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Nursing for Women's Health

Guide for authors

Updated June 2023

To download a PDF version of NWH's Guidelines for Authors, please click here.

Nursing for Women's Health (NWH) is the practice journal of AWHONN. The mission of NWH is to translate evidence into nursing practice to improve health outcomes for individuals, families, and populations. The target audience is nurses, advanced practice nurses, midwives, and interdisciplinary teams working in women's and gender-related health, childbearing care, and neonatal health. Manuscripts most likely to be accepted are those with a robust discussion of implications for clinical practice.

AIMS & SCOPE
Read about NWH's aims and scope at https://nwhjournal.org/content/aims.

ONLINE SUBMISSION & PEER REVIEW
Manuscript submission and peer review occur online at Editorial Manager.

PEER REVIEW
This journal operates a double-blind review process. All contributions will be initially assessed by the Editor-in-Chief for suitability for the journal. Papers deemed suitable are then typically sent to a minimum of two independent expert reviewers to assess the scientific quality of the paper (unless otherwise stated in the Article types section). The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for the final decision regarding the acceptance or rejection of articles. The Editor-in-Chief's decision is final. Editors are not involved in decisions about papers that they have written themselves or have been written by family members or colleagues or which relate to products or services in which the editor has an interest. Any such submission is subject to all of the journal's usual procedures, with peer review handled independently of the relevant editor and their research groups. More information on types of peer review can be found at https://www.elsevier.com/reviewers/what-is-peer-review

ETHICS IN PUBLISHING
Authors are expected to adhere to ethical standards for publishing as outlined in Elsevier's ethics policy. Suspicions of plagiarism or other ethical breaches will be handled in accordance with guidelines from the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

ARTICLE TYPES
Clinical Evaluation & Improvement: Quantitative and qualitative original research with direct clinical implications for our target audience, and reports of quality improvement, program evaluation, and evidence-based practice projects.Include a structured abstract of no more than 300 words using the following headings: Objective, Design, Setting/Local Problem, Participants, Intervention/Measurements, Results, Conclusion. Reports of Quality Improvement (QI) projects must follow the Standards for Quality Improvement Reporting Excellence (SQUIRE) guidelines and outline.

Reviews: Literature reviews, systematic reviews, and integrative reviews with specific implications for clinical practice. For literature reviews, include an unstructured abstract of no more than 125 words that summarizes the main points. For systematic and integrative reviews, include a structured abstract of no more than 300 words using the following headings: Objective, Data Sources, Study Selection, Data Extraction, Data Synthesis, and Conclusion. Reports of systematic reviews must follow the Preferred Reporting Items of Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. For reviews with tables summarizing studies reviewed, see section on “Tables” below for more guidance.

Practice Articles and Invited Columns: Articles that are not original research or literature reviews but those that share new or updated guidance or knowledge that readers can apply to their daily practice in women's and gender-related health, childbearing care, and neonatal health. Include an unstructured abstract of no more than 125 words that summarizes the main points. If you were invited by a member of the editorial advisory board to submit a column, please indicate such in your cover letter.

Invited CNE Articles: Any of the above article types with the addition of CNE learning outcomes and a posttest. Only submit this article type if you have been invited by the editor to do so. If you have an idea for a CNE article, contact the editorial office at [email protected] to check if the topic meets a learning need identified by our CNE Nurse Planner.

Case Reports: Presentation of new information through case reviews of nursing and interprofessional care. Authors must provide written consent from the participant when clinical descriptions make identification possible. Include an unstructured abstract of no more than 125 words that summarizes the main points.Case reports must follow the CAse REport (CARE) guidelines.

Commentary: Opinion or advocacy articles that use evidence from the literature to support a position. Include an unstructured abstract of no more than 125 words that summarizes the main points.

Letters to the Editor: Points of current interest or comments on an article published in the journal. The editor reserves the right to accept, reject, or excerpt letters. Letters should reference published articles no later than three months after publication.

