Instructions For Authors
Enacted in January 1986
Revised in June 2011
Revised in September 2014
Revised in December 2018
Revised in March 2020
The Korean Journal of Internal Medicine is published bimonthly on 1st of January, March, May, July, September, and November. Manuscripts for submission to The Korean Journal of Internal Medicine should be prepared according to the following instructions. The Korean Journal of Internal Medicine follows the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals: Writing and Editing for Biomedical Publication [1] commonly known as the Vancouver style, if not otherwise described below.
PUBLICATION TYPES, QUALIFICATION FOR AUTHORS AND LANGUAGE
RESEARCH AND PUBLICATION ETHICS
PEER REVIEW PROCESS
COPYRIGHTS
ELECTRONIC SUBMISSION OF MANUSCRIPT
MANUSCRIPT PREPARATION
REPRINTS
ARTICLE-PROCESSING CHARGES
ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDITING REQUIREMENT
REFERENCES RELATED TO INSTRUCTIONS FOR AUTHORS
MANUSCRIPT CHECKLIST
PUBLICATION TYPES, QUALIFICATION FOR AUTHORS AND LANGUAGE
The Korean Journal of Internal Medicine focuses on clinical and experimental studies, reviews, book reviews, editorials, and announcements. Any physicians or researchers throughout the world can submit a manuscript if the scope of the manuscript is appropriate. Manuscripts should be submitted in English. Medical terminology should be written based on the most recent edition of Dorland’s Illustrated Medical Dictionary [2] or the most recent edition of English-Korean Korean-English Medical Terminology, published by the Korean Medical Association [3].
RESEARCH AND PUBLICATION ETHICS
The Journal adheres to the ethical guidelines for research and publication described in Good Publication Practice Guidelines for Medical Journals [4] and Guidelines on Good Publication [5].
Registration of clinical trial research:
Any research that deals with a clinical trial should be registered with a primary national clinical trial registration site such as http://ncrc.cdc.go.kr/cris, or other sites accredited by WHO or the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors.
Conflict-of-interest statement:
The corresponding author must inform the editor of any potential conflicts of interest that could influence the authors interpretation of the data. Examples of potential conflicts of interest are financial support from or connections to pharmaceutical companies, political pressure from interest groups, and academically related issues. In particular, all sources of funding applicable to the study should be explicitly stated.
Statement of informed consent:
Copies of written informed consent and Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval for clinical research should be kept. If necessary, the editor or reviewers may request copies of these documents to resolve questions about IRB approval and study conduct.
Statement of human and animal rights:
All investigations involving human participants must be conducted according to the principles expressed in the Declaration of Helsinki [6]. Investigations involving human subjects or animals must have prior approval of the appropriate institutional review board or its equivalent. A statement whether the study is approved by the appropriate institutional review board should be included in the method section, and the approval number should be documented in the method section.
Authorship:
Authorship credit should be based on 1) substantial contributions to conception and design, acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; 2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and 3) final approval of the version to be published; and 4) agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy of integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. Authors should meet these four conditions. If the number of authors is greater than six, there should be a list of each author’s role for the submitted paper.
Originality and duplicate publication:
All submitted manuscripts should be original and should not be considered by other scientific journals for publication at the same time. Any part of the accepted manuscript should not be duplicated in any other scientific journal without the permission of the Editorial Board. If duplicate publication related to the papers of this journal is detected, the authors will be announced in the journal and their institutes will be informed, and there will also be penalties for the authors.
Secondary publication:
It is possible to republish manuscripts if the manuscripts satisfy the conditions of secondary publication of the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals [1].
PEER REVIEW PROCESS
The acceptance criteria for all papers are based on the quality and originality of the research and its clinical and scientific significance. An initial decision will normally be made within 4 weeks of receipt of a manuscript, and the reviewers comments are sent to the corresponding authors by e-mail. Revised manuscripts must be submitted online by the corresponding author. The corresponding author must indicate the alterations that have been made in response to the referees’ comments item by item. Failure to resubmit the revised manuscript within 8 weeks of the editorial decision is regarded as a withdrawal.
COPYRIGHTS
Korean Association of Internal Medicine retains the copyright, and The Korean Journal of Internal Medicine adopts CC BY-NC reuse policy. A copyright transfer form should be submitted to the editorial office by fax or regular mail on acceptance.
ELECTRONIC SUBMISSION OF MANUSCRIPT
Manuscripts should be submitted online at https://kjim.or.kr. Submission instructions are available at the website. All articles submitted to the Journal must comply with these instructions. Failure to do so will result in return of the manuscript and possible delay in publication. For assistance please contact us via e-mail (office@kjim.or.kr), telephone (+822 2266 7375), or fax (+822 790 0993).
