A journal affiliated to the International Society of Biomechanics, the American Society of Biomechanics, the European Society of Biomechanics and the Taiwanese Society for Biomechanics
Guide for Authors
Aims Clinical Biomechanics aims to strengthen the link between clinic and laboratory by publishing biomechanics research
which helps to explain the causes of musculoskeletal disorders and provides knowledge contributing to improved management.
Scope Clinical Biomechanics explores all facets of musculoskeletal biomechanics with an emphasis on clinical management. The role
of basic and medical science is recognized in a clinical context. The readership of the journal closely reflects its contents, being
a balance of scientists, engineers and clinicians.
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.
Acknowledgement of other contributors
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
At the end of the text, under
a subheading "Conflict of interest statement" 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.
Role of the funding source
All sources of funding should be declared as an acknowledgement at the end of the text. Authors
should declare the role of study sponsors, if any, in the study design, in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the
writing of the manuscript; and in the decision to submit the manuscript for publication. If the study sponsors had no such involvement,
the authors should so state.
Contributions falling into the following categories will be considered for publication and are accepted
on the understanding that they have not been published previously, nor are under consideration for publication in any other journal.
Papers - scientific reports within the scope of the journal. To ensure minimal publication delays, authors are asked to
restrict the length; typically around 4000 words with no more than six figures or tables.
Brief Reports - limited to around
1500 words with minimal figures or tables.
Review Papers - authoritative, well referenced reviews of a relevant subject.
Correspondence - letters relating to matters published in the journal are encouraged.
Authors are invited to submit
to the journal online http://ees.elsevier.com/clbi/. You will be guided through the creation and uploading of the various
files. Once the uploading is done, the system automatically generates an electronic (PDF) proof, which is then used for reviewing.
All correspondence, including notification of the Editor's decision and requests for revisions, will be by e-mail.
Typescripts on
paper may only be submitted by prior agreement with the Editor: Prof Kim Burton, Clinical Biomechanics, 30 Queen Street, Huddersfield
HD1 2SP, UK Tel: +44(0)1484 535200; fax: +44(0)1484 435744; e-mail: kim@spineresearch.org.uk]
Submissions that do
not comply with this guidance will be returned without review.
When submitting a paper you are expecting a number of colleagues to review
your work. As a matter of courtesy you should ensure your manuscript is neatly presented as well as complying with the journal's requirements.
Manuscripts that are poorly presented or do not follow all these guidance notes will be returned without review. • English
language; double spaced; single sided; page-numbered and line-numbered. • A title page including name(s) of author(s), qualifications,
institute and correspondence addresses should be provided. Also provide a word count for the abstract and the main text (excluding reference
list), and give the number of Tables and Figures. • When compiling the author list for a manuscript, please list only those
members of the team who have made a significant contribution to the work. 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.
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.
.
To assist the Editor in accepting a list of more than five authors, a statement detailing the part played by each author must be included
in the cover letter.
The difficulties facing authors whose native language is not English is appreciated. Nevertheless, it is the
authors' responsibility to ensure correct use of English (through a scientific translator or similar). It is also the responsibility
of the author to check the manuscript carefully for errors prior to submission.
• An accompanying cover letter should include:(a) information on any duplicate publication elsewhere of any part of the
work;(b) a statement of any commercial relationships which may lead to a conflict of interests; (c) a statement that the typescript has
been read and agreed by all authors; (d) name, address and e-mail of the corresponding author. •The Abstract should start on
a new page, and must be in structured format. The following section headings (in italics) should each start a new line:
Background, Methods, Findings, Interpretation. Please give an idea of the effect size of the results of hypothesis tests rather
than simply quoting the statistical significance. The interpretation paragraph should explain how the findings add to understanding
of the topic and outline the clinical implications. Abbreviations are strictly limited to universally accepted terms. References are
not permitted. The abstract should not exceed 250 words in total. Keywords should be added for indexing. •The text should
be divided into appropriate headings, e.g. Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusions. Subheadings may also be used, and
review papers may use other formats. The technical basis of new experiments should be fully detailed; previously used methods should
also be described briefly, together with reference to previous publications. Statistical methods should be detailed where appropriate.
