Submissions

Author Guidelines

SUBMISSION OF MANUSCRIPT

Submit of new manuscript via this link:

https://www2.cloud.editorialmanager.com/karbalajm/default2.aspx

Instruction to Authors

Karbala Journal of Medicine is a multidisciplinary double-blind peer-reviewed medical journal, published twice a year by Kerbala University, College of Medicine, Kerbala, Iraq to ensure a timely publication process, authors are asked to read the following instructions carefully.

COPYRIGHT
Submissions considered for publication in KARBALA JOURNAL OF MEDICINE are received on the understanding that they have not been accepted for publication elsewhere and that all authors agree to the submission. The journal requires approval of manuscript submission by all authors. A cover letter signed by all authors constitutes submission approval. Manuscripts will not receive a final decision until a completed Copyright Status Form has been received. As soon as the article is published, the author is to have considered transferring his right to the publisher. This transfer will ensure the widest possible dissemination of information under International Copyright Law. All concepts, ideas, comments, manuscripts, illustrations, and all other materials disclosed or offered to the College of Medicine at the University of Kerbala in connection with this Journal are submitted without any restrictions or expectation of confidentiality. The College of Medicine shall have no financial or other obligations to you when you do not submit such information, nor shall you assert any proprietary or moral right of any kind concerning such submissions. The College of Medicine, University of Kerbala shall have the right to use, publish, reproduce, transmit, download, upload post, display, or otherwise distribute your submissions in any manner without notice or compensation to you.

LICENSE

The Karbala Journal of Medicine is an open-access. All article components (text, images, tables, etc.) have agreed to be bound by the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License (CC-BY 4.0). 

PLAGIARISM

All articles submitted to the Karbala Journal of Medicine will be checked for plagiarism. The plagiarism check is the second step after the editor-in-chief assigns the article. Another check will be by any editorial board member, reviewer, editor, etc., in any stage of the article process- before or after acceptance, during editing, or at a page proof stage. We will alert the same to the author(s) and will ask them to rewrite the content or cite the references from where the content has been taken. If more than 20% of the paper is plagiarized- the article may be rejected and the same is notified to the author.

ETHICS

Investigations on human subjects should conform to accepted ethical standards. Fully informed consent should be obtained and noted in the manuscript. For all manuscripts dealing with experimental work involving human subjects, specify that informed consent was obtained following a full explanation of the procedure(s) undertaken. Patients should be referred to by number; do not use real names or initials. Also, the design of special scientific research in human diseases or animal experiments should be approved by the ethical committee of the institution or conform to guidelines on animal care and use currently applied in the country of origin.

POLICIES ON PUBLISHING ETHICS

The Karbala Journal of Medicine demands and maintains ethical publication practices in all its activities. We will investigate any potential breaches of the policies detailed here as per the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines. Contact the editorial office for further details or to raise any issues and concerns.

Authorship

The list of authors should accurately reflect who carried out the research and who wrote the article.

The paper should make it clear who carried out the research and who wrote the publication. Following the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), to be regarded as an author of a publication, one must have

• made substantial contributions to the conception and design, acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data;
• drafted the article or revised it critically for important intellectual content;
• given final approval of the version to be published; and
• taken responsibility for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and

All and only those who meet the criteria above may be regarded as authors of a submission and all such authors must be listed as such in the publication.

Competing Interests  

All authors, referees, and editors must declare any conflicting or competing interests relating to a given submission.

Competing interests are defined as those that, through their potential influence on behavior or content or from a perception of such potential influences, could undermine the objectivity, integrity, or perceived value of a publication.

They may include:

• Any recent, current, and anticipated membership, employment, or source of funding (including personal financial interests) relating to any organization that may gain or lose financially through publication.
• Having a personal or professional relationship with any of the
• Having recently been a supervisor, mentor, mentee, close collaborator, or joint grant holder with any of the authors.