Personal Essay (“Reflections”): Essays written from the first-person point of view that describe pivotal or transformational personal experiences that will resonate with our readership. Suggested word count of no more than 1,000 words. Essays typically do not include references.

REQUIREMENTS FOR SUBMISSION
Manuscripts must be original, not published previously, and not under consideration by another publication. The editor will consider publishing a complete report following the publication of preliminary findings (e.g., in an abstract) or presentations. Previous presentation of research findings should be disclosed in the cover letter.

Authorship. All persons designated as authors on manuscripts submitted to NWH should qualify for authorship, and all those who qualify for authorship should be listed. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content. Criteria for authorship are listed on the Copyright Transfer & Author Disclosure Form.

Disclosures. Authors must disclose any commercial interest they have in the subject of their work as well as the source of any financial or material support. Every author listed on a manuscript must complete a Copyright Transfer & Author Disclosure Form that will be uploaded with the manuscript files in the Editorial Manager system.

IRB Approval. A copy of institutional review board (IRB) approval (or a letter from the IRB chair stating that approval for the study is not required) is required for any research published in NWH.

Note to NIH Grantees. Pursuant to NIH mandate, our publisher, Elsevier, will post the accepted version of contributions authored by NIH grant-holders to PubMed Central upon acceptance. This accepted version will be made publicly available 12 months after publication. For further information, see the Elsevier NIH Policy Statement.

PREPARING YOUR MANUSCRIPT
Double-space all pages, including the abstract, text, references, tables, and legends. Use 12-point font and uniform margins of 1″ at the top, bottom, right, and left. Do not right justify lines. Do not divide words at the end of a line. Number pages consecutively. In the left margin, consecutively number each line of text. The average article in NWH is 15 to 18 manuscript pages, plus references, tables, and visuals.

Use clear, concise writing. Use headings and subheadings to organize the content. Remember that good articles always have a beginning, a middle, and an end. In the beginning (one to two introductory paragraphs), set the stage and tell the reader what the article is about. In the middle (body of the manuscript), provide the pertinent information. In the end (conclusion paragraph), briefly summarize the important takeaways.

Refer to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA), seventh edition, for grammar, punctuation, style, and for guidelines on statistical reporting.

Use person-centered language, such as woman or individual instead of patient, birth instead of delivery, and person with diabetes instead of diabetic. Use generic names of all drugs and products. Report physical measures in International System of Units (SI) units. For examples of conversion to SI equivalents, refer to the APA manual. When a term such as height is noted, both the metric and imperial systems should be included.

If you are an author for whom English is a second language, you may wish to have your manuscript professionally edited before submission. One option is to use the English Language Editing service available from Elsevier's WebShop (or visit Elsevier's customer support site for more information.) All services are paid for and arranged by the author; use of one of these services does not guarantee acceptance or preference for publication.

MANUSCRIPT COMPONENTS

Title. Limit the title to no more than 20 words. Ensure that the title summarizes the main idea of the paper; is fully explanatory standing alone; and avoids the use of the words method, results, a study, and an experimental investigation. Colons in titles should be avoided.

Keywords. Submit 3 to 10 keywords with the abstract for use in indexing the article. See the MeSH on Demand tool provided by the U.S. National Library of Medicine for assistance.

Précis statement. Provide a précis statement for use in the table of contents. This is a single sentence of no more than 25 words that is written in the present tense and states the conclusion(s) of the report. The précis should be similar to the abstract's conclusion.

Clinical Implications. Provide a bulleted list of three to five brief points that concisely summarize and encapsulate for readers the most important clinical takeaways. Every article published in NWH lists these bullets on the second page of the article; see previously published articles at nwhjournal.org for examples.

Implications for Practice. Before the article's Conclusion section, include a section on Implications for Practice. This is where readers learn how to replicate your work and/or apply the knowledge shared to their own practice. The more robust this section is, the better an article's chances of acceptance.

Conclusion. Each article should end with a brief conclusion paragraph that summarizes the main points of the article. No new information should be included in the conclusion.

