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Author Guidelines

Guidelines for the author of The Sign of Clinical Medicine :

Manuscript should be prepared according to the following author Guidelines in theMsWord 1997-2003 and this article template: original research, case report

Guidelines for the author of  The Sign of Clinical Medicine:

1. The Sign of Clinical Medicine (TSCM) publishes original research articles or reviews in the basic medical sciences, clinical medical sciences, medical education, and public health.
2. The editorial board selects the published articles based on the review results. The articles should not be published elsewhere before. In order to assure the quality of publication, the editor of The Sign of Clinical Medicine might do format editing without disturbing the substance of the article.
3. The Sign of Clinical Medicine (SCM) receives articles in English.
4. Before submission, the author should ensure to complete all required files consisting of:

a. Title page and cover letter

Upload the title page and cover letter in one file as a supplementary file. Download Title Page and Cover Letter Template

A cover letter must be included with each manuscript submission. It should be concise and explain why the paper's content is significant, placing the findings in the context of existing work. It should explain why the manuscript fits the scope of the journal.

Any prior submissions of the manuscript to TSCM journals must be acknowledged. If this is the case, it is strongly recommended that the previous manuscript ID be provided in the submission system, which will ease your current submission process. The names of proposed and excluded reviewers should be provided in the submission system, not in the cover letter.

All cover letters are required to include the following statements:

• We confirm that neither the manuscript nor any parts of its content are currently under consideration or published in another journal.
• All authors have approved the manuscript and agree with its submission to (journal name).

b. Main article

Upload the main article as the main file

Download Original Research Template Download Case Report Template

d. Other files to support the manuscript

Other files should be uploaded as supplementary files, such as ethical clearance, primary research data, professional English editing, etc.

5. Manucript preparation

• Review manuscripts should comprise the cover letter, title page, and literature review sections. The template file can also be used to prepare the front and back matter of your review manuscript. Structured reviews and meta-analyses should use the same structure as research articles and ensure they conform to the PRISMA guidelines.
• Case reports should include a succinct introduction about the general medical condition or relevant symptoms that will be discussed in the case report; the case presentation should include all of the relevant de-identified demographic and descriptive information about the patient(s), and a description of the symptoms, diagnosis, treatment, and outcome; a discussion providing context and any necessary explanation of specific treatment decisions; a conclusion briefly outlining the take-home message and the lessons learned.
• Graphical Abstract:

A graphical abstract (GA) is an image that appears alongside the text abstract in the Table of Contents. In addition to summarizing the content, it should represent the article's topic in an attention-grabbing way. Moreover, it should not be the same as the Figure in the paper or just a simple superposition of several subfigures. Note that the GA must be original and unpublished artwork. Any postage stamps, currency from any country, or trademarked items should not be included.

The GA should be a high-quality illustration or diagram in any of the following formats: PNG, JPEG, or TIFF. Written text in a GA should be clear and easy to read, using one of the following fonts: Times, Arial, Courier, Helvetica, Ubuntu or Calibri.

The minimum required size for the GA is 560 × 1100 pixels (height × width). The size should be of high quality in order to reproduce well.

• Acronyms/Abbreviations/Initialisms should be defined the first time they appear in each of three sections: the abstract, the main text, and the first Figure or table. When defined for the first time, the acronym/abbreviation/initialism should be added in parentheses after the written-out form.
• SI Units (International System of Units) should be used. Imperial, US customary, and other units should be converted to SI units whenever possible.
• Accession numbers of RNA, DNA and protein sequences used in the manuscript should be provided in the Materials and Methods section.
• Equations: If you use Word, please use the Microsoft Equation Editor or the MathType add-on. Equations should be editable by the editorial office and not appear in a picture format.
• Research Data and Supplementary Materials: Note that publication of your manuscript implies that you must make all materials, data, and protocols associated with the publication available to readers. Disclose at the submission stage any restrictions on the availability of materials or information. Read the information about Supplementary Materials and Data Deposit for additional guidelines.
• Preregistration: Where authors have preregistered studies or analysis plans, links to the preregistration must be provided in the manuscript.
• Guidelines and standards: TSCM follows standards and guidelines for certain types of research. 

