| | Contributors are invited to submit their manuscripts in English to the Editor for critical peer review. The Journal of Science and Medicine
in Sport considers for publication manuscripts in the categories of:
- Original Research
- Review Article
Note: for other
types of submissions, please inquire with the editorial office directly (jsams@elsevier.com)
The Journal of Science and Medicine
in Sport considers for publication original research and review papers in the following sub-disciplines relating generally to the broad
sports medicine and sports science fields: sports medicine, sports injury (including injury epidemiology and injury prevention), physiotherapy,
podiatry, physical activity and health, sports science, biomechanics, exercise physiology, motor control and learning, sport and exercise
psychology,sports nutrition, public health (as relevant to sport and exercise), and rehabilitation and injury management. Manuscripts
with an interdisciplinary perspective with specific applications to sport and exercise and its interaction with health will also be considered.
Only studies involving human subjects will be considered.
Authors must declare that manuscripts submitted to the Journal have
not been published elsewhere or are not being considered for publication elsewhere and that the research reported will not be submitted
for publication elsewhere until a final decision has been made as to its acceptability by the Journal.
Manuscripts submitted to the
Journal must conform to the style and submission instructions (particularly concerning word and reference counts) outlined here, or they
will be returned without review.
The blind peer-review process will consist of reviews by at least two independent reviewers.
Contributors should suggest the names and full contact details of 3 possible reviewers. None of the reviewers must be from the same
institutions as the authors, and 1 must be from another country. The Editor may, at his or her discretion, choose no more than 1 of
those suggested. The reviewers will be blinded to the authorship of the manuscript. The Editor will make a final decision about the
manuscript, based on consideration of the reviewers' comments.
Papers accepted for publication become the copyright of Sports Medicine
Australia. Authors will be asked to sign a transfer of copyright form, on receipt of the accepted manuscript by Elsevier. This enables
the publisher to administer copyright on behalf of the authors and the society, while allowing the continued use of the material by the
author for scholarly communication.
CATEGORY OF MANUSCRIPTS
Original Research Papers
Original research papers
should describe original research, be no more than 3000 words, excluding the abstract and the maximum of 30 references.
Review
Articles
Review articles should be both concise and in-depth and be no more than 4000 words, excluding the abstract and the
maximum of 60 references.
SUBMISSION OF MANUSCRIPTS
All manuscripts for publication should be submitted online via the
Elsevier Editorial System at  http://www.ees.elsevier.com/jsams. Authors simply need to "create a new account" (i.e., register)
by following the instructions at the website, and using their own e-mail address and selected password. Authors can then submit manuscripts
containing text, tables, and images (figures) online. The entire peer-review process will be managed electronically to ensure timely
review and publication. Authors can expect an initial decision on their submission within 6 weeks.
Following registration, enter
the "Author area" and follow the instructions for submitting a manuscript, including the structured Abstract, cover letter, tables, figures,
and any supplementary material.
Abstract and Keywords
The Abstract must be structured using the following sub-headings:
Objectives, Design, Methods, Results, and Conclusions. Avoid abbreviations and acronyms. 250 word count.
Provide up to six keywords,
with at least four selected from the Index Medicus Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) browser list (www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/authors.html).
These keywords should not reproduce words used in the title.
Under "Entry data," indicate the number of authors in the box. If you
wish to publish colour figures and agree to pay the "colour charge" check the appropriate box. Colour illustrations incur a colour charge
of 312 US dollars for the first page and 208 US dollars for every additional page containing colour. Figures can be published in colour
at no extra charge for the online version. If you wish to have figures in colour online and black and white figures printed, please submit
both versions.
Every submission must include:
A Cover letter stating: the category of article (i.e., Original article
or Review paper) and which subdiscipline it falls under: sports medicine, sports injury (including injury epidemiology and injury prevention),
physiotherapy, podiatry, physical activity and health, sports science, biomechanics, exercise physiology, motor control and learning,
sport and exercise psychology,, sports nutrition, public health (as relevant to sport and exercise), rehabilitation and injury management,
and others having an interdisciplinary perspective with specific applications to sport and exercise and its interaction with health.
When the proposed publication concerns any commercial product, either directly or indirectly, the author must include in the cover
letter a statement (1) indicating that he or she has no financial or other interest in the product or distributor of the product or (2)
explaining the nature of any relation between himself or herself and the manufacturer or distributor of the product. Other kinds of associations,
such as consultancies, stock ownership, or other equity interests or patent-licensing arrangements, also must be disclosed. If in the
Editor's judgment the information disclosed represents a potential conflict of interest, it may be made available to reviewers and may
be published at the Editor's discretion. Authors will be informed of the decision before publication.
Sources of outside support
for research (including funding, equipment and drugs) must be named in the cover letter.
The complete manuscript, including
title page, abstract, text, tables, acknowledgments, required disclosures (see below), references and illustrations. Financial support
for the project must be acknowledged, or "no external financial support" declared. The ethical guidelines that have been followed must
be stated clearly. The role of the funding organisation, if any, in the collection of data, their analysis and interpretation, and in
the right to approve or disapprove publication of the finished manuscript must be described in the Methods section of the text.
