Former title: Journal of the American Association of Gynecologic Laparoscopists

The Journal of Minimally Invasive Gynecology is a bimonthly periodical devoted to the health care of women.

For any questions, you may telephone the Journal office at (800) 554-2245 or (714) 503-6200, Facsimile (714) 503-6202 or e-mail: pevans@aagl.org

Please submit all manuscripts to our EES site at http://ees.elsevier.com/jmig/ By publishing a manuscript in the JMIG, the authors(s) agree to transfer copyright authorization to the JMIG. This authorization will provide the widest distribution of your paper under established publication guidelines.

Manuscript Processing
When a manuscript is received, the corresponding author will be sent a verification letter together with the Author's Checklist if one has not been received. A manuscript will not be published unless each of these statements has been signed by all contributors and returned to the Journal office. Any manuscript submitted must be original material that has not been published previously and is not under consideration by another Journal. The Journal will not accept a manuscript that contains material that has been published elsewhere.

Manuscripts are reviewed by three ad hoc reviewers. Reviewers have 3 weeks to complete their evaluations and send them to the Editor-in-Chief for a final decision. Manuscripts that require revisions are returned with reviewers' recommendations. The average length of time between manuscript acceptance and publication is approximately 3 to 6 months.

When a manuscript is published, it becomes the sole property of the AAGL, and the copyright will be held in the name of the JMIG. The editor and publishers accept no responsibility for opinions expressed by contributors.

Authors
For manuscripts that have more than one author, each author must qualify by having made substantial contributions to the concept and design, analysis and interpretation of data, and drafting and revisions. The cover letter that accompanies a submitted manuscript must include confirmation that each author has fulfilled these conditions.

Manuscripts submitted without disclosure or an attestation report will not be forwarded to the editor until received. The attestation report is required if there are more than three authors. These documents can be downloaded at our submission site when uploading your files.

Please provide no more than two professional affiliations for each author. These will appear as a footnote on the first page of the article. Please include a complete mailing address and fax number on the title page. Also on the title page, please specify what, if any, financial interest you may have in any aspect of the work (e.g., instrument manufacturer) or financial support you may have received (e.g., grants). If the authors have no disclosure to report for their papers, they should include a statement on their title page.

Manuscript Preparation, General
All elements of manuscripts--abstracts, references, tables, legends, and figures--must be typed double-spaced on one side of the paper. Scientific (generic) names of drugs should be used at all times. Weights and measures must be expressed in metric values and temperatures in Celsius (centigrade). Prior presentation as an abstract or at a professional meeting should be described fully in a footnote. The minimum follow-up time for oncology, urogynecology, or endometriosis must be 12 months.

It is your responsibility to obtain permission to reproduce figures, tables, and text from published material. Written permission must be obtained from the original copyright holder (generally the publisher, not the author or editor) of the Journal or book concerned and a copy of the permission sent with the manuscript. An appropriate credit line should appear at the end of a figure legend or in a table footnote; for example, "Reprinted with permission from reference 17." Full publication data must appear in a numbered entry in the reference list. Written permission must be obtained from the author of unpublished material that is cited.

Manuscripts should be in the following format: title, précis, abstract, text (this may, but does not have to, consist of Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, and Conclusion), references, tables, and figure legends. The precis is a one-sentence synopsis of no more than 30 words that describes the basic findings of the article. It appears in the table of contents under the author(s)' name(s). All submitted manuscripts must include e-mail address, phone and fax numbers on the title page and page numbering with the first author's last name in upper right corner of all pages.

Journal style now reflects JAMA Manual of Style, 9th edition. Numbers are Arabic, not spelled out. Delete zeros before decimal point when reporting p-values. p-values should not be carried out past 3 decimal places.

Manuscript Preparation, Specific

Original Articles: The Original Articles section of the Journal is reserved for manuscripts that represent original research. Abstracts for these manuscripts must appear in structured format, as follows: Study Objective, Design, Design Classification, Setting, Patients, Interventions, Measurements and Main Results, and Conclusion. All of these abstract sections must be complete.

