JAAPA Submission Guidelines

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JAAPA Submission Guidelines

1. Introduction

2. Types of articles published: CME, reviews, case reports

3. Types of articles published: original research

4. Types of articles published: departments

5. Letters to the editor

6. Problem areas (citing references, submitting images, and borrowing material from another source)

7. How to prepare and submit the manuscript

8. What to include in the cover letter

9. What happens after manuscript submission

10. What the manuscript editor will do

1. Introduction

JAAPA's mission is to support the ongoing education and advancement of PAs by publishing current information and research on clinical, health policy, and professional issues. The American Academy of Physician Assistants provides JAAPA to 65,000 PAs in the United States, including all members of the AAPA. The Journal is indexed in the Medline and CINAHL databases, and each issue offers AAPA-approved Category I CME. JAAPA is published monthly (12 times a year), with content posted to www.jaapa.com. The Web site also contains additional content and tools available only online.

In addition to reading the section in these guidelines that describes the type of article you wish to submit, authors should read Problem areas, How to prepare and submit the manuscript, and What to include in the cover letter before writing and sending in a manuscript. The last two sections (What happens after manuscript submission and What the manuscript editor will do) describe the steps between submission and publication.

How to increase your chances of getting published:

1. Choose a topic you know something about and feel passion for. The resulting article will probably be more practical, richer in detail, and offer more meaningful pearls than would a standard literature review; consequently, it will do a better job of teaching readers things they didn't know before.

2. Be familiar with the journal you want to write for. If you aren't a regular reader of JAAPA, go through some recent issues to get a feel for the types of articles and departments we publish, how long our articles are, how they are formatted, and so forth.

3. Write your article specifically to fit the journal's needs and requirements. Or, if the manuscript was prepared for some other purpose, such as an academic requirement, revise it to fit what the journal is looking for before you submit it.

4. Read the author guidelines, and follow the requirements in the guidelines while preparing and submitting your manuscript.

5. Be prepared for the steps involved in getting your article into print. Improve the quality of your manuscript before submission by asking a trusted colleague to review it for organization and quality of writing. Understand that your article will undergo peer review, and expect to be asked to revise (almost all submissions require revision before we can accept them). Expect that your article will change—perhaps substantially—during editing. Finally, be aware that publishing is a deadline-driven business: When the editor contacts you with questions and requests, please respond quickly.

Inexperienced authors may want to consult our Roadmap to Better Writing for help on planning and developing a manuscript. A Webcast entitled Writing for Publication: Ten Steps to Success also presents useful information on writing professionally.

A special note for PA students and PA faculty: Manuscripts submitted to JAAPA by PA students are subject to the same requirements and treated exactly the same as other manuscripts. No query in advance of submission is required. Nor do students require a faculty co-author. All authors listed on the manuscript should have contributed substantially to the conception and authoring of the article.

2. Types of articles published: CME, reviews, case reports

Prospective authors are encouraged to look at past issues of JAAPA to see how various types of articles read and look in print. Please also consult Problem areas later in these guidelines for important information on submitting photographs, imaging studies, and other illustrative material; citing references; and borrowing information from a previously published source. Authors should also read How to prepare and submit the manuscript and What to include in the cover letter.

Note that the word ranges specified in the following descriptions include all text that is part of the article. That is, the reference list, content of tables, figure captions, sidebar text, etc, are included in the total word count. Authors need not write exactly to size, but manuscripts should not be substantially shorter or longer than the ranges specified.

Note also that all feature articles (except research reports) should list the article's 4 or 5 key points at the end of the manuscript.

