European Journal of Anaesthesiology

Submission to the European Journal of Anaesthesiology is exclusively via the web-based peer review system, EJA Manuscript Central.

Submission online enables rapid review and allows online manuscript tracking.

We invite all authors to submit online any NEW MANUSCRIPTS that are to be considered for publication in the European Journal of Anaesthesiology.

Please use the following URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cup/eja

IN ORDER TO AVOID DELAY IN APPLICATION PLEASE NOTE THE FOLLOWING:

Document Information

Your Main Document which will be uploaded on EJA Manuscript Central should include the following information. Without this information your submission will be delayed:

Full instructions for uploading your manuscript are provided on the EJA Manuscript Central website.

Covering Letter

All submissions must be accompanied by a covering letter using the template which will be provided to you exclusively via EJA Manuscript Central. This covering letter must be signed by all the authors and stating that all the undersigned have contributed to the paper, and are familiar with the contents of the final draft. The letter should also state whether any author has any conflict of interest, for example if an author is a paid consultant for a pharmaceutical company involved in the submission, or otherwise having an interest. You must declare sources of funding and any related interest in the Acknowledgements section.

Your uploaded manuscript submission will not be considered for peer review until the completed covering letter has been received by the publishers (instructions on template). If the publishers have not safely received your covering letter within 30 days of manuscript successful upload, they will email the corresponding author a reminder. If the covering letter has still not been received two weeks after this reminder, a final email will be exclusively sent to the corresponding author to explain that the submission will be removed. Any author(s) wishing their papers to be considered for publication in the EJA after this process will be required to start the submission process again from the beginning.

Editorial Policy

All material submitted for publication is assumed to be submitted exclusively to the European Journal of Anaesthesiology unless otherwise stated. Submissions will be acknowledged automatically by email and we will allocate you a unique reference code for your manuscript. You must use this code in every kind of contact with us after that and accessing EJA Manuscript Central will keep you informed of the status of your submission. It is absolutely essential that we have your correct email, telephone and fax details. It is a condition of acceptance for publication that copyright becomes vested in the Journal and permission to republish must be obtained from Cambridge University Press.

If your paper is rejected it will not be returned; we will keep it on file for 3 months and then destroy it.

We only publish case reports in the format of a Correspondence item.

Papers based on clinical investigation must conform to ethical standards as set out in the Declaration of Helsinki. Information or illustrations must not permit identification of patients, and the patient's written consent must be sought for any photograph. Reports describing data obtained from experiments performed in animals must clearly indicate that humane standards were adhered to.

Papers will be refereed and assessed statistically before acceptance. Priority and date of print appearance of accepted material will be decided by the editor; accepted papers will first be published online (incrementally) under the Forthcoming Articles section at www.cambridge.org/core/journals/european-journal-of-anaesthesiology in advance of appearing in print. The editor retains the right to shorten material accepted for publication. This may include sub-editing the text for style.

Illustrations and other material obtained from other sources must be acknowledged and permission for reproduction must be obtained from the relevant editor and publisher.

PLEASE READ BELOW INSTRUCTIONS ON CORRECT FORMATTING OF YOUR PAPER

Much editorial time will be saved (and your paper will be published sooner) if you adhere to these instructions, and prepare your manuscript accordingly. From experience, we know there are some aspects of preparation that authors tend to overlook.

Randomized Controlled Trials and Systematic Reviews

Authors are requested to report these in accordance with the CONSORT (Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials) statement [www.consort-statement.org], and the QUOROM (Quality of Reporting of Meta-analyses) statement [Lancet 1999; 354: 1896–1900], respectively. This ensures that enough information is provided for editors, peer reviewers, and readers to see how the study was performed and to judge whether the findings are likely to be reliable.

Please provide the following:

Manuscripts

Follow the on screen instructions on EJA Manuscript Central to enter each piece of information associated with your manuscript. There are six steps in total. Most of these details will also be included in the text of your manuscript and we recommend that you copy and paste the information from your manuscript to the online submission screens wherever possible.

Manuscripts should be prepared in accordance with ‘Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals’ (Br Med J 1991; 302: 338–341). The web page of the Br Med J is a very full one, with lots of advice and cross-indexing to other information on clinical trials, etc. See: www.bmj.com/guides/advice.shtml

Keep one copy for reference and checking of proofs. Type everything including the references double-spaced with a 2.5 cm (1 in) margin on the left side of the sheet, and 2.5 cm (1 in) margins top, bottom and right. Do not right-align; leave a ragged right edge. Leave a blank line between paragraphs, and do not indent the first line of paragraphs.

