Guide for Authors

 

 Information for Contributors

 

 The Journal of Dental Materials and Techniques (J Dent Mater Tech) is a free-of-charge publication produced quarterly by Mashhad University of Medical Sciences (MUMS) to publish original full-length articles, reviews, and case reports pertinent to diagnostic, preventive, or therapeutic dental materials and techniques and related fields.

J Dent Mater Tech seeks to publish Original Articles, Review Articles, Case Reports/Series, Short Communication, Technical Notes, and Letters to the Editor in the field of materials and techniques relating to oral and dental healthcare. Non-commercial and commercial use and distribution of manuscripts’ content in any medium is permitted, provided the author and the journal are properly cited.

 

  How to submit a new manuscript?

 

 All new manuscripts must be submitted via the journal’s online submission website. Authors should click the “Register” link on the upper-right-hand corner of the home page and follow the step-by-step process to create an account. If you have forgotten your login password, use the password recovery system on the login page. After login to the Author Center, the author should click the “Submit / Track Manuscript” link.

 

   Structure of Original Articles

 Submit your text in DOC or DOCX format. Manuscripts should be typewritten with double spacing and ample margins (at least 2.5 cm) on all four sides. Kindly please use 12-point Times New Roman. Do not embed Figures in this document; these should be submitted as separate files with high quality. Please limit the Original Articles (without author affiliation, tables, and references) to 3,500 words with a maximum of 8 figures and tables (in total).

Abbreviations must be defined at first mention in the abstract and full-text article, for example, Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM). Ensure consistency of abbreviations throughout the article. Refer to teeth by their full name or their FDI tooth number. Please follow internationally accepted rules and conventions and use the international system of units (SI). All other unit systems must be converted to SI in the submitted manuscript.

Please organize your Original Article manuscript using the following file formats:

 

  1. Title page

 The title page file should include the title of the manuscript, and the author’s names and affiliations. It should provide the corresponding author ORCID ID and contact information, including complete mailing address, telephone number, and e-mail address. The running title abbreviated in less than 40 letters is requested.

 All sources of institutional, private, and corporate financial support for the work within the manuscript must be fully acknowledged, and any potential grant holders should be listed. The Conflict of Interest Statement should be included within the title page, not the main document, to allow a blinded review.

 Collate acknowledgments in a separate section on the title page. List here those individuals who provided help during the research (e.g. technical help, language help, or writing assistance) but are not contributors.

 

  1. Manuscript file

 Authors’ information in the manuscript file should be avoided. The file contains the manuscript's title, followed by a structured abstract. The abstract should be limited to 250 words and organized into the following subheadings: Objective, Methods, Results, Conclusions, and Keywords. Up to 6 keywords should be supplied. These must be listed below the abstract and should be selected based on the MeSH (Medical Subject Heading) system.

The manuscript text should be organized in the following sections: Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusions, References, Tables, and Figure Legends.

2.1. Instructions on citing references

 

 References must be numbered consecutively in the order they appear in the text. Citations are placed in front of the authors' names or at the end of a sentence requiring a literature citation before the punctuation. Identify references in the text by Arabic numbers in parentheses such as (1), (2,3), and (1,3,4-8).

The reference style follows the Vancouver style and can be efficiently learned from reading the past journal issue. Abbreviations of journals need to conform to those of Index Medicus. We highly recommend that authors use citation manager software (such as EndNote). Do not use superscripts for references. Original articles are limited to 40 references.

Only published manuscripts are accepted in the reference list. Personal communication should be acknowledged in the text and accompanied by written permission. Please find below an example:

Ahrari F, Hosseini ZS, Hasanzadeh N, Ghanbarzadeh M. In vitro effects of a neutral fluoride agent on shear bond strength and microleakage of orthodontic brackets. J Dent Mater Tech 2014;3(3):106-111.

2.2. Instructions on preparing Tables

 

 Tables should be self-explanatory, typed on separate pages, and spaced. A brief table title should be put above the table. Submit tables as text-based files and not as graphic elements. Number them in numerical order that they are mentioned in the text.

 

2.3. Instructions on preparing Figures

 

 Figures must be submitted in TIFF or JPEG format. Do not embed figures in your text document. To ensure the highest print quality, figures should be submitted with a resolution of 300 dpi. If a figure has been previously published, the legend must give full credit to the source. Be sure you have mentioned each figure in order in the text.

Figures should be cited as (Figure 4) or (Figure 4A); all panels of a figure must have a label in the lower-left corner (A, B, C, etc.).

 

2.4. Instructions on Ethical Considerations

 

This journal follows International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE)‘s Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals. Therefor we genuinely recommend and appreciate it if authors read these recommendations prior to their manuscript submission.

If research misconduct, fraud or plagiarism is suspected, editors will follow the COPE guidelines and reserve the rights to inform authors or their institution.