Review and CME articles (2,000 words minimum; 3,500 words maximum): These articles offer either a concise critical assessment of the current state of knowledge about a disease or condition encountered by PAs or a how-to approach to diagnosing or managing a specific problem. The author should avoid writing a standard academic literature review, which is systematic, comprehensive, and heavily referenced, in favor of a selective review and update that emphasizes what is practical, current, and evidence-based. Do not simply summarize and describe what the literature shows; instead, explain how what the literature reveals can be practically applied. References should be recent and should, for the most part, be drawn from peer-reviewed journals. Textbook references and generic medical Web sites should be largely avoided. Our clinical review and CME articles are intended above all to be useful. Once PAs read the article, they should be able to put the information it provides immediately into practice.

Authors who wish their article to be considered for CME should provide 3 or 4 learning objectives as part of the manuscript. (Please note that the learning objectives are NOT the same as the key points. Consult recent issues of JAAPA for examples.)

Surgical Review articles (2,000 words minimum; 3,500 words maximum): The same parameters apply here as for clinical review and CME articles, except that in this case the subject is surgical. Possibilities include articles on particular types of surgery, medical problems in surgical patients (for example, atrial fibrillation in patients undergoing heart surgery), and practical applications of recent primary research or new guidelines.

Case reports (1,500 words minimum; 2,000 words maximum): A case report should recount an experience with a patient, discuss the intervention and the reasons it was chosen, and provide the outcome. In your discussion section, be sure to draw a lesson out of the clinical point you are making. The teaching point (or points) is crucial to the value of a case report and should be clearly specified in the summary or conclusion at the end of the manuscript. Photographs, radiographs, or other types of clinical images should be submitted if appropriate.

Note that a case report is not the venue for a complete review of the literature on a topic. You may cite the published literature, but be selective and concise. Refer to only a few of the most important reports of the condition you are about to discuss.

3. Types of articles published: original research

Research Reports (2,000 words minimum; 3,500 words maximum) should be reports of original research conducted by the author(s). JAAPA welcomes health services research on PAs and the PA profession, health outcomes research, and clinical research.

Manuscripts should be prepared in accordance with the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals (www.icmje.org/). Please also consult Problem areas later in these guidelines for important information on submitting photographs, imaging studies, and other illustrative material; citing references; and borrowing information from a previously published source. Authors should also read How to prepare and submit the manuscript and What to include in the cover letter.

All research reports submitted to JAAPA should include the following:

Cover letter: In addition to following the requirements set for in What to include in the cover letter, please include any potential conflicts of interest, all funding sources, and a statement of how each author contributed to the study. In addition, we request a brief statement of how and why the proposed research paper is relevant and of interest to a majority of clinically practicing physician assistants.

Title page: Include 3 to 5 key words. The key words will help us assign peer reviewers.

Abstract: Please structure your abstract according to the following subheadings: Objective(s), Methods, Results, Conclusions. Limit your abstract to 500 words or less. Note that your abstract will be available online and will be far more widely read than your paper.

Introduction: The introduction should be less than 500 words. A 3-paragraph structure is usually sufficient to convince the reader that your topic is new, important, and relevant. Your first paragraph should set the stage for the study by briefly describing the background for the circumstance surrounding the investigation. In the second paragraph, describe why your study is important, what implications it has for PA practice, and how it relates to the material in the first paragraph. In your third paragraph, state what you hope to achieve.

Methods: Describe the design of your study. The following link provides some standard vocabulary and definitions: http://jama.ama-assn.org/misc/auinst_term.dtl. Select the one that most accurately describes your study. Describe the study participants and how they were chosen. If you conducted a survey, please describe the underlying frame from which your sample was chosen and your response rate. Please clearly state the outcome of interest and how it was measured. Inform your readers of your explanatory variables and how you hypothesize they are related to your outcome.

Describe your data analysis in detail. Your analytic strategy should demonstrate your familiarity with basic biostatistical methods for continuous and categorical data. These methods include, but are not limited to, measures of central tendency and variability (mean, median, mode, variance, standard deviation, standard error) as well as measures of association (chi square statistic, correlation coefficients, rate differences, relative rates, odds ratios). If you are not comfortable with the statistical aspects of your study, you are strongly encouraged to include a co-author who is. In general, confidence intervals are to be preferred over simple P values. Please note that surveys utilizing all but the most straightforward simple random samples will require statistical techniques, such as those found in SUDAAN software, to account for complex design factors.

