Author Guidelines |
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Content | Presentation | Submission | Review ContentJournal of Physiotherapy welcomes contributions that are relevant to the science or practice of physiotherapy. The Editorial Board is committed to publishing excellent research and will consider the following types of papers:
The following types of studies are low priority:
Submission of these types of studies should be accompanied by a short (< 100 words) explanation of why the study would be of particular interest to readers of JoP. The Editorial Board will decide, on the basis of this explanation and the abstract, whether the manuscript should be considered for publication. If accepted, such studies will be published as papers of less than 2000 words with no more than one table or figure. The following types of studies are not accepted:
Manuscript length (not including title page, abstract, references, tables or figure legends) depends on the type of study:
Authors may be invited, or in some cases required, to place important supplementary material as electronic addenda (eAddenda) on the JoP web site. PresentationResearch manuscripts should consist of a title page, abstract, text, references, tables, and figures. Manuscripts should be prepared with 2.5 cm margins and a footer containing an abbreviated title, the first author’s family name, page number and date. The abstract, introduction, method, results, and discussion should be 1.5 line-spaced, but all other text should be single-spaced. Put a double return between paragraphs. Click here to download a template for a manuscript formatted to these specifications Title PageThe title of the manuscript should not be more than 25 words and should be in two parts. Give the main results of the study followed by a colon and the method used, eg, ‘A resource-efficient exercise program after discharge from rehabilitation improves standing ability in people after stroke: a placebo-controlled, randomised trial’. Click here to see examples of titles for different research designs Then, list all authors and their degrees, positions, institutions, country, and email address. Nominate a corresponding author for the review who is authorised to negotiate and approve editorial revisions, provide his/her title (Professor, Dr, etc) and give contact details (telephone number, mobile number, fax number, and email address). You may nominate a different corresponding author for publication; provide his/her title (Professor, Dr, etc) and short contact details (department/institution, postal address and email address). Provide a running head of up to six words. Next, for indexing purposes, select up to eight key words from the Index Medicus Medical Subject Headings (MeSH). MeSH Headings can be found on the PubMed MeSH browser at www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/meshhome.html. List the word count for the abstract and the body of the text, as well as the number of references, tables, and figures. Lastly, list the Ethics Committee(s) that approved the study and the procedures for gaining consent, source(s) of support, acknowledgements, and any competing interests. Acknowledgments should include statements of important contributions which do not justify authorship. The nature of the contribution should be specified. It is customary to seek permission of people named in the acknowledgments. Click here to download a template for a title page formatted to these specifications AbstractAn abstract of no more than 250 words is required for all submissions using the headings: Question, Design, Participants, Intervention, Outcome measures, Results, Conclusion, Trial registration as appropriate. The results should include estimates of effect sizes and their confidence intervals rather than p values. Abstracts should not contain references. Click here to download a template for an abstract formatted to these specifications and some example abstracts for different research designs IntroductionThe introduction should justify the aims of the manuscript. Only references essential to understanding the aims of the manuscript should be included. Introductions rarely need be longer than three paragraphs. At the end of the introduction, list the research questions explicitly. Click here to download some example research questions for different research designs MethodUse the subheadings: Design, Participants therapists centres, Intervention, Outcome measures, Data analysis as appropriate to the design of the study. Restrict headings to no more than two levels of importance (ie, avoid sub-subheadings). Where aspects of the method have been described in other widely-available publications, a reference to those publications may suffice whereas newly-developed procedures should be described in more detail. In the Design section, describe the overall design, especially the timing of intervention and measurement and any randomisation or blinding procedures. In the Participants, therapists, centres section, outline the recruitment procedures and the inclusion and exclusion criteria for eligibility of participants, therapists, and centres. In the Intervention section, put as much detail as possible, using the eAddenda option of JoP as necessary. In the Outcome measures section, state the impairment/activity limitation/participation restriction being collected (eg, walking) and its measurement with units (eg, velocity during 10 m Walk Test in m/s). Other examples are: strength measured as peak isometric elbow extensor torque using hand-held dynamometry in Nm, or pain measured as intensity at rest on a 10-cm VAS in cm. It can be useful to divide outcome measures into those examining impairments vs activity limitations vs participation restrictions. It is only necessary to refer to manufacturers’ information for equipment when the precise specifications could be important to interpretation of the study. Information should be placed in a footnote at the end of the text, coded using consecutive, superscripted lower case letters in brackets.In the Data analysis section, outline any a priori power analysis carried out to determine the number of participants needed for the study. Outline any calculation done to the data. Explain how the research questions are answered by the interpretive tests but do not name the statistical package used if it is widely available. ResultsThe first subheading should be Flow of participants, therapists, and centres through the study