ICMJE: Medically-related TSCM journals follow the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. The guidelines comprehensively cover all aspects of editing, from how the journal is managed to details about peer review and handling complaints. The majority of the recommendations are not specific to medical journals and are followed by all TSCM journals.

The CONSORT statement covers the reporting of randomized, controlled trials. We encourage authors to verify their work against the checklist and flow diagram and upload them with their submission.

TOP covers transparency and openness in the reporting of research. Our journals aim to be at level 1 or 2 for all aspects of TOP. Specific requirements vary between journals and can be requested from the editorial office.

FAIR Principles cover guidelines to improve the Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability and Reuse of data.

PRISMA covers systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Authors are recommended to complete the checklist and flow diagram and include it with their submission.

ARRIVE contains guidelines for reporting in vivo experiments. Authors are recommended to verify their work against the checklist and include it with their submission.

Turnitin is an industry-standard software for plagiarism detection. Used during the first screening of a manuscript or pre-check, it can also be used at any stage of the peer review process and especially before the acceptance of a manuscript for publication.

Compliance with the standards and guidelines above will be taken into account during the final decision and any discrepancies should be clearly explained by the authors. We recommend that authors highlight relevant guidelines in their cover letter.

• Title: The title of your manuscript should be concise, specific and relevant. It should identify if the study reports (human or animal) trial data, or is a systematic review, meta-analysis or replication study. When gene or protein names are included, the abbreviated name rather than full name should be used. Please do not include abbreviated or short forms of the title, such as a running title or head. These will be removed by our Editorial Office.
• Author List and Affiliations: Authors' full first and last names must be provided. The initials of any middle names can be added. The PubMed/MEDLINE standard format is used for affiliations: complete address information including city, zip code, state/province, and country. At least one author should be designated as the corresponding author. The email addresses of all authors will be displayed on published papers, and hidden by Captcha on the website as standard. It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to ensure that consent for the display of email addresses is obtained from all authors. If an author (other than the corresponding author) does not wish to have their email addresses displayed in this way, the corresponding author must indicate as such during proofreading. After acceptance, updates to author names or affiliations may not be permitted. Equal Contributions: authors who have contributed equally should be marked with a superscript symbol (†). The symbol must be included below the affiliations, and the following statement added: "These authors contributed equally to this work". The equal roles of authors should also be adequately disclosed in the author contributions statement. Please read the criteria to qualify for authorship.
• Abstract should be written in Times New Roman 10 pt and a single space. Please avoid to use acronyms, abbreviation, or symbols in the abstract. Abstract should describe qualitative and quantitative information and includes 3-5 keywords related to substance of the abstract. The abstract should be a total of about 300 words maximum. The abstract should be a single paragraph and should follow the style of structured abstracts, with headings: 1) Introduction: Place the question addressed in a broad context and highlight the purpose of the study; 2)  Methods: Describe briefly the main methods or treatments applied. Include any relevant preregistration numbers, and species and strains of any animals used; 3) Results: Summarize the article's main findings; and 4) Conclusion: Indicate the main conclusions or interpretations. The abstract should be an objective representation of the article: it must not contain results which are not presented and substantiated in the main text and should not exaggerate the main conclusions.
• Keywords: Three to ten pertinent keywords need to be added after the abstract. We recommend that the keywords are specific to the article, yet reasonably common within the subject discipline.
• Introduction: The introduction should briefly place the study in a broad context and highlight why it is important. It should define the purpose of the work and its significance, including specific hypotheses being tested. The current state of the research field should be reviewed carefully and key publications cited. Please highlight controversial and diverging hypotheses when necessary. Finally, briefly mention the main aim of the work and highlight the main conclusions. Keep the introduction comprehensible to scientists working outside the topic of the paper.
• Methods: They should be described with sufficient detail to allow others to replicate and build on published results. New methods and protocols should be described in detail while well-established methods can be briefly described and appropriately cited. Give the name and version of any software used and make clear whether computer code used is available. Include any preregistration codes.
• Results: Provide a concise and precise description of the experimental results, their interpretation as well as the experimental conclusions that can be drawn.
• Discussion: Authors should discuss the results and how they can be interpreted in perspective of previous studies and of the working hypotheses. The findings and their implications should be discussed in the broadest context possible and limitations of the work highlighted. Future research directions may also be mentioned.
