Guide for Authors

Instructions for Authors

A. Scope of the Journal

B. General Policy

C. Types of Articles

D. Manuscript Preparation

E. Manuscript Submission

F. Proof

 

A. Scope of the Journal

The Avicenna Journal of Phytomedicine (AJP) is an international journal devoted to publish original research papers in the field of “Phytomedicine” involving both basic and clinical research. The term "Phytomedicine" is used in its broadest sense in medicinal plants including basic (Phytochemistry, Pharmacology and Toxicology), clinical applications of herbs and natural products (case reports to full clinical trials) and effects of common food ingredients and standardized plant extracts. In addition, this Journal would consider high quality manuscripts in traditional medicine mainly related to medicinal plants.

 B. General Policy

 1. Manuscript quality: Manuscripts with highest scientific quality, which had been written according to AJP Instructions for Authors, can be considered for publication.  Manuscript should be original and not being considered for publication nor has been published in whole or in part with another journal. Plagiarism in all its forms is unacceptable. All authors should have seen and agreed to the version submitted. According to the Journal policy, students could not be corresponding authors, but of course they can be the first authors. Low quality manuscripts, which do not meet acceptable standards, will be sent back to the authors.

 2. Manuscript language: Manuscripts should be written in good English (British or American, but not a mix of them). Authors who feel the English language of their manuscript may require editing to eliminate possible grammatical or spelling errors and to conform to correct scientific English should use a professional language editing service or the manuscripts should be checked by a native English speaker.

3. Plant name and herbarium number: All studied plants should be identified by a botanist, a specimen should be preserved in the Herbarium of the related scientific organization and a “Herbarium number” should be provided. It should be mentioned which plant parts have been used. The correct scientific nomenclature should be used. For correct scientific plant names, the reliable databases including plantlist.org, and/or the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature (www.bgbm.fuberlin.de/iapt/nomenclature/code/tokyo-e/default.htm) should be checked. The scientific name (in italics), the author of this name and the family should be given.


4. Conflicts of interest: At the time of submission, authors should disclose, information about any conflicts of interest of financial or other nature that may influence the manuscript. Authors should declare sources of funding for the submitted work.

 5. Ethical consent: All manuscripts reporting the results of experimental investigations involving human subjects should include a statement confirming that the informed consent was obtained from each subject or subject’s guardian. The experimental protocol of all animal or human studies should have the approval of a local ethics committee and should be carried out in accordance with the National Institutes of Health guidelines on animal care.

 6. Changes to authorship: The policy concerns the addition, deletion, or rearrangement of author names in the authorship of accepted manuscripts is as follows:

I) Before proofing the accepted manuscript: Requests to add or remove an author, or to rearrange the author names, must be sent to the Journal Editor from the corresponding author of manuscript and must include: (a) the reason the name should be added or removed, or the author names rearranged and (b) written confirmation (e-mail, fax, letter) from all authors that they agree with the addition, removal or rearrangement. In the case of addition or removal of authors, this includes confirmation from the author being added or removed. Requests that are not sent by the corresponding author will be forwarded by the Journal Editor to the corresponding author, who must follow the above procedure.

II) After the accepted manuscript is proofed or published in an online issue: Any requests to add, delete, or rearrange author names in an article published in an online issue would not be considered. Only the publication of an Erratum, with all consents as described in (I), can be considered.

 7. Copyright: The corresponding author must state that the manuscript has been submitted on behalf of all authors. Copyright form should be signed by all authors and submitted

 8. Funding sources: The provided financial support for the execution of the research and/or preparation of the article should be declared in the acknowledgments.

 9. Open access: All articles publishing in this Journal will be open access, which means, articles are universally and freely accessible via the Internet immediately after publication through http://ajp.mums.ac.ir/.

 10. Publication fee:

A publication fee of 16,000,000 Iranian Rials (IRR) for each Research and Review article and 12,000,000 Iranian Rials (IRR) for each Short Communication will be applied from the beginning of January 2023. Please note that these charges will be applied only to the accepted articles of Iranian authors.

