For authors

GUIDELINES FOR THE AUTHORS AND REVIEWERS OF EESTI ARST (THE ESTONIAN MEDICAL JOURNAL)

The Estonian Medical Journal (EMJ) is a general medical scientific journal which is regularly published 11 times a year both in a hard copy and electronically on the web sitehttp://www.eestiarst.ee. On agreement with the publisher and the editorial office special thematic issues of the journal can be added. The mission of the EMJ and its publications is to promote medical research with publishing the results of original investigations, to provide the readers with new scientific information and clinical experience, to raise and discuss actual issues of health care and the professional activities of physicians, to reveal the connections between medicine and other fields, and to develop medical language.

In the hard copy of the journal articles are published in Estonian but research articles, overviews and case reports are also supplied with summaries in English. Contributions both in Estonian and English are published in the journal’s electronic version.

Table of contents

GUIDELINES FOR THE AUTHORS OF THE JOURNAL THE EMJ

1. General  principles of publishing articles in the EMJ

1.1   Copyright and conflicts of interest

2. Types of articles published in the EMJ

2.1   Original research

2.2   A review and educational article

2.3   Case report

2.4   Case reports based on medical imagining

2.5   Clinical guidelines

2.6   A book review

2.7   Letter to the editor

3. Submission of the article to the journal and its editorial procedure
4. The language use of the EMJ
5. Tables, figures and photos
6. Quotations and drawing up the list of references

GUIDELINES FOR THE AUTHORS OF THE ESTONIAN MEDICAL JOURNAL

1. General  principles of publishing articles in the Estonian Medical Journal

In its work the editorial office of the EMJ follows the international standards of publishing biomedical scientific journals (especially the “Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals” issued by the International Committee for Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE)) and contemporary ethical principles of scientific research, including human rights of research subjects and animal rights of laboratory animals. In the case of violating these principles the EMJ does not publish the submitted article. In general the article submitted to the EMJ must not be published earlier and at the same time it is not allowed to submit the manuscript to some other publisher.

According to the opinion of the ICMJE the author of the article is the person who has made a significant intellectual contribution for its completion concerning the design of the paper, data collection, analysis and the interpretation of results as well as writing the manuscript. If the exact division of labour of authors has not been given in the article, all the authors are responsible for the whole content of the article. The corresponding author with the journal is responsible for the rightness of the ideas of co-authors. In acknowledgement the persons having helped to complete the article are recognized and thanked on condition that their consent is received. Also, the sources of funding the work, described in the article to be published, should be given.

1.1  Copyright and conflicts of interest

After publishing the article in the EMJ, the intellectual property rights will be transferred to the journal in conformity with the principles of Estonian and international copyright law. According to the agreement the property rights of research articles, overviews and case reports belong to the Estonian Medical Association and the property rights of other materials published in the EMJ belong both to the Estonian Medical Association and the joint-stock company Celsius Healthcare publishing the journal. With each author the journal concludes a written agreement of the transfer of rights. If the copy of the published article is used with the non-profit aim, for example, in teaching or it is added to the dissertation, asking the permission from the publisher is not necessary. If the authors have used the materials published elsewhere (photos, figures, etc.) in their articles, they have duty to get the permission from the owner for the right of use of these materials to be published in the EMJ.

The authors of original research, overview and education articles, case reports must always present a declaration of possible conflicts of interest in their contribution. In the case of other types of articles the editorial office of the journal may additionally ask the authors to provide it and add it to the article when publishing it.

In publishing, the article is added the dates of its primary arrival in the editorial office, the decision of publishing it and the appearance in the Internet.

2. The types of articles published in the Estonian Medical Journal

Table 1. The types of contribution published in the EMJ. In calculating the volume of contributions characters with spaces are used.

2.1. Original research

The EMJ is a general medical journal which primarily deals with the research which is clinically important, i.e. the research on epidemiology, etiology, pathogenesis, diagnostics or treatment of diseases or the factors influencing health. We accept original research articles the results of which have been published in conference proceedings.

