Guidelines for Authors

Article submission:

The Journal of the European Society of Ophthalmic Nurses and Technicians welcomes articles that will be an educational and research resource for ophthalmic nurses and technicians, assist nurses and technicians in their professional development, promote international networking, or help nurses and technicians to improve their practice.

Published articles will inform or relate to the work of ophthalmic nurses and technicians, including clinical practice, research, systematic literature reviews, updates and educational texts.

Articles should be written in English.

Articles should be no longer than 3,000 words.

Any author wishing to submit a longer article must submit a letter of explanation to the Editor.

All articles are submitted to an international panel for peer review.

Criteria for review include suitability of subject matter, originality of content, contribution to the field and timeliness.

Manuscripts should be sent by email to Rachel Wiseman at the ESCRS/ESONT Office: rachel.wiseman@escrs.org

Originality:

Articles submitted to the Journal of ESONT must be original material that has not been published or accepted for publication, in whole or in part, in English or in another language, elsewhere. Plagiarism is the presenting of work as one's own without attribution to or permission from the original author's work.

By not giving the source of quotes or references to the original text, the plagiariser is giving the appearance that they have produced the work themselves. Plagiarism is misleading and is serious scientific misconduct.

Duplicate publication is also regarded as poor scientific practice. It refers to the publication of the same article in more than one journal without the knowledge of the Editors concerned. If an author wishes to duplicate an article they should first seek permission from the Editors concerned.

The simultaneous submission of articles is not permitted. Should the Editor find out that an article has been sent to more than one journal at a time he/she will consult with the Review Editors and make a decision as to whether to
i) refuse publication of the article concerned,
ii) consider any other papers for publication for a set time period
iii) or do both.

(Guidance on plagiarism, duplication and simultaneous submissions based on that of the BMJ www.bmjpg.com)

Article Types

Articles that fit into one of the following categories will be considered for publication:

Clinical Articles
In-depth information on the nursing care or technical management of a disease or condition. Would normally include anatomy, pathophysiology and nursing/technical implications where appropriate.

Professional Development Articles
Audits or practice development projects setting the work in context, describing the background, literature review, method and results, highlighting development implications.

Systematic Reviews
A review of the literature relating the findings to nursing or technical practice.

Updates
Quick overview of any topical subject, including new developments and treatment. Main points are referenced but the number of references is restricted to 3 or 4. Articles of this type must not exceed 1,000 words.

Research Articles
Original research material. The article should include the following sections: background; aim; literature review; method; results; discussion; conclusion.

Structure of Article

Writing style should be as clear and concise as possible, as English may not be the first language of much of the readership of the Journal.

An article must be accompanied by an abstract of 50 - 100 words and 3 key words. For research articles an abstract of up to 300 words and 6 key words are required.

The title page should include the following:
- Title of article
- Each author's full name
- Each author's qualifications
- City and country in which work was carried out
- Name, address and contact details of author
- References should follow the article

Tables and illustrations should be accurately labelled.

When submitting a revised version of your article the changes you have made should be highlighted.

References

Referencing is a standardised way of acknowledging sources of information that you have used in your article, whether the source is quoted directly, paraphrased or summarised. The Harvard system of referencing should be used in all submitted articles.

When referencing something within the text of an article, the author should be listed first, followed by the year of publication. e.g. (Whelan 2005) Page numbers should also be included where applicable. If the author's name occurs naturally in the sentence, only the year is given in parentheses.

A book should be referenced as follows: name of author (surname followed by initials), year of publication, title, edition, volume number, place of publication, publisher.

A journal article should be referenced as follows: name of author (surname followed by initials), year of publication, title of article, title of journal, volume and issue number of journal, page numbers.
A reference list at the end of the article should contain the full publication details of the citations contained within the article.

The reference list should be arranged alphabetically by author. Where there is no author the item should be listed by its title, alphabetically by the first significant word of the title.

Where there are more than two authors of a work, only the name of the first author should be cited within the text of the article, followed by 'et al' (Whelan et al. 2005). All authors should be named in the reference list.

Other sources used in developing the article or that may be of interest to the reader may be listed in a separate bibliography.

Copyright

Submitted articles should be accompanied by a completed "Assignment of Copyright" form, to be found on the ESONT website at www.esont.org.

Having assigned copyright of the article to the Journal of ESONT, the author/s retain the following rights:
- the right to make copies of the article for personal use, including classroom teaching;
- the right to make copies and distribute copies of the article to research colleagues, for the personal use by such colleagues;
- the right to post a revised personal version of the final article on the author's personal or institutional website, with a link to the journal homepage;
- the right to present the article at a meeting or conference and to distribute copies of such paper or article to the delegates attending the meeting;
- for the author's employer, if the article is based on work carried out within the scope of the author's employment, the right to use all or part of the information in the article for other intra-company use;
- patent and trademark rights and rights to any process or procedure described in the article;
- the right to include the article in full or in part in a thesis or dissertation, provided that this is not to be published commercially;
- the right to use the article or any part thereof in a printed compilation of works of the author;
- the right to prepare other derivative works, to extend the article into book-length form, or to otherwise re-use portions or excerpts in other works, with full acknowledgement of its original publication in the journal.

(Based on explanation of copyright transfer and author rights by Elsevier, publisher of the Journal of Cataract and Refractive Surgery)