Instructions for Authors
General information
This journal employs an article-processing charge (APC). More about the amount of this charge and waivers here.
We offer neither fast-track nor priority publication in any form.
We do not pre-assess papers sent by email regarding their scope or potential for publication.
DOI becomes active when the paper is published; it is not possible to obtain an active DOI before publication.
Adv Clin Exp Med does not accept case reports. Priority is given to original papers developed through international cooperation.
All manuscripts should be submitted to the Editorial Office via the Editorial System. We do not accept manuscripts sent by post or e-mail.
Manuscripts not adequately prepared will be returned to the corresponding Author and rejected if we do not receive proper revisions within 15 days.
Most important rules
GENERAL RULES
- No cover letter or title page.
- No case reports / case series.
- Only 1 first author and 1 corresponding author.
- No changes concerning authors after acceptance.
- Mandatory graphical abstract.
- Mandatory checklist.
- Mandatory raw data sharing (with exceptions).
- 5 suggested peer reviewers with institutional e-mails and ORCIDs.
- DOI becomes active when the paper is published; it is not possible to obtain an active DOI before publication.
MAIN TEXT
- In US English (American spelling).
- Up to 4000 words (for original papers, research-in-progress articles, and study protocols), 1500 words (for research letters), or 7000 words (for reviews and meta-analyses).
- No names of the authors (neither on the first nor on the last page).
- No abstract at the beginning of the text.
- No information about funding in the main text.
- If ethical approval applies, its number is included in the text.
- Abbreviations explained in the text, not on a separate list.
TABLES AND FIGURES
- Up to 10 tables and 10 figures.
- Tables as Word, not Excel files.
- Tables and figures submitted as separate files, not pasted into the main text.
- A single figure can have no more than 6 panels (A–F).
REFERENCES
- Consecutively numbered, not prepared in Harvard style.
- The reference list in the order of works being cited in the text, not in alphabetical order.
- Each position on the reference list includes a DOI, a PMID when no DOI is available, and a URL when neither a DOI nor a PMID is available.
- Reference list submitted as a separate file, not pasted into the main text.
All the above rules are discussed in detail below.
How to create an account in the Editorial System
All manuscripts should be submitted to the Editorial Office via the Editorial System.
Guideline – How to create an account in the Editorial System
Should any problems arise, do not hesitate to contact the Managing Editor of Advances in Clinical and Experimental Medicine – Marek Misiak: marek.misiak@umw.edu.pl [alternative e-mail for Chinese authors: marek.misiak@friend.pl].
Types of manuscripts
Manuscripts may be considered for publication in the following sections:
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Original papers – including experimental research
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Meta-Analyses
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Clinical recommendations/guidelines
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Editorial commentaries (by invitation only)
Originality check
As a part of the initial manuscript verification, each text is checked using anti-plagiarism software (iThenticate). Only manuscripts with a Similarity Index (SI) lower than 30% will be accepted for further verification – those with SI of 30% or higher will be sent back to authors for rewrite. This also applies to papers that are continuations or expansions of previous publications – reusing previously published text, e.g., in the Materials and methods section, is not an accepted solution (and is a form of self-plagiarism).
Anonymization of the manuscript
The manuscript should be anonymized – please remove all names and affiliations of the authors from the main text. There should be no title page – either as the first page of the paper or as a separate file. All authors should be registered in the Editorial System when submitting the paper, and the Editorial System will generate a title page. An “Authors' contributions” section should not appear at the end of the paper.
Funding sources
The Author(s) should disclose all financial and material support when registering the paper in the Editorial System. Information about funding sources should be reported while submitting the manuscript in a dedicated section of the submission procedure, not in the Acknowledgements section or the main text.
All affiliations or financial involvement (e.g., employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants, patents received or pending, royalties) with any organization or entity with a financial interest in, or in financial competition with, the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript must be completely disclosed in the submitted manuscript. All financial and material support for the research and work must be identified, including a listing of support that might constitute or give the appearance of influencing the findings. Report all support for the work reported in your manuscript without a time limit. Funding sources and affiliations that have not contributed to the work should not be listed as listing them would be misleading.
