Guide for authors

Article types

Editorial

The editorials, which comprise the journal's message, are written by the board members of the journal. These offer cutting-edge discussions on the journal's primary topics. The titles should be succinct and informative.

Viewpoint

These are opinion pieces that offer a novel perspective on current issues in the geriatric medicine and aging field.

Review Article

These include: Systematic Reviews, Meta-Analyses, Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses, Meta-Synthesis, and Scoping Reviews. These must include clear descriptions of the inclusion and exclusion criteria for these investigations. Furthermore, each data source or article included must also contain a description of the precise study type, analysis, intervention, population, exposure, results, or tests. The method section must comprehensively cover the: search strategy and selection criteria, data extraction, quality assessment, and data analysis. A structured abstract is also required. The journal strongly recommends that the review protocols are registered with OSF or PROSPERO. Finally, please also include the (PRISMA) reporting guideline checklist.

Original Article

All articles must be original, methodologically sound, and about geriatric medicine or aging. The manuscripts must contain a clear objective or hypothesis, the study design and methodology (including the setting, participants, inclusion and exclusion criteria, sampling approach, and data source), data analysis and interpretations, the main findings, discussion of the findings, the limitations, and a conclusion. A structured abstract is required and if ethical approval was not obtained then the authors must provide the reasons why approval was not required. In addition, please also include the CONSORT (randomized controlled trial) or STROBE (observational studies) reporting guideline checklist.

Short Communication

Short communications are brief articles (small original articles) that report novel and significant preliminary results that do not require publication as a full-length article. The main text should be divided into the background, methodology, findings, and conclusions, which should be written as concisely as practicable.

Commentary

Commentaries that highlight particular journal articles or critique them. Notable authors and top researchers in the field of aging studies will be asked to comment on our chosen papers, which we hope will be able to strike a balance between rigor and relevance. We will promote a wide range of viewpoints and discussions among important contributors.

Correspondence

These are exclusively invited responses to published commentaries from authors whose articles have received comments or critique.

Letter to Editor

We would like brief letters on subjects that are likely to be of interest to journal readers. Case reports may be sent as letter to the editors.

Main Manuscript

File Format and Limitations

The required file format is Microsoft Word. Please do not submit your manuscripts in PDF format.

The following limitations are considered for your manuscripts:

Editorials, Viewpoints and Short Communications (word count:1500-2000, maximum 25 references and 3 tables/figures)

Review Articles (word count:5000, maximum 75 references and 6 tables/figures)

Original Articles (word count:4000, maximum 50 references and 5 tables/figures)

Commentaries, Correspondence and Letter to Editors (word count:700, maximum 10 references and 1 table/figure)

Text Style

Text should be left justified, using of 12-point font, Times New Roman typeface and double line spacing. For the title, headings and subheadings, and keywords, use initial upper case.

Title page

The title page must include:

• The study design in the title, if appropriate. For example: “a randomized controlled trial", "a case control study", or "a systematic review"
• The full names and institutional addresses for all authors
• The corresponding author with their postal address, telephone/fax and email address.

Main Manuscript Sections

The manuscript should have the following sections: Title page, Abstract, Keywords, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusions, Declarations, and References. However, in some articles it may make sense to combine the discussion and conclusions sections. Page and line numbers are required for all manuscripts.

Abstract

A structured abstract of between 250 and 400 words must be included for all original articles and reviews. The abstract should contain the following sections, which can be modified accordingly for clinical trials and systematic reviews/meta-analyses:

• Objectives: a concise summary of the study's principal goal, the hypotheses being tested, and/or the research question addressed
• Design: which includes prospectiveness, blinding, randomization, placebo control, case control, crossover, and criterion standards for diagnostic tests, among other things.
• Setting(s): specify the type of care provided, such as main or secondary, and the number of participating centers.
• Participants: the number of people enrolled in the study and who complete it, as well as their sex and ethnicity. A precise description of the selection criteria, as well as the inclusion and exclusion criteria.
• Interventions: What, how, when, and the duration of the intervention(s). This heading can be removed if there were no interventions. However, this heading should normally be present for crossover experiments, before-and-after studies, and randomized controlled trials.
• Outcome Measures: the protocol's primary outcome measures and the actual measurements.
• Results: the key findings with 95% confidence intervals (for quantitative investigations), the level of statistical significance, and the number needed to treat/harm. Wherever possible, provide absolute rather than relative hazards.
• Conclusions: primary conclusions and suggestions for future research, if appropriate. Conclusions are vital, since readers frequently only read this section.
• Trials registration: the registry and number for trial registration for all clinical trials or systematic reviews and meta-analyses.

