Guidelines for Authors

Sahelian Journal of Responsible One Health publishes the following article types:


Overview

Manuscripts will be carefully scrutinized for evidence of plagiarism, duplication and data manipulation; in particular, images will be carefully examined for any indication of intentional improper modification.

Any suspected misconduct ends up with a quick rejection and is then reported to the US Office of Research Integrity.

Authors are requested to submit their papers electronically by using the Sahelian Journal of Responsible One Health online submission and review website (submissions).
The Publisher and Editors regret that they are not able to consider submissions that do not follow this procedure.


Ensure that the following items are present
One author (multiple corresponding authors are not allowed) has been designated as the corresponding author with contact details:

  • E-mail address
  • Full postal address

All necessary files have been uploaded

  • Manuscript file
  • Include keywords (no more than five)
  • All figures (include relevant captions)
  • All tables (including titles, description, footnotes)
  • Ensure all figure and table citations in the text match the files provided

Further considerations

  • Please prepare your manuscript for the single-blind peer review;
  • Ensure that 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 Internet)
  • A competing interests statement is provided, even if the authors have no competing interests to declare
  • Journal policies detailed in this guide have been reviewed
  • Referee suggestions and contact details provided, based on journal requirements
  • Manuscript has been 'spell checked' and 'grammar checked'. Ensure that your work is written in correct English before submission. Note that submitted manuscripts will not go through language-focused copyediting with the journal prior to or after acceptance; language-focused copyediting is the responsibility of the authors prior to submission.
    Professional copyediting can help authors improve the presentation of their work and increase its chances of being taken on by a publisher. In case you feel that your manuscript would benefit from a professional English language copyediting checking language grammar and style, you can find a reliable revision service at:

Desk reject criteria
The editorial team of the Sahelian Journal of Responsible One Health applies desk review to filter out papers that will not be processed; these are papers that are not aligned with the aims and scope of the journal, or that lack essential information in one or more sections of the paper or has not been submitted as per the correct procedure. In such cases, the paper will be desk rejected: this means that it will be sent back to the submitting author, and will not be reviewed.


Submission Procedure


The Corresponding Author (multiple corresponding authors are not allowed) must submit the manuscript online only through our Manuscript Submission System.

The Authors' metadata must be duly completed, by adding "contributors" when needed. Metadata are crucial for the indexing of the paper and of authors, and for attribution of copyright to ALL authors.
Attention: Any submission received for a manuscript with more than one contributor, in which only one author has been inserted in the metadata, will result in immediate rejection, asking for a correct re-submission.
The author names and affiliations inserted in the online submission system will be those which will be published in PubMed and all other indexes. The Editorial staff is therefore not responsible for eventual inaccuracies or mistakes in the affiliations inserted during the submission process.

Papers not adhering to the journal requirements and/or lacking the filled COI forms for each Author are not eligible for the peer-review process, which has to be performed under any circumstances, and are sent back to authors for amendment. 

Authors are kindly invited to suggest potential reviewers (names, affiliations and email addresses) for their manuscript.

 


Preparing your manuscript


Manuscripts should be in either British or American English consistently throughout. Check for consistent spelling of names, terms, and abbreviations, including in tables and figure captions. Note that submitted manuscripts will not go through language-focused copyediting with the journal prior to or after acceptance; language-focused copyediting is the responsibility of the authors prior to submission.

Each manuscript has to be typewritten and double-spaced throughout;
pages should be in A4 format and numbered;
lines should be left numbered in continuum (10-digit numeric system).
The manuscript can be submitted either in Word or PDF format.

Declarations

All manuscripts, irrespective of the article type, must contain the following compulsory sections:

  • Ethics approval and consent to participate
  • Consent for publication
  • Availability of data and material
  • Competing interests
  • Funding
  • Authors' contributions
  • Acknowledgements

 

First and second pages

The first page must contain:

  1. title (lowercase), without acronyms;
  2. first name and family name of each author, separated by commas;
  3. affiliation(s) of each author (in English);
  4. acknowledgments;
  5. full name and full postal address of the corresponding author. Phone, fax number and e-mail address for the correspondence should also be included;
  6. three to five key words.

The second page should contain:

  1. authors' contributions, e.g., information about the contributions of each person named as having participated in the study (http://www.icmje.org/#author);
  2. all the above-detailed Declarations;
  3. further information (e.g., conference presentation).

 

Tables and Figures

The legends of Tables and Figures should be informative and concise without duplicating information presented within the body of the text. Remarks such as "see comments in the text" must be avoided. They must be numbered with Arabic numerals and placed at the end of the manuscript. 

Symbols and abbreviations used in Tables must be explained in footnote(s). Symbols and abbreviations used in Figures can be defined in the figure caption or within the figure itself. Please avoid the use of boldface or greater size for the characters. Please remember that in order to promote good management of the space available images must take up the least possible space without compromising clarity. The number of figures should be reasonable and justified: no more than 20% of the article.
Lettering of figures must be clearly labeled. Figures with different panels have to be grouped into a plate, and panels marked with letters. Micrographs contained in the same figure should be marked with letters.
There is no additional cost for publishing color figures.
Figures should be designed using a well-known software package.

When requested by the Editors, Figures and graphs must be submitted as .tif or .jpg files, with the following digital resolution, preferably saved for MacIntosh:

  • Color (saved as CMYK): 300 dpi - maximum width 17 cm
  • Black and white/grays:  600 dpi - maximum width 17 cm


Permissions

In case extracts (text/figures/tables) from other copyrighted works are included, the author(s) must obtain written permission from the copyright holder(s) and credit the source(s) in the article, for example: 'Adapted from Zilz et al., Multidiscip Resp Med 11:3; with permission.' The editorial office of Sahelian Journal of Responsible One Health needs to receive a copy of the written permission before proceeding with publication. Please download here the 'License and Disclaimer' agreement.
The procedure for requesting permission is the responsibility of the Authors; PAGEPress will not refund any costs incurred in obtaining permission. Alternatively, it is advisable to use materials from other (free) sources.


