ISSN 0004-2749 printed version

INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS

• Scope and policy
• Methods
• Types of Manuscripts
• Editorial Process
• Manuscript Preparation

ABO-ARQUIVOS BRASILEIROS DE OFTALMOLOGIA (ABO, ISSN 0004-2749 - printed version and ISSN 1678-2925 - online version) is the official bimonthly publication of the Brazilian Council of Ophthalmology (Conselho Brasileiro de Oftalmologia). The purpose of the journal is to publish scientific studies in Ophthalmology, Visual Sciences, and Public Health, encouraging research, as well as qualification and updating of the professionals involved in this field.

Original manuscripts are accepted in Portuguese, English, or Spanish. Manuscripts are grouped into one of the following categories based on the methodology used:

Clinical Studies
Descriptive or analytical studies involving humans or evaluating the literature relevant to humans.

Epidemiological Studies
Analytical studies involving results from human populations.

Laboratory Experimental Studies
Descriptive or analytical studies involving animal models or other biological, physical or chemical techniques.

Theoretical Studies
Descriptive studies involving description and theoretical analysis of new hypotheses based on the knowledge available in the literature.

Manuscripts submitted to ABO should fit into one of the following categories according to their format. The maximum number of words, figures, tables and, references for each type of manuscript are in parentheses at the end of the description for each category. The word count of the manuscript includes the text from the beginning of the introduction up to the end of the discussion; therefore, the following items are not included: title page, abstract, references, acknowledgments, tables and figures, including legends.

Editorials

Editorials are contributed by invitation and should be related to topics of current interest, preferentially related to articles published in the same issue of ABO (title, maximum of 1,000 words, 2 figures or tables, and 10 references).

Original Articles

Original articles present complete experiments with results that have never been published before (title, structured abstract, maximum of 3,000 words, 7 figures or tables, and 30 references). The evaluation of the manuscripts will be based on the following priorities:

1. New and relevant information confirmed in a study using appropriate methodology.
2. Repetition of information available in the literature, but not previously confirmed locally, based on a study using appropriate methodology.
3. Repetition of information available in the literature and previously confirmed locally, based on a study using appropriate methodology.

* Manuscripts containing speculative conclusions, unsubstantiated by the results or based on a study with inappropriate methodology will not be accepted.

Case Reports and Case Series

Case reports or case series will be considered for publication when describing rare and original findings that have not been internationally confirmed, or when presenting clinical or surgical responses that can contribute to elucidate the pathophysiology of a disease (title, unstructured abstract, maximum of 1,000 words, 4 figures or tables, and 10 references).

Letters to the Editor

Letters to the editor are considered for publication if they contain comments related to manuscripts previously published in ABO or, exceptionally, the results of original studies with insufficient content to be submitted as Original Article. These letters should present new information or new interpretation of existing information. When the content of the letter refers to an article previously published in ABO, such article should be mentioned in the first paragraph of the letter and included in its reference list. In these cases, the letters will be linked to the article, and the authors of the article will have their right of reply guaranteed in the same issue. Congratulation letters will not be published (title, maximum of 700 words, 2 figures or tables, and 5 references).

Review Articles

Review articles follow the editorial line and are contributed only by invitation from the editor. Suggestions of topics for review articles can be sent directly to the editor, but manuscripts cannot be sent without an invitation (title, unstructured abstract, maximum of 4,000 words, 8 figures or tables, and 100 references).

Manuscripts will only be considered for publication if they meet all the journal's requirements. The editorial office will inform the authors if their manuscript fails to meet such requirements. Upon notification, the corresponding author will have 30 days to make the necessary changes in the manuscript. If the deadline is not met, the manuscript will be excluded from the editorial process.

The manuscripts submitted to ABO are initially evaluated by the editors to check for content compliance with the editorial line of the journal. After this assessment, all manuscripts are sent for peer review. The anonymity of reviewers is preserved throughout the whole process. However, the authors of manuscripts do not remain anonymous.

