Click here for a downloadable PDF version of the JEBM Author Guidelines.
AIMS AND SCOPE
Journal of Evidence-Based Medicine (JEBM) is the official English language journal of the Chinese Cochrane Centre. The journal aims to present the newest research results and promote the international understanding and development of evidence-based decision-making, research, practice, and education. Papers in any of the following fields will be considered: editorial, commentary, systematic review, clinical trial and register, methodology, policy-making and management, drug safety, education, patient safety, and knowledge translation. The journal encourages submissions from interdisciplinary studies.
EDITORIAL REVIEW AND ACCEPTANCE
The acceptance criteria for all papers are the quality and originality of the research and its significance to our readership. Except where otherwise stated, manuscripts are double-blind peer reviewed by two anonymous reviewers and the Editors. Final acceptance or rejection rests with the Editors, who reserve the right to refuse any material for publication.
Wiley's policy on confidentiality of the review process is available here.
Manuscripts are assigned sequentially to Associate Editors. An Associate Editor solicits reviewers (typically, two external reviews are sought). The reviewers’ evaluations and Associate Editor’s comments are compiled by the Editor-in-Chief for disposition and transmittal to the authors.
The Editor-in-Chief will advise authors whether a manuscript is accepted, should be revised or is rejected. Minor revisions are expected to be returned within four weeks of decision; major revisions within three months. Manuscripts not revised within these time periods are subject to withdrawal from consideration for publication unless the authors can provide extenuating circumstances.
A number of manuscripts will have to be rejected on the grounds of priority and available space. A manuscript may be returned to the authors without outside review if the Editor-in-Chief and Associate Editor find it inappropriate for publication in the Journal. Similarly, the Editors may expedite the review process for manuscripts felt to be of high priority in order to reach a rapid decision. Such ‘fast-track decisions’ will normally occur within one week of receipt of the manuscript.
The Editor-in-Chief’s decision is final. If, however, authors dispute a decision and can document good reasons why a manuscript should be reconsidered, a rebuttal process exists. In the first place, authors should write to the Editor-in-Chief.
If manuscripts are submitted by an Editor, they will be assigned to and processed by other Editors to avoid conflicts of interest.
Manuscripts should be written so that they are intelligible to the professional reader who is not a specialist in the particular field. They should be written in a clear, concise, direct style. Where contributions are judged as acceptable for publication on the basis of scientific content, the Editors and the Publisher reserve the right to modify typescripts to eliminate ambiguity and repetition and improve communication between author and reader.
JEBM employs a plagiarism detection system. By submitting your manuscript to this journal, you accept that your manuscript may be screened for plagiarism against previously published works.
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.
SUBMISSION OF MANUSCRIPTS
All articles submitted to the journal must comply with these instructions. Failure to do so will result in return of the manuscript and possible delay in publication.
To submit your article, please log on to JEBM's online submission and peer-review system at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/journalebm.
Covering letter
Papers are accepted for publication in the journal on the understanding that the content has not been published or submitted for publication elsewhere except as a brief abstract in the proceedings of a scientific meeting or symposium. This must be stated in the covering letter.
The covering letter must also contain an acknowledgement that all authors have contributed significantly, and that all authors are in agreement with the content of the manuscript. In keeping with the latest guidelines of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, each author’s contribution to the paper is to be quantified.
Authors must declare any financial support or relationships that may pose conflict of interest by disclosing at the time of submission any financial arrangements they have with a company whose product figures prominently in the submitted manuscript or with a company making a competing product. Such information will be held in confidence while the paper is under review and will not influence the editorial decision but, if the article is accepted for publication, the Editor will usually discuss with the authors the manner in which such information is to be communicated to the reader.
If tables or figures have been reproduced from another source, a letter from the copyright holder (usually the Publisher), stating authorization to reproduce the material, must be attached to the covering letter.
Wiley’s 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, Journal of Evidence-Based 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.”]
ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS
Authors must state that the protocol for the research project has been approved by a suitably constituted Ethics Committee of the institution within which the work was undertaken and that it conforms to the provisions of the Declaration of Helsinki (as revised in Brazil in 2013), available at http://www.wma.net/en/30publications/10policies/b3/17c.pdf .
JEBM retains the right to reject any manuscript on the basis of unethical conduct of either human or animal studies.
All investigations on human subjects must include a statement that the subject gave informed consent. Patient anonymity should be preserved. Photographs need to be cropped sufficiently to prevent human subjects being recognized (or an eye bar should be used). All clinical trials must be registered in the authorized registers of WHO International Clinical Trial Register Platform, and the registration number must be presented.
This journal is a member of and subscribes to the principles of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). 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).
COPYRIGHT AND LICENSING
Accepted papers will be passed to Wiley’s production team for publication. The author identified as the formal corresponding author for the paper will receive an email prompting them to login into Wiley’s Author Services, where via the Wiley Author Licensing Service (WALS) they will be asked to complete an electronic license agreement on behalf of all authors on the paper.
FAQs about the terms and conditions of the standard copyright transfer agreements (CTA) in place for the journal, including terms regarding archiving of the accepted version of the paper, are available at: CTA Terms and Conditions FAQs
PREPARING YOUR PAPER
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.
Optimising Your Article for Search Engines
Many students and researchers looking for information online will use search engines such as Google, Yahoo or similar. By optimising your article for search engines, you will increase the chance of someone finding it. This in turn will make it more likely to be viewed and/or cited in another work. We have compiled these guidelines to enable you to maximise the web-friendliness of the most public part of your article.
STYLE OF THE MANUSCRIPT
Manuscripts should follow the style of the Vancouver agreement detailed in the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors’ revised ‘Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals: Writing and Editing for Biomedical Publication’, as presented at http://www.ICMJE.org/. It is strongly recommended that authors read and refer to previous issues of the journal for guidance on style.
It is strongly recommended that the reports of clinical trials follow the CONSORT Statement and its extensions which are available at http://www.consort-statement.org/consort-statement/overview0/, as well as similar publication practices, and the reports of meta-analyses and systematic reviews comply with the PRISMA(formerly QUORUM) Statement, which is available at http://www.prisma-statement.org/. All acupuncture treatment should be described according to the current STRICTA recommendations at http://www.stricta.info/.
The criteria should be referenced as: Revised Standards for Reporting Interventions in Clinical Trials of Acupuncture (STRICTA): Extending the CONSORT Statement. MacPherson H, Altman DG, Hammerschlag R, et al. Acupunct Med 2010;28:83-93.
Spelling. The journal uses US spelling and authors should therefore follow the latest edition of the Merriam–Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary.
Units. All measurements must be given in SI or SI-derived units. Please go to the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (BIPM) website at http://www.bipm.fr for more information about SI units.
Abbreviations. Abbreviations should be used sparingly – only where they ease the reader’s task by reducing repetition of long, technical terms. Initially use the word in full, followed by the abbreviation in parentheses. Thereafter, use the abbreviation only.
Trade names. Chemical substances should be referred to by the generic name only. Trade names should not used. Drugs should be referred to by their generic names. If proprietary drugs have been used in the study, refer to these by their generic name, mentioning the proprietary name, and the name and location of the manufacturer, in parentheses.
Dates. Date format is 00 Month 0000; for example, 15 September 2003.
PARTS OF THE MANUSCRIPT
The length of an article (including references, endnotes, tables and appendices) should not exceed 6000 words.
Manuscripts should be presented in the following order: (i) title page; (ii) abstract and key words; (iii) text; (iv) acknowledgments; (v) references; (vi) endnotes; (vii) appendices; (viii) figure legends; (ix) tables (each table complete with title and footnotes); and (x) figures. Footnotes to the text are not allowed and any such material should be incorporated as endnotes.
Title page. As articles are double-blind reviewed, material that might identify authorship of the paper should be placed on a cover sheet; this will be detached before the paper is sent to referees.
