Instructions for authors

PONS Medical Journal is a scientific, peer reviewed journal which publishes original results of experimental and clinical re­searches, examinations, specialized researches, case reports, elab­orations of scientific methods, book reviews, reports of scientific and specialized meetings, the health economy news, health in­formatics and management, medical history researches, analyses of social aspects of health care, medical ethics researches, letter to the editor, together with other appropriate contents in medical domain and other related fields. Submitted manuscripts are peer-reviewed by independent expert reviewers. PONS Medical Journal publishes researches written in Serbian or English language.

Editorial management and procedure with manuscript, fol­low instructions of the Documents on editing scientific journals of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of Republic of Serbia (www.mpn.gov.rs) and recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (Recom­mendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly work in Medical Journals) (www.icmje.org), the Commit­tee on Publication Ethics: COPE (http://publicationethics.org) and the World Association of Medical Editors (www.wame.org). Editorial management of the professional and scientific journal content is completely independent.

Submission of manuscripts and further action. Manuscripts are submitted electronically through the SCIndeks ASSISTANT, the online journal management system, approaching it by the link http://aseestant.ceon.rs/index.php/pomc/user and only excep­tionally by e-mail address of the journal: redakcija@ponsjournal. info. With the article, you are due to contribute a statement with signatures of all the authors that the article was not published and that it is not being considered to be published elsewhere. In case of the electronic application, you are to scan the statement with the signatures in pdf or jpg format and send it along with the manuscript. Published papers are not a subject of paying and the submitted material is not returned to the authors. Intellec­tual Property Copyright of published contents is transferred to the publishers, whereby authors retain the rights of non-commercial fair use for scientific and technical purposes: education, research, criticism and review.

Categorization of the manuscript. Categorization of articles published in journals is the following: a) the original scientific article (includes results of original research, information in the papers must be elaborated and exposed so that the experiments can be repeated, and the analyses and conclusions, on which the results are based, can be checked), b) preliminary reports (includes scientific results whose character requires urgent publication, but does not have to allow checking and repeating of certain results), c) review article (represents a complete review of a certain prob­lem on the basis of already published material that is collected, analyzed and commented in the review), d) professional article (represents a useful contribution from the field of the profession whose problem is not related to the original research and is pri­marily related to the review or play in the light of known research in order to spread knowledge and adaptation of original research needed by science and practice). Other, principal article categories are the following: literature review, case report and other review, editorial, short communication, seminar, professional practice, history of medicine, comment, scientific criticism, interview, bib­liography, reprint/translation and project. The categorization of submitted manuscripts is done by the editor in chief.

MS Office Word or similar text editor. The page format is A4 with all margins size 2.5 cm. Use font Times New Roman, size 12 (“points”), with Serbian Latin or Cyrillic or English keyboard lan­guage, double space, justify, tabs (size) 1.27 cm. In the entire manuscript use the same style, for the separation and the dis­play of content use only capital letters and / or numbering without using styles such as “Bold”, “Underline”, “Italic”. Stick to the rules of typing, after the punctuation mark leave a space, and for larger gaps use the tab. In the tables use only use the web (“grid”) with­out the use of punctuated, full or double lines. Images (photos and charts) are prepared in the appropriate applicative software (e.g. MS Office Excel, or Adobe Photoshop), in black and white ver­sions (“grayscale”), resolution of 300 dpi and converted to JPG, TIFF or BMP.

Manuscript structure. Submitted manuscript should be prepared and structured according to the recommendations of International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (“Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly work in Medical Journals”) taking into account the latest version of the instructions published on the website www.icmje.org. The gen­eral structure of the original manuscripts consists of the following components: title page, abstract, introduction, material/subjects/ patients and methods, results, discussion, statements about the conflict of interest with or without a statement of acknowledge­ment, list of abbreviations, bibliography, tables, figure legends and figures. The structure of the other papers is tailored to the type of content. The maximum total volume of manuscripts should be approximately as follows: the original work of 12-15 pages, review article 15-20 pages, professional papers 10-12 pages, the work history of medicine from 8-10 pages, previous statements 6-8 pages, reports and news 2-4 pages, book reviews and letters to the editor 1-2 pages.

TITLE PAGE. Home page contains the title of the paper, author names, institutions of the authors, contact address for correspon­dence author, a short title, word count, a number of tables and images.

