Instructions for Authors
1. General
1.1 Scope
International Journal of Integrative Oncology (IJIO) is an international, peer-reviewed medical journal published in English by the Canadian Integrative Cancer Therapies Association and distributed worldwide. The purpose of this journal is to provide its authors and readers with a comprehensive forum for theoretical and practical information exchange amongst peers who have similar interests in new idea and therapy treatment in oncology, no matter the fields they are engaged in traditional medicine, alternative medicine, phytopharmaceuticals, et al. Anything contribute to our knowledge and treatment of malignant tumor is welcome. Manuscripts are welcome from any part of the world.
1.2 Ethics
All animal studies and experimental work using human tissues should be performed in accordance with the legal requirements of the relevant local or national authority and a statement to this effect must be included in the Materials and Methods section. The Editorial Board will not accept papers where ethical aspects of any nature are, in the Board’s opinion, open to doubt.
1.3 Originality of papers
When submitting a manuscript to IJIO it is understood that the data have been neither published nor also submitted for publication elsewhere in any language (excluding abstracts for conferences of less than one page and without illustrations). Any manuscript submitted or in press, that is related to the manuscript submitted to IJIO should be included with the submitted material. Such material will be made available with the manuscript to the reviewers.
1.4 Financial interests
All authors are asked to disclose any financial interests and sources of research funding that could be considered to affect the integrity of the scientific work presented. If appropriate, a general statement should be included in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript. All funding sources, institutional and corporate, should be credited in the Funding section, with the funding agency written out in full followed by the grant number in square brackets.
1.5 Authorship
IJIO endorses the Vancouver Guidelines on authorship as defined in the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors’ (ICMJE) Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals, namely that entitlement to authorship should be based on all of the following criteria: (1) substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; (2) drafting the article or revising it for important intellectual content; (3) final approval of the version to be published. Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group, alone, does not justify authorship. All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in the Acknowledgements.
1.6 Cover images
Authors of accepted manuscripts are encouraged to submit outstanding photographs or graphical drawings that may be used as the cover image for the issue of IJIO in which their manuscripts will be published.
2. Manuscript types and organization
2.1 Types of manuscripts
Editorial [BY INVITATION]: Proposals for Editorial Commentaries may be submitted; however, in this case authors should only send an outline of the proposed paper for initial consideration. Editorials should be up to 1500 words long with no more than 10 references. No abstract needed.
Reviews [BY INVITATION]: Reviews are comprehensive analyses of specific topics and submitted upon invitation by the Editor. Proposals for reviews may be submitted; however, in this case authors should only send an outline of the proposed paper for initial consideration. Both solicited and unsolicited review articles will undergo peer review prior to acceptance. The length is limited to 6000 words including Title Page, Abstract, Text, References and Tables. Abstract is 300 words maximum; References is up to 120 references and Figures/tables are 8 maximums.
Research Articles: These should be fully documented reports of original research in any of the fields covered by the title International Journal of Integrative Oncology, interpreted in the broadest sense. The text should be arranged as follows: abstract, introduction, methods, results, discussion, acknowledgements, references, and where appropriate, supporting information. The length is limited to 6000 words including Title Page, Abstract, Text, References and Tables. Abstract is 300 words maximum; References are up to 60 and Figures/tables are 8 maximums.
Oncology Progress [BY INVITATION]: Oncology Progress is invited on a particular topic and a guest editor is appointed to oversee the peer review process. Proposals for Oncology Progress may be submitted; however, in this case authors should only send an outline of the proposed paper for initial consideration. The manuscripts are presented in the form of a mini review. Original data may be included, but if so, sufficient detail on methods must be provided so that proper peer review can be accomplished. The length is limited to 3000 words including Title Page, Abstract, Text, References and Tables. References are up to 60 and Figures/tables are 4 maximums.
Letters to the Editor: Letters may be submitted to the Editor on any topic of research. Comments on papers recently published in IJIO will be welcomed. Letters to the Editor are not subjected to external peer-review but will be reviewed by at least one editor. Submissions may be edited for length, grammatical correctness, and journal style. Authors will be asked to approve editorial changes that alter the substance or tone of a letter or response. Letters that offer perspective on content already published in the Journal can use an arbitrary title, but a Response from authors must cite the title of the first Letter: e.g., Response to [title of Letter]. This ensures that readers can track the line of discussion. Letter should not exceed 600 words of text including up to 5 references and 1 Figures/ tables. No abstract needed.
2.2 All manuscripts
Title Page: Give the title of the manuscript, the names, affiliations and addresses of all the authors, indicate the corresponding author (only one) and give their telephone number, fax number and email address. Provide a running title of less than 50 characters including spaces. List up to 6 key words.
Abbreviations: Only use abbreviations for terms that are used at least three times and define them when first used in the text. A list of abbreviations used should also be supplied at the end of the text.
Acknowledgements: A general statement should be included here if financial interests or research funding could be perceived to compromise the integrity of the published work.
Funding: All funding sources (institutional and corporate) should be credited, with the funding agency written out in full followed by the grant number in square brackets.
2.3 Research Articles
Abstract: The abstract should be divided into three sections: Background Information, Results and Conclusions. The total length should not exceed 300 words. Abbreviations should not be used and references, if absolutely required, should be given in full.
Introduction: Summarize prior knowledge on the research presented. Do not make an extensive review. Present any theoretical background required to understand the experiments. The results can be briefly stated.
