Instructions for Authors by Chinese Journal of Gastroenterology

Chinese Journal of Gastroenterology (ISSN 1008-7125), founded in June, 1996, is a national academic journal being designed to present the latest basic scientific and clinical researches of gastroenterology in China. It is published monthly currently by the Editorial Office of Chinese Journal of Gastroenterology.

All manuscripts are peer reviewed by two or three independent expert reviewers. This journal has been included in Chinese Key Scientific and Technologic Journals, Elsevier Scopus, Geobase, CPX and Embase, WPRIM, China Biology Medicine disc, Chinese Journal Full-text Data Base, Wanfang Data Base and SWIC currently.

To ensure the quality of articles and standardization of editing, please read these instructions carefully and abide by them strictly before writing and submitting manuscripts. All manuscripts that do not adhere to the requirements detailed in these instructions will be rejected.

Authors’Responsibilities

Prior to the submission of a manuscript, authors should familiarize themselves with and comply with the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals (www.icmje.org) relating to:

Authorship

Conflict of interest

Protection of patients’ rights to privacy

Redundant or duplicate publication

Sponsorship, authorship and accountability

and provide a cover letter declaring that the content of the article has not been accepted or submitted for publication by any other journal. Authors should also declare there is not any financial interest or relationship that may pose a conflict of interest.

The cover letter must also contain an acknowledgement that all authors have contributed significantly, and that all authors are in agreement with the content of the manuscript.

If tables or figures have been reproduced from another source, a letter from the copyright holder (usually the publisher), stating authorization to reproduce the material, must be attached to the cover letter.

In keeping with the latest guidelines of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, each author’s contribution to the paper is to be quantified.

The cover letter should be submitted with the manuscript.

Authors must also state within the Methods section of their article that:

the protocol for the research project has been approved by a suitably constituted Ethics Committee of the institution within which the work was undertaken and that it conforms to the provisions of the World Medical Association’s Declaration of Helsinki in 1995 (as revised in Edinburgh 2000).

Informed consent has been obtained for all investigations on human subjects.

Any experiments involving animals conform to relevant national or institutional guidelines for animal usage in research.

Failure to comply with these requirements may lead to automatic rejection of the submitted manuscript.

Scopeofcontributions

The columns of this journal includes editorial, commentaries, specially invited articles, continuing medical education articles, clinical practice, original articles (basic and clinical science), short articles, review articles, lectures, conference summations, consensus and guidelines, case analysis and case reports.

The editorial office will acknowledge the receipt of all manuscripts. The following contributions will be welcomed for publication: original articles, short articles, review articles, case analysis and case reports, lectures on specific topics, discussions on academic controversies, news and information, etc.

PreparationofManuscripts

Before submitting, authors should confirm that similar article has not been published in this journal. Once accepted for review, the manuscript must not be submitted elsewhere, otherwise, the author will be responsible for any problems arising.

Every manuscript must be approved by the authors’ departments or institutions by formal recommendation, which declares the authenticity of the manuscript, no secrecy, and no dispute about signatories, no breaking of copyrights, and no submission to other journals.

The work reported in the manuscripts should be scientifically sound, authentic, logical, practical and innovative. Manuscripts should have outstanding emphases, sharp-cut contentions, clear arrangements, reliable data, and sufficient evidences, and written with concise words, flowing sentences, correct punctuations and normal usage of words. Duplicates of information in the text, figures and tables should be avoided. Simplified characters must conform to Xinhua Dictionary and Modern Chinese Dictionary. Coined characters are forbidden. Do not confuse the Chinese characters in Japanese with those of the Chinese language.

When the manuscript (in Word) is submitted online, all involved photographs should be original and may be appropriately compressed in WinZip or WinRAR.

Title page of the typescript should include: Chinese title of the article, authors’ names, affiliations, post code, corresponding author and his/her Email address.

Studies funded by national and municipal grants will be published as a priority. The grant title and serial number should be provided.

The title of the article should be as concise and definite as possible, generally not exceeding 20 Chinese characters and no more than 10 English words; limiting the use of code names, abbreviations and subtitles.

The authors should sign in a sequence according to their responsibilities and contributions to the study. Generally, no more than 6 authors may sign an article, and the others who have substantial contributions to the article may be acknowledged at the end of the article. If the article is the result of cooperation by different departments, please mark 1, 2 or 3 on top right corner of the authors’ names and indicate the affiliation of each author. Authors who are taking advanced study in the institution should identify their original affiliations. The first author is required to offer his brief bibliography, including name, gender, birth date, professional title and final degree. The address of the author responsible for correspondence must be as elaborate as possible, including postal code, telephone number, Email address and other details. Authors’ names should be spelled in Chinese spelling as follows: LI Shimin, OUYANG Xiu, separated by “,”.

