JABFM Information for Authors
JABFM publishes original material from authors with new knowledge to contribute to the understanding and advancement of family medicine research and clinical practice. JABFM also serves as an important forum for the specialty of family medicine, and as a source of news from the ABFM.
Print and online publication is simultaneous, with six bimonthly issues per year. Approximately 900 print copies of each issue are in circulation. Online hits (access events) per month average xx,xxx (home page) and xxx,xxx (total).
- Original Research on evidence-based clinical care, primary care research, or health services.
- Clinical Reviews with in-depth, critical analysis of the literature on clinical problems, disease entities, or treatment modalities. Systematic reviews are preferred.
- Evidence-based Clinical Medicine papers on the diagnosis and management of common clinical problems in primary care, as well as cost-and-outcome studies.
- Clinical Guidelines and Primary Care proposals by various specialty, governmental, or healthcare organizations, with critical commentary from a primary care perspective.
- Ethics Features comprising research, commentary, or case-focused questions.
- Family Medicine and the Health Care System papers that study or comment on patterns of care.
- Health Policy issues from a national perspective.
- Reflections on Family Medicine comprising essays, creative prose, or poetry on humanistic concerns, professional experiences, or personal perspectives.
- Special Communications on a variety of topics, including the role of the family physician or research methods.
- Brief Reports with teaching points of significant clinical relevance.
- Family Medicine – World Perspective reports on the practice or education of family physicians around the world.
- Research Letters provide a synopsis of the research at hand.
- Commentaries, Editorials on issues in family medicine.
- Letters to the Editor on current topics or recent articles, paired with the author's reply whenever possible.
- Rapid Responses to recent articles on the JABFM website at www.jabfm.org.
- Board News from the American Board of Family Medicine.
- The JABFM adheres to the authorship criteria outlined in the “Uniform Requirements,” available at www.icmje.org.
- Authorship should be limited to no more than 8 authors.
- Each author should meet all three of these criteria:
- Substantial contributions to the conception and design, acquisition, or analysis and interpretation of data;
- Drafting the paper or revising it critically for important intellectual content;
- Final approval of the version to be published.
- All authors should take public responsibility for their manuscripts.
- Corresponding authors
- will be identified as such in the published article.
- must be willing to submit the actual data for editorial review with the manuscript, if asked by the editor.
- should be prepared to explain the order of the authors’ names.
- Contributors should be named in the Acknowledgments, noting what they did; for example, leading organizations, acquiring funding, collecting data, contributing patients, preparing the manuscript, etc.
- Authors of papers from research groups, practice-based research networks, or multi-site collaborations should see: Flanagin A, Fontanarosa PB, DeAngelis CD. Authorship for research groups. JAMA, 2002; 288 (24): 3166-3168; available here.
JABFM adheres to policies that increase disclosure and transparency related to competing interests or conflicts of interest, including:
- “Uniform Requirements” statement, available at www.icmje.org.
- DeAngelis CD, Fontanarosa PB, Flanagin A. Reporting financial conflicts of interest and relationships between investigators and research sponsors. JAMA, 2001; 286 (1): 89-91; available here.
JABFM expects authors to disclose any commercial associations that pose, or have the appearance of posing, a conflict of interest in connection with the submitted article, including but not limited to:
- employment
- consultancies
- stock ownership or other equity interests
- patent-licensing arrangements
- honoraria
- paid expert testimony
- personal relationships
- academic competition
- intellectual passion
Any potential conflicts of interest or competing interests must be disclosed upon submission. This applies to all types of manuscripts, including letters to the editor. Failure to include this information will delay the manuscript at check-in.
Manuscripts are considered only if they have not been previously published in print or electronic format, and with the understanding that they are not under consideration elsewhere. If there is any doubt about what might constitute duplicate publication, authors should include with their submission copies of possibly duplicative materials that have been previously published, or that are under consideration elsewhere. Authors should avoid self-plagiarism. This restriction does not apply to abstracts or press reports published in connection with scientific meetings. Exceptions for unusual circumstances will be considered on a case-by-case basis.
