Guide for Authors
•
Guide to Online Submission
•
Information
for Authors
Guide to Online Submission
All manuscripts, including letters to the editor, replies to the editor, and correspondence,
must be submitted
online via the Elsevier Editorial System (EES) web site. Go to
http://ees.elsevier.com/jcrs and select "log in." You
will immediately see the screen "Elsevier Editorial System Log-In." You will be asked for your username and password. If you have not
yet registered, you will see a place to do so. If you are registered, type in your username and password and click on author login. You
will be guided step-by-step through the creation and uploading of various files including the manuscript, synopsis, figures, and tables.
Once the uploading is complete, the system will automatically generate an electronic (PDF) proof, which is used for reviewing. All correspondence
regarding submitted manuscripts will be handled via e-mail through EES.
The article must be in
12-point type, double-spaced, with
1-inch margins (with all pages numbered consecutively). It should follow the general instructions for authors about content and style.
The text should use the wrap-around-end-of-line feature; ie, returns at the end of paragraphs only. Place 2 returns after every element
such as title, headings, paragraph.
Please do NOT use a citation generaling program (e.g., End Notes), or any automatically generated
numbering or bulleting systems or hidden text (eg, for footnotes, lists).
See the
JCRS Information for Authors for
descriptions of the content and format of each type of article (full length article, case report, technique, review/update, letter, correspondence).
Manuscripts with incorrect formating will be returned unreviewed for modifications.
Files Required for New Submission
The following files
must be included with each submission. The files should be in the following order:
Manuscript File
(with the Following Items)
1. Title page: The title of the paper should be short and specific. A short running head should
also be provided. The title page should include the following: (1) each author's full name (ie, first name, middle initial if used, and
last name) and no more than 4 degrees (only first 4 will be published); (2) affiliation of each author; (3) if presented at a meeting,
provide the exact name of meeting and city, country, and month and year of the meeting; (4) sources of public and private financial support,
including organization's name, city, and country; (5) statement about the authors' financial or proprietary interest in a product, method,
or material, or lack thereof; and (6) name and address of author to receive reprint requests.
2. Abstract: This should follow the
title page.
3. Text of the article, including the references. If there are figures, the figure legends must follow the references.
(The figures themselves go in a separate file.)
Synopsis File
A synopsis is required for full-length articles
and review/date articles, but not for case reports or techniques. The synopsis goes in the table of contents. It should be
no more
than 30 words and should describe the main finding(s) of the paper and the significance but should not duplicate the abstract conclusion.
Figure File
Each figure should be attached in a separate file. (All figures legends should be in the manuscript
file, not with the figure itself.) The preferred formats are TIF or EPS (jpg and gif formats are more suitable for viewing on the Web,
not for print) at the standard resolutions (ie, 300 dpi for photos - final size in print journal; 1200 dpi for line art).
Table
File
All tables can be in 1 file. Include the legends with the tables.
Video File
Preferred video
files are MPEG-4 video/MP3 audio. If another format file is used, the typesetter will have to convert it to .mpg format so it can be
accepted by the online platforms.
Elsevier recommends 10 MB as the optimal size as this ensures that end users are able to download
and view files in a reasonable timeframe. Elsevier can handle up to 160 MB but anything more than that will have to be compressed for
conversion as a zip file, meaning the video will be online as a .zip file.
REMINDERS FOR SUBMITTING A NEW MANUSCRIPT
Abstract is required in 2 places: at the beginning of the submission process,
where requested; in the manuscript file, following the title page.
-
Techniques and case reports: 150-word descriptive
abstract
Full length articles: 250-word structured abstract
Text must be submitted
as a Word (.doc) file, not as a PDF.
Figures and tables should not be embedded in the text; they must be submitted as separate
figure and table files.
Figure legends should be included in the manuscript file, following the references.
Synopsis
(required for full length articles and review/update articles) should be no more than 30 words.
Files Required for Revised
Submission
The following files must be included, in the order given, with a revised submission:
Revision Notes
Indicate the specific changes that were made to the submission.
