Authorship Policy

The Journal of Saidu Medical College has agreed to receive and publish manuscripts in accordance with the instructions of International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Details of ICMJE and COPE are available at www.icmje.org and http://publicationethics.org/.

The ICMJE recommends that authorship should be based on the following all four criteria:

  1. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
  2. Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
  3. Final approval of the version to be published; AND
  4. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

All those designated as authors should meet all four criteria for authorship

ACKNOWLEDGMENT CRITERIA
Contributors who do not meet all the four criteria for authorship, but helped in the study, may be listed in the acknowledgement section. Examples of those who may be listed can include, but is not limited by, the following:

  • Individuals who helped in acquisition of funding
  • Individuals who generally supervised the research group
  • Individuals who provided general administrative support
  • Colleagues who helped in designing the study
  • Individuals who helped in reviewing the manuscript, including writing assistance, technical and language editing, and proofreading
  • Physicians who referred cases
  • Individuals who provided laboratory assistance
  • Statisticians for statistical tests and analysis
  • Secretarial help
  • Parents who responded to the questionnaire
  • Pharmaceutical companies
  • Organisations which may have helped
  • Concerned colleagues who provided micrographs, x-rays, or slides

ALTERATION IN THE LIST OF AUTHORS
JSMC does not prescribe to change in the authors list with respect to additions and deletions after the initial submission. Although JSMC allows limited authorship changes, provided that the institution of the affected author(s) confirms the change. There should be legitimate reasons for changes, e.g., someone contributed substantially during revisions, anyone who is removed from authorship may be acknowledged. JSMC reserve the right of confirmation of the author's, institution's claim for additions or deletions of authors.

CONTRIBUTION STATEMENT 
Statements describing detailed contributions made by each author are required at the time of submission of the manuscript. This has to be outlined in the submission statement form. Incomplete form can lead to processing delays in the manuscript.

CORRESPONDING AUTHOR

The corresponding author is the individual who takes primary responsibility for communication with the journal. The corresponding author should be available throughout the submission and peer review process to respond to editorial queries in a timely way, and should be available after publication to respond to critiques of the work and cooperate with any requests from the journal for data or additional information should questions about the paper arise after publication. In a submitted manuscript, JSMC will accept only one corresponding author.

 

DECEASED AUTHOR
Deceased authors should be included with a death dagger (†) next to the author's name, and a footnote stating that the author is deceased and giving the date of their death e.g. †Deceased 1 January 2016