Submissions

Author Guidelines

The ‘JIIMC’ agrees to accept manuscripts prepared in accordance with the “Uniform Requirements submitted to the Biomedical Journals” published in the British Medical Journal 1991; 302: 334-41.
The material submitted for publication should be sent completely to the Journal of Islamic International Medical College, Pakistan. Research work that has already been reported in a published paper or is described in a paper sent or accepted elsewhere for publication should not be submitted. Duplicate submission of the same research work to other journal should be avoided as this fall into the category of publication misconduct.  A complete report following publication of a preliminary report of a preliminary report, usually in the form of an abstract, or a paper that has been presented at a scientific meeting, if not published in a full proceedings, may be submitted.
Manuscripts are submitted online on following link: http://my.ejmanager.comhttps://journal.riphah.edu.pk/index.php/jiimc/about/submissions. All authors are supposed to provide their contact details such as institution, cell numbers and E-mail addresses on the title page.
It is mandatory to submit online a duly filled-in Cover Letter, copyright, authorship and undertaking proforma along with the manuscript. (https://jiimc.riphah.edu.pk/downloads/). The sequence/ order, of the names of authors submitted at the time of initial submission of manuscript shall not be changed at any stage.
It is mandatory to submit the institutional ethical review board/committee approval/exemption for all research articles, at the time of online submission of article. Dissertation/ thesis approval letter from relevant authority is also acceptable.
 AUTHORSHIP CRITERIA
All those designated as authors should meet all four criteria for authorship as stated in ICMJE recommendations (http://www.icmje.org/icmje-recommendations.pdf). According to ICMJE recommendations authorship is based on the following four criteria: 1. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data ; and 2. Have been involved in drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and 3. Have given final approval of the version to be published; and 4. Agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content. We strongly discourage gift or ghost authorship. Mere supervision, collection of data, statistical analysis and language correction do not grant authorship rights.
GENERAL ARCHIVAL INSTRUCTIONS
The manuscript should be typed in MS Word. Each manuscript should include a title page (containing email address, cell numbers, institution and postal address of the corresponding author), abstract, key words, text, acknowledgements (if any), references, tables (each table, complete with title and footnotes) and legends for illustrations and photo-graphs. Each component should begin on a new page. Sub-headings should not be used in any section of the script except in the abstract.
ARTICLE PROCESSING FEE
JIIMC charges PKR 1000/- as processing fee and PKR 5000/- as publication fee on original articles. Case   report,   review   article,   and letter   to   editor   are exempt from any charges. Authors of ORIGINAL ARTICLES have to submit bank draft of PKR 1000/-  (Non Refundable) at time  of  submission  and  a bank draft of PKR 5000/- is submitted once the article is accepted for publication. Manuscript is processed only after the receipt of processing fee. Article processing fee for authors outside Pakistan is USD 100 (Nonrefundable) and USD 100 as publication fee once the article is accepted by the editorial board. Once an article is accepted for publication but if the author fails to submit publication fee (PKR 5000/-),  the manuscript can be returned back to the author in case of only serious genuine reasons, after the approval by the editorial board of JIIMC.  JIIMC offers a whole or partial fee waiver on a case-to-case basis to Undergraduate Medical students of Pakistan and authors from low-income countries(WHO-HINARI Group A  countries list available from URL: http://www.who.int/hinari/eligibility/en/ Bank draft in favour of “Journal of Islamic International Medical College” may be sent to the address below:
MANAGING EDITOR JIIMC
Westridge-III, Pakistan Railway Hospital
Islamic International Medical College, Rawalpindi- Pakistan
Tel: +92515481828 – Ext 220
MATERIAL FOR PUBLICATION
The material submitted for publication may be in the form of an Original Research(Randomized controlled trial – RCT, Meta-analysis of RCT, Quasi experimental study, Case Control study, Cohort study, Observational Study with statistical support, etc.), a Review Article, a Case Report, Recent Advances, New Techniques, Debates, Book/CDs Review on Clinical/Medical Education, Adverse Drug Reports or a Letter to the Editor. Survey Articles and Studies more than five years old at the time of submission are not accepted for publication in JIIMC. Non- English articles are not accepted for publication in JIIMC.
ORIGINAL ARTICLES should report original research of relevance to clinical medicine and may appear either as papers or as short communications. The original paper should be of about 2000-2500 words excluding abstract and references.  The abstract should be structured of about 250 words. Three to 10 keywords should be mentioned at the end of abstract as per MeSH (Medical Subject Headings). There should be no more than four tables or illustrations. The data should be supported with 20 to 25 local as well as international references. More than 50% of the references should be from last five years.
SHORT COMMUNICATIONS should be about 1000 words, with a non-structured abstract, two tables or illustrations and 5 references.
CLINICAL CASE REPORT and brief or negative research findings may appear in this section. Clinical Case Reports should be of academic value and provide relevance of the disease being reported as rare or unusual. The word count of case report should not be more than 800 words with 3- 5 key words. The abstract should be non-structured of about 150 words (case specific) with maximum of 5 references. It should not include more than 2 figures and one table.
REVIEW ARTICLE should consist of structured overview of relatively narrow topic providing background and recent development with reference of original literature. An author can write a review article only if he/she has written minimum of three original research articles and some case reports on the same topic. Review article should be of 2500 to 3000 words with non-structured abstract of 150 words and minimum 3 key words.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR should normally not exceed 400 words, have no more than 05 references and be signed by all the authors-maximum 3 are allowed. Preference is given to those that take up points made in contributions published recently in journal. Letters may be published with a response from the author of the article being discussed. Discussions beyond the initial letter and response will not be entertained for publication.
OBITUARIES should be of about 250 words. Editorials are written by invitation.
 DISSERTATION/THESIS BASED ARTICLE
An article based on dissertation/thesis submitted as part of the requirement for a postgraduate degree (M. Phil, FCPS, MS, PhD) can be sent for publication after it has been approved by the institution’s ethical review board/committee and the college/university evaluation committee/board. The data should not be more than five years old. Thesis/dissertation based article will be assessed by proper review process. Once accepted for publication, then disclosure will be made that ‘it is a Dissertation based article’.
 MANUSCRIPT EVALUATION/PEER REVIEW
Each manuscript submitted to JIIMC is assessed by an editor for an initial assessment (internal peer review). The article is checked for similarity Index with plagiarism detecting Software, “TURNITIN”.  Manuscript suitable for publication is forwarded to two external peer reviewers to evaluate the suitability of the article for publication based on its quality, novelty, and relevance. A time frame of minimum 2 weeks are  given  to the  reviewer  to send their suggestions  to  the  editor.  If a reviewer is unable to meet the time frame agreed upon or he de-clines to review the manuscript, the manuscript will be sent to another reviewer. The editor may ask reviewers to make recommendations regarding acceptance or rejection of manuscripts, but the editor must be the one who makes the decisions. The  editor  may  reject  manuscripts  without outside review, for example if the subject matter is outside the purview of the journal, a manuscript on  the  same  topic  is  just  about  to be  published,  the  quality  of  the manuscript  is  poor,  or  criteria  for  the  submission  of  manuscripts  are  not met.

ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS
The Journal of Islamic International Medical College (JIIMC) is committed to achieve and maintain ethical values at all steps of publication process. We follow the guidelines of  International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICJME), Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) and higher Education Commission of Pakistan (HEC) to meet the standards of publication ethics. 
JIIMC follows the authorship criteria in compliance to the ICMJE definition of authorship (www.icmje.org). All the four conditions are to be fulfilled. We strongly discourage gift or ghost authorship.
The cases of plagiarism, data manipulation, fabrication, and redundant or duplicate  publication will be dealt according to rules and regulations/recommendation of the ICMJE, PMDC and HEC.
Few important responsibilities of authors include:

DEALING UNETHICAL PRACTICES

• Any complaint related to scientific misconduct or unethical practice of a manuscript; at any stage during or after the publication, brought into the notice of managing editor, will be taken seriously, investigated cautiously but thoroughly.
• Managing editor will collect the evidences and consult the Chief Editor to make initial decision about the investigation for an unethical behavior.
• Minor misconduct will be dealt by the managing editor in consultation with the chief editor.
• In case of serious misconduct, the managing editor, in consultation with the chief editor will make the decision, either by examining the available evidence themselves or after consultation with one or two experts.
• Sufficient opportunity will be provided to the accused author to explain their view point about the accusations of serious misconduct.
• Following steps may be taken depending upon the nature and severity of a misconduct:
• A letter will be issued to the author or reviewer in case of a misunderstanding or misapplication of acceptable standards.

