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Nursing Research
Online Submission and Review System
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Information for Authors
Editorial Purposes
The editorial purpose of Nursing Research is to disseminate empirical findings from the highest quality basic and clinical research studies focused on (a) understanding health and illness experiences of individuals, families, and communities across the life span; (b) estimating the impact of therapeutic actions on health promotion, disease prevention, comfort during illness, and peace at end of life; and (c) nursing systems and nursing resource management. Research across the spectrum of biological, behavioral, and psychosocial factors is published.
Regular Articles are original reports of completed research.
Brief Reports are limited reports featuring pilot studies with important implications for future research; innovative but untested ideas; or information about new techniques or instrumentation.
Methods Papers are articles that describe application of advancing methodologies in nursing research or that describe advances in methodology motivated by challenges of nursing research.
The Nursing Research Editor’s Page is an on-line forum for communication about questions, findings and methods in nursing science. The Editor’s Page includes letters to the editor, post-publication open review of selected manuscripts (with author permission and reviewers anonymous), and links to information about manuscript submission, review, selection, journal policies and access to selected contents through PubMed or the Lippincott Store. The Editor’s Page is located at: www.nursing-research-editor.com/
Author Guidelines
Queries Preceding Submission. The Editor welcomes manuscripts of relevance and interest to research in nursing. It is advisable to precede submission with an email message of inquiry to the Editor at m_dougherty@unc.edu, including an attached abstract of the manuscript. Queries allow the Editor to indicate interest in, and give developmental advice on, manuscript topics.
Letters to the Editor should be less than 450 words. They should be e-mailed to Sherry Handfinger at handfing@email.unc.edu, and not uploaded to Editorial Manager. Authors of articles referenced in the letter will be given a chance to respond. The letter and the response will be posted at http://www.nursing-research-editor.com/documents/lte.php
General Instructions
Prepare manuscripts according to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.). Do not attempt to prepare manuscripts as they appear in the journal. Please refer to page 18 (Section 1.13) of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.) for co-authorship guidance. It should not be possible for reviewers to identify authors from the manuscript (see Anonymous Review below).
Authors may view the guidelines for reviewers at http://www.nursing-research-editor.com/reviewers/guidelines.php and examples of manuscripts and reviews at http://www.nursing-research-editor.com/authors/open.php
Full-length manuscripts are limited to 14 –16 typewritten pages; Brief Reports and Methodology are limited to 8 pages. These limits do not include the abstract, references, tables, or figures. Double-space manuscripts—including abstract, text, references, and tables—with 1-inch margins on all sides. Use a 12-point font. Do not justify the text.
If your work is a randomized controlled trial (RCT) design, please refer to http://www.consort-statement.org and/or http://www.consort-statement.org/Downloads/checklist.pdf (RCT checklist) for further instructions. Authors are requested to include this information within RCT articles. To facilitate future meta-analyses (see Anderson and Beck [2003], Facilitating meta-analysis in nursing, Nursing Research, 52, 1), detailed supplemental analyses not included in their published article may be posted as supplemental digital content.
Nursing Research is concerned with the protection of the rights and dignity of all subjects involved in research. An explicit statement should be made in the manuscript or cover letter affirming the status for institutional review of human or animal subjects.
Permissions
It is the authors’ responsibility to obtain permission for use of material owned by others such as copyrighted material: tables, charts, forms, and figures. Follow the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.) for guidelines on using previously published material (section 1.10, p. 15). If aspects of the research are reported elsewhere, include a copy of the publication(s) or the URL(s) to the publication(s) in the cover letter.
Organization of the Manuscript
Organize the manuscript in the following order: title page, acknowledgments, abstract, text, references, tables, figure legends, and figures. Generally, addenda or appendices are not used.
Title Page: For each author include position titles, abbreviations for relevant degrees and certifications and, institutions. Disclose funding received for this work from: National Institutes of Health (NIH); Wellcome Trust; Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI); and other(s). Provide an e-mail address for the corresponding author.
Acknowledgments: Limit acknowledgments to key contributors.
Abstract: The abstract should be no more than one double-spaced page, with no citations. Prepare a structured abstract with these headings:
- Background: Summarize the literature review in one sentence, demonstrating the need for this study.
- Objectives: Clearly state the main question or hypothesis of this study in one sentence.
- Method: Describe the study design, participants, and measurements used in 3–4 sentences.
- Results: Describe the main results in a concise paragraph. This section should be the most descriptive. Note levels of statistical significance and confidence intervals where appropriate.
- Discussion: Base the discussion only on the reported results. Describe any further study needed.
- Key Words: The indexers use MeSH guidelines to index articles. Provide 2–3 key words; be very specific in your word choice. Use MeSH key words http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/meshhome.html when possible.
