Guide for Authors
Contents:
General Information
Zagazig Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences is the official journal of Faculty of Pharmacy, Zagazig University, Egypt. Authors from other universities and scientific institutions inside and outside Egypt are welcomed. Zagazig journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences is a peer-reviewed journal publishing articles related to the fields of pharmaceutical sciences.
Zagazig journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences follows the ICMJE's Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals. http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/about-the-recommendations/purpose-of-the-recommendations.html.
Zagazig journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences follows guidelines and best practices published by professional organizations, including Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals from ICMJE (www.icmje.org/icmje-recommendations.pdf) and Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (https://doaj.org/bestpractice).
We will neither consider any manuscript previously published nor under review by another Journal. Manuscripts must not be submitted elsewhere after proceeding in the review process. Unethical publishing, such as plagiarism, undisclosed conflicts of interest, inappropriate authorship, and duplicate publication are forbidden.
Ethical responsibilities of authors: Authors must disclose any financial relationship(s) at submission, and the authors must update any disclosures prior to publication. The authors must also state any Information that could be perceived as potential conflict(s) of interest that includes, but is not limited to, grants or funding, employment, affiliations, royalties, patents, honoraria, consultancies, inventions, stock options/ownership, or expert testimony (please see the publication ethics before submitting the article).
Manuscripts must be written in English and to be 'spell-checked' and 'grammar checked'.
Publication fees are periodically reviewed and can be informed to authors by direct communication.
Online submission: All manuscripts should be submitted online Via Zagazig journal of pharmaceutical sciences website (https://zjps.journals.ekb.eg), authors should first register to the Editorial system, then follow the hyperlink “manuscript submission” and upload all the manuscript files following the instructions given under the title manuscript preparation. The system converts the article files to a single PDF file used in the peer-review process. Editable files (e.g., Word) are required to typeset articles for final publication. All correspondence, including notification of the Editor's decision and requests for revision, is sent by e-mail.
A manuscript should be prepared according to the designated regulations (see the relevant section below).
Zagazig journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences is published under the Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/), which enables reusers to copy and distribute the articles in any medium or format in unadapted form only, for noncommercial purposes only and only so long as attribution is given to the authors. Authors retain the copyrights.
Authors have the right to:
Authors can use their articles for non-commercial purposes such as:
Originality and plagiarism
All new submissions to ZJPS are automatically screened using Crossref Similarity Check (powered by iThenticate) to screen all new manuscripts for plagiarism within the editorial system. Editors may choose to run a similarity report at any other stage during the peer review process. Authors and researchers can also use iThenticate to screen their work before submission by visiting http://www.ithenticate.com/.
Types of Articles
The following types of articles are considered for publication in ZJPS
Should report relevant original research not published before, in the following format:
Should describe a case or several cases presenting with an unusual clinical aspect of a disease or novel perspectives upon, or solutions to, clinically relevant issues in the following format:
Review topics should be related to all fields of pharmaceutical sciences and should reflect trends and progress or synthesis of data in the following format:
Comments by readers about articles that have been published in Zagazig journal of pharmaceutical sciences within 6 months of its online posting in the following format:
Editorials are solicited by the editorial board members or those who are invited by Editor-in-Chief in the following format:
These should be submitted in response to recently published articles in the journal addressing a specific issue and to introduce a focused scientific opinion or point of view, in the following format:
Manuscript Preparation
Cover letter: The manuscript should be submitted with a cover letter stating the following:
Formatting:
Manuscripts should be word-processed and typed on one column. Pages should have a margin of 2.5 cm. The text should be double-spaced; 12-point font in Times New Roman.
The submitted manuscript should include:
Title page
This page should include:
Abstract
The Abstract should be no more than 250 words. Abstracts are to be structured into four paragraphs as follows: a Background (including aim of the work), Material and Methods, Results and Conclusions. References should be avoided, but if essential, then cite the author(s) and year(s). Also, non-standard, or uncommon abbreviations should be avoided, but if essential they must be defined at their first mention in the abstract itself.
Keywords: Up to six keywords should be provided at the end of the Abstract using American spelling and avoiding general and plural terms and multiple concepts (avoid, for example, 'and', 'of'), separated by semicolons.
