Oxford Journals

Instructions for Authors

QJM welcomes contributions relevant to the science and practice of medicine: original papers, describing either clinical research or basic scientific work; review articles on advances in clinical medicine or medical science; commentaries expressing personal or controversial views on any medical topic; and correspondence on matters arising from articles published in the journal. Please note that we seldom publish individual case reports as original papers but may, if they are of exceptional interest, consider them for our correspondence columns. We aim to offer rapid review and publication of accepted articles and to aid this process, contributors are asked to follow these guidelines.

Manuscript submission: QJM uses a web-based submission and review system at http://www.editorialmanager.com/qjm. Detailed instructions on how to use this system can be found by clicking here. Once you have prepared your manuscript according to the instructions below, please visit the online submission system. Original papers should include a structured abstract of fewer than 250 words under the headings: background, aim, design, methods, results, and conclusions. We suggest that authors consult a recent issue of the journal (http://qjmed.oxfordjournals.org) to ensure that their manuscript corresponds to the usual QJM style.
Correspondence: Manuscript and peer review enquiries should be directed to the Editorial Assistant: Wendy Moore. e-mail the Editorial Office. All other communications to the publishers: Oxford University Press, Oxford Journals, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Ethics and patient consent: QJM will only consider for publication research that has been scrutinized by a research ethics committee or an institutional review board. The covering letter that accompanies the submitted manuscript should indicate that the ethics of the study have been reviewed by an appropriate body. The journal also requires that permission is obtained from the patient or patient’s relatives for submission of the case report for potential publication. This must be obtained before submission of the manuscript and the authors must state this in their submission letter. If photographs of the patient, in any form, are used a specific signed permission statement from the patient must be obtained and a copy of this submitted with the manuscript. The editor reserves the right to refuse publication where the required ethical approval/patient consent is lacking.
Authorship: All persons designated as authors should qualify for authorship. The order of authorship should be a joint decision of the co-authors. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for the content. Authorship credit should be based on substantial contribution to conception and design, execution, or analysis and interpretation of data. All authors should be involved in drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content, and must have read and approved the final version of the manuscript. In the case of co-authored manuscripts, the corresponding author will also be responsible for authorising the submission via the online submission system.
Funding
Details of all funding sources for the work in question should be given in a separate section entitled 'Funding'. This should appear before the 'Acknowledgements' section.

The following rules should be followed:
- The sentence should begin: ‘This work was supported by …’
- The full official funding agency name should be given, i.e. ‘National Institutes of Health’, not ‘NIH’ (full RIN-approved list of UK funding agencies) Grant numbers should be given in brackets as follows: ‘[grant number xxxx]’
- Multiple grant numbers should be separated by a comma as follows: ‘[grant numbers xxxx, yyyy]’
- Agencies should be separated by a semi-colon (plus ‘and’ before the last funding agency)
- Where individuals need to be specified for certain sources of funding the following text should be added after the relevant agency or grant number 'to [author initials]'.
An example is given here: ‘This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health [AA123456 to C.S., BB765432 to M.H.]; and the Alcohol & Education Research Council [hfygr667789].

Oxford Journals will deposit all NIH-funded articles in PubMed Central. See Depositing articles in repositories – information for authors for details. Authors must ensure that manuscripts are clearly indicated as NIH-funded using the guidelines above.
References: References should be numbered consecutively by superscript arabic numerals in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text. Where references are cited in a table or figure legend, numbering should correspond to the first mention of that table or figure in the text. QJM adopts the Vancouver system for references. These should include, (i) the list of all authors, (ii) the title of the article, (iii) the title of the journal (as abbreviated in Index Medicus), (iv) the year of publication, (v) volume number, (vi) first and last pages. Book references should give the author, title, edition, volume and page number (where appropriate), with town of publication, name of publisher and year of publication.

e.g. Wilson CB. The renal response to immunologic injury. In: Brenner BM, Rector FC, eds. The Kidney, 4th edn. Philadelphia, WB Saunders, 1991:1062-181.

e.g. Evans DGR, Harris R. Heterogeneity and genetic conditions. Q J Med 1992; 84:563-5.
Electronic submission of figures: Figures should be supplied in an electronic format at a suitable size for printing with the following resolutions: 600 dots per inch (dpi) for line drawings and combinations; 300 dpi for greyscale and colour. Colour figures must be supplied in CMYK not RGB colours. Please ensure that the prepared electronic image files print at a legible size and are of a high quality for publication. For useful information on preparing your figures for publication, go to http://cpc.cadmus.com/da. You can also see our figure guidelines. Colour figures will appear online within the pdf of the paper at no charge. If the author wishes for the figure to appear in print in colour they should indicate this at the proof corrections stage.
Proofs: Authors will receive PDF files of their page proofs by e-mail. Excessive corrections at this stage are discouraged and may be charged to the author.
Copyright:

New for 2010 – Please note that the journal now encourages authors to complete their copyright licence to publish form online

Upon receipt of accepted manuscripts at Oxford Journals authors will be invited to complete an online copyright licence to publish form.

Please note that by submitting an article for publication you confirm that you are the corresponding/submitting author and that Oxford University Press ("OUP") may retain your email address for the purpose of communicating with you about the article. You agree to notify OUP immediately if your details change. If your article is accepted for publication OUP will contact you using the email address you have used in the registration process. Please note that OUP does not retain copies of rejected articles.
It is a condition of publication in the journal that authors grant an exclusive licence to publish to the Association of Physicians. This ensures that requests from third parties to reproduce articles are handled efficiently and consistently, and will also allow the article to be as widely disseminated as possible. As part of the licence agreement, authors may use their own material in other publications provided that the journal is acknowledged as the original place of publication, and Oxford University Press is notified in writing and in advance.
OPEN ACCESS OPTION FOR AUTHORS
QJM authors have the option to publish their paper under the Oxford Open initiative; whereby, for a charge, their paper will be made freely available online immediately upon publication. After your manuscript is accepted the corresponding author will be required to accept a mandatory licence to publish agreement. As part of the licensing process you will be asked to indicate whether or not you wish to pay for open access. If you do not select the open access option, your paper will be published with standard subscription-based access and you will not be charged.

If you choose the open access option you can pay the Open Access charges using our Author Services site. This will enable you to pay online with a credit/debit card, or request an invoice by email or post. Open access charges can be viewed here in detail; discounted rates are available for authors based in some developing countries (click here for a list of qualifying countries).

Orders from the UK will be subject to a 17.5% VAT charge. For orders from the rest of the European Union, OUP will assume that the service is provided for business purposes.
Language Editing
Particularly if English is not your first language, before submitting your manuscript you may wish to have it edited for language. This is not a mandatory step, but may help to ensure that the academic content of your paper is fully understood by journal editors and reviewers. Language editing does not guarantee that your manuscript will be accepted for publication. If you would like information about one such service please click here. There are other specialist language editing companies that offer similar services and you can also use any of these. Authors are liable for all costs associated with such services.
Author Self-Archiving/Public Access policy
For information about this journal's policy, please visit our Author Self-Archiving policy page.'