Referees should declare their competing interests before agreeing to review a submission. It is a discretionary matter for the editor to decide whether to proceed with a referee who has declared a potential competing interest.

If an editor has a competing or conflicting interest that would interfere with any editorial decisions for a particular submission, they should notify the editorial office who will assign an alternative editor.

Research Standards 

The Karbala Journal of Medicine is committed to ensuring that sufficient standards of research conduct are met at all stages of publication. Breaches of these standards include:

• Falsification
• The fabrication or manipulation (including selective omission) of data, research materials, equipment, or processes, such that the research or the reporting of other research is not accurately represented.

• Plagiarism.

As defined by the Office of Research Integrity:

Plagiarism includes both the theft or misappropriation of intellectual property and the substantial unattributed textual copying of another's work. It does not include authorship or credit disputes. The theft or misappropriation of intellectual property includes the unauthorized use of ideas or unique methods obtained by a privileged communication, such as a grant or manuscript review.

 The standards of research conduct are not breached by honest errors or differences of opinion.

If an editor suspects that misconduct has occurred they will report it to the editor-­‐in-­‐chief. The editors will then assess the available evidence and, if the evidence of misconduct is compelling, they will request a response from the authors. In cases of dual submission, the other publishers may be contacted. If plagiarism or dual publication is detected after a submission has been published by College Publications, then suitable announcements or retractions will be made in accordance with the COPE guidelines on retraction.

The Karbala Journal of Medicine only considers submissions that have not been published or are not to be published elsewhere. This includes sections of text in otherwise original manuscripts which are copied verbatim from other works. This does not include:

• Abstracts and summaries of the research in question which may have been published
• Conference presentations that omit a significant amount of the submitted research, or unrefereed manuscripts posted on preprint servers such as arXiv.
• Material from a PhD thesis or other work published internally to an academic
• Minor, unavoidable, overlaps with previous publications especially in the use of standard terminology, definitions, or exposition.

In all these cases, the existence of these prior publications, or publications being considered elsewhere, must be made clear to the editorial office and in the body of the submission.

Editorial Standards

The content of a publication is entirely independent of The Karbala Journal of Medicine´s views on any scientific or policy issues. The editors’ decisions are independent, and final and will not be influenced in any way by College Publications.

Peer review

The Karbala Journal of Medicine requires editors to do all they can to ensure the peer review process is fair without bias.

Submissions to The Karbala Journal of Medicine are generally peer-reviewed in a single-­‐blind fashion (author names are not concealed, but referee names are).

If discussions between an author, editor, and referee have taken place in confidence they will remain in confidence unless explicit consent has been given by all parties or there are exceptional circumstances.

Editors or board members are never involved in editorial decisions about their own work and in these cases, papers will be referred to other editors or the editor-­‐in-­‐chief.

The Karbala Journal of Medicine does not tolerate abusive behavior or correspondence towards either its staff or academic editors. Any author, editor, or referee who engages in abusive behavior or correspondence relating to a submission will be withdrawn from the publication process. In the case of an author, their submission will no longer be considered, in the case of an editor or referee, their services will no longer be solicited. In all cases, future submissions from an individual in breach of this policy will be considered only at the discretion of the editor-in-chief.

Referees, editors, or other individuals privy to the work an author submits for publication must treat it in confidence until it has been published. Cases of referees who incorporate any work entrusted to them for review purposes into their own work without express permission will be treated as cases of plagiarism.

Authors may incorporate the content of any reviews into their work but must do so only with suitable permissions and acknowledgments.

Authors may appeal editorial decisions by submitting a written statement to the editorial office. This will be passed to the editor-­‐in-­‐chief who may consider inviting comments from additional referees or an alternative editor as appropriate.

Studies in humans and animals

STYLE OF MANUSCRIPTS

All contributions should be written in English. Spelling should be American English. In general, manuscripts should be prepared according to biomedical journals″ published by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) in Vancouver, British Colombia, in 1979 and its last update in February 2006, available on the website www.icmje.org. Manuscript should be as concise and clear as possible. Manuscripts not following Instructions to Authors will be returned to the authors.

