Manuscript Submission Checklist

All Manuscripts

All submissions should conform to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors' (ICMJE) Uniform Requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals.

For details on how to format your abstract and manuscript for submission, see "Preparing your manuscript for submission."

CMAJ Open has additional requirements for the articles it publishes. These include:

Cover letter (to provide context for your study and why it should be published in CMAJ Open)

Title and title page. The title should include the study type.

Names, addresses and up to two affiliations for each author, and an email address for the corresponding author.

Up to two degrees for each author. If an author has more than one degree, please include the highest academic and highest clinical degree obtained. We do not publish fellowships.

A contributor's statement showing how each of the people listed as an author fulfills the ICMJE's criteria for authorship. An author is someone who:

  • Contributed substantially to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data, AND

  • Drafted the article or revised it critically for important intellectual content, AND

  • Gave final approval of the version to be published, AND

  • Agreed to act as guarantor of the work (ensuring that questions related to any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved).

References formatted in the Vancouver style.

Editable figure files (ideally, charts should be editable Excel or PowerPoint files; forest plots should be editable Excel, emf, wmf or PDF files).

A completed checklist for the appropriate reporting guideline, if applicable. This should be uploaded as a file with your submission and designated as "Reporting Guideline Checklist." See below for required reporting guidelines.

Data-sharing statement (to indicate whether your data are available for use by other researchers and how to access the data)

Study registration (mandatory for clinical trials; recommended for other studies)

Funding statement (whether or not the study has received funding)

Revised Manuscripts

In addition to the requirements for all manuscripts (described above), authors submitting revised manuscripts should also include:

 A clean version of your manuscript and one with tracked changes. Please delete older files from your submission.

 An author response letter outlining your response to every editor and reviewer comment, indicating the page number in the manuscript where the comment has been addressed.

Required forms (also available in the Instructions and Forms box on the CMAJ Open manuscript submission site)

  • Signed copyright forms (authors retain copyright for noncommercial use).

  • Signed declarations of competing interests (ICMJE) for each author who has declared a competing interest.

  • Signed permission forms from all people who have provide information cited as being from a personal communication.

  • Permission from each person named in the acknowledgement section (using the CMAJ Open form or forwarded emails in which each person agrees to be thanked in your work)

Permission to reproduce previously published material

  • If your article contains previously published material (table, figure, appendix, box) or modified material, you must obtain permission from the publisher and/or copyright or licence holder. CMAJ Open requires permissions to include commercial use, in perpetuity, and both online and print publication.

Transfers from CMAJ

In addition to the general requirements for all manuscripts submitted to CMAJ Open, authors who agree to transfer of their paper from CMAJ should include:

 Manuscript revised to address any editor and reviewer comments in the CMAJ decision letter.

Required Reporting Guidelines

CMAJ Open requires compliance with the following reporting guidelines. A completed version of the appropriate checklist should be uploaded as a file with your submission and designated as "Reporting Guideline Checklist." View the EQUATOR Network guidelines.

Required reporting guidelines:

  • CONSORT: Randomized controlled trials (please use appropriate extension)

  • PRISMA: Systematic reviews

  • MOOSE: Meta-analyses of observational studies

  • STROBE: Observational studies in epidemiology (please use appropriate checklist)

  • STARD: Diagnostic accuracy studies

  • COREQ: Qualitative research

  • CHEERS: Health economic evaluations

  • SQUIRE 2.0: Quality improvement studies

  • CHERRIES: Web-based surveys

  • RECORD: Studies using routinely collected observational data

For more information on these and other reporting guidelines, see Equator Network.

Questions?

CMAJ Open
1410 Blair Towers Place
Suite 500
Ottawa ON K1J 9B9
Tel 866-971-9171

Email: [email protected]