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SECI Oncology Journal is a peer-reviewed journal that considers research articles and reviews on all aspects of cancer research.
It is journal policy to publish work deemed by peer reviewers to be a coherent and sound addition to scientific knowledge and to put less emphasis on interest levels, provided that the research constitutes a useful contribution to the field.
Criteria
Research articles should report on original primary research, but may report on systematic reviews of published research provided they adhere to the appropriate reporting guidelines.
Style and language
General
Currently, the journal can only accept manuscripts written in English. Spelling should be US English. There is no explicit limit on the length of articles submitted, but authors are encouraged to be concise. There is also no restriction on the number of figures or tables that can be included with each article. Figures and tables should be numbered in the order in which they are referred to in the text. Authors should include all relevant supporting data with each article.
The journal will not edit submitted manuscripts for style or language; reviewers may advise rejection of a manuscript if it is compromised by grammatical errors. Authors are advised to write clearly and simply, and to have their article checked by colleagues before submission.
Abbreviations
Abbreviations should be used as sparingly as possible. They should be defined when first used and a list of abbreviations can be provided following the main manuscript text.
Typography
Units
SI units should be used throughout (liter and molar are permitted, however).
File formats
The following word processor file formats are acceptable for the main manuscript document:
Microsoft Word (version 2003 and above)
Note that figures must be submitted as separate image files, not as part of the submitted manuscript file.
Preparing main manuscript text
General guidelines of the journal's style and language are given below.
Overview of manuscript sections for Research articles
Manuscripts for Research articles submitted should be divided into the following sections (in this order):
• Title page
• Abstract
• Keywords
• Background
• Methods
• Results and discussion
• Conclusions
• List of abbreviations used (if any)
• Competing interests
• Authors' contributions
• Authors' information
• Acknowledgements
• Endnotes
• References
• Illustrations and figures (if any)
• Tables and captions
Title page
The title page should:
• provide the title of the article
• list the full names, institutional addresses and email addresses for all authors
• indicate the corresponding author
• Please note:
The title should include the study design, for example "A versus B in the treatment of C: a randomized controlled trial X is a risk factor for Y: a case control study"
abbreviations within the title should be avoided
Abstract
The Abstract of the manuscript should not exceed 350 words and must be structured into separate sections: Background, the context and purpose of the study; Methods, how the study was performed and statistical tests used; Results, the main findings; Conclusions, brief summary and potential implications. Please minimize the use of abbreviations and do not cite references in the abstract. Trial registration, if your Research article reports the results of a controlled health care intervention, please list your trial registry, along with the unique identifying number (e.g. Trial registration: Current Controlled Trials ISRCTN73824458). Please note that there should be no space between the letters and numbers of your trial registration number.
Keywords
Three to ten keywords representing the main content of the article.
Background
The Background section should be written in a way that is accessible to researchers without specialist knowledge in that area and must clearly state - and, if helpful, illustrate - the background to the research and its aims. Reports of clinical research should, where appropriate, include a summary of a search of the literature to indicate why this study was necessary and what it aimed to contribute to the field. The section should end with a brief statement of what is being reported in the article.
Methods
The methods section should include the design of the study, the setting, the type of participants or materials involved, a clear description of all interventions and comparisons, and the type of analysis used, including a power calculation if appropriate. Generic drug names should generally be used. When proprietary brands are used in research, include the brand names in parentheses in the Methods section. For studies involving human participants a statement detailing ethical approval and consent should be included in the methods section.
Results and discussion
The Results and discussion may be combined into a single section or presented separately. Results of statistical analysis should include, where appropriate, relative and absolute risks or risk reductions, and confidence intervals. The Results and discussion sections may also be broken into subsections with short, informative headings.
Conclusions
This should state clearly the main conclusions of the research and give a clear explanation of their importance and relevance. Summary illustrations may be included.
List of abbreviations
If abbreviations are used in the text they should be defined in the text at first use, and a list of abbreviations can be provided, which should precede the competing interests and authors' contributions.