LANGUAGE

Only English articles will be accepted. Prior to submission, manuscripts prepared by authors whose native language is not English should be edited for proper spelling, grammar, and syntax by a professional editor or colleague fluent in English.

MANUSCRIPTS CATEGORIES

Materials reviewed for publication in The KARBALA JOURNAL OF MEDICINE include the following:

Editorials.
Editorials will present the opinions of leaders in all subjects of medicine.

Original articles.

Original clinical or laboratory investigations of clinical subjects should be reported. The material should be presented as concisely as possible.

Review articles.

Karbala Journal of Medicine considers reviews for publication. Reviews should document and synthesize current information on timely subjects.

Case reports.

A case report should describe a new disease or confirmation of a rare or new disease; a new insight into pathogenesis, etiology, diagnosis, or treatment; or a new finding associated with a currently known disease.

MANUSCRIPTS

Manuscripts should be submitted with text and tables, preferably in a recent Word or Word Perfect for Windows format. The lines of the text are double-spaced. The line number is mandatory for the whole manuscript. The article should be submitted electronically, There is no need to send a hard copy. The Copyright Status Form (download here) should be uploaded along with the submission of the article. Manuscripts should be clearly in double spacing on one side of good quality A4 paper (30 x 21 cm), using 2.5 cm margins. Pages should be numbered consequently in the top right-hand corner, commencing with the Title Page and including those containing Acknowledgements, References, Tables, and Figures.

Conventional Manuscript

The manuscript should be arranged as follows, with each section beginning on a separate page, except in the category of Rapid communications. 

Cover letter.

A cover letter, in which the authors certify that the work submitted to the Karbala Journal of Medicine has not been published elsewhere, in any form, and that it is not being submitted simultaneously to another journal, should accompany the manuscript. A Copyright Status Form (see next page) signed by all authors must accompany each manuscript.

Title page.

The category of manuscripts (as listed above) should appear on the title page. The title on the title page should contain no more than 80 letters and spaces. A running title of no more than 40 letters and spaces should be supplied. Each author’s first and last name, as well as a middle initial, highest academic degree, name of the department(s) and institutions to which the work should be attributed, and address, should appear. The author to whom communications will be directed should be designated and his or her telephone and FAX number and E-mail addresses (obligatory for submission) be provided.

Author contributions

Maintaining transparency involves encouraging corresponding authors to provide co-author contributions to the manuscript using their relevant CRediT roles from the  CRediT taxonomy

The first page should involve seven main categories within the author's contributions, including, Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis, Investigation, Writing, Resource, and Supervision.

Abstract.
The abstract should be structured to background, objectives, method, result, and conclusion. No longer than 250 words for full-length articles (origin article and review) and commensurately shorter for brief communications and case reports. Abstracts should summarize the problem addressed, the investigational approach, results, and relevant conclusions. The abstract for the origin article should be structured into Background, Methods, Results, and Conclusion. A structured abstract is not required for the review article.

Key words.

No more than seven keywords that will assist the indexer in cross-indexing the article should be supplied. It is recommended that authors consult the medical subject heading from Index Medicus.
Main text

The text of observational and experimental articles is usually divided into sections with headings Materials and Methods, Results, and Discussion. Long articles may need subheadings within some sections. The purpose of the article and the rationale for the study or observation should be summarized in an introductory paragraph. Materials and Methods should be described in sufficient detail to leave the reader in no doubt as to how the results were obtained. Results should be presented in a logical sequence in the text. Tables and figures should not include material appropriate to the discussion. Discussion: The new and important aspects of the study and the conclusions should be emphasized, without repeating data in detail. This section should consider the implications of the finding and their limitations. Link the conclusions with the goals of the study, and relate the observations to other relevant studies. New hypotheses and recommendations, when appropriate, may be included. Acknowledgment should be made only to persons who have made genuine contributions and who endorse the data and conclusions.

