ISSN 1983-5175 printed version
ISSN 2177-1235 on-line version

INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS

• Scope and editorial policy
• Manuscript Format and Preparation
• Submitting manuscripts

Peer-review: Prior to publication, all articles submitted to Revista Brasileira de Cirurgia Plástica go through a review and arbitration process to guarantee quality standards and exemption in the selection of the studies to be published. Initially, the paper is checked for publication norms and completion. All manuscripts are submitted to peer-review by at least three selected reviewers among members of the Editorial Board. Acceptance is based on originality, significance and scientific contribution. Reviewers fill out a form where they provide a careful assessment of all of the items that are part of the manuscript. In the end, they make overall comments on the study and will give their opinion as to the publication and correction according to the recommendations. With this data in hand, the editor makes a final decision. In case of discrepancies among reviewers, a new opinion may be requested for better judgment. When suggestions for changes are made by reviewers, they are forwarded to the main author and a new version is sent back to reviewers to check whether suggestions/requirements have been accomplished. In exceptional cases, whenever required according to the theme of the manuscript, the Editor may request the collaboration of a professional who is not a member of the Editorial Board to make an assessment. This whole process is carried out through the submission system and online management of the publication (Submission and Management of the Publication - SGP). The evaluation system is double-blinded to guarantee anonymity throughout the evaluation process. Decision on the acceptance of the study for publication will be made, whenever possible, within three months of the date of receipt. Receipt dates and dates of the approval of the article for publication are informed in the published manuscript to respect the priority interests of the authors.

Research in Humans and Animals: In Methods, authors must state that the research has been approved by the Institutional Research & Ethics Committee (send a signed declaration that the research has been approved), according to Helsinki's Declaration revised in 2000 [World Medical Association (www.wma.net/e/policy/b3.htm)] and Resolution 196/96 of the National Health Council (http://conselho.saude.gov.br/resolucoes/reso_96.htm). In experiments with animals, the authors must follow CIOMS (Council for International Organization of Medical Sciences) Ethical Code for Animal Experimentation (WHO Chronicle 1985; 39(2):51-6) and the precepts of the Brazilian College of Animal Experimentation - COBEA (www.cobea.org.br). The Editorial Board of the Journal may decline articles which do not strictly comply with research ethics precepts in both humans and animals. The authors must accurately identify all of the drugs and chemical substances used, including the names of the active principle, dosages and administration route. Business or company names should be avoided.

Policy for registration of clinical essays: The Brazilian Journal of Plastic Surgery, in support of the World Health Organization's (WHO) policies for the registration of clinical essays and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), and in recognition of the importance of these initiatives for international registry and dissemination of information on clinical Access, as of July 2010 will only accept clinical research articles which have received an identification number in one of the Clinical Essay Registries validated by WHO and ICMJE criteria, available at: http://clinicaltrials.gov. The identification number must be registered at the end of the abstract.

Copyrights: Authors of approved manuscripts must forward, prior to publication, the following statement signed by all coauthors: "The undersigned author(s) transfer all copyrights of manuscript (title of the manuscript) to Revista Brasileira de Cirurgia Plástica. The undersigned guarantee that the article is original, does not infringe copyrights or any other third party property rights, has not been submitted for publication at any other journal and has not been previously published. The author(s) confirms that the final version of the manuscript has been reviewed and approved by them." All published manuscripts become a permanent property of Revista Brasileira de Cirurgia Plástica and cannot be published without the written consent of the editor.

Authorship Criteria: We suggest the adoption of the authorship criteria recommended by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Thus, only those directly contributing for the intellectual content of the manuscript should be listed as authors. Authors must meet all of the following criteria to be able to have public liability for the content of the paper:

1. have conceived and planned activities leading to the study or have interpreted the outcomes, or both;
2. have written the study or revised the successive versions and taken part in the review process;
3. have approved the final version.
Individuals who do not meet the requirements above and whose participation was merely technical or of overall support may be mentioned in the Acknowledgements section.

