Mansoura Journal of Dentistry
Journal / Mansoura Journal of Dentistry / Submissions

 

Mansoura Journal of Dentistry is ONLINE for manuscript submissions. The journal uses an Editorial Manager (EM) system for online manuscript submission and review.

After completing the submission process, the authors can follow the status of the manuscript on the author page. The submission process goes as seen in the figure.

The first step in the submission process is to register to the website and get your username and password.

Language:

Mansoura Journal of Dentistry uses English as its official language; American and British English are acceptable for the Journal however; authors must stick to only one style in an article. Poor English may compromise the scientific content of the paper and may undermine the quality of the submission which could necessitate rejection. Authors for whom English is not their first language should seek professional help.

Submission Process:

• The journal uses an Editorial Manager (EM) system for online manuscript submission and review. The EM system guides the authors through the submission process step-by-step from the initial submission till the final decision.
• To submit or review an article, please go to the Mansoura Journal of Dentistry EM website https://www.editorialmanager.com/mans-j-dent/default2.aspx
• The system converts your article files (Word files, Images as JPEG and TIFF files,……... etc.) to a single PDF file to be used in the peer-review process.
• All correspondences throughout the process from the initial submission till the final decision are sent by Email. The authors can check the status of the manuscript on the system.
• Immediately after submission, an initial editorial check is conducted to ensure that the submission is in line with the journal guidelines, the submission is complete and all documents required are submitted, and that the submission is suitable to the journal from the relevance of the submission to the journal aims and scope.

Preparation for submission:

Please, read the guidelines of the journal carefully. Submissions that do not follow the guidelines will be rejected or returned to the author to resubmit before the peer review process and the journal will not be responsible for any delay.

Before starting the submission, authors must make sure that the following documents are ready:

• A title page that includes names and affiliations of the authors with the authors' names arranged in the order that will appear on the paper and the corresponding author information including email and phone number.
• A copyright signed by all authors as a PDF file. Please, refer to the information "For authors"
• A manuscript Word file.
• Tables: Each table is a separate Word file.
• Figures: Each figure as Tiff or JPEG of very good quality to suit printing.

Before starting the submission, authors must make sure that the manuscript meets the following criteria:

• The manuscript is original and has not been published before or is currently under review by another journal.
• The research has been approved by a research ethics committee (REC) or an institutional review board (IRB).
• The manuscripts must be prepared according to the guidelines of the journal. Please, refer to "Guide for authors".
• The figures are of acceptable quality and uploaded as separate JPEG or Tiff files.
• The references are formatted according to journal style within the text as well as in the references section. Please, refer to "Guide for authors"
• The English of the manuscript should be of acceptable level and should be free of grammatical and spelling mistakes. The journal encourages authors to do language editing.

Submission of a revision:

When doing the revision, all changes should be made in red font so; it would be easy to the reviewers to trace (DO NOT USE TRACK CHANGES). Also, authors are requested to submit a "response to reviewers' comments" word file detailing their responses to each point i.e. what are the changes done and where they were done.

Types of Submissions:

Mansoura Journal of Dentistry accepts different types of publications including:

1. Original articles.
2. Short communications.
3. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses.
4. Case reports.

Manuscript Instructions

1. Original Article:

Submissions must be organized as follows (Case reports and other types of articles may vary):

1. TITLE PAGE: The title page must contain the following information:
• Article Title.
• Authors' names and affiliations.
• Corresponding Author's detailed information (Address, Email, and telephone number)
• Keywords (3-5 words)

The title page would not be sent to reviewers.

1. ARTICLE FILE:

The article file must contain:

• The title: must be concise and clear (Do not exceed 25 words).
• The abstract: The abstract must not exceed 250 words. The abstract must be structured using the following subtitles; Objective, Materials/Subjects and Methods, Results, and Conclusions.
• The main Manuscript: The main text must include the following subtitles; Introduction, materials/subjects and methods, results, discussion, conclusions, acknowledgment, references, and Figure legends (if applicable).

Introduction:

This section must present a brief review of the literature about the research point. The introduction section must justify carrying out the research submitted to the journal, the purpose of the research, and the hypothesis.

Materials and methods:

This section must present a detailed description of what was done exactly in a way that allows other researchers to replicate the research. This section must be sufficiently informative to all readers. The materials and methods section could be divided under subtitles to enhance the readability of the text.

Results:

This section must present merely the findings of the research with no interpretations or comments.

