Author Guidelines
General Information
Sierra Leone Journal of Biomedical Research (SLJBR) publishes papers in all fields of Medicine and Allied Health Sciences including Basic Medical Sciences, Clinical Sciences, Dental Sciences, Pharmaceutical Sciences, Epidemiology of diseases, Nursing Sciences and Primary Health Care. Articles are made available online for free download. Contributors are strongly encouraged to read these instructions carefully before preparing a manuscript for submission. The Managing Editor reserves the right to return manuscripts that are not prepared in accordance with these instructions. All accepted manuscripts are copy-edited. No change in authorship will be permitted after the paper has been accepted for publication and any change before this must be agreed by all authors listed.
Types of Paper
SLJBR publishes specific categories of articles. The category of paper should be stated in the covering letter as well as on the manuscript title page. The journal welcomes manuscripts in the following categories:
Original Articles: These articles are full length research papers that should provide new information based on original research. An original article should give sufficient detail of experimental procedures for others to verify the work. Data obtained should be interpreted clearly and relevant conclusions drawn. The length should not exceed 3000 words (excluding the abstract, references, acknowledgement, tables and figures); total number of tables and figures not more than 6, references not more than 25 and abstract should not exceed 300 words. The journal allows up to eight (8) authors per manuscript. Other contributors may be mentioned in the acknowledgment section.
Short Communications: Short communications are intended to offer the opportunity to present in brief form noteworthy results or experimented work or technical advancements. It should be short, concise and the organisation of the manuscript should follow the same pattern as original articles. They should be approximately be 1500 words in length (excluding the abstract, references, acknowledgement, tables and figures), and must provide adequate information to allow for the same stringent peer review given other submissions. The number of authors and references should be limited to the minimum necessary. A maximum of three tables or three figures is required. A brief unstructured abstract (about 200 words) is required for indexing.
Case Reports: Should not exceed 2000 words (excluding the abstract, references, acknowledgement, tables and figures); total number of tables and figures no more than 4, and no more than 20 references. The manuscript must contain the following sections: Title page, Unstructured abstract (less than 200 words), Keywords, Introduction, Case Report, Discussion, References, tables and/or figures (if any). The reported cases should contain some special features not previously described.
Review Articles: This article should throw light on recent advances in areas within the scope of the journal and should be direct discussions of specific issues with no subjective opinion or personal experience of the authors. Review articles should not exceed 5000 words (excluding the abstract, references, acknowledgement, tables and figures); total number of tables and figures no more than 5, and references no more than 35. Only two review articles will be published per issue. Submission covering topics of current interest are welcome.
Letters to the Editor: Short letters are welcome in response to articles published in the Journal. The author (s) of any article commented on would be invited to respond and the editors reserve the right to edit any letter received. Brief reports of novel research findings or single interesting cases can be described in a Letter to Editors. Length must not exceed 600 words, only one table or figure is permitted, and there should be no more than five references. No more than five authors can be included. Comment letters on what has been published in SLJBR must reach the journal within two months of publication of the original item.
Submission of Manuscript
Manuscripts are to be submitted online as e-mail attachment to the Managing Editor at sljbr@yahoo.com. It should be accompanied by a cover letter written by the corresponding author. The letter should state that the manuscript is original and has not and will not be submitted for publication elsewhere so long as it is under consideration by the Sierra Leone Journal of Biomedical Research.
Preparation of Manuscript
All manuscripts are to be written in British format of English Language and prepared in MS Word format. The text should be in 12 point Arial font type, fully double-spaced, leaving a margin of 1 inch on all sides. Original articles, case reports, and short communications should be in the following order: Title page, Abstract, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusion, Acknowledgements (if needed) and References. Also double-space table and figure legends, tabular material and references.
Title page: The title page should contain the full title of the paper, the full name (s) of the author (s) (surname first followed by other names), address (es) of the author (s) and institutional affiliations(s). The email addresses and telephone number of the corresponding author should also be included. The title of the paper should be concise and the first letter of each word should be capitalised.
Abstract: The abstract containing between 150 – 300 words (depending on the category of paper) should begin on a separate page. It should be intelligible in conjunction with the title and should not contain any references. It should also be unstructured and summarised the purpose of the study, basic procedures, main findings and principal conclusions. A list of 4-6 keywords should also be supplied.
Introduction: This should be brief, providing only the most essential background and stating precisely the scope of the paper and proposed approach or solution. Relevant literature on the subject should be given to justify reasons for undertaking the present study.
Materials and Methods: The design of the study, the setting, the type of participants or materials or equipment involved should be clearly stated. The procedures adopted should be clear enough to enable other workers to reproduce the results. Previously published methods can just be mentioned with references cited. Only new methods may be described in detail. For experiments on human subjects and laboratory animals, it should be clearly mentioned that procedures followed are in accordance with the ethical standards laid down by the national bodies or organizations of the particular country. The statistical analysis used should be mentioned.