References

Citation

Reference citations in the text should be identified by numbers in square brackets. Some examples:

1. Therapy starts from oral [4].
2. This result was later contradicted by Waleem and Lwees [5-6].
3. Such type of infection has been widely studied [1-6, 9].

Reference list

Only works that are cited in the text should be included in the reference list. Personal communications and unpublished works should only be mentioned in the text. The entries in the list should be numbered consecutively. Abbreviate titles of the journals according to Index Medicus. Unpublished data and personal communications should be given in round parentheses in the text and not as references. List all authors or editors, but if the number exceeds six, give three followed by et al. Examples of correct reference format:

Standard journal articles:

1. Lötsch F, Auer-Hackenberg L, Groger M, Rehman K, Morrison V, Holmes E, et. al, Adherence of patients to long-term medication: a cross-sectional study of antihypertensive regimens in Austria. Wiener klinische Wochenschrift. 2015 May 1;127:379-84.
2. Alnasrawi ZI, Al Jobori SS, Nassrallah HA. Compliance of Hypertensive Patients to Medication in AL-Imam AL-Hussein medical City-Kerbala-2018. Kerbala Jorunal of Medicine. 2018;11:4048-58.
3. Sakakihara Y. Medical care and support for children with mental retardation in school. No To Hattatsu 2000; 32: 237 - 241.

Article by DOI

Chou Y, Lai K, Chen D, Lin C, Chen H. Rheumatoid arthritis risk associated with periodontitis exposure: a nationwide, population-based cohort study. PLOS One. 2015; Oct. 1L 1-10. http://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0139693.

Chapter in a book:

4. Ashwal S. Postneural migration defects. In: Swaimann KF, Ashwal S (eds). Pediatric Neurology. Principles and Practice (3rd ed). Louis: Mosby, 1999, pp 268 - 275.
   Books and other monographs:
5. Fenichel GM. Clinical Pediatric Neurology. A Signs and Symptoms Approach (3rd ed). Philadelphia: WB Saunders, 1997.

Tables Limit the number of tables.

Data in tables should not be repeated in graphs. Tables should be double-spaced and numbered consequently corresponding to in-text citation. A table title and number must be provided at the top. Headings should be concise and use Arabic numbers. Tables should be restricted to one manuscript page unless absolutely necessary. If a table continues past one page, repeat all sequences in the heads and the stub (left-hand) column. All non-standard abbreviations should also be explained in the footnotes. Footnotes should be indicated by *, **. Statistical measures such as mean±SD (standard deviation) should be identified in the headings.

Figures
Figures should be submitted in JPG or TIFF format and not within the manuscript. If illustrations already published elsewhere are used, The written permission of the author (s) and Publisher concerned must be included with the manuscript, and the original source must be indicated in the legend of the illustration. The KARBALA JOURNAL OF MEDICINE will not be responsible for redrawing or improving submitted drawings. Color illustrations or photographs will be reproduced at a cost to the author. Recognizable photographs of patients must be accompanied by written permission for publication. Figures should be sent in at least 300 dpi.

Figure Legends

Figure Legends should be typed (double-spaced) at the end of the manuscript..  

Units and Abbreviations

The manuscript should be in metric units. Standard abbreviations may be used and should be defined in the Abstract and on the first mention in the text. In general, a term should not be abbreviated unless it is used repeatedly and the abbreviation is helpful to the reader.

Authorship

The Karbala Journal of Medicine assumes all authors agree with the content of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), which includes:

1) Substantial contributions to conception and design, acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data.

2) Drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content.

3) Final approval of the version to be published.

And;

4) Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Statements and Declarations

The following statements should be included under the heading "Statements and Declarations" before the reference list for inclusion in the published paper. Missing relevant declarations will be returned as incomplete.

Funding: Authors are required to disclose financial or non-financial support that is directly or indirectly related to the work submitted for publication.