Discussion:

This section gives the authors a full opportunity to interpret their data and to express their interpretations and opinions; all opinions must be limited to this section and all mentions of previous work must be supported by references.

Conclusions:

This section should reflect a clear scientific justification for the research and explanation of its outcomes, and suggest future experiments. Bullet points are recommended.

Acknowledgment:

This is an optional section of the article. The acknowledgment place is at the end of the text before the references section. Who deserves acknowledgment? Every individual or institution who contributed or supported the research at any stage deserves acknowledgment. Individuals who contributed to the research but, do not fulfill the criteria for authorship should be mentioned in the acknowledgment. The contribution may be:

• Help:
  • Technical help and support.
  • Data collection.
  • Manuscript editing and revising.
  • Professional discussions.
• Money:
  • Bringing funds.
  • Providing materials/supplies.

It is the author's responsibility to obtain approval from those they wish to acknowledge; this is important because the presence of their names in the acknowledgment part may give the impression of their approval and support of the article's methodology, results, and conclusion.

References:

This section must contain only references that were cited in the manuscript. References should appear in the text sequentially. In the text, the reference number should be superscript without brackets and be placed at the end of the sentence(s) directly after the full stop. In the manuscript text:

• When authors' names are mentioned, only last names should be used.
• et al. should be used as follows: First author’s last name et al.(reference number)

References: Should be written according to the Vancouver style as follows:

1. Author names are separated by a comma.
2. Volume should be mentioned
3. The numbers of the pages must be written in full e.g. 225-228.
4. The journal name must be abbreviated according to PubMed.
5. Do not include the month of publication.

Examples:

1. Lombardo L, Marafioti M, Stefanoni F, Mollica F, Siciliani G. Load deflection characteristics and force level of nickel titanium initial archwires. Angle Orthod. 2012;82:507-521.
2. Proffit WR, Fields HW, Contemporary Orthodontics. 4thed. St. Louis:Mosby;2007.

Citation Manipulation:

Citation manipulation includes (but is not limited to):

1. Citations whose primary purpose is to increase the number of citations to an author’s work.
2. Citations whose primary purpose is to increase the number of citations to an article(s) published in a particular journal.

Figure Legends:

Figure Legends must be presented in a separate section at the end of the manuscript.

1. TABLES AND FIGURES/IMAGES:

Images, figures, and tables should only be used when they are relevant and valuable to the scientific content and to the readers. Adding such content that is purely illustrative or is just a repetition of data presented as text is not encouraged.

Tables:

Tables must be numbered with Arabic numbers and must be sequentially mentioned in the text. Tables must be in Word format and uploaded separately; each table uploaded in a separate file. Each table must have a title written above the table next to the number of the table. The data included in the tables must not be a repetition of what is presented in the text. Every abbreviation mentioned in a table must be defined in a footnote.

Figures:

Figures/Images must be numbered with Arabic numbers and must be sequentially mentioned in the text. Each figure/Image must have a description written below the figure next to the number of the figure. Figures/Images must be in TIFF, JPEG, or EPS format and uploaded separately; each figure must be uploaded in a separate file. Figures/Images manipulation: Figures/Images must not be modified by any software such as Photoshop or Paint except to enhance the quality of the figure e.g. adjusting the brightness, contrast, or color balance provided that they do not lead to misrepresentation of information present in the original figure/image. If the original, unedited images cannot be made available upon request, acceptance of the submission may be declined or the submission may be retracted. Where deliberate action has been taken to inappropriately manipulate or fabricate a figure/image it would be dealt with as a serious form of misconduct because it mislead readers and damage the integrity of the scientific content. The journal expects all figures/images contained within manuscripts to be accurate and free from manipulation. Specific features within an image may not be enhanced, obscured, moved, removed, or introduced without adequate notification of the alteration.

Third-party figures/images: When using figures/images that have been previously published and thus not original to the submission, this must be mentioned in the figure legend. Citing the source is not enough; written permission from the original publisher must be obtained.

Image Release Form:

Images (that could identify the research subject) are only allowed to be published upon the presence of a release form. The release form must include the manuscript title and the authors' names and affiliations.

1. ABBREVIATIONS:

When an abbreviation is used; the full word/phrase must be written when mentioned for the first time in the abstract and also in the main manuscript, and then the abbreviation is used throughout the manuscript.

