Instructions for Authors

Submission

Before submitting the manuscript, authors should carefully read the “instructions for authors”,“submission walkthrough” available at the journal’s official website http://dcmhi.com.cn under the“submission” menu.The manuscript should be accompanied by a cover letter from the author who will be responsible for correspondence.Peer-review and refereeing are made online and anonymously.

Language

The manuscript can be submitted in either Chinese or English.Translation from Chinese to English will be offered to manuscripts with high quality.

Copyright

Once your manuscript is accepted, you are asked to sign a copyright contract with us.DCMowns the copyright of any accepted article (either by publication or open-access online)for 75 years.You are thereby agreeing for us to use your article freely for publication, compilation of books or for other use.

Conflict of Interest

Authors are required to disclose any possible conflict of interest, and their statement of conflict of interest will be published at the end of the article.Authors are responsible for any conflict concerning their studies.

Ethics

Published research must comply with the guidelines for human studies and animal welfare regulations.When human subjects are involved, authors should state that subjects have given their informed consent and that the study protocol has been approved by the institute’s ethics committee.Authors should also state that animal experiments conform to institutional standards if any.

Responsibility

The authors take responsibility for their own published articles.The acceptance of your article does not mean that the editorial board agrees with your academic viewpoints, so you should take responsibility to explain any suspicion, or argument in your article.The editorial board has the right to amend your article in a reasonable way without informing you in advance.

Page Charges

If the manuscript needs to be translated into English,we will charge the translation fee.

Original Research Article Structure

Subdivision - numbered sections

Divide your article into clearly defined and numbered sections.Subsections should be numbered 1.1 (then 1.1.1, 1.1.2, ···), 1.2, etc.(the abstract is not included in section numbering).Use this numbering also for internal cross-referencing: do not just refer to "the text".Any subsection may be given a brief heading.Each heading should appear on its own separate line.

Abstract

Structured abstract is requested, including objective,methods, results and conclusions, except for theoretical review.The abstract should state briefly the purpose of the research, the principal results and major conclusions.

To promote the culture of TCM, DCM requests a separate Chinese abstract.Please provide the exact Chinese abstract at the last part, corresponding to the English version.Foreign authors will be assisted by the editorial board.

Keywords

Authors are invited to submit 5-8 keywords associated with their paper.

Abbreviations

The full term for which an abbreviation stands should precede its first use in the text unless it is a standard unit of measurement.

Introduction

State the objectives of the work and provide an adequate background, avoiding a detailed literature survey or a summary of the results.

Material and methods

Provide sufficient detail to allow the work to be reproduced.Methods already published should be indicated by a reference: only relevant modifications should be described.

Results

Results should be clear and concise.

Discussion

This should explore the significance of the results of the work, not repeat them.A combined Results and Discussion section is often appropriate.Avoid extensive citations and discussion of published literature.

Conclusions

The main conclusions of the study may be presented in a short Conclusions section, which may stand alone or form a subsection of a Discussion or Results and Discussion section.

Tables

Number tables consecutively in accordance with their appearance in the text.Please do not submit tables as photographs.The caption should be placed above the table.Place the annotations right under the table.The annotations should use the following symbols by the order stated below: *, †, ‡, §, ‖, ¶, **,††.Be sparing in the use of tables and ensure that the data presented in tables do not duplicate results described elsewhere in the article.

Figures

Figures should be professionally drawn and photographed with high resolution; freehand or typewritten lettering is unacceptable.Ensure that each illustration has a caption.Supply captions separately, not attached to the figure.A caption should comprise a brief title (not on the figure itself)and a description of the illustration.Keep text in the illustrations themselves to a minimum but explain all symbols and abbreviations used.

The Specific Format of Chinese Medicine Terms

Chinese authors’ names

For easier identification of the authors' first name,family name and index, we adopted a Chinese naming system* (the authors have kindly agreed to permit its republication onDCMwebsite), that is,writing the whole surname in capital letters and hyphenating the given name(s), whose first letter of each syllable should be capitalized.For example, LU Shan and LU Shan-Shan.

Ancient book titles

The book title is written in Italics so that readers can easily identify it.Double quotation marks are not necessary.The English name or Chinese Pin Yin and the Chinese name should be listed for any classical TCM book.The first letter of each word should be capitalized.For example,Yellow Emperor’s Inner Classics(Huang Di Nei Jing, 《黄帝内经》),Yi Zong Bi Du(《医宗必读》).

Name of Chinese herbs

We suggest using a Latin name in italics format or English name followed by a Chinese Pin Yin name as well as the name written in Chinese in round brackets.For instance, Astragali Radix (Huang Qi, 黄芪),Angelica sinensis(Dang Gui, 当归).

Name of acupoints

Name of the acupoint should be written in Chinese Pin Yin with an international coding in round brackets, such as Zu San Li (ST36).The first letter of each word should be capitalized.