Results: The results should be presented in logical sequence. Results should be supported with data presented with clarity and precision. The same data should not be presented both in tabular and graphic forms. Data presented in tables and figures should not be repeated in the text. Only important observations need to be emphasised or summarised. Interpretation of the data should be taken up only under the discussion and not under results.
Discussion: This section should deal with the interpretation of results without repeating information already presented under results. Deductions should be made from results obtained in this study and in past studies on this topic. The results and discussion sections can include subheadings and both sections can be combined when appropriate (especially in short communications).
Conclusions: The conclusions of the study should be stated in a few sentences at the end of paper. Conclusions should be reasonable and based on findings. Conclusions not completely supported by the data should be avoided. Recommendations may be given in this section if necessary and relevant.
Acknowledgement: Authors may acknowledge individual, group of persons or organisation who have made substantial contribution to the study or providing specific scientific/technical assistance and financial support.
Tables, Figures and Photographs: Tables, Figures and photographs should be presented on a separate page at the end of the text. They should be numbered consecutively in Arabic numerals, e.g. “Table 1, Table 2”, Figure 1 etc. All illustrations should contain headings and legends and referred to in the text. In order to avoid layout problems in final production, figures must be supplied in a format which can be edited. The preferred format for photographs is JPG or TIFF. Please, submit the best quality possible. Use Cambria font for all items in graphs (Title, legend, axes etc.). Each figure and table must be referred to in the text.
References: The Harvard system of referencing whereby authors names and date of publication appear in the text should be used e.g. Kamara, 1995. Within the manuscript texts, for more than 2 authors, only the first author is named followed by italicised “et al”.; Smith et al., 1999. References to several works by the same author published in one year should be distinguished as a, b, etc. e.g. Foday, 1998a; Foday, 1998b. References should be listed in alphabetical order at the end of the main text on a separate page. Reference to an article in a periodical should contain names and initials of all authors, year of publication, full title of the article, the volume number of the journal and the numbers of the first and last pages.
The following are examples of the Journal’s preferred style:
Journal article:
Oyewole OI (2007). Protective Role of Onion and Garlic on Physiochemical Alterations and Toxicity of Heated Soybean Oil. Afr J Biotech. 6: 2158-2161
Kamara RF, Yorkshire MP, Thorpe AM and Olayinka ET (1995). Paraquat-induced Gene Expression in Rat Kidney. Toxicol. 34:23-34
For references cited in a paper which has been accepted for publication but not published yet, the names and initials of all the authors and the journal should be given, followed by the word “in press” in brackets e.g Koroma SO, Mansaray AB and Wilson T (2008). Prevalence of Gonorrheal Infection among Commercial Sex Workers in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Sierra Leone J Biomed Sci. (in press).
Book:
Guyton AC and Hall JE (2000). Cell Functions. In: A Textbook of Medical Physiology. 10th ed. W.B. Saunders Co. Philadelphia. Pp: 382 – 401
Document:
WHO (2000). Global Database on Child Growth and Malnutrition: Forecast of Trends. WHO/NHD/00.3. WHO, Geneva.
Web text/Articles:
World Health Organization (2008). WHO Report, Global TB control: Nigeria. In: WHO, editor. Geneva, Switzerland: Available: http://www.who.int/globalatlas/predefinedReports/TB/PDF_Files/nga.pdf [Last accessed in 2008]
Ugwuja EI and Ugwu CN (2010). Seroprevalence of Hepatitis B Surface Antigen and Liver Function Tests among Adolescents in Abakaliki, South Eastern Nigeria. Internet J Tropical Med. 6 (2): http://www.ispub.com
Abbreviations, Symbols and Units: Use only standard abbreviations. Avoid using them in the title, abstract and keywords. The full term for which an abbreviation stands should precede its first use in the text unless it is a standard unit of measurement. SI units (metre, kilogram etc.), as outlined in the latest edition of Units, Symbols and Abbreviations: A Guide for Medical and Scientific Editors and Authors (Royal Society of Medicine Press, London), should be used wherever possible.
Proofs
Electronic proofs of accepted manuscript will be sent (e-mail attachment) to the corresponding author to check for typesetting errors and the completeness and accuracy of the text, tables and figures only. Page proofs are considered to be the final version of the manuscript. Authors will be charged for any changes to the text or figures. Proofs should be checked and returned within 72 hours. Author (s) will have electronic access to the full text (in PDF) of the article before the print issue. A complimentary copy of the print issue will be supplied to the corresponding author. Individual and institutions can subscribe or place order for copies of the journal.
Publication Charges
For all accepted articles, the authors are required to pay a processing charge. All authors of accepted papers within Sierra Leone are to pay handling and publication charge of One hundred and fifty thousand Leones (Le 150,000) while contributors outside Sierra Leone will pay One hundred and fifty United States Dollars ($150 USD). Details of payment will be made known to authors upon acceptance of manuscript.