1. APPENDICES:

This is an optional section of the article It must contain only information that could be described as non-fundamental to understanding the article. More than one appendix could be attached. Examples: Raw data. Extra photographs. Videos.

Clinical Trials:

The journal requires clinical trials to be registered with a clinical trial registry that allows free online access to the public. Registration in the following trial registers is acceptable:

• http://www.ctri.nic.in/
• http://www.anzctr.org.au/
• http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/
• http://isrctn.org/
• http://www.trialregister.nl/trialreg/index.asp
• http://www.umin.ac.jp/ctr

Randomized Clinical Trials:

RCTs are recommended to be reported according to the CONSORT (Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials) guidelines: http://www.consort-statement.org/.

1. Short Communication:

Short communication should be a complete manuscript but, its length should not exceed 2000 words. The short communication should not include more than 4 figures and tables.

1. Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis:

This type of article is recommended to be reported according to the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) guidelines: http://prisma-statement.org/PRISMAStatement/Checklist.aspx.

1. Case Reports:

In addition to general guidelines for the original articles, the following should be considered when submitting case reports:

• https://www.care-statement.org/checklist
• https://www.strobe-statement.org/checklists

Ethical Consideration:

Publication Ethics:

Mansours Journal of Dentistry follows Mansoura University's measures to guard against research misconduct including fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, and/or any other practice that violates the commonly accepted practices.

Plagiarism:

Authors must not use the text, figures, or ideas of others without permission and/or citing. The journal has a strict policy against plagiarism. All submitted manuscripts are checked for plagiarism using professional plagiarism-checking software. Submitted manuscripts with an unacceptable similarity index resulting from plagiarism are rejected immediately.

• Text must be cited properly.
• Permission for reuse of images, graphs, etc. must be obtained from the author or journal that published the original work.

Mansoura University uses similarity checkers (Turnitin and iThenticate) to discover potential plagiarism.

Informed consent:

Informed consent is required for clinical trials and may be requested by the journal in certain circumstances. A statement about obtaining "informed consent" from the participants should be present in the manuscript. It is ethically acceptable not to obtain consent from subjects/patients in certain cases, such as:

• Use of de-identified data in epidemiological research.
• Observational research in public places.
• Use of anonymous surveys.

Subject/Patient Confidentiality:

Protecting the confidentiality of the research subjects is a priority. Sensitive data must be coded and securely saved. Identifying information must not be published as written data, photographs, radiographs, and pedigrees. If publishing the information is essential for scientific reasons, the patient (or parent or guardian, wherever applicable) must give informed consent for publication. The journal follows the ICMJE guidelines. If the approval of publication was not mentioned in the informed consent for participation in the research, special consent must be obtained by the authors from the participants before the publication, and have the form properly archived.

Consent for Publication:

Any manuscript that includes details such as Photographs, videos, or audio recordings that can reveal the identity of the study participants must have informed consent for publishing these details from the participant (or the legal guardian). The consent must be for publication of their details under the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (which is different than the informed consent to participate in the research). Editors have the right to request consent for participation in the research or the consent for publication from the authors and not to be content with the statement written in the manuscript that acknowledges obtaining consent for participation or publication from participants or the legal guardian.

Duplicate submission/publication:

Submissions to the journal must not be under consideration by another publication; authors must declare that explicitly. Therefore, the discovery of double submission or publication would be considered a violation of publication ethics. This applies to articles previously published in another language unless authors (following ICMJE guidelines) got permission from the publisher and the copyright holder of the original article. Authors must bring to the attention of the Editor of the MJD that the submission is a secondary submission translated from another language. Readers also have the right to know that the article was previously published in another language with the original article properly cited.

Redundant and Salami publications:

Redundant publication is characterized by the similarity of research objective(s), methodology, or results but not of the text. Salami publications refer to the inappropriate segmenting of study outcomes into several articles. According to COPE "A distinction needs to be made between salami and redundant publication: where there is a two-thirds overlap, it is redundant publication." The journal recommendations for authors:

1. It is better to combine the parts in one article to strengthen your findings and conclusions.
2. If the hypotheses are different, they can be published in parts.
3. Cite previous parts from the submitted manuscript.
4. Indicate any overlap between the submission and any previous publication(s).

Authorship:

Eligibility:

To be eligible for authorship, the following criteria should be met:

1. Significant involvement in study conception/design, data collection, or data analysis/interpretation.
2. Involvement in drafting or revising the manuscript.
3. Approval of the final version of the manuscript for publication.
4. Responsibility for accuracy and integrity of all aspects of research.

