Information For Authors

1- Submit your articles

2- Authors guidelines

3- Understanding the editorial process and peer review process

4- Editorial Flowchart

1- Submit your articles:

Submission Requirements
You must read and acknowledge that you've completed the requirements below before submitting.

• The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).

•  The submission file is in OpenOffice, Microsoft Word, or RTF document file format.
•  Where available, URLs for the references have been provided.
•  The text is single-spaced; uses a 12-point font; employs italics, rather than underlining (except with URL addresses); and all illustrations, figures, and tables are placed at the end, but referred to properly within the text.
•  The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines.
•  Written consent taken from the patient or their guardian to publish patient data.
• Reviewed version to be submitted in track/change mode in addition to the final version
• The authors have to suggest at least 2 reviewers during the submission process

2- Authors guidelines:

- Categories of Articles

Not all types of manuscripts are considered by the International Journal of Clinical Research.

If the manuscript submitted was found to belong to another type, it will be rejected immediately. To avoid that keep in mind, that the articles within the scope of the IJCR are the following:

      1- Case reports

      2- Case series

      3- Narrative review articles 

      4- Original research

- Table summary for each category

- Guidelines for writing a good quality manuscript

Depending on the type of manuscript, we recommend that you use standard guidelines, such as Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA); CAse REport guidelines (CARE), an Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion (IMRaD) outlining which can be followed while writing an original research article for a scientific journal.

You can also find below the IJCR’s Author Guidelines for your reference:

  A) General Considerations

      Before writing your manuscript

- Novelty - Ask yourself, is there any added value from this article? Will there be an added benefit of making it available to the scientific community?

- Ethical concerns - Are there any ethical considerations involved in publishing this article? Was the management according to ethical standards of care? Were the patients/subjects' written consent taken? Was their confidentiality protected? Are there any breaches of human rights in this study?

      Upon writing your manuscript

- Conflict of interest - Make sure you declare any conflict of interest and funds received in the form of money or other.

- Flow of ideas - Make sure the ideas are coherent and the flow through the ideas is smooth.

- Plagiarism - Do not plagiarize! Your manuscript will undergo a plagiarism check through Turnitin software by the editor, if it was found to have a high similarity index, it will be rejected immediately by the editor and will not move forward to the review process.

- Citations and Referencing - Make sure to cite and reference your literature appropriately as requested by the journal (refer to templates). The recency of cited research is recommended, and an acknowledgment of previous work is mandatory. Make sure you do not reference the same article more than once.

      Before submitting your manuscript

- Structure and Format - Make sure the submission is structured as per the templates provided by the IJCR (at the end of this page). In general, all manuscript must contain a title page with all the relevant information and the proper sections according to the category to which the manuscript belongs. Also, make sure to follow the format requested by the journal as per the templates as well (page margins, line spacing, font...). 

- Language - The IJCR accepts manuscripts in English. We recommend non-native speakers to have their manuscript professionally edited before submission. This will speed up the publishing process.

- Reported data - Data accuracy is crucial. Make sure to double-check all reported data for accuracy and to confirm that all units of measurement are correct and consistent.

- Graphics - All figures and tables should be presented in a clear and informative manner with accompanying legends.

      After submitting your manuscript

- Accepted/Rejected - If the final decision of your manuscript was “accept” which very rarely happens, then you must have done an incredible job, keep it up. If it was rejected, it might be due to many reasons, it may be that the article type is not within the scope of the journal, or it was found to be too similar to another article and did not make it through the plagiarism-check, etc… In that case, we recommend you discuss the reason with the editor to avoid it in future works.

- Revisions - If the article requires revisions, you will receive comments from two reviewers, and you will be expected to make changes according to these comments and resubmit your manuscript. The changes made must be highlighted. 

