Information for Authors

GUIDELINES FOR AUTHORS

Types of Manuscripts

In „ Cosmetic Medicine”, contributions are published in the fields of Dermatology, Cosmetology and similar topics. Original papers, overviews, diagnostics and treatment application, casuistics( incl. casuistic illustrations) and reports of conferences and symposia, readers´ commentaries, News, Personalia, meeting dates and articles on the medical profession are published. The articles are either written in English or in German. Their content should fit the section in which they are published and their style should match the journal´s profile.

If the contribution has been previously offered to another publication and rejected, the author should mention this when he submits his paper.

Acceptance of Manuscripts

Manuscripts are accepted only, if they have not been previously published elsewhere. The Editor-in Chief determines if a contribution is accepted for publication. The editorial staff will assist the Editor in examining the contribution. Furthermore, publication must be authorized by it´s eventual co-authors.

The manuscripts are to be forwarded to gmc GmbH, “Cosmetic Medicine”, Andrea Platzner, Brandenburgische Str. 46, D-10707 Berlin, E-mail: grosse@gmc-medien.de (Illustrations: please, refer to the section „Illustration“ below)

Length of Manuscript

Maximal length: 12 pages of DIN size (approximately 45.000 letters, including blank signs). Languages: Either English or German plus summaries and keywords in the respective other language. Overviews: Maximum of 6 DIN-A4-pages, the English and German summary and key-words included. Congress reports: Maximum of 4 DIN-pages.

The number and size of tables, graphics and illustrations must respectively relate to the written text.

Other Aspects

Decimal numbers are published with commas. After the per-cent signs and shortened measurement units, an empty space is required

Structure of Manuscript

Clear structuring of the manuscript is essential. The optimal structure should include an introducing super line and a headline. summaries should not exceed 250 to 300 letters, keywords should not exceed 4 to 6 terms. Material and methods, casuistic, introductions, results discussion should show respective sectional headlines. These sectional headlines should be clearly recognizable. Illustrations and tables should be listed in the text with a respective identification number in parenthesis.

The concluding summary should contain in brief form the data and significant results of the manuscript.

Eventual “thank-you” remarks, the list of literature, explanations of illustrations and tables and their illustration sources should also be listed again at the end of the manuscript.

Furthermore: Your correspondence address including telephone, fax and e-mail number, if available.

Illustrations

Illustrations should be delivered, numbered and separate from the manuscript text. Legends should be listed on separate sheets. A short and comprehensive text below the illustration can exclude repeating the text in the regular manuscript.

It is the author´s responsibility that the reproduction of photos on which a patient can be recognized is authorized by the person shown, respectively his legal representative. The author is further responsible for the authorization by eventual copyright-owners of illustrations. All illustrations should list, on their reverse side, the name of the author as well as markers “upper end” and “lower end”.

Technical remarks

Illustrations should be sharp and contrasted on paper or as diapositives. Markings of publishable sections of the illustration should be given. If an Illustration is digitalized, it should not be integrated in the manuscript data. It should be delivered in the formats TIF or JPEG <with a minimum dissolution of 305 DPI /60 point) or separately as EPS>.

In the case of technical questions please contact Mister Douglas Grosse, telefon-numer +49 (0)30 – 886 749 -30

References

References should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text. Identify references in text, tables, and legends by Arabic numerals in parentheses. References cited only in tables or in legends to figures should be numbered in accordance with the sequence established by the first identification in the text of the particular table or figure.

Use the style of the examples below, which are based on the formats used by the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM) in Index Medicus. The titles of journals should be abbreviated according to the style used in Index Medicus. Consult the List of Journals Indexed in Index Medicus, published annually as a separate publication by the library and as a list in the January issue of Index Medicus. The list can also be obtained through the library’s web site: http://www.nlm.nih.gov.

Avoid using abstracts as references. References to papers accepted but not yet published should be designated as “in press” or “forthcoming”; authors should obtain written permission to cite such papers as well as verification that they have been accepted for publication. Information from manuscripts submitted but not accepted should be cited in the text as “unpublished observations” with written permission from the source. Avoid citing a “personal communication” unless it provides essential information not available from a public source, in which case the name of the person and date of communication should be cited in parentheses in the text. For scientific articles, authors should obtain written permission and confirmation of accuracy from the source of a personal communication.

The references must be verified by the author(s) against the original documents.