For other manuscript types, please include an unstructured abstract of up to 250 words that summarizes the objectives and background, main points and conclusions. Correspondence and letters to editor do not require abstracts.

Keywords

Up to 6 keywords must be separately provided according to MeSH during submission, and should reflect the content of the article.

Formulas

All equations must be typed using the formula option in Microsoft Word or typed in MathType. They must be editable.

Tables

All tables should be prepared in accordance with the following instructions:

• Should be cited when they are first mentioned in numerical sequence.
• Should be prepared left to right and using cells (i.e., created in Word with the Tables tool).
• The caption and table number are always displayed above the table.
• On the page, it should be editable and positioned upright, not sideways.
• Should not be aligned with tabs, returns, or spaces and should be created with actual rows and columns.
• Tables that have numerous parts and have different numbers of columns or footnotes should be arranged separately.
• Should not have any images, colors, or shading.
• Inserted text boxes, tables inside tables, or cells inside cells should not be presented.
• Symbols and abbreviations should be described just below the table, then a quick summary of the key points should follow.

Figures

All figures should be prepared in accordance with the following instructions:

• All figures/images must be cited within the main text in numerical order.
• All figures/images must be centered. Figure number and legend must appear below the figure.
• Acceptable formats are: PDF, EPS, and TIFF.
• All digitized images must be of high quality, with resolutions of at least 300 dpi for color figures, 600 dpi for greyscales and 1200 dpi for line art.
• Histograms should be prepared in a simple, two-dimensional format, with no background grid.
• If photographs of patients are used, they should not be identifiable.
• The original data from which the images were prepared should be available, as the editors may request them (e.g., Office, SPSS and other line art images).
• Lettering in figures (e.g., labeling of axes) should be in lower-case type, with the first letter capitalized and no full stop.
• Graphics downloaded from Web pages should not be used.

Declarations

All manuscripts must provide the following sections just before the reference section:

• Acknowledgments

In this section you can give credit to anyone who contributed to the article, without meeting the requirements for authorship, such as those who offered their expert writing assistance or materials.

Anybody mentioned in the Acknowledgements section should provide their consent for the authors to acknowledge them.

In this section, please type "None" if you have nobody to acknowledge.

• Author contributions

This section details each author's contributions to the manuscript.

• Funding

The authors must report who provided funding for the study and/or the creation of the article. This must include a brief description of each sponsors' contributions, if any, to the study design, data collection, analysis, and interpretation, writing, and the decision to submit the article for publication. If appropriate, it is important to note that the funding source(s) had no such role.

• Data availability statement

Data availability statements should provide hyperlinks to the publicly archived datasets used, where applicable, as well as information on where to find the data that supports the findings described in the article. By "data," we mean the bare-bones amount of information required to comprehend, verify, and expand upon the conclusions presented in the article. Although it is not always possible to publicly release research data, such as when there is a risk to an individual's privacy, data accessibility must still be reported in the paper, including any restrictions on access.

If required, a mix of the following can be used for data availability statements:

• The [NAME] repository, [PERMANENT WEB LINK TO DATASETS], includes the datasets created and/or analyzed for the current study.
• The corresponding author will provide the datasets used and/or analyzed during the current work upon reasonable request.
• This published article [and its additional information files] contain all data produced or analyzed during this investigation.
• Due to [REASON WHY DATA ARE NOT PUBLIC], the datasets created and/or analyzed during the current work are not publically available. However, they are available from the corresponding author upon justifiable request.
• Since no datasets were created or analyzed for this topic, data sharing is not applicable.
• The data used to support the study's findings are accessible from [third party name], but access to them is restricted since they were utilized for the study under permission and are therefore not available to the general public. However, the writers are willing to provide data upon reasonable request and with [third party name].
• Not relevant. In this section, please write "Not relevant" if your paper has no data.

• Ethical approval

All author must have participated significantly and sufficiently in the work to take responsibility for the manuscript content. All authors must also meet the ICMJE criteria to be credited with authorship. If they do not meet this criteria, they should be acknowledged in the Acknowledgment section.  

The author must make sure that their work was conducted in accordance with The Code of Ethics of the World Medical Association (Declaration of Helsinki) for studies involving humans. According to the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, the article should follow their guidelines and strive to include representative human populations (sex, age, and ethnicity).

