Instructions to the Author

You are invited to submit your manuscript for possible inclusion in Journal of Wah medical college. The journal solicits high-quality papers related to the broad scope of clinical and transitional research. We encourage submission of original research in compliance with journal’s editorial policy. Areas of interest for us include, but are not limited to clinical trials, basic sciences, health professions education and public health.

All manuscripts should conform to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editor’s (ICMJE) recommendations and JWMC instructions to author. Only online submissions are accepted by JWMC. The manuscript should be submitted in word document format by the corresponding author through online Open Journal System (OJS) along with signed certificates for Authorship, Declaration, Conflict of Interest and Checklist. The corresponding author will be responsible for ensuring that the article has been spell checked and grammar checked. The manuscript must include structured abstract, figures, tables, boxes and appendices that are necessary in reporting the study findings in accordance with study design. Word counts are limited (refer to Article Type).

Preparation of Manuscript

Kindly follow the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors guidelines regarding manuscript preparation. Click the link above and review these guidelines before submitting your manuscript.

Manuscript Submission Prerequisites 

  1. Kindly go through the Aims & Scope to have an overview and assess whether your manuscript is suitable for JWMC
  2.  Microsoft Word template to be used to prepare your manuscript according to the ICMJE Guidelines..
  3. Kindly carefully go through the Research and Publication Ethics guidelines and make sure, that these guidelines are reflected in your manuscript.
  4. Kindly ensure that issues about publication ethics, copyright, authorship, plagiarism, conflict of interest etc have been appropriately addressed. Kindly go through the policy documents as well under the heading of “JWMC Policies” on the main page.
  5. Make sure that all authors have approved the content of the submitted manuscript.
  6. Author Declaration Form is available on the web page, download get it signed from all authors. This is mandatory (Without this document your manuscript will not be processed).
  7. Approval letter from an Ethical Review board is also mandatory requirement for every original study. In case an ethical review board is not existing at your institute, download the Ethical Declaration Form. (Without this document your manuscript will not be processed).
  8. Click Register and log in to the OJS system as an author.
  9. Attach the Manuscript in Word format along with the authorship form and ethical approval letter.

Manuscript Submission Overview

Only online submissions are accepted by JWMC. The manuscript should be submitted in word document format by the corresponding author through online. Open Journal System (OJS) along with signed certificates for Authorship, Declaration, Conflict of Interest and Checklist. The corresponding author will be responsible for ensuring that the article has been spell checked and grammar checked. The manuscript must include structured abstract, figures, tables, boxes and appendices that are necessary in reporting the study findings in accordance with study design. Word counts are limited (refer to Article Type).

  • ARTICLE TYPE
  • TERMS OF SUBMISSION
  • CONTRIBUTORS
  • FORMATTING GUIDELINES
  • CONFLICT OF INTEREST
  • ETHICAL CONSIDERATION
  • DECLARATION

Article Type
The JWMC will accept manuscripts of following types for publication:

Original Article
The original articles should be in line with the aim and scope of the JWMC. It should have a structured abstract with 3 – 6 keywords as per MeSH and not more than 6 tables or figures. The article should be supported with not more than 50 references, majority of which should be from last five years

Systematic review / Meta-analysis
Systematic reviews and meta-analysis of clinical trials should be drafted for publication according to PRISMA or QUOROM guidelines. It should not exceed 4000 words and should have an abstract of 450 – 500 words.

Clinical trials
According to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editor’s recommendations (ICMJE), only registered clinical trials (clinicaltrial.gov/ISRCTN/DRAP) will be entertained for publication in JWMC.
Reports of trial must conform to the CONSORT guidelines and should be submitted with their protocols.

Observational Studies
Observational studies including cohort, case-control and cross-sectional studies, are an important part of clinical research paradigm but are vulnerable to bias and discriminatory reporting. It is suggested to conform to STROBE checklist while sending these studies for publication. Manuscript should not exceed 4000 words and should have an abstract of 300 words.

