MANUSCRIPT PREPARATION

Journal of Ophthalmology (Ukraine) is published in accordance with  COPE CORE PRACTICES  by Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals  formulated be the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).

The instruction for authors has been compiled in accordance with COPE CORE PRACTICES  by Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals  formulated be the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).

Journal of Ophthalmology (Ukraine) encourages authors to refer to and follow COPE CORE PRACTICES, Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals and recommendation of the World Medical Association

We also encourage authors to study Submission Guidelines, Editorial Policies and Publication Ethics Policies.

 

GENERAL RECOMMENDATIONS

  • The text must be typed using 14-point Times New Roman font with 1.5 spacing on a standard A4 paper (top, right, and bottom margins are 2 cm; left – 3 cm) with no more than 30 rows on a page. The electronic text must be a Word document with extension .doc, or .docx. 
  • The manuscript can be written in Ukrainian or English (Ukrainian texts are translated into English for the English version).
  • All pages and lines are to be numbered. To add page numbers in MS Word, go to INSERT then PAGE NUMBERS. Choose LEFT BOTTOM PAGE. To add line numbering, go to PAGE LAYOUT, then click LINE NUMBERS and choose CONTINUOUS
  • Text editor hyphenation is not allowed.
  • Footnotes should be avoided.
  • Abbreviations (with the exception of those clearly well established in the field) should be explained when they are first used both in the abstract and in the main text.
  • Units of measurement should be expressed in SI units wherever possible.
  • Generic names of drugs (lowercase first letter) should be used whenever possible. Registered trade names (uppercase first letter) should be marked with the superscript registration symbol ® or ™ when they are first mentioned.
  • The manuscript text, tables and figures must be submitted in separate files.
  • Figure legends should be included at the end of manuscript text, not in the figure file.
  • The graphic objects (illustrations or drawings) are not allowed to be imported into the text. They must be in separate files with extensions .jpg, .gif,  .png, .tif, or .pdf with a resolution of 200-300 dpi.
  • Tables, diagrams and graphics in the Word text editor should only be created in the same text editor. Table headers should be included above or below the table in the table file.

 

 

COVERING DOCUMENTS

When submitting a manuscript to the journal, authors should provide the following supporting documents:

  1. Cover Letter (Download template)
  2. The Authorship Responsibility Form (Download template)
  3. Conflict of Interest Form OR ICMJE Form for Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest (Download template/ Download template)

 

MANUSCRIPT SECTIONS

The text of an article reporting original research should be divided into Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion sections, the so-called “IMRAD” structure. Articles can have subheadings within these sections to further organize their content. 

Other types of articles, such as meta-analyses, may require different formats, while case reports, narrative reviews, and editorials may have less structured or unstructured formats. 

The following are general requirements for reporting within sections of all study designs and manuscript formats.

 

  1. Title Page

The first page(s) is the title page which contains general information about an article and its authors and include the article title, author information, word count, the number of tables and figures, and abbreviations.

Article title: The title provides a distilled description of the complete article.

Author information: ALL authors should provide the information including:

  • surname and initials
  • the highest academic or medical degree
  • the affiliation (the name of the department(s) and institution(s) or organizations where the) for each author and its location, city, and country.
  • e-mail addresses of all authors
  • ORCID numbers of all authors (Open Researcher and Contributor Identification)

Corresponding author: Name, postal address, telephone number and e-mail of the author responsible for corresponding and contacting other authors in order to remake, correct and finally approve the version. The author responsible for corresponding must indicate definitely if his e-mail may be published (e-mail is published unless otherwise specified).

Word count. Please include a word count for the paper's text, excluding its abstract, acknowledgments, tables, figure legends, and references. This allows editors and reviewers to assess whether the information contained in the paper warrants the paper's length, and whether the submitted manuscript fits within the journal's formats and word limits.