  B) Author Guidelines

Patients confidentiality

Data alteration through changing the details of a patient to conceal their identity is not allowed. However, authors of clinical papers are obliged to ensure patient privacy rights. Therefore, only relevant data are permitted for publication. If race, ethnicity, or culture have no influence on the medical condition, they should not be described. Furthermore, written consent from the patient or their guardian to publish the patient's medical data, including photographs, prior to publication is necessary and is a submission requirement. In the absence of written consent, the submission will be rejected. When race, ethnicity, or culture are mentioned, the terms used should descriptive and must reflect how these groups were assigned.

Anti-plagiarism verification

At every stage of the submission and review process, your manuscript will be checked for plagiarism by using Turnitin software. We do repeated checks up to the time of pre-publication. Plagiarism, including self-plagiarism, detected at any stage will result in the rejection of the manuscript.

The use of AI (Artificial Intelligence).

When AI and AI-assisted technologies are used in the writing process, authors should utilize these tools to enhance readability and language rather than replace essential authoring tasks such as generating scientific, pedagogic, or medical insights, drawing conclusions, or providing clinical recommendations. Human oversight and control are necessary when applying these technologies, and all work should be carefully reviewed and edited. The authors are responsible and accountable for the work's content.

Authors must disclose the use of AI and AI-assisted technologies in their manuscript, and a statement will be included in the published work. Disclosure supports transparency and trust among authors, readers, reviewers, editors, and contributors and ensures compliance with the terms of use of the relevant tool or technology.

AI and AI-assisted technologies should not be listed as authors or co-authors, nor should AI be cited as an author. Authorship involves responsibilities and tasks that only humans can perform. Each author is accountable for addressing any issues related to the work's accuracy or integrity, and authorship requires the ability to approve the final version and agree to its submission. Authors are also responsible for ensuring originality, qualifying authorship, and avoiding third-party rights infringement, and should be familiar with the IJCR Journal's Publishing Ethics policy before submission.

The use of generative AI or AI-assisted tools in the production of artwork such as for book or commissioned content covers or graphical abstracts is not permitted.

Conflict of interest

Financial arrangements and any other conflict of interest must be declared. This type of information will be maintained confident while the submission is being processed, but if the article is accepted for publication, the editors will usually disclose this information on the front page of the published manuscript. In the absence of conflicts of interest, authors must declare that there are none. Our double-blind reviewing system makes sure no conflicts of interest exist between the reviewers and authors, but if any relationship is made, reviewers must declare the conflict of interest. Editors also must reveal any conflict of interest in a letter to the Editor-in-Chief with regard to a manuscript under review. If any issue arises that might result in biases towards the author, the processing of the manuscript will be stopped and changes will be implemented to protect the authors.

Copyrights and Licensing 

International Journal of Clinical Research has adopted the Open Access publishing model. All articles are published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. This license allows others to download articles and share them or adapt them, only if they credit the authors and the publisher, and indicate if changes were made. This may be done in a reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.

Copyright is retained by the author without restrictions, the license applies to the readers and the publisher. The authors also retain publishing rights without restrictions. 

Disclaimer

Every effort is made by the Publisher and Editorial Board to see that no inaccurate or misleading data, opinion, or statement appear in the International Journal of Clinical Research. However, data and opinions appearing in the articles and advertisements remain the responsibility of the contributor, sponsor, or advertiser concerned. Accordingly, the Publisher and the Editorial Board accept no liability whatsoever for the consequences of any such inaccurate or misleading data, opinion, or statement. Every effort is made to ensure that drug doses and other quantities are presented accurately. Nevertheless, readers are advised that methods and techniques involving drug usage and other treatments described in this Journal should only be followed in conjunction with the drug or treatment manufacturer's own published literature in the reader’s own country.

  C) IJCR Manuscript Templates

IJCR Case Report Manuscript Template

IJCR Case Series Manuscript Template

IJCR Narrative Review Article Template

IJCR Original Research Template

  D) Submissions Checklist

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.

