ISSN 0037-8682 printed version
ISSN 1678-9849 online version

INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS

• Scope
• Review policy
• Manuscript Types
• Manuscript preparation

The manuscripts submitted for publication on the Journal of the Brazilian Society of Tropical Medicine are initially evaluated by the secretary regarding the adequacy of the text. The paper then will be sent to at least two reviewers for evaluation and emission of a reasoned report (peer review), which will be used by the editors to decide whether the work will be accepted or not. In case of difference of opinion amongst the reviewers, the manuscript will be sent to a third reviewer to validate a final decision.

The editorial office can be contacted as follows:
Journal of the Brazilian Society of Tropical Medicine.
Praça Thomaz Ulhôa, 706.
Po. Box: 118.
Zip Code: 38001-970. Uberaba, Minas Gerais - Brazil.
Telephone: 55-34-3318-5287. Fax: 55-34-3318-5279.
E-mail: rsbmt@rsbmt.uftm.edu.br 

The journal invites Original Articles, Editorials, Review and Mini-Review Articles, Short Communications, Case Reports, Technical Reports, Images in Infectious Diseases, Letters to the Editor, Supplements, Obituaries, Notifications of Meetings, Courses and Congresses.

Original Articles: must report original research not previously published or being considered for publication elsewhere. In case of Clinical Trials, the manuscript should be followed by the number and agency of register of the clinical trial. This requirement is in according to BIREME/OPAS/OMS and International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (www.icmje.org) and to Workshop ICTPR. The word limit is 3500 (excluding the abstract and references), abstract up to 250 words; structured using the headings Introduction, Methods, Results and Conclusions; containing also in Portuguese title, abstract and keywords. A total of five illustrations (tables and figures) are allowed.

Review Articles: should be a critical review of recent trends and progress in infectious diseases not a literature review only; usually written under request of the editor. Should have a structured abstract with up to 250 words, same layout as the original article, maximum of 3500 words and five illustrations (tables and figures). Mini-reviews are also published by the Journal of the Brazilian Society of Tropical Medicine. They must have a structured abstract containing up to 250 words, up to 3 illustrations (tables and figures) and a maximum of 3000 words.

Letters to the Editor: readers are encouraged to write about any topic related to infectious diseases and tropical medicine according to the scope of the journal. Should be no longer than 1200 words, without abstract and keywords, with only one insertion (table or figure) and may discuss material previously printed in the journal with up to 12 references.

Editorials: usually written on invitation, considering the topics in the scope of the journal, with maximum 1500 words, without abstract and keywords and a maximum of one figure or table and 10 or less references.

Short communications: should be reports on exciting new results within the scope of the journal. Should not exceed four pages in print, with maximum length of 2000 words, same layout of the original article including structured abstract with the sub-items introduction, methods, results and conclusions, and up to 15 references. A maximum of 3 illustrations (tables and figures) are allowed.  An abstract with no more than 100 words, up to 3 keywords containing also in Portuguese the title, abstract and keywords. The body of the manuscript should not be divided into topics (introduction, methods, results, discussion and conclusion).

Case Reports: must be brief reports, with maximum length of 1500 words with a maximum of 3 illustrations (tables and figures), up to 12 references, non-structured abstract with a maximum of 100 words containing also in Portuguese title, abstract and keywords. The body of the manuscript should be divided into the topics introduction, methods, case report, discussion and references.

Technical reports: should be concise and report the results and recommendations of a meeting of experts. Will be considered if formatted as an editorial.

 Images in Infectious Diseases: up to three photographs with the best quality as possible. Only three authors and three references (not cited in the text) without acknowledgements is allowed. The maximum length is 250 words with emphasis on figure description. The themes should involve some clinical lesson containing also in Portuguese title and the figure description.

Supplements: may be the proceedings of a symposium or a congress. Proposals related to suitability of topic, program organization, and production must be made in writing to the Editor and/or Guest Editor.

Obituaries: should be written by a close colleague and highlight the scientific profile and contribution of the dead professional.

