Guide for Authors

Official journal of the
Association of Maltese Orthopaedic Nurses
Australia New Zealand Orthopaedic Nurses Association
Canadian Orthopaedic Nurses Association
RCN Society of Orthopaedic and Trauma Nursing

The Editors of International Journal of Orthopaedic and Trauma Nursing welcome the submission of papers for publication.

Submission to this journal proceeds totally online. Use the following guidelines to prepare your article. Via http://ees.elsevier.com/yjoon you will be guided stepwise through the creation and uploading of the various files. The system automatically converts source files to a single Adobe Acrobat PDF version of the article, which is used in the peer-review process. Please note that even though manuscript source files are converted to PDF at submission for the review process, these source files are needed for further processing after acceptance. All correspondence, including notification of the Editor's decision and request for revision, takes place by e-mail and via the Author's homepage, removing the need for a hard-copy paper trail.

The above represents a very brief outline of this form of submission. It can be advantageous to print this "Guide for Authors" section from the site for reference in the subsequent stages of article preparation.

Submission of an article implies that the work described has not been published previously (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis), that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, that its publication is approved by all Authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other language, without the written consent of the Publisher.

All papers are subject to double blind peer review and will be judged on their suitability and quality for the readership of the journal.

For enquiries please contact the editorial office at yjoon@elsevier.com.

Authorship

All authors should have made substantial contributions to all of the following: (1) the conception and design of the study, or acquisition of data, or anaylsis and interpretation of data, (2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content, (3) final approval of the version to be submitted.

Acknowledgements

All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship as defined above should be listed in an acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, writing assistance, or a department chair who provided only general support. Authors should disclose whether they had any writing assistance and identify the entity that paid for this assistance. Authors will be required to upload a separate file detailing any acknowledgements at the submission process where applicable.

Conflict of interest

At the end of the text, under a subheading "Conflict of interest statement" any financial and personal relationships with other people or organizations that could inappropriately influence (bias) their work must be disclosed. Examples of potential conflicts of interest include employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent applications/registrations, and grants or other funding. Authors will be required to upload a separate file detailing conflicts of interest at the submission process where applicable.

Role of the funding source

All sources of funding should be declared at the end of the text. Authors should declare the role of study sponsors, if any, in the study design, in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in writing of the manuscript; and in the decision to submit the manuscript for publication. Authors will be required to upload a separate file detailing role of a funding source at the submission process where applicable. If the study sponsors had no such involvement, the authors should so state.

Changes to authorship
This policy concerns the addition, deletion, or rearrangement of author names in the authorship of accepted manuscripts:


Before the accepted manuscript is published in an online issue: Requests to add or remove an author, or to rearrange the author names, must be sent to the Journal Manager from the corresponding author of the accepted manuscript and must include: (a) the reason the name should be added or removed, or the author names rearranged and (b) written confirmation (e-mail, fax, letter) from all authors that they agree with the addition, removal or rearrangement. In the case of addition or removal of authors, this includes confirmation from the author being added or removed. Requests that are not sent by the corresponding author will be forwarded by the Journal Manager to the corresponding author, who must follow the procedure as described above. Note that: (1) Journal Managers will inform the Journal Editors of any such requests and (2) publication of the accepted manuscript in an online issue is suspended until authorship has been agreed.

After the accepted manuscript is published in an online issue: Any requests to add, delete, or rearrange author names in an article published in an online issue will follow the same policies as noted above and result in a corrigendum.

PRESENTATION OF TYPESCRIPTS

Authors are required to submit manuscripts according to the requirements of the Instructions to Authors. Please note that papers not formatted in this manner will be returned to the author for amendment before entering into the editorial and peer review process. In particular please take care to follow the instructions for the formatting of references.

Papers should be set out as follows, with each section beginning on a separate sheet:

Word limit

Articles should be limited to 2,500-4,500 words.

Title page

The title page should be provided as a separate file. Your title page should give the title in capital letters below which should be the authors' names (as they are to appear) in lower-case letters. For each author you should give one first name as well as the surname and any initials. You should give a maximum of four degrees/qualifications for each author and the current relevant appointment only. Authors' addresses should be limited to the minimum information needed to ensure accurate postal delivery; these details should be on the title page below the authors' names and appointments. Authors should also provide a daytime contact telephone number and fax number and e-mail address.

Abstracts

An abstract of your typescript, a maximum of 200 words, summarizing the content, should be provided.

Headings

The content of your paper should determine the headings which you use. If yours is a research paper, the headings should follow the usual layout; such as Introduction, Background/Literature, Methods, Data/Results, Discussion, Conclusions. If your paper takes another form you should use the appropriate headings, but do bear in mind that headings should facilitate reading and understanding. You should use only two kinds of headings: major headings should be indicated by capital letters, whereas minor headings should have lower case letters (beginning with a capital).