• Conclusions: This section is mandatory and should contain the main conclusions regarding the research.
• Supplementary Materials: Describe any supplementary material published online alongside the manuscript (Figure, tables, video, spreadsheets, etc.). Please indicate the name and title of each element as follows Figure S1: title, Table S1: title, etc.
• Author Contributions: Each author is expected to have made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data; or the creation of new software used in the work; or have drafted the work or substantively revised it; AND has approved the submitted version (and version substantially edited by journal staff that involves the author's contribution to the study); AND agrees to be personally accountable for the author's own contributions and for ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work, even ones in which the author was not personally involved, are appropriately investigated, resolved, and documented in the literature.
  For research articles with several authors, a short paragraph specifying their individual contributions must be provided. The following statements should be used "Conceptualization, XX and YY; Methodology, XX; Software, XX; Validation, XX, YY and ZZ; Formal Analysis, XX; Investigation, XX; Resources, XX; Data Curation, XX; Writing – Original Draft Preparation, XX; Writing – Review & Editing, XX; Visualization, XX; Supervision, XX; Project Administration, XX; Funding Acquisition, YY"."Authorship must include and be limited to those who have contributed substantially to the work”.
• Funding: All sources of funding of the study should be disclosed. Clearly indicate grants that you have received in support of your research work and if you received funds to cover publication costs. Note that some funders will not refund article processing charges (APC) if the funder and grant number are not clearly and correctly identified in the paper. Funding information can be entered separately into the submission system by the authors during submission of their manuscript. Such funding information, if available, will be deposited to FundRef if the manuscript is finally published.
  Please add: "This research received no external funding" or "This research was funded by [name of funder] grant number [xxx]" and "The APC was funded by [XXX]" in this section. Check carefully that the details given are accurate and use the standard spelling of funding agency names at https://search.crossref.org/funding, any errors may affect your future funding.
• Institutional Review Board Statement: In this section, please add the Institutional Review Board Statement and approval number for studies involving humans or animals. Please note that the Editorial Office might ask you for further information. Please add "The study was conducted according to the guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki, and approved by the Institutional Review Board (or Ethics Committee) of NAME OF INSTITUTE (protocol code XXX and date of approval)." OR "Ethical review and approval were waived for this study, due to REASON (please provide a detailed justification)." OR "Not applicable" for studies not involving humans or animals. You might also choose to exclude this statement if the study did not involve humans or animals.
• Informed Consent Statement: Any research article describing a study involving humans should contain this statement. Please add "Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study." OR "Patient consent was waived due to REASON (please provide a detailed justification)." OR "Not applicable." for studies not involving humans. You might also choose to exclude this statement if the study did not involve humans.
  Written informed consent for publication must be obtained from participating patients who can be identified (including the patients themselves). Please state, "Written informed consent has been obtained from the patient(s) to publish this paper" if applicable.
• Data Availability Statement: In this section, please provide details regarding where data supporting reported results can be found, including links to publicly archived datasets analyzed or generated during the study.  
• Acknowledgments: In this section you can acknowledge any support given which is not covered by the author contribution or funding sections. This may include administrative and technical support, or donations in kind (e.g., materials used for experiments).
• Conflicts of Interest: Authors must identify and declare any personal circumstances or interest that may be perceived as influencing the representation or interpretation of reported research results. If there is no conflict of interest, please state "The authors declare no conflict of interest." Any role of the funding sponsors in the choice of research project; design of the study; in the collection, analyses or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript; or in the decision to publish the results must be declared in this section. Medicina does not publish studies funded partially or fully by the tobacco industry. Any projects funded by industry must pay special attention to the full declaration of funder involvement. If there is no role, please state "The sponsors had no role in the design, execution, interpretation, or writing of the study". For more details please see Conflict of Interest.
• References: The citation and references should follow Vancouver style. References are advisibly not to exceed 30 in number but not less than 10, and should generally be limited to the last decade. References must be numbered in order of appearance in the text (including table captions and figure legends) and listed individually at the end of the manuscript. We recommend preparing the references with a bibliography software package, such as EndNote, ReferenceManager or Zotero to avoid typing mistakes and duplicated references. We encourage citations to data, computer code and other citable research material. If available online, you may use reference style 9. below.

