Thank you for your interest in Advanced Chinese Medicine. Please refer to the following instructions to help you prepare your manuscript, and feel free to contact us if you have any questions. To ensure fast peer review and publication, manuscripts that do not adhere to the following instructions may be returned to the corresponding author for technical revision before undergoing peer review. We are looking forward to your submission.

Sections 

• 1. Submission and Peer Review Process
• 2. Article Types
• 3. After Acceptance 

 
1. Submission and Peer Review Process

Once the submission materials have been prepared in accordance with the Author Guidelines, manuscripts should be submitted online at https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/hepacm

For help with submissions, please contact: Dr.Wang ACM@pub.hep.cn

This journal does not charge submission fee. 

Article Preparation Support  

Wiley Editing Services offers expert help with English Language Editing, as well as translation, manuscript formatting, figure illustration, figure formatting, and graphical abstract design – so you can submit your manuscript with confidence.  

Also, check out our resources for Preparing Your Article for general guidance about writing and preparing your manuscript. 

Cover Letter  

A cover letter should be included in the ‘Cover Letter Field’ of the ScholarOne system. The text can be entered directly into the field or uploaded as a file. 

The cover letter must contain: 
i) A statement confirming the paper has not been published or submitted for publication elsewhere except as a brief abstract in the proceedings of a scientific meeting or symposium; 
ii) An acknowledgment that all authors have contributed significantly and in keeping with the latest guidelines of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, each author’s contribution to the paper is to be described, i.e., what role each author participated in; 
iii) a statement confirming that all authors are in agreement with the content of the manuscript. 

 

Free format submission 

Advanced Chinese Medicine now offers Free Format submission for a simplified and streamlined submission process.  

Before you submit, you will need:

• Your manuscript: this should be an editable file including text, figures, and tables, or separate files—whichever you prefer. All required sections should be contained in your manuscript, including abstract, introduction, methods, results, and conclusions. Figures and tables should have legends. Figures should be uploaded in the highest resolution possible. If the figures are not of sufficiently high quality your manuscript may be delayed. References may be submitted in any style or format, as long as it is consistent throughout the manuscript. Supporting information should be submitted in separate files. If the manuscript, figures or tables are difficult for you to read, they will also be difficult for the editors and reviewers, and the editorial office will send it back to you for revision. Your manuscript may also be sent back to you for revision if the quality of English language is poor.
• An ORCID ID, freely available at https://orcid.org. (Why is this important? Your article, if accepted and published, will be attached to your ORCID profile. Institutions and funders are increasingly requiring authors to have ORCID IDs.)
• The title page of the manuscript, including:
  • Your co-author details, including affiliation and email address. (Why is this important? We need to keep all co-authors informed of the outcome of the peer review process.)
  • Statements relating to our ethics and integrity policies, which may include any of the following (Why are these important? We need to uphold rigorous ethical standards for the research we consider for publication):
    • data availability statement
    • funding statement
    • conflict of interest disclosure
    • ethics approval statement
    • patient consent statement
    • permission to reproduce material from other sources
    • clinical trial registration

Open Access 

This journal is a Gold Open Access title. Submissions will be subject to an APC if accepted and published in the journal. You can read more about APCs and whether you may be eligible for waivers or discounts, through your institution, funder, or a country waiver. For more information on this journal’s APCs and licensing policy, please visit the journal’s Open Access page.

Please note: Article Publication Charges (APCs) are currently waived.  For more information on this journal’s APCs, please see the Open Access page.

Preprint policy:  

Please find the Wiley preprint policy here. 

Advanced Chinese Medicine will consider for review articles previously available as preprints. You are requested to update any pre-publication versions with a link to the final published article. You may also post the final published version of the article immediately after publication.

Registered Reports 

See the Registered Reports Author Guidelines for full details. 

Data Sharing and Data Availability 

This journal encourages data sharing. Review Wiley’s Data Sharing policy where you will be able to see and select the data availability statement that is right for your submission. 

Data Citation  

Please review Wiley’s Data Citation policy. 

