The Journal of the American College of Surgeons (JACS) endorses the " Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals ," including statements related to "Protection of Patients' Rights to Privacy," established by editors in the US, Canada, and the United Kingdom (N England J Med 1997;336:309-315). The Journal uses the guidelines except where stylistic changes are noted by an asterisk (*). JACS also endorses the revised CONSORT statement (JAMA 2001;285:1987-1991) and the AMA Guidelines for Websites (JAMA 2000;283:1600-1606). JACS also endorses the "Consensus Statement on Surgery Journals Authorship—2006" (see "Authorship Criteria," below). JACS is a member of the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), which has 1,409 Members in 90 countries representing 848 journals (6/06).

The Journal of the American College of Surgeons is a 100-year-old monthly publication that considers original articles in all surgical disciplines. Manuscripts are reviewed with the understanding that the work has not been published by, and is not under consideration at, any other journal. All manuscripts are peer-reviewed and a statistician reviews manuscripts as required.

Manuscript Submission Process ONLINE

All JACS manuscripts must be submitted through the Elsevier Editorial System (EES) website. Select: "New Manuscript." Author guidance is provided for creating and uploading all files and data. The system automatically generates an electronic (PDF) proof, which is then sent to the Editor-in-Chief and to designated reviewers. All correspondence about submitted manuscripts also will be handled by email through the EES.

Types of Articles Published

JACS does not publish case reports. JACS publishes: Original Scientific Articles, Collective Reviews, Images for Surgeons, Editorials, and Letters and, periodically, other specialty articles. Surgeon at Work is published online only after July 2008.

Original Scientific Article: a full-length report of original basic or clinical investigation. Profile and standards for reporting randomized controlled trials ( CONSORT Statement ) must be followed. All submissions of randomized clinical trials, in any phase, requre the CONSORT flow diagram. These clarifications provide appropriate understanding for review and reading. Also, authors are referred to the non-inferiority/equivalence extension that provides useful checklist information: http://www.consort-statement.org/index.aspx?o=1049 . A competing interest statement is required. Clinical trials must be registered (ICMJE Statement on Registering Clinical Trials). Please see the announcement about Registering Clinical Trials and an example of an actual trial registration online and in the March print issue and forward.

Collective Reviews: a comprehensive, scholarly, balanced, systematic review of evidence based literature mentioning all findings; these are not opinion submissions. Submissions should be state of the art science confined mostly to Level I (randomized trials with low false-positive and low false-negative errors, meta-analysis of multiple, well designed controlled studies) and Level II (randomized trials with high false-positive or high false negative errors or both, at least one well-designed experimental study) reporting. Submissions must relate to important clinical subjects and be accompanied by author analysis leading to conclusions. No more than 25 double-spaced pages, although occasionally longer with Editor approval. No abstract is required.

Surgeon at Work: unique information about an operation or a procedure that has an impact on clinical practice of surgeons; a "how to do it" fashion. No longer than 8 pages, including artwork and references, as needed. Surgeon at Work articles submitted after October 31, 2007 will no longer be published in the print journal. They will be published ONLINE ONLY. They will be referenced in the table of contents with an "e-page" number. We encourage multimedia submissions (see below for technical specificiations).

Images for Surgeons: will be discontinued at the end of 2009. Image submissions ar eno longer being accepted.

Letters: should pertain to articles published within one month of the issue referred to. Only highly selected and timely submissions will be accepted; less than 500 words, and 6 references.

History Articles: Submissions may be no longer than 15 double-spaced manuscripts pages (including double-spaced references). The maximum number of figures we will accept for a history article is 4. We do not require figures. JACS reserves the right to eliminate any figures from history articles for space reasons.

Manuscript Preparation Details

Title Page must be first page of manuscript. Provide title of manuscript, article type, name(s) of all authors, including first name, middle initial, graduate degrees of authors, FACS if author(s) are fellows of the ACS, name of institution or affiliation where work was done. No more than 10 names will appear under the title.

Structured Abstract

Abstracts are needed for original scientific articles only. (Short summaries or introductions should be submitted for all other articles.) The abstract should contain about 250 words and conform to "Uniform Requirements." Format is:Background (one paragraph)
Study Design (about one paragraph)
Results (one to two paragraphs)
Conclusions

Describe the problem addressed in the manuscript, how the study was performed, the salient results, and the conclusions of the authors.

Abbreviations and Acronyms
Abbreviations immediately follow the words for which they stand, and must be spelled out completely at first use. Up to 10 abbreviations of common terms (eg, DCIS, HBV, TIA) or acronyms (eg, SPECT, TRISS, SEER) may be used throughout the manuscript. On a separate page after the abstract, list the selected abbreviations and their definitions (eg, DCIS, ductal carcinoma in situ). The editors will determine which lesser-known terms should not be abbreviated.

Text

Original scietific articles are divided into four sections: Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion. Use generic names for drugs and in parentheses provide the trade name, and company. Do not use patient names, initials, or hospital numbers.

Introduction

Provide the purpose of the article and summarize reasons for the study. Give relevant references only, and do not include data or conclusions.