MANUSCRIPT PREPARATION
Word processors and format of manuscript:
All materials must be written in clear, appropriate English. The manuscript must be written in 12-point font with double-line spacing and at least 3-cm margins on A4 or letter-size paper using Microsoft Word or other major word processing programs. All pages should be numbered consecutively starting with the title page. All measurements should be in metric units.
Reporting guidelines for specific study designs:
For the specific study design, such as randomized control studies, studies of diagnostic accuracy, meta-analyses, observational studies and non-randomized studies, it is recommended that the authors follow the reporting guidelines listed in the following table [1].
Reporting sex or gender:
Ensure correct use of the terms sex (when reporting biological factors) and gender (identity, psychosocial or cultural factors), and, unless inappropriate, report the sex or gender of study participants, the sex of animals or cells, and describe the methods used to determine sex or gender. If the study was done involving an exclusive population, for example in only one sex, authors should justify why, except in obvious cases (e.g., prostate cancer). Authors should define how they determined race or ethnicity and justify their relevance.
ORIGINAL ARTICLES
Original articles are reports of basic or clinical investigations. Although there is no limitation on the length of these manuscripts, the Editorial Board may abridge excessive illustrations and large tables. The manuscript for an original article should be organized in the following sequence: title page, abstract and keywords, introduction, methods, results, discussion, key message, acknowledgments, references, tables, and figure legends.
The cover letter should inform the editor that neither the submitted material nor portions thereof have been published previously or are under consideration for publication elsewhere. It should state any potential conflict of interest that could influence the authors interpretation of the data, such as financial support from or connections to pharmaceutical companies, political pressure from interest groups, or academically related issues.
Initiative Type of study Source
CONSORT Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials http://www.consort-statement.org
STARD Standards for Reporting of Diagnostic accuracy studies http://www.stard-statement.org
PRISMA Preferred Reporting Items of Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses http://www.prisma-statement.org
STROBE Strengthening the Reporting of Observational studies in Epidemiology http://www.strobe-statement.org
MOOSE Meta-analysis of Observational Studies in Epidemiology http://www.consort-statement.org/mod_product/uploads/MOOS%20Statement%202000.pdf
Title page:
The title page should list the title of the article and the full names and institutional affiliations of all authors. The title should be short, informative, and contain the major key words (no more than 120 characters, not including spaces between words). The use of acronyms and abbreviations should be avoided, and the species of any experimental animal must be indicated in the title. A short running title must also be provided, consisting of fewer than 40 characters including spaces. For a multicenter study, indicate each individual’s affiliation using a superscript Arabic number. Contact information for correspondence must be provided, consisting of the name, academic degree(s), address (institutional affiliation, city, zip code, and country), telephone and fax numbers, and e-mail address.
Abstract and Keywords:
The abstract of the original article should be no more than 250 words and be divided into four subsections: Background/Aims, Methods, Results, and Conclusions. Abbreviations, if needed, should be kept to an absolute minimum and identified clearly. Up to five keywords should be listed below the abstract. For selecting keywords, refer to the Index Medicus Medical Subject Headings [7].
Introduction:
The introduction should include a brief background of the topic for general readers and should refer to the most pertinent papers and relevant findings of others in the field. The specific questions to be addressed by the study should also be described.
Methods:
Methods should be described concisely, but in sufficient detail to allow other qualified investigators to repeat the experiments. The sources of special chemicals or reagents should be given along with the source location (name of company, city, state/province, and country). If needed, include information on the institutional review board/ethics committee approval or waiver and informed consent. Methods of statistical analysis and criteria for statistical significance should be described.
Results:
The results should be presented in logical order using text, tables, and illustrations. Duplication of table or figure content should be avoided.
Discussion:
The discussion section is a concise interpretation and discussion of the data and results. Speculation is permitted, but it must be supported by the presented data. Content already presented in the results should not be repeated in the discussion.
Key message:
Authors are required to include a “Key message”, which should contain short bullet points on the new findings in the study. For example:
1. RAAS inhibitors showed cardio-protective benefits in hypertensive patients, with a reduction in atherosclerosis and inflammation.
2. In patients with type 2 diabetes, RAAS inhibitors conferred reno-protective benefits.
3. RAAS inhibitors offers the potential to treat patients early in the cardiorenal continuum to prevent target organ damage.
