AORN Journal Author Guidelines

Table of Contents

Submission Checklist
Vision & Mission of the AORN Journal
Criteria for Manuscripts
Descriptions of the Six Main Article Categories
Manuscript Preparation
Manuscript Submission & Review Process
Editorial Policies for Authors

Download a PDF version of the full text of the AORN Journal Author Guidelines here.

Submission Checklist

___ Title page sample

___ Cover letter

___ Manuscript

___ Clinical manuscript sample outline

___ Management manuscript sample outline

___ Research manuscript sample outline

___ Quality Improvement manuscript sample outline

___ Education manuscript sample outline

___ Literature review manuscript sample outline

___ References

___ Tables, figures, photos, or video

___ Applicable permission forms

___ Sample permission letter

___ Sample photographic consent

___ Signed AORN Journal Copyright Transfer/Publishing Agreement

___ Instructions Copyright Transfer Publishing Agreement

Vision: The AORN Journal will be an indispensable resource recognized for scholarly, evidence-based, peer-reviewed articles that convey standards of excellence and innovations in the delivery of perioperative nursing.

Mission: The AORN Journal provides professional perioperative registered nurses with evidence-based practice information needed to help meet the physiological, behavioral, safety, and health system needs of a diverse patient population.

Journal content supports the clinical, research/quality improvement, education, and management strategies related to the nurse’s role in caring for patients before, during, or after operative and other invasive and interventional procedures in ambulatory and inpatient settings.

Criteria for Manuscripts
Manuscripts should contain timely and accurate information and must not have been previously published in print or electronic format. Manuscripts must conform to the specifications of the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals, established by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) (http://www.icmje.org/).

Acceptable File Formats
Main Manuscript

• Microsoft Word
• Rich Text Format (RTF)

Figures

• TIFF
• EPS
• JPG
• PDF
• MS Office files (Word, Excel, PowerPoint)

Videos

• MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 (.mpg)
• MPEG-4 (.mp4)
• Microsoft Audio/Video Interface (.avi)
• Apple QuickTime (.mov)
• CompuServ GIF (.gif)

Basic Style Requirements

• Feature-length articles should not exceed the designated word count, not including figures and tables (see Descriptions of the Five Main Article categories for specific word counts).
• Author name(s) and credentials should be listed according the American Nurses Association's recommendation
  

  o Education (highest earned degree first)
  ⋆ Optional: if highest degree is not a nursing degree, then the highest nursing degree (not all) can be included
  ⋆ If the author has two earned degrees at the same level, the nursing degree is listed first
  o Licensure (state designation or requirement)
  o National certification
  o Awarded and honorary titles

• Manuscript style should follow the American Medical Association (AMA) Manual of Style, 10th edition.
• Text should be double-spaced, left-aligned (unjustified), and in a 12-point font.
• All pages should be numbered and should include a short running head (ie, shortened title of the manuscript) in the header.
• References should be endnotes, not footnotes; any material considered appropriate for a footnote should be referenced.
• In-text citations should be followed by superscript numbers (eg, Smith1).
• Numbers less than 10 should be spelled out; numerals are used for numbers 10 and higher.
• Standard acronyms should be used consistently throughout the article. All acronyms should be spelled out the first time they appear in text, with the acronym listed afterward in parentheses.
• Generic drug names should be used; however, proprietary names may be inserted in parentheses after the generic name. If equipment must be identified by its proprietary name, the manufacturer name and city/state should be provided.
• Temperatures should be expressed in degrees Celsius and Fahrenheit.
• To ensure anonymity during the peer review process, avoid using any author identifiers (eg, names of individuals, institutions, etc) in the body of the manuscript. You may do this one of two ways:

  o submit one full manuscript with identifiers and one full manuscript without identifiers, or
  o submit one full manuscript without identifiers and a cross-referencing document to indicate the necessary identifiers (eg, "Institution A" is General Hospital).

  
  Please note: If English is not your native language, please seek assistance from someone highly proficient in written English before submitting.

Descriptions of the Six Main Article Categories

Clinical: Clinical articles present new skills or knowledge related to perioperative patient care, provide an empirically or clinically based review of a disease state and surgical procedure, or analyze the current literature related to a topic. Clinical articles may be written in first person or third person as appropriate. The maximum length is 4,000 words. For more information, please review "Suggested Structure for a Clinical Manuscript."

Management: Management articles provide concise, up-to-date information that helps readers understand a perioperative management process, policy, procedure, or issue. Management articles may contain information about trends in management and the surgical environment, changing policies and regulations, administrative issues, and developments in clinical practice and technology that affect managers, directors, and supervisors in perioperative settings. Management articles may be written in first person or third person as appropriate. The maximum length is 4,000 words. For more information, please review "Suggested Structure for a Management Manuscript."

