Author Guidelines

Submitted manuscripts should conform to the interests of the readership of The Indian Practitioner. The Indian Practitioner reader is primarily the general physician, though now the journal has extended the scope to specialties also due to increasing readership among specialty doctors.The information provided through articles should add additional knowledge and be of interest to the practising doctor.

Types of Papers

Original Articles reporting original research: Prescribed word limit 5000 words (excluding references). Manuscripts should follow IMRAD (Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, and Discussion) format.

Review Article: Prescribed word limit 3000 words (excluding references). Authors may name sections in the text depending on the topic.

Case Report/Series: Prescribed word limit 2000 words (excluding references). Unusual findings or case reports will be appreciated. The journal encourages the submission of unread cases and/or unusual findings of known conditions.

Clinical Practice: Prescribed word limit 3000 words. Articles discussing ailments (esp. their management)/clinical conditions/procedures and techniques of interest and importance to the practising doctor in their everyday practice are considered for this section. Apart from articles, algorithms, flowcharts, and figures shall also be considered.

Special Article: Scholarly and authoritative papers which don’t fit other relevant categories are considered under this section. Prescribed word limit 3000 words.

Commentary/Editorial on any significant aspect of Indian healthcare, esp. topical issues. Prescribed word limit 2000 words.

Views and Experiences: Informal views and opinions on a range of topics and issues related to health and medicine are considered for this section. Prescribed word limit 1000 words.

Book Review: Prescribed word limit 1000 words. Image of the book cover (front and back), ISBN and publisher details required.

Correspondence (Letter to the Editor): Prescribed word limit 600 words. Readers are welcome to send comments, questions, criticisms or clarifications on published articles.

Online Submission

Electronic submission substantially reduces the editorial processing and reviewing times and shortens overall publication times. Please follow the hyperlink “Submit online” on the right and upload all of your manuscript files following the instructions given on the screen.

All manuscripts must be submitted on-line through the website www.theindianpractitioner.com with cc to tipeditors@gmail.com. First time users will have to register at this site. Registration is mandatory but free. Registered authors can keep track of their articles after logging into the site using their user name and password. To expedite, an email could be sent to our editorial office mentioning the online submission. If you experience any problems, please contact the editorial office by e-mail at editor tipeditors@gmail.com.

Manuscripts should be submitted in the following format and follow the given guidelines:

1. Title Page/First Page File/Covering letter

The title page of the manuscript should include the following:

->Manuscript Type: The type of manuscript, (original article, case report, review article, Letter to editor etc) along with the title should be submitted online in MS doc files.

->Authors: Names of all authors (with their highest academic degrees, designation and affiliations) and name(s) of department(s) and/ or institution(s) to which the work should be credited should be mentioned. Names of authors should be in the order of authorship, and should be indicated with super-scripted numbers after author names and correspondingly, before the department/institution of their affiliation. The name, address, e-mail, and telephone number of the corresponding author, who will communicate with the journal and other authors, should be included.

->Source of Support: Source(s) of support (if any) in the form of grants, equipment, drugs, or all of these should be mentioned. All forms of support for the manuscript preparation/data/study etc., including the nature of support, should be made explicit.

->Acknowledgement:Acknowledgments, if any, should be included in the title page of the manuscript and not in the main article file. Nature of support/contribution made by acknowledged individual/s should be mentioned.

->Study Registration
For clinical trials, clinical trials registration number along with name of registry and URL should be mentioned.

->Conflict of Interest
Conflicts of Interest of each author/ contributor for all articles, particularly for industry/ pharma sponsored articles or manuscripts reporting on medicine/ medical products, should be mentioned.

->Authorship statement
All authors should meet the ICMJE criteria/requirements for authorship. Non-author contributors should be acknowledged in Acknowledgment section. A covering letter signed by each and all the authors stating that the article represents honest scientific work; has not been published elsewhere or submitted for publication elsewhere at the time of submission; has been read and approved by all the authors; and that the requirements for authorship have been met, should be provided.

->Copyright
Authors wishing to reproduce/adapt figures and/or tables that have already been published elsewhere are required to obtain permission from the copyright owner(s) for both the print and online format, and to provide evidence that such permission has been granted when submitting their papers. Any material received without such evidence will be assumed to originate from the author.
Copyright transfer to the journal by authors/contributors is implied upon submission of the manuscript to the journal. The journal will hold the copyright for all articles published, and where required, jointly with the author/s.

2. Article file

Authors are required to prepare their manuscripts in accordance with the “Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals” of the ICMJE.

