Notes for Authors
Nursing Ethics adheres to a rigorous double-blind reviewing policy in which the identity of reviewers and authors are concealed from both parties. Each manuscript is reviewed by at least two referees. All manucripts are reviewed as rapidly as possible (e.g. 4-6 weeks) of submission.
All material prepared for publication is assumed to be written exclusively for Nursing Ethics and not have been submitted for publication elsewhere. All authors are required to sign a copyright assignment form.
Priority and time of publication are decided by the Editor, who retains the customary right to edit, if necessary, any material accepted for publication.
Manuscripts and illustrations should be submitted to the editor by email to:
nursing-ethics@surrey.ac.uk
Language: Authors whose first language is not English are requested to have their manuscripts checked carefully for linguistic correctness before submission.
Length: Articles should be between 2500 and 6000 words long (including abstract, text and references; excluding tables). Review articles may be up to 8000 words (including tables). Book reviews should be about 500 words. Letters are welcome.
Abstract: Please supply an article abstract of 100-150 words. Please supply up to six key words.
Text: Give the title of the article and a short running title. The text should be double spaced, with an adequate margin, and should be standard 10 or 12 point. All pages must be numbered.
Author information: In a separate file authors should include their first and family names, their posts at the time they did the work and current appointments and qualifications, the name, address and e-mail address of the author to whom correspondence is to be sent, and telephone and fax numbers if possible.
Subheadings: Avoid using more than three levels of subheadings.
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 points.
Capitalization: Avoid excessive use
Italics Use for emphasis, sparingly.
Tables and illustrations: should be submitted as separate files and not included within the text. Tables must be concise and relevant, and their content absolutely necessary to the article. Legends to illustrations should also be separate. Wherever possible, illustrations are preferred in TIFF or JPG format with high resolution images (300-500 dpi). Colour illustrations can be included, with the cost charged to the author.
Statistics: Care should be taken that all statistical methods are relevant, and that it is clear which methods were used. Any statistical methods not in common use should be supported by references. Results of statistical tests should be reported as well as the P values.
Ethical clearance: Please state, where relevant, from whom ethical clearance was obtained.
Scientific articles: Articles that are scientific, in the sense of being primarily concerned with providing systematic descriptions and explanations of casual connections, should meet the usual expectations such as:
" a clear statement of the hypothesis and the method
" a theoretical basis
" what the importance of the study is to knowledge and policy
" application of criteria of validity and reliability
" adequate sample size
" avoidance of sampling biases
" relation to any previous similar or related findings
" a consideration of the employment of blind or double-blind procedure
and should also make explicit any known scientific shortcomings.
Articles should be prepared in accordance with the 'Vancouver' style (see reference 1 below). References should be numbered in the order in which they appear in the text . The original number assigned to a reference is reused each time the reference is cited in the text. Because of this we ask authors not to use automated footnotes or Word’s insert footnote function, which numbers footnotes consecutively. Please simply indicate a footnote with the superscript number in the text, and list the note at the end of the document.
In summary, for articles, give names and initials of all authors (unless more than six, in which case give the first three names 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 numbers; for chapters in books give authors, chapter title, editors of the book, the book title, place of publication, name of publisher, year of publication and first and last page numbers. For examples, see references 2-4 below.
1. International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals. BMJ 1991; 302: 401-405.
2. Champion R. Developing responsibility. Nurs Times 1991; 87(27): 38-39.
3. Huff D. How to lie with statistics. London: Penguin, 1991.
4. Penny GC. Abortion. In: Boyd KM, Higgs R, Pinching AJ eds. The New Dictionary of Medical Ethics. London: BMJ Publishing Group, 1997: 1.
Microsoft Word is the preferred word processor. No artwork should be included in the text files. Any artwork provided should be in either TIFF or JPG format. Each piece of artwork should be saved as a separate file. When preparing your paper:
o use the minimum formatting;
o roman, bold and italic type can be used, but use only one typeface and size;
o capitals should be used only where they are to appear in the finished text;
o the text should be ranged left and unjustified, with hyphenation cancelled;
o indents, underlining and tabs should be avoided unless absolutely necessary;
o headings and paragraphs should be separated by two carriage returns;
o there should be only one space between words and only one space after any punctuation.
Authors should be cautious in using electronic references. Where print and electronic references are available, use the print version. For each electronic reference give the date when it was retrieved. If unsure please ask for details from the Editor.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests Policy
Within your Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement you will be required to make a certification with respect to a declaration of conflicting interests. It is the policy of Nursing Ethics to require a declaration of conflicting interests from all authors enabling a statement to be carried within the paginated pages of all published articles.
Please include any declaration at the end of your manuscript after any acknowledgements and prior to the references, under a heading ‘Conflict of Interest Statement’. If no declaration is made the following will be printed under this heading in your article: ‘None Declared’. Alternatively, you may wish to state that ‘The Author(s) declare(s) that there is no conflict of interest’.
When making a declaration the disclosure information must be specific and include any financial relationship that all authors of the article has with any sponsoring organization and the for-profit interests the organization represents, and with any for-profit product discussed or implied in the text of the article.
Any commercial or financial involvements that might represent an appearance of a conflict of interest need to be additionally disclosed in the covering letter accompanying your article to assist the Editor in evaluating whether sufficient disclosure has been made within the Conflict of Interest statement provided in the article.
For more information please visit the SAGE Journal Author Gateway http://www.sagepub.co.uk/authors/journal/conflicting.sp
Proofs will be supplied only once in the form of page proofs. Please remember that 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.
Authors will receive electronic offprints of their article and a complimentary journal copy. A maximum of 5 journal copies will be supplied for multi-authored articles. These will be supplied to the main author.
There are no page charges.
English Language Editing Services: Please click here for information on professional English language editing services recommended by SAGE.
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 subject to payment of a publication fee. Manuscript submission and refereeing procedure is unchanged. 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.uk.sagepub.com/sageopen.sp
