ISSN 1517-8692 printed version
ISSN 1806-9940 versão on-line

INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS

• Scope and Politics
• Manuscript outlining and preparation
• Manuscripts Sending

The Revista Brasileira de Medicina do Esporte (RBME) is an official organ of the Brazilian Society of Exercise Medicine and Sports (BSSM/ SBME in Portuguese) bi-monthly issued. The mission of the RBME is to disseminate the scientific production in the Exercise and Sports Sciences fields through the publishing of results of original research as well as other data which contribute to the basic and applied knowledge in physical activities, exercise and sports in the biological sciences and medicine scenario.

Original articles, opinion articles, review articles, experience reports, case reports or letters to the editor on issues related to the Medicine and Exercise and Sports Sciences fields will be considered for publishing. It is not a pre-requisite to be a member of the RBME, neither does it influence on the decision from the Publishing Committee. Articles written in Portuguese will be accepted and, under the Publishing Committee, international authors and groups will be able to publish their articles written in English. All articles will be fully published in Portuguese, and production in foreign versions. are entire responsibility of the RBME

The RBME follows the guidelines for manuscripts preparation from the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals (International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals. Ann Intern Med 1997;126:36-47), whose last updating, carried out on 2010, is available on the web (http://www.icmje.org).

DOUBLE SUBMISSION

The articles submitted to the RBME will be considered for publishing only under the condition of having not been previously published or are not under evaluation process for publishing in another journal, either in its full or partial version. The RBME will not consider for publishing articles whose data have been made available on the web for public domain. In case the submitted article presents any material as figures or tables already published somewhere else, the article submission should be followed by a copy of the original material and of the written permission for the material reproduction.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

The authors should make clear in a proper form (Potential Conflict of Interests Agreement), any potential conflict of interest concerned with the submitted article, according to guideline of the National Board of Sanitary Surveillance (RDC 102/ 2000) and Federal Medicine Committee (Resolution # 1.595/2000). This requirement has the aim to inform the editors, reviewers and readers on professional and/or financial relationships (such as sponsoring and society participation) with financial agents related to the pharmaceutical products or equipment involved in the investigations, which can theoretically influence on their interpretations and conclusions. The existence or absence of declared conflict of interest will be at the end of all published articles.

BIOETHICS ON HUMAN EXPERIMENTATION

The performance of experiments involving humans should follow the specific guideline from the National Health Committee (# 196/96) available in the web (http://conselho.saude.gov.br/docs/Resolucoes/Reso196de96.doc), including the signature of a informed consent form and the protection of privacy of the volunteers.

BIOETHICS ON ANIMAL EXPERIMENTATION

The conduction of animal experimentation should follow specific guidelines (Law # 6.638, from May 08, 1979; and Decree # 24.645 from July 10, 1934).

CLINICAL ESSAYS

The articles containing results of clinical essays should make all needed information available to their suitable assessment, according to what has been previously established. The authors should refer to the “CONSORT” (www.consort-statement.org).

REVIEW BY PAIRS

All submitted articles will be assessed by experienced reviewers with professional competence in the respective work field and who will issue their grounded opinion which will be used by the Editors for decision on the article’s acceptance.  

The evaluation criteria of the articles include: originality, contribution to the field knowledge corpus, methodological suitability, clarity and updating. Given the increasing number of submissions to the RBME , the articles will be also assessed on their relevance to the contribution to the specific knowledge of the field. Thus, articles with methodological suitability and agreeing results will be able to be accepted for publishing when judged as of low relevance by the Editors. Such turn-off decision will not be entitled to legal suit or complaint from the authors’ part. The articles accepted for publishing will be able to suffer publishing reviews to facilitate their clarity and understanding with no content alteration though.

CORRECTION OF THE PRINTING SAMPLES

Immediately after being ready , the printing samples (layout) in electronic format will be sent by e-mail to the author responsible for the article. The authors should return by e-mail as well, the printing sample (layout) with the respective corrections in a maximum of 48 hours after they have been received. The sending and return of the printing samples by electronic mail has the purpose to speed up the review process and their posterior publishing.

COPYRIGHT

All statements declared in the articles are of entire responsibility of the authors. However, all published material becomes property of the (BSSM/ SBME in Portuguese), which starts to hold the copyrights. Therefore, no material published by the RBME will be able to be reproduced without written permission by the (BSSM/ SBME in Portuguese). All the authors of the articles submitted to the RBME will have to sign a Copyright Transfer Agreement (as follows), which will be valid from the date of the work acceptance. The author responsible for the article will receive the electronic copy of the publishing free of charge (in PDF format).

CORRESPONDENCE ADDRESS

Revista Brasileira de Medicina do Esporte – SOCIEDADE BRASILEIRA DE MEDICINA DO EXERCÍCIO E DO ESPORTE – Avenida Brigadeiro Luis Antônio, 278 – 6º andar – CEP 01318-901 – São Paulo - SP – Fone/fax: (11) 3106 7544 / Fax: (11) 3106 8611 – E-mail: sbme@medicinadoesporte.org.br

The submitted article should be typed in double space, Arial 12 font, paper size A4 or letter, with sides of 2.5 cm, no numbered lines or paragraphs, and numbered pages on the right upper side. Figures and tables should be presented at the end of the article on separate pages, as well as the subtitles of the figures. Figures should be included in individual files. In the text body, the places for insertion of charts, tables and figures should be mentioned. The manuscripts which are not in accordance to the following instructions concerning style and format will be returned with no review by the Publishing Committee.

