Updated April 19, 2021
Canadian Association of Radiologists Journal
The Canadian Association of Radiologists Journal (CAR Journal) is a peer-reviewed, Medline-indexed publication that presents a broad scientific review of radiology in Canada. Since its first publication in 1950, the journal has been dedicated to publishing articles pertaining to current, cutting-edge diagnostic and therapeutic radiology as well as guidance on emerging techniques and technologies.
The CAR Journal brings the latest information to subscribers four times per year, online and in print. It features a journal-based self-assessment program, Insights4Imaging, designated as continuing professional development (CPD) activities. Access to these CPD activities is available through the CAR’s learning management system, RAD Academy.
SUBMITTING to the CAR Journal
All manuscripts and letters must be submitted online through SAGE Track: https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/carj
INSTRUCTIONS FOR AUTHORS
ARTICLE TYPES
The CAR Journal publishes the following manuscript types: Original Research, Review Articles, Guidelines, Editorials, Letters to the Editor and Replies.
Original Research Data-driven original research of interest to the radiology community. This category includes all hypothesis driven research such as: randomized trials, diagnostic test accuracy studies and systematic reviews (+/- meta-analysis). Systematic review protocols must be registered in PROPERO, and adhere to PRISMA (or PRISMA-DTA) reporting guidelines. Other research categories are encouraged to register their study protocols with the appropriate agency (e.g. clintrials.gov) and use the reporting guideline relevant to their study design. Reporting guidelines can be found on the EQUATOR Network site.
Manuscript requirements:
• Word count <3000 words excluding abstract, tables/figures, and references.
• Title page (see details below)
• Abstract (<250 words): A structured abstract using the subheadings purpose, methods, results, and conclusions. Abstracts should not contain references or abbreviations.
• Original research should be presented using IMRAD structure (Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion).
• Introduction: Briefly describes the purpose of the investigation and relevant background information including knowledge gaps.
• Methods: A statement on ethics approval must be included. Describes the materials used and/or participants, as well as the imaging protocols and other methods. Outlines in detail any statistical methods used. The names and locations (as city and province or state) of equipment manufacturers are given. Generic names are provided for drugs and contrast media. Where relevant authors should adhere to standardized reporting guidelines (refer to EQUATOR Network for further details).
• Results: Presented in a clear and logical fashion. If tables and graphs are used, they should summarize the data and not be repeated in the text.
• Discussion: Describes the relevance of the findings outlined in the results section. Puts the results in the context of what other studies have found, presents the limitations of the statistics and other methods, and clearly demonstrates the important outcomes of the study.
• References: No more than 35. For details on formatting see article structure section below.
• Figures: Up to 6 figure parts, including charts and graphs, with clear legends and arrows if appropriate.
• Tables: Up to 4 tables with clear legends
Research Letters
Research letters are original research articles presented as focused reports. Letters must not duplicate other material published or submitted for publication. They will be peer-reviewed in the same manner as Original Research articles.
Manuscript requirements:
• Research letters should be presented using IMRAD structure (Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion).
• Word count <600 words
• References: No more than 6
• Tables: No more than 1
• Figures (images, charts, and graphs): No more than 2, with clear legends and arrows if appropriate
• An abstract is not required
Review Articles Review articles cover the existing state of understanding in a specific research area or topic.
Manuscript requirements:
• Word count < 4,000 words excluding abstract, tables/figures, and references.
• Abstract < 250 words, with no references
• Introduction: Briefly describes the purpose and scope of the article and explains its importance. The headings that are utilized will be dependent on the topic being reviewed.
• References: No more than 80
• Figures: Up to 20 figure parts, including charts and graphs, with clear legends and arrows if appropriate.
• Tables: Up to 4 tables with clear legends
Guidelines
The CAR Journal publishes guidelines on behalf of the Canadian Association of Radiologists, CAR Affiliates, and guidelines co-published by those bodies in collaboration with other societies.
