ISSN 0100-7203 printed version

INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS

• Scope and policy
• Preparation of manuscripts
• Submission of papers
• Manuscript checking items

The Revista Brasileira de Ginecologia e Obstetrícia (Rev Bras Ginecol Obstet., ISSN 0100 7203), a monthly publishing of scientific diffusion by Federação das Sociedades de Ginecologia e Obstetrícia (Febrasgo), is directed to obstetricians, gynaecologists, and kindred professionals, with the purpose of publishing original contributions on relevant themes about Gynaecology, Obstetrics, and related areas. It is open to Brazilian and international contributions. The journal accepts and publishes papers in Portuguese, English, and Spanish.
The material sent to analysis cannot be concurrently submitted for publication to other journals, or have been previously published. Originality, theme relevance, and quality of methodology, besides the adequacy to editorial instructions adopted by the journal, are assessed in the selection of manuscripts. Published material becomes propriety of Revista Brasileira de Ginecologia e Obstetrícia and of Febrasgo, and it can only be totally or partially reproduced with these entities' consent.

All the submitted articles are assessed by anonymous reviewers and confidentiality is maintained throughout the review process. The reviewers' evaluation and editor's instructions are sent to the authors so that they get acquainted with the alterations that should be made. The authors must return the paper with the required changes as soon as possible, accompanied by a letter that justifies, when needed, the nonacceptance of the suggestions. If the paper is not returned within a period of three months, it is assumed that the authors have no longer interest in publishing it. The authors can request at any moment of the analysis and text review process its interruption and the exclusion of the paper. The concepts and declarations stated in the articles are the authors' responsibility.

This journal publishes contributions in the following categories:

1. Original Articles, complete prospective, experimental, and retrospective studies. Manuscripts containing original results of clinical or experimental researches have priority in publication.
2. Case Reports, of great interest and well-documented from the clinical and laboratorial points of view. Authors should indicate in the submission letter the new or unexpected aspects as to the cases that have already been published. The text from Introduction and Discussion sections must be based on updated bibliographical review. The number of references may be the same of complete studies.
3. Techniques and Equipment, which are presentations of innovations in diagnosis, surgery techniques, and treatments, as long as they are not, clearly or subtly, merchandise of drugs or other products. All the standards established for complete papers should be included.
4. Review Articles, including critical and systemized literature assessment, metanalysis, or systematic reviews. The selection of themes and the invitation to authors is based on an established planning by the editors. Spontaneous contributions may be accepted. In this case, a summary or draft of the paper must be sent primarily, as well as the list of authors and respective publications on the theme. If the journal is interested, the authors are invited to write and submit the final text. All the authors must have previous publications in regular and indexed journals about the referred theme. The number of authors is limited to four, depending on the type of text and on the applied methodology. The methods and procedures adopted for the preparation of the paper must be described, and techniques to obtain updating, meta-analysis or systematic reviews can be employed. When the theme is still under investigation, the review must discuss all current tendencies and lines of investigation. It should present, besides the review text itself, abstract in Portuguese and in English, and conclusions. See the section "Preparing the manuscript" for more information on the main text, cover page, and abstracts.
5. Editorial Comments, when required by the editor.
6. Thesis Abstracts presented and approved in the last 12 months, counting from the submission date. They must contain approximately 300 words, following the requirements of the journal concerning structure, form, and content. Titles in Portuguese and English should be included and, at least, three words or keywords. There is no text review of the Thesis Abstracts. In a separated file, it should be informed the complete name of the author and advisor, members of the assessment table, date of presentation and identification of the service or department where the research was carried out and presented. It is also noteworthy that the abstract publication does not impede a posterior publication of the complete paper in any other journal.
7. Letters from the Readers to the Editor about editorial material or not, but with information that is relevant to the reader. The letters can be summarized by the editors, being highlighted the main passages. When the letters are opinions to published articles, they are sent to the authors so that their answers are simultaneously published.

