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Author Guidelines

 

Author Guidelines

 

First time authors, click here:Submission guidelines

To submit a manuscript, please proceed to the AJTCCM editorial platform website: https://samajournals.co.za/index.php/ajtccm/index

 

 

Please take the time to familiarise yourself with the policies and processes below. If you still have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask our editorial staff (tel.: +27 (0)21 532 1281, email: publishing@samedical.org).

Please note that the AJTCCM will consider papers that have been posted on Preprint servers.

 

Authorship

Named authors must consent to publication. Authorship should be based on: (i) substantial contribution to conceptualisation, design, analysis and interpretation of data; (ii) drafting or critical revision of important scientific content; or (iii) approval of the version to be published. These conditions must all be met for an individual to be included as an author (uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals; refer to www.icmje.org)

 Contributors who meet fewer than all 4 of the above criteria for authorship should not be listed as authors, but they should be acknowledged.

If authors’ names are added or deleted after submission of an article, or the order of the names is changed, all authors must agree to this in writing.

 

Please note that co-authors will be requested to verify their contribution upon submission. Non-verification may lead to delays in the processing of submissions.

Author contributions should be listed/described in the manuscript.

 Research ethics committee approval

Authors must provide evidence of Research Ethics Committee approval of the research where relevant. Ensure the correct, full ethics committee name and reference number is included in the manuscript.

If the study was carried out using data from provincial healthcare facilities, or required active data collection through facility visits or staff interviews, approval should be sought from the relevant provincial authorities. For South African authors, please refer to the guidelines for submission to the National Health Research Database. Research involving human subjects must be conducted according to the principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki. Please refer to the National Department of Health’s guideline on Ethics in Health research: principles, processes and structures to ensure that the appropriate requirements for conducting research have been met, and that the HPCSA’s General Ethical Guidelines for Health Researchers have been adhered to.

  Clinical trials
As per the recommendations published by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), clinical trial research is any research that assigns individuals to an intervention, with or without a concurrent comparison/control group to study the cause-and-effect relationship between the intervention and health outcomes. All clinical trials should be registered with the appropriate national clinical trial registry (or any international primary register, if relevant), and the trial registration number should be cited at the end of the abstract. All clinical trial reports must also contain a data sharing statement as per the recommendations of the ICMJE. Statements are to indicate:

  • whether individual deidentified participant data will be shared;
  • what data in particular will be shared; whether additional, related documents will be available;
  • when the data will become available and for how long; by what access criteria data will be shared

Please see the ICJME announcement for further details and illustrative examples of data sharing statements: ICMJE Data Sharing Statements for Clinical Trials

Since 1st December 2005, all clinical trials conducted in South Africa have been required to be registered in the South African National Clinical Trials Register. The AJTCCM therefore requires that clinical trials be registered in the relevant public trials registry at or before the time of first patient enrollment as a condition for publication. The trial registry name and registration number must be included in the manuscript.

CONSORT Statement

All papers that describe clinical trials must adhere to the principles outlined in the CONSORT Statement which provides an evidence-based approach to improve the quality of reports of clinical trials. The CONSORT Flow Diagram showing the patients available for the study, those included, and the number at each stage of the study should also be included and the CONSORT Checklist completed and submitted with the manuscript.

Research with animals
When animals are used as subjects, institutional approval of the protocol is necessary and authors should include a statement in the Methods indicating that investigators complied with the relevant national or intetnational guidelines administered by the author's governmental regulatory body. When no formal ethics review process is available, authors must state that humane care was provided in animal experiments, in accordance with stated relevant guidelines.

Ethnic/race classification

Use of racial or ethnicity classifications in research is fraught with problems. If you choose to use a research design that involves classification of participants based on race or ethnicity, or discuss issues with reference to such classifications, please ensure that you include a detailed rationale for doing so, ensure that the categories you describe are carefully defined, and that socioeconomic, cultural and lifestyle variables that may underlie perceived racial disparities are appropriately controlled for. Please also clearly specify whether race or ethnicity is classified as reported by the patient (self-identifying) or as perceived by the investigators. Please note thatit is not appropriate to use self-reported or investigator-assigned racial or ethnic categories for genetic studies.