Conflict of interest
Any conflict of interest should be reported while submitting the manuscript in a dedicated section of the submission procedure in our Editorial System, not in the Acknowledgements section or in the paper itself. All authors must provide disclosures before submission for inclusion in the “Conflict of Interest” statement. A conflict of interest exists when one’s professional judgment about the execution of the research and/or the presentation of the content is, or could reasonably be perceived to be, influenced by other interests.
Items included in the disclosure statement should cover: consulting fees or paid advisory boards (for the past 3 years or the known future), equity ownership/stock options (publicly or privately traded firms, excluding mutual funds), lecture fees when speaking at the invitation of a commercial sponsor (for the past 3 years or the known future), employment by the commercial entity that sponsored the study, grant support from industry, patents and/or royalties, expert witness, and other activities performed for a commercial sponsor.
More about conflict of interest
Declarations
All manuscripts must contain the following sections under the heading 'Declarations':
- Data availability
- Consent for publication of personal information
We often find that authors have confused consent for publication with consent for participation in their study. Here, 'consent' refers to consent to publish an individual's personal information, not to informed consent for participation in a study.
If any sections are irrelevant to your manuscript, please include the heading and write 'Not applicable' for that section.
Clinical trial registration
Authorship
No information allowing for authors' identification, in particular authors' names, should appear anywhere in the main body of the paper.
All Authors who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors, and their authorship should be disclosed in the Editorial System under the following list:
A – research concept and design; B – collection and/or assembly of data; C – data analysis and interpretation; D – writing the article; E – critical revision of the article; F – final approval of the article.
More about authorship criteria
The submitting author is NOT automatically designated as the corresponding author in the submission system. The submitting author and the corresponding author can be 2 different persons, yet it is the corresponding author (and not the submitting author) who maintains contact with the editorial office. The corresponding author is the primary contact for the editorial office and the only Author able to view or change the manuscript while it is under editorial consideration. The corresponding author role may be transferred to another co-author. However, transferring the corresponding author role also transfers access to the manuscript. The corresponding author cannot be changed after acceptance of the paper. There cannot be one corresponding author for contacts with editors and another for contacts with readers following publication, since it is not an honorary but a practical role.
Please ensure that all authors' names and affiliations are registered in the Editorial System during the submission; adding authors following the acceptance of the manuscript for publication is not permitted. The order of Authors in the Editorial System is also the order in which the Authors will appear on the title page of the published paper. Therefore, the first author in the Editorial System will also be considered the paper's first author. Before submitting the paper, please check whether the order of the Authors in your manuscript, as registered in the Editorial System reflects the order you intend. Changes of authorship (including the order of authors) following the acceptance of the manuscript for publication are not permitted.
Please note that there can be only 1 first author and 1 corresponding author for each manuscript (a single person can also hold both functions). Adv Clin Exp Med does not permit co-first authorship and co-corresponding Authors for any reason. However, we offer to mark the names of 2 chosen Authors on the first page of the paper with asterisks [*] and to place a disclaimer [X and Y contributed equally to this work] on the same page.
Ghostwriting and guest authorship are forms of scientific misconduct, and any detected cases will be investigated, including notifying the relevant entities (institutions employing the authors, scientific societies, associations, scientific editors, etc.). Editors continuously monitor and document any signs of scientific misconduct, especially violations of the ethics applicable to the study. Please read our ethics statement.
Changes to authorship
You can only add, remove, or change the authors' order before the manuscript is initially accepted. However, the editors should always approve each change. Changes of authorship (including the order of authors) following the initial acceptance of the manuscript for publication are not permitted.
To make authorship changes, send to the Editorial Office a document containing the following information:
1) list of original authors
2) list of current authors
3) the reason for the change in the author list and
4) identification of the current corresponding author (if the modification includes changing the person fulfilling this role).
The document must also include signed consent from all authors (including those who have been added or removed) stating that they agree to the addition, removal, or rearrangement of items in the list. The document should be sent to the Managing Editor: marek.misiak@umw.edu.pl [alternative e-mail for Chinese authors: marek.misiak@friend.pl].
ORCID
Authors submitting their manuscripts to Wroclaw University Press journals are advised to use a unique ORCID number (Open Researcher and Contributor ID). You can register for an ORCID number for free at https://orcid.org.