FILES FORMAT

• Concerning the text, the editor program used should be Microsoft Word for Windows or equivalent
• Do not send files in PDF format
• The figures should be in jpg or tif formats. They should be included in the Word file, but should be also sent separately (attached during the article’s submission as supplementary document).

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

An original article should contain a maximum of 30 (thirty) references and 20 (twenty pages including references, figures and tables, and be structured with the following items, each one beginning by a different page:

Title Page: should contain (1) the title of the article, which should be objective, but informative; (2) authors’ full names; authors’ degree fields; origin institution(s), with city, state and country, if outside Brazil; (3) name of the corresponding author, with full address and e-mail. The authors’ titles should not be included.

Summary: should contain (1) the Portuguese summary with no more than 300 words, including: introduction and objective, methods, results and conclusion; (2) three to five keywords which are not in the article’s title. Mandatory use of Medical Subject ­Headings, terms from the Index Medicus (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/) (3) the abstract in English, representing the summary’s version to the English language (4) three to five English keywords.

Introduction: should contain (1) objective justification for the study, with references concerned with the topic, with no extensive review of it; (2) objective of the article.

Methods: should contain (1) clear description of the used sample; (2) consent form for experimental studies involving humans; (3) identification of the methods, instruments (manufacturers and address between parentheses) and used procedures explained in detail, in order to enable reproduction of results to the readers; (4) brief description and references of the published methods, but not widely known; (5) description of  new or modified methods; (6) whenever relevant, to include the statistical analysis used, as well as the used programs. In the text, numbers below 10 are written in full, while numbers from 10 on are written in Arabic numerals.

Results: should contain (1) presentation of results in logical sequence, in text, tables, and illustrations form; avoid excessive data repetition in tables or illustrations and in the text; (2) emphasize only important observations.

Discussion: should contain (1) emphasis on the important original aspects of the study, avoiding repetition of details already presented in the Introduction and Results; (2) findings relevance and limitations, comparing to the data in the literature, including implications for future studies; (3) connection between the conclusions and the objectives of the study; (4) conclusions which may be reached from the study; recommendations can be included when relevant.

Acknowledgements: should contain (1) contributions which justify acknowledgements, but not the authorship; (2) general sponsoring sources and financing.

References: the references should be numbered in the sequence they appear in the text, underlined between parentheses. The references mentioned only in tables or figures subtitles should be numbered according to a sequence established by the first mention about the table or figure in the text.

The style of the references should follow the guidelines by the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals (International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals. Ann Intern Med 1997;126:36-47; http://www.icmje.org). Some more common examples are presented below. For the cases not mentioned here, please check the reference above. The titles of the journals should be abbreviated according to the Index Medicus (List of Journals Indexed: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/tsd/serials/lji.html). In case the journal is not on this list the abbreviation used should be the one suggested by the journal itself. Avoid using “personal communication” or “unpublished observations” as reference. A presented summary should only be used if it is the single source of information.

Examples:

1) Standard article in journal (should list all authors; if the number surpasses six, place the six first followed by et al): You CH, Lee KY, Chey RY, Mrnguy R. Electrocardiographic study of patients with unexplained nausea, bloating and vomiting. Gastroenterology 1980;79:311-4. Goate AM, Haynes AR, Owen MJ, Farrall M, James LA, Lai LY, et al. Predisposing locus for Alzheimer’s disease on chromosome 21. Lancet 1989;1:352-5.

2) Institutional author: The Royal Marsden Hospital Bone-Marrow Transplantation Team. Failure of syngeneic bone-marrow graft without preconditioning in post-hepatitis marrow aplasia. Lancet 1977;2:742-4.

3) Book with author(s) responsible for the entire content: Colson JH, Armour WJ. Sports injuries and their treatment. 2 nd rev. ed. London: S. Paul, 1986.

4) Book with editor(s) as author(s): Diener HC, Wilkinson M, editors. Drug-induced headache. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1988.

5) Book chapter: Weinstein L, Swartz MN. Pathologic properties of invading microorganisms. In: Sodeman WA Jr, Sodeman WA, editors. Pathologic physiology: mechanisms of disease. Philadelphia: Saunders, 1974;457-72.

TABLES

The tables should be devised in space 1.5, and be planned to have width of one (8.7cm) or two columns (18cm). Each table should have a brief title; explanatory items should be at the foot. The table should contain means and dispersion measurements (SD, MSE, etc.), with no irrelevant decimal notations. The abbreviations should be in accordance to the ones used in the text and figures. The identification codes of the table items should be listed in order of appearance and horizontally and should be identified by the standard symbols.

