Writing Rules
Eurasian Journal of Critical Care (Eurasian J Crit Care), as a double-blind peer reviewed journal published by the Emergency Medicine Physicians’ Association of Turkey, to publish original articles, editorial comments, review articles, case reports, letters to editor, scientific letters, clinical imaging and education articles, that can contribute to readers and critical care community.
Editorial and publication processes of the journal are shaped in accordance with the guidelines of the international organizations such as the the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), the International Council of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), the Council of Science Editors (CSE), the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), and the European Association of Science Editors (EASE). The journal follows the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (doaj.org/bestpractice).
Originality, innovation, high scientific quality, significant contribution to the existing literature and citation potential are the most important criteria for a manuscript to be accepted for publication. Manuscripts submitted for evaluation should not be previously presented or published in an electronic or a printed medium.
Manuscripts submitted to Eurasian Journal of Critical Care will go through a double blind peer review process. Each submission will be reviewed by at least two external, independent peer reviewers who are experts in the field in order to ensure an unbiased evaluation process. The editorial board will invite an external and independent editor to manage the evaluation processes of manuscripts submitted by editors or the editorial board members of the journal. The Editor in Chief is the final authority in the decision making process of all submissions.
An approval of research protocols by Ethics Committee in accordance with international agreements (World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki “Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects”, amended in October 2013, www.wma.net) is required for experimental, clinical and drug studies and some case reports. If required, ethics committee reports or an equivalent official document may be requested from the authors. For manuscripts concerning experimental research on humans, a statement should be included that shows informed consent of patients and volunteers was obtained following a detailed explanation of the procedures that they may undergo. For studies carried out on animals, the measures taken to prevent pain and suffering of the animals should be stated clearly and the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals should be followed. Information on patient consent, name of the ethics committee and the ethics committee approval number should also be stated in the materials and methods section of the manuscript. It is the author(s) responsibility to carefully protect patients’ anonymity. For photographs that may reveal the identity of the patients, releases signed by the patient or their legal representative should be enclosed.
All submissions are screened by a similarity detection software (iThenticate by CrossCheck).
In the event of an alleged or suspected research misconduct, including plagiarism, citation manipulation, and data falsification/fabrication, among others, the Editorial Board will follow and act in accordance with COPE guidelines.
Each individual listed as an author should fulfill the authorship criteria recommended by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE - www.icmje.org). The ICMJE recommends that authorship be based on the following 4 criteria:
1. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
2. Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
3. Final approval of the version to be published; AND
4. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
In addition to being accountable for the parts of the work he or she has done, an author should be able to identify which co-authors are responsible for specific other parts of the work. In addition, authors should have confidence in the integrity of the contributions of their co-authors.
All those designated as authors should meet all four criteria for authorship, and all who meet the four criteria should be identified as authors. Those who do not meet all four criteria should be acknowledged in the Title Page document during the submission.
Eurasian Journal of Critical Care requires and encourages the authors and the individuals involved in the evaluation process of submitted manuscripts to disclose any existing or potential conflicts of interests including financial, consultant, institutional and other relationships that might lead to bias.
Any financial grants or other support received for a submitted study from individuals or institutions should be disclosed to the Editorial Board and conflicts of interest statement should be included in the Title Page. In the case of ‘no conflicts of interest’, that statement should be in form of: “All authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest regarding this manuscript.”
Editorial Board of the journal handles appeal and complaint cases within the scope of COPE guidelines. Authors should get in direct contact with the editorial office regarding their appeals and complaints. When needed, an ombudsperson can be assigned to resolve cases that cannot be resolved internally. The Editor in Chief is the final authority in the decision making process of appeals and complaints.
When submitting a manuscript to the Eurasian Journal of Critical care, authors accept to assign the copyright transfer of their manuscript to Emergency Medicine Physicians’ Association of Turkey. If rejected for publication, the copyright of the manuscript will be assigned back to the authors. Eurasian Journal of Critical Care requires each submission to be accompanied by a Copyright Transfer Form (available for download at www.ejcritical.com). When using previously published content, including figures, tables, or any other material in both print and electronic formats, authors must obtain permission from the copyright holder.