Acknowledgements
Those who contributed to the work but do not meet our authorship criteria should be listed in the Acknowledgments with a contribution description. Include individuals or companies that have assisted with your study, including advisors, administrative support, and suppliers who may have donated or given materials used in the study. Research funding should be disclosed in the Funding sources section, not in Acknowledgements. Conflict of interest should be disclosed in the Conflict of interest section, not in Acknowledgements. The Acknowledgements should not appear in the main text.
Because acknowledgment may imply endorsement by acknowledged individuals of a study’s data and conclusions, the corresponding author should obtain written permission to be acknowledged from all acknowledged individuals.
Title of the manuscript
Titles should be written in sentence case (only the first word of the text, proper nouns, and genus names are capitalized). If possible, avoid specialist abbreviations in titles. The title should include the study design for clinical trials, systematic reviews, or meta-analyses. The title of a review paper should include information regarding the type of review (systematic review, qualitative systematic review, narrative review, critical review, scoping review, etc.).
Abstract
Abstract of ORIGINAL PAPERS, META-ANALYSES, and RESEARCH LETTERS should contain 200–300 words and consist of 5 separate parts introduced by separate subheadings in the following order:
- Background
- Objectives
- Materials and methods
- Results
- Conclusions
An unstructured abstract of 150–250 words is required for REVIEWS and EDITORIALS. Please, do not divide the abstracts for these types of manuscripts into the above sections – such a structure will be removed by the editors.
Abstracts should be registered only in the system – please do not paste them into the main body of the paper. None of the abstract sections should be filled with N/A (not applicable).
Graphical abstract
Adv Clin Exp Med requires graphical abstracts (GAs) for papers accepted for publication. The GAs should be submitted as a separate file in the submission system.
Requirements regarding graphical abstracts
An extensive paper on GAs was published in Adv Clin Exp Med:
In the blink of an eye: Graphical abstracts in Advances in Clinical and Experimental Medicine
Key words
Abstract should be followed by 3–5 key words written in the manuscript's language and recommended by the Index Medicus Subject Headings (MeSH).
Main text
Manuscripts should be submitted in the following formats: DOCX, DOC or RTF. Text should be formatted as follows: Times New Roman 12, spacing 1.5.
Manuscripts should be written in US English. Authors not entirely familiar with English usage are advised to seek the assistance of an English speaker; the author's responsibility is to choose the correct style. The journal does not offer translation services.
The main body of the manuscript should not exceed 4000 words (for original papers, research-in-progress articles, and study protocols), 1500 words (for research letters), and 7000 words (for reviews and meta-analyses).
The main body of the text should not contain the names and affiliations of the authors or the abstract. Tables, figures, and the reference list should be submitted as separate files and not be pasted into the main text. Footnotes are not permitted (apart from footnotes in tables).
To add symbols to the manuscript, use the Insert → Symbol function in your word processor or paste in the appropriate Unicode character. Do not paste graphical files (e.g., JPG, PNG, TIFF, BMP) with symbols in the text. Equations should be generated using the appropriate functions in your word processor, not pasted as uneditable graphic files.
The main body of the text (regardless of its type) should consist of the following sections introduced by separate subheadings in the following order:
- Highlights
- Background (at least 1 page long)
- Objectives
- Materials and methods
- Results
- Discussion
- Limitations of the study
- Conclusions.
For cohort, case-control, and cross-sectional studies in the Original papers category, the Materials and Methods sections should follow the STROBE checklist (see below). For meta-analyses, the structure of the Materials and Methods sections should conform to the PRISMA checklist's stipulations (see below).
Names of species and genes should be in italics (e.g., Homo sapiens). Write out the genus and species in full, both in the title of the manuscript and at the first mention of an organism in a paper. After the first mention, the first letter of the genus name followed by the full species name should be used.
The Author(s) should not use italics (apart from names of the genes and taxonomy), bold (apart from statistically significant values in tables), or underlined words in the text. Please use only generic drug names.
When the study involves humans or animals, please include the disclaimer about the approval of the bioethical committee or about the reason why such consent was waived. When the study involves humans, please include a disclaimer regarding compliance with the Declaration of Helsinki (or explain why it is not applicable) and information on whether informed consent was obtained from the subjects, or not. More about our ethical stipulations here.