Research: Research manuscripts are final reports of completed original clinical, educational, health systems, health policy, or historical investigations. Research produces new information that adds to the body of knowledge about perioperative nursing practice, management, or education. Research results should be generalizable or transferable to settings or populations beyond the setting and sample of the study. Manuscripts should include the research aims or questions, a brief review of relevant literature, theoretical or conceptual framework, research design and methods, results, discussion, and implications for perioperative nursing. The research design may be quantitative, qualitative, or mixed design. For quantitative methods, justification of the desired sample size and evidence of measurement reliability and validity supporting the investigator’s use of the research instruments in the study being reported are essential. Reports of studies involving human participants must include a description of the level of institutional review board review and approval, and methods used to ensure protection of participants’ rights, including informed consent. All results obtained in the study must be reported in one manuscript. Pilot study results should not be reported in a separate manuscript; they should be included in the report of the main study. Research manuscripts must be written in the first person. The maximum length is 5,000 words. Longer research articles or components of longer articles (eg, tables) may be published online at AORN’s sole discretion. For more information, please review "Suggested Structure for a Research Manuscript."

Quality Improvement (QI): Quality improvement manuscripts describe a project that was carried out at the author's place of employment to determine the best solution to a practice issue. The results of QI projects cannot be generalized beyond the institution in which they are conducted, and therefore are not considered research manuscripts. However, QI project reports should include evidence of Institutional Review Board (IRB) review if human participants were involved, and should adhere to accepted scientific standards for data collection, including evidence of measurement reliability and validity. Quality improvement articles should be written in first person. The maximum length is 4,000 words. For more information, please review "Suggested Structure for a Quality Improvement Manuscript."

Education: Education articles describe perioperative educational practices that are of interest to nurses in academia, staff nurse educators, mentors, or anyone responsible for developing educational materials and disseminating information to nursing students, perioperative nurses, other perioperative team members, and patients. Education articles may be either didactic or clinical in nature. Education articles may be written in first person or third person as appropriate. The maximum length is 4,000 words. For more information, please review "Suggested Structure for an Education Manuscript."

Literature Review: A systematic review is a summary of the clinical literature. It is a critical assessment and evaluation of all research studies that address a particular clinical issue. Researchers should use an organized method of locating, assembling, and evaluating a body of literature on a particular topic using a set of specific criteria. A systematic review typically includes a description of finding of the collection of research studies. The systematic review also may include a quantitative pooling of data, called a meta-analysis. For more information, please review "Suggested Structure for a Literature Review Manuscript."

Manuscript Preparation
The required components of a manuscript are:

Cover Letter:
This page introduces your manuscript to the editor and should include any specific information you would like the editor to know.

Title page:
This page must include not only the manuscript title, but also each author's:

• name,
• credentials,
• current professional position(s), and
• contact information (ie, address and phone number, e-mail address).

Abstract & Key Words:
Include a 150-word informative abstract that follows the manuscript's outline and summarizes the research results (if applicable). The abstract should be included in the main manuscript document and indicated as such. Abstracts should identify the main points of the article including who, what, where, when, and why, as well as the final concluding point. Also, identify five (5) key words related to your article. These key words help categorize your article in search engines after it is published. The corresponding author will be prompted to enter the abstract and key words during the submission process in the EES system.

References/Resources: All references should

• be contextually relevant, pertinent, and supportive of your topic;
• reflect most currently available resources (eg, most current edition);
• be verified and denoted consecutively in the text with superscript numerals;
• be featured in a double-spaced, numbered reference list at the end of the manuscript;
• conform to AMA style;
• conform to the Index Medicus (http://www2.bg.am.poznan.pl/czasopisma/medicus.php?lang=eng) for abbreviations of journal titles; and
• name all authors up to and including the sixth author, or if there are more than six authors, list the first three authors followed by ", et al."Resources that are pertinent to the article but are not cited in the text can be listed in a Resources section after the References. The resources format also should follow AMA style.

Journal article
Mellinger E, Skinker L, Sears D, Gardner D, Shult P. Safe handling of chemotherapy in the perioperative setting. AORN J. 2010;91(4):435-453.

Book
Winkler I. Contemporary Leadership Theories: Enhancing the Understanding of the Complexity, Subjectivity, and Dynamic of Leadership. Heidelberg, Germany: Physica-Verlag; 2010.