The manuscript of the article consists of the following parts:

• the title page with the heading of the article, the names and positions of authors, the e-mail address and the telephone number of the corresponding author, 3-5 key words and the number of figures and tables;
• a short summary in Estonian which is divided into paragraphs indicating the background and goals, methods, results and conclusions with the volume up to 1,500 characters;
• a short summary in English starting from the heading, the authors and their positions, containing the corresponding author’s e-mail address, 3–5 key words which are followed by the text of the summary divided into the paragraphs of the background and goals, methods, results and conclusions amounting to the maximum volume up to 2,500 characters;
• the text of the article consists of the subparts of the introduction, methods, results, the discussion and conclusions followed by acknowledgement, the declaration of the possible conflicts of interest and references (see point 6). Using biomedical human research and the data indicating the studied persons, the paper’s subparagraph of methods must contain information about the approval issued for the research by the Human Research Ethics Committee (the title of the committee, the number and the date of issuing the approval). Authors also confirm there in written that human rights of research subjects and animal rights of laboratory animals have been followed in the course of the study. In the part of acknowledgement the efforts of the persons having significantly contributed to research and preparation of the article are acknowledged on condition of their informed consent. Also, the finance provider for research and the number of research grant are indicated.

The maximum length of the text of the research articles is 25,000 characters and as a rule in addition to the text it may contain up to 5 tables, figures and photos and up to 30 references. If the length of the research article significantly exceeds the normative volume, on agreement with the editorial office it is possible to publish the article in a hard copy in the shortened version and electronically in the full version.

2.2. A review and an educational article

In review and educational articles the themes of clinical medicine, pre-clinical fundamental research of clinical importance and other issues connected to medicine are being dealt with. In review articles the novelty and significance of the treatment of issues of the presented material should be the principal criteria. The themes of educational articles are more focused in content and have a rather practical character offering the practising physician new information concerning a certain aspect of clinical activities. The volume of the review article is up to 25,000 characters and 50 references to which up to 5 tables, photos and figures can be added. The volume of the education article is up to 20,000 characters and 30 references with up to 3 tables, photos and figures added.

The review and education articles are supplied with the title page (see point 2.1) and brief summaries in Estonian and English (both with 1,000 characters). The declaration of possible conflicts of interest of the authors of the paper is added to the end of the text of the article.

2.3. A case report

It is possible to submit the case reports in two styles: in a more compact way only as the description of the disease case itself and its discussion, or in a broader way so that to the description of the disease case a brief overview of references concerning the epidemiology and etiology, pathogenesis and the new aspects of its clinical approach are added. The volume of the article of the case study is up to 20,000 characters to which 5 tables, diagrams, photos and up to 25 references can be added. Case reports are supplied with the title page (see the content point 2.1) and the brief summaries in Estonian and English (both with 1,000 characters). The declaration of possible conflicts of interest of the authors of the paper is added to the end of the text of the article.

In formulating the case report it is necessary to respect the patient’s rights carefully and submit the article of the case report only on condition of the patient’s or his or her relatives’ written informed consent.

In the case report data and photos must be presented in the way so that the person of the patient might not be identified.

2.4. Short case reports “From Imaging Archive“

Short articles (the volume up to 1 page or 2,500 characters with 1–5 photos) are published with the aim of acquainting readers with contemporary medical imagining methods, their possibilities and limitations through particular disease cases in the diagnostic process. The authors agree on the more exact details of the themes and their presentation with the scientific editor of the section, Dr Pilvi Ilves.

2.5. Clinical guidelines

The EMJ publishes the guidelines for diagnosing and treatment of diseases or other guidelines important for clinical activities which have been adapted to the situation in Estonia and approved by professional societies or other related institutions. In a general case the length of the published guidelines is up to 30,000 characters but on agreement with the editorial office and the publisher it is possible to publish materials of a bigger volume in the Internet version of the journal or as a specialized issue. The editorial office of the journal agrees upon the details of editing and publishing with the submitters of the guidelines.