 

Publication fees

AJTCCM is an open access journal run by the South African Thoracic Society (not for profit entity) from donations, conference proceedings and unrestricted educational grants.  Rising publication and running costs means that, unfortunately, we have to levy publication charges to facilitate a sustainable open access dissemination platform. 

The publication charges for accepted papers, effective from 1 September 2023, are as follows:

  1. A student or trainee-led output: R5 000 (ZAR)
  2. For a non-students/ non-trainee led output: R7 500 (ZAR)
  3. Optional charge for senior investigators and research units: R15 000 (ZAR)

1 and 2 above are mandatory charges but a waiver may be applied for and will be considered on a case by case basis (this can be via a cover letter of not more than 1 page motivating and providing reasons for requesting a waiver). 

We strongly encourage and welcome senior investigators and established research units to contribute to sustainability of this open access platform for African researchers. 

All billing will be done via the SATS administrative and editorial office.

Manuscript preparation

Preparing an article for anonymous review

 

To ensure a fair and unbiased review process, all submissions are to include an anonymised version of the manuscript. The exceptions to this requirement are Correspondence, Book reviews and Obituary submissions.

 

Submitting a manuscript that needs additional blinding can slow down your review process, so please be sure to follow these simple guidelines as much as possible:

  • An anonymous version should not contain any author, affiliation or particular institutional details that will enable identification.
  • Please remove title page, acknowledgements, contact details, funding grants to a named person, and any running headers of author names.
  • Mask self-citations by referring to your own work in third person.

 

General article format/layout

Submitted manuscripts that are not in the correct format specified in these guidelines will be returned to the author(s) for correction prior to being sent for review, which will delay publication.

General:

  • Manuscripts must be written in UK English (this includes spelling).
  • The manuscript must be in Microsoft Word document format. Text must be 1.5 line spaced, in 12-point Times New Roman font, and contain no unnecessary formatting (such as text in boxes). Pages and lines should be numbered consecutively.
  • Please make your article concise, even if it is below the word limit.
  • Qualifications, full affiliation (department, school/faculty, institution, city, country) and contact details of ALL authors must be provided in the manuscript and in the online submission process.
  • Abbreviations should be spelt out when first used and thereafter used consistently, e.g. 'intravenous (IV)' or 'Department of Health (DoH)'.
  • Quotes should be placed in single quotation marks: i.e. The respondent stated: '...'

If you wish material to be in a box, simply indicate this in the text. You may use the table format –this is the only exception. Please DO NOT use fill, format lines and so on.


IMAGES/PHOTOGRAPHS

Acceptable file types

The image file should be submitted as a high resolution jpeg or tiff Important: Images embedded in a Word document are not acceptable.

Resolution

Images must have a minimum resolution of 300 dpi (dots per inch).

Screenshots and images from the internet

Screenshots and images from the internet are usually only 72 dpi – this is the average resolution that computer screens use – therefore images downloaded from the internet are almost always too small to use for print even though they might look fine on screen.

 

Author Quick check

If the actual size of the file is:

• less than 500 kb - not great for print

• 500kb - 1000 kb (1 mb) - better

• greater than 1000 kb (i mb) - ideal

The image sent has to be the original i.e. the very first image created.

If it was taken on a camera/cell phone, then that image has to be sent directly from the device’s image gallery.

Not a screenshot of the image or via a secondary app (Word, Whatsapp) or uploaded to a website.

Cameras (cell phones) should be set to the highest possible image size

 

GRAPHS/FIGURES

Acceptable file types

All graphs and figures should be submitted as PDF files

 

 

Genetic nomenclature

 

AJTCCM is a medical journal covering all aspects of respiratory health, therefore for articles involving genetics, it is the responsibility of authors to apply the following:

-               Please ensure that all genes are in italics, and proteins/enzymes/hormones are not.

-               Ensure that all genes are presented in the correct case e.g. TP53 not Tp53.

**           NB: Copyeditors cannot be expected to pick up and correct errors wrt the above, although they will raise queries where concerned.

