The journal welcomes contributions for publication from the following categories: Letters to the Editor, Reviews and Original Articles, Case Studies, Commentaries and Contemporary Issues that stimulate discussion.

All articles should be submitted to Dee Beresford, Editor, E-mail: deeberesford@btinternet.com.

Submission Declaration
Submission of an article implies that the work described has not been published previously (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis), that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, that its publication is approved by all authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other language, without the written consent of the copyright-holder.

Submission of an article implies that the work described has not been published previously (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis), that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, that its publication is approved by all authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other language, without the written consent of the Publisher.

Presentation of Typescripts

Your article (written in English) should be typed on A4 format, double-spaced with margins of at least 3cm. One copy of your typescript and illustrations and a disk should be submitted and authors should retain a file copy. Rejected articles will not be returned to the author except on request.

Authors are encouraged to submit electronic artwork files with the original printed illustrations. Please refer to http://www.elsevier.com/authors for guidelines for the preparation of electronic artwork files. Photographs scanned at lower resolution may be submitted for use in the peer-review process, provided that the original photographs are mailed to the Journal Editorial Office for use in the production process.

To facilitate anonymity, the author's names and any reference to their addresses should only appear on the title page.

Research articles and Reviews should be 2,000-3,500 words, including abstract and references. Supporting statements (Conflict of Interest, Ethical Approval, Acknowledgements) are not included in the word count.

Case studies are also welcome and these may be shorter in length.

Contemporary Issues: 1,500-2,000 words. Papers that discuss contemporary issues within neonatal care, and stimulate debate, are welcomed. Authors who have ideas which address issues of substantive interest to the field, including those of a controversial nature, should consider submitting a Contemporary Issue piece. The issues must be current and, although they can be of national agenda, they must have international implications or be of relevance to an international audience. Contemporary Issues should be in editorial format, with no abstract, but with keywords and up to 8 references (following the style as outlined in this Guide). Contemporary Issues should be submitted online in the usual way for the journal.

Letters to the Editor should be up to 1,000 words.

Please check your typescript carefully before you send it off, both for correct content and typographic errors. It is not possible to change the content of accepted typescripts during production.

Papers should be set out as follows, with each section beginning on a separate sheet:

Title page
To facilitate the peer-review process, two title pages are required. The first should carry just the title of the paper and no information that might identify the author or institution. The second should contain the following information: title of paper; full name(s) and address(es) of author(s) clearly indicating who is the corresponding author. You should give a maximum of four degrees/qualifications for each author and the current relevant appointment only. The institutional affiliation, name, address, telephone, fax and e-mail of the corresponding author and source(s) of support in the form of funding and/or equipment.

Keywords
Include six to ten keywords. These should be indexing terms that may be published with the abstract with the aim of increasing the likely accessibility of your paper to potential readers searching the literature. Therefore, ensure keywords are descriptive of the study.

Abstract
This should consist of up to 200 words and summarise the content of the article. References should therefore be avoided, but if essential, they must be cited in full, without reference to the reference list.

Text

Headings should be appropriate to the nature of the paper. The use of headings enhances readability. Three categories of headings should be used:

•major ones should be typed in capital letter in the centre of the page and underlined
•secondary ones should be typed in lower case (with an initial capital letter) in the left hand margin and underlined
•minor ones typed in lower case and italicised

Do not use 'he', 'his' etc. where the sex of the person is unknown; say 'the patient' etc. Avoid inelegant alternatives such as 'he/she'. Avoid sexist language.

References
Responsibility for the accuracy of bibliographic citations lies entirely with the authors. Up to 35 references should be included.

Citations in the text: 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 are not recommended in the reference list, but may be mentioned in the text. If these references are included in the reference list they should follow the standard reference style of the journal and should include a substitution of the publication date with either "Unpublished results" or "Personal communication" Citation of a reference as "in press" implies that the item has been accepted for publication.

Citing and listing of Web references. As a minimum, the full URL should be given. Any further information, if known (Author names, dates, reference to a source publication, etc.), should also be given. Web references can be listed separately (e.g., after the reference list) under a different heading if desired, or can be included in the reference list.

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 Author's 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 (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, J.A.J., Lupton, R.A., 2000. The art of writing a scientific article. J. Sci. Commun. 163, 51-59.

