Guidelines for Authors
www.karger.com/fdt_guidelines
 Scope and Vision
Submission
Conditions
Categories of Manuscripts
Arrangement
Instructions for Preparation of Specific Manuscript Categories
Color Illustrations
References
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
Author's ChoiceTM
Page Charges
Proofs
Reprints
Scope and Vision
The scope of ‘Fetal Diagnosis and Therapy’ is fetal medicine in its broadest sense, including basic science and pathophysiological issues, prenatal diagnosis, clinical management and fetal therapy. The journal's main goal is to provide useful information and new insights into fetal diagnosis and therapy in the form of original research, reviews and relevant clinical cases and images. Our vision is to become a journal of reference for the multidisciplinary audience of professionals involved in clinical practice and research in fetal medicine.
Authors should ensure that their work complies with all regulations laid down by their state or community and should have obtained the necessary informed consent. Neither the editors nor the publishers will accept any responsibility in the case of neglect or avoidance of these rules.
Submission
Manuscripts written in English should be submitted online along with the names, postal and e-mail addresses of at least four experts in the appropriate area of research. Selected scientist(s) will be invited to act as referee(s). Referees suggested should not be from the same institution as the author and should have expert knowledge of the subject.
Should you have any problems with your submission, please contact:
Prof. Dr. Eduard Gratacós
S. Karger AG
Editorial Office 'Fetal Diagnosis and Therapy'
PO Box
CH–4009 Basel (Switzerland)
Tel. +41 61 306 1359
Fax +41 61 306 1434
E-Mail fdt@karger.ch
The manuscripts should be accompanied by a signed copyright transfer statement (please see submission website).
Presentation of manuscripts should conform with the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals [N Engl J Med 1997;336:309–315].
Conditions
All manuscripts are subject to editorial review. Manuscripts are received with the explicit understanding that they are not under simultaneous consideration by any other publication. Submission of an article for publication implies transfer of the copyright from the author to the publisher upon acceptance. Accepted papers become the permanent property of 'Fetal Diagnosis and Therapy' and may not be reproduced by any means, in whole or in part, without the written consent of the publisher. It is the author's responsibility to obtain permission to reproduce illustrations, tables, etc. from other publications.
Categories of Manuscripts
The journal is structured into five categories.
Original Papers
Authors are invited to submit their research to the journal. Papers will be classified into four areas of interest.
· Basic Science and Pathophysiology
· Prenatal Diagnosis
· Clinical Fetal Medicine
· Fetal Therapy
Reviews and Mini-Reviews
Reviews on specific questions or topics which are felt to be of interest to the majority of readers; normally, but not exclusively, on clinical issues. They should be concise reviews or mini-reviews which give evidence and provide an answer to a well-defined aspect or question in a particular area. These reviews are normally invited but suggestions for reviews will also be considered, particularly systematic reviews accompanying a case report or case series if they are deemed to be timely and of high quality. Accepted reviews are not subject to page charges.
Novel Insights from Clinical Practice (formerly Case Reports)
While the main aim of the journal is to publish original research and reviews, case reports which provide relevant insights into the background knowledge or which illustrate an extremely unusual clinical course are welcome. In general, case reports with a review of the literature are discouraged and this option should be reserved for exceptional cases, when the review is deemed to be of very high quality and value to the reader.
Images in Fetal Medicine
The section aims to publish images of high interest, either because they illustrate or aid understanding of an important concept or because the image is of particular quality. Images of all kinds are foreseen, including ultrasound, MRI and fetoscopy. Combinations of prenatal imaging with fetoscopic, postnatal, surgical or pathological imaging are particularly encouraged. Authors may be invited to transfer some clinical cases to this section if the images are particularly good. Papers published in this section will be considered as case reports for Medline purposes.
Letters to the Editor
Letters are encouraged if they directly concern articles previously published in this journal or clinical subjects related to the matters discussed. The editor reserves the right to submit copies of such letters to the authors of the articles concerned prior to publication in order to permit them to respond in the same issue of the journal. Letters on general scientific or medical subjects in fetal medicine are also welcome.
Arrangement
Title page: The first page of each paper should indicate the title, the authors' names, and the institute where the work was conducted. A short title for use as a running head, as well as the full address of the author to whom correspondence should be sent, are also required.
Full address: The exact postal address of the corresponding author complete with postal code must be given at the bottom of the title page. Please also supply phone and fax numbers, as well as e-mail address.
