INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS

The Annals of Punjab Medical College (APMC) agree to accept manuscripts prepared in accordance with the “Uniform Requirements submitted to the Biomedical Journals” published in the British Medical Journal 1991; 302:334-41.

                                                                                                                                                                                   

 The Editorial Board of the Annals of Punjab Medical College (APMC) welcomes all research studies of scientific importance for publication. The Editorial Board entertains articles on 1^st come 1^st served basis. It does not guarantee publication of any accepted article in a particular issue.

Work which has already been reported in a published paper sent or accepted elsewhere for publication should not be submitted. However, a complete report following publication of preliminary report, usually in the form of an abstract, or a paper that has been presented at a scientific meeting, if not published in full in a proceedings or similar publication, may be submitted.

Authorship Criteria

The authorship criteria is based on the following four criteria layed down by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors Recommendations (ICMJE Recommendations 2018)

• Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
• Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
• Final approval of the version to be published; AND
• 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.

 

 ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS

The author should get ethical clearance prior to the start of any study from the Ethical Review Committee (ERC) / Institutional Research Committee (IRC) / Provincial / National Ethics Review Committee / Board of the institution where the research is supposed to be conducted. The authors will be entirely responsible for accuracy of all statements, data contained in the manuscripts and references. Authorship should be based on intellectual contribution. No request would be entertained to include name or change order after submission of the article. The research articles should be uploaded along with Approval Certificate from the ERC / IRC committee.

If tables, illustrations or photographs which have been already published are included, a letter of permission for their re-publication should be obtained from author(s) as well as the editor of the journal where it was previously printed.

Permission to reproduce photographs of patients whose identity is not disguised should be sent with the manuscript; otherwise the eyes will be blackened out.

 SUBMISSION OF THE MANUSCRIPTS

All material submitted for publication should be submitted electronically exclusively to APMC Faisalabad through online submission system. (http://apmcfmu.com/)

It should be accompanied by a Covering Letter and Letter of Undertaking stating that the said article is not submitted to any other Journal for publication and is approved from Ethical Review Committee of the institution. Undertaking / Contribution form should be duly filled and signed by all contributing authors. Submitted manuscripts will not be published elsewhere without approved withdrawal of article by the author from the editor. The undertaking form could be downloaded from APMC Website.

Articles submitted by the members of the Editoiral Board of Annals of Punjab Medical College (APMC) will not be published and publication of self-institutional articles will be 20% of the total published articles as per HEC policies / SOPs.

 PLAGIARISM

The Editorial Board of APMC is committed to observe 0 tolerance for any unethical practice and plagiarism. The APMC follows the guidelines of ICMJE, Pakistan Medical & Dental Council (PM&DC), Higher Education Commission (HEC) of Pakistan for all types of plagiarism.

All the manuscripts submitted for publication will be screened for similarity index through software. It will be immediately rejected if similarity index will exceed the threshold levels. In case of any violation of plagiarism policy a notice will be served to the authors demanding explanation on the matter in the stipulated time. The published articles will be permanently retracted in case unsatisfactory response and retraction will also published in the Journal.

 MATERIAL FOR PUBLICATION

The material submitted for publication may be in the form of an Original research, a Review Article, a Case Report, Recent Advances, New techniques, Debates, Book Review/ CDs on Clinical/ Medical Education, Adverse Drug Reports or a letter to the Editor. Original articles should normally report original research of relevance to clinical medicine and may appear either as paper or as short communication. The paper should be of about 2000 words. With no more than six tables or illustrations; short communications should be of about 600 words with one table or illustration and no more that five references. Clinical case reports and brief or negative research findings may appear in this section. Review article should consist of structured overview of some relatively narrow topic providing background and recent development with reference to original literature.

Letter should normally not exceed 400 words and have no more than 10 references, and be signed by all the authors; preference is give to those that take up points made in contribution published in the journal. Obituaries should be of about 250 words. Editorials are written by invitations.

The author should submit manuscript typed in MS Word 2016 or above online.

Each manuscript should include a title page (containing e-mail address, fax and phone numbers of the corresponding author) abstract, text, acknowledgement, references, tables and legends. Each component should begin on a new page in the following sequences title page; abstract and key word, text acknowledgements, references, tables (each table, complete with title and footnotes on a separate page); and legends for illustrations.

The manuscript should be typed in double spacing on 8 ½ ˝ x 11˝ (21.5cmx28.0cm) white bond paper with one-inch (2.5 cms) margin on both sides, it should not exceed 20 pages, excluding tables and references. There should be not more than 40 references in an Original Article and no more than 100 in a Review Article. If prepared on a word processor computer, the diskette properly protected, should be sent with the manuscript.