Review Article
It should not exceed 4000 words with 50 references and should have an abstract of no more than 300 words with 3 – 6 key words as per MeSH. A review article may comprise of critical analysis and overview of a topic of academic importance of interest providing the background and recent developments with reference to original literature.

Case Reports

 Case reports should not exceed 1800 words with 10 -15 references and maximum five tables / figures / photomicrographs. All authors of case reports are required to fill in the CARE checklist and attach it with their case reports. Unusual presentations of common ailments and uncommon clinical scenario in the real-life time situations including lab data/imaging of academic importance may be accepted for publication in JWMC.

Short Communication.

It should not exceed more than 2000 words with maximum two figures / table with an abstract of no more than 200 words and 12-15 references. Short communication should be complete work, not merely a preliminary report

Letters
Letters to the editor may include academic opinions related to articles published in JWMC. The Editor reserves the right to rephrase/condense/redact according to the journal policy and sends for peer review if the letter contains scientific data. A letter may be directed to concerned author for a reply which may also be published. A letter should not be more than 500 words, without headings, include not more than five references and should be signed by all the authors (maximum three are allowed).

Terms of submissions


Manuscript must be submitted on the understanding that they are unpublished and are currently not under consideration by another journal. The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that the article’s publication has been approved by all the co-authors. In case of multicentered studies, it is the responsibility of each author to obtain approval of the relevant institution. An acknowledgment from the editorial office officially establishes the date of receipt. All correspondence and proofs will be sent to corresponding author unless otherwise indicated. It is a condition of submission of a paper that the authors permit editing of the paper for readability.

Contributors
All authors should meet the conditions specified by the ICMJE and COPE guidelines http://www.icmje.org/icmje-recommendations.pdf . Relevant contributions must be declared for each author which may include study conception and design, acquisition of data, analysis and interpretation of data, drafting of manuscript and critical revision at the end of article.

Formatting Guidelines

Manuscript must be typed in 1.5 paragraph spacing on A4 paper (21.0 x 29.70 cm) with 2.5 cm margin on both sides. Main title should be in 16-point Calibri font bold, headings in 14 point bold and text in 12 points. Paragraphs indented and left aligned with bottom central page numbering.

  1. Manuscript Title Page 

The title page should provide following information:

  • Title (up to 25 words): Identifies the topic/research question, study population, study settings, study design (if applicable) with no abbreviations.
  • Full author names: separate each name with a comma.
  • Address for each author: separate each address name with comma.
  • Corresponding author details: give full address of corresponding author along with email ID and contact number.
  • Short running title for header.
  • Authors are advised to suggest one national & one international Reviewer.

B. Abstract The abstract should be citation-free and in a structured paragraph with objective, study design, place and duration of study, materials and methods, results and conclusion briefly explained. A trial registration number should include if applicable. It must not exceed 300 words, but for CONSORT or PRISMA style abstract word count may go up to 450–500 words.

C. Key Words Three to six key words (MeSH) in alphabetical order should be provided.

D. Introduction This section should be succinct, without subheadings including background, rationale followed by a gap statement and objectives of the study.

E. Materials and Methods This section should contain sufficient details for purpose of reproducibility of methodology/ procedure. Subsections can be made for description of more than one method. Explanation of sample size, sampling techniques, data collection procedures/techniques/experiments and statistical methods with relevant software program should be given.

F. Results This section can be subdivided if required. Extra or supplementary materials can be placed in an appendix, which will be available in the electronic version of the journal. Please include following terms in the results section of the article:

  • For clinical trials: Event rates among experimental and control groups, relative risk reduction (RRR), number needed to treat (NNT), number needed to harm (NNH) and its 95% confidence interval or if the trial is of public health intervention number helped per 1000 or 100,000.
  • For cohort study: Odds ratio (OR) for strength of association between exposure and outcome along with 95% confidence interval.
  • For diagnostic test study: Sensitivity and specificity, positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV).

