INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS

The Taiwan Journal of Ophthalmology (TJO) is the peer-reviewed publication of the Ophthalmological Society of Taiwan. The TJO publishes original contributions on all fields of ophthalmology and related disciplines that are of interest to the ophthalmological profession.
The Journal requires authors to be in compliance with the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals (URMs); current URMs are available at http://www.icmje.org.

1. Manuscript Submission

Manuscripts may be submitted by e-mail to: tjo@oph.org.tw

Alternatively, you can submit your manuscript on a flash storage device or CD-R and post it, together with a cover letter (that includes your name, address, telephone and fax numbers, and e-mail address), to:
Editorial Office
Taiwan Journal of Ophthalmology
11F, No. 32, Kung-Yuan Road
Taipei, Taiwan
Tel: (+886) 2-23146694
Fax: (+886) 2-23146835

1.1. Important Information

• Articles should be in Microsoft Word document format and prepared in the simplest form possible. We will add in the correct font, font size, margins and so on according to the journal's style.
• You may use automatic page numbering, but do NOT use other kinds of automatic formatting such as footnotes, headers and footers.
• Put text, references, tables, and table/figure legends in one file.
• Figures must be submitted separately as picture files, at the correct resolution. Also see section 9.6 below.

(1) Cover Letter. This must include the name, address, telephone and fax numbers, and e-mail address of the corresponding author, and state that all authors have contributed to the work and approved the final version submitted, and that the submitted manuscript, in whole or in part, has not been previously published or submitted to other journals simultaneously.

(2) Conflict of Interest Statement. See Section 2 below.

(3) Ethics Statement. Articles covering human experiments must be accompanied by a letter of approval from the relevant review committee or authorities. Also see Section 3 below.

(4) Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) flow chart for randomized controlled trials submitted for publication. Also see Section 4 below.

(5) Copyright Transfer Agreement. You may use the form that follows these author instructions. The signed statement should be scanned and e-mailed to the Editorial Office.

(6) Articles where human subjects can be identified in descriptions, photographs or pedigrees must be accompanied by a signed statement of informed consent to publish (in print and online) the descriptions, photographs and pedigrees from each subject who can be identified. Also see Section 5 below.

(7) Where material has been reproduced or adapted from other copyrighted sources, the letter(s) of permission from the copyright holder(s) to use the copyrighted sources must be supplied.

2. Disclosure of Conflicts of Interest

All authors are required to sign and submit the following financial disclosure statement at the time of manuscript submission:

I certify that all my affiliations with or financial involvement in, within the past 5 years and foreseeable future, any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript are completely disclosed (e.g., employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, royalties).

3. Ethical Approval of Studies and Informed Consent

For human experimental investigations, appropriate institutional review board or ethics committee approval is required, and such approval should be stated in the methods section of the manuscript. For those investigators who do not have formal ethics review committees, the principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki should be followed (World Medical Association. Declaration of Helsinki: Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects. Available at http://www.wma.net/en/30publications/10policies/b3/17c.pdf).
For investigations of human subjects, state explicitly in the methods section of the manuscript that informed consent was obtained from all participating adult subjects and from parents or legal guardians for minors or incapacitated adults, together with the manner in which informed consent was obtained (ex. oral or written).

For work involving experimental animals, the guidelines for their care and use should be in accordance with European Commission Directive 86/609/EEC for animal experiments (available at http://ec.europa.eu/environment/chemicals/lab_animals/legislation_en.htm); this should be stated in the methods section of the manuscript.

4. Reporting Clinical Trials

All randomized controlled trials submitted for publication should include a completed Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) flow chart for more information (available at http://www.consort-statement.org). This Journal has adopted the proposal from the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) that require, as a condition of consideration for publication of clinical trials, registration in a public trials registry. Purely observational studies (those in which the assignment of the medical intervention is not at the discretion of the investigator) do not require registration. Further information can be found at http://www.icmje.org.

5. Identification of Patients in Descriptions, Photographs and Pedigrees

A signed statement of informed consent to publish (in print and online) patient descriptions, photographs and pedigrees should be obtained from all subjects (parents or legal guardians for minors) who can be identified (including by the subjects themselves) in such written descriptions, photographs or pedigrees. Such persons should be shown the manuscript before its submission. Omitting data or making data less specific to de-identify patients is acceptable, but changing any such data is not acceptable.

6. Previous Publication or Duplicate Submission

Submitted manuscripts are considered with the understanding that they have not been published previously in print or electronic format (except in abstract or poster form) and are not under consideration in totality or in part by another publication or electronic medium.

7. Basic Criteria
Articles should be written in English (using American English spelling) and meet the following basic criteria: the material is original, the information is important, the writing is clear and concise, the study methods are appropriate, the data are valid, and the conclusions are reasonable and supported by the data.

