The following are the uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to the Chettinad Health City Medical Journal, which are in accordance with “Uniform requirements for Manuscripts submitted to Biomedical Journal” developed by International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (October 2001). The manuscripts are to be sent as hard copies or submitted online to the Chief Editor:

Dr. D. Raja, Editor-in-Chief, Professor, Dept. of Community Medicine, CHRI.

Email: editor@care.edu.in

The Editorial Process
The submitted manuscripts are taken up for review for possible publication assuming that they have not been simultaneously submitted or already accepted or published elsewhere. The initial review is conducted by the Editors. Manuscripts lacking significant originality, important message and those with serious flaws are rejected. The unaccepted manuscripts will not be returned. The other manuscripts are sent to two or more experts in the field for review and they are blinded for the identity of the contributors. The reviewers’ comments and acceptance or rejection of the manuscript will be informed to the contributors in 8 to 10 weeks. The accepted articles will be copy edited for format, spelling, grammar, punctuation, etc.

Types of Manuscripts and word limits
• Original articles: This includes case series, randomised control trials, interventional studies, studies involving screening and diagnostic procedures, studies of outcome analysis, studies involving cost-effective analysis and surveys with high response rate. Word limit is 2500 excluding references and abstract.

• Review articles: This includes systematic critical assessment of literature and other data sources. Word limit is 3000 excluding references and abstract.

• Case reports:This includes report of new cases, very rare cases and very interesting cases. There should not be just reporting of cases; but their clinical significance or implications should be emphasized. Word limit is 1000 excluding references and abstract; with up to 10 references.

• Letter to the Editor: This includes short decisive observations, including brief reporting of rare and interesting cases. Word limit is 400 with up to 4 references.

• Other Sections: Include Editorials, Perspective articles, History articles, Class room articles, which are by invitation from the Chief Editor.

Limits for number of images and tables: The number of tables and figures is limited to one per 500 words for all categories of manuscripts.

The templates for all types of manuscripts are available in the Journal’s website and authors are requested to use them.

Authorship criteria
Authorship should be based on substantial contributions to:
• to concept and design or data acquisition or data analysis and data interpretation;
• preparation of manuscript, critical revision and contribution to the intellectual content;
• final approval of the manuscript version to be published.

Mere fund acquisition for the study or data collection or general supervision of the research project do not qualify for authorship.

All the authors must have contributed substantially to the work and must be able to take responsibility of the respective portions of their contributions. The authors should named in the order of their relative contribution towards the study or the manuscript writing. This order cannot be changed after submission of the manuscript without the written consent from all the authors.

Number of authors Original papers:
• Maximum of six from a single institution.
• Case reports and review articles: Maximum of four.
• Images and letter to editor: Maximum of three.

There must be a written justification if the number of authors exceeds these limits.

Sending the Manuscript to the Journal
The manuscript enclosed with covering letter and contributors’ form signed by all the authors with the photographs can be sent as hard copy along with a soft copy in CD to the Chief Editor. However, the authors are encouraged to send the manuscripts along with the above enclosures as E-mail attachment to the Chief Editor. The covering letter must include the undertaking that the manuscript has not been simultaneously submitted/accepted/published elsewhere. Conflict of interest if any in the form of financial or other relationship also should be disclosed. Copies of any permission to reproduce already published material including illustrations or photographs and consent for publication of identifiable material should be sent along with the manuscript.

Contact details of the Chief Editor
Dr. D. Raja,
Editor-in-Chief,
Professor,
Dept. of Community Medicine, CHRI.
Email:  editor@care.edu.in

Preparation of the Manuscript
Font style and size:  Time New Roman Size 12 for the text and 14 for the titles.
Double spacing without justifying. The language and spelling style should be American English.
-Pages should be numbered serially starting from the Title Page.

Title Page This should contain:
- Title of the article (which should be short, relevant to the manuscript and informative)
- Type of the article (Original paper/review article/case report, etc.)
- Running title (short title) with less than 50 characters
- Names of authors (Name followed by initials/Last name, First name and initials of middle name) with the highest academic degree. Prefixes like Dr, Prof, etc. are avoided.
- The name of the department(s) and institution(s) where the work has been carried out.
- Corresponding author’s name, address, phone number and e-mail address.
- Total number of pages, table, photographs and word count for the text (excluding abstract and references).
- Sources of support/grant/equipment support, etc., if any.
- If already presented in a conference/meeting, name of the conference/meeting, place and date of presentation."

Abstract Page
- This should carry the full title of the manuscript and abstract.
- The word limit for the abstract is 250 for original articles/review articles, 150 for case reports.
- The abstract are structured with introduction and aim, methods and materials, results and conclusions.
- Key words 3 to 10 are provided below abstract.

Manuscript Pages Introduction:
This should state the purpose of the study/article and the basis and rationale for the study.

