Author Guidelines

Frontiers in Dentistry (Formerly known as :Journal of Dentistry of Tehran University of Medical Sciences (JDT)) is willing to accept articles that cover all aspects of dentistry and related topics with the understanding that they have not been published previously and are not under consideration by another publication. Article types within the scope of this journal include:

Original Research Articles and Systematic Reviews: these articles investigate a defined theory and consist of a structured abstract of up to 250 words, 3 to 7 keywords and a main text (including Abstract and References) that should not exceed 5000 words.

Review articles: Reviews on any topic related to dentistry or head and neck diseases which evaluate or criticize current important issues will be considered for publication, but note that these types of articles are usually submitted by leading experts in the field. Review papers should not exceed 6000 words with Abstract and References (4000 words for mini-reviews) and require 3-7 keywords and an unstructured Abstract submitted in a single paragraph without subheadings that should be less than 250 words.

Reports: Reports include Technical Reports and Case Reports which consist of an unstructured Abstract with a maximum of 150 words, 3-7 keywords and a main text plus Abstract plus References of no more than 2500 words. Technical reports describe new techniques, methods, equipment, software … that may be related to diagnosis or treatment and should be of interest to at least one of the various fields of dentistry. Case reports are considered for publication only if they present extremely rare cases, symptoms and side effects or help clarify the possible etiology(ies) or pathogenesis of a disease.

Letters to the Editor: Letters to the Editor report preliminary original data that require rapid publication and may be presented in the future in a more complete form. Discussions on previously published articles in this journal or presentation of novel hypotheses are also welcome in this section. These papers do not have an Abstract, are not to exceed 1500 words and should not contain more than 15 references and one Table or Figure. 

General Considerations prior to submission: 

Requirements of all manuscript categories should comply with that of the guidelines adopted by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors ("Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals"), available as a PDF at http://www.icmje.org.

Cover Letter:

All manuscripts should be accompanied by a cover letter that includes the title of the paper, confirmation that the material is original, has not been previously published, is not under consideration elsewhere and will not be submitted to other publications as long as it is being processed by this journal.

The contributions of all co-authors to the study should also be detailed (study concept, study design, literature review, experimental/laboratory/treatment procedures, statistical analysis, manuscript preparation, editing and review) followed by their complete names and signatures.

In case there is a need to acquire permission for reproduction of published material, it should be obtained from the copyright holder and stated in this section along with provision of proper documentation.

Language and text:

a) Submit the manuscript in English and only in Microsoft Word (any version after 2003) format. If the native language of the authors is not English, it is suggested that their papers be edited and revised by someone fluent in this language before submission.

Please keep in mind that the Editor/Publisher reserves the right to make slight modifications to the text to enhance clarity.  

b) Abbreviations or acronyms must be spelled out in full at their first mention in both the Abstract and the main text and should not be used in Figures Legends and Tables. When phrases are abbreviated the abbreviations must be used somewhere in the text, if not, phrases should not be abbreviated.

c) Units should be expressed according to the International System (SI) of Units. All non-SI units must be followed by their SI equivalent.

d) Always keep a backup copy of the electronic file for reference and safety.

Ethical guidelines

Authors of experimental research manuscripts should state in the first paragraph of the Materials and Methods section that their study was approved by the appropriate ethical committees related to the institution(s) in which it was performed and that written informed consent was obtained from all subjects after providing a complete description of the intervention(s) that were to be performed. Make sure to provide the ethics code number granted by the authority responsible for approving the study along with its full name. Personal details of patients including but not limited to names, address, telephone/cell numbers and features that lead to identification in photographs must be removed prior to submission.

Regarding authorship and contributorship, all authors are advised to read the guidelines developed by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors available at http://www.icmje.org/ethical_1author.html. The order of authorship should be determined by all authors and any change in this order or the number of contributors should be declared in writing and signed by all initial authors before final proof-reading.

This journal has a strict policy against plagiarism (and self plagiarism). JDT defines plagiarism as the use of more than 8 consecutive words that are exactly copied from another publication (even the authors’ own previous article) without using single or double quotation marks and not giving reference to the original source. Please note that this does not include special names such as specific scientific nomenclature like disease designations and names of manufacturers etc. In case plagiarism is proven to have occurred during processing of the manuscript, the corresponding author is notified and providing sufficient revision is made to the paper, its resubmitted form will be reconsidered for publication. However, if plagiarism is discovered after publication, the manuscript will be officially retracted and identifiable in all indexing systems including PubMed. There will be no refund of the article-processing charges paid before publication.

All funding and conflict of interest information should be provided in the appropriate sections; if the authors fail to do so and the journal is informed after publication of the paper, the funding source will be notified followed by official retraction of the manuscript identifiable in all indexing systems including PubMed. There will be no refund of the article-processing charges paid before publication.