- Patients and research participants must give full, informed consent to participate in research studies, case studies, and other projects leading to publication. All case reports submitted must have a signed Patient Consent Form for each patient mentioned in order for the JABFM to review the manuscript.
- A copy of the patient consent form can be accessed here.
- Peer reviewers agree to treat all information in manuscripts as confidential.
- Peer reviewers must disclose any real or perceived competing interests or conflicts of interest before accepting a request.
- Materials taken from other sources must be accompanied by a written statement from both author and publisher giving JABFM permission for reproduction.
- For papers still “in press,” written permission must be submitted from at least one author.
- Authors must indicate that Institutional Review Board approval was obtained for the research protocol.
- JABFM adheres to the “Uniform Requirements” statement on the “Protection of Patients’ Rights to Privacy,” available at www.icmje.org.
Case series are preferred over the report of a single patient. For guidance in preparing a case series, refer to: McCarthy et al. How to write a case report. Fam Med, 2000; 32 (3): 190-195; available here. All descriptions of patients require written consent. Please refer to the Informed Patient Consent section.
Upon acceptance, transfer of copyright to the JABFM is required of all authors of the manuscript. This form is available here. Accepted manuscripts will not enter the production stage until all authors have submitted signed Copyright Transfer Form.
JABFM prefers to blind peer reviewers to the names of authors, while recognizing that this is not always completely possible. Title page(s) should be submitted in a separate file. Authors should consider, where feasible, removing other obvious references to authors’ names in the body of the manuscript.
Authors should adhere to guidelines of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) in the “Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals,” available at www.icmje.org.
The title page should include a funding statement. Funding statements should include all sources of funding or financial support, direct or indirect and regardless of size, for all authors. If there were no sources of funding, please so state. Failure to include this information will delay the manuscript at check-in.
- Full-length articles (e.g., original research, review articles) are generally 3500 words or less, not counting the abstract or data displays.
- Brief reports, special communications, editorials, should be 1500 words or less.
- Research letters should run approximately 600 words or less, should have a brief structured abstract, may have one table and/or figure, and should have no more than five references.
- Letters to the Editor should be less than 600 words and have no more than a few references.
Meta-analyses should follow the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) Statement: www.prisma-statement.org
The JABFM recognizes that as of April 7, 2008, all peer-reviewed
publications reporting findings from studies funded by the NIH must be
submitted to PubMed Central, the NIH's free digital archive of biomedical
and life sciences journal literature in the United States. Per the NIH
Public Access Policy, such NIH-funded publications must be made available no
later than 12 months after the official date of publication.
The JABFM grants the author the right to provide a copy of the accepted,
peer-reviewed version of the manuscript (ie, the final version that the
author submitted through the Rapid Review System) to PubMed Central through
the NIH Manuscript Submission system. This does not include the copyedited
and formatted version used in the print and online publication, which may be
a slightly updated version of the submitted manuscript because of
corrections that may occur during the copyediting process. Authors are
reminded that all manuscripts published by the JABFM are protected by
copyright through the American Board of Family Medicine. The JABFM requests
that the manuscript submitted to PubMed Central be hyperlinked to the final
online version published on the JABFM's website. The corresponding author
may make the manuscript available immediately in PubMed Central after publication in the JABFM.
As a courtesy to our authors, the JABFM will submit a copy of the accepted,
peer-reviewed version of the manuscript to PubMed Central. To do so, we
will need your full grant number and the name of the Principle Investigator
(PI) associated with the grant. Please note that if we do submit the
manuscript on your behalf, the PI will still need to log-in to the NIH
Manuscript Submission system and approve the submission.
Please notify the Journal at jabfm{at}med.wayne.edu
if you would like us to submit your manuscript for you. If we do not hear
from you, we will assume you are taking care of this requirement on your
own. Please note that it is the author's responsibility to ensure that all
NIH guidelines and policies are followed. The JABFM cannot place any
guarantee on scholarly information submitted to PubMed Central.
