Guidelines for authors
INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS
AIM AND SCOPE
Acta Clinica Croatica is a peer reviewed general medical journal that publishes original articles that advance and improve medical science and practice and that serve the purpose of transfer of original and valuable information to journal readers. Acta Clinica Croatica is published in English four times a year.
SUBMITTING A MANUSCRIPT
All manuscripts must be written in English and in accordance with the ICMJE Recommendations (Recommendations by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, formerly the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts) available at the webpage: http://www.icmje.org/
Submission by e-mail
Manuscript submission by e-mail is also possible to the following address: acta@kbcsm.hr, in which case, the Author Copyrigh Agreement containing signatures of all authors should be sent by email as an attachment or by regular mail to the ACC Editorial Office postal address.
Submission by online submission system
ACC uses Online Submission System hosted by HRCAK (http://hrcak.srce.hr/ojs). Authors can submit their manuscript via Online Submission System by registering on the following link and uploading neccessary documents (manuscript, Author Copyright Agreement, suggestion of reviewers…): http://hrcak.srce.hr/ojs/index.php/acc/user/register
Submission by regular mail
Manuscripts should be submitted in duplicate accompanied by the electronic version on CD or USB stick to the postal address: Editorial Office, Acta Clinica Croatica, Sestre milosrdnice University Hospital, Vinogradska 29, HR-10000 Zagreb, Croatia.
AUTHORSHIP
All persons designated as authors should qualify for authorship, and all those who qualify should be listed. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content. All others who contributed to the work who are not authors should be named in the Acknowledgments. All authors should take responsibility for the integrity of the whole work, from inception to published article.
Author Copyright Agreement
Manuscripts must be accompanied by an Author Copyright Agreement signed by all authors. Sample of the ACA can be found at the following link: http://actaclinica.eu/instructions/for-authors/
Suggestion of Reviewers
Authors should suggest up to five relevant reviewers (at least two foreign) who hold a PhD degree and do not work in the authors’ institutions. Possible reviewers should be listed with their affiliation, institution name and email address. However, final selection of reviewers will be determined by the Editors.
PREPARATION OF MANUSCRIPT
The manuscript must be prepared using Microsoft Office Word. Type or print out the manuscript on white bond paper ISO A4 (212 × 297 mm), with 25-mm margins. Type or print on only one side of the paper. Use double spacing throughout, including the title page, abstract, text, acknowledgments, references, individual tables, and legends. Number pages consecutively, beginning with the title page. Put the page number in the lower right-hand corner of each page.
The text of the manuscript should be divided into sections:
Title page, Abstract and Key words, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgment, References, Tables, Legends and Figures.
Title page
The title page should carry: the title of the article (which should be concise but informative) and a short running title of the manuscript; full name of author(s), with academic degree(s) and institutional affiliation; the name and address of the author responsible for correspondence about the manuscript including his/her E-mail address.
Abstract and Key Words
The second page should carry an abstract (summary) both in English and Croatian (of no more than 200 words each). The abstract should state the purposes of the study or investiActa gation, basic procedures, main findings, and principal conclusions. It should emphasize new and important aspects of the study or observations. Below the abstract, the authors should provide 3 to 10 key words or short phrases that will assist indexers in cross-indexing the article and may be published with the abstract. Terms from the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) list of Index Medicus should be used for key words.
Introduction
State the purpose of the article and summarize the rationale for the study or observation. Give only strictly relevant references and do not include data or conclusions from the work being reported.
Methods
Describe selection and identify all important characteristics of the observational or experimental subjects or laboratory animals clearly. Specify carefully what the descriptors mean, and explain how the data were collected. Identify the methods, apparatus with the manufacturer’s name and address in parentheses, and procedures in sufficient detail to allow other workers to reproduce the results. Provide references to established methods and statistical methods used. Describe new or substantially modified methods, give reasons for using them, and evaluate their limitations. Identify precisely all drugs and chemicals used. Use only generic names of drugs. All measurements should be expressed in SI units.
