Guide for Authors

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Archives of Pharmaceutical Sciences- Ain Shams University (APS-ASU) 

Ethics in Publishing 

Key author responsibilities 

Authorship:

1. Report only real, un-fabricated data.

2. Originality.

3. Declare any conflicts of interest.

4. Submit to one journal at a time. 

Avoid:

1. Fabrication: making up research data.

2. Falsification: manipulation of existing research data.

3. Plagiarism: previous work is taken and passed off as one's own.

4. Multiple publications of the same work, never submit your manuscript to more than one journal at a time. 

Important note: all submitted manuscripts are checked for plagiarism. 

The following papers will not be accepted for publication:

• Studies on people not approved by an accredited Ethics Committee with approval number or without written informed consent from the subject or legal guardian.

• Studies on animals not approved by an accredited Ethics with the approval number and Animal Care Committee.

• Manuscripts that report preliminary results or only confirm previously reported results.

Guide for Authors

• Language:

Please write your text in good English (American or British usage is accepted, but not a mixture of these). To avoid unnecessary errors, you are strongly advised to use the 'spell-check' and 'grammar-check' functions of your word processor.

• Manuscript Categories

Full-length paper

Review Article

Case study 

The author must send: 

  1. Title page
  2. Manuscript main file (file without author names)
  3. Copyright transfer agreement download the file (Copyright transfer agreement) sign and upload it on the online submission system) 

-While submitting your paper you will be asked for three potential reviewers. Indicating three reviewers is mandatory. 

I. Title page

The title page should contain the following information:

1. Title of the article. Use a concise and informative title. Titles are often used in information-retrieval systems. Avoid abbreviations and formulae where possible. It should not exceed two printed lines

2. Name(s) of all author(s) with e-mail(s). Please clearly indicate the given name(s) and family name(s) of each author and check that all names are accurately spelled. Present the authors' affiliation addresses (where the actual work was done) below the names. Indicate all affiliations with a lower-case superscript letter immediately after the author's name and in front of the appropriate address. Provide the full postal address of each affiliation, including the country name and, if available, the official e-mail address of each author. Also include the Name, complete mailing address, including zip code, telephone number, fax number and e-mail of author to whom correspondence should be sent.

- If a version of the manuscript has been previously submitted for publication to another journal, include comments from the peer reviewers and indicate how the authors have responded to these comments

•    Corresponding author

Indicate who will handle correspondence at all stages of refereeing and publication, also post-publication. Ensure that the e-mail address is given and that contact details are kept up to date by the corresponding author.

3. Declarations

• Ethics approval and consent to participate

• Consent to publish

• Availability of data and materials

• Competing interests

• Funding statement

• Authors’ contributions

• Acknowledgment

• Authors' Information (Optional) 

Declarations

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Authors should mention not applicable if not present

Consent to publish 

Authors should mention “not applicable” if not present

Availability of data and materials

The authors should mention the data generated or analyzed during this study whether all are included in the main manuscript and/or in the additional supporting file or specific data repository (if present).

Competing interests

The authors should declare if any competing interest exists or they declare that have no competing interests

Funding Statement

The authors should declare if any funding was obtained from any agency or any institutional support (if present)

or Mention (No funding source was received) if this was unavailable andthe article is self-funded by the authors.

Authors’ contributions

All authors that contributed to the work presented in this paper should be declared and the role and contribution of each author should be mentioned.

Examples of such statement:

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by [full name], [full name] and [full name]. The first draft of the manuscript was written by [full name] and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Acknowledgments

Authors should acknowledge any agency, institution, department or any members for their support and providing facilities whenever needed. List here those individuals who provided help during the research (e.g., providing language help, writing assistance or proofreading the article, etc.). 

II. Manuscript main file (without author names)

This should include the manuscript title, abstract, keywords, introduction, material, and methods; Results, Discussion, References. (see below)

• The text of a manuscript can only be accepted as a Microsoft Word file created with MS Word as a "doc" or "docx" (Times new roman; font 14 for Headings and 12 for text; line space 1.5). This file also will include the tables while the figures are uploaded separately.

• The page number in the middle of the page bottom.

Title (Use a concise and informative title. Titles are often used in information-retrieval systems. Avoid abbreviations and formulae where possible. It should not exceed two printed lines. 