General information

1. This journal does not accept editorial material with commercial purposes.
2. Conflict of interests: situations that may interfere inadequately in the development and conclusions of the study must be mentioned. Among these situations, it is emphasized the participation in companies that produce drugs or equipment cited or used in the study, as well as in contestant companies. Financial supports, subordination relations at work, consultancy, among others, are also considered as conflict sources.
3. In the text, submission and approval by the Research Ethics Committee, acknowledged by the Research Ethics National Comittee (CONEP) must be mentioned.
4. Articles that cover clinical researches on human beings must include a declaration, in the Methods section, which assures the signature of informed consent by the participants. Authors should also report that the research was carried out according to the Declaration of Helsinki, which was reviewed in 2008.
5. In the event of papers using animal experiments, authors should indicate, in the Methods sections, that the standards enrolled in the Council for International Organization of Medical Sciences (CIOMS) Ethical Code for Animal Experimentation (WHO Chronicle 1985; 39(2):51-6) and principles of the Colégio Brasileiro de Experimentação Animal - COBEA (www.cobea.org.br) were followed.
6. All randomized controlled and clinical trials submitted to publication should have a registration in a database of clinical trials. This decision was due to guidance of the International Clinical Trial Registry Platform (ICTRP) from the World Health Organization (WHO) of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). Instructions for registration are available at the website of ICMJE (http://www.icmje.org/clin_trialup.htm), and the registration can be made through the National Library of Medicine database of clinical trials, available at: http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct/gui.
7. The number of authors in each manuscript is limited to seven. Papers of collective authorship (institutional researches) must have the responsible authors indicated. Multicentric works and studies may have the number of authors compatible with the number of participant institutions (each case is assessed by the editors and reviewers). The investigators in charge for the applied protocols must be indicated. All the authors should be aware of the paper sent for publication in the journal.
8. The co-authorship concept is based on the substantial contribution for the outset and planning of the research, analysis, and interpretation of data, or for the production and critical review of the text. The inclusion of names, whose contribution does not comply with the cited criteria, or that have provided only material support, is not justifiable.
9. The authors will acknowledge receipt of the papers by e-mail. Articles that are in concordance with the Instructions to the Authors and comply with the editorial politics of the journal are submitted to analysis, by reviewers indicated by the authors. Manuscripts that do not comply with the purposes of the journal or with these instructions are returned to the authors for the necessary adaptations before the assessment by the Editorial Board or they are refused without analyses by the reviewers.
10. Together with the original files, a submission letter, in which authors should explicit the agreement with the editorial requirements, the process of review, and the conveyance of copyright to the journal should be sent.
11. The original manuscripts should not exceed 25 pages of typed text or around 30,000 characters. The number of tables and figures should be limited to what is necessary for presenting and discussing the results (as a general pattern, it should be limited to five). Case Reports should not exceed 15 pages or 18,000 characters (see "Preparation of the manuscript", "Results").
12. The paper must be submitted to the journal by the online submission system at SciELO. The e-mail of all authors must be provided. Thus, co-authors shall receive information regarding the submission of the paper and, therefore, their signatures will not be necessary in the submission letter. The correspondence e-mail with the journal is: rbgo@fmrp.usp.br. It must be only one file of the paper, which should have the text, references, tables and figures.

Manuscript preparation

The following rules were based on the standard proposed by ICMJE and published in the article "Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals", updated in October 2008, and available at: http://www.icmje.org/.

Text presentation

1. The papers must be double-spaced typed between lines in every section, from the cover page to the references, tables, and captions. Each page must contain approximately 25 lines in one column. The Microsoft Word® text editor is preferred, as well as the font Times New Roman, size 12. Do not highlight passages of the text, do not underline or apply bold. All pages should be numbered, starting with the cover one.
2. Do not use capital letter in names (except for the initial one) in the text or references. Do not make use of period in acronyms (DPP instead of D.P.P.). Acronyms or abbreviations should be fully written at the first time they appear in the text. Each section should begin in a new page: cover page; abstracts and keywords; text; acknowledgments; references; individual tables and images' captions.

Cover page

Present the title of the paper in English; the complete name of the authors without abbreviations; e-mails that are valid for all authors (optional, replacing the submission letter); the name of the institution where the study was carried out; institutional affiliations of the authors; information about support received by means of financing, equipment or drugs catering. It is obligatory that the address of the institution where the paper was developed, which is published in the first page of the paper, should be provided. Indicate the name, address, telephone and fax number, and e-mail of the author responsible for the correspondence. These personal information are only for contacting the journal and they should only be published if there is a request from the author(s).

Abstract

The abstract must appear in the second page. For complete papers, a structured abstract should be written and divided into identified sections: objective, methods, results, and conclusions. It should comprise approximately 300 words stating relevant information that allows the reader to have a general idea of the article. A summarized description of all employed methods and of the statistical analysis should be included, as well as the most relevant numeric results, and not only the statistical significance. Conclusions must be based on the results of the study and not on the literature. Abbreviations, symbols, and references should be avoided.

Right after the abstract, the registry number or the identifications for randomized controlled and clinical trials should be indicated (see item 5 from the "General Information").

