General

Journal of Medical Society, is an official publication of the Medical Society, Regional Institute of Medical Sciences, Imphal -795 004, Manipur, India. This peer reviewed, multidisciplinary journal is published three times a year both online and in print. The articles are accepted only on the condition that they are solely contributed to this journal. The Editorial Board has the right to revise the article and make changes (in house style) or may ask the author to rewrite. Papers presented in the various scientific meetings of the Society shall be given preference.

Manuscripts must be prepared in accordance with “Uniform requirements for Manuscripts submitted to Biomedical Journal” developed by International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (February 2006). The uniform requirements and specific requirement of Journal of Medical Society are summarized below. Articles can be submitted online from http://www.journalonweb.com/jms

Journal of Medical Society will strictly follow ICMJE guidelines regarding authorship. Authorship credit should be based on 1) substantial contributions to conception and design, acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; 2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and 3) final approval of the version to be published. Authors should meet conditions 1, 2, and 3.
Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group alone does not constitute authorship. All persons designated as authors should qualify for authorship, and all those who qualify should be listed. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content.

The Journal of Medical Society accepts, in English, Review articles, Original research articles, Short communications, Case reports, Early communications and Letters to the Editor. Articles of general interest on methods in medical science, medical education and update on therapeutics are also welcome.
Review articles and Educational forum: Review articles are written by the researchers of a considerable experience in the field concerned. The author should review the recent trend or the advances in that field. The major portion of above articles should deal with the up to date developments in the field in the last 3-5 years.
Full length research articles and short communications: Original work will be considered under these sections depending on the volume and quality of work.
Case Reports: It should be divided into unstructured abstract (150 words), case history and discussion with maximum of 6 references only. Illustrations/photographs and tables when included should be limited to two each.
Early communication: A manuscript will be accepted for Early communication if it merits publication. The decision of acceptance or otherwise will be communicated within four weeks of receipt of the manuscript and accepted articles will be published in the following issue.
Letters to the editor: Comment(s) on previously published articles, items of current interest and brief original communications will be published.

The Editorial Policy

Manuscripts for publication will be considered on their individual merits. All manuscripts will be subjected to peer review. Normally all manuscripts will be sent to all least two reviewers and their comments along with the editorial board’s decision will be forwarded to the contributor for further action. The author may suggest more than 5 referees working in the same area for evaluating the manuscript. However, the JMS reserves the right to choose referees. The Journal of Medical Society will insist on ethical practices in both human and animal experimentation. When investigations on human subjects are reported, evidence for approval by a local Ethics Committee must be given. The journal will not consider any paper which is ethically unacceptable. The quotations, tables or illustrations published in other journals, books etc. should not be reproduced without the permission of the publisher or the original author. These materials must be accompanied by the written permission from the copyright owners.All authors must disclose any and all conflicts of interest they may have with publication of the manuscript or an institution or product that is mentioned in the manuscript and/or is important to the outcome of the study presented. Any article accepted for publication/published in the Journal of Medical Society will be the copyright of the journal.

Submission of Manuscripts

a) All manuscripts should be submitted electronically through http://www.journalonweb.com/jms. 

b) A first time user is required to register as a new author – the process being a simple self-explanatory two stage process. Link for new author registration is available from the home page. 

c) There is no need for the authors to pay for submission, handling or publication of articles. 

d) Authors must carefully read the “Instructions to Authors” at http://www.jmedsoc.org website before the submission of the manuscript. 

e) For any problems, the editorial office may be contacted at: [email protected]. 

f) If authors do not follow the “Instructions to Authors”, the manuscript will be returned to them for correction before peer-review.

g) The manuscript must be submitted with a Contributors' Form, signed by all authors, regarding the originality, authorship and copyright transfer.

h) The Contributors' Form/Copyright transfer Form may be submitted online or a hard copy may be sent to the following address at:- 

Prof (Dr) Th. Meera, 

Editor-in-Chief JMS, 

Department of Forensic Medicine, 

Regional Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS), 

Imphal -795004 

Manipur, India

Fax No. (0385)2414625

e-mail:- [email protected]; 

            [email protected]

Preparation of Manuscripts

Authors should keep their manuscripts short. Manuscripts should be typed in MS Word. The font size should be 12 point in Arial/ Times new roman style, double spacing with 2.5 cm margins from all sides. Page should be numbered beginning with the title page on the upper right corner. The language of manuscript must be simple and explicit.

5.1. Full length of original articles: It should be arranged into following sections : a) Title page, b) Abstract and Key words, c) Introduction, d) Material and Methods, e) Results, f) Discussion, g) Conclusion, i) References, j) Tables and k) Figures. A word count is mandatory and should not exceed 3200.