Chapter in a book
Bipolar disorders. In: Preston JD, O'Neal JH, Talaga MC. Handbook of Clinical Psychopharmacology for Therapists. 6th ed. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications; 2010:89-100.

Website
OSHA fact sheet: carbon monoxide poisoning. United States Occupational Safety and Health Administration. http://www.osha.gov/OshDoc/data_General_Facts/carbonmonoxide-factsheet.pdf. Accessed November 19, 2010.

Figures and Tables:
All figures, including diagrams, flow charts, line drawings, and photographs, must be cited within the text (eg, Figure 1). Tables should be self-explanatory, include a brief title, and enhance but not duplicate information in the text. Tables and figures should be numbered consecutively according to the order of text citation.

Black and white or color figures should be submitted electronically as separate files at the time of manuscript submission. For detailed information related to artwork, see artwork instructions at http://www.elsevier.com/framework_authors/Artwork/Artwork_2010.pdf.

Image Resolution:

• line art-minimum 1000 dpi
• halftone art (photos)-minimum 300 dpi
• combination art (line/tone)-minimum 500 dpi
• color figures should be submitted in original size.

Permission must be obtained to reproduce or closely adapt previously published figures, tables, and illustrations. Credits for the reproduced work are included in the figure caption and must include author(s), title, either publisher and city (and country, if other than the United States) or periodical name, volume, page, and year. Please refer to the "Permissions and Consents" section for further information.

Videos
Video clips that are relevant to an article and enhance the information in the text may be submitted with a manuscript. A separate page with concise legends must accompany each video clip. Each clip should be saved in a separate file. If the article is accepted, the video will be permanently archived on the AORN Journal web site at http://www.aornjournal.org.

If the video includes music or other copyrighted material, the author must obtain permission for its use from the copyright owner(s) and submit a copy of the signed permission form to AORN.

If the video includes footage of people, the author must obtain signed video consents from each identifiable individual.

Video clips should be between one (1) and three (3) minutes in length, and should not exceed five (5) minutes in length or 10 MB in file size.

Videos should be recorded at the highest possible quality setting. The Journal can accept only video submissions that meet the Journal's formatting and image quality requirements.

For additional information related to videos, please contact the editorial office by e-mail, aornjournal@aorn.org, or by phone, 303-755-6304 x283.

Permission and Consents
What requires permission?

• Direct quotations from copyrighted material.

  o Direct quotes should be cited in the text with a reference number and page number (eg, Smith 1(p345))
  o To determine whether the quotation requires permission, please visit http://www.copyright.com/viewPage.do?pageCode=cr10-n.

• Tables, illustrations, photographs, or videos from copyrighted material
• Any photo that includes a recognizable individual, including authors
• Any facility or institution documentation (eg, form, table, figure, checklist, documented process)

To assist you in obtaining permission to use others' works/likenesses in your article, please review the following:

Sample Request for Permission Letter
Sample Photographic Consent

Required Author Paperwork
All authors (ie, the corresponding author and each coauthor) must complete and submit the AORN Journal Copyright Transfer/Publishing Agreement. On page 1 of the form, authors are required to identify their contributions to the work described in the manuscript and provide signed statements on Authorship Responsibility, Criteria, and Contributions; Financial Disclosure and Funding/Support; and either Copyright Transfer/Publishing Agreement or Federal Employment. The corresponding author must sign the Acknowledgement statement, an acknowledgment is included in the manuscript. Each author is required to provide specific information related to Conflicts of Interest and Financial Disclosures identified in section 3 of page 1.

Guidelines for completing the tables on page 2 of the AORN Journal Copyright Transfer/Publishing Agreement can be found here.

The signed AORN Journal Copyright Transfer/Publishing Agreement should be e-mailed to the editorial office at aornjournal@aorn.org (preferred) or faxed to 1-303-750-3441.

All permission and consent forms, including required author paperwork, must be submitted to the editorial office at the time of manuscript submission.

Manuscript Submission & Review Process
1. Submit the manuscript. All manuscripts must be submitted through the AORN Journal online submission and review web site, also known as EES (http://ees.elsevier.com/aorn/). To access online tutorials that address some frequently asked questions about the manuscript submission process via EES, visit http://support.elsevier.com and select "EES Training Resources" then "Interactive Tutorials." Authors should save each component of the manuscript as a separate document (eg, title page in Word, cover page in Word, photograph in TIFF format). The EES system uses these files to create a PDF of the entire manuscript submission. Corresponding authors who are unable to provide the files in this format or who have other circumstances that prevent online submission should contact the editorial office at aornjournal@aorn.org or (800) 755-2676 x283 to discuss alternate options.