Acknowledgments:
All persons who have made substantial contributions, but who have not met the criteria for authorship, are acknowledged here. All sources of funding applicable to the study should be stated here explicitly.
References:
In the text, references should be cited with Arabic numerals in brackets, numbered in the order cited. In the references section, the references should be numbered and listed in order of appearance in the text. List all authors if there are less than or equal to six authors. List the first three authors followed by “et al.” if there are more than six authors. If an article has been published online, but has not yet been given an issue or pages, the digital object identifier (DOI) should be supplied. Journal titles should be abbreviated in the style used in Index Medicus. Other types of references not described below should follow The NLM Style Guide for Authors, Editors, and Publishers [8].
Journal articles:
1. Yoo BM, Lehman GA. Update on endoscopic treatment of chronic pancreatitis. Korean J Intern Med 2009;24:169-179.
2. Caselli RJ, Dueck AC, Osborne D, et al. Longitudinal modeling of age-related memory decline and the APOE epsilon4 effect. N Engl J Med 2009;361:255-263.
Entire book:
3. Gilman AG, Rall TW, Nies AS, Taylor P. Goodman and Gilman s the Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics. 9th ed. New York: Pergamon Press, 1996.
Part of a book:
4. Costa M, Furness JB, Llewellyn-Smith IF. Histochemistry of the enteric nervous system. In: Johnson LR, ed. Physiology of the Gastrointestinal Tract. 2nd ed. Vol. 1. New York: Raven, 1987:1-40.
Dissertation:
5. Hong GD. The relationship between low serum cholesterol level and cancer mortality [dissertation]. Seoul (KR): Seoul National University, 2009.
Conference paper:
6. Rice AS, Brooks JW. Canabinoids and pain. In: Dostorovsky JO, Carr DB, eds. Proceedings of the 10th World Congress on Pain; 2002 Aug 17-22; San Diego, CA. Seattle (WA): IASP Press, 2003: 437-468.
Online publication:
7. Suzuki S, Kajiyama K, Shibata K, et al. Is there any association between retroperitoneal lymphadenectomy and survival benefit in ovarian clear cell carcinoma patients? Ann Oncol 2008 Mar 19 [Epub]. DOI:10.1093/annonc/mdn059.
Online sources:
8. American Cancer Society. Cancer reference information [Internet]. Atlanta (GA): American Cancer Society, c2009 [cited 2009 Nov 20]. Available from: http://www.cancer.org/docroot/CRI/CRI_0.asp.
9. National Cancer Information Center. Cancer incidence [Internet]. Goyang (KR): National Cancer Information Center, c2009 [cited 2009 Oct 20]. Available from: http://www.cancer.go.kr/cms/statics.
Tables:
Tables should be constructed simply and should not duplicate information found in the figures. Each table should have a title, begin on a new page, and be numbered with an Arabic numeral in the order of its citation in the text. If numerical measurements are given, the unit of measurement should be included in the column heading. The statistical significance of observed differences in the data should be indicated by the appropriate statistical analysis. All nonstandard abbreviations should be defined in footnotes. Lower case letters in superscripts a), b), c) ... should be used for special remarks.
Figures:
Only high-resolution figure files (preferably 600 dpi for color figures and 1,200 dpi for line art and graphs) should be submitted. Figure images should be provided in EPS or TIF format, although the JPEG format is allowed for color figures. The smallest parts of a figure should be legible when they are reduced to the final print size. Each figure should be saved as a separate electronic file. Symbols, arrows, or letters used in photographs should contrast from the background visually. The legend for each light microscopic image should indicate the stain used and the level of magnification. Electron micrographs should have an internal magnification scale marker. All types of figures may be reduced, enlarged, or trimmed for publication by the editor.
REVIEWS
Reviews are invited by the editor and should be comprehensive analyses of specific topics. They are organized as follows: title page, abstract and keywords, introduction, body text, conclusion, acknowledgments, references, tables, and figure legends. There should be an unstructured abstract equal to or less than 200 words. The length of the text excluding references, tables, and figures should not exceed 7,500 words.
EDITORIALS
Editorials are invited by the editor and should be commentaries on articles published recently in the Journal. Editorial topics could include active areas of research, fresh insights, and debates in all fields of internal medicine. Editorials should not exceed 2,000 words, excluding references, tables, and figures.
IMAGES OF INTEREST
The purpose of the Image of Interest is to present state-of-the-art imaging that assists in the evaluation of unusual features of common conditions or in the diagnosis of unusual cases. Images should be pathologic and radiographic with high quality and illustrate the full spectrum of the disorder.