5) Randomized Controlled Trials

Based on the “Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals” developed by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (www.icmje.org) randomized controlled trials must be registered in a public trial registry [e.g. World Health Organization's (WHO) International Clinical Trial Registry Platform (ICTRP)] and the registration number should be stated at the end of the Abstract section. Authors are encouraged to complete the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) flow chart (http://www.consort-statement.org) in order to prevent omission of valuable information.

 Submission of Manuscripts:

Submit the manuscript along with any tables in Microsoft Word (any version after 2003) only once and only in English to http://jdt.tums.ac.ir/index.php/jdt/index. Figures/images/line-drawings should be sent as separate files in any format that can be opened with Adobe Photoshop (GIF, JPG, PSD, EPS etc) provided that it does not exceed ten megabyte (10 MB). Considering the double-blind reviewer policy of this journal please refrain from giving the name of the University, Hospital, Center, country, state, city … which the work was conducted anywhere in the text and submit the Title page and Main text (including the Abstract) as separate files.

All pages must be numbered consecutively and the main text including references should be double-spaced and justified low with margins of 30 mm on all sides using a font size of 12 points. Please submit manuscripts in the following order:

Title page

Titles should be typed in ‘title’ (e.g. Prediction of 10-year Survival in ITI Implants) and be as brief and informative as possible. This is followed by a Suntitle of no more than 50 characters (including spaces) and full names of all authors and their affiliations and institutions. The corresponding author must be identified with a superscript asterisk denoting complete details including name, address, e-mail and phone, cell and fax numbers.

Acknowledgements must also appear on this page and list all sources of support including grants, equipments, drugs … and any individual who contributed to the research but did not fulfill the requirements of an author. Please note that full names of funding agencies and complete numbers and specifications of grants should be given in this section.

This page should also include a Conflict of Interest Statement to disclose any direct or indirect financial, commercial, political, academic or personal relationship that may in some way mislead or deceive the readers or negatively influence the study. If there are no conflicts of interest, please specify as “None” or “None declared”.

Abstract
Only abstracts of original articles and systematic reviews must be structured and include the following subheadings: Objectives, Materials and Methods, Results and Conclusions. Abstracts of other types of articles should be a single paragraph without subheadings. The word limit for this section is 250 for all types of papers, except for Reports (Technical Reports and Case Reports) which should be less than 150 words. Please provide 3 to 7 keywords at the end of this page, using MeSH terms obtained from the Medical Subject Headings list of Index Medicus.

Main text:

- Original research articles should be arranged as follows (other types of articles should contain subtitles relevant to the specific category and subject of research):

Introduction: This section should provide a concise description of the studied issue(s), a brief background on existing knowledge, the novelty of the research at hand and the reason for conducting the investigation (the objective of the study).

Materials and Methods: All procedures and analytic methods should be described in sufficient detail so that exact reproduction of the procedures would be feasible by other investigators. If formerly established techniques are to be applied, a brief description along with references would suffice. Details of all materials and instruments including batch numbers, models, manufacturers and the source(s) of products must be stated. For studies conducted on animal and human subjects please read the ethical guidelines above. All tests used for statistical analysis and the level of significance should be specified.

Results: this section illustrates findings of the research which could be presented either as text, table(s), figure(s), graph(s) ... without reference to previous studies. Please avoid repetitive statement of the same data in different styles and do not discuss or interpret the results in this section. Authors are encouraged to present their findings in the same order as their experiments have appeared in the Materials and Methods section.

Discussion: Data reported in the Results should be interpreted, but not repeated in this section. Findings are to be discussed in light of previous studies; however, extensive literature and historical review is not required. Possible justifications for discrepancies between the obtained results and those reported elsewhere should be provided, where appropriate. Describe the association of your findings to the initial hypothesis presented in the Introduction section and how they have helped to confirm or reject the given theory. Suggestions and speculations derived from the results are encouraged and propositions for future research are favored.

Conclusion: this section is obligatory and must be limited to 1 paragraph and should state the most significant points of the study and their importance, relevance, implication or possible advantage for patients or other researchers/clinicians.

References: Authors are responsible for the accuracy of the references. All references should be cited in the text using Arabic numerals placed in square brackets and listed at the end of the paper in consecutive order of appearance, without indents. Reference style in this journal follows the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors-uniform guidelines (ICMJE)-Vancouver style (for more information, visit: http://www.icmje.org/index.html#reference). Reference to articles that are accepted but not yet published should be marked as “In Press” in parentheses after confirmation of acceptance is obtained by the author(s). Theses and manuscripts in submission are not accepted as references in this journal. Articles which are still in the submission stage should be cited as personal communication, data not shown or unpublished data. For papers with more than 6 authors, “et al” should be used after the 6^th author. Refer to a current issue of the Journal for additional examples of correct style and format.

Examples:      

Journal article:

- Nilforoushan D, Shirazi M, Dehpour AR. The role of opioid systems on orthodontic tooth movement in cholestatic rats. Angle Orthod. 2002 Oct;72(5):476-80.

Book:

- Carpenter G, Wahl MI. The epidermal growth factor family, in Peptide Growth Factors and Their Receptors. New York, NY, Springer-Verlag, 1990:69-75.

Website:

- Health topics: Health promotion. Available at:  www.who.int/topics/health_promotion/en/Accessed September 6, 2011.

Tables: Tables should be numbered consecutively using Arabic numerals and each of them typed on a different page following the Reference List with a brief title. Do not submit Tables in separate files. All explanatory matters including definition of abbreviations (if actually necessary) should be defined in footnotes and marked using superscript symbols (e.g.*, #, **). Please avoid repeating findings which have been given in the Results section and do not convert your Tables to a picture format and subsequently save them in a Word document. All tables should be processable in Microsoft Word or Excel format.

Figure Legends: Figures must be numbered consecutively using Arabic numerals and their Legends appear after the Tables in the same order as cited in the text. Please note that Graphs, Charts and Diagrams should all be tagged as “Figure”.

Figures: All figures must be supplied in separate files except for those containing multiple sections (e.g. Figure 1a, 1b, 1c …), which are to be sent in a single file. Any format that can be opened by Adobe Photoshop (GIF, JPG, PSD, EPS etc) is acceptable, providing it has a resolution of 300 dpi for photographs and 600 dpi for line art. Most figures are reduced to the width of a single column (± 80mm) unless the authors indicate otherwise. For labeling multi-part figures, use bold capital letters (9 pt) and place them at the lower left corner of each panel. Please label panels from left to right and then from top to bottom.

Please note that figures should be kept to a minimum and not exceed a total of 6 for all article types except “Letters to the Editor”.

Graphs: Please avoid using three-dimensional histograms where adding a 3^rd dimension would not convey additional information. The axis labels should be brief and not a repetition of the legend. It should be noted that graphs are usually reduced to one-column width, therefore select an appropriate size for printed data so that they would be observable to readers. Please note that Graphs should be sent as Excel or Word files and not converted to figures (JPEG, TIFF, … are not acceptable formats for Graphs).

 Review Process

Every effort is made by JDT to accelerate the review process. Upon receiving the referees’ comments requesting minor or major revision, upload the revised form of the manuscript in the appropriate section and avoid resubmitting the revised version, unless the decision on your paper is “reject with opportunity to resubmit”. To facilitate reevaluation of the manuscript in its revised form, turn on track change mode in your Word document.

 After Acceptance

Proofs:

The corresponding author will receive one set of page proofs via e-mail as a PDF file and is required to correct all errors and return it within 48 hours. Please keep in mind that this is the final form of your paper and the publisher would not accept major changes or any additions to the paper at this stage, unless permission from the Editor is granted. All corrections and replies to queries should be listed in a Word document with exact specifications of column location and page, paragraph and line numbers. Authors are solely responsible for proof-reading and should send all corrections in one submission. Response to the proof-reading stage is considered final and no corrections will be accepted afterwards.

 Submission Summary 

Submit your manuscripts in the following order:

File no. 1: Cover letter: Title of the paper, originality confirmation, permission for reproduction of published materials (when used in the manuscript) and authors’ contribution with complete names and signatures.

 File no. 2: Title Page: Title (title case), authors’ names, affiliations and institutions, corresponding author with complete details, Acknowledgements and Conflict of Interest Statement.

 File no. 3: Main Text:

Abstract and Keywords (MeSH): Start with the manuscript’s title followed by a structured abstract (Objectives, Materials and Methods, Results, Conclusions) of no more than 250 words. No subheadings are required for Reports which should not exceed 150 words.

Main Text: All pages should be numbered containing double-spaced ‘justified low’ text with margins of 30 mm and 12 p font size organized with appropriate headings depending on the manuscript type.

References: In accordance with ICMJE – Vancouver style. Use consecutive numbers in square brackets within the text and “et al” after the 6^th author for papers with more than 6 authors in the reference list.

Tables: Processable in Word or Excel and should not be a figure pasted in the document.

Figure Legends: Same order as cited in the text.

 File no. 4: Figures: Any format opened by Adobe Photoshop not exceeding 5MB with a resolution of 300 dpi for photographs and 600 dpi for line art.