Guide for Authors

 Guide for Authors

1- Aims and Scope:
Journal of Mashhad Dental School is a scientific publication with the purpose of informing readers with up to date science and promotion of Dentistry knowledge. This journal has been published since 1977 and it welcomes Original Research Articles, Case Reports and Reviews in all fields of Dentistry. Journal of Mashhad Dental School is published quarterly and is supported financially by the Research Vice Chancellor of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences.

Ethics and malpractice statements of the Journal of Mashhad Dental School are based on COPE’s Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors and pertain to all parties involved in the publishing: the editor, the peer reviewer and the author.

2- Ethics in Publishing

This journal follows the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE)‘s Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals.

If research misconduct, fraud or plagiarism is suspected, editors will follow the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines and reserve the rights to inform authors or their institution.More details are available from Publication Ethics. Please read these instructions before submitting your article.

Authorship: As stated in the ICMJE recommendations, authorship credit requires:

(1) Significant contributions to conceptualization and design; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of the data,

(2) The drafting of the article or critical revision for important intellectual content,

(3) Final approval of the version to be published,

(4) Authors are expected to consider the list and order of authors before submitting the manuscript.

Study design and ethical approval: Good research should be well justified, well planned, appropriately designed, and ethically approved. Conducting research to a lower standard may constitute misconduct. The authors are responsible for both the scientific content as well as the bibliographic information accuracy.

Human and animal studies: All manuscripts reporting the results of experimental investigations involving human subjects should include a statement confirming informed consent was obtained from each subject or subject’s guardian. All animal or human studies should be used after approval of the experimental protocol by a local ethics committee.

Data analysis: Data should be appropriately analyzed, but inappropriate analysis does not necessarily constitute misconduct. Fabrication and falsification of data do constitute misconduct.

Multiple, redundant or concurrent publication: Manuscripts are considered for publication only if they are not under consideration by other journals and have not been published previously in the same or substantially similar form. If a prior or duplicate publication is discovered, the editor will address the matter with the affected author/s and the other journal’s editor. This will be done following guidelines published by the ICJME and COPE. Redundant publication occurs when two or more papers, without full cross reference, share the same hypothesis, data, discussion points, or conclusions. In such cases, the manuscript will be rejected.

Conflicts of interest policy: Conflicts of interest include those which may not be fully apparent and which may influence the judgment of authors, reviewers, and editors. They have been described as those which, when revealed later, would make a reasonable reader feel misled or deceived. They may be personal, commercial, political, academic or financial. “Financial” interests may include employment, research funding, stock or share ownership, payment for lectures or travel, consultancies and company support for staff.

Plagiarism: Plagiarism ranges from the unreferenced use of others’ published and unpublished ideas, including research grant applications to submission under “new” authorship of a complete paper, sometimes in a different language. It may occur at any stage of planning, research, writing, or publication: it applies to print and electronic versions. Authors are expected to check their manuscript for plagiarism before submission.

Retractions: The Journal of Mashhad Dental School is committed to maintaining scholarly integrity. Therefore retracting articles may be necessary occasionally. The Journal of Mashhad Dental School considers publishing retractions according to COPE guidelines for retracting articles.

3- Structure of the article:

The Authors are requested to read and follow the below instructions carefully:

ð Title page:

  • The manuscript title should be concise but informative (maximum 15 words) and should not include any abbreviations.
  • The Title page should contain authors full names and their institutional affiliations.
  • Address, telephone, and e-mail address of the corresponding author should be included.

ð Abstract:

  • All the papers should have Persian and English abstract, each on separate pages (The English abstract should be an exact translation of the Persian).
  • The abstract of original articles should include title, Background, materials & methods, results, conclusion and three to five keywords from the Medical Subject Heading (MeSH).
  • The abstract should be short and concise, at most 250 words.

ð Main Text of the Articles:

  • The original articles should be organized in the following sections: Background, Materials & Methods, Results, Discussion and Conclusion, Acknowledgement and References. The type of the study and statistical analysis should be mentioned in the Materials & Methods. In Original Articles that their metodology are based on a questionnaire, questionnaire text should be attached to the manuscript.
  • Case reports must include Background, diagnosis, etiology, treatment objectives, substitution methods, discussion and conclusion and in minimum it should contain Background, case description, discussion and conclusion. It is worth to mention that case reports should be documented, concise and containing maximum of 4 figures and 8 references. The case should be rare or a novelty in diagnosis or treatment.
·         The review articles should include purpose, description of the subject, discussion and conclusion. Review articles must be a general evaluation of a new scientific issue and is accepted from experienced scientists with research background about the subject who refer to their previous works in the manuscript.

