Author Guidelines

Rama University Journal of Dental Sciences (RUJDS) accepts

• Original Research Articles
• Research Letters
• Review Articles
• Short Correspondence
• Case Reports
• Letters to the Editor

Please follow the instructions relevant to the type of manuscript being submitted as described below:

• Original Research Articles

Original Research Articles should be divided into the sections of Abstract, Keywords, Introduction, Materials & Methods, Statistical analysis, Results, Discussion, Conclusion, References, Tables and Figure legends. Manuscripts submitted as original research articles should have a limit of 3000 words (excluding abstract and references). For instructions on references, figures or tables, please refer to the following specific formats in this Author Guidelines.

Abstract: It should be of 250 words maximum and unreferenced, and must include the following subtitles: Introduction, Material & Methods, Results, and Conclusions. Do not use abbreviations and acronyms.

Keywords: Up to 10 keywords or short phrases are provided following the Abstract. These should not duplicate keywords from the title.

Introduction: Provide an adequate background and state objectives of the work, avoiding a detailed literature survey or a summary of the results.

Materials and Methods: (1) Provide the detailed information to allow the work to be reproduced. The previously reported methods should be indicated by a reference; (2) At the beginning of the section, include the details of ethical clearance from local review board and informed consents from patients (if needed); and (3) Include "Statistical Methodology" as a subtitle in the final part of the section, and specify the statistical methods used in the study. Define statistical terms, abbreviations, and most symbols. Specify the computer software used. All p values should be reported as exact numbers to 2 digits past the decimal point, regardless of significance, unless they are lower than 0.01, in which case they should be presented to 3 digits. Express any p values lower than 0.001 as p<.001.

Results: Present your results in a logical sequence in the text, tables and illustrations, giving the main or most important findings first. Do not repeat in the text all the data in the tables or illustrations; emphasize or summarize only important observations.

Discussion: Include summary of key findings, strengths and limitations of the study (Must), interpretation and implications in the context of the totality of evidence, controversies raised by this study, and future research directions. Do not repeat in detail data or other material given in the Introduction or the Results section. Avoid claiming priority and alluding to work that has not been completed. New hypotheses may be stated if needed, however, they should be clearly labelled as such.

Conclusions: The conclusions of the manuscript may be presented in a short Conclusions section, or may stand alone or form a subsection of a Discussion section.

• Research Letters or Correspondence

All the Research Letters or Correspondence are published in the journal, like Original Research Articles. The word count of Research Letters should be within 2,000 words (excluding the Abstract, references and figure legends). There should be maximum of 4 figures and tables. The Standard layout is given below.

It should have an Abstract with 250 words maximum, and must include the following subtitles: Introduction, Material & Methods, Results, and Conclusions. For instructions on references, figure or table, please refer to the following specific formats in this Instruction to Authors.

• Review Articles

Rama University Journal of Dental Sciences (RUJDS) welcomes Reviews of recent developments in medical and allied sciences. The layout is given below.

An unstructured Abstract should be included not more than 250 words. The Introduction as first section should be included in the text, the subtitles of other sections would depend upon the topic reviewed. Review article should take a broad view of the field and use evidence-based systematic approaches. Review papers should be limited to 3000 words (excluding title page and references) and illustrations are encouraged.

• Case Reports

Rama University Journal of Dental Sciences (RUJDS) welcomes Case Reports and Case series. They should have the following sections: An abstract including titles Introduction, Case Report, and Conclusion, with 250 (maximum) do not use nonstandard abbreviations, footnotes or references.

Keywords or short phrases (up to 5) are provided following the Abstract.

Introduction: Summarize the context for the report.

Case Report: Report the data of the patient(s) in a logical sequence in the text, tables, and illustrations. Do not duplicate data in graphs or tables.

Discussions: Emphasize the novel situation and add important insights into mechanisms or diagnosis or treatment, as well as, the conclusions that follow them.

Case Reports and case series are papers that present one or more well-documented unique clinical cases which provide clinically valuable information for medical or dental students. Case reports and case series should not exceed 2000 words with 10 references.

Expert Commentary: Commentaries are written on an invitation of the Editors, and are short and narrowly focused on the articles published by the journal.

• Letter to the editor

Letters are papers which offer constructive criticism on articles published in the Journal. They should discuss articles published in the last issue of the journal, and they must be submitted within three months of the article’s publication date. Letters should not exceed 1000 words.

• Announcements of conferences, meetings, courses, awards

Announcements of conferences, meetings, courses, awards and other items likely to be of interest to the readers should be submitted with the name and address of the person from whom additional information can be obtained. It should be within 100-200 words.

Manuscript format and Structure

Rama University Journal of Dental Sciences (RUJDS) accepts manuscripts which are prepared in accordance with the “Uniform requirements for Manuscripts submitted to Biomedical Journal” developed by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors(ICMJE). Manuscripts must be in English and should be written in a clear, concise, and direct style. They should be typed as a Microsoft Word document in double space on the A-4 size page set up with margins of at least 1 inch (25 mm). All pages should be numbered consecutively beginning with the title page. Tables and figures should not be embedded in the body of the text, but they should be placed after the references. Each of the following sections should begin on a separate page.

Title page: The title page should carry the following items: (1) the complete title of the paper; (2) the full names of the authors, with the highest academic degree; (3) the academic affiliation of the authors; (4) a short title of no more than 40 characters; (5) the full name, postal address, telephone number, and email address for the corresponding author.

The title must be concise, informative and contain the major keywords. Please avoid abbreviations in the title.

