Submissions

Author Guidelines

Focus and Scope

Journal of Nobel Medical College (JoNMC) is a peer-reviewed, open access, Scientific and Medical journal. It is published biannually in English by the Research and Publication Unit of Nobel Medical College Teaching Hospital, Biratnagar, Nepal. JoNMC publishes articles in the field of medicine and allied health sciences covering all perspectives of health and diseases including clinical and experimental studies along with medical education as well. The journal was first published in 2012 and has been regularly published till date. Contributions are accepted for publication on the condition that their substance has not been published or submitted for publication elsewhere.

Types of articles
Articles are invited for the following sections

• Review articles
• Original Research Articles
• Case Reports
• Brief Communications
• Letters to the editor

All articles except Letters to the Editor will be peer-reviewed.

Research papers are full-length descriptions of original research. The scope may include basic science, clinical results, or applications. These manuscripts will undergo standard review and normally are not expedited.

Review articles are concise and comprehensive appraisals of research and clinical outcomes in a field of current interest. All review articles are subject to the normal review process. Contributors are encouraged to contact the Editor-in-Chief Dr. Ram Hari Ghimire via email at editorjonmc2012@gmail.com before undertaking a review in order to determine its suitability.

Short communications are brief, definitive reports of highly significant and timely findings in the field. At the discretion of the Editor, these submissions receive very rapid review and, if acceptable, are published within an average of 2 months from receipt. In general, manuscripts should be no longer than 12 double-spaced typewritten pages, containing an abstract of approximately 100 words followed by keywords, a one-paragraph introduction, an abbreviated Materials and Methods, Results, and a concise Discussion. A maximum of 20 references and four items for the display of data (any combination of figures and tables) will be allowed. Short communications will be reviewed within 1 to 2 weeks. No significant revisions will be permitted. Short communications will appear in a special section at the front of the journal.

Manuscript Submission/Processing Charge
JoNMC doesn't take fee for the submission and processing of the manuscripts from authors.

AUTHORS’ CONTRIBUTIONS
All authors are encouraged to specify their individual contributions at the bottom of the title page or on a separate page. The JoNMC will not publish an item unless it has the signatures of all the authors. Participation solely in the acquisition of funding or the collection of data does not justify authorship. General supervision of the research group is also not sufficient for authorship. Any part of an article critical to its main conclusions must be the responsibility of at least one author.

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST 
A conflict of interest exists if authors or their institutions have financial or personal relationships with other people or organizations that could inappropriately influence (bias) their actions. A conflict can be actual or potential, and full disclosure to the Editor is absolute requirement. All submissions must include disclosure of all relationships that could be viewed as presenting a potential conflict of interest. All authors must disclose any financial and personal relationships with other people or organizations that could inappropriately influence (bias) their work. If there are no conflicts of interest, authors should state so.

UNDERTAKING BY AUTHOR(S)
It is necessary that all the authors give an undertaking (in the format specified by the journal) indicating their consent to be co-authors in the sequence indicated on the title page. Each author should give his or her names as well as the address and appointment current at the time the work was done, plus a current address for correspondence including telephone and fax numbers and email address. A senior author may sign the Undertaking by Authors for a junior author who has left the institution and whose whereabouts are not known and take the responsibility. A paper with corporate (collective) authorship must specify the key persons responsible for the article; others contributing to the work should be recognized separately.

Copyright and Licensing Information
JoNMC applies the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license to works we publish. Under this license, authors retain ownership of the copyright for their content, but they allow anyone to download, reuse, reprint, modify, distribute and/or copy the content as long as the original authors and source are cited. JoNMC allows authors to retain copyright of their content without restriction and grant the journal right of first publication.

Plagiarism Policy
Whether intentional or not, plagiarism is a serious violation. Plagiarism is the copying of ideas, text, data and other creative work (e.g. tables, figures and graphs) and presenting it as original research without proper citation. We define plagiarism as a case in which a paper reproduces another work with at least 25% similarity and without citation. If evidence of plagiarism is found before/after acceptance or after publication of the paper, the author will be offered a chance for rebuttal. If the arguments are not found to be satisfactory, the manuscript will be retracted and the author sanctioned from publishing papers for a period to be determined by the responsible Editor(s). We are currently using iThenticate as a plagiarism detection software.

The process for handling cases requiring corrections, retractions and editorial expressions of concern
JoNMC publishes corrections, retractions, and expressions of concern as appropriate, and as quickly as possible. We follow the ICMJE and COPE guidelines where applicable.

