Submissions

Author Guidelines

Manuscript must be original and must not published at any another journal at the time of submission. Manuscripts must be submitted by one of the authors of the manuscript, and should not be submitted by anyone on their behalf. The principal/corresponding author must submit an undertaking along with the manuscript on behalf of all co-authors. (Please refer to the undertaking form). The author(s) will confirm that the manuscript (or any part thereof) has not previously been published or is being considered for publication elsewhere. In addition, any illustration, structure or table that has been published elsewhere must be informed.

We accept the Articles in the form of Case Reports, Case series, Original Articles: [Descriptive Studies, KAP Studies Analytical Research (Randomized Control Trials or Non-Randomized Controlled Trials), and short communication], systematic review article (mini review), special reports and Letter to editors.

Ensure that you have read and understood the details noted in JRCRS’s editorial policy . Failure to comply can lead to delays in processing of the manuscript, or even rejection.

Who is an Author?

The ICMJE recommends that authorship be based on the following 4 criteria :

• Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
• Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
• Final approval of the version to be published; AND
• Agreement 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.
  Other contributors to the article, who do not fit into these four criteria should be just acknowledged.
• Acknowledgement: Acknowledge those authors & institutional administrative support who did not qualify for authorship (defined in journal policy and recommended by ICMJE). Acknowledge anyone who has provided intellectual writing assistance, technical editing, language editing, data entry and proofreading.

Fees Details:

• Manuscript Submission fees:
• No fees
• Manuscript processing fees:
• No fees

Copyright/license Policy:

All Articles are made available under a Creative Commons "Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International" license. Copyrights on any open access article published by Journal Riphah college of Rehabilitation Science (JRCRS) are retained by the author(s). Authors retain the rights of free downloading/unlimited e-print of full text and sharing/disseminating the article without any restriction, by any means; provided the article is correctly cited. JRCRS does not allow commercial use of the articles published. All articles published represent the view of the authors and do not reflect the official policy of JRCRS.

Peer review Policy:

Each submitted article in Journal of Riphah College of Rehabilitation Science will be process according to JRCRS peer review policy (exception for editorials and letter to editor)  i-e: JRCRS uses “double blind” peer review whereby both reviewers and authors remain anonymous throughout the process. Submitted manuscripts are screened by the editors to check the scope, suitability and formatting. Rejected manuscripts will be sent back to the authors. Potentially suitable manuscripts are then sent to potential reviewers who are asked to respond within two weeks and then given 2-3 weeks to review. If reviewers fail to respond within the given time, they may be replaced with alternates to keep the review process moving along. Should the referees’ reports contradict one another or a report is unnecessarily delayed, a further expert opinion will be sought.

Author can see the process: Peer Review Process

1. SUBMISSION DETAILS:

The manuscript submission for Journal of Riphah College of Rehabilitation Sciences (JRCRS) is online (i.e. https://journals.riphah.edu.pk/index.php/jrcrs/about/submissions )

Hard copy submissions are not accepted. Format of your manuscript should be simple and clear, and avoid trying to “design” the document. Supporting document i.e.

2. COMPULSORY DOCUMENTS:

1. Article Text
2. Cover Letter: Download Sample
3. Letter of Undertaking: Download Sample
4. Ethical Approval (mandatory)

• Cover Letter:

The manuscript should be accompanied by a covering letter signed by the corresponding author.

• Letter of Undertaking:

Author details, Contributing Statement (included as per ICMJE recommendations), Disclaimer: Disclose if the abstract has been presented or published in a conference, or published in an abstract book or any other relevant information. If the article is part of a PhD thesis, it should be disclosed. Disclosure of conflicts of interest and Source of Funding: Disclose if any source of funding is there.

• Ethical Approval

In case of original/research articles, author’s contribution could only be considered with the mandatory requirement of the certificate duly signed and stamped from IRC/Ethical Review Board (ERB)

• Article text (Manuscript in MS Format)

The manuscript must be submitted as a Microsoft Word document. Any other format is not acceptable at all. It should follow the following sequence.

3. MANUSCRIPT FORMATTING:

Manuscript Formatting Category wise:

All the submitted manuscripts will first be checked to ensure they are in the required format and comply with the journal’s instructions. The following is the requirement for formatting an article according to its category. Download Formatting category wise

• Original article: Structured abstract: 250 words • Maximum word count of text 3000 words • Maximum of 25 references • Maximum 3 allowed tables or figures • A clinical trial number should be included for all Randomized Controlled/Clinical trials and Non-Randomized Clinical Trials • Ethical approval letter and number must
• Case Report: Unstructured abstract: 150 words • Maximum word count of text 1250 words • Maximum of 10 references • Maximum 2 allowed tables or figures
• Case Series: Unstructured abstract: 150 words • Maximum word count of text 1250 words • Maximum of 10 references • Maximum 2 allowed tables or figures
• Short Communication / Short Report Unstructured abstract: 150 words • Maximum word count of text 1250 words • Maximum of 10 references • Maximum 2 allowed tables or figures • Use the following three headings in the main text: introduction, patients/methods and results, and conclusion. Do not forget to add the heading of acknowledgement if required
• Mini Reviews (systematic review): Structured abstract: 250 words • Maximum word count of text 4000 words • Maximum of 35 references • Maximum 5 allowed tables or figures
• Letter to the Editor: Maximum word count of text: 400 words • Maximum of 5 recent references • Maximum 1 allowed table or figure