Statements or opinions expressed in the manuscripts published in the journal reflect the views of the author(s) and not the opinions of the Eurasian Journal of Critical Care, the editors, the reviewers, the editorial board, the advisory board and/or the Publisher (EPAT). The editors, the reviewers, the editorial board, the advisory board and/or the publisher (EPAT) disclaim any responsibility or liability for such materials. The final responsibility in regard to the published content rests with the authors.
MANUSCRIPT PREPARATION
The manuscripts should be prepared in accordance with ICMJE-Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals (updated in December 2017 - http://www.icmje.org/icmje-recommendations.pdf). Authors are required to prepare manuscripts in accordance with CONSORT guidelines for randomized research studies, STROBE guidelines for observational original research studies, STARD guidelines for studies on diagnostic accuracy, PRISMA guidelines for systematic reviews and meta-analysis, ARRIVE guidelines for experimental animal studies and TREND guidelines for non-randomized public behavior.
Manuscripts can be submitted through the journal’s online manuscript submission and evaluation system or e-mail to info@ejcritical.com.
Manuscripts submitted to the journal will first go through a technical evaluation process where the editorial office staff will ensure that the manuscript is prepared and submitted in accordance with the journal’s guidelines. Submissions that don’t conform the journal’s guidelines will be returned to the submitting author with technical correction requests.
Authors are required to submit the;
● Copyright Transfer Form which states transfer of the copyright about the submitted manuscript to Eurasian Journal of Critical Care
●Cover Letter: to the editor in which you detail matters you wish the editors to consider.
●Title Page: A separate title page should be submitted with all submissions, and this page should include;
● The full title of the manuscript as well as a short title (running title) of no more than 50 characters,
● Name(s), affiliations and major degree(s) of the author(s)
● Grant information and detailed information on the other sources of support,
● The name, affiliation, address, work telephone, fax number, mobile phone number and e-mail address of the corresponding author,
● Acknowledgement of the individuals who contributed to the preparation of the manuscript, but do not fulfil the authorship criteria.
● Conflict of interest statement
Abstract: An abstract limited to 250 words should be submitted with all submissions except for letters to editor. The abstract of Original Articles should be structured with subheadings (Objective, Materials and Methods, Results and Conclusion).
Keywords: The submission must be accompanied by a minimum of three and a maximum of six keywords for subject indexing at the end of the abstract. The keywords should be listed in full without abbreviations.
Manuscript Types
Original Articles: This is the most important type of article since it provides new information based on original research. The main text of original articles should be structured with Introduction, Materials and Methods (with subheadings), Results, Discussion, Study Limitations, and Conclusion sections. Please check Table 1 for limitations for Original Articles.
Statistical analysis to support conclusions is usually necessary. Statistical analyses must be conducted in accordance with the international statistical reporting standards (Altman DG, Gore SM, Gardner MJ, Pocock SJ. Statistical guidelines for contributors to medical journals. Br Med J 1983: 7; 1489-93). Information on statistical analyses should be provided with a separate subheading under the Materials and Methods section and statistical software that was used during the process must certainly be specified. Data must be expressed as mean±standard deviation when parametric tests are used to compare continuous variables. Data must be expressed as median (minimum-maximum) and percentiles (25th and 75th percentiles) when non-parametric tests are used. In advanced and complicated statistical analyses, relative risk (RR), odds ratio (OR) and hazard ratio (HR) must be supported by confidence intervals (CI) and p values. The handling editor of the manuscript can request data set of the statistical analysis, if he or she finds it necessary.
Editorial Comments: Editorial comments aim to provide a brief critical commentary by the reviewers having expertise or with high reputation on the topic of the research article published in the journal. Authors are selected and invited by the journal. Abstract, Keywords, Tables, Figures, Images and other media are not included.
Review Articles: Reviews which are prepared by authors who have extensive knowledge on a particular field and whose scientific background has been translated into high volume of publication and higher citation potential are taken under review. The authors may be invited by the journal. Reviews should be describing, discussing and evaluating the current level of knowledge or topic used in the clinical practice and should guide future studies to make contribution to the existing literature on the field of critical care. Please check Table 1 for limitations for Review Articles.
Case Reports: There is limited space for case reports in the journal and reports on rare cases or conditions that constitute challenges in the diagnosis and treatment, those offering new therapies or revealing knowledge not included in the books, and interesting and educative case reports are accepted for publication. The text should include Introduction, Case, Discussion, Conclusion subheadings. Please check Table 1 for limitations for Case Reports.
