Please follow the instructions for submission carefully; the Editors reserve the right to return manuscripts that do not comply.
TO ACCOMPANY MANUSCRIPT AT SUBMISSION
The following must be completed and can all be found on the Author signature form:
* Signatures from each author agreeing to their inclusion in the list of authors in order of appearance on the manuscript, along with a brief description of each author=s role in the study. Human Reproduction Update adheres strictly to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) guidelines regarding Authorship and Contributorship (see http://www.icmje.org/index.html). All authors must indicate their individual contribution to the paper. Justification of authorship includes 1) substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data, 2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content, and 3) final approval of the version to be published. All authors must meet contributions (1), (2) and (3). Authors' roles will appear on the paper as part of the title page.
* Human Reproduction Update is committed to ensuring that all papers submitted to the journal are treated in a fair and unbiased way. As such, authors must declare any interests that they (or others) could consider to lead to a perceived bias. These biases (or perceived biases) can be of a financial, personal or professional nature, including (but not restricted to):
- Signatures from each author agreeing to their inclusion in the list of authors in order of appearance on the manuscript, along with a brief description of each author's role in the study.
- Declaration of any vested interests, e.g. large gifts, directorships, sponsorships. If in doubt please declare any potential interests. This will be included in an appropriate position in the published manuscript.
- Note that it is the responsibility of the corresponding author to obtain permission to publish previously published material and submit with their manuscript the permission from the copyright holder.
1) financial competing interests, such as stock ownership, paid employment, board membership, patent application (pending and actual), research grants (from whatever source), travel grants and honoraria for speaking or participation at meetings and gifts;
2) personal competing interests, such as membership of lobbying organizations and relationships with editors of Human Reproduction Update;
3) professional competing interests, such as acting as an expert witness, membership of Government advisory board and organizations and funding bodies.
Competing interest statements should be included in an appropriate position in the manuscript.
The above statements are in line with the recommendations of the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) with regard to funding of research (www.wame.org/wamestmt.htm) and competing interests (http://www.wame.org/resources/publication-ethics-policies-for-medical-journals).
* *NEW* Human Reproduction Update no longer requires authors to cover the cost of printing colour figures. The use of colour in all figures including graphs and schematics is encouraged
* Note that it is the responsibility of the corresponding author to obtain permission to publish previously published material and submit with their manuscript the permission from the copyright holder.
It is a condition of publication that authors assign a 'licence to publish' to ESHRE. Upon acceptance, a 'licence to publish' form must be completed. Authors may use their own material in future publications provided the Journal is acknowledged as the original place of publication and permission agreed.
Page charges are NOT levied.
OPEN ACCESS OPTION FOR AUTHORS
From January 2006, authors of accepted papers in Human Reproduction Update have had the option, at an additional charge, of making their papers freely available online immediately upon publication, under the Oxford Open initiative. After your manuscript is accepted, as part of the mandatory licence form required of all corresponding authors, you will be asked to indicate whether or not you wish to pay to have your paper made freely available immediately. If you do not select the Open Access option, your paper will be published with standard subscription based access and you will not be charged.
For those selecting the Open Access option, the charges for Human Reproduction Update vary depending on the institution at which the Corresponding author is based:
Optional Oxford Open charges:
For a Corresponding author based at an institution with an online subscription to Human Reproduction Update
Regular charge - £1275 / $2250 / €1900
List B developing country charge** - £638 / $1125 / €950
List A developing country charge** - £0 / $0 / €0
For a Corresponding author based at an institution that does not subscribe to the online journal:
Regular charge - £1700 / $3000 / €2550
List B developing country charge** - £850 / $1500 / €1275
List A developing country charge** - £0 /$0 / €0
*Visit http://www.oxfordjournals.org/jnls/devel/ for list of qualifying countries.
Orders from UK will be subject to a 17.5% VAT charge. For orders from the rest of the EU, we will assume that the service is provided for business purposes, please provide a VAT number for yourself or your institution and ensure you account for your own local VAT correctly.