Key words: For indexing purposes, a list of 3–10 key words in English is essential.
Abstract: Please refer to the 'Instructions for Preparation of Specific Manuscript Categories'.
Footnotes: Avoid footnotes. When essential, they are numbered consecutively and typed at the foot of the appropriate page.
Tables and illustrations: Tables and illustrations (both numbered in Arabic numerals) should be prepared on separate sheets. Tables require a heading and figures a legend, also prepared on a separate sheet. For technical reasons, figures with a screen background should not be submitted. When possible, group several illustrations in one block for reproduction (max. size 180 x 223 mm) or provide crop marks. Each illustration must be labelled with its number and the first author's name. B/w half-tone and color illustrations must have a final resolution of 300 dpi after scaling, line drawings one of 800–1,200 dpi. Figure files must not be embedded in a document file but submitted separately (see also Online Submission Instructions).
Instructions for Preparation of Specific Manuscript Categories
Original Papers
The guidelines below should be followed as closely as possible. This will help the editors and reviewers to interpret the aims and value of your research.
An abstract of up to 200 words, structured with the same headings as below, should be provided.
Introduction
This should clearly state the research question and introduce the condition and the clinical or research problem being addressed. Lengthy descriptions of previous evidence, particularly information that may be important for the topic in general but is not strictly related to the research question, should be avoided. At the end of the introduction please clarify what new or complementary information your research is providing with respect to existing knowledge or previous research.
Material and Methods
The section must contain clear information on permissions obtained by ethical committees, inclusion and exclusion criteria, methods of research, variables evaluated and main outcome measures, along with other secondary variables evaluated, definitions used, and statistical analyses.
Results
The findings of the study should be described concisely following the same structure as in Materials and Methods. The text should complement, but not duplicate, the information contained in the tables and figures. Comments on the findings in this section should be avoided.
Discussion
The Discussion should be as structured as possible, and contain at least the following paragraphs, each with information responding to the following questions:
· What are the main findings?
· How do they compare with previous studies: which are the similarities and
differences and the reasons for them?
· What are the pathophysiological basis and insights reinforced or newly provided by
the findings? (If applicable.)
· What is the clinical relevance of the findings?
· What are the main limitations of the study?
· If applicable, a concluding paragraph on potential future lines of research which
must be considered according to previous data and/or this particular study.
Reviews
Mini-Reviews
Mini-reviews may have the structure of a conventional or systematic review. They must be clealy addressed to respond to a specific question of clinical practice or special pathophysiological importance which will normally be pre-defined by invitation of the Editorial Board. 3,000–4,000 words long, they may contain tables and figures and an unlimited number of references.
Systematic Reviews
Both abstract and paper should be structured according to the following scheme: Background/Objectives, Data Sources, Results and Discussion. It is particularly important to precisely describe the methodology used for the systematic review, including data sources, number of reviewers and the pre-established criteria used for the search and classification of papers. If the review is accompanied by a case report or a small case series, the Results section must be divided into two subsections: 'Case Report/Series' and 'Systematic Review of...'. The number of references is unlimited.
Novel Insights from Clinical Practice (formerly Case Reports)
The publication space available for case reports is very limited. The journal only considers case reports with significant new insights
or with an extremely unusual and memorable course. Highlighted boxes containing one or two bullet points on 'Established facts'
(what is already known) and 'Novel insights' (what new information has been gained) are required and should be placed on the
first page of the report (after title page). These should be selected so as to reinforce the novelty of the clinical observation.
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Example
Established Facts
· Already known fact 1 ...
· Already known fact 2 ...
· ... |
Novel Insights
· New information 1 ...
· New information 2 ...
· ... |
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Novel Insights from Clinical Practice must be written concisely and structured as follows:
· A non-structured Abstract (max. 200 words), for Medline purposes.
· No introduction section is required.
· A description of the Clinical Case.
· To illustrate the case the numbers of figures should be kept to a minimum,
i.e. notmore than three. More images are accepted in justified cases.
Images in Fetal Medicine
Images must be accompanied by a brief text, structured in the same way as a Case Report, but considerably shorter in length, and limited to the essential. Ideally, there should be three references (five is the maximum number allowed). Where appropriate a Summary Points box can be provided to summarize the novel insights.
Letters to the Editor
Letters should be no longer than one printed page and must concern articles previously published in this journal or clinical subjects related to the matters discussed.
