Notes for Authors
Chronic Respiratory Disease operates a conventional single-blind reviewing policy in which the reviewer's name is always concealed from the submitting author.
Chronic Respiratory Disease publishes original articles, reviews and correspondence on any subject relevant to chronic respiratory care. The journal particularly encourages papers of interdisciplinary authorship. The principal criteria for acceptance of material are originality and quality. All material submitted for publication is assumed to be submitted exclusively to Chronic Respiratory Disease unless the contrary is stated. Before acceptance, papers will be refereed and may be statistically assessed. All authors will be sent a Transfer of copyright which must be signed before the paper is published.
Priority and time of publication are decided by the Editor, who retains the customary right to edit material accepted for publication.
Submissions
Chronic Respiratory Disease is hosted on ScholarOne™ Manuscripts, a web based online submission and peer review system - SAGE track. Please read the Manuscript Submission guidelines below, and then simply visit http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/crd to login and submit your article online.
IMPORTANT: Please check whether you already have an account in the system before trying to create a new one. If you have reviewed or authored for the journal in the past year it is possible that you will have had an account created.
All papers must be submitted via the online system. If you would like to discuss your paper prior to submission, please refer to the contact details below.
Authors whose first language is not English are requested to have their manuscripts checked carefully for linguistic correctness before submission, and to aid impartial refereeing are invited to send one additional copy of their paper in their native language.
Conflict of Interest
Please note that a condition of submission to Chronic Respiratory Disease is that all authors will declare any conflict of interest.
Layout
Please double-space the text and references and leave generous margins at head, foot and left- and right-hand margins. All pages must be numbered. Do not paste figures and tables into the text - they should appear at the end of the paper.
The title page
Give the title of the paper and a running title if the main title is very long. Authors should include their names and initials, their posts at the time they did the work and their current appointments and qualifications. The name and address of the author to whom correspondence, proofs and offprint order are to be sent should be given, together with telephone and fax numbers if possible.
Supply up to six key words.
Structure
Manuscripts should be approximately as follows:
Review articles, 4000-5000 words plus references;
Original papers, 2000-3000 words plus references, with up to six tables or figures;
Editorials, up to 800 words plus references;
Pro/con debates, up to 500 words plus references;
What the papers say, 500-1000 words plus references;
Review of the guidelines, 500-1000 words plus references;
Hot topic, up to 1000 words plus references;
Technical notes, 500-1000 words plus references;
Letters, up to 600 words plus references;
Book reviews, 300-500 words plus references;
Web reviews, 300-500 words plus references
Scientific papers should be divided into a structured abstract that uses the headings 'Background, Methods, Results, Conclusions', introduction, methods, results, discussion, acknowledgements, and references. Authors bear sole responsibility for the accuracy of such abstracts.
Headings
In dividing articles under headings, please grade the headings by writing A, B, or C in the margin:
A - subheading
B - subsubheading
C - subsubsubheading
Style
(i) Generic names should be used for drugs. Authors should be aware of different drug names and availability in the UK, North America and Australia, and give alternative names or drugs in the text.
(ii) Scientific measurements should be given in SI units, but blood pressure should be expressed in mmHg and haemoglobin as g/dl.
(iii) For numbers, adopt a rule that all numbers under 10 should be written as words, except when attached to a unit of quantity (e.g. 1 mm or 3 kg), and that numbers of 10 or more should be written as digits, except at the beginning of a sentence.
(iv) Abbreviations should be kept to a minimum and must be clearly defined when used for the first time. Abbreviations should be typed with no full point.
(v) Avoid excessive capitalization. For the titles of books and articles, capitals should be used for the initial letter of the first word only. However, for the titles of journals and series, the initial letter of all principal words should be capitalized.
(vi) Use italics for emphasis only very sparingly.
Illustrations
All illustrations and graphs should appear at the end of the paper. If you are submitting hard copies these should be in the form of completed artwork suitable for reproduction. They should be separate from the typescript with legends also on a separate sheet. Please indicate the position of all figures in the text. All figures should have the 'TOP' marked on the reverse with a soft pencil. The name of the first author should also be clear. When graphs or histograms are submitted the numerical data on which they are based should be supplied.
