A. Aims and Scope
B. General Policy
C. Ethical Consideration
D. Types of Articles
E. Manuscript Preparation for Submission
A. Aims and Scope:
Iranian Journal of Otorhinolaryngology is a peer-reviewed, bimonthly publication of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences (MUMS), Mashhad, Iran. The journal is published under supervision of the otorhinolaryngology department of University in the field of otorhinolaryngology. This journal is approved by ‘Medical Journals Commission’ of Ministry of Health and Medical Education of Iran.
B. General Policy:
1. Manuscript must be accompanied by a covering letter to the editor-in-chief, including title and author(s) name and undertaking that it has not been published or submitted elsewhere.
2. All authors should review the submitted manuscript and all the authors should sign the covering letter.
3. Manuscripts are only accepted for publication on the understanding that the authors will permit editorial amendments, though proofs will always be submitted to the corresponding author before being sent finally to press. The decision to accept a contribution rests with the Editorial Board of the IJO.
4. The reviewing and publishing process depends on the quality of your study as well as the English accuracy of your manuscript.
5. Corresponding author is the main owner of the article so she/he can withdraw the submitted article from the review process before the final approval if there is a valid reason such as not trusting the data exist by submitting a letter to the editorial office.
C. Ethical Consideration
The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) has produced and updated the "Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts (URM) Submitted to Biomedical Journals". Authors can consult this requirements using the following link www.icmje.org.
This journal follows International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE)‘s Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals.
The Iranian Journal of Otorhinolaryngology's policy complies with the "Guide to Good Publication Practice" by the Committee on Ethics in Publication (COPE).
If research misconduct, fraud or plagiarism is suspected, editors will follow the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines and reserve the rights to inform authors or their institution. More details are available from Publication Ethics. Please read these instructions before submitting your article.
Study design and ethical approval: Good research should be well justified, well planned, appropriately designed, and ethically approved. To conduct research to a lower standard may constitute misconduct. The authors are responsible for the whole scientific content as well as the accuracy of the bibliographic information.
Data analysis: Data should be appropriately analyzed, but inappropriate analysis does not necessarily amount to misconduct. Fabrication and falsification of data do constitute misconduct.
Authorship: As stated in the ICMJE recommendations, credit for authorship requires:
(1) Significant contributions to conceptualization and design; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of the data,
(2) The drafting of the article or critical revision for important intellectual content
(3) Final approval of the version to be published
No Prior Publication or Duplicate Submissions: Manuscripts are considered for publication only if they are not under consideration by other journals and have not been published previously in the same or substantially similar form. If a prior or duplicate publication be discovered, the Editor will address the matter with the affected author/s and the other journal’s editor following guidelines published by the ICJME and by the COPE.
Conflicts of interest: Conflicts of interest comprise those which may not be fully apparent and which may influence the judgment of author, reviewers, and editors. They have been described as those which, when revealed later, would make a reasonable reader feel misled or deceived. They may be personal, commercial, political, academic or financial. “Financial” interests may include employment, research funding, stock or share ownership, payment for lectures or travel, consultancies and company support for staff.
Authors should disclose, at the time of submission, information on financial conflicts of interest or other interests that may influence the manuscript. Authors should declare sources of funding for the work undertaken.
Peer Review Process: This journal uses Double-blind review, which means that both the reviewer and author identities are concealed from the reviewers, and vice versa, throughout the review process. All manuscripts are considered to be confidential. They are peer reviewed by anonymous reviewers selected by the editorial board. The corresponding author is notified as soon as possible of the editor decision to accept, reject, or require modifications. If the manuscript is completely according to the instruction, it is scheduled for the next available issue.
Redundant publication: Redundant publication occurs when two or more papers, without full cross reference, share the same hypothesis, data, discussion points, or conclusions. In such cases, the manuscript will be rejected.
Plagiarism: Plagiarism ranges from the unreferenced use of others’ published and unpublished ideas, including research grant applications to submission under “new” authorship of a complete paper, sometimes in a different language. It may occur at any stage of planning, research, writing, or publication: it applies to print and electronic versions. All the manuscript submitted to IJO are checked by authenticate for possible plagiarism. The authors are expected to check their manuscript for plagiarism before submission.
