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Editorial

The Requirements of Medical Writing

Universal Requirements for Medical Journals
The editors of the major medical journals, who make up the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, met in Vancouver, Canada in 1978 and drew up uniform requirements. These have been updated by three further meetings.1 The individual journal may make changes to suit its readership. OBESITY SURGERY follows these requirements, and has selected a clear format which is intended to be author-friendly for a surgical journal. For example, to identify articles in the References but to avoid the potential problems of long lists of authors, the Journal gives the first three authors followed by et al. The Instructions to Authors which are given in each issue of OBESITY SURGERY should be followed by any potential author, and the precise format which is followed throughout the Journal should be observed. regarding priority, a confidential report to the editor, and recommendations to the authors. Minor revision may be needed, and the paper may have to be restructured. Major revision may require more studies or longer follow-up which may also attain statistical significance, with later resubmission. Some articles require a second review by the editorial board to make sure that the concerns have been addressed. An Invited Commentary may be necessary to balance the Discussion. The editors should be regarded as friends and not adversaries. The data over the past 4 years is shown in the Table.

Author Requirements and Common Errors

Conflicts of interest, financial relationships and sponsoring agencies must be disclosed.2,3 The Journal requires a form signed by the principal author, attesting to the originality of the work and transferring the copyright to the publisher. All authors must agree with publication. For Acknowledgements, Personal Communications, and Letters to the Editor, written permission from all individuals named should be provided. Reproduction of Figures and Tables from other sources, even if modified, requires that the author provide written permission from the copyright holder (usually a publisher); credit is acknowledged in the figure legend or table foot-note. As a courtesy, permission may also be obtained from the

The Manuscript Selection Process

Each paper is distributed to two members of the Editorial Board for objective peer-review in a timely fashion, and, when there is discordance regarding merit for acceptance, a third referee is consulted. The Editors grade the papers with respect to originality, importance, scientific accuracy and style and format, and provide an opinion

Table. Submissions to OBESITY SURGERY 1998-2001 Yr 1998 1999 2000 2001 No. of Papers 79 98 129 181 Rejected 13% 11% 12% 17% Accepted Outright 10% 9% 9% 10% Revision 77% 80% 79% 73% 2nd Revision 11% 11% 11% 15% Not Resubmitted 8% 7% 7% 9%
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M. Deitel

original author. Commonly misspelled words are anastomosis, laparoscopic, and absorption. Current medical literary dogma prefers before instead of prior to, because of or on the basis of instead of due to, compared with rather than compared to, etc. However, OBESITY SURGERY, while enforcing proper English, is most interested in getting the message across clearly. Furthermore, we prefer to maintain the authors personality rather than a bland uniformity. An appropriate table or illustration is preferred to text, and adds variety to an article lay-out. However, we do not want a comic book. Data making up tables and figures should not be duplicated in the text, and vice-versa.

Some Points on Content

Articles should be presented with brevity. Titles should be precise, yet informative, and contain no abbreviations. Research articles are preceded by a structured abstract of <250 words. The abstract must correspond to the text. Include nothing in the abstract that is not in the article. Avoid empty narration in abstracts, eg. x is described, y is discussed. Case Reports on novel observations may be accepted if they make a point for clinical practice. They should be preceded by a short unstructured abstract in one paragraph (<150 words). For Editorials, Commentaries and Correspondence, abstracts are not required. The Methodology must not be flawed. The Results must make sense, and the data must add up. Use Systme Internationale (SI) metric units. Use the generic names of drugs (eg. warfarin) and sutures (eg. polypropylene). In a study with followup, the proportion of patients who completed the study must be indicated. In the Discussion, do not repeat the Introduction. In the discussion, the results should be considered in the context of other studies. The conclusions should be substantiated by the data. Avoid excess References, and do not overload them with citations of your own publications. Reference style of the journal must be followed
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consistently.4 Check all References for accuracy, and put them in the order cited. Authors should not cite References that they themselves have not read. References to papers not yet accepted for publication (unpublished data) and personal communications are not acceptable in the References, and should be included in brackets in the text. Letters to the Editor regarding articles published should be written in a gentlemanly fashion, while indicating disagreement or legitimate questions. They can provide lively or useful interchange. Also, Letters that do not pertain to a previous article can express an opinion. When the author-line under the title contains more than one author, use semicolons to separate the authors names. In Editorials, Letters or Commentaries, the authors names appear at the end of the text. Headings may be inserted within Editorials, Reviews and Correspondence which do not follow the organization of research articles.

The Editing and Publishing Process

Manuscripts must be double-spaced. Leave right margins unjustified (ragged). Upon receipt, each manuscript is assigned a manuscript (MS) number; for prompt retrieval, this number should be cited in all communications, including on the final disk. Avoid sentences which are too long. The editor-inchief will assist the copy-editing process, so that the meaning will not be changed by re-ordering the words. However, it is very helpful for authors from foreign countries to have manuscript review by an English expert, before submission. High-quality relevant helpful figures may be included. Colored figures require extra cost by the printer, and this cost must be passed on to the authors. After acceptance, proofs are expedited to the corresponding author as an email attachment in portable document format (PDF), to be checked for typographical errors.5 No new material can be added at the proof stage. Corrections on proofs should be faxed to the publisher promptly, avoiding writing far out at the page margins where the writing could be cut-off.

Medical Writing

Copyright and Documentation

The author transfers copyright to the publisher. Copyright legally protects authorship and publication. Duplicate publication of articles is not permitted, and would constitute a violation or infringement on the copyright law.3 This does not include guidelines intended for multiple publication, which should acknowledge their source. The publisher maintains copyright and has control over Reprints. Works created by the US government are in the public domain, and can generally be reproduced for fair use. If the paper has previously appeared on the internet, submission for print publication is considered duplication. If internet publication is to follow journal publication, journal consent should be sought first and the publication should be clearly referenced. All authors provided under the title should have made contributions to the article. Each authors specific contribution may be requested. Mervyn Deitel, MD Editor, OBESITY SURGERY, Toronto

References
1. International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals. Ann Intern Med 1997; 126: 36-47. 2. International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Conflicts of interest. Ann Intern Med 1993; 118: 646-7. 3. American Medical Association Manual of Style: a Guide for Authors and Editors, 9th Edn. Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins 1998. 4. Patreas K. Recommended Formats for Bibliographic Citation. National Library of Medicine, Reference Service, Bethesda, MD 1991. 5. Deitel M, Ahmed MS, Bandong R. Publishing in the modern era [Editorial]. Obes Surg 2001; 11:1.

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