Randomized controlled trials should be organized according to CONSORT (Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials) guidelines, available here [Moher D, Schulz KF, Altman, DG. The CONSORT Statement: Revised Recommendations for Improving the Quality of Reports of Parallel-Group Randomized Trials. Ann Int Med, 2001; 134 (8): 657-662.] Please also see Piaggio et al. Reporting of Noninferiority and Equivalence Randomized Trials: An Extension of the CONSORT Statement. JAMA, 2006;295:1152-1160; available here.
Research reports should be organized using the IMRAD (Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion) format. Refer to the “Uniform Requirements” at www.icmje.org for details.
Review articles should use SORT (Strength of Recommendation Taxonomy) to grade diagnostic and treatment recommendations, available here.
- The word count for the abstract is separate from that of the body of the paper.
- Whenever possible, the abstract should have a structured format, using section headers appropriate to the text, such as background or introduction, methods, results, discussion, conclusions, etc.
- Brief reports and Research Letters should include abstracts.
- The body of the manuscript, submitted in a separate file from the title page, must begin with the same information found on the title page, but with all author names and affiliations removed or masked. Terms such as "author 1" or underscoring (___) or other masking devices may be used.
- Authors should also consider removing other obvious references to author names in the body of the manuscript, where feasible.
- Figures and illustrations should be high resolution and professional quality.
- Symbols, lettering, and numbering should be clear, and these elements should be large enough to remain legible after the figure has been reduced.
- Figures should have legends descriptive enough to permit interpretation without referring to the text. Submit figure legends on a separate page.
- Once a manuscript is accepted for publication, authors must provide separate files for all illustrations and figures (including charts and graphs) in high-quality, camera-ready, reproducible form. Lists of acceptable file types and instructions are available here. JABFM strongly encourages authors to submit figures in separate digital files at the outset. However, if necessary, for review purposes figures may be embedded in the manuscript, after the tables.
- Original photos or artwork in hard copy are not encouraged, but may be used if necessary. Each should list on the back the sequence number, the name of the author, and the proper orientation (e.g., “top”). Do not mount the figure on cardboard. Photomicrographs should be cropped to a width of 8 cm; and electron photomicrographs should have internal scale markers.
- Manuscripts should be double spaced throughout, including references.
- Page numbers should appear on all pages.
- Word (or similar word-processing) files are best for submission. PDFs should not be used (even though Rapid Review allows this format).
- Auto-formatting, text boxes, graphics boxes, or drawings may prevent file conversion and should not be used in the body of the manuscript.
- Abbreviations are discouraged, except for units of measurement. The first time an abbreviation appears, it should be in parentheses after the words for which it stands.
- Generic names of drugs should be used, rather than brand names.
- Gender bias should be avoided and gender-inclusive language used whenever possible.
- The reference list should not include manuscripts in preparation, manuscripts submitted for publication but not yet accepted, observations, or personal communications. References to unpublished material may include material accepted for publication but not yet published (e.g. “in press”), and presentations made at scientific or professional meetings.
- List all authors when there are 6 or fewer; when there are 7 or more, list the first 3, then “et al.” For examples refer to:
- Iverson C, Flanagin A, Fontanarosa PB, et al. American Medical Association Manual of Style: A Guide for Authors and Editors (9th Edition). Baltimore, MD: Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins, 1998
- “Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals” at www.icmje.org.
- References should be double-spaced using in-line numerals, and should start on a separate page.
- Use superscripts or in-line parentheses in the body of the manuscript to indicate references.
- References first cited in tables or figure legends must be numbered so that they are in sequence with references cited in the text.
- Authors are responsible for checking the accuracy of their reference citations.
JABFM follows AMA style for tables. The AMA style guide may be consulted for detail beyond these notes:
- Please use Microsoft Word’s table feature. Excel files may not be submitted, although the cells may be copied and pasted into Word.
- Excessive tabular data are discouraged.
- Auto-formatting, text boxes, graphics boxes, and drawings may prevent file conversion and should not be used.
- Tables should appear at the end of the manuscript, double spaced and placed on separate sheets. Insert in the body of the manuscript a bracketed note as to the approximate placement of each table; e.g., [Insert Table 1].
- Table titles, labels, and explanatory notes should have sufficient detail to permit interpretation without referring to the text.
