Instructions for Authors

International Journal of Pathology (IJP) stands for true and honest research with highest possible ethical and moral standards. Plagiarism, ghost and guest authorships are absolutely not tolerated. As pathology relates to all fields of medicine, we do accept the articles from “other” specialties as well as those on teaching and evaluation methodology if they have some bearing to Pathology. A typical article template is available for your convenience on jpathology.com. Please down load and use it. Articles should be submitted through OJS.

  • All the submitted articles must be in Book Antiqua style with font size given below.
  • Title of the article (sentence case)  will be 16 bold, ABSTRACT (all capitals) 14 bold,
  • Sub headings 14 bold (sentence case)
  • Main body text 12 and table font 10.
  • Original Articles should not exceed 4500 words excluding abstract, Methods, table and figure legends and references. It must contain a structured abstract of about 250-300 words with headings of background, Methods, Results and Conclusion. In methods place and duration of study should be clearly mentioned. There should be no more than five tables or illustrations. Three to ten keywords should be given for an original article as per MeSH (Medical Subject Headings). A maximum of 40 references may cite in an original article.
  • Case Reports should not exceed 1500 words with a maximum of 3 key words and structured abstract of about 100 - 150 words (case specific) with not more than 15 references. For case report and review of literature, the maximum number of references should not exceed 40.
  • Letter to the editor & Short Communications which do not qualify for original article or case report may be published and should not exceed 1000 words
  • Review Articles are also accepted. It must bring the recent development with the reference of original literature and incorporate author's original work on the same subject.
  • IJP follows the authorship criteria conforming to the ICMJE definition of authorship (www.icmje.org). All the four conditions required to be an author must be fulfilled
  • Authors’ contributions are given at the end of the references in the table form. (Please see the published articles in IJP). Authors are required to fill out the undertaking form and sign.
  • Approval of ethical committee is required.
  • Results should be presented in a logical sequence in the text, tables, and illustrations. Unnecessary tables must be avoided where results can be presented in a few words in the text.
  • Discussion section should include author's comment on the results, supported with contemporary references, including arguments and analysis of identical work done by other workers. Study limitations should also be mentioned. A summary is not required.
  • Conclusion should be provided under separate heading and highlight new aspects arising from the study. It should be in accordance with the objectives
  • References must be listed in the Vancouver Style only. Write "et al" if there is more than 6 authors in the article you want to cite. 
  • Tables and Illustrations should be embedded in the text where they are referred. Table titles should be on the top of the table. Legends to illustrations should be typed below the figure. Tables should be simple and should supplement rather than duplicate information in the text; tables repeating information will be omitted. If abbreviations are used in the table or figure, these should be explained in footnotes in alphabetical order. Specifications of tables and figures are provided in the template article available on the website.
  • The authors should notify major conflicts of interest and source of funding if any in the text.
  • Abbreviations (other than standard units) should be explained at their first appearance in abstract and main manuscript, separately.

Undertaking
All authors must complete and sign the undertaking form. Manuscript will not be accepted till we receive the undertaking form. All authors must sign. Click here to download the form.
Informed Consent

If you are reporting the results of an experimental study on human subjects, please mention that subjects were enrolled after informed consent.

Ethical Requirements

Institutional ethical committee approval is mandatory for any study involving humans or animals OR in accordance with the latest version of DECLARATION OF HELSINKI. The letter no. of the ethical board must be mentioned in the methodology section and a copy of certificate should be sent with the manuscript. Do not use patient names or initials in the manuscript.

Categories of Manuscript

IJP accepts following categories of articles. Review Articles, Original Articles (Clinical Investigation), Case Reports and letter to the editor

Reprinted Material 

Written permission must be obtained from both the original author and the publisher for any reprinting.

