Diagnostic Microbiology and Infectious Disease

Instructions to Authors

As of 01 June 2005, all new manuscripts must be submitted through theDiagnostic Microbiology and Infectious Disease online submission and reviewWeb site (http://ees.elsevier.com/dmid/ ). Authors are requested to submitthe text, tables, and artwork in electronic form (not as a PDF ) to this address. In an accompanyingletter, authors should state that the manuscript, or parts of it, havenot been and will not be submitted elsewhere for publication. Authors arehighly encouraged to include a list of three or more potential reviewers fortheir manuscript, with complete contact information.

Submission items include a cover letter (save as a separate file for upload), suggested reviewers, themanuscript (including title page, abstract, manuscript text, references, andtable/figure legends), tables, and figures. Revised manuscripts should also beaccompanied by a unique file (separate from the covering letter) with responsesto reviewers' comments. The preferred order of files is as follows: cover letter,suggested reviewers, response to reviews (revised manuscripts only), manuscript file(s), table(s),figure(s). Files should be labeled with appropriate and descriptive file names(e.g., SmithText.doc, Fig1.eps, Tables3.doc). Upload text, tables and graphicsas separate files. (You can compress multiple figure files into a Zip file and upload that in one step; the system will then unpack the files and prompt you to name each figure.) Do not import figures or tables into the text document and do not upload your text as a PDF.Complete instructions for electronic artwork submission can be found on theAuthor Gateway, accessible through the journal home page. Your figures will be tested by an artwork quality check tool; you will be asked to view the results before you can complete your submission. Your figures can move into review if not up to production standards, but you should be prepared to provide better quality figures should we express interest in your manuscript.

Authors who are unable to provide an electronic version or have othercircumstances that prevent online submission must contact the Editorsprior to submission to discuss alternate options. The Publisher andEditors regret that they are not able to consider submissions that do notfollow these procedures.

Please note, although the Elsevier Editorial System Registration page asks if you are available for reviews, we are not currently seeking new reviewers as members of the Editorial Board. All other correspondence should be addressed to the Editor in Chief:Ronald N. Jones, M.D., Editorial Office, Diagnostic Microbiology and InfectiousDisease, Suite A, 345 Beaver Kreek Centre, North Liberty, Iowa 52317, USA.

Manuscripts

Papers may be submitted that are full-length articles (including subject review articles), orshort notes. Manuscripts are accepted with the understanding that they are original, unpublishedwork and are not being submitted elsewhere. All manuscripts are subjected to peer review by theeditors, by members of the Editorial Board, or by other qualified reviewers.

Papers must be accompanied by a letter signed by the corresponding author indicating thatthey have read and are familiar with the current "Instructions to Authors" (published ineach issue) and will comply with the instructions and stated conditions. The letter should indicatethat all of the named authors and acknowledged parties have agreed to the submitted draft of thepaper or, as providers of personal communications, have consented to their inclusion, and that thecontent/submission is original/unpublished and has not been simultaneously submitted to anothermedical journal. Furthermore, previous or other publication of any or part of the content of themanuscript (including conference or congress proceedings, letters, and brief communications)must be declared on the title page. Failure to comply with the above mentioned policies mayresult in a 3-year suspension of publishing privileges in this journal.

Manuscripts should be submitted via the Elsevier Editorial System, in English, double-spaced, and, where appropriate, divided into Introduction; Materials and Methods,which should include sufficient technical information so that experiments can be repeated andwhich should give sources of unusual chemicals, reagents, equipment, or microbial strains;Results, which should describe the design of the experiments as well as the resultsusing text, tables, or figures; and Discussion, which should provide an interpretation ofthe results in relation to previously published work. An abstract is required for allpapers; it should be 150 words or less for full-length papers and 50 words or less for notes. Papers for the Notes category, which is intended for the presentation of brief observations(including instructive case reports), that do not warrant full-length papers, should not contain anysection heading and should not exceed 1,000 words.

The first page of the manuscript should include: title, running title of not more than 45characters and spaces, full names of all authors, address of the institution at which the work was performed, and the corresponding author's full address, telephone number, and FAX number. Any change of address by any of the authors should also be noted. Any footnotes to the textshould be numbered using Arabic numerals and should be typed on the page of the manuscript onwhich they are referred to.

Tables

Tables should be on separate files and numbered using Arabic numerals. Each tableshould have a brief title with detailed information appearing as footnotes bearing superscript,lower-case letters. Vertical rules should be avoided.

References

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 should not be in the reference list, but may be mentioned in the text. Citation of a reference as 'in press' implies that the item has been accepted for publication. Diagnostic Microbiology and Infectious Disease uses the standard 'Vancouver' system with name and year in the text.

Text: All citations in the text should refer to:
1. Single author: the author's name (without initials, unless there is ambiguity) and the year of publication;
2. Two authors: both authors' names and the year of publication;
3. Three or more authors: first author's name followed by 'et al.' and the year of publication.

Citations may be made directly (or parenthetically). Groups of references should be listed first alphabetically, then chronologically.
Examples: "as demonstrated in wheat (Allan, 1996a, 1996b, 1999; Allan and Jones, 1995). Kramer et al. (2000) have recently shown ...."

