Acta Paediatrica

Published on behalf of the Foundation Acta Paediatrica

Edited by:
Hugo Lagercrantz

Print ISSN: 0803-5253
Online ISSN: 1651-2227
Frequency: Monthly
Current Volume: 99 / 2010
ISI Journal Citation Reports® Ranking: 2008: 37/86 Pediatrics
Impact Factor: 1.517

TopAuthor Guidelines

PREPARING FOR SUBMISSION

Submitted manuscripts should be arranged according to the rules stated in 'Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals' Ann Intern Med 1997;126:36-47, or JAMA 1997;277:927-34. The full document is available at www.icmje.org

When submitting a paper, the author should make a full statement to the editor about all submissions and previous reports that might be regarded as redundant or duplicate publication of the same or very similar work. Publication of abstracts and publication in a minority language are not considered to be duplicate publication, however, authors are requested to report to the publisher if any such publication has occurred. Submit approval of the paper for publication, signed by all authors, to the Editorial Office, and state clearly in the paper that the study has been approved by an institutional ethics committee. An author must have made significant contributions to the design, execution analysis and writing of the study, and he or she must share responsibility for what is published. We ask authors to specify their individual contribution, if appropriate, we publish this information (Author statements).

Be as concise as possible. Regular papers may not exceed four printed pages (including illustrations, tables and references). Exceeding this limit will incur a page charge for each exceeding page. Short Communications and Clinical Observations (Case Reports) may not exceed two printed pages. As to Clinical Observations, we accept only reports containing new data that will improve the understanding, diagnosis, treatment and prevention of a particular disease.

Click here to download Submission Checklist

Reports on randomised trials must conform to Consort guidelines and should be submitted with their protocols.

Conflict of interest and funding
Authors are responsible for recognising and disclosing financial and other conflicts of interest that might bias their work. They should acknowledge in the manuscript all financial support for the work and other financial or personal connections to the work. If reported research has been supported by pharmaceutical or other industries, this should be stated.

Statistic validity
If statistical data are provided the authors may be requested to submit an official statement issued by a certified statistician (with a proper affiliation) regarding the validity of the methods used.

Ethics and consent
When reporting experiments on human subjects, indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 1983. Do not use patients' names, initials, or hospital numbers, especially in illustrative material. Papers including animal experiments or clinical trials must have been approved by the institutional ethics committee.

Identifying information should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, and pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or parent or guardian) has given written informed consent for publication (A Patient Consent Certificate should be completed and sent to the journal). Informed consent for this purpose requires that the patient be shown the manuscript to be published.

Copyright
All submitted manuscripts must be accompanied by a completed Exlusive Licence Form. If your wish is to have your manuscript published as an open access article a completed Online Open Form should also be supplied (see below). The work shall not be published elsewhere in any language without the written consent of the publisher. The articles published in this journal are protected by the licence, which covers translation rights and the exclusive right to reproduce and distribute all of the articles printed in the journal. No material published in the journal may be stored on microfilm or videocassettes or in electronic databases and the like or reproduced photographically without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Online Open is a pay-to-publish service from Blackwell that offers authors whose papers are accepted for publication the opportunity to pay up-front for their manuscript to become open access (i.e. free for all to view and download). Each OnlineOpen article will be subject to a one-off fee of $3000 to be met by or on behalf of the Author in advance of publication. Upon online publication, the article (both full-text and PDF versions) will be available to all for viewing and download free of charge. The print version of the article will also be branded as OnlineOpen and will draw attention to the fact that the paper can be downloaded for free.
Any authors wishing to send their paper OnlineOpen should complete the Online Open Exclusive Licence Form. Please note that this form is for use with Online Open material ONLY. Prior to acceptance there is no requirement to inform an Editorial Office that you intend to publish your paper OnlineOpen if you do not wish to.

SUBMISSION

Electronic Manuscripts
All submissions should be made online at Acta Paediatrica's Manuscript Central site to facilitate rapid accessibility of your work to the readers. New users should first create an account. Once a user is logged onto the site submissions should be made via the Author Centre.

Manuscript Layout
Please use these simple guidelines when preparing your electronic manuscript.

(i) Key elements consistently throughout. (ii) Do not break words at the ends of lines. Use a hyphen only to hyphenate compound words. (iii) Use one space only at the ends of sentences. (iv) Do not use underlining; use the italics feature instead. (v) Leave the right-hand margin unjustified. (vi) Use a double hyphen to indicate a dash. (vii) Do not use the lower case 'ell' for 1 (one) or the upper case O for 0 (zero). (viii) When indenting paragraphs or separating columns in tables, use the TAB key, not the spacebar.

