PREPARATION AND SUBMISSION OF MANUSCRIPTS
Title page
The manuscript
The cover letter
Visual abstract
Ethical considerations
TYPES OF ARTICLE
Original research article
Review article
Editorial
Guidelines and consensus article
Correspondence
Statement of the SEMI
SUMMARY TABLE
The Spanish Journal of Medicine (Span J Med) is an official journal of the Spanish Society of Internal Medicine (SEMI). This is a recently launched publication (2020) dedicated mainly to the interest of internal medicine specialists.
The Span J Med is an open-access, online, English edition, owned by SEMI. It publishes quarterly (4 issues per year) in collaboration with Permanyer. The topics covered include diagnostic techniques, drug therapy, laboratory findings, and clinical trials; published as original articles, reviews and updates or editorials.
The Spanish Journal of Medicine follows a double-blind peer-review process for all submitted manuscripts. All papers are peer-reviewed by experts in different areas, approved by the editorial committee, and in line with our editorial policy.
All the processes are conducted strictly under international ethical guidelines on the publication of biomedical research and information, as the steps are taken to ensure the integrity and accuracy of the research published. The journal will investigate any ethical infraction taking all reasonable measures for its prompt resolution, acting with proportionality and if necessary, involving the institutions of origin of those concerned.
The views and opinions expressed in this journal are exclusively those of the authors and not of the SEMI nor of Permanyer. The latter accepts no responsibility for any losses, claims, procedures, costs, expenses, damage, or other of any type or any form arising directly or indirectly from the content of the publication.
In order to submit your manuscript, visit: http://publisher.sjmed.permanyer.com/. Please take the time to read and follow the Instructions for authors, to guarantee that we have everything necessary for your manuscript to progress through the peer-review, production, and publication process. No articles will be accepted for review if they are not prepared in accordance with the instructions for authors.
Thank you for considering submitting your manuscript to Span J Med.
1. PREPARATION AND SUBMISSION OF MANUSCRIPTS
Manuscripts must be uploaded in electronic form through the editorial system at: http://publisher.SpanishJMed.permanyer.com where the corresponding author should first register as an author in the platform. Once this author has obtained a username and password, the documents should be uploaded following the instructions.
All articles must include:
1.1 The title page
The title page must include the title, first name(s) and second name(s) of the author(s), authors’ affiliations (department, institution, city, and country), postal and e-mail addresses of the corresponding author, conflicts of interests, and funding source(s), as follows:
Title. Concise and informative (no more than 120 characters with spaces). Titles are often used in information retrieval systems (indexes). Avoid abbreviations and formulae where possible.
Author names and affiliations. Please clearly indicate the given name(s) and family name(s) of each author and check that all names are accurately spelled.
Provide the authors’ affiliations (where the work was done) below the names. Indicate all affiliations with a lower-case superscript letter immediately after each author’s name and before the corresponding address. The same letter must precede the institutional information (department, institution, city, and country).
Corresponding author. Clearly indicate who will handle correspondence at all stages of review, publication, and after publication. Ensure that both postal and e-mail addresses are given and that contact details are kept up to date by the corresponding author.
Funding sources. List funding sources in the following standard format required by funding bodies. It is not necessary to include detailed descriptions of the program or type of grants and awards. When funding is from a regional or national grant, or resources available to a university, college, or other research institution, submit the name of the institute or organization that provided the funding.
Acknowledgments. To ensure anonymity during the manuscript review process, place the acknowledgments section (if exists) on the title page of the manuscript. Do not acknowledge support elsewhere in the?manuscript. List those individuals who provided help during the research (e.g., language help or translation). After article acceptance, this information will be placed before the Conflicts of interest section.
1.2 The manuscript
Manuscript texts must be submitted in Microsoft Word format. Manuscripts must be correctly written in English. Manuscripts written in deficient English would be directly rejected. To avoid unnecessary errors, authors are strongly advised to use the “spell-check” and “grammar-check” functions of their word processor or reviewed by an English native speaker proof-reader.
The text must be typed double-spaced in Times New Roman 12 font and with each section starting on a numbered new page: front page, abstracts with their keywords, main manuscript, references, tables, and figures footnotes.
To guarantee a double-blind review, any information that could identify the authors must be omitted from the manuscript file.