Results: Results should be presented to reflect the methods section. Where possible, confidence intervals in the original clinical metric of interest are much preferred over P values. For example, rather than state: "Patients lived longer under PA care (P <.0001)," it is much more informative and appropriate to say: "Patients lived 2 hours longer under PA care (95% CI, 1.9-2.1 hours)." In this way, the reader can better evaluate the clinical importance of your results.

Do not repeat results presented in graphs and tables. Please create and label all tables and graphs so that they are self-explanatory and could stand alone without reference to the text.

Discussion: Relate your results to the extant literature. Note that our readers are clinically practicing PAs. Statistical significance is much less important or relevant to them than is clinical importance. Frame your discussion with the JAAPA audience in mind.

Limitations: Clearly and succinctly state both the potential limitations of your study and their implications for your conclusions. If, for example, your response rate was low, how would you expect that to affect your results?

Conclusions: This should be a brief, at most 1-paragraph statement. Please be as explicit as possible. If, for example, you suggest more research is needed, please state precisely what the next step should be.

Acknowledgements: All studies involving human data require a statement of institutional review board approval or exemption. It is the author's responsibility to ensure that all funding sources, including proprietary and for-profit entities such as pharmaceutical companies as well as not-for-profit and government funding sources, are listed in this section.

4. Types of articles published: departments

Note that the word ranges specified in the following descriptions include all text that is part of the article. That is, the reference list, content of tables, figure captions, etc, are included in the total word count. Authors need not write exactly to size, but manuscripts should not be substantially shorter or longer than the ranges specified.

Note that JAAPA does not accept outside submissions for all of its departments. This section lists the departments for which outside submissions are welcomed.

Finally, note that commentary departments, such as Sounding Board, may on occasion be published online only if space limitations make it impossible to fit them into their scheduled print issue.

A Day in the Life (1,600 words): This department reflects the great variety of work that PAs do, the interesting settings they work in, and the challenges and rewards of being a PA. Manuscripts should be written in diary style, using times of day as the organizing principle. Authors may choose to represent a literal, actual day in their life, or a composite day that pulls in various aspects of their work to reflect the totality of what they do. Include two photographs with the manuscript—one should be a head shot taken against a neutral background, and the other should show the author at work (this can be a group shot)—and provide any necessary caption information.

Case of the Month (900 words maximum): This 1-page department offers a forum in which to share case reports that demonstrate interesting, unusual, or particularly instructive presentations of common problems. (Cases involving rare or obscure conditions require a bit more information or detail than will fit in Case of the Month and thus are better suited to a feature-length case report.) A Case of the Month write-up should be brief, as though you were describing the case to a colleague over coffee. Include the presentation, results of the history and examination, and the relevant test results. Provide a short list of the differential diagnosis (without definitions, please), the final diagnosis with a brief description or definition, and the outcome. We encourage you to provide one image that was integral to the presentation or diagnosis, such as an ECG tracing, radiograph or CT scan, or clinical photograph. No references are required.

Critically appraised topic (1,600 words): A critically appraised topic (formerly called CAT Clinic) is a brief, evidence-based assessment of the one or two most relevant studies retrieved to answer a focused clinical question that may have arisen from a real-life situation. A critically appraised topic is not a comprehensive review of a subject or a synthesis of all the available knowledge and should generally run no more than 2 or 3 pages in the Journal. The manuscript should contain the following elements:

Case presentation: In one paragraph, describe the patient's age and sex, clinical and geographic setting, presenting complaint, relevant medical history, and pertinent physical and lab findings.

Clinical question: To achieve a focused, pertinent clinical question—the key aspect of a critically appraised topic that leads to a well-defined literature search and pertinent results—consider the "PICO" approach. Answers to PICO questions help you clarify the type of information you need to answer your clinical question and shape your online search terms.

P — Patient population. What group do you want information on (eg, postmenopausal women)?

I — Intervention. What medical event do you want to study the effect of (eg, hormone therapy)?

C — Comparison. Compared to what? Better or worse than no intervention at all, or than another intervention or test (eg, no hormone therapy)?

O — Outcomes. What is the effect of the intervention (eg, incidence of osteoporosis, breast cancer, endometrial cancer, death)?

Search criteria: Choose the type of study that is most relevant to your question. Randomized clinical trials are most appropriate for questions about therapy; cohort studies for questions about prognosis, modifying risk factors, and quality of life given a particular treatment. Questions about diagnostic studies are best answered by studies that look at sensitivity, specificity, and predictive values. On the PubMed Web site (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query), use the filters under the "Clinical Queries" link to focus your search on diagnosis, treatment, or prognosis. Briefly describe the decision-making process that guided your search, and provide the terms of your search so that others can repeat it.

Search results: How many citations did you retrieve? List the one or two citations you chose to evaluate and why you chose them.

Evaluating the evidence: Briefly describe the paper and its major outcomes and conclusions. Describe any problems with the study, particularly as it relates to your clinical question. A CAT should not grade study authors on their epidemiologic skill but should assess the validity and importance of the study as it relates to your clinical question. The use of evidenced-based medicine concepts such as likelihood ratios, predictive values, and numbers needed to treat is encouraged.

Clinical bottom line: Will the study change or affect how you practice medicine? Why or why not? (Ask yourself if your findings are worth telling your colleagues about.)

Dermatology Digest (900 words maximum): The manuscript should provide a brief description of a patient with a particular dermatologic diagnosis, a question about the diagnosis or the case with 4 plausible responses, and a brief discussion section that explains what the right answer is and why. Please consult issues of JAAPA for examples. Include one high-quality photo that illustrates the patient's condition.

Diagnostic Imaging Review (1,600 words maximum): Manuscripts for this department provide a brief case description leading up to the ordering of imaging studies. Readers are then asked, "What do the imaging studies show?" This is followed by a discussion of how the imaging studies obtained revealed the diagnosis. A brief review of the disease diagnosed is usually included.

Authors must provide copies of the imaging studies discussed in the article. Please send two copies of each image; one should be unmarked, and the other should be labeled with arrows or other marks that point clearly to the pathology revealed by the study. Provide caption material for each image as well.

The Surgical Patient (1,500 words minimum; 2,500 words maximum): Authors of this department typically work in a surgical practice. Some articles can be written for others in your subspecialty. Topics might include innovations in surgical care (such as new procedures), procedure outlines, or other how-I-do-it pieces. Case histories that culminate in a description of how a surgical procedure dealt with the problem are also appropriate here. Other articles might be aimed at all surgical PAs, as well as at PAs who care for hospitalized patients. Topics might include preoperative management of the surgical patient, intensive care management of the surgical patient (fluids, shock, respiratory complications), the implications of specific medical problems (diabetes, hypertension, coronary disease, etc) for surgical management, or specific surgical pharmacology issues. Clinical images and photographs are encouraged.

Sounding Board (900 words maximum): This is a forum for PA opinions on clinical and professional issues and is essentially JAAPA's op-ed department. The purpose of a Sounding Board is either (1) to educate your fellow PAs about an issue of importance to their professional life, or (2) to provide a brief persuasive argument for how a problem of importance to the PA profession should be addressed or solved.

When the Patient Asks (900 words maximum per page): This is JAAPA's patient education department and consists of 2 pages printed back to back. The first page of When the Patient Asks is for the PA and provides a brief review of the topic in question. The second page is for the patient and provides educational information in a question-and-answer format. The page for the PA should include references (maximum of 10). The page for the patient should have no references and should be written at a 5th- to 6th-grade reading level. A small table or graphic element may be included if the text is shortened correspondingly.

5. Letters to the Editor

· Letters to the Editor must be written in response to articles published in JAAPA. Letters on other subjects cannot be considered. If you are requesting that we publish a correction, please state this specifically.

· Authors of the published article will be given the opportunity to respond to the letter.

· Letters should be timely and, ideally, should be received within 3 months of the JAAPA article's publication.

· Letters submitted to JAAPA become copyrighted material when they are published. Thus, writers should not submit duplicate letters to any other print or online publication.

· Letters should follow the same scholarly standards required of other content in JAAPA. They should be referenced if appropriate, using evidence-based sources.

· Limit letters to 300 words (including references) and no more than 5 references. Letters will be edited for clarity, style, and length as appropriate.

· All letters must include the writer's full name and degrees, work affiliations, city, state, and e-mail address. Anonymous letters or those in which the writer incompletely identifies himself or herself cannot be considered. In certain cases we will agree to publish a letter with the writer's name withheld, but contact information must be provided when the letter is submitted.

· Submit all letters via e-mail to JAAPA@haymarketmedia.com. Letters are published online only.

6. Problem areas (citing references, submitting images, and borrowing material from another source)

Citing references: Reference lists should not be overly long. Keep in mind that JAAPA content should review the literature selectively and should emphasize what is practical, current, and evidence-based. Consult recent issues of the Journal to get an idea of what constitutes an appropriate reference list. When compiling references for your article, keep the following guidelines in mind:

Cite recent sources. If you are citing a paper that was published more than 5 years ago, the paper should be either one of a kind (a seminal study) or the only source for the data you are citing. If neither of these is the case, you probably either do not need to cite a source at all, or you need to find a more recent one.

Epidemiologic data should be absolutely current. Please look for absolutely the most recent information available.

Cite primary sources whenever possible since these carry the most weight. The primary source is the place where the information was first published. For example, the study where the data on the effectiveness of a certain treatment were first reported is the primary source; a review article that cites this study is a secondary source and is less desirable. Check the paper you are citing carefully to make sure that the authors have not in fact taken their information from another source. If they have, that other source is probably primary.

Cite peer-reviewed journals. Peer-reviewed primary source information appears in such journals, giving them more credibility than textbooks and medical Web sites that provide generic reviews (eMedicine, Up-To-Date, etc).

Multiple references are not required in most cases. Usually, you can cite the most recent reference, the most respected reference, or the primary reference and let it go at that. (If you can't decide which reference is most respected, there probably isn't one. Sometimes this is obvious, however. For instance, if you are citing epidemiology figures for sexually transmitted diseases, probably the best source is MMWR from the CDC.)

Do not reference statements that most clinicians would consider common knowledge. Many citations from textbooks fall into this category.

Do reference all statements that cite data or studies.

Do reference statements that your readers may find controversial.

Do reference anything that is someone else's thoughts, data, or conclusions.

Number references sequentially in the text using superscript Arabic numbers. If a reference is cited more than once, it should always have the number assigned to it at its first occurrence. Key in references at the end of the text in numeric sequence using the form prescribed in the AMA Manual of Style or the "Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals" (available at www.icmje.org/index.html). Use the abbreviations for journal titles provided on PubMed.

Do not use word processing options that automatically number references or embed information in a footnote or endnote. When you key in references at the end of the text, please number them manually. (The easiest way to do this is to use your automatic program up until the point where the manuscript is complete and you are ready to submit. Then go back and manually renumber.)

Save the hard copies of your references after submission. If your article is accepted, we will ask you to send the hard copies to us for use during editing and fact-checking.

A special note on hard copies of references: The standards of scholarship require (1) that authors obtain and read primary source material during the research phase of manuscript preparation and (2) that they not cite anything in a scholarly paper that they haven't read and evaluated themselves. Authors must provide a hard copy of the primary source reference of all material cited when their manuscript is accepted. Abstracts from MEDLINE are not sufficient, nor is it sufficient to cite references that have been cited by another author without first reading the primary source. When we edit and fact-check your article, we must be able to consult the primary source to determine whether the information you have cited is actually in that article and that you have represented it accurately.

