Contributors are encouraged to write to the Editor about possible papers to be considered for review, and where appropriate a review outline will be submitted to experts in the field for consideration before a full review is commissioned. It is expected that an author or authors have substantial experience and track record in the field that the review is about.

Guideline word limit: 3 500 words (unless an alternative word limit has been arranged with the Chief Editor)

Please ensure that your article includes:

• Abstract: unstructured, of about 100-150 words, explaining the review and why it is important
• Methods: Outline the sources and selection methods, including search strategy and keywords used for identifying references from online bibliographic databases. Discuss the quality of evidence.
• When writing: clarify the evidence you used for key statements and the strength of the evidence. Do not present statements or opinions without such evidence, or if you have to, say that there is little or no evidence and that this is opinion. Avoid specialist jargon and abbreviations, and provide advice specific to southern Africa.

 

Review articles aimed at registrars (residents) and senior registrars in training and junior attending pulmonologists/consultants. 

This will follow the typical format of a review article, with an unstructured abstract of ~150 words but the manuscript will be structured in question format with answers in mini-assay format. 

Typically the questions could be clinical or basic science orientated under a thematic subject heading, e.g. asthma.  The answer format to the questions posed in the review should typically take ~10 minutes to write out by hand. 

The format is designed to be useful to trainees preparing for their respiratory medicine or pulmonology examinations. 

There should be 10 multiple choice MCQ’s at the end (5 choices to each question) with the answers provided in the correspondence section. 

This type of review will typically be written by a group of trainees, ideally with co-authorship from varied geographical regions within a country or across multiple countries.  Thus, collaboration across countries and continents is encouraged.

Reviewers

Authors are requested to suggest 2 expert reviewers who are qualified to assess the merit of the submitted work.  The suggested reviewers should not have any conflicts of interest with any of the co-authors.  Conflicts of interest include:

1. Suggested reviewers from the same institution.
2. Suggested reviewers that have been co-authors with any of the investigators/ authors on original publications within the last 5 years.
3. Suggested reviewers that are currently or have been co-investigators, or co-applicants, on grant awards within the last 5 years.
4. Any type of relationship or link that might constitute a potential conflict of interest (e.g. longstanding friend, a relative, common interest in a business venture or scientific endeavour, etc.)

Thus, suggested reviewers should be independent enough so as to give an unbiased opinion of the submitted work.  Two suggested reviewers are mandatory, and their names and details (email addresses) should be outlined in the cover letter, which is submitted together with the manuscript.