Corrections
JoNMC issues a notice of correction like “Erratum”, when there is the mistake, which can be corrected in the article or “Addendum”, if there is addition to what has been published. 

Retractions
JoNMC goes for retracting a publication if there is clear evidence that the findings are unreliable, either as a result of misconduct (e.g. data fabrication) or honest error (e.g. miscalculation or experimental error). It can be also retracted if the findings have previously been published elsewhere without proper cross referencing, permission or justification (i.e. cases of redundant publication). In case of plagiarism and unethical research, publications are retracted.

Expressions of concern
JoNMC issues an expression of concern if there is receival of inconclusive evidence of research, publication misconduct by the authors, evidence that the findings are unreliable but the authors’ institution will not investigate the case. It can be also applied in the condition that an investigation into alleged misconduct related to the publication either has not been, or would not be, fair and impartial or conclusive. Expression of concern is also issued when an investigation is underway but a judgment will not be available for a considerable time.

Policy on Human and Animal Rights and informed Consent
The authors must obtain prior approval for human subject’s research by an institutional review board or equivalent ethics committee, if the work involves the use of human subjects. The author should ensure that the work described has been carried out in accordance with The Code of Ethics of the World Medical Association (Declaration of Helsinki) for experiments involving humans. The manuscript should be in line with the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals and aim for the inclusion of representative human populations (sex, age and ethnicity) as per those recommendations. The terms sex and gender should be used correctly.

Studies involving animals must be conducted according to internationally-accepted standards. Authors must obtain prior approval from their Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) or equivalent ethics committee. The name of the IACUC or equivalent ethics committee, as well as relevant permit numbers, must be provided at submission.

Informed Consent
Authors should include a statement in the manuscript that informed consent was obtained for experimentation with human subjects. The privacy rights of human subjects must always be observed. The author has to submit the report details on how informed consent for the research was obtained (or explain why consent was not obtained).

Authorship
All authors should have made substantial contributions to all of the following: (1) the conception and design of the study, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data, (2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content, (3) final approval of the version to be submitted.

Changes to authorship
Authors are expected to consider carefully the list and order of authors before submitting their manuscript and provide the definitive list of authors at the time of the original submission. Any addition, deletion or rearrangement of author names in the authorship list should be made only before the manuscript has been accepted and only if approved by the journal Editor. To request such a change, the Editor must receive the following from the corresponding author: (a) the reason for the change in author list and (b) written confirmation (e-mail, letter) from all authors that they agree with the addition, removal or rearrangement. In the case of addition or removal of authors, this includes confirmation from the author being added or removed.

Only in exceptional circumstances will the Editor consider the addition, deletion or rearrangement of authors after the manuscript has been accepted. While the Editor considers the request, publication of the manuscript will be suspended. If the manuscript has already been published in an online issue, any requests approved by the Editor will result in a corrigendum.

Peer Review Process
Research papers will undergo a double blind peer-review process to the subject expert and normally are not expedited. All review articles are subject to the review process. Normally the review process takes 30-45 days for the first review and if the paper comes under revision and if the revised manuscript is sent for the review again, another 15-30 days is consumed. so in total 90 days on average is spent from the initial submission to final decision for the publication of the paper. The submissions are sent to two reviewers initially but if the opinion of the reviewers is contradictory regarding consideration of publication, then it is sent to the third reviewer. At the discretion of the Editor, short communications receive very rapid review and, if acceptable, are published within an average of 2 months from receipt.

Role of the funding source
You are requested to identify who provided financial support for the conduct of the research and/or Preparation of the article and to briefly describe the role of the sponsor(s), if any, in study design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the article for publication. If the funding source(s) had no such involvement then this should be stated.

Open access
Articles are freely available to both subscribers and the wider public with permitted reuse. It adheres to the BOAI definition of open access: that users have the right to "read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles" or that it is open access and applies a Creative Common license.

Language (usage and editing services)
Please write your text in good English (American or British usage is accepted, but not a mixture of these). Authors who feel their English language manuscript may require editing to eliminate possible grammatical or spelling errors and to conform to correct scientific English may wish to use the English Language Editing service.

Submission of Manuscripts
Manuscripts can be submitted via email to editorjonmc2012@gmail.com or can be also submitted via online submission system on NepJOL (click here to upload). The online submission system guides you stepwise through the process of entering your article details and uploading your files. All correspondence, including notification of the Editor's decision and requests for revision, is sent by e-mail.