References: Verify all information included in references carefully via PubMed or CINAHL; it is essential that readers be able to look up the cited material. Please include no more than 40 references.
Tables/Figures: Use tables and figures when they express more than can be done by words in the same amount of space. Do not indicate placement of tables or figures in the text—the copy editor will automatically place your tables and figures.
Artwork should be created/scanned, saved, and submitted as a TIFF (tagged image file format), an EPS (encapsulated postscript) file, or a PPT (PowerPoint) file. Do not use screens, color, shading, or fine lines. Line art must have a resolution of at least 1200 dpi (dots per inch), 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. Please note that artwork generated from programs such as CorelDRAW, MS Word, and Excel, and artwork downloaded from the Internet (JPEG or GIF files) cannot be used because the quality is poor when printed.
General Information
Compliance with Research Funding Agency Accessibility Requirements
A number of research funding agencies require authors to submit the article after peer review and acceptance but not the final published article to a repository that is accessible online by all. As a service to our authors, LWW will identify to the National Library of Medicine (NLM) articles that require deposit and will transmit articles 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.
Preparation and Editing
It is understood that submitted manuscripts are prepared specifically and solely for Nursing Research. Accepted manuscripts become the property of the publisher and may be reproduced in other publications in whole or in part only with the permission of the publisher. The publisher has exclusive rights to the article and to its reproduction and sale in all countries. Nursing Research reserves the right to edit all manuscripts for style and space requirements, and to clarify the presentation. Before publication, proofs of edited copy are submitted electronically to the corresponding author who is responsible for checking the accuracy of the material. At this time, authors may order reprints via the electronic reprint order form.
Supplemental Digital Content
Authors may submit supplemental digital content (SDC) to enhance their article’s text, which will be considered for online-only posting. SDC may include the following types of content: text documents, graphs, tables, figures, graphics, illustrations, audio, and video. Label SDC clearly and refer to it consecutively in the text (for example SDC 1, SDC 2, etc.). Provide a separate consecutively numbered legend with a title and brief description of the type of material submitted. The SDC numbers in the text and legends must match. For audio and video files, include the author name, videographer, participants, length (minutes), and size (MB). Authors must remove individual identifiers from patient information. Copyright forms for article content including SDC must be completed at the time of submission.
SDC requires specific size and file type requirements. To ensure a quality experience for those viewing supplemental digital content, it is suggested that authors submit supplemental digital files no larger than 10 MB each. Documents, graphs, and tables may be presented in any format. Figures, graphics, and illustrations should be submitted with the following file extensions: .tif, .eps, .ppt, .jpg, .pdf, .gif. Audio files should be submitted with the following file extensions: .mp3, .wma. Video files should be submitted with the following file extensions: .wmv, .mov, .qt, .mpg, .mpeg, .mp4. Video files should also be formatted with a 320 X 240 pixel minimum screen size. For more information, please review LWW’s requirements for SDC: http://links.lww.com/A142
Initial Online Manuscript Submission.
Manuscripts must be submitted electronically through our Web-based Editorial Manager system. Go to http://nres.edmgr.com. Once registered as an author, logon, and select “Submit A New Manuscript.” You will then:
- Enter the title of your manuscript.
- Select an “article type” from the drop down menu.
- Add information about the author(s) of the paper.
- From your manuscript file, copy and paste the abstract only into the dialogue box.
- Enter a few key words that describe your manuscript’s content. Select your document’s classifications from a list of possible content descriptors. Make sure you first select the main heading you want, and then select various sub-topics within that main heading.
- Answer questions about project funding.
- Enter your comments to the editor in a dialogue box. Address any prior correspondence you may have had with the editor, and provide URLs or citations of other publications or manuscripts that are derived from the same dataset or examine the same topic.
- Answer question about your region of origin.
- Attach your various individual files containing elements of your entire manuscript. No file should contain information found in any other file: (a) title /author bio page, (b) a Word file containing text of manuscript, starting with the abstract and ending with the references, and (c) as many individual files as necessary, each containing 1 table or figure.
When all files are attached, the system will prompt you to complete a process that will submit your manuscript to the editorial office. You will receive an e-mail to let you know the journal office received your manuscript. After the review process, you will receive an e-mail letting you know the final disposition of the manuscript. You may check the status of your manuscript at any time by logging in at http://nres.edmgr.com. Select “Submissions Being Processed.”
Revised Submission
If your manuscript is accepted for publication, the revision is submitted online at http://nres.edmgr.com. DO NOT SUBMIT YOUR REVISION AS A “NEW SUBMISSION” UNDER THE HEADING “NEW SUBMISSIONS.” Login using the same user name and password.
On the “Author Main Menu,” under the heading “REVISIONS,” select the “Submissions Needing Revision” link which will be the only active link.
