ISSN 1807-5932 printed version
ISSN 1980-5322 versión online

INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS

• Scope and editorial policy
• Manuscript preparation

CLINICS publishes peer-reviewed articles of interest to clinicians and researchers in the medical sciences. Authors are invited to submit manuscripts in the following categories: 1. Original research, featuring original experimental or clinical studies; Research in the basic sciences with medical implications is also welcome. 2. Review Articles, on themes relevant to medical practice and mammalian function. 3. Letters to the Editor, a category which includes Rapid Communications, Case Reports, Technical Notes, and Letters expressing comments or dissenting opinions concerning papers recently published in CLINICS. Manuscripts involving human subjects or the use of laboratory animals must clearly state adherence to appropriate guidelines and approval of protocols by their institutional review boards. Photographs that may identify patients or other human participants of studies shall be acceptable only when a legally valid permission (form provided when necessary) is signed by the said patient or other human participant or by his/her legally constituted representative.

CLINICS supports the position of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) on trial registration. All trials initiated after January 1, 2010 must be registered prospectively (before patient recruitment begins) in a publicly accessible registry. Trials initiated before January 1, 2007 must be registered before submission to our journals. See the ICMJE faq on trial registration for further details. Visit http://www.who.int/ictrp/network/list_registers/en/index.html for the WHO's list of approved registries. CLINICS suggests www.clinicaltrials.gov a user friendly site.

MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSION All manuscripts should be submitted online in word.doc format as indicated below. Authors are strongly advised to submit manuscript in final form to a spell check for English (USA). Submissions with excessive spelling or syntax mistakes, as well as articles in which the meaning is not sufficiently clear shall be returned to authors for correction.

PEER REVIEW. Manuscripts are reviewed double-blind by at least two expert consultants. Accepted manuscripts are edited to comply with the Journal's format, to remove redundancies, and to improve clarity and understanding without altering meaning. The edited text will be presented to the authors for approval.

ORIGINAL ARTICLES should be submitted in English, digitalized in a word.doc-compatible software program, double-spaced, with at least one-inch margins on 8.5 × 11-inch, letter-configured pages. Number pages in sequence beginning with the title page.

The complete text should be uploaded into the system identified as "author_first-3- words-of-title.doc" (example: Watson_the_DNA_structure.doc) as a Main Document. The sections should be arranged in the following order:

PAGE 1 - Title, Abstract, and Key Words. Should contain the full title, a running title of not more than 45 characters, an informative abstract of approximately 250 words, and five key words appropriate for indexing purposes (do not repeat words or terms used in the title). The abstract should be structured into Objectives, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, and Conclusions and should be suitable, without rewording, for use by abstracting journals and indexing services. It must also not refer to published literature, and should contain no abbreviations, except universally understood ones.
PAGE 2 onwards - Text. This should be organized into the following sections: Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusions Acknowledgements, References, Tables, Legends for Figures. The use of subheadings and paragraph titles within these headings is encouraged for sake of clarity. For standard abbreviations, authors should follow the guidelines in the Council of Biology Editors Style Manual, 6th edition. All other abbreviations should be defined when first used and listed in a footnote. Authors are strongly encouraged to use as few abbreviations as possible and to avoid ambiguity. Generally speaking, abbreviations should only be defined if they are going to be used at least 5 times throughout the text. Manuscripts should be succinct. The Introduction should update the reader about previous knowledge on the subject; however, do not describe well-known and previously published material, but rather, quote them as references. Methods and Materials should describe all procedures and materials in sufficient detail to allow reproduction of the work by an expert reader. Always refer to previously published methodological procedure, but summarize it if this is essential to the prompt understanding of the work. Use generic names of drugs. Describe statistical procedures in an expert manner, with the assistance of a statistician if necessary. Results should be described in the body of the text and appropriately illustrated with figures or tables. However, the basic point made by each Figure or Table must be described in the text. Focus the Discussion on the work at hand, including only those references that directly relate to the subject. Conclusions, if any should be extremely brief; References, Tables Legends to Figures, all according to instructions below, References. Authors are responsible for the accuracy and completeness of their references and for correct text citation. Cite references in text with superscripted Arabic numerals, in order of appearance, without brackets, in the following format: reference after punctuation marks (,;:.) or after previous word, without spacing (example: Diabetes,1 hypertension2,3 and alcoholism4-9 are complex medical problems.10)

Reference List. CLINICS adopts the Vancouver format. References must be restricted to directly relevant published works, papers, or abstracts that have been accepted for publication. Usually the total number of references should not exceed 35. For up to six authors, list all authors; for more than 6 authors, list first six, followed by "et al". Write the title of the article in the original language whenever possible. For book chapters, quote both the author of the chapter and the editor of the book, as exemplified below.

Books:
Turner WW, Valentine RJ, Wright CB. Acute vascular insufficiency due to drug injection. In: Rutherford RB, editor. Vascular Surgery. 4th ed. Philadelphia: Saunders; 1995. p. 680.