Authors are advised to read these instructions carefully and follow them to ensure that the review process and publication of their manuscript is efficient and quick as possible. The Editors reserve the right to return manuscripts that are not in accordance with these instructions.
All manuscripts to be considered for publication in The Journal of the Brazilian Society of Tropical Medicine should be submitted in electronic form via the online submission system at (http://submission.scielo.br/index.php/rsbmt/login). The cover letter must contain a statement assuring that the material has not been published or is under consideration by another scientific journal. The author must choose on the item Author Guidelines (3.7 Document Type) one manuscript category (Original Articles, Editorials, Review Articles, Short Communications, Case Reports, Technical Reports, Images in Infectious Diseases, Obituaries, Letters to the Editor, or Other, when it does not fit in any other category). The responsibility for the contents of the manuscript is entirely of the authors and co-authors.

Language Editing Pre-Submission: if your first language is not English, to ensure that the scientific content of your manuscript will be understood by journal editors and reviewers, all manuscripts submitted to the Journal of Brazilian Society of Tropical Medicine must be in English. The writing and text editing costs will be the responsibility of the authors. To make the process easier and faster, it is highly recommended that the authors use the services of an editing company similar to the American Journal Experts (AJE – www.journalexperts.com), or Oxford Journals Language Services (www.prof-editing.com) for translation to the English language and/or text editing. It is required that the authors send along with their online submission the certificate issued by the company or by an English native speaker with recognized proficiency as a translator. It is the authors’ choice to use either of these services or any other service provided that when submitting the manuscript, they submit a certificate indicating that they used the services of an official translator and / or text editing company of the English language.
Language editing does not guarantee that the manuscript will be accepted for publication.
From September 30, 2011 the Journal of the Brazilian Society of Tropical Medicine will accept only manuscripts submitted followed by the proper English language certificate.

Layout of Original Article

The manuscript should be prepared using standard word processing software and should be printed (font times new roman, size 12) double-spaced throughout the text, figure captions and references, with margins of at least 3cm.  The word limit is 3500 (excluding abstract and references) with up to 5 insertions (figures and tables). Divide the manuscript into the following sections: Title page addressed to the chief editor, Structured abstract, Keywords, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion and Conclusions, Acknowledgements and References. Abbreviations should be used sparingly.

Title page: should include authors’ names in direct order and without abbreviations, highest earned degrees, institutional affiliations with complete contact information (address, telephone and fax numbers, and e-mail for both the corresponding author and all co-authors and grant support. The authors should warrant that the manuscript has not been previously published or is not being considered for publication elsewhere. Authors are asked to provide names and contact information for 3 potential unbiased reviewers.

Title: should be as concise, clear and informative as possible, it should not contain abbreviations and not exceed 200 characters, including spaces.

Running title: with up to 70 characters.

Structured Abstract: should summarize the results obtained and the major conclusions in such a way that a reader not familiarized with the particular topic of the paper can understand the implications of the article. The abstract should not exceed 250 words (100 words in case of short communications) and abbreviations should be avoided. Should be divided in: Introduction, Methods, Results and Conclusions.

Key words: 3-6 items should be listed in English and Portuguese immediately below the structured abstract.

Introduction: should be brief and set out the purposes for which the study has been performed. Any relevant previous studies should only be cited when essential.

Methods: should be sufficiently detailed so that readers and reviewers can understand precisely what has been done and permit to be repeated by others. Standard techniques need only be referenced.

Ethics: in case of reporting experiments on human beings, indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional, regional or national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1964, as revised in 1975, 1983, 1989, 1996 e 2000. When reporting experiments on animals indicate whether a national research council’s guide for, or any law on the care and use of laboratory animals was followed.

Results: should be a concise and impersonal account of the new information. Avoid repeating in the text the data presented in the tables and illustrations.

Discussion: should directly relate to the study being reported. Do not include a general review of the topic, avoiding that it becomes too long.

Acknowledgements: should be short, concise and restricted to those absolutely necessary. In case of sponsoring institutions, do not use acronyms.

Conflict of Interest: all authors should disclosure any type of conflict of interest during the development of the study.

Financial Support: list all the financial support received from agencies, institutions and other organizations that funded the research.

References: should be numbered consecutively as they appear in the text. List all authors when there are up to six. For seven or more, list the first six, followed by “et al.” Type the reference list with double spacing at the end of the manuscript on a separate page.