The details and structure of the manuscript depend on the article’s type. At the end of these instructions, we describe the characteristics of each manuscript’s type.
Figures. Figures should preferably be sent in TIFF or JPG format, with a resolution higher than 300 dpi (free services are available on the Internet to adjust this parameter) and using black for lines and text. Number figures using Arabic numerals in the order of their first appearance in the text. Figures, symbols, and letters, etc., must be large enough to be clearly identified when the figure is reduced. Details must be highlighted with arrows, using high-contrast marking. Define abbreviations in alphabetical order and the meaning of any symbols used in the figure legend.
Figures must not include any information that would allow a patient or hospital to be identified. Patient photographs must be taken in such a way that ensures anonymity.
Videos. Videos should preferably be submitted in MP4 format, although AVI is also accepted, with a maximum size of 10 MB. Acceptance of videos submitted in other formats will depend on whether they can be converted to the online publication format.
Tables. Tables should be numbered in Arabic numerals in the order of their appearance in the text. Provide each table on a separate page. Place the title at the top of the page and abbreviations in alphabetical order at the bottom. Content must be self-explanatory and do not repeat information in the text or figures.
If the figures or tables mention a published work, the article should be cited consecutively with the other references, that is, according to its order of appearance in the text, tables, and figures. If the material has been obtained from another publication, it is the authors’ responsibility to obtain the required permission for its translation, reproduction, or adaptation from the copyright’s holder. The Spanish J Med will not be held responsible for any costs associated with this process.
Any references contained in the material must adhere to the instructions provided in the References section of these guidelines.
Supplementary data. The Spanish J Med accepts supplementary electronic data to support and improve the presentation of authors’ scientific research. Only material directly relevant to the article content will be considered for e-publication and acceptance of such material will remain at the discretion of the Editors. This material will not be translated, typeset, or proofread. The Editorial Board reserves the right to refuse electronic material not deemed appropriate.
To ensure that submitted material is in the correct format, we recommend the following: text (Word document, maximum 300 kb); images (JPG format, maximum 10 MB); audio (MP3 format, maximum 10 MB); videos (MP4 or AVI format, maximum 10 MB).
Authors should submit supplementary data in electronic format through the online manuscript management system as a multimedia file along with the article. Each file should have a concise and descriptive title. This material must also meet all requirements and general ethical responsibilities described in these guidelines.
References. Bibliography must follow the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals (International Committee of Biomedical Journal Editors). References must follow the format used by the American Medical Association. References will be marked with consecutive Arabic numerals, in superscript format, in the order they first appear in the text. They will be referred to in the text, tables, and figure footnotes with the corresponding numbers. In quotations with multiple authors (more than 3 authors), only the first 3 authors of the work must be included, followed by et al., after the abbreviation of the name/s of the 3rd author. In case of 3 or fewer authors, all 3 must be included in the quotation (https://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/uniform_requirements.html).
Do not include mention of personal communications or unpublished data. Such references, however, may be included within parentheses in the text. When abstracts are cited, they should be less than 2 years old and should be identified as [abstract] within square brackets after the title. References should be sent as standard text, never as footnotes.
The field codes of reference management programs are not acceptable; if the authors have worked with reference management software, the file must be converted to plain text before it is submitted.
Journal article. List all authors. If there are more than 3 authors, list only the first 3, followed by the Latin abbreviation “et al.”. Example:
Lim HS, Farouque O, Andrianopoulos N, et al. Survival of elderly patients undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention for acute myocardial infarction complicated by cardiogenic shock. J Am Coll Cardiol Intv. 2009;2:146-152.
Ahead of print article. Authors, title, journal, year, web page (DOI). Example:
Biswas S, Lefkovits J, Liew D, et al. Characteristics of national and major regional percutaneous coronary intervention registries: A structured literature review. EuroIntervention. 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.4244/EIJ-D-18-00434.
Electronic book. Authors, title [Internet], city, publisher, year, web page. Example:
Sobieraj DM, White CM, Kluger J, et al. Adjunctive Devices for Patients With Acute Coronary Syndrome Undergoing Percutaneous Coronary Intervention [Internet]. Rockville (MD): Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (US); 2011. Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0034051/.