2.6. A book review

Primarily the journal acquaints its readers with the high quality medical books written by Estonian physicians and medical researchers and high quality foreign books on medicine and the related fields which have been translated into Estonian. On agreement with the editorial office medical books and other publications in foreign languages can also be reviewed.  The volume of the book review is ordinarily 4,000 characters containing the bibliographical data of the book and the photo of the front cover.

2.7. A letter to the editor

The Estonian Medical Journal is very much interested in the readers’ opinion about publishing the journal and also content. This is why we publish the readers’ letters which deal with the articles published in the journal as well as the acute issues of Estonian medicine. The editorial office itself may approach colleagues for getting a brief opinion about some issue and these viewpoints will be published in the form of a letter to the editor. If the letter to the editor refers to the material published in the journal, the editorial office informs the authors of the article about the letter and offers them an opportunity to publish their opinion about that letter in the journal. Ordinarily the volume of the letter and also the authors’ opinion is up to 1,600 characters.

3. Submission of the article to the journal and editorial procedure

The corresponding author submits the article to the editorial office of the EMJ, to the e-mail address eestiarst@eestiarst.ee. The title page of the article (see point 2.1) and the text is presented to the editorial office as an MS Word or RTF file to the end of which also tables and figures (if the total volume of the file is smaller than 1 MB) can immediately be added. If the volume of the illustrating material is bigger, then it is presented as a separate file (see the formation of tables and figures more closely, point 4). The editorial office of the EMJ informs the corresponding author about the due reception of the material in the first possible moment but at least within 3 working days. Editing of the article to be peer-reviewed and to be prepared for publication (the editorial office´s primary estimation of the content, reviewing out of the editorial board, the scientific editor’s estimation of the article, correcting the manuscript by authors, etc.) will ordinarily last at least 3 months. When the journal’s medical or scientific editor has approved the amended version of the article, it is reviewed by the language editor whose corrections are agreed with the authors of the article. The article’s paged-up version is again presented to the authors for still another approval within a short period (up to 2 working days) and the removal of possible errors.

If the authors of the article have not respected the deadlines for editing the manuscript and have not tried to agree for the new deadlines with the editorial office and have not reacted to the reminding of the editorial office within two weeks, the contributed material will fall out of the editing process.

4. The language use of the Estonian Medical Journal

In using the Estonian language, the journal proceeds from the norms of the Estonian literary language. In the case of medical terminology the publication “Meditsiinisõnastik. Eestikeelsed terminid koos seletuste ning ladina, inglise ja soome vastetega“ (Medical dictionary. Terms in Estonian with explanations and Latin, English and Finnish equivalents)(Tallinn: Medicina; 2004), serves as a standard but also other medical dictionaries and the viewpoints of the Estonian Commission of Medical Terminology are considered. Foreign titles in the Estonian text are printed in italics. In using abbreviations, the title’s or expressionʼs full version is presented both in the basic text of the article and the summary and later the abbreviation is preferred. Only the generally known acronyms (see Table 2) can be used without explanation. For the correct writing of medical abbreviations and abbreviated expressions we recommend to use the book by Laine Trapido “Meditsiiniterminite lühendeid“ (Abbreviations of Medical Terms) (Tallinn: Medicina; 2007). In the case of physical and chemical measurements the units of the SI-system must be used, only in an exceptional well-reasoned case it is allowed to use other units of measurement. In general the generic names of drugs are used and in mentioning a particular installation its brand name and the company’s title must me added in brackets.

Table 2. The ackronyms which must not be explained in the text.

5. Tables, figures and photos

The editorial office recommends that the authors should add informative and high quality tables, figures and photos to the text of their article with the purpose of enforcing understanding of the article. Tables, figures and photos must in each type be put in the numerical order and supplied with the heading and the explanatory text so that in editing the article multiple understanding of connecting images and their headings might be eliminated. In the formation of the title of the illustrating material and the explanatory text the authors should consider the possibility that tables and diagrams could be understandable to the reader also independently, without the support of the text of the article. Each title must contain the information about the phenomenon, the studied group, area or country, the time of conducting research or the period of time involved.

