(formerly Journal of Men's Health & Gender)
Official journal of the International Society for Men's Health
Affiliated with the European Men's Health Forum

INTRODUCTION BEFORE YOU BEGIN • Ethics in Publishing • Conflict of interest • Submission declaration • Copyright • Retained author rights • Role of the funding source • Funding body agreements and policies • Language and language services • Submission PREPARATION • Essential title page information • Submission checklist AFTER ACCEPTANCE • Use of the Digital Object Identifier AUTHOR INQUIRIES

Journal of Men's Health (jmh) is an international inter-disciplinary journal, published quarterly, which accelerates the transfer of knowledge from bench to bedside and bedside to bench, provoking debate or highlighting wider social issues of concern to readers interested in men's health and gender medicine all over the world.

It is important that papers are well written in a readable style. Articles may be written in British English (according to the Concise Oxford Dictionary) or American English (according to Merriam-Websters Collegiate Dictionary). The editorial office will provide assistance in polishing articles to achieve high-quality communication.

Submission of a paper to jmh is understood to imply that it is not being considered for publication elsewhere and that the Author(s) permission to publish his/her article(s) in this journal implies the exclusive authorisation of the journal to deal with all issues concerning the copyright therein. Authors will be required to sign a declaration of authorship, and a conflict of interest statement disclosing financial interests that are recognised as having the potential to lead to biased reporting in biomedical articles. Disclosures will be published with the article if they are considered important to readers in evaluating the article.

Online Submission Papers should be submitted online via the jmh web site at http://ees.elsevier.com/jmh). All articles undergo peer review, managed by the jmh editorial office (jmh-office@ismh.org), using this web site. See also "Submission Checklist" below.



Ethics in Publishing

For information on Ethics in Publishing and Ethical guidelines for journal publication see http://www.elsevier.com/publishingethics and http://www.elsevier.com/ethicalguidelines.

Conflict of interest

All authors are requested to disclose any actual or potential conflict of interest including any financial, personal or other relationships with other people or organizations within three years of beginning the submitted work that could inappropriately influence, or be perceived to influence, their work. See also http://www.elsevier.com/conflictsofinterest.

Submission declaration

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 copyright-holder.

Copyright

Upon acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to complete 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 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.
Subscribers may reproduce tables of contents or prepare lists of articles including abstracts for internal circulation within their institutions. Permission of the Publisher is required for resale or distribution outside the institution and for all other derivative works, including compilations and translations (please consult http://www.elsevier.com/permissions). 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: please consult http://www.elsevier.com/permissions.

Authors contributing a manuscript do so on the understanding that once it is accepted for publication, copyright in the article, including the right to reproduce it in all forms of media shall be assigned exclusively to the journal. The journal will not refuse any reasonable request by the author to reproduce any of his or her contribution elsewhere.

Retained author rights

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

Role of the funding source

You are requested to identify who provided financial support for the conduct of the research and/or preparation of the article and to briefly describe the role of the sponsor(s), if any, in study design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the paper for publication. If the funding source(s) had no such involvement then this should be stated. Please see http://www.elsevier.com/funding.

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.

Language and language services

Please write your text in good English (American or British usage is accepted, but not a mixture of these). Authors who require information about language editing and copyediting services pre- and post-submission please visit http://www.elsevier.com/languagepolishing or our customer support site at http://epsupport.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/termsandconditions.

Submission

Submission to this journal proceeds totally online and you will be guided stepwise through the creation and uploading of your files. The system automatically converts source files to a single PDF file of the article, which is used in the peer-review process. Please note that even though manuscript source files are converted to PDF files 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 removing the need for a paper trail.

Online Submission

Papers should be submitted online via the jmh web site at http://ees.elsevier.com/jmh). All articles undergo peer review, managed by the jmh editorial office (jmh-office@ismh.org), using this web site. See also "Submission Checklist" below.

TYPES OF MANUSCRIPT

The following is a guide to types and length of submissions:

Original Papers
Original reports of basic research and clinical work including social health:
Full-length <3500 Words
References <80 References

Reviews and Editorials
Where applicable the guidelines for Original articles apply to Reviews and Editorials. Otherwise the format of these articles is at the discretion of the author.

Reviews should be submitted with an abstract which should give the core message of and conclusions reached in the article, indicating unanswered and unanswerable questions.

Reviews
Reviews, mini-reviews
Full-length <3500 Words
References <100 References
Mini-reviews <2500 Words
References <50 References

Full length, mini, and systematic review articles will be published and can be submitted or invited by the Editor. Systematic reviews should be written according to the Cochrane Collaboration guidelines. The format is at the discretion of the author but a summary which should give the core message of and conclusions reached in the article, indicating unanswered and unanswerable questions must be included at the end of the article.