Book chapter. Authors, chapter title, editors, book title, city, publisher, year, and page numbers. Example:
Josephson ME. Intraventricular conduction disturbances. Josephson ME, ed. Clinical cardiac electrophysiology. Techniques and interpretations. 3rd ed. Philadelphia: Lippincot Williams & Wilkins; 2002. p. 110-139.
Book. Cite the specific pages. Example:
Rothman K, Greenland S. Modern epidemiology. Measures of effect and measures of association. Philadelphia: Lippincott-Raven; 1998. p. 51-70.
Web page. Example:
National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence. Chronic heart failure in adults: management. 2010. Available at: http://www.nice.org.uk/Guidance/cg108. Accessed 6 Dec 2011.
Unpublished conference abstract: Example:
Veronesi F, Korfiati A, Buffat R, et al. Assessing accuracy and geographical transferability of machine learning algorithms for environmental modelling (8). In: Agile 2017. 20th Conference on Geo-Information Science; 2017 May 9-12; Wageningen, The Netherlands. Available at: https://agile-online.org/index.php/programme-2017/accepted-papers-and-posters-2017. Accessed 15 Jun 2017.
Supplement. Example:
Malecka-Tendera E, Mazur A. Childhood obesity: a pandemic of the twenty-first century. Int J Obes (Lond). 2006;30(Suppl 2):S1-3.
Base de Datos Clínicos de Atención Primaria (BDCAP). Morbilidad registrada en Atención Primaria. Madrid: Ministerio de Sanidad, Servicios Sociales e Igualdad; 2013. http://www.msssi.gob.es/estadEstudios/estadisticas/estadisticas/estMinisterio/SIAP/home.htm. Accessed 1 Jun 2016.
1.3 The cover letter
The cover letter should be addressed to the Editor-in-Chief. It should contain relevant information about the manuscript (e.g., originality, authorship, importance of the topic).
1.4 The visual abstract
Send a draft of a graphical abstract, a visual representation of the abstract of your paper. You can do it by hand, and our graphical editor will design it. Visual abstracts are not required for consensus and editorials.
1.5 Ethical considerations
Ethical disclosures. With regard to potential conflicts of interest, individual right to privacy and data confidentiality, as well and human and animal rights, the journal adheres to the latest version of the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals (formerly the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts) published by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, found at http://www.icmje.org. Copies will be required of informed consent forms in the case of studies in patients and clinical cases, and of the letter from the Independent Ethics Committee of the corresponding institution in the case of clinical and experimental studies.
Human procedures must comply with the ethical standards of the Helsinki Declaration of 1975 (World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki) Ethical Principles for Medical Research involving human subjects. JAMA 2000, 284:3043-5. Also, with the agreements given by the Ministry of Health, published on January 26, 1982 and the Rules for Ethics and Research from the institution where the study originated. Animal studies should follow similar guidelines (Institute of Laboratory Animal Resources, National Research Council. Guide for the care and use of laboratory animals. Washington, DC. National Academy Press, 1996). Regarding the confidentiality of data, you should inform on how the anonymous status of the participants and the confidentiality of their information were protected.
You can download the format by accessing the following link: http://www.permanyer.com/formulario-responsabilidades/.
Funding. The authors must mention all organizations that funded their research in the manuscript, including grant numbers where appropriate.
Conflicts of interest. Authors must describe any financial or personal relationship with any other person or organization, which can cause a conflict of interest regarding this article.
Randomized clinical trials: description and registration. Randomized clinical trials should be presented according to the CONSORT guidelines. At manuscript submission, authors must provide the CONSORT checklist accompanied by a flow diagram illustrating patients’ progress through the trial, i.e., recruitment, enrollment, randomization, withdrawal, and completion, as well as a detailed description of the randomization procedure. The CONSORT checklist and template flow diagram are available from the CONSORT website.
Registration in a public trial’s registry is a condition for publication of clinical trials in this journal, in accordance with the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors’ recommendations. Trials must be registered at or before the start of patient enrollment. The clinical trial registration number should be included at the end of the abstract of the article.
- A clinical trial is defined as any research study that prospectively assigns human participants or groups of humans to one or more health-related interventions to evaluate the effects on health outcomes.