Journal articles:
Wolosker N, Nakano L, D'Hippolito G, Rosoky RA, Borri ML, Wolosker AM.
Gadolinium magnetic angioresonance in the study of aortoiliac disease. Angiology. 2003;54:163-8.
Lee JT, Ling D, Heiken JP, Glazer HS, Sicard GA, Totty WG, et al. Magnetic resonance imaging of abdominal aortic aneurysms. Am J Roentgenol. 1984;143:1197-202.

Citation of unpublished material or personal communication. should be noted parenthetically in the text and not added to the reference list.

TITLE PAGE. Please submit a separate file containing: (A) the full title; (B) a running title of not more than 45 characters; (C) Scientific address where project was executed; (D) authors in the order in which they are to appear if the article if accepted - opposite the name of each author specify his her scientific address; (C) his/her contribution for the project and production of the article. Authors should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content; (E) Acknowledgments: Contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in the acknowledgments section. All contributors must give written permission to be acknowledged; (F) Full mailing and e-mail address of first author. Name this file "author_title_page.doc" (example Watson_title_page.doc) and upload it as a supplementary file.

TABLES. should be incorporated into the Main Document, after the end of the reference list. Tables should be constructed using the Table feature in your word processor or using a spreadsheet program such as Excel. Tables should be numbered in order of appearance in the text with Arabic numerals. Each table should have a title and, if necessary, an explanatory legend. All tables must be referred to and succinctly described in the text. Under no circumstances should a table repeat data that are presented in an illustration. Statistical measures of variation (i.e., standard deviation, standard error) should be identified, and decimal places in tabular data should be restricted to those with mathematical and statistical significance.

FIGURES. Photographs, illustrations, charts, drawings, line graphs, etc are all defined as Figures. We do not publish Pictures Graphics, Photos, etc. Number your figures consecutively in Arabic numerals in order of appearance. Upload each Figure individually into the system. Do not incorporate Figures into the Main Document. Legend(s) should be descriptive and allow examination of the figure without reference to text.

Legends should be incorporated into the Main Document, after the Tables (if any) or after the references. Photographic illustrations should should be of professional quality and uploaded as *.jpeg files, and. They must be clear even after reduction in size for publication. Typewritten or hand lettering is unacceptable, as are figures generated by dot matrix printers. Generally, figures will be reduced to fit one column of text. Actual magnification of all photomicrographs should be provided, preferably by placing a length scale on the print. Line graphs and charts should never be sent as jpeg illustrations. It is usually best to prepare these as Excel® files. When ready copy the line graph or chart to a word.doc sheet. For each submitted line graph or chart, upload the corresponding Excel® data matrix as a supplementary file. Identify it as "Fig_N_excel" and upload as supplementary file.

REVIEW ARTICLES will be preferentially by invitation of the Editor, but spontaneously submitted reviews are also welcome. Potential authors of spontaneously submitted reviews should bear in mind that authors are expected to have expertise in the reviewed field. The sections should be arranged in the following order:

PAGE 1 (Title, Abstract, and Key Words) as in Original Articles.
PAGE 3 onwards - Text should be arranged as best suited to cover the subject being reviewed. If appropriate, the manner of reference collection should be described. The use of headings, subheadings, and paragraph titles is encouraged for sake of clarity. Abbreviations, Acknowledgements, References, Tables and Figures follow the format described for Original Articles.

TITLE PAGE. Please submit a separate file containing: (A) the full title; (B) a running title of not more than 45 characters; (C) Scientific address where project was executed; (D) authors in the order in which they are to appear if the article if accepted - opposite the name of each author specify his her scientific address; (C) his/her contribution for the project and production of the article. Authors should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content; (E) Acknowledgments: Contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in the acknowledgments section. All contributors must give written permission to be acknowledged; (F) Full mailing and e-mail address of first author. Name this file "author_title_page.doc" (example Watson_title_page.doc) and upload it as a supplementary file.

Rapid communications and Technical notes (limited to 1,500 words) - Authors should format such contributions as best suited to the subject at hand. No abstract or key words are required. Please copy an introductory sentence into the abstract box on Page 1 of the submission procedure.

Letters expressing comments or dissenting opinions concerning papers recently published in CLINICS are not submitted to peer review and are published at the discretion of the Editor.

SUBMISSION - A copyright transfer form, signed by all authors, must be submitted by fax (55-11-3069-7524) or by mail. Any financial or other relationships that could lead to a conflict of interest must be disclosed in the copyright transfer form. If the Editor considers this conflict of interest relevant to the paper, a footnote will be added to show the equity interest in or affiliation with the identified commercial firm(s).
As soon as authors are satisfied that the manuscript complies with the Journal format, our site should be accessed through www.clinics.hcnet.usp.br. The system will guide authors through the manuscript submission process and prompt authors to input information into specific fields as they are submitting their manuscript. The Editorial Office will be automatically notified of the submission and will send an email confirming it as soon as the submission letter reaches the office. Progress of the article through the Editorial Office procedures will be available to authors at all times.