The title page should contain: (i) the title of the paper; (ii) the full names of the authors; (iii) the addresses of the institutions at which the work was carried out; and (iv) the full postal and email address, plus facsimile and telephone numbers, of the author to whom correspondence about the manuscript should be sent. The present address of any author, if different from that where the work was carried out, should be supplied in a footnote.
Title. The title should be short, informative and contain the major key words. Do not use abbreviations in the title. A short running title (less than 40 characters) should also be provided.
Abstract. All articles except commentary or editorial must have a structured abstract that states in 250 words or fewer the purpose, basic procedures, main findings and principal conclusions of the study. Divide the abstract with the headings: Aim, Methods, Results, Conclusions. The abstract should not contain abbreviations or references.
Key words. Five key words, for the purposes of indexing, should be supplied below the abstract, in alphabetical order, and should be taken from those recommended by the US National Library of Medicine’s Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) browser list at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/meshhome.html.
Text. Authors should use the following subheadings to divide the sections of their manuscript: Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion.
Acknowledgements. The source of financial grants and other funding must be acknowledged, including a frank declaration of the authors’ industrial links and affiliations. The contribution of colleagues or institutions should also be acknowledged. Thanks to anonymous reviewers are not appropriate.
References.
The Vancouver system of referencing should be used (examples are given below). In the text, references should be cited using Arabic numerals in parentheses (eg (12)), in the order in which they appear. If cited in tables or figure legends, number according to the first identification of the table or figure in the text.
* In the reference list, cite the names of all authors when there are six or fewer; when seven or more, list the first three followed by et al. Do not use ibid or op cit. Reference to unpublished data and personal communications should not appear in the list but should be cited in the text only (eg Smith A and Doe J, 2000, unpubl. data or Bloggs J, 1999, pers. comm.).
* All citations mentioned in the text, tables or figures must be listed in the reference list.
* Names of journals should be abbreviated in the style used in Index Medicus.
* Authors are responsible for the accuracy of the references.
Journal article published in an issue
1. Vega KJ, Pina I, Krevsky B. Heart transplantation is associated with an increased risk for pancreatobiliary disease.
Ann Intern Med 1996; 124: 980–83.
Online journal article not yet published in issue
1. Andrew D Oxman AD, Fretheim A. Can paying for results help to achieve the Millennium Development Goals? A critical review of selected evaluations of results-based financing. Journal of Evidence-Based Medicine 2009; doi: 10.1111/j.1756-5391.2009.01024.x
Book
1. Ringsven MK, Bond D. Gerontology and Leadership Skills for Nurses, 2nd edn. Albany, NY: Delmar Publishers, 1996.
Chapter in a Book
1. Phillips SJ, Whisnant JP. Hypertension and stroke. In: Laragh JH, Brenner BM, eds. Hypertension: Pathophysiology, Diagnosis, and Management, 2nd edn. New York: Raven Press, 1995; 465–78.
Website
1. Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh and UK Cochrane Centre. Controlled trials from history www.rcpe.ac.uk/cochrane/ (accessed 10 May 2000).
Endnotes. Endnotes should be placed as a list at the end of the paper only, not at the foot of each page. They should be numbered in the list and referred to in the text with consecutive, superscript Arabic numerals. Keep endnotes brief: they should contain only short comments tangential to the main argument of the paper and should not include references.
Tables. Tables should be self-contained and complement, but not duplicate, information contained in the text. Number tables consecutively in the text in Arabic numerals. Type tables on a separate page with the legend above. Legends should be concise but comprehensive – the table, legend, and footnotes must be understandable without reference to the text. Vertical lines should not be used to separate columns. Column headings should be brief, with units of measurement in parentheses; all abbreviations must be defined in footnotes. Use table footnotes to define abbreviations, acronyms and to show other explanatory notes. Use superscript lower case letters to define footnotes in table, but *, **, *** should be reserved for P values. Statistical measures such as SD or SEM should be identified in the headings.
Figures. All illustrations (line drawings and photographs) are classified as figures. Figures should be cited in consecutive order in the text. If supplied electronically, figures must be supplied as high resolution (at least 300 dpi) files, saved as .eps or .tif. Do not embed figures in the word document – they must be supplied in separate files. More information about digital graphics standards can be found at http://authorservices.wiley.com/bauthor/illustration.asp.