Revised Manuscript with Highlighted Changes
Highlight all the changes that were made to the text.
Revised Manuscript (without highlighting)
Do not include
any highlighting or notations in this file as it is the one that will be used for production purposes.
Synopsis File
Include the synopsis even if it is the same as the one in the first submission.
Figure File
Attach the figures
even if they are the same as the ones in the new submission. (The figure legends should be in the revised manuscript files.)
Table
File
Attach the tables with their legends even if they are the same as those in the new submission.
Technical Support
If you need technical support with the online system, please contact
authorsupport@elsevier.com.
Information
for Authors
The Journal of Cataract & Refractive Surgery is produced by the American Society of Cataract and
Refractive Surgery and the
European Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgeons.
The Journal of Cataract & Refractive Surgery is published by Elsevier Science Inc., New York, NY, USA.
Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted via the online submission system at www.jcrsjournal.org.
See the Guide to Online Submission for specific submission instructions.
Manuscripts submitted to the journal must be original
material that has not been published or accepted for publication, in whole or in part, in English or in another language, elsewhere.
All papers are submitted to an international panel for peer review. Criteria for editorial review include suitability of subject matter,
originality of content contribution to the field, and timeliness.
Manuscript Preparation
The title of the paper should be
short and specific. A short running head should also be provided.
The title page should include the following: (1) each author's full
name (ie, first name, middle initial if used, and last name) and highest degree; (2) city, state, and country in which work was carried
out; (3) if presented at a meeting, name of the organization, city, country, and exact date of presentation; (4) sources of public and
private financial support, including organization's name, city, and country; (5) name and address of author to receive reprint requests;
(6) statement about the authors' proprietary or financial interest in a product or lack thereof.
Credit for authorship requires substantial
contributions to the area enumerated in the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals (
www.icmje.org).
The number of authors is limited to 8 for a single-center study and 12 for a multi-center study. If more authors are included, each must
sign a statement confirming that he or she fulfills the authorship criteria. No more than 8 and 12 authors, respectively, will be listed
under the title; other names will appear in a footnote.
Groups of people who have contributed materially to the paper but do not meet
the authorship criteria will be listed in an appendix (eg, Clinical Investigators, Participating Investigators, Study Group).
References
and legends for figures should be double-spaced and should follow the text of the paper. There is a limit of 30 references in clinical
studies.
All papers are subject to revision to conform with terminology and style used by the journal. Authors should adhere to accepted
English usage and syntax. Suggested references: American Medical Association Manual of Style, 9th ed. Baltimore, MD, Williams & Wilkins,
1998; Scientific Style and Format; the CBE Manual for Authors, Editors, and Publishers, 6th ed. New York, NY, Cambridge University Press,
1994.
Content
For both clinical/laboratory studies and techniques, JCRS now requires the inclusion of a short section
that indicates the value of the paper relative to the existing literature. The section should be added at the conclusion of the text
just before the references.
Using the following format (1-2 bullet points per statement), please summarize what was known about the
topic before the paper and what the paper adds. Note that in the following example, the "What Was Known" section ends with a clear statement
about the gap in knowledge that the current paper attempts to address.
WHAT WAS KNOWN
• In phakic eyes prior to endothelial
transplantation, it is common practice to first remove the patient's crystalline
lens, even in the absence of a cataract. This measure,
while believed to facilitate DSEK/DSAEK surgery, and/or
to reduce subsequent cataract formation, has not been studied in DMEK patients.
WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS
• Descemet membrane endothelial keratoplasty can be easily performed in phakic eyes, and leaving the
crystalline lens in-situ rarely results in secondary cataract formation.
• As better overall optical quality may be achieved
in phakic DMEK eyes when accommodative function is spared, it is worth considering leaving the (clear) crystalline lens in situ prior
to DMEK.
"What This Paper Adds" should not simply restate the results. Rather, it should specifically highlight the
novelty
of the findings relative to prior studies or reports. It should also not repeat the synopsis text, which is a brief summary of the results
and conclusions of the paper.
