Guidelines to Authors

The Editorial and Peer Review Process

 Kerala Journal of Ayurveda manuscripts undergo editorial review for scanning & assessment of submission standards. The journal expects that one of the authors will correspond with the Journal for all matters related to the manuscript.

The editor determines whether to send the paper out for peer review or return it to the authors for revisions to fulfil the KJA's Uniform Standard for Manuscript Submission. The peer review process in this journal is double-blind. The essay is transmitted anonymously to two topic experts for adjudication based on the editor's choice. Reviewers' adjudicatory remarks (if any) and suggestions (acceptance/rejection/manuscript adjustments) are forwarded anonymously to the relevant author for any necessary changes. If necessary, the author is asked to respond to the reviewers' remarks in detail and to indicate the changes in the article individually before submitting a new version of the manuscript. The Editorial Board looks through the revised article once again.

Criteria for Authorship

Only major contributions to each of the three components listed below should be given authorship credit:

1. Study concept and design, or data gathering, analysis, and interpretation;
2. Article draught or critical revision for essential intellectual content; and
3. Final approval of the version to be published.

Authorship is not justified only on the basis of participation in the procurement of money or the collecting of data. Authorship does not need general supervision of the research group. Each contributor should have contributed enough to the project to accept public accountability for relevant sections of the manuscript's content. The order in which the contributors are named should reflect their proportional contribution to the study and the preparation of the article. The order cannot be modified once it has been submitted without the explicit approval of all contributors. The journal establishes a limit number of submissions. The Authorship can be decided by the authors, if all have contributed equally to the article then equal weightage can be given.

Competing Interests/Conflicts of Interest

All authors must disclose any and all conflicts of interest they may have with the paper's publication, or with an institution or product referenced in the report and/or crucial to the study's conclusion. Conflicts of interest with items that compete with those described in the paper should also be disclosed.

Originality and plagiarism

Authors must ensure that all manuscripts they write and submit are totally novel, and if they do borrow ideas or words from others, they must effectively credit them. Publications that had a major impact on the definition of the work reported in the manuscript should also be cited. Plagiarism can take many forms, including "passing off" another author's paper as the author's own, copying or paraphrasing significant portions of another paper without giving proper credit, and claiming the findings of other people's studies. Plagiarism in any form is prohibited and represents unethical publication behavior.

Types of Paper

Following categories will be considered for publication

Editorial, Opinion paper (Thought Leadership Article),Full length Article (original research article), General article, Pedagogy, Case report, Case series, short communication, Review article, short review, Discussion, Correspondence (Letters), Book review, Practice guidelines and conference report.

Editorial: Editorials are written by editorial board members or by guest editorials special invited by the editor in chief. Restrict manuscript to about 1000 words and about 10 references.

Opinion paper: Thought Leadership Article – Please restrict the non-structured abstract to 250 words and manuscript to about 2000 words.

Full length Paper: Original research article – Please restrict the structured abstract to about 250 words (background, objectives, materials and methods, results and conclusion) and the manuscript to about 5000 words (excluding about 70 references) and 8 non-text items.

Pedagogy : Articles by experienced ayurvedic scholars of relevance to contemporary issues in education, teaching methods and approaches are expected in this section. Articles exploring fundamental concepts and principles of ayurveda, literary studies influencing current health care scenario are appreciated. Restrict the manuscript to about 3000 words (excluding about 40 references) and 5 non-text items. An abstract is not required for a pedagogy article.

Case report: Case studies concernsuccessful application of treatment, adverse events or novel observation of a single case. The cases should be unique, describing a great diagnostic or therapeutic challenge and providing a leading point for the readers. Please follow CARE Statement available on hppt://www.care-statement.org for structuring case reports. Patient identity should not be revealed from the clinical photographs or CT/USG pictures. Click here for case report template.

Case series: Case series are collection of cases with similar exposure and/or outcomes. The case series about application of Ayurveda to a pathology and efficacy of an unusual application of a traditional treatment, hopefully indicating a solution to some contemporary medical problem will be considered for publication. Restrict non-structured abstract to 250 words, manuscript about 3000 words (excluding about 40 references).

Short communication: Short communication may include important preliminary studies and reports. Please provide non structured abstract to 250 words and restrict the manuscript to about 1500 words (excluding about 20 references) and 2 non-text items.