Magnifications should be indicated using a scale bar on the illustration.
Figure legends. Type figure legends on a separate page. Legends should be concise but comprehensive: the figure and its legend must be understandable without reference to the text. Include definitions of any symbols used and define/explain all abbreviations and units of measurement.
Equations. Equations should be numbered sequentially with Arabic numerals; these should be ranged right in parentheses. All variables should appear in italics. Use the simplest possible form for all mathematical symbols.
Supporting Information. Supporting Information can be a useful way for an author to include important but ancillary information with the online version of an article. Examples of Supporting Information include additional tables, data sets, figures, movie files, audio clips, 3D structure, and other related nonessential multimedia files. Supporting Information should be cited within the article text, and a descriptive legend should be included. It is published as supplied by the author, and a proof is not made available prior to publication; for these reasons, authors should provide any Supporting Information in the desired final format. For further information on recommended file types and requirements for submission, please visit: http://authorservices.wiley.com/bauthor/suppinfo.asp
Associate your ScholarOne account with your ORCID iD
ORCID iD is a unique and persistent identifier that distinguishes you from every other researcher and connects you and your research activities. We encourage you to register for an ORCID iD and then associate it with your ScholarOne account. Click here to find out how.
POST-ACCEPTANCE
Tracking your paper from acceptance to publication
Online production tracking is available for your article through Wiley’s Author Services. Author Services enables authors to track their article, once it has been accepted, through the production process to publication online and in print. Authors can check the status of their articles online and choose to receive automated e-mails at key stages of production. The corresponding author will receive a unique link that enables them to register and have their article automatically added to the system. Please ensure that a complete e-mail address is provided when submitting the manuscript. Visit http://www.authorservices.wiley.com/bauthor/eachecklist.asp for more details on online production tracking and for a wealth of resources including FAQs and tips on article preparation, submission and more.
Early View
The journal offers rapid speed to publication via Wiley’s Early View service. Early View articles are complete full-text articles published online in advance of their publication in an issue. Early View articles are complete and final. They have been fully reviewed, revised and edited for publication, and the authors' final corrections have been incorporated. Because they are in final form, no changes can be made after online publication. Early View articles are given a Digital Object Identifier (DOI), which allows the article to be cited and tracked before allocation to an issue. After online publication, the DOI remains valid and can continue to be used to cite and access the article. More information about DOIs can be found at http://www.doi.org/faq.html.
Proofs
It is essential that corresponding authors supply an email address to which correspondence can be emailed while their article is in production.
The corresponding author will receive an e-mail alert containing a link to a website where the proof can be downloaded as Portable Document Format (PDF) typeset page proof. Acrobat Reader will be required in order to read this file. This software can be downloaded (free of charge) from the Adobe website. The purpose of the PDF proof is a final check of the layout, and of tables and figures. Alterations other than the essential correction of errors are unacceptable at PDF proof stage. The proof should be checked, and approval to publish the article should be emailed to the Publisher by the date indicated; otherwise, it may be signed off by the Editor or held over to the next issue. Further information will be sent with the proof.
Offprints
Free access to the final PDF offprint of your article will be available via Author Services only. Additional paper offprints may be ordered online. Please click on the following link and fill in the necessary details and ensure that you type information in all of the required fields: http://www.sheridan.com/wiley/eoc.
Single issues of the journal can be purchased from our customer services department.
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.
EDITORIAL CORRESPONDENCE
Editorial Office, Journal of Evidence-Based Medicine
Address: West China Hospital, Sichuan University
No. 37 Wai Nan Guo Xue Xiang
Chengdu, Sichuan 610041, China
Tel: 86-028-8542-2052
Fax: 86-028-8542-2052
Email: jebm_dl@yahoo.com; jebm_zhang@yahoo.com
If you are ready to submit an article, please click on Online Submission.
For online help and tutorials on how to use the online submission site, please click on Help.
Wiley Author Guidelines updated February 2021