The American Journal of Clinical Dermatology endorses the ‘Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals,’ issued by the International Committee for Medical Journal Editors, and the Committee on Publication Ethics code of conduct for editors.
Manuscript Submission and Processing
All manuscripts should be submitted to the journal using the Adis Editorial Manager manuscript-tracking system; this is accessed from www.editorialmanager.com/adis or the journal web page http://adisonline.com/dermatology.
Step-by-step instructions and information on the content, formatting and layout of manuscripts for submission is available on our web site (http://adisonline.com/dermatology) or on request from the editor.
If you are unable to submit through the Editorial Manager site, e-mail us at
journals@adis.co.nz, and include the journal name and “Article Submission” in the subject line.
Internal Review by Editorial Staff
The journal editor will perform an initial appraisal of each manuscript. Manuscripts are judged on the interest and importance of the topic, use of scientific method, clarity of presentation, and relevance to the journal’s readers. Articles meeting the required criteria and accompanied by the appropriate documentation are then passed to external peer review.
You will be notified as to whether your paper is progressing to external review, within 1 to 2 weeks of our acknowledgement of receipt.
External Peer Review
The aim of the peer review process is to ensure publication of unbiased, scientifically accurate and clinically relevant articles. All articles are peer reviewed by members of the journal’s international editorial board and/or other specialists of equal repute before a decision on publication is made. Peer reviewer identities are kept confidential, but author identities are known to the reviewers. Peer reviewers are asked to disclose potential conflicts of interests that may affect their ability to provide an unbiased review of an article.
Peer reviewers fill out a referee report form via Editorial Manager (www.editorialmanager.com/adis) to provide general comments to the editor and both general and specific comments to the author(s). Constructive comments that will help the authors improve their work are passed on anonymously (even if we do not accept the paper).
Rejected Manuscripts
Rejected manuscripts will not be returned to authors unless specifically requested. Print copies of original illustrations, photographs and slides will be returned.
Manuscript Revision
The majority of manuscripts will require some degree of revision following peer review before they can be accepted for publication. Revision is an invitation to present the best possible paper for further scrutiny by the journal; it is not acceptance. Authors should provide two copies of the revised manuscript - one of which should be highlighted to show where changes have been made. Detailed responses to reviewers’ comments, in a covering letter, are also required. Revised manuscripts may be subject to further peer review if appropriate. The final decision on acceptability for publication lies with the journal editor.
Editing
All accepted manuscripts are edited by experienced and technically qualified Wolters Kluwer Health, Adis editors. This process includes: (i) assessment of scientific accuracy, balance and completeness; (ii) choice of optimum structure; and (iii) general publishing considerations, such as length, housestyle and clarity of expression. Authors will receive proofs following editing for their approval and sign off.
Offprints
Corresponding authors of review articles, commentaries and original research papers are sent a PDF of the finalised version of their paper for their personal use.
Copyright
Authors will be asked to sign a transfer of copyright agreement, which recognises the common interest that both the journal and author(s) have in the protection of copyright. We accept that some authors (e.g. government employees in some countries) are unable to transfer copyright.
Corrections/Errata
Through careful quality control, our intention is to avoid mistakes, but errors, made by either editors or authors, do get made. We correct even minor mistakes, and we set no time limit for notifying errors or publishing corrections. We always try to contact the author of the original article to confirm the error, unless it is very obvious, and we publish all errata as soon as we can.
Letters to the Editor
We welcome correspondence relating to articles we have published in the journal. Letters to the editor are not usually peer reviewed, but a response to comments would normally be sought from the authors of the original article. Where possible any response would be published alongside the letter to the editor. Letters to the editor of general interest, unlinked to earlier items in the journal, will also be considered for publication.
Appeals
Sometimes mistakes are made when considering manuscripts for publication. If an author believes that an editor has made an error in declining a paper, we welcome an appeal. In your appeal letter please state why you think the decision is mistaken and set out your specific responses to any peer reviewers' comments if those seem to have been the main cause of rejection. Advice from members of the journal’s Editorial Board will be sought and at least two editors will then decide whether to invite a revised manuscript and whether re-review, or otherwise, is warranted.
Misconduct
The journal’s editor is often the first person to be made aware of possible misconduct. If we do suspect misconduct by authors or reviewers, we have a duty to take action. This duty extends to both published and unpublished papers. We will first seek a response from those parties under suspicion. If we are not satisfied with the response, we will ask the employers of the authors or reviewers, or some other appropriate body, to investigate. We will make all reasonable efforts to ensure that a proper investigation is conducted; if this is not possible, or does not happen for any reason, we will make all reasonable attempts to persist in obtaining a resolution to the issue and a correction of the record if it is needed.
Authors’ Professional and Ethical Responsibilities
Authorship and Contributorship Criteria
See the journal Instructions for Authors.
