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Instructions for ContributorsThe Proceedings of the American Thoracic Society (PATS), one of the official publications of the American Thoracic Society, publishes reviews of clinical or basic science commonly resulting from conferences or workshops organized or sponsored by the ATS and/or other organizations. Its purpose is to provide a better understanding of diseases within respiratory and critical care medicine, complementing other articles published in the society's other journals. PATS does not accept individual review articles. These should be submitted to either the AJRCCM or AJRCMB. PATS encourages submission of potential ideas for future symposia by written communication with the Editor before submitting the completed symposium. Proposals for PATS issues should be submitted in writing by the scientific coordinator to the Editor, Dr. Alan R. Leff (aleff@medicine.bsd.uchicago.edu), indicating the table of contents, authors, approximate length of the manuscripts, and the funding source and contact information. Note that the Journal does not accept proposals for symposia that are limited to a single product with commercial potential. All articles will undergo peer review overseen by the PATS Editor or Associate Editors. The journal reserves the right to determine whether material is acceptable for publication. Only papers written in English can be considered. Manuscripts should conform to the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals (http://www.icmje.org/index.htm). The Journal is published in both print and electronic formats and may be viewed online at http://www.atsjournals.org/ or at http://www.icmje.org/index.htm. All drafts of the manuscript are to have been written exclusively by the authors. No part of the manuscript is to have been prepared by outside parties, professional writers, or individuals with less than full authorship status. No part of the manuscript is to have been prepared in any part by any manufacturing or other commercial entities. All authors are to have written, read, and approved submission of the manuscript. Submission of manuscripts should be coordinated by the scientific coordinator. To submit your manuscript, click here. Complete instructions for online submission are located on this website. Technical support is available from Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Eastern Standard Time, at 212-315-8638 or by e-mail (fling@thoracic.org). Manuscripts that do not conform to guidelines will be delayed in processing. Within 24 hours after completing the online submission of the manuscript, send the following to our Peer Review Office (see address below):
All correspondence related to manuscripts should be addressed to: Alan R. Leff, M.D., Editor Manuscripts are acknowledged by ScholarOne upon receipt. Submission, Copyright, and Disclosure of Financial Interest Forms are not acknowledged by the Peer Review Office, but you will be queried if they are not received. When inquiring about a manuscript, please refer to the assigned manuscript number. Inquiries will be accepted from the designated Corresponding Author only. A completed Manuscript Submission Form must be uploaded with the manuscript submission. The Corresponding Author must sign the Manuscript Submission Form on behalf of all authors and list the name, address, e-mail address, FAX number, and telephone number of the Corresponding Author who submitted the manuscript. This individual can be a different Corresponding Author from the contact author on the Title Page of the manuscript. By virtue of submitting a manuscript to PATS, the authors certify that (a) the material has not been published elsewhere as a review paper and is not being considered for publication elsewhere, including publicly accessible websites or e-print servers, (b) no part of the research contained in the review has been funded by tobacco industry sources, and (c) all authors have read the manuscript and approve its submission. Original research should not be included. The review should cite only previously published peer-reviewed research. Any change in authorship following the original submission must be justified and agreed to in writing by the affected author(s). If portions of an article overlap with a prior review by an author on the same subject, this must be designated in a cover letter in the "Author Comments" area on the ScholarOne website as well as in the manuscript. Articles will be reviewed expeditiously by members of the editorial board or by an ad hoc advisory board appointed by the editorial board. However, if authors wish to recommend reviewers, these recommendations will be considered. Copyright Form An Assignment of Copyright Form must be signed by all authors and forwarded to forms@thoracic.org. The form may be photocopied and the signatures of authors can be on several different forms. Please make sure to include your manuscript number. NIH Public Access Policy If any of the authors have been supported financially by the NIH to conduct the research that is reported in the article, they should indicate this on the copyright form and provide the grant number and contact name on the title page of the manuscript. The ATS will submit an electronic copy of the final accepted version on the authors' behalf to the NIH National Library of Medicine's (NLM) and PubMed Central (PMC) at a time in compliance with NIH requirements. REVISIONS Authors MUST submit a completed Manuscript Submission Form with all revisions. The online system does not permit revisions directly on the version of the manuscript originally submitted to Manuscript Central. Instead, authors should revise their manuscript using a word processor and then resubmit the revised version, ensuring that it is marked R1. Authors will need to submit a point-by-point response to the reviewers' comments on the "Author Comments" area on the ScholarOne website. For each review, the author should first include the reviewers comment in full. Each comment should then be followed by a specific response. Example: Reviewer's comment. Please cite reference for your comment on p. 6, para. 2, line 1. Author's response. These references are inserted. When submitting a revised manuscript, authors must also provide a clean copy of the manuscript on a 3.5 inch high-density diskette or CD-ROM and two sets of publication-quality illustrations. These items must be mailed to the Peer Review Office. On the disk's label, specify the file name and operating system. Only Microsoft WORD files are acceptable. Authors must also supply high-resolution digital versions of their figures on a separate diskette, zip disk or CD-Rom. (Please read Submission of Digital Art Guidelines). Please note that low-resolution images saved from webpages are not acceptable (some sites provide enlarged versions of figures; these may be usable). When using art derived from another article, it is preferable to contact the author and receive high-resolution digital files or, if these