Letters to Editor: This type of manuscripts can discuss important parts, overlooked aspects or lacking parts of a previously published article. Articles on the subjects within the scope of the journal that might attract the readers’ attention, particularly educative cases can also be submitted in the form of “Letter to the Editor”. Readers can also present their comments on the published manuscripts in the form of “Letter to the Editor”. Abstract, Keywords, Tables, Figures, Images and other media are not included. The text should be unstructured. The manuscript that is being commented on must be properly cited within the manuscript.
Scientific Letter: Manuscripts with prior notification characteristics, announcing new, clinically important scientific developments or information are accepted as Scientific Letters. Scientific Letters should not include sub-headings and should not exceed 900 words. Please check Table 1 for limitations for Scientific Letters.
Clinical Imaging / Visual Diagnosis: Images must be typical for diagnosis, and should facilitate rapid diagnosis for critical care and / or should be educational. Please check Table 1 for limitations for Clinical Imaging / Visual Diagnosis. A maximum of three authors should be included.
History: This type of manuscript explains events related to critical care and general medicine and presents information on the history of diagnosis and treatment of diseases. Historical findings should be a result of relevant research studies. Manuscript should not include subheadings. Please check Table 1 for limitations for History.
Publication ethics: This type of manuscript includes current information on research and publication ethics and presents cases of ethics infringement. Please check Table 1 for limitations for Publication Ethics.
Table 1: Limitations for each manuscript type.
Tables
Tables should be included in the main document, presented after the reference list and they should be numbered consecutively in the order they are referred to within the main text. A descriptive title must be placed above the tables. Abbreviations used in the tables should be defined below the tables by footnotes (even if they are defined within the main text). Tables should be created using the “insert table” command of the word software and they should be arranged clearly to provide an easy reading. Data presented in the tables should not be a repetition of the data presented within the main text but should be supporting the main text.
Figures and Figure Legends
Figures, graphics and photographs should be submitted as separate files (in TIFF or JPEG format) through the submission system. The files should not be embedded in a word document or the main document. When there are figure subunits, the subunits should not be merged to form a single image. Each subunit should be submitted separately through the submission system. Images should not be labelled (a, b, c, etc.) to indicate figure subunits. Thick and thin arrows, arrowheads, stars, asterisks and similar marks can be used on the images to support figure legends. Like the rest of the submission, the figures too should be blind. Any information within the images that may indicate an individual or institution should be blinded. The minimum resolution of each submitted figure should be 300 DPI. To prevent delays in the evaluation process all submitted figures should be clear in resolution and large in size (minimum dimensions 100 x 100 mm). Figure legends should be listed at the end of the main document.
All acronyms and abbreviations used in the manuscript should be defined at first use in the main text. The abbreviation should be provided in parenthesis following the definition. Acronyms and abbreviations should not be used in the abstract.
When a drug, product, hardware, or software mentioned within the main text product information, including the name of the product, producer of the product, city of the company and the country of the company should be provided in parenthesis in the following format: “Discovery St PET/CT scanner (General Electric, Milwaukee, WI, USA)”
All references, tables and figures should be referred to within the main text and they should be numbered consecutively in the order they are referred to within the main text.
Limitations, drawbacks and shortcomings of original articles should be mentioned in the “Discussion” section before the conclusion paragraph.
References
We ask you to use the "AMA" reference system. While citing publications, preference should be given to the latest, most up to date publications. If an ahead of print publication is being cited the DOI number should be provided. Authors are responsible for the accuracy of references. Journal titles should be abbreviated in accordance with the journal abbreviations in Index Medicus/ Medline/PubMed (for journal abbreviations consult the List of Journals indexed for MEDLINE, published annually by NLM). When there are 6 or fewer authors, all authors should be listed. If there are 7 or more authors the first 6 authors should be listed followed by “et al”. In the main text of the manuscript, references should be cited using superscript Arabic numbers. The reference styles for different types of publications are presented in the following examples:
Journal article:
Halpern SD, Ubel PA, Caplan AL. Solid-organ transplantation in HIV-infected patients. N Engl J Med. 2002 Jul 25;347(4):284-7.
Rose ME, Huerbin MB, Melick J, Marion DW, Palmer AM, Schiding JK, et al. Regulation of interstitial excitatory amino acid concentrations after cortical contusion injury. Brain Res. 2002;935(1-2):40-6.