Review article: Reviews may cover particular areas of Ayurveda to contemporary issues. Review articles written by individuals who have done substantial work on a subject or by experts in the field are appreciated. They should be systematic, state of art comprehensive reviews of the subject including author(s) own inputs. A good review article may have author(s) claim/view, factual evidences discussing the claim / view and finally novel conclusions drawn after interlinking many research findings. Restrict non-structured abstract to 250 words and manuscript to about 6000 words (excluding about 80 references) and about 8 non text items.

Short review: A short review is expected up to 2000 words with 20 references and non-structured abstract up to 200 words.

Book review: Introduction, Author’s recognition,Subject matter of book at a glance, Analysis of particular methodologies and techniques mentioned in the book,Chapter Discussion, Indices, Practical aspects, Demerits ofthe text, Conclusion. Abstract is not required and restrict the manuscript to about 2000 words and a jpeg image of the cover page of the book reviewed should be uploaded separately.

Practice guidelines: Guidelines about clinical practice, research and education about Ayurveda will be published in this section. Please follow expected guidance for developers of reporting guidelines, available on http:// www.equator-network.org/toolkits/developers

Conference report: Please restrict manuscript up to 1200 words with minimum two non-text items.

General guideline

All articles should be typed in Times New Roman with fontsize 12 and headings in fontsize16 with 1.5 line spacing,Sanskrit words should be put in italics.

A research paper should bearranged in the following sequence.

1. TITLE
2. ABSTRACT
3. KEY WORDS
4. INTRODUCTION
5. MATERIALS AND METHODS
6. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
7. CONCLUSION
8. REFERENCES

TITLE: All manuscripts should start with a title page.The title should be as short as possible on the first page, which provides precise information about the contents,

AUTHOR NAMES: All author names must provide theirfull name (surnames first) and mentioned below the title. Designations of the authors with full contact details like address, phone number and email to be mentioned.

ABSTRACT: Abstract should not be more than 250 wordsand be informative, completely self-explanatory, briefly present the topic, state the scope of the experiments, indicatesignificant data, important observations and conclusion.

KEYWORDS: All the manuscripts should include keywords. Keywords reflecting the major features of the work should be inserted about four to six. These keywords will be used for the indexing purpose.

INTRODUCTION: Introduction should include background of the subject, earlier works carried out, signify the relationship with the proposed work and aims and objectives of this study.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: It should be complete enough to allow experiments to be reproduced. All the procedures should be described in detail. For example,diagnostic methods, description of the eligibility of the inclusion and exclusion criteria, methods adopted for the study along with the references to the established method,dosage, route of administration should be mentioned in detail.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: The observations of the study must illustrate with figures or tables wherever necessary. The research with appropriate statistical analysis described in the methods section should be self-explanatory.

CONCLUSION: The major findings of the work highlighting its importance, relevance and their usefulness of the study shall be summarized. The conclusions of this study must discuss and summarize further scope in the field described in this context.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: All acknowledgments betyped in one paragraph directly preceding the reference section and may include supporting grants, presentations,and so forth.

REFERENCES: References should be in Vancouver styleand numbered consecutively in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text. Cite the references in the text by the appropriate number with superscript e.g. [1], [2,3], [4-6],[7,8-10] and the numbers should be within square brackets.References cited only in tables or figure legends should benumbered in accordance with the sequence established bythe first identification in the text of the particular table or figure. Avoid using abstracts as references and do not cite any references in discussion and conclusion section.

Submission of Manuscripts

All manuscripts must be submitted on-line through the website. The submitted manuscripts that are not as per the “Instructions to Authors” would be returned to the authors for technical correction, before they undergo editorial/ peer-review. Generally, the manuscript should be submitted in the form of separate files:

[1]  Title Page/First Page File/covering letter: 

This file should provide

• The type of manuscript (original article, case report, review article, Ethics Forum, Education Forum, Letter to editor, Images, etc.), title of the manuscript, running title, names of all authors/ contributors (with their highest academic degrees, designation and affiliations) and name(s) of department(s) and/ or institution(s) to which the work should be credited. All information which can reveal your identity should be here.
• Registration number in case of a clinical trial and where it is registered (name of the registry and its URL)
• The name, address, e-mail, and telephone number of the corresponding author, and details about the other authors should be specified.