2. Review process. After manuscripts are submitted electronically, the Editor-in-Chief and members of the AORN Journal Review Panel evaluate the article based on accuracy, content, organization, style, contribution to the nursing literature, and originality. Publishing and editorial decisions are then based on reviewer's evaluations and the Editor-in-Chief's judgment of the quality of writing, scientific accuracy, timeliness of the topic, and potential interest to readers of the Journal. The corresponding author will be notified of the editor's decision approximately six to eight weeks after submitting the manuscript. Authors may be asked to revise and resubmit the manuscript.

3. Editing process. In consultation with the author(s), the AORN Journal reserves the right to edit all manuscripts with regard to length, timeliness, and readability consistent with Journal style. An AORN staff editor will confirm that reviewers' comments have been addressed, verify references, and make changes to address Journal style issues. Before publication, the corresponding author will receive an edited copy of the manuscript highlighting any questions that arose during the editing process. These questions may include requests for additional references or clarification and expansion of the ideas presented in the article. The corresponding author will then be asked to answer any outstanding questions and approve the content.

4. Layout process. After the corresponding author has approved the content, the edited manuscript is sent to our publishing partner, Elsevier, for layout. Copyeditors at Elsevier will copyedit the manuscript to ensure that no grammar errors inadvertently occurred during the layout process but editors will not change the content of your manuscript. The corresponding author will then receive an author proof of the final layout of the article.

Editorial Policies for Authors
Authorship Responsibility, Criteria, and Contributions
The AORN Journal adheres to the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals set by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (www.icmje.org). All persons designated as authors should qualify for authorship, and all those who qualify should be so credited. Persons designated as authors must meet all of the following criteria:

• Authors make substantial contributions to conception and design and/or acquisition of data and/or analysis and interpretation of data.
• Authors participate in drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content.
• Authors give final approval of the version to be submitted and any revised version to be published.

Role of the Corresponding Author. The corresponding author (or coauthor designee) will serve on behalf of all coauthors as the primary correspondent with the editorial office during the submission and review process. If the manuscript is accepted, the corresponding author will review an edited typescript and proof.

The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that the Acknowledgment section of the manuscript is complete. The corresponding author must sign the Acknowledgment statement part of the AORN Journal Copyright Transfer/Publishing Agreement confirming that all persons who have contributed substantially but who are not authors are identified in the Acknowledgment section and that written permission from each person acknowledged has been obtained. The corresponding author must be willing to provide the editors with copies of these permissions if asked to do so.

Contributors Listed in Acknowledgment Section. "Acknowledgment" is the general term for the list of contributions, credits, and other information included at the end of the text of a manuscript but before the references. All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in the Acknowledgment section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include an individual who allowed his or her clinical experience (eg, cases) to be included, a person who provided purely technical help or writing assistance, or a department chair who provided general support.

Copyright Transfer/Publishing Agreement. Authors submitting a manuscript do so with the understanding that if it is accepted for publication, copyright of the article will be assigned exclusively to AORN. This copyright release gives AORN, Inc, permanent publication rights for all print and electronic media (including all alternative media currently in existence [eg, Internet, CD-ROM] or that may be developed in the future) and international publication rights (including translations). AORN will not refuse any reasonable request by the author for permission to reproduce any of his or her contributions to the Journal.

A manuscript is submitted with the understanding that:

• it has not been published previously in either print or electronic media;
• it is being submitted exclusively to the AORN Journal;
• the content is not fraudulent;
• any investigation involving human participants received appropriate institutional approval, and evidence of such approval will be provided upon request;
• the material does not infringe on or violate on any copyright agreements or any other personal or proprietary rights; and
• all financial support for the work described in the article and any potential conflicts of interest are declared.

Author-Retained Rights. The author(s) understands that she/he retains or is hereby granted (without the need to obtain further permission) rights to use certain versions of the article for certain scholarly purposes, including the right to use the Pre-print or Accepted Author's Manuscript for Personal Use, Internal Institutional Use, and for Scholarly Posting; and the Published Journal Article for Personal Use and Internal Institutional Use.