8. Article Categories

8.1. Review and Systematic Review Articles
These should aim to provide the reader with a balanced overview of an important and topical subject in the field, and should be systematic and critical assessments of literature and data sources. They should cover aspects of a topic in which scientific consensus exists as well as aspects that remain controversial and are the subject of ongoing scientific research. All articles and data sources reviewed should include information about the specific type of study or analysis, population, intervention, exposure, and tests or outcomes. All articles or data sources should be selected systematically for inclusion in the review and critically evaluated. The text (including references) should not exceed 4500 words.

8.2. Editorials
Editorials are invited articles or comments concerning a specific paper in the Journal. They should be limited to 1500 words with no more than 15 references. Although editorials are normally invited, unsolicited editorials may be submitted.

8.3. Original Articles
These may be randomized trials, intervention studies, studies of screening and diagnostic tests, laboratory and animal studies, cohort studies, cost-effectiveness analyses, case-control studies, and surveys with high response rates, which represent new and significant contributions to the field.
Section headings should be: Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgments (if applicable), References.
The Introduction should provide a brief background to the subject of the paper, explain the importance of the study, and state a precise study question or purpose.
The Methods section should describe the study design and methods (including the study setting and dates, patients/ participants with inclusion and exclusion criteria, or data sources and how these were selected for the study, patient samples or animal specimens used, explain the laboratory methods followed), and state the statistical procedures employed in the research.
The Results section should comprise the study results presented in a logical sequence, supplemented by tables and/or figures. Take care that the text does not repeat data that are presented in the tables and/or figures. Only emphasize and summarize the essential features of any interventions, the main outcome measures, and the main results.
The Discussion section should be used to emphasize the new and important aspects of the study, placing the results in context with published literature, the implications of the findings, and the conclusions that follow from the study results.
The text (including references) should not exceed 3500 words.

8.4. Brief Communications
These should clearly and concisely describe clinical or technical notes, preliminary experimental results or instrumentation and analytic techniques. Section headings should be: Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgments (if applicable), References. The text should not exceed 2000 words with no more than 20 references. The Editors reserve the right to decide what constitutes a Brief Communication.

8.5. Case Reports
These are short discussions of a case or case series with unique features not previously described that make an important teaching point or scientific observation. They may describe novel techniques, novel use of equipment, or new information on diseases of importance. Section headings should be: Abstract, Introduction, Case Presentation, Discussion, Acknowledgments (if applicable), References.
The Introduction should describe the purpose of the report, the significance of the disease and its specificity, and briefly review the relevant literature.
The Case Presentation should include the general data of the case, medical history, family history, chief complaint, present illness, clinical manifestation, methods of diagnosis and treatment, and outcome.
The Discussion should compare, analyze and discuss the similarities and differences between the reported case and similar previously reported cases. The importance or specificity of the case should be restated when discussing the differential diagnoses. Suggest the prognosis of the disease and possibility of prevention.
The text (including references) should not exceed 2000 words.

8.6. Letters to the Editor
These include brief constructive comments concerning previously published articles, interesting cases that do not meet the requirement of being truly exceptional, and other communications of general interest. Letters should have a title and include appropriate references, and include the corresponding author's mailing and e-mail addresses. Letters are edited, sometimes extensively, to sharpen their focus. They may be sent for peer review at the discretion of the Editors. The text should not exceed 600 words with no more than 5 references; 1 table and/or 1 figure may be included.

9. Manuscript Preparation

Text should be typed double-spaced on one side of white A4 (210 × 297 mm) paper, with outer margins of 2.5 cm. A manuscript should include a title page, abstract, text, acknowledgments (if any), references, and figures and tables as appropriate.
Each section of the manuscript should begin on a new page. Pages should be numbered consecutively, beginning with the title page.

9.1. Title Page
The title page should contain the following information (in order, from the top to the bottom of the page):
• category of paper
• article title
• names (spelled out in full)* and academic degrees of all the authors, and the institutions with which they are affiliated; indicate all affiliations with a superscript lowercase letter after the author's name and in front of the appropriate affiliation
• corresponding author details (name, e-mail, mailing address, telephone and fax numbers)

*The name of each author should be written with the family name last, e.g., Jing-Long Huang. Authorship is restricted only to direct participants who have contributed significantly to the work.

9.2. Abstracts
Abstracts should be no more than 300 words in length. Abstracts for Original Articles should be structured, with the section headings: Background/Purpose, Methods, Results, Conclusion. Abstracts for Case Reports are unstructured, but should include the significance and purpose of the case presentation, the diagnostic methods of the case, the key data, and brief comments and suggestions with regard to the case. Abstracts for Review Articles and Brief Communications should also be unstructured. No abstract is required for Editorials and Letters to the Editor. For all article categories, 3-5 relevant key words (MeSH index terms) should also be provided in alphabetical order.

