Submissions
Authors are requested to submit their original manuscript and figures online via http://ees.elsevier.com/Yfoot/.
This is the Elsevier web-based submission and review system. You will find full instructions located on this site - the Instructions
to Authors and a Guide to Online Submission. Please follow these guidelines to prepare and upload your article. 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 managed via this system.
A paper is accepted for publication on the understanding
that it has not been submitted simultaneously to another journal.
A paper is accepted for publication on the understanding that it
has not been submitted simultaneously to another journal in the English language. Rejected papers will not be returned to authors except
on request.
The Editors reserve the right to make editorial and literary corrections.
Any opinions expressed or policies advocated
do not necessarily reflect the opinions or policies of the Editors.
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.
Full Papers
Papers should be set out as follows, with each section beginning
on a separate sheet: title page, summary, text, acknowledgements, references, tables, captions to illustrations.
Title page.
The title page should give the following information (1) title of the article, (2) initials and name of each author, with highest academic
degree(s), (3) name and address of the department or institution to which the work should be attributed, (4) name, address, telephone
and fax number of the author responsible for correspondence and to whom requests for offprints should be sent and (5) sources of support
in the form of grants.
Abstract. This should consist of not more than 200 words summarizing the contents of the article organised
under the headings:
Background, Objective/s, Method, Results, Conclusions. A list of three
to six keywords should
follow the summary.
Text. Headings should be appropriate to the nature of the paper. In general those for experimental papers
should follow the usual conventions.
Other papers can be subdivided as the author desires; the use
of headings enhances readability.
Normally only two categories of
headings should be used: major ones should be typed in capital letters in the centre of the page and
underlined; minor ones should be typed in lower case with an initial capital letter at the left hand margin and underlined. Do not use
. . . 'he', . . . 'she' etc where the sex of the person is unknown; say ... the patient' etc. Avoid inelegant alternatives such as, .
. . he/she'. Patients should not be automatically designated as . . .
she', and doctors as . . . he'.
References. The references
in the manuscript should follow the Vancouver style and authors are responsible for their accuracy.
References should therefore
be numbered consecutively (in parentheses or superscript) in the text in the order in which they are mentioned, and listed in numerical
order on a separate sheet at the end of the manuscript. Punctuation and format should be as follows:
Journals - 4. Smith JT, Jones
PF. <title>. <Journal Title in Full>. <Year>; <Volume>: <Page-Page>.
Books - 5. Smith JT, Jones PF. <Title>. In: <eds>, editors. <Title>. <City>: <Publisher>, <Year>: <Page-Page>.
Tables.
These should be typed double spaced on separate sheets and contain only horizontal rules. Do not submit tables as photographs. A short
descriptive title should appear above each table and any footnotes suitably identified below. Care must be taken to ensure that all units
are included. Ensure that each table is cited in the text.
Illustrations
Please make sure that artwork files are in an
acceptable format (TIFF, EPS or MS Office file) and with the correct resolution. 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 informtion regarding the costs from Elsevier after receipt of your accepted article. Please indicate your
preference for colour in print or on the Web only. For further information on the preparation of electronic artwork, please see http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/authors.authors/authorartworkinstructions.
Captions should be typed, double spaced on separate sheets from the main manuscript.
Patient confidentiality.
Where illustrations must include recognizable individuals, living or dead and of whatever age, great care must be taken to ensure that
consent for publication has been given. If identifiable features are not essential to the illustration, please indicate where the illustration
can be cropped. In cases where consent has not been obtained and recognizable features may appear, it will be necessary to retouch the
illustration to mask the eyes or otherwise render the individual unrecognizable.
Permissions to reproduce borrowed illustrations
or tables or identifiable clinical photographs. Written permission to reproduce borrowed material (illustrations and tables) must
be obtained from the original publishers and authors, and submitted with the typescript. Borrowed material should be acknowledged in
the captions in this style . . .Reproduced by the kind permission of . . . (publishers) from . . .(reference)'.
Randomised
controlled trials
All randomised controlled trials submitted for publication in the Journal 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. The Foot 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 The Foot 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.
Proprietary Names
Proprietary names of drugs, instruments etc. should be indicated by the use of initial
capital letters.
Abbreviations and Units
Avoid abbreviations in the title and abstract. All unusual abbreviations should
be fully explained at their first occurrence in the text. All measurements should be expressed in SI units. Imperial units are acceptable
from USA contributors. For more detailed recommendations, authors may consult the Royal Society of Medicine publication entitled Units,
Symbols and Abbreviations: A Guide for Biological and Medical Editors and Authors.
Copyright
Upon acceptance of an article,
authors will be asked to sign a "Journal Publishing Agreement" (for more information on this and copyright see http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/authorshome.authors/copyright).
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 our authors to ensure authors
can always publish in Elsevier journals and still comply with archiving conditions defined in research grant awards.
Proofs
One set of page proofs in PDF format will be sent by e-mail to the corresponding author (if we do not have an e-mail address then paper
proofs will be sent by post). Elsevier now sends PDF proofs which can be annotated; for this you will need to download Adobe Reader version
7 available free from http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html. Instructions on how to annotate PDF files will
accompany the proofs. The exact system requirements are given at the Adobe site: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/acrrsystemreqs.html#70win.
If you do not wish to use the PDF annotations function, you may list the corrections (including replies to the Query Form) and return
to Elsevier in an e-mail. Please list your corrections quoting line number. If, for any reason, this is not possible, then mark the corrections
and any other comments (including replies to the Query Form) on a printout of your proof and return by fax, or scan the pages and e-mail,
or by post.
Please use this proof only for checking the typesetting, editing, completeness and correctness of the text, tables and figures.
Significant changes to the article as accepted for publication will only be considered at this stage with permission from the Editor.
We will do everything possible to get your article published quickly and accurately. Therefore, it is important to ensure that all of
your corrections are sent back to us in one communication: please check carefully before replying, as inclusion of any subsequent corrections
cannot be guaranteed. Proofreading is solely your responsibility. Note that Elsevier may proceed with the publication of your article
if no response is received.
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.