Reference Format

The accuracy of the references you provide is your responsibility.

In the text your references should state the author's surname and the year of publication (Smith, 1989). If there are two authors you should give both surnames (Smith & Black, 1989). When a source has more than three authors, give the name of the first three authors, followed by 'et al'.
Where a quotation is used within your paper the author, date and page number should be given, e.g.

When this occurs both nurses and carers of people with learning disabilities will have a useful instrument with which to identify behaviours which are impinging, in a negative manner, on the life of the client or others around them. (McCaffrey, 1979, p1)

A list of all the references in your manuscript should be typed in alphabetical order. Each reference to a paper needs to include authors' surnames and initials, year of publication, full title of paper, full name of journal, volume number, and first and last page numbers.

For example:

Aggleton, P., Allen, M., Montgomery, S., 1987 Developing a system for the continuous assesment of practical nursing skills. Nurse Education Today 7 (4): 158-164

References to Books
Roper, N., Logan, G., Tierney, A.J., 1983 Using a model for nursing. Churchill Livingstone, Edinburgh, pp 100-150

Andres, J.K., 1982 The action of phenol on bacteria. In: King, L.M., (ed) Disinfectants. Bird, Toronto, p235

Citing and listing of Web references
As a minimum, the full URL should be given. Any further information, if known (Author names, dates, reference to a source publication, etc.), should also be given. Web references can be listed separately (e.g., after the reference list) under a different heading if desired, or can be included in the reference list.

Tables, Illustrations and Figures
A detailed guide on electronic artwork is available on our website: http://www.elsevier.com/authors
Preparation of supplementary data. Elsevier accepts supplementary material to support and enhance your scientific research. Supplementary files offer the author additional possibilities to publish supporting applications, movies, animation sequences, high-resolution images, background datasets, sound clips and more. Supplementary files supplied will be published online alongside the electronic version of your article in Elsevier Web products, including Science Direct. In order to ensure that your submitted material is directly usable, please ensure that data is provided in one of our recommended file formats. Authors should submit the material in electronic format together with the article and supply a concise and descriptive caption for each file. For more detailed instructions please visit our artwork instruction pages.

Illustrations and tables that have appeared elsewhere must be accompanied by written permission to reproduce them from the original publishers. This is necessary even if you are an author of the borrowed material. Borrowed material should be acknowledged in the captions in the exact wording required by the copyright holder. If not specified, use this style: 'Reproduced by kind permission of (publishers) from (reference).' Identifiable clinical photographs must be accompanied by written permission from the patient. To obtain permission from other publishers a Permission form is available to download.

Ethics
Work on human beings that is submitted to IJOTN should comply with the principles laid down in the Declaration of Helsinki; Recommendations guiding physicians in biomedical research involving human subjects. Adopted by the 18th World Medical Assembly, Helsinki, Finland, June 1964, amended by the 29th World Medical Assembly, Tokyo, Japan, October 1975, the 35th World Medical Assembly, Venice, Italy, October 1983, and the 41st World Medical Assembly, Hong Kong, September 1989. The manuscript should contain a statement that the work has been approved by the appropriate ethical committees, institutional review board or other relevant bodies within the institution(s) in which it was performed and that subjects gave informed consent to the work. Studies involving experiments with animals must state that their care was in accordance with institution guidelines. Patients' and volunteers' names, initials, and hospital numbers should not be used.

Patient consent
Studies on patients or volunteers require ethics committee approval and informed consent which should be documented in your paper.
Patients have a right to privacy. Therefore, identifying information, including patients' images, names, initials, or hospital numbers, should not be included in videos, recordings, written descriptions, photographs, and pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and you have obtained written informed consent for publication in print and electronic form from the patient (or parent, guardian or next of kin where applicable). If such consent is made subject to any conditions, Elsevier must be made aware of all such conditions. Written consents must be provided to Elsevier on request.
Even where consent has been given, identifying details should be omitted if they are not essential. If identifying characteristics are altered to protect anonymity, such as in genetic pedigrees, authors should provide assurance that alterations do not distort scientific meaning and Editors should so note.
If such consent has not been obtained, personal details of patients included in any part of the paper and in any supplementary materials (including all illustrations and videos) must be removed before submission.

Copyright Information

Upon acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to sign a "Journal Publishing Agreement'" (for more information on this and copyright click on http://www.elsevier.com/copyright. Acceptance of the agreement will ensure the widest possible dissemination of information. An e-mail (or letter) will be sent to the corresponding author confirming receipt of the manuscript together with a 'Journal Publishing Agreement' form or a link to the online version of this agreement.
If excerpts from other copyrighted works are included, the author(s) must obtain written permission from the copyright owners and credit the source(s) in the article. Elsevier has preprinted forms for use by authors in these cases: contact Elsevier's Rights Department, Philadelphia, PA, USA: phone (+1) 215 239 3804, fax (+1) 215 239 3805, e-mail healthpermissions@elsevier.com. Requests may also be completed online via the Elsevier homepage ( http://www.elsevier.com/locate/permissions).