Editorials
Editorials: <1500 Words, <20 References

Letters to the Editor
Comments on recent publications in jmh, short case report or pertinent observation: <800 Words, <6 References

Two types of Letters will be considered for publication. The word limit excludes references, name(s) and address(es) of the signer(s), and the phrase To the Editor. Letters should be address To the Editor and should have a title.

A Letter to the Editor commenting on an article that has appeared in the Journal should be brief and directly related to the published article. Letters may be published together with a reply from the original author.
A brief case presentation or a short report of a pertinent observation in the form of a Letter to the Editor will be considered for publication.

Continuing Medical Education

Educational Series

Book Reviews: <600 Words

Events Calendar
Medical or non-medical local and national events related to gender medicine are invited. Please submit to eventcalendar@ismh.org

Points of Style

•Abbreviations should not be overused, i.e. usually abbreviations are not necessary unless used more than three times in the article.
•Jargon should be avoided.
•There is a tendency to overuse the passive voice in scientific writing. The passive can be useful in the Subjects, materials and methods section but otherwise over-indulgence in the passive voice makes for dullness in scientific writing.
•Please use "men" and "women", and "boys "girls" or "youths" when writing about humans and avoid the use of "male" and "female" except as adjectives.
•Choose shorter words with the more correct meaning whenever possible, e.g. "did" rather than "performed", "show" rather than "demonstrate", "gave", "injected" or "treated" rather than "administered", "used" rather than "employed" or "utilised".
•Name dropping, i.e. mentioning researchers by name rather than relying solely on a citation, is to be avoided, e.g. The sentence "We confirmed the findings of P.W. Edwards and colleagues that . . . [3]" can be changed to "We confirmed that . . . [3]".



Essential title page information

• Title. Concise and informative. Titles are often used in information-retrieval systems. Avoid abbreviations and formulae where possible.
• Author names and affiliations. Where the family name may be ambiguous (e.g., a double name), please indicate this clearly. Present the authors' affiliation addresses (where the actual work was done) below the names. Indicate all affiliations with a lower-case superscript letter immediately after the author's name and in front of the appropriate address. Provide the full postal address of each affiliation, including the country name, and, if available, the e-mail address of each author.
• Corresponding author. Clearly indicate who will handle correspondence at all stages of refereeing and publication, also post-publication. Ensure that telephone and fax numbers (with country and area code) are provided in addition to the e-mail address and the complete postal address.
• Present/permanent address. If an author has moved since the work described in the article was done, or was visiting at the time, a "Present address" (or "Permanent address") may be indicated as a footnote to that author's name. The address at which the author actually did the work must be retained as the main, affiliation address. Superscript Arabic numerals are used for such footnotes.

Abstract

Abstracts should be structured into the following four paragraphs: Background, Methods, Results, Conclusions. The information in the abstract must correlate with that in the main text. Abbreviations should be kept to a minimum and should be written out in full the first time they are used followed by the abbreviation in parentheses. No references should be cited in the abstract. Abstracts should not exceed 250 words in length.

Keywords should preferably be taken from the MESH index of Index Medicus.

Introduction
The introduction should explain the state of knowledge before the investigation and contain a clear statement of the aim and novelty of the study. It should neither include results nor conclusions.

Subjects, Materials and Methods
Sufficient information should be given to permit repetition of experiments.

Patients and the criteria for their selection must be described. The reasons for any dropping out of the study must be fully explained.

Animals age, sex and source and, where appropriate, genetic background should be given.

Chemical substances must be identified and unless they are standard laboratory chemicals the name, town and country of the supplier must be provided.

Drugs must be identified by their generic or official name. Proprietary names may follow in parentheses (include both English and American names if different). Great care should be taken in describing the use of drugs and details of the regimen should be thoroughly checked.

Units. The International System of Units (SI) should be applied. For abbreviations, capitals without full stops are preferred. If uncommon abbreviations are used they should be defined at first mention.

Genes. Gene names should be those approved by the Human Gene Nomenclature Committee ( www.gene.ucl.ac.uk/nomenclature). Italic characters should be used for gene symbols to distinguish them from protein symbols. New gene sequences should be deposited in a public database (GenBank, EMBL or DDBJ), and the accession number provided.

Results

Only important observations should be reported and reference made to details documented in tables and figures. Repetition of data between tables, figures and text must be avoided.

Figures. Instructions on submitting figures online are provided under http://authors.elsevier.com/artwork

All authors wishing to use illustrations already published must first obtain the permission of the author and publisher and/or copyright holder and give the precise reference to the original work. If colour illustrations are essential, please inform the Editorial Office immediately of your requirements; colour figures will be published online at no cost but a charge will be levied to the author to cover print production costs.

Figure Legends. Figure legends should be short but contain sufficient detail to explain the figures and enable them to stand as a separate entity from the text. Details of methods should not be included. These should only be given in the subjects, materials and methods section.

Tables. Authors are encouraged to use tables to show precise numerical details, data, and information (e.g. the general characteristics of the subjects), when these cannot be clearly presented as narrative. A table should have at least three interrelated columns and three rows; a table with less can probably be narrated in the text. Tables should be numbered consecutively using Arabic numerals in the order in which they are cited in the text. Each table should be typed in double spacing and given a brief explanatory caption.