SECTIONS

Editorial - Editorials are usually selected for each issue of Revista Brasileira de Cirurgia Plástica due to their relevance for the scientific community. They are written by the Editorial Board or are requested to be written by renowned specialists in the area. The Editorial Board may eventually consider the publication of editorials submitted spontaneously.
Original Article - This category includes controlled, randomized and observational studies, as well as basic research with experimental animals. These are submitted for publication spontaneously by authors. Original articles must include an Introduction, Method, Results, Discussion, Conclusions, References and an Abstract. Texts should have 2,000 to 3,000 words, excluding tables, references and abstract. The number of references should not exceed 20.
Review Article - Critical assessment of literature data on a specific and clinically relevant theme. Review articles must be limited to 6,000 words, excluding references and tables. References must be current and must preferably have been published in the last five years and a maximum number of 30 citations.
Case Report - Description of patients or specific situations, rare diseases or diseases which have never been reported, as well as innovating diagnosis or treatment options. The text includes a brief introduction, which explains the importance of the topic and the objectives of the presentation of reported case(s); the case report and discussion, where relevant aspects are discussed and compared to the literature. The number of words must be less than 2,000, excluding references and tables. The maximum number of references is 10. The inclusion of at most two illustrations is recommended.
Ideas and Innovations - Short original experiences, with less than 1,500 words and 10 references.
Review - Critical review of articles published in other journals, in the last two years in the area of plastic surgery. The invitation to write this review is made by the Editor.
Debate - Section where experienced surgeons are invited by the Editor to discuss a controversial issue, who give their opinions in a standardized format where the Editor or a guest asks questions to be answered by debaters.
Letter to the Editor - It should comment, discuss or criticize articles published at Revista Brasileira de Cirurgia Plástica, but it may also discuss other topics of general interest. A maximum of 1,000 is recommended, including at most 5 references with or without a title. Whenever feasible and appropriate, an answer of the authors of the article will be published with the letter.
Special Article - Articles not classified under the previously described categories, which the Editorial Board considers to be of special relevance for the specialty. There is no limitation to the length or number of references.

Language:
Manuscripts must be written in Portuguese, Spanish or English, following current spelling rules, using easy and accurate language, thus avoiding the informality of colloquial speech.

How to prepare the manuscript
The Journal adopts the Vancouver Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals, organized by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors - "Vancouver Group", available at www.icmje.org. Compliance with the instructions is a mandatory condition for a paper to be considered for analysis.

First page - Identification
It must contain a concise and descriptive title, in Portuguese and English, the authors' complete names and titles, as well as institution where the paper was developed. Then, the corresponding author's name, along with his/her address, telephone and fax numbers, and email. If the paper has been presented in a congress, the following must be mentioned: name of the event, venue and date of the presentation. Potential disclaimers as well as funding sources must be stated.
The maximum number of authors for an original paper is eight; the other paper categories may include up to five authors. Papers with greater number of authors must be accompanied by a statement clarifying each co-author's participation in developing the work and will be evaluated by the Editorial Board.

Second page - an Abstract (only for original paper sections, review papers, and case reports)

Original paper abstracts must be structured in four sections: Introduction, Method, Results, and Conclusions. It must enable understanding without access to the text. Background, Method, Results, and Conclusions. Review articles and case reports must also present an abstract which does not need to comply with the structure proposed above. Abstract must not exceed 250 words.
On that same page, up to 5 key-words must be included to define the topic of the paper. These descriptors may be referenced at the following electronic addresses: http://decs.bvs.br/ which contains terms in Portuguese, Spanish or English, or www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh, for English terms only.