Other

If abbreviations are used in the text, authors are required to write full name+abbreviation in brackets [e.g. Multiple Myeloma (MM)] the first time they are used, then only abbreviations can be written (apart from titles; in this case authors have to write always the full name).
If names of equipment or substances are mentioned in the text, brand, company names and locations (city and state) for equipment and substances should be included in parentheses within the text.

References

References should be prepared strictly according to the Vancouver style); for details see the URL: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/uniform_requirements.html. Where available, URLs for the references should be provided directly within the Word document. References must be numbered consecutively in the order in which they are first cited in the text, and they must be identified in the text by numbers in square brackets.
References to personal communications and unpublished data should be incorporated in the text and not placed under the numbered References.

References in the References section must be prepared as follows:

  1. more than six authors, cite 6 authors, et al. If the paper has only 4 authors, cite all authors;
  2. title style: sentence case; please use a capital letter only for the first word of the title;
  3. journal titles mentioned in the References list should be abbreviated according to the following websites:
    1. ISI Journal Abbreviations Index (http://library.caltech.edu/reference/abbreviations);
    2. Biological Journals and Abbreviations (http://home.ncifcrf.gov/research/bja);
    3. Medline List of Journal Titles (ftp://ftp.ncbi.nih.gov/pubmed/J_Medline.txt);
  4. put year after the journal name;
  5. never put month and day in the last part of the references;
  6. cite only the volume (not the issue in brackets);
  7. pages have to be abbreviated, e.g., 351-8.

 


Peer-review policy

All submissions to PAGEPress journals are first checked for completeness (criteria for desk reject are available in the Guide for Authors) before being sent to an Editor, who decides whether they are suitable for peer review. If an Editor is on the author list or has a competing interest in a particular manuscript, another member of the Editorial Board will be assigned to oversee peer review. When making a decision, Editors will consider the peer-reviewed reports, but they will not be bound by the opinions or recommendations contained in them. A single peer reviewer's or the Editor's concern may result in the manuscript being rejected. Peer review reports are sent to authors along with the editorial decision on their manuscript.
Please see the About the Journal page for more information.

 

Authorship and Contributorship

All persons designated as authors should qualify for authorship according to the ICMJE criteria. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for the content. Authorship credit should only be based on substantial contributions to: i) conception and design, or analysis and interpretation of data, and to ii) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and on iii) final approval of the version to be published; and iv) agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work.  Participation solely in the acquisition of funding or the collection of data does not justify authorship. General supervision of the research group is not sufficient for authorship. Authors should provide a brief description of their individual contributions.
Those who do not meet all four criteria should not be listed as authors, but they should be acknowledged. Those whose contributions do not justify authorship may be acknowledged individually or together as a group under a single heading. Authors can find detailed information on the Publisher's website. 

Changes in Authorship
If authors request removal or addition of an author after manuscript submission or during the peer-review process, the journal editors should receive a letter clearly explaining the reason for the change.  Authors are also requested to sign and send to the Editors a statement of agreement for the requested change from all listed authors and from the author to be removed or added.
Please note that if your manuscript is accepted you will not be able to make any changes to the authors, or order of authors, of your manuscript once the editor has accepted your manuscript for publication.

No changes to the Authors or Corresponding Author can be made after publication of the article, either as an “Advance Online Article” or in the regular issue. Instead, a corrigendum may be considered by the journal editor.

Role of the funding source
Authors 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 article for publication. If the funding source(s) had no such involvement, it is recommended to state this.

 

Obligation to Register Clinical Trials 

The ICMJE believes that it is important to foster a comprehensive, publicly available database of clinical trials. The ICMJE defines a clinical trial as any research project that prospectively assigns human subjects to intervention or concurrent comparison or control groups to study the cause-and-effect relationship between a medical intervention and a health outcome. Medical interventions include drugs, surgical procedures, devices, behavioral treatments, process-of-care changes, etc. Our journals require, as a condition of consideration for publication, registration in a public trials registry. The journal considers a trial for publication only if it has been registered before the enrollment of the first patient. The journal does not advocate one particular registry but requires authors to register their trial in a registry that meets several criteria. The registry must be accessible to the public at no charge. It must be open to all prospective registrants and managed by a non-profit organization. There must be a mechanism to ensure the validity of the registration data, and the registry should be electronically searchable. An acceptable registry must include a minimum of data elements (http://www.icmje.org/about-icmje/faqs/clinical-trials-registration/). For example, ClinicalTrials.gov (http://www.clinicaltrials.gov), sponsored by the United States National Library of Medicine, meets these requirements.

Protection of Human Subjects and Animals in Research

When reporting experiments on human subjects, authors should indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2013. If doubt exists whether the research was conducted in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration, the authors must explain the rationale for their approach and demonstrate that the institutional review body explicitly approved the doubtful aspects of the study. An Informed Consent statement is always required from patients involved in any experiments. When reporting experiments on animals, authors should indicate whether the institutional and national guide for the care and use of laboratory animals was followed.  Further guidance on animal research ethics is available from the World Medical Association (2016 revision). 
When reporting experiments on ecosystems involving non-native species, Authors are bound to ensure compliance with the institutional and national guide for the preservation of native biodiversity.