Instructions

 


Before submitting your manuscript, please conduct a careful review of the information below to familiarize yourself with the formatting requirements and ethical policies of World Journal of Traditional Chinese Medicine (WJTCM). These pages contain very useful information to help you prepare your content so that it flows smoothly through our peer review process, as well as to help you understand our editorial policies and procedures.

1 General Information

World Journal of Traditional Chinese Medicine (WJTCM) is a peer-reviewed open access journal, published quarterly in English language by World Federation of Chinese Medicine Societies (WFCMS). We welcome original research articles, review articles, editorials, and others from any part of the world. All WJTCM articles are published online in WJTCM website (www.wjtcm.org), full-text PDF articles and electronic/online versions are freely available to global readers.

1.1 Aims and scope

Aims: To report the research progress in clinical efficacy and action mechanism of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chinese materia medica, acupuncture and moxibustion to doctors and biomedical researchers around the world,  so as to provide new thoughts and methods for solving complex diseases and knotty diseases.

Scope: The journal includes reviews and articles focused on the following aspects of TCM:

l        Modern research on Chinese materia medica;

l        Research on TCM basic theory;

l        TCM clinical study;

l        Acupuncture & Moxibustion.

1.2 Content and column

WJTCM focuses on reviews and original articles of both basic research and clinical practice to the diagnosis and treatment of complicated diseases by TCM. The columns include:

l        Review: To systemically review the most representative progress and unsolved problems in the major scientific disciplines, comment on the current research status, and make suggestions on the future work;

l        Modern research on Chinese materia medica, including theories of processing, property, and compatibility of Chinese materia medica; safety of Chinese materia medica; principles and mechanism of pharmacologic action and efficacy of crude drugs and Chinese compound formulas;

l        Research on TCM basic theories, including scientific connotation and biological foundation of TCM basic theories;

l        TCM clinical study, including disease and syndrome, TCM safety, efficacy evaluation, evidence-based and systematic evaluation;

l        Acupuncture & Moxibustion, including effect mechanism of acupuncture and moxibustion, specificity of acupoint effect, acupoints compatibility, efficacy evaluation of acupuncture and moxibustion;

2 Submission on line

2.1 Submission policy

The manuscripts are considered for review only under the conditions that they are not under consideration elsewhere and that the data presented have not appeared on the internet or have not been previously published.

Manuscripts should be submitted via http://mc03.manuscriptcentral.com/wjtcm. Each submission must be accompanied by a letter of copyright transfer signed by all the authors (Please download a Copyright assignment agreement fromhttp://mc03.manuscriptcentral.com/wjtcm or http://www.wjtcm.org). Authors encountering problems may contact the editorial office via email: wjtcmoffice@vip.126.com.

Most of submissions accepted for publication may undergo revisions recommended by the reviewers, editors or statistical advisers. Proofs of edited articles and illustrations are sent to the corresponding author for correctionReply to any query from editors is required. A sample copy of the journal containing the articles will be forwarded to the corresponding author within a few days of publication. Manuscripts are reviewed by members of our international editorial board and expert peer reviewers, then either accepted for publication or rejected by the chief editor.

Authors should retain one copy of the text, tables, photographs, and illustrations because rejected manuscripts will not be returned to the author(s) and the editors will not be responsible for loss or damage to photographs and illustrations sustained during submission.

2.2 Conflicts of interest

In the interests of transparency and to help reviewers assess any potential bias, WJTCM requires authors of original research papers to declare any competing commercial interests in relation to the submitted work.

2.3 Ethics

Ethical approval of studies and informed consent are required. For all manuscripts reporting data from studies involving human participants or animals, the formal review and approval, or formal review and waiver, by an appropriate institutional review board or ethics committee is required and should be described in the Methods section. For those investigators who do not have formal ethics review committees, the principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki should be followed. For investigations of humans, state in the Methods section the manner in which informed consent was obtained from the study participants (i.e., oral or written). Editors may request that authors provide documentation of the formal review and recommendation from the institutional review board or ethics committee responsible for oversight of the study.