Body of the Text
The texts must be divided in Introduction, Method, Results, and Discussion. The references must be mentioned numerically, in the order of appearance, as superscript.
Introduction - It must contain the purpose of the paper and a synthesis of the study's rationale. The theoretical assumptions that have elicited the authors curiosity about the theme must be established. The reason why the subject needs to be studied must be established, clarifying faults and inconsistencies in the literature and/or difficulties in the clinical practice that make it an interesting topic for the expert.
Method - It clearly describes the choice of observation and experimental elements, such a patients, laboratory animals and controls. Study inclusion and exclusion criteria must be included, as appropriate. This section must provide enough details to enable reproduction and utilization in other studies. Previously published methods that are not widely known must be accompanied by bibliographic reference: new techniques must be thoroughly described. Likewise, statistical methods as well as occasional computer programs must be described.
The authors must state that the study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the institution where the study was performed.
Results - they must be presented in a logical sequence in the texts, tables, and illustrations. Use of tables and charts must be privileged. The information contained in tables and figures must not be repeated in the text.
Discussion - In this section, the author is expected to demonstrate personal knowledge and a critical notion of his/her own work, matching his/her own results with others available in the literature. Comments must be related to the study's comprehensiveness, positioning and correlation with others in the literature, and must include future limitations and perspectives.
Conclusions - These must be concise and only respond to proposed objectives.
Acknowledgements - If author(s) wishes to include acknowledgements, these will have to be presented at the end of the text, containing names of participants who contributed either intellectually or technically, at some stage, but did not fulfill authorship requirements, and must include development agencies that subsidized any research efforts resulting in the paper being published.
References - References must be included when indeed consulted, in Arabic numbers, as superscript, and numbered according to order of appearance in the text. All authors must be mentioned, if no more than six; above that number, the first subsequent six are mentioned followed by et al. The presentation must be based on the "Vancouver Style" and journal titles must be abbreviated according to the style presented by the National Library of Medicine's List of Journals Indexed in the Index Medicus. Below are some examples of the main types of bibliographic references; other examples can be consulted at the National Library of Medicine web site: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/ uniform_requirements.html).

Standard article
Quintas RCS, Coutinho ALF. Fatores de risco para o comprometimento de margens cirúrgicas nas ressecções de carcinomas basocelular. Rev Bras Cir Plást. 2008;23(2):116-9.

Book chapter
D'Assumpção EA. Problemas e soluções em ritidoplastias. In: Melega JM, Baroudi R, eds. Cirurgia plástica fundamentos e arte: cirurgia estética. Rio de Janeiro:Medsi;2003. p.147-65.

Book
Saldanha O. Lipoabdominoplastia. Rio de Janeiro:Di Livros; 2004.

Theses
Freitas RS. Alongamento ósseo de mandíbula utilizando aparelho interno: análise quantitativa dos resultados [Tese de doutorado]. São Paulo:Universidade de São Paulo, Faculdade de Medicina;2003. 97p.

Scientific events
Carreirão S. Mamaplastia redutora. In: XXXVI Congresso Brasileiro de Cirurgia Plástica; 2001 Nov 11-16; Rio de Janeiro, Brasil.

Figures and Tables - All figures and tables must be numbered in sequence, in Arabic numbers, following the order in which they are mentioned. The tables must be presented only when necessary for effective understanding of the work developed, and must not contain redundancies, i.e., information that has already been presented in the text. Figures and tables must be accompanied by their respective captions. Abbreviations used in figures and tables must be explicated in the captions. Figures are not to exceed twenty (20) in number. Patients' photographs must be over uniform background, particularly color background, and no odd object is supposed to appear: door knobs, light fittings etc. Panning must be restricted to the area of interest. On faces, photographs must rely on the resources available so that patients cannot be recognized.

Every paper must be accompanied by a Cover Letter, suggesting the section where it should be included and containing an author and co-author's statement to the effect that they all agree with the content expressed and are responsible for the information contained therein, including a disclaimer for any potential conflict of interest and any related ethical issue. This Letter must be sent by fax (+55 11 3846-8813) or by mail, mandatory.