 TABLES AND ILLUSTRATION

Tables and illustrations should be submitted separately from the text of the paper, and legends to illustrations should be typed on a separate sheet. Tables should be simple and should supplement rather than duplicate the information in the test; tables repeating information will be omitted. Each table should without horizontal and vertical lines on a 8 ½ x 11˝ (21.5 x 28.0 cms) paper. Tables should be numbered consecutively with Roman numerals in the order they are mentioned in the text. Page number should be in the upper right corner. If abbreviations are used, they should be explained in footnotes. When graphs, scatter grams, or histograms are submitted, the numerical data on which they are based should be supplied.

 S.I. UNITS

System International (S.I) Unit measurement should be used. All drugs must be mentioned in their generic form. The commercial name may, however, be mentioned within brackets.

 FIGURES AND PHOTOGRAPHS

Should be sent only when data cannot be expressed in any other form. They must be unmounted, glossy prints in sharp focus, 5˝ X 7˝ (12.7X17.3cms) in size. They may be in black and white or in colour. Negatives, transparencies, and X-ray films should not be submitted. The number of the figure, the name of the author(s) should be printed on the back of each figure/ photograph. The top of the figure must be identified by the author. These figures and photographs must be cited in the text in consecutive order. Legends must be typed on a separate sheet of paper. Legends for photomicrographs should indicate the magnification, internal scale and the method of staining. Photographs in published articles will not be returned.

 REFERENCES

Should be numbered in the order in which they are cited in the text. At the end of the article, the full list of 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 author’s names are followed by the title of the article; the title of the journal abbreviated according to the style of the index Medicus (see “List of Journals Indexed,” printed yearly in the January issue of Index Medicus); e.g.: Hall, RR. The healing of tissues by CO2 laser. Br J. Surg: 1971;58222-225. Reference to books should give the names of editors, place of publication, publisher, and year. They author must verify the references against the original documents before submitting the article.

 PEER REVIEW

Every paper will be reviewed by at least two peer reviewers on double blind basis. If statistical analysis is included, further examination by a statistician will be carried out.

 ABSTRACT

Abstracts of original article should be prepared with a structured format. Four elements should be addressed: why did you start, what did you do, what did you find, and what does it mean. Why did you start is the objective? What did you do constitutes the methodology and could include design, setting, patients or other participants, interventions, and outcome measures? What did you find is the results, and what does it mean would constitute your conclusions? Please label each section clearly with the appropriate subheading.

Review article, Case report and other require a short, unstructured abstract. Commentaries do not require abstract. 

 INTRODUCTION

This should include the purpose of the article. The rationale for the study or observation should be summarized; only strictly pertinent references should be cited; the subject should not be extensively reviewed. Data or conclusions from the work being reported should not be presented.

 METHODS

The selection of the observational or experimental subjects (patients or experimental animal, including controls) should be described clearly. The methods and the apparatus used should be identified (with the manufacturer’s name and address in parentheses) and procedures described in sufficient detail to allow other workers to reproduce the results. References to established methods should be give, including statistical methods; references and brief descriptions for methods that have been published but are not well known should be provided; new or substantially modified methods should be described, giving reasons for using them, and evaluating their limitations. All drugs and chemicals used should be identified precisely, including generic name(s), does(s), and route(s) of administration.

 RESULTS

These should be presented in a logical sequence in the text, tables, and illustrations. All the data in the tables or illustrations should not be repeated in the text; only important observations should be emphasized or summarized.

 

DISCUSSION

The author’s comment on the results, supported with contemporary references including arguments and analysis of identical work done by other workers. A summary is not requiring. Brief acknowledgement may be made at the end.

 CONCLUSION

Conclusion should be provided under separate heading and highlight new aspects arising from the study. It should be in accordance with the objectives.

 

LETTER TO EDITOR

Editor of APMC, welcomes comments / suggestions on published material in APMC. These comments/ suggestions will be published in next volume of APMC in the column of “Letters to Editor”.

 LETTER OF UNDERTAKING

All manuscripts for APMC must be accompanied by a letter of undertaking as given below and signed by all the authors of manuscript.

It must confirm and certify that the original / review article / case report has not been published in any other journal and it will not be published in any other medical periodical in Pakistan or overseas. It is free of any unethical practice or professional misconduct and is not plagiarized from any other source.

It must include author’s name, designation, E-mail address & cell number and each author’s contribution with signatures and send on following address:-

Prof. Dr. Aamir Husain, Chief Editor, APMC, Professional Development Centre, Faisalabad Medical University / Allied Hospital, Faisalabad-Pakistan. Phone & Fax #: 041-8816170, 041-9210095 Ext: 2319, E-mail: editor@apmc.com.pk annals.pmc@gmail.com, URL: www.apmcfmu.com, www.apmc.com.pk.