ERR -- European Respiratory Review Instructions for Authors

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 has been submitted to another scientific journal or is 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 of the ERR.

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 this 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 a prior written permission of the publisher.

Peer review

Each manuscript will be reviewed by a member of the Editorial Board and reviewers.

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 ERR must disclose to the Chief Editor any personal or financial relationship that could bias their opinion and decision in the peer-review process. Every author of each manuscript is responsible for recognising and disclosing financial and other conflicts of interest related to their study or to the subject of their review or editorial article. The authors have to acknowledge in a manuscript all financial support for the work and other financial or personal connections to the work.

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.
There is no limitation to the number of separate papers included in the ERR, but the issue must make at least 28 printed pages.
If papers report a series of clinical trials, for instance, with a new drug, the paper should provide at least a systematic review of all the studies with a general conclusion. Please avoid presenting bits of different studies that are uninterpretable without further information, particularly when unpublished studies are referenced.
Each supplement should have a Guest Editor. It will be the Guest Editor’s responsibility to ensure:
- there is no repetition;
- the papers are ordered in a way that makes sense;
- there is common terminology throughout, particularly relating to drug names and doses;
- results of different studies are reported in the same units.

The Guest Editor must also write an Editorial for the publication that summarises the main findings of the articles and identifies areas of agreement and disagreement. If there is controversy about findings, a synopsis of the differing views could be very useful. When major disagreements occur the participants may be able to agree what needs to be done to resolve differences. This particularly applies to reports of working groups and task forces.

Preparation of manuscripts

Presentation of manuscripts should conform with the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals (see icmje).
The manuscript file you submit must be saved as .rtf (rich text format) or .doc (MS Word document). The format must be in numbered pages with double line spacing, on one side of the paper only, and with wide margins.
Abbreviations or unusual terms should be described at the first time of use. Symbols as defined by the ad hoc working group of the Commission of the European Communities (see Eur Respir J 1993; 6: Suppl. 16) are recommended. Système International (SI) units are recommended.
The manuscript should have the following components.

Title page

Please provide a concise informative title, not longer than 90 characters, including spaces between words.
Include a list of all contributing authors and all of their affiliations, with clear indication of who is associated with each institution.
Supply the full corresponding author's 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, including spaces between words.
Provide a list of six keywords or fewer.

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).
The abstract must have four separate paragraphs for: the question of the study, the materials/patients and methods, the results, and the answer to the question. Include one or two sentences of background information before the question, if necessary. The question and answer should be the same as those in the text.
Include only a few important values.
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.

Material and methods

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).
In this subsection, 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 (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 ERR for independent statistical analysis.

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.

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

Number references consecutively in the order in which they first appear in the text, using Arabic numerals in square brackets.

All authors cited and only these must be included in the reference list.

We suggest limiting the number of references to 30.

References should conform to the style used in Index Medicus (Vancouver Style) as shown in the following examples:

Bannerjee D, Khair OA, Honeybourne D. Impact of sputum bacteria on airway inflammation in and health status in clinical stable COPD. Eur Respir J 2004; 23: 685.
Bourbon J, Henrion-Caude A, Gaultier C. Molecular basis of lung development. In: Gibson GJ, Geddes DM, Costable U, Sterk PJ, Corrin B, eds. Respiratory Medicine. 3rd Edn. Edinburgh/Philadelphia, Elsevier Science, 2002; pp. 64–81.

Websites should be listed in the reference list, not in the text, and only used when an original citation is unavailable; citations should be listed as follows:

WHO. Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). www.who.int/csr/sars/en/index.html. Date last updated: June 1 2004. Date last accessed: June 1 2004.

Work which has not yet been accepted for publication and personal communications should not appear in the reference list.

One copy of papers cited as "In press" should be provided as supplementary material.

Tables

Tables should be created and inserted into the text document using the "Table", "Insert Table" function in your word processing package; DO NOT supply tables in a separate file.
Tables should be numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals.
Limit decimals to a sensible number.
Large tables should be avoided and if used, may be split.
Provide a clear footnote for all tables. Define ALL abbreviations and symbols used.
Any references in tables should run on in numerical order from the text where the table is cited.