Note
that the online manuscript submission program requires separate entries of some information that also appears in the manuscript. These
separate entries are needed to manage processing and reviewing your manuscript and correspondence.
Written permission from the publisher
(copyright holder) must be submitted in hard copy direct to the Editorial Office for the reproduction of any previously published table(s),
illustration(s) or photograph(s) in both print and electronic media or from any unmasked subjects appearing in photographs.
Regulatory
requirements
Research protocol: Authors must state that the protocol has been approved by the appropriate ethics committee.
Name the committee.
Human investigation: The ethical guidelines followed by the investigators must be included in the Methods section
of the manuscript.
PREPARATION OF MANUSCRIPTS
Microsoft Word is the preferred software program. Manuscripts written in
11 point Arial or Times New Roman fonts are preferred and more reliably convert to PDF files during electronic submission.
Manuscripts
should be double-spaced throughout (including title page, abstract, text, references, tables, and legends) with one (1) inch or 2.5 cm
margins all around.
Manuscripts must include line numbers for the convenience of the peer reviewers.
Number the pages consecutively,
beginning with the title page as page 1 and ending with the legend page.
The title and headings should be in sentence-case only,
not in capital letters.
Sub-headings are generally not accepted. Incorporate into the text if required.
Arrange manuscript
as follows: (1) title page, (2) abstract and keywords, (3) text, (4) acknowledgments, (5) disclosures, (6) references, (7) tables (each
complete with title and footnotes) (8) figures and (9) figure legends.
Word limits
Original research papers
3000 word count limit (excluding title, abstract, tables/figures, figure legends, Acknowledgements, and References)
Maximum
number (combined) of tables and figures is 3
Long tables should only be included as supplementary material and will be made available
on-line only
Maximum number of references is 30
A structured abstract of less than 250 words (not included in 3000 word count)
should be included with the following headings: Objectives, Design, Method, Results, and Conclusions
Review articles
4000
word count limit (excluding title, abstract, tables/figures, figure legends, Acknowledgements, and References)
Maximum number (combined)
of tables and figures is 3
Long tables should only be included as supplemental files and will be available on-line only
Maximum
number of references is 60
A structured abstract of less than 250 words (not included in 4000 word count) should be included sticking
as closely as possible to the following headings: Objectives, Design, Method, Results, and Conclusions
STRUCTURE OF THE COMPLETE
MANUSCRIPT (in order):
1.Title page (first page) should contain:
a. Title. Short and informative
b. Authors. List
all authors by first name, all initials and family name
c. Institution and affiliations. List the name and full address of all institutions
where the study described was carried out. List departmental affiliations of each author affiliated with that institution after each
institutional address. Connect authors to departments using alphabetical superscripts.
d. Corresponding author. Provide the name
and e-mail address of the author to whom communications, proofs and requests for reprints should be sent.
e. Total word count Iincluding
all text and references, (but excluding abstract), the Abstract word count, the number of Tables, the number of Figures.
2.Manuscript
text
For Original articles, text should be organised as follows:
i.Copy of the Abstract and Keywords
For the
convenience of the peer reviewers.
ii.Introduction
Describing the (purpose of the study with a brief review of background);
iii.Methods
Described in detail. This section is not called Materials and Methods, and should not include subheadings.
Do not use the term "subjects" - use terms such as participants or athletes, etc.
iv.Results
Concisely reported in tables
and figures, with brief text descriptions. Do not include subheadings. Use small, non-italicized letter p for p-values with a leading
zero, e.g. 0.05; Measurements and weights should be given in standard metric units. Do not replicate material that is in the tables
or figures in the text.
v.Discussion
Containing a clear and concise interpretation of results. Cite references, illustrations
and tables in numeric order by order of mention in the text. Do not include subheadings.
vi.Conclusion
vii.Practical
Implications
Three to five dot (bulleted) points summarising the practical findings derived from the study to the real-world
setting of sport and exercise - that can be understood by a lay audience. Avoid overly scientific terms and abbreviations. Dot points
should not include recommendations for further research.
viii.Acknowledgments
This field is compulsory. Grants, financial
support and technical or other assistance are acknowledged at the end of the text before the references. All financial support for the
project must be acknowledged. If there has been no financial assistance with the project, this must be clearly stated.
ix.References
Authors are responsible for the accuracy of references.
x.Tables
May be submitted at the end of the text file, on
separate pages, one to each page.
xi.Figure Legends
Must be submitted as part of the text file and not as illustrations.
xii.Figures
Must be submitted as one or more separate files that may contain one or more images.
xiii.Supplementary
material (if any)
Tables or figures to be viewed online only (not included in the word-count limit)
REFERENCES
The
journal's reference style is the Vancouver system.
References should be numbered consecutively in un-bracketed superscripts where
they occur in the text, tables, etc, and listed numerically at the end of the paper under the heading "References".