G. Discussion The discussion should emphasize the principle findings of the study in relation to other studies; discuss important similarities and differences; strengths & weaknesses of the study; possible explanations/ implications for the researchers and policy makers.

H. Conclusion The conclusion should be precise and supported by results of the study.

I. Acknowledgements Acknowledgments (if any) should be included at the end of the paper before the references and follow ICMJE recommendations. Funding sources/sponsors should be mentioned separately with grant identification number.

J. Appendices Appendix must have a title and begin on a separate page. It must be labelled with an alphabet (A,B,C). Tables and figures within an appendix should be labelled by Arabic numerals added to the alphabets of the appendix (Table A.1; Fig A.1).

K. References References must be cited consecutively as superscript numerical. Vancouver style of referencing should be followed.

L. Figures Computer prepared images must be at minimum of 300 dpi and should be submitted as JPEG or TIFF format file. All figures should be in a consecutive order. Photographs, X-rays, CT scans, MRI and photomicrographs should be sent in digital format with a minimum resolution of 3.2 mega pixels in JPEG compression. Written permission must be sought to use previously published figures. Graphs or scatter plot or histograms should be submitted along with their numerical data. Legends for photomicrographs should indicate the magnification, internal scale and the method of staining. Figure legends should be provided on a separate page of the main manuscript document.

M. Tables Each table should be given on a separate page, paginated as part of the manuscript. Tables should be provided as editable text constructed in Microsoft Word using Table function with single spaces and without vertical lines. They should be numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals and labeled with a descriptive title. Units of numerical measurement should be written in the column heading and all abbreviations explained in the footnote.

N. Units of Measurement Units of measurement should be consistent throughout the manuscript. System International (SI) or Imperial system may be used.

O. Conflict of Interest Any financial/personal conflict of interest that might influence the results/interpretations of the study must be disclosed.

P. Plagiarism Policy JWMC follows the guidelines of ICMJE, PMC and HEC for any kind of plagiarism. These guidelines can be accessed at www.icmje.org, www.pmdc.gov.pk and www.hec.gov.pk.  Authors are advised to go through these guidelines before submitting their manuscript with JWMC. Cases of plagiarism will be dealt according/recommendation of the ICMJE, PMC and HEC. All submitted papers will be checked for plagiarism using the anti-plagiarism software “TURNITIN”. Articles with similarity index more than 19% will not be accepted for processing.

Q. Ethical Consideration Authors are required to provide an approval letter from their respective Institutional Review Board/ Biomedical Ethical Committee/IACUC for all human and animal subject research. As a statement in the manuscript the author must mention that the study obtained ethical approval, include the name of the Ethics Committee or Institutional Review Board, the number/ID of the approval, and also that participants gave written informed consent before taking part in the study. In case of photographs or other identifiable material, the author should report that patients have provided their signed consent for publication of such material.

R. Declaration The authors are required to sign and submit the following:

For technical support, please contact jwmcs@wahmedicalcollege.com

How to Submit Manuscript

Read the Instructions for authors carefully before submitting your article. Manuscripts for JWMC should be submitted through the online submission system at http://ojs.journalswmc.com/index.php/testjournals/index.  The submitting author, who is generally the corresponding author, is responsible for the manuscript during the submission and peer-review process. The submitting author must ensure that all eligible co-authors have been included in the author list and that they have all read and approved the submitted version of the manuscript. To submit your manuscript, register, and log in to the OJS.  All co-authors can see the manuscript details in the submission system if they register and log in using the e-mail address provided during manuscript submission.

  1. VISIT website: https://www.journalswmc.com
  2. CLICK: Submit Manuscript (Right Corner)
  3. For New User:
    • CLICK “Here for Registration”
    • Get registered- Fill the form properly and click Register
    • You will receive an e-mail from Open Journal System
    • CLICK on the mail to note “Username and Password”
  4. Manuscript Submission:
    • Submit your manuscript/article by following steps:
    • CLICK “Submit Manuscript” in the right upper portion of website menu.