The Design portion of abstracts (for Original articles only) are to be classified by the author according to the Canadian Task Force Classification of Study Designs (see table below).

	Canadian Task Force Classification of Study Design
I	Evidence obtained from a properly designed, randomized, controlled trial
II-1	Evidence obtained from a well-designed controlled trial without randomization
II-2	Evidence obtained from well-designed cohort or case-control studies, preferably from more than one center or research group
II-3	Evidence obtained from several timed series with or without the intervention. Dramatic results in uncontrolled experiments, such as the results of the introduction of penicillin treatment in the 1940s, could also be regarded as this type of evidence
III	Opinions of respected authorities based on clinical experience, descriptive studies, or a report of an expert committee

Adapted from Arch Intern Med, Volume 152, May 1992

Other sections: Manuscripts that do not contain original research are placed in the section of the Journal that is most appropriate; for example, Review Articles, Case Reports, Instruments and Techniques, Special Articles, Clinical Opinion, and Complications. These manuscripts require abstracts in paragraph form.

Editorials: Manuscripts submitted for this section of the Journal must pertain to the topic assigned by the Editor-in-Chief and must contain references as necessary, not to exceed 6 double-spaced pages, not including references. All elements of the manuscripts, including references in the Journal's format, must be double-spaced.

Continuing Medical Education Articles: Manuscripts submitted for this section of the Journal must contain the following: objectives, a minimum of 10 questions and answers relevant to the material presented, references, tables, and figure legends, not to exceed 20 double-spaced pages, not including references. All elements of the manuscript, including references in the Journal's format, must be double-spaced.

Images in Endoscopy: This section of the Journal is one page in length and does include one color photo and text of no more than 150 words. The Editor-in-Chief will choose one or two color photos per issue.

Case Report: JMIG will limit the number of authors to six.

Review Articles: Manuscripts submitted for this section of the Journal must contain references, tables, and figure legends, not to exceed 20 double-spaced pages, not including references. All elements of the manuscript, including references in the Journal's format, must be double-spaced.

Letters to the Editor are openly solicited. The Journal supports this as a forum to convey comments and opinions regarding recently published articles. Original material such as preliminary data may also be published at the discretion of the Editor.

Statistics
Manuscripts dealing with comparisons between groups-- cohort, case-control and/or prospective randomized trials-- must utilize proper statistical analysis; failure to do so may result in return of the manuscript to the author(s) without peer review. Means or medians, depending on distribution of the data, must be accompanied by standard deviations. Confidence intervals are mandatory where applicable. Use of "p" values for comparisons between groups is not sufficient; use of probability ratios, odds ratios or hazard ratios, where appropriate are necessary. Consultation with a medical statistician prior to submission is advised.

Figures, Illustrations
The editors reserve the right to establish a reasonable limit on the number of black and white illustrations that will be reproduced free of charge.

Electronic figures must be submitted as a TIFF or EPS file. All photographic images should be submitted at a resolution of 300 dpi. All line-art images should be submitted at a resolution of 800-1200 dpi. Image mode for color images should be CMYK; for black and white photographic images it should be gray scale and bit map for line-art images. Do not embed figures within documents. Color figures are acceptable, but must be submitted in high resolution tiff file form. The colors must be dark enough and have enough contrast for reproduction.

Lettering and identifying characters must be clear and consistent on each figure. Titles, explanations, and definitions of abbreviations must be noted in the legends, not on the figures themselves. A separate typewritten sheet of legends should be included with the manuscript. If figures are not in line with these guidelines and do not appear to be clearly reproducible, they will be returned to you with a request for new ones. In order to maintain a clear separation between the author and any other agency, the editors request that all figures, tables, and photographs must be submitted directly by the contributing author and no other source.