Honorary, guest, and ghost authorship are to be avoided.

Authors order:

The author's order reflects their contribution, with the first author contributing the most while; the last author is the most senior.

Changes in authorship:

Any changes will need to be approved by the Editor-in-Chief which will be guaranteed only after submitting a declaration signed by all authors showing the new list of authors/new order of authors. The Editor-in-Chief should also receive details about the reasons for the change. All communications about changes in authorship should be made by the corresponding author. Overall, the Editor-in-Chief would make decisions on a case-by-case basis.

Changes requested after publication, if approved, will appear as a corrigendum.

Author Contributions:

Authors are requested to report their contributions to the submission guided by CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) https://credit.niso.org/. An author can contribute in multiple areas. When the submission is for a single author; the author should confirm full responsibility for the submission. In the authors' contribution statement; authors are referred to by their initials. The use of AI tools in any way must be explained and documented clearly during submission. The use of AI must not infringe the authorship and publishing ethics.

Contributor Roles Taxonomy:

	Term	Definition
1	Conceptualization	Ideas; formulation or evolution of overarching research goals and aims
2	Methodology	Development or design of methodology; creation of models
3	Software	Programming, software development; designing computer programs; implementation of the computer code and supporting algorithms; testing of existing code components
4	Validation	Verification, whether as a part of the activity or separate, of the overall replication/ reproducibility of results/experiments and other research outputs
5	Formal analysis	Application of statistical, mathematical, computational, or other formal techniques to analyze or synthesize study data
6	Investigation	Conducting a research and investigation process, specifically performing the experiments, or data/evidence collection
7	Resources	Provision of study materials, reagents, materials, patients, laboratory samples, animals, instrumentation, computing resources, or other analysis tools
8	Data Curation	Management activities to annotate (produce metadata), scrub data and maintain research data (including software code, where it is necessary for interpreting the data itself) for initial use and later reuse
9	Writing - Original Draft	Preparation, creation, and/or presentation of the published work, specifically writing the initial draft (including substantive translation)
10	Writing - Review & Editing	Preparation, creation, and/or presentation of the published work by those from the original research group, specifically critical review, commentary, or revision – including pre-or postpublication stages
11	Visualization	Preparation, creation, and/or presentation of the published work, specifically visualization/ data presentation
12	Supervision	Oversight and leadership responsibility for the research activity planning and execution, including mentorship external to the core team
13	Project administration	Management and coordination responsibility for the research activity planning and execution
14	Funding acquisition	Acquisition of the financial support for the project leading to this publication

* Reproduced from Brand et al. (2015), with authors' permission.

Citations

All types of submissions must cite relevant and verified literature to support any suggestions or conclusions made by the authors and to give credit to authors of previous studies mentioned or used in the submission.

Authors must avoid excessive and/or inappropriate self-citation which could be a form of misconduct called citation manipulation. Prearrangement for mutual citations can also be considered a citation manipulation. Please refer to COPE for more details about citation manipulation.

Studies on Humans

• When humans are part of the research, approval from a research ethics committee is required as well as consent from the patients/volunteers. The consent may be requested by the Journal in certain circumstances.
• Including images or personal information of patients/volunteers requires special permission for publishing. The permission may be requested by the Journal in certain circumstances. It is the author's responsibility to protect the patients/volunteers' confidentiality.
• It is the author's responsibility to demonstrate that the clinical trial has been done following The Code of Ethics of the World Medical Association (The Declaration of Helsinki). The manuscript should be written following the "Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals".

Studies on animals

• Animal research should be carried out following The ARRIVE guidelines (Animal Research: Reporting of In Vivo Experiments) and following the U.K. Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act, 1986.
• When describing animal experiments, it is the authors' responsibility to demonstrate that the research was performed following the national/international guidelines for the handling and use of laboratory animals.

Copyright

When submitting an article, authors should include a 'Journal Publishing Agreement'. The following statement must accompany all manuscripts:
All manuscript's copyright ownership is transferred from the author(s) of the article titled:………………………………………………………………………… to Mansoura Journal of Dentistry in the event the work is published. The authors confirm that the manuscript has not been submitted to/published in any form or language. The undersigned author(s) sign for and accept responsibility for releasing the article.

The statement must be signed by all authors and submitted as a PDF file.

When using any material that is protected by a copyright, the author(s) must seek written permission from the copyright owners and cite the source(s) in their article. The author(s) must mention the written permission in their submission.