The number of figures and tables. Please, specify the number of Figures and Tables before uploading the relevant files. These numbers allow editorial staff and reviewers to confirm that all figures and tables are actually included with the manuscript.

Abbreviations. All abbreviations used in the text of the article should be provided with their decoding.

 

  1. Abstract and Keywords 

The second page must contain the abstract. The abstract should be of not more than 300 words. 

Information in abstracts must not differ from that in the text. Authors should ensure that information is consistent in both places and that they accurately reflect the content of the article.

Original research, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses must be structured as Purpose, Methods, Results (explicit data and their statistical significance), and Conclusion. Case reports, literature reviews, innovation proposals, reviews, and short reports may be unstructured. 

The abstract should provide the context or background for the study and should state the study's purpose, basic procedures (selection of study participants, settings, measurements, analytical methods), main findings (giving specific effect sizes and their statistical and clinical significance, if possible), and principal conclusions. It should emphasize new and important aspects of the study or observations, note important limitations, and not over interpret findings.

For clinical trial abstracts, the clinical trial registration number must be specified at the end of the abstract. Clinical trial abstracts should include items that the CONSORT group has identified as essential (www.consortstatement.org/resources/downloads/extensions/consortextension-for-abstracts-2008pdf/). When a registration number is available, authors list that number the first time they use a trial acronym to refer to the trial they are reporting or to other trials that they mention in the manuscript. If the data have been deposited in a public repository and/or are being used in a secondary analysis, authors should state at the end of the abstract the unique, persistent data set identifier; repository name; and number.

Keywords. Under the abstract, there must be placed 3-8 keywords or short phrases reflecting the main issues in the article, according to MeSH (Medical Subject Headings), and under which you believe the article should be indexed.

 

  1. Text of the article
  1. Introduction

Provide a context or background for the study (that is, the nature of the problem and its significance). 

State the specific purpose or research objective of, or hypothesis tested by, the study or observation. 

Cite only directly pertinent references, and do not include data or conclusions from the work being reported.

  1. Methods

The guiding principle of the Methods section should be clarity about how and why a study was done in a particular way.

The Methods section should aim to be sufficiently detailed such that others with access to the data would be able to reproduce the results. 

In general, the section should include only information that was available at the time the plan or protocol for the study was being written; all information obtained during the study belongs in the Results section. 

If an organization was paid or otherwise contracted to help conduct the research (examples include data collection and management), then this should be detailed in the methods. 

The Methods section should include a statement indicating that the research was approved by an independent local, regional or national review body (e.g., ethics committee, institutional review board). If doubt exists whether the research was conducted in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration, the authors must explain the rationale for their approach and demonstrate that the local, regional or national review body explicitly approved the doubtful aspects of the study. 

Authors who used AI technology to conduct the study should describe its use in the methods section in sufficient detail to enable replication of the approach, including the tool used, version, and prompts where applicable.

 

 

  1. Selection and Description of Participants

Clearly describe the selection of observational or experimental participants (healthy individuals or patients, including controls), including eligibility and exclusion criteria and a description of the source population. 

Because the relevance of such variables as age, sex, or ethnicity is not always known at the time of study design, researchers should aim for inclusion of representative populations into all study types and at a minimum provide descriptive data for these and other relevant demographic variables.

Comment on how representative the study sample is of the larger population of interest.

Ensure correct use of the terms sex (when reporting biological factors) and gender (identity, psychosocial or cultural factors), and, unless inappropriate, report the sex and/or gender of study participants, the sex of animals or cells, and describe the methods used to determine sex and gender.

If the study was done involving an exclusive population, for example in only one sex, authors should justify why. Authors should define how they determined race or ethnicity and justify their relevance.

In the case where race or ethnicity was not collected, explain why it was not collected. Race and ethnicity are social and not biological constructs; authors should interpret results associated with race and ethnicity in that context.

Authors should use neutral, precise, and respectful language to describe study participants and avoid the use of terminology that might stigmatize participants.