Clinical Studies
Reports of clinical studies should be prefaced by a 250-word
structured abstract. The structured abstract should have the following sections:
Purpose: Indicate the question that the study answers
or the hypothesis that it tests.
Setting: Indicate where the study took place; this enables readers to assess the study's applicability
to their practice.
Design: Describe the study design, indicating randomization and masking and masking and whether the data collection
was retrospective or prospective.
Methods: Identify the patients, including selection procedures, inclusion and exclusion criteria.
Indicate the intervention procedures and the outcome measurements.
Results: Present the outcomes and measurements. Data should include
the level of statistical significance.
Conclusions: State the conclusions and their clinical pertinence.
Reports of clinical studies
should include a synopsis for the table of contents. The synopsis should be no more than 30 words and should describe the main finding
of the paper but not duplicate the abstract conclusion.
The text must follow a standard format: introduction, materials and methods
used, presentation of results, and discussion. Conclusions can be incorporated into the discussion or placed in a separate section.
The description of materials and methods must be explicit enough that the study can be repeated by others; results must be reproducible.
If a method has been published in an English language, peer-reviewed journal, a reference is adequate. Use generic or descriptive nomenclature
for drugs and instruments, with the brand name in parentheses.
In clinical studies involving experimental investigations, the manuscript
must state that informed consent was obtained from all participants and that the study was reviewed by an ethics committee or review
board (IRB) or that no IRB approval was required.
In experimental studies using animals, the manuscript must describe the care of
the animals and indicate ethics committee or IRB approval. These studies should conform to principles of animal maintenance such as those
described in the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology Statement for Use of Animals in Ophthalmic and Vision Research.
Statistical methods should be defined; any not in common use should be described in detail or supported by references. General guidelines
on the use of statistical methods and specific recommendations on statistical estimation and significance are given under Statistical
Guidelines.
Visual acuity should be reported in Snellen format for means and ranges. Mean visual acuity should be determined by calculating
the geometric mean with standard deviation stated in logMAR format (Holladay JT, Prager TC. Mean visual acuity. Am J Ophthalmol 1991;
111:372-374 )
In the results section, avoid redundant data presentation. As a rule, information stated in the text should not be repeated
in the tables. Graphs and tables should be used for detailed lists of findings. Note: If reporting preoperative and postoperative data
for more than 3 factors, data should be presented in a table. If too many data are presented in the text, the article will be returned
to the author for revision.
Techniques
Articles that describe a technique should be prefaced by a 150-word descriptive
abstract. The text should include an introduction, description of the technique, discussion, and references. If the technique was used
in patients, the results should be presented as a subsection of the technique section; in a technique article, the emphasis should be
on the technique, not on the clinical results.
Although not required, inclusion of a video is encourages. All technique videos will
become part of a Technique Video Collection on the JCRS Web site. See "Format for Video" section for a description of the formats that
are accepted.
The video must not include the device/product names, manufacturer, or surgeon name, must be cited in the text, and
a legend that fully describes the video should be included with the figure legends. The video and legend will appear on the ASCRS and
JCRS web sites.
The purpose of the video is to supplement but not replace the description of the technique in the article itself.
Therefore, the manuscript should be self-contained; ie, the reader should be able to understand and repeat the technique based on the
text and figures in the manuscript alone. The article and video will be reviewed according to the journal's standard review process.
Format for Video: Preferred video files are MPEG-4 video/MP3 audio. If another format file is used, the typesetter will have
to convert it to .mpg format so it can be accepted by the online platforms.
Elsevier recommends 10 MB as the optimal size as this
ensures that end users are able to download and view files in a reasonable timeframe. Elsevier can handle up to 160 MB but anything more
than that will have to be compressed for conversion as a zip file, meaning the video will be online as a .zip file.
Case
Report
Case reports should be prefaced by a 150-word descriptive abstract. The text should include 4 primary sections: introduction,
case report(s), discussion, and references.
Correspondence
Short reports do not require an abstract or a structured format.
They should not exceed 700 words and can have no more than 8 references and 2 figures or tables. They should not include more than 4
authors. A title page or cover sheet must provide full names of all authors, a financial interest statement, and the postal and email
addresses of the corresponding author. Short reports are reviewed and are subject to editing.
