Transfusion Alternatives in Transfusion Medicine

Published on behalf of the Network for Advancement of Transfusion Alternatives

Edited by:
Professor Konrad Messmer

Print ISSN: 1295-9022
Online ISSN: 1778-428X
Frequency: Quarterly
Current Volume: 12 / 2010

TopAuthor Guidelines

Online manuscript submission

Manuscripts should be submitted online at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/tatm. All parts of the manuscript are needed in an electronic format (including figures). A user ID and password can be created at the site. Format the manuscript as described below and, where possible, combine multiple files into a single document. Microsoft Word, rich text format (RTF) and PostScript files an any embedded images will automatically be converted to PDF on upload.

Manuscripts must be accompanied by a covering letter stating that the submission is original work not previously published in any substantial part, is not under consideration of publication elsewhere, and is being submitted to Transfusion Alternatives in Transfusion Medicine for consideration of publication. Exclusive Licence Forms are mandatory upon submission of a manuscript.

Word 2007 Will authors please note that Word 2007 is not yet compatible with journal production systems. Unfortunately, the journal cannot accept Microsoft Word 2007 documents until such time as a stable production version is released. Please use Word's 'Save As' option to save your document as an older (.doc) file type.

Enquiries should be directed to:
Mr Francois Christory
Managing Editor
LMS Group
75 Rue Guy Moquet
92240 Malakoff
France
Tel: +33 (0) 142530303
Fax: +33 (0) 142530302
Email: fchristory@lms-group.com

Alternatively authors may wish to take advantage of the Online Open service. OnlineOpen 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) via the Blackwell website. 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 via the Blackwell online service. If you wish your paper to be OnlineOpen you are required to complete the Exclusive Licence form as detailed above as well as the: Online Open Form.

State the type of submission (original article, review, etc.) and the section heading to which the manuscript should be assigned, along with four to six names of potential reviewers. Manuscripts should have: a wide margin, double spacing, and numbered pages beginning with the title page. The title of the paper, name and address of each author, and the name of the institution where the work has been carried out should appear on the title page, as should the name and full postal address (with phone/fax numbers and e-mail) of the corresponding author only. The corresponding author is responsible for reading the proofs and communicating with the other authors, and informing the Transfusion Alternatives In Transfusion Medicine editorial office of any change in details until the paper is published.

Blackwell Publishing reserves the right to contact another author if the corresponding author is not available to check proofs. Authors must adhere to acceptable use of American English and syntax. The Editor reserves the right to make corrections, both literary and technical, to the papers. Authors should keep a complete copy; rejected manuscripts will not be returned. Please note that unless specifically requested, Blackwell publishing will dispose of all hardcopy or electronic material submitted two months after publication. If you require the return of any material submitted, please inform the editorial office or production editor as soon as possible if you have not yet done so.

What to submit

Text files should be submitted in Word format (include all parts of the text of the paper in a single file. The sequence should be: header (title, short title, authors, addresses, correspondence details including e-mail address, abstract, keywords, etc.), body of article, acknowledgements, references, figure legends, table legends and tables, appendices), and figures in TIFF or EPS, although worksheets in Excel can be used. RRF and PDF originals are not recommended due to potential conversion errors in the system. Please note that if the program extension is not present in the file name, it must be added by the author before uploading the file: e.g. filename: Antithrombin should be renamed Antithrombin.doc; Figure1 should be renamed Figure1.eps or Figure1.tiff, etc. Without the extension, the files cannot be recognized by the system and therefore may not convert properly: this will cause delays in reviewing the material. Authors must state either on the cover page of the manuscript (under the title and affiliation), or in the covering letter to the editor, the word count of the abstract (which must not exceed 250 words) and the word count of the text (not exceeding 5000 words) separately.

Article Types

Review Articles. Review articles, which must undergo peer review, will generally be solicited, but unsolicited reviews on timely subjects will be considered. Review articles should be 4,000 words or less with selected references, and no more than three authors.

Original Articles. Should not exceed 5,000 words (including tables, figures, and references), and should not have more than eight authors. See Authorship Details, below, if there are more than eight authors. Contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship can be listed in 'Acknowledgements'.

Case Reports. These will be considered if the report includes novel scientific material or is of extraordinary clinical interest. These should include a brief description of the case and a discussion of the salient features in the context of the literature.

Letters to the Editor. Should not normally exceed three typewritten pages and include not more than one table or figure, nor more than five authors.

Manuscript Format

Manuscripts should be formatted as below.

Title. In addition to the full title, authors should provide a short version (running head), not more than 50 characters long, including spaces.

Summary. Original articles should have a structured abstract of 250 words or less.

Keywords. Provide no more than six keywords in alphabetical order following the Summary.

Main Text. Give generic names of drugs. Full names of substances with abbreviations must be given at first mention; thereafter, use the abbreviation. Symbols should be inserted as per the instructions on the submission site.

Headings. Only three levels of headings are used in Transfusion Alternatives In Transfusion Medicine (the third being a run-on heading, where the text follows on the same line). Work must be rewritten if any part of it contains more than three types of heading in succession.

References.
We recommend the use of a tool such as EndNote or Reference Manager for reference management and formatting. EndNote reference styles can be searched fro here: http://www.endnote.com/support/enstyles.asp and Reference Manager reference styles can be searched for here: http://www.refman.com/support/rmstyles.asp.

Only papers closely related to the author's work should be referenced; exhaustive lists should be avoided. Verify all references for completeness and accuracy, and format references as a plain, unstructured list. References are Vancouver style, with numbers in square brackets [1], [3-5] in the text and a numbered list, with all authors included in each reference at the end. References to personal communications, unpublished data, and manuscripts either 'in preparation' or 'submitted for publication' should be inserted, if essential, in the text only and not listed in the references.