  1. Data Collection and Measurements

Specify the study's main and secondary objectives - usually identified as primary and secondary outcomes.

Identify methods, equipment (give the manufacturer's name and address in parentheses), and procedures in sufficient detail to allow others to reproduce the results.

Give references to established methods, including statistical methods (see below); provide references and brief descriptions for methods that have been published but are not well-known; describe new or substantially modified methods, give the reasons for using them, and evaluate their limitations.

Identify precisely all drugs and chemicals used, including generic name(s), dose(s), and route(s) of administration. Identify appropriate scientific names and gene names.

 

iii.  Statistics

Describe statistical methods with enough detail to enable a knowledgeable reader with access to the original data to judge its appropriateness for the study and to verify the reported results. 

When possible, quantify findings and present them with appropriate indicators of measurement error or uncertainty (such as confidence intervals). 

Avoid relying solely on statistical hypothesis testing, such as P values, which fail to convey important information about effect size and precision of estimates. 

References for the design of the study and statistical methods should be to standard works when possible (with pages stated). 

Define statistical terms, abbreviations, and most symbols. 

Specify the statistical software package(s) and versions used. Distinguish pre-specified from exploratory analyses, including subgroup analyses.

 

  1. Results

Present your results in logical sequence in the text, tables, and illustrations, giving the main or most important findings first. 

Do not repeat all the data in the tables or illustrations in the text; emphasize or summarize only the most important observations. 

Provide data on all primary and secondary outcomes identified in the Methods section. Extra or supplementary materials and technical details can be placed in an appendix where they will be accessible but will not interrupt the flow of the text.

When data are summarized in the Results section, give numeric results not only as derivatives (for example, percentages) but also as the absolute numbers from which the derivatives were calculated, and specify the statistical methods used to analyze them. 

Restrict tables and figures to those needed to explain the argument of the paper and to assess supporting data. 

Use graphs as an alternative to tables with many entries; do not duplicate data in graphs and tables. 

Avoid nontechnical uses of technical terms in statistics, such as “random” (which implies a randomizing device), “normal,” “significant,” “correlations,” and “sample.” 

Separate reporting of data by demographic variables, such as age and sex, facilitate pooling of data for subgroups across studies and should be routine, unless there are compelling reasons not to stratify reporting, which should be explained.

 

  1. Discussion

It is useful to begin the discussion by briefly summarizing the main findings, and explore possible mechanisms or explanations for these findings. 

Emphasize the new and important aspects of your study and put your findings in the context of the totality of the relevant evidence. 

State the limitations of your study, and explore the implications of your findings for future research and for clinical practice or policy. 

Discuss the influence or association of variables, such as sex and/or gender, on your findings, where appropriate, and the limitations of the data.

Do not repeat in detail data or other information given in other parts of the manuscript, such as in the Introduction or the Results section. 

Link the conclusions with the goals of the study but avoid unqualified statements and conclusions not adequately supported by the data. 

In particular, distinguish between clinical and statistical significance, and avoid making statements on economic benefits and costs unless the manuscript includes the appropriate economic data and analyses. 

Avoid claiming priority or alluding to work that has not been completed. 

State new hypotheses when warranted, but label them clearly.

Do not exclude conclusions into a separate section. It should be a last paragraph in Discussion section, starting with “To conclude” or “In conclusion” or “Overall” etc.

