Preparing an article for anonymous review

To ensure a fair and unbiased review process, all submissions are to include an anonymised version of the manuscript.The exceptions to this are Correspondence articles.

Submitting a manuscript that needs additional blinding can slow down your review process, so please be sure to follow these simple guidelines as much as possible:

• An anonymous version should not contain any author, affiliation or particular institutional details that will enable identification.
• Please remove title page, acknowledgements,contact details, funding grants to a named person, and anyrunning headers of author names.
• Mask self-citations by referring to your own work in third person.

 

General article format/layout

Accepted manuscripts that are not in the correct format specified in these guidelines will be returned to the author(s) for correction, which will delay publication.

• Manuscripts must be written in UK English.
• The manuscript must be in Microsoft Word document format. Text must be single-spaced, in 12-point Times New Roman font, and contain no unnecessary formatting (such as text in boxes).
• Please make your article concise, even if it is below the word limit.
• Qualifications, full affiliation (department, school/faculty, institution, city, country) and contact details of ALL authors must be provided in the manuscript and in the online submission process.
• Abbreviations should be spelt out when first used and thereafter used consistently, e.g. 'intravenous (IV)' or 'Department of Health (DoH)'.
• Scientific measurements must be expressed in SI units except: blood pressure (mmHg) and haemoglobin (g/dL).
• Litresis denoted with an uppercase Le.g. 'mL' for millilitres).
• Units should be preceded by a space (except for % and ºC), e.g. '40 kg' and '20 cm' but '50%' and '19ºC'.
• Please be sure to insert proper symbols e.g. µ not u for micro, a not a for alpha, b not B for beta, etc.
• Numbers should be written as grouped per thousand-units, i.e. 4 000, 22 160.
• Quotes should be placed in single quotation marks: i.e. The respondent stated: '...'
• Round brackets (parentheses) should be used, as opposed to square brackets, which are reserved for denoting concentrations or insertions in direct quotes.
• If you wish material to be in a box, simply indicate this in the text. You may use the table format – this is the only exception. Please DO NOT use fill,format lines and so on.
• Please indicate under a declaration section at the end of the manuscript, if any AI tools were used in preparation of the manuscript, and upload the output as a supplementary file which will be included in the article.