Methods
- This should state nature of study
- observational/experimental/trial, etc.,whether prospective/retrospective.
- Selection of the subjects (patient/experimental animals) including controls.
- Details of the methods, apparatus ( with the manufacturers name and address) and procedures. - References should be quoted for established methods including statistical methods.
- New or less known methods should be described in detail with the rationale and limitations
- Generic names of drugs and chemicals used, including dose, route of administration should be stated.
- Randomized control trials should give the details of the protocol, methods of randomization, concealment of allocation to treatment group and the method of blinding/masking as per the CONSORT statement (Moher D, Schulz KF, Altman DG: The CONSORT Statement: Revised Recommendations for Improving the Quality of Reports of Parallel-Group. Randomized Trials. Ann Intern Med. 2001;134:657-662, also available at
http://www.consort-statement.org).
- Reports of human studies should state that the procedures in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible Institutional/Regional Ethical Committee on human studies and with the Helsinki Declaration, 1975 revised in 2000 (http://www.wma.net/e/policy/17-c_e.html). Patients’ identity including name, initials, hospital number,etc. shall not be disclosed.
- Reports involving animal experimentation shall state about the approval from Institutional Ethical Committee and adherence to the national law on the care and use of laboratory animals.
- Statistical methods used should be stated in detail.

Results
- The results are shown in sequence in the form of text, tables/illustrations, wherever required.
- The data shown in the tables shall not be repeated in the text. - Only important observations are ummarized/ emphasized.

Discussion
- New and important aspects of the study and the conclusions drawn from them and the implications for the future research are stated.
- There shall not be any repetition of the statements and data from the introduction and results section.
- The observations and conclusions of this study are compared and related to the other similar or relevant studies.
- False and unsubstantiated claims on cost or economic benefits shall be avoided.
- New hypotheses drawn from the study shall be stated and labeled as such, if required.

Acknowledgements
- This shall be at last page of the manuscript.
- This may include: General support from faculty that need acknowledging, not amounting to authorship. Technical help Financial and material support with the actual naure of support.

References
- Numbering is done consecutively in the text (not in alphabetical order)
- The references are identified in the text, tables and legends by Arabic numerals in superscript.
- The titles of the journals shall be mentioned in the abbreviated form as per the style used in the Index Medicus. Complete name of the journal is stated for non-indexed journals.
- Abstracts shall not be used as references.
- Commonly cited types of references are shown below:

Standard journal article: Smith A, Jones, B, Clements S. Clinical transplantation of tissue-engineered airway. Lancet 2008; 372: 1201–09.

Chapter in a book: Phillips SJ, Whisnant JP. Hypertension and stroke. In: Laragh JH, Brenner BM, editors. Hypertension: pathophysiology, diagnosis, and management. 2nd ed. New York: Raven Press; 1995. pp. 465-78.

Tables
- Tables shall be self-explanatory and shall not repeated in text.
- Tables shall have not more than 10 columns and 25 rows.
- Tabled are numbered in Arabic numerals consecutively in their order of citation in text
- A brief title is given for each table.
- Abbreviations used in the table shall be explained in the foot notes
- Tables borrowed, adapted or modified from other sources shall be duly acknowledged after due permission.

Illustrations (Figures)
- Good quality glossy color photo prints 4”X6” duly numbered and labeled are submitted with hard copy of the manuscript.
- For on line submissions, jpeg is the most suitable format, though the other formats (tiff, gif) are also acceptable.
- For already published figures, due permission shall be obtained and the same acknowledged in the manuscript. Legends for Illustrations - Figures are numbered in Arabic numerals and legends typed with double spacing with word limit of 40.
- When symbols, arrows or letters are used to identify parts of the illustrations, each one is explained in the legend. - The internal scale, magnification and the method of staining are mentioned in photomicrographs.
- The tables and charts are provided at the appropriate place in the text and not at the end of the manuscript.

Protection of Patients’ Rights to Privacy
Identifying information shall not be published in written descriptions, photographs, CT scans, etc., and pedigrees; if the information is essential for scientific purposes written informed consent is required from the patient or guardian. Informed consent for this purpose requires that the patient be shown the manuscript to be published. When informed consent has been obtained, it should be indicated in the article and copy of the consent should be attached with the covering letter.

Publication charges
Article publication charges are INR 3000 (USD 120), which are to be paid after a formal acceptance of the article is received by the author.

Reprints
Reprints are not provided by the Journal.

Copyrights
The Editorial board has the copyright of the literary content of the Journal. However, all users are permitted free access to and license to copy and use the work for non-commercial purpose with proper acknowledgment of the authorship and ownership rights.

The format of the Covering letter, Contributor’s form, templates for various types of manuscripts are available in the website and the authors are requested to download and use the same.