Journal of the Heart Failure Association of the European Society of Cardiology
Guide for Authors
Journal of the Heart Failure Association of the European Society of Cardiology
The European Journal of Heart Failure
participates in the HEART network which is a network of Editors from most cardiovascular journals. Information is exchanged between editors
on a regular basis. The network has recently approved a common ethics standard.
Purpose is to ensure transparency and honesty in
the scientific process that promotes ethical conduct in performance and publication of research
The following will be considered
as parts of this process:
a. Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest for all involved in the performance of research and in
the evaluation and publication process of a manuscript. Relevant relationships with commercial interests should be disclosed according
to the guidelines of the journal's sponsoring society, or, when no such guidelines exist, according to those of the AHA, ACC, or ESC.
b. establish thorough review processes particularly alert to discovering scientific fraud and data falsification, redundant or duplicate
publication, and plagiarism, and to adopt a uniform standard of dealing with authors guilty of fraudulent practices
c. to maintain
confidentiality and embargos where appropriate
d. to create uniform criteria to establish authorship. To qualify for authorship,
individuals must have made substantial contributions to the intellectual content of the paper in at least one of the following areas:
conceived and designed the research, acquired the data, analyzed and interpreted the data, performed statistical analysis, handled funding
and supervision, drafted the manuscript, or made critical revision of the manuscript for important intellectual content.
Authors must
give final approval of the version to be submitted and any revised version to be published. For multi-center trials, individuals who
accept direct responsibility for the manuscript should fully meet the criteria for authorship defined above and contributors not meeting
these criteria should be acknowledged.
e. avoidance of false claims of ownership, priority, by attention to previous publications
f. avoidance of excessive claims of benefits of a product/technique, in the publication as well as with news media
g. noting
compliance with institutional review board requirements and, when appropriate, approved laboratory procedures for animal research, and
that the research conforms to the ethical standards of the Declaration of Helsinki, the Geneva Declaration, the Belmont Report, and Good
Clinical Practices from the FDA, and the submission conforms to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE): Uniform
Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals: writing and editing for biomedical publication (Haematologica 89:264,
2005).
Fast review procedure
If accompanied by at least two full-length and original referee reports, manuscripts,
which have been rejected by other journals, will be considered for publication in the European Journal of Heart Failure under
a fast review procedure. This fast review process will not normally require additional peer-review and the decision to accept or reject
will be based at least partially on the submitted referee reports.
To apply for the fast review procedure, the manuscript should
be submitted with the original referee reports and should clearly state the date of review and the name of the journal to which the article
was originally submitted. The manuscript should be revised in the light of the referee reports from the rejecting journal. You should
include with your submission a detailed response to the issues raised. List each of the Reviewer's comments with your response to each
comment being added underneath each one. IN ADDITION, an exact copy of the revised text from the manuscript must be included
(where appropriate) beneath each response.
The final decision about whether the fast review procedure applies for a submitted manuscript
lies with the Editor-in-Chief. If fast review is refused, the author may be offered the option to have the manuscript treated as a normal
submission, which will include the usual peer-review process.
On-line submission of manuscripts
Submission to The
European Journal of Heart Failure proceeds totally online. Via the journal's homepage, Eur.
J. Heart Failure, the Elsevier Editorial System (EES) guides the author stepwise through the creation and uploading of the
various files. During the submission process, authors provide an electronic version of their manuscript to EES. Authors may send queries
concerning the submissions process, or journal procedures to the Editorial Office at the following e-mail address: G.M.Porter@hull.ac.uk.
Once the uploading is done, the system automatically generates an electronic (PDF) proof, which is then used for reviewing. The review
process is fully anonymous. All correspondence, including the Editor's decision and request for revisions, will be processed through
the system and will reach the corresponding author by e-mail.
Manuscripts will usually be evaluated by at least two reviewers from
an international panel. Editors will make every effort to reach a decision within 6 to 8 weeks of receipt of the manuscript but on some
occasions, due to reasons beyond our control, this may take longer.
Cover letter. A covering letter should include a declaration
that "the manuscript, or part of it, has neither been published (except in the form of abstract or thesis) nor is currently under consideration
for publication by any other journal". You should explain in your covering letter why your paper would be of particular interest to the
readers of the European Journal of Heart Failure.
Author Contribution Form
All authors and contributors should
submit a form/statement (Click
here to download form) specifying their particular role in the study/article. The European Journal of Heart Failure
will ask for signed copies of these forms at the peer review stage. Articles will not be published until signed contribution forms from
all authors have been received.
The following wording is suggested:
"I declare that I have participated in the study and
my specific contribution was as follows:
....................................................................
I have also seen
and approved the final version of the manuscript."
Colour figures. In the case of colour figures, the authors should state
that they agree to pay for the cost of printing.
Authors may supply the names and addresses of three referees to whom the manuscript
might be sent for review.
Manuscripts must be double-line spaced with left and right page margins of 1" or 2.5 cm.
(1) Title
page. The title page should include a word count of the manuscript, excluding references, figures and tables. The title should be
no longer than 120 characters. The names of all authors, including first name, department where the work was performed, authors affiliations,
and the name of the corresponding author with address, telephone, fax and e-mail, should be included. The current addresses of any authors
who have moved since the work was finished should also be supplied.
