Peer Reviewed Open Access Research Journal
International Journal of Medical Laboratory Research (IJMLR)
DOI: 10.35503
Author Guidelines
Authors should read the editorial policy and publication ethics before submitting their manuscripts. Authors should also use the appropriate reporting guidelines in preparing their manuscripts.
Research Ethics
Studies involving human subjects should be conducted according to the World Medical Association (WMA) Declaration of Helsinki - Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects.
Studies involving non human animals should follow appropriate ethical guidelines such as the Animal Welfare Act, The Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act (Amendment) Order 1993, The EU parliament directive on the protection of animals used for scientific purposes, ARRP policies and guidelines, etc.
Reporting guideline
Responsible reporting of research studies, which includes a complete, transparent, accurate and timely account of what was done and what was found during a research study, is an integral part of good research and publication practice and not an optional extra.
Manuscript Submission
Manuscripts can be submitted at editor.ijlmr@gmail.com or editor@ijmlr.com . Authors are encouraged to provide the names and addresses of possible reviewers outside their own institutions.
Preparing Manuscript:
Page Layout should be in A4 (21cm × 28 cm) leaving 2 cm margin on all sides of the text. All the text should be single spaced and the pages should be numbered consecutively.Use MS word (2003-2007) for text and TIFF, JPEG or Paint for figures. The first page should contain, Title-bold, 12 point size, Name/s of author/s in 11 point size (Surname or Family name first in bold) Affiliation/s-address of all the author/s followed by email of corresponding author in 11 point sizein italics. Abstract in up to 200 words in 11 point size
Manuscripts will appear under one of the following sections: Original Article, Review Article, letter to editor, Brief Reports.
Original Articles:
Original research presents a full description of investigator-initiated research that has been conducted and resulted in reportable findings. A range of types of research are acceptable including basic science and clinical research such as clinical trials and health services research. The work is meant to be a culmination of information that is important to the field and would contribute new data, new ways of approaching a problem, or a change in the previous understanding of a disease process. The manuscript details the hypothesis, background and significance, methods, results, discussion, and implications for clinical practice. Total Length of article is not more than 3000-4000 words (not including abstract, illustrations, and references) Abstract Length is 250-300 words and Table/Figure Limits is up to 8 tables and figures. References can be up to 100 sources. Research articles should not be more than 8-12 pages.
Review Articles:
Reviews are articles that distill the most significant current scientific literature on a given topic into a concise report in order to summarize current knowledge of the topic, including gaps in knowledge and future directions. The review should provide a detailed description of previous work, current guidelines or knowledge, the most recent research findings, and implications for practice, policy, and additional research. Reviews can be systematic/meta-analyses, or narrative reviews. Systematic reviews follow a standard, rigorous methodology for data collection and analyses. A detailed explanation of the specific methods used should be described in the manuscript. Narrative reviews do not utilize a standardized methodology but whatever method is used should be clearly explained as well as a clear argument for the review’s significance, critical descriptions of the literature presented, a summary of the current state of knowledge, conclusions, and implications. Total Length is 3000-4000 words (excluding abstract, illustrations, and references). Abstract Length is 250-300 words. Table/Figure Limits is up to 8 tables/figures. Referencescan be up to 100 references.
Letter to editor:
Letters to the Editor addressing issues raised within the journal scope. Single Case Reports are also invited within this section. Brief Observations and Rapid Communications which are not broad enough in scope to be an Original article will also be considered. Contributions in all areas within the scope of the journal will be considered, however, the material must be adequately presented in less than three journal pages and contain at most one Figure and one Table. Total Length is 500 words (excluding abstract, illustrations, and references). Abstract Length is 150 words. Table/Figure Limits is up to 1 tables/figures. References can be up to 40 references.
Brief Reports:
Brief reports are similar to original research in that they follow the same rigor, format and guidelines, but are designed for small-scale research or research that is in early stages of development. These may include preliminary studies that utilize a simple research design or a small sample size and that have produced limited pilot data and initial findings that indicate need for further investigation. Brief reports are much shorter than manuscripts associated with a more advanced, larger-scale research project. They are not meant to be used for a short version of an article about research that would otherwise qualify for a full original research manuscript or for publishing material on research that lacks significance, is not rigorous or, if expanded, would not qualify for a full article or for research. Total Length is 1500 words (excluding abstract, illustrations, and references). Abstract Length is 150 words. Table/Figure Limits is up to 3 tables/figures. References can be up to 40 references.
Order of Sections:
In all cases the manuscript should be consistent with style, spellings and use of abbreviations. We recommend that the manuscript be typed double-spaced with a 1 1/2" margin on all sides. Number the manuscript pages consecutively beginning with the title page. Hyphenation and justification should not be used. The manuscript should not exceed 8-12 double-spaced typewritten pages (including references, figures, and tables). Manuscripts should contain each of the following elements in sequence:
Title Page.