Note also that the hard copy of the reference must contain the complete publication information: authors, titles, year of publication, volume and issue number, inclusive page numbers, city/state of publication and publisher (in the case of books), etc.

Providing images: If you have photographs, imaging studies, ECGs, or other visual illustrations to submit with your article, you must provide these as individual digital image files. Images embedded in text files or in PowerPoint are not usable.

Submit high-resolution jpeg or tiff files. Image resolution should be at least 300 dpi, approximately 3"×4" in size. Although small file sizes can sometimes be high resolution, it is usually advisable to submit files that are at least 400KB. Note also that images scanned from a previously printed source, such as a textbook or journal article, cannot be used because they will not reproduce well. We must have original images, either as digital files or hard copies.

Submit images via e-mail or on a CD. Or contact the editor about submitting to our ftp site. Very large files should not be e-mailed as they will crash our system.

Good quality color photographs are also acceptable. Black and white is acceptable only for imaging studies. If you choose to submit hard copies, provide two copies of each photograph and label them clearly. Do not bend photographs or mount them on cardboard. If you want the photographs to be returned to you after publication, include a stamped, self-addressed envelope. Please also do not submit original photographs without keeping a duplicate in your files. And please do not submit original films; these should instead be turned into photographs.

Provide legends or captions for all figures, and label top and bottom clearly for orientation. Legends for photomicrographs should note stain and magnification.

Mark the images to highlight the pathology. If the pathology being shown will not be completely obvious to any and all clinicians, including those working outside your specialty, please place arrows or circles on a hard copy of the image to identify the area of interest and mail us the copy. As an alternative, you may provide two digital copies for the image: One should contain the arrows or circle, and one should be clean and unmarked.

Mail or fax signed releases for photographs showing identifiable persons. A parent or guardian must sign the release for a photograph that shows a child.

Borrowing material from another source: Authors picking up previously published material should not write to the publisher of the material to obtain permission to use it. The JAAPA editorial staff will do that.

Authors should, however, clarify the copyright status for every item in their manuscript that is not part of the main text. ("Every item" means all tables, graphs, algorithms, photos, imaging studies, ECGs, etc.)

In your cover letter, list each accessory item and state clearly whether the item is original to you or, if not, who holds the copyright.

For each item, specify one of the following:

1. The accessory material is original to you (and hence requires no permission to use)

2. The material was created by you from material in another source (and hence requires a source or reference line, but does not require permission). In this case, provide the complete publication information for the source.

3. The material was borrowed in its current form from another source (and does require permission). Again, provide the complete publication information.

If any accessory material in your manuscript does require us to write to the original publisher for permission to reuse, please e-mail, fax, or mail us a copy of the original item as it previously appeared in print, along with full contact information for the original publisher. Our legal department requires that we obtain this material and keep it on file.

Please also note the following important points:

Permission is required ONLY if the item appeared in print IN THE SAME FORM that it appears in your article. For example, if you have re-used a table that appeared as a table in the original source, we are legally required to request permission (even if you "adapted" the table or changed it slightly). If, however, you created the table yourself using data or text material from the source, that requires only a source line.

Bear in mind that to reuse material that has been previously published, we must request permission from the ORIGINAL holder of the copyright. In some cases, you may have to determine who that is before we can proceed. It is not uncommon for authors to pick up an item—for example, a table—from a journal article they have read, not realizing that the authors of that journal article themselves picked up the table from yet another, in this case primary, source. To use the table, we must write to the publisher of the primary source because that publisher owns the copyright to the material. Please check all of your accessory items to see whether a primary source is referenced.