Data Protection 

By submitting a manuscript to or reviewing for this publication, your name, email address, and affiliation, and other contact details the publication might require, will be used for the regular operations of the publication. Please review Wiley’s Data Protection Policy to learn more. 

Funding 

You should list all funding sources in the Acknowledgments section. You are responsible for the accuracy of their funder designation. If in doubt, please check the Open Funder Registry for the correct nomenclature. 

Authorship 

All listed authors should have contributed to the manuscript substantially and have agreed to the final submitted version. Review editorial standards and scroll down for a description of authorship criteria. 

Author Pronouns  

Authors may now include their personal pronouns in the author bylines of their published articles and on Wiley Online Library. Authors will never be required to include their pronouns; it will always be optional for the author.  Authors can include their pronouns in their manuscript upon submission and can add, edit, or remove their pronouns at any stage upon request. Submitting/corresponding authors should never add, edit, or remove a coauthor’s pronouns without that coauthor’s consent. Where post-publication changes to pronouns are required, these can be made without a correction notice to the paper, following Wiley’s Name Change Policy to protect the author’s privacy. Terms which fall outside of the scope of personal pronouns (e.g. proper or improper nouns), are currently not supported. 

Reproduction of Copyright Material 

If excerpts from copyrighted works owned by third parties are included, credit must be shown in the contribution. It is your responsibility to also obtain written permission for reproduction from the copyright owners. For more information visit Wiley’s Copyright Terms & Conditions FAQ. 

The corresponding author is responsible for obtaining written permission to reproduce the material "in print and other media" from the publisher of the original source, and for supplying Wiley with that permission upon submission. 

Title Page  

The title page should contain:  

1. A brief informative title containing the major key words. The title should not contain abbreviations (see Wiley's best practice SEO tips);  
2. A short running title of less than 40 characters; 
3. The full names of the authors;  
4. The author's institutional affiliations where the work was conducted, with a footnote for the author’s present address if different from where the work was conducted;  
5. Acknowledgments.  

Main Text File 

The main manuscript file should be in Microsoft Word (.doc or .docx)  format. 

Your main document file should include: 

• A short informative title containing the major key words. The title should not contain abbreviations;
• The full names of the authors with institutional affiliations where the work was conducted, with a footnote for the author’s present address if different from where the work was conducted;
• Acknowledgments;
• Abstract unstructured;
• Up to seven keywords;
• Main body: formatted as introduction, materials & methods, results, discussion, conclusion;
• References;
• Tables (each table complete with title and footnotes);
• Figure legends: Legends should be supplied as a complete list in the text. Figures should be uploaded as separate files (see below).
• Acknowledgements, Funding, Conflicts of Interest, Author Contributions, ethical approval;
• Funding statement 
• Conflicts of Interest 
• Author Contributions 
• Ethics Statement 

Acknowledgments

Contributions from anyone who does not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed, with permission from the contributor, in an Acknowledgments section. Financial and material support should also be mentioned. Thanks to anonymous reviewers are not appropriate.

Ethics Approval and Consent to Participate: Manuscripts reporting studies involving human participants, human data or human tissue must:

• include a statement on ethics approval and consent (even where the need for approval was waived)
• include the name of the ethics committee that approved the study and the committee’s reference number if appropriate

Studies involving animals must include a statement on ethics approval.

If your manuscript does not report on or involve the use of any animal or human data or tissue, please state “Not applicable” in this section.

Consent for Publication: If your manuscript contains any individual person’s data in any form (including any individual details, images or videos), consent for publication must be obtained from that person, or in the case of children, their parent or legal guardian. All presentations of case reports must have consent for publication.

You can use your institutional consent form or our consent form if you prefer. You should not send the form to us on submission, but we may request to see a copy at any stage (including after publication).

If your manuscript does not contain data from any individual person, please state “Not applicable” in this section.