Competing interests
A competing interest exists when your interpretation of data or presentation of information may be influenced by your personal or financial relationship with other people or organizations. Authors must disclose any financial competing interests; they should also reveal any non-financial competing interests that may cause them embarrassment were they to become public after the publication of the manuscript.
Authors' contributions
In order to give appropriate credit to each author of a paper, the individual contributions of authors to the manuscript should be specified in this section. We suggest the following kind of format (please use initials to refer to each author's contribution): AB carried out the molecular genetic studies, participated in the sequence alignment and drafted the manuscript. JY carried out the immunoassays. MT participated in the sequence alignment. ES participated in the design of the study and performed the statistical analysis. FG conceived of the study, and participated in its design and coordination and helped to draft the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript. All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an acknowledgements section.
Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, writing assistance, or a department chair who provided only general support.
Authors' information
You may choose to use this section to include any relevant information about the author(s) that may aid the reader's interpretation of the article, and understand the standpoint of the author(s). This may include details about the authors' qualifications, current positions they hold at institutions or societies, or any other relevant background information. Please refer to authors using their initials. Note this section should not be used to describe any competing interests.
Acknowledgements
Please acknowledge anyone who contributed towards the article by making substantial contributions to conception, design, acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data, or who was involved in drafting the manuscript or revising it critically for important intellectual content, but who does not meet the criteria for authorship. Please also include the source(s) of funding for each author, and for the manuscript preparation. Authors must describe the role of the funding body, if any, in design, in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript; and in the decision to submit the manuscript for publication. Please also acknowledge anyone who contributed materials essential for the study. If a language editor has made significant revision of the manuscript, we recommend that you acknowledge the editor by name, where possible.
Endnotes
Endnotes should be designated within the text using a superscript lowercase letter and all notes (along with their corresponding letter) should be included in the Endnotes section. Please format this section in a paragraph rather than a list.
References
All references, including URLs, must be numbered consecutively, in square brackets, in the order in which they are cited in the text, followed by any in tables or legends. Each reference must have an individual reference number. Please avoid excessive referencing. If automatic numbering systems are used, the reference numbers must be finalized and the bibliography must be fully formatted before submission.
Only articles, datasets and abstracts that have been published or are in press, or are available through public e-print/preprint servers, may be cited; unpublished abstracts, unpublished data and personal communications should not be included in the reference list, but may be included in the text and referred to as "unpublished observations" or "personal communications" giving the names of the involved researchers. Obtaining permission to quote personal communications and unpublished data from the cited colleagues is the responsibility of the author. Footnotes are not allowed, but endnotes are permitted.
Journal abbreviations follow Index Medicus/MEDLINE. Citations in the reference list should include all named authors, up to the first 30 before adding 'et al.'. Any in press articles cited within the references and necessary for the reviewers' assessment of the manuscript should be made available if requested by the editorial office. Examples of the reference style are shown below. Please ensure that the reference style is followed precisely; if the references are not in the correct style they may have to be retyped and carefully proofread.
All web links and URLs, including links to the authors' own websites, should be given a reference number and included in the reference list rather than within the text of the manuscript. They should be provided in full, including both the title of the site and the URL, in the following format: The Mouse Tumor Biology Database [http://tumor.informatics.jax.org/mtbwi/index.do]. If an author or group of authors can clearly be associated with a web link, such as for weblogs, then they should be included in the reference.
Examples of the reference style
Article within a journal
Koonin EV, Altschul SF, Bork P: BRCA1 protein products: functional motifs. Nat Genet 1996, 13:266-267.
Article within a journal supplement
Orengo CA, Bray JE, Hubbard T, LoConte L, Sillitoe I: Analysis and assessment of ab initio threedimensional prediction, secondary structure, and contacts prediction. Proteins 1999, 43(Suppl 3):149-170.
In press article
Kharitonov SA, Barnes PJ: Clinical aspects of exhaled nitric oxide. Eur Respir J, in press.
Published abstract
Zvaifler NJ, Burger JA, Marinova-Mutafchieva L, Taylor P, Maini RN: Mesenchymal cells, stromal derived factor-1 and rheumatoid arthritis [abstract]. Arthritis Rheum 1999, 42:s250.