FIGURES

Black & White photos or figures will be accepted. Colored figures can be published when they are essential to the scientific content of the article. In these cases, they will be on the authors’ expenses. For details on colored illustrations, we ask to directly contact Atha Publishing House (atharbme@uol.com.br). Colored figures can be included in the electronic version of the article with no additional cost for the authors. The drawings of the figures should be consistent and as simple as possible. Do no use shades of grey. All lines should be solid. For charts with bar for instance, use white, black bars, with diagonal lines in the two directions, checked lines, horizontal and vertical lines. The RBME strongly discourages the use of photographs of equipments and animals. The figures should be printed with good contrast and width of one column (8.7cm) in total. Use fonts of at least 10 points for letters, numbers and symbols, with suitable spacing and alignment.  When the figure represents an X-ray or photography, we suggest the inclusion of a size scale whenever relevant.

ARTICLES REVIEW

The articles review is habitually hired by the Editor from authors with recognized experience in the field. Review articles should approach specific topics with the aim to update information on the topics or specific issues in Medicine and Exercise and Sports Sciences for the less familiarized audience. The Publishing Committee will assess the quality of the article, the relevance of the chosen topic and the proved recognition of the authors in the specific approached field. Any inadequate items from the ones mentioned above will lead to refusal of the article by the editors, and it will not be sent for the review process by the pairs. The review article should have a maximum of thirty (30) pages and 100 (one hundred) references.

SYSTEMATIC REVIEW

The RBME encourages the authors to submit systematic review articles of the literature in the Medicine and Exercise and Sports Sciences fields. The Publishing Committee will evaluate the quality of the article, the relevance of the chosen topic, the search procedures and their inclusion criteria. In case any of the items mentioned above is inadequate, it will lead to refusal of the articles from the editors’ side, and they will not be sent for the review by the pairs process. The systematic review article should have a maximum of 30 (thirty) pages and 100 (one hundred) references.

META-ANALYSIS

The RBME encourages the authors to submit meta-analytical analysis articles in the Medicine and Exercise and Sports Sciences fields. The Publishing Committee will assess the quality of the article, the relevance of the chosen topic, their search procedures, their inclusion criteria as well as the statistical treatment used. In case any of the items mentioned above is inadequate, it will lead to refusal from the editors’ part and it will not be sent for the review process by the pairs. The meta-analysis article should have a maximum of 30 (thirty) pages and 100 (one hundred) references.

OPINION ARTICLES

These will be hired by the Publishing Committee from individuals recognized in Exercise and Sports Medicine and Sport Sciences, which will release their personal opinion on the issues of special interest. The opinion article should have a maximum of 20 (twenty) pages and 20 (twenty) references.

EXPERIENCE REPORTS

The RBME stimulates professionals who have relevant experience in any special aspect, original or innovative in Exercise and Sports Medicine or Sports Sciences to share it under the form of an Experience Report. In case any of the items mentioned above is inadequate, it will lead to refusal from the editors’ part and it will not be sent for review by the review process of the pairs. The experience report should have a maximum of 15 (fifteen) pages and 15 (fifteen) references.

CASE REPORT

The RBME may accept case report articles, describing specific cases which bring relevant and illustrative information on the diagnosis or treatment of a specific case which is rare in Exercise and Sports Medicine. The articles should be objective and accurate, containing the following items: 1) A summary and an abstract containing the clinical implications; 2) An introduction with comments on the clinical problem which will be approached, using the case as an example. It is important to register the patient’s agreement on using his/her medical report; 3) An objective report, containing the history, physical examination and the findings of complementary examinations, as well as the treatment and follow-up; 4) A discussion explaining in detail the clinical implications of the considered case and comparing to the data in the literature, including similar cases reported in the literature; 5) References. The case report should have a maximum of 20 (twenty) pages and 30 (thirty) references.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Letters sent to the Executive-Editor of the RBME will be considered for publishing if they promote intellectual discussion on a specific article recently published. The letters should contain an informative title and follow the instructions mentioned above for publishing. The letters should not have more than 500 words. In case it is accepted, a copy will be sent to the author of the original article which originated the discussion, with an invitation for submitting a reply which will be published with the letter.

BOOKS FOR REVIEW

The RBME stimulates the Publishing Houses to submit books for analysis by the Publishing Committee. They should send two copies of the book to the Executive-Editor (see the address above), which will not be returned. The sending of the books does not guarantee that they will be analyzed; however, the books received and not analyzed will be listed on the last issue of each year of the Journal. The books selected for analysis will be sent to experienced reviewers with professional competence in the respective field of the book, whose opinions will be given in up to three months and will be possibly adapted by the Journal’s Editors with not any interference from the side of the Publishing Houses of the books analyzed. The result of the analysis will be published with the publishing data of the book.

All articles should be directly submitted on the site http://submission.scielo.br/index.php/rbme. While electronically submitting the article, the authors should attach as Supplementary Document:

• Potential Conflict of Interests Agreement.
• Copyright of Transfer Agreement (as follows). E-mail, regular mail or any other ways of submission other than electronic on the site mentioned above will not be accepted.