MANUSCRIPT FORMAT
Style: Please prepare your manuscript as a Microsoft Word file, use a standard font sized at 12 points, double-space all text, and use 1-inch margins. The text of manuscripts must be narrative and in paragraph form; submissions with bulleted lists will be returned to the author for conversion to narrative paragraphs or tables.
Length: Original articles are limited to 3,000 words, issue briefs to 4,000 words, commentaries to 1,500-2,000 words, and sidebars to 300-800 words. All word limits exclude abstracts, tables and figures, and references.
Order of parts: In the text file, please provide a title page, abstract (if relevant), body text, acknowledgments, references, tables, and legends for figures. Include tables in the Microsoft Word file, but submit each figure as a separate file, as specified in the instructions for table and figure preparation. Use of footnotes is strongly discouraged because of print and online typesetting considerations.
Title page: Please specify the title; the names, highest degree(s) earned, and full institutional affiliations (ordered from the smallest element [eg, department] to the largest element [eg, institution]) for all authors; and the contact information (ie, street and e-mail addresses) for the corresponding author. State the word count for the main body of the text.
Abstract: Original articles should have a structured abstract of 250 or fewer words that includes the following elements: background, methods, results, limitations, and conclusion. Issue briefs should have a narrative abstract of 250 or fewer words. Invited commentaries should have a narrative abstract of 50 or fewer words.
Acknowledgments: Acknowledgments of specific individuals and organizations should be brief and, if present, limited to those with direct involvement in the production of the article and its findings (eg, “We thank all participants in the Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study; the North Carolina State Center for Health Statistics, for performing data analysis; and Joseph Clayton, for reviewing an earlier draft of the manuscript.”).
Potential conflicts of interest. For all articles, please state any potential conflicts of interest for each author (eg, “P.M.R. has served on the speakers bureau of Acme Biotech.”). If an author has no relevant conflicts, that too should be stated (eg, “V.K.C. has no relevant conflicts of interest.”). Manuscripts accepted for publication as an original article will not published until each author submits a completed and signed authorship form, conflict of interest disclosure statement, and conflict of interest notification page.
Financial support. Agencies from which financial support was received should be specified separately, and grant numbers should be included, if applicable (eg, “Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (cooperative agreement ROO35-4999).”).
References: Original articles and issue briefs should have no more than 40 references, commentaries should have no more than 15, and sidebars should have no more than 5. Please format references according to guidelines specified in the American Medical Association Manual of Style, 10th ed. Number references in the order in which they are cited in the text; references cited only in tables or figure legends should be numbered as though cited at the point where the table or figure is first mentioned. Please do not use Microsoft Word’s endnote or footnote features to link citations with references.
Please cite references by using numerals in brackets at the end of the sentence (eg, “The incidence of adverse events in the intervention group was greater than that in the control group [1].”) or after mention of the authors (eg, “Smith and colleagues [1] found that the incidence of adverse events in the intervention group was greater than that in the control group.”).
An electronic version of the AMA manual is available through many university libraries. A useful guide to AMA reference style is available at: http://www.samford.edu/schools/pharmacy/dic/amaquickref07.pdf.
SUBMISSION
Please submit manuscripts and any associated figure files to the NCMJ managing editor at jennifer_hastings@nciom.org.
PEER REVIEW
For original articles, manuscripts accepted for review are evaluated by 2-4 peer reviewers. A decision to publish is made by the scientific editors based on manuscript content, reviewer evaluations, and editorial assessment. If considered for publication, one or more revisions may be requested. The peer review process is lengthy because it relies on multiple reviewers and because revisions are often necessary.
Invited contributions are evaluated by the editor in chief and other relevant reviewers and generally have a high acceptance rate.
COPYEDITING
Each manuscript is edited for clarity, style, conciseness, and conformity with AMA style. Once the article has been copyedited and typeset, the contact author will receive typeset proofs for review and queries to answer. Please expect to return corrections to the proofs within 2 calendar days of receipt.
COPYRIGHT
The copyright for published articles is held by the NCMJ and the North Carolina Institute of Medicine. However, authors may copy and distribute their own contributions in any way they see fit. Any article reprinted from the journal must carry a credit line indicating that it appeared in the NCMJ and is reprinted with permission.