- Footnotes should use the following symbols, in this sequence: * (asterisk), †(dagger), ‡ (double dagger), § (section mark), || (parallel mark), ¶ (paragraph symbol), # (number sign), ** (asterisk, repeated), †† (dagger, repeated), ‡‡ (double dagger, repeated), etc.
- In order to facilitate double-blinding during the peer review process, we ask that the title page be submitted in a separate file, named with the corresponding author's last name and the word "title."
- Title page file(s) must contain:
- After clicking Submit MS Online, click the Browse button, then select your manuscript file and click "Open." The file name will appear in the field. Click the “Attach” button.
- File Submission screen: Click on “for reviewing purposes only” and indicate if this is a zipped file, then click “Continue”
- File Type screen: Click on the appropriate file type; e.g., manuscripts will most likely be Word text files. Select the appropriate description for your file; e.g., "Full text of manuscript" for the body of your manuscript. For title page files, select "Other" and write in "Title Page." Then click “OK” to continue.
- You will be returned to the Attach Files screen. Repeat the above process for the rest of your files, selecting the appropriate file type for each. After all your files are attached, check to see that they’re numbered in the order in which they should appear. If not, you may re-number them.
- Click the Submit MS Online button. Your files will be converted to PDFs. Large files can take 10 minutes or more to upload, especially if you have a dial-up internet connection. Please do not interrupt this process. When the upload is complete, you’ll see a screen titled “File Submission,” with your file name in red letters. Print the Submission Summary for your records.
- You must approve the PDFs to complete your submission. Click on the View PDF icon to see the pages. You may get a message that the conversion is still in progress. You may “Click here to refresh your browser” every few minutes until the PDFs are ready. If your files are large and the conversion is taking more time than you have, you may “Log off and return later.” If you log off, you will receive an e-mail when the conversion is complete. You must return to Rapid Review within 2 weeks to complete your submission, or your files will be discarded.
- Upon successful conversion, you will see the message, “Your manuscript has been converted to a PDF document.” Click on “View PDF” to view the document. Select the appropriate action from the list of options; e.g., if the PDFs are correct, select that option and click “Done.” You will receive an e-mail acknowledging your submission. If the PDFs are not correct, you may choose to re-upload your files.
- Access Rapid Review via our website at www.JABFM.org
- Hit “Authors: Click here to submit your paper” in the center area of the screen
- If you’re a first-time user, click the “Create Account” button to the left, and provide the requested information. You will choose a User Name and Password here.
- Insert your User Name and Password. These are case-sensitive.
- If you have difficulty accessing Rapid Review, it may be the result your firewall or pop-up blocker settings. For help in adjusting your settings see Rapid Review's Support for Reviewers and click on "Getting Started." For further assistance, email JABFM{at}med.wayne.edu or phone 313-577-5205; after hours/weekends: rrhelp{at}cadmus.com.
JABFM or the Rapid Review helpdesk (links above).
- Click on “Submit New MS” in the left navigation bar
- Select JABFM and click “Go”
- Complete the manuscript submission form
- Required fields are asterisked
- Your cover letter and abstract may be copied and pasted into their fields
- Word count should include only the body of the manuscript
- Authors are encouraged to suggest up to five peer reviewers (with contact information).
- Click on “Submit MS Online” when done.
The Rapid Review online system may be accessed at www.JABFM.org by clicking on the author or reviewer portal. For assistance with the submission process, please email JABFM at JABFM{at}med.wayne.edu or phone 313-577-5205. For technical assistance during evenings or weekends, authors may contact the Rapid Review helpdesk at rrhelp{at}cadmus.com.
- Navigation: To move forward in Rapid Review, you must hit “Go” or “Continue.” The “Enter” (or “Back”) command does not work.
- Saving: Remember to save your work frequently to avoid losing it.
- Hard copies: Do not send hard copies to the JABFM office, even if Rapid Review seems to offer the option.
- Revisions: When submitting a revision of your manuscript, access the current version in your inbox and hit the Resubmit button. If the Resubmit button doesn't appear on your screen, contact the editorial offices for assistance. Please do not submit a revised manuscript as a new manuscript.
Revised February 2010
Copyright © 2010 by the American Board of Family Medicine.
