Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice

Edited by:
Andrew Miles

Print ISSN: 1356-1294
Online ISSN: 1365-2753
Frequency: Bi-monthly
Current Volume: 16 / 2010
ISI Journal Citation Reports® Ranking: 2008: 27/62 Health Care Sciences & Services; 10/20 Medical Informatics; 44/107 Medicine, General & Internal
Impact Factor: 1.843

TopAuthor Guidelines

Queries
Any concerns regarding the suitability of material for submission should be discussed directly with the Editor at the address below. All submissions should be sent to:

Professor Andrew Miles
Editor-in-Chief
Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice
Medical School
University of Buckingham (London Campus)
c/o P.O. Box 64457
London SE11 9AN

The Editor welcomes contributions on all aspects of health services research and public health policy. Papers received are assumed to have been submitted exclusively to Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice. All authors must include a covering letter giving consent for publication, signed by the corresponding author (i.e. the author to whom correspondence should be addressed), and stating on behalf of all the authors that the work has not been published and is not being considered for publication elsewhere.

The Editor's preferred method for receipt of manuscripts for consideration is via e-mail to: andrew.miles@keyadvances.org.uk

Manuscripts submitted to the Journal are subject to initial review by the Editor and, if regarded as suitable for the Journal, by external review from at least two reviewers.

Copyright Transfer Agreement
Authors will be required to sign a Copyright Transfer Agreement (CTA) for all papers accepted for publication. Signature of the CTA is a condition of publication and papers will not be passed to the publisher for production unless a signed form has been received. Please note that signature of the Copyright Transfer Agreement does not affect ownership of copyright in the material. (Government employees need to complete the Author Warranty sections, although copyright in such cases does not need to be assigned). After submission authors will retain the right to publish their paper in various medium/circumstances (please see the form for further details). To assist authors an appropriate form will be supplied by the editorial office. Alternatively, authors may like to download a copy of the form www.wiley.com/go/ctaaglobal

The Editor retains control over the time of publication and the right to modify the style in accordance with that for the Journal. Any major changes will be agreed with the author(s).

Online open
OnlineOpen is a pay-to-publish service from Wiley-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 Wiley Interscience website. Each OnlineOpen article will be subject to a one-off fee of $3,000 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.

Any authors wishing to send their paper OnlineOpen will be required to complete the payment form available from our website by clicking here (please note this form is for use with OnlineOpen material ONLY).

Once complete this form should be sent to the Editorial Office along with the rest of the manuscript materials at the time of acceptance or as soon as possible after that (preferably within 24 hours to avoid any delays in processing). 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.

The copyright statement for OnlineOpen authors will read: © [date] The Author(s), Journal compilation © [date] [Blackwell Publishing Ltd]

**Page Charges**
In order to maximise the number of papers published in each issue of the Journal, the editor encourages authors to limit the number of manuscript pages of double-spaced text to 21 or less (approximately 7 journal proof pages). Please bear in mind that some figures and tables may require a large amount of journal space to be clear, while others. Where papers extend beyond 7 journal pages they will incur a charge of £100GBP per extra page. You should therefore consider whether the number of pages in your paper can be reduced. You must state in your letter of submission whether your institution is prepared to pay charges for excess page length if you decide to submit a manuscript of greater length. The editor may decide to waive this charge in exceptional circumstances.

Preparation of the Manuscript
Articles are accepted for publication only at the discretion of the Editor and are subject to referee by two experts in the field. A manuscript may consist of a maximum of 5000 words. The first page must display: article title; names of all authors, with job title / professional designation; professional and academic qualifications; the name(s) and address(es) of the institution(s) at which the work was carried out (the present addresses of the authors, if different from the above, should appear in a footnote); the name, address, telephone and fax numbers of the author to whom all correspondence and proofs should be sent; a suggested running title of not more than fifty characters, including spaces; and six keywords to aid indexing.

The text should be preceded by a short summary (approximately 250 words and structured, if applicable, according to (i) Rationale, aims and objectives; (ii) Method; (iii) Results; and (iv) Conclusion(s)) and followed by (1) Introduction, (2) Methods (and Materials where appropriate), (3) Results, (4) Discussion, (5) Acknowledgements, (6) References, (7) Figure legends, (8) Tables and (9) Figures. All pages must be numbered consecutively from the title page, and include the acknowledgements, references and figure legends, which should be submitted on separate sheets following the main text. The preferred position of tables and figures in the text should be indicated in the left-hand margin. It is essential that approval for the reproduction or modification of figures and tables published elsewhere is sought and obtained in writing from the authors and publishers prior to submission of papers. The original source must be quoted.