Conflict of Interest Statement for Authors
The potential for conflict of interest arises when authors have personal or financial relationships that could influence their actions. To prevent ambiguity, authors must state explicitly whether potential conflicts do or do not exist and these conflicts should be summarised in the Acknowledgements section of the paper.
Role of the Funding Source
All sources of funding should be declared in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript.
Ethical Conduct of Research
For human or animal experimental investigations, appropriate institutional review board approval is required and should be described in the Methods section of the paper. For those investigators who do not have formal ethics review committees, the principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki should be followed. For investigations involving human subjects, authors should state in the Methods section the manner in which informed consent was obtained from the study participants.
Protection of Patients’ Rights to Privacy
Patients have a right to privacy that should not be infringed without informed consent. Identifying information should not be included in written descriptions, photographs, and pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or parent or legal guardian) gives written informed consent for publication. Informed consent for this purpose requires that the patient be shown the manuscript to be published. When informed consent has been obtained it should be indicated in the manuscript.
Identifying details 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 informed consent should be obtained if there is any doubt. For example, masking the eyes in the photographs of patients is inadequate protection of anonymity.
Use of Personal Communications and Unpublished Data
Authors must include a signed statement of permission from each individual identified as a source of information in a personal communication or as a source for unpublished data (this includes papers that have been submitted, but not yet accepted for publication), and specify the date of communication and whether the communication was written or oral.
Permissions Required to Reproduce or Adapt Material
Authors must acknowledge all text, illustrations, and tables adapted or reproduced from other publications. Authors should provide a copy of the original source documents and should submit permission from the authors of the original work and the original publishers for unlimited use in all markets and media (that includes both electronic and print use in any language). If permission for all markets, all media and all languages cannot be obtained, the figure/table will not be used.
Duplicate Publication and Duplicate Submission
Manuscripts are considered with the understanding that they have not been published previously and are not under consideration by another publication. Copies of possibly duplicative materials (i.e. those containing substantially similar content or using the same or similar data) that have been previously published or are being considered elsewhere must be provided at the time of manuscript submission.
The journal will, however, consider republication of a paper previously published in a language other than English, or simultaneous publication of a paper in multiple journals with different audiences, if the specific circumstances warrant this action. This will be done with full and prominent disclosure of the original source and with any necessary permission. The journal does not consider posting of protocols and results in clinical trial registries to be prior publication.
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is the use of others' published and unpublished ideas or words (or other intellectual property) without attribution or permission, and presenting them as new and original rather than derived from an existing source. The intent and effect of plagiarism is to mislead the reader as to the contributions of the plagiariser. This applies whether the ideas or words are taken from abstracts, research grant applications, Institutional Review Board applications, or unpublished or published manuscripts in any publication format (print or electronic). Plagiarism is scientific misconduct and will be addressed as such.
Clinical Trial Registration
The journal requires, as a condition of consideration of original clinical research for publication, prospective registration of clinical trials in a public trials registry before recruitment of any participants. This applies to trials which commenced after 1 July 2005: for older trials retrospective registration will be acceptable, but only if completed before submission of the manuscript to the journal.
For the purpose of registration, the journal defines a clinical trial as any research project that prospectively assigns human subjects to intervention or concurrent comparison or control groups to study the cause-and-effect relationship between a medical intervention and a health outcome. Studies designed for other purposes, including pharmacokinetic or toxicity studies (e.g., phase I trials) and economic analyses, may be exempt.
The journal’s criteria for a suitable public trial registry are: free to access, searchable, and identifies trials with a unique number; registration is free or has minimal cost; registered information is validated; registered entry includes details to identify the trial and investigator and includes the status of the trial; and the research question, methodology, intervention, funding, and sponsorship must all be disclosed at registration.
The journal will publish the trial registration number at the end of the abstract and authors should list the registration number the first time they use a trial acronym to refer to either the trial they are reporting or to other trials that they mention in the manuscript.
Depositing Research Manuscripts with an Approved Public Repository
Some funding organizations require that authors of manuscripts reporting research deposit those manuscripts with an approved public repository, such as PubMed Central. Authors have the journal’s permission to deposit such papers on the following conditions:
- Permission is granted only for manuscripts reporting research funded by not-for-profit organizations to be deposited in not-for-profit, publicly available repositories.
- Permission is granted to post only the manuscript reporting research that was submitted and accepted for publication but not the final, edited, formatted, and published article.
- Authors must ensure that the posted manuscript links back to the published article on the journal web site to provide readers with access to the final edited version plus any corrections.
- Authors who submit their manuscripts to an approved public repository, such as PubMed Central, must indicate that the manuscript may not be made available to the public sooner than 12 months after publication in the journal (6 months for research funded by the Wellcome Trust).
If authors adhere to these requirements, they may submit the final accepted version of the manuscript to the repository, if and only if the repository ensures that the deposited manuscript will not be made available to the public during the 12 month embargo following publication in the journal (6 months for research funded by the Wellcome Trust). The published article is protected by copyright at the time of publication and thereafter.