Letters to the Editor
Letters
about recently published JCRS articles are encouraged and should be submitted within 8 weeks of the article's publication. A letter should
have a title that indicates the focus of the letter; ie, not the same as the title of the article. The text should not exceed 500 words
and can have no more than 5 references and 1 figure or table. Gratuitous comments (eg, "We congratulate . . . on their excellent work")
should be avoided. A title page or cover sheet must provide full names of all authors, a financial interest statement, and the postal
and email addresses of the corresponding author. Letters are reviewed by the journal editors and are subject to editing. The authors
of the article will be given an opportunity to reply.
References
Papers are judged in part on the appropriateness of the
references cited, and references are expected to reflect the most current literature on the subject.
General Guidelines
- All sources must be acknowledged by a reference, and all references must be cited in the text.
- Use caution when citing
review papers, editorials, and correspondences. They are appropriate to cite when novel concepts, data, models or meta-analyses are presented,
but primary sources should always take precedence.
- Don't overlook papers with negative results. First consider whether sample
sizes were adequate and methods were sound, and if so, such results may be important to address.
- Use more specific callout
text to the literature. Be sure the reader knows why the source is critical to the current argument. If a reference does not have a clear
connection to the argument, perhaps it can be omitted.
- Include the citation immediately after the clause or phrase that calls
on it. Clustering references at the end of a sentence with a string of callouts dissociates references from the their text.
-
Avoid listing references for the sake of showing the number of manuscripts available on a topic. Such lists are often cited at the end
of an introductory statement such as "LASIK is the most commonly performed refractive surgical procedure" to efficiently acknowledge
a body of generally related work. A problem with this practice is that it increases the number of citations dramatically, inflates the
impact of each paper in the list, and at the same time dilutes the impact of other cited papers that were chosen on the basis of specific
impact. An alternate approach is to indicate that a search was performed, specify the search engine and key word(s) used, and report
the number of relevant articles that were identified. In general, though, such statements rarely require references.
- Scrutinize
any self-citations carefully and subject them to the same criteria used for other references. Awareness of the omnipresent temptation
for promoting our own work or that of close colleagues can help keep these forces in check.
Formats
JCRS uses a 2-part reference list: REFERENCES for peer-reviewed material and published texts, which should appear in the text of the
paper as superscript numbers, and OTHER CITED MATERIAL for non-peer-reviewed material (web sites, abstracts, meeting presentations, drug/manufacturer
material), which should appear in the text as superscript letters. This change avoids cumbersome text insertions citing non-peer-reviewed
sources.
Peer-Reviewed Material
The list of references should be numbered in the order that the references are cited in the text.
Journal names must be abbreviated according to the form used by Index Medicus. All authors should be listed.
Article:
Yildirim R, Aras C, Ozdamar A. Reproducibility of corneal flap thickness in laser in situ keratomileusis using the Hanstome microkeratome.
J Cataract Refract Surg 2000; 26:1729-1732
Book:
Apple DJ, Kincaid MC, Mamalis N, Olson RJ. Intraocular Lenses; Evolution,
Designs, Complications, and Pathology. Baltimore, MD, Williams & Wilkins, 1989
Chapter:
Bains RA, Anderson Penno
EE, Gimbel HV. Laser in situ keratomileusis. In: Gimbel HV, Anderson Penno EE, eds, Refractive Surgery: A Manual of Principles and Practice.
Thorofare, NJ, Slack, Inc, 2000; 127-157
Other Cited Material
Non-peer-reviewed material includes manuscripts not yet in press,
abstracts, web sites, meeting presentations, articles in news magazines, personal communications, and drug/manufacturer material. These
items should be cited alphabetically in the text as superscripts and in an "Other Cited Material" list following the peer-reviewed reference
list.