The authors do not place the tables, figures and photos directly into the text of the manuscript but present them in the right sequence with headings and the title below figures after the text on separate pages or in separate files (especially in the case of a big volume), while in such a case the information about the headings of tables, figures and photos and the titles of added files is added to the end of the text of the article. In a suitable place of the scientific article it is necessary to refer to the illustrations, for example, “In Table 1 is presented …” or “… (see Figure 2)”. Figures are presented as MS Word or Excel files, photos and recordings in the JPEG form (resolution as a minimum 300 dpi) files.  The authors of photos and recordings must be clearly indicated in the article and the confirmation for the permission of use must be submitted to the editorial office.

6. Presentation of quotations and drawing up the list of references

In presenting the numbers of quotations and compiling the bibliographic entry the Vancouver System of Referencing is used according to which a) in the text quotations are enumerated in the order of presentation and put in brackets, for example, (1), (2, 3) or (4–6); b) in the list of references the bibliographic entries are sequenced on the basis of the number of quotation. References in Russian are transliterated into the Latin alphabet.

A quotation of the unpublished source or the data obtained in a private conversation/correspondence is presented as a remark in the text put into brackets (for example, R. T. Bartus, a private conversation, 2010), but not enumerated in the list of references.

If the manuscript in English of the quoted article is adopted for publishing in some journal or elsewhere, but not yet published, its bibliographic entry is added to references marking it in press (in the case of an article in Estonian Trükis).

When there are more than six authors of the paper in the bibliographic entry only three first authors are mentioned, adding et al. (in the case of a paper in Estonian jt). The author’s name is written in the same way as in the scientific paper but it should be known that in bibliographic data bases the names with diacritical signs, i.e. with dotted letters, are sometimes presented in an erraneous way which should not be repeated in the list of references of your text.

Below examples of different types of bibliographic entries of references are given.

A book: the surnames of authors with initials; the title of the book; the number of an edition; the place of publishing; the publishing house; the year of publication.

¤ Cannon CP, Steinberg BA. Evidence-based cardiology. 3rd ed. Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins; 2011.

A collection of articles: the surnames of the authors of the chapter with initials, the heading of the chapter, the names of editors, the title of the collection, the place of publication, the publishing house, the year of publication, the number of the first page of the chapter fully and only the numbers of the last page being different from the first one. ¤ Ning L, Chen H, Sippel RS. Thyroid cancer. In: Harari PM, Connor NP, Grau C, eds. Functional preservation and quality of life in head and neck radiotherapy. Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 2009:117–24.

¤ Peetsalu A, Lepner U, Väli T, Varik K, Timberg G, Lieberg J. Kirurgiakliinik. Rmt: Kalling K, toim. Tartu Ülikooli arstiteaduskond 1982–2007. Tartu: Tartu Ülikooli Kirjastus, 2007:243–56.

An article from a scientific journal: the surnames of authors with initials, the heading of the article, the title of the journal abbreviated according to the Medline (but without a full stop at the end of the abbreviated title), the year, the volume, the number of the first page of the article fully and only the numbers of the last page being different from the first one.

Examples of quoting the articles published in scientific journals

¤ Eller T, Metsküla K, Talja I, Maron E, Uibo R, Vasar V. Thyroid autoimmunity and treatment response to escitalopram in major depression. Nord J Psychiatry 2010;64:253–7.

¤ Giuliano AR, Lee J-H, Fulp W, et al. Incidence and clearance of genital human papillomavirus infection in men (HIM): a cohort study. Lancet  2011;377:932–40.

¤ Tosh G, Clifton A, Bachner M. General physical health advice for people with serious mental illness. Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2011;2:CD008567.

¤ Suija K, Pechter Ü, Maaroos J jt. Arstide kehaline aktiivsus ja nõuannete jagamine oma patsientidele liikumisharjumuse kujundamise kohta. Eesti Arst 2011;90:116–21.