Finally, if at all possible, please develop your own accessory material rather than seeking to reuse something that would require us to obtain permission. Increasingly, publishers are charging fees to reuse material, and sometimes these fees are large. Our budget for paying for permissions is limited.

7. How to prepare and submit the manuscript

Specific requirements for the type of manuscript you are submitting are given in the sections on types of articles published. In addition, authors should adhere to the following guidelines:

· When you write, use a plain, readable typeface, such as 12-point Arial or Times New Roman. Do not use decorative or italic fonts that make the manuscript difficult to read. Do not place borders or section breaks in the manuscript or use other types of formatting that may be difficult to remove or may otherwise make editing difficult.

· Submit a title page as a separate file. On the title page, list all authors in the order they should appear on the published article. Identify the corresponding author if there is more than one author. For each author, include full name with degrees, followed by work affiliations with city and state (as they should appear in the bio box on the published article) and contact information (mailing address, phone and fax numbers, e-mail address).

· Provide an abstract if you are submitting a report of original research. The abstract should be no longer than 150 words. Other feature-length manuscripts and departments do not require abstracts.

· Create all text—the article body, tables, figure captions, etc—in Microsoft Word so that it can be edited. Do not use Excel or any other spreadsheet application to create tables; please create tables using the Microsoft Word table program. PowerPoint may be used if you are providing a graphic illustration, such as a bar graph, that we can recreate; in this instance, supply the numerical data used to create the graphic.

· Provide appropriate headings and subheadings throughout the text that will clarify the organization of information for the reader. Consult recent issues of JAAPA for examples of how to use headings and subheadings.

· Expand all acronyms on first mention. Example: white blood cells (WBCs).

· Provide units of measure for all laboratory values or other clinical measures that are expressed in number form. Example: when giving a blood glucose level, please write 90 mg/dL, not 90.

· Refer to drugs using their generic names. Provide the salt if this helps to clarify which drug you are talking about. Example: use cefuroxime axetil for the oral form and cefuroxime sodium for the IM or IV form. If you are recounting a case and the patient took a specific brand name drug, please provide the brand name as well.

· Be sure that every table and figure has been cited at an appropriate place in the text. Example: "A radiograph of this fracture is shown in Figure 1." Number tables and figures sequentially in the order in which they are to appear.

· Place figures, tables, algorithms, and other accessory material at the end of the file (or in a separate file), and number them consecutively in order of their appearance in the text. Do not embed this material in the body of the text.

· For guidelines regarding images, please see Problem areas above.

· For guidelines regarding the types of references to cite and when to cite them, see Problem areas above.

· Submit the manuscript electronically to JAAPA@haymarketmedia.com as an e-mail attachment. Electronic submission of an editable file is required. We cannot consider hard copy manuscripts or pdf files.

8. What to include in the cover letter

When you submit your manuscript via email, please attach a cover letter (prepared as a separate Word file). The cover letter must contain the following information:

· (1) The type of JAAPA article you are submitting (CME, the Surgical Patient, Dermatology Digest, etc); (2) a description of the topic, including why you are interested in it and what you propose to teach your PA colleagues about it; and (3) a statement of your qualifications to write about the topic.

· Statements affirming the following: (1) the manuscript is original, written by you (and your co-authors, if any), and not ghost-written by anyone not named as an author; (2) no pharmaceutical company or medical education company was involved with or paid for the development of the article; and (3) the manuscript is not being considered for publication elsewhere. (Note that authors should not submit an article for publication in any other journal while it is being considered for publication in JAAPA and should not submit to JAAPA a manuscript that is currently under consideration elsewhere. Submissions should be made to only one publication at a time.)

We cannot consider manuscripts that do not confirm to these guidelines.

· A list of each accessory item (tables, graphs, algorithms, photos, imaging studies, and any other element that is not part of the main text) in the article, and a statement as to whether the item is original to you or someone else holds the copyright. If the item is not original, please include complete source information with the item listed. See Borrowing material from another source under Problem areas above.

9. What happens after manuscript submission

After an article has been submitted to JAAPA, it is screened by editorial staff members, members of the JAAPA editorial board, and/or the department editor (for department manuscripts).

In most cases, articles that pass the preliminary screening are sent to at least two peer reviewers, who determine whether the manuscript will be accepted, rejected, or recommended for revision. Author names are not removed from the manuscript before peer review. Preliminary screening and peer review normally take 8 to 10 weeks.

Some clinical departments do not undergo outside peer review; instead, the department editor works with the author to revise the manuscript. In these cases, the time required to achieve a final manuscript can be shorter than 8 to 10 weeks.

After peer review is complete, JAAPA will notify the author of the manuscript's status. If revision is recommended, we will send revision instructions to the author. Authors are given access to each individual review, but the reviewers' identities are masked. Authors are asked to provide a revised manuscript for re-evaluation within 6 weeks.

Articles are scheduled for publication after acceptance. They are edited approximately 2 months before publication.

All manuscripts accepted for publication become the property of the Journal and may not be published elsewhere without the written permission of the publisher. Authors must sign copyright release and conflict of interest disclosure forms at the time of manuscript acceptance.

Authors should be aware that JAAPA receives a high volume of submissions and that, as a result, many articles must wait their turn to be published. Case Reports and Review articles that are not appropriate for CME take the longest time to be published. CME articles are typically published within a year of acceptance. Department pieces usually appear within a few months.

All articles that have been accepted and scheduled for publication are subject to editing. Authors should be aware that editing can be extensive and that further revision may be required at the editing stage (see What the manuscript editor will do).

Edited manuscripts are e-mailed to the author for review before printing. Authors are asked to respond with corrections and comments within 1 week of receipt. Authors can make no further changes after this point.

10. What the manuscript editor will do

While preparing a manuscript for publication, the editor will

· Review and correct spelling, grammar, and punctuation

· Correct inconsistencies in capitalization, compounding, style of numbers, use of italics and underlining, sequence of anything alphabetical or numerical, and subject/verb agreement

· Check completeness, accuracy, and format of tables and figures (including checking against original source for borrowed material); put all tables and figures into consistent format

· Put references into AMA style and query the author to supply any incomplete information

· Check heads in text and tables against content; query the author as needed

· Check parallelism throughout text and rewrite as necessary; make lists consistent in format

· Make sure pronouns have clear antecedents; rewrite or query author as necessary

· Check for use of passive voice; replace with active voice

· Check for shifts in verb tense; correct or query author

· Check for shifts in tone or style; correct or query author

· Check coherence of sentences for misplaced parts, dangling modifiers, missing words or phrases; rewrite as needed

· Eliminate biased language; ensure consistency of number and person

· Expand at first mention any acronyms not on the JAAPA acronym list

· Check any math

· Check descriptions of tables and figures in text against information in tables and figures themselves; refer out to tables, figures, and sidebars where appropriate in the text

· Fix sentences, paragraphs, and sections that need to be rewritten for clarity, placed in another part of the manuscript, or deleted

· Add or delete subheads as needed

· Check organization of each section of the manuscript, and of the overall manuscript, and rewrite or reorganize as needed

· Rewrite awkward, turgid, confusing, or ambiguous sentences, paragraphs, or sections

· Review logic and flow; query author as needed

· Write transition sentences when needed

· Check accuracy of content; query author as needed

· Eliminate redundancies and wordiness at all levels of the manuscript, making extensive cuts if appropriate or needed to reduce the manuscript to the appropriate number of words

· Check for or query author on any reviewer queries that were not satisfactorily answered in revision

· Recast, rebuild, or build illustrative materials (tables, graphs, algorithms, etc.), with the author's cooperation, as appropriate.

JAAPA uses the most recent editions of AMA Manual of Style, Dorland's Medical Dictionary, Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, and the Chicago Manual of Style as primary references.