Instructions to Authors

Types of papers

All manuscripts are submitted to peer review.

Review articles

Review articles are usually submitted after prior consultation with the editors and are subject to the peer review process. They should contain a maximum of 4,000 words and 75 references. Different types of review articles are published in the journal. This must be discussed with the Editor-in-Chief or one of the associate editors. Proposals for topics are best submitted in the form of a two-page outline of the planned manuscript in order to discuss its content at an early stage.

Among the different types of review articles, some have a more specific format or purpose, such as Mini-series: Basic research-related reviews in intensive care medicine, Legal and ethical issues in clinical research, Seminal studies in intensive care, Clinical commentary, Report from a round table, Report from a workshop, Statement of working group of ESICM, Special article, etc.

Physiolgical and technical notes 

Physiological notes are short review articles with no more than ten references. The section editor for the series is G. Hedenstierna. For more information see: Brochard L (2003) New series in Intensive Care Medicine. Intensive Care Med 29(1): DOI 10.1007/s00134-002-1588-8. Technical notes are short articles with a clear technical connotation. Both articles should not exceed 1500 words; 1 or 2 illustrations and up to 20 references are permitted. 

Original papers

Original papers must not exceed 3,000 words and should not include more than 6 illustrations and tables. Note that each separate part of a figure (a, b, etc ...) counts as an illustration. Up to 40 references are permitted. When reporting the results of a randomized controlled trial, author(s) should use the CONSORT statement as a guide in preparing the manuscript (please use the link below the chapter). If the authors consider that their manuscript needs to be longer than the mentioned limit or contain more figures or tables, they can explain their reasons in the cover letter to the Editor-in-Chief.

For Pediatric original papers the authors are encouraged to propose some potential reviewers.

Editorials

Editorials are usually commissioned by the editors and comment on one or more articles in the same issue. However, uncommissioned editorials may be submitted and undergo the peer review process. Editorials consist of up to 1,000 words and up to 20 references.

Letters to the editor

Letters to the editor (Correspondence) address published articles or contain interesting case studies. They must not exceed 500 words, 5 references and 1 figure or table and should be addressed to the Editor-in-Chief. Correspondence addressing a previously published article is usually sent to the authors for response. The final decision on publication of this correspondence is taken at the end of this process. Letters submitted may be subject to shortening and editorial revision

News

News items are commentaries on recent events of interest for the medical community regarding sociological, legal or political aspects of medicine or science, for instance. The section editor is François Lemaire. These articles are not submitted to peer-review.

Title Page

The title page should include:

• The name(s) of the author(s)
• A concise and informative title
• The affiliation(s) and address(es) of the author(s)
• The e-mail address, telephone and fax numbers of the corresponding author

Abstract

Please provide a structured abstract of up to 250 words which should be divided into the following sections:

• Purpose (stating the main purposes and research question)
• Methods
• Results
• Conclusions

Keywords

Please provide 4 to 6 keywords which can be used for indexing purposes.

Text Formatting

Manuscripts should be submitted in Word.

• Use a normal, plain font (e.g., 10-point Times Roman) for text.
• Use italics for emphasis.
• Use the automatic page numbering function to number the pages.
• Do not use field functions.
• Use tab stops or other commands for indents, not the space bar.
• Use the table function, not spreadsheets, to make tables.
• Use the equation editor or MathType for equations.
Note: If you use Word 2007, do not create the equations with the default equation editor but use the Microsoft equation editor or MathType instead.
• Save your file in doc format. Do not submit docx files.

Word template

Manuscripts with mathematical content can also be submitted in LaTeX.

LaTeX macro package

Headings

Please use no more than three levels of displayed headings.

Abbreviations

Abbreviations should be defined at first mention and used consistently thereafter.

Footnotes

Footnotes on the title page are not given reference symbols. Footnotes to the text are numbered consecutively; those to tables should be indicated by superscript lower-case letters (or asterisks for significance values and other statistical data).

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments of people, grants, funds, etc. should be placed in a separate section before the reference list. The names of funding organizations should be written in full.

Scientific style

Generic names of drugs and pesticides are preferred; if trade names are used, the generic name should be given at first mention.

Citation

Reference citations in the text should be identified by numbers in square brackets. Some examples:

1. Negotiation research spans many disciplines [3].
2. This result was later contradicted by Becker and Seligman [5].
3. This effect has been widely studied [1-3, 7].

Reference list

The list of references should only include works that are cited in the text and that have been published or accepted for publication. Personal communications and unpublished works should only be mentioned in the text. Do not use footnotes or endnotes as a substitute for a reference list.

The entries in the list should be numbered consecutively.

• Journal article
  Gamelin FX, Baquet G, Berthoin S, Thevenet D, Nourry C, Nottin S, Bosquet L (2009) Effect of high intensity intermittent training on heart rate variability in prepubescent children. Eur J Appl Physiol 105:731-738. doi: 10.1007/s00421-008-0955-8
  
  Ideally, the names of all authors should be provided, but the usage of "et al" in long author lists will also be accepted:
  Smith J, Jones M Jr, Houghton L et al (1999) Future of health insurance. N Engl J Med 965:325-329
• Article by DOI
  Slifka MK, Whitton JL (2000) Clinical implications of dysregulated cytokine production. J Mol Med. Doi:10.1007/s001090000086
• Book
  South J, Blass B (2001) The future of modern genomics. Blackwell, London
• Book chapter
  Brown B, Aaron M (2001) The politics of nature. In: Smith J (ed) The rise of modern genomics, 3rd edn. Wiley, New York, pp 230-257
• Online document
  Doe J (1999) Title of subordinate document. In: The dictionary of substances and their effects. Royal Society of Chemistry. Available via DIALOG. http://www.rsc.org/dose/title of subordinate document.
  Accessed 15 Jan 1999

Always use the standard abbreviation of a journal’s name according to the ISSN List of Title Word Abbreviations, see www.issn.org/en/node/344

Tables

• All tables are to be numbered using Arabic numerals.
• Tables should always be cited in text in consecutive numerical order.
• For each table, please supply a table heading. The table title should explain clearly and concisely the components of the table.
• Identify any previously published material by giving the original source in the form of a reference at the end of the table heading.
• Footnotes to tables should be indicated by superscript lower-case letters (or asterisks for significance values and other statistical data) and included beneath the table body.

Electronic Figure Submission

• Supply all figures electronically.
• Indicate what graphics program was used to create the artwork.
• For vector graphics, the preferred format is EPS; for halftones, please use TIFF format. MS Office files are also acceptable.
• Vector graphics containing fonts must have the fonts embedded in the files.
• Name your figure files with "Fig" and the figure number, e.g., Fig1.eps.

Line Art

• Definition: Black and white graphic with no shading.
• Do not use faint lines and/or lettering and check that all lines and lettering within the figures are legible at final size.
• All lines should be at least 0.1 mm (0.3 pt) wide.
• Line drawings should have a minimum resolution of 1200 dpi.
• Vector graphics containing fonts must have the fonts embedded in the files.

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Halftone Art

• Definition: Photographs, drawings, or paintings with fine shading, etc.
• If any magnification is used in the photographs, indicate this by using scale bars within the figures themselves.
• Halftones should have a minimum resolution of 300 dpi.

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Combination Art

• Definition: a combination of halftone and line art, e.g., halftones containing line drawing, extensive lettering, color diagrams, etc.
• Combination artwork should have a minimum resolution of 600 dpi.

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Color Art

• Color art is free of charge for online publication.
• If black and white will be shown in the print version, make sure that the main information will still be visible. Many colors are not distinguishable from one another when converted to black and white. A simple way to check this is to make a xerographic copy to see if the necessary distinctions between the different colors are still apparent.
• If the figures will be printed in black and white, do not refer to color in the captions.
• Color illustrations should be submitted as RGB (8 bits per channel).

Figure Lettering

• To add lettering, it is best to use Helvetica or Arial (sans serif fonts).
• Keep lettering consistently sized throughout your final-sized artwork, usually about 2–3 mm (8–12 pt).
• Variance of type size within an illustration should be minimal, e.g., do not use 8-pt type on an axis and 20-pt type for the axis label.
• Avoid effects such as shading, outline letters, etc.
• Do not include titles or captions within your illustrations.

Figure Numbering

• All figures are to be numbered using Arabic numerals.
• Figures should always be cited in text in consecutive numerical order.
• Figure parts should be denoted by lowercase letters (a, b, c, etc.).
• If an appendix appears in your article and it contains one or more figures, continue the consecutive numbering of the main text. Do not number the appendix figures, "A1, A2, A3, etc."

Figure Captions

• Each figure should have a concise caption describing accurately what the figure depicts.
• Figure captions begin with the term Fig. in bold type, followed by the figure number, also in bold type.
• No punctuation is to be included after the number, nor is any punctuation to be placed at the end of the caption.
• Identify all elements found in the figure in the figure caption; and use boxes, circles, etc., as coordinate points in graphs.
• Identify previously published material by giving the original source in the form of a reference citation at the end of the figure caption.

Figure Placement and Size

• When preparing your figures, size figures to fit in the column width.
• For most journals the figures should be 39 mm, 84 mm, 129 mm, or 174 mm wide and not higher than 234 mm.
• For books and book-sized journals, the figures should be 80 mm or 122 mm wide and not higher than 198 mm.

Submission

• Supply all supplementary material in standard file formats.
• To accommodate user downloads, please keep in mind that larger-sized files may require very long download times and that some users may experience other problems during downloading.

Audio, Video, and Animations

• Always use MPEG-1 (.mpg) format.

Text and Presentations

• Submit your material in PDF format; .doc or .ppt files are not suitable for long-term viability.
• A collection of figures may also be combined in a PDF file.

Spreadsheets

• Spreadsheets should be converted to PDF if no interaction with the data is intended.
• If the readers should be encouraged to make their own calculations, spreadsheets should be submitted as .xls files (MS Excel).

Specialized Formats

• Specialized format such as .pdb (chemical), .wrl (VRML), .nb (Mathematica notebook), and .tex can also be supplied.

Collecting Multiple Files

• It is possible to collect multiple files in a .zip or .gz file.

• Electronic supplementary material will be published as received from the author without any conversion, editing, or reformatting.

• If supplying any supplementary material, the text must make specific mention of the material as a citation, similar to that of figures and tables (e.g., ". . . as shown in Animation 3").
• Name your files accordingly, e.g., Animation3.mpg.

Numbering

• If supplying any supplementary material, the text must make specific mention of the material as a citation, similar to that of figures and tables (e.g., ". . . as shown in Animation 3").
• Name your files accordingly, e.g., Animation3.mpg.

Captions

• For each supplementary material, please supply a concise caption describing the content of the file.

Processing of supplementary files

• Electronic supplementary material will be published as received from the author without any conversion, editing, or reformatting.

Ethical standards

Manuscripts submitted for publication must contain a statement to the effect that all human studies have been approved by the appropriate ethics committee and have therefore been performed in accordance with the ethical standards laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki. It should also be stated clearly in the text that all persons gave their informed consent prior to their inclusion in the study. Details that might disclose the identity of the subjects under study should be omitted. The editors reserve the right to reject manuscripts that do not comply with the above-mentioned requirements. The author will be held responsible for false statements or failure to fulfill the above-mentioned requirements

Conflict of interest

Authors must indicate whether or not they have a financial relationship with the organization that sponsored the research. They should also state that they have full control of all primary data and that they agree to allow the journal to review their data if requested.

Therefore the manuscript must be accompanied by the “Conflict of Interest Disclosure Form”. To download this form, please follow the hyperlink on the right.

After acceptance

Upon acceptance of your article you will receive a link to the special Author Query Application at Springer’s web page where you can sign the Copyright Transfer Statement online and indicate whether you wish to order OpenChoice and paper offprints.

Once the Author Query Application has been completed, your article will be processed and you will receive the proofs.

Open Choice

In addition to the normal publication process (whereby an article is submitted to the journal and access to that article is granted to customers who have purchased a subscription), Springer now provides an alternative publishing option: Springer Open Choice. A Springer Open Choice article receives all the benefits of a regular subscription-based article, but in addition is made available publicly through Springer’s online platform SpringerLink. We regret that Springer Open Choice cannot be ordered for published articles.

Copyright transfer

Authors will be asked to transfer copyright of the article to the Publisher (or grant the Publisher exclusive publication and dissemination rights). This will ensure the widest possible protection and dissemination of information under copyright laws. Open Choice articles do not require transfer of copyright as the copyright remains with the author. In opting for open access, they agree to the Springer Open Choice Licence.

Offprints

Additional offprints can be ordered by the corresponding author.

Color illustrations

Publication of color illustrations is free of charge.

Proof reading

The purpose of the proof is to check for typesetting or conversion errors and the completeness and accuracy of the text, tables and figures. Substantial changes in content, e.g., new results, corrected values, title and authorship, are not allowed without the approval of the Editor.

After online publication, further changes can only be made in the form of an Erratum, which will be hyperlinked to the article.

Online First

The article will be published online after receipt of the corrected proofs. This is the official first publication citable with the DOI. After release of the printed version, the paper can also be cited by issue and page numbers.

Languages

Articles and abstracts must be in English or in the journal's official language(s), but the journal accepts additional abstracts in other languages of the author’s choice (for instance in the author’s first language, if not English or the journal's official language). Such abstracts are optional. Authors would need to supply such abstracts themselves, certify that they are a faithful translation of the official abstract, and they must be supplied in Unicode (see www.unicode.org for details), especially if they are using non-roman characters. http://www.unicode.org

Such abstracts in other languages will carry a disclaimer:
"This abstract is provided by the author(s), and is for convenience of the users only. The author certifies that the translation faithfully represents the official version in the language of the journal, which is the published Abstract of record and is the only Abstract to be used for reference and citation."

Springer Open Choice™

Springer operates a program called Springer Open Choice. It offers authors to have their journal articles made available with full open access in exchange for payment of a basic fee ('article processing charge').

With Springer Open Choice the authors decide how their articles are published in the leading and well respected journals that Springer publishes. Springer continues to offer the traditional publishing model, but for the growing number of researchers who want open access, Springer journals offer the option to have articles made available with open access, free to anyone, any time, and anywhere in the world. If authors choose open access in the Springer Open Choice program, they will not be required to transfer their copyright to Springer, either.

Whatever the decision, an author’s work will always benefit from all Springer has to offer. There is no difference in the way that they are treated between Springer Open Choice articles and other articles among the well over 100,000 that Springer publishes annually. All articles will be peer-reviewed, professionally produced, and available both in print and in electronic versions on SpringerLink. In addition, every article will be registered in CrossRef and included in the appropriate Abstracting and Indexing services. Springer Open Choice articles will have the possibility of incorporating additional non-text files such as sound or video in the electronic edition.

Authorship and Contributorship

An "author" is generally considered to be someone who has made substantive intellectual contributions to a published study, and biomedical authorship continues to have important academic, social, and financial implications (1). In the past, readers were rarely provided with information about contributions to studies from persons listed as authors and in Acknowledgments (2). Some journals now request and publish information about the contributions of each person named as having participated in a submitted study, at least for original research. Editors are strongly encouraged to develop and implement a contributorship policy, as well as a policy on identifying who is responsible for the integrity of the work as a whole.

While contributorship and guarantorship policies obviously remove much of the ambiguity surrounding contributions, they leave unresolved the question of the quantity and quality of contribution that qualify for authorship. The ICJME has recommended the following criteria for authorship; these criteria are still appropriate for journals that distinguish authors from other contributors.

• Authorship credit should be based on 1) substantial contributions to conception and design, acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; 2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and 3) final approval of the version to be published. Authors should meet conditions 1, 2, and 3.
• When a large, multicenter group has conducted the work, the group should identify the individuals who accept direct responsibility for the manuscript (3). These individuals should fully meet the criteria for authorship/contributorship defined above and editors will ask these individuals to complete journal-specific author and conflict-of-interest disclosure forms. When submitting a manuscript authored by a group, the corresponding author should clearly indicate the preferred citation and identify all individual authors as well as the group name. Journals generally list other members of the group in the Acknowledgments. The NLM indexes the group name and the names of individuals the group has identified as being directly responsible for the manuscript; it also lists the names of collaborators if they are listed in Acknowledgments.
• Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group alone does not constitute authorship.
• All persons designated as authors should qualify for authorship, and all those who qualify should be listed.
• Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content.

Some journals now also request that one or more authors, referred to as "guarantors," be identified as the persons who take responsibility for the integrity of the work as a whole, from inception to published article, and publish that information.

Increasingly, authorship of multicenter trials is attributed to a group. All members of the group who are named as authors should fully meet the above criteria for authorship/contributorship.

The group should jointly make decisions about contributors/authors before submitting the manuscript for publication. The corresponding author/guarantor should be prepared to explain the presence and order of these individuals. It is not the role of editors to make authorship/contributorship decisions or to arbitrate conflicts related to authorship.

Contributors Listed in Acknowledgments

All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an acknowledgments section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, writing assistance, or a department chair who provided only general support. Editors should ask corresponding authors to declare whether they had assistance with study design, data collection, data analysis, or manuscript preparation. If such assistance was available, the authors should disclose the identity of the individuals who provided this assistance and the entity that supported it in the published article. Financial and material support should also be acknowledged.

Groups of persons who have contributed materially to the paper but whose contributions do not justify authorship may be listed under such headings as "clinical investigators" or "participating investigators," and their function or contribution should be described-for example, "served as scientific advisors," "critically reviewed the study proposal," "collected data," or "provided and cared for study patients." Because readers may infer their endorsement of the data and conclusions, these persons must give written permission to be acknowledged.

1. Davidoff F, for the CSE Task Force on Authorship (2000) Who's the author? Problems with biomedical authorship, and some possible solutions. Science Editor 23:111-119

2. Yank V, Rennie D (1999) Disclosure of researcher contributions: a study of original research articles in The Lancet. Ann Intern Med 130:661-670

3. Flanagin A, Fontanarosa PB, DeAngelis CD (2002) Authorship for research groups. JAMA 288:3166-3168

The above paragraph is part of: International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals. Available at: http://www.icmje.org/. Accessed March 30, 2009

Copyright information

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