasis is on speed of publication. The journal will normally
publish within ten weeks of acceptance of manuscripts.
Points to consider before submission
We have prepared a standard covering letter (available from the journal
website) to accompany your submission. Whether you use this letter or your
own wording, please think carefully about the following points and make
the appropriate declarations.
Redundant or duplicate publication
We ask you to confirm that your paper has not been published in its current
form or a substantially similar form (in print or electronically, including
on a web site), that it has not been accepted for publication elsewhere,
and that it is not under consideration by another publication. The International
Committee of Medical Journal Editors has provided details of what is and
what is not duplicate or redundant publication (http://www.icmje.org). If
you are in doubt (particularly in the case of material that you have posted
on a web site), we ask you to proceed with your submission but to include
a copy of the relevant previously published work or work under consideration
by other journals. In your covering letter to the editors, draw attention
to any published work that concerns the same patients or subjects as the
present paper.
Conflicts of interest
We ask authors to state all possible conflicts of interest, including financial
and other relationships. If you are sure that there is no conflict of interest,
please state this. You might like to look at an editorial in the British
Medical Journal on Beyond conflict of interest (http://bmj.com/cgi/content/short/317/7154/291).
Remember that sources of funding should be acknowledged in your paper.
Permissions to reproduce previously published material
Authors should include with their submission copies of written permission
to reproduce material published elsewhere (such as illustrations) from the
copyright holder. Authors are responsible for paying any fees to reproduce
material.
Patient consent forms
Patients have a right to privacy that should not be infringed without informed
consent. Identifying details (written or photographic) should be omitted
if they are not essential, but patient data should never be altered or falsified
in an attempt to attain anonymity. Complete anonymity is difficult to achieve,
and a consent form should be obtained if there is any doubt. For example,
masking the eye region in photographs of patients is inadequate protection
of anonymity. When informed consent has been obtained it should be indicated
in the published article.
Ethics committee approval
All authors must sign a declaration that the research was conducted within
the guidelines below and under the terms of all relevant local legislation.
(Such a statement is included in the model submission letter on the journal’s
web site.) The Editors reserve the right to judge the appropriateness of
the use and treatment of humans or animals in experiments for publication
in the journal.
Human experiments: All work must be conducted in accordance with
the Declaration of Helsinki (http://www.wma.net/e/policy/b3.htm).
Papers describing experimental work on human participants which carries
a risk of harm must include (1) a statement that the experiments were conducted
with the understanding and the consent of each participant, and (2) a statement
that the responsible ethical committee has approved the experiments.
Animal experiments: In papers describing experiments on living animals,
include (1) a full description of any anaesthetic and surgical procedure
used, and (2) evidence that all possible steps were taken to avoid animals’
suffering at each stage of the experiment. In experiments involving the
use of muscle relaxants, describe the precautions taken to ensure adequate
anaesthesia (J Physiol 1990; 420:xii–xiii).
Experiments on isolated tissues: Indicate precisely how you obtained
the donor tissue. The NIH guide for the care and use of laboratory animals
(National Institutes of Health Publications No. 80-23, revised 1978) gives
guidelines for the acquisition and care of animals.
Authorship
All authors must sign the letter accompanying their submission to confirm
that they have read and approved the paper, that they have met the criteria
for authorship as established by the International Committee of Medical
Journal Editors, that they believe that the paper represents honest work,
and that they are able to verify the validity of the results reported. You
might also be interested to read the debate on authorship in general in
the British Medical Journal’s Authorship collection (http://bmj.com/cgi/collection/authorship).
Many of the points covered above are discussed in the New England Journal
of Medicine’s collection of papers entitled ’Editorials on Journal
Policy’ (http://authors.nejm.org/Misc/Policies.asp).
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.
Copyright assignment
Papers are accepted for publication on the understanding that exclusive
copyright in the paper is assigned to the Publisher. Authors are asked to
sign a copyright assignment form after acceptance of their papers. They
may use material from their paper in other works published by them.