•Ensure all acronyms/abbreviations are defined at first use: keep to a minimum. For products ensure the source details are complete
(company, city, country) [All US addresses must include USA].
•Authors must suggest two or more referees although the choice
is left to the Editors. Please supply the address and e-mail address. Papers will be reviewed by at least two referees and their comments
will be made known to the corresponding author.
References: Must follow the Harvard style and should be listed alphabetically
at the end of the text.
Text: All citations in the text should be referenced:
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.
In-text citation styles:
Citations may be made directly (or parenthically). Groups of references should be listed first alphabetically, then chronologically.
Multiple citations to a single point are generally not required and can impact on readability: if unavoidable, they must come at the
end of a sentence.
Reference list: Starting on a new page in these styles:
Journal articles: Van der Greer,
J., Hanraads, J.A.J., Lupton, R.A., 2000. The art of writing a scientific article. J. Sci. Commun. 163, 51-59.
Books: Strunk
Jr., W., White E.B., 1979. The elements of style, third ed. Macmillan, New York
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.
References should be restricted to those that are retrievable through normal library
sources. References to conference proceedings, internal reports and theses are only appropriate when they have been published and readily
can be retrieved. Otherwise the reference should be in-text as (Author name, year, personal communication). Around 30 references is typical
for original papers, though review papers will be more extensively referenced.
Figures: The final reproduction will be either
single or double column; single column is preferred: please scale your originals accordingly. Ensure legibility of all components, and
avoid excessive "white space". All figures to be referred to as Figure 1, Figure 2 etc. Legends to figures to be listed together on a separate page.
If, together with your accepted article, you submit usable colour figures then Elsevier will ensure, at no additional
charge, that these figures will appear in colour on the web (e.g., ScienceDirect and other sites) regardless of whether or not these
illustrations are reproduced in colour in the printed version. For colour reproduction in print, you will receive information regarding
the costs from Elsevier after receipt of your accepted article.
Figures and Tables must be constructed and labelled in such a way
that they may be understood without reference to the text. The total number of figures/tables for an original article preferably should
not exceed 6 for the print version (multi-part figures - Fig X (a), Fig X (b) - should be counted as 2 figures).
Scientific measurements:
Avoid the +/- symbol both in tables and text - use for example "mean xx (SD yy)". Ensure statistical abbreviations are in
correct case and style (e.g., capital italic for P). Use n for number. SI units must be used. Conventions for abbreviations
can be found in Units, Symbols and Abbreviations (available from the Royal Society of Medicine, www.rsmpress.co.uk
). Confidence intervals are preferred over just P values; their use is described in Statistics with Confidence (BMJ
Books, 2000).
Randomised controlled trials
All randomised controlled trials submitted for publication in Clinical Biomechanics
should include a completed Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) flow chart. Please refer to the CONSORT statement website
at http://www.consort-statement.org for more information. Clinical Biomechanics has adopted the proposal from the International
Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) which require, as a condition of consideration for publication of clinical trials, registration
in a public trials registry. Trials must register at or before the onset of patient enrolment. The clinical trial registration number
should be included at the end of the abstract of the article. For this purpose, a clinical trial is defined as any research project that
prospectively assigns human subjects to intervention or comparison groups to study the cause-and-effect relationship between a medical
intervention and a health outcome. Studies designed for other purposes, such as to study pharmacokinetics or major toxicity (e.g. phase
I trials) would be exempt. Further information can be found at www.icmje.org.
