The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery welcomes articles that contribute to orthopaedic knowledge from all sources in all countries. • Articles are accepted only for exclusive publication in The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery. Previously published articles, even those in peer-reviewed electronic publications, are not accepted by The Journal. • Publication does not constitute official endorsement of opinions presented in articles. • Published articles and illustrations become the property of The Journal. • If the Editor-in-Chief of The Journal requests additional data forming the basis for the work, the authors will make the data available for examination in a timely fashion. • All manuscripts dealing with the study of human subjects must include a statement that the subjects gave Informed Consent to participate in the study and that the study has been approved by an institutional review board or a similar committee. All Case Reports must include a statement that each subject was informed that data concerning the case would be submitted for publication. All studies should be carried out in accordance with the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki, as presented in The Journal (1997;79-A:1089-98). Patient confidentiality must be protected according to the U.S. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). • All clinical trials submitted for consideration must have been registered in a public trials registry. • All manuscripts dealing with experimental results in animals must include a statement that the study has been approved by an animal utilization study committee. The authors should also include information about the management of postoperative pain for both animal and human subjects. • In the preparation of a manuscript, authors should, in general, follow the recommendations in "Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals: Writing and Editing for Biomedical Publication" by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, October 2004 (www.icmje.org). • On occasion, reviewers, associate editors, and/or deputy editors may have a conflict of interest or a competing interest with regard to the subject matter of a manuscript. Such conflicts are disclosed to the Editor-in-Chief, who has no known conflicts of interest or competing interests and who makes the final decision regarding acceptance or rejection of all manuscripts submitted to The Journal.
Submission of Manuscript
The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery uses a web-based service, provided by Editorial Manager, requiring authors to submit and track manuscripts electronically. Authors must register via the Internet address jbjs.edmgr.com/. You will be e-mailed a confidential username and password that will enable you to access the system and submit your manuscript.
When you submit an article, the following items must be included:
1. Title Page: List the title of the manuscript and the authors' names in the order in which they should appear. Provide a complete mailing address for each author. Clearly designate the corresponding author and his/her mailing address, telephone number, fax number, and e-mail address.
2. Blinded Manuscript: The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery has a policy of blinded peer review. The manuscript must not contain any mention of the authors' names or initials or the institution at which the study was done. Page headers can include the title but not the authors' names. Manuscripts not in compliance with The Journal's blinding policy will be returned to the corresponding author.
3. IRB Approval: A copy of the letter granting approval from the institutional review board or the animal utilization study committee is required. You must reference the manuscript title and corresponding author on the fax cover sheet or in an accompanying letter.
4. Copyright Transfer and Author Agreement: Material appearing in The Journal is covered by copyright. All authors must sign a Copyright Transfer and Author Agreement form upon submission of the manuscript to The Journal. The form must reference the manuscript title and corresponding author. This form must be submitted by post mail, by fax, or in PDF format online.
5. Potential Conflict of Interest Statement: Authors of manuscripts must sign a Conflict of Interest Statement at the time of submission of each manuscript. The form must reference the manuscript title. This statement has no bearing on the editorial decision to publish a manuscript. That decision will continue to be based solely on the value of the article to the readers of The Journal. The signature of each author is required. No article will be published until the completed conflict of interest form has been incorporated into the record kept on that manuscript in The Journal office. The statements selected by the author or authors will be printed with the published article.
6. NIH Funding. The Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery, Inc., has signed an agreement with the National Institutes of Health that allows authors to comply with the NIH "Public Access Policy" effective April 7, 2008. NIH policy requires that NIH-funded articles be deposited in PubMed Central (PMC) in final accepted form and that they be available on PMC no later than twelve months after the manuscript has been published. As a result of participation by JBJS, Inc., in this program, JBJS will submit articles on the author's behalf so that they become available twelve months after publication. Please note that JBJS does not consider a manuscript conclusively accepted prior to publication.
7. Form Listing Illustrations or Tables Owned by Another Party: The author must submit a form informing The Journal if any illustrations or tables used in the article have been published previously or are owned by another party. The author is required to either enclose a letter, from the owner of the copyright, granting permission for The Journal to reprint the copyrighted material, or the author must state that the permission has been requested and provide an approximate date when the permission is expected to be received.
When you submit an article, the following items are optional:
1. Cover Letter
2. Acknowledgment If included, it must be attached as a separate file, not included in the text of the manuscript.
3. Tables must be labeled individually and submitted as separate electronic files. Tables should be submitted in their original file format and not as graphics files.
4. Figures must be submitted electronically. Each figure must be labeled separately and submitted as a separate electronic file. No more than 10 figures may be submitted. Refer to the section entitled Illustrations for figure format requirements.