Checklist
It is obligatory to structure the article according to one of the checklists below:
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PRISMA checklist for all meta-analyses and reviews (for reviews, most of the answers in the PRISMA checklist may be N/A, i.e., 'not applicable', but submitting the completed PRISMA checklist is still required)
A COMPLETED checklist needs to be uploaded to the Editorial System separately.
A paper on checklists was published in Adv Clin Exp Med:
Laboratory equipment, reagents, and software
If any equipment, software, reagents, antibodies, or anything else obtained from external entities was used, the following information should be provided:
- exact model of equipment, full name of assay or reagent, catalog number of antibody, etc.
- name and location of the manufacturer (country and city (not state/province – e.g., Los Angeles, not California)
- in case of software – exact version (e.g., IBM SPSS v. 24.0)
- in case of freeware software or databases – a direct URL from which the used version of the software can be downloaded or database accessed.
Abbreviations
If an abbreviation is introduced in the text, it should be explained when a given term or name of the institution appears in the text for the first time; then, only the abbreviation should be used. All abbreviations used in the text should be explained in the article, not on a separate list.
All abbreviations in the abstract should be explained in the abstract and then again in the main text (the abstract and the main text are treated as separate texts). All abbreviations appearing in a table/figure or its caption must be explained in the legend of a given table/figure, even if they also appear in the main text or in other tables/figures – each table/figure has to be fully comprehensible when viewed outside the context of the whole paper.
Tables
We accept up to 10 tables (2 tables in Research letters). If you need to present more than 10 tables, the additional ones should be available as supplementary data.
All tables must be consecutively numbered. One table cannot be divided into separate subtables with separate captions (Table 1A, 1B, 1C, etc,. or Table 1.1, Table 1.2, Table 1.3, etc.).
References to tables should be placed according to the cited sequence in the manuscript. The text should include references to all tables. Please do not attempt to specify exactly where a given table or figure should appear. We cannot guarantee that they will be placed exactly in the places in the paper you planned them – they will appear on the same page they are first referred to (or on the same fold-out), but not necessarily below a given sentence.
Tables should be placed in separate files, not pasted into the main body of the text. They should be editable (not inserted as pictures in JPG, TIF, or PDF format). Allowed formats: DOC and DOCX (not XLS or XLSX).
Include a brief and self-explanatory title with any explanations essential to understanding the table given in footnotes at the bottom. Do not place captions for tables within the text, but only in the file(s) containing tables.
There cannot be empty cells in the table – if no information is given, fill in a cell with a hyphen (–).
All abbreviations used in a given table/figure should be explained below it or in the caption, even if a given abbreviation has already been explained in the text – each table/figure has to be fully comprehensible when viewed outside the context of the whole paper.
Citations in the tables should be numbered and included in the Reference list. When you cite references in the tables, you have to provide the numbers of the references also in the table. The references in the tables should appear in the same order as in the reference list. References in tables should fit into the consecutive numeration of the references in the place where a given table is first mentioned. Do not provide a separate reference list for a table or tables – a manuscript can have only one reference list.
Figures
We accept up to 10 figures (2 figures in Research letters). If you need to present more than 10 figures, the additional ones should be available as supplementary data.
Figures should be placed in separate files, not pasted into the main body of the text.
References to figures should be placed according to the cited sequence in the manuscript. The text should include references to all figures.
All figures must be consecutively numbered. Separate figures must have separate numbers (i.e., Fig. 1, Fig. 2, Fig. 3, not Fig. 1A, Fig. 1B, Fig. 1C, etc., or Fig. 3.1, Fig. 3.2, Fig. 3.3, etc. when separate figures are considered). A single figure can have multiple panels (up to 6), but separate figures cannot be considered panels of one figure.
A single figure can have no more than 6 panels (A–F). One panel means one chart – multiple charts cannot be combined into a single panel. All elements of each figure must be legible when viewed on an A4 page in a PDF file in full-screen mode without zooming. Do not combine several complex graphs or charts into one figure – we cannot include such figures in the published manuscript.
Each figure should have a concise, self-explanatory caption describing accurately what the figure depicts. Captions for the figures should be placed at the end of the main body of the text. Do not embed the captions in the graphical files (JPG, PNG, TIFF, etc.) – they become uneditable. When applicable, ensure that both the figure captions and the figures include corresponding labels for multiple panels (A, B, C, etc.).
