Official Journal of the British Contact Lens Association

Contact Lens & Anterior Eye (The Journal of the British Contact Lens Association) welcomes original contributions pertaining to contact lens theory and practice, as well as those relating to the structure and function of the anterior eye. The Editor-in-Chief does not consider material which has been previously published elsewhere. All manuscripts should be accompanied by a clear statement that the work has not been published elsewhere and is not under review with another journal. All manuscripts are normally evaluated for suitability of publication in the journal by the Editor-in-Chief and two referees.

All authors are encouraged to submit their manuscript online: http://authors.elsevier.com/journal/clae
Suggestions for review article topics or special issues can still be sent to:

Dr Shehzad A. Naroo
Editor-in-Chief, Contact Lens & Anterior Eye
Opthalmic Research Group
School of Life and Health Sciences
Aston University
Birmingham
UK
s.a.naroo@aston.ac.uk

Dr Christopher Snyder
US Regional Editor, Contact Lens & Anterior Eye
2133 Partridge Berry Road
Birmingham, AL 35244-1116
USA
csnyder@uab.edu

The journal will publish the following types of papers: (a) clinical and/or research articles, (b) case reports, (c) literature reviews, (d) inventions and innovations, (e) editorials and guest editorials, (f) letters to the editor and correspondence, (g) instrumentation and techniques, (h) photographic atlas, and (i) book reviews. Dates of forthcoming professional meetings are also welcome.
The article should be arranged as follows, where possible: (1) title page including title and author(s), (2) abstract, (3) key words, (4) text, (5) references, (6) tables, and (7) figures and figure legends.

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, all within 3 years of beginning the work submitted. If there are no conflicts of interest, authors should state that there are none.

Protection of Human Subjects and Animals in Research
When reporting experiments on human subjects, authors should indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000. If doubt exists whether the research was conducted in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration, authors must explain the rationale for their approach, and demonstrate that the institutional review body explicitly approved the doubtful aspects of the study. When reporting experiments on animals, authors should indicate whether the institutional and national guide for the care and use of laboratory animals was followed.

Title
A concise title should appear on the first page.

Author(s)
The full name(s) (first name, any initials and surname) of all authors and their affiliations should be given below the title. Contact Lens & Anterior Eye operates a double-masked review policy (the authors do not know the identity of the reviewers, and the reviewers are not given the title page of the manuscript). Please do not give details of the authors or their affiliation on any other pages of the manuscript. Authors' academic and recognised professional qualifications may be given as a footnote on the title page, linked to relevant authors using superscript symbols. Where applicable, membership of the BCLA may also be indicated. The corresponding author's affiliation, full postal address, telephone and fax numbers, and e-mail address should appear on the title page.

Abstract and key words
An abstract of not more than 250 words should be given at the beginning of the paper. It should be intelligible on its own, without reference to the text. Three to six key words should appear below the abstract to assist in indexing.

Text
Where possible, authors should follow the structure: Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion. However departures from this framework may be advisable depending on the subject matter of the manuscript.

References
Number references consecutively in the order in which they appear in the text. In the text refer to references by a number in square brackets on the line. At the end of the text the references should be listed in numerical order, giving the following information: (a) author(s) (surname followed by initials), (b) title of the article, (c) journal title (in abbreviated form as given in the World List of Scientific Periodicals), (d) year of publication, (e) volume number, (f) page span. For books, the editors, publisher and town of publication should also be given.

Example of a journal reference:
[1] Mishima S, Hedbys BO. Measurement of corneal thickness with the Haag-Streit pachometer. Archs Opthal 1968;80:710-3.

Examples of book references:
[2] Klintworth GK. Corneal angiogenesis. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1990.
[3] Ruben M. Corneal vascularization. In: Miller D, White, PF, editors. Complications of contact lenses. Boston: Little Brown; 1981. p. 27-38.

Tables
Each table should be intelligible without reference to the text. Tables should be numbered with Arabic numerals in the order they are referred to the in the text. Footnotes to tables should be given below the table and should be referred to by superscript lowercase letters. No vertical rules should be used. Tables should not duplicate results presented elsewhere in the manuscript (e.g. in graphs).

Figures and figure captions
Illustrations: Photographs, charts and diagrams are all to be referred to as "Figure(s)" and should be numbered consecutively in the order to which they are referred. They should accompany the manuscript, but should not be included within the text. All figures are to have a caption. For detailed information on the preparation of electronic artwork, please see http://authors.elsevier.com/artwork
Line drawings: All lettering, graph lines and points on graphs should be sufficiently large and bold to permit reproduction when the diagram has been reduced to a size suitable for inclusion in the journal. Do not use any type of shading on computer-generated illustrations.
Photographs: Original photographs must be supplied as they are to be reproduced (e.g. black and white or colour). If necessary, a scale should be marked on the photograph. These can be supplied as hard copy to follow an online article submission if necessary.
Colour figures: Contact Lens & Anterior Eye offers authors free colour reproduction if the use of colour is necessary for scientific clarity. 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) in addition to colour reproduction in print.

Supplementary Data
Elsevier 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 online alongside the electronic version of your article in Elsevier web products, including ScienceDirect: http://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. For more detailed instructions please visit http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/authors.authors/authorartworkinstructions.

Proofs
Proofs will be sent to the author (first named author if no corresponding author is identified of multi-authored papers) by PDF wherever possible and should be returned within 48 hours of receipt, preferably by email. Corrections should be restricted to typesetting errors; any others may be charged to the author. Any queries should be answered in full. Elsevier will do everything possible to get your article corrected and published as quickly as possible. Therefore, 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, Devon 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
Upon acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to transfer copyright (for more information on copyright see http://authors.elsevier.com/). This transfer will ensure the widest possible dissemination of information. A letter will be sent to the corresponding author confirming receipt of the manuscript.
A form facilitating transfer of copyright will be provided.
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: phone (+1) 215 238 7869, fax (+1) 215 238 2239, e-mail healthpermissions@elsevier.com. Requests may also be completed on-line via the Elsevier homepage ( http://www.elsevier.com/locate/permissions ).

Author enquiries
For enquiries relating to the submission of articles (including electronic submission), the status of accepted articles through our online tracking system, and any other enquiries relating to Elsevier, please consult http://authors.elsevier.com/.

For specific enquiries on the production of electronic artwork, consult http://authors.elsevier.com/artwork.

Contact details for questions arising after acceptance of an article, especially those relating to proofs, are provided when an article is accepted for publication.