Manuscript Requirements
• Word count < 4500 words
• References: No more than 100
• Tables: No more than 4
• Figures (images, charts, and graphs): No more than 6, with clear legends and arrows if appropriate.
Editorials Editorials are invited by the CAR Journal Editorial Office. These Editorials reflect the opinion of the author, who is an expert in the field. The CAR Journal welcomes unsolicited proposals, please contact the Editor-in-Chief (eic@car.ca) for further information.
Manuscript Requirements
• Word count < 1000 words
• References: No more than four
• No figures or tables
Letters to the Editor and Replies Letters to the Editor (by up to four authors) may discuss subjects of general interest to radiologists. They may also offer constructive comments or questions of a published article. In the latter situation, critiqued authors will be given an opportunity to reply.
Manuscript requirements:
• Word count < 350 words
• Short title that relates to the subject of the letter. Letters should not comment on the integrity, competence, or sincerity of others.
• Authors' names and their affiliations should appear at the end of the letter.
• References: No more than four.
• Figures: No more than 2 parts.
EDITORIAL POLICIES
Peer review
• The CARJ uses a double-blind peer-review process, which means that both the reviewer and author identities are concealed from the reviewers, and vice versa, throughout the review process.
• The Title Page must be blinded (see details in article structure section below).
• Do not self-identify your prior work. For example, do not state “as we have previously described,” [author’s reference]. Instead, suitable language would be, “Prior studies have shown… “[reference].
• Do not mention the author(s)’ institution or funding information in the manuscript.
• Blind the author(s)’ initials if they are readers.
Authorship CAR Journal agrees with the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) that authors must meet the following four criteria:
1. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work.
2. Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content.
3. Final approval of the version to be published.
4. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
The CAR Journal will allow only two first authors. If two authors contributed equally to the manuscript and request to share first authorship, it should be stated in cover letter during the initial submission of the manuscript. Each manuscript can only have one senior and/or corresponding author.
Changes to authorship Authors are expected to consider carefully the list and order of authors before submitting their manuscript and provide the definitive list of authors at the time of the original submission. Any addition, deletion or rearrangement of author names in the authorship list should be made only before the manuscript has been accepted and only if approved by the journal Editor. To request such a change, the Editor must receive the following from the corresponding author:
a) the reason for the change in author list and
b) written confirmation (e-mail, letter) from all authors that they agree with the addition, removal or rearrangement. In the case of addition or removal of authors, this includes confirmation from the author being added or removed.
Only in exceptional circumstances will the Editor consider the addition, deletion or rearrangement of authors after the manuscript has been accepted. While the Editor considers the request, publication of the manuscript will be suspended. If the manuscript has already been published in an online issue, any requests approved by the Editor will result in a corrigendum.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
All authors must disclose any conflicts of interest or perceived conflicts of interest. This may include, but not be limited to commercial affiliations, consultant affiliations, stock, equity, or patent/licensing interests. All funding sources, including grant numbers, must be disclosed. Learn more
Authors must disclose in two places:
1. A summary declaration of interest statement in the Title Page. If there are no interests to declare then please state this: 'Declarations of interest: none'. This summary statement will be ultimately published if the article is accepted.
2. Detailed disclosures as part of a separate Declaration of Conflicting Interests form, which forms part of the journal's official records. It is important for conflicts of interests to be declared in both places and that the information matches.
Research ethics and consent
Medical research involving human participants must be conducted according to the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki. The manuscript should be in line with the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals and aim for the inclusion of representative human populations (sex, age and ethnicity) as per those recommendations. The terms sex and gender should be used correctly.
Information on informed consent to report individual cases or case series should be included in the manuscript text. Authors should include a statement in the manuscript that informed consent was obtained for experimentation with human participants and whether the consent was written or verbal.
For studies that employed animals, authors must state that the research followed institutional, local, and national guidelines for animal experimentation and was approved by an institutional committee on animal research. The sex of animals must be indicated, and where appropriate, the influence (or association) of sex on the results of the study.