Examples for Quotation

393. Periodicals: Hantsche D, Goos M (1990) Kutane Manisfestation einer Pilz-sepsis. Hautarzt 41: 392-393.
394. Books: Friedrichs KH, Kainka-Staenike F, Darsow U, Becker W, Tamigas R (1991) Allergens and Pollutants in their air-a complex interaction, In: Ring J, Pryzbilla B (eds) New Trends in allergy III, Springer, Berlin Heidelberg New York 457-478.

Types of Manuscript

The contribution should be given to the publisher in a printed version. Data can be forwarded for further editing, via e-mail, to info@gmc-medien.de.

The text should be sent as an attachment of an e-mail. Furthermore, small illustrations, in their original size and format or as a disc 3.5 inches, CD or ZIP 100.

Corrections

Editor-in-chief and the publisher reserve the right to edit the manuscripts. Corrected versions will be forwarded for “o.k.” to the author and should be returned on the suggested date. Is this not the case, agreement for correction, on our part, is assumed.

Ethics

When reporting experiments on human subjects, indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional or regional) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 1983. Do not use patients’ names, initials, or hospital numbers, especially in illustrative material.

When reporting experiments on animals, indicate whether the institution’s or a national research council’s guide for, or any national law on, the care and use of laboratory animals was followed.

Statistics

Describe statistical methods with enough detail to enable a knowledgeable reader with access to the original data to verify the reported results. When possible, quantify findings and present them with appropriate indicators of measurement error or uncertainty (such as confidence intervals). Avoid relying solely on statistical hypothesis testing, such as the use of P values, which fails to convey important quantitative information. Discuss the eligibility of experimental subjects. Give details about randomization. Describe the methods for and success of any blinding of observations. Report complications of treatment. Give numbers of observations.

Report losses to observation (such as dropouts from a clinical trial). References for the design of the study and statistical methods should be to standard works when possible (with pages stated) rather than to papers in which the designs or methods were originally reported. Specify any general-use computer programs used.

Put a general description of methods in the Methods section. When data are summarized in the Results section, specify the statistical methods used to analyze them. Restrict tables and figures to those needed to explain the argument of the paper and to assess its support. Use graphs as an alternative to tables with many entries; do not duplicate data in graphs and tables. Avoid nontechnical uses of technical terms in statistics, such as “random” (which implies a randomizing device), “normal,” “significant,” “correlations,” and “sample.” Define statistical terms, abbreviations, and most symbols.

Conflict of interest

Conflict of interest for a given manuscript exists when a participant in the peer review and publication process – author, reviewer, and editor – has ties to activities that could inappropriately influence his or her judgment, whether or not judgment is in fact affected. Financial relationships with industry (for example, through employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, expert testimony), either directly or through immediate family, are usually considered to be the most important conflicts of interest. However, conflicts can occur for other reasons, such as personal relationships, academic competition, and intellectual passion.

Public trust in the peer review process and the credibility of published articles depends in part on how well conflict of interest is handled during writing, peer review, and editorial decision making. Bias can often be identified and eliminated by careful attention to the scientific methods and conclusions of the work. Financial relationships and their effects are less easily detected than other conflicts of interest.

Participants in peer review and publication should disclose their conflicting interests, and the information should be made available so that others can judge their effects for themselves. Because readers may be less able to detect bias in review articles and editorials than in reports of original research, some journals do not accept reviews and editorials from authors with a conflict of interest.

Authors – When they submit a manuscript, whether an article or a letter, authors are responsible for recognizing and disclosing financial and other conflicts of interest that might bias their work. They should acknowledge in the manuscript all financial support for the work and other financial or personal connections to the work.

Reviewers – External peer reviewers should disclose to editors any conflicts of interest that could bias their opinions of the manuscript, and they should disqualify themselves from reviewing specific manuscripts if they believe it appropriate. The editors must be made aware of reviewers’ conflicts of interest to interpret the reviews and judge for themselves whether the reviewer should be disqualified.

Reviewers should not use knowledge of the work, before it publication, to further their own interests.

Editors and staff – Editors who make final decisions about manuscripts should have no personal financial involvement in any of the issues they might judge. Other members of the editorial staff, if they participate in editorial decisions, should provide editors with a current description of their financial interests (as they might relate to editorial judgments) and disqualify themselves from any decisions where they have a conflict of interest. Published articles and letters should include a description of all financial support and any conflict of interest that, in the editors’ judgment, readers should know about. Editorial staff should not use for private gain the information gained through working with manuscripts.