Artwork and Figure Legends. Image-based (not text-based) figures and illustrations should not be embedded within the manuscript Word document; rather they should be uploaded along with the manuscript as separate native files in .JPG, .TIF, .EPS, or .PDF format. Image files must be high-resolution: at least 300 dpi. Image files should contain the image only. Provide all explanatory material, labels, and captions as text on a page following the Conclusion and label it “Figure Legends.” For help with creating and formatting image files, refer to the artwork instructions provide by Elsevier.

Boxes. Provide summary information, long lists, or links to additional information and/or resources in boxes rather than text whenever appropriate. This helps break up long passages of text and improves the reader's experience and comprehension of information. Do not replicate information in both text and boxes. At the bottom of a box cite sources of information contained in the box, as follows: Sources: Jones (2015); Smith (2018). If the text in a box is taken directly from another source, get permission to reuse (see “Permissions”). Boxes should be placed in the body of the manuscript at first mention.

Tables. Do not include more than six tables. Submit only actual tabular material in table form. Simple lists should be incorporated into the text, and longer lists can be incorporated into a box. Number tables consecutively with Arabic numerals and cite in numeric order in the text. Place tables in body of the manuscript where they are first cited (unless you have a very long table, such as for a systematic review; in that case, please the table directly after the conclusion).

Tables of studies included in systematic reviews should use the following column headings: Author/Date, Participants, Methods, Interventions, Outcomes. Information included for each study should be presented in a standardized manner and be as succinct as possible.

For tables that are not original and have been previously published under copyright, see “Permissions” section.

References. Cite current primary sources only, preferably those published with the last 5 years (up to 10 years for seminal works. Use references prudently. Cite references in the text in the style outlined in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, seventh edition. The reference list also should be formatted in APA style and should include DOI numbers. Identify sources of quotations and all other borrowed materials.

Data References. We encourage you to cite underlying or relevant data sets in your manuscript by citing them in your text and including a data reference in your Reference List. Data references should include the following elements: author name(s), data set title, data repository, version (where available), year, and global persistent identifier. Add [data set] immediately before the reference so we can properly identify it as a data reference. This identifier will not appear in your published article.

Permissions. Long quotations, figures, tables, photographs, or any other material from previously published sources must be accompanied by the written permission of the copyright holder to reuse. This includes any information that has been adapted from a previously published source. Authors must include documentation indicating permission to reuse the material in print and electronically with the submitted manuscript. For complete permissions guidelines, please refer to the permissions help page.

Photo Release. If you submit photos of people, you must obtain written permission from all persons depicted in the photo to use the photo. Contact the editorial office at [email protected] to request a photo release form.

Supplementary Materials. Authors are encouraged to submit any supplemental materials with their manuscripts that may enhance the reader's experience. These should enhance the content of the manuscript but should not be essential to the meaning. Materials can include short video clips, interviews, data sets, evidence tables, additional figures, and so forth, and will be reviewed with the manuscript. If the manuscript is accepted, supplementary files will be available online at the journal's website. For additional information, please contact the managing editor at [email protected].

Research data. This journal encourages and enables you to share data that supports your research publication where appropriate, and enables you to interlink the data with your published articles. Research data refers to the results of observations or experimentation that validate research findings. To facilitate reproducibility and data reuse, this journal also encourages you to share your software, code, models, algorithms, protocols, methods and other useful materials related to the project.

Below are a number of ways in which you can associate data with your article or make a statement about the availability of your data when submitting your manuscript. If you are sharing data in one of these ways, you are encouraged to cite the data in your manuscript and reference list. Please refer to the "References" section for more information about data citation. For more information on depositing, sharing and using research data and other relevant research materials, visit the research data page.

Data linking. If you have made your research data available in a data repository, you can link your article directly to the dataset. Elsevier collaborates with a number of repositories to link articles on ScienceDirect with relevant repositories, giving readers access to underlying data that gives them a better understanding of the research described.

There are different ways to link your datasets to your article. When available, you can directly link your dataset to your article by providing the relevant information in the submission system. For more information, visit the database linking page.