If any magnification is used in the photographs, indicate this by using scale bars within the figures themselves.
All abbreviations used in a given table/figure should be explained below it or in the caption, even if a given abbreviation has already been explained in the text – each table/figure has to be fully comprehensible when viewed outside the context of the whole paper.
If the authors want to use figures, photographs, charts, tables, etc., which are not their work and are protected by copyright law, they are obliged to provide the Publisher with a written authorization to use such materials issued by the copyright holders. Please identify previously published material by giving the source as a reference citation at the end of the figure caption.
Please read our technical requirements for figures.
References
References should be limited to the most recent positions and directly connected to the presented topic. We strongly encourage authors to cite primarily works published within the last 5 years; older papers and other materials should be cited only when necessary.
The limit of self-citations is 10% (for all authors taken together).
Do not cite the following sources in the reference list:
- Unavailable and unpublished work, including manuscripts that have been submitted but not yet accepted (e.g., “unpublished work” or “data not shown”). Instead, deposit such data in a publicly available database (e.g., as a preprint). Articles accepted for publication but not yet published should be cited as [in press].
- Retracted papers – they cannot be cited, even as retracted articles. If the retraction occurs between the submission of the manuscript and its acceptance, you will be informed by the editors that one or more publications cited in your paper have been retracted and asked to remove them from your reference list or replace them with other publications.
- Personal communications (these should be supported by a letter from the relevant authors but not included in the reference list).
- Publications without an active DOI, PMID, or URL.
The references should be consecutively numbered, not prepared in Harvard style, and not marked in the text using solely links to the reference list (without numbers) or DOIs pasted into the text. The reference list should be in the order of works cited in the text, not alphabetical.
References should be identified by Arabic numerals (without parentheses) in superscript and numbered consecutively in the order in which they are first mentioned in the manuscript. This also includes references in tables – they should fit into the consecutive numbering of references at the point where the table is first mentioned. All references from the reference list should be mentioned in the text, consecutively and with no gaps (e.g., reference 16 cannot appear until reference 15 is mentioned at least once). If references are mentioned in a table, they should also appear in ascending order.
Do not include references in the abstract or headings/subheadings.
The authors are responsible for ensuring the accuracy of all references in accordance with the AMA citation style. Abbreviations for journal names should be cited according to Index Medicus. If a journal is not listed in Index Medicus, its full name should be given.
Please provide DOIs to all positions on the Reference list. When possible, please also provide the PMID (ID from the PubMed database) and the DOI – it makes entering the reference list into the reference manager much easier. If a cited position lacks the DOI, please provide only the PMID. If there is no PMID, please give a direct URL to the published paper (not to a database or search result). All DOIs, PMIDs, and URLs must be active – an identifier not active for editors is not considered an identifier.
Please note that all reference positions are verified to ensure they actually exist and were not generated by AI. AI-based tools tend to hallucinate and generate nonexistent sources.
Please do not paste the reference list into the main text – it should be submitted as a separate file.
Statistical analysis
Please read our new statistical guidelines thoroughly. These requirements are to be followed closely. Each paper that includes statistical analysis, in any form, undergoes a separate statistical review by a statistical editor, distinct from the peer review. Papers that do not pass this review are not accepted for publication.
Policy concerning data sharing
Adv Clin Exp Med requires the Authors of all original papers to make all data necessary to replicate their study's results publicly available without restriction when the paper is submitted to the journal (relevant information must be registered in the Editorial System at the time of submission). All the data and related metadata underlying the reported findings should be deposited in appropriate public data repositories unless already provided as part of the submitted article. Authors must deposit the data when submitting the paper to the journal. Depositing the dataset after the manuscript has been accepted for publication is not permitted.
Please note that data from the corresponding author can no longer be made available upon request; they must be shared.
If sharing the raw data using the Zenodo repository poses a problem, we can do it for you if you send the files to be shared to marek.misiak@umw.edu.pl or marek.misiak@friend.pl, or upload them as Additional files into the Editorial System and inform the editors that those data should be shared.