After the initial editorial evaluation, the reviewers' comments can be sent to the authors to guide the changes to be implemented in the text. After implementing the changes suggested by the reviewers, the revised manuscript should be resubmitted along with a letter (which is sent as a supplementary document) with specific indications of all changes made to the manuscript or the reasons why the suggested changes were not made. The manuscripts that are resubmitted without a letter will be withheld until the letter is received by the editorial office. The deadline to submit the new version of the manuscript is 30 days after the authors are informed of the need to make changes in their manuscript. The manuscript will be excluded from the process if the authors fail to meet this deadline. The publication will be based on the final approval of the editors.

The manuscripts submitted to ABO should not be simultaneously considered for publication by other journals. In addition, total or partial publication or translation for publication in another language of the manuscripts submitted to ABO should not be considered without the permission of the editors of ABO.

Authorship

The criteria for authorship of manuscripts in medical journals are well established. Individuals who have contributed in a concrete way during the following three phases of manuscript preparation should be considered authors:

I. Conception and design, acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data.
II. Draft or critical revision of the article for important intellectual content.
III. Final approval of the version to be published.

The authors of manuscripts submitted to ABO should make sure that all authors meet the criteria mentioned above and that all persons who meet these criteria are listed. Individuals who hold headship positions cannot be considered authors of manuscripts based only on their positions. ABO does not accept the participation of honorary authors.

The corresponding author should complete and submit the Author Contribution Statement as a supplementary document.

Manuscripts should only be submitted online using the appropriate interface of ABO. The following guidelines were based on the format suggested by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and published in the document: Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals.

Only the manuscripts complying with these guidelines will be considered for analysis.

The text should be sent as a digital file. Only the following formats are accepted: .doc or .rtf. The text should be typed double-spaced, in 12 point font. The pages should be numbered in Arabic numerals, starting each section on a new page.

The sections should be presented according to the following sequence: Title page; Abstract and Keywords; Introduction; Methods; Results; Discussion; Acknowledgements (if any); References; Tables (optional) and Figures (optional) including legends.

1. Title Page. It should contain: a) title (no more than 135 characters with spaces); b) running title to be used as a page heading (no more than 60 characters with spaces); c) authors' names as they should appear in print; d) each author's academic degree (field of professional activity*, city, state, country and, if applicable, department, school, university); e) corresponding author's name, address, phone number, and email; f) sources of financial support (if any); g) project number and institution responsible for the approval of the Research Ethics Committee; h) statement of conflicts of interests of all authors; i) clinical trial registration number on a public trials registry.

*Physician, PhD, statistician, nurse, orthoptist, physical therapist, student, etc.

Approval of the Institutional Review Board (IRB). All retrospective, cross-sectional, or prospective studies involving primary data collection or clinical and surgical reports should include the project number and name of the institution that provided the approval of the IRB on the title page. Studies involving humans should be compliant with the Declaration of Helsinki, whereas studies involving animals should be in accordance with the principles suggested by the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO).
As a supplementary document, the corresponding author should send the IRB approval or its report stating that the evaluation of the project by the Committee is not necessary. The author cannot decide on the need for evaluation by the Research Ethics Committee.

Statement of Conflicts of Interest. The title page should contain the statement of conflicts of interest of all authors (even if there is no conflict of interest). For more information about potential conflicts of interest, refer to: Chamon W, Melo LA Jr, Paranhos A Jr. Declaração de conflito de interesse em apresentações e publicações científicas. Arq Bras Oftalmol. 2010;73(2):107-9 or World Association of Medical Editors: Conflict of interest in peer-reviewed medical journals.

All authors should send the Form for Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest as supplementary documents.

Clinical Trials. All Clinical Trials shall include on the title page the registration number in an international registry that allows free access to trial information (examples: U.S. National Institutes of Health, Australian and New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry, International Standard Randomised Controlled Trial Number - ISRCTN, University Hospital Medical Information Network Clinical Trials Registry - UMIN CTR,Nederlands Trial Register).

2. Abstract and Keywords. Structured abstract (Objective, Methods, Results, Conclusions) with no more than 300 words. Unstructured abstract with no more than 150 words. Five keywords in English listed by the National Library of Medicine (MeSH - Medical Subject Headings).