Video Clips
The Journal of Minimally Invasive Gynecology now accepts electronic supplementary material to support and enhance your scientific research. Supplementary files offer additional possibilities for publishing supporting applications, movies, animations sequences, high-resolution images and 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 Science Direct.

Videos will be accepted only for an Original Article or an article for the section titled Instruments and Techniques.

JMIG will not edit any video or computer graphics nor may reviewers suggest changes in the video or computer graphic. The video will be accepted or rejected as presented without an option for revision. Videos and computer graphics will not be accepted separately from a manuscript that has been rejected; however, a manuscript may be accepted even if a video is rejected.

Maximum cumulative length of videos or animated computer graphics is 4.5 minutes. Files may be divided into several smaller clips not to exceed 4.5 minutes in total. Each video segment file can not exceed 50MB. The submission program will timeout if the file size is larger than 50MB. To hasten the upload time, please ZIP the file and upload the ZIP file.

If the video or animation is divided into several clips, each clip should be identified at the beginning of the section, e.g., Video Clip 1 or Graphic 1, and each clip or graphic should be saved as a separate file. Concise legends (typed on a separate page) must accompany each video clip or computer graphic presentation. A sound track is highly recommended.

The following formats for video will be accepted: MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 (.mpg), QuickTime (.mov), Audio/Video Interface (.avi) or CompuServe GIF (.gif). Detailed instructions are included on the article submission website under Attach Files on http://ees.elsevier.com/jmig/

References
There is no limit of references for Original, Review, or CME articles, or Case Reports. Entries must be cited in order in the text as superscript numerals. Every entry must have only one number; if it is cited a second time, it should have the first (original) number, not a new number, ibid, or op cit. If a new entry is inserted into an established list, it must be numbered consecutively (not, 10a, 10b, etc.), with subsequent entries renumbered both in the text and in the reference list. If it becomes clear that in long reference lists (>20 entries) the entries (1) are cited incorrectly or (2) are single-spaced, incomplete, unclear, or otherwise in unacceptable format, they will be returned to you to be corrected. This will delay publication of the article. You are responsible for the accuracy of references, and are reminded that inaccurate references are highly frustrating to the reader, the cited author, and indexing services. Footnotes are not acceptable Journal style.

The Journal requests that the following formats be used for all reference lists, and that they be typed double-spaced.

Journal article

1. Phillips DR, Nathanson HG, Milim SJ, et al. Laparoscopic bipolar coagulation for the conservative treatment of adenomyomata. J Am Assoc Gynecol Laparosc. 1996; 4:20-4.

Book

2. Parker WH, Parker RL. A Gynecologist's Second Opinion: The Questions and Answers You Need to Take Charge of Your Health. New York: Penguin; 1996.

Chapter in a book

3. Steege JF. Persistent or chronic pelvic pain. In: Rock JA, Thompson JD, eds. TeLinde's Operative Gynecology. 8th ed. Philadelphia: Lippincott-Raven; 1997: 645-56.

Presentation

4. Wortman M, Daggett A. Serum sodium changes during hysteroscopic endomyometrial resection. Paper presented at: 23rd annual meeting of the American Association of Gynecologic Laparoscopists; October 18-24, 1994; New York, NY.

Unpublished observations must not be included in the reference list.

Page Proofs (Galleys)

You will receive page proofs by e-mail. You will be requested to correct and return them by fax within 48 hours. Changes involving line or page length will be made at your expense. You are fully responsible for the accuracy of all numbers, references, figures, author affiliations, degrees and disclosures, and corresponding addresses as they appear in the page proofs.

Reprints
Reprints will be supplied at a nominal fee. Order blanks will accompany page proofs. Return orders, together with payment, to Anne Rosenthal, Journal of Minimally Invasive Gynecology, 360 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10010, e-mail reprints@elsevier.com. Reprints ordered after the issue is printed will be charged at a substantially higher rate.



Updated November 2008