Drugs should be given their official (not proprietary) names and the source of any new or experimental preparation should be given. Abbreviations should be avoided in the text whenever possible and never used in the Summary (see illustrations below). If abbreviations are unavoidable, they must be spelt out when first used in the text. Scientific measurements should be given in SI units. Blood pressure, however, may be expressed in mmHg and haemoglobin as g dL[minus sign]1 (note there is no full stop, i.e. g · dL[minus sign]1 is incorrect). Full stops should not be used after contractions or abbreviations. Abbreviations, if used, should conform to Units, Symbols, and Abbreviations. A Guide for Biological and Medical Editors and Authors, 5th Edition (1994). Royal Society of Medicine Press, 1 Wimpole Street, London W1M 8AE, UK.

Illustrations

Most illustrations are produced using computer graphics software. It is essential that all the lines and lettering are thick enough to bear reduction for printing. We suggest you use bold Arial font for lines and lettering. Do not put the title on the face of the figure. The title, and any descriptive text, should be on a separate page called ‘Legends to Tables and Figures’ (see below). Do not put a box around the figure. Do not use colours unless you wish to pay for colour. The EJA charges £450 per colour figure published (further details, including total cost, will be forwarded to the corresponding author shortly after acceptance for publication of manuscript).

Do not use 3D. Do not use the solidus or slash symbol (/) in illustrations (we use the superscript convention for units), or anywhere else in the manuscript (see above under Manuscripts). Use only a white background. Text labels for axes, etc. should be in lowercase lettering except for the first letter of the first word.

Use the following common symbols in sequence (open and closed versions of: circles, squares, upright triangles, inverted triangles and diamonds):

○ ● □ ■ Δ▲ ∇ ▼ ◊♦

There must be a title for each illustration. Also provide some accompanying text to describe the illustration fully, giving the meaning of all symbols, error bars, and abbreviations (abbreviations are permitted on illustrations when there is insufficient space for the full description). The captions should be grouped and numbered on a separate page after the section for References.

All artwork should be uploaded on EJA Manuscript Central in separate files. Photographs should be scanned at a minimum of 320 dpi. All figures should be saved as separate EPS or TIFF files and clearly labelled.

Tables

Tables are numbered in order with Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3… consecutively in order of appearance. Each table must have a title and an explanatory caption above the tabular material. Do not use the solidus (/) symbol for units in tables (see above under Manuscripts and Illustrations). Use double-spacing throughout. Do not number pages containing tables. Tables should not be submitted as photographs.

Text

The manuscript should normally consist of the following sections in order: title page, summary and keywords, text, acknowledgements, references, legends for any tables and figures and separate files for tables and figures. Number the pages consecutively (in the upper right-hand corner of each page), beginning with the title page, up to and including the pages for the references.

In order to determine conventional points of grammar, spelling, use of proper names and specialized usage that can cause confusion, The Times Guide to English Style and Usage, compiled by Tim Austin, may be consulted when preparing manuscripts. For enquiries, email: bookshop@the-times.co.uk

The Title Page

Follow the on screen instructions on EJA Manuscript Central to enter each piece of information associated with the title page of the manuscript, including title, author/s, correspondence details and shortened title.

Structured Summary

The summary, which will be printed at the beginning of the paper, should normally not be more than 250 words. Do not use abbreviations. Type it in the form of a single paragraph with the following headings and information:

Background and objective: Including a clear statement of the main aim of the study and the major hypothesis tested or research question posed.

Methods: Including design, setting, participants, interventions, and main outcome measurers.

Results: Main result with (for quantitative studies) 95% confidence intervals and, where appropriate, the exact level of statistical significance.

Conclusions: Primary conclusions and their implications, suggest areas for further research if appropriate.

The summary should be usable as it stands by abstracting journals. Because of this it should contain some numerical data (if appropriate), not just statistical statements, and it should not contain abbreviations or references. This should be paginated as page 2.