2.4 Authorship

Each author must have contributed significantly to the submitted work. If there are more than 2 authors, the contribution of each must be substantiated in the cover letter. Authors who publish in WJTCM may present their names in non-Latin characters (in their native writing system) along side the standard English transliteration of their name in the main author line of the published article, for example, "Xiao-Ming Zhang". Author from China can fill the Chinese name as the middle name when submitting via the Scholar One Manuscript system. Do not include any specific titles, e.g. PhD, MD, and Prof., etc.

3 Manuscript Preparation

All papers should be written in concise English. Manuscript should be prepared in accordance with the “Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals: Writing and Editing for Biomedical Publication” (www.icmje.org). Those of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) should follow the CONSORT statement (www.consort-statement.org).

3.1 Manuscript Formatting Requirements

Manuscripts may be submitted to the WJTCM Peer Review system in the following formats: Microsoft Word (.doc or .docx), Rich Text Format (.rtf). A4 paper format, the printing area is 17.5 cm x 26.2 cm. The margins should be 1.75 cm on each side of the paper (top, bottom, left, and right sides), with single-spaced in two-column journal format.

3.2 Article sections

In general, manuscripts should be divided into the following sections: (a) Title Page (title, authors, affiliations, short title, and address for correspondence); (b) Abstract;(c) Keywords (d) Main Text (Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion); (e) Statistics; (f) Acknowledgements (grants, disclosures); (g) References; (h) Tables; (i) Figure Legends; (j) Figures. Please number all pages consecutively from the title page, and start each of the sections on a new page.

3.2.1 Title page

The title page should carry (a) the title of the article, which should be concise but informative, no more than 250 characters; (b) authors’ names including full first name, middle initial and last name; for non-Latin names, the given name more than two characters should be connected with “-” inbetween with the first letter capital in both, for example, "Xiao-Ming Zhang"; (c) list of the departments and institutions with which the authors are affiliated, and the specific affiliations should be indicated if the work is generated from more than one institution (use the footnote symbols a, b, c, et al); (d) disclaimers, if any; (e) under the heading corresponding author, and please give the full name and complete communication address including telephone numbers, fax numbers and an e-mail address. Co-corresponding authors are acceptable in WJTCM, but the Scholar One Manuscripts system will record only one author for correspondence; (f) source(s) of support in the form of grants, contracts, and other forms of financial support, and please list the cities and states of all foundations, funds and institutions involved in the work; and (g) a short title of no more than 45 characters (count letters and spaces) placed at the foot of the title page and identified. At the end of the title page, please provide the number of figures and tables in the manuscript.

3.2.2 Abstract

Provide a structured abstract of no less than 250 words for research articles, presenting essential data in 4 paragraphs introduced by separate headings in the following order: Objective, Methods, Results, and Conclusions.

3.2.3 Keywords

Please list no more than 5 key words. Words not repeated in title are recommended so as to give readers more index information.

3.2.4 Abbreviations

Define abbreviations that are not standard in this field in a footnote on the first page of the article. Such abbreviations that are unavoidable in the abstract must be defined at their first mention, as well as in the footnote.

3.2.5 Main Text

The preferred length of an original article is no more than 8000 words, and review no more than 10000 words. Text is usually-but not necessarily-divided into the Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion sections. Headings and subheadings may be used to clarify their content, especially in the Methods, Results, and Discussion (including conclusion). Every reference, figure and table should be cited in the text in numerical order according to the mentioned order. To save space in the Journal, abbreviations of common terms or acronyms may be used throughout the manuscript, and the full spelling should be noted at the first mention.

Introduction: State the purpose of the article. Summarize the rationale for the study or observation. Give only strictly pertinent references, and do not review the subject extensively. Do not include data or conclusions from the work.

