Instructions for Authors
Guidelines for Submission of Articles to the West of England Medical Journal
The Editorial Board of the West of England Medical Journal will consider manuscripts containing original material if neither the article nor any part of its essential substance, tables, or figures has
been or will be published before appearing in the WEMJ. Abstracts from meetings and press
reports are an exception to this rule. All work submitted will be subject to checks for plagiarism.
Please submit papers for publication to the editor at admin@bristolmedchi.co.uk
The guidelines are drawn up in accordance with the “Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts
Submitted to Biomedical Journals”. Articles submitted should be in line with
their recommendations and make that explicit in their submission letter (you may need to copy
this and paste it into a web browser) http://www.icmje.org/icmje-recommendations.pdf
Authorship
In order for a person to be given credit for authorship they should have significant input and
contribution including
• Design of study and analysis of data
• Drafting and revision of the article
• Final approval of the version to be published.
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Assurances
Where applicable it must be recorded on the submission that relevant ethical committee approval
has been granted.
Any conflict of interest should be notified in the covering letter to the West of England Medical
Journal.
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Electronic Submission
Papers are only accepted in electronic form, by e-mail..
All text, figure legends and tables should be in one double-spaced electronic document,
preferably word doc, docx or pages. Two copies of each manuscript should be submitted, one
with all references to the author(s) and their place(s) of work removed. This version will be sent
for referee reviewing.Text should also be submitted separately with the following parameters: Text should be
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submitted in a non-serif font (Calibri, Arial etc) with the following directions.
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Main Heading: Bold 24 point
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Authors: 12 point regular
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Paragraph headings: 14 Bold
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Main body of text: 11 regular
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References: regular 9 point
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In addition Figures should be submitted as separate JPEG files at a minimum of 300 pixels per
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sq inch. The figure files must be named in accordance with figure legends in the word document
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but figure legends should not be included on the actual figure. Arrows should be imbedded in the
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JPEG image if required.
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Photographs of patients must either be anonymised or accompanied by written permission from
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the patient (or parent/guardian if a minor). Written permission is preferable to attempts at
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anonymisation.
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References should be double-spaced and numbered consecutively as they are cited using the
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Vancouver system. All authors should be listed if 6 or less but when there are seven or more list
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the first three followed by et alia (et al.) .
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For example
1) Beasley MP, Graham PR, Briggs GP, et al. Advances in Stem Cell Therapy, The Yak Medical Journal 2008; 120: 322-330
2) Jones A, Smith B, James C and Rogers D. Medical writing over the years. Annals of the Connaught Medical Society 2012; 111: 34-38.
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Drug names
Generic names should be used.
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Units
SI units should be used with Imperial units in parenthesis
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Review of Submitted Articles
Suitable articles will be refereed by the editorial board. Authors are invited to suggest names of
reviewers but the editorial board reserve the right to choose the reviewers. We will endeavour to
return articles
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Category of Article
We welcome submissions from all walks of medicine and from all grades of medicine, including
undergraduates. Examples of submissions that may be considered include:
• Original research
• Clinical Cases
• Quiz cases
• Review articles
• Technical reports
• Book reviews• Images of classical conditions (suitably anonymised or with written permission)
• Multiple choice questions
• Historical articles
• Obituaries
• Editorials
• Opinions
• Letters to the editor (relating to work already published in the journal)