9.3. Main Text
The text for Original Articles should be organized into the following sections: Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion. Sections for Case Reports are: Introduction, Case Presentation, Discussion. Each section should begin on a new page.
Each heading and subheading should be numbered, e.g., "1. Introduction", "2. Methods", "2.1. Patients", "2.2. Statistical analyses", etc. Use these section numbers for internal cross-referencing if necessary: do not just refer to "the text". Each heading should appear on its own line.

9.3.1. Abbreviations
Where a term/definition will be continually referred to, it must be written in full when it first appears in the text, followed by the subsequent abbreviation in parentheses. Thereafter, the abbreviation may be used. An abbreviation should not be first defined in any section heading; if an abbreviation has previously been defined in the text, then the abbreviation may be used in a subsequent section heading. Restrict the number of abbreviations to those that are absolutely necessary.

9.3.2. Units
Système International (SI) units must be used, with the exception of blood pressure values which are to be reported in mmHg. Use the metric system for the expression of length, area, mass, and volume. Temperatures are to be given in degrees Celsius.

9.3.3. Names of drugs, devices and other products
Use the Recommended International Non-proprietary Name for medicinal substances, unless the specific trade name of a drug is directly relevant to the discussion. For devices and other products, the generic term should be used, unless the specific trade name is directly relevant to the discussion. If the trade name is given, then the manufacturer name and the city, state and country location of the manufacturer must be provided.

9.3.4. Statistical requirements
Statistical analysis is essential for all research papers except Case Reports. Use correct nomenclature for statistical methods (e.g., two sample t test, not unpaired t test). Descriptive statistics should follow the scales used in data description. Inferential statistics are important for interpreting results and should be described in detail.All p values should be presented to the third decimal place for accuracy, unless they are less than 0.001. The smallest p value that should be expressed is p < 0.001, since additional zeros do not convey useful information; the largest p value that should be expressed is p > 0.99.

9.3.5. Personal communications and unpublished data

9.3.6. Acknowledgments
General acknowledgments for consultations, statistical analysis, etc., should be listed concisely at the end of the text, including the names of the individuals who were directly involved. Consent should be obtained from those individuals before their names are listed in this section. All financial and material support for the research and work from internal or external agencies, including commercial companies, should be clearly and completely identified. Ensure that any conflicts of interest (financial and/or nonfinancial) are explicitly declared.

9.4. References
9.4.1. In the main text, tables and figure legends
• References cited in tables or figure legends should be included in sequence at the point where the table or figure is first mentioned in the main text.
• Do not cite abstracts unless they are the only available reference to an important concept.
• Do not cite uncompleted work or work that has not yet been accepted for publication (i.e., "unpublished observation", "personal communication") as references. See also Section 9.3.5. above.
• References should be identified using superscripted numbers, in numerical order, and be placed after punctuation.

9.4.2. In the references section
• References should be limited to those cited in the text and listed in numerical order, NOT alphabetical order.
• References should include, in order, author names, article title, journal name, year, volume and inclusive page numbers. The last names and initials of all the authors up to 6 should be included, but when authors number 7 or more, list the first 6 authors only followed by "et al". Abbreviations for journal names should conform to those used in MEDLINE.
• If citing a website, provide the author information, article title, website address and the date you accessed the information.
• Reference to an article that is in press must state the journal name and, if possible, the year and volume.

Authors are responsible for the accuracy and completeness of their references and for correct text citation.

Examples are given below.

Standard journal article
Chen Z, Fan M, Bian Z, Zhang Q, Zhu Q, Lu P. Immunolocalization of heat shock protein 70 during reparative dentinogenesis. Chin J Dent Res 2000;3:50-5.

Journal supplement
Kaplan NM. The endothelium as prognostic factor and therapeutic target: what criteria should we apply? J Cardiovasc Pharmacol 1998;32(Suppl 3):S78-80.

Journal article not in English but with English abstract
Kawai H, Ishikawa T, Moroi J, Hanyu N, Sawada M, Kobayashi N, et al. Elderly patient with cerebellar malignant astrocytoma. No Shinkei Geka 2008;36:799-805. [In Japanese, English abstract]

Book
Bradley EL. Medical and surgical management. Philadelphia: Saunders; 1982, p. 72-95.

Book chapter in book with editor and edition
Greaves M, Culligan DJ. Blood and bone marrow. In: Underwood JCE, editor. General and systematic pathology. 4th ed. London: Churchill Livingstone; 2004, p. 615-72.