5.1.1
Title page: It should be paginated as page 1 of the paper. It should carry title, the author’s names and their affiliations, running title, address for correspondence including e-mail address and also the list of number of pages, number of figures and number of tables.
Title: Must not exceed 150 characters and should be informative and specific.
Authors and affiliations: The names of authors and their appropriate addresses should be given. Authorship should be clearly defined. Authors are required to submit a statement of the contributions made by each author.
Running title: A short running title of not more than 50 characters should be given.
Address for correspondence: The corresponding author’s address should be given in the title page.
The details of fax number and e-mail address should be provided.
Title page
The following information should be included:
(a) A concise title
(b) The names of all authors
(c)The department, institution, and address at which the research was performed
(d) The number of text pages; tables; figures
(e) A short running head (50 characters or less)
(f) Grant numbers and resource (s) of support/ conflict of interest.
(g) Name, address, e-mail, telephone and fax numbers of author to whom correspondence and proofs should be sent.
(h) Name and address of author to who reprint requests should be sent (if different from above)

5.1.2. Abstract and key words
Abstract: It must start on a new page carrying the following information:
a) Title (without authors’ names or affiliation),
b) Abstract
c) Key words.
It should not exceed 250 words. The abstract must be concise and clear, informative rather than indicative. New and important aspects must be emphasized. The abstract must be in a structured form consisting of BACKGROUND, OBJECTIVES, METHODS, RESULTS, and CONCLUSION briefly explaining what was intended, done, observed and concluded. Authors should state the main conclusions clearly and not in vague statements. The conclusions and recommendations not found in the text of the article should not be given in the abstract.
Key words: Provide 3-5 key words which will help readers or indexing agencies in cross indexing the study. Use terms from the latest Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) list of Index Medicus. A more general term may be used if a suitable MeSH term is not available.
For case studies, abstracts should not exceed 150 words and must be include Background, case, conclusion.

5.1.3 Introduction -
It should start on a new page. Essentially this section must introduce the subject and briefly say how the idea for research originated. Give a concise background of the Study. Do not review the literature extensively but provide the most recent work that has a direct bearing on the subject. Justification for research aims and objectives must be clearly mentioned without any ambiguity. The purpose of the study should be stated at the end.

5.1.4 Materials and Methods
The section should deal with the materials used and the methodology -how the work was carried out. The procedure adopted should be described in sufficient detail to allow the experiment to be interpreted and repeated by readers, if necessary. The number of subjects, the number of groups studied, the study design, sources of drugs with dosage regimen or instruments used, statistical methods and ethical aspects must be mentioned under the section. The methodology, the data collection procedure must be described in detail. If the procedure is a commonly used one, then giving a reference (previously published) would suffice. If a method is not well known (though previously published) it is better to describe it briefly. Give explicit descriptions of modifications or new methods so that the readers can judge their accuracy, reproducibility and reliability. The nomenclature, the source of materials and equipment used, with details of the manufacturers in parentheses, should be clearly mentioned. Drugs and chemicals should be precisely identified using their non-proprietary names or generic names. If necessary, the proprietary or commercial name may be inserted once in parentheses. The first letter of the drug name should be in small cap {e.g. nifedipine, propranolol) but capitalized for proprietary names {e.g. Depin, Inderal). New or uncommon drug should be identified by the chemical name and structural formula. The doses of drugs should be given as unit weight per body weight e.g. mg/kg and concentrations should be given in terms of molarity e.g. nmol or mmol. Statistical methods: The details of statistical tests used and the level of significance should be stated. If more than one test is used it is important to indicate which groups and parameters have been subjected to which tests.

5.1.5 Results
The results should be stated concisely without comments. It should be presented in logical sequence in the text with appropriate reference to tables and figures. The data given in tables or figures should not be presented in both tabular and graphic form. Simple data may be given in the test itself instead of figures or tables. Avoid discussions and conclusions in the result section.

5.1.6 Discussion
This section should deal with the interpretation of results, rather than recapitulation of them. It is important to discuss the new and significant observations in the light of previous work. Discuss also the weakness or pitfalls in the study. New hypotheses or recommendations can be put forth.

5.1.7 Conclusion
Avoid unqualified statements and conclusions not completely supported by the data. Conclusion must be drawn considering the strengths and weakness of the study. They must be conveyed in the last paragraph under discussion section. Make sure conclusions drawn to tally with the objectives stated in introduction.

5.1.8 Acknowledgments
It should be typed in a new page. Acknowledge only the persons who have contributed to the scientific content or provided technical support..