For supported data repositories a repository banner will automatically appear next to your published article on ScienceDirect.

In addition, you can link to relevant data or entities through identifiers within the text of your manuscript, using the following format: Database: xxxx (e.g., TAIR: AT1G01020; CCDC: 734053; PDB: 1XFN).

Research Elements. This journal enables you to publish research objects related to your original research - such as data, methods, protocols, software and hardware - as an additional paper in a Research Elements journal.

Research Elements is a suite of peer-reviewed, open access journals which make your research objects findable, accessible and reusable. Articles place research objects into context by providing detailed descriptions of objects and their application, and linking to the associated original research articles. Research Elements articles can be prepared by you, or by one of your collaborators.

During submission, you will be alerted to the opportunity to prepare and submit a manuscript to one of the Research Elements journals.

More information can be found on the Research Elements page.

Data statement. To foster transparency, we encourage you to state the availability of your data in your submission. This may be a requirement of your funding body or institution. If your data is unavailable to access or unsuitable to post, you will have the opportunity to indicate why during the submission process, for example by stating that the research data is confidential. The statement will appear with your published article on ScienceDirect. For more information, visit the Data Statement page.

MANUSCRIPT CHECKLIST

  • The manuscript is blinded and contains no identifying information, not even in the manuscript file name.
  • First page includes title, abstract, keywords, and précis statement.
  • Clinical Implications bulleted list (page 2).
  • Text (begins on page 3).
  • Each line of text is numbered consecutively in the left margin beginning with the abstract.
  • Toward the end of the manuscript before the Conclusion include a section on Implications for Practice.
  • End the body of the manuscript with a brief Conclusion section that summarizes the main points of the article.
  • Boxes and Tables are embedded in the manuscript at first mention.
  • Figure Legend and Figures follow the Conclusion(figures should be uploaded as separate, high-resolution image files, not embedded in the manuscript Word file).
  • References formatted according to APA style, including DOI numbers, come at the end of the manuscript.

SUBMISSION CHECKLIST

  • Cover letter (submitted with manuscript at Editorial Manager) includes: (a) all author names in the order they should appear in the byline; (b) the name, complete mailing address, and e-mail address of the author who will be responsible for correspondence regarding the manuscript; (c) author identification notes including name, credentials, position title, place of employment or organizational affiliation, city, and state for all authors; (d) a statement that all authors have seen and approved the manuscript; (e) acknowledgment of funding sources for research or significant non-author contributions to the work limited to 25 words; (f) additional information that may be helpful to the editor, such as the type of article the manuscript represents; (g) information on previous or duplicate publication or submission.
  • Copyright transfer & author disclosure form for each author submitted with the manuscript files at Editorial Manager.
  • Letters of permission to reuse content, and/or photo release forms.
  • IRB letters as appropriate.

PUBLICATION
Most articles become available online for citation before the print journal is published. An uncorrected proof is posted online first and is later replaced with the corrected proof.

The online version of NWH is the journal of record on which citation metrics are based. Print issues are published in February, April, June, August, October, and December of each year. Depending on the number of manuscripts accepted and the limited number of print pages available, the editor may elect to publish some articles online only.

Once an article has been accepted for publication, authors can use the article tracking service to track the article's progress through publication. By registering in the system, authors will receive automatic e-mail alerts each time the article's status changes, including links to the article online as soon as it is available. Authors are also welcome to contact Elsevier's Customer Support.

Open Access vs. Subscription. NWH offers authors a choice about how to publish accepted manuscripts:

Open access:

  • Articles are freely available to subscribers and the wider public with permitted reuse.
  • An open access publication fee is payable by authors or on their behalf, for example, by their research funders or institutions. See the open access license page for pricing and further information.

Subscription:

  • Articles are made available to journal subscribers as well as developing countries and patient groups through our universal access programs.
  • No open access publication fee is required.

Regardless of how you choose to publish your article, the journal will apply the same peer review criteria and acceptance standards.

CONTACT US
Questions? We are here to help! Contact the editorial at [email protected] or by calling 202-261-1467.