(2) Abstract. An abstract (maximum 200 words) should
be typed double-spaced and included in the manuscript but on a separate page. It should be structured and include background, aims, methods
and results and conclusion.
(3) Keywords. No more than 6 keywords are required.
(4) Introduction. This section
should provide a rationale for conducting the study within the context of previous work by other authors.
(5) Methods. This
section should be sufficiently detailed to enable repetition of the study by other investigators. If pertinent, the section may be divided
into headed subsections For animal studies, this section should contain a statement that "The investigation conforms with the Guide for
the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals published by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH Publication No. 85-23, revised 1985)".
Human studies should contain a statement that "The investigation conforms with the principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki"
(Br Med J 1964;ii:177).In addition details of the ethics committee approval procedures and a statement that all subjects gave written
informed consent to participate in the study should be included.
(6) Results. If pertinent, the section may be divided into
headed subsections. For presentation of data, figures are preferred to tables. Data should not be duplicated in both figures and tables.
Extensive numerical data should be presented in legends to the figures rather than in the main body of text. SI units should be used
throughout.
(7) Discussion. Four manuscript pages should in general be enough to compare and interpret the findings of the
study with regard to previous work by (other) authors. This section should also contain 1-4 paragraphs dealing with topics that are beyond
the scope of the study. Limitations to the study should also be discussed.
(8) Acknowledgments.
(9) References.
References should be listed in the text as Arabic numerals in parentheses and numbered consecutively in the order in which they appear
in the text. The reference list should be typed on pages separate from the text, in the format shown below. All author names should be
listed unless there are more than 6 authors, in which case the first 3 authors should be listed followed, by "et al". Journal title abbreviations
should be used as listed in Index Medicus.
Regular papers:
Cleland JGF, Erhardt L, Murray G, Hall AS. Effect of ramipril
on morbidity and mode of death among survivors of acute myocardial infarction with clinical evidence of heart failure. Eur Heart J 1997;18:41-51. Books:
McCullagh P, Nelder JA. Monographs on Statistics. Generalized Linear Models, 2nd ed. London: Chapman and Hall, 1989. Chapter in book:
Sealey JE, Laragh JH. The renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system for normal regulation of blood pressure and
sodium and potassium homeostasis. In: Laragh, JH, Brenner, BM, eds. Hypertension: Pathology, Diagnosis, and Management. New York: Raven
Press, 1990:1287-1317. Thesis:
Veldkamp MW. Potassium channels in the heart. Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam, 1993
(Thesis). Abstract:
Like regular paper, but add (Abstract) at end.
(10) Figures/Tables. Figures and tables
should be presented on pages separate from the text. Figures should be designed in a way compatible with reproduction of one column width.
Figures over two columns should be kept to a minimum. Tables should only contain data mentioned in the text.. Colour printing is at the
author's expense. Figure legends should start on a new page of the manuscript, but one page may contain legends to more than one figure.
Tables and Figures should be cited in the text in numerical order. Authors should refer to: Author
Artwork Instructions for more information on preferred artwork specifications.
Full Length Articles
These
should not exceed 3500 words (excluding references and tables) and may include up to a maximum of 8 figures and/or tables and up to 30
references.
Editorials
These should not exceed 2000 words.
Short Reports
These reports should not exceed
1100 words and should comprise a background section (100 words), aims (50 words), methods (250 words), results (250 words) and conclusion
(250 words). The editorial team reserves the right to decide which of the tables/figures submitted are necessary. An abstract not exceeding
200 words is also required for Internet purposes.
Extended Short Reports
An extended short report is a short report,
as described above, but with a conventional "methods and results" section of up to 1200 words.
Letters to the Editor
Relevant correspondence will be considered. This should not exceed 400 words in length excluding references.
Language Editing
International Science Editing and Asia Science Editing can provide English language and copyediting services to authors who want
to publish in scientific, technical and medical journals and need assistance before they submit their article. Authors can contact these
services directly: International Science Editing (http://www.internationalscienceediting.com) and Asia Science Editing (http://www.asiascienceediting.com).
The European Journal of Heart Failure has an in-house editing service. For further details please contact Alison Coletta (A.P.Coletta@hull.ac.uk).
For more information about language editing services, please contact authorsupport@elsevier.com who will be happy to deal
with any questions.
Please note Elsevier neither endorses nor takes responsibility for any products, goods or services offered by
outside vendors through our services or in any advertising. For more information please refer to our terms and conditions:
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/termsconditions.cws_home/termsconditions.
Preparation of Supplementary Data
European Journal of Heart Failure now accepts electronic supplementary
material 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 alongside the electronic version of your article in Elsevier web products, including ScienceDirect: http://www.sciencedirect.com.
DNA Sequences and GenBank Accession Number
For each and every gene accession number cited in an article, authors should
type the accession number in bold, underlined text. Letters in the accession number should always be capitalised.
Example:
(GenBank accession nos. AI631510, AI631511, AI632198 and BF223228), a B-cell
tumor from a chronic lymphatic leukemia (GenBank accession no. BE675048), and a T-cell lymphoma (GenBank accession no.
AA361117).