5.1.9 References
It should begin on a new page. The number of references should normally be restricted to a maximum of 25 for a full paper. Majority of them should preferably be of articles published in the last 5 years. Papers that have been submitted and accepted but not yet published may be included in the list of the references with the name of the journal and indicated as “In Press”. A photocopy should normally be submitted with the manuscript. Information from the manuscripts submitted but not yet accepted should not be included.
Avoid using abstracts for references. The “unpublished observations” and “personal communications” may not be used as references but may be inserted (in parentheses) in the text. The references must be verified by the author(s) against original documents. Contributors should submit the manuscript (including references) in accordance to the “Uniform Requirement for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals”, which can be accessed at http:/ /www.icmje.org/ index.html or N Engl J Med 1997; 366:309-15.
References should be arranged in order of citation in the text in the Vancouver style and numbered consecutively. References should not exceed 25 readily available citations for all original articles. In text, tables, and legends, identify references with Arabic numerals in parentheses, superscript and within brackets ( ) following fullstop. References should include names of all authors (last name, first); title of article; title of journal (abbreviate according to the style of Index Medicus) or book; year of publication; volume number; location and name of publishing company (books only); first page and last page.
Note: List all authors and/or editors up to 6; for more than six authors the first six should be listed followed by ‘et al.’

5.1.10 Tables
Each table must be self-explanatory. It should be typed with double space on a separate page and numbered consecutively in Arabic numerals. Table should have a proper heading and each stub and column should also have subheadings. The number of observation, subjects and the units of numerical figures must be given. It is also important to mention whether the given values are mean, median, mean± SD. All significant results must be indicated using asterisks. The approximate position of the tables should be marked in the text. Do not use internal horizontal or vertical lines.

5.1.11 Figures 
Each figure must be numbered and a short caption must be provided. Good quality colour images in the JPEG format with a minimum resolution of 300 dpi should be submitted online (1800X1200 pixels). The size of each image should be less than 4 MB. The image files should not be zipped. The legends for the figures or images should be included at the end of the article file. 

5.2 Short communications
The format is same as that of full papers but the length including title and references should not exceed 1600 words plus two figures or tables or one of each. The summary should be less than 150 words and the number of references should not exceed 12.

5.3. Early communications
The manuscript should not be divided into subsections. It may contain up to 1200 words (including a maximum of 6 references) plus one simple figure or table.

5.4. Letters to Editor
It can have a maximum of 800 words (including a maximum of 4 references) plus one simple figure or table. The manuscript should not have subsections.

5.5 Review articles and Educational forum
It should contain title page. Summary (need not be in structured form) and key words. The text proper should be written under appropriate sub- headings. The authors are encouraged to use flowcharts, boxes, simple tables and figures for better presentation. The total number to text words should not exceed 6400 and the total number of figures and tables should be less than 10.

Revised manuscript

The authors should revise the manuscript immediately after the receipt of the comments from JMS. A note mentioning the changes incorporated in the revised text as per referee’s comments (point by point) should be sent. The revised manuscript has to be submitted online within 2 weeks. If the revised manuscript is received after  2 weeks of intimation, it will be considered as a new submission. Calling for revision does not guarantee acceptance.
The revised manuscripts that require major revision are likely to be sent to referees for evaluation. If the authors have substantial reasons that their manuscript was rejected unjustifiably, they may request for reconsideration. The correspondence in this regard should be sent to [email protected]

proofs

Proofs will be sent to the corresponding author for final checking. It is the author’s responsibility to go through the proof meticulously and correct errors if any. Correction should be restricted to printer’s error only and no substantial addition/ deletion should be made.

Reprints

Reprints must be ordered while returning the corrected page proofs.

Checklist

Remember to submit the author’s agreement plus the manuscript, with the components in the following order:

• Title page
• Abstract
• Introduction
• Material / Methods
• Results
• Discussion
• Conclusion
• Acknowledgment
• References
• Tables
• Figure legends and figures.

Protection of Patients’ Right to Privacy

Identifying information should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, sonograms, CT scans, etc., and pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or parent or guardian, wherever applicable) gives informed consent for publication. Authors should remove patients' names from figures unless they have obtained informed consent from the patients. The journal abides by ICMJE guidelines:

     1)Authors, not the journals nor the publisher, need to obtain the patient consent form before the publication and have the form properly archived. The consent forms are not to be uploaded with the cover letter or sent through email to editorial or publisher offices.

     2)If the manuscript contains patient images that preclude anonymity, or a description that has obvious indication to the identity of the patient, a statement about obtaining informed patient consent should be indicated in the manuscript.

Contributors' form

Click here to download instructions

Click here to download copyright form

These ready to use templates are made to help the contributors write as per the requirements of the Journal.

Save the templates on your computer and use them with a word processor program. 
Click open the file and save as the manuscript file.

In the program keep 'Document Map' and 'Comments' on from 'View' menu to navigate through the file. 


Download Template for Original Articles/ABSTRACT Reports. (.DOT file)

Download Template for Case Reports.  (.DOT file)

Download Template for Review Articles.  (.DOT file)

Download Template for Letter to the Editor.  (.DOT file)