Chinese Medical Sciences Journal (Chin Med Sci J) [ISSN 1001-9294] is a peer-reviewed comprehensive medical journal that is sponsored by Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College. Chin Med Sci J dedicates to publish and disseminate high-quality scientific researches in broad fields of medicine with special interests in interdisciplinary researches and application of advanced technologies in medicine. Currently, Chin Med Sci J publishes quarterly.

Categories of articles

Editorial is written by invited distinguished scholars to addresses an issue in a professional manner for the purpose to influence public opinion, promote critical thinking, and in some cases call on people to take actions.

Original article is a story of a complete academic investigation that reflects a significant advance in the specialty. It usually includes a structured abstract, an introduction, sections with headings of Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, and References. Meta-analyses are categorized as the original articles.

Review addresses a particular subject and provides a profound and comprehensive look into a field. It usually highlights unresolved questions, historical perspectives, and provides developmental trend or direction of investigation. Systematic reviews without meta-analysis are categorized as reviews. A non-structured abstract is needed.

Perspective is an article in about 2000 words that scholarly presents a personal opinion or fresh insights into new advances in an important and popular topic. Viewpoints should be well focused and logically.

Case report narrates a medical condition experienced by a particular patient for clinical, scientific, or educational purposes. It includes an introductory paragraph and section s of Case Description, Discussion, and References. CARE guideline and reporting checklist are encouraged when preparing the manuscript. A non-structured abstract is needed.

Short communication is a concise article that aims to report a new idea developed from a small investigation or a pioneer study. Because of the high novelty and originality, short communication can go through fast track. The text should be structured similarly to the original article and be within 3000 words.

Guideline or Consensus is developed by working task group or a panel of experts for the purpose to guide clinical practice in a specific scope or on a specific clinical topic. To facilitate Chinese works being recognized and disseminated globally, high quality guideline or consensus that has published in Chinese is acceptable for the second publication in English on Chin Med Sci J in conditions of being compliant with the ethics of second publication.

Data article is a manuscript that scientifically describes a dataset in terms of data generation, characteristics, quality control, applicable value, etc. The instruction for data article provides detail information. The dataset usually has to be deposited to a recognized database, e.g., the Population Health Data Archive (PHDA, https://www.ncmi.cn) for peer reviews, as well as for public access and reuse if the manuscript has been accepted.

Letter   report cutting-edge or exploratory research findings in a concise format. Articles can be published quickly through the fast-track process. Manuscripts should be within 3000 words, without an abstract, and may include one figure and/or one table.

Manuscript preparation

Language

Please ensure the manuscript is written in English proficiently enough for editors and reviewers to understand. It is strongly recommended authors whose native languages are other than English to have a native English user to polish language of the manuscript prior to submission.

Cover page

All manuscript should begin with a cover page which includes the title of manuscript, the names, affiliations (department, institute, city, zip code, country) and contact information (phone and  email) of each author, as well as the author’s contributions to the study. Information about funding, ethical approval, and trail registry, previous publication, or presentation at a meeting in  part or on the whole, if applicable, should be stated in this section. If the authors have deposited research data to a repository, it should be indicated in the title page, along with a URL link for editor and peer reviewers to access.

Abstract and key words

A structured abstract in at least 250 words is required for original article. For other types of article, e.g., reviews and case reports, a non-structured abstract of around 150 words is need. Authors should provide a list of 3 - 5 key words to assist the indexing of the article. Please refer  to MeSH database for acceptable key words. A bibliographical description of the article in Chinese, which include title, author names and affiliations, abstract and key words, need to be provided by authors once a manuscript is to be accepted for publication, which enable the article being searchable with Chinese keyword by Chinese database users.

Main text

For research articles, the main text should include the following sections:

Introduction  Clearly state the purpose and, where applicable, a brief and relevant background of the study, thus allowing readers to understand the context and evaluate the results of the present study.

Materials and Methods  Describe the subjects (including criteria for selection) and the equipment involved as well as the methods used. The sources of all equipment, drugs, chemicals, and experimental animals or cell lines must be identified. The methodology in this section must contain all the necessary information that facilitates repeatability by other researchers.

Results  present and illustrate findings objectively, logically and concisely in this section. The collected data and their statistical treatment should be sufficient to justify the conclusions. Use tables and figures appropriately. It is not necessary to narrate data displayed in tables and figures, neither is to interpret any data in the result section.

Discussion  provide interpretation of the results in relation to the current knowledge of a particular subject. Emphasize innovation and importance of the study, followed by conclusions or a summary. Limitations of the current study that may bear on the interpretation of the results should be addressed.

References  should be numbered consecutively in the order of citation in the text. Please refer to Samples of Formatted References for Authors of Journal Articles for citation of variable resources, including journal article, chapter in a book, online resources, webpage, dataset, etc. Please check if your references are cited accurately and be consistent with the formatting of the journal. Notably, doi of the cited literature should be presented in the references.