Reference to a book:

Strunk Jr., W., White, E.B., 1979. The Elements of Style, third ed. Macmillan, New York.

Reference to a chapter in an edited book:

Mettam, G.R., Adams, L.B., 1999. How to prepare an electronic version of your article. in: Jones, B.S., Smith, R.Z. (Eds.), Introduction to the Electronic Age, E-Publishing Inc., New York, pp. 281-304.

Tables
Tables should be double spaced on separate sheets and contain only horizontal lines. Do not submit tables as photographs. A short descriptive title should appear above each table and any footnotes suitable identified below. Take care to include all the units of measurement. Ensure that each table is cited in the text.

Illustrations/Figures
All illustrations should be provided in camera-ready form suitable for reproduction (which may include reduction) without retouching. Photographs, charts and diagrams must all be referred to as "Figure(s). They should accompany the manuscript, but should not be included within the text. They should be identified with Arabic numerals in parentheses (eg. Figure 1). Any symbols used in the figure must be identified and explained in the legend. Captions should be typed double spaced on separate sheets. All illustrations should be clearly marked on the back with the figure number, an indication of the top edge and the author's name. Do not use paper clips as these may scratch or mark an illustration.

Photographs
Please submit high-quality black and white prints, clearly labelled, on the back with a soft crayon. Do not use ink.

Line drawings and figures
Supply high-quality printouts on white paper produced with black ink. The lettering and symbols, as well as other details, should have proportionate dimensions, so as not to become illegible or unclear after possible reduction; in general, the figures should be designed for a reduction factor of two to three. The degree of reduction will be determined by the Publisher. Illustrations will not be enlarged. Consider the page format of the journal when designing the illustrations. Photocopies are not suitable for reproduction. Do not use any type of shading on computer-generated illustrations.

Computer-generated illustrations can be difficult to reproduce clearly unless there is good definition and clarity of outline.

Preparation of supplementary data. Elsevier now accepts electronic supplementary material (e-components) to support and enhance your scientific research. Supplementary files offer the Author additional possibilities to publish supporting applications, movies, animation sequences, high-resolution images, background datasets, sound clips and more. Supplementary files supplied will be published online alongside the electronic version of your article in Elsevier Web products, including ScienceDirect: http://www.sciencedirect.com. In order to ensure that your submitted material is directly usable, please ensure that data is provided in one of our recommended file formats. Authors should submit the material in electronic format together with the article and supply a concise and descriptive caption for each file. For more detailed instructions please visit our artwork instruction pages at:http://www.elsevier.com/authors.

Files can be stored on diskette, ZIP-disk or CD (either PC or Macintosh).

Ethical approval
All studies must be conducted to a high ethical standard and must adhere to local regulations and standards for gaining scrutiny and approval.

The work described in your article must have been carried out in accordance with The Code of Ethics of the World Medical Association (Declaration of Helsinki) for experiments involving humans http://www.wma.net/en/30publications/10policies/b3/ ; EC Directive 86/609/EEC for animal experiments http://ec.europa.eu/environment/chemicals/lab_animals/legislation_en.htm. This must be stated at an appropriate point in the article. For information on Ethics in Publishing and Ethical guidelines for journal publication see http://www.elsevier.com/authorethics and http://www.elsevier.com/ethicalguidelines.

Authorship
All authors should have made substantial contributions to all of the following: (1) the conception and design of the study, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data, (2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content, (3) final approval of the version to be submitted.

Acknowledgements
All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship as defined above should be listed in an acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, writing assistance, or a department chair who provided only general support. Authors should disclose whether they had any writing assistance and identify the entity that paid for this assistance.

Conflict of Interest
All authors must disclose any financial and personal relationships with other people or organisations that could inappropriately influence (bias) their work. Examples of potential conflicts of interest include employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent applications/registrations, and grants or other funding. See also http://www.elsevier.com/conflictsofinterest.

Role of the funding source
You are requested to identify who provided financial support for the conduct of the research and/or preparation of the article and to briefly describe the role of the sponsor(s), if any, in study design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the paper for publication. Please see http://www.elsevier.com/funding.

Permissions to reproduce borrowed material
material (illustrations, tables and identifiable clinical photographs) must be obtained from the original publishers and authors, and submitted with the typescript. Borrowed material should be acknowledged in the caption in this style: Reproduced by kind permission of ... (publishers) ... from ... (reference).

