Pediatric Allergy, Immunology, and Pulmonology
Instructions for Authors
STATEMENT OF PURPOSE AND POLICY
Pediatric Allergy, Immunology, and Pulmonology is a peer-reviewed, scientific journal that describes advances in our understanding of asthma, allergic, immunologic, and respiratory diseases of children. This journal will publish original translational, clinical, epidemiologic, public health, and quality improvement research. Periodic themed issues will provide state of the art reviews on rapidly changing and/or under-recognized areas in the field. Interviews with leading scientists in the field will help to document our current history. Being grounded in the past and looking to the future, this journal will facilitate advances in the fields of pediatric allergy, immunology, and pulmonology.
Manuscript Submission and Copyright Agreement Form
The Copyright Agreement form (available from web site at http://www.liebertpub.com/media/content/transfer_of_copyright.pdf) should be submitted once your article has been accepted for publication. Manuscripts cannot be published without this form. The corresponding author is responsible for obtaining signatures of coauthors. Authors not permitted to release copyright must still return the form signed under the statement of the reason for not releasing the copyright. Upon acceptance of your paper, please fax the Copyright Agreement form to 914-740-2108.
Public Access Policy
If the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has provided financial support for the research that is reported in the article, this should be indicated on the copyright form. Please provide the grant number and NIH contact name on the title page of the manuscript. The authors will be responsible for submission of an electronic copy of the manuscript to NIH National Library of Medicine's (NLM) and PubMed Central (PMC) at a time in compliance with NIH requirements.
All new manuscripts must be submitted online at: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/pediatricallergy
Peer Review
Authors are encouraged to suggest names of appropriate reviewers, and may also request that a particular individual not serve in that capacity. Final decision about peer review assignments rests with the editors.
TYPES OF SUBMISSION
1) Original Articles are reports of original research not previously reported elsewhere, except in the form of an abstract of not more than 400 words. Prior abstract presentations should be described in a footnote to the title.
The article should have the following format: Title page, abstract, abbreviation list, body of paper, references, figure legends, tables. Each figure should be prepared as a separate digital file and uploaded separately.
Title Page
Each manuscript must include a title page including the following:
- full article title;
- full first and last names, highest academic degrees, e-mail addresses, and institutional affiliations for all authors; designated corresponding author e-mail address
- word counts for the abstract and text
- the institution at which the work was performed;
- the source of financial support; this information must be in the form of a sentence with the name of the funding agency written out in full.
Disclosure of any personal or financial support or author involvement with organization(s) with financial interest in the subject matter – or any actual or potential conflict of interest – and if no conflicts exist, a statement to that effect must be included for each author.
Abstract
Provide a structured abstract not to exceed 250 words. Structured abstracts should consist of four sections, labeled as Background, Methods, Results, and Conclusions. The sections should briefly describe, respectively, the problem being addressed in the study, how the study was performed (including numbers of patients), the significant results, and what the authors conclude from the results. For all clinical trials, the trial registry name and registration number must be stated at the end of the Abstract as a final paragraph.
Abbreviations
To facilitate reader comprehension, abbreviations should be used sparingly if at all, and used only to replace a long or cumbersome word (or phrase) that appears a great many times in a manuscript 1, 2 On a separate page in your manuscript, please provide an alphabetical list of all abbreviations used in the paper, followed by their full definitions. Each abbreviation should be expanded at first mention in the text and noted parenthetically after expansion.
Body of Paper
Subheads should include Introduction, Methods and Materials, Results, and Discussion.
Papers that are reports of results from randomized controlled trials should be registered. Authors must follow the CONSORT statement checklist (www.consort-statement.org) checklist and provide a CONSORT diagram as Figure 1 in their papers. A tool for generating this diagram is available at https://swolpin.cirg.washington.edu/CSD/
The materials and methods section should generally include (1) Patients; (2) Study Design; (3) Study Drugs/Interventions; (4) Study End Points (Efficacy End Points, Safety End Points); and (5) Statistical Analysis. Sufficient detail and references about assessment instruments should be given such that a scientist could evaluate or repeat your work. Make sure that methods are provided for each of the end points reported. 3 Assurance of human subjects protection including Institutional Review Board approval should be briefly stated.
The results section provides the results for all end points and measures stated in the materials and methods. The text of the results section gives meaning to the data, but without "excuses."4
The discussion section is to discuss how the results answer and support the research question posed in the introduction and to compare and contrast the results with other studies in the field. The discussion section is not a general review of the literature nor is it a call for speculation not support by the data. Claims about being the “first” should be avoided in most circumstances. Limitations of the findings should be carefully stated. Be very careful to avoid over-interpreting your data. Conclusions should be based on and supported by the research findings.
2) Short Communications, also subject to peer-review, are intended for the presentation of brief observations that do not warrant a full-length text, but also are not preliminary results. Include an abstract; do not use section headings in the body of the text; report methods, results, and discussion in a single section. Reference citations are identical in style to those of full-length papers.
3) Letters to the Editor: These communications will be published as space and priorities permit. One figure or table can be printed. Exceptions will be considered under particular circumstances. Contributions may include comments on papers published in the Journal, or they may be reports of a unique educational nature. Letters may be subject to editing and possible abridgement.