- Figures and photographs criteria:

·    All the figures must be included in electronic version of the manuscript with complete resolution and legends.

·    Microscopic figures should have film markers, and arrows, symbols or letters used in these pictures must completely be distinguished (magnification and the method of staining should be mentioned).

·     Arrows, signs, numbers or letters used in these pictures should be explained as footnotes.

·     If the pictures of persons is used their identification should be kept confidential.

- Tables and diagrams:

·    Each table should include a title above, with 1cm line spacing.

·    Non-standard abbreviations should be explained as footnote of the table.

·    Do not duplicate the data of the text in tables.

·     If the results are presented as table or diagram just mention the important points in the text.

·    The diagrams are preferable method of presentation when there is large amount of data.

·    The legends should be written under diagram. The diagrams should be 2 dimensional.

ð Acknowledgement:

All manuscripts should contain an acknowledgement specifying and acknowledging contributors other than the authors. The authors should also recognize the financial support source in this section.

ð References:

Number references consecutively in the order of appearance in the text and list them at the end of the paper in "Vancouver" style. Each reference number should be placed at the end of the sentence in the text.

  • If the reference is journal:

The author (s) last name (space) First character of first name (.) Full title of the article (.) abbreviation of journals name and publication year (;) volume (number) (:) pages (.)

Example:

Goharian R, Maleknejad F, Salari T, Ghavamnasiri M, Derhami M. Effects of adhesives on bond strength of porcelain veneer to base metal alloy. Quintessence Int 2002; 33(3): 225-8.

  • If the reference is a book:

The author (s) last name (space) first character of first name (.) full title of the book (.) edition (ed.) place of publication (:) publisher (;) year of publication (.) page numbers (P.).

Example:

Cohen S, Burns RC. Pathways of the pulp. 8th ed. St Louise: Mosby Co; 2002. P. 103.

  • If the reference is a chapter in a book:

The author(s) last name (space) First character of first name (.) Full title of the chapter (.) In (:) The rest of the information is similar to the previous part.

Example:

Stabholz A. Evaluating success and failure. In: Walton RE, Torabinejad M. Principles and practice of endodontics. 3rd ed. Philadelphia: WB Saunders Co; 2002. P. 45.

Comment: For journals and book references, all the authors should be included if they are six or fewer and if they are more than six the name of the first six authors is followed by “et al”.

  • If the reference is a thesis:

Students Last name (space) First character of first name (.) Full title of the thesis (.) [type of thesis] (.) Country name (.) Faculty and University name (;) year of publication (.)

Example:

Firel M. The flow cytometric detection of dual stained organisms in dental plaque [PhD Thesis]. Toronto Canada. Toronto University; 1990.

  • If the reference is electronic (Site):

authorsnames (.) Title (.) publication year (;) [page numbers]Available at: website Address. date of access in month, day, year respectively.

Comment: If the authors name is not mentioned, the title of the subject comes first.

Example:

Hoffman DL. St Johns Wort.1995; [4 screens]. Available at: URL:http://www.healthy.net/library/books/Hoffman/mat eriamedica/stjohns.htm. Accessed July 16, 1998.

4- Conflict of interest:

Authors are responsible for recognizing and disclosing financial and other conflicts of interest that might bias their work. Report any commercial association that might pose a conflict of interest, such as ownership, stock holdings, and consultant activities, or patent-licensing situations. If the manuscript is accepted, the disclosed information will be published with the article.

5- Cover letter:

All submissions to the Journal of Mashhad Dental School must be accompanied by a complete copy of signed cover letter including the copyright agreement by all authors. The authors should warrant that the article has not been published previously or is not under consideration for publication by another journal.

6- Submission:

The manuscripts should be submitted via our online website: http//:jmds.mums.ac.ir

7- Review process:

The manuscripts would be considered for review by the date of reception. After initial editorial screening, manuscripts will be forwarded to two peer reviewers who are experts in the field. Qualified statisticians evaluate the statistic methods of the paper. If approved, depending on the article type, the manuscripts will be published in alphabetical order of the authors last name. The manuscripts will not be returned.

  •  The journal is free to accept or reject the article, and if necessary will send its point of views to the author in 3 months for re-evaluation. The author must resubmit the revised article with acceptable explanations in 2 months.
  •  The authors are responsible for the published data and all rights of the publication including copyright are preserved for the authors and the journal.

8- Article Processing Charge

The Journal of Mashhad Dental School does not change authors for any submission, article processing or publication fees.

9- Open access

Articles are freely available to both subscribers and wider public with permitted use via the internet through our website: https://jmds.mums.ac.ir

There are not any subscription fees.

  • Journal of Mashhad Dental School does not endorse any product or service marked as an advertisement or promoted by a sponsor in publications.