Tables

Tables should be put in the text and numbered according to the order in which they are cited in the text. The title of a table should be self-explanatory enough to be understood by reader without the main text. Tables that contain data too extensive to be published in print are suggested to be published online as supplementary materials, numerated with a prefix of S (e.g., Table S1). All abbreviations appear in the table need full text explanation at the footnotes.

Figures

Figures, including graphs, flow charts, diagrams, photographs, and radiographs, are suggested to be put at the end of the full text accompanied with figure legends. Notably, all figures should be in high resolution (minimum 300 dpi) and minimally processed to factually represent the original data. All digitized images should be uploaded separately in format of TIFF, JPG, or PNG before completing the submission. All figures and graphics should be compacted in a file and uploaded during submission. If figures that have been previously published are presented in the manuscript, it should be stated in the cover letter and a written permission from the copyright holder will be required.

Units of measurement

In tables, figures, and throughout the text, the International System of Units should be adopted as the standard. For instance, data should be presented in metric units, temperature in degrees Celsius, blood pressure in millimeters of mercury (mm Hg), etc.

Abbreviations and Acronyms

Use only standard abbreviations. Avoid using abbreviations in the article title. The full term for which an abbreviation stands should precede its first use in the text unless it is a standard unit of measurement.

Ethics

Duplicate publication

Manuscripts submitted to Chin Med Sci J must be original and has not been published either in print or electronically, nor has been submitted for publication elsewhere. We would not consider articles that have been published in language other than English, excepting commissioned article or author had claimed an acceptable reason for republish a work. Authors should declare the manuscript is original and whether any part in their manuscript has been published elsewhere or not in cover letter.

Authorship

An author of an article should substantially participate in the whole scientific process, including conception and study design, data collection, analyses, or interpretation; drafting or revising the article critically for important intellectual content; final approval of the article for submission and publication. All authors of the manuscript must have agreed to the submission and each author takes responsibility and accountability for the work. A statement of Authorship and Contribution with signature of each author is required to upload to complete a submission. Any change to the author list after submission needs to be approved in written by all authors. Contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship are suggested to be acknowledged at the end of the text.

Conflict of interest declaration

Each author should disclose potential conflicts of interests that are relevant to the subject of their manuscript in the past 36 months, including funding, employment, personal fee, financial incomes, etc. Authors who do not have relevant conflicts of interests should indicate no such conflicting as well.

Compliance to biomedical ethics

As studies that involve human should be compliant with the biomedical principles, for manuscript of biomedical study, we require authors to provide document of approval from the institutional review Board/Committee. Clinical trials that have been registered on appropriate online registry will have priority during editorial processing and publication. Studies using experimental animals should follow the institutional and/or national guidelines for animal treatment, which need to be declared in the manuscript. For case report, a written consent to the publication from the reported patient is required.

Editorial processes

Manuscripts should be submitted through the online submission system of the journal. We perform ethical assessments at the internal review stage, including iThenticate similarity check for anti-plagiarism. Afterwards, we will send manuscript to at least two independent specialists for peer review. Final decisions will be made based on the comments of reviewers and the authors’ response. Author may suggest peer reviewers or to avoid particular individual as peer reviewer. For the clinical trial that has been registered at a registry platform, please state it in the cover letter and include the registration number in the manuscript. We encourage authors to use the reporting guidelines from EQUATOR network  (www.equator-network.org/home/) when preparing manuscript. For example, CONSORT for randomized trails, PRISMA for meta-analysis and systematic review, etc. It usually takes less than 3 months for final decision whether a work will be accepted or rejected. The accepted manuscript will be published online after acceptance with necessary edition and revision prior to the print. To check the processing status of a manuscript, authors may log in the online submission system, or give a phone call to the editorial office during working hours.  

Data sharing

Chin Med Sci J recommend authors to address the data accessibiligy of the study in the cover page. Scientific data created during the study (e.g., raw data, images, and figures) are encouraged to be upload to the submission system as the supporting data, and once published, will be available to readers as commentary materials, or deposited to a public data repositories. Chinese authors can use the Population and Health Data Archive (PHDA,https://www.ncmi.cn/), where deposited dataset will be assigned an independent identifier for citation and reuse. Other repositories listed by re3data.org are also acceptable.

Correction and retraction

When errors were noted in a published article, a correction or erratum on part of the work will be published. In case the honesty or integrity of a published work was questioned, we will inform the institutions of authors for further investigation, and may publish an express of concern or print a retraction for the published article depending on the results of investigations.

Publication fee

Articles once accepted, authors are subjective to pay the article processing charge (APC)  of CNY 5000 (for Chinese authors) or 850 USD (for overseas authors) prior to publication regardless of category of article. It is free of charge for all invited article. APC waive or discounts requests from authors can be considered at editor’s discretion on a case-by-case basis.

Contact

Editorial Office of Chinese Medical Sciences Journal

Address: 9 Dongdan Santiao, Dongcheng District, Beijing 100730, China

Tel: 86-10-65105897; Fax: 86-10-65133074

E-mail: cmsj@pumc.edu.cn