3. Abstract and Keywords in Portuguese. Structured abstract (Objective, Methods, Results, Conclusions) with no more than 300 words. Unstructured abstract with no more than 150 words. Five keywords in Portuguese listed by BIREME (DeCS - Descritores em Ciências da Saúde). Portuguese translation may be provided by ABO at publication.

4. Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion. Citations in the text should be numbered sequentially in superscript Arabic numerals and in parentheses. The names of the authors should not be cited in the text.

5. Acknowledgements. This section should include the collaboration of people, groups or institutions that deserve to be acknowledged but do not meet the criteria for authorship. Statisticians and medical editors may meet the criteria for authorship and, in this case, should be acknowledged as authors. When they do not meet the criteria for authorship, they should be mentioned in this section. Writers who are not identified in the manuscript cannot be accepted as authors; therefore, professional writers should be acknowledged in this section.

6. References. Citations (references) of authors in the text should be numbered sequentially in the same order as they are cited and identified using superscript Arabic numerals. References should be in accordance with the format suggested by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), based on the examples below.

The titles of the journals should be abbreviated according to the style provided by the List of Journal Indexed in Index Medicus of the National Library of Medicine.
The names of all authors should be cited for references with up to six authors. For studies with seven or more authors, cite only the first six authors followed by et al.

Examples of references:

Journal Articles

Costa VP, Vasconcellos JP, Comegno PEC, José NK. O uso da mitomicina C em cirurgia combinada. Arq Bras Oftalmol. 1999;62(5):577-80.

Books

Bicas HEA. Oftalmologia: fundamentos. São Paulo: Contexto; 1991.

Book Chapters

Gómez de Liaño F, Gómez de Liaño P, Gómez de Liaño R. Exploración del niño estrábico. In: Horta-Barbosa P, editor. Estrabismo. Rio de Janeiro: Cultura Médica; 1997. p. 47-72.

Annals

Höfling-Lima AL, Belfort R Jr. Infecção herpética do recém-nascido. In: IV Congresso Brasileiro de Prevenção da Cegueira; 1980 Jul 28-30, Belo Horizonte, Brasil. Anais. Belo Horizonte; 1980. v.2. p. 205-12.

Dissertations

Schor P. Idealização, desenho, construção e teste de um ceratômetro cirúrgico quantitativo [dissertation]. São Paulo: Universidade Federal de São Paulo; 1997.

Electronic Documents

Monteiro MLR, Scapolan HB. Constrição campimétrica causada por vigabatrin. Arq Bras Oftalmol. [online journal]. 2000 [cited 2005 Jan 31]; 63(5): [about 4 p.]. Available at: http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0004-27492000000500012&lng=pt&nrm=iso

7. Tables. Tables should be numbered sequentially using Arabic numerals in the order they are mentioned in the text. All tables should have a title and a heading for all columns. Their format should be simple, with no vertical lines or color in the background. All abbreviations (even if previously defined in the text) and statistical tests should be explained below the table. The bibliographical source of the table should also be informed when the table is extracted from another study.

Do not include tables in the main document of the manuscript, they should be uploaded as supplementary documents

8. Figures (graphs, photos, illustrations, charts). Figures should be numbered sequentially using Arabic numerals in the order they are mentioned in the text. ABO will publish the figures in black and white at no cost to the authors. Manuscripts with color figures will be published only after the authors pay a publication fee of R$ 500.00 per manuscript.

Graphs should preferably be in shades of gray, on a white background and without three dimensional or depth effects. Instead of using pie charts, the data should be included in tables or described in the text.

Photos and illustrations should have a minimum resolution of 300 DPI for the size of the publication (about 2,500 x 3,300 pixels for a full page). The quality of the images is considered in the evaluation of the manuscript.

The main document should contain all figure legends, typed double-spaced and numbered using Arabic numerals.

Do not include figures in the main document of the manuscript, they should be uploaded as supplementary documents.

Supplemental files can have the following extensions: JPG, BMP, TIF, GIF, EPS, PSD, WMF, EMF or PDF.

9. Abbreviations and Acronyms. Abbreviations and acronyms should be preceded by the spelled-out abbreviation on first mention and in the legends of tables and figures (even if they have been previously mentioned in the text). Titles and abstracts should not contain abbreviations and acronyms.