-               Define all genes, proteins and related shorthand terms at first mention, e.g. ‘188del11’ can be glossed as ‘an 11 bp deletion at nucleotide 188.’

-               Use the latest approved gene or protein symbol as appropriate:

  • Human Gene Mapping Workshop (HGMW): genetic notations and symbols
  • HUGO Gene Nomenclature Committee: approved gene symbols and nomenclature
  • OMIM: Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (MIM) nomenclature and instructions
  • Bennet et al. Standardized human pedigree nomenclature: Update and assessment of the recommendations of the National Society of Genetic Counselors. J Genet Counsel 2008;17:424-433: standard human pedigree nomenclature.

Preparation notes by article type

Each paper should have a clear rationale, logical study aims, sufficiently detailed methods, and well supported conclusions. It is advisable to clearly state the hypothesis or aim of the work in the introduction section. The discussion and abstract conclusions should be clearly stated and should be backed up by the data presented in the manuscript. The study outcomes or metrics used to inform the conclusions should be clearly stated and outlined.

Study synopsis: All studies submitted with an abstract should, in addition, have a study synopsis sub-section, with a maximum word count including sub-headings of 120 words. 

The purpose is to crystalise the findings of the study and thus improve understanding and retention.  The study synopsis should have 2 sub-headings: ‘What the study adds’ and ‘Implications of the findings'.

The first sub-heading should tersely outline what new knowledge or additional information the study brings to the field.  The second sub-heading should provide the implication of the findings to researchers, clinicians, policy makers, and other stakeholders and could allude to the broader implications of the work.  

The study synopsis should not repeat verbatim what is already in the abstract but provides an additional opportunity to emphasise key findings of the study and the implications of the work.


Research

Guideline word limit: 3 000 words (excluding abstract and bibliography)

Research articles describe the background, methods, results and conclusions of an original research study. The article should contain the following sections: introduction, methods, results, discussion and conclusion, and should include a structured abstract (see below). The introduction should be concise – no more than three paragraphs – on the background to the research question, and must include references to other relevant published studies that clearly lay out the rationale for conducting the study. Some common reasons for conducting a study are: to fill a gap in the literature, a logical extension of previous work, or to answer an important clinical question. If other papers related to the same study have been published previously, please make sure to refer to them specifically. Describe the study methods in as much detail as possible so that others would be able to replicate the study should they need to. Where appropriate, sample size calculations should be included to demonstrate that the study is not underpowered. Results should describe the study sample as well as the findings from the study itself, but all interpretation of findings must be kept in the discussion section, which should consider primary outcomes first before any secondary or tertiary findings or post-hoc analyses. The conclusion should briefly summarise the main message of the paper and provide recommendations for further study.

  • May include up to 6 illustrations or tables.
  • A  max of 20 – 25 references

 

Structured abstract (please note the requirement for the Study synopsis outlined above)

  • This should be no more than 250words, with the following recommended headings:
    • Background: why the study is being done and how it relates to other published work.
    • Objectives: what the study intends to find out
    • Methods: must include study design, number of participants, description of the intervention, primary and secondary outcomes, any specific analyses that were done on the data.
    • Results: first sentence must be brief population and sample description; outline the results according to the methods described. Primary outcomes must be described first, even if they are not the most significant findings of the study.
    • Conclusion: must be supported by the data, include recommendations for further study/actions.
    • Please ensure that the structured abstract is complete, accurate and clear and has been approved by all authors. It should be able to be intelligible to the reader without referral to the main body of the article.
    • Do not include any references in the abstracts.

 

Click Here for an example of a good abstract.

 

Brief Reports

 

This may include case series or interesting basic science findings accompanying a case or several cases.

 

Guideline word limit: 1500 words

  • Abstract: unstructured, of about 100-150 words
  • May include only one illustration or table
  • A  maximum of 6 references

 

 

Editorials

Guideline word limit: 1 000 words

These opinion or comment articles are usually commissioned but we are happy to consider and peer review unsolicited editorials. Editorials should be accessible and interesting to readers without specialist knowledge of the subject under discussion and should have an element of topicality (why is a comment on this issue relevant now?) There should be a clear message to the piece, supported by evidence.

