1. Cover letter: It is written by the first author or corresponding author to the editorial department of CJCP for submission. Please declare intentions to publish in CJCP and confirm you have not submitted elsewhere and the manuscript has not been published elsewhere. Please confirm that the author list and the author sequence are appropriate, state whether there is a conflict of interest, and list the innovations and research significance of the manuscript, the authors’ contributions to the manuscript, and the corresponding author and first author's contact ways. If you have any requirements, you can tell us in the cover letter.
2. Length of the whole text: The maximum total length should be no more than 8 printed pages for original, review and lecture articles. In a whole, it is preferred that manuscripts are concise and comprehensive.
3. Authors: The corresponding author is responsible for communicating with the editors on matters related to the manuscript. The corresponding author is generally the principal investigator of the study or is a supervisor of graduate students, should be familiar with all the contents of the article and takes full responsibility for the article. Non-original articles do not require identification of a corresponding author.
The name, professional title and means of communicating with the corresponding author should be listed in the lower left of the front page of the article, in the form of a footnote. The names of all the authors should be placed under the title. List the working institution after the author name. If authors come from different working institutions, their affiliations should be indicated using Arabic numbers to the upper right of the author’s name. The name, gender, degree and professional title of the first author and the corresponding author should also be included as a footnote. Except for multi-center research, co-first authors are not allowed.
4. Abstract: The abstracts for original articles should be structured, no longer than 300 words. The abstracts include four sections: “Objective”, “Methods”, “Results” and “Conclusions”. For the manuscript types of case analysis, rare disease research, expert lectures/commentary, and reviews, the abstracts are descriptive other than structured. An abstract also includes a title and complete list of authors, the department, working institution, city, post code, and country name of the first author, and the email address of the corresponding author (or first author).
5. Key words: For each article, three to five key words are needed. Between every key word, a semicolon (;) is to be used. It is recommended to use the words as key words from Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) published by the American National Library. If necessary, the common free words can be used. The key words must include the research subject.
6. Text: In the “introduction,” describe the creativity and feasibility of the research, and expand on the research background and theories, with reference to all the existing key literature, as well as outlining the hypotheses and stating the purpose of the research. In the “Materials and Methods,” describe in detail the selection of the study subjects, the instruments and reagents used (indicate the place of origin and manufacturer), and the experimental procedures. In the experimental procedures section, sufficient detail should be given to permit others to repeat the experiments. The “Results” should be described in a logical order, and the data in the figures and tables should not be repeated. Finally, the “Discussion” must integrate the research findings with the results of prior research based on the research purpose, and draw appropriate inferences based on the results.
7. Tables: Tables should be numbered consecutively according to the order in which they are cited in the text. Each table should have a heading. A three-horizontal-line table should be used when formatting tables. In situations where statistical data is listed, a fine horizontal line may be added below the bottom line. Notes with the tables may be listed by means of superscript, such as “a, b, c…”. The number of cases in each group/subgroup is usually listed in the table.
8. Figures: Each figure may consist of several pictures, and should be numbered consecutively according to the order they are cited in the text. The title of each figure should be written underneath it, followed by a figure legend to explain the figure, so that readers can understand the contents of the figure without the need for reference to the text of the article. Use arrows to indicate positive results in the figure. For microscopic photos, a scale bar should be placed in the bottom right corner of the photo. For JPG or TIF documents, it is recommended that a definition of at least 300 dpi pixels be used. The bar chart, line graph and forest map in the text should be displayed in vector graph.
9. Numbers: A.D, age, year, month, day and time should all be written in Arabic numerals.
10. Measuring units: Second, minute, hour and day are generally abbreviated as “s, min, h, d,” respectively, if they follow directly after a number. There cannot be more than one bias in a combination unit. For example, “mg/kg/d” should be written as “mg/kg daily” or “mg/(kg.d)”.
11. Statistics: Statistical symbols should be written in italics. The statistical analytical methods (e.g., variance analysis for the randomized design groups) used in the manuscript should be stated in the Methods section. The specific value of the statistical quantity (e.g., t = 3.45, χ2=4.68, F=6.79, P=0.023, etc.) should be indicated in the Results section.
12. Abbreviations: Acronyms or abbreviations can be used if the phrase appears more than three times in the abstract or text. They should be expanded when first appear, then followed by the abbreviation in parentheses. Common abbreviations may be used directly, for example, WBC, RBC, Hb, T, P, R and BP. Abbreviations are not usually used in the title. Use as few abbreviations in the abstract and text as possible.
13. Acknowledgements: Acknowledgements are listed after the main text of the article, and before the references, if any. The funding agency, the subjects and the personnel who have contributed to the research should be acknowledged.
14. References: There is no limit to the number of references that can be cited, but it should be relevant to the contents of the article, and the author should have personally read it. Where possible cite literature from the last 5 years and from formal publications.
References should be numbered in the same order that they initially appear in the text. In the text they should be denoted with a superscript Arabic numeral in square brackets.
The first three authors of the reference must be listed. When there are more than three authors, only the first three can be listed, then additional authors should be abbreviated to “et al”. If the reference is from a journal, please add [J] following the title; add [M] if it is from a monograph; add [D] if it is from a degree paper; add [J/OL] if it is from an electronic journal; and add [DB/OL] if it is from an online data source. Examples are as follows:
1. Jones RL, Homa DM, Meyer PA, et al. Trends in blood lead levels and blood lead testing among US children aged 1 to 5 years, 1988-2004[J]. Pediatrics, 2009, 123(3): e376-385.
2. Berseth CL. Disorders of the liver[M]//Taersch HW, Ballard RA. Avery′s Diseases of the Newborn. 7th ed. Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Company, 1998: 928-932.
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