European Journal of Translational and Clinical Medicine

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Instructions for Authors


Authorship and contributorship

Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools (e.g. ChatGPT, Large Language Models) do not meet the requirements for authorship of a manuscript. The reason is that AI tools do not take responsibility for the submitted work, are unable to manage copyright and license agreements and cannot determine the presence or absence of conflicts of interest.

In the Materials and Methods section of their manuscript authors must disclose which AI tool was used and for what task/s (e.g. writing the manuscript, images, data collection or analysis). Authors are fully responsible for the entire content of their manuscript, including the parts produced by an AI tool.

Authorship should be limited only to those people who have made a significant contribution to the submitted work, specifically: research concept and design, data collection and/or organization, data analysis and interpretation, writing the manuscript, critical revision of the manuscript, final approval of the manuscript. Likewise, it is unethical for authors to omit from the author list a person/s who contributed to the above-listed tasks (that is the so-called “ghost authorship”).
Furthermore, guest authorship (also referred to as “gift authorship”) is not allowed.
The Acknowledgements section is the appropriate place to list the names of all people who do not meet the criteria of significant contribution.

During the submission process, the authors are required to list all authors and mark their contribution to the submitted manuscript. During the initial screening process, the Vice-Editor-in-Chief reviews this information. In case of doubt, the Vice-Editor-in-Chief directly contacts the corresponding author, investigates the issue and requests appropriate changes to the author list and/or contributions.

All requests to add or remove authors from the author list before or during publishing the article in the EJTCM shall be handled by the Vice-Editor-in-Chief by contacting all the remaining authors (if possible) and obtaining their permission for the addition or removal of any authors.
All equivocal cases shall be resolved in accordance with the COPE guidelines https://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines.

Manuscript authored, co-authored or submitted by an Editor.
If an EJTCM Editor is an author or co-author of a manuscript submitted to the EJTCM, this manuscript follows the same editorial process as all other manuscripts (no "fast-track," no preferential treatment). In addition, an Editor may not review his/her manuscript (always 2 independent peer Reviewers) and does not oversee his/her article as the Section Editor (always an independent Section Editor).


Article types and length

Authors are welcome to submit their original empirical research or commentary in any field of medicine. The amount of text, figures and tables should be reduced to minimum. Please keep in mind that the shorter the article, the more likely it will be read and cited by other researchers. The maximum word limits are as follows:

  • Commentary (<500 words)
    A response to an article previously published in EJTCM.
  • Short communication (<1500 words)
    Describes preliminary results of original research.
  • Review article (<4000 words)
  • Research article (<4000 words)
  • Meta-analysis (<4000 words)
  • Study Protocol (<4000 words)
    Describes a novel study protocol or shares a dataset for other researchers to use.
  • Technical report (<4000 words)
    Describes a novel procedure (laboratory or clinical) and its applications in future medical practice.

The Editor may accept longer manuscripts only in exceptional and justified circumstances.

Manuscript selection and peer review

All submitted manuscripts are evaluated by the Editor for suitability for consideration for publication in the EJTCM. Potentially acceptable manuscripts will undergo a double-blind review process (detailed analysis by two reviewers with expertise in the specific field of medicine). All revised manuscripts are carefully re-examined with no guarantee of acceptance, and authors will have two opportunities to make revisions to the same manuscript. Final acceptance is based on originality, significance, documentation of conclusions, and form of presentation.
Authors may suggest peer reviewer/s who are experts in the particular field of research, however the EJTCM does not guarantee which reviewer will complete the review.

Plagiarism

All submitted manuscripts are verified using plagiarism detection software such as iThenticate and Crossref.

Language

Please write your text in standard English (American or British usage is accepted, but not a mixture of them). Authors who have a manuscript written in the Polish language may wish to contact language.ejtcm@gumed.edu.pl for a referral to a professional medical writer who can translate it to English.
The services of a medical writer are not free of cost.

No Article Processing Charge

All authors can submit and publish their articles in the European Journal of Translational and Clinical Medicine free of charge. This means that there is no article processing charge for the authors.