 Abstract

A concise and factual abstract is required. The abstract should state briefly the purpose of the research, the principal results, and major conclusions. An abstract is often presented separately from the article, so it must be able to stand alone. For this reason, 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. Times New Roman font 12, indented both sides, 250 words maximum

Graphical abstract Although a graphical abstract is optional, its use is encouraged as it draws more attention to the online article. The graphical abstract should summarize the contents of the article in a concise, pictorial form designed to capture the attention of a wide readership.

Keywords Immediately after the abstract, provide 5-7 keywords, using American spelling and avoiding general and plural terms and multiple concepts (avoid, for example, 'and', 'of'). Be sparing with abbreviations: only abbreviations firmly established in the field may be eligible. The keywords should be separated by; and will be used for indexing purposes.

Abbreviations Define abbreviations that are not standard in this field in a footnote to be placed after the keywords. Ensure consistency of abbreviations throughout the article. 

Manuscript full-length paper

Subdivision - numbered sections: divide your article into clearly defined and numbered sections.

Subsections should be numbered 1.1 (then 1.1.1, 1.1.2,), 1.2, etc. (the abstract is not included in section numbering). Use this numbering also for internal cross-referencing: do not just refer to 'the text'. Any subsection may be given a brief heading. Each heading should appear on its separate line. Capitalize each word in titles. 

Organizing the manuscript:

  1. Introduction
  2. Material and methods (including Statistical analysis if available)
  3. Results
  4. Discussion

• Conclusion

• Recommendation

  1. • References 

• Tables including their titles are inserted into their suitable places within the main manuscript file

• Figure Titles and Legends (figures are uploaded separately and submitted as JPEG or TIFF formats with high resolution (600 dpi). 

Introduction

State the objectives of the work and provide an adequate background, avoiding a detailed literature survey or a summary of the results. 

Materials and methods

Provide sufficient details to allow the work to be reproduced. Methods already published should be indicated by a reference: only relevant modifications should be described. Ethics approval must be mentioned (including committee number and date) for any clinical or animal studies. 

Theory/calculation

A Theory section should extend, not repeat, the background to the article already dealt with in the Introduction and lay the foundation for further work. In contrast, the calculation section represents a practical development on a theoretical basis. 

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 information about effect size. References for the design of the study and statistical methods should be to standard works when possible (with pages stated). Define statistical terms, abbreviations, and most symbols. Specify the name, version, and country of the user computer software. 

Results

The results should be clear and concise. 

Discussion

This should explore the significance of the results of the work, not repeat them as compared to relevant updated references available. A combined Results and Discussion section will be accepted. Avoid extensive and/or self-citations of published literature. 

Limitations (if any)

To ensure that you provide an accurate context for your work and give readers sufficient information to properly evaluate the relevance and impact of your results, they must be included. Indicate your limitations. 

Conclusions

The main conclusions of the study may be presented in a short Conclusions section, which may stand alone or form a subsection of a Discussion or Results and Discussion section. 

Recommendations

Tell the reader about prospects and implications in one or two sentences that arise either from findings or from avoiding limitations. 

Appendices

If there is more than one appendix, they should be identified as A, B, etc. Formulae and equations in appendices should be given separate numbering: Eq. (A.1), Eq. (A.2), etc.; in a subsequent appendix, Eq. (B.1) and so on. Similarly, for tables and figures: Table A.1; Fig. A.1, etc. 

Citation in text

Cite references in the text by number(s) in square brackets in line with the text. The actual authors can be referred to, but the reference number(s) must always be given..Please ensure that every reference cited in the text is also present in the reference list (and vice versa). Any references cited in the abstract must be given in full. Unpublished results and personal communications are not recommended in the reference list but may be mentioned in the text. If these references are included in the reference list they should follow the standard reference style of the journal and should include a substitution of the publication date with either 'Unpublished results' or 'Personal communication'. Citation of a reference as 'in press' implies that the item has been accepted for publication.

Number of references

No. of references in research article should not exceed 40 and review articles not more than 90 references. At least 35-40% of the total number of references must be within the last 4-5 years of the time of submission. 