• The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
• The submission file is in OpenOffice, Microsoft Word, or RTF document file format.
• Where available, URLs for the references have been provided.
• The text is single-spaced; uses a 12-point font; employs italics, rather than underlining (except with URL addresses); and all illustrations, figures, and tables are placed at the end, but referred to properly within the text.
• The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines.
• Written consent taken from the patient or their guardian to publish patient data.
• Authors’ contribution must be added according to CRediT taxonomy. Learn more through the following link: https://credit.niso.org/
• Institutional emails must be provided at least by the corresponding and first author. Other types of emails can be provided in addition to institutional emails
• ORCID email must be provided at least by the corresponding and first author, all other authors are highly encouraged to provide their ORCID number

3- Understanding the editorial process and peer review process:

A- Understanding the Editorial Process

Step 1

First, authors electronically submit the article to a journal, ideally after reading the author guidelines, increasing the likelihood of having their manuscript processed.

Step 2

Then, the journal Editor-in-Chief will screen and evaluate the paper to see if it fits the minimal quality to be processed. This includes adequacy of the topic, originality, plagiarism check, written patient consents, and others. If not, the paper is rejected and the process stops here. All papers accepted must pass a plagiarism check and fulfill all submission requirements.

Step 3

If the editor accepts the paper, then he will select 2 reviewers for the paper. A third reviewer may be needed in case the reports and reviewers' decisions came out to be very different. Reviewers will then receive directions and an invitation to write their report in two weeks.

Reviewers are expected to accept or decline the invitation as soon as they receive it to make sure the process keeps flowing without delay and to avoid the authors' frustration. Once they accept the invitation, they will be expected to submit their report within the deadline.

Step 4

Once review reports are returned to editors, the editor will look for comments regarding accuracy and depth of content, appropriateness, quality and clarity of writing, organization and flow of ideas, appropriateness of methods, statistics and presented data, adequacy of conclusions, recency of references and any evidence of ethical breaches.

Once the editor assesses the reviews, he can decide to:

• Accept with no revisions (very rarely happens)
• Revise (major/minor revisions needed)
• Reject the paper

He then sends his decision to the corresponding author.   

Step 5

If the decision was “accept with no revisions”, the manuscript will go through copyediting and layout design and then will be sent back to the author as a final version for approval and publication. However, this rarely happens.

If the decision was “reject the manuscript”, the authors will receive an email and they can go to the discussion board of the manuscript if they need further information as to why the manuscript was rejected, and how they can avoid that in future works.

If the decision was to revise the manuscript, the authors are then supposed to implement changes to the manuscript based on the reviewers’ comments and submit their revised version.

Step 6

When the editor receives the revised version, he may immediately accept the paper, send it back to the original reviewers to make sure all the changes were made, and then the paper may be accepted and move forward for publishing.

B- Defining peer review

The editor has accepted the paper and decided to send it to reviewers? So, what does that mean exactly?

The peer review system exists to validate academic work. It helps to improve the quality of publishing, by ensuring the validity and integrity of submissions.

Reviewers, being at the center of scientific publishing, make the editorial process work by examining and providing respectful, constructive, and honest feedback on submitted manuscripts. Without this process, there is no control in scientific communication, which would diminish trust in the publications.

For a good quality review, reviewers are expected to focus on the actual substance of the paper, assess the originality and significance of the work, accuracy, depth of content, appropriateness, quality and clarity of writing, organization, and flow of ideas. They should highlight any valuable omissions, comment on the appropriateness of methods, statistics and presented data, adequacy of conclusions, and ensure that previous work is acknowledged both in the paper and the reference list, etc.…

There are various models of peer review. In the International Journal of Clinical Research (IJCR), we will be operating under the model of double-blind peer review whereby authors don’t know anything about the identity of reviewers, and reviewers don’t know the identity of the authors. This model allows reviewers to criticize without the influence of authors while reducing the possibility of bias.

4- Editorial Flowchart: