Author’s Guidelines for ASJO

AUTHORSHIP CRITERIA

 Al-Shifa Journal of Ophthalmology will consider a right to authorship ONLY when ALL four of the authorship criteria of ICJME are met. These criteria are as follows:

• Substantial participation in the research work with a contribution to all stages of research namely, the conception of the research work; the research design itself; or the data collection; data analysis following collection; or data interpretation following analysis; AND
• Active contribution to the research manuscript during drafting or its critical revision with reference to the importance of the intellectual content; AND
• Active contribution/participation in the final approval final copy of the manuscript that is ready for publication; AND
• Willingness to share responsibility for the whole research work to allow for investigation and resolution of integrity and accuracy of research work.

Acknowledgment Criteria

The contribution/effort of all contributors whose participation in the research work doesn’t fulfill the above-mentioned conditions can be acknowledged in a separate section towards the end of the manuscript. Examples of such contributors include, but are not limited to:

• Those who helped acquire funds for research
• Those who supervised the research but did not actively participate
• Those who provided help in study design reviewed the manuscript, assisted in the write-up of the manuscript, proofread it for the authors, provided editorial support for technical and language matters, etc.
• Colleagues who helped in finding cases for the research, assistance in laboratory procedures, etc.
• Statisticians who helped in the analysis of collected data by application of proper statistical tests

 Addition to the List of Authors

 The ASJO doesn’t allow addition, alteration, or deletion in the list of authors which was submitted to the journal at the time of initial submission.

 Statement of Contributions

 The manuscript submission policy of ASJO requires that the original manuscript be accompanied by a description of individual contributions by each other at the time of initial submission. For this purpose, to facilitate the authors, an Author’s undertaking and contributions form has been made available for download on the journal’s web page.

 Corresponding Author

Al-Shifa Journal of Ophthalmology will communicate with the author designated as the corresponding author during the submission process who is expected to cooperate with the journal for data requests or any additional information that may be required during or after the publication of the manuscript. Therefore, the corresponding author should provide a working email address to be able to answer any queries from the editorial board regarding the manuscript throughout the submission and the peer-review process after the initial submission. Additionally, the corresponding author is expected to reply to all critiques and queries following the publication of a research manuscript.

 AUTHORS WHO HAVE DECEASED BEFORE PUBLICATION OF THE RESEARCH

 The use of a death dagger (†) is recommended to notify the death of authors who died before the research was published. The death dagger (†) should be placed immediately after their names and the information about their death and the date of death be provided in a footnote.

INSTRUCTIONS FOR JOURNAL SECTIONS

Manuscripts are accepted for consideration if neither the article nor any of its contents have been or will be published or submitted elsewhere before appearing in the Al-Shifa Journal of Ophthalmology. Authors have to create an account with the ASJO before they submit their manuscripts.

Authors are required to submit an undertaking signed by all the authors, (certifying originality of work and that the article has not been or will not be published elsewhere, and transfer of copyrights to ASJO). No more than 6 names will be listed under the title; other names will appear in a footnote.

Names and affiliations of authors should not be mentioned in the main file containing the manuscript names, affiliation and complete data of the author(s) should be given during the online submission process.

“Ethical Approval” of the studies and “Authors Undertaking and Contribution Form” need to be uploaded as supplementary files during the online submission process.

Research and Publication Ethics: The authors must declare approval of the ‘Research Ethics Committee’ and clearly mention any ‘Conflict of Interest’ either in the script or attached document.

Abstracts: Abstracts should not exceed more than 250 words. This abstract should be structured under the following headings: Objectives, Methods, Results, Conclusion and Keywords. They should briefly describe, respectively, the problem being addressed in the study, how the study was performed, the salient results, and what the authors conclude from the results. Keywords: Three to 10 keywords or short phrases should be added to the bottom of the abstract page. Please use terms from the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) of Index Medicus.

Original Article: 

The original article should be structured under the following headings: Introduction, Methodology, Results, Discussion, Conclusions, Acknowledgments, and References. The font style should be “Times New Roman” with font size 12 for body and 14 for headings. There should be spacing of 1.5 between text.

Case Report: 

Short reports of cases, clinical experience, drug trials, or adverse effects may be submitted. They must not exceed 1500-2000 words, 15 bibliographic references, and one table or illustration. The report must contain genuinely new information. The format is Title, Abstract, Introduction, Case Report, Discussion, and References. 

Review Articles, Editorial, Special Communication, Short Communication, and Pictorial can also be submitted. All these should be submitted along with brief abstracts not exceeding 250 words

References should all start on a separate page.

References: The total number of references in an Original Article must not exceed 40, while in the Review Articles maximum limit of references is 100. References must be written single-spaced and numbered as they are cited in the text. The references must be written in Vancouver style. The style for all types of references is given in the ‘Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals (PDF)’. List all authors when they are six or fewer. If they are seven or more, list the first six followed by et al. Following are examples of reference citations:

Letters to Editor: Letters should only be written on a specific article in the most recent publication of journal. The letter should be objective and provide constructive opinions offer some academic or clinical interest to the readers. Letters should NOT exceed 400 words of text and 5 references, 1 of which should be to the recent article. It should not have more than 3 authors. The text should include the full name, academic degrees, and institutional affiliation for author and the email address for the corresponding author.

Editorial: Editorial is written either by one member of the editorial board or some expert on that topic invited by the Editor-in-Chief under the following headings: Introduction, Conclusion, References. The font style should be times new roman and text should not exceed 500 words.

Journal Article: Mansoor H, Khan SA, Afghani T, Assir MZ, Ali M, Khan WA. Utility of teleconsultation in accessing eye care in a developing country during COVID-19 pandemic. PLoS One. 2021 Jan 14;16(1):e0245343.

Books: Duke- Elder S, and Leigh AG: Diseases of the Outer Eye. Cornea and Sclera. In Duke-Elder S (ed): System of Ophthalmology, Vol. 8, Part 2. St. Louis C.V. Mosby Company, 1965, pp.110-114. (Recheck publisher, City, etc.).

Tables and Illustrations: Tables/Figures should be added to the main file containing the manuscript. Each Table/Figure should have a proper title. Figures should be professionally designed. Symbols, lettering, and numbering should be clear and large enough to remain legible after the figure has been reduced to fit the width of a single column of 3 inches (7.62 cm). Figure 1 (Haq, Afghani, and Qadir). Right eye. Histologic section of tumor, spindle-B type malignant epithelioid cells at the right upper corner, (Hematoxyline and eosin x 400). TABLES: should be typed DOUBLE-SPACED, with NOTHING underlined TRIPLE-CHECK all numbers and percentages. If photographs of patients are used, either the subjects should not be identifiable or their pictures must be accompanied by written permission to publish the picture. Duplication of results given in tables and figures must be avoided. A maximum of 4-6 Tables/Figures can be included in the manuscript.

Units of Measurement: All measurements should be expressed in conventional units, with System International (SI) units given in parentheses throughout the text.

Abbreviations: Except for units of measurement, abbreviations are discouraged. The first time an abbreviation appears it should be preceded by the words for which it stands, However, the title and abstract must not contain any abbreviations.

Names of Drugs: Brand names of drugs are not permitted. Only generic names of drugs should be used.

Permissions: Materials taken from other sources must be accompanied by a written statement from both author and publisher giving permission to the Journal for reproduction.

Review and Processing: An acknowledgment is issued on receipt of the manuscript. The manuscripts are examined by the editors and then sent for peer review. The comments of reviewers are then conveyed to the corresponding author. After correction/amendments by the authors, an acceptance letter for the accepted article is issued, and the article is placed in the queue for printing. Before publishing the manuscript online, the “Final Proof” is sent to the correspondence email address for approval.

Publication Fee: The journal does not charge for submission and processing of the manuscripts.