Citations and references in Supplemental files are permitted provided that they also appear in the main text and in the reference list.

In the text, reference numbers should be placed in square brackets [ ], and placed before the punctuation; for example [1], [1–3] or [1,3]. For embedded citations in the text with pagination, use both parentheses and brackets to indicate the reference number and page numbers; for example [5] (p. 10). or [6] (pp. 101–105).

References should be described as follows, depending on the type of work:

Journal Articles:

1. Author 1, A.B.; Author 2, CD Title of the article. Abbreviated Journal Name Year, Volume, page range.

Books and Book Chapters:

2. Author 1, A.; Author 2, B. Book Title, 3rd ed.; Publisher: Publisher Location, Country, Year; pp. 154–196.
3. Author 1, A.; Author 2, B. Title of the chapter. In Book Title, 2nd ed.; Editor 1, A., Editor 2, B., Eds.; Publisher: Publisher Location, Country, Year; Volume 3, pp. 154–196.

Unpublished materials intended for publication:

4. Author 1, A.B.; Author 2, C. Title of Unpublished Work (optional). Correspondence Affiliation, City, State, Country. year, status (manuscript in preparation; to be submitted).
5. Author 1, A.B.; Author 2, C. Title of Unpublished Work. Abbreviated Journal Name year, phrase indicating stage of publication (submitted; accepted; in press).

Unpublished materials not intended for publication:

6. Author 1, AB (Affiliation, City, State, Country); Author 2, C. (Affiliation, City, State, Country). Phase describing the material, year. (phase: Personal communication; Private communication; Unpublished work; etc.)

Conference Proceedings:

7. Author 1, A.B.; Author 2, C.D.; Author 3, EF Title of Presentation. In Title of the Collected Work (if available), Proceedings of the Name of the Conference, Location of Conference, Country, Date of Conference; Editor 1, Editor 2, Eds. (if available); Publisher: City, Country, Year (if available); Abstract Number (optional), Pagination (optional).

Thesis:
8. Author 1, AB Title of Thesis. Level of Thesis, Degree-Granting University, Location of University, Date of Completion.

Websites:
9. Title of Site. Available online: URL (accessed on Day Month Year).
Unlike published works, websites may change over time or disappear, so we encourage you create an archive of the cited website using a service such as WebCite. Archived websites should be cited using the link provided as follows:
10. Title of Site. URL (archived on Day Month Year).

Submission Preparation Checklist

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.

1. The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
2. The submission file is in OpenOffice, Microsoft Word, RTF, or WordPerfect document file format.
3. Where available, URLs for the references have been provided.
4. The text is 1.15 spaces; uses a 11-point font; employs italics, rather than underlining (except with URL addresses); and all illustrations, figures, and tables are placed within the text at the appropriate points, rather than at the end.
5. The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines, which is found in About the Journal.
6. If submitting to a peer-reviewed section of the journal, the instructions in Ensuring a Blind Review have been followed.
7. Include the title page and cover letter file in the supplementtary file

Copyright Notice

4. Rights of Authors

Authors retain all their rights to the published works, such as (but not limited to) the following rights;

1. Copyright and other proprietary rights relating to the article, such as patent rights,

2. The right to use the substance of the article in own future works, including lectures and books,

3. The right to reproduce the article for own purposes,

4. The right to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the article's published version (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgment of its initial publication in this journal (The Sign of Clinical Medicine).

5. Co-Authorship

If the article was jointly prepared by more than one author, any authors submitting the manuscript warrants that he/she has been authorized by all co-authors to be agreed on this copyright and license notice (agreement) on their behalf, and agrees to inform his/her co-authors of the terms of this policy. TSCM will not be held liable for anything that may arise due to the author(s) internal dispute. TSCM will only communicate with the corresponding author.

6. Royalties

Being an open accessed journal and disseminating articles for free under the Creative Commons license term mentioned, author(s) aware that The Sign of Clinical Medicine entitles the author(s) to no royalties or other fees.

Privacy Statement

The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.