List: References should be arranged first alphabetically and then further sorted chronologically if necessary. More than one reference from the same author(s) in the same year must be identified by the letters "a", "b", "c", etc., placed after the year of publication.

Examples:
Reference to a journal publication: Van der Geer J, Hanraads JAJ, Lupton RA. The art of writing a scientific article. J Sci Commun 2000;163:51-9.
Reference to a book: Strunk Jr W, White EB. The elements of style. 3rd ed. New York: Macmillan, 1979.
Reference to a chapter in an edited book: Mettam GR, Adams LB. How to prepare an electronic version of your article. In: Jones BS, Smith RZ, editors. Introduction to the electronic age. New York: E-Publishing Inc.; 1994. p. 281-304.

Note shortened form for last page number. e.g., 51-9, and that for more than 6 authors the first 6 should be listed followed by 'et al.' For further details you are referred to "Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts submitted to Biomedical Journals" (J Am Med Assoc 1997;277:927-34), see also http://www.nlm.nih.gov/tsd/serials/terms_cond.html

Figures

All manuscripts must be accompanied by complete artwork. Each figure must be on a separate file. Electron micrographs should beof sufficient contrast to withstand reduction and printing at the journal page size. The cost ofprinting color photographs must be borne by the author. Any graphs, charts, or diagrams shouldbe finished drawings, using type size large enough to be read easily when reduced to page size.

Open Access
This journal offers authors two choices to publish their research;
1. Open Access
• Articles are freely available to both subscribers and the wider public with permitted reuse
• An Open Access publication fee is payable by authors or their research funder
2. Subscription
• Articles are made available to subscribers as well as developing countries and patient groups through our access programs (http://www.elsevier.com/access)
• No Open Access publication fee

All articles published Open Access will be immediately and permanently free for everyone to read and download. Permitted reuse is defined by your choice of one of the following Creative Commons user licenses:

Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA): for non-commercial purposes, lets others distribute and copy the article, to create extracts, abstracts and other revised versions, adaptations or derivative works of or from an article (such as a translation), to include in a collective work (such as an anthology), to text and data mine the article, as long as they credit the author(s), do not represent the author as endorsing their adaptation of the article, do not modify the article in such a way as to damage the author's honor or reputation, and license their new adaptations or creations under identical terms (CC BY NC SA).

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (CC-BY-NC-ND): for non-commercial purposes, lets others distribute and copy the article, and to include in a collective work (such as an anthology), as long as they credit the author(s) and provided they do not alter or modify the article.

Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY): available only for authors funded by organizations with which we have established an agreement with. For a full list please see www.elsevier.com/fundingbodies

Elsevier has established agreements with funding bodies. This ensures authors can comply with funding body Open Access requirements, including specific user licenses, such as CC-BY. Some authors may also be reimbursed for associated publication fees. www.elsevier.com/fundingbodies

To provide Open Access, this journal has a publication fee which needs to be met by the authors or their research funders for each article published Open Access. Your publication choice will have no effect on the peer review process or acceptance of submitted articles.

The Open Access publication fee for this journal is $USD 2,500, excluding taxes.

Learn more about Elsevier's pricing policy www.elsevier.com/openaccesspricing

Proofs and Reprints

The corresponding author will receive page proofs, which should be corrected and returned within 48 hours of receipt. Corrections are limited to printer's errorsand no substantial author's changes will be made. Reprints may be ordered at the price listed onthe order form accompanying the proofs.

Style and Nomenclature

Authors should use the CBE (Council of Biology Editors) StyleManual, 5th ed., as a general guide for style. The names of chemical compounds shouldconform with Chemical Abstracts and its indexes or The Merck Index,11th ed. Enzymes and biochemical terms should bear the recommended, trivial name listed in thelatest edition of Enzyme Nomenclature. Whenever possible, use generic drug names. Binary names consisting of a generic name and a species name must be used for allmicroorganisms. Names of general and higher categories may be used alone. However, a speciesname must be preceded by the complete generic name the first time that it is used in themanuscript. Following this, the generic name should be abbreviated to the initial capital letter (forexample, S. aureus), provided there can be no confusion with other genera oforganisms used in the paper. The nomenclature for bacteria should follow well-established references such as Bergey's Manual of Determinative Bacteriology (current edition) or the Manual of Clinical Microbiology, 8th ed., or validation lists and specific articles published in the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology since January 1, 1989. Informative web sites are available as well (http://www.dsmz.de/bactnom/bactname.htm and http://www.bacterio.cict.fr ).

Nomenclature and classifications of fungi and yeasts are the responsibility of the manuscript authors as guided by published sources such as Ainsworth and Bisby's Dictionary of the Fungi, 9th ed. (2001) and The Yeasts: A Taxonomic Study, 4th ed. (1998).

Names used for viruses should be those listed in the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses publication (Virus Taxonomy: Classification and Nomenclature of Viruses: Seventh Report of the International Committee of Taxonomy and Viruses, 2000). Synonyms may be used in parentheses when the name is first used in conjunction with the approved generic (or group) and family names.

Copyright

Upon acceptance of an article by the journal, the author(s) will be asked to transfer copyrightof the article to the publisher. This transfer will insure the widest possible dissemination ofinformation under the US copyright law. Unless this agreement is executed, the journal will notpublish the manuscript.

Updated July 2008