4) Reviews and Perspectives may be solicited by the Editor(s) or submitted independently. Reviews are summaries of developments in a specific area within the field of pediatric asthma, allergy and/or immunology. Perspectives are more representative of an expert opinion about an area of the field or a direction of research. Both are subject to peer-review.
TABLES AND ILLUSTRATIONS
Tables should be self-explanatory and should not duplicate textual material. They must be numbered and cited in consecutive order in the text, and each must have a succinct title, and (where appropriate) a legend describing abbreviations and footnotes at the bottom of the table.
Each table with its title should be in a separate file. Use Aarabic numerals to number tables. Remember, each table must stand alone, i.e., contain all necessary information in the caption, and the table itself must be understood independently of the text.
Please follow these guidelines for submitting figures:
• Do NOT embed art files into a Word or PDF document.
• Line illustrations should be submitted at 900 dpi.
• Halftones and color should be submitted at a minimum of 300 dpi.
• Save as either TIFF or EPS files.
• Color art must be saved as CYMK - not RGB.
• Black and White art must be submitted as grayscale – not RGB.
• Do NOT submit PowerPoint, PDF, Bitmap or Excel files.
Please name your artwork files with the submitting authors name i.e. SmithFig1.tif, SmithTable2.tif etc. In order to expedite your submission as quickly and efficiently as possible we ask that all artwork be checked using Digital Expert before submitting. This is a free tool that will ensure that you prepare and submit quality digital materials suitable for print.
Go to http://dx.sheridan.com to check your image files.
You will be given directions on how to correct any files which do not pass.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ABOUT ART FILES
If you need directions on how to convert a Power Point slide to acceptable format go to http://www.liebertpub.com/MEDIA/pdf/ppconvert.pdf
A list of figure legends should be supplied at the end of the manuscript, double-spaced. Illustrations will not be returned unless requested.
JOURNAL ABBREVIATIONS
Abbreviations of journal titles should follow Medline.
Length of submissions
Generally 2500 words or fewer is appropriate for an original article, 3000 words or fewer is appropriate for a review or perspective, and 500 words or fewer is appropriate for a letter to the editor. Although the editors don’t wish to consider these word limits to be rigid guidelines, in most circumstances brevity and focus will improve an article.
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
Authors are responsible for the accuracy and completeness of citations. In text, references must be given as superscript numerals, numbered consecutively in the order in which they appear in the text. The full citations must be listed on a separate sheet in numerical order at the end of the text.
References should be typed double spaced and presented in the following style:
Journal papers: Lowry SF, Smith JC, Brennan MF. Zinc and copper replacement during total parenteral nutrition. Am J Clin Nutr 1981; 34: 1853-60
Books: Underwood EJ. Trace elements in human and animal nutrition, 4th ed. New York: Academic Press, 1977, pp 496-8.
Parts of books: Johnson JK, Allergy. In: EJ Underwood, ed. Trace elements in human nutrition, 4th ed. New York: Academic Press, 1977.
Authorship
Following the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors
(ICMJE; available at http://www.icmje.org), Pediatric Allergy, Immunology, and Pulmonology defines “author” as a person who has participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for all portions of the content. Specifically, an author is a person who:
1. Has made substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data,
or analysis and interpretation of data
2. Has drafted the submitted article or revised it critically for important intellectual content
3. Has provided final approval of the version to be published.
Any person who does not meet all three of the listed criteria does not qualify as an author and should not be designated as an author.
Original Research papers should include an Acknowledgments section that details the role of each of the named authors.
In accordance with the policies of ghost authorship adopted by World Association of Medical Editors (available at www.wame.org/wamestmt.htm#ghost) authors must acknowledge all persons who have made substantial contributions to writing a manuscript.
Tobacco Policy
Pediatric Allergy, Immunology, and Pulmonology will not consider manuscripts that have been supported by tobacco companies.
PERMISSIONS
The author(s) must obtain permission to reproduce figures, tables, and text from previously published material. Written permission must be obtained from the original copyright holder (generally the publisher, not the author or editor) of the journal or book concerned. An appropriate credit line should be included in the figure legend or table footnote, and full publication information should be included in the reference list. Written permission must be obtained from the author of any unpublished material cited and should accompany the manuscript.
REPRINTS
Reprints may be ordered by following the special instructions that will accompany the proofs. Reprints ordered after the issue is printed will be charged at a substantially higher rate.
PUBLISHER
Pediatric Allergy, Immunology, and Pulmonology is published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., 140 Huguenot Street, 3rd Floor, New Rochelle, NY 10801-5215. Telephone: (914) 740–2100; Fax: (914) 740–2108.; E-mail: info@liebertpub.com; Website: www.liebertpub.com
References
1Tobin MJ. Compliance (COMmunicate PLease wIth Less Abbreviations, Noun Clusters, and Exclusiveness). Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2002 Dec 15;166(12 Pt 1):1534-6.
2Farber HJ. On the abuse of acronyms. Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2002
Dec 15;166(12 Pt 1):1607-8.
3Foote MA. Materials and Methods: A Recipe for Success. CHEST 2008;133;291-293.
4Foote MA. The Proof of the Pudding: How to Report Results and Write a
Good Discussion. CHEST 2009; 135:866–868.