Double-space the entire manuscript. Prepare the manuscript with each of the following parts starting on a new page: (1) The title, with authors' names and affiliations (as a rule the number of authors should be limited to six. The names of others who contributed to the article in varying degree should be mentioned under the heading 'Acknowledgements'), the address of the corresponding author and a short running title; (2) the abstract ending with one or two sentences of conclusion, summarizing the message of the article including keywords; (3) the text; (4) the references; (5) tables; (6) figure legends.

Language
Manuscripts must be in English. Authors from non-English speaking countries are requested to have their text thoroughly checked by a competent person whose native language is English. Manuscripts may be rejected on the grounds of poor English. Revision of the language is the responsibility of the author.

Notes/Footnotes
Incorporate notes/footnotes in the text, within parentheses, rather than in their usual place at the foot of the page.

Abbreviations
Do not use abbreviations in the title or Abstract, and in the text use only standard abbreviations, i.e. those listed in the latest editions of any recognized medical dictionary (e.g. Dorland's, Butterworth's). The full term for which an abbreviation stands should precede its first use in the text, unless it is a standard unit of measurement. Use the SI system of notation. Redefine abbreviations used in the figure legends.

Illustrations
Should your manuscript be accepted, you may be asked to supply glossy prints rather than original illustrations. In which case you should identify them on the back by name and number. They must be camera-ready with an allowance of 25-50% for reduction in print. If necessary, lightly indicate the top of the figure on the reverse. Photographs should be unmounted. Colour figures cost an extra GBP200/image and GBP60 for following image Colour Work Agreement Form. In manuscripts that contain photographs of patients, we require a certificate by the author that consent to publish such a photograph has been given by the patient, a child's parent or a caretaker.

Tables
Number tables with Arabic numerals.

Title Page
Example of a title page showing content and spacing. Leave 7-8 cm at top of page.

Mechanics of breathing in the newborn (title)

L Andersson and K Pettersson (authors)
Department of Paediatrics, University Hospital, Lund, Sweden

Short title: Neonatal breathing

Corresponding author: K. Pettersson, Department of Paediatrics, University Hospital, S-221 85 Lund, Sweden. Tel +00 0 000 00 00. Fax +00 0 000 00 00.

Abstract
The abstract of a regular article should not exceed 200 words for regular articles and should be structured with the following headings: Aim, Methods, Results and Conclusion. Where appropriate, use Design, Setting, Subjects, Interventions and Main outcome measures. The abstract should be followed by a maximum of five keywords, listed alphabetically. Type as illustrated below:

ABSTRACT
Huppke P, Roth C, Christen HJ, Brockmann K, Hanefeld F. Endocrinological study on growth retardation in Rett syndrome. Acta Paediatr 2001;90:1257-61. Stockholm. ISSN 0803-5253

Aim: To determine whether primary or secondary growth hormone … (text) Methods: In 38 patients with Rett syndrome... Results: … Conclusion: ... Keywords: Endocrinology, growth hormone, growth retardation …

Text Pages
Leave a left-hand margin of about 4 cm. Number the pages in the top right-hand corner, beginning with the title page. Headings (left-hand margin): Patients and Methods, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgements, References.

References
Number the 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 (in parentheses). Type list of references as illustrated. Observe the punctuation carefully. The number of references should not exceed 30 in regular articles. (When more than six authors, list first six and add et al).

Abbreviations of journal titles; please consult the List of Journals Indexed in Index Medicus, published annually as a list in the January issue of Index Medicus, also accessible at www.nlm.nih.gov

References (example)

1. Kühl C, Andersen GE, Hertel J, Mölsted-Pedersen L. Metabolic events in infants of diabetic mothers during the first 24 hours after birth. Acta Paediatr 1982;71:19-25.
2. Feigin RD. Bacterial meningitis beyond the neonatal period. In: Feigin RD, Cherry JD, eds. Textbook of pediatric infectious diseases. 2nd ed. Philadelphia: WB Saunders, 1987.
3. Jones G. Textbook of paediatrics. Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1974:193-9.
4. D'Hondt E, Berge E, Colinet G. Production and quality control of the Oka strain live varicella vaccine. Postgrad Med J 1985;61 Suppl 4:53-6.
   
   For a journal article in electronic format use the following style:
   
5. Morse SS. Factors in the emergence of infectious diseases. Emerg Infect Dis [serial online] 1995 Jan-Mar [cited 1996 Jun 5]; 1(1): [24 screens]. Available from: URL: www.cdc.gov\ncidod\EID\eid.htm

Contributor's list (example)
Dr A had primary responsiblity for protocol development, patient screening, enrollment, outcome assessment, preliminary data analysis and writing the manuscript.
Drs B and C participated in the development of the protocol and analytical framework for the study and contributed to the writing of the manuscript.
Dr D contributed in the same ways as B and C and was responsible for patient screening.
Dr E supervised the design and execution of the study, performed the final data analyses and contributed to the writing of the manuscript.