Ethics
Papers dealing with experiments on human subjects should clearly indicate that the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional or regional responsible committee on human experimentation and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 1983. Never use patients’ names, initials, or hospital numbers, especially in illustrative material. Papers dealing with experiments on animals should indicate that the institution’s or a national research council’s guide for the care and use of laboratory animals was followed.
Statistics
Describe statistical methods with enough detail to enable a knowledgeable reader with access to the original data to verify the reported results. Whenever possible, quantify findings and present them with appropriate indicators of measurement error or uncertainty. Specify any general-use computer programs used.
Discussion
Emphasize the new and important aspects of the study and the conclusions that follow from them. Do not repeat in detail data or other material given in the Introduction or the Results section. Include in the Discussion section the implications of the findings and their limitations, including implications for future research, but avoid unqualified statements and conclusions not completely supported by the data. Relate the observations from your study to other relevant studies. State new hypotheses when warranted, but clearly label them as such.
Tables
Type or print out each table with double spacing on a separate sheet of paper. Do not submit tables as photographs. Number tables consecutively in the order of their first citation in the text and supply a brief title for each. Give each column a short heading.
Figures
Figures and illustrations should be professionally drawn and photographed. Make sure that letters, numbers, and symbols should be legible even when reduced in size for publication. Each figure should have a label pasted on its back indicating the number of the figure, manuscript title and top of the figure. Figures should be numbered consecutively according to the order in which they have been first cited in the text. If photographs of people are used, either the subjects must not be identifiable or their pictures must be accompanied by written permission to use the photograph. The preferred formats are JPEG and TIFF, although any format in general use that is not application-specific is acceptable. Make sure that minimum resolution should be 300 dpi.
Abbreviations
Use only standard abbreviations. The full term for which an abbreviation stands should precede its first use in the text unless it is a standard unit of measurement.
Acknowledgments
List all contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship, such as a person who provided purely technical help, writing assistance, or a department chair who provided only general support. Financial and material support should also be acknowledged.
References
References should be numbered consecutively in the orderin which they are first mentioned in the text. Identify references in the text, tables, and legends by Arabic numerals in superscript. Also, the reference list must be arranged so that each reference contains the matching DOI number.
References style should follow the NLM standards summarized in the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) Recommendations for the Conduct, ReActa Clin Croat 2017; 56:1-3 Instructions to authors porting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals: Sample References, available at the webpage http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/uniform_requirements.html
These resources are regularly updated as new media develop, and currently include guidance for print documents; unpublished material; audio and visual media; material on CD-ROM, DVD, or disk; and material on the Internet. References to papers accepted but not yet published should be designated as “in press” and in case of e-publication ahead of print, the author should provide DOI. The author should obtain written permission to cite such papers as well as verification that they have been accepted for publication.
EDITORIAL PROCESS
After submission of the manuscript, the author will receive a letter confirming manuscript receipt. Each manuscript is checked for text similarity and manually verified by the editor. We use CrossRef Similarity Check with Ithenticate algorithm (https://www.crossref.org/services/similarity-check/). All manuscripts appropriate for the reviewing process are anonymously sent to at least two reviewers. Acta Clinica Croatica is committed to promote peer review quality and fairness. The reviewers are asked to treat the manuscript with confidentiality. Authors are welcome to suggest up to five potential reviewers for their manuscript (excluding co-authors or collaborators for the last three years), or to ask for exclusion of reviewer(s) and the reasons for it. The Editorial Board may or may not accept authors’ suggestions regarding reviewers.
Usually four to six months after submission, the authors will receive the reviews. Generally, the instructions, objections and requests made by the reviewers should be closely followed. The authors are invited to revise their manuscript in accordance with the reviewers’ suggestions, and to explain amendments made in accordance with the reviewers’ requests. The articles that receive more than one reviewer’s recommendations for “major review” are sent after revision to the same reviewer, who makes final recommendation about the revised article. Based on the reviewers’ suggestions and recommendations, the Editorial Board makes final decision about acceptance of the submitted article for publication.
Authors will receive a letter confirming acceptance of the paper submitted for publication. Corresponding author will receive page-proof version of the article to make final corrections of possible printing errors.