[2]   Blinded Article file: The manuscript must not contain any mention of the authors' names or initials or the institution at which the study was done or acknowledgements. Page headers/running title can include the title but not the authors' names. Manuscripts not in compliance with The Journal's blinding policy will be returned to the corresponding author. The main text of the article, beginning from Abstract till References (including tables) should be in this file. Use rtf/doc files. Do not zip the files. Limit the file size to 1024 kb. Do not incorporate images in the file. The pages should be numbered consecutively, beginning with the first page of the blinded article file.

[3]   Images: Submit good quality color images. Each image should be less than 4 MB in size. Size of the image can be reduced by decreasing the actual height and width of the images (keep up to 1800 x 1200 pixels or 5-6 inches). Images can be submitted as jpeg files. Do not zip the files. Legends for the figures/images should be included at the end of the article file. 

[4]   The contributors' / copyright transfer form (template provided below) has to be submitted in original with the signatures of all the contributors within two weeks of submission via courier, fax or email (kjayurveda@gmail.com) as a scanned image with the specification copyright.

Preparation of Manuscripts

Manuscripts must be prepared in accordance with "Uniform requirements for Manuscripts submitted to Biomedical Journals" developed by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (October 2006). The uniform requirements and specific requirement of Kerala Journal of Ayurveda are summarized below. Before submitting a manuscript, contributors are requested to check for the latest instructions available.

Kerala Journal of Ayurveda currently is not able to use diacritical marks in the text. The authors therefor are requested not to use these marks while preparing the text.

Kerala Journal of Ayurveda do not accept Hindi/ Sanskrit script written in Devanagari form. In case if any such reference is highly important in adding value to the article, it may be done by putting it as a  scanned image.

Keywords

Since there is no uniformity in putting Ayurvedic terms as keywords, which makes problems in searching, finding and citing relevant articles, Kerala Journal of Ayurveda proposes a list of Ayurvedic terms as keywords. Authors are directed to select keywords (4-6) from this list (click here for keywords list). Also, the authors are instructed to use the same spelling for these terms throughout the article. For modern medical terms to be placed as keywords, authors can refer MeSH terms.

Copies of any permission(s)

It is the responsibility of authors/ contributors to obtain permissions for reproducing any copyrighted material. A copy of the permission obtained must accompany the manuscript. Copies of any and all published articles or other manuscripts in preparation or submitted elsewhere that are related to the manuscript must also accompany the manuscript. 

Types of Manuscripts

Original Articles: These include randomized controlled clinical and drug trials, diagnostic, survey studies, intervention studies, studies of screening, outcome studies, case studies. These should be divided into sections with the headings Abstract, Key words, Introduction, Material and Methods, Observations and Results, Discussion, References.

Abstract: Well-structured abstract, not more than 200 words, should clearly cover the background, aims and objectives of the study; methods, indicating the study protocol and statistical tests used; results, the important observations; discussion, describing the reasoning and probabilities for the results obtained. It should also conclude main concrete implications of the study. The full form of the abbreviations used in the abstract is to be given. No reference should be cited in the abstract.  
Key words: A list of up to six relevant keywords should be given.

Language and Grammar: The language of the article must be clear and direct free from grammatical mistakes. All the Ayurvedic and Sanskrit terms are to be made italics and at first appearance the approximate English meaning of the Ayurvedic terms should be given in the bracket.

Introduction: A concise account is required about the background to the subject, its significance and its relationships to earlier works with references and aims and objectives of the study.

Materials and Methods: These should be presented with sufficient clarity and details about  the design of the study, the samples, type of participants or materials involved, a clear description of all interventions and comparisons, and the type of analysis used, including a power calculation if appropriate. 