Offprints
The corresponding author, at no cost, will be provided with a PDF file of the article via e-mail. The PDF file is a watermarked version of the published article and includes a cover sheet with the journal cover image and a disclaimer outlining the terms and conditions of use. Additional paper offprints can be ordered by the authors. An order form with prices will be sent to the corresponding author.

Proofs
One set of page proofs in PDF format will be sent by e-mail to the corresponding author (if we do not have an e-mail address then paper proofs will be sent by post). Elsevier now sends PDF proofs which can be annotated; for this you will need to download Adobe Reader version 7 available free from http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html. Instructions on how to annotate PDF files will accompany the proofs. The exact system requirements are given at the Adobe site: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/acrrsystemreqs.html#70win. If you do not wish to use the PDF annotations function, you may list the corrections (including replies to the Query Form) and return to Elsevier in an e-mail. Please list your corrections quoting line number. If, for any reason, this is not possible, then mark the corrections and any other comments (including replies to the Query Form) on a printout of your proof and return by fax, or scan the pages and e-mail, or by post. Please use this proof only for checking the typesetting, editing, completeness and correctness of the text, tables and figures. Significant changes to the article as accepted for publication will only be considered at this stage with permission from the Editor. We will do everything possible to get your article published quickly and accurately. Therefore, it is important to ensure that all of your corrections are sent back to us in one communication: please check carefully before replying, as inclusion of any subsequent corrections cannot be guaranteed. Proofreading is solely your responsibility. Note that Elsevier may proceed with the publication of your article if no response is received.

Copyright
Upon acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to sign a 'Journal Publishing Agreement' (for more information on this and copyright see http://www.elsevier.com/authors). Acceptance of the agreement will ensure the widest possible dissemination of information. An e-mail (or letter) will be sent to the corresponding author confirming receipt of the manuscript together with a 'Journal Publishing Agreement' form.

If excerpts from other copyrighted works are included, the author(s) must obtain written permission from the copyright owners and credit the source(s) in the article. Requests may be completed online via the Elsevier homepage (http://www.elsevier.com/permissions).

Contact details for questions arising after acceptance of an article, especially those relating to proofs, are provided when an article is accepted for publication.

Changes to Authorship
This policy concerns the addition, deletion, or rearrangement of author names in the authorship of accepted manuscripts:

Before the accepted manuscript is published in an online issue: Requests to add or remove an author, or to rearrange the author names, must be sent to the Journal Manager from the corresponding author of the accepted manuscript and must include: (a) the reason the name should be added or removed, or the author names rearranged and (b) written confirmation (e-mail, fax, letter) from all authors that they agree with the addition, removal or rearrangement. In the case of addition or removal of authors, this includes confirmation from the author being added or removed. Requests that are not sent by the corresponding author will be forwarded by the Journal Manager to the corresponding author, who must follow the procedure as described above. Note that: (1) Journal Managers will inform the Journal Editors of any such requests and (2) publication of the accepted manuscript in an online issue is suspended until authorship has been agreed.

After the accepted manuscript is published in an online issue: Any requests to add, delete, or rearrange author names in an article published in an online issue will follow the same policies as noted above and result in a corrigendum.

Funding body agreements and policies
Elsevier has established agreements and developed policies to allow authors whose articles appear in journals published by Elsevier, to comply with potential manuscript archiving requirements as specified as conditions of their grant awards. To learn more about existing agreements and policies please visit http://www.elsevier.com/fundingbodies

Authors can specify that they would like to select this option after receiving notification that their article has been accepted for publication, but not before. This eliminates a potential conflict of interest by ensuring that the journal does not have a financial incentive to accept an article for publication.

Checklist
Please check your typescript carefully before you send it off to the Editorial Office, both for correct content and typographical errors, as it is not possible to change the content of accepted typescripts during the production process.

•Full details of corresponding author, including email address
•If submitting by post, original text plus two good copies (and a labelled disk)
•Figures of reproducible quality
•Referenced list in correct style
•Written permission from original publishers and authors to reproduce any borrowed material

Further considerations
•Manuscript has been 'spellchecked'
•References are in the correct format for this journal
•All references mentioned in the Reference List are cited in the text, and vice versa.