Introduction
The Introduction should contain a clear statement of the objectives of the work and provide an adequate background, avoiding a detailed literature survey, a summary of the results, or conclusions.
Materials and Methods
Sufficient information should be given to permit repetition of the experimental work.
Informed consent and ethics committee/IRB approval: A paper describing experimental work in humans must: (1) indicate that informed consent has been obtained from patients where appropriate, (2) include a statement that the responsible ethics committee (e.g: Institutional Review Board, Faculty of Medicine, Zagazig University) has given approval. Do not use patients’ names, initials, or hospital numbers, especially in illustrative material.
Study design:
Studies in humans and animals: If the work involves the use of human subjects, the author should ensure that the work described has been carried out in accordance with The Code of Ethics of the World Medical Association (Declaration of Helsinki) for experiments involving humans (see: https://www.wma.net/policies-post/wma-declaration-of-helsinki-ethical-principles-for-medical-research- involving-human-subjects/).. The manuscript should be in line with the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals and aim for the inclusion of representative human populations (sex, age, and ethnicity) as per those recommendations. The terms sex and gender should be used correctly.
- Authors should include a statement in the manuscript that informed consent was obtained for experimentation with human subjects. The privacy rights of human subjects must always be observed.
- All animal experiments should comply with the ARRIVE guidelines and should be carried out in accordance with the U.K. Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act, 1986 and associated guidelines, EU Directive 2010/63/EU for animal experiments, or the National Institutes of Health guide for the care and use of laboratory animals (NIH Publications No. 8023, revised 1978) and the authors should clearly indicate in the manuscript that such guidelines have been followed. The sex of animals must be indicated, and where appropriate, the influence (or association) of sex on the results of the study. The editors reserve the right to reject manuscripts that do not comply with the above-mentioned requirements. The authors will be held responsible for false statements or for failure to fulfill the above-mentioned requirements.
- Equipment: Manufacturer, city, state and country must be given.
- Chemical substances: must be properly identified. Except for standard laboratory chemicals, the source of supply must be given. Drugs must be identified by the generic or official name wherever possible. Proprietary names should be avoided.
- Genes: Italic characters should be used for gene symbols including genotypes, alleles etc.
- Units of measurement: Units should conform to the SI convention.
- Statistical analyses: Describe statistical methods in sufficient detail to enable a knowledgeable reader with access to the original data to verify the reported results. Mean values should be associated with either standard error or standard deviation. The number of observations (n) must also be given. Both the sample size and statistical significance with p values should be predefined.
Results
The results should be stated concisely without discussion and should not normally contain any references. The same data should not be presented in figures and tables.
Discussion
The Discussion should deal with the interpretation of the results and not recapitulate them.
Conclusions: The main findings of the study may be presented in a short Conclusions section.
Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest
The corresponding author will include a summary statement in the text of the manuscript in a separate section before the reference list that includes Declaration of interest and Funding information. If no conflict exists, the authors should state: The authors report no conflicts of interest.
- Contributors: Each author is required to declare his or her individual contribution to the article: all authors must have materially participated in the research and/or article preparation, so roles for all authors may be described. The statement that all authors have approved the final article should be true and included in the disclosure.
- Authorship: All authors should have made substantial contributions to all the following: (1) the conception and design of the study, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data, (2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content, (3) final approval of the version to be submitted.
References
The authors are responsible for the accuracy and completeness of their references. References should be formatted according to the American Medical Association Manual of Style (10th ed.) Each reference should be identified in the text in numerical order and should be identified by superscript Arabic numerals. Please begin the reference list on a separate page after the acknowledgments. When formatting references, provide all authors’ names when fewer than seven; when seven or more, list the first six and add et al. Any articles that are not in English must be translated. See Cumulative Index Medicus for abbreviating journal titles.
Tables
Tables should be numbered with Arabic numerals. Tables must be submitted in Excel or Word table format and not as images. Each table should have a short informative heading which is self-explanatory without reference to the text. Footnotes should be kept to a minimum. The units in which the results are expressed should be given in parentheses at the head of each column and not repeated on each line of the table. Number tables in order of their mention in the text.
