Overlapping publications

Authors submitting a paper do so on the understanding that neither the work nor any part of its essential substance, tables or figures have been or will be published or are being considered for publication elsewhere. The work must be approved by all co-authors, if any.

Authorship

There is no maximum for the number of authors of a manuscript, although all work must have been approved by all co-authors.
Authorship credit should be based on the following criteria: 1) substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; 2) drafting the article or revising it critically for intellectual content; and 3) final approval of the version to be published.
Writing assistance from medical writers or agencies must be included in the Acknowledgements section, or should be given appropriate credit as authorship. Galley proofs of articles produced in this way should be approved and signed off by authors. Any correspondence sent on behalf of the author by medical writers and/or pharmaceutical companies, and changes made to the scientific meaning of the text will be verified with the author before publication.

Multicentre groups
When a multicentre group has conducted the study, all individuals who accept direct responsibility for the manuscript should be identified. When submitting a group author manuscript, the corresponding author should clearly identify all individual authors, as well as the group name.
Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group does not justify authorship. All persons designated as authors should qualify for authorship, and all those who qualify should be listed. Each author should have participated sufficiently to be able to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content.

Copyright

Submission of the manuscript implies that if and when it is accepted for publication the authors automatically agree to transfer the copyright to the publisher. The copyright protection implies that the publisher holds the exclusive rights to reproduction in any form (including publication in another language) and distribution of any of the articles in the Review. Material published in the Review may only be stored on microfilm, video discs and in an electronic database or in any other electronic format, etc., and be reproduced photographically with prior written permission of the publisher.
One copyright form should be completed by the corresponding author on submission of a manuscript, and by all authors when the manuscript is accepted.

Peer review

Each manuscript will be peer reviewed by members of the Editorial Board and/or invited reviewers.
You will be notified by e-mail on receipt of the submitted online draft, and provided with a manuscript number for future reference.

Statement of interest

Any conflict of interest for a given manuscript must be dealt with according to the statement of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (the "Vancouver Group") as published in the Lancet 1993; 341: 742. The editors and reviewers of the European Respiratory Review must disclose to the Chief Editor any personal or financial relationship that could bias their opinion and the decision in the peer-review process. Every author of each manuscript is responsible for recognising and disclosing financial (or other) conflicts of interest related to their study or to the subject of their article. The authors must acknowledge all financial support for the work and other financial or personal connections to the work. All authors must complete the statement of interest form and these must be uploaded during electronic manuscript submission. The form is available here.

Requirements for sponsored publication in the European Respiratory Review

• The publication should be of interest to members of the European Respiratory Society.
• Papers should be written in an easy-to-read fashion with ample use of figures and graphs.
• If a series of clinical trials is reported, for instance, with a new drug, the paper should provide at least a systematic review of all the studies with a general conclusion.

Manuscript preparation

Presentation of manuscripts should conform with the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals (see icmje).
The submitted manuscript should be saved as .rtf (rich text format) or .doc (MS Word document).
All manuscripts must be submitted electronically using the online submission platform at: mc.manuscriptcentral.com/err or mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ers.
Detailed instructions of how to submit are available on the website itself and the process is self-explanatory. However, if you experience problems, please contact the submission helpline on +44 114 2672865 or e-mail Claire Ryan at errscholarone{at}ersj.org.uk.
Abbreviations or unusual terms should be described at the first instance. Symbols as defined by the ad hoc working group of the Commission of the European Communities (Eur Respir J 1993; 6: Suppl. 16) are recommended. Système International (SI) units are recommended.

Where applicable, the following components and guidelines should be addressed for each manuscript.

Title page

• Provide a concise informative title, not longer than 90 characters.
• Include a list of all contributing authors and their affiliations, with clear indication of who is associated with each institution.
• Supply the corresponding author's full name, address, e-mail address and fax number, including country code.
• Provide a short version of the title, which will be used as a running head, of not more than 45 characters.
• Provide a list of up to six keywords.

Abstract

• Manuscripts should have a clear abstract that provides a précis of the contents of the paper.
• The abstract should not be more than 200 words in length and should be easily understood without reference to the text (see Ann Intern Med 1987; 106: 598–604).
• Include only the most important results.
• Avoid using abbreviations and reporting detailed statistics.

Introduction

• State the question you asked (or hypothesis to be tested) and your considerations leading to the formulation of the question.
• Give only pertinent references.

