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Instructions to Authors

Updated August 31st 2021

Types of Manuscripts Accepted

JRPMS provides a peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary forum for quarterly publication of articles that focus on all aspects of clinical and basic research related to musculoskeletal system.It is a condition of publication that manuscripts submitted to this journal be original, unpublished, and not simultaneously submitted or published elsewhere; further, that submission for publication has been approved by all of the authors and by the institution where the work was carried out. Only manuscripts written in English will be accepted.

The word count for all article types includes the main body of text, notes, references, and the headers of tables and figures. It does not include the title page, Abstract, or Supporting Information. A manuscript that exceeds the word limit will be returned without review.

Manuscripts submitted to JRPMS should fall into one of the following categories:

  • Original Articles
    These report new and important experimental or clinical information. Manuscripts are limited to 6000 words.

  • Case Reports
    Presents brief description of a single case or small case series of interesting diagnostic or therapeutic problems, unusual complications or unexplained observations. Manuscripts are limited to 2500 words.

  • Review articles
    They must present a review of existing literature, consolidate old ideas and may suggest new ones. Manuscripts are limited to 6000 words.

  • Mini Review
    These are short, brief articles that summarise recent developments in a field without providing an exhaustive review of all the literature. Manuscripts are limited to 3000 words.

  • Perspective/Opinion articles
    Perspective articles highlight new ideas. They re-examine the available evidence in light of concepts that deviate markedly from conventional wisdom in a field. Perspective manuscripts are limited to 4000 words. If more than 4000 words are necessary to explain your idea, you have probably written a review.

  • Commentaries
    Article should be limited to 2000 words. Commentaries are short, narrowly focused articles of contemporary interest. Commentary should cover an aspect of an issue that is relevant to the Journal's scope.

  • Short Communication
    A Short Communication is intended for the presentation of brief observations, new ideas, controversial opinions, “Negative” results that do not warrant a full-length paper. Manuscripts are limited to 2000 words and are not subdivided. The paper should contain an abstract, keywords, main body and references.

  • Proceedings
    These are the written records of presentations made at a conference. They are usually invited by the conference organizer or a JRPMS Editor. Manuscripts should not exceed 2000 words.

  • Research Protocol
    Research protocol can be for proposed or ongoing prospective clinical research and should provide a detailed account of the hypothesis, rationale, and methodology of the study. Manuscripts should not exceed 2000 words.

  • Editorials
    Editorials on special topics should be limited to 1000 words.

  • Letters to the Editor
    Letters commenting on published articles will be published at the discretion of the Editorial Board. They should be brief (up to 500 words) and directly related to a recently published article.

    • Review Process

    JRPMS is a peer reviewed journal which adopts the single blind review process. Each abstract is checked for scope by the Editor-in-Chief, who then decides whether the manuscript will be assigned to an Associate Editor or returned because it is either not within the journal scope or represents an insufficient advance in scientific knowledge. After assignment to an appropriate Associate Editor, the manuscript is managed by that Associate Editor. If the manuscript is acceptable to the Associate Editor, several reviewers are chosen by the Associate Editor and the manuscript enters the automatically controlled review process.

    A copy of each reviewer's report is sent to the Associate Editor, who will then make an overall recommendation, informed by the reviews, to the Editor-in-Chief, who then contacts the authors on behalf of the journal. Possible decisions are:

  • Accept
    This means no changes are necessary and the manuscript will enter the production phase as is

  • Minor Revision
    Minor text changes which only require a final check from the Associate Editor before entering the accept decision.

  • Major Revision
    Requires major re-work, sometimes including additional experiments and a full re-review of the work after submission of changes

  • Reject
    Cannot be resubmitted to JRPMS.

    • Editors and journal staff as authors

    JRPMS has established a clear procedure for handling submissions from editors or members of the editorial board that ensure that the peer review is handled independently of the author/editor in order to minimize any bias in the review process. The handling editor sends the article out for review without any names on it. As an extra precaution, if and when the article in question is published, the editor publishes an accompanying disclaimer showing how transparent the reviewing process had been.

  • Editors and editorial team members are excluded from publication decisions when they are authors or have contributed to a manuscript.

  • A short statement is included for any published article that lists editors or board members as authors to explain the process used to make the editorial decision.

    • Resubmissions

    When resubmitting a revised manuscript, authors MUST respond to ALL the comments made by the reviewer(s) with a point by point rebuttal in a separate document. Authors should also list and comment on any other changes made to the original manuscript. In order to expedite the processing of the revised manuscript, please be as specific as possible in your response to the reviewer(s). You will be unable to make your revisions on the originally submitted version of the manuscript. Instead, revise your manuscript within the document by either using the track changes mode in MS Word, or by highlighting changes in bold and red. The onus is on the author(s) to make the changes as obvious as possible and easy for the reviewers to re-review the manuscript and assess the changes.

    Corrections and Retractions

    Decisions about types of correction are made by the editors of the journal that published the paper, sometimes with peer-reviewers' advice. This process involves consultation with the authors of the paper, but the editor makes the final decision about the category in which the amendment is published.

  • Erratum
    Notification of an important error made by the journal that affects the publication record or the scientific integrity of the paper, or the reputation of the authors or of the journal.

  • Corrigendum
    Notification of an important error made by the author(s) that affects the publication record or the scientific integrity of the paper, or the reputation of the authors or the journal.

  • Addendum
    Notification of an addition of information to an article. Addenda do not contradict the original publication, but if the author inadvertently omitted significant information available at the time, this material can be published as an addendum. Addenda may be peer reviewed, according to journal policy, and are normally subject to oversight by the editors of the journal.