The following definitions are related to using certain versions of the article for certain scholarly purposes:

• Pre-print. Author's own write-up of research results and analysis that has not been refereed, nor had any other value added to it by a publisher (ie, formatting, copyediting).
• Accepted Author's Manuscript (AAM). Author's version of the manuscript of a paper that has been accepted for publication and which may include any author-incorporated changes suggested through the peer review process. AAMs should not include other publisher value-added contributions, however, such as formatting, pagination, and copyediting.
• Internal Institutional Use. Use by the author's institution for classroom teaching at the institution including distribution of copies, paper or electronic, and use in coursepacks and courseware programs, and posting on secure Intranet sites for scholarly purposes.
• Personal Use. Use by an author in the author's classroom teaching (ie, distribution of paper or electronic copies), distribution of copies to research colleagues for their personal use, use in a subsequent compilation of the author's works, inclusion in a thesis or dissertation, preparation of other derivative works such as extending the article to book-length form, or otherwise using or re-using portions or excerpts in other works with full acknowledgment of the original publication of the article.
• Published Journal Article (PJA). The definitive final published record that appears or will appear in the AORN Journal and embodies all value-adding publisher activities including formatting, pagination, editing, and copyediting.
• Scholarly Posting. Postings on open web sites operated by the author or the author's institution for scholarly purposes, or (in connection with pre-prints) pre-print servers, provided there is no commercial purpose involved. Deposit in or posting to special subject repositories (eg, PubMed® Central) is permitted only under specific agreements and only consistent with Elsevier's policies concerning such repositories.

Excluded Rights. The author(s) understands that she/he may not use or post articles for commercial gain. This restriction includes, but is not limited to, the posting by companies of their employee-authored works for use by their customers (eg, pharmaceutical companies and physician-prescribers); the commercial exploitation of the article (such as directly associating advertising with such posting); the charging of fees for document delivery or access; and/or the systematic distribution to others via e-mail lists or list servs to parties other than known colleagues, whether for a fee or for free.

Conflicts of Interest, Financial Disclosures, and Funding Support
The AORN Journal complies with the position of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors on "Conflict of Interest." Conflict of interest for authors is defined as "financial and other conflicts of interest that might bias their work" (http://www.icmje.org). Authors are responsible for making certain that their final, accepted manuscript and page proofs provide full disclosure of all potential conflicts of interest (financial or non-financial) and any other pertinent information.

Conflicts of interest. A conflict of interest exists when a professional judgment concerning a primary interest (such as patients' welfare or the validity or interpretation of research) may be influenced by a secondary interest (such as a financial gain or personal rivalry). If conflicts of interest are revealed after an article is published, a reasonable reader may feel misled or deceived. The simplest remedy for conflict of interest is disclosure. In the AORN Journal, disclosure will be achieved by the inclusion of a short footnote with each published article.

Using the tables on page 2 of the AORN Journal Copyright Transfer/Publishing Agreement all authors must disclose if they or any immediate family member have within the last three years had any affiliations that they consider to be relevant and important with any organization that to any author's knowledge has a direct interest, particularly a financial interest, in the subject matter or materials discussed (Instructions are available here). Such affiliations include, but are not limited to,

• employment by an industrial concern,
• ownership of stock,
• membership on a standing committee or board of directors, and
• consultancies, or being publicly associated with a company or its products.

AORN will consider publishing articles written by experts who declare relationships with companies (eg, accepting research grants, honoraria, or serving as consultants). Such relationships should be disclosed upon submission of the manuscript-using the tables on page 2 of the AORN Journal Copyright Transfer/Publishing Agreement-and will be noted in the resulting published article.

AORN will not reject manuscripts simply because of conflict of interest, but these conflicts will be declared to the readership. AORN reserves the right to refuse to consider for publication manuscripts which in its sole judgment may be perceived as biased.

Financial Relationships. Financial benefits are usually associated with roles such as employment, management positions, independent contractor relationships (including contracted research), consulting, speaking and teaching, membership on advisory committees or review panels, board membership, and other activities from which a fee is received or expected.

AORN defines financial relationships as those relationships in which the individual or family member benefits by receiving a salary, royalty, intellectual property rights, consulting fees, honoraria, ownership interest (eg, stocks; stock options; or other ownership interest, excluding diversified mutual funds), or other financial benefit. Financial relationships also can include contracted research where the institution receives a grant and manages the funds and an individual is the principal or named investigator on the grant.

Research Sponsorship. AORN requires that the author(s) disclose any research sponsorship that he/she received to conduct a study or prepare the manuscript for review. This information will be published together with the author affiliation information. Examples of acceptable statements are:

• "The study was carried out with support of an unrestricted educational grant from X" or "This study was funded in whole/in part by a grant from Y."
• The role of the funding organization or sponsor, if any, in each of the following should be specified: design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of the data; and preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript.

ICMJE Form for Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest. International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. http://www.icmje.org/coi_disclosure.pdf. Accessed October 15, 2010.

Iverson C, Christiansen S, Flanagin A, et al. AMA Manual of Style: A Guide for Authors and Editors. 10th ed. New York, NY: Oxford University Press; 2007.

Reviewed June 2013