Clinical trials If your study is prospective and was registered in a clinical trials registry such as ClinicalTrials.gov, then the trial registry name and URL, and registration number must be included at the end of the abstract.
PUBLISHING POLICIES
Publication ethics We encourage authors to refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics’ International Standards for Authors and view the Publication Ethics & Responsibility page on the SAGE Author Gateway.
Plagiarism
The CAR Journal takes issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. Submitted articles may be checked with duplication-checking software.
Prior Publication Upon submission, authors must confirm that their manuscript has not been published previously, is not currently in press, is not publicly available in any form or format, and is not under consideration elsewhere. Authors wishing to reproduce material appearing in other publications, such as figures, tables or limited text passages, must obtain appropriate permission from the copyright holder and reproduced material must be disclosed in the cover letter. Learn more
Reporting Guidelines
The CAR Journal strongly endorses complete and transparent reporting of research. Authors should consult standardized reporting guidelines relevant to their research. For example, diagnostic accuracy studies should consult STARD 2015, systematic reviews should consult PRISMA (or its extension such as PRISMA-DTA), and randomized trials should consult CONSORT. The EQUATOR network is a comprehensive resource for authors to determine which reporting guideline is optimal for their research type.
Permissions Authors are responsible for obtaining permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. Learn more
Open Access The CAR Journal is classified as a “Hybrid Open Access Journal.” This means that some of its content is published Open Access (OA), while other content is published via the more traditional subscription model. If researchers take no action, their work will typically be published using the traditional subscription-based model: it will be published in the journal, without a cost to the author, but fees are levied for readers to obtain access to the paper. However, should a researcher wish to make his or her work OA, contributors to the CAR Journal have two options: authors can pay an article processing charge (APC) to have the work made OA at the time of publication or authors can self-archive their work in a suitable repository to be made available after an embargo period has elapsed. Authors are encouraged to refer to an editorial in CAR Journal on resources for dissemination.
Funding Acknowledgements All research articles should have a funding acknowledgement statement included in the manuscript in the form of a sentence under a separate heading entitled ‘Funding’ directly after your Acknowledgements and Declaration of Conflicting Interests, if applicable, and prior to any Notes and References. Learn More
SUBMITTING YOUR MANUSCRIPT
How to submit your manuscript
All manuscripts and letters must be submitted online through SAGE Track: https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/carj
CAR Journal is hosted on SAGE Track, a web based online submission and peer review system powered by ScholarOne™ Manuscripts.
IMPORTANT: Please check whether you already have an account in the system before trying to create a new one. For further guidance on submitting your manuscript online please visit ScholarOne Online Help.
ORCID
ORCID provides a unique and persistent digital identifier that distinguishes researchers from every other researcher, even those who share the same name, and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between researchers and their professional activities, ensuring that their work is recognized. We encourage all authors and co-authors to link their ORCIDs to their accounts in the online peer review platform. Learn More
ARTICLE STRUCTURE
Cover letter
A cover letter must accompany the initial submission. This letter must confirm that the manuscript has not been published previously, and that it is not currently under consideration for publication by any other journal. The letter must also disclose any relevant information to the editor, including potential competing interest or conflict of interest (e.g. commercial interest of the authors in the subject of the study).
Essential Title Page Information The title page should include the following information:
• Title: Concise and informative. Titles are often used in information-retrieval systems. Avoid abbreviations and formulae where possible.
• Author names and affiliations: Provide the author’s full name and the degrees they hold (MD, PhD, etc.). Where the family name may be ambiguous (e.g., a double name), please indicate this clearly. Present the authors' affiliation addresses (where the actual work was done) below the names. Indicate all affiliations with a lower-case superscript letter immediately after the author's name and in front of the appropriate address. Provide the full postal address of each affiliation, including the country name and, if available, the e-mail address of each author.