 C. Types of Articles

Manuscripts will be considered for publication in the form of original articles, short communications, case reports and review articles. Prepared manuscripts should be presented in one of the following formats:

 Full original research

A full length original research article (up to ~5000 words, including tables, figures and references) presents novel findings relevant to the Aims and Scope of the Journal.

 Short Communications

Communications are preliminary reports (up to ~3000 words, including maximum 3 tables and/or figures and references.

 Reviews

 A full length critical review article submitted to AJP should have up to ~6000 words, including tables, figures. The Corresponding author should be a senior scientist well experienced in the field of the review. It also should contain more than 2 tables and or figures, more than 70 reference and few (2 or more) references of authors. The Editor-in-Chief may invite selected researcher with well-known experience in a special field to submit a review article to the Journal.

 

Systematic Reviews

These types of publications should report on clear narrow research questions and reproducible methodologies including: replicable, comprehensive protocols to capture published and unpublished researches, screening processes based on inclusion and exclusion criteria, PRISMA follow diagrams, quality assessment processes of studies and assessment of risk of bias, unbiased reasons for exclusion of studies, verified quality assessment tools used in the review, data extraction tools, and qualitative and quantitative analysis (meta-analysis) methods.

 Mini reviews

Mini review article in a relevant topic could be submitted. The length of mini reviews should not exceed the half of a full review manuscript. It also should contain maximum 1-3 tables and or figures, 50-100 reference and few (at least 1 or 2) references of the authors of the article. The issues may be of a controversial nature, or may address a more narrowly focused area than those typically covered in a Review.

 Full length Review, In Focus Review and Mini Review should cover comprehensive and scientific information regarding the subject of the review; contain well and update referenced (50-200); contain few tables and/or figures; should be divided in different relevant sections depending on the review and conclusion. Authors should refer to at least three papers/works of themselves in the field of submitted review for full length review and one paper/work for In Focus and Mini Reviews.

 Commentaries, Notes or Letter to editor

Commentaries/Notes (up to ~1500 words, including tables, figures and references) are explanatory discussion of a previously published article. These types of publications support, discuss or dispute previously published articles. If such a Commentary/Note criticizes an article already published in the Journal, then the authors of the original article will be given a chance to respond in the same issue in which the Commentary is published.

 D. Manuscript Preparation

Manuscripts should be prepared in accordance with the “Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submission to Biomedical Journals” proclaimed by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (http://www.icmje.org).

 1. Manuscripts Format

 All manuscripts should be type written in single-column format, double-spaced on an A4- size paper. Authors are requested to keep the layout of the text as simple as possible and reserve margins of at least 2.5 cm all around the paper.

Original, short communication and spotlights manuscript should have the following sections:

 I) Title Page:

Page one, should include the title, a brief title for a running head (not exceeding 40 letters), full names with affiliations and addresses of all authors. Corresponding author should be clearly indicated with complete mailing address, E-mail address, telephone and fax number (with country and area code).

II) Abstract and Keywords:

Page two, should contain a structured abstract (including; Objective, Materials and methods, Results, and Conclusion) with less than 250 words and 3 to 6 descriptive keywords chosen from the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) list, immediately after the abstract.

III) Introduction:

Describing general information regarding the subject of the manuscript and purpose of the study.

IV) Materials and Methods:

General information regarding studied plant(s) and its herbarium number, method of extraction and characterization of the extract (if any), information regarding studied animal or human, studied groups, protocol(s) of the study, and statistical analysis.

V) Results:

Providing findings of the study and referring to corresponding Tables and Figures.

Authors are encouraged to include no more than 10 Tables and Figures all together in each manuscript.

VI) Discussions:

Discussion of the finding using relative studies including a conclusion paragraph.

VII) References

The reference list should be arranged alphabetically by author and then sorted chronologically if necessary without numbering.