 

  1. References 
  2. General Considerations
  • The reference list starts from the new page. 
  • The bibliography must contain mostly the papers of the latest 7-8 years which are directly related to the topic. 
  • Authors should provide direct references to original research sources whenever possible.
  • References should not be used by authors, editors, or peer reviewers to promote self-interests.
  • Authors should avoid citing articles from predatory or pseudo-journals.
  • When preprints are cited, the citation should clearly indicate that the reference is a preprint.
  • References to papers accepted but not yet published should be designated as “in press” or “forthcoming.”
  • Information from manuscripts submitted but not accepted should be cited in the text as “unpublished observations” with written permission from the source.
  • Referencing AI-generated material as the primary source is not acceptable.
  • To minimize errors in reference citations, references should be verified using either an electronic bibliographic source, such as PubMed, or print copies from original sources.
  • Authors are responsible for checking that none of the references cite retracted articles except in the context of referring to the retraction.
  • References cited only in tables or figure legends should be numbered in accordance with the sequence established by the first identification in the text of the particular table or figure.
  • References should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text.
  • Citations in the text, tables, and legends must be given by Arabic numerals in square brackets and numbered according to the reference list. 
  • The titles of journals should be abbreviated according to the style used for MEDLINE (ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nlmcatalog/journals).
  • Since Journal of Ophthalmology (Ukraine) (Oftalmalogicheskii Zhurnal) is a CrossRef member, we ask authors to provide us with electronic references (links to articles on the title’s website or article’s DOI) within parentheses in numbered references following the text.
  • If there is any doubt about the abbreviation of a journal name, it should be spelt out completely. For more details:  http://www.nlm.nih.gov/citingmedicine

 

  1. Style and Format

As recommended by ICMJE, references should follow the standards summarized in the NLM's Sample References (https://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/uniform_requirements.html ) webpage and detailed in the NLM's Citing Medicine, 2nd edition (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK7256/ ).

NLM's Citing Medicine Selected Examples of Formatted References

(DETAILED IN https://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/uniform_requirements.html)

Standard journal article

Halpern SD, Ubel PA, Caplan AL. Solid-organ transplantation in HIV-infected patients. N Engl J Med. 2002 Jul 25;347(4):284-7.

Journal article with more than six authors. If there are more than six authors, list the first six authors, followed by et al.

Rose ME, Huerbin MB, Melick J, Marion DW, Palmer AM, Schiding JK, et al. Regulation of interstitial excitatory amino acid concentrations after cortical contusion injury. Brain Res. 2002;935(1-2):40-6.

Journal article with no author given

21st century heart solution may have a sting in the tail. BMJ. 2002;325(7357):184.

Journal article not in English

Ellingsen AE, Wilhelmsen I. Sykdomsangst blant medisin- og jusstudenter. Tidsskr Nor Laegeforen. 2002;122(8):785-7. Norwegian.

Journal article with translation of article title

Ellingsen AE, Wilhelmsen I. [Disease anxiety among medical students and law students]. Tidsskr Nor Laegeforen. 2002 Mar 20;122(8):785-7. Norwegian.

Article published electronically ahead of the print version

Yu WM, Hawley TS, Hawley RG, Qu CK. Immortalization of yolk sac-derived precursor cells. Blood. 2002 Nov 15;100(10):3828-31. Epub 2002 Jul 5.

Books with personal author(s)

Murray PR, Rosenthal KS, Kobayashi GS, Pfaller MA. Medical microbiology. 4th ed. St. Louis: Mosby; 2002.

Books with author(s) and editor(s)

Breedlove GK, Schorfheide AM. Adolescent pregnancy. 2nd ed. Wieczorek RR, editor. White Plains (NY): March of Dimes Education Services; 2001.

Chapter in a book

Meltzer PS, Kallioniemi A, Trent JM. Chromosome alterations in human solid tumors. In: Vogelstein B, Kinzler KW, editors. The genetic basis of human cancer. New York: McGraw-Hill; 2002. p. 93-113.

Conference proceedings

Harnden P, Joffe JK, Jones WG, editors. Germ cell tumours V. Proceedings of the 5th Germ Cell Tumour Conference; 2001 Sep 13-15; Leeds, UK. New York: Springer; 2002.