Item presented at a meeting but not yet published
Khuri FR, Lee JJ, Lippman SM. Isotretinoin effects on head and neck cancer recurrence and second primary tumors. In: Proceedings from the American Society of Clinical Oncology, May 31-June 3, 2003; Chicago, IL. Abstract 359.

Item presented at a meeting and published
Cionni RJ. Color perception in patients with UV- or bluelight-filtering IOLs. In: Symposium on cataract, IOL, and refractive surgery. San Diego, CA: American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery; 2004. Abstract 337.

Thesis
Ayers AJ. Retention of resin restorations by means of enamel etching and by pins [MSD thesis]. Indianapolis: Indiana University; 1971.

Website
American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons. Wisdom teeth. AAOMS Website. http://www.aaoms.org/ wisdom_teeth.php. Published 2008. Accessed September 25, 2010.

Company/manufacturer publication/pamphlet
Eastman Kodak Company, Eastman Organic Chemicals. Catalog no. 49. Rochester, NY: Eastman Kodak; 1977, p. 2-3.

9.5. Tables
Tables should supplement, not duplicate, the text. They should have a concise table heading, be self-explanatory, and numbered consecutively in the order of their citation in the text. Information requiring explanatory footnotes should be denoted using superscripted lowercase letters: a, b, c, etc. Abbreviations used in the table must be defined and placed after the footnotes. If you include a block of data or table from another source, whether published or unpublished, you must acknowledge the original source.

9.6. Figures
9.6.1. General guidelines
Figures should have an informative figure legend and be numbered in the order of their citation in the text. All symbols and abbreviations should be defined in the legend. Patient identification should be obscured. All lettering should be done professionally and should be in proportion to the drawing, graph or photograph. Photomicrographs must include an internal scale marker, and the legend should state the type of specimen, original magnification and stain.

9.6.2. Formats
Regardless of the application used, when your electronic artwork is finalized, please "save as" or convert the images to one of the following formats (note the resolution requirements for line drawings, halftones, and line/halftone combinations given below):
• EPS: Vector drawings. Embed the font or save the text as "graphics".
• TIFF: Color or grayscale photographs (halftones): always use a minimum of 300 dpi.
• TIFF: Bitmapped line drawings: use a minimum of 1000 dpi.
• TIFF: Combination of bitmapped line/half-tone (color or grayscale): a minimum of 600 dpi is required.
• DOC, XLS or PPT: If your electronic artwork is created in any of these Microsoft Office applications, please supply "as is".

Please do not:
• Supply files that are optimized for screen use (like GIF, BMP, PICT, WPG); the resolution is too low;
• Supply files that are too low in resolution;
• Submit graphics that are disproportionately large for the content.

A detailed guide on electronic artwork is available at http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions.

10. The Editorial and Peer Review Process

As a general rule, the receipt of a manuscript will be acknowledged within 2 weeks of submission; authors will be provided with a manuscript reference number for future correspondence. If an acknowledgment is not received in a reasonable period of time, the author should contact the Editorial Office.
Submissions are reviewed by the Editorial Office to ensure that it contains all parts. Submissions will be rejected if the author has not supplied all the material and documents as outlined in these author instructions.
Manuscripts are then forwarded to the Editor-in-Chief, who makes an initial assessment of it. If the manuscript does not appear to be of sufficient merit or is not appropriate for the Journal, the manuscript will be rejected without review.
Rejected manuscripts will not be returned to authors unless requested. All other manuscripts are sent to 2 or more expert consultants for double-blind peer review. Authors will usually be notified within 8 weeks of the initial acknowledgment of whether the manuscript is accepted for publication, rejected, or subject to revision before acceptance. However, do note that delays are sometimes unavoidable.

11. Preparation for Publication

Once a manuscript has been accepted for publication, authors should submit the final version of the manuscript in MS Word format, with all tables/figures as applicable, to the Editorial Office.
Accepted manuscripts are copyedited according to the Journal's style and PDF page proofs are e-mailed by the Publisher to the corresponding author for final approval. Authors are responsible for all statements made in their work, including changes made by the copy editor.

12. Publication Charges and Reprints

Authors will be charged NT$2500 per illustration, figure or table that is in color. For manuscripts that require extensive English editing, authors will be charged for the correction of English grammar at US$20/page.
Professional reprints (which include a cover page for the article) may be ordered from the Publisher at prices based on the cost of production. A reprint order form can be downloaded from the journal website, www.e-tjo.com.

13. Copyright

Published manuscripts become the permanent property of the Ophthalmological Society of Taiwan. All articles published in the Journal are protected by copyright, which covers the exclusive rights to reproduce and distribute the article, as well as translation rights. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, by photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission from the Ophthalmological Society of Taiwan.

• Checklist (pdf)

• Copyright Transfer Agreement (pdf)