Please make clear the type of evidence that supports each key statement, e.g.:

  • expert opinion
  • personal clinical experience
  • observational studies
  • trials
  • systematic reviews.

 

Review articles

Contributors are encouraged to write to the Editor about possible papers to be considered for review, and where appropriate a review outline will be submitted to experts in the field for consideration before a full review is commissioned. It is expected that an author or authors have substantial experience and track record in the field that the review is about.

Guideline word limit: 3 500 words (unless an alternative word limit has been arranged with the Chief Editor)

Please ensure that your article includes:

  • Abstract: unstructured, of about 100-150 words, explaining the review and why it is important
  • Methods: Outline the sources and selection methods, including search strategy and keywords used for identifying references from online bibliographic databases. Discuss the quality of evidence.
  • When writing: clarify the evidence you used for key statements and the strength of the evidence. Do not present statements or opinions without such evidence, or if you have to, say that there is little or no evidence and that this is opinion. Avoid specialist jargon and abbreviations, and provide advice specific to southern Africa.
  • Personal details: Please supply your qualifications, position and affiliations and MP number (used for CPD points); address, telephone number and fax number, and your e-mail address; and a short personal profile (50 words) and a few words about your current fields of interest.

 

Review articles aimed at registrars (residents) and senior registrars in training and junior attending pulmonologists/consultants. 

This will follow the typical format of a review article, with an unstructured abstract of ~150 words but the manuscript will be structured in question format with answers in mini-assay format. 

Typically the questions could be clinical or basic science orientated under a thematic subject heading, e.g. asthma.  The answer format to the questions posed in the review should typically take ~10 minutes to write out by hand. 

The format is designed to be useful to trainees preparing for their respiratory medicine or pulmonology examinations. 

There should be 10 multiple choice MCQ’s at the end (5 choices to each question) with the answers provided in the correspondence section. 

This type of review will typically be written by a group of trainees, ideally with co-authorship from varied geographical regions within a country or across multiple countries.  Thus, collaboration across countries and continents is encouraged.


Guidelines, position statements and recommendation-type articles

Must preferably be endorsed by an appropriate body prior to consideration and all conflicts of interest expressed.

  • A structured abstract not exceeding 450 words (please note the requirement for the Study synopsis outlined above)
  • Recommended sub-headings: Background and recommendations (a conclusion sub-heading is optional).
  • Sections and sub-sections must be numbered consecutively (e.g. 1. Introduction; 1.1 Definitions; 2. etc.) and summarised in a Table of Contents.
  • References, appendices, figures and tables must be kept to a minimum.

 

Case Reports, Scientific Letters and Correspondence (Letters to the Editor)

As of 2022, case reports are to be submitted as a Scientific Letter.

These may include side effects of drugs and brief or negative research findings. 

Guideline word limit: 850 words

  • No abstract
  • May include only one illustration or table
  • A  maximum of 6 references
  • They should end with a conclusion of no more than 75 - 100 words.


Correspondence guideline word limit: 400 words

Letters to the editor should relate either to a paper or article published by the AJTCCM or to a topical issue of particular relevance to the journal’s readership

  • May include only one illustration or table
  • Must include a correspondence address.

 

Pick of the Pics

We invite colleagues to submit an image or picture of an interesting finding. This could be a clinical sign, pathology, bronchoscopic image, or any inetresting visual representation of respiratory medicine or critical care. It should be accompanied by a narrative of a max 150 words explaining the image.

Preceding the narrative, there should be an interesting question about the image, e.g. what the underlying clinical sign or pathological feature is?

The title should be submitted in a question-like format.

Technical specifications:

The narrative text, including the figure legend, must be in Microsoft Word document format.

When symbols, arrows, numbers, or letters are used to identify parts of the illustrations, each one should be identified and explained clearly in the legend.

Acceptable image file types

The image file should ideally be submitted as a high resolution TIFF. JPEGs are acceptable if the image was originally captured as a large JPEG file with minimal or no compression.