Conference paper

Christensen S, Oppacher F. An analysis of Koza's computational effort statistic for genetic programming. In: Foster JA, Lutton E, Miller J, Ryan C, Tettamanzi AG, editors. Genetic programming. EuroGP 2002: Proceedings of the 5th European Conference on Genetic Programming; 2002 Apr 3-5; Kinsdale, Ireland. Berlin: Springer; 2002. p. 182-91.

Dissertation

Borkowski MM. Infant sleep and feeding: a telephone survey of Hispanic Americans [dissertation]. Mount Pleasant (MI): Central Michigan University; 2002.

Patent

Pagedas AC, inventor; Ancel Surgical R&D Inc., assignee. Flexible endoscopic grasping and cutting device and positioning tool assembly. United States patent US 20020103498. 2002 Aug 1.

Journal article on the Internet

Abood S. Quality improvement initiative in nursing homes: the ANA acts in an advisory role. Am J Nurs [Internet]. 2002 Jun [cited 2002 Aug 12];102(6):[about 1 p.]. Available from: https://journals.lww.com/ajnonline/Fulltext/2002/06000/Quality_Improvement_Initiative_in_Nursing_Homes.31.aspx Subscription required.

Monograph on the Internet

Foley KM, Gelband H, editors. Improving palliative care for cancer [Internet]. Washington: National Academy Press; 2001 [cited 2002 Jul 9]. Available from: https://www.nap.edu/catalog/10149/improving-palliative-care-for-cancer.

Web site

eatright.org [Internet]. Chicago: Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics; c2016 [cited 2016 Dec 27]. Available from: https://www.eatright.org/.

 

e. Statements and declarations

The following statements must be included in the text of the manuscript after the References section. Please note that submissions that do not include required statements will be returned as incomplete.

 

Funding

These include grants, equipment, drugs, and/or other support that facilitated the conduct of the work described in the article or the writing of the article itself. The funding statement should include only direct support of the work described. General institutional support for an author’s time on the work should be distinguished from direct overall funding of the work.

Examples:

This study was funded by Company Name.

Author AA’s time on the work was supported by Company Name.

This work was supported by Company Name (Grant numbers […] and […]).

Author AA has received research support from Company Name.

Company Name was involved in (list the stages in which the company was involved, e.g., study design, study conduct, data collection, data management, data analysis and interpretation, preparation, review and approval) of the manuscript.

The article was prepared with the financial support of Company Name, which was not involved in the design and conduct of this study.

This article was prepared with the financial support of Company Name, which participated in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data.

The article is a part of the research work on the topic “Name of the research project”, registration number No123456789.

The authors declare that no funds, grants, or other support were received during the preparation of this manuscript.

Sources of support: none.

The sponsor or funding organization was not involved in the design and conduct of this study.

 

Conflicts of Interests

Please, include Disclosure of relationships and activities that are directly or indirectly related to the work submitted for publication. It must match your submitted Form for Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest.

Examples:

Author A and B declare they have no financial interests.

Author C has received speaker and consultant honoraria from Company Name.

Author D has received research funding from Company Name and Company Name.

Author E has received travel support from Company Name.

Author F has served on advisory boards for Company Name.

The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.

Author A.A. works as a consultant for Company Name.

The author's husband B.B. is the chairman of the board of directors of Company Name.

Author V.V. received a research grant from Company Name

Author G.G. has received lecture fees from Company Name

Author D.D. has a patent on “Patent Name and Number”;

Author E.E. has received compensation from Company Name for participation in several conferences;

Author J.J. has received honoraria for writing promotional materials for Company Name

Author Z.Z. has no conflict of interest.

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest that that could influence their opinion on the subject matter or materials described and discussed in this manuscript.

 

Please refer to the “Conflict of Interest” section for more information

 

Author Contributions

A short statement detailing the contribution of each author to the research and preparation of the manuscript. should be included in accordance with the "Authorship Statement" form.