Conflict of interest:

The author is obligated to state that they have commercial or similar relationships with the products or companies mentioned in or related to the subject matter of the article being submitted. Any circumstance that prevents the independent preparation or publishing of a manuscript, such as professional or financial gain, personal or academic relationships or competition, religious, philosophical, or political beliefs, or any other factor, may be considered a potential conflict of interest.

If there is no conflict, the authors should state:

Conflict of Interest: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval:

Authors must provide a statement confirming that the study was approved by the appropriate institution when reporting a study that involved human or animal participants, and their data, or biological material. Guarantee that the study was performed in conformity with the ethical standards established in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its subsequent amendments or equivalent ethical standards. If the research was not conducted according to the Helsinki Declaration or comparable standards, the authors must provide an explanation for their approach and demonstrate that an independent ethics committee or institutional review board has explicitly approved the doubtful aspects of the study. If a study was granted an exemption from requiring ethics approval, this should also be detailed in the manuscript (including the reasons for the exemption).

Patient concert:

The rights of every individual are not to be violated. In studies, individuals have the option to decide what happens to the identifiable personal data gathered, to what they say during a study or interview as well as to any photograph that was taken. This is particularly relevant when it comes to images of vulnerable individuals (e.g. minors, patients, refugees, etc.) or the use of images in sensitive settings. Authors must obtain written consent before including images in many instances.

Review and Selection of Papers

All articles will be critically evaluated by the editor and at least two members of the editorial or selected reviewers of the journal within 2 months, but longer delays are sometimes unavoidable.

Proofs and Reprints

Proofs are sent to the corresponding author, together with a reprint order form approximately 6 weeks before the publication. Authors should retain a copy of the original manuscript. Only printer’s errors may be corrected; no changes in, or additions to, the edited manuscript will be allowed at this stage, unless in reply to specific editorial queries or requests. Corrected proofs must be returned within 48 hours of receipt, preferably by e-mail. If the publisher has not received a reply after 15 days, the assumption will be made that there are no errors to correct, and the article will be published after in-house correction. The reprint order form (with a number of reprints requested, invoice, and delivery address) should be returned with the corrected proof. Reprints may be ordered prior to publication on the form provided. The designated reviewing author will be responsible for ordering reprints for all authors. Reprints ordered after publication of the journal can be ordered at increased cost by special arrangement. A copy of the journal, in which the author’s article is published, will be provided free of charge to the corresponding author.

REVENUE SOURCES

The Karbala Journal of Medicine is a self-financed open-access journal, which is published in online form only. It is not supported by any agency, government, or any other source. Hence, the operation of journals is solely financed by the Article Processing Charges (APC) they receive from authors. This APC is required to meet operational expenses such as employees, salaries, internet services, electricity, etc.
All the costs of journal production, web hosting, content management system, database, online repository, peer-review, editing, and online publication are covered only through APC paid by authors.
These revenue sources do not influence the editorial decision by any means. The waived publication fee for authors from outside Iraq is covered by the journal but without influencing the editorial decision.

Page Charges

International author: No submission and publishing charges.
Iraqi author: A charge of 100,000 Iraqi dinars is required for the accepted manuscript in the Karbala Journal of Medicine.

Checklist for Authors

• Letter to submission
• Signed Copyright Status Form
• Publication fees
• Title page
• Category of manuscript
• Title of article
• Running title
• Name (s), academic degrees, and affiliations of the author (s) Name, address, telephone, and Fax number, and e-mail address of the corresponding author
• Abstract including keywords (except for Letter to the Editor)
• Text (double-spaced)
• References (double-spaced) according to the style used by this journal.
• Informed consent or certificate of ethical committee if indicated

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 who do not adhere to these guidelines.

1. The submission has not been previously published, nor has it been 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 single-spaced; uses a 12-point font; employs italics and double-spaced, 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
5. The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines, which are 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.

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