If you choose the Open Access option you will also be asked to complete an Open Access charge form online. You will be automatically directed to the appropriate version of the form depending on whether you are based at an institution with an online subscription to Human Reproduction. Therefore please make sure that you are using an institutional computer when accessing the form. To check whether you are based at a subscribing institution please use the Subscriber Test link for Human Reproduction Update.
GUIDELINES FOR SUBMISSION OF AN UNINVITED REVIEW
Uninvited as well as invited reviews are considered for publication in Human Reproduction Update.. Authors who wish to submit an uninvited review should send a letter or e-mail to the Editor-in-Chief (editorial@humanreproduction.co.uk) including a table of contents, and a one page outline of the scope, methods and main findings of the planned submission.
GUIDELINES FOR PREPARATION OF MANUSCRIPT
Manuscript length
Manuscripts should have a structured abstract of less than 250 words, 6000-8000 words of text, 2-3 tables, 2-3 figures and 150-300 references.
Style
The literature review should be systematic, and the search criteria stated.
Special care should be taken regarding the overall flow and readability of the paper. Manuscripts should be written using clear and concise English, with English standard spelling and conventions. Non English speaking authors are advised to enlist the assistance of a native English speaker, familiar with biomedical terminology. The editors reserve the right to return without review manuscripts that can not be adequately assessed due to a poor standard of English.
For Biochemical and Bacterial terminology follow the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) and International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (IUBMB) recommendations Genotypes must be italicized; phenotypes should not.
Units of measurement should be in Systéme International (SI) units and those recommended by the IUPAC should be used wherever possible. Standard units of measurements and chemical symbols of elements may be used without definition in the body of the paper. Abbreviations should be given in brackets after their first mention in the text, and used thereafter. For centrifugation rates give g values rather than rpm, as this will vary according to rotor diameter.
Outline specifications for Review Articles for Human Reproduction Update.
The journal publishes peer reviewed papers from invited authors covering all areas of human reproduction and including papers on either clinical medicine or reproductive sciences. Research groups are also invited to submit proposals for papers (Abstract and Table of Contents) for consideration by the Editor-in-Chief and Associate Editor (see Editorial HRU, 2002, 8 p199).
Papers fulfilling the following criteria are sought:
- Comprehensive and authoritative articles.
- The general format is 6000–8000 words of text, 2–3 tables, 2–3 figures and 200–300 references.
- A concise Table of Contents is required.
- A structured abstract of less than 250 words is needed.
- The literature review needs to be systematic, and the search criteria, inclusion and exclusion criteria and synthesis methods stated in a Methods section at the end of the Introduction.
- Special care should be taken regarding the overall flow and readability of the paper.
- High quality Tables and Figures should be included to illustrate the text. Particularly eloquent figures may be reproduced on the front cover.
- Where Figures and Tables have been taken from previously published work it is essential to obtain written permission from the Publishers. Different Publishers have specific requirements for acknowledgement and delays can be incurred if permissions are not submitted with the manuscript.
FORMAT
Double spacing on one side of the paper only. Number each page top right. Number lines. Avoid underlining. Differentiate clearly letters O, I and numbers 0, 1. Ensure unusual symbols are written clearly.
MANUSCRIPT STRUCTURE (LISTED IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE ON THE MANUSCRIPT)
TITLE
Should not exceed 25 words and should be specific and informative.
RUNNING TITLE
Should not exceed 50 characters.
AUTHORS
Give initials and family name of all authors. Declaration of Authors' roles is required at submission and this information will be listed for each author on the title page of the paper (refer to the section 'To accompany manuscript at submission' above for more details regarding authorship).
ADDRESS
The department, institution, city and country should be given with postal code for each author. An e-mail address will be published for the corresponding author, who should be clearly identified. Current addresses should be provided for all authors.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
A concise Table of Contents should include the first order headings used throughout the manuscript.