When uploading the image file, please be sure to upload the original source file. The system will convert the file to a quick-view PDF and the original source file will be available to the editors.

Please supply two versions of the image files. The first should include any scale bars, symbols, arrows, numbers or letters and the second, with those elements excluded.

Resolution

 Images must have a minimum resolution of 300 dpi (dots per inch).

 Consent

Any information in photographs that might identify a patient or hospital/facility should be removed or edited out of the image, as far as possible. Where necessary, patient information must be obtained.



Obituaries

Guideline word limit: 400 words

Should be offered within the first year of the practitioner’s death, and may be accompanied by a photograph.

 

Illustrations/photos/scans

  • If illustrations submitted have been published elsewhere, the author(s) should provide evidence of consent to republication obtained from the copyright holder.
  • Figures must be numbered in Arabic numerals and referred to in the text e.g. '(Fig. 1)'.
  • Each figure must have a caption/legend: Fig. 1. Description (any abbreviations in full).
  • All images must be of high enough resolution/quality for print.
  • All illustrations (graphs, diagrams, charts, etc.) must be in PDF form.
  • Ensure all graph axes are labelled appropriately, with a heading/description and units (as necessary) indicated. Do not include decimal places if not necessary e.g. 0; 1.0; 2.0; 3.0; 4.0 etc.
  • Scans/photos showing a specific feature e.g. Intermediate magnification micrograph of a low malignant potential (LMP) mucinous ovarian tumour. (H&E stain). –include an arrow to show the tumour.
  • Each image must be attached individually as a 'supplementary file' upon submission (not solely embedded in the accompanying manuscript) and named Fig. 1, Fig. 2, etc.

 

Tables

  • Tables should be constructed carefully and simply for intelligible data representation. Unnecessarily complicated tables are strongly discouraged.
  • Large tables will generally not be accepted for publication in their entirety. Please consider shortening and using the text to highlight specific important sections, or offer a large table as an addendum to the publication, but available in full on request from the author.
  • Embed/include each table in the manuscript Word file - do not provide separately as supplementary files.
  • Number each table in Arabic numerals (Table 1, Table 2, etc.) consecutively as they are referred to in the text.
  • Tables must be cell-based (i.e. not constructed with text boxes or tabs) and editable.
  • Ensure each table has a concise title and column headings, and include units where necessary.
  • Footnotes must be indicated with consecutive use of the following symbols: * † ‡ § ¶ || then ** †† ‡‡ etc.

 

Do not: Use [Enter] within a row to make ‘new rows’:

 

Rather:

Each row of data must have its own proper row:

 

Do not: use separate columns for n and %:

 

Rather:

Combine into one column, n (%):

 

Do not: have overlapping categories, e.g.:

 

Rather:

Use <> symbols or numbers that don’t overlap:

 

 

References

NB: Only complete, correctly formatted reference lists in Vancouver style will be accepted. If reference manager software is used, the reference list and citations in text are to be unformatted to plain text before submitting..

  • Authors must verify references from original sources.
  • Citations should be inserted in the text as superscript numbers between square brackets, e.g. These regulations are endorsed by the World Health Organization,[2] and others.[3,4-6]
  • All references should be listed at the end of the article in numerical order of appearance in the Vancouver style (not alphabetical order).
  • Approved abbreviations of journal titles must be used; see the List of Journals in Index Medicus.
  • Names and initials of all authors should be given; if there are more than six authors, the first three names should be given followed by et al.
  • Volume and issue numbers should be given.
  • First and last page, in full, should be given e.g.: 1215-1217 not 1215-17.
  • Wherever possible, references must be accompanied by a digital object identifier (DOI) link). Authors are encouraged to use the DOI lookup service offered by CrossRef:
    • On the Crossref homepage, paste the article title into the ‘Metadata search’ box.
    • Look for the correct, matching article in the list of results.
    • Click Actions > Cite
    • Alongside 'url =' copy the URL between { }.
    • Provide as follows, e.g.: https://doi.org/10.7196/07294.937.98x

 

Some examples:

  • Journal references: Price NC, Jacobs NN, Roberts DA, et al. Importance of asking about glaucoma. Stat Med 1998;289(1):350-355. http://dx.doi.org/10.1000/hgjr.182
  • Book references: Jeffcoate N. Principles of Gynaecology. 4th ed. London: Butterworth, 1975:96-101.
  • Chapter/section in a book: Weinstein L, Swartz MN. Pathogenic Properties of Invading Microorganisms. In: Sodeman WA, Sodeman WA, eds. Pathologic Physiology: Mechanisms of Disease. Philadelphia: WB Saunders, 1974:457-472.
  • Internet references: World Health Organization. The World Health Report 2002 - Reducing Risks, Promoting Healthy Life. Geneva: WHO, 2002. http://www.who.int/whr/2002 (accessed 16 January 2010).
  • Legal references
  • Government Gazettes:

National Department of Health, South Africa. National Policy for Health Act, 1990 (Act No. 116 of 1990). Free primary health care services. Government Gazette No. 17507:1514. 1996.

In this example, 17507 is the Gazette Number. This is followed by :1514 - this is the notice number in this Gazette.

  • Provincial Gazettes:

Gauteng Province, South Africa; Department of Agriculture, Conservation, Environment and Land Affairs. Publication of the Gauteng health care waste management draft regulations. Gauteng Provincial Gazette No. 373:3003, 2003.

  • Acts:

South Africa. National Health Act No. 61 of 2003.

  • Regulations to an Act:

South Africa. National Health Act of 2003. Regulations: Rendering of clinical forensic medicine services. Government Gazette No. 35099, 2012. (Published under Government Notice R176).

  • Bills:

South Africa. Traditional Health Practitioners Bill, No. B66B-2003, 2006.

  • Green/white papers:

South Africa. Department of Health Green Paper: National Health Insurance in South Africa. 2011.

  • Case law:

Rex v Jopp and Another 1949 (4) SA 11 (N)

Rex v Jopp and Another:  Name of the parties concerned

1949: Date of decision (or when the case was heard)

(4): Volume number

SA: SA Law Reports

11: Page or section number

(N): In this case Natal - where the case was heard. Similarly, (C) woud indicate Cape, (G) Gauteng, and so on.

NOTE: no . after the v

  • Other references (e.g. reports) should follow the same format: Author(s). Title. Publisher place: Publisher name, year; pages.
  • Cited manuscripts that have been accepted but not yet published can be included as references followed by '(in press)'.
  • Unpublished observations and personal communications in the text must not appear in the reference list. The full name of the source person must be provided for personal communications e.g. '...(Prof. Michael Jones, personal communication)'.

 

From submission to acceptance

Submission and peer-review

To submit an article:

  • Please ensure that you have prepared your manuscript in line with the AJTCCM requirements.
  • All submissions should be submitted via the editorial platofrm.
  • The following are required for your submission to be complete:
    • Anonymous manuscript (unless otherwise stated)
    • Manuscript
    • Any supplementary files: figures, datasets, patient consent form, permissions for published images, etc.
    • Once the submission has been successfully processed on Editorial Manager, it will undergo a technical check by the Editorial Office before it will be assigned to an editor who will handle the review process. If the author guidelines have not been appropriately followed, the manuscript may be sent back to the author for correcting. 

 

Peer Review Process

All manuscripts are reviewed initially by the Editor-in-Chief and only those that meet the scientific and editorial standards of the journal, and fit within the aims and scope of the journal, will be sent for external peer review. Each manuscript is reviewed by either one or two reviewers selected on the basis of their expertise in the field. A double blind review process is followed at AJTCCM.

Authors are expected to receive feedback from reviewers and an editorial decision within approximately 6 weeks of submission. The time period of the entire review process may vary however depending upon the quality of the manuscript submitted, reviewers’ responses and the time taken by the authors to submit the revised manuscript.