•  A warning letter will be issued to the author or reviewer covering the misconduct and as a warning to future behaviour.
•  Publication of a formal notice detailing the misconduct.
•  A formal letter to the head of the author’s or reviewer’s department and Institution.
•  Formal retraction or withdrawal of a publication from the journal.
•  Debarment of the authors(s) from further publication in the JIIMC for one year or permanent depending upon the nature of offence.
  
  

TEXT ORGANIZATION
All manuscripts except Short Communication and Letter to the Editor should be divided into the following sections.

ABSTRACT
Abstracts of original article should be in structured with following sub-headings: i. Objective, ii. Study Design, iii. Place & Duration of Study iv. Materials & Methods, v. Results, vi. Conclusion. Four elements should be addressed: why did you start, why did you do, what did you find and what does it mean. Why did you start in the objective. What did you do constitutes the methodology and could include design, setting, patients or other participants, interventions, and outcome measures. What did you find is the results, and what does it mean would constitute; our conclusions. Please label each section clearly with the appropriate sub-headings. Structured abstract for an original article, should not be more than 250 words. At least 3 key words should be written at the end of abstract. Review article, case report and other require a short, unstructured abstract. Commentaries do not require abstract.

INTRODUCTION
Write this section with references as per following instructions:

1. Give background information about the subject matter and the issues your study intends to address. Only strictly pertinent references should be cited and the subject should not be extensively reviewed.
2. Describe what is known (in the literature) and what is not clear about the subject with reference to relevant literature thus identifying the literature gap.
3. You write the rationale (justification) of your study.
4. Finally you mention the objective of your study

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Methodology is written in past tense.
Follow this sequence without headings:

• Study design
• Place and Duration of Study
• Sample size
• Sampling technique
• Mention about permission of ethical review board and other ethical issues addressed.
• Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria
• Data collection procedure-
• Type of data: parametric or nonparametric
• Data analysis: including Statistical Software used, and statistical test applied for the calculation of p value and to determine the statistical significance. Exact p-values and 95% confidence interval (CI) limits must be mentioned instead of only stating greater or less than level of significance. All percentages must be accompanied with actual numbers.

RESULTS
These should be presented in logical sequence in the text, tables and illustrations. All the data in the tables or illustrations should not be repeated in the text; only important observations should be emphasized or summarized. No opinion should be given in this portion of the text.

DISCUSSION
This section should include author’s comment on the results. Write in present tense, active voice except for results, which are written in past tense. It should be should be written in following sequence:

• First of all very briefly summarize, Interpret and discuss main results and don’t merely repeat the results.
• Discuss key studies relevant to your study.
• Compare your work with other’s work.
• Describe limitations of your study.
• Suggest future work if necessary.

CONCLUSION
Conclusion should be provided under separate heading. It should be in congruence with the objective. No recommendations are needed under this heading.

REFERENCES
References must be given in the Vancouver Style only. References should be numbered in the order in which they are superscripted in the text. At the end of the article, the full list of references should give the names and initials of all authors (unless there are more than six when only the first six should be given followed by et al). The author’s names are followed by the title of the article; title of the journal abbreviated according to the style of the Index Medicus (see “List of Journals Indexed”, printed yearly in the January issue of Index Medicus); year, volume and page number; e.g. Hall, RR. The healing of tissues by C02 laser. Br J. Surg: 1970; 58:222-225. References to books should give the names of editors, place of publication, publisher and year. The author must verify the references against the original documents before the article. References to papers accepted but not yet published should be designated as “in press” or “forthcoming”; authors should obtain written permission to cite such papers as well as verification that they have been accepted for publication.

TABLE AND ILLUSTRATIONS
Tables and illustrations should be merged within the text of the paper, and legends to illustrations should be typed on the same sheet. Table should be simple, and should supplement rather than duplicate information in the text; tables repeating information will be omitted. Each table should have a title and be typed in double space without horizontal and vertical lines on an 8 ½” x 11? paper. Tables should be numbered consecutively with Roman numeral in the order they are mentioned in the text. Page number should be in the upper right corner. If abbreviations are used, they should be explained in foot notes and when they first appear in text. When graphs, scattergrams, or histogram are submitted, the numerical data on which they are based should be supplied. All graphs should be made with MS Excel and be sent as a separate Excel file even if merged in the manuscript. For scanned photographs highest resolution should be used.

S.I. UNITS
System International (SI) Unit measurements should be used. All drugs must be mentioned in their generic form. The commercial name may however be mentioned within brackets, if necessary.