ABSTRACT
The abstract should be a single paragraph of not more than 250 words which clearly summarizes the findings of the manuscript. Note that online abstracts are published for viewing in isolation to the main body of the manuscript and should be self explanatory.
The following structured headings should be used to divide the text of abstracts: BACKGROUND, METHODS, RESULTS and CONCLUSIONS. All reviews should clearly describe within the BACKGROUND section the background and objective of the study. The METHODS section should state the search criteria and criteria for inclusion of studies. Systematic reviews should state the number of studies reviewed and selected and the meta-analytic methods used, if any. The RESULTS section should be a succinct synthesis of the information from the relevant studies. Main results should be expressed wherever possible as absolute numbers and differences with numbers needed to treat or harm, all with confidence intervals.. The CONCLUSION section of the abstract should encapsulate the authors’ interpretation of the findings. Citations should not appear in the abstract.
KEY WORDS
Up to five key words must be supplied by the author. The key words, together with the title and abstract, are used for online searches. They should therefore be specific and relevant to the paper.
INTRODUCTION
The introduction should be limited to the specific background necessary to show the importance and context of the review question(s). The objective of the review should be stated.
METHODS
The methods section should state the search criteria and the criteria for the inclusion and exclusion of studies. Systematic reviews, with or without a meta analysis should be reported in accordance with QUOROM (Quality of Reporting of Meta analyses), [Moher D., Cook, D.J., Eastwood, S., Olkin, I., Rennie D. and Stroup, D.F. (1999) Improving the quality of reports of meta analyses of randomised controlled trials: the QUOROM statement. Quality of Reporting of Meta analyses. Lancet, 354, 1896 1900]. [www.consort statement.org]
Authors must provide the following: (i) a flow chart and (ii) a checklist. Please click here for the flowchart and here for the checklist.
RESULTS
Comprehensive reviews should use appropriate sub-headings to summarize the findings and the authors’ synthesis of the literature. Tables and Figures would normally be necessary to summarise and illustrate the text. Systematic reviews should use sub-headings to summarize the important characteristics of the included studies, summarize the key observations across the studies and the give the results of combined analyses, if any. Tables of included studies should contain summary data only. Additional material can be published online only. Where possible the study and summary observations should present the primary effects as absolute numbers and differences, with numbers needed to treat or harm when appropriate, all with confidence intervals.
DISCUSSION
The discussion should begin with a succinct statement of the principal findings, outline the strengths and weaknesses of the study, discuss the findings in relation to other studies, provide possible explanations and indicate questions which remain to be answered in future research.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Personal acknowledgements should precede those of institutions or agencies.
FUNDING
With respect to funding of research, in line with the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) guidelines, http://www.wame.org/wamestmt.htm#fundres the journal considers it the responsibility of the author to protect the integrity of the research record from bias related to the source of funding by fully declaring all sponsorships, the roles played by sponsors in the research as well as institutional affiliations and relevant financial ties. These should be listed in the manuscript after the ‘Acknowledgements’.
Oxford Journals will deposit all NIH-funded articles in PubMed? Central. See http://www.oxfordjournals.org/for_authors/repositories.html for details. Authors must ensure that manuscripts are clearly indicated as NIH-funded using the guidelines above.
REFERENCE CITATIONS WITHIN THE TEXT
Authors are responsible for the accuracy of the references. Each reference should be cited by author and date. If there are two authors please list both, if more than two please use first author then et al. Permission to cite personal communications (J.Smith, personal communication) should be obtained by the corresponding author. Unpublished data should be cited as (unpublished data) and should not be included in the reference list. Either of the above should be used only when essential.
References to papers accepted for publication, but not yet published, should be cited as such in the reference list e.g. Bloggs A (2007) In vitro fertilization. Hum Reprod, in press.