Book Section:
Meltzer PS, Kallioniemi A, Trent JM. Chromosome alterations in human solid tumors. In: Vogelstein B, Kinzler KW, editors. The genetic basis of human cancer. New York: McGraw-Hill; 2002. p. 93-113.
Books with Single Author:
Murray PR, Rosenthal KS, Kobayashi GS, Pfaller MA. Medical microbiology. 4th ed. St. Louis: Mosby; 2002.
Editor(s) as author:
Gilstrap LC 3rd, Cunningham FG, VanDorsten JP, editors. Operative obstetrics. 2nd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill; 2002.
Conference Proceedings:
Harnden P, Joffe JK, Jones WG, editors. Germ cell tumours V. Proceedings of the 5th Germ Cell Tumour Conference; 2001 Sep 13-15; Leeds, UK. New York: Springer; 2002.
Scientific or Technical Report:
Issued by funding/sponsoring agency:
Yen GG (Oklahoma State University, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Stillwater, OK). Health monitoring on vibration signatures. Final report. Arlington (VA): Air Force Office of Scientific Research (US), Air Force ResearchLaboratory; 2002 Feb. Report No.: AFRLSRBLTR020123. Contract No.: F496209810049.
Issued by performing agency:
Russell ML, Goth-Goldstein R, Apte MG, Fisk WJ. Method for measuring the size distribution of airborne Rhinovirus. Berkeley (CA): Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Environmental Energy Technologies Division; 2002 Jan. Report No.: LBNL49574. Contract No.: DEAC0376SF00098. Sponsored by the Department of Energy.
Thesis:
Kaplan SI. Post-hospital home health care: the elderly access and utilization (dissertation). St. Louis (MO): Washington Univ. 1995.
Epub ahead of print Articles:
Yu WM, Hawley TS, Hawley RG, Qu CK. Immortalization of yolk sac-derived precursor cells. Blood. 2002 Nov 15;100(10):3828-31. Epub 2002 Jul 5. [Epub ahead of print]
Manuscripts published in electronic format:
Rupprecht C. Ready for more-than-human? Urban residents’ willingness to coexist with animals and plants. Version: 1. SocArXiv [Preprint]. [posted 2016 Jul 13; revised 2016 Dec 07; cited 2017 Feb 15]: [22 p.]. Available from: https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/hbcmz/.
REVISIONS
When submitting a revised version of a paper, the author must submit a detailed “Response to reviewers” that states point by point how each issue raised by the reviewers has been covered and where it can be found (each reviewer's comment followed by the author’s reply and line numbers where the changes have been made) as well as an annotated copy of the main document. Revised manuscripts must be submitted within 15 days from the date of the decision letter. If the revised version of the manuscript is not submitted within the allocated time, the revision option may be cancelled. If the submitting author(s) believe that additional time is required, they should request this extension before the initial 15 day period is over.
PROOFS AND DOI NUMBER
Manuscripts accepted for publication are provided with a DOI number immediately after acceptance. Accepted manuscripts are copy-edited for grammar, punctuation, and format. Once the publication process of a manuscript is completed it is published online on the journal’s webpage as an ahead of print publication before it is included in its scheduled issue. A PDF proof of the accepted manuscript is sent to the corresponding author and their publication approval is requested within 4 days of their receipt of the proof.
SUBMISSION CHECKLIST
You can use this list to make a final check of your submission before you send it to the journal for review.
Ensure that the following items are present:
✓ One author has been designated as the corresponding author with contact details including name, affiliation, address, work telephone, fax number, mobile phone number and e-mail address.
✓ All necessary files have been uploaded:
● Cover Letter
● Title Page
● Manuscript
● Figures
● Supplemental files (where applicable)
● Copyright Transfer Form
✓ Ensure all figure and table citations in the text match the files provided
✓ Manuscript has been 'spell checked' and 'grammar checked
✓ All references mentioned in the Reference List are cited in the text, and vice versa
✓ Permission has been obtained for use of copyrighted material from other sources (including the Internet)
✓ A conflict of interests statement is provided in the Title Page even if the authors have no competing interests to declare
✓ Journal aim and scope have been reviewed
For further information, visit www.atuder.org.tr.
Indexing and Abstracting