 Authors of articles about clinical trials must adhere to the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials statement (http://www.consort-statement.org/). J Dent Mater Tech requires that the clinical trial be registered publicly before any participants are enrolled in the study. Clinical trials should be registered on any international registry, which can be found on the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors website (http://www.icmje.org/about-icmje/faqs/clinical-trials-registration).

Authors should include a statement in the manuscript that informed consent was obtained for experimentation with human subjects and should mention the registry code of the research. The privacy rights of human subjects must always be observed, and the author should ensure that the work described has been carried out under the guidelines presented in the Declaration of Helsinki.

A signed release must be obtained for all images that contain identifiable patients or human subjects. These releases must be retained indefinitely by the Corresponding Author. Each release statement must include the manuscript title and all authors' names, and contain a copy of the following statement signed by the patient:

"I hereby grant all rights to publish photographs or other images of me in the above manuscript where I appear as a patient or subject without payment. I have been informed that any images of me that appear may be modified."

J Dent Mater Tech will not include papers based on work that involves unnecessary pain, distress, suffering, or lasting harm in animal subjects. In the methods section, manuscripts describing research involving live animals must include appropriate details of animals used, housing and feeding, experimental design, experimental procedures, ethical considerations, and licenses and approvals under which the work was carried out.

Direct quotations, tables, or images that have appeared elsewhere in copyrighted material must be accompanied by a signed release from the copyright owner. Complete information identifying the source of the material is required.

 

  1. Contributors agreement form

 All authors should sign the agreement form. It confirms the originality of the submitted manuscript and declares that it has not been published or is under consideration for publication or review elsewhere. It also contains issues concerning ethical considerations, conflict of interest and financial support, and copyright transfer of the manuscript in the case of acceptance.

   Structure of Review articles

 All review articles undergo the same peer-review and editorial process as original research reports. J Dent Mater Tech expects that the authors of review articles will have little financial associations with a company (or its competitor) that makes a product discussed in the article.

The text is generally limited to 4,000 words, with a maximum of 8 figures and tables (total) and no limit for references. Review articles' abstracts may be non-structured, at most 250 words, giving details of what was done, including the search strategy.

Authors of systematic reviews must adhere to Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA), available at http://www.prismastatement.org/statement.htm.

 

   Structure of Case Reports

 Case Reports illustrating unusual and clinically relevant observations are acceptable, but their merit needs to provide high priority for publication in the journal. They should be kept within 3-4 pages and need not follow the usual division into materials and methods, etc., but should have an abstract.

The abstract of Case reports should include an Objective, Case report, Conclusions, and Keywords. The introduction should be kept short. After that, the case is described, followed by a discussion. Please limit the Case Report to 1500 words with no more than 25 references. 

   Structure of Short Communication

 Short Communications are suitable for concisely presenting research that extends previously published research, including reporting additional controls and confirmatory results in other settings, as well as negative results, small-scale clinical studies, and case series.

Short communication is not intended to publish preliminary results. If these results are particularly topical and relevant, they will be considered for publication. Authors must acknowledge any work upon which they are building, both published and unpublished.

Manuscripts for Short Communications submitted to J Dent Mater Tech must be prepared like the Original Article. Short communications should cantain up to 1500 words and have no more than 25 references.

 

   Structure of Technical Note

 A Technical Note concisely describes a specific development, procedure, or device that solves a specific problem and has sufficient relevance to benefit many journal readers. It should be concise and contain up to 1500 words with no more than 25 references.

 

  Revised manuscript

 The corresponding author should revise and re-submit the manuscript when receiving reviewers' comments. Kindly note that receiving the comments does not guarantee the acceptance of your article. Any changes in the manuscript must be highlighted in yellow color in the revised manuscript. A separate .docx file containing the author(s) responses to reviewers' comments must be prepared. Each question or comment must be followed by its relevant response.

Please consider that the authors cannot withdraw the manuscript after completing the review process.

After preparing the revised manuscript, log in to your profile using your username and password, and click on the “Submit / Track Manuscript” option on the right. On the submission page, the revised manuscript and the responses to comments must be uploaded in separate .docx files using the links in the “Submissions Needing Revision” box. 

  After Acceptance

Once the manuscript is accepted for publication in J Dent Mater Tech, a page proof (as a PDF file) will be provided in the Author Center so that authors can download the files themselves. The corresponding author can use the PDF annotations facility, for which you will need to download Adobe Reader version 9 (or higher), available free from http://get.adobe.com/reader.

If you do not wish to use the PDF annotations function, you may list the corrections (including replies to the Query Form) in a .docx file and upload it. Please list your corrections quoting the line number. Please use this proof only for checking the typesetting, editing, completeness, and correctness of the text, tables, and figures. Significant changes to the article as accepted for publication will only be considered at this stage with permission from the Editor.

The editors and editorial team have the right to make necessary corrections to the accepted manuscript. We will do everything possible to get your article published quickly and accurately.