- Health-related interventions include any intervention used to modify a biomedical or health-related outcome (e.g., drugs, surgical procedures, devices, behavioral treatments, dietary interventions, and process-of-care changes).
- Health outcomes include any biomedical or health-related measures obtained in patients or participants, including pharmacokinetic measures and adverse events.
- Purely observational studies (those in which the assignment of the medical intervention is not at the discretion of the investigator) will not require registration.
Copyright. All papers must be submitted together with a letter signed by every author stating that those papers have not been published previously nor have they been sent simultaneously to another journal; and that, in case of acceptance, copyright will be transferred to the Spanish Society of Internal Medicine (SEMI) that publishes them under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).
To promote the transparency and quality of the research, the authors will be asked as an essential requirement to self-assess adherence to the relevant international guidelines according to the type of study:
– Clinical trials: CONSORT (http://www.consort-statement.org/). In addition, all trials must be registered in one of the international databases, and the corresponding registration number must always be indicated.
– Observational studies: STROBE (www.strobe-statement.org).
– Diagnostic tests: STARD (www.equator-network.org/reporting-guidelines/stard/).
– For other types of studies, consult the guidelines on the EQUATOR initiative (http://www.equator-network.org/).
2. TYPES OF ARTICLE
2.1 Original research article
Authors. There is no specific limit to the number of authors but listing more than 12 will require the assessment/approval of the editorial team.
- Author participation includes each one of the following criteria
- Substantially contributing to the conception or design of the work or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of the data for the work
- Drafting the work or critically revising it
- Granting final approval of the version to be published
- Agreeing to be accountable for all aspects of the work
Length. These articles should not exceed 3000 words (including up to 8 tables or figures, their legends and a maximum 40 references). They should contain a title of no more than 120 characters (with spaces) and include an abbreviate title.
Characteristics: The manuscript should be arranged in the following order:
a. Structured abstract (maximum 250 words) and key words (from 3 to 10). The abstract should be structured in 4 sections:
- Introduction and objectives
- Methods
- Results
- Conclusions
Abstracts should be self-explanatory and should not contain references. Up to 3 abbreviations will be accepted (selected from those most frequently used in the body of the text). Define all abbreviations on the first mention in the text, except commonly used units of measure (apart from effect units). Acronyms for the names of studies, trials, registries, and scales can be used without definition on the first mention, as long as they are widely used in the literature.
b. Text. The body of the article should consist of the following sections:
- Introduction
- Methods
- Results
- Discussion
- Conclusions
Sections should be appropriately subdivided with subheadings.
c. Key points. Include the following information at the end of the article:
- What is known about the topic? Summarize key points on what is known about the research topic (do not exceed 200 words).
- What does this study add? Summarize the key points on the contribution of the study (do not exceed 200?words).
d. Table of abbreviations (no more than 6 of the most frequently used in the text).
e. Visual abstract. Send a draft of a graphical abstract, a visual representation of the abstract of your paper. You can do it by hand and our graphical editor will design it.
f. References. Up to 40 at the end and refer them in order in the body text.
g. Tables (optional). Do not include more than 4 tables (submit further tables as supplementary data).
h. Figure captions and figures (optional). Do not include more than 4 figures (submit further figures as supplementary data).
i. Videos (optional). If they have any text or audio it should be in English.
j. In addition, articles on study methodology will be considered for publication if they comply with the following:
- Randomized clinical trial
- Approval of the institutional review board or local ethics committee
- Identification of funding source
- Registration of the study with a clinical trial registry (e.g., www.clinicaltrials.gov)
2.2 Review article
These articles should have a maximum of 3 authors, an abstract (maximum 250 words), and 3 to 10 keywords. Reviews should not exceed 5000 words (including up to 5 tables or figures, their legends, and a maximum of 150 references) and contain a title of no more than 120 characters with spaces.
2.3 Editorial
These articles should have a maximum of 2 authors, not exceed 1500 words (including up to 2 tables or figures, their legends, and a maximum of 40 references) and contain a title of no more than 120 characters with spaces.
2.4 Guidelines and consensus article
These articles should have a maximum of 18 authors, an abstract (maximum 250 words), and 3 to 10 keywords. The text should not exceed 8000 words (including up to 15 tables or figures, their legends, and a maximum of 250 references) and contain a title of no more than 120 characters with spaces.