Funding body agreements and policies
Elsevier has established agreements and developed policies to allow authors whose articles appear in journals published by Elsevier, to comply with potential manuscript archiving requirements as specified as conditions of their grant awards. To learn more about existing agreements and policies please visit http://www.elsevier.com/fundingbodies

Sponsored Articles
IJOTN now offers authors the option to sponsor non-subscriber access to individual articles. The access sponsorship contribution fee per article is $3,000. This contribution is necessary to offset publishing costs - from managing article submission and peer review, to typesetting, tagging and indexing of articles, hosting articles on dedicated servers, supporting sales and marketing costs to ensure global dissemination via ScienceDirect, and permanently preserving the published journal article. The sponsorship fee excludes taxes and other potential author fees such as colour charges which are additional.

Authors can specify that they would like to select this option after receiving notification that their article has been accepted for publication, but not before. This eliminates a potential conflict of interest by ensuring that the journal does not have a financial incentive to accept an article for publication.

US NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH (NIH) VOLUNTARY POSTING ("PUBLIC ACCESS") POLICY
Elsevier facilitates author response to the NIH voluntary posting request (referred to as the NIH "Public Access Policy"; see http://publicaccess.nih.gov/) by posting the peer-reviewed author's manuscript directly to PubMed Central on request from the author, 12 months after formal publication. Upon notification from Elsevier of acceptance, we will ask you to confirm via e-mail (by e-mailing us at NIHauthor-request@elsevier.com) that your work has received NIH funding and that you intend to respond to the NIH policy request, along with your NIH award number to facilitate processing. Upon such confirmation, Elsevier will submit to PubMed Central on your behalf a version of your manuscript that will include peer-review comments, for posting 12 months after formal publication. This will ensure that you will have responded fully to the NIH request policy. There will be no need for you to post your manuscript directly with PubMed Central, and any such posting is prohibited.

Authors' rights
As an author you (or your employer or institution) retain certain rights; for details you are referred to: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/authorshome.authors/authorsrights.

Proofs

One set of page proofs in PDF format will be sent by e-mail to the corresponding author (if we do not have an e-mail address then paper proofs will be sent by post). Elsevier now sends PDF proofs which can be annotated; for this you will need to download AdobeReader version 7 available free. Instructions on how to annotate PDF files will accompany the proofs. The exact system requirements are given at the Adobe site.
If you do not wish to use the PDF annotations function, you may list the corrections (including replies to the Query Form) and return to Elsevier in an e-mail. Please list your corrections quoting line number. If, for any reason, this is not possible, then mark the corrections and any other comments (including replies to the Query Form) on a printout of your proof and return by fax, or scan the pages and e-mail, or by post. Please use this proof only for checking the typesetting, editing, completeness and correctness of the text, tables and figures. Significant changes to the article as accepted for publication will only be considered at this stage with permission from the Editor. We will do everything possible to get your article published quickly and accurately. Therefore, it is important to ensure that all of your corrections are sent back to us in one communication: please check carefully before replying, as inclusion of any subsequent corrections cannot be guaranteed. Proofreading is solely your responsibility. Note that Elsevier may proceed with the publication of your article if no response is received.

Offprints

The corresponding author, at no cost, will be provided with a PDF file of the article via e-mail. The PDF file is a watermarked version of the published article and includes a cover sheet with the journal cover image and a disclaimer outlining the terms and conditions of use. Additional paper offprints can be ordered by the authors. An order form with prices will be sent to the corresponding author.

SUBMISSION CHECKLIST

It is hoped that this list will be useful during the final checking of an article prior to sending it to the journal's Editor for review. Please consult this Guide for Authors for further details of any item.

Ensure that the following items are present:
• One Author designated as corresponding author:
• E-mail address
• Full postal address
• Telephone and fax numbers
• All necessary files have been uploaded
• Keywords
• All figure captions
• All tables (including title, description, footnotes)


Further considerations
• Manuscript has been "Checked"
• Reference are in the correct format for this journal
• All references mentioned in the Reference list are cited in the text and vice versa
• Permission has been obtained for use of copyrighted material from other sources (including the Web)
• Colour figures are clearly marked as being intended for colour reproduction on the Web (free of charge) and in print or to be reproduced in colour on the Web (free of charge) and in black-and-white in print
• If only colour on the Web is required, black and white versions of the figures are also supplied for printing purposes