The manuscript for Image of Interest should be organized in the following sequence: the title, a summary of the presentation (cardinal features and key laboratory results will be described briefly), the imaging features (particularly those that lead to diagnosis or which are critical for management), discussion (brief discussion of the disease or the diagnostic or therapeutic process), and the full names and institutional affiliations of authors. There should be no more than two figures and five authors and they should not exceed 300 words in total.
Authors should remove all information that could be used to identify a patient, such as a name, a hospital name or hospital number and so forth from the figure, the figure legend and the text.
CORRESPONDENCE
Correspondence includes a short and concise communication commenting on a recently published article in the KJIM. They should not exceed 500 words (excluding references) and five references. They should have no more than three authors.
REPRINTS
A minimum of 50 off-prints will be provided on request, at the author’s expense. An off-print order form outlining the cost will be sent to the corresponding author with the page proofs.
ARTICLE-PROCESSING CHARGES
Effective from February 1, 2021, an article processing charge of $700 (￦700,000 KRW) for original articles and $100 (￦100,000 KRW) for Images of Interest will be applicable for articles accepted for publication in the Korean Journal of Internal Medicine. No charges are applied to Correspondence. Submission of the article to the journal can be completed once the payment method has been agreed. Any applicable article processing charge must be paid prior to publication.
NOTE: These article processing charges are waived for articles with corresponding authors based in countries outside the Republic of Korea.
ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDITING REQUIREMENT
If the corresponding author is not based on a country which uses English as a primary language, a certificate confirming that your paper was reviewed and verified by a native English speaker needs to be submitted to the editorial office.
This certificate is required at the time you submit your article.
REFERENCES RELATED TO INSTRUCTIONS FOR AUTHORS
1. International Committee of Medical Journal Editor. Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals: Writing and Editing for Biomedical Publication [Internet]. International Committee of Medical Journal Editor; 1979 [updated 2008 Oct; cited 2009 Nov 1]. Available from: http://www.icmje.org/urm_main.html.
2. Dorland WA. Dorland s Illustrated Medical Dictionary [Internet]. Elsevier; c1898 [updated 2008; cited 2009 Nov 1]. Available from: http://www.dorlands.com.
3. Korean Medical Association. English-Korean Korean-English Medical Terminology [Internet]. Seoul (KR): Korean Medical Association; 1977 [updated 2005; cited 2009 Aug 1]. Available from: http://www.kamje.or.kr/term.
4. Korean Association of Medical Journal Editors. Good Publication Practice Guidelines for Medical Journals [Internet]. Seoul: Korean Association of Medical Journal Editors; 2008 [cited 2009 Nov 1]. Available from: http://kamje.or.kr/publishing_ethics.html.
5. Committee on Publication Ethics. Guidelines on Good Publication Practice [Internet]. London: Committee on Publication Ethics; 1999 [cited 2009 Nov 1]. Available from: http://publicationethics.org/static/1999/1999pdf13.pdf.
6. World Medical Association. Declaration of Helsinki [Internet]. Ferney-Voltaire: World Medical Association; 1964 [updated 2013 Oct; cited 2020 Aug 10]. Available from: https://www.wma.net/what-we-do/medicalethics/ declaration-of-helsinki.
7. National Library of Medicine (US). MeSH [Internet]. Bethesda (MD): National Library of Medicine (US); 1954 [updated 2009, cited 2009 Nov 1]. Available from: http://www.ncbi. nlm.nih.gov/sites entrez?db=mesh.
8. Patrias K. Citing medicine: the NLM style guide for authors, editors, and publishers [Internet]. 2nd ed. Wendling DL, technical editor. Bethesda (MD): National Library of Medicine (US); 2007 [updated 2009 Jan 14; cited 2009 Aug 1]. Available from: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/citingmedicine.
Manuscript Checklist
□ The manuscript is double-spaced and written in a standard 12-point font.
□ The cover letter has been submitted with the manuscript.
□ All pages are numbered consecutively, beginning with the title page.
□ Material is presented in this order (in the case of an original article): Title page, Abstract and Keywords, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgments, References, Tables, and Figure legends.
□ The title page lists the article title, names and affiliations of all authors, a name and address for correspondence, a short running title, and footnotes.
□ The abstract contains no more than 250 words in original articles. Up to five relevant MeSH keywords are included.
□ References have been checked for accuracy and are listed in the proper format. All references listed in the References section are cited in the text and vice versa.
□ Figures have been made professionally in the acceptable formats. All figures are high resolution.