All animal experiments must observe the ARRIVE guidelines and comply with the EU Directive 2010/63/EU for animal experiments, the National Research Council's Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals, or both. The authors must also explicitly state that these regulations have been followed.

• Consent for publication

The person, if your work contains any individual's data in any form (including any specific details, photographs, or videos), the person, or in the case of children, the child's parent or legal guardian, must give their agreement for publication. All case reports require permission for publication.

• Conflict of interests

Any financial or personal ties to individuals, companies or groups that can unfairly affect (bias) a writer's work must be disclosed by all authors. Employment, consulting work, stock ownership, honoraria, expert witness fees, patent applications and registrations, grants, and other financial support are a few examples of potential conflicts of interest.

References 

Please use the Sage Vancouver style for reporting references in the International Journal of Aging.

The corresponding EndNote style can be downloaded using the following link:

https://endnote.com/style_download/sage-vancouver/

Following are examples of Sage Vancouver Style referencing:

Book

1. Huff D. How to lie with statistics. 4th ed. London: Penguin, 1991, p.51.

Chapter in book

1. Huff D and Black TL. Comprehensive statistics. In: Miller C and Smith H (eds) How to lie with statistics. 4th ed. London: Penguin, 1991, pp.51–55.

Journal article

1. Ludbrook J, Miller T and Russel A. Musculovenous pumps in the human lower limb. Am Heart J 1966; 71: 635–641.

2. Araki C, Black TL, Patberg FT, et al. Significance of calf muscle pump function in venous ulceration. J Vasc Surg 1994; 20: 872–879.

Journal article published ahead of print

1. Ludbrook J. Musculovenous pumps in the human lower limb. Am Heart J. Epub ahead of print 12 June 2011. DOI: 10.1177/09544327167940.

Website

1. Smith JR. Choosing your reference style. Online Referencing 2(3), http://orj.sagepub.com (2003, accessed 12 October 2008).

2. National Center for Professional Certification. Factors affecting organizational climate and retention, www.cwla.org./programmes/triechmann/2002fbwfiles (2002, accessed 10 July 2010).

Conference paper

1. Peters J. Musculovenous pumps in the human lower limb. In: ASME conference on automatic transmissions (ed A O’Brien), Pisa, Italy, 29 May–2 June 2003, paper no. GE1234, pp.4–10. New York: ASME.

Thesis/dissertation

1. Clark JM. Referencing style for journals. PhD Thesis, University of Leicester, UK, 2002.

Patent and patent applications

1. Smith ST. Referencing styles for journals – a new method. Patent 12346-ZH, USA, 2011.

2. Jones P. Referencing styles for journals – a new method. Patent application 12346-ZHA, USA, 2011.

Report (published/unpublished)

1. MacDonald S. The state of social welfare in the UK. Report, University of Durham, UK, June 2011.

2. Citigroup Ltd. How to make your money work for you. Report for the Department of Finance. Report no. 123345, 13 June 2011. Oxford: OUP.

SAE/JSAE etc. papers

1. Clark JM. A new exhaust gasket manifold for powertrains. SAE paper 2002-0101234, 2002.

Newspaper/magazine

1. Clark JM. Referencing style for journals. The Independent, 21 May 2006, p.10.

Package insert (medical etc.)

1. Eisai Inc. Aloxi (package insert). New York: Esai Inc, 2008.

Manual (automotive etc.)

1. Fiat. Driver’s manual, Fiat Uno 4-litre diesel model, December 2010.

Standard

1. ISO 27799:2008. Information security management in health.

• Abbreviations and Symbols

Abbreviations should be avoided. However, if a phrase is used often, an abbreviation may be introduced (in parentheses) the first time it is mentioned and then it can be used in its place moving forward. Abbreviations in the manuscript title, tables, figures, and box should be avoided.  

• Supplementary File Guideline

Following submission of the primary manuscript, authors can upload the Supplementary Information (SI) as supplementary files. Following acceptance, authors are not permitted to edit the content of supplemental files. There will be no editing or reformatting of the extra files, they will be published as submitted by the authors.

• After acceptance

The corresponding author is responsible for checking the accuracy of the PDF proof, replying to author questions, and returning the annotated PDF to the journal office in a timely manner. The corresponding author will receive the proof via email from the technical team of the journal. The PDF file must be opened using the free Adobe Acrobat Reader or Foxit Reader software.

It is important to make sure that you email us all of your edits together. Furthermore, adding or removing words or phrases during the proofing stage is not permitted. Failure to check the PDF proof before the deadline may significantly delay publication of the article. Please note, after publishing no further modifications or changes can be made.