Keywords are listed as a separate paragraph at the end of the summary. Do not invent your own keywords. If you do not know the correct keywords use the PubMed web site (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed/). MeSH is the National Library of Medicine's controlled vocabulary used for indexing articles in PubMed. MeSH terminology provides a consistent way to retrieve information that may use different terminology for the same concepts. In this browser, under ‘PubMed Services’, click on MeSH browser and enter likely words: a hierarchical tree of keywords will be displayed and you should use the relevant parts of it. If the word you entered is not a correct MeSH term you will be offered alternatives to explore.

Keywords must include a generic title such as: ANAESTHETIC TECHNIQUES, followed by the details such as ‘brachial plexus block’. Note punctuation: a comma (,) follows the generic title: a semicolon (;) follows the list of detail term. If more than one detail, separate each with a comma (,).

Remainder of Text

Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion (all headed as such) follow in sequence.

There are three types of heading:

1. Bold across the centre of the page;

2. Italics typed to the left-hand side of the page above the paragraph which they precede;

3. and, italics at the beginning of a paragraph, either followed by a full stop or as part of the first sentence of the paragraph.

Acknowledgements

Type Acknowledgements on a separate, paginated, sheet. You must make reference within the acknowledgements to any financial interests or sponsorship of any type.

References

Number references consecutively in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text. Identify references in the text, tables and legends by Arabic numerals, enclosed in square brackets on the line (not superscript). References cited only in tables or in legends to figures should be numbered in accordance with the sequence established by the first identification in the text of the particular table or illustration.

Use the Vancouver reference system as adopted by the U.S. National Library of Medicine (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/uniform_requirements.ht...) ensuring that all journal titles conform to Index Medicus approved abbreviations. If in doubt, look up the reference list of a recent paper published in the European Journal of Anaesthesiology.

Avoid citing abstracts unless from a recognized journal, and only those published within the last 3 years. Unpublished observations and personal communications should not be used as references, although references to written (not verbal) communications may be inserted (in parentheses) in the text. Manuscripts that have been accepted but not yet published should be included in the list, followed by (in press). Information from manuscripts not yet accepted may be cited only in the text as (unpublished observations). Authors should verify references against the original documents before submitting the article.

In the full list of references give the names and initials of all authors. If there are more than six, cite only the first three names followed by et al. The authors' names are followed by the title of the article: the title of the journal (italics) abbreviated according to the style of Index Medicus: the year of publication: the volume number (in bold): the first and last page numbers in full followed by a full stop. Titles of books should be followed by the town and country of publication, the publisher, the year and inclusive page numbers. See the following examples:

1. Pollard BJ, Bryan A, Bennett D et al. Recovery after oral surgery with halothane, enflurane, isoflurane or propofol anaesthesia. Br J Anaesth 1994; 72: 559–566.

2. Korttila K. Recovery period and discharge. In: White P, ed. Outpatient Anaesthesia. New York, USA: Churchill Livingstone Inc, 1990: 369–395.

Correspondence Section

Items in the Correspondence section are peer reviewed by experts. Please look at a very recent copy of the European Journal of Anaesthesiology to see how the material should be presented. The format (layout) for the Correspondence section is quite different from our other articles. The absolute maximum is 1450 words, which must include the space for any tables and illustrations (this is approximately two sides of printed matter in the Journal). References are limited to seven. We need a submission letter signed by all authors.

Proofs and Reprints

After acceptance of an article, the manuscript will be prepared for publication. Proofs will be sent via email as an Adobe Acrobat PDF file. The email server must be able to accept attachments up to 4 MB in size. Adobe Acrobat Reader will be required in order to read this file. This software can be downloaded (free of charge) from the following Web site:

www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html

This will enable the file to be opened, read on screen, and printed out in order for any corrections to be added. Further instructions will be sent with the proofs. Proofs will be posted if no email address is available; in your absence, please arrange for a colleague to access your email to retrieve the proofs.

Proof corrections should be kept to a minimum and should conform to the conventions of British Standard 1219C: 1958. Although complimentary offprints are no longer provided, offprints may be ordered at an additional cost at the same time as any proof corrections are returned.

Copyright Assignment Form

A signed Cambridge University Press Copyright Assignment Form will be sent for signature at proof stage. Please note that a delay in the return of a Copyright Assignment Form may delay the publication of a paper.

Thank you for considering publishing with the European Journal of Anaesthesiology.

For further information, please visit the Journal's homepage at:

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/european-journal-of-anaesthesiology

EJA IFC January 2008