Color Illustrations
Online edition: Color illustrations are reproduced free of charge. In the print version, the illustrations are reproduced in black and white. Please avoid referring to the colors in the text and figure legends.
Print edition: Up to 6 color illustrations per page can be integrated within the text at CHF 760.00 per page.
References
In the text identify references by Arabic numerals [in square brackets]. Material submitted for publication but not yet accepted should be noted as ‘unpublished data' and not be included in the reference list. The list of references should include only those publications which are cited in the text. Do not alphabetize; number references in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text. The surnames of the authors followed by initials should be given. There should be no punctuation other than a comma to separate the authors. Cite all authors, ‘et al’ is not sufficient. Abbreviate journal names according to the Index Medicus system. (Also see International Committee of Medical Journal Editors: Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals. N Engl J Med 1997;336:309–315. www.icmje.org)
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Examples
(a) Papers published in periodicals: Sun J, Koto H, Chung KF: Interaction of ozone and allergen challenges on bronchial responsiveness and inflammation in sensitised guinea pigs. Int Arch Allergy Immunol 1997;112:191–195.
(b) Papers published only with DOI numbers: Theoharides TC, Boucher W, Spear K: Serum interleukin-6 reflects disease severity and osteoporosis in mastocytosis patients. Int Arch Allergy Immunol DOI: 10.1159/000063858.
(c) Monographs: Matthews DE, Farewell VT: Using and Understanding Medical Statistics, ed 3, revised. Basel, Karger, 1996.
(d) Edited books: Parren PWHI, Burton DR: Antibodies against HIV-1 from phage display libraries: Mapping of an immune response and progress towards antiviral immunotherapy; in Capra JD (ed): Antibody Engineering. Chem Immunol. Basel, Karger, 1997, vol 65, pp 18–56.
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Reference Management Software: Use of EndNote is recommended for easy management and formatting of citations and reference lists.
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
S. Karger Publishers supports DOIs as unique identifiers for articles. A DOI number will be printed on the title page of each article. DOIs can be useful in the future for identifying and citing articles published online without volume or issue information. More information can be found at www.doi.org
Author's ChoiceTM
Karger's Author's ChoiceTM service broadens the reach of your article and gives all users worldwide free and full access for reading, downloading and printing at www.Karger.com. The option is available for a one-time fee of CHF 2,750.00, which is a permissible cost in grant allocation. More information can be found at www.karger.com/authors_choice.
NIH-Funded Research
The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) mandates under the NIH Public Access Policy that final, peer-reviewed manuscripts appear in its digital database within 12 months of the official publication date. As a service to authors, Karger submits the final version of your article on your behalf to PubMed Central. For those selecting our premium Author's ChoiceTM service, we will send your article immediately upon publishing, accelerating the accessibility of your work without the usual embargo. More details on NIH's Public Access Policy is available here.
Self-Archiving
Karger permits authors to archive their pre-prints (i.e. pre-refereeing) or post-prints (i.e. final draft post-refereeing) on their personal or institution's servers, provided the following conditions are met: Articles may not be used for commercial purposes, must be linked to the publisher's version, and must acknowledge the publisher's copyright. Authors selecting Karger's Author's ChoiceTM feature, however, are also permitted to archive the final, published version of their article, which includes copyediting and design improvements as well as citation links.
Page Charges
There are no page charges for papers of 4 or less printed pages (including tables, illustrations and references). Each additional complete or partial page is charged to the author at CHF 310.00. The allotted size of a paper is equal to approx. 12 manuscript pages (including tables, illustrations and references).
Proofs
Unless indicated otherwise, proofs are sent to the corresponding author and should be returned with the least possible delay. Alterations made in proofs, other than the correction of printer's errors, are charged to the author. No page proofs are supplied.
Reprints
Order forms and a price list are sent with the proofs. Orders submitted after the issue is printed are subject to considerably higher prices.
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New Editorial Team!
Editor-in-Chief:
E. Gratacós, Barcelona
Associate Editors:
F. Figueras, Barcelona
E. Hernández-Andrade, Mexico
J.A. Hyett, Sydney
L. Lewi, Leuven
D. Paladini, Napoli
R.D. Wilson, Calgary
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For non-native English speakers and international authors who would like assistance with their writing before submission, we suggest American Journal Experts for their scientific editing service. |
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Online Manuscript Submission
Guidelines