Materials and Methods: Sufficient detail should be given to allow others to repeat the experiments. Only modifications to already published methods should be described.
Results and Discussion: These two sections can be combined if desired. All conclusions must be rigorously supported by the data. Speculative interpretations of the results should be restricted to the Discussion section.
2.4 References
In all manuscripts, references should be cited within the text as follows:
One or two authors: (Steffen, 2008); (Ahima and Osei, 2008).
More than two authors: (Stott et al., 2008).
If style requires, the format Stott et al. (2008) is also acceptable.
Multiple dates, same author: (Smith et al., 2001a, 2001b).
In date order: (Ding et al., 2007; Skurk et al., 2008).
In the list, references should appear in alphabetical order by first author’s last name. Include all authors’ names (do not use “et al.”), year, complete article title, journal, volume, and inclusive page numbers. Abbreviate journal names according to PubMed; spell out the names of unlisted journals. Do not list unpublished material but cite parenthetically within the text as “unpublished data”. Do not use others forms such as “manuscript in preparation,” “manuscript submitted,” “unpublished results” or “unpublished observation”. Unpublished data may not be cited in the Materials and Methods section. Unpublished data provided by a person(s) who is not an author of the article must be cited as a “personal communication”. An authorization from this person(s) must be provided with the manuscript. Abstracts to meetings should not appear in the reference list but incorporated parenthetically into the text, giving the authors’ names, meeting name and year, and abstract number.
Adhere to the reference formats provided by the following examples:
Published article: Abel, E.D., Litwin, S.E. and Sweeney, G. (2008) Cardiac remodeling in obesity. Physiol. Rev. 88, 389–419.
Published article with DOI only: Lopez-Soler, R.I., Moir, R.D., Spann, T.P., Stick, R. and Goldman, R.D. (2008) A role for nuclear Lamins in nuclear envelope assembly. J. Cell Biol. 10.1083/jcb.200801025.
Article in press: Murakami, M.S., Moody, S.A., Daar, I.O. and Morrison, D.K. (2008) Morphogenesis during Xenopus gastrulation requires Wee1-mediated inhibition of cell proliferation. Development, in the press.
Complete Book: Scheel, D. and Wasternack, C. (2002) Plant Signal Transduction, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Chapter in Book: DeMey, J. (1986) The preparation and use of gold probes. In Immunocytochemistry: Practical Applications in Pathology and Biology (Polak, J.M. and Van Noorden, S. eds.), pp. 115-145, Wright, Bristol.
2.5 Figures and tables (all manuscripts)
Legends: Legends should be self-explanatory, starting with an informative title, and contain all the necessary information without reference to the text except for general experimental details. Group all legends (tables and illustrations) together at the end of the text on a new page.
Tables: Tables, numbered consecutively (1, 2, 3 etc.), should be simple and not duplicate information in the text of the article and headed by a concise title. Place explanatory matter in footnotes, not in the heading. Explain in footnotes all non-standard abbreviations that are used in each table. For footnotes use the following symbols in this sequence: *, △, #, **, etc.
Figures: All illustrations (line drawings and photographs) are classified as figures. Figures should be cited in consecutive order in the text. Magnifications should be indicated using a scale bar on the illustration.
Files should be submitted in the following formats: TIFF, EPS, or PDF. TIFF and PDF files should be supplied at the following minimum resolutions:
Line artwork = 1000 dpi,
Halftone artwork = 300 dpi (without lettering) and 500 dpi (with lettering),
Color artwork = 300 dpi (without lettering) and 500 dpi (with lettering),
Combination artwork = (line/tone) = 500 dpi,
MS Office files (Word, PowerPoint, Excel) are also accepted provided the artwork placed into MS Office applications is at the appropriate minimum resolution as above. Color images should be provided in CMYK color space.
3. Manuscripts accepted for publication
On acceptance, authors will be requested to supply the text and figures of the final version.
3.1 Text
Text revisions must not be marked in the electronic copy. Authors must ensure that the file has been updated to incorporate all revisions, and hence that the file matches the final version of the manuscript seen by the reviewers. Authors must note that Word 2007 is not yet compatible with journal production systems. Unfortunately, the journal cannot accept Microsoft Word 2007 documents until such time as a stable production version is released. Please use Word’s ‘Save As’ option to save your document as an older (.doc) file type.
3.2 Tables
Tables should be prepared using the Microsoft Word table editor.
3.3 Figures
No artwork should be incorporated into the text files. Artwork should be prepared as indicated in 2.5 section.
3.4 Copyright policy
The Canadian Integrative Cancer Therapies Association (CICTA) is the owner of all copyrights to any articles published in the Journal. Published manuscripts become the permanent property of the Canadian Integrative Cancer Therapies Association and may not be published elsewhere without written permission. Canadian Integrative Cancer Therapies Association keeps the right to use these manuscripts in any form, including print, video, audio, and digital.
3.5 Proofs
Proofs will be sent to the corresponding author as a PDF together with instructions. Proofs must be returned within 48 hours. Excessive text alterations at proof stage are subject to approval by the Editor-in-Chief and a charge may be made. Figure reprocessing at the author’s request will also be subject to charge.
3.6 Offprint
The publisher will provide the author (s) 20 reprints of the article and 2 copies of the journal free of charge if their manuscripts are accepted for publication.