The Journal discourages submission of illustrations that have been published elsewhere. When such illustrations are deemed essential, the author must include a letter, from the original holder of the copyright, granting permission to reprint the illustration. Give a full citation for the previous publication, as you would in your reference list.
Preparation of Manuscript
Manuscripts should be a maximum of 4000 words. They must be double-spaced with wide margins. Pages must be numbered sequentially. An article should consist of:
1. A structured abstract of no more than 325 words, consisting of five paragraphs, with the headings Background (which states the primary research question), Methods, Results, Conclusions, and Level of Evidence (for clinical articles) or Clinical Relevance (for basic-science articles). For the Level of Evidence section, describe the study type and assign a level-of-evidence rating to the primary research question, according to the criteria in this Table. Do not include an abstract with case reports.
2. The body should consist of:
Introduction: State the problem that led to the study, including a concise review of only the relevant literature. State your hypothesis and the purpose of the study. It is preferable if this is done in the form of a research question that describes the setting of the study, the popuation or sample studied, and the primary outcome measure.
Materials and Methods: Describe the study design in detail using standard methodologic terms, such as retrospective or prospective cohort study, prospective randomized trial, case-control, cross-sectional, etc. Reports of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) should follow the checklist developed by the CONSORT Group (www.consort-statement.org). Submissions reporting cohort, case-control and cross-sectional studies should conform to the format suggested by the STROBE panel (http://www.strobe-statement.org). Reporting of meta-analyses should conform to the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) Statement criteria. These are available at http://www.prisma-statement.org/. The Journal reserves the designation of "meta-analysis" for reviews of articles with level I and II evidence only. In addition, as clinical trials must be registered in a public trials registry, state that the trial was so registered and provide the name of the registry and the registry number. Reporting of all study designs should include information about the sample including how it was assembled and how inclusions and exclusions were identified. State how the sample size was determined. If a sample of convenience was utilized, this should be stated. If sample size was estimated on the basis of assumptions about the primary outcome measure, these should also be described in detail. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses must include a description of the sources of data used for the study. Methods used for study selection, data extraction and data synthesis must be described succinctly but with sufficient detail that the general approach used could be replicated. At the end of the Materials and Methods section, under the heading Source of Funding, explain the role of the funding source for the study. If there was no external funding source or if the funding source did not play a role in the investigation, that should be stated.
Statistical Methods should be described in detail, with particular emphasis on the statistical strategy that was used to analyze the data. The most appropriate strategy is that which fits the data that was collected and addresses the research question or hypothesis stated in the Introduction. In most circumstances this should have been established before the study was undertaken. Justification for complex statistical strategies, including those involving any kind of modeling approach, should be described in detail. It is especially important to identify any assumptions about the data that are implicit to the statistical strategy. In the analysis of categorical data utilize exact methods wherever possible. Where the variable of interest cannot be assumed to have a normal distribution, use non-parametric methods of analysis. Report results with only as much precision as is of value. In general the approach suggested in Bailar JC III, Mosteller F. Guidelines for statistical reporting in articles for medical journals: amplifications and explanations. Ann Intern Med. 1988;108:266-73 should be used.
For hypothesis testing scenarios the statement "no significant difference was found between two groups" must be accompanied by a value describing the power of the study to detect a Type II error (Designing Clinical Research, eds. Stephen Hulley, Steven Cummings, 1988, Williams and Wilkins, Baltimore, pp 128-49).
P values are required to support any statement indicating a significant difference. Meta-analyses must include a description of how data was pooled and the details of any sensitivity analyses that were performed. Ninety-five percent confidence intervals are required for any estimate appearing in the text or graphs. Use of the word correlation requires reporting of the correlation coefficient. Do not identify any statistical software unless some aspect of the analysis was uniquely dependent on a particular software package. The Journal encourages the use of validated outcome instruments wherever possible. Novel measurement scales should only be used if existing scales are deemed insufficient in some way to the needs of the study. References to the psychometric characteristics of new scales, like those related to reliability, must be included. If an outcome system leads to a categorical ranking (excellent, good, etc.), the aggregate score for each patient should be provided.
Results: Provide a detailed report on the data obtained during the study. Results of many reconstructive procedures, such as total joint arthroplasty, obtained after less than two years of follow-up are rarely accepted. An average of two years of follow-up is not sufficient. For these studies all patients in the study must have at least two years of follow-up. Shorter follow-up periods may be acceptable within an appropriate context. For example, follow-up for treatment of fractures may be much shorter if the focus of the manuscript is fracture healing. The Editor will make a final decision on the adequacy of follow-up reported in all submissions. All data in the text must be consistent throughout the manuscript, including any illustrations, legends, or tables.
All measurements should be expressed using conventional terms and with SI (Système International) units in brackets.