 ->Main Text
The main text of the article, beginning from Abstract till References (including tables and figures) should be in this file.

->Keywords
Please provide 4-6 keywords other than what is in the title, which can be used for indexing purposes. Articles of all categories (except Correspondence, Book Review, and Views and Experiences) should be accompanied by keywords.

->Abstract
For original articles and systematic reviews, provide a structured abstract of 200-300 words. Abstracts of original articles should be organized into background/aims of the study, materials and methods, results and conclusion. The structured abstract should state the purpose of the study or investigation, basic procedures (study subjects or experimental animals and observational and analytical methods), main findings (give specific data and their statistical significance, if applicable), and the principal conclusions. For article belonging to other categories, provide a running/unstructured abstract of up to 250 words. Articles of all categories (except Correspondence, Book Review, and Views and Experiences) should be accompanied by an abstract. The abstract should not contain any undefined abbreviations or unspecified references.
At the end of the Abstract, author/s should include clinical trials registration number (if applicable). 

->Informed Consent and Privacy
Informed written consent must be obtained from participants/patients wherever applicable. The same should be mentioned in the methodology section.
Participants/patients’ interests and privacy should be protected. Text, figures, or any part of the manuscript should not reveal identifying information of patients/participants unless essential for scientific purposes. If identifying information of participant/s is revealed anywhere, written informed consent from the concerned participant/s must be obtained by the authors. 

->Protection of Human and Animal Rights
In the methodology section, author/s should attest that their research involving human subjects has been performed in keeping with the Declaration of Helsinki, and approval obtained from the concerned Ethics Committee/ Review Board. Authors will be required to provide evidence for ethical approval on demand by the journal. Research/experiments on animals must comply with institutional and national guidelines for use and care of laboratory animals, and Ethics Committee/Review Board approval obtained. The journal reserves the right to reject a submission and/or contact the approving Ethics Committee/Review Board in case of suspicion of ethical non-compliance, even if approval has been obtained from Ethics Committee/ Review Board.

->Tables and Figures
Tables and figures should be included at their respective appropriate location in the article. They should be numbered in the order of their appearance in the text, and they should be mentioned/cited along with their number in Round brackets at the relevant location in the article text.
Heading for tables should be placed above the table. Footnotes (including explanations, expanded abbreviations, and source credits) should come below the table. Captions for figures should be placed below the figure separately and should not be embedded in the image. Preferably high-resolution images should be supplied.
Tables and/or figures reproduced/adapted from published and copyrighted sources should be accompanied by permission from the copyright owner/s, and their source/s should be acknowledged in the footnote (for tables) and caption (for figures).

->References
References should follow ICMJE Recommendations and the NLM format of referencing. Samples of formatted references may be found here: https://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/uniform_requirements.html
References should be numbered in their order of appearance in the text and not alphabetically. Reference numerals in the text should be included in Square brackets and in superscript after punctuation marks where applicable, and a full list of references should be provided at the end of the manuscript. Authors shall be responsible for verifying the veracity and accuracy of submitted references.

Articles of all categories should be accompanied by references.

Editorial Process

Submitted articlesarefirst reviewed by the editorial staff. Articlesof poor quality, considerable scientific or technical inconsistencies, or lack of relevance to the journal’s readership are rejected before proceeding forpeer-review. Every article is be subjected to plagiarism check, and articles with significant plagiarism are rejected.The initial acceptance/rejection at this stage shall be informed to the authors within 2 weeks of submission. 

Peer Review
Manuscripts that are found suitable for publication after editorial review are sent for peer review. Authors may be requested (via email) to suggest names of up to three reviewers with expertise in the area of the submitted manuscript, which is entirely voluntary. As a matter of policy, the journal shall not send the submitted manuscript to the suggested reviewer/s. We follow a double-blind peer review policy. The comments and suggestions received from peer reviewers may be conveyed to the corresponding author and explanation/clarification may be sought. Where changes are suggested by reviewers, author/s may be requested to revise the article accordingly. In cases where revisions are requested by the journal, authors are expected to send the revised version and point-by-point response to reviewer comments within 2 weeks, unless a duration is otherwise specified. Revised articles may or may not be sent for re-review based on the Executive Editor’s judgement. Final decision on submitted articles is of the Executive Editor.
We aim to reach a final decision on submitted manuscripts within 6-8 weeks of submission. Decision on manuscripts will be informed to the corresponding author. Accepted manuscripts may be edited for style, format, and language.