Midwifery

Dr Debra Bick, the editor of Midwifery, welcomes manuscripts for consideration for publication in the journal.

Submission to this journal proceeds totally online. Use the following guidelines to prepare your article. Via the journal page http://ees.elsevier.com/ymidw you will be guided stepwise through the creation and uploading of the various files. The system automatically converts source files to a single Adobe Acrobat PDF version of the article, which is used in the peer-review process. Please note that even though manuscript source files are converted to PDF at submission for the review process, these source files are needed for further processing after acceptance. All correspondence, including notification of the Editor's decision and requests for revision, takes place by e-mail and via the Author's homepage, removing the need for a hard-copy paper trail.

The above represents a very brief outline of this form of submission. It can be advantageous to print this "Guide for Authors" section from this site for reference in the subsequent stages of article preparation. Further guidance can be found in the journal's Writing for Publication Resources.

Submission of an article implies that the work described has not been published previously (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis), that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, that its publication is approved by all Authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other language, without the written consent of the Publisher.

Ethics
Patient Confidentiality
Identifiable clinical photographs can only be included in the journal if they are accompanied by written permission from the subject or the subject's next-of-kin. Without permission such illustrations will be masked or cropped to render them unidentifiable. Please indicate where the illustration can be cropped or masked if permission for reproduction has not be obtained.

Changes to authorship
This policy concerns the addition, deletion, or rearrangement of author names in the authorship of accepted manuscripts:

Before the accepted manuscript is published in an online issue: Requests to add or remove an author, or to rearrange the author names, must be sent to the Journal Manager from the corresponding author of the accepted manuscript and must include: (a) the reason the name should be added or removed, or the author names rearranged and (b) written confirmation (e-mail, fax, letter) from all authors that they agree with the addition, removal or rearrangement. In the case of addition or removal of authors, this includes confirmation from the author being added or removed. Requests that are not sent by the corresponding author will be forwarded by the Journal Manager to the corresponding author, who must follow the procedure as described above. Note that: (1) Journal Managers will inform the Journal Editors of any such requests and (2) publication of the accepted manuscript in an online issue is suspended until authorship has been agreed.

After the accepted manuscript is published in an online issue: Any requests to add, delete, or rearrange author names in an article published in an online issue will follow the same policies as noted above and result in a corrigendum.

Contributors and Acknowledgements
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. During the submission process online, we ask you make a true statement that all authors meet the criteria for authorship, have approved the final article and that all those entitled to authorship are listed as authors.

Those who meet some but not all of the criteria for authors can be identified as 'contributors' at the end of the manuscript with their contribution specified. All those individuals who provided help during the research (e.g., collecting data, providing language help, writing assistance or proofreading the article, etc.) that do not meet criteria for authorship should be acknowledged in the paper.

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 organizations 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.

Sponsored Articles
Midwifery now offers authors the option to sponsor non-subscriber access to individual articles. The access sponsorship contribution fee per article is $3,000. This contribution is necessary to offset publishing costs - from managing article submission and peer review, to typesetting, tagging and indexing of articles, hosting articles on dedicated servers, supporting sales and marketing costs to ensure global dissemination via ScienceDirect, and permanently preserving the published journal article. The sponsorship fee excludes taxes and other potential author fees such as colour charges which are additional.

Authors can specify that they would like to select this option after receiving notification that their article has been accepted for publication, but not before. This eliminates a potential conflict of interest by ensuring that the journal does not have a financial incentive to accept an article for publication.

Presentation of Typescripts
Full length articles should be approximately 5,000 words in length, excluding references, tables and figures. Authors are required to submit manuscripts according to the requirements of the Instructions to Authors. Please note that papers not formatted in this manner will be returned to the author for amendment before entering into the editorial and peer review process. In particular please take care to follow the instructions for the formatting of references.

Authors are encouraged to submit electronic artwork files. Please refer to http://www.elsevier.com/authors for guidelines for the preparation of electronic artwork files. To facilitate anonymity, the author's names and any reference to their addresses should only appear on the title page. Please check your typescript carefully before you send it off, both for correct content and typographic errors. It is not possible to change the content of accepted typescripts during production.

Title
The title page should be provided as a separate file. Your title page should give the title in capital letters below which should be the authors' names (as they are to appear) in lower-case letters. For each author you should give one first name as well as the surname and any initials. You should give a maximum of four degrees/qualifications for each author and the current relevant appointment only. Authors' addresses should be limited to the minimum information needed to ensure accurate postal delivery; these details should be on the title page below the authors' names and appointments. Authors should also provide a daytime contact telephone number and fax number and e-mail address.

Title
Headings in the article should be appropriate to the nature of the paper. Research papers should follow the standard structure of: Introduction (including review of the literature), Methods, Findings and Discussion.

Keywords
Include three or four keywords. The purpose of these is to increase the likely accessibility of your paper to potential readers searching the literature. Therefore, ensure keywords are descriptive of the study. Refer to a recognised thesaurus of keywords (e.g. CINAHL, Medline) wherever possible.

Abstract
A summary should be in the 'Structured Summary Format' giving objective, design, setting, participants, interventions (if appropriate), measurements and findings, key conclusions and implications for practice (see Vol 10, p58 for further information).

Reference Format
The accuracy of the references is the responsibility of the author.

Text: All citations in the text should refer to: 1. Single author: the author's name (without initials, unless there is ambiguity) and the year of publication;

2. Two authors: both authors' names and the year of publication;

3. Three or more authors: first author's name followed by 'et al.' and the year of publication. Citations may be made directly (or parenthetically). Groups of references should be listed first chronologically, then alphabetically.

Examples: "as demonstrated (Allan, 1996a, 1996b, 1999; Allan and Jones, 1995). Kramer et al. (2000) have recently shown "

Reference list: References should be arranged first alphabetically and then further sorted chronologically if necessary. More than one reference from the same author(s) in the same year must be identified by the letters "a", "b", "c", etc., placed after the year of publication. Full journal titles must be used in the reference list.

Examples:

Reference to a journal publication:

Hunter, B., 2006. The importance of reciprocity in relationships between community-based midwives and mothers. Midwifery 22, 308-322.

References to a book:

Field, P. A., Morse, J. M., 1985. Nursing research: the application of qualitative approaches. Croom Helm, London.

Reference to a chapter in an edited book:

Mettam, G.R., Adams, L.B., 1999. How to prepare an electronic version of your article. In: Jones, B.S., Smith , R.Z. (Eds.), Introduction to the Electronic Age. E-Publishing Inc., New York. pp. 281-304.

Citing and listing of Web references. As a minimum, the full URL should be given. Any further information, if known (Author names, dates, reference to a source publication, etc.), should also be given. Web references can be listed separately (e.g., after the reference list) under a different heading if desired, or can be included in the reference list.

Tables, Illustrations and Figures
A detailed guide on electronic artwork is available on our website: http://www.elsevier.com/authors
Preparation of supplementary data. Elsevier accepts 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 our artwork instruction pages at http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions

Illustrations and tables that have appeared elsewhere must be accompanied by written permission to reproduce them from the original publishers. This is necessary even if you are an author of the borrowed material. Borrowed material should be acknowledged in the captions in the exact wording required by the copyright holder. If not specified, use this style: 'Reproduced by kind permission of (publishers) from (reference).' Identifiable clinical photographs must be accompanied by written permission from the patient

Considerations specific to types of research designs
The editors require that manuscripts adhere to recognized reporting guidelines relevant to the research design used. These identify matters that should be addressed in your paper. These are not quality assessment frameworks and your study need not meet all the criteria implied in the reporting guideline to be worthy of publication in the journal. The checklists do identify essential matters that should be considered and reported upon. For example, a controlled trial may or may not be blinded but it is important that the paper identifies whether or not participants, clinicians and outcome assessors were aware of treatment assignments.

You are encouraged (although not required) to submit a checklist from the appropriate reporting guideline together with your paper as a guide to the editors and reviewers of your paper.

Reporting guidelines endorsed by the journal are listed below:
Observational cohort, case control and cross sectional studies - STROBE - Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology http://www.equator-network.org/index.aspx?o=1032

Quasi-experimental/non-randomised evaluations - TREND - Transparent Reporting of Evaluations with Non-randomized Designs http://www.equator-network.org/index.aspx?o=1032

Randomised (and quasi-randomised) controlled trial - CONSORT - Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials http://www.equator-network.org/index.aspx?o=1032

Study of Diagnostic accuracy/assessment scale - STARD - Standards for the Reporting of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies http://www.equator-network.org/index.aspx?o=1032

Systematic Review of Controlled Trials - PRISMA - Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses http://www.equator-network.org/index.aspx?o=1032

Systematic Review of Observational Studies - MOOSE - Meta-analysis of Observational Studies in Epidemiology http://www.equator-network.org/index.aspx?o=1032

Qualitative researchers might wish to consult the guideline listed below:

Qualitative studies - COREQ - Consolidated criteria for reporting qualitative research. Tong, A., Sainsbury, P., Craig, J., 2007. Consolidated criteria for reporting qualitative research (COREQ): a 32-item checklist for interviews and focus groups. International Journal for Quality in Health Care 19 (6), 349-357. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/intghc/mzm042

Copyright Information
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/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 or a link to the online version of this agreement.

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) 215 239 3804, fax (+1) 215 239 3805, e-mail healthpermissions@elsevier.com. Requests may also be completed online via the Elsevier homepage http://www.elsevier.com/locate/permissions).

Permissions Information
Written permission to produce borrowed materials (quotations in excess of 100 words, illustrations and tables) must be obtained from the original copyright holders and the author(s), and submitted with the manuscript. Borrowed materials should be acknowledged in the captions as follows: 'Reproduced by kind permission of (publishers) from (reference)'.

Funding body agreements and policies
Elsevier has established agreements and developed policies to allow authors whose articles appear in journals published by Elsevier, to comply with potential manuscript archiving requirements as specified as conditions of their grant awards. To learn more about existing agreements and policies please visit http://www.elsevier.com/fundingbodies

Authors' rights
As an author you (or your employer or institution) retain certain rights; for details you are referred to: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/authorshome.authors/authorsrights

Page 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. The PDF files 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.

Language Editing
Authors who require information about language editing and copyediting services pre- and post-submission please visit: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/authorshome.authors/languagepolishing or contact authorsupport@elsevier.com for more information. 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 & Conditions http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/termsconditions.cws_home/termsconditions

Submission checklist
It is hoped that this list will be useful during the final checking of an article prior to sending it to the journal's Editor for review. Please consult this Guide for Authors for further details of any item.

Ensure that the following items are present:
•One author designated as corresponding author:
•E-mail address
•Full postal address
•Telephone and fax numbers

•All necessary files have been uploaded
•Keywords
•All figure captions
•All tables (including title, description, footnotes).

Further considerations
•Manuscript has been "spellchecked"
•References are in the correct format for this journal
•All references mentioned in the Reference list are cited in the text, and vice versa
•Permission has been obtained for use of copyrighted material from other sources (including the Web)
•Colour figures are clearly marked as being intended for colour reproduction on the Web (free of charge) and in print or to be reproduced in colour on the Web (free of charge) and in black-and-white in print.