10. Units of Measurement: Values of physical quantities should be used in accordance with the standards of the International System of Units.

11. Language. Texts should be clear to be considered appropriate for publication in a scientific journal. Use short sentences, written in a direct and active voice. Foreign words should be in italics. Therapeutic agents should be mentioned by their generic names with the following information in parentheses: trade name, manufacturer's name, city, state and country of origin. All instruments or apparatus should be mentioned including their trade name, manufacturer's name, city, state and country of origin. The superscript symbol of trademark ® or ™ should be used in all names of instruments or trade names of drugs. Whenever there are doubts about style, terminology, units of measurement and related issues, refer to the AMA Manual of Style 10th edition.

12. Original Documents. Corresponding authors should keep the original documents and the letter of approval from the Research Ethics Committee for studies involving humans or animals, the consent form signed by all patients involved, the statement of agreement with the full content of the study signed by all authors and the statement of conflict of interest of all authors, as well as the records of the data collected for the study results.

13. Corrections and Retractions. Errors may be noted in published manuscripts that require the publication of a correction. However, some errors pointed out by any reader may invalidate the results or the authorship of a manuscript. If substantial doubt arises about the honesty or integrity of a submitted manuscript, it is the editor's responsibility to exclude the possibility of fraud. In these situations, the editor will inform the institutions involved and the funding agencies about the suspicion and wait for their final decision. If there is confirmation of a fraudulent publication in ABO, the editor will act in compliance with the protocols suggested by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Checklist

Before submitting their manuscript, authors should make sure that all the following items are available:

• Manuscript prepared in accordance with the instructions to authors.
• Maximum number of words, tables, figures, and references according to the type of manuscript.
• No figures and tables are included in the main document of the manuscript.
• All figures and tables were uploaded separately as supplementary documents.
• Author Contribution Statement completed and saved as a digital file to be sent as a supplementary document.
• Form for Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest of all authors completed and saved as digital files to be sent as supplementary documents.
• Title page including the clinical trial registration number.
• Digital version of the report provided by the Institutional Review Board containing the approval of the project to be sent as a supplementary document.

List of Websites

Online interface for submission of manuscripts to ABO
http://www.scielo.br/ABO

Authors' Participation Form
http://www.cbo.com.br/site/files/Formulario Contribuicao dos Autores.pdf

International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE)
http://www.icmje.org/

Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals
http://www.icmje.org/urm_full.pdf

Declaration of Helsinki
http://www.wma.net/en/30publications/10policies/b3/index.html

Principles of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO)
http://www.arvo.org/eweb/dynamicpage.aspx?site=arvo2&webcode=AnimalsResearch

Chamon W, Melo LA Jr, Paranhos A Jr. Declaração de conflito de interesse em apresentações e publicações científicas. Arq Bras Oftalmol. 2010;73(2):107-9.
http://www.scielo.br/pdf/abo/v73n2/v73n2a01.pdf

World Association of Medical Editors: Conflict of interest in peer-reviewed medical journals.
http://www.wame.org/conflict-of-interest-in-peer-reviewed-medical-journals

Authorship Principles according to the ICMJE
http://www.icmje.org/ethical_1author.html

Form for Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest
http://www.icmje.org/coi_disclosure.pdf

U.S. National Institutes of Health
http://www.clinicaltrials.gov

Australian and New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry
http://www.anzctr.org.au

International Standard Randomised Controlled Trial Number - ISRCTN
http://isrctn.org/

University Hospital Medical Information Network Clinical Trials Registry - UMIN CTR
http://www.umin.ac.jp/ctr/index/htm

Nederlands Trial Register
http://www.trialregister.nl/trialreg/index.asp

MeSH - Medical Subject Headings
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=mesh&term=

DeCS - Health Sciences Keywords in Portuguese
http://decs.bvs.br/

Format suggested by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE)
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/uniform_requirements.html

List of Journal Indexed in Index Medicus
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/journals

AMA Manual of Style 10th edition
http://www.amamanualofstyle.com/

Protocols of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE)
http://www.icmje.org/publishing_2corrections.html

Protocols of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)
http://publicationethics.org/flowcharts