Study subjects or animals

• Describe the selection of subjects or experimental animals, including controls (for animals, see Laboratory Animals 1985; 19: 106–108).
• All work involving studies on human subjects is expected to have received approval from local ethical committees.
• Animal experimentation must be performed according to the Helsinki convention for the use and care of animals.
• The Editors reserve the right to refuse work which does not conform to acceptable ethical criteria.

Study design

• Provide a brief overview of the tests or experiments used for answering the question(s).
• Include the independent variable(s) manipulated, the dependent variable(s) measured and all controls. Do not include details of methods.

Methods

• Describe methods and apparatus in sufficient detail to allow other workers to evaluate or reproduce the tests/experiments.
• For methods that have been published, provide only a reference or a reference and a brief description.
• Identify drugs and chemicals, including generic name, dosage and route of administration.
• Please provide manufacturer and manufacturer’s address for equipment, drugs and chemicals, as necessary, but not in a separate section.

Analysis

• Define the variables clearly.
• Use statistical analysis that is appropriate for the study.
• Give sample size estimation, particularly if a type II error may be involved.
• Describe the statistical methods you used for each analysis clearly and give references for tests that are not well known. For guidance, see BMJ 1983; 286: 1489–1493, BMJ 1986; 292: 746–750 and BMJ 1986; 292: 810–812. Use proper analysis for repeatability (see Lancet 1986; 1: 307–310).
• In case of single- or multicentre trials with blinded intervention, the code must have been broken at the end of the study in the presence of the responsible investigator of each centre. The code and the data will then be available to each participating centre. The first author should make provision that, if needed, the code and the data are available to the Review for independent statistical analysis.

Registering clinical trials

All clinical trials started after January 1, 2006 must be registered. The ICMJE defines a clinical trial as any research project that prospectively assigns human subjects to intervention or concurrent comparison or control groups to study the cause-and-effect relationship between a medical intervention and a health outcome. Medical interventions include drugs, surgical procedures, devices, behavioural treatments, process-of-care changes and the like.
In addition to accepting registration in any of the five existing registries (for example, ClinicalTrials.gov), the ICMJE will now also accept registration of clinical trials in any of the primary registers that participate in the World Health Organization (WHO) International Clinical Trial Registry Platform (ICTRP). It should be noted that registration in a partner register only will not suffice.
The ICMJE is expanding the definition of the types of trials that must be registered and will begin to implement the WHO definition of clinical trials for all trials that begin enrolment on or after July 1, 2008. The WHO definition of clinical trials is: "any research study that prospectively assigns human participants or groups of humans to one or more health-related interventions to evaluate the effects on health outcomes".
The ICMJE does not consider results posted in the same clinical trials registry in which the primary registration resides to be previous publication if the results are presented in the form of a brief (<500 words) structured abstract or table. When submitting to the European Respiratory Review, authors should specify where the clinical trial is registered and disclose all posting in registries of results of the same or closely related work.
For further details on current ICMJE policy, see ICMJE or read N Engl J Med 2007; 356: 2734-2736.

Guidelines on reporting research findings

Randomised controlled trials must conform to the CONSORT statement, which provides a set of recommendations comprising a list of items to report and a patient flow diagram.
For other study designs, authors are strongly recommended to consult the following reporting guidelines: studies of diagnostic accuracy (STARD); systematic reviews and meta-analyses (QUOROM); observational studies in epidemiology (STROBE); and meta-analyses of observational studies in epidemiology (MOOSE). Results

• Keep the Results section brief.
• Include only important results, that is, results that help answer the question.
• Present most data in figures or tables, not in the text. In the text, emphasis or summarise the most important observations.
• Describe the pre-study condition of patients or animals in Methods section, not in the Results section.

Discussion

• At the beginning of the Discussion, summarise the main results, the answer to the question asked in the Introduction (check that the results answer the question) and briefly support the answer with the relevant results.
• Then, as necessary, explain or defend the answer, explain contradictory or unexpected results and discrepancies with previous findings, describe the limitations of the methods, and discuss possible implications.
• Emphasise the new and important aspects of the study.
• Make sure that the conclusions at the end are pertinent to the question and the answer.

Case reports

Case reports should be brief and follow the same general presentation as original research papers (see erj.ersjournals.com/misc/ifora.dtl), and provide new knowledge on aetiology, mechanism, diagnosis or treatment of a disease.

Acknowledgements

• All acknowledgements should be grouped into one paragraph placed after the Discussion.
• Acknowledge only the persons who have made substantial contributions to the study.

References