Methods: Describe your selection of the observational or experimental subjects (patients or experimental animals, including controls) clearly. Identify the methods, apparatus (manufacturer's name and address in parentheses), and procedures in sufficient detail to allow other researchers to reproduce the results. Give references to established methods, including statistical methods (see below); provide references and brief descriptions for methods that have been published but are not well known; describe new or substantially modified methods, give reasons for using them, and evaluate their limitations. Statistics should be described clearly in methods section. All publishable manuscripts will be reviewed for appropriateness and accuracy of statistical methods and statistical interpretation of results. In the Methods section, provide a subsection detailing the statistical methods, including specific methods used to summarize the data, methods used for hypothesis testing (if any), and the level of significance used for hypothesis testing. When using more sophisticated statistical methods (beyond t tests, chi-square, and simple linear regression), specify the statistical package, version number, and non-default options used.

Results: Present your results in a logical sequence with the text, tables, and illustrations. Do not repeat in the text all the data in the tables or illustrations; emphasise or summarise only important observations.

Discussion: Emphasise the new and important aspects of the study and the conclusions that follow from them. Do not repeat the detail data or other material given in the introduction or the results section. Include the implications of the findings and their limitations, including implications for future research. Relate the observations to other relevant studies. Link the conclusions with the goals of the study but avoid unqualified statements and conclusions not completely supported by the study data.

3.2.6 Acknowledgements

Any other contributions to this work could be mentioned here. This section will include people contributed but not listed as authors, and people providing fund. Participations unsuitable to list in authorship (e.g. people providing help for funding or the collection of data) can be appropriately acknowledged in this section.

3.2.7 References

References in the text must be numbered consecutively in the order mentioned above. References cited in figures or tables (or in their legends and footnotes) should be numbered according to the place in the text where the table or figure is first cited. Reference numbers in the text must be given in superscript square brackets. List all authors of the articles.

Please do not cite personal communications, manuscripts in preparation or other unpublished data in the references; these may be cited in the text in parentheses. Please do not cite abstracts that are older than two years.

Authors are responsible for the accuracy of references cited: these should be checked against the original documents before the paper is submitted. It is vital that the references are styled correctly so that they may be hyperlinked.

Please use the following style and punctuation for references in the reference list:

Reference to a journal publication:

Ping Huang, Chang-Man Zhou, Qin Hu, Yu-Ying Liu, Bai-He Hu, Xin Chang, etal. Cerebralcare Granule attenuates blood-brain barrier disruption after middle cerebral artery occlusion in rats.Experimental Neurology 2012; 237(2): 453-463.

Reference to a book:

Desiraju GR, Steiner T. The Weak Hydrogen Bond in Structural Chemistry and Biology, 2nd Edition; Oxford University Press: New York, USA, 1999; 10-25.

Reference to a patent

Lenssen KC, Jantscheff P, Kiedrowski G, et al. Cationic Lipids with Serine Backbone for Transfecting Biological Molecules. Eur Pat Appl 1457483, 2004.

3.2.7 Tables

Three-line tables should be provided on separate sheets, with the table number and title centered above the table. Table numbers must correspond with the order cited in the text. Columns should always have headings. Tables should not duplicate the content of the text and should have a brief footnote that identifies all abbreviations used. Footnote symbols should appear in the following order: *, #, †, etc. Tables should be self-explanatory and the data in the tables should be consistent with those cited in the relevant places in the text. Tables could be provided in Word or Excel file format at the end of the manuscript.

3.2.8 Figure legends

Figure legends should be typed double-spaced on pages separate from the text; figure numbers must correspond with the order mentioned in the text.

All figures must have a title as well as a caption. For example, Figure 1: Title-Caption, etc. All abbreviations used in the figure should be identified either after their first mention in the legend or in alphabetical order at the end of each legend.

All symbols used (arrows, circles, etc.) must be explained.

3.2.9 Figures

Please submit Figures in a separate file and the format should be provided in TIF, JPG format.

3.3 English corrections

Manuscripts must be submitted in English, and the English-language must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. We may reject manuscripts that do not meet the requirement for publishing. Manuscripts should be checked before submitting, and the editorial office do not supply English language editorial service.

 

 

 

 


SPECIAL STATEMENT

All articles published in this journal represent the viewpoints of the authors except where indicated otherwise.