Referees
Authors should suggest at least four competent reviewers in their field and may also suggest individuals whom they wish to have excluded from the review process. The list of suggested reviewers should be compiled as a separate document.

PREPARATION

Use of word processing software
It is important that the file be saved in the native format of the word processor used. The text should be in single-column format. Keep the layout of the text as simple as possible. Most formatting codes will be removed and replaced on processing the article. In particular, do not use the word processor's options to justify text or to hyphenate words. However, do use bold face, italics, subscripts, superscripts etc. When preparing tables, if you are using a table grid, use only one grid for each individual table and not a grid for each row. If no grid is used, use tabs, not spaces, to align columns.

To avoid unnecessary errors you are strongly advised to use the 'spell-check' and 'grammar-check' functions of your word processor.

Article structure
All manuscripts submitted for publication to the JoNMC should include the following

1. Covering Letter
A covering letter which could explain why the paper should be published in the JoNMC, rather than a specialty journal. One of the authors could be identified as the corresponding author of the paper, who would be responsible for the contents of the paper as also answer.

2. Manuscript
Manuscripts must be submitted online through the website. First time users will have to register at this site. Registration is free but mandatory. Registered authors can keep track of their articles after logging into the site using their user name and password. Authors do not need to pay for submission, processing or publication of articles.

Manuscripts should be presented in as concise form as possible, not exceeding 2500 words, typewritten neatly. Pages should be numbered consecutively and the contents arranged in the following order:

Title
Title of the article should be short, continuous (broken or hyphenated titles are not acceptable) and yet sufficiently descriptive and informative so as to be useful in indexing and information retrieval.

Author names and affiliations: Please clearly indicate the given name(s) and family name(s) of each author and check that all names are accurately spelled. Present the authors' affiliation addresses (where the actual work was done) below the names. Indicate all affiliations with a lowercase superscript letter immediately after the author's name and in front of the appropriate address. Provide the full postal address of each affiliation, including the country name and, if available, the e-mail address of each author.

Corresponding author. Clearly indicate who will handle correspondence at all stages of refereeing and publication, also post-publication. Ensure that the e-mail address and ORCID iD is given and that contact details are kept up to date by the corresponding author.

Present/permanent address. If an author has moved since the work described in the article was done, or was visiting at the time, a 'Present address' (or 'Permanent address') may be indicated as a footnote to that author's name. The address at which the author actually did the work must be retained as the main, affiliation address. Superscript Arabic numerals are used for such footnotes.

Abstract
A concise and factual abstract is required. The abstract should state briefly the purpose of the research, the principal results and major conclusions. An abstract is often presented separately from the article, so it must be able to stand alone. For this reason, References should be avoided, but if essential, then cite the author(s) and year(s). Also, non-standard or uncommon abbreviations should be avoided, but if essential they must be defined at their first mention in the abstract itself. The Abstract should be structured (only for original research as Background, Materials and Methods, Results and Conclusion) and should not exceed 250 words. In articles submitted as Rapid Communications, abstracts should be approximately 100 words in length.

Keywords
A set of suitable key words (3-6 in number) arranged alphabetically may be provided immediately after the abstract, using correct spelling and must be detectable by MeSH browser.

Introduction
State the objectives of the work and provide an adequate background, avoiding a detailed literature survey or a summary of the results.

Material and methods
Provide sufficient detail to allow the work to be reproduced. Methods already published should be indicated by a reference: only relevant modifications should be described.

Results
Results should be clear and concise.

Discussion
This should explore the significance of the results of the work, not repeat them. A combined Results and Discussion section is often appropriate. Avoid extensive citations and discussion of published literature.

Conclusions
The main conclusions of the study may be presented in a short Conclusions section, which may stand alone or form a subsection of a Discussion or Results and Discussion section.

Acknowledgements
Collate acknowledgements, if any, in a separate section at the end of the article before the references and do not, therefore, include them on the title page, as a footnote to the title or otherwise. List here those individuals who provided help during the research (e.g., providing language help, writing assistance or proof reading the article, etc.).

References

Citation in text
Please ensure that every reference cited in the text is also present in the reference list (and vice versa). Any references cited in the abstract must be given in full. Unpublished results and personal communications are not recommended in the reference list, but may be mentioned in the text. If these references are included in the reference list they should follow the standard reference style of the journal and should include a substitution of the publication date with either 'Unpublished results' or 'Personal communication'. Citation of a reference as 'in press' implies that the item has been accepted for publication.