ABSRACT. Abstract should be structured (objective, method, re­sults and conclusion), contains up to 250 words and at least 3-5 keywords according to the MESH headings. For the manuscripts written in Serbian language title page and abstract should be sub­mitted also in English. Foreign authors submit a whole manuscript in English language only.

INTRODUCTION. In the introduction of the original papers in­dicate the importance of the problems that are examined, the theoretical foundations on which the research and study goals are based.

MATERIAL/SUBJECTS/PATIENTS AND METHODS. In subjects/pa­tients and methods / materials and methods describe the general design of the research, place and time of the research, study pop­ulation / sample, ways of objectively tracked outcomes and tech­nical information, ethical aspects and statistical analysis. of the research. Indicate the most important characteristics of the study population or sample, submit accurate and detailed informa­tion with the measures of the central tendency (arithmetic mean, mode, median) and variability (standard deviation, standard error, confidence interval), according to their type and nature. In the results do not repeat information already presented in the attach­ments (tables and figures).

DISCUSSION. In the discussion part present the most important conclusions of the study in the light of previous findings, indicate possible methodological and other limitations and give a final conclusion, taking into account a narrower and broader scientific framework.

REFERENCES. The type and number of references are adapted to the type and structure of the manuscript. Generally, you should use the smallest possible number of citations and give priority to works published in extenso, preferably in the most ranked, reviewed journals. Books, monographs and Internet-published contents use in exceptional cases. If it is not necessary, avoid specifying the works in press, papers published in very concisely (“abstracts”), unpublished results (unpublished observations), personal contact information (“personal communication”). In the text, literature is cited in Arab numerals in superscript, after punc­tuation marks, in order of appearance. In the bibliography list, the references are marked with appropriate numbers and sorted in as­cending order. Cite up to six authors and if there are more of them the first three are placed with the addition of “et al.” or “i ost.”. References are listed in Serbian or English, and in other cases (ex­cept for quotations in Greek and Latin) titles are translated into English, indicating the original language in square brackets. Cite names of journals in the shortened form according to the PUBMED database. References lead to the following examples:

  • Connolly SJ, Ezekowitz MD, Yusuf S, et al. Dabigatran versus warfarin in patients with atrial fibrillation. N Engl J Med 2009; 361: 1139-51.
  • McPhee SJ, Papadakis M. Current medical diagnosis and treatment 2009. 48th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill Professional, 2008.
  • Mark DB. Decision making in clinical medicine. In: Fauci SA, Eugene Braunwald E, Kasper DL, et al., eds. Harrison’s principles of internal medicine. 17th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill Professional, 2008: 16-23.

For other types of references, consult recent issue of PONS

Medical Journal or the relevant recommendations of the Na­tional Library of Medicine (NLM).

ATTACHMENTS. Tables and figures should be cited in the text in appropriate place in brackets and apply them appropriately num­bered in Arabic numbers, in order of appearance. Above a table place a title and below an additional information using the sym­bols in the following order: *, †, ‡, §, | |, ¶, **, † †, ‡ ‡. Legends of the images should be submitted at a separate page. The measures should be used for the International System of Units (Internation­al System of Units-SI) in special cases, alternative units according to scientific discipline and field.

REPRINT. Corresponding authors receives 10 free reprints cop­ies of the published work. In other cases, authors and other inter­ested parties should contact the publisher via the editorial office.

ADDITIONAL NOTES. The holder of all copyrights of published content in the journal is the owner and publisher, College of Ap­plied Health Sciences Cuprija, Cuprija, Serbia. With the citation of sources, non-commercial fair use for scientific and technical pur­poses is allowed: education, research, criticism and review. Com­mercial use of the journal’s content to make a profit on the market requires the prior written approval of the owner and publisher. Responsibility for the accuracy of the presented information and original copyright content in their own works bear the authors themselves. The owner, publishers and associates of PONS Medical Journal disclaim any responsibility for any damage that may occur using any information published in the journal. The journal sup­ports a full, open access to scientific information. Submission of manuscripts and publication of accepted works are free of charge for authors. The content of published issues available in electronic form on the official internet site of the journal is available in its entirety for download, free of charge.

PONS Medical Journal does not publish papers containing ma­terial that has been published elsewhere except as a secondary publication (with written permission of the copyright holder of original publication) or the abstract of the study which was pre­sented during scientific or professional conference; in both cases, the previous publication form and citation must be disclosed in a paper footnote.