Discussion: Be succinct. What does your study show? Is your hypothesis affirmed or refuted? Discuss the importance of this article with regard to the relevant world literature; a complete literature review is unnecessary. Analyze your data and discuss their strengths, their weaknesses, and the limitations of the study.
3. Illustrations accompanying your manuscript must be submitted electronically and be in TIFF or EPS format. Do not embed images into other software programs. No more than 10 images may be submitted.
Any digital manipulation of an image—color, contrast, brightness, etc.—must be applied to the entire image and may not result in misrepresentation of the original image. Enhancement or alteration of part of an image, without clear and explicit disclosure in the legend, is unacceptable.
Image files should be named appropriately and include the number of the figure (e.g., Figure1.tif, Figure2.eps, etc.). When completing the online submission form, remember to enter the name and number of the figure (Figure 1, Figure 2, etc.) into the "description" field. This description should match the name of the image file.
Color images must be RGB (not CMYK). We cannot alter or vouch for the quality of color reproductions.
In accordance with HIPAA, remove any writing that could identify the patient (e.g., names, initials, patient numbers).
When using a digital camera to create your images, if possible, set the camera to save in TIFF format (not JPEG), set the resolution to a minimum of 300 ppi (pixels per inch), and set the size of the image to 5 × 7 in (127 × 178 mm).
The resolution of your electronic images is critical and is directly linked to how well they will appear when printed. Color and grayscale images, such as radiographs, must have a minimum resolution of 300 ppi, and line-art drawings must have a minimum resolution of 1200 ppi. An original image size of 5 × 7 in (127 × 178 mm) is preferred.
For questions regarding electronic submission of images, contact the Desktop Publishing Department at dtp@jbjs.org.
4. Legends must be included for all illustrations and listed in order. Explain what each illustration shows. Give the magnification of all photomicrographs. Define all arrows and other such indicators appearing on the illustration. If an illustration is of a patient who is identified by a case number, include that case number in the legend.
5. A bibliography, of references made in the text. Abstracts or meeting transactions more than three years old should not be cited. The references should be numbered according to the order of citation in the text (not alphabetically) and should be in PubMed/Index Medicus format (for an example, go to the National Center for Biotechnology Information [NCBI] web site www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi and search for specific reference citations). All references must be cited in the text.
Style
Use "Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals: Writing and Editing for Biomedical Publication" by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, October 2004 (www.icmje.org) for standard format. For style guidelines, use "Scientific Style and Format. The CBE Manual for Authors, Editors, and Publishers, 6th ed.," published by Cambridge University Press.
The following style conventions should be kept in mind:
1. The numerator and denominator should be included for all percentages. Round off percentages when the denominator is less than 200. Percentages should not be used when the value of n is less than twenty.
2. With very few exceptions, no other abbreviations or acronyms should be used.
3. When describing specific fracture types, authors are strongly encouraged to use the most recent version of the Orthopaedic Trauma Association fracture classification (J Orthop Trauma. 2007;21[10 Suppl]:S1-163).
Authorship
The order of names reflects only the preference of the authors. Each author must have contributed significantly to, and be willing to take public responsibility for, one or more aspects of the study: its design, data acquisition, and analysis and interpretation of data. All authors must have been actively involved in the drafting and critical revision of the manuscript, and each must provide final approval of the version to be published. Individuals who have contributed to only one section of the manuscript or have contributed only cases should be credited in an acknowledgement footnote.
If a research group is designated as the author of an article, one or more group members who fully meet the above criteria for authorship should be listed in the article's byline, followed by "on behalf of the [name of group]." The other group members should be listed in an acknowledgment section at the end of the article. Alternatively, the byline can include only the name of the group, followed by an asterisk corresponding to a list that specifies the authors who fully meet the above criteria for authorship and that also mentions the other group members. In this case, for the purpose of citation in one's curriculum vitae, the citation can be followed by the individual's statement of the authorship role that he or she fulfilled (xx) as depicted in the following example:
Canadian Orthopaedic Trauma Society. Nonoperative treatment compared with plate fixation of displaced midshaft clavicular fractures. A multicenter, randomized clinical trial. J Bone Joint Surg Am. 2007;89:1-10. [Role: xx]
Letter to The Editor
The Journal welcomes readers' comments on published articles. Letters will be accepted and edited at the Editor's discretion and will be published electronically on jbjs.org.
Instructions for submitting a Letter to the Editor
Review of Manuscripts
Manuscripts are evaluated by the editorial staff of The Journal and are sent to outside reviewers. The time between receipt of a submitted manuscript and the decision regarding its publication has averaged six weeks, but it can be longer. Should your manuscript be accepted for publication in The Journal, publication in print and/or online will be at the discretion of the Editor-in-Chief.
