Photomedicine and Laser Surgery

Manuscript Submission

INSTRUCTIONS FOR AUTHORS
 

Photomedicine and Laser Surgery provides rapid publication of new and cutting-edge techniques and research in phototherapy, low level laser therapy (LLLT), and laser medicine and surgery.

Book reviews are published as space permits.

Manuscript Submission Fee

Effective October 8, 2013, Photomedicine and Laser Surgery instituted a non-refundable manuscript submission fee of $49.00 USD per submitted paper. This fee is charged regardless of the outcome of editorial decision of acceptance or rejection. In addition to the benefits of publishing your work in Photomedicine and Laser Surgery, your submission provides unique opportunities to increase the visibility of your work through the robust AuthorCite™ services platform, including a link to freely share your article for 30 days.  SUBMIT YOUR MANUSCRIPT

Submission fees/codes are NOT required for revisions to papers submitted prior to October 8, 2013. To upload a revision of a paper, the submitting author must log in to their Author Center and click on the “Revised Manuscripts in Draft” link. The paper will appear there, and the submitting author will be able to proceed without paying a submission fee or entering a submission code.

Submitting Manuscripts

Please be sure to follow the Instructions for Authors below on Manuscript Preparation. Authors whose submissions that do not comply with these Instructions will have their papers returned to them without peer review, and the submission fee will not be refunded. In this circumstance, if you wish to resubmit a returned paper, the standard submission fee of $49.00 USD will be charged again. (This does NOT refer to revisions of peer-reviewed papers.) CLICK HERE TO SUBMIT YOUR MANUSCRIPT

Please refer to the WALT recommended treatment doses for Low Level Laser Therapy prior to submission:  http://www.walt.nu

Page Charges

To help defray the cost of processing the Journal requests page charges of $60 per typeset be paid by authors who have funds available from research grants or from their institutions.  Please note that payment of page charges can be waived under certain circumstances and is not a prerequisite for publication.

Preparation of Manuscript

NOTE: 

All submitted manuscripts will be processed through plagiarism detection software.  Plagiarized manuscripts will be rejected immediately.

Prepare manuscripts double spaced throughout.  Leave ample margins on the sides, top, and bottom of the page.  Please submit text of manuscripts in Microsoft Word.  The title page should include the authors’ names and affiliations, the source of a work or study (if any), and a running title of about 45 characters. We require the full mailing address and contact information (telephone, fax and e-mail address) for EACH author listed on the paper.  Please include the address(es) either on the title page or on a separate sheet. Please also indicate the corresponding author. The second page should consist of a structured abstract of not more than 250 words which should be self-explanatory without reference to the text. The papers should follow this format: abstract, introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion, conclusion and summary, and references. Number pages consecutively. At the end of the paper, give the name and address of the individual to whom reprint requests should be directed. Authors are encouraged to suggest the names of appropriate reviewers.

The structured format for the abstract consists of 1) the objective of one or two sentences; 2) the background data is a short paragraph describing the present status of the field; 3) methods is a statement of the plan and/or methods used in the study; 4) the results is a concise summary of the essential features verified by the data; and 5) the conclusions is a brief description of the objective findings of the study. References are not permitted in the abstract.

Guidelines on Length.   Manuscript length varies according to the type of paper, subject matter and authors' judgment. Original research papers would normally be less than 3000 words; review papers may exceptionally be longer (up to 5000 words and should have a 150-word summary); only rare, novel, or previously unreported Case Reports of up to 1500 words will be considered; short reports should be less than 1000 words with no more than one table or illustration and up to ten references. We are happy to entertain unsolicited editorials of up to 1000 words, which will be externally peer reviewed. Letters to the editor should be no longer than 500 words with no more than five references except in exceptional circumstances when the argument for this should be laid out in an accompanying letter. One table or illustration may accompany letters. Personal view papers, drug/therapy/intervention reports, critical review and debate and reports drawing attention to potential clinical problems are welcomed. 
 
Please follow the requested style to avoid any delays in publication. Consult a current issue of the journal for the exact format.