The title page should contain the following information: Complete title of the manuscript; a running title (not to exceed 54 characters and spaces); the names, titles, and affiliations of all authors (specific to the department level); the name, complete address, and telephone, FAX and electronic mailbox numbers of the corresponding author; three to five key words that will highlight the subject matter of the article.3
Abstract.
Authors are required to provide a structured abstract. The abstract, which should not exceed 250 words, should consist of four paragraphs, labeled: Background, Methods, Results, Conclusions. They should describe, respectively, the reason for the study, how the study was performed, the most important results, and what is concluded from the results. The subject under investigation and technologies or methods employed must be included. The Medical Subject Headings List from Index Medicus should be used whenever possible.
Keywords
A list of three to ten keywords contained in the article must be listed below the abstract. A minimum of three and maximum ten keywords are required, and they should contain the type of research such as systematic review, randomized clinical trial, cohort study, case-control study, laboratory research, or "other". (These will be used to search for your article on Internet resources.)
Abbreviations
Please keep abbreviations to a minimum. List all non-standard abbreviations in alphabetical order, along with their expanded form. Define them as well upon first use in the text. Non-standard abbreviations should not be used unless they appear at least three times in the text.
Introduction
Provide a context or background for the study including the nature of the problem and its significance to medical learners and scientists. State the specific purpose or research objective tested by the study; the research objective is often more sharply focused when stated as a question. Both the main and secondary objectives should be clear, and any pre-specified subgroup analyses should be described. Provide only directly pertinent references, and do not include data or conclusions from the work being reported.
Material and Methods
The methods section should include information on materials, methods and procedures in sufficient detail such that the study can be repeated and/or validated. The methods section should include only information that was available at the time the plan or protocol for the study was being written; all information obtained during the study belongs in the results section. Describe your selection of the observational or experimental participants clearly, including eligibility and exclusion criteria and a description of the source population. Give references to established methods, including statistical methods, describe new or substantially modified methods, give the reasons for using them, and evaluate their limitations.
Statistics
Describe statistical methods with enough detail to enable a knowledgeable reader with access to the original data to verify the reported results. Avoid relying solely on statistical hypothesis testing, such as p-values, which fail to convey important information about effect size, but include averages with confidence intervals if available, in addition to the p-values. Define statistical terms, abbreviations, and most symbols. Specify the computer software used.
Results
Present your results in logical sequence in the text, tables, and illustrations, giving the main or most important findings first. Do not repeat all the data in the tables or illustrations in the text; emphasize or summarize only the most important observations. Extra or supplementary materials and technical detail can be placed in an appendix. Restrict tables and figures to those needed to explain the argument of the paper and to assess supporting data. Avoid interpreting the data, as this section is pure information that the reader can interpret for themselves; the authors’ own interpretation of the data is meant for the discussion section of the manuscript.
Discussion
Emphasize the new and important aspects of the study and the conclusions that follow from them. For experimental studies, it is useful to begin the discussion by summarizing briefly the main findings, then explore possible mechanisms or explanations for these findings, compare and contrast the results with other relevant studies, state the limitations of the study, and explore the implications of the findings for future research and for clinical practice. Because every experiment or project can always be improved, a healthy discussion of the limitations of the study should be included. All manuscripts should include a brief discussion on the adequacy of the research methods to draw a valid conclusion. Authors should comment on changes that would improve the methods of the study or reasons why the methods are able to draw a strong conclusion. The discussion of limitations should not be a separate heading or sub-heading in the actual manuscript, but should be a flowing part of the discussion section.
Tables.
Each table must have a title and should be self-explanatory. Avoid duplicating information in the text. Number tables with Arabic numerals in order of appearance in the text.
Conflict of Interest Disclosure.
It is requires that all authors disclose any potential sources of conflict of interest. Any interest or relationship, financial or otherwise, that might be perceived as influencing an author’s objectivity is considered a potential source of conflict of interest. The existence of a conflict of interest does not preclude publication in this journal.
References.
References should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text (not in alphabetic order). Identify references in text, tables, and legends by Arabic numerals in superscript with square bracket after the punctuation marks. References cited only in tables or figure legends should be numbered in accordance with the sequence established by the first identification in the text of the particular table or figure. Use the style of the examples below, which are based on the formats used by the NLM in Index Medicus. The titles of journals should be abbreviated according to the style used in Index Medicus. Use complete name of the journal for non-indexed journals. Avoid using abstracts as references. Information from manuscripts submitted but not accepted should be cited in the text as "unpublished observations" with written permission from the source. Avoid citing a "personal communication" unless it provides essential information not available from a public source, in which case the name of the person and date of communication should be cited in parentheses in the text. The commonly cited types of references are shown here, for other types of references such as newspaper items please refer to ICMJE Guidelines (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/uniform_requirements.html).