Numbered references to personal communications, unpublished data or manuscripts either “in preparation” or “submitted for publication” should not be listed on the references. If essential, such material can be incorporated at the appropriate place in the text following the examples:  (AB Figueiredo: Personal Communication, 1980); (CD Dias, EF Oliveira: Unpublished Data). Citations in the text should be given by the respective reference number upon the correspondent word, separated by comma (Ex.: World^1,3,5 ; Life^30,42,44-50.)

The references as at the end of the manuscript should accord with the system used in Uniform requirements for manuscript submitted to biomedical journals (Consult: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/citingmedicine). 

The titles of the journals should be abbreviated according to the style used in the Index Medicus. Consult: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=journals&TabCmd=Limits

The following are sample references:

1. Russell FD, Coppell AL, Davenport AP. In vitro enzymatic processing of radiolabelled big ET-1 in human kidney as a food ingredient. Biochem Pharmacol 1998;55:697-701.

2. Porter RJ, Meldrum BS. Antiepileptic drugs. In: Katzung BG, editor. Basic and clinical pharmacology. 6th ed. Norwalk (CN): Appeleton and Lange; 1995. p. 361-80.

3. Blenkinsopp A, Paxton P. Symptoms in the pharmacy: a guide to the management of common illness. 3^rd ed. Oxford: Blackwell Science; 1998.

Figures: should ideally be submitted in high-resolution TIFF format. The figures should be placed in separate files, named only with the figure numbers (e.g. “Figure 1.” ; “Fugure 2.”).  Please ensure figures have a minimum resolution of 300dpi.

· Photographs should be sent with good resolution (minimum of 300dpi) in the TIFFformat, preferably prepared using Adobe Photoshop.

· Graphs created using Microsoft Word or Excel should be saved with the original file extension (.doc or .xls). They should not be copied or pasted from one program to another.

· Maps and illustrations should be vectorized (drawn) professionally using the CorelDraw or Illustrator software at high resolution, and their dimensions should not be more than 21.5 x 28.0cm.

· Images produced in statistics software should be converted to Excel or PowerPoint format. If this is not possible, convert the file into TIFF format with a resolution of 300 dpi and send together with the file in the original format.

Legends: the legends for figures should be typed together with double-spacing on separate page at the end of the manuscript.

Colour illustrations: must be approved by the editors and the extra costs of the colour offsets reproduction will be of the author’s responsibility.

Tables: should be typed with double spacing, with a short descriptive title and submitted online on separate file. Legends for each table should appear on the footer of the same page as the table. All tables must be numbered consecutively in Arabic numerals and be cited in the text. Tables should not have vertical lines, and horizontal lines must be limited to a minimum, with footnotes underneath. Tables should have up to 17cm of width.

Process of Submission: from October 21^st of 2009 on, The Journal of the Brazilian Society of Tropical Medicine will be a fully electronic journal. All manuscripts should be submitted via the Internet to http://submission.scielo.br/index.php/rsbmt/login and follow the instructions at the top of each screen. From this date on the peer review process will also be completely online.

On resubmissions and revisions: the journal differentiates between: a) manuscripts that have been rejected and b) manuscripts that will undergo further consideration after requested changes have been made.

Resubmissions: if you have received a letter or rejection and wish the editors to reconsider their decision, you may resubmit your work. In this case, your file will be considered a new submission and you will receive a new manuscript number.

Revision: if it is necessary to make changes to your manuscript according to the recommendations of the reviewers, when sending it back for a second analysis, please forward the revised manuscript with the same manuscript number.

After acceptance: once a paper is accepted for publication, the authors must provide:

a) A copyright assignment form, provided by the Journal’s Secretary, signed by the corresponding author.

b)  Proofs: will be sent to the corresponding author to be carefully checked for typesetting accuracy. Changes or additions to the edited manuscript cannot be allowed at this stage of the editing process. The corrected proofs should be returned to the journal within 4 days after received.

c) The accepted articles will appear on the printed issues obeying the order that they were submitted, revised and accepted.

d)  The remaining accepted articles at each journal issue will be made available online, while they wait the priority to be published on the printed version.  

Reprints: the journal provides free PDF offprint’s file of the article for authors via e-mail.

Page charges: there will be no page charges.

The translation of all materials must be provided prior to submission of the manuscript. The hiring of and payment for translation services, are responsibility of the authors.  The RSBMT does not provide any kind of translation services.

Costs for publication of color images, are responsibility of the authors.