Guide to Authors

Welcome to the electronic manuscript submission website for European Journal of Clinical Nutrition. The instructions below are structured so you can quickly and easily answer the following questions:

1. Is my manuscript suitable for European Journal of Clinical Nutrition? (Scope + Editorial Note)
2. How do I format my manuscript for European Journal of Clinical Nutrition? (Format of Papers)
3. How do I submit my manuscript to European Journal of Clinical Nutrition? (Submission of Papers)

OTHER LINKS

• About the journal
• Format of papers
• Preparation of Original Articles
• House style
• Submission of papers
• Editorial policy
• Ethics and bioethics
• Peer review policy
• Corrections
• About npg online services

ABOUT THE JOURNAL

Scope

• Clinical and whole body metabolic investigations


• Epidemiological, social and behavioural studies in nutrition


• Nutritional determinants of growth, development and health


• Assessment and measurement of nutritional status and indicators, and their relation to function and health


• Nutritional causes and effects of disease


• Community nutrition and education


• Nutrition, population health and health promotion

Topics Covered
The scope of the journal includes publishing original articles and short communications based on clinical, metabolic and epidemiological studies that describe methodologies, mechanisms, relationships and benefits of nutritional interventions for disease and health promotion. Editorials, commentaries, reviews, book reviews and letters to the editor will also feature in EJCN

Editor	Professor Prakash S Shetty, Institute of Human Nutrition, School of Medicine, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK
Frequency	12 issues a year
Abstracted in	Current Contents Current Contents Clinical Medicine Current Contents Life Sciences EMBASE/Excerpta Medica Elsevier BIOBASE/Current Awareness in Biological Sciences Index medicus Science Citation Index BIOSIS CAB Abstracts CAB Health and Nutrition Newsletter

Editorial Note

If a manuscript, previously considered for publication in another journal, is submitted to EJCN, we would appreciate receiving copies of the comments from reviewers and Editors. This will enable an early decision by the Editorial team and the possibility to fast track the same with fewer peer reviews.

Finally, please make sure covering letters highlight the unique features of the submitted manuscript and make the case why this manuscript deserves publication in EJCN.

FORMAT OF PAPERS

Article Type	Description	Approximate Word Count
Original Article	These are reports of current basic or clinical research and should follow the structure outlined below this table.Reports of Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) submitted to EJCN must adhere to the CONSORT statement, (CONsolidated Standards Of Reporting Trials). This guideline provides an evidence-based, minimum set of recommendations for reporting RCTs, it comprises a list of items to report and a patient flow diagram. For other study designs, EJCN strongly encourages authors to consult reporting guidelines relevant to their specific research design: studies of diagnostic accuracy (STARD); observational studies in epidemiology (STROBE); systematic reviews and meta-analyses (QUOROM); and meta-analyses of observational studies in epidemiology (MOOSE). All these reporting guidelines can be found at http://www.equator-network.org	Word limit: 3,000 words excluding abstract, references, figures and tables. The abstract should be no longer than 250 words and structures, as outlined in the Abstract and Keywords section below. References: 50 references maximum (as far as possible only recent references). Display items: No more than six display items (e.g. figures and/or tables) should accompany the manuscript. Multiple figures (1a, 1b, 1c etc.) will count as individual figures.
Short Communications	Short Communications are studies that fall short of the criteria for full Original Articles (e.g. preliminary experiments limited by sample size or duration, or novel hypotheses). Apart from the abstract, there is no obligation to divide the text into sections.	Word limit: 1,000 words. Abstract: unstructured paragraph of 150 words maximum. References: 10 references maximum. Display items: No more than 2 display items (e.g. figures and/or tables) should accompany the manuscript.
Invited Reviews	Reviews are comprehensive analyses of specific topics that are solicited by the Editor by invitation. Proposals for reviews may be submitted; however, authors should only send an outline of the proposed paper for initial consideration. All invited reviews will undergo peer review prior to acceptance. A maximum of three authors is preferred for Review articles.	Word limit: 5,000 words excluding the abstract, references, figures and tables. Abstract: Structured paragraph of 250 words maximum with headings: ‘Background and Aims’, ‘Methods’ (to include search strategy), and ‘Results and Conclusions’. References: 100 references maximum.
Letters to the Editor	Letters to the Editor will be considered for publication, subject to editing. Letters must contain information critical to a certain area or must be referencing data recently published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition. A Letter must reference the original source, and a Response to a letter must reference the Letter in the first few paragraphs. Letters can use an arbitrary title, but a Response must cite the title of the Letter: e.g. Response to [title of the Letter].	Word limit: 500 words. Abstract: No abstract required for this manuscript type. References: Three references maximum in addition to the reference to the original article if correspondence relates to a publication in EJCN.
Editorials (only by invitation of the Editors)	Proposals for Editorials may be submitted; however, authors should only send an outline of the proposed paper for initial consideration.	Word limit: 1,000 words. Abstract: No abstract required for this manuscript type. References: Five references maximum.
Book Reviews (only by invitation of the Editors)	Frank opinion about the scope, contents, quality, and usefulness of the book.	Word limit: 250 words maximum. Abstract: No abstract required for this manuscript type. References: Five references maximum.
Commentaries, Points-of-View and Debates (only by invitation of the Editors)	Commentaries discuss a paper published in a specific issue and should set the problems addressed by the paper in the wider context of the field. Invited commentaries may also provide a 'point-of-view' related to a controversy or debate in nutrition. Debates will address an area of research that is of major present interest and for which there are substantially different views. The subject to be debated and the authors producing the opposing views will be selected by the Editors.	Word limit: 1,000 words. References: 10 references maximum. Display items: No more than one display item.
Continuing Educational/Guidelines/Nutrition in Clinical Practice (only by invitation of the Editors)	Highlights in boxes are encouraged	Word limit: 3,000 words maximum excluding the abstract, references, figures and tables. Abstract: Unstructured abstract of 250 words maximum. References: 50 references maximum (as far as possible only recent references). Display items: No more than 8 display items (e.g. figures and/or tables) should accompany the manuscript.

Preparation of Original Articles

Abstract and Keywords
Articles must be prepared with a structured abstract designed to summarize the essential features of the paper in a logical and concise sequence under the following headings, which are mandatory.

• Background/Objectives: What was the main question or hypothesis tested?


• Subjects/Methods: How many subjects were recruited, how many dropped out? Was the study randomized, case-controlled etc? Interventions/methods used and duration of administration.


• Results: Indicate 95% confidence intervals and exact P value for effects.


• Conclusions: Answer (significant or not) to main question.


• Keywords: Preferably use up to 6 words chosen from MEDLINE MeSH, which best describe your paper. These will be used for indexing your paper in EJCN and also help retrieval from computer databases.

References
References in text are indicated in the text by name and date e.g. (Pampiglione & Ricciardi, 1986) and (Kusin et al., 1994), and listed at the end of the paper in alphabetical order of first author. References should be listed and journal titles abbreviated according to the style used by Index Medicus, examples are given below. All authors should be quoted for papers with up to six authors; for papers with more than six authors, the first six only should be quoted, followed by et al. Please use recent references wherever possible.

• Kusin KA, Kardjati S and Renqvist UH (1994). Maternal body mass index: the functional significance during reproduction. Eur J Clin Nutr 48 (Suppl 3), S56-S67.
• Martin JC, Bourgnoux P, Fignon A, Theret V, Antoine JM, Lamisse F et al. (1993). Dependence of human milk essential fatty acids on adipose stores during lactation. Am J Clin Nutr 58, 653-659.
• Friedman MI, Gil KM, Rothhopf MM, Askanazi J (1986). Post-absorptive control of food intake in humans. Appetite 7, 258 (abstract).

• Pampiglione S, Ricciardi ML (1986). Parasitological survey of Pygmy groups. In: LL Cavalli-Sforza (ed). African Pygmies. pp 153-165. New York: Academic Press. pp 153-165
.

Personal communications must be allocated a number and included in the list of references in the usual way or simply referred to in the text; the authors may choose which method to use. In either case authors must obtain permission from the individual concerned to quote his/her unpublished work.

House Style

Statistical methods: For normally distributed data, mean (SD) is the preferred summary statistic. Relative risks should be expressed as odds ratios with 95% confidence interval. To compare two methods for measuring a variable the method of Bland & Altman (1986, Lancet 1, 307–310) should be used; for this, calculation of P only is not appropriate.

Units and Abbreviations: Use metric units (SI units) as fully as possible. Preferably give measurements of energy in kiloJoules or MegaJoules with kilocalories in parentheses (1 kcal = 4.186kJ). Use % throughout. Very common abbreviations such as FFA, RNA, need not be defined; on first using an abbreviation place it in parentheses after the full item. Note these abbreviations: gram g; litre l; milligram mg; kilogram kg; kilojoule kJ; megajoule MJ; weight wt; seconds s; minutes min; hours h. Do not add s for plural units.

SUBMISSION OF PAPERS

European Journal of Clinical Nutrition open

Upon submission of an original research paper, authors can indicate within the manuscript tracking system whether they wish to pay a one off fee to allow their article to become freely available immediately upon publication. The fee is £2,000/$3,000/€2,400 (plus VAT where applicable) and can be paid via credit card or by requesting an invoice be raised.

By paying this fee authors are permitted to post the final, published, pdf of their article on a website, institutional repository or other free public server immediately on publication.

Upon acceptance, authors must fill out and send back a payment form. This is mandatory and failure to send in the payment form along with the Licence to Publish form will result in the article being published as a standard paper behind access control. The licence to publish form has been amended to offer authors the choice of which licence to use on their paper and these choices are described below:

The first is the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported Licence and allows readers to download the article and share it with others as long as they mention the author and link back to the original article. The article cannot be changed in any way or used commercially.

The second is the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial Share Alike 3.0 Unported Licence and allows readers to alter, transform, or build upon the article and then distribute the resulting work under the same or similar license to this one. The work must be attributed back to the original author and commercial use is not permitted.

For further information please see the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition Open FAQs and payment form.

Colour charges

Further information
To find out who to contact for advertising, subscriptions, permissions, papers in production or publishing a supplement, please visit our publisher’s contacts page. Alternatively, you can write to: European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Nature Publishing Group, The Macmillan Building, 4 Crinan Street, London, N1 9XW, UK.

EDITORIAL POLICY

Statement of Ethics

Peer-review policy

Correction and retraction process

Non-Native Speakers of English
Researchers who are not native speakers of English who submit manuscripts to international journals sometimes receive negative comments from referees or editors about the English-language usage in their manuscripts, and these problems can contribute to a decision to reject a paper. To help reduce the possibility of such problems, we strongly encourage such authors to take at least one of the following steps:

• Have your manuscript reviewed for clarity by a colleague whose native language is English.
• Use one of the many English language editing services that are available, such as that offered by Nature Publishing Group Language Editing. An editor will improve the English to ensure that your meaning is clear and to identify problems that require your review.

Please note that the use of Nature Publishing Group Language Editing is at the author's own expense and in no way implies that the article will be selected for peer review or accepted by an NPG journal (or any other journal). The decisions that the editors of any NPG journal make based on the quality and suitability of a manuscript for that journal are entirely independent of whether that manuscript has been language-edited by Nature Publishing Group Language Editing.

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