Figures
Graphs and diagrams: Line drawings and graphs should be of a professional standard. Freehand or typewritten lettering and numbering are unacceptable. Ruled lines, curves and symbols must be sufficiently bold to withstand reduction. Curves should not be drawn beyond the experimental points, nor should experimental points extend beyond the scales of the axes. For scatter diagrams, solid symbols are preferred.
Images: Figures can be submitted as EPS, JPEG, and TIFF file types. Numbers, letters and symbols must be large enough to be read easily after reduction. If photographs of patients are used, either the subject should not be identifiable, or the picture must be accompanied by written permission to use the figure.
Legends for figures: Legends should be short, self-explanatory and contain enough information to identify the figures and enable them to stand as a separate entity from the text. They should be cited in the main manuscript after the references section.
Supplementary material (for online publication only)
These should be submitted with the manuscript for peer-review and approval by the Editors. Supplemental material, which should be referenced in the body of the main text, can include figures, tables, movies, and animations (extra- material beyond the journal limit of tables/figures for each manuscript format). Supplemental Material will be published Online-only as submitted. It will not be copyedited or formatted by the publisher in any way. The accuracy and presentation of Supplemental Material is the sole responsibility of the authors. Please submit your material together with the article and supply a concise, descriptive caption for each supplementary file.
Peer Review Process
All manuscripts are subject to a strict peer-review process (double-blind peer review process) involving members of the editorial board and external reviewers with expertise in the subject matter.
The process starts with an initial review by the Editor-In-Chief or Co-Editor-In-Chief who makes an initial assessment of suitability for Zagazig journal of pharmaceutical sciences.
All new submissions to Zagazig journal of pharmaceutical sciences are automatically screened using Crossref Similarity Check (powered by iThenticate) to screen all new manuscripts for plagiarism within the editorial system. The Editor-In-Chief may also choose to run a similarity report at any other stage during the peer review process. Authors can also use iThenticate to screen their work before submission by visiting http://www.ithenticate.com/.
If the manuscript is deemed of interest, it is then assigned to a member of the editorial board who serves as the principal reviewing editor.
The reviewing editor invites external reviewers (a minimum of two independent expert reviewers) who are blinded to the manuscript author(s) to further assess the manuscript, recommend any revisions, and offer their opinion on acceptability.
Depending on the reviewing editor/reviewers’ recommendations, the Editor-In-Chief is responsible for the final decision regarding acceptance or rejection of articles.
Manuscripts can be accepted, with minor or major revision, or rejected. If the decision is ‘revision’, the authors are requested to take the remarks of the referees and editors into account. A second reviewing process can follow. Upon final acceptance, the authors will be notified by email, and the accepted manuscript will be finally edited by the language editor for free linguistic edit service.
After linguistic edit of the accepted article, the galley proof will be sent as a PDF file to the corresponding author. This proof must be carefully corrected and sent back within two working days.
We encourage a systematic approach to manuscript review and provide reviewers with the "COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers" (Please, see: https://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines-new/cope-ethical-guidelines-peer-reviewers).
The journal’s first decision for the first-round revision may be expected at the earliest four weeks after submission, and the final decision of acceptance or rejection is expected within 6-8 weeks. For details link to Pear Review Process.
Manuscript Revision
If you are asked to revise your manuscript you will be expected to provide an authors’ response to reviewers’ word file that responds in detail to each point raised by reviewers or editors, and to highlight new material in the text using a different color. If a manuscript returned to the authors for revision is not returned to the Editorial Office within the stipulated time (average 3-5 weeks), it may be treated as a new manuscript, which could delay your possible publication in the journal.
After Acceptance
The publication processing charges are submitted for providing the authors with a free copy from the online published article (pdf-format). If the authors asked for printed copies, a minimum of 30 copies is essential with extra-charge.
Illustrations taken from other published sources must be accompanied by a written statement from the author, giving permission to Zagazig journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences for reproduction.
Privacy Statement
The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.
Publication Fees
The publication fee for Zagazig journal of pharmaceutical sciences is 50 USD. Publication fees will be required once the paper is finally accepted for publication.