Discussion

The discussion should compare the state of previous knowledge mentioned in the introduction with the new information provided by the results, but without repeating them. It should fairly assess the results and discuss the relevant literature both supporting and contending the findings. The clinical application of the results is important and should be clearly explained.

The discussion and results may be combined in short reports.

Acknowledgements

Only those people who qualify as contributors not meeting the Uniform Requirements for Submission of Manuscripts to Biomedical journal's criteria of authorship ( http://www.icmje.org) should be listed. The source of grant support, equipment and drugs must also be included.

Reference List

Reference Format. These should represent the most recent and pertinent literature available. It is essential that references are thoroughly checked to eliminate inaccuracies.

•A maximum of 50 references should be included. •References should be provided in the Vancouver system.1. •Indicate reference(s) in the text with a number in square brackets [1] to [80]. •At the end of the manuscript provide a corresponding numbered reference list. This should not be alphabetised, but should appear in the same sequence as the numbers in the text. •Names of journals should be abbreviated according to Index Medicus ( http://www.nlm.nih.gov/tsd/serials/lji.html)

Examples:
1. Books: [1]Zucherman AJ, Smith O, Clark J et al. Infectious mononucleosis. In Top FH and Wehrle PF (eds) Communicable and Infectious Diseases. 2nd edn, St Louis: CV Mosby, 1990, pp 558-9. 2. Journals: [1]Greenland KJ, Zajac JD. Kennedy's disease: pathogenesis and clinical approaches. Intern Med J 2004;34:279-86.

Papers that have been accepted but not yet published should be included in the reference list followed by "(in press)". Those in preparation including those already submitted for ublication, personal communications and unpublished observations should be referred to in the text only.

Electronic artwork
General points
• Make sure you use uniform lettering and sizing of your original artwork.
• Save text in illustrations as "graphics" or enclose the font.
• Only use the following fonts in your illustrations: Arial, Courier, Times, Symbol.
• Number the illustrations according to their sequence in the text.
• Use a logical naming convention for your artwork files.
• Provide captions to illustrations separately.
• Produce images near to the desired size of the printed version.
• Submit each figure as a separate file.

A detailed guide on electronic artwork is available on our website:
http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions
You are urged to visit this site; some excerpts from the detailed information are given here.
Formats
Regardless of the application used, when your electronic artwork is finalised, please "save as" or convert the images to one of the following formats (note the resolution requirements for line drawings, halftones, and line/halftone combinations given below):
EPS: Vector drawings. Embed the font or save the text as "graphics".
TIFF: color or grayscale photographs (halftones): always use a minimum of 300 dpi.
TIFF: Bitmapped line drawings: use a minimum of 1000 dpi.
TIFF: Combinations bitmapped line/half-tone (color or grayscale): a minimum of 500 dpi is required.
DOC, XLS or PPT: If your electronic artwork is created in any of these Microsoft Office applications please supply "as is".
Please do not:
• Supply embedded graphics in your wordprocessor (spreadsheet, presentation) document;
• Supply files that are optimised for screen use (like GIF, BMP, PICT, WPG); the resolution is too low;
• Supply files that are too low in resolution;
• Submit graphics that are disproportionately large for the content.

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" and "grammar-checked"
• 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)
• Color figures are clearly marked as being intended for color reproduction on the Web (free of charge) and in print or to be reproduced in color on the Web (free of charge) and in black-and-white in print
• If only color on the Web is required, black and white versions of the figures are also supplied for printing purposes
For any further information please visit our customer support site at http://epsupport.elsevier.com.



Proofs

Proofs will be sent electronically as a pdf file to the corresponding author, unless otherwise indicated. Only corrections of typographical errors will be accepted at this stage. Please therefore ensure that when you submit your manuscript it is accurate and complete.

Use of the Digital Object Identifier

The Digital Object Identifier (DOI) may be used to cite and link to electronic documents. The DOI consists of a unique alpha-numeric character string which is assigned to a document by the publisher upon the initial electronic publication. The assigned DOI never changes. Therefore, it is an ideal medium for citing a document, particularly 'Articles in press' because they have not yet received their full bibliographic information. The correct format for citing a DOI is shown as follows (example taken from a document in the journal Physics Letters B):
doi:10.1016/j.physletb.2003.10.071
When you use the DOI to create URL hyperlinks to documents on the web, they are guaranteed never to change.



For inquiries relating to the submission of articles (including electronic submission where available) please visit this journal's homepage. You can track accepted articles at http://www.elsevier.com/trackarticle and set up e-mail alerts to inform you of when an article's status has changed. Also accessible from here is information on copyright, frequently asked questions and more. Contact details for questions arising after acceptance of an article, especially those relating to proofs, will be provided by the publisher.