Examples:

Author AA: Reviewing and editing. Author BB: Conceptualisation; writing - design; formal analysis; writing - review and revision. Author VV: software; review and revision. Author GG: methodology; writing - reviewing and revising. Author DD: conceptualisation; writing - drafting; writing - reviewing and revising. All authors read the and approved the final version of the manuscript.

For a single author, use the following wording:

The author confirms sole responsibility for the following: conception and design of the study, collection of data, analysis and interpretation of the results, and preparation of the manuscript. 

 

Acknowledgements

Contributors who do not meet all 4 of the criteria for authorship and, thus, cannot be listed as authors should be noted here.

Authors must disclose the use of generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process by adding a statement in Acknowledgement section 

Examples:

The authors would like to express their gratitude and deep appreciation to “Name Surname” for their assistance in (conducting this study; writing this article; translation of the instructions, the text of the article, the list of references, statistical processing, etc.)

During the preparation of this work the author(s) used  [NAME TOOL / SERVICE] in order to [REASON]. After using this tool/service, the author(s) reviewed and edited the content as needed and take(s) full responsibility for the content of the publication.

 

Please refer to the “Authorship” section for more information

 

Disclaimers

An example of a disclaimer is an author’s statement that the views expressed in the submitted article are his or her own and not an official position of the institution or funder.

 

Ethics Statement

Manuscripts that report the results of studies involving humans and/or animals should include the following declarations

Subjects of the study. The corresponding author should indicate the subjects (humans and/or animals) included in the study.

Ethics approval  for research involving humans. Authors should include a statement indicating that the research was approved by an independent local, regional or national review body (e.g., ethics committee, institutional review board). If doubt exists whether the research was conducted in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration, the authors must explain the rationale for their approach and demonstrate that the local, regional or national review body explicitly approved the doubtful aspects of the study.

Examples:

This study was performed in line with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki.

Approval was granted by the Ethics Committee of Name of Institution (Protocol Date.../No....).”

This is an observational study. The Ethics Committee of Name of Institution has confirmed that no ethical approval is required.

 

Ethics approval for research involving animals. When reporting experiments on animals, authors should indicate whether institutional and national standards for the care and use of laboratory animals were followed. Further guidance on animal research ethics is available from the International Association of Veterinary Editors’ Consensus Author Guidelines on Animal Ethics and Welfare.

Examples:

The study was conducted on animals. The experiment was performed in accordance with The European Convention for the Protection of Vertebrate Animals used for Experimental and other Scientific Purposes (Strasbourg, 1986).

 

Informed consent. For all research involving human subjects, informed consent to participate in the study and/or to have their data published (for any individual person’s data) in a journal article must be obtained from participants or their parent or legal guardian in the case of children under 16. The corresponding statement should appear in the manuscript.

Examples:

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Written informed consent was obtained from the parents.

The authors affirm that human research participants provided informed consent for publication the information that can identify them (personal data, images etc.

More examples:

This work was conducted with the participation of people. This study was approved by the local bioethics committee (Protocol number, date). All patients gave informed consent to participate in the study. The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. The animals were not included in this study.

The research was conducted with the participation of people. This study was approved by the local bioethics committee, which recognized that no informed consent was required (Protocol number, date). The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. This study did not include experiments on animals

The research was conducted involving human subjects. This study was approved by the local bioethics committee (Protocol number, date). Due to the retrospective nature of the study, forms of informative consent forms were not obtained. The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. The animals were not included in this study

The study was conducted on animals. The experiment was performed in accordance with The European Convention for the Protection of Vertebrate Animals used for Experimental and other Scientific Purposes (Strasbourg, 1986).

 

Please refer to the “PROTECTION OF RESEARCH PARTICIPANTS” section for more information

 

Data Availability Statement

Data availability statements should include information on where data supporting the results reported in the article can be found including, where applicable, hyperlinks to publicly archived datasets analyzed or generated during the study. By data we mean the minimal dataset that would be necessary to interpret, replicate and build upon the findings reported in the article. If it is not possible to share your data, use the statement to confirm why it cannot be shared.