For original
research papers, no more than three references should be used to support a specific point in the text.
All authors should be listed
where there are three or fewer. Where there are more than three, the reference should be to the first three authors followed by the expression
"et al".
Book and journal titles should be in italics.
Conference and other abstracts should not be used as references. Material
referred to by the phrase "personal communication" or "submitted for publication" are not considered full references and should only
be placed in parentheses at the appropriate place in the text (e.g., (Hessel 1997 personal communication). References to articles submitted
but not yet accepted are not encouraged but, if necessary, should only be referred to in the text as "unpublished data".
Footnotes
are unacceptable. For guidance on abbreviations of journal titles, see Index Medicus at www.nlm.nih.gov/tsd/serials/lji.html.
Book
references
Last name and initials of author, chapter title, chapter number, "in" italicised title of book, edition (if applicable),
editor, translator (if applicable), place of publication, publisher, year of publication, e.g.:
Wilk KE, Reinold MM, Andrews
JR. Interval sport programs for the shoulder, Chapter 58, in The Athlete's Shoulder, 2nd ed., Philadelphia, Churchill Livingstone,
2009.
Journal references
Last name and initials of principal author followed by last name(s) and initials of co-author(s),
title of article (with first word only starting in capitals), abbreviated and italicised title of journal, year, volume (with issue number
in parenthesis if applicable), inclusive pages, e.g.:
Hanna CM, Fulcher ML, Elley CR et al. Normative values of hip strength
in adult male association football players assessed by handheld dynamometry. J Sci Med Sport 2010; 13(3):299-303.
Internet
references should be as follows:
Health Care Financing Administration. 1996 statistics at a glance. Available at: http://www.hcfa.gov/stats/stathili.htm.
Accessed 2 December 1996.
Articles in Press
Articles in Press are cited using a DOI: http://www.doi.org. The correct format
for citing a DOI is shown as follows: doi:10.1016/j.jsams.2009.10.104.
TABLES
Keep the use of tables, figures and graphs
to a minimum. Tables should be on separate sheets (one to each page). Do not use vertical lines. Each table should be numbered (Arabic)
and have a title above. Legends and explanatory notes should be placed below the table. Abbreviations used in the table follow the legend
in alphabetic order. Lower case letter superscripts beginning with "a" and following in alphabetic order are used for notations of within-group
and between-group statistical probabilities. Tables should be self-explanatory, and the data should not be duplicated in the text or
illustrations. Tables must be submitted as part of the text file and not as illustrations.
FIGURE LEGENDS
Figure legends
should be numbered (Arabic) and typed double- spaced in order of appearance beginning on a separate sheet. Identify (in alphabetic order)
all abbreviations appearing in the illustrations at the end of each legend. All abbreviations used on a figure and in its legend should
be defined in the legend. Cite the source of previously published (print or electronic) material in the legend.
FIGURES
Images
or figures are submitted online as one or more separate files that may contain one or more images. Within each file containing images,
use the figure number (eg, Figure 1A) as the image filename. The system accepts image files formatted in TIFF and EPS. Powerpoint (.ppt)
files are also accepted, but you must use a separate Powerpoint image file for each Powerpoint figure.
Symbols, letters, numbers
and contrasting fills must be distinct, easily distinguished and clearly legible when the illustration is reduced in size.
Black,
white and widely crosshatched bars are preferable; do not use stippling, gray fill or thin lines.
Written permission from unmasked
patients appearing in photographs must be obtained by the authors and must be surface mailed or faxed to the editorial office once the
manuscript is submitted online.
Formulae, equations and statistical notations
Structural formulae, flow-diagrams and complex mathematical
expressions are expensive to print and should be kept to a minimum.
Present simple formulae in the line of normal text, where possible.
Use a slash (/) for simple fractions rather than a built up fraction. Do not use italics for variables.
In statistical analyses,
95% confidence intervals should be used, where appropriate. Experimental design should be concisely described and results summarised
by reporting means, standard deviations (SD) or standard errors (SE) and the number of observations. Statistical tests and associated
confidence intervals for differences or p-values should also be reported when comparisons are made. Only use normal text for statistical
terms: do not use bold, italics or underlined text.
Scientific terminology
To enable consistency, authors should generally
follow the technical guidelines of Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, unless otherwise stipulated in these Instructions. Following
are some examples of the Journal style in the most basic cases and some general SI unit guidelines.
Mass: 10 g, 2 kg
temperature:
20 o C
distance: 10 cm, 4 m, 20 km
time: 10 s, 20 min, 2 hr, 5 wk, 1 y
power: 10 W
energy: 400 J, 10 kJ.
The centigrade
scale (? C) and the metric units (SI) must be used, except in the case of heart rate (beats per min: bpm), blood pressure (mmHg) and
gas pressure (mmHg).
When opening a sentence, numbers should be expressed in words, e.g.:
Forty-seven patients were contacted
by phone.
The 24-hour clock should be used. |
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