where the numbers at each point in the study are presented as well as baseline characteristics. The remainder of the results should only report the data that answer the research questions and should be organised under subheadings that reflect those questions. Pertinent results should be reported using text and/or tables and/or figures; tables are more useful than figures because exact values are given. Avoid repeating in the text data presented in tables or figures. Do not duplicate data in tables and figures. When reporting data, be conscious of the precision of the data and only report a meaningful number of decimal places. Usually, report numbers between 0 and 1 to 2 decimal places, between 1 and 10 to 1 decimal place, and above 10 with no decimal place. All data reported as numbers should also be given as a percentage of the sample (in brackets) rounded off, eg, 17 (34%) of the participants were men. All data reported as means should also be accompanied by the standard deviation (in brackets), eg, the mean height of participants was 1.53 m (SD 0.23). When reporting the results of interpretive tests, report the size of the effect rather than its statistical significance, eg, ‘People with arthritis were twice as likely to sprain their ankle (OR 0.50, 95% CI 0.25 to 0.75)’ or ‘People after stroke walked 0.65 m/s (95% CI 0.60 to 0.70) slower than their age-matched healthy counterparts’, but not ‘People with asthma were significantly more breathless after exercise (p = 0.02)’. DiscussionNew and important findings should be emphasised but, as a rule, data already presented in the Method and Results sections should not be repeated. Implications and limitations of the findings and their clinical application should be discussed. The length of the Discussion should be commensurate with the number of important findings; usually it will be less than 750 words. Do not include a separate conclusion at the end of the Discussion. ReferencesOnly essential references should be cited. Most research will require fewer than 30 references. If the research requires considerably more, eg, systematic reviews of areas with many clinical trials, references may be placed on the eAddenda. Use the name/date system in the text. Citations are separated by commas but there is no comma between the authors’ names and the year of publication. When referring to more than one paper, place the papers in alphabetical order according to the family name of the first author, eg, ‘Armstrong 1999, Jones 2002, Smith and Jones 2009’. When there are two authors of a paper, mention both, eg, ‘Smith and Jones 2009’, but when there are three or more, mention only the principal author and follow with ‘et al’, eg, ‘Thomas et al 2008’. When quoting directly, place the quote in inverted commas and include the page number on which the quotation appears, eg, Holm (2007, p 133) concluded that ‘valid studies comparing surgical fusion with well-defined multidisciplinary treatment programs are therefore needed’. List full details of the publication in a reference list at the end of the article. Place references in alphabetical order according to the family name of the first author. Click here to view examples of the JoP referencing system Endnote users click here to download the Endnote style for JoP TablesTables should appear after the references and start on a separate page. They should be numbered consecutively in the order to which they are referred in the text. A short caption should be given above each table (eg, ‘Table 1. Characteristics of participants.’). Within the table, give the units of outcome measures in brackets and italics, eg, (m/s). When reporting counts (frequencies), give percentages in brackets. Use abbreviations for time (ie, s, min, hr, etc) and amount (ie, kg, deg, Nm, etc) without a legend explaining them. Where abbreviations for physiotherapy-specific terms are used (eg, ROM, MCP, etc), provide a legend below the table. Tables should be presented with a minimum of horizontal lines and no vertical lines. Click here to download examples of tables formatted to these specifications FiguresFigures should start on a separate page after the tables. They should be displayed at the proposed publication size and numbered consecutively in the order to which they are referred in the text. A short caption should be given below each figure, eg, ‘Figure 1. Mean (SD) effect of posture on forced expiratory volume for the experimental group (closed circles) and the control group (open circles). Do not place boxes around figures. Do not put axes on the top and right sides of graphs and use symbols and/or line types rather than colour to differentiate data. Where several graphs refer to closely-related material, make them separate panels of a single figure labelled A, B, C, etc, and provide one caption explaining what is in each panel. Photographs should be in sharp focus, have simple backgrounds, and be in black and white unless colour is essential to illustrate the point (eg, MRI). Click here to download examples of figures formatted to these specifications For publication, photographs should be supplied as digital images saved at a minimum of 300 dpi in .jpg format. Graphs and line drawings generated by commonly-used graphing programs (such as Microsoft Excel) are acceptable. Written permission should be obtained for use of previously published figures and tables, and for publication of photographs of recognisable subjects. These documents should be supplied with the final manuscript. BoxesWhen information needs to be listed but is not a table (contains numbers) or a figure (photograph, graph, or flow diagram), then it should be called a Box. Boxes should be numbered consecutively in the order to which they are referred in the text. A short caption should be given above each box (eg, ‘Box 1. Elements of a viable patient education program.’) Click here to download examples of boxes formatted to these specifications StyleManuscripts should be written in simple, direct, and grammatically-correct English. Use gender neutral and non-labelling language (eg, ‘People with back pain’ rather than ‘back pain patients’). Use Australian/English spelling. Use capitals (upper case letters) sparingly but capitalise proper nouns. Divisions of the data set are also capitalised (eg, ‘Group 1’ or ‘Stage 2’). See previous issues for other specific aspects of JoP style. There are specific guidelines available for the following types of studies:
SubmissionElectronic submission is required. Attach a single file containing the entire manuscript (text, tables and figures) to an email message addressed to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . The file must be saved as a Word file. Ensure that all track changes have been accepted and the reviewing function is turned off. Do not send files larger than 2 Mb by email - if the submission is larger than 2 Mb, separate the files into text in one file and tables and figures in the other file, named appropriately. Retain identical hard and electronic copies of the manuscript and all illustrative material. Manuscripts will be acknowledged on receipt. Those which are not presented according to Journal of Physiotherapy guidelines will be returned to the author for amendment. When making a submission, the Contact Author for Review should complete the electronic Copyright and Authorship forms below on behalf of all authors to enable prompt assessment of the submission. Hard copy of the signed Copyright and Authorship forms should be emailed, faxed, or posted to the journal’s editorial office within two months of electronic submission. Addresses for the hard copy documentation are: Editor JoP Compulsory Authorship formJoP policy on Authorship is based on the guidelines for authorship in the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals 2004 (www.icmje.org) which states that ‘authorship should be based on 1) substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; 2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and 3) final approval of the version to be published. Conditions 1, 2, and 3 must all be met. Acquisition of funding, the collection of data, or general supervision of the research group, by themselves, do not justify authorship’. Each author of all multiple-authored manuscripts submitted to Journal of Physiotherapy is required to confirm in writing that he or she satisfies the ICMJE criteria for authorship. On submission, manuscripts must be accompanied by an electronic Authorship form and followed within two months by a hard copy of the form signed by all authors. (Click here to submit the electronic Authorship form on manuscript submission. If you have not had confirmation of receipt within two days, please email the Editor. Click here to download a hard copy of the complete Authorship form). Multiple copies of the hard copy form, each with an individual author’s signature, are acceptable providing that the title and all authors' names appear on all copies. Compulsory Copyright formJoP accepts manuscripts for consideration on the understanding that the manuscript has not already been published and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere. Manuscripts will be considered for publication if they have been published previously as short abstracts but not as extended abstracts (> 1000 words). This applies to both electronic and paper publications. By submitting their work, each author agrees to assign copyright ownership to the Australian Physiotherapy Association if their work is published in Journal of Physiotherapy. The journal grants permission for the posting of papers to an open access archive if this is a requirement of funding that supported the work. On submission, manuscripts must be accompanied by an electronic Copyright form and followed within two months by a hard copy of the copyright form signed by all authors. (Click here to submit the electronic Copyright form on manuscript submission. If you have not had confirmation of receipt within two days, please email the Editor. Click here to download a hard copy of the Copyright form). Multiple copies of the hard copy form, each with an individual author’s signature, are acceptable providing that the title and all authors’ names appear on all copies. ReviewResearch manuscripts are subject to peer review. If the Scientific Editor considers that the manuscript is likely to be of interest to readers and is potentially publishable, the manuscript is sent to two reviewers. Reviewers will usually have specific expertise in the field and a record of recent publication in peer-reviewed journals. Reviewers are asked to advise the Scientific Editor if the manuscript is credible and of importance to the physiotherapy profession; they are also asked to comment on the manuscript’s validity, relevance, clarity, and conciseness. They are asked to provide their reports within four weeks of receipt of the manuscript. Reviewers are asked to consult checklists where appropriate. Specifically, reviewers of randomised controlled trials are asked to consult the CONSORT e-checklist, reviewers of systematic reviews are asked to consult the PRISMA statement, and reviewers of studies of the accuracy of diagnostic tests are asked to consult the STARD checklist. These checklists can be found at http://www.consort-statement.org/resources/downloads/ The Scientific Editor considers the reviewers’ comments and decides if the manuscript is to be accepted in its current form, accepted subject to minor revisions, potentially publishable but requiring significant revision, or not suited to publication in JoP. Authors are provided with the reviewers’ comments, sometimes with additional comments made by the Scientific Editor, and are informed of the decision. Authors of manuscripts requiring revision are invited to consider the comments made by the reviewers and the Scientific Editor, revise the manuscript accordingly, and re-submit. Usually the revised manuscript is returned to the original reviewers for further comment. Some manuscripts undergo several rounds of review before a final decision (accept or reject) is made. Currently approximately two-thirds of all submissions are rejected, one-third before review and one-third after review. Usually authors hear within 7-10 days if the Scientific Editor decides that the submission is not suitable for publication in JoP. Time to first decision after review (accept, revise with guarantee, revise without guarantee or reject) is generally no more than 2 months from submission. Once accepted, manuscripts generally appear in print within 3 months, and no more than 6 months, after supply of the final draft. They undergo extensive editing to improve clarity and comply with JoP style. Author(s) are given the opportunity to review the accuracy of the edited manuscript at proof stage prior to publication. Authors are provided with a .pdf of the final print version. |
| Last Updated ( Wednesday, 15 June 2011 15:05 ) |