Examples

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available in the [NAME] repository, [PERSISTENT WEB LINK TO DATASETS].

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are not publicly available due [REASON WHY DATA ARE NOT PUBLIC] but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analyzed during the current study.

All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article.

The data that support the findings of this study are available from [third party name] but restrictions apply to the availability of these data, which were used under license for the current study, and so are not publicly available. Data are however available from the authors upon reasonable request and with permission of [third party name].

 

Please refer to the “Data and Reproducibility” section for more information

 

  1. Tables

Including data in tables rather than text frequently makes it possible to reduce the length of the text.

Number tables consecutively in the order of their first citation in the text and supply a title for each

Be sure that each table is cited in the text.

Titles in tables should be short but self-explanatory, containing information that allows readers to understand the table's content without having to go back to the text.

Titles should be above tables.

Give each column a short or an abbreviated heading. Authors should place explanatory matter in footnotes, not in the heading. Explain all nonstandard abbreviations in footnotes, and use symbols (alphabet letter) to explain information if needed.

Identify statistical measures of variations, such as standard deviation (SD) and standard error of the mean (m).

The tables shall indicate the units of measurement of the physical quantities specified in the table.

All data in the tables must be carefully verified, meet data in the text and always treated statistically. 

The tables must only be created only in the Word editor. Tables can be placed both in the text of the article and on a separate sheet of paper.

 

  1. Illustrations (Figures)

Figures must be submitted as individual files named according to their number in the text. They cannot be embedded in the Word document. If the images are not of a high enough resolution to permit quality reproduction for publication purposes, they will be returned to the author.

Figures should be numbered consecutively according to the order in which they have been cited in the text. 

In the manuscript, legends for illustrations should be on a separate page, with Arabic numerals corresponding to the illustrations. 

Figures should be made as self-explanatory as possible. Titles and detailed explanations belong in the legends—not on the illustrations themselves.

When symbols, arrows, numbers, or letters are used to identify parts of the illustrations, identify and explain each one clearly in the legend. Letters, numbers, and symbols on figures should be clear and consistent throughout.

If the pictures of people are used, they mustn’t be identified or must be accompanied by the signed informed consent to publish.

Photomicrographs should have internal scale markers. Symbols, arrows, or letters used in photomicrographs should contrast with the background. Explain the internal scale and identify the method of staining in photomicrographs.

Digital art (x-ray films, scans, and other diagnostic images, as well as pictures of pathology specimens or photomicrographs, should be sharp, glossy, black-and-white or colour photographic prints), electronic photographs should be created/scanned, saved and submitted in separate files with the extension .jpg, .gif, .png, .tif or .pdf with a resolution of 200-300 dpi.

Color images must be created/scanned and saved and submitted as CMYK files. 

Diagrams and graphics can only be created in the Word editor.

 

h. Permissions

If figures or tables have already been published elsewhere previously, authors must acknowledge the original source and submit written permission from the copyright holder to reproduce it. Permission is required irrespective of authorship or publisher except for documents in the public domain.

 

  1. Units of Measurement

All the measurements should be reported in the International System of Units (SI). 

It is recommended that the result of a visual acuity test be reported as a logMAR value (log of the minimum angle of resolution) or Snellen 20/20 (or 6/6 in meters).

Authors are encouraged to use

  1. a Snellen (20/20) - logMAR Visual Acuity Calculator https://www.myvisiontest.com/
  2. Conversion of Snellen acuity into logMAR, decimal, and metric units https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2814576/table/t1-1545-6110_v107_p311/?report=objectonly

 

  1. Abbreviations and Symbols  

Avoid abbreviations in the title of the manuscript.

Abbreviations are not allowed except for common chemical and mathematical abbreviations.

The spelled-out abbreviation followed by the abbreviation in parenthesis should be used on the first mention unless the abbreviation is a standard unit of measurement.