Article structure

The article text should be divided into clearly defined sections. Each section should be given a brief heading. The organization of review articles should be appropriate to the content of the review. The article must be typed double-spaced.

  • Introduction
    State the objectives of the work and provide an adequate background that orients the general scientific reader to the topic. Avoid a detailed literature survey or a summary of the results.
  • Material and methods
    Provide sufficient detail to allow the work to be reproduced. Methods already published should be indicated by a reference: only relevant modifications should be described. Include a description of statistical methods used.
  • Results
    Results should be clear and concise. Results may be presented in tables or figures that should not duplicate the text.
  • Discussion
    Synthesize the results into a cohesive story in the context of the published literature. Set forth the major conclusions of the authors. Do not repeat information from the Introduction or Results section. Avoid extensive citations and discussion of published literature.
  • Conclusions
Abstract

An abstract of 200 words or less should orient the reader to the purpose of the research, the principal results, and major conclusions. It should be easily understood without reference to the text. Place essential findings and keywords in the first two sentences of your abstract.
Abstracts of Research Articles, Meta-analysis and Short Communication must be formatted as follows: Background, Material and methods, Results, Conclusions.
Abstracts of Review Articles and Bioresource Papers can be formatted in one paragraph without a structure.

Keywords

Please include at least 3 but no more than 5 keyword phrases and subject headings.

Acknowledgements

This is the section after the Discussion and before the References, dedicated to recognizing the names of non-authors who have been helpful in the research described in the manuscript and/or in creating the manuscript. In addition, this section must contain disclosure of all sources of financial support for the described research, any potential conflicts of interest, and clinical trial registry information.

Examples of financial relationships that lead to conflicts of interest:
compensation for services (e.g., employment, consulting fees, honoraria, expert testimony, advisory boards, speaker's bureau), equity interest (e.g., stocks, stock options, bonds, or other ownership interests), intellectual property rights (e.g., patents filed or pending, copyrights, royalties), direct financial support of the research project (e.g., grants, contracts, or material support).

References

All references must be cited in the order they appear in the text (chronologically) and numbered using brackets (e.g. [1] ) and listed, in the order cited, after the Acknowledgments section. Authors are responsible for the accuracy of their references. Journal articles listed in the Reference section of the manuscript must also contain links to their online versions (this is required for indexing in PubMed).
All references must be formatted in accordance with the Vancouver (brackets) format with URLs included for all types of citated documents (if its available), e.g.:

Journal article:
Petitti DB, Crooks VC, Buckwalter JG, Chiu V. Blood pressure levels before dementia. Arch Neurol. 2005 Jan;62(1):112-6.

Book:
Eyre HJ, Lange DP, Morris LB. Informed decisions: the complete book of cancer diagnosis, treatment, and recovery. 2nd ed. Atlanta: American Cancer Society; c2002. 768 p.

Website:
AMA: helping doctors help patients [Internet]. Chicago: American Medical Association; c1995-2007 [cited 2007 Feb 22]. Available from: http://www.ama-assn.org/.

For more details see “Citing medicine: the NLM style guide for authors, editors, and publishers” by Patrias & Wendling: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK7256

Digital Object Identifier

The Digital Object Identifier (DOI) may be used to cite and link to electronic documents.

Data references

EJTCM encourages you to cite underlying or relevant datasets in your manuscript by citing them in your text and including a data reference in your Reference List. Data references should include the following elements: author name(s), dataset title, data repository, version (where available), year, and global persistent identifier. Add [dataset] immediately before the reference so we can properly identify it as a data reference. The [dataset] identifier will not appear in your published article.

Research datasets

Sharing of datasets increases the reproducibility and transparency of research, builds public trust in science and allows researchers to re-use data to advance their research projects. As a translational medicine journal, the EJTCM fully supports sharing of datasets among researchers.

Authors may attach/deposit their research datasets which they gathered during the work on the submitted manuscript.
These datasets will then be published free of charge in a dedicated repository, the Polish Platform of Medical Research.