Preparation of Manuscript

All manuscripts should be written in standard grammatical English using computer software, arranged in the following order:

  1. Title page 
  2. Abstract (structured) and keywords
  3. Main text
  4. Source of funding
  5. Conflict of interest
  6. Acknowledgements, if any
  7. Authors contribution (as per ICMEJ)
  8. References

Title Page

The title page should include:

  • A concise title
  • Corresponding author name, contact no, email and postal address.
  • First name, middle initial and last name of each author, along with his/ her highest academic degree.
  • Name of the department and institutional affiliation of each author
  • Sources of financial support for the work
  • Running title (not more than 40 characters)

 Abstract 

The abstract must be structured under the following headings including Background, Methods, Results and conclusion. The abstract should not exceeds 300 words.
Key words: Up to 10 key words maximum

Main Text

Main text includes:

Introduction

This should be relevant to the title and research work. The author should collect the articles, take out relevant information from them and must give the references. One should particularly quote the references while giving some data or epidemiology. Read all the articles, make your own impression and write in your own words (copy and paste policy is strongly discouraged). If required, books can also be consulted but their references should be quoted. Use of long sentences should be avoided.

Methods

Type of study (prospective, retrospective, pilot study etc), place of study and duration should be clearly mentioned. Sample size, method of collection, inclusion and exclusion criteria should also be described clearly and in simple words. Methods used for carrying out research including instrument name and mode should also be mentioned. All the details of methods used for carrying out research should be mentioned in such a manner that it is well clear to the reader even if he/she is not well aware of it or if she/he wants to apply the same methods it is very clear to him/her. Type and method of statistical analysis and any statistical formula if applied, should be clearly described.

Results
Results should be analyzed and motioned according to the objective .One should be very honest in research and whatever the results should be described as such. Manipulation of results is not allowed at any cost. Results which are not described in tables and figures should be described in detail and if required some findings in figures and tables may be briefly mentioned in results.
Figures 
Only very relevant figures and tables should be included. For each figure, provide a short title and legend sufficiently detailed that the figure is intelligible without reference to the text. Histopathological images should be saved at a resolution of at least 800dpi. Figures should be numbered in the order in which they are cited in the text.

Tables
Tables should be self-explanatory. No vertical lines should be used, and horizontal lines are limited to three (between the title and the column headings, between the headings and the body and between the body and the legend or footnote). Each table should have a short title, and tables should be numbered in the order in which they are cited in the text. Tables should be typed double-spaced throughout with each table on a separate page. References to footnotes should be made using the symbols.

Avoid putting too many tables. For numerical values write range, mean and standard deviation.

Units and Abbreviations

Unit abbreviations should be as described in International standardized units.

Discussion
Discussion again should be very relevant and informative too. Comparison of your results with others, what additional things they have found, and their recommendation may be mentioned in discussion. Avoid discussing irrelevant things and do not write very long discussion. Only discuss useful and relevant things and all these should be with properly quoted references.

Conclusion
A precise conclusion of your results in two or three lines may be written. Do not rewrite all your results in conclusion. It should be very precise and depending upon your results

Acknowledgement

If possible

Conflict of interest

Please declare conflict of interests if any

References
Every journal has the policy of using different styles for writing references. IJP recommends Vancouver style. References cited in the text should be numbered in sequence of appearance in the text section of the paper. They have to be arranged as follows: all author(s) name and initials (without period), title of paper, name of journal, year of publication, volume, and first and last page numbers connected with a hyphen(-). The titles of journals should be abbreviated as shown below according to the current system for Chemical Abstract and Biological Abstract, which is in accordance with the International List of Periodical Title Word Abbreviations (International Standard ISO 833) published in November 1974 by the International Organization for standardization.

Click How to cite a reference in Vancouver style

(1) Allian J, Christopher B, and Sera J: Lipids and CVD management: towards a global consensus. New Eng J Med 2007; 26:224-234

References to books should include author’s name(s) and initials (without period), title of article, title of book starting with “In:”, edition, editor’s name(s) and initials (without period), first and last pages connected with a hyphen(-) after pp, publisher, place of publication, and year of publication, as shown below for book citation.

(2) Hassan V, Tahir R, Jameela M: Carbohydrates. In: The ELISA and applications 3rd Ed, ed by Asghar V, Wilayat R and Ramzan M, pp220-317, Kingston Publishers, Inc, Lahore, PAK, 2009