• Corresponding author: Clearly indicate who will handle correspondence at all stages of refereeing and publication, also post-publication. Ensure that phone numbers (with country and area code) are provided in addition to the e-mail address and the complete postal address. Contact details must be kept up to date by the corresponding author.
• Present/permanent address: If an author has moved since the work described in the article was done, or was visiting at the time, a 'Present address' (or 'Permanent address') may be indicated as a footnote to that author's name. The address at which the author actually did the work must be retained as the main, affiliation address. Superscript Arabic numerals are used for such footnotes.
• Short title: Please supply an abbreviated version of the title for the running head. The short title should be no more than 45 characters long (including spaces).
• Keywords: Provide a list of no more than 6 relevant key words. Avoid general and plural terms and multiple concepts (avoid, for example, 'and', 'of'). Do not use abbreviations. These keywords will be used for indexing purposes.
• Acknowledgements: Collate acknowledgements on the title page, as a footnote to the title or otherwise. List individuals who provided help during the research (e.g., providing language help, writing assistance or proofreading the article, etc.).
Subdivision - unnumbered sections Divide your article into clearly defined sections. Each subsection is given a brief heading. Each heading should appear on its own separate line. Subsections should be used as much as possible when cross-referencing text: refer to the subsection by heading as opposed to simply 'the text'.
Units Follow internationally accepted rules and conventions: use the international system of units (SI). If other units are mentioned, please give their equivalent in SI.
Artwork
Please follow the Artwork Guidelines
Figure Captions Ensure that each illustration has a caption. Supply captions separately, not attached to the figure. A caption should comprise a brief title (not on the figure itself) and a description of the illustration. Keep text in the illustrations themselves to a minimum but explain all symbols and abbreviations used. A list of descriptive legends for all figures should be included with the double-spaced manuscript text, numbered in the order in which they are cited in the text. Tables
• Each table should be on a separate page and have a short descriptive title.
• Number tables consecutively in accordance with their appearance in the text.
• Define abbreviations in an explanatory note below each table.
• Place footnotes to tables below the table body and indicate them with superscript lowercase letters.
• Avoid vertical rules.
• Be sparing in the use of tables and ensure that the data presented in tables do not duplicate results described elsewhere in the article.
Funding sources Please follow the Funding Acknowledgement Guidelines
References Citation in text Please ensure that every reference cited in the text is also present in the reference list (and vice versa). Any references cited in the abstract must be given in full. Unpublished results and personal communications are not recommended in the reference list but may be mentioned in the text. Citation of a reference as 'in press' implies that the item has been accepted for publication. Reference formatting When formatting your references, please follow the SAGE Vancouver reference style. Note that missing data will be highlighted at proof stage for the author to correct.
Reference links Increased discoverability of research and high-quality peer review are ensured by online links to the sources cited. In order to allow us to create links to abstracting and indexing services, such as Scopus, CrossRef and PubMed, please ensure that data provided in the references are correct. Use of the DOI is highly encouraged. Data references The CAR Journal encourages you to cite underlying or relevant datasets in your manuscript by citing them in your text and including a data reference in your Reference List. Data references should include the following elements: author name(s), dataset title, data repository, version (where available), year, and global persistent identifier. Add [dataset] immediately before the reference so we can properly identify it as a data reference. The [dataset] identifier will not appear in your published article.
Journal Abbreviations Source Journal titles are abbreviated according to Index Medicus (available at www.nlm.nih.gov/tsd/serials/lji.html). Journal titles should not be italicized.
ON ACCEPTANCE AND PUBLICATION
SAGE Production Your SAGE Production Editor will keep you informed as to your article’s progress throughout the production process. Proofs will be sent by PDF to the corresponding author and should be returned promptly.
Access to your published article SAGE provides authors with online access to their final article.
Online First publication Online First allows final revision articles (completed articles in queue for assignment to an upcoming issue) to be published online prior to their inclusion in a final journal issue which significantly reduces the lead time between submission and publication. For more information please visit Online First Fact Sheet
For any further information please visit Journal Author Gateway