Ethics: A statement on ethics committee permission and ethical practices must be included in all research articles. When reporting studies on human beings, indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional or regional) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000 (available at http://www.wma.net/e/policy/17-c_e.html). For prospective studies involving human participants, authors are expected to mention about approval of (regional/ national/ institutional or independent Ethics Committee or Review Board, obtaining informed consent from adult research participants and obtaining assent for children aged over 7 years participating in the trial. The age beyond which assent would be required could vary as per regional and/ or national guidelines. Ensure confidentiality of subjects by desisting from mentioning participants’ names, initials or hospital numbers, especially in illustrative material. When reporting experiments on animals, indicate whether the institution’s or a national research council’s guide for, or any national law on the care and use of laboratory animals was followed.
Evidence for approval by a local Ethics Committee (for both human as well as animal studies) must be supplied by the authors on demand. Animal experimental procedures should be as humane as possible and the details of anesthetics and analgesics used should be clearly stated. The ethical standards of experiments must be in accordance with the guidelines provided by the CPCSEA and World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki on Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Humans for studies involving experimental animals and human beings, respectively). The journal will not consider any paper which is ethically unacceptable. A statement on ethics committee permission and ethical practices must be included in all research articles under the ‘Materials and Methods’ section.

Study Designs: Selection and Description of Participants: Description on selection of the observational or experimental participants (patients or laboratory animals, including controls) clearly, including eligibility and exclusion criteria and a description of the source population. Technical information: Identify the methods, apparatus (give the manufacturer's name and address in parentheses), and procedures in sufficient detail to allow other workers to reproduce the results. Give references to established methods, including statistical methods (see below); provide references and brief descriptions for methods that have been published but are not well known; describe new or substantially modified methods, give reasons for using them, and evaluate their limitations. Identify precisely all drugs and chemicals used, including generic name(s), dose(s), and route(s) of administration.

Reports of randomized clinical trials should present information on all major study elements, including the protocol, assignment of interventions (methods of randomization, concealment of allocation to treatment groups), and the method of masking (blinding), based on the CONSORT Statement (http://www.consort-statement.org/).

Reporting Guidelines for Specific Study Designs

Initiative	Type of Study	Source
CONSORT	Randomized controlled trials	http://www.consort-statement.org/
STARD	Studies of diagnostic accuracy	http://www.consort-statement.org/stardstatement.htm
QUOROM	Systematic reviews and meta-analyses	http://www.consort-statement.org/Initiatives/MOOSE/moose.pdf
STROBE	Observational studies in epidemiology	http://www.strobe-statement.org/
MOOSE	Meta-analyses of observational studies in epidemiology	http://www.consort-statement.org/Initiatives/MOOSE/moose.pdf

Checklist

Covering letter

         Signed by all contributors

         Previous publication / presentations mentioned

         Source of funding mentioned

         Conflicts of interest disclosed

Authors

         Last name and given name provided along with Middle name initials (where applicable)

         Author for correspondence, with e-mail address provided

         Number of contributors restricted as per the instructions

         Identity not revealed in paper except title page (e.g. name of the institute in Methods,
         citing previous study as 'our study', names on figure labels, name of institute in photographs, etc.)

Presentation and format

         Double spacing

         Margins 2.5 cm from all four sides

         Page numbers included at bottom

         Title page contains all the desired information

         Running title provided (not more than 50 characters)

         Abstract page contains the full title of the manuscript

         Abstract provided (structured abstract of 200 words for original articles,
        unstructured abstracts for all other manuscripts excluding letters to the Editor)

         Key words provided (three or more up to six)

         Introduction as concise background of the topic

         Headings in title case (not ALL CAPITALS)

         The references cited in the text should be after punctuation marks,
         in superscript with square bracket.

         References according to the journal's instructions, punctuation marks checked

         Send the article file without ‘Track Changes’

Language and grammar

         Uniformly American English

         Write the full term for each abbreviation at its first use in the title, abstract,
         keywords and text separately unless it is a standard unit of measure. Numerals from 1 to 10 spelt out

         Numerals at the beginning of the sentence spelt out

         Check the manuscript for spelling, grammar and punctuation errors

         If a brand name is cited, supply the manufacturer's name and address (city and state/country).

         Species names should be in italics

Tables and figures

         No repetition of data in tables and graphs and in text

         Actual numbers from which graphs drawn, provided

         Figures necessary and of good quality (colour)

         Table and figure numbers in Arabic letters (not Roman)

         Labels pasted on back of the photographs (no names written)

         Figure legends provided (not more than 40 words)

         Patients' privacy maintained (if not permission taken)

         Credit note for borrowed figures/tables provided

         Write the full term for each abbreviation used in the table as a footnote

 

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