Conflict of Interest Statement

Authors will be asked to provide a conflict of interest statement during the submission process. For details on what to include in this section, see the ‘Conflict of Interest’ section in the Editorial Policies and Ethical Considerations section below. Submitting authors should ensure they liaise with all co-authors to confirm agreement with the final statement.

Graphical Abstract

The journal’s table of contents/abstract will be presented in graphical form with a brief abstract.

The table of contents entry must include the article title, the authors' names (with the corresponding author indicated by an asterisk), no more than 80 words or 3 sentences of text summarizing the key findings presented in the paper and a figure that best represents the scope of the paper.

Table of contents entries should be submitted to ScholarOne as ‘Supplementary material for review’ during the initial manuscript submission process.

The image supplied should fit within the dimensions of 50mm x 60mm and be fully legible at this size.

Reference Style

This journal uses AMA reference style; as the journal offers Free Format submission, however, this is for information only and you do not need to format the references in your article. This will instead be taken care of by the typesetter.

For more information about this reference style, please see the AMA Manual of Style. 

Reference examples follow, and the full list of examples can be found here. 

Figures and Supporting Information

Figures, supporting information, and appendices should be supplied as separate files. You should review the basic figure requirements for manuscripts for peer review, as well as the more detailed post-acceptance figure requirements. View Wiley’s FAQs on supporting information.

 

Peer Review  

This journal operates under a single-anonymized peer review model. Except where otherwise stated, manuscripts are peer reviewed by at least two anonymous reviewers and an Associate or Assistant Editor. Papers will only be sent to review if the Editor-in-Chief determines that the paper meets the appropriate quality and relevance requirements.

In-house submissions, i.e. papers authored by Editors or Editorial Board members of the title, will be sent to Editors unaffiliated with the author or institution and monitored carefully to ensure there is no peer review bias.

Wiley's policy on the confidentiality of the review process is available here.

This journal is participating in a pilot on Peer Review Transparency and you have the choice to opt-out during the submission process. By submitting to this journal, you agree that the reviewer reports, their responses, and the editor’s decision letter will be linked from the published article to where they appear on Publons in the case that the article is accepted. Reviewers can choose to remain anonymous unless they would like to sign their report.

Appeals and complaints 

Authors may appeal an editorial decision if they feel that the decision to reject was based on either a significant misunderstanding of a core aspect of the manuscript, a failure to understand how the manuscript advances the literature or concerns regarding the manuscript-handling process. Differences in opinion regarding the novelty or significance of the reported findings are not considered as grounds for appeal. To raise an appeal, please contact the journal by email, quoting your manuscript ID number and explaining your rationale for the appeal. The editor’s decision following an appeal consideration is final.  

To raise a complaint regarding editorial staff, policy or process please contact the journal in the first instance. If you believe further support outside the journal’s management is necessary, please refer to Wiley’s Best Practice Guidelines on Research Integrity and Publishing Ethics. 

Refer and Transfer Program 

Wiley believes that no valuable research should go unshared. This journal participates in Wiley’s Refer & Transfer program. If your manuscript is not accepted, you may receive a recommendation to transfer your manuscript to another suitable Wiley journal, either through a referral from the journal’s editor or through our Transfer Desk Assistant. 

Guidelines on Publishing and Research Ethics in Journal Articles 

The journal requires that you include in the manuscript details IRB approvals, ethical treatment of human and animal research participants, and gathering of informed consent, as appropriate. You will be expected to declare all conflicts of interest, or none, on submission. Please review Wiley’s policies surrounding human studies, animal studies, clinical trial registration, biosecurity, and research reporting guidelines. 

This journal follows the core practices of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and handles cases of research and publication misconduct accordingly (https://publicationethics.org/core-practices).  

This journal uses iThenticate’s CrossCheck software to detect instances of overlapping and similar text in submitted manuscripts. Read Wiley’s Top 10 Publishing Ethics Tips for Authors and Wiley’s Publication Ethics Guidelines.  

Author Contributions 

For all articles, the journal mandates the CRediT (Contribution Roles Taxonomy)—more information is available on our Author Services site. 