VIII) Tables and/or Figures

All pages should be numbered consecutively.

 2. Abbreviations

Abbreviations that are not standard should be defined in full at their initial appearance followed by their abbreviation in parentheses. Just standard abbreviations in the title are allowed. Only recommended SI units should be used.

 3. Tables, Figures, Drawings and Graphs

All Tables, Figures, Drawings and Graphs should be inserted at the end of the main manuscript after references  and numbered according to their sequence in the text. Table captions should be placed above and other captions should be placed below.

 4. Reference Style

For citations in the text Use the name of the author, followed by the year of publication: A. Single author: (Hosseini, 2008)

B. Two authors: (Ramezani and Behravan, 2005) C. Three or more authors: (Iranshahi et al., 2009)

List groups of references first alphabetically, then chronologically. Examples for:

- Direct citation: “Hosseini et al. (1999) have indicated”

- Parenthetically: “as shown (Hosseinzadeh, 2005a, 2005b, 2000; Hosseinzadeh and Ramezani, 1998)”.

Examples:

Journal

References to journals should include authors' names with initials, year, article title, journal name (Index Medicus abbreviations), volume number, and inclusive page numbers.

- Hosseinzadeh H, Nassiri-Asl M, Parvardeh S.  2005a.The effects of carbenoxolone, a semisyntheticderivative of glycyrrhizinic acid, on peripheral and central ischemia-reperfusion injuries in the skeletal muscle and hippocampus of rats. Phytomedicine, 12: 632-637.

- Hosseinzadeh H, Parvardeh S, Nassiri-Asl M, Mansouri MT. 2005b. Intracerebroventricular administration of thymoquinone, the major constituent  of Nigella sativa seeds, suppresses epileptic seizures in rats. Med Sci Monit, 4:106-110.

Book

Cooper SJ, Jackson A, Kirkham TC, Turkish S. 1988. Endorphins, opiates and food intake. In: Rodgers RJ, Cooper SJ (Eds), Endorphins, Opiates and Behavioral Processes, pp. 143-

186, New York, John Wiley & Sons.

Conference proceedings

Delazar A, Celti S, Yucel E, Nahar L, Sarker SD, Two acylated flavonoid glycosides from Stachys bombycina , 24 Sep. 2004, Proceedings of the 3rd International Congress of Health, Environment & Natural Products, Mashhad, Iran.

 

E. Manuscript Submission

Manuscripts should only be electronically submitted through online submission system in http://ajp.mums.ac.ir/.

 

1. A cover letter must be included when submitting a paper and must state the novelty of the paper.

2. The online submission system guides stepwise through the process of entering article details and uploading files. Editable files (e.g., Word, LaTeX) are required to typeset articles for final publication. All correspondence, including notification of the Editor's decision and requests for revision, is to be sent by e-mail.

3. AJP makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in its publications. However, AJP makes no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness or suitability for any purpose of the content and disclaim all such representations and warranties whether expressed or implied to the maximum extent permitted by law.

4. Tables and figures must be submitted as separate individual files, in which case the files should be uploaded in the following order: (1) title page; (2) main text, including title , abstract, references and figure legend(s); (3) tables; (4) figures; and (5) supplementary files.

 F. Peer review process

All submissions will be reviewed anonymously by at least two independent referees. All manuscripts will be acknowledged upon presenting to the Journal office, provided that all stated requirements are met. Authors are encouraged to suggest names of three expert reviewers, but selection remains a prerogative of the Editor. The whole review process depends on receiving referees comments and revising the manuscripts based on these comments to the author. On receipt of the revised article from the author, and after final approving by referees, the letter of acceptance is issued to the author. Authors have the right to communicate to the editor if they do not wish their manuscript to be reviewed by a particular reviewer because of potential conflicts of interest.

 G. Proof

Proofs will be sent by email to the corresponding author as an attachment and should be corrected and returned promptly. Corrections should be kept to a minimum.