Funding, Conflict of Interest, and Data Availability

Statements and declarations about funding, conflict of interest, and data availability should be presented in the manuscript above the references section:

Funding

Mansoura Journal of Dentistry requires authors to declare all types and sources of financial support. The authors should write in the manuscript about the funding they received and the role of the sponsor(s) under the subtitle “Funding”; this applies to funding provided at any stage of the research from study design to submission of the manuscript for publication. Even if there was no funding received, a statement is still required declaring that “no funding” was received. It is the author's responsibility to inform their sponsors about the funding statement; authors should have approval from the sponsors on the information about their contribution and about the context in which it is given.

Conflict of Interest (Disclosure Statement)

• Mansoura Journal of Dentistry is following a strict policy about disclosing conflict of interest sources. Authors are required to give details about any conflicts of interest.
• Conflict of interest occurs when the personal interests of authors interfere with their research objectivity.
• Reveling conflict of interests does not mean rejection of a submission. However; it is a must for transparency.
• Each author should submit a copy of the ICMJE (International Committee of Medical Journal Editors) Form for the Disclosure of Conflicts of Interest (http://www.icmje.org/conflicts-of-interest/).

Data availability

• The authors must provide consent that all data derived from the research is available. The following statement should be added to the manuscript selecting the appropriate choice for the authors:
• “Availability of data and materials: The datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are available at/from…………"
• a. Repository.
• b. Public domain.
• c. Supplementary materials.
• d. Available upon request.
• If the research data could not be made available by any means, this must be mentioned and the reasons explained in the manuscript.

Peer Review Process

Every manuscript will be peer-reviewed and the reviewers' comments will be sent to the author. All correspondence between the journal and the authors should be handled by the "corresponding author".

When the manuscript passes the editorial check, the peer review process starts. Every manuscript is sent to at least two reviewers who are experts in the subject of the submission to evaluate the manuscript scientifically and to give their recommendation about possible publication in the journal.

Articles are peer-reviewed through a double-blind process. The identity of the authors and their affiliations are concealed from the reviewers and the identities of the reviewers are concealed from the authors.

Files that contain identifying information such as the Title Page, Manuscript (material and methods, funding, conflict of interest, and acknowledgment) are either not sent to the reviewers or the identifying information is concealed.

Required revisions must be completed and submitted within 2-6 weeks according to the required revision whether minor or major.

Revised manuscripts returned after this time will be handled as new submissions.

After the revisions are completed, the editor will forward the manuscript to the publisher.

The proof will be sent to you for corrections and final approval. Major changes by addition or deletion are not allowed; corrections at this stage are very limited.

The final decision about the submission is made by the Editor-in-Chief based on the reviewers' comments and suggestions which would be one of the following:

• Accept (without change).
• Revise (Minor change/Major change).
• Reject.

Proofs

After the article's acceptance, a PDF proof will be sent to the corresponding author.

We request the authors to submit the corrected proof within the specified time to ensure the regularity of the work and speed of publication.

Significant changes are not allowed to be made in the proof. The proof serves two purposes:

• Allow production to send queries to the authors to ensure completeness and correctness of the submission.
• Allow the author to check a gallery of the article and make minor corrections such as spelling/grammar mistakes.
• Corrections must be done carefully and sent all at one time.

Guideline	Type of Study	Source
STROBE	Observational studies including cohort, case-control, and cross-sectional studies	https://www.strobe-statement.org/index.php?id=available-checklists
CONSORT	Randomized controlled trials	http://www.consort-statement.org
SQUIRE	Quality improvement projects	http://squire-statement.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=Page.ViewPage&PageID=471
PRISMA	Systematic reviews and meta-analyses	http://prisma-statement.org/PRISMAStatement/Checklist.aspx
STARD	Studies of diagnostic accuracy	https://pubs.rsna.org/doi/full/10.1148/radiol.2015151516
CARE	Case Reports	https://www.care-statement.org/checklist
AGREE	Clinical Practice Guidelines	https://www.agreetrust.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/AGREE-Reporting-Checklist-2016.pdf

The reporting guidelines for other type of studies can be found at https://www.equator-network.org/reporting-guidelines/

Article Publishing Charge

Upon acceptance, the authors will be requested to complete the payment of the article processing charge (APC) of 200$ for their submission. There is no submission For payment menthods, please contact the journal.