Papers published in Advance Access are citeable using the DOI and publication date. An example of an Advance Access citation is given below:
Gilad, Y. and Lancet, D. Population Differences in the Human Functional Olfactory Repertoire. Mol. Biol. Evol. Advance Access published March 5, 2003, doi:10.1093/molbev/msg013
The same paper in its final form would be cited:
Gilad, Y. and Lancet, D. Population Differences in the Human Functional Olfactory Repertoire. Mol Biol Evol 2003; 20: 307-314. First published March 5, 2003, doi:10.1093/molbev/msg013
REFERENCE LIST
Please use the following style. Note that correct punctuation and journal abbreviations must be used in order to run the search programs used to edit the manuscript. Incorrectly types references take a lot of time to correct, for which we reserve the right to charge. Up to 10 authors should be included after which et al. should be used. Refer to the following examples.
Authors. Title. Journal date: issue; pg-pg
Biggers JD and McGinnis LK. Evidence that glucose is not always an inhibitor of mouse preimplantation development in vitro. Hum Reprod 2001:16;153-163.
Gekas J, Thepot F, Turleau C, Siffroi JP, Dadaoune JP, Briault S, Rio M, Bourouillou G, Carre Pigeon F, Wasels R et al. Chromosomal factors of infertility in candidate couples for ICSI: an equal risk of constitutional aberrations in women and men. Hum Reprod 2001:16; 82-90.
Elliot WH and Elliot DC. Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. 2nd edn, 2001. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.
Warren MA, Li TC and Klentzeris D. Cell biology of the endometrium: histology, cell types and menstrual changes. In Chard T and Grudzinskas JG (eds) The Uterus. 1994. Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK, pp.94-125.
TABLES
Each table should be numbered consecutively with Roman numerals. Please avoid complex constructions. Each item of data should be in a separate cell and should be produced using Word or Excel format. Each table should be self explanatory and include a brief descriptive title. Footnotes to the table indicated by superscript lowercase letters are acceptable but should not include extensive detail. References to the tables in the text should be indicated in the margins and referenced sequentially as Table I, II etc. Where more than three tables are submitted there is a possibility that some tables may be published only on the journal’s website.
FIGURE LEGENDS
Each legend must be self contained, with all symbols and abbreviations used in the figure defined. Care should be taken to present data clearly and without unnecessary descriptive detail (e.g Forest plots)
FIGURES
Full instructions on preparing the figures are available as part of the online submission instructions. Please follow these instructions carefully as failure to do so will delay publication of your manuscript (please note: the editors reserve the right to charge for extensive changes). In preparing graphs authors should avoid background tints and 3D effects and maintain a consistent label size and aspect ratio (the x/y axis ratio) throughout a paper. Figure and axes titles should be clear and NOT in bold text.
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF:J. Collins
EDITOR EMERITUS:B.C.J.M. Fauser
MANAGING EDITOR (ESHRE JOURNALS):A. C. Williams
ASSISTANT MANAGING EDITOR (ESHRE JOURNALS):K. R. Watkins
EDITORIAL OFFICE:Editorial Office
Editorial Office
ESHRE Journals
5 Mill Yard
Childerley
Cambs
CB23 8BA
UK
Telephone:+44 (0)1954 212404
Fax:+44 (0)1954 212359
ASSOCIATE EDITORS:M. S. Bloom
USA
J. Boivin
UK
A. Cagnacci
Italy
D. D. Carson
USA
C. M. Farquhar
New Zealand
R. Farquharson
UK
T. Hamatani
Japan
R. Homburg
The Netherlands
A. J. W. Hsueh
USA
K. Jones
Australia
A. Kamischke
Germany
J. A. Land
Netherlands
G. Montgomery
Australia
R. Norman
Australia
A. Pinborg
Denmark
J. Ramalho-Santos
Portugal
K. Sermon
Belgium
K. Sharpe-Timms
USA
J. Van Blerkom
USA
F. Van der Veen
Netherlands
M. Van Wely
The Netherlands
FORMER ASSOCIATE EDITORSOur thanks and recognition go to Former Associate Editors (2001-2008)