Human and animal studies: All manuscripts reporting the results of experimental investigations involving human subjects should include a statement confirming the informed consent was obtained from each subject or subject’s guardian. All animal or human studies should be used after approval of the experimental protocol by a local ethics committee.
Copyright: The entire contents of Iranian Journal of Otorhinolaryngology are protected under international copyrights. You may not modify copy, distribute, transmit, display, or publish without the prior written permission of it or the appropriate copyright owner.
D. Types of Articles
This journal accepts original papers, review articles, case reports, short communications and letters to the editor in the fields of clinical and basic science aspect of otorhinolaryngology.
E. Manuscript Preparation for Submission
The authors are requested to submit their manuscript via the following link: http://ijorl.mums.ac.ir
Manuscripts should be prepared in accordance with the “Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submission to Biomedical Journals” proclaimed by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/).
The manuscript should be submitted in separate files: Title page file, main text file, figures.
1. Title pages:
2. Structured Abstract and Keywords:
Abstract: Limit the abstract to 250 words. Do not cite references in the abstract. Limit the use of abbreviations and acronyms.
Use the following subheads: Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Conclusion. As for the case reports, just three parts (Introduction, Case report and Conclusion) suffice.
Keywords: A list of 3-10 keywords is to be provided directly below the abstract. Keywords should express the precise content of the manuscript, as they are used for indexing purposes. Use terms from the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) list of index medicus (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/MBrowser.html).
3. Main Text:
Introduction: This should summarize the purpose and the rational for the study. It should neither review the subject extensively nor should it have data or conclusions of the study.
Materials and Methods: This should include exact method or observation or experiment. If the method is established, give reference but if the method is new, give enough information so that another author is able to perform it. If a drug is used, its generic name, dose and route of administration must be given. For patients, age, sex with mean age ± standard deviation must be given. Statistical method must be mentioned and specify any general computer program used. The Info system used should be clearly mentioned.
Results: It must be presented in the form of text, tables and illustrations. The contents of the tables should not be all repeated in the text. Instead, a reference to the table number may be given.
Discussion: This should emphasize the present findings and the variations or similarities with other works in the field of study. The detailed data should not be repeated again.
Conclusion: Conclusions should be based on the results.
Acknowledgement: All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be covered. It should include persons who provided technical help, writing assistance and departmental head that only provided general support. Financial and material support and conflict of interests must be written in this section.
Acknowledgments, sponsorship or grants should be written after the main text and before the references.
4. Tables: no more than a total of 8 for originals and 5 for case reports (figures and tables). Tables must be submitted in Excel or Word table format and not as images. Put the tables where you have mentioned it in the text. Provide a brief title for each table.
5. Figures: No more than a total of 8 for originals and 5 for case reports (figures and tables). Figures must be uploaded separately, in JPEG or GIF format. including the number of the figure in the description box (e.g., Figure 1). Figures can be submitted as JPEG or GIF file types. Figures cannot be embedded in Microsoft programs (Word, PowerPoint, etc). Figures’ size mustn’t exceed more than 200kb.
Figure Legends: A figure legend is required for each figure. If a figure has multiple panels (eg, left, right or A, B, C) please specify each panel in the legend. Figure legends should appear on a separate text page after the reference list. Please provide definitions for all abbreviations used in the figures, and provide description for all symbols.
6. References: The authors are responsible for the accuracy of the references. For abbreviations of journal names, refer to list of journals indexed in index medicus. References must be written based on Vancouver style.
7. Abbreviations and Symbols: Use only standard abbreviations. The full term for which an abbreviation stands should precede its first use in the text.
8. Proof Reading: Final edited articles is sent to the corresponding author for proof reading before publication. Corrections should be marked clearly and sent immediately to the journal office.
9. Charges: There are no charges for publication in this journal.
Iranian Journal of Otorhinolaryngology
Tel: +985138451128
Email: ijo@mums.ac.ir