Authors are responsible for the accuracy of references. Maximum 50 reference for original articles and review articles and 15 for brief case reports, case study, brief reports,letter to editor.
The following formats must be used for references:
Journals.
1. Brando B, Sommaruga E. Nationwide quality control trial on lymphocyte phenotyping and flow cytometry performance in Italy. Cytometry 1993;14:294-306.
Article in a book or comparable publication.
2. Gray JW, Cram LS. Flow karyotyping and chromosome sorting. In: Melamed MR, Lindmo T, Mendelsohn ML, editors. Flow cytometry and sorting. 2nd ed. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 1990. p 503-529.
Books.
3. Givan AL. Flow cytometry: first principles. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 1992. 1223 p.
Journal Articles:
Author(s). Title of journal article. Journal Name. Month Year; Volume,Issue: Inclusive page numbers.
1. Takagi J, Petre BM, Walz T, Springer TA. Global conformational rearrangements in integrin extracellular domains in outside-in and inside-out signaling. Cell. Sep
2002;110,5:599-611.
Complete Book:
Author(s). Book Title. Edition. Location published: Publisher; Year published.
2. Brown JM, Lee JK, Wilson BJ, Martin AM. The Unification of Thought. Detroit: Blithe Books; 2010.
Book Section/Chapter:
Author(s). Chapter title. Book Title. Edition. Location published: Publisher; Year published:Inclusive pages.
3. Wilson JL, Martin HA, Campbell JT. The Early Years. The War. 3 ed. New York, NY: Blithe Books; 1998:200-263.
Abstracts (citing information only from abstract of article):
Author(s), Name of article [abstract]. Journal name. Year;Volume(Issue):Inclusive pages.
4. Benedict NJ. Sitaxsentan in the management of pulmonary arterial hypertension [abstract]. Am J Health Syst Pharm. 2007;64(4):363-368.
Copyright /Authorship Statement
Authors are asked to sign a warranty and copyright agreement upon acceptance of their manuscript, before the manuscript can be published. The Copyright Transfer Agreement/Authorship Statement form can be downloaded here (in Word file ).
Nomenclature
The use of standardized nomenclature in all fields of science and medicine is an essential step toward the integration and linking of scientific information reported in published literature. We will enforce the use of correct and established nomenclature wherever possible:
We strongly encourage the use of SI units. If you do not use these exclusively, please provide the SI value in parentheses after each value.
Species names should be italicized (e.g., Homo sapiens) and the full genus and species must be written out in full, both in the title of the manuscript and at the first mention of an organism in a paper; after that, the first letter of the genus name, followed by the full species name may be used.
Funding
This section should describe sources of funding that have supported the work. Please also describe the role of the study sponsor(s), if any, in study design; collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; writing of the paper; and decision to submit it for publication.
PUBLICATION PROCESS : Entire process from receiving article to accepting article will take minimum 4 weeks. after the acceptance it will be publish in forthcoming issue.
On Manuscript receiving:
IJMLR follows peer review policy to ensure free and fare evaluation of all submitted articles. Upon receiving the article it is sent to subject expert reviewer for their evaluation and comments. If the articles are found suitable for publication, the authors are informed about the same. In case any deficiencies are noted, the article is referred back to the authors for revision and re-submission.
Acceptance mail
Authors will get a acceptance mail for manuscripts that have been reviewed and accepted for publication by an editor. If this paper is accepted for publication, you will be asked to pay an Publication Fee to cover publications costs. Authors can remit their publishing fee through online payment link or through internet banking provided after acceptance of the article. (click here for Payment)
Publication
After acceptance of manuscript you need to pay the AP charge. Once processing charge cleared, the manuscripts are usually included in the next issue of the journal. The article will thereafter be published on the journal’s website
Publication Notification
After the article is made available on the journal’s website, a publication notice is sent to the corresponding author with links to the issue and article.
Disclaimer:
Articles on International Journal of Medical Laboratory Research have been previewed and authenticated by the Authors before publishing online. The accountability of the research content articulated in this journal is entirely of the authors concerned as well as facts and opinions published in International Journal of Mediacl Laboratory Research (IJMLR) express absolutely the opinions of the individual authors. The publisher/editors of the journal are not responsible for errors or any penalty arising from the exercise of information contained in articles. The editors cannot be held responsible for any lacks or possible violations of third parties rights. Authors are responsible for their citing of sources and the accuracy of their references and bibliographies.