Supplementary files
Supplementary data are not raw data but any other materials that cannot be published within the paper but are necessary for the reviewers and the readers to fully understand its contents. There can be both shared and supplementary data for one manuscript, or only shared data, or only supplementary data.
Supplementary data and shared raw data are distinct datasets and must be stored in Zenodo under separate URLs.
Please deposit the supplementary files in the free-of-charge Zenodo repository (https://zenodo.org/) and obtain a single DOI number for the whole package. Each file should be numbered (Supplementary Table 1, Supplementary Fig. 1, etc.), and at least a one-sentence description of the contents of each file should be provided:
Supplementary Table 1. CAPTION.
Supplementary Fig. 1. CAPTION.
Please paste both the DOI and the description at the end of the main text. A single description for multiple files in the supplementary material package is insufficient. We will publish both the description and DOI at the end of the manuscript, above the Data Availability Statement.
Neither Adv Clin Exp Med nor the publisher of this journal (Wroclaw Medical University) is in any way associated with the Zenodo repository – neither financially nor organizationally. We are simply recommending this entity as a reliable, cost-free third-party data storage option.
Policy regarding preprints
Adv Clin Exp Med endorses and encourages the posting of manuscript preprints on non-profit preprint servers such as BioRxiv, MedRxiv, ResearchSquare, or Authorea, as well as on authors’ or institutional websites. Posting preprints is not considered a prior publication, and the manuscript can enter peer review at Adv Clin Exp Med following the regular procedure.
Preprints are defined as an author’s version of a research manuscript before formal peer review at a journal, which is deposited on a public server. If the article is already accessible online as a registered preprint on any website or in any database, and has already been assigned a DOI, such information, together with a URL of the registered preprint, has to be provided during submission of the paper as well as appear in the cover letter.
Authors should not post in the preprint archive the published article, nor interim versions that are produced during the peer-review process that incorporate revisions based on journal feedback.
Once the preprint is published in Adv Clin Exp Med, it is the author’s responsibility to ensure that the preprint record is updated with a publication reference, including the DOI and a URL link to the published version of the article on the journal website.
A paper on preprints was published in Adv Clin Exp Med:
Supporting open science: Advances in Clinical and Experimental Medicine and preprints
Usage of artificial intelligence (AI) tools
These guidelines apply only to the writing process (i.e., generating text using an AI tool) and not to using AI tools to analyze data and draw insights as part of the research process. They do not apply to basic tools for checking grammar, spelling, references, etc.
Suggested peer reviewers
Authors of each submitted manuscript are required to suggest 3 potential peer reviewers. Suggested reviewer has to be:
- from a different country than any of the authors;
- a specialist in a relevant field of medicine (There have been instances where the recommended reviewers were from completely unrelated scientific fields, sometimes not even within medicine.).
Please provide the following information concerning the suggested reviewers:
- name;
- institutional e-mail (not a private one);
- link to the reviewer's institutional personal page (if possible).
This would facilitate proper identification and traceability to their professional profile and respective institutions.
The suggested reviewers cannot have a conflict of interest. Examples of conflicts of interest include, but are not limited to:
- Having a relationship to the author(s) of the work, either personally or professionally. This includes previous research or lab group members, or co-authors.
- Finding that a manuscript or book proposal that you have been asked to review is very similar to one that the peer reviewer has in preparation or under consideration with a journal or publisher.
- Having a direct or indirect financial interest in the result of the review.
- Having a direct or indirect non-financial interest in the result of the review (e.g., if the paper contradicts something the peer reviewer has a well-known public stance on).
Proofs
Corrections to the proofs should be restricted to printer’s errors only. Please read, correct, and return the proof to the Editorial Office within 3 working days. A delay in the return of proof may result in the paper not being published without your corrections or may postpone publication.
Mark the corrections in the PDF file using the “comment” option. Changing the PDF's contents or providing corrections as a separate list is not considered appropriate. All corrections have to be made using ONLY the “comment” function. Changing anything in the PDF renders it unusable for us (including changes to text and tables/figures, as well as adding watermarks). Do not lock the comments on the proof – we need to be able to remove them.
Please note that since October 1, 2021, once an article is published ahead of print, it cannot be changed (including affiliations and author order). Such a stipulation stems from requirements set by scientific databases that store papers published in Adv Clin Exp Med.