are not available, photograph-quality hard copies. If these cannot be obtained, please send us a tearsheet (the actual printed page [not a photocopy] from the original publication on which the figure appears). Please remember that permission must be received to use figures that appear on websites, even if the art has not been published in a print publication. PATS differs from other journals in that all the submitted articles from a symposium must be published simultaneously. Hence, adherence to deadlines is essential. Deadlines for the receipt of revisions will be communicated at the beginning of the submission process. Failure to comply may require that an issue of PATS be published without a particular article. There will be no opportunity to publish the article in a subsequent issue. HANDLING OF MANUSCRIPTS Manuscripts are accepted for publication on the basis of scientific merit. Because these are review papers, every attempt will be made to expedite acceptance of carefully written reviews conforming to the format and requirements for submission to PATS. Questions regarding manuscripts should be emailed or faxed. In exceptional circumstances decisions regarding publication may require discussion over the phone; such discussions will only be conducted with the editor. On publication, each article indicates the dates that the original manuscript was received at the Peer Review Office and the date that the manuscript was finally accepted. CONFLICT OF INTEREST At the time of submission, each and every author is required to complete a "Disclosure of Financial Interest" form. All authors submitting a revised manuscript are also required to complete the disclosure form if it was not included with the original submission. On the disclosure form, authors are required to provide explicit answers to a series of questions on financial relationships. In addition, each author is required to write a statement of financial disclosure related to him or herself. When writing the statement for publication in PATS, authors can choose to list the precise dollar amount received from a manufacturer or make a general statement; examples of both types of statement are provided on the disclosure form. Positive answers to the questions on the form will not exclude articles from consideration. Be certain to describe relationships with manufacturers if these are pertinent to the content of an article. Authors should ensure that no information is withheld that could prove embarrassing if later revealed publicly. If after submission of the form, the author becomes aware of additional conflicts of interest (or perceived conflicts) or proprietary information, these should be communicated to the Editor. If there are any exceptional circumstances, please indicate. PATS strongly opposes contractual agreements that deny investigators the right to examine submissions independently or to submit a manuscript for publication without first obtaining the consent of the sponsor. Authors should not enter into agreements that interfere with their ability to analyze data or prior reports independently, to prepare manuscripts, and to publish them. If the supporting source had no involvement, the authors should so state. If a review is funded by an agency with a proprietary or financial interest in the material, the corresponding author must include the following statement in the "Author Comments" area of the website: "I had full access to all of the data in this study and I take complete responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the material in this review." HUMAN AND ANIMAL STUDIES PATS endorses the recommendations concerning human research that are contained in the Declaration of Helsinki. All articles and data cited in PATS should conform to the tenets of the Declaration. A detailed discussion of the agreement and the United States Animal Welfare Act are available in the AJRCCM and AJRCMB Instructions for Contributors. The Editors reserve the right to reject any manuscript containing studies that do not conform to these recommendations. All references reporting human research must have been performed in conformity with an institutional review board. PRIOR PUBLICATION Symposia usually present previously published data, which should be appropriately acknowledged. Discussion of the importance of findings in the literature and directions for future research are encouraged. Unpublished data may be included, but must undergo peer review. PATS does not publish review articles that have been published or submitted for publication elsewhere. The Editors of the Journal reserve the right to determine what constitutes significant duplicate publication. When authors are submitting an article, the journal wishes to be informed about other review articles that authors have published on a related topic. Articles may contain previously published material such as illustrations or tables provided it is appropriately referenced in the legend, as well as in the reference list. It is the responsibility of the author(s) to secure copyright release from publishers of previously published material (or portions of such material) that would otherwise violate copyright regulations. This includes tables or figures reprinted or modified from previously published articles written (or co-written) by the author. If some or all of the review was previously published, this point should be acknowledged in the last sentence of the Introduction. The recommended format is: "Some of the discussion of these studies have been previously reported in the form of an abstract (s) (References)." PROOFS One set of paged galley proofs is e-mailed before publication of each paper and must be returned within 48 hours of receipt. Alterations are to be kept to a minimum and may be made only on the paged galley proof. CRITERIA FOR AUTHORSHIP Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work, the data analysis, and the preparation of the manuscript, and have reviewed and approve the manuscript as submitted to take public responsibility for it. This would include substantial participation in some or all of the following aspects of the work relating to the manuscript:
MANUSCRIPT PREPARATION Manuscripts should be typed in 12-point type with margins of 2.5 centimeters (1 inch). Double spacing should be used throughout. All papers should be organized to include: title page, abstract, text, acknowledgments, references, figure legends, footnotes, tables, and figures. Each of the preceding elements should begin on a separate page. While the Introduction should begin on a separate page, it is not necessary for the following sections to begin on a separate page; instead, they should follow after the Introduction, with two spaces separating each section. Pages should be numbered consecutively, beginning with the abstract. Abbreviations and Acronyms If an abbreviation is used, the term should always be first written in full with the abbreviation in parentheses immediately after it. Title Page List all of the following items.
Abstract The second page (numbered page 1) should carry an abstract of not more than 250 words and labeled Abstract. The abstract should be written in a format that can be understood by both researchers and clinicians, and should convey the major points of emphasis in the review. Abbreviations should be written out at the first usage followed by the abbreviation in parentheses. At the bottom of the page, state the number of words in the abstract and list 3 to 5 key words for use as indexing terms. These terms should not include words in the title of the manuscript. Key words are best expressed as MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) terms, the controlled vocabulary used by Pub Med. The MeSH browser available at (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/MBrowser.html) provides an online guide to the selection of key words. Text Reviews will require subheadings within some sections to clarify the contents. There should not be more than two levels of subheadings. Subheadings must never be used in the Introduction section. Subheadings are encouraged in the text of the reviews. A summary statement should be included at the end of the review. Statements referring to work in progress that implies future publication, in PATS or elsewhere, should not be used. Unpublished work may not be cited in References, but may be cited in full parenthetically within the text. Written permission from the author for citation of unpublished work should be mailed to the Peer Review Office. Generic names of drugs should be used instead of trade names. The location (city, state, country) of a manufacturer listed in the text should be provided after the first reference to the manufacturer. Units of measurement should conform to current scientific usage and can be abbreviated when they follow a number (e.g., cm, nm, ml, g, mg, nmol) but not otherwise. Unusual units should be defined. Acknowledgments All acknowledgments should be grouped into one paragraph and placed after the Discussion. Information about grants, funding, financial support, or previous publication of an article as an abstract should not appear in the acknowledgments; it should appear as a footnote on the first page of the article. References The number of references cited in an article is not limited. References should be typed double-spaced, should begin on a separate sheet, and be numbered in the order that they appear in the text. All author's names (do not use "et al.," except for references with more than ten authors), complete article titles, and articles in press should be included. Supply inclusive page numbers. Submitted manuscripts that have not been accepted for publication are considered as unpublished work and should not be included in the references. If an article cited in References is in press, it must be appended at the end of the online submission. Use abbreviations for the names of all journals as provided in Index Medicus (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi). Spell out the names of journals that are not listed. A reference for the statistical methods used should be cited. Examples of References Journal Articles
In Press
Abstracts
Books
Articles in Books
Government or Association Report
Journal Article in Electronic Format
Citation Managers If you use use a citation manager to organize and style your references, you must make sure that you have downloaded the corrected style. For EndNotes you may go directly to http://www.endnote.com/support/enstyledetail.asp; for Reference Manager, go to http://www.refman.com/ and select "Get the Latest Styles and Filters" in the yellow box on the left. Tables Each table should constitute a single unit of communication, completely informative in itself. It should be possible to understand the information in a table without reading the text. The information in a very small table can be presented more economically as one or two sentences of text. Tables should be configured to fit vertically on the printed page. They will be typeset to fit a width of 3½ inches (9 centimeters) for single column or up to 7¼ inches (18½ centimeters) for double column. Tables that do not fit into this format will be returned for reworking. With Revisions, each table should be typed double-spaced on a separate sheet. Do not submit tables as photographs. Tables should be numbered consecutively, have a brief title, and be cited in text. Compare the titles of tables with one another, and remove redundant words. Avoid very broad and very narrow tables. All tables should be rotated through 90 degrees to determine the orientation that achieves the best presentation. Do not insert horizontal or vertical lines in a table. Avoid arbitrary labels or classifications, such as groups A and B, when specific descriptors, such as"control" and "hypoxia", can be used. All non-standard abbreviations used in each table should be explained in footnotes. For footnotes, use the following symbols in this sequence: *, † , ‡ , §, ||, , **, †† , etc. Illustrations Two copies of line drawings and graphs, and four photographic prints of each halftone should be submitted with the revised manuscript. Two photographic prints of all illustrations are required on submission of revised manuscripts. Illustrations must be good quality, unmounted prints, sized so they can be reduced to a width of 3 ½ inches (8.7 centimeters) for single column, and not exceeding 7 ¼ inches (18.2 centimeters) for double column. All figures must be submitted in a format that allows their publication without reduction. Halftones must be on glossy paper. Line drawings need not be on glossy paper; however, they may not be photocopies. Computer-generated graphics are acceptable, provided they permit easy and satisfactory reproduction. We reserve the right to request glossy prints and to return unacceptable configurations for additional cropping and/or vertical orientation at the author's expense. The size of the symbols and lettering should be in scale with the figure. Lettering on figures should be of uniform size. All figures within a manuscript should be the same point size. Figures should be able to be read clearly after undergoing a 50% reduction, i.e., all labels on axes and symbols should have optimal resolution. Multipart figures should be submitted as single composites, with each panel labeled (e.g., A, B). Labels indicating subparts of a figure (A, B, C, etc.) should be boldface and capitalized. After reduction, labels should not be larger than the type used in the text of the published article The title for a figure should be described only in the figure legend, and not appear on the figure. The abscissa and ordinate of each graph should be labeled clearly. Leave adequate space between the lettering and the axis. The legend and figure form a separate unit and must be fully self-explanatory. By reading the legend, the reader should be able to understand the main findings in an illustration without looking at the text of an article. The back of each illustration should be marked with its number, the first author's name, and the top indicated. Mark lightly or use a label; do not use paperclips on figures. Color Authors should coordinate the submission of color figures with the scientific coordinator of the supplement. For submission of the hard copies, color prints are preferred to transparencies. The Journal reserves the right to use the hard copy instead of the digital file. If there is a discrepancy between the hard copy and the digital image, we will use the digital version. Legends for Illustrations Legends for illustrations should convey the findings and be typed double-spaced. The text included in each legend should be sufficient to enable a reader to understand the information in an illustration without reading the body of the text. Start the legends section on a separate page with Arabic numerals corresponding to the illustrations. When symbols, arrows, numbers, or letters are used to identify parts of the illustrations, each one should be identified and explained clearly in the legend. In photomicrographs, explain internal scale and identify the method of staining. Each figure should be cited in numerical order in the text. IMAGE MANIPULATION Electronically submitted figures must be accurate representations of actual research images. Specific features within an image should not be enhanced, obscured, moved, deleted, or added. The grouping of images from different parts of the same gel, or from different gels, fields, or exposures must be made explicit by using dividing lines (or other graphic means of demarcation) and must also be stated in the figure legend. Adjustments of brightness, contrast, or color balance are acceptable if applied to the entire image, as long as these techniques do not obscure, eliminate, or misrepresent any information present in the original, including backgrounds (backgrounds should not be faded out to the extent that they are undetectable). Nonlinear adjustments (e.g., changes to gamma settings) as well as other manipulations such as pseudo-coloring must be disclosed in the figure legend. Authors should always have access to their original unprocessed images to provide to the Editor upon request. COVER A color cover illustration will be chosen for each issue from an article appearing the Journal. The choice of cover art illustration will be made by the Editor. Authors are also encouraged to submit suitable high-quality color figures that do not appear in the actual article for consideration as cover illustrations. There figures should be related to the topic of their article and be accompanied by a short explanatory legend. The dimensions of the cover illustrations should be 7-1/2 X 10 inches (width X height). These figures should be submitted according to the Submission of Digital Art Guidelines. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Letters to the Editor provide a format to discuss previously published material or other controversies from recent editions of PATS. Authors will be given an opportunity to write a letter in response. Presentations of unpublished investigations are not appropriate as Letters. Letters that confirm previously published material without adding significant new information are less likely to be published. Because of space limitations, priorities will be assigned to submitted Letters, and publication will depend on this priority rating. Letters to the Editor should be no longer than 400 words and cite no more than six references. The title should be brief and reflect the content of the letter. Illustrations and tables are discouraged. The preferred mode for submitting a Letter to the Editor is by e-mail (aleff@medicine.bsd.uchicago.edu). Simultaneously, a Conflict of Interest Statement and Assignment of Copyright form should be faxed to (773) 702-9181 . Please indicate on your faxes that these are for a submitted letter. Once all forms are received, the letter will be reviewed by the Editor for potential publication. (Reprints of these Instructions may also be obtained from the Journal Peer Review or Editorial Office.) Last Update: April 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
61 Broadway · New York, NY 10006-2755 · Voice: 212-315-8600 · Fax: 212-315-6498 |
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