Line diagrams: no illustrations, including captions, will be given more space than the text area of the journal (i.e., 156 mm x 195 mm). Figures should ideally be drawn for same size reproduction.
All lines in a drawing should be of even weight. Do not use too fine a tint as this will result in a blotchy appearance after reduction. All lettering should follow the journal's typographical style.
All costs for reproducing figures in colour must be met by the author.
Photographs: Other illustrations should be black and white photographic prints (not negatives, transparencies or X-ray films), and should be trimmed to remove excess material. They should be high-quality glossy prints, showing as much contrast as possible. Patients in photographs should not be identifiable and should have their eyes masked. Any identifiable photograph should be accompanied by written permission from the patient, parent or guardian. Colour photographs can only be accepted if the author bears the cost of reproduction.
For information on creating electronic versions of your figures please please click here.
Tables
Tables should be typed on separate sheets. Indicate in the margin of the text where tables should be positioned. Each table should have an explanatory caption, and be clearly numbered.
Statistics
Numbers of patients or subjects should be given, with percentages in brackets. Means should be expressed as the mean with standard deviation of the mean: where appropriate, authors should also consider supplying the median. Care should be taken that all statistical methods are appropriate, and that it is clear which methods were used for which analyses. Any statistical methods not in common use should be supported by references or described in detail. Results of statistical tests should be reported as well as the p values; where possible, confidence intervals should also be reported.
Ethics
Please state explicitly whether any study being reported to Chronic Respiratory Disease has the approval of local ethical committees.
References
References should always be appropriate: more is not necessarily better. They should be numbered in the order in which they appear in the text, and should be given in the 'Vancouver style'.1 In summary, for articles give names and initials of all authors (unless seven or more, in which case give the first three only then et al.), the title of the article, the journal title abbreviated according to Index Medicus, year of publication, volume number and first and last page number; for chapters in books give authors, chapter title, editors of the book, the book title, place of publication, publisher, year of publication and first and last page number. For examples, see below. (2-4)
1 International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals. Br Med J 1991; 302: 401-405.
2 Lowry S, Smith J. Duplicate publication. Br Med J 1992: 304: 999-1000.
3 Huff D. How to lie with statistics. London: Penguin, 1991.
4 Wade OL. Research ethical committee. In: Duncan AS, Dunstan GR, Welbourn RB eds. Dictionary of medical ethics, second edition. London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1981: 371-74.
Copyright
Authors must obtain permission to reproduce all matter in the following categories:
(i) All maps, diagrams, figures and photographs - forms are available from the publishers.
(ii) Single passages of prose exceeding 250 words, or scattered passages totalling more than 400 words from any one work.
Please supply the publisher with full information for all work cited, including author, date published, publisher and page references.
UK copyright extends to 70 years after the death of the author or 70 years after publication of a scholarly edition, whichever is longer.
Proofs
Proofs will be supplied only once in the form of page proofs. Please remember that:
(i) Proof corrections are disproportionately expensive. For example, the insertion of three commas on a page will frequently cost as much, or more than, the original setting cost of the entire page.
(ii) If you return proofs even a few days after the date stipulated, it may be too late to include your corrections in the final version of the journal.
E-Prints
Access to 25 free e-prints will be provided; the corresponding author will receive one complimentary copy of the journal for each contributor (maximum 5 copies).
SAGE Open:
If you wish your article to be freely available online immediately upon publication (as some funding bodies now require), you can opt for it to be included in SAGE Open upon payment of a publication fee. Manuscript submission and refereeing procedure is unchanged, but on acceptance of your article you will be asked to let SAGE know directly if you are choosing SAGE Open. For further information please visit http:/www.sagepub.co.uk/sageopen.sp
If funding has been provided for your research, convention dictates that you acknowledge the source and grant information in the Acknowledgements section of your article. Please note that in some cases, grant funders require authors to attribute the funding source, describe the role of the study funding body and include the relevant grant reference numbers.
English Language Editing Services: Please click here for information on professional English language editing services recommended by SAGE.