Please name the file/s containing datasets as "research dataset [number]."
By submitting their dataset file/s to the EJTCM, the Authors grant their permission to publish this data on the PPM under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license.

Figures and tables

All graphs, photographs, microscopic images, radiology images must be labeled as “figure.”
Number figures and tables consecutively in accordance with their appearance in the text. Ensure that the data presented in figures and tables do not duplicate results described in the article text.
Submit all the photographs or scans in TIFF, JPG, GIF, PNG format.
Whereas tables and graphs must be submitted in modifiable file formats: such as DOC, DOCX, XLS, XLSX, ODT, ODS.

Figures in PDF format will NOT be accepted.
Files should be labeled with descriptive file names (e.g., SmithText.doc, Fig1.tiff, Table3.doc).
All figures must be submitted as separate files.
Do NOT paste figures or tables into the text of the manuscript.
All figures must be 300 dpi resolution.
For help with preparing figures, please contact graphics.ejtcm@gumed.edu.pl (this service is not free of cost).

Figure Legends

All illustrations (images, graphs, flowcharts) other than tables are figures and should be labeled as such. Ensure that each illustration has a legend. Legends for figures should be typed double-spaced on a separate page after the References. A legend should consist of a brief title (not on the figure itself) and a description of the illustration. Keep text in the illustrations themselves to a minimum but explain all symbols and abbreviations used.

Submission

Articles must be submitted online at https://www.editorialsystem.com/ejtcm

The website guides authors stepwise through the submission process. Submission items include a cover letter (save as a separate file for upload), the manuscript (including title page, abstract, main text, references, and figure legends), tables, and figures. Revised manuscripts should also be accompanied by a separate file (separate from the cover letter) with responses to reviewers' comments. Original source files (not PDF files) are required for online submission.

Files should be labeled with descriptive file names (e.g., SmithText.doc, Fig1.tiff, Table3.doc). Do NOT paste figures or tables into the text of the article.
All figures must be submitted as separate files.

Accepted text and table formats: DOC and DOCX (Microsoft Word), ODT (OpenOffice), RTF.

EJTCM does not charge the authors for approving the manuscript for publish.

ORCID identifier

The EJTCM article submission system requires that authors submit their ORCID identifiers. If you do not already have an ORCID identifier, do not worry because registration is very simple: https://orcid.org/register.

For instructions in Polish see: ORCID_rejestracja_instrukcja.pdf.

Note for Medical University of Gdańsk (MUG) staff:
In accordance with the decision of the MUG Rector (Order 37/2018 from 28 VI 2018) all academic teachers and PhD students of the MUG are required to obtain their unique ORCID identifiers and send them to their respective libraries.

Upon acceptance of their manuscript for publish, the Authors will be asked to complete a publishing agreement. An e-mail will be sent to the corresponding author confirming receipt of the manuscript together with agreement form or a link to the online version of this agreement.
On the basis of this agreement, the Authors transfer to the EJTCM's Publisher (Medical University of Gdańsk) their economic rights (also referred to as publishing rights). However, the Authors retain the moral rights to their article, e.g. authorship of their article, sharing the full text of their published article on social media, blogs, etc.

Authors may reproduce tables of contents or prepare lists of articles including abstracts for internal circulation within their institutions. Permission of the Publisher is required for resale or distribution outside the institution and for all other derivative works, including compilations and translations. If excerpts from other copyrighted works are included, the author(s) must obtain written permission from the copyright owners and credit the source(s) in the article.

Diamond Open Access Journal

Upon publishing their article in EJTCM, the authors can self-archive their published articles (in EJTCM’s pdf format, not author’s own draft manuscripts) and enable public access from their own website, institution's repository or third-party repository (e.g. Researchgate or academia.org) without any embargo period.
More details about Diamond Open Access.

Reprints

Upon the author’s request, the EJTCM Editorial Office may publish (for a fee) an article reprint for the author’s business purposes. Please send such requests to ejtcm@gumed.edu.pl

Contact about submitted manuscript
Please send questions concerning the submission or review process of your manuscript to ejtcm@gumed.edu.pl