Web references

As a minimum, the full URL should be given and the date when the reference was last accessed. Any further information, if known (DOI, author names, dates, reference to a source publication, etc.), should also be given. Web references can be listed separately (e.g., after the reference list) under a different heading if desired, or can be included in the reference list.

References in a special issue. Please ensure that the words 'this issue' are added to any references in the list (and any citations in the text) to other articles in the same Special Issue.

Reference style

The titles of journals should be abbreviated according to the "List of Journals Indexed" in Index Medicus (www.nlm.nih.gov). List all authors, for more than 6 authors the first 6 should be listed followed by "et al."

The author should Insert DOI (if available) at the end of each reference in the reference section.

List

Number the references in the list in the order in which they appear in the text.

Examples:

Reference to a journal publication:

1. Van der Geer J, Hanraads JAJ, Lupton RA. The art of writing a scientific article. J Sci Commun 2000; 163:51–9.

Reference to a book:

2. Strunk Jr W, White EB. The elements of style. 3rd ed. New York: Macmillan; 1979.

Reference to a chapter in an edited book:

3. Mettam GR, Adams LB. How to prepare an electronic version of your article. In: Jones BS, Smith RZ, editors. Introduction to the electronic age. New York: E-Publishing Inc; 1999, p. 281–304. 

Tables

• Tables must be numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals in the text.

• All explanatory information should be given in a footnote below the table.

• All abbreviations must be defined in this footnote, even if they are explained in the text.

• Tables must be understandable without referring to the text.

• Tables in Excel must be cell-based; do not use picture elements, text boxes, tabs, or returns in tables.

• For each table, please supply a table caption (title) explaining the components of the table.eg. Table 1. Effect of different extracts on........... 

III. Copyright and License

-     Copyright on any open access article published in the APS-ASU journal is retained by the author(s).

-     Authors also grant any third party the right to use the article freely as long as its integrity is maintained and its original authors, citation details and publisher are identified.

-     Authors grant Ain Shams University a copyright transfer agreement to publish the article and identify itself as the original publisher.

-     Users have the right to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of articles under the following conditions: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

 For more information: 

This work is licensed underhttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 

IV. Figures File

Figures must be submitted separately with  high-resolution version (600 dpi) as TIFF or JPEG format. The use of color figures is free of charge. The following guidelines must be observed when preparing figures. Failure to do so is likely to delay the acceptance and publication of the article.

• Each figure of a manuscript should be submitted as a single file.

• Figures should be numbered in the order they are first mentioned in the text and uploaded in this order.

• Figure titles and legends should be provided in the main manuscript, after tables in a separate page, not in the graphics file.

• The aim of the figure legend should be to describe the key messages of the figure, but the figure should also be discussed in the text.

• Figures with multiple panels should use capital letters A, B, C, etc. to identify the panels.

• Individual figure files should not exceed 5 MB. If a suitable format is chosen, this file size is adequate for extremely high-quality figures.

• Figure Title must be written as: Fig. 1. Effect of different extracts on........... 

Review article

A review article should provide a synthetic and critical analysis of a relevant area and should not be merely a chronological description of the literature. A review article by investigators who have made substantial contributions to a specific area in pharmaceutical sciences will be published by invitation of the Editors. However, an outline of a review article may be submitted to the Editors without prior consultation. If it is judged appropriate for the Journal, the author(s) will be invited to prepare the article for peer review. Review articles should be less than 6000 words, excluding the abstract and references. 

Case study

Articles describing clinical cases that have significant novel original observations, are instructive, include adequate methodological details and provide conclusions. These should be less than 2000 words, excluding the abstract and references, and have no more than two figures and tables. Structured headings are desirable. Please note the below comments regarding obtaining written informed consent.

Links to the Human and Animal Rights

There are numerous resources available that can aid authors and journals in improving article quality. As examples, some resources NLM encourages journals and authors to reference are:

Publication Charges

• The authors are responsible for "publication charges" of all accepted papers. The charge is 700 L.E for Egyptians and 200 $ (USA Dollars) for authors outside Egypt. We routinely waive charges for authors from low-income countries. For other countries, article-processing charge waivers or discounts are granted on a case-by-case basis to authors with insufficient funds. Authors can request a waiver or discount during the submission process.

• Please contact (aps@pharma.asu.edu.eg) if you have any questions.