In the same page, at least three keywords or expressions must be cited for composing the annual index of the journal. They should be based on the Health Science Descriptors (DeCS, acronym in Portuguese), published by Bireme, which is a translation of Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) of National Library of Medicine, and is available at: http://decs.bvs.br.

The abstracts of Case Reports and Update and Review Articles do not have to be structured and are limited to 150 words.

Introduction

In the first page of introduction, the titles should be complete in Portuguese and English. In this section, show the current knowledge situation about the studied topic, divergences and lack of information that may eventually justify the development of the paper, but without an extended literature review. In Case Reports, a summary of the already presented cases, epidemiology of the reported condition, and a justification for the presentation as an isolated case must be stated. The objectives of the study should be clearly exposed.

Methods

This section should be initiated with the indication of the study setting up: if it is a prospective or retrospective, clinical or experimental trial, if the distribution of cases was randomized or not, and so on. Describe the criteria for the selection of patients or Experimental Group, including Controls. Identify the equipment and reagent used (manufacturer, city and country). If the applied methodology has already been employed, the references and a short description of the method must be indicated. Statistical methods employed and comparisons, to which each test was indicated, should also be described.

The papers that have the purpose of evaluating the efficacy or toleration of a treatment or drug must necessarily include an adequate Control Group. For additional information on the design of this kind of papers, see ICH Harmonized Tripartite Guideline - Choice of Control Group and Related Issues in Clinical Trials (http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hpfb-dgpsa/tpd-dpt/e10_e.html), and also items 4 and 5 of "General Information".

Results

The results must be presented in logical sequence: text, tables, and figures. The results that are relevant for the purpose of the study should be exposed and discussed. Do not repeat, in this section, all the data presented in the tables and figures, but describe and emphasize the most important ones, without interpreting them (also see "Tables"). In Case Reports, the sections "Methods" and "Results" are replaced by "Case description", prevailing the others.

Discussion

The new and original information obtained during the investigation must be highlighted in this section. Do not repeat information already mentioned in the sections "Introduction" and "Results". Avoid citing tables and figures. Bounce the adequacy of the employed methods during investigation. Compare and relate the authors' observations to those of other researchers, commenting and explaining the differences. Provide details of the implications of the findings, as well as their limitations, and make referable recommendations. In Case Reports, the discussion must be based on extended and updated literature review. Information of already published cases should be presented for comparisons to be made.

Acknowledgments

They are directed to those who have intellectually contributed to the study, but whose contribution does not justify co-authorship, and to those who have given material support.

References

All authors and papers cited in the text must be listed in this section and vice-versa. The references must be numbered in the list by order of appearance in the text, and they should be referred to by their respective numbers when cited. Excessive number of references should be avoided, being selected only those with relevance for each statement; also, the most recent ones should be preferred. Do not cite references of difficult access, like abstracts of studies presented in congresses or publications of restrict circulation (non-indexed). Also, "non-published observations" and "personal communication" references should not be referred to. Articles that were submitted and accepted for publication should be referred to as "in press" being indicated the journal, its volume and year of publication. Papers accepted by online journals that have no indication of volume and year must be referred to as "ahead of print".

Other publications of the same authors (self-citation) should be employed only if there is a clear need and if they are related to the subject. In this case, only original references that have been published in regular and theme-related journals should be included (do not cite chapters or reviews).

The number of references must be around 35. Authors are responsible for the exactitude of data presented in the bibliographical references.

For all references, the authors' names should be cited till the sixth. When the number of authors exceeds it, the sixth one should be followed by the expression "et al.", as follows:

Printed papers

• Journal articles

  Ceccarelli F, Barberi S, Pontesilli A, Zancla S, Ranieri E. Ovarian carcinoma presenting with axillary lymph node metastasis: a case report. Eur J Gynaecol Oncol. 2011;32(2):237-9.

  Jiang Y, Brassard P, Severini A, Goleski V, Santos M, Leamon A, et al. Type-specific prevalence of Human Papillomavirus infection among women in the Northwest Territories, Canada. J Infect Public Health. 2011;4(5-6):219-27.

• Articles with titles in English and text in Portuguese or other language

  Use the title in English, between brackets and by the end of the reference, indicate the language in which the article was published.
  Prado DS, Santos DL. [Contraception in users of the public and private sectors of health]. Rev Bras Ginecol Obstet. 2011;33(7)143-9. Portuguese.

  Taketani Y, Mizuno M. [Application of anti-progesterone agents for contraception]. Rinsho Fujinka Sanka. 1988;42(11):997-1000. Japanese.

• Book

  Baggish MS, Karram MM. Atlas of pelvic anatomy and gynecologic surgery. 2nd ed. Philadelphia: WB Saunders; 2006.