 
2. Article Types

Type	Description	Peer Review
Research Article	Reports of original research, with methods, findings and conclusions.	Yes
Review Article	Overview of developments in fields or the current lines of thought. Synthesizes multiple sources of information and has long list of references. Emphasis is more factual and less on opinion.	Yes
Case Study	Detailed report or presentation of the symptoms, signs, diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up of an individual patient or selected disease indications. Usually describes an unusual or novel occurrence or has substantial learning value for readers.	Yes
Short Communication	Brief observations and research reports in a concise format.	Yes
Commentary	Expert opinion from one or more people (who may agree or disagree) on a published work, current understanding/status of an area, or how practice should be undertaken. Generally with references.	Yes
Method	Procedural method in the design and implementation of an experiment or study.	Yes
News	External factual information to keep readers up to date with events.	No, but will be reviewed internally
Correspondence	A letter, or response to a letter, sent to the journal to raise a point of interest, discuss a difference of opinion or encourage participation.	No, but will be reviewed internally
Practice and Policy	Public statement of what a representative group of experts agree to be evidence-based and state-of-the-art knowledge on an aspect of practice/policy.	Yes
Editorial-invited only	To convey an opinion, or overview of an issue, by the Editor or someone invited by the editor.	No

3. After Acceptance

First Look 

After your paper is accepted, your files will be assessed by the editorial office to ensure they are ready for production. You may be contacted if any updates or final files are required. Otherwise, your paper will be sent to the production team. 

Wiley Author Services 

When an accepted article is received by Wiley’s production team, the corresponding author will receive an email asking them to login or register with Wiley Author Services. You will be asked to sign a publication license at this point. Please note: Article Publication Charges (APCs) are currently waived. For more information on this journal’s APCs.

Copyright & Licensing 

Advanced Chinese Medicine is an Open Access journal: authors of accepted papers pay an Article Publication Charge and their papers are published under a Creative Commons license. This journal uses the CC-BY Creative Commons License. Note that certain funders mandate a particular type of CC license be used. For more information on this journal’s APCs and licensing policy, please visit the journal’s Open Access page. 

Early View 

Upon publication, articles are available as full text HTML or PDF in Early View prior to inclusion in an issue and can be cited as references using their Digital Object Identifier (DOI) number. 

 
Proofs 

Authors will receive an e-mail notification with a link and instructions for accessing HTML page proofs online/with their proofs included as a pdf. Authors should also make sure that any renumbered tables, figures, or references match text citations and that figure legends correspond with text citations and actual figures. Proofs must be returned within 48 hours of receipt of the email.  

 
Article Promotion Support  

Wiley Editing Services offers professional video, design, and writing services to create shareable video abstracts, infographics, conference posters, lay summaries, and research news stories for your research – so you can help your research get the attention it deserves. 

 
Author Name Change Policy  

In cases where authors wish to change their name following publication, Wiley will update and republish the paper and redeliver the updated metadata to indexing services. Our editorial and production teams will use discretion in recognizing that name changes may be of a sensitive and private nature for various reasons including (but not limited to) alignment with gender identity, or as a result of marriage, divorce, or religious conversion. Accordingly, to protect the author’s privacy, we will not publish a correction notice to the paper, and we will not notify co-authors of the change. Authors should contact the journal’s Editorial Office with their name change request. 

 
Correction to authorship  

In accordance with Wiley’s Best Practice Guidelines on Research Integrity and Publishing Ethics and the Committee on Publication Ethics’ guidance, Advanced Chinese Medicine will allow authors to correct authorship on a submitted, accepted, or published article if a valid reason exists to do so. All authors – including those to be added or removed – must agree to any proposed change. To request a change to the author list, please complete the Request for Changes to a Journal Article Author List Form and contact either the journal’s editorial or production office, depending on the status of the article. Authorship changes will not be considered without a fully completed Author Change form. [Correcting the authorship is different from changing an author’s name; the relevant policy for that can be found in Wiley’s Best Practice Guidelines under “Author name changes after publication.”]