Abstract and Keywords: The abstract should provide an accurate summary of the study. For original Research Articles, the abstract should be structured and organized into the following headings: Introduction, methods, results, and conclusions. The abstract should not contain abbreviations, table, or references. Five to ten keywords should be provided below the abstract in alphabetical order. Use terms from the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) list of Index Medicus when possible (available at https://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/meshhome.html)

Introduction: This should summarize the rationale and provide a background for the study. The specific purpose of the study must be clearly stated at the final paragraph of the introduction.

Materials and Methods: This section must describe the methods used in the research in sufficient detail so that other researchers would be able to fully reproduce the study. If established methods are used, authors should give reference and present the method only briefly. Statistical method should be described in adequate detail. When the materials or devices are first identified, specific proprietary name, manufacturer, and the location of manufacturer (city and country) should be given in parentheses.

Results: It should be presented in a logical sequence in the text, tables, and illustrations. The contents that appear in the tables should not be repeated in the text. Authors should provide exact p-values where they report statistically significant differences.

Statistics: When possible, quantify findings and present them with appropriate indicators of measurement error or uncertainty (such as confidence intervals). Report losses to observation (such as dropouts from a clinical trial). Put a general description of methods in the Methods section. When data are summarized in the Results section, specify the statistical methods used to analyse them. Avoid non-technical uses of technical terms in statistics, such as 'random' (which implies a randomising device), 'normal', 'significant', 'correlations', and 'sample'. Define statistical terms, abbreviations, and most symbols. Use upper italics (P < 0.05).

Discussion: It should emphasize the new and important findings of the research and relate the present findings to those of other relevant studies conducted in the field. In addition, the discussion should provide implications of the findings and describe the strengths and limitations of the study.

Conclusion: Conclusion must be based on data presented in the study, and it should be closely linked to the objectives of the study. Unqualified statements and conclusions not adequately supported by data must be avoided.

Reporting guidelines: Rama University Journal of Dental Sciences (RUJDS) encourages authors to follow the reporting guidelines during manuscript preparation. The relevant guidelines are listed.

STROBE (for reporting of observational studies in epidemiology)

COREQ Checklist (for reporting of qualitative research)

CONSORT Statement (for reporting of randomized controlled trials)

STARD (for reporting of diagnostic accuracy studies)

PRISMA (for reporting of systematic reviews)

MOOSE (for reporting of meta-analyses of observational studies)

ARRIVE (for reporting of animal research)

The Equator Network (Enhancing the Quality and Transparency of Health Research) provides a comprehensive list of reporting guidelines. More details on these and other reporting guidelines are also available on the website of US National Library of Medicine.

Randomized controlled trials: All randomized controlled trials submitted for publication in RUJDS should include a completed Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) flow chart. Submitted manuscripts that do not include this flow chart, where appropriate, will be rejected without entering the review process. Please refer to the CONSORT statement website at http://www.consort-statement.org for more information. International Journal of Contemporary Medical Research has adopted the proposal from the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) which require, as a condition of consideration for publication of clinical trials, registration in a public trials registry. Trials must register at or before the onset of patient enrollment. The clinical trial registration number should be included at the end of the abstract of the article. For this purpose, a clinical trial is defined as any research study that prospectively assigns human participants or groups of humans to one or more health-related interventions to evaluate the effects of health outcomes. Health-related interventions include any intervention used to modify a biomedical or health-related outcome (for example drugs, surgical procedures, devices, behavioral treatments, dietary interventions, and process-of-care changes). Health outcomes include any biomedical or health-related measures obtained in patients or participants, including pharmacokinetic measures and adverse events. Purely observational studies (those in which the assignment of the medical intervention is not at the discretion of the investigator) will not require registration. Further information can be found at http://www.icmje.org

Disclosure of Clinical Trial Results: In line with the position of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, the journal will not consider results posted in the same clinical trials registry in which primary registration resides to be prior publication if the results posted are presented in the form of a brief structured (less than 500 words) abstract or table. However, divulging results in other circumstances (eg, investors' meetings) is discouraged and may jeopardise consideration of the manuscript. Authors should fully disclose all posting in registries of results of the same or closely related work.

Patient consent: Studies on patients or volunteers require ethics committee approval and informed consent which should be documented in your paper. Patients have a right to privacy. Therefore identifying information, including patients images, names, initials, or hospital numbers, should not be included in videos, recordings, written descriptions, photographs, and pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and you have obtained written informed consent for publication in print and electronic form from the patient (or parent, guardian or next of kin where applicable). If such consent is made subject to any conditions, RUJDS must be made aware of all such conditions. Written consents must be provided to RUJDS on request. Even where consent has been given, identifying details should be omitted if they are not essential. If identifying characteristics are altered to protect anonymity, such as in genetic pedigrees, authors should provide assurance that alterations do not distort scientific meaning and editors should so note. If such consent has not been obtained, personal details of patients included in any part of the paper and in any supplementary materials (including all illustrations and videos) must be removed before submission.

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 2000 (available at http://www.wma.net/e/policy/17-c_e.html). 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.

Acknowledgement: Acknowledgment may be made to individuals who contributed specify contributors to the article other than the authors accredited. Acknowledgment should also specify the source of any funding for the study.

References: References must be listed at the end of the paper and numbered consecutively in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text. All references must be cited in text or tables by Arabic numerals in superscript after the end of a sentence. For example, the lesion was found to be granulomatous type.2 (in Superscript). Authors are encouraged to use only English references. In addition, authors are responsible for the accuracy of the references and for their correct citation. Rama University Journal of Dental Sciences (RUJDS) follows Uniform Requirements style for references offered by International Committee of Medical Journal.

Authorship Criteria

All persons designated as authors should qualify for authorship, and all those who qualify should be listed. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content. One or more authors should take responsibility for the integrity of the work as a whole, from inception to published article. The name and order of the authors cannot be changed once the article is provisionally accepted.