PHOTOGRAPHS AND FIGURES
Figures and Photographs should only be included when data cannot be expressed in any other form. Figures and photographs must be cited in the text in consecutive order. Legends must be typed on the same paper. Legends for photomicrographs should indicate the magnifications, internal scale and method of staining.

OBLIGATORY FILES
Obligatory supporting documents for all types of Manuscripts except the letter to editor, without which JIIMC will not accept the manuscript for initial processing.

• Cover Letter
• JIIMC Check List
• JIIMC Conflict of Interest Performa
• JIIMC Copy Right and Under Taking Agreement
• IRC Certificate
• Bank draft as initial processing fee (Original bank draft send in JIIMC office)

Template of these files is available in download section.

PLAGIARISM POLICY
JIIMC follows the standard definition/description of plagiarism and the recommendations/ guidelines of Committee of Publication Ethics (COPE) https://publicationethics.org/corepractices ,ICMJE www.icmje.org, WAME, https://www.wame.org/policies,   Higher   Education Commission   (HEC)   of Pakistan policies   about plagiarism https://www.hec.gov.pk/english/services/faculty/Plagiarism/Pages/default.aspx. Authors are advised to go through these guidelines carefully before submitting their manuscript with JIIMC. The cases of plagiarism will be dealt according to the rules/ regulations and recommendation of the ICMJE, COPE and WAME and HEC. The disciplinary committee of JIIMC comprises of the Editor in Chief and Managing editor of the journal to deal with cases of plagiarism. All  articles  submitted  to  JIIMC are  checked by  antiplagiarism software “TURNITIN”.

• Logical contribution and  originality  of  every  manuscript  is  to  be  defined by the authors and it is the responsibility   of   authors   to   be   mindful about various types of plagiarism like   plagiarism   of   ideas,   text,  paraphrasing,   self   plagiarism   including plagiarism   of   ideas,   text,  paraphrasing,   self   plagiarism   including   redundant/duplicate publication,   salami   slicing   (data   fragmentation)  and  text  recycling  etc. Unawareness about plagiarism and its various types will not be accepted as an explanation.
• Any manuscript   submitted   for   publication   or   a   manuscript  accepted for publication or even an article   that   has   already   been   published in the journal, if found to be  plagiarized,  the  matter  will  be  dealt   with   in accordance to COPE   guidelines.
• Editorial board will immediately stop the processing/publication of his article and will   ask   for   an   explanation  from  the  corresponding author. He will be liable to respond   with   an   explanation   in 04 weeks.
• In case of satisfactory explanation editorial board may recommend appropriate changes  after which the review process for the  submitted   manuscript   may   commence.
• In case of  non  response  in  the  required   time   or   unsatisfactory   explanation,   the editorial   board will decide about the fate of the article and authors, including rejection of the manuscript, withdrawal of   already   published   article (as the case may be).
• Barring the  authors(s)  from  further publication in the JIIMC for one  year  or permanent, depending  upon the nature of offence.
• The author will be on the watch. HEC and author’s institute will also be notified for information and possible action.
• In case   of   multiple   submissions, editors of other journals will also be informed. The   author(s)   will   have   to   provide   documentary  proof  of  retraction  from publication, if such a defence is pleaded.
• Those claiming  intellectual/idea  or  data theft of an article must provide documentary proof in their claim

 CONFLICT OF INTEREST
Any funding source for the research work must be informed at the time of submitting the manuscript for publication in JIIMC. Any associations that might be construed as a conflict of interest (stock ownership, consultancies, etc.) shall be disclosed accordingly.
Examples of financial conflicts include employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patents or patent applications, and travel grants, all
within 3 years of beginning the work submitted. If there are no conflicts of interest, authors should state that. All authors are required to provide a signed statement of their conflicts of interest as part of the author’s declaration.

COPYRIGHT
Material printed in this journal is the copyright of the JIIMC and may not be reproduced without the permission of the editors or publishers. Instructions to authors appear on the last page of each issue. Prospective authors should consult them before writing their articles and other material for publication. The JIIMC accepts only original material for publication with the understanding that except for abstracts, no part of the data has been published or will be submitted for publication elsewhere before appearing in this journal. The Editorial Board makes every effort to ensure that accuracy and authenticity of material printed in the journal. However, conclusions and statements expressed are views of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Editorial Board of the JIIMC.