Figures

Figures constitute a key element of manuscripts submitted to the ERJ. However, figures should be limited to those required to show the essential features described in the manuscript. Redundant or excessive figures will not be published due to space restrictions.
All submitted figures must be named and numbered.
Whether for images, drawings, or graphs, we recommend that no more than four components be used for a given figure (e.g. a, b, c, d).
Images embedded in the .doc or .rtf file WILL NOT be accepted.
The ERR strongly discourages the use of previously published figures unless absolutely essential. Any figures or tables that have been either taken directly from or modified from existing publications must be accompanied by the appropriate documentation from the publisher granting permission to publish the material. This is the responsibility of the author; permission must be obtained by the author from the copyright owner, which is usually the publisher and NOT the original author, and this may involve a fee payable to the original publisher.

Photographic images

All photographic images should be provided with a minimum of 300 dots per inch (dpi). However, each figure should be less than 1 megabyte (MB) in size.
Figures should preferably be supplied in .jpg, .tif or .eps format.
The image mode for colour photographic images should be cyan-magenta-yellow-black (CMYK). For black-and-white photographic images, it should be greyscale.
Due to space restrictions, it is essential that each submitted figure show only the areas of interest with enough surrounding area for orientation purposes.
Radiographic images should be of high quality and combined into one array, such as posteroanterior and lateral views. They should also be sized the same to facilitate reproduction.
Image size should be submitted as close as possible to print size; one-column width is 88 mm, two-column width is 182 mm.
When several images of a given type are being shown, please reproduce each specific type at the same magnification.
Photomicrographs must have internal scale markers (linear scale), since the size and magnification may be altered by the publisher.
Images should correspond in appearance to the tonal relations of the original radiograph (i.e. showing the bones white on a dark background, with the patient’s right to the observer’s left). CT scans and MR images should employ the internationally accepted "view from below".
Please label your images such that all important details are clearly visible.

Guidelines for handling image data

If an image has been enhanced electronically, please explain the alterations that have been made and send the original image along with the enhanced one. Moreover, keep an electronic set of original images, since you may be asked to modify their content and the display modus.
The Council of Science Editors (CSE) has established four basic guidelines for handling image data, which authors submitting to the ERR are urged to comply with. 1) No specific feature within an image may be enhanced, obscured, removed or introduced. 2) Adjustments of brightness, contrast or colour balance are acceptable if they are applied to the whole image and as long as they do not obscure, eliminate or misrepresent any information present in the original. 3) The grouping of images from different parts of the same gel, or from different gels, fields or exposures must be made explicit by the arrangement of the figure (e.g. dividing lines) and in the text of the figure legend. 4) If the original data cannot be produced by an author when asked to provide it, the acceptance of the manuscript may be revoked.

Legends

Please provide a clear legend for each figure.
Legends should be brief and nonrepetitive of information given in the text.
They should include the imaging technique used, the body part imaged and any noteworthy details.
ALL abbreviations should be expanded.
Use of internal scales should always be mentioned in the legend.

Proofs and reprints

A proof will be sent by e-mail (PDF file) or fax to the corresponding author.
It should be corrected and returned to the ERS Publications Office within 48 hours by fax, e-mail or express mail (for address and number, see below). Late return will delay publication. Modification to proofs should be limited to typographical errors only.

Correspondence

Letters to the Editor are welcomed but they should be limited to 700 words and no more than 10 references. Letters should be e-mailed to Sherwood Burge c/o vicky.c.moore{at}heartofengland.nhs.uk for consideration.
Please note that letters accepted for publication will be published online only and therefore will not be included in the print version.

Further information and enquiries

Copies of these instructions can be obtained from:
The European Respiratory Society Journals Ltd
442 Glossop Road
Sheffield
S10 2PX
UK
Tel: 44 114 2672860