Ethics
Work on human beings
that is submitted to Clinical Biomechanics should comply with the principles laid down in the Declaration of Helsinki; Recommendations
guiding physicians in biomedical research involving human subjects. Adopted by the 18th World Medical Assembly, Helsinki, Finland, June
1964, amended by the 29th World Medical Assembly, Tokyo, Japan, October 1975, the 35th World Medical Assembly, Venice, Italy, October
1983, and the 41st World Medical Assembly, Hong Kong, September 1989. The manuscript should contain a statement that the work has been
approved by the appropriate ethical committees related to the institution(s) in which it was performed and that subjects gave informed
consent to the work. Studies involving experiments with animals must state that their care was in accordance with institution guidelines.
Patients' and volunteers' names, initials, and hospital numbers should not be used.
Finite element simulations
The journal
has strict requirements for papers in which results obtained from numerical models are used to draw clinically relevant recommendations
- submissions involving finite element simulations will need to comply with those requirements (see Viceconti et al. Extracting clinical
data from finite element simulations. Clin Biomech 2005;20:451-454. Click
here to access the paper.
Acknowledgement of other contributors
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.
Preparation of Supplementary
Data
Elsevier accepts electronic supplementary material. Supplementary files offer the author 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: 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. In order to allow peer review, it is essential that any supplementary material is included with your submission and/or
revision. It is important within your manuscript to point to the supplementary material on the website, in much the same way as you would
point to a normal figure. For more detailed instructions please visit: http://ees.elsevier.com/clbi/ and click on Artwork
Guidelines. Please upload supplementary files together with your initial submission of your manuscript via the electronic system.
Proofs: Proofs will be sent to the corresponding author by PDF wherever possible and should be returned within 48 hours
of receipt, preferably by email. Corrections should be restricted to typesetting errors; any other amendments made may be charged to
the author. Any queries should be answered in full. It is important to ensure that all of your corrections are returned to us in one
all-inclusive email or fax. Subsequent additional corrections will not be possible, so please ensure that your first communication is
complete. Should you choose to mail your corrections, please return them to: Log-in Department, Elsevier, Stover Court, Bampfylde Street,
Exeter EX1 2AH, UK.
Offprints
The corresponding author, at no cost, will be provided with a PDF file of the article via
e-mail or, alternatively, 25 free paper offprints. 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.
Copyright Guidelines
Upon acceptance of
an article, authors will be asked to sign a 'Journal Publishing Agreement' (for more information on this and copyright see http://ees.elsevier.com/clbi/).
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. Elsevier
has preprinted forms for use by authors in these cases : contact Elsevier's Rights Department, Philadelphia, PA, USA: Tel. (+1) 215 238
7869; Fax (+1) 215 238 2239; e-mail healthpermissions@elsevier.com . Requests may also be completed online via the Elsevier
homepage (http://www.elsevier.com/locate/permissions).
Agreements with Funding Bodies
Elsevier has established
agreements and developed policies to allow authors who publish in this journal to comply with manuscript archiving requirements of the
following funding bodies, as specified as conditions of researcher grant awards. Please see www.elsevier.com/wps/find/authorsview.authors/fundingbodyagreements
for full details of the agreements that are in place for these bodies
• Arthritis Research Campaign (UK) • British
Heart Foundation (UK) • Cancer Research (UK) • Howard Hughes Medical Institute (USA) • Medical Research
Council (UK) • National Institutes of Health (USA) • Wellcome Trust (UK)
These agreements and policies enable
authors to comply with their funding body's archiving policy without having to violate their publishing agreements with Elsevier. The
agreements and policies are intended to support the needs of Elsevier authors, editors, and society publishing partners, and protect
the quality and integrity of the peer review process. They are examples of Elsevier's ongoing engagement with scientific and academic
communities to explore ways to deliver demonstrable and sustainable benefits for the research communities we serve.
Authors who report
research by funding bodies not listed above, and who are concerned that their author agreement may be incompatible with archiving requirements
specified by a funding body that supports an author's research are strongly encouraged to contact Elsevier's author support team Authorsupport@elsevier.com.
Elsevier has a track-record of working on behalf of authors to ensure authors can always publish in Elsevier journals and still comply
with archiving conditions defined in research grant awards.