Article within conference proceedings
Jones X: Zeolites and synthetic mechanisms. In Proceedings of the First National Conference on Porous Sieves: 27-30 June 1996; Baltimore. Edited by Smith Y. Stoneham: Butterworth-Heinemann; 1996:16-27.
Book chapter, or article within a book
Schnepf E: From prey via endosymbiont to plastids: comparative studies in dinoflagellates. In Origins of Plastids. Volume 2. 2nd edition. Edited by Lewin RA. New York: Chapman and Hall; 1993:53-76.
Whole issue of journal
Ponder B, Johnston S, Chodosh L (Eds): Innovative oncology. In Breast Cancer Res 1998, 10:1-72.
Whole conference proceedings
Smith Y (Ed): Proceedings of the First National Conference on Porous Sieves: 27-30 June 1996; Baltimore. Stoneham: Butterworth-Heinemann; 1996.
Complete book
Margulis L: Origin of Eukaryotic Cells. New Haven: Yale University Press; 1970.
Monograph or book in a series
Hunninghake GW, Gadek JE: The alveolar macrophage. In Cultured Human Cells and Tissues. Edited by Harris TJR. New York: Academic Press; 1995:54-56. [Stoner G (Series Editor): Methods and Perspectives in Cell Biology, vol 1.]
Book with institutional author
Advisory Committee on Genetic Modification: Annual Report. London; 1999.
PhD thesis
Kohavi R: Wrappers for performance enhancement and oblivious decision graphs. PhD thesis. Stanford University, Computer Science Department; 1995.
Link / URL
The Mouse Tumor Biology Database [http://tumor.informatics.jax.org/mtbwi/index.do] Link / URL with author(s) Neylon C: Open Research Computation: an ordinary journal with extraordinary aims. [http://blogs.openaccesscentral.com/blogs/bmcblog/entry/open_research_computation_an_ordinary]
Dataset with persistent identifier Zheng, L-Y; Guo, X-S; He, B; Sun, L-J; Peng, Y; Dong, S-S; Liu, T-F; Jiang, S; Ramachandran, S; Liu, C-M; Jing, H-C (2011): Genome data from sweet and grain sorghum (Sorghum bicolor). GigaScience. http://dx.doi.org/10.5524/100012.
Preparing illustrations and figures
Illustrations should be provided as separate files, not embedded in the text file. Each figure should include a single illustration and should fit on a single page in portrait format. If a figure consists of separate parts, it is important that a single composite illustration file be submitted which contains all parts of the figure. There is extra charge for the use of color figures.
Formats
The following file formats can be accepted:
• PDF (also especially suitable for diagrams)
• TIFF
• PNG (preferred format for photos or images)
• Microsoft Word (version 5 and above; figures must be a single page)
• JPEG
• BMP
Figure legends
• The legends should be included in the main manuscript text file at the end of the document, rather than being a part of the figure file. For each figure, the following information should be provided: Figure number (in sequence, using Arabic numerals - i.e. Figure 1, 2, 3 etc); short title of figure (maximum 15 words); detailed legend, up to 300 words.
Preparing tables
• Each table should be numbered and cited in sequence using Arabic numerals (i.e. Table 1, 2, 3 etc.). Tables should also have a title (above the table) that summarizes the whole table; it should be no longer than 15 words. Detailed legends may then follow, but they should be concise. Tables should always be cited in text in consecutive numerical order.
• Smaller tables considered to be integral to the manuscript can be pasted into the end of the document text file, in A4 portrait or landscape format. These will be typeset and displayed in the final published form of the article. Such tables should be formatted using the 'Table object' in a word processing program to ensure that columns of data are kept aligned when the file is sent electronically for review; this will not always be the case if columns are generated by simply using tabs to separate text. Columns and rows of data should be made visibly distinct by ensuring that the borders of each cell display as black lines. Commas should not be used to indicate numerical values. Color and shading may not be used; parts of the table can be highlighted using symbols or bold text, the meaning of which should be explained in a table legend. Tables should not be embedded as figures or spreadsheet files.