For all manuscripts submitted, Chinese and English abstracts and key words are required to be placed on the second page, and usage of the third person and the generic names of drugs are strongly urged. For original articles (clinical and basic science researches, technical innovation), Chinese abstracts (approximately 400 Chinese characters) are structured into 5 sections with the following headings: 背景, 目的, 方法, 结果, 结论. English abstract (approximately 500 words) is required to be structured into Background, Aims, Methods, Results, Conclusions, narrated definitely in the third person and in the past tense.

Generally, key words should be closely related to the main ideas of the study or discussion with 3 to 8 words, not fewer than 3 words, usually extracting from title, abstract and text. Ensure the key words to be in accordance with CMeSH, and separated by “,”.

For English abstract, the title, authors’ name, affiliations should match the Chinese ones exactly (all authors should be listed instead of et al). The initial letter of the substantives must be in capital letters.

Scientific and technical terms issued by the National Authorization Board for Scientific and Technical Terms, correct punctuations and legal units of measurement decreed by the State Department should be utilized.

Weight should be termed as mass (m, unit as “kg”); specific weight as relative density (dor ρ, unit as “1” or kg/cm3); molecular weight as relative molecule mass (Mr, unit as “1”) and u is in common use (1 u≈1.660 540×10-27kg); mol/m3is the unit of concentration, but mol/L, mmol/L and μmol/L are in common use; ppm had been abandoned, replaced by 10-6; Bq is the unit of radiation activity; Gy is the unit of radiation dosage. Time should be presented in d (day), h (hour), min (minute) and s (second) as international symbols, while month and week have no uniform international symbols, which should be expressed as “月”and “周” in Chinese character. Manuscripts are strongly required to apply legal units of measurement, standard international symbols and correct lower-cases and capitals, for example, 50毫克/ (千克·天) should be 50 mg/ (kg·d). Unit symbols must be in italic letters (pH is excepted), while the symbols of vector and tensor should be in black italics.

Authors should be responsible for the accuracy of the data cited in the article. If necessary, statistical analysis should be carried out with SAS or SPSS software package. Statistical terms, symbols, number round-off, Chinese and English abbreviations should be standardized, for example,stands for arithmetical average,sfor standard deviation,sfor standard error,tmeans Student’sttest,FmeansFtest, χ2means chi-square test,rmeans correlation coefficient,υmeans degree of freedom,Pmeans probability. All symbols should be in italics. Statistical test values such astvalue, χ2value should be given before the expression ofPvalue.

Numbers should be separated every three digits by a blank of 1/4 Chinese character rather than any symbol, for example, 5 000 (not 5, 000). Number ranges are expressed as follows: 4-6 kg, 5.2%-11.3%, 4×109-10×109, 36°-42°18′, (25.2±1.1) mm, 27%±2%. The round-off of number should abide by the principles that four is abnegated, six is added, five is fixed, odd number is added with carry and even number not. In general, retain two digits after a point. Multiplication of the numbers with unit should be written as follows: 4 cm×3 cm×5 cm, instead of 4×3×5 cm3. Century, year, month, day, time, and measurements should be expressed by using Arabic numerals.

Figures should be as few and concise as possible. Only reasonable, easily understandable and correctly designed figures will be accepted. Do not use a figure if language alone is enough to explain. Table of three-lined (top line, column line and bottom line) is acceptable, but boundary line can be drawn above bottom line if a portrait sum is needed. The results of statistical data analysis, such astorP, can be included in a table, with or without notes below the bottom line of the table. Line diagrams should fulfill the following requirements: 5∶7 ratio between height and width, and suitable size of 12.5 cm×8.5 cm. The statistical figures should be presented in accordance with the data. Type figures in Word format in additional sheets. One figure and one table could be identified as Figure 1 and Table 1, but for multiple figures and tables, they should be numbered in Arabic numerals in the order in which they are presented in the text.

Photographs should be clear, high-contrast and high-resolution. Black-white or color pictures are accepted. In special instances, black-white or color positive films and negative films of radiographs, CT scans and slides are also adopted. For photographs of identifiable persons, written permission from the subjects must be supplied or the subject’s eyes will be masked. For histological microphotographs, original magnification and staining method should be indicated, and a scale marker, such as 1 cm and 1 μm, should be noted in gross specimen pictures and in electronic microscopic pictures.

Titles and legends of the tables and photographs should be clearly typed on separate papers consecutively in Chinese and English simultaneously. Photographs should have the suitable size around 12.7 cm×17.8 cm, identified with photograph number and arrows on the back to indicate the top side of the figures.

Discussion should be focused on new discoveries and conclusions and standpoints extracted from the study, closely surrounding the results from the study, rather than repeating the contents of the results. In the discussion, authors should purposefully compare their findings with and analyze the results cited in the previously published literature, rather than just review the literature. Conclusions should be based on reliable evidences, not guesswork nor conjecture.

Abbreviated terms: Abbreviated terms should not be used in title. When used in text, the full term should be presented at the first time it occurs which is followed by abbreviation and/or English term and abbreviation in bracket.