  • Retraction
    Infringements of professional ethical codes, such as multiple submission, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data or the like. The original article is marked as retracted but remains available to readers, and the retraction statement notifying readers of the invalidity of the published paper is bi-directionally linked to the original published paper.

    • When any of the above mentioned amendments is published, it is linked bi-directionally to and from the article being ammended.

    Expressions of concern

    Where substantial doubt arises as to the honesty or integrity of a submitted or published article it is the Editor in Chief's responsibility to ensure that the matter is adequately addressed, usually by the authors' sponsoring institution. It is not normally the Editor in Chief's responsibility to carry out the investigation or make a determination. The Editor in Chief should be promptly informed of the decision of the sponsoring institution and a retraction printed should it be determined that a fraudulent paper was published. Alternatively, the Editor in Chief may choose to publish an expression of concern over aspects of the conduct or integrity of the work.

    Complaints process

    Users who want to submit a complaint should address it to the Editor in Chief over the contact email of the Journal (jrpms@hpub.eu)

    Submission Fees

    No submission fees are charged for articles submitted to JRPMS.

    Publication Fees

    A publication fee of 100 € (Euros) is charged for accepted manuscripts. After a manuscript is accepted, the corresponding author will be invoiced. Manuscripts will be published only after the publication fee has been received.

    Proofs

    Details in the text, including references and figures are checked before a final page-proof version is produced in pdf format. This pdf proof is then sent, by e-mail, to the corresponding author for final checking. Only correction of minor errors and typographical mistakes are allowed at this stage. Any corrections must be returned within 48 hours. If no response is received after 7 working days the article will be published as it stands. Please remember authors are responsible for errors appearing in their manuscript.

    Editorial Policies and Practices

    Authorship

    JRPMS has adopted the requirements for authorship and acknowledgment of contributors recommended by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) in the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals

    The ICMJE recommends that authorship be based on the following 4 criteria:

  • Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND

  • Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND

  • Final approval of the version to be published; AND

  • 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.

    • Manuscripts must adhere to the following requirements:

  • All individuals who meet all four criteria must be listed as authors.

  • The respective roles of each author must be summarized in the Acknowledgments section of the manuscript.

  • One or more of the authors must accept responsibility for the integrity of the data analysis and that author/those authors must be identified as such in the Acknowledgments section of the manuscript.

  • All persons who have made substantial contributions to the work reported in the manuscript (such as data collection, analysis, writing, or editing assistance), but who do not fulfill the 4 requirements for authorship, must be named, with their specific contributions, in the Acknowledgments section of the manuscript.

  • The authors must obtain the permission of all those who are identified in the Acknowledgments section of the manuscript.

  • One author will serve as the primary correspondent (corresponding author) for the manuscript; the corresponding author is responsible for transmitting the editors’ comments to his or her co-authors.

    • Conflict of Interest

    JRPMS follows ICMJE guidelines for disclosure of potential conflicts of interest. Every article published in JRPMS includes a “Disclosures” section. All authors are required to fill out the electronic ICMJE disclosure form. Disclosure forms must be submitted together with the manuscript when it is initially submitted to JRPMS

    Dublicate Publication

    The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that the manuscript has not been previously reported or published and that the manuscript has not been, and will not be, submitted to another journal while under review at JRPMS. By submitting your manuscript to the journal it is understood that this it is an original and unpublished work and is not under consideration elsewhere. Plagiarism, including duplicate publication of the author’s own work, in whole or in part without proper citation constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable. Manuscripts submitted to the journal may be checked for originality using anti-plagiarism software. If plagiarism is detected by the editorial board member, reviewer, editor etc., in any stage of article process- before or after acceptance, during editing or at a page proof stage, authors will be contacted for clarifications.

    Human Subjects

    Research carried out with human subjects must comply with the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki — Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects. A statement to this effect must appear in the Methods section of the manuscript, including the name of the body that gave approval. When reporting clinical trials, the information required by the CONSORT checklist, as well as a flow diagram in CONSORT format must be provided.

    Use of Animals in Research

    Approval for research in animals by the appropriate institutional animal care and oversight committee must be indicated in the Methods, along with full husbandry and experimental details (e.g. strain, sex, replicate number) as indicated by the Animal Research Reporting of In Vivo Experiments (ARRIVE) checklist.

    Open Access Statement

    Authors submitting manuscripts to JRPMS agreed that, if accepted, all articles will be published under the terms of Creative Common License CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike) This means that the articles will be immediately free for everyone to read, and users are free to: copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format, remix, transform, and build upon the material, under the following terms:

  • Attribution: Users must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. Users may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses them or their use.

  • NonCommercial: Users may not use the material for commercial purposes.

  • ShareAlike: If users remix, transform, or build upon the material, they must distribute their contributions under the same license as the original

    • Disclaimer

    All material published in JRPMS regarding medical procedures, choice of drugs and drug dosages represents the opinions of the authors and should not be construed to reflect the opinions of the Editors or the Publisher. No responsibility is assumed by JRPMS, the Editors or the Publisher for any injury or damage to persons or property as a matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise or from any use of operation of any methods, products, instructions or ideas contained in JRPMS. Because of rapid advances in the medical sciences, independent verification of diagnosis and drug dosages should be made. Although all advertising material is expected to conform to ethical (medical) standards, their inclusion in JRPMS does not constitute a guarantee or endorsement of the quality or value of such product or of the claims made for it by its manufacturer.

    Archiving

    JRPMS will deposit the articles that it publishes in Portico so as to guarantee long-term digital preservation.