Author material archive policy. Please note that unless specifically requested, Wiley-Blackwell 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.

Units and Spellings
Systeme International (SI) units should be used, as given in Units, Symbols and Abbreviations (4th edition, 1988), published by the Royal Society of Medicine Services Ltd, 1 Wimpole Street, London W1M 8AE, UK. Other abbreviations should be used sparingly and only if a lengthy name or expression is repeated throughout the text. Spelling should conform to that used in the The Concise Oxford Dictionary, published by Oxford University Press. Authors should strenuously avoid the use of jargon or obscure technical terms.

References

These should be in the Vancouver style. References should be numbered sequentially as they occur in the text and identified in the main text by numbers in superscript after the punctuation. The reference list should be prepared on a separate sheet from the main text, and references should be listed numerically. The following are examples of the style. Where there more than ten authors, the first three should be listed followed by et al. If there are ten or fewer authors then all should be listed. Journal titles should not be abbreviated. Do not use opcit. etc.

1. Kassirer, J. P. (1994) Incorporating patients' preferences into medical decisions. New England Journal of Medicine, 330(26), 1895-1896.

2. Macklin, R. (1993) Enemies of Patients. How Doctors are Losing Their Power and Patients are Losing their Rights. New York: Oxford University Press.

3. Coote, A. (1996) The democratic deficit. In Sense and Sensibility in Health Care (ed M. Marinker), pp. 173-197. London: BMJ Publishing.

Work that has not been accepted for publication and personal communications should not appear in the reference list, but may be referred to in the text (e.g. A. Author, unpubl. observ.; A.N. Other, pers comm.). The editor and publisher recommend that citation of online published papers and other material should be done via a DOI (digital object identifier), which all repuatable online published material should have - see http://www.doi.org/ for more information. If an author cites anything which does not have a DOI they run the risk of the cited material not being traceable. It is the authors responsibility to obtain permission from colleagues to include their work as a personal communication. A letter of permission should accompany the manuscript.

Illustrations
These should be referred to in the text as figures using Arabic numbers, e.g. Fig. 1, Fig. 2, etc, in order of appearance. For details on how to produce figures for the journal please see the following link - http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/bauthor/illustration.asp

Colour illustrations
It is the policy of the Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice for authors to pay the full cost for the reproduction of their colour artwork.

Therefore, please note that if there is colour artwork in your manuscript when it is accepted for publication, Wiley-Blackwell 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* from the Internet. The web address for the form is:

http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/pdf/SN_Sub2000_X_CoW.pdf

If you are unable to access the Internet, or are unable to download the form, please contact the production editor at the address below and they will be able to email or fax a form to you.

Once completed, please return the form to the production editor at the address below:

Rona Gloag
Senior Production Editor
Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice
Wiley-Blackwell
101 George Street
Edinburgh EH2 3ES
UK
E-mail: jep@wiley.com

* 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 web address:

http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html

Tables
Tables should include only essential data. Each table must be typewritten on a separate sheet and should be numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals, e.g. Table 1, and given a short caption. No vertical rules should be used. Units should appear in parentheses in the column headings and not in the body of the table. All abbreviations should be defined in a footnote.

Page Proofs
Proofs will be sent via e-mail as an Acrobat PDF (portable document format) file. The e-mail server must be able to accept attachments up to 4MB in size. Acrobat Reader will be required in order to read this file. This software can be downloaded (free of charge) from the following Web site:

http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html

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. Proofs will be posted if no e-mail address is available. Corrections must be returned to the Production Editor within 3 days of receipt, ideally by post or fax. Only typographical errors can be corrected at this stage. Major alterations to the text cannot be accepted and authors may be charged for excessive amendments.

Offprints
Authors will be provided with electronic offprints of their paper. Electronic offprints are sent to the first author at his or her email address on the title page of the paper, unless advised otherwise, therefore please ensure that the name, address and email of the receiving author are clearly indicated on the manuscript title page if he or she is not the first author of the paper. Paper offprints may be purchased using the order form supplied with proofs.

OnlineEarly Publication
JECP is covered by Wiley-Blackwell's Early View service. Early View 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. Early View articles are complete and final. They have been fully reviewed, revised and edited for publication, and the author's final corrections have been incorporated. Because they are in the final form, no changes can be made after online publication. The nature of Early View articles means that they do not yet have volume, issue or page numbers, so Early View articles cannot be cited in the traditional way. They are therefore given 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.

NEW: 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 so they don't need to contact the production editor to check on progress. Visit www.blackwellpublishing.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.