• Book chapter

  Picciano MF. Pregnancy and lactation. In: Ziegler EE, Filer LJ, editors. Present knowledge in nutrition. Washington (DC): ILSI Press; 1996. p. 384-95.

Electronic papers

Only official statistical information and citation of nonprinted journal are included here. For official statistics, the responsible entity, electronic address, and name of the file or entrance should be cited. The numbers of screens, date and hour of access should be included. Terms like "serial", "periodic", "homepage", and "monograph" are no longer used. All documents must be indicated only as [Internet]. For electronic documents as DOI (Digital Object Identifier), it should be mentioned at the end of it, besides the following information:

Brasil. Ministério da Saúde. DATASUS [Internet]. Informações de Saúde. Estatísticas vitais. Mortalidade e nascidos vivos: nascidos vivos desde 1994. Brasília (DF): Ministério da Saúde; 2008. [cited 2007 Fev 7]. Available from: http://tabnet.datasus.gov.br/cgi/deftohtm.exe?sinasc/cnv/nvuf.def

• Monograph on the Internet or e-book

  Foley KM, Gelband H, editors. Improving palliative care for cancer [Internet]. Washington: National Academy Press; 2001 [cited 2002 Jul 9]. Available at: http://www.nap.edu/books/0309074029/html/.

Tables

Tables should be presented in separated pages with double space and font Arial, size 8. They must be numbered sequentially with Arabic numerals and in order of citation in the text. All tables must have a title, and all their columns should be identified with a heading. It should contain captions that allow the reader to understand the content of tables and figures, even without reading the paper integrally. Horizontal lines should be simple and limited to two in the top and one at the end of the table. Do not use vertical lines nor employ functions of table creation, justification commands, decimal or centralized tabulations. Tabulation command (Tab) should be used instead of the "space" key for separating the columns and, for a new line, the "enter" key. In the baseboard of the table, the subtitles for abbreviations and statistical tests that were employed must be presented.

Figures (graphics, photographs, illustrations)

Figures must be presented in separated pages and numbered sequentially with Arabic numerals, following their order of citation in the text. All images must have an adequate graphical quality and present title and caption. To avoid problems that compromise the journal pattern, scanning images must obey the following requirements: in graphics and schemes, 300 dpi/bitmap for lineament must be used; in illustrations and photos (black and white), 300 dpi/RGB or grayscale should be used. In all cases, the files must have the extension .tif and/or .jpg. For curve illustrations (graphics, illustrations and schemes), extension files such as .xls (Excel), .eps and .psd are also accepted. Up to five images will be accepted. If any of them have been already published, they must be sent with a written authorization of the author/editors, including the source in the captions.

Captions

Captions must be printed with double space and accompanied by the respective figures (graphics, photographies, and illustrations). Each caption must be numbered with Arabic numerals corresponding to each figure and in the order of citation in the paper.

Abbreviations and acronyms

These must be preceded by their complete name when first cited in the text, as well as when they are presented in tables and figures' subtitles. Abbreviations or acronyms should not be used in the main title nor in the abstracts.

All articles must be submitted through the online editing system, available at http://submission.scielo.br/index.php/rbgo/login.

Others correspondence must be reply to:

Jurandyr Moreira de Andrade
Editor
Revista Brasileira de Ginecologia e Obstetrícia - Editoria - Avenida Bandeirantes, 3.900, 8º andar - Campus Universitário - CEP 14049-900 - Ribeirão Preto (SP) - Fone: (16) 3602-2803 - Fax: (16) 3633-0946 - E-mail: rbgo@fmrp.usp.br.

Before sending the manuscript, check if the Instructions to the Authors were fully followed and their compliance with the following listed items:

1. submission letter signed by all the authors (scanned and attached as a supplementary document or sent by mail) or information of all the valid e-mails of all authors on the cover page;
2. indication of approval by the Research Ethics Committee, signature of the free informed consent (in the section "Methods") and information on the compliance of all the requirements for animal research;
3. number or code of the study record, if necessary, in the cover page (item 5 of "General Information");
4. conflict of interests: inform if there is or there is not. If mentioned and relevant, no information should be omitted;
5. cover page with all the required information;
6. structured abstracts that match with the text;
7. three or more keywords, in English and Portuguese, related to the content of the text, based on Decs;
8. verify if all the tables and figures are correctly cited in the text and numbered, and if the captions allow their understanding;
9. Bibliographic references: they need to be numbered in order of appearance and correctly typed. The authors should verify if all the cited papers are present in the bibliographical list and if all those present in the list are cited in the text.