We endorse the “Uniform Requirements of Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals.”
 

Tables
Tables should be submitted in Microsoft Word and provided as separate files from the text of the manuscript. Tables should be cited in the text in order and identified as Table 1, Table 2, etc. Along with the table number, each table should have a title.

Figures
Please follow these instructions for submitting illustrations:

• Do not embed figures in the Microsoft Word text files.
• Do not prepare any figures in Microsoft Word.
• Prepare figures in either tiff or eps format.
• Line illustrations must be submitted at 900 DPI.
• Black and white halftones and color art must be submitted at 300 DPI.
• PowerPoint and Excel files cannot be uploaded.
• Color art must be saved as CMYK—not RGB.

Please name your artwork files with the submitting author’s name, e.g., Smith Fig. 1. tif.

Label figures and tables inside the files in addition to naming the file with the figure or table number.  (ie:  When figures or table files are opened, the figure or table number should appear inside the file.)

If photographs of patients are used, either the subjects should not be identifiable or their pictures must be accompanied by written permission to use the figure. Legends for illustrations should be provided (double spaced) on a separate sheet with numbers corresponding to the figures.

Abbreviations
Abbreviations of journal titles should follow the style of Medline or the Council of Biology Editors Style Manual (Arlington, VA, American Institute of Biological Sciences). The first time an uncommon abbreviation appears, it should be preceded by the full name for which it stands.


Disclosure Statement
 
Immediately following the Acknowledgments section, include a section entitled “Author Disclosure Statement.” In this portion of the paper, authors must disclose any commercial associations that might create a conflict of interest in connection with submitted manuscripts. This statement should include appropriate information for EACH author, thereby representing that competing financial interests of all authors have been appropriately disclosed according to the policy of the Journal. It is important that all conflicts of interest, whether they are actual or potential, be disclosed. This information will remain confidential while the paper is being reviewed and will not influence the editorial decision. Please see the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals at http://www.icmje.org/index.htlm#conflicts for further guidance. If no conflicts exist, the authors must state “No competing financial interests exist."

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IMPORTANT:

Please upload individual files of all manuscript material — do NOT upload a single PDF file containing all text, figure, and table files of your paper.  Once all individual files are uploaded on to Manuscript Central, the system will automatically create a single PDF proof for you and the peer-review process.

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References
References must be typed double spaced and numbered consecutively as they appear. Those appearing for the first time in tables and figures must be numbered in sequence with those cited in the text where the table or figure is mentioned. List all the authors when there are six or fewer. When there are seven or more, list the first three, then “et al.” Sample references are:

1. Lahita, R., Liuger, J., Drayer, D.E., Koffler, D., and Reidenberg, M.M. (1982). Antibodies to nuclear antigens in patients treated with procainamide. J. Cardiovasc. Ultrason. 1, 12–20.
2. Bearns, A.G. (1972). Wilson’s disease, in: The Metabolic Basis of Inherited Disease. J.B. Stanbury, J.B. Wynnegaarden, and D.S. Frederickson (eds.). New York: McGraw-Hill, pp. 1033–1050.

References to government publications should include the department, bureau or office, title, location of publisher, publisher, year, pages cited, and most important, the publication series, report, or monograph number.

Numbered references to personal communications, unpublished data and manuscripts either “in preparation” or “submitted for publications” are unacceptable. If essential, such material may be incorporated in the appropriate place in the text.

Permissions

Materials taken from other sources must be accompanied by a written statement from both author and publisher giving permission for reproduction. If clearances are required by the author’s institution, statements concerning such clearance should be provided in the manuscript. Obtain and submit written permission from authors to cite unpublished data or papers still in press.

Reprints

Reprints may be ordered by following the special instructions that will accompany page proofs, and should be ordered at the time the corresponding author returns the corrected page proofs to the Publisher. Reprints ordered after an issue is printed will be charged at a substantially higher rate.
 

Publisher

Photomedicine and Laser Surgery is published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., 140 Huguenot Street, New Rochelle, NY 10801-5215, Telephone: (914) 740–2100; fax: (914) 740–2108.