Examples of correct forms of references are given below.
(1) Standard journal article. (List authors when six or fewer; when seven or more, list only first three and add et al.) Ranasinghe E, Harrison JF: Bruising following blood donation, its management and the response and subsequent return rates of affected donors. Trans Med 2000; 10:113-116
(2) Monograph. Mollison PL, Engelfriet CP, Contreras M: Blood Transfusion in Clinical Medicine, ed 10. Oxford, Blackwell Science, 1997
(3) Corporate author. American Medical Association Department of Drugs. AMA drug evaluations. 3rd edn. Littleton: Publishing Sciences Group, 1977.
(4) Edited book. Luzzatto L, Karadimitris A: The molecular basis of anaemia; in Provan D, Gribben J (ed): Molecular Haematology. Oxford, Blackwell Science, 2000
(5) Published proceedings paper. DuPont B. Bone marrow transplantation in severe combined immunodeficiency with an untreated MLC compatible donor. In: White HJ, Smith R, eds. Proceedings of the Third Annual Meeting of the International Society for Experimental Haematology. Houston: International Society for Experimental Haematology, 1974:44-6.
Publications 'in press' should be updated as soon as possible. For further examples, see the 'Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals' at http://www.icmje.org/index.html.

Tables. There should be as few tables as possible, containing only essential data. Verify information for accuracy and consistency with the manuscript's text. Each table should be given an Arabic number. The title (legend) of the table should contain only minimal text. Any other information, such as definitions of abbreviations, probability statistics, etc., should be in the table footnote; if symbols are necessary, they should be the same as given for the authors' details above. Headings and columns should be laid out clearly; avoid use of sub-headings. Avoid wordy, over-full tables. Any blank cells should have a dash.

Illustrations

A legend should be provided for each illustration. Photomicrographs should state the original magnification. Legends should provide sufficient information to allow the reader comprehension without reference to the text, and should be grouped at the end of the manuscript. Illustrations should be referred to in the text as 'Figs' and be given Arabic numbers. The final width of the figures will be either 82, 114 or 173 mm. Lines should be of sufficient thickness to stand reduction (no less than 4 mm wide for a 50% reduction), and letters should be a minimum of 9 pt Arial or an equivalent size. For details of Blackwell Publishing's electronic artwork standards, please go to http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/bauthor/illustration.asp.

Electronic Artwork
If submitting final artwork electronically, please read the information at http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/bauthor/illustration.asp. Vector graphics (e.g., line artwork) should be saved in Encapsulated Postscript Format (EPS) and bitmap files (e.g. photographs) should be saved in Tagged Image File Format (TIFF). Line art must be scanned at a minimum of 800 dpi; photographs at a minimum of 300 dpi.

Colour Artwork
A charge for colour will be made. Therefore, please note that if there is colour artwork in your manuscript when it is accepted for publication, Blackwell Publishing require you to complete and return a Colour Work Agreement form before your paper can be published. This form can be downloaded as a PDF* file from the internet. The web address for the form is: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/pdf/SN_Sub2000_X_CoW_F1.pdf

Proofs
The corresponding author will receive an email alert containing a link to a web site. A working e-mail address must therefore be provided for the corresponding author. The proof can be downloaded as a PDF* (portable document format) file from this site. 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 proof. Hard copy proofs will be posted if no e-mail address is available. Excessive changes made by the author in the proofs, excluding typesetting errors, will be charged separately.

OnlineEarly
Transfusion Alternatives in Transfusion Medicine is covered by Blackwell Publishing's OnlineEarly service. OnlineEarly articles are complete full-text articles published online in advance of their publication in a printed issue. Articles are therefore available as soon as they are ready, rather than having to wait for the next scheduled print issue. OnlineEarly articles are complete and final. They have been fully reviewed, revised and edited for publication, and the authors' final corrections have been incorporated. Because they are in final form, no changes can be made after online publication. The nature of OnlineEarly articles means that they do not yet have volume, issue or page numbers, so OnlineEarly articles cannot be cited in the traditional way. They are therefore given a Digital Object Identifier (DOI), which allows the article to be cited and tracked before it is allocated to an issue. After print publication, the DOI remains valid and can continue to be used to cite and access the article.

Online production tracking is now available for your article through Wiley-Blackwell's Author Services
Author Services enables authors to track their article - once it has been accepted - through the production process to publication online and in print. Authors can check the status of their articles online and choose to receive automated e-mails at key stages of production. The author will receive an e-mail with a unique link that enables them to register and have their article automatically added to the system. Please ensure that a complete e-mail address is provided when submitting the manuscript. Visit www.authorservices.wiley.com/bauthor/ for more details on online production tracking and for a wealth of resources including FAQs and tips on article preparation, submission and more.

NEW: Pre-submission English-language editing
Authors for whom English is a second language may choose to have their manuscript professionally edited before submission to improve the English. A list of independent suppliers of editing services can be found at www.blackwellpublishing.com/bauthor/english_language.asp. All services are paid for and arranged by the author, and use of one of these services does not guarantee acceptance or preference for publication.

Author material archive policy.
Please note that unless specifically requested, Blackwell Publishing will dispose of all submitted hardcopy or electronic material 2 months after publication. If you require the return of any material submitted, please inform the Editorial Office or Production Editor as soon as possible if you have not yet done so.

*To read PDF files, you must have Acrobat Reader installed on your computer. If you do not have this program, this is available as a free download from the following address: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html.