Web references
As a minimum, the full URL should be given and the date when the reference was last accessed. Any further information, if known (DOI, author names, dates, reference to a source publication, etc.), should also be given. Web references can be listed separately (e.g., after the reference list) under a different heading if desired, or can be included in the reference list.

References in a special issue
Please ensure that the words 'this issue' are added to any references in the list (and any citations in the text) to other articles in the same Special Issue.

Reference management software
Most journals have their reference template available in many of the most popular reference management software products. These include all products that support Citation Style Language styles, such as Mendeley and Zotero, as well as EndNote. Using the word processor plug-ins from these products, authors only need to select the appropriate journal template when preparing their article, after which citations and bibliographies will be automatically formatted in the journal's style. If no template is yet available for this journal, please follow the format of the sample references and citations as shown in this Guide. When preparing your manuscript, you will then be able to select this style using the Mendeley plugins for Microsoft Word or Libre Office.

Reference style
Text: Indicate references by number(s) in square brackets in line with the text. The actual authors can be referred to, but the reference number(s) must always be given. Example: '..... as demonstrated [3,6]. arnaby and Jones [8] obtained a different result ....'

List: Number the references (numbers in square brackets) in the list in the order in which they appear in the text. Examples:

Reference to a journal publication

[1] Tjalma W, Brasseur C, Top G, Ribesse N, Morales I, Van Damme PA, HPV vaccination coverage in the federal state of Belgium according to regions  and their impact,  Facts Views Vis Obgyn. 10:2 (2018) 101-105.

Reference to a book:

[2] W. Strunk Jr., E.B. White, The Elements of Style, fourth ed., Longman, New York, 2000.

Reference to a chapter in an edited book:

[3] G.R. Mettam, L.B. Adams, How to prepare an electronic version of your article, in: B.S. Jones, R.Z. Smith (Eds.), Introduction to the Electronic Age, E-Publishing Inc., New York, 2009, pp. 281–304.

Reference to a website:

 [4] Cancer Research UK, Cancer statistics reports for the UK. http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/aboutcancer/statistics/cancerstatsreport/, 2003 (accessed 13.03.03).

Figure captions
Ensure that each illustration has a caption. Supply captions separately, not attached to the figure. A caption should comprise a brief title (not on the figure itself) and a description of the illustration. Keep text in the illustrations themselves to a minimum but explain all symbols and abbreviations used.

Tables
Please submit tables as editable text and not as images. Tables can be placed either next to the relevant text in the article, or on separate page(s) at the end. Number tables consecutively in accordance with their appearance in the text and place any table notes below the table body. Be sparing in the use of tables and ensure that the data presented in them do not duplicate results described elsewhere in the article. Please avoid using vertical rules.

Illustrations
Illustrations should be submitted in JPEG or TIFF format (size not more than 1 MB), numbered consecutively in Arabic numerals with appropriate Title and explanation of symbols in the legends for illustrations.

Photomicrographs should have internal scale markers regarding details of magnification to facilitate reduction in size in final print. Symbols, arrows and letters used in the photomicrographs should contrast with the background.

All published material should be acknowledged and copyright material should be submitted along with the written permission of the copyright holder.

Footnotes
Footnotes should be used sparingly. Number them consecutively throughout the article. Many word processors can build footnotes into the text, and this feature may be used. Otherwise, please indicate the position of footnotes in the text and list the footnotes themselves separately at the end of the article. Do not include footnotes in the Reference list.

Submission checklist
The following list will be useful during the final checking of an article prior to sending it to the journal for review. Please consult this Guide for Authors for further details of any item.

Ensure that the following items are present:

One author has been designated as the corresponding author with contact details:

• E-mail address
• Full postal address

All necessary files have been uploaded, and contain:

• Keywords
• All figure captions
• All tables (including title, description, footnotes)

Further considerations

• Manuscript has been 'spell-checked' and 'grammar-checked'
• References are in the correct format for this journal
• All references mentioned in the Reference list are cited in the text, and vice versa
• Permission has been obtained for use of copyrighted material from other sources (including the Internet)
• Printed version of figures (if applicable) in color or black-and-white
• Indicate clearly whether or not color or black-and-white in print is required.

For any further information contact us via email to editorjonmc2012@gmail.com