General Manuscript Formatting:

‘British English’ Must be used for Manuscript and try to use that language which would be simple for the readers. Use the full form of an abbreviation initially in the text before using the abbreviated form. For proper nouns you can use Capitalization otherwise avoid it or where it is grammatically required.

Simple Sentences should be properly written instead of giving brackets within a sentence. For example, the study participants (men of age group 30-60 years) were here in rehabilitation center for the cardiac endurance training. The right way is ‘The study participants included men of age group 30-60 years and they were here in rehabilitation center for the cardiac endurance training. Do not start a sentence with a number.

The article should be formatted accordingly on MS Word:

• Font Type: Times New Roman, Font Size: (14 for article title, 12 for article text), Line spacing should be set at 1.5 throughout the text, Alignment: Justified throughout, Page numbers: left bottom, Header: No, Left & right margin: 1 inch

Generally, article must be under the following headings:

a) Abstract

The abstract of an original article is recommended to be in accordance with the following sequence of sub-headings: i) Background, ii) Objective, iii) Methodology, iv) Results v) Conclusion vi) Keywords. Each section should be properly labeled with relevant sub-heading. Structured or unstructured abstract should be in accordance with the article type. A structured abstract of not more than 250 words for original article and an unstructured abstract of not more than 150 words for other submission types ( case report, short communication, special communication and review article) is required. Keywords: At least three and at most six keywords should be given.

b) Introduction

This section should contain the purpose of the article after giving a brief literature review strictly relevant to the objective of the study. A summarized rationale of the study or the observation should be given here as well. It is preferred that in this segment the number of references should be at most ten. Explain your hypothesis, why you think this research was required and what benefits may be derived from your objectives. Clearly mention your objectives of the study in this section without adding any sub-heading. Data, methodology or conclusion of the study should not be mentioned here. This section should be closed with the statement of the study objectives.

c) Methodology

All the components of the methodology including; study design, selection of observational or experimental subjects, (i.e. patients of laboratory animals including control) must be mentioned in this section. Mention study setting, duration, sampling techniques, sample size calculations with reference and follow up period. Provide the inclusion exclusion criteria, if applicable without adding any headings.  Identify the methods, apparatus (give the manufacturer’s name and address in parenthesis) and procedures in sufficient details to allow other workers to reproduce the results.

d) Results

The results should be presented in logical sequence in the text, tables and illustrations. The tabulated or illustrated data should not be repeated in the text; only the most relevant and important observations should be emphasized with due statement of demographic details. Personal opinion of the author must be expressed in this section.  

e) Discussion

Emphasize the new and important aspects of the study and conclusions that follow from them. Do not repeat in detail data or other material given in the introduction or results sections. Include in discussion section the practical implications of the findings and their limitations including gaps for future research. Relate your observations to the other relevant studies as well. Link the conclusions with the objectives of the study but avoid unqualified statements and conclusions which are not completely supported by the data. In particular, authors should avoid making statements on economic benefits and costs unless their manuscript includes economics data and analysis.  Give recommendations and the practical application of the study. This is the only section in the entire article where the author may express his own opinion.

f) Conclusion

The conclusion should be based on the objective and principal findings. False ambiguous conclusion and speculations should be avoided. It should be provided under separate heading and the new aspects arising from the study must also be highlighted properly. No recommendations are required in this section.

g) References Guidelines:

The references should be listed as they appear in the text. It should contain the name of the authors, title of the article, source with its volume, number, year of publication and the page numbers. All references should be enlisted in Vancouver style.

It would be ideal that a reference cited in the manuscript referred to the content is present in the reference section and it should be given in full. It is not allowed to include the references of personal communication, and article submitted and unpublished. The work cited in manuscript have a unique number placed in brackets, these numbers are always in the order of citation. If the same work again needs to be cited in the same article, the author should assign the same number again. There are number of softwares available that can help in preparing references like Zotero and Endnote etc. The reference style recommended is set up on National Information Standards Organization Bibliographic References as modified by National Library of Medicine (NLM) for its databases. Details are given in "Citing Medicine".

Each citation is designated by a number enclosed in parenthesis. The citations should be numbered and ordered in the Reference list following the sequences in which they first appear within the text. The general order for the citation sequence reference system is; name of author(s), full title of cited article, name of journal in which article appeared (do not use periods with abbreviated words), publication year, journal volume, issue number, finally first and the last number of page. Name of journal should be abbreviated according to the PubMed Journals Database (NLM, NIH).