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UKnowledge > College of Medicine > Heart & Vascular > The VAD Journal

 

Author Instructions

Contents

Manuscript Submission

The VAD Journal will accept online submissions of original manuscripts via the journal site.

Manuscripts submitted through this online system can easily be tracked by the authors, editors, and reviewers through final disposition. The corresponding author involved with a specific manuscript will receive automatic email notification as the manuscript proceeds through the system. In order to start the submission process, you will need to register and create an account on this page.

The password can be changed at any time by logging in the journal site with your user name and password, then clicking the “Edit Profile” link at the top of the page.

Manuscripts submitted must not be under consideration by another journal and should not have been published elsewhere in similar form.

As part of the submission process, please complete the Author Agreement and upload it as a supplementary file.

Abstracts

All manuscripts with the exception of Images, Comments, and Opinions, MUST contain an abstract of no more than 250 words that briefly summarizes the content. The abstract should be divided into four sections: Background, Methods, Results, and Conclusions. For case reports, use unstructured abstract.

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Keywords

Please provide four to six keywords that can be used for indexing purposes.

Manuscript Categories

We will consider unsolicited manuscripts in each category. There is no word limit for any type of publication.

  • Original Research
  • Innovation
  • Review
  • Case Reports
  • Images (both still and moving)
  • Commentaries: This category is primarily by invitation to editorial reviewers, whose commentary has been selected for publication by the Editor-in-Chief. However, unsolicited comments may also be considered for publication.
  • Opinions
  • Letter to the Editor

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Proofing, Corrections and Retractions

A PDF proof will be sent by e-mail to the author before final publication on The VAD Journal website. The PDF proof can be annotated, for which you will need to download Adobe Reader version 7 (or higher) available free from http://get.adobe.com/reader. If you do not wish to use the PDF annotations function, you may email your corrections to the Editor-in-Chief. Please be very specific, stating page, line number, table or figure for all corrections. Please use this proof only for checking the typesetting, editing, completeness, and correctness of the text, tables, and illustrations. Significant changes to the article may result in additional peer review. We will do everything possible to get your article published quickly and accurately – please send back all corrections within three business days.

Authors who wish to contact The VAD Journal about a needed correction to one of their own published articles or another author's article should contact the Editor-in-Chief directly with full reasoning on why the correction is needed. Requests for corrections will be handled within three business days if corrections only contain minor errors such as typos, misspelled names, incorrect references, and the corrected article will be replaced online immediately. No corrections involving the content will be allowed for the most part. Complete retractions are restricted to maintain the integrity of the document records and The VAD Journal. In extremely rare cases when major corrections are required, appropriate acknowledgements will be published on the website.

Manuscript Review Process and Outcomes

The VAD Journal initially processes and reviews all papers at the editors' level. A manuscript can be rejected at this level by editorial decision without forwarding it for peer-review. Articles meeting the journal’s editorial standards are sent for peer review to editorial consultants and expert reviewers. All articles will be reviewed by a minimum of two highly qualified reviewers. The journal maintains a typical time-to-first-decision of 3 to 4 weeks, but in some cases where discrepant reviews are received, the process may take longer.

Style, Abbreviations, and References

References must contain the full title of the citation. Authors are encouraged to refer to the American Medical Association Manual of Style, 10th Edition as a specific style guide. The manuscript must be typewritten (in a Word document formatted for PC), double-spaced, single-columned, with a minimum of 1-inch margins on all four edges. Only standard-size type in 11- or 12-point font may be used. Please use common fonts such as Times New Roman or Arial. The first page of the manuscript should begin with the title of the paper, followed by the names of the authors. It is mandatory that the title page is submitted as a separate file, and the rest of the manuscript is submitted without a title page. If the decision is to send the manuscript for peer review, only the file without a title page will be sent to ensure anonymity of the authors and institutions.

The abstract should be prepared according to the guidelines listed above. Double space the manuscript, footnotes, and references. The Editorial Board strongly recommends that authors use tables and/or figures to document the findings described in the manuscript. Abbreviations should be used sparingly unless they are commonly accepted such as HF, LVAD, etc. When such a word appears for the first time, it should be written out in full, followed by the abbreviation in parentheses. This abbreviation may then be used subsequently when referring to the same term. All hematologic and clinical chemistry measurements should be reported in the metric system in terms of the International System of Units (SI). References should be listed by number in the body of the text, and should be listed in the reference section in the same order in which they appear in the manuscript. Include authors' last names and initials (without periods or commas within names), the title of the article, journal, year, volume, and page (see example, below). Include the city and the publisher's name for books.

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Reference Examples

Please list all authors if six or fewer. If greater than six, list first three authors followed by “et al.” If you use Endnote, please use the style of Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation.

Tables and Figures

All figures should be submitted in final form ready for publication (this includes all labeling, shading, arrows, and other aspects of the figure). Prepare the figures for reduction in size of at most 50% and ensure that the lettering does not vary in size. The final font size (after reduction) should be 6-8 point. The physical dimensions of the figures should match the dimension of the journal. Computer-generated illustrations and halftones/line/ tones (either color or black & white) are acceptable. Figures should be submitted in a Graphics Format for PCs (.tif or .jpg) along with the manuscript.

Graphs produced in software such as Excel or Word will also be accepted.

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