ADP doc - Supplements - Haematologica

instructions to authorsHaematologica publishes monthly Editorials, OriginalPapers, Case Reports, Reviews and Scientific Correspondenceon subjects regarding experimental, laboratory andclinical hematology. Editorials and Reviews are normallysolicited by the Editor, but suitable papers of this type maybe submitted for consideration. Appropriate papers are publishedunder the headings Decision Making and Problem Solvingand The Irreplaceable Image.Review and Action. Submission of a paper implies thatneither the article nor any essential part of it has been or willbe published or submitted for publication elsewhere beforeappearing in Haematologica. Each paper submitted for publicationis first assigned by the Editor to an appropriate AssociateEditor who has knowledge of the field discussed in themanuscript. The first step of manuscript selection takes placeentirely inhouse and has two major objectives: a) to establishthe article’s appropriateness for the Haematologica’s readership;b) to define the manuscripts priority ranking relativeto other manuscripts under consideration, since the numberof papers that the journal receives is greater than that it canpublish. Manuscripts that are considered to be either unsuitablefor the journal’s readership or low-priority in comparisonwith other papers under evaluation will not undergo externalin-depth review. Generally, this happens to manuscripts thatare considered to fall in the lower 25th percentile in terms ofoverall priority. Authors of these papers are notified promptly;within about 2 weeks, that their manuscript cannot beaccepted for publication. The remaining articles are reviewedby at least two different external referees (second step orclassical peer-review). After this peer evaluation, the final decisionon a paper's acceptability for publication is made in conjunctionby the Associate Editor and one the Editors, and thisdecision is then transmitted to the authors.Conflict of Interest Policies. Before final acceptance,authors of research papers or reviews will be asked to signthe following conflict of interest statement: Please provideany pertinent information about the authors’ personal or professionalsituation that might affect or appear to affect yourviews on the subject. In particular, disclose any financial supportby companies interested in products or processesinvolved in the work described. A note in the printed paper willindicate that the authors have disclosed a potential conflict ofinterest. Reviewers are regularly asked to sign the followingconflict of interest statement: Please indicate whether youhave any relationship (personal or professional situation, inparticular any financial interest) that might affect or appear toaffect your judgment. Research articles or reviews written byEditorial Board Members are regularly processed by the Editor-in-Chiefand/or the Executive Editor.Time to publication. Haematologica strives to be a forumfor rapid exchange of new observations and ideas in hematology.As such, our objective is to review a paper in 4 weeksand communicate the editorial decision by fax within onemonth of submission. However, it must be noted that Haematologicastrongly encourages authors to send their papersvia Internet. Haematologica think that this way should be morereliable for a rapid publication of the manuscripts, so paperssent using our Internet Submission page will be processed in2-3 weeks and then immediately published (upon acceptability)on our web site. Papers sent via regular mail or otherwiseare expected to be processed in more time. Detailed instructionsfor electronic submission are available athttp://www.haematologica.it.Submit papers to:http://www.haematologica.it/submissionorthe Editorial Office, Haematologica, Strada Nuova 134,27100 Pavia, ItalyManuscript preparation. Manuscripts must be written inEnglish. Manuscripts with inconsistent spelling will be unifiedby the English Editor. Manuscripts should be prepared accordingto the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted toBiomedical Journals, N Engl J Med 1997; 336:309-15; themost recent version of the Uniform Requirements can be foundon the following web site:http://www.ama-assn.org/public/peer/wame/uniform.htmManuscripts, including tables and figures, should be sent intriplicate to facilitate rapid reference. In order to accelerate processing,author(s) should also enclose a 3.5” diskette (MS-DOS or Macintosh) containing the manuscript text; if the paperincludes computerized graphs, the diskette should containthese documents as well. Computer programs employed toprepare the above documents should be listed.Title Page. The first page of the manuscript must contain:(a) title, name and surname of the authors; (b) names of theinstitution(s) where the research was carried out; (c) a runningtitle of no more than 50 letters; (d) acknowledgments; (e) thename and full postal address of the author to whom correspondenceregarding the manuscript as well as requests forabstracts should be sent. To accelerate communication,phone, fax number and e-mail address of the correspondingauthor should also be included.Abstract. The second page should carry an informativeabstract of no more than 250 words which should be intelligiblewithout reference to the text. Original paper abstractsmust be structured as follows: background and objective,design and methods, results, interpretation and conclusions.Add three to five key words.Editorials should be concise. No particular format isrequired for these articles, which should not include a summary.Original Papers should normally be divided into abstract,introduction, design and methods, results, discussion andreferences.The section Decision Making and Problem Solving presentspapers on health decision science specifically regardinghematologic problems. Suitable papers will include thosedealing with public health, computer science and cognitivescience. This section may also include guidelines for diagnosisand treatment of hematologic disorders and positionpapers by scientific societies.Reviews provide a comprehensive overview of issues ofcurrent interest. No particular format is required but the textshould be preceded by an abstract which should be structuredas follows: background and objective, evidence andinformation sources, state of art, perspectives. Within reviewarticles, Haematologica gives top priority to: a) papers onmolecular hematology to be published in the section Molecularbasis of disease; b) papers on clinical problems analyzedaccording to the methodology typical of Evidence-Based Medicine.The section The Irreplaceable Image deals with shortpapers containing pictures of particular interest: bone marrowor peripheral blood smears, biopsies, physical and radiographicfindings, etc. No more than three authors shouldsign these papers.Scientific Correspondence should be no longer than 500words (a word count should be included by the authors), caninclude one or two figures or tables, and should not containmore than ten strictly relevant references. Letters should besigned by no more than six authors. Correspondence, i.e.comments on articles published in the Journal will only appearin our Internet edition.Tables and Illustrations. Tables and illustrations must be constructedin consideration of the size of the Journal and withoutrepetitions. They should be sent in triplicate with each tabletyped on a separate page, progressively numbered with Arabicnumerals and accompanied by a caption in English. All illustrations(graphs, drawings, schemes and photographs) mustbe progressively numbered with Arabic numerals. In place oforiginal drawings, roentgenograms, or other materials, sendsharp glossy black-and-white photographic prints, ideally 13 by18 cm but no larger than 20 by 25 cm. In preparing illustrations,the final base should be considered the width of a singlecolumn, i.e. 8 cm (larger illustrations will be accepted only inspecial cases). Letters and numbers should be large enoughto remain legible (> 1 mm) after the figure has been reduced