Submissions
Authors are strongly encouraged to submit their manuscripts through the
web-based tracking system at http://www.editorialmanager.com/bcf/.
Signed author forms may be included in the submission as a 'supporting document'
or mailed to the journal office. The site contains instructions and advice
on how to use the system. Authors should NOT in addition then post a hard
copy submission to the editorial office, unless you are supplying artwork,
letters or files that cannot be submitted electronically, or have been instructed
to do so by the editorial office. Include the following where appropriate:
subject consent forms; transfer of copyright form; permission to reproduce
previously published material; checklist. For those authors who have no
option but to submit by mail please send one copy of the article, plus an
electronic version on disk or CD-ROM, to either editor dependent on your
geographical location. Authors from Europe, Asia (apart from Japan), Africa
and Australia should submit to: Evgueni Saenko, Ph.D.,University
of Maryland, School of Medicine Center for Vascular and Inflammatory Diseases
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology 800 W. Baltimore Street
Baltimore, MD 21201, email: esaenko@som.umaryland.edu. Authors from North
and South America and Japan should submit to: Dr. Richard Marlar,
Coagulation Services and Clinical Pathology, Oklahoma City VA Medical Center,
University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Pathology and Lab Medicine
#113, Oklahoma City VAMC, 921 N.E. 13th St., Oklahoma City, OK73104, USA.
Tel: +1 405 270 0501 ext. 5261; Fax: +1 405 297 5922; email: thrombosis@ouhsc.edu
Double spacing should be used throughout the manuscript, which should include
the following sections, each starting on a separate page: Title Page, abstract
and keywords, text, acknowledgements, references, individual tables and
captions. Margins should be not less than 3 cm. Pages should be numbered
consecutively, beginning with the Title Page, and the page number should
be placed in the top right hand corner of each page. Abbreviations should
be defined on their first appearance in the text; those not accepted by
international bodies should be avoided. Submit the required number of paper
copies and a disk and keep copies of everything submitted.
Authors are invited to list up to four potential reviewers, including their
full addresses, telephone and fax numbers, and e-mail addresses.
Presentation of papers
Title Page
The Title Page should carry the full title of the paper and a short title,
of no more than 45 characters and spaces, to be used as a ‘running
head’ (and which should be so identified). The first name, middle
initial and last name of each author should appear. If the work is to be
attributed to a department or institution, its full name should be included.
Any disclaimers should appear on the Title Page, as should the name and
address of the author responsible for correspondence concerning the manuscript
and the name and address of the author to whom requests for reprints should
be made. Finally, the Title Page should include the sources of any support
for the work in the form of grants, equipment, drugs, or any combination
of these. Disclose 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).
Abstracts
The second page should carry a structured abstract of no more than 250 words.
The abstract should state the Objective(s) of the study or investigation,
basic Methods (selection of study subjects or laboratory animals; observational
and analytical methods), main Results (giving specific data and their statistical
significance, if possible), and the principal Conclusions. It should emphasise
new and important aspects of the study or observations.
Key Words
The abstract should be followed by a list of 3 - 10 keywords or short phrases
which will assist the cross-indexing of the article and which may be published.
When possible, the terms used should be from the Medical Subject Headings
list of the Index Medicus (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/meshhome.html).
Text
Full papers of an experimental or observational nature may be divided into
sections headed Introduction, Methods (including ethical and statistical
information), Results and Discussion (including a conclusion), although
reviews may require a different format.
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgements should be made only to those who have made a substantial
contribution to the study. Authors are responsible for obtaining written
permission from people acknowledged by name in case readers infer their
endorsement of data and conclusions.
References
References should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they first
appear in the text. They should be assigned Arabic numerals, which should
be given in brackets, e.g. [17]. References should include the names of
all authors when six or fewer; when seven or more, list only the first six
names and add et al. References should also include full title and source
information. Journal names should be abbreviated as in the Index Medicus
(http://www.nlm.nih.gov/tsd/serials/terms_cond.html).