References may be unlimited in number but must be recently published and have been read by authors. English references should be searched and selected from MEDLINE, EMBASE and Cochrane Library, and Chinese references should be searched and selected from CNKI, Wanfang database. The majority should be within the past 5 years. These original articles and literature cited by authors should be published formally rather than unpublished material, observations or personal correspondence, but the unpublished literature that has been accepted for publication can be listed as references with “in press” after the journal title. Citation from one article shouldn’t exceed 300 words, unless written permissions from the original authors are available. The journal compiles references in sequential coding format according to National Standard GB7714-87 of China. References cited should be identified by Arabic numerals set in superscript type in the text and its serial number should be matched with that listed in the Reference section.

The titles of journals should be abbreviated according to List of Journals Indexed in Index Medicus (1990) and the Abbreviation Manual of the World Medical Pharmacy and Chemical Journal titles (China Medicine and Science Press, 1998). Sample reference are given below (please paying particular attention to the use of dot):

For journal: Authors (if more than 3, listing former 3, following by “等” in Chinese, “et al” in English). Text title[J]. Journal title, Year, Volume (Number): First and last page.

For example:

[1] 宋志强, 柯美云, 王智凤, 等. 有和无重叠症状的功能性消化不良患者中消化不良症状学和发病机制的比较研究[J]. 胃肠病学, 2006, 11 (8): 458-461.

[2] CIACCI C, SABBATINI F, CAVALLARO R, et al.Helicobacterpyloriimpairs iron absorption in infected individuals[J]. Dig Liver Dis, 2004, 36 (7): 455-460.

For monograph: Author. Title of chapter and section[M]∥Chief editor. Title of book. Edition of book (first edition can be omitted). Place of publishing: Publisher, Year of publishing： First and last page.

For example:

[1] 萧树东, 蒯小玲. 干细胞：人类疾病治疗的新希望[M]∥萧树东. 胃肠病学和肝病学：基础理论与临床进展. 上海: 上海世界图书出版公司, 2004： 1-8.

[2] DROSSMAN D A, CORAZZIAN E, TALLEY N J, et al. Diagnostic criteria for functional gastrointestinal disorders[M]∥DROSSMAN D A, CORAZZIAN E, TALLEY N J, et al. Rome Ⅱ: the functional gastrointestinal disorders: diagnosis, patho-physiology, and treatment: a multinational consensus. 2nd ed. Lawrence: Allen Press, 2000： 659-668.

Reference list should be typed on a separate sheet in Word format.

The author must be responsible for obtaining written permission to reproduce previously published material (direct quotations, tables or figures) from the copyright holder.

Requirementsforothertypesofmanuscripts

The requirements for short articles abstracts are the same as original clinical and basic science articles; Chinese and English abstracts of 300 words or so and 3 to 8 key words are required. Abstracts of review articles, lectures are descriptive rather than structured (called indicative abstract), not paragraphed, limited to about 200 words and 3 to 8 key words. In English abstract, ensure the English title, all authors’ names, affiliations, post code, abstract (not paragraphed) and key words (3 to 8 words) to be matched with Chinese ones. Commentary and article by invitation are mainly solicited submissions, non-solicited submissions are also welcomed, but requiring expert (s) in relative fields to evaluate the article. Other requirements and writing formats are the same as original articles.

All information and news are limited to no more than 1 000 Chinese characters and 1 to 2 pictures.

Processingofmanuscripts

A receipt will be numbered and sent to author by the editorial office. Manuscripts that fail to comply with this instruction will be returned to the author for revision. According to the copyright law and the conditions of our journal, the editorial office will inform author no later than three months after receipt whether the manuscript is accepted or needs revision. If authors wish to submit the manuscript to other journals, they are obliged to contact the editorial office in advance.

Editorial office would not take the responsibility for damage or loss of typescript, illustrations or original photographs. Therefore, authors should keep these materials on file by themselves.

The editorial office reserves the right to revise the manuscripts under the copyright law, however, revisions which will change the original opinions need to be permitted by the authors. If the article is accepted for publication, it is necessary to submit the revised manuscripts to the web contribution center in time; late return may delay publication of the article.

Transfer of copyright to the Chinese Journal of Gastroenterology is a prerequisite of publication. All authors must sign the copyright transfer form. Once published, the journal will possess its copyright. In the interest of authors and publisher, any corporation or person is forbidden to copy or reproduce material from published papers in any form unless a written permission from the editorial office is obtained. Two copies and 10 offprints will be mailed to the corresponding author after publication. The editorial office is responsible of returning rejected manuscripts.

Accepted manuscripts will be put on the Web of editorial department in time.

Tel: 021-63286942, 021-53882318; Email: gastroenterology88@126.com

Manuscriptsshouldbesentto: http:∥www.cjge-manuscriptcentral.com:18080