Methods

Describe statistical methods with enough detail that a knowledgeable reader with access to the original data could verify the reported results. Avoid overuse of p value, which fails to convey important quantitative information. Provide details about randomization, describe methods for blinding of observations, give numbers of observations, and report complications. Include a general description of statistical methods and design of the study and specify general-use computer programs used. Define all statistical terms, abbreviations, and symbols.

When reporting experiments on human subjects, provide information about ethical standards of the work (Helsinki Declaration of 1975, revised in 1983). When reporting experiments on animals, indicate procedures followed for care and use of laboratory animals (detail IRB approval).

Results

Summarize data, specifying the statistical methods used to analyze them. Results should be presented in a logical sequence. Do not repeat material from tables in the text. For every key symbol used in the table (*,†, ‡, §, ||, ¶, #, **, ††, ‡‡, §§, etc. ) make sure a corresponding footnote is included. Emphasize and summarize important observations only.

Discussion

Provide new aspects of the report and do not repeat data given in the Results section. Include implications of findings and limitations, relate these observations to other relevant studies, and include implications for additional studies. Link the conclusions with the stated goals of the study; do not form conclusions that are unsupported by the data presented. When appropriate, recommendations can be included.

Acknowledgment

All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in the acknowledgments. Examples include: individuals who allowed their clinical experience to be included, a person who provided purely technical help, writing assistance, or a department Chair who provided only general support. Groups of persons who have contributed materially to the paper, but whose contributions do not justify authorship may be listed under a heading such as "clinical investigators" or "participating investigators," and their function or contribution should be described; for example, "served as scientific advisors," "critically reviewed the study proposal." Because readers may infer their endorsement of the data and conclusions, all persons listed as contributors must give written permission to be acknowledged.

References

Number consecutively in order mentioned in text. Citation number is placed in the text after the name when the reference is cited; if no name is mentioned the citation is placed in the text at the end of the material referred to. [Ex: (a) Meakins and Jones (13) have shown that ...(b) A group of oncologists has proved that if ...(13).] Avoid using abstracts as references. References to manuscripts accepted but not published at time of submission can be designated as "J Am Coll Surg. In Press 2004." Personal communication is cited within the text, not in references. Authors must obtain written permission and confirmation of accuracy from the source of personal communication before submission. References must be verified against original documents; authors are responsible for completeness and accuracy of all citations.

Legends for Figures

One or two sentences should suffice to explain the figure. Use arabic numbers corresponding to the illustrations. When symbols, arrowheads, or letters identify parts of an illustration, explain each clearly in the legend and spell out all abbreviations. Explain, if necessary, the internal scale, and identify the method of staining in photomicrographs. If a figure has been previously published by you or by others, obtain permission and acknowledge fully in the figure legend.

Authorship Criteria

Individuals claiming authorship should meet all of the following 3 conditions:
1) Authors make substantial contributions to conception and design, and/or acquisition of data, and/or analysis and interpretation of data;
2) Authors participate in drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and
3) Authors give final approval of the version to be submitted and any revised version to be published.

Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content. Allowing one's name to appear as an author without having contributed significantly to the study or adding the name of an individual who has not contributed or who has not agreed to the work in its current form is considered a breech of appropriate authorship.

Each author's contribution to the intellectual content of the paper must be included on the Author Contribution form, available online, when submitting a new manuscript.

Competing Interests

Disclose in detail at the time of submission all competing interests; a Competing Interests form is available online. Include all affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in, or in financial competition with, the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. Certify that all financial and material support for this research and work are clearly identified in the manuscript. Acknowledge any grant support.

Tables

Submit tables as part of the manuscript. Submit no more than five tables, double-spaced, on separate pages, and number tables in arabic numbers consecutively in order of text citation. Provide a brief title. Each column must have heading. Put all explanatory matter in footnotes, including an explanation for all nonstandard abbreviations used in table.

If a table contains data from previously published material, published by you or by others, obtain permission and acknowledge fully in table footnote.

Figure and Video Submission

Figures

Submit figures online in a separate files in EPS, JPEG, or TIFF format (not embedded in the manuscript document). Color figures are welcome and will appear at no cost to authors. If a figure has been previously published, by your or by others, obtain permission and acknowledge fully in the figure legend. Remove all patient identifying marks (Protection of Patients' Rights to Privacy).

Videos and Computer Graphics

Supplementary movies or animation files should be provided in one of the formats listed below to ensure that the majority of potential users have the best chance of being able to access, view, or play the data both now and in the future. Recommended upper limit: for ease of download, the recommended upper limit for the size of a single file is 10 MB.

Formats for Movies and Animation

• MPEG (*.mpg): Preferred movie format; MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 format required; highest possible quality required.
• Apple QuickTime (*.mov): Acceptable movie format; highest possible quality required.
• Microsoft Audio/Video Interlaced format (*.avi): Acceptable movie format; highest possible quality required.
• Compuserve GIF (*.gif): Preferred format for animation of rasterized (pixel-based) images; highest possible quality required.

Remove all patient identifying marks (Protection of Patients' Rights to Privacy).

Updated May 2009