The material published in the Internet:
a) In most cases (excl. the e-articles of scientific journals and legal acts in the State Gazette of the Republic of Estonia) the surnames of authors with initials; the title of the material, the institution, the time of publishing the Internet address;

1. b) in the case of the prior versions of electronic articles of scientific journals the surnames of authors with initials; the heading of the article, the abbreviated title of the journal according to the Medline, the year and month, the remark [Epub ahead of print] or in the case of the final version of the e-article the surnames of authors with initials; the heading of the article, the abbreviated title of the article according to the Medline, the year, the volume, the DOI-code or the e-address of the article or the used e-data base; c) when quoting the legal acts of the Republic of Estonia, it is necessary to present the title of the act or the regulation (the date of adoption); the date of the State Gazette; if amended, the date of the last amendment; the Internet address of the electronic document of the State Gazette.

Examples of quoting the material published in the Internet

¤ Habicht T, Aaviksoo A, Koppel A. Hospital sector reform in Estonia. Tallinn: Praxis; 2006. http://www.praxis.ee/fileadmin/tarmo/Projektid/Tervishoid/Eesti_ja_Bulgaaria
_haiglareformide_uuring/Hospital_sector_reform_in_Estonia_final_cover.pdf.

¤ Tisserand M, Le Guennec L, Touzé E, et al. Prevalence of MRI-defined recent silent ischemia and associated bleeding risk with thrombolysis. Neurology 2011 March [Epub ahead of print].

¤ George PM, Banya W, Pareek N, Bilton D, Cullinan P, Hodson ME. Improved survival at low lung function in cystic fibrosis: cohort study from 1990 to 2007. BMJ 2011;342:d1008. DOI:10.1136/bmj.d1008.

¤ Kettunen R, Talvensaari T. Clinical examination of a patient with acute chest pain. Suom Lääkäril 2009;64. http://www.laakarilehti.fi/files/Kettunen_R_et_al_Clinical_examination_of
_a_patient_with_acute_chest_pain.pdf.

¤ Tervishoiuteenuste korraldamise seadus (09.05.2001). RT I 2001, 50, 284; viimati muudetud 15.12.2010. https://www.riigiteataja.ee/akt/105012011017?leiaKehtiv.

GUIDELINES FOR THE REVIEWERS OF THE ESTONIAN MEDICAL JOURNAL

To guarantee high quality of contemporary scientific communication, a routine method of independent, professional and peer-review of the material submitted to the journal has been used before publishing the article. The research articles, overviews and case reports submitted to the Estonian Medical Journal (EMJ) are reviewed by the experts outside the editorial board. Although reviewing is anonymous, i.e. the reviewer does not know the authors of the article to be reviewed and the authors do not know the reviewer, at the beginning of each year the EMJ publishes the list of reviewers to appreciate their work in the previous year. The list of reviewers of the EMJ is composed of the members of the editorial office or other specialists selected by the editorial office. When the reviewer is an Estonian colleague working in a foreign country, he or she can write the opinion in English if wished. By e-mail the editorial office sends the reviewer all the materials of the article and necessary information for writing an opinion, including the form of the opinion and, as a rule, waits for the opinion for 3 weeks. The editorial office and the reviewer may, if necessary and possible, agree upon some other deadline for the presentation of the opinion. In the e-mail letter, sent to a person with the proposal to become a reviewer, the most important aspects of the content of the opinion are presented. In conformity with the good practice of reviewing scientific papers we draw the attention of reviewers to the following aspects to be followed:

• when receiving the proposal to become a reviewer, it is necessary to assess one’s competence critically, possible time resources for completing the work before deadline and the absence of a conflict of interest. When such problems exist, the person should give up reviewing and inform the journal’s editorial office as quickly as possible. The editorial office is thankful if in such cases recommendations are given whom to invite for reviewing the article;
• in providing the opinion about the article, the reviewer should find balance between the intentions of the Estonian Medical Journal and the attempts of authors;
• in providing the opinion about the article, the reviewer must carefully follow the requirement of confidentiality concerning the material at his or her disposal. As it is privileged communication, the reviewer is not allowed to copy the received material and share it in any form with colleagues. Also, without the prior consent of the editorial office, the reviewer must not use the help of colleagues in shaping and formulating his or her opinion.