Articles in journals
Standard journal article:
Ageno W, Garcia D, Libby E, Crowther MA. Managing oral anticoagulant therapy
in patients with mechanical heart valves undergoing elective surgery: results
of a survey conducted among Italian physicians. Blood Coagul Fibrinolysis
2004; 15:623-628.
More than seven authors:
Kurose I, Miura S, Fukumura D, Suzuki M, Nagata H, Sekizuka E, et al. Attenuation
effect of antithrombin III on the fibrinolytic activation and microvascular
derangement in rat gastric mucosa. Thromb Haemost 1994; 71:119–123.
Books
Book:
Giddings JC. Molecular Genetics and Immuno-analysis in Blood Coagulation.
Chichester: Ellis Horwood, 1988.
Chapter in a book:
Chong BH, Magnani HN. Danaparoid for the treatment of heparin-induced thrombocytopenia.
In: Warketin TE, Greinacher A (editors). Heparin-Induced Thrombocytopenia,
2nd edn. New York: Marcel Dekker; 2001, pp. 323-348.
Personal communications and unpublished work should not feature in the reference
list but should appear in parentheses in the text. Unpublished work accepted
for publication but not yet released should be included in the reference
list with the words ‘in press’ in parentheses beside the name
of the journal concerned. References must be verified by the author(s) against
the original documents.
Tables
Each table should be typed on a separate sheet in double spacing. Tables
should not be submitted as photographs. Each table should be assigned an
Arabic numeral, e.g. (Table 3) and a brief title. Vertical rules should
not be used. Place explanatory matter in footnotes, not in the heading.
Explain in footnotes all non-standard abbreviations that are used in each
table. Identify statistical measures of variations, such as standard deviation
and standard error of the mean.
Be sure that each table is cited in the text. If you use data from another
published or unpublished source, obtain permission and acknowledge the source
fully.
Illustrations
References to figures and tables should be made in order of appearance in
the text and should be in Arabic numerals in parentheses, e.g. (Fig. 2).
Most file formats are accepted, but TIFF and EPS files, with fonts embedded,
are preferred. If scanned, line art should be at a resolution of 800 dpi,
and halftones and colour at 300 dpi. All colour values should be CMYK. If
hard copies are submitted they should have a label pasted to the back bearing
the figure number, the title of the paper, the author’s name and a
mark indicating the top of the figure. Illustrations should be presented
to a width of 82 mm or, when the illustration demands it, to a width of
166 mm. Photomicrographs must have internal scale markers. If photographs
of people are used, their identities must be obscured or the picture must
be accompanied by written consent to use the photograph. If a figure has
been published before, the original source must be acknowledged and written
permission from the copyright holder for both print and electronic formats
should be submitted with the material. Permission is required regardless
of authorship or publisher, except for documents in the public domain. Figures
may be reduced, cropped or deleted at the discretion of the editor. Colour
illustrations are acceptable but authors will be expected to cover the extra
reproduction costs (for current charges, contact the publisher).
Legends for illustrations
Captions should be typed in double spacing, beginning on a separate sheet
of paper. Each one should have an Arabic numeral corresponding to the illustration
to which it refers. Internal scales should be explained and staining methods
for photomicrographs should be identified.
Units of measurement
Measurements of length, height, weight, and volume should be reported in
metric units (metre, kilogram, or litre) or their decimal multiples. Temperatures
should be given in degrees Celsius. Blood pressures should be given in millimetres
of mercury.
All haematologic and clinical chemistry measurements should be reported
in the metric system in terms of the International System of Units (SI).
Editors may request that alternative or non-SI units be added by the authors
before publication.
Abbreviations and symbols
Use only standard abbreviations. Avoid abbreviations in the title and abstract.
The full term for which an abbreviation stands should precede its first
use in the text unless it is a standard unit of measurement.
Offprints
Offprints may be purchased using the appropriate form that will be made
available with proofs. Orders should be sent when the proofs are returned;
orders received after this time cannot be fulfilled.