A. Smith JD, "The AcrySof IOL and Its Complications," presented at the ASCRS Symposium on Cataract, IOL and Refractive Surgery,
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, June 2002
B. Smith JD, "The AcrySof IOL and Its Complications," Ocular Surgery News, December 12,
2005, pages 3-5
C. Lamasil [package insert]. East Hanover, NJ, USA: Sandoz Pharmaceuticals Corp; 1993
Video/Computer Graphics
An original, edited CD-ROM in IBM compatible PC format will be the standard format for submission of videos and computer graphics (ie,
slide presentations with or without animation). Journal of Cataract & Refractive Surgery (JCRS) will not edit any video or computer
graphics, but reviewers, following the usual policy with illustrations, may suggest changes in the video or computer graphic. A sound
track is highly recommended. Maximal cumulative length of videos or computer graphics is 8 minutes, and may be divided into several smaller
clips not to exceed 8 minutes in total. If the video or animation is divided into several clips, each clip should be identified at the
beginning of the section and on the CD-ROM, eg, Video Clip 1 or Graphic 1. Several videos/graphics may be on the same CD-ROM, but if
they are separate clips, the separation must be clearly indicated. Concise legends (typed on a separate page) must accompany each video
clip or computer graphic presentation.
The following formats for video will be accepted: MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 (.mpg), Quicktime (.mov),
Audio/Video Interface (.avi) or Compuserve GIF (.gif). Please contact the publisher about the use of other formats. A graphic will be
used to indicate the location of a video clip or computer graphic. Videos/computer graphics for accepted manuscripts will not be returned.
Videos and computer graphics will not be accepted separately from a manuscript that has been rejected. If the article is accepted for
publication, the video will be digitized and archived on the JCRS website (
http://www.jcrsjournal.org). The location of
the video on the Web will be linked in the online version of the article. Reminder: Videos must not include the device Mdash; product
name, manufacturer, or surgeon name.
Statistical Guidelines
To ensure meaningful statistical analysis of the study results,
authors should consider the following questions:
1. Was the source of subjects satisfactorily stated?
2. Were concurrent controls
used (as opposed to historical controls)?
3. Were the treatments well defined?
4. Was random allocation to treatment used?
5.
Was the randomization method described?
6. Was the duration of post treatment follow-up satisfactory (at least 6 months)?
Conduct
of Study
7. Were the treatment and control groups comparable with relevant measures?
8. Did a high proportion of subjects
achieve adequate follow-up?
9. Were the dropouts characterized by treatment received?
10. Were the side effects of treatment
reported?
Analysis and Presentation
11. Was there a statement adequately describing or referencing all statistical
procedures used?
12. Were the statistical analyses appropriate?
13. Were confidence intervals given for the main results?
14.
Was the level of significance stated for outcomes that were reported as significant?
15. Was the reported level of significance corrected
for the number of statistical analyses that were performed?
16. When the null hypothesis was accepted (no difference between experimental
groups), was the statistical power of the study calculated and reported?
17. Was the conclusion justified by the statistical analysis?
Alterations
If authors make extensive changes to the text or the figures at the production stage (on page proofs), the journal
reserves the right to charge the cost of the changes to the authors. No charge will be made for correcting errors made during the editorial
process or by the printer.
Recommendations
Manuscripts from non-English-speaking countries should be reviewed and edited
by someone proficient in the use of English.
Study design should be reviewed by a methodologist.
Reprints
The senior
author of each article will receive a reprint order form, which must be sent to the publisher at the time the page proofs are returned.
Submission Checklist
1. Complete title page (including acknowledgment of financial and proprietary interests and
public and private support (if any)
2. Structured abstract (for clinical articles)
3. Descriptive abstract (for techniques, case
reports)
4. Synopsis of article (for clinical articles)
5. Acknowledgment of financial and proprietary interests
6. Acknowledgment
of public and private support
Manuscripts will not be reviewed until all these items have been submitted.
Submission Information
New manuscripts should be submitted through the JCRS submission and review web site (
http://ees.elsevier.com/jcrs).
See Guide for Online Submission for an explanation of the files required for a new manuscript. Once the submission files are uploaded,
the system automatically generates an electronic (PDF) proof, which is used for reviewing.
Updated March 2012