2.5 Correspondence
This section includes letters to the editor in response to articles published in the Span J Med. They should be submitted within 12 weeks of the publication of the article.
The text should have no more than 6 authors, a maximum of 1000 words (including a maximum of 10 references), a title of less than 120 characters with spaces, and up to 2 figures and 1 table.
2.6 Statement of the SEMI
The statement article expresses the opinion of the Board of Directors of the Spanish Society of Internal Medicine (SEMI) alone or with other scientific societies on a medical issue of social, academic, or institutional importance.
Among the authors signing the statement article will be the current President, as a SEMI Board of Directors' representative.
This document will NOT be peer-reviewed, but it will have the final approval of the Spanish Journal of Medicine's editorial committee, which will endorse the content and form to align with the journal's characteristics.
Summary table
|
Type of article |
Authors |
Title |
Abstract |
Word limit |
Images |
References |
Peer-reviewed |
|
Original research article |
Approval by the Editorial team required if more than 12 authors listed |
Less than 120 characters with spaces |
Yes. Up to 250 words (structured in Introduction and objectives, Methods, Results and Conclusions) |
3000 |
Up to 8 (figures and tables) + supplementary files |
Up to 40 |
Yes |
|
Review article |
Maximum 3 |
Less than 120 characters with spaces |
Yes. Up to 250 words |
5000 |
Up to 5 |
Up to 150 |
Yes |
|
Editorial |
Maximum 2 |
Less than 120 characters with spaces |
No |
1500 |
Up to 2 |
Up to 40 |
NO. Approved by the Editorial Board |
|
Guidelines and consensus article |
Maximum 18 |
Less than 120 characters with spaces |
Yes. Up to 250 words |
8000 |
Up to 15 (figures and tables) |
Up to 250 |
Yes |
|
Correspondence |
Up to 6 |
Less than 120 characters with spaces |
No |
1000 |
Up to 2 figures and 1 table |
Up to 10 |
No |
|
Statement of the SEMI |
Up to 8, including the President of the SEMI |
Less than 120 characters with spaces |
Not necessary |
Up to 1000 |
Up to 2 | Not necessary | NO. Approved by the Editorial Board |
EDITORIAL PROCESS
The editorial process consists of 6 stages:
1. Reception of the manuscript (indeterminate, depending on whether the author meets the requirements): its objective is to verify that the manuscript complies with the specifications of these instructions for authors and that the submitted documentation is complete.
2. Initial editorial review (maximum 5 business days): its objective is to corroborate the relevance, timeliness, originality, and scientific contribution of the manuscript, as well as the methodological and statistical soundness of the study. At this time, it will be submitted to an electronic plagiarism detection system. Derived from this, a rejected opinion may be obtained, or it will be sent for review by peer researchers.
3. Review by peer researchers (maximum 30 business days): the opinion of at least two experts in the area in question will be obtained, who will evaluate the technical and methodological aspects of the investigation.
4. Editorial review (maximum 7 business days): its objective is to make a decision based on the opinion of peer reviewers. The opinion can be rejected, major changes, minor changes or accepted. In the case of major or minor changes, it will be submitted again for evaluation by the initial peer reviewers.
5. Final edition (6 weeks): its objective is the technical and linguistic edition (and translation), layout of galleys, DOI assignment, and correction by the author.
6. Advanced publication: All manuscripts will be published ahead of print on the journal's website as soon as they complete the editing process, until they are incorporated into a final issue of the journal.
PRINT PROOFS (PDF) OF ACCEPTED ARTICLES
The corresponding author will receive proofs of the article for revision and correction of terminology errors, or any other updates related to facts/figures. As the article will already have been edited according to the journal’s internal editorial guidelines, style corrections will not be accepted. The corresponding author will receive an email with the article in PDF format, on which they can leave their comments. Authors will need to have Adobe Reader (version 9, or a later version), downloadable for free). For other system requirements, please visit the Adobe website.
Alternatively, authors may list their corrections and submit them via email. Any major changes at this stage will be subject to the approval of the Editor. Authors should make sure to include all changes in a single email, as we cannot guarantee the inclusion of subsequent corrections.
The proof review is the responsibility of the author.
Relevant links
Committee on Publication Ethics. Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers
