An Official Clinical Practice Journal of the AGA Institute
Guide for Authors
Content
Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology publishes original papers, review articles, brief communications,
and special category articles on all aspects of the digestive tract and the liver. Manuscripts must be prepared in accordance with the
"Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals" developed by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors
(http://www.icmje.org ).
Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology strongly discourages the submission of more than one article dealing with related
aspects of the same study. In almost all cases, a single study is best reported in a single paper.
The Journal editors consider research/publication
misconduct to be a serious breach of ethics and will take action as necessary to address such misconduct, which includes submission or
publication of information that:
Is intentionally erroneous,
Has been published elsewhere by a different author
without acknowledgment (plagiarism),
Has been published elsewhere by the same author without acknowledgment (duplicate publication),
or
Is subsequently published elsewhere by the same author without acknowledgment, attribution, or permission from the AGA Institute,
as holder of the copyright, to reprint or adapt the material.
Breaches in these standards may result in proscribed submission
for all authors of the concerned manuscript and, when appropriate, notification of the authors' institutions. All authors are fully responsible
for the content of the manuscript.
The publication of abstracts is not considered duplicate publication but should be disclosed in
the cover letter accompanying the manuscript submission.
Each
author must have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for the content of the paper and must approve of
the final version of the manuscript. Authorship should be based on substantive contributions to each of the following:
Conception
and design of the study;
Generation, collection, assembly, analysis and/or interpretation of data;
If a manuscript is accepted for publication and was supported by the NIH, the
journal's publisher will automatically deposit the manuscript into PubMed Central (PMC) in accordance with the mandatory NIH policy on
federally funded manuscripts. To facilitate this process, authors of such manuscripts are asked to provide their NIH grant number on
the Copyright Assignment Form under the NIH Funding portion of the form. The publisher will send to PMC the final peer-reviewed manuscript
when received at Elsevier's production department. Once deposited, authors will receive an email from the NIH containing the PMC-formatted
article for approval.
I. Authors (Original
Articles and Review Articles)
The following information must be included on the title page of submitted manuscripts:
A list for all authors that discloses any financial arrangement (e.g., consultancies, stock ownership, equity interests, patent-licensing
arrangements, research support, major honoraria, etc.) they may have with a company whose product figures prominently in the submitted
manuscript or with a company making a competing product. Interactions that occur from the start of the research activity in the specific
program until the time when the paper is anticipated to be published or one year from submission date, whichever is longer, are pertinent.
In the absence of any conflict of interest, authors must make the statement that there is no conflict to disclose.
A statement
of all funding sources supporting the work and all institutional or corporate affiliations.
Individuals who provided writing
assistance for the manuscript and the funding source for this assistance must be disclosed.
Investigators must disclose potential
conflicts to study participants and must state whether they have done so.
All phase II or III trials pertaining to a commercial
product (pharmaceutical or device) require:
a. A statement that the statistical analysis of the entire data sets pertaining
to efficacy (specifically primary and major secondary efficacy endpoints) and safety (specifically, serious adverse events as
defined in federal guidelines) have been independently confirmed by a biostatistician who is not employed by the corporate entity (the
name of the biostatistician must be provided); and
b. A statement from the corresponding author that he or she had full access to
all of the data and takes full responsibility for the veracity of the data and analysis. All authors for each manuscript will also need
to complete and submit to the Journal's editorial office the Authorship Responsibility portion of the Copyright Assignment, Authorship Responsibility, NIH Funding, Financial Disclosure, Institutional Review Board/Animal Care Committee Approval,
and Sponsorship form upon submission of a manuscript.
Authors must describe the role of the study sponsor(s),
if any, in the study design; in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision
to submit the report for publication.
II. Reviewers and Editorialists
• Reviewers and editorialists will
be disqualified from reviewing or from writing an editorial if they:
a. have had an ongoing collaboration, original publications
or grants with the authors within the previous two years, except in the case of being a part of a multi-center group from a different
site; or
b. are from the same institution as the authors.
• Reviewers and editorialists should disclose at the
time of submission of their review or editorial any financial arrangement (e.g., consultancies, stock ownership, equity interests, patent-licensing
arrangements, research support, major honoraria, etc.) they may have with a company whose product figures prominently in the submitted
manuscript or with a company making a competing product. Interactions that occur from the start of the research activity in the specific
program until the time when the paper is anticipated to be published or one year from submission date, whichever is longer, are pertinent.
Each issue of Clinical Gastroenterology
and Hepatology will contain two to three continuing medical education exams associated with articles that appear in the issue. AGA
members can take the exams online free of charge. Non-AGA members are required to pay a $15 processing fee. For CME exams that
accompany original articles, readers can claim 1.0 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™.
Reviewers of manuscripts can also claim
CME credit. After reviewing a manuscript on the Journal's manuscript tracking system, Editorial Manager, the reviewer will be prompted
to claim up to 3.0 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™.
Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology strongly encourages authors to suggest 3 to 4 referees (include the mailing address,
electronic address, phone, and fax numbers) and the Associate Editor they believe best qualified to review their paper. Authors may also
list a non-preferred Associate Editor and non-preferred referees, but the ultimate selection of an Associate Editor and referees is at
the sole discretion of the Editor and Associate Editor, respectively.
State reasons for deviations, if any, from standard format
and clarify any potential conflict related to the exclusive nature of the publication. The cover letter must also categorize the manuscript
into one of two groups: Alimentary Tract or Liver/Pancreas/Biliary.
Submission
Submit 1 complete manuscript typed in 12-point font size and double-spaced with 1-inch margins. Limit of
15 pages (approximately 4000 words) for original articles or about 20 pages (5000-6000 words) for review articles, including tables,
figures, and references (2 figures = 1 typed page).
All manuscripts submitted to Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology are
made available for online review. Authors may submit their manuscripts, with figures and tables, electronically via our website,
http://www.editorialmanager.com/cgh
. Complete instructions for online submission are located on the website.
Note: If you have submitted your manuscript electronically,
you do not need to submit a hard copy. If your manuscript is accepted you will be asked to provide the editorial office with hard copies
of the missing materials.
Other Enquiries
Visit http://authors.elsevier.com/trackpaper.htm for the facility
to track accepted articles and set up e-mail alerts to inform you of when an article's status has changed. The Author's Homepage (http://www.elsevier.com/authors)
also provides detailed artwork guidelines, copyright information, frequently asked questions and more.
Contact details for questions
arising after acceptance of an article, especially those relating to proofs, are provided after registration of an article for publication.
Manual Submission
Manual submissions may be mailed to:
AGA Institute
4930 Del Ray Avenue
Bethesda, MD 20814
Attention: CGH Editorial Office
Authors of manual submissions will incur a non-refundable charge of $75. Manual submissions
must be accompanied by a check (payable to the AGA Institute), purchase order, or credit card information (card type, card number, card
holder's name, and expiration date)
Title Page
Title--Use no abbreviations. Limit: 120 characters with spaces.
Short Title--Limit: 45 characters with spaces.
Authors--Include first names of all authors and name and full location of department
and institution where work was performed.
Grant Support--List grant support and other assistance.
Abbreviations--List abbreviations
alphabetically. (Note: In general, the use of abbreviations is discouraged.)
Correspondence--Provide name, complete address, e-mail
address, telephone number, and fax number of corresponding author.
Financial Disclosures--All authors must disclose any financial
arrangement(s) they may have with a company whose product figures prominently in the submitted manuscript or with a company making a
competing product.
Writing Assistance--The names and funding source for individuals who provided writing assistance must be listed.
Abstract
Limit: 250 words. Do not use abbreviations, footnotes, or references.
Authors should submit a structured
abstract of no more than 250 words organized into the following categories as applicable:
Background & Aims: Describe the importance
of the study and the precise research objective(s) or study question(s).
Methods: Methods should include information on the following
aspects of study design when applicable. The methods section may employ subheadings at the discretion of the author.
Design--describe
the basic study design, e.g., randomized controlled trial, cross sectional study, cohort study, case series, survey, etc.
Setting--specify
whether the study was conducted in a primary or tertiary care setting, in an ambulatory care clinic or hospital, in the general community,
etc.
Participants--indicate the number of study subjects and how they were selected, recruited, and assigned to the intervention.
Intervention--report the method of administration and duration of the intervention.
Results: Provide the main outcomes
of the study, including confidence intervals or P values. Report the absolute values and risk differences so that readers can
determine the absolute, as well as the relative, impact of the results.
Conclusions: State only conclusions that are directly supported
by the evidence and the implications of the findings.
Body of paper
Describe ethical guidelines followed; cite approval
of institutional human research review committee or animal welfare committee; describe in detail hazardous procedures or chemicals involved,
including precautions observed.
Outline statistical methods used.
Identify drugs and chemicals used by generic name (if trademarks
are mentioned, manufacturer name and city are given).
References
Cite references in order of appearance in text using
superscripted Arabic numerals.
Cite personal communications and unpublished data directly in text without being numbered.
Conform
abbreviations to those used in Index Medicus.
Conform style and punctuation to Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology
requirements:
Article (list 3 authors followed by et al):
13. Meltzer SJ, Ahnen DJ, Battifour H, et al. Protooncogene abnormalities
in colon cancers and adenomatous polyps. Gastroenterology 1987;92:1174-1180.
Book:
18. Day RA. How to write and publish a scientific
paper. Philadelphia: Institute for Scientific Information, 1979.
Article in Book:
22. Costa M, Furness JB, Llewellyn-Smith
IF. Histochemistry of the enteric nervous system. In: Johnson LR, ed. Physiology of the gastrointestinal tract. Volume 1. 2nd ed. New
York: Raven, 1987:1-40.
Tables
Tables should be prepared without the use of tabs; most table editor programs can
be uploaded successfully. If your table contains decimal fractions, please round your numbers to two places after the decimal point.
Figures
Images: Images can be clinical, pathologic (gross or microscopic), endoscopic, or radiographic. They
should be of high quality (300 dpi or greater, clear, and in good focus) and illustrate the diagnosis well.
Photographs:
Photographs of identifiable patients must be accompanied by written permission to publish from the patient.
Line Art and Graphs:
Graphs, charts and other line art may be reformatted and/or redrawn by our Medical Illustration Department for consistency with the overall
style of the AGA Institute journals. Please be sure that any graphs or line art you submit are at a resolution of at least 150 dpi so
that they are readable to reviewers.
Cost: Authors will be required to pay for the printing of color figures ($650
for the first color figure and $100 each for additional figures). If the manuscript is reviewed with color figures, it must be
published with color figures with printing fees paid for by the author. If the author does not wish to pay for printing color figures,
then the authors upload grayscale or black-and-white files only to allow review of the data as they will ultimately be published.
Figure Legends: Please do not embed or flatten the text into the image files. Figure legends should be typed and submitted in
.rtf (rich text format). This text will be reformatted in the style of the AGA Institute journals.
Accepted Figure File Formats:
We support the following among dozens of file formats: .bmp, .gif, .jpg, .pbm, .pcx, .png, .tif, .eps, .xbm, .psd, and .tga files. When
sending image files, please do not embed them in Word. You may submit mixed file formats (image1.jpg, image2.tif, image3.eps, etc.).
Preferred Figure File Formats: .tiff, .psd and .jpg. If you have created Photoshop image files containing separate layers
with arrows or text, please send us the layered files (unflattened).
Image File Formats not Supported at this Time: ChemDraw,
CorelDraw, Canvas, FreeHand, Excel, SigmaPlot, QuarkXpress, and Equation Editor. You may export image files from these programs as PDF,
JPEG, or other acceptable file formats.
File Naming Convention: Figures should be named consecutively such as "figure 1.tif,"
"figure 2.jpg," etc., with the file extension appended (.tif, .jpg, .eps, etc). Each figure should be saved as a separate electronic
file.
Color Files: Figures should be submitted in the CMYK color space. Authors are encouraged to present color figures
in a manner that will allow the data to be interpreted by colorblind readers. Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology suggests
that authors present dual-labeled images in green and magenta rather than in green and red. See the website of the Jfly data depository
for Drosphila researchers (http://jfly.iam.u-tokyo.ac.jp/color/ ) for more information on how to make figures and presentations
intelligible for a colorblind audience. Font: If your figures include text, an 8 to 10 point font should be used. Acceptable fonts
are "sans serif" fonts such as Arial, Helvetica, and Myriad. Examples of unacceptable fonts ("serif" fonts) are Times, Palatino, and
Georgia. Lettering should begin with an upper case letter, followed by lower case lettering.
Multiple Panel Figures: Do not
mount multiple part figures. Please submit each panel (image) separately. However, you may submit a multiple panel version to suggest
the order in which you would like the panels arranged. You may also include a written, suggested layout. Each individual panel should
be of the highest possible quality (300 dpi or higher) at actual print size.
As of January 1, 2008, it is mandatory for authors to provide full registration of their clinical trial(s).
A clinical trial is defined as any research project that prospectively assigns human subjects to intervention and comparison groups
to study the cause-and-effect relationship between a medical intervention and a health outcome. The trial must have at least one prospectively
assigned concurrent control or comparison group in order to trigger the requirement for registration.
Clinical Gastroenterology
and Hepatology has adopted the recommendations put forth by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). For
more information on the ICMJE recommendations, please go to http://www.icmje.org . Appropriate online registries include
www.clinicaltrials.gov, www.isrctn.org,
www.umin.ac.jp/ctr/index.htm, www.actr.org.au,
www.trialregister.nl, or any primary registers that participate in the
World Health Organization's International Clinical Trial Platform. The clinical trial registry URL and the clinical trial number must
be included in the body of the manuscript and must be provided in the manuscript management system upon submission.
Randomized controlled
trials should be presented according to the CONSORT guidelines (http://www.consort-statement.org ). At manuscript submission,
authors must provide the CONSORT checklist with a diagram that illustrates the progress of patients through the trial, including recruitment,
enrollment, randomization, withdrawal and completion, and a detailed description of the randomization procedure. The CONSORT checklist
and template flow diagram can be found on www.consort-statement.org.
Manuscripts that fail to comply with CONSORT guidelines will not be reviewed for publication.
Reporting Meta-Analyses of Genetic
Studies
As of January 1, 2008, Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology will require all meta-analyses of genetic studies
to be registered and to follow the Human Genome Epidemiology Network™ (HuGENet) guidelines. To review the guidelines, go to http://www.cdc.gov/genomics/hugenet/reviews/guidelines.htm .
Image of the Month presents a striking clinical
image that is meant to challenge and inform readers. The Image of the Month is presented as a short case report including up to three
images. The section is intended to illustrate and teach important medical points. If you would like to submit an image for publication
in the Journal, please follow the instructions below.
Images can be either clinical, pathologic (gross or microscopic), endoscopic,
or radiographic. They should be of high quality and illustrate the diagnosis well . Images for hardcopy submission should be original
color or black and white photographic or digital prints 5 by 7 inches in size and should be submitted in duplicate.
Arrows
or other symbols, or label identifiers should be marked only on the second print. The back of each print and slide must be labeled with
the last names of the contributors and an arrow indicating the top of image.
The case should be described in one typed, double-spaced
page or less. Format should be as follows: Short pertinent history, physical examination and laboratory findings, and initial clinical
course. The image(s) should then be described with all labeled structures explained in the text.
The answer should discuss
the image findings and the diagnosis in no more than one double-spaced typed page. The diagnosis and discussion should make an important
medical teaching point and include from 1 to 3 pertinent references. Information regarding the specific patient in terms of follow-up
and response to therapy should be given as appropriate.
No more than three authors are allowed on each submission. Contributors
must provide their names, addresses, phone, and e-mail addresses. Contributors must sign and return the copyright form which assigns
copyright to the AGA Institute and attest that the figure has not been submitted or published elsewhere.
Due to a high number of "Image of the Month" submissions and the increasing use of video in reports
on clinical cases, Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology publishes Electronic Image of the Month, where some accepted images
or those that include video clips can be published online only. When an image is accepted for the Electronic Image of the Month section,
authors will receive a decision letter requesting approval to publish their article online only. If an author does not agree to these
terms the article will not be considered further for publication. If authors choose to have their accepted image published in the 'Electronic
Image of the Month' section, their article will be posted on our website, www.cghjournal.org,
within 2 - 3 months.
To submit your "Image of the Month" to Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, log-on to http://www.editorialmanager.com/cgh
. Authors are required to follow the "Image of the Month" guidelines provided above.
Letters to the Editor offer opinions on manuscripts submitted to Clinical Gastroenterology and
Hepatology. Text should not exceed 250 words with a limit of 3 references; no more than 3 authors are allowed on each submission.
All letters become the property of Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology and are subject to editing by the editors. Letters
commenting on manuscripts are sent to the authors of those manuscripts for response. Letters are selected for their importance and not
all letters submitted can be published. Letters should be submitted within a month from the publication of the manuscript.
Brief
Communications
Brief Communications are short reports of preliminary or limited results of original research, observations, or
case series on the causes, mechanisms, diagnosis, course, treatment, and prevention of digestive diseases. The formatting guidelines
for brief communication are as follows: Abstract must not exceed 175 words, manuscript body must not exceed 1500 words, 1-2 figures
or tables, and 15-20 references.
Case Reports
The journal will publish only a select number of high quality and critical
case reports. Authors have the option of reformatting their case reports as Brief Communication or Image of the Month.
Publication
Accepted manuscripts are sent to the publisher, Elsevier, soon after acceptance.
Once authors have had the opportunity to review galleys of their manuscripts, these author-corrected proofs will be uploaded to Articles
in Press on www.cghjournal.org and will be indexed on PubMed, several
weeks ahead of print.
Manuscripts are copyedited to make them consistent with Journal style; if a particular section in the manuscript
is not clear or requires additional information, the copy editor will direct questions to the author. These questions, or author queries,
will appear in the margins of the proofs that are sent to the author.
The time between acceptance and publication is currently about
3 months. The corresponding author can expect proofs of the article approximately 2 months after acceptance. Authors receive proofs for
the primary purpose of checking the accuracy of the typesetting; authors are not to revise or rewrite their articles at this stage. If
after acceptance of their paper, authors become aware of important information they believe should be added to their manuscript, they
should contact the editor of Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology.
Authors are required to return proofs to the publisher
within 48 hours.
Reprints. Forms for ordering article reprints will be sent with proofs to authors and should be returned with
the corrected proofs. Authors do not receive free reprints, and therefore are responsible for ordering their own reprints (minimum order,
100) from the publisher.
The address for the submission
of manuscripts or correspondence is: C. Mel Wilcox, M.D., Editor, Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, AGA Institute, 4930
Del Ray Avenue, Bethesda, Maryland 20814; E-mail: cgh@gastro.org; tel: (301) 654-2055 ext. 683.
