Double-blind review
We operate a double-blind peer review system, which means that neither the authors nor the reviewers are revealed during the review process. In order to comply with this, we ask that you anonymize your work before submission, and provide your title page and author details as a separate document. Please remove any identifying information, such as names or affiliations, from the main body of the text (including any figures, tables and appendices). Your article will then be allocated to two of our peer reviewers for their consideration. While we aim for a three- to four-week turnaround, all of our peer reviewers and the majority of our team are volunteers, and at times, there may be a short delay as a result of work pressures.
Use of word-processing software
We ask that all articles are submitted as Microsoft Word documents or in Rich Text Format, and that any tables and figures are not embedded within the text (see the author guidelines).
Referencing software may be used, but it can be helpful to convert the reference list to text format before submission in order to ensure that it is not corrupted during the review process.
Presentation of manuscripts
Please write your text in plain English, and ask someone to read it for clarity before submission. It is often useful to ask someone without a detailed understanding of the specific subject matter to proof-read it since he or she may pick up things that are easily misunderstood, such as abbreviations or words that may be ambiguous. Please present your work double-spaced and with page numbers because this will help the reviewers to comment concisely on specifics within the text.
It can be helpful to provide separate word counts for the abstract and the main body of the text.
It is acceptable to write your abstract with or without headings depending on the nature of your paper.
Keywords
Immediately after the abstract, please provide up to five keywords since these will allow search engines to identify your paper. The journal is currently indexed by the Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), and the Allied and Complementary Medicine Database (AMED). We are under consideration to be indexed by PubMed.
Terms from the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) list should be used. If suitable MeSH terms are not available, subject-specific terms can be employed instead.
Final statements
At the end of the paper and before the references, please provide three statements regarding:
- Ethical approval– detail who provided it and the reference number, where appropriate. If this was not required, then please state why this was so.
- Funding – list any sources of funding.
- Conflict of interest – highlight any potential conflicts of interest, and if there are none, then please state that this is the case.
Artwork and permissions
Please ensure that you have permission to use any artwork within your paper, and acknowledge the source and copyright, where necessary.
References
See the author guidelines for full details of how to present your references.
Video and supplementary material
We publish extended online content, and it is possible to provide links to this within or at the end of any document via a hyperlink or QR code. Please discuss this with the editorial team where required.
Submission checklist
Designate one author as the corresponding author and supply:
- an e-mail address; and
- a postal address.
Ensure that you have:
- attached all material, including the title page, all tables, figures and appendices, and any supplementary material that you may wish to have considered; and
- documented within the text the specific points where you wish your tables and/or figures to be inserted.
Final checks:
- spelling and grammar;
- references in Harvard style;
- all references cited within the text should be included within the reference list and vice versa;
- all permissions for copyright material must have been obtained; and
- generally, figures and tables will appear in black and white; if it is essential that any should appear in colour, please discuss this with the editorial team.
Review process
After review, manuscripts will be returned with one of these options:
- acceptance;
- acceptance with minor revisions;
- rejection, but may resubmit after revising; or
- rejection.
The middle two options are the most common, and the editor will often return a manuscript with edits and comments from the reviewers.
It is good practice to save all the reviewer comments and required revisions in a separate document at this stage, so that you can make the revisions and reply to the comments where appropriate.
When you are happy with your revisions, return the revised manuscript to the editors, who will then send it back to the reviewers when there are major changes, or check minor revisions themselves.
When returning a revised manuscript, do not return it with tracked changes, but rather, highlight any changes within the document, and refer to the page in your replies. This will help the reviewer/editor to see where you have addressed their queries.
After acceptance
Proofs
Authors are provided with PDF and paper proofs. They are expected to return any qualifications and/or corrections to the editorial team within a week.
Offprints
Upon request, authors can be provided with PDFs of the final version of their papers. They are allowed to share this with their colleagues on an appropriately limited basis.
Author enquiries
Clinical editor: drgillian.campbell@gmail.com
Managing editor: ajwpublishing@gmail.com