Manuscripts from review may be accepted, rejected or returned to the author for revision or resubmission for review. Authors will be directed to submit revised manuscripts within two months of receiving the editor’s decision, and are requested to submit a point by point response to the reviewers’ comments. Manuscripts which authors are requested to revise and resubmit will be sent for a second round of peer review, often to the original set of reviewers. All final decisions on a manuscript are at the Editor's discretion


 


Production process

The following process should usually take between 4 - 6 weeks:

  1. An accepted manuscript is passed to a Managing Editor to assign to a copyeditor (CE).
  2. The CE copyedits in Word, working on house style, format, spelling/grammar/punctuation, sense and consistency, and preparation for typesetting.
  3. If the CE has an author queries, he/she will contact the corresponding author and send them the copyedited Word doc, asking them to solve the queries by means of track changes or comment boxes.
  4. The authors are typically asked to respond within 1-3 days. Any comments/changes must be clearly indicated e.g. by means of track changes. Do not work in the original manuscript - work in the copyedited file sent to you and make your changes clear.
  5. The CE will finalise the article and then it will be typeset.
  6. Once typeset, the CE will send a PDF of the file to the authors to complete their final check, while simultaneously sending to the 2nd-eye proofreader.
  7. The authors are typically asked to complete their final check and sign-off within 1-2 days. No major additional changes can be accommodated at this point.
  8. The CE implements the authors’ and proofreader’s mark-ups, finalises the file, and prepares it for the upcoming issue.

 

Changing contact details or authorship

Please notify the Editorial Department of any contact detail changes, including email, to facilitate communication.

 


 

Sponsored supplements

Contact admin@pulmonology.co.za for information on submitting ad hoc/commissioned supplements, including guidelines, conference/congress abstracts, Festschrifts, etc.

 

 

 

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. Named authors consent to publication and meet the requirements of authorship as set out by the journal.
  2. The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration.
  3. The text complies with the stylistic and bibliographic requirements in Author Guidelines.
  4. The manuscript is in Microsoft Word or RTF document format. The text is single-spaced, in 12-point Times New Roman font, and contains no unnecessary formatting.
  5. Illustrations/figures are high resolution/quality (not compressed) and in an acceptable format (jpeg or pdf). These must be submitted individually as 'supplementary files' (not solely embedded in the manuscript).
  6. For illustrations/figures or tables that have been published elsewhere, the author has obtained written consent to republication from the copyright holder.
  7. Where possible, references are accompanied by a digital object identifier (DOI).
  8. An abstract has been included where applicable.
  9. The research was approved by a Research Ethics Committee (if applicable)
  10. Any conflict of interest (or competing interests) is indicated by the author(s).
 

Copyright Notice

Copyright

Copyright of published material remains in the Authors’ name. This allows authors to use their work for their own non-commercial purposes without seeking permission from the Publisher, subject to properly acknowledging the Journal as the original place of publication.

 

Authors are free to copy, print and distribute their articles, in full or in part, for teaching activities, and to deposit or include their work in their own personal or institutional database or on-line website. Authors are requested to inform the Journal/Publishers of their desire/intention to include their work in a thesis or dissertation or to republish their work in any derivative form (but not for commercial use).

Material submitted for publication in the AJTCCM is accepted provided it has not been published or submitted for publication elsewhere. Please inform the editorial team if the main findings of your paper have been presented at a conference and published in abstract form, to avoid copyright infringement. All research already published as ‘Conference proceedings’ needs to be substantially re-written, with a new title, a new abstract and new and important results to back up any study before it will be considered for a new publication. The AJTCCM does not hold itself responsible for statements made by the authors.

 

Previously published images

If an image/figure has been previously published, permission to reproduce or alter it must be obtained by the authors from the original publisher and the figure legend must give full credit to the original source. This credit should be accompanied by a letter indicating that permission to reproduce the image has been granted to the author/s. This letter should be uploaded as a supplementary file during submission.

 

Privacy Statement

The AJTCCM is committed to protecting the privacy of the users of this journal website. The names, personal particulars and email addresses entered in this website will be used only for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available to third parties without the user’s permission or due process. Users consent to receive communication from the AJTCCM for the stated purposes of the journal. Queries with regard to privacy may be directed to publishing@hmpg.co.za.