Manuscript preparation and submission

 

Manuscript preparation


Please write your text in grammatically correct English (please refer to the section: Information for Authors / English Language).

 

Title page and manuscript file (abstract and main text) should be typewritten, double-spaced, using a 12-point type size, Times New Roman font style and margins of 2.5 cm. Page numbers must be included in the manuscript file only (footer, right-aligned).

 

In the Manuscript file you should use only two kinds of headings, major headings should be indicated by underlined CAPITAL LETTERS in the centre of the page (eg. ABSTRACT, INTRODUCTION, BACKGROUND, METHODS, RESULTS, DISCUSSION, CONCLUSIONS, REFERENCES) whereas minor headings should be underlined, have lower-case letters (beginning with a capital) and begin at the left-hand margin (eg. Study design, Data collection, Data analysis, etc.).

Title Page (with author details)

 

Title of manuscript: The title should be no longer than 20 English words (centered on the page) and should be written in bold lower-case letters (beginning with a capital). The title should be relevant, concise and explicitly describe the topic and type of paper. The title format is:  “Topic/question: Design/type of paper” 

 

Example: Changes in nursing students’ expectations of mentors: A qualitative study. 

 

Running Title (Short Title): Below your full article title, you need to write the running title (short form of the full title). Running title may contain a maximum of 60 characters (letters and spaces count as characters).

If your full article title is already within the character limit, simply use the full title as the running title—no special changes are needed. However, if your article title is over the limit (60 characters), then you need to create a distinct running title that fits within the style guidelines. Also, eliminate articles such as the words “the” and “a.” 

 

Example of shortening the full title:

Full title: “Changes in nursing students' expectations of nursing mentors' competences: A qualitative study“

Running title: “Changes in nursing student expectations of their mentors” 

 

Author names and affiliations: for each author you should give one first name as well as the family name and any initials (no titles).  Where the family name may be ambiguous (e.g., a double name), please indicate this. The authors' affiliation addresses should be written below the names. Write all affiliations with a superscript number immediately after the author's name and in front of the appropriate address. Provide the necessary information about all authors and their institutions (where the actual work was done): name of the institution, postal address of each affiliation, including the country name and the e-mail address of each author.

Example: 

Name Surname 1, Name Surname 1,2, Name Surname 

Department, institution, full address, city, zip code, state/province, country, e-mail address.

Department, institution, full address, city, zip code, state/province, country, e-mail address.

Department, institution, full address, city, zip code, state/province, country, e-mail address.

Corresponding author’s name and complete contact information including: e-mail address and telephone/mobile phone. 

 

Acknowledgments: contributions from individuals who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed, with permission from the contributor, in an Acknowledgments section (e.g., providing language help, writing assistance or proofreading the article, etc.). If the article is accepted for publication any revised manuscripts will require Acknowledgments to be moved to the manuscript file.

 

Funding sources: all sources of funding of the study should be disclosed. If no funding has been provided for the research, please include the following sentence: “This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors”. If the article is accepted for publication any revised manuscripts will require funding sources to be moved to the manuscript file.

 

Conflicts of interest: Add disclaimer or disclosure information (see Declaration of interest section). If none, add this statement to the title page: “The authors declare no conflict of interest”.

 

Author Contributions: Authors should submit a section with statements about their individual contributions to the paper using the relevant CRediT roles (see Authors of interest section). For research articles with several authors, a short paragraph specifying their individual contributions must be provided. The initials of the author’s first and last name must be indicated after each contribution. Please turn to the CRediT taxonomy for the term explanation.

 

Example: “Conceptualization, X.X. and Y.Y.; Methodology, X.X.; Software, X.X.; Validation, X.X., Y.Y. and Z.Z.; Formal Analysis, X.X.; Investigation, X.X.; Resources, X.X.; Data Curation, X.X.; Writing – Original Draft Preparation, X.X.; Writing – Review & Editing, X.X.; Visualization, X.X.; Supervision, X.X.; Project Administration, X.X.; Funding Acquisition, Y.Y.”

 

If the article is accepted for publication any revised manuscripts will require Author Contributions to be moved to the manuscript file.

 

The word count: should be provided including abstract, keywords, manuscript body and tables content. Word count does not include: author metadata (names, affiliations, addresses, acknowledgments, funding sources, etc), figure content and bibliographic reference.

 

The number of figures and tables: should be provided on the title page.

 

Manuscript (without author details)

 

The content of your paper should determine the headings you use. 

If your manuscript presents a quantitative research approach, after the abstract and keyword, the titles should follow the usual layout, such as: Introduction, Background, Methods, Results, Discussion, and Conclusions.

 

Abstract: An abstract of your paper, a maximum of 300 words summarising the content must be typed double-spaced on a separate page. Abstracts are not required for Editorials Issues. 

Abstracts of research reports and reviews are structured and should consist of four sections/headings: (1) Background: place the question addressed in a broad context and highlight the purpose of the study; (2) Methods: describe briefly the main methods or treatments applied and include possible applied instruments; (3) Results: summarize the article’s main findings and, if appropriate, present statistically significant values with numbers (indicate exact values, e.g. P=0.004); (4) Conclusion: indicate the main conclusions or interpretations.

Other headings may be acceptable if those above are not suited to the type of article. For example; a debate article or article for section Contemporary nursing education

All abstracts must: describes the main objective(s) of the study; provide a high-level overview of the methodological process undertaken; concisely summarise the important findings of the study and their significance.

Abstracts should not contain references or abbreviations.

 

Keywords: Include 3-6 keywords sorted alphabetically and separated by semicolons. The purpose of these is to increase the likely accessibility of your paper to potential readers searching the literature. Therefore, ensure keywords are descriptive of the study. Use MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) keywords (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/ mesh/meshhome.html).

 

 

The Main Text

 

Introduction: clearly state the need for this study and the main question or hypothesis of the study.

 

Background: The background should contextualise the manuscript within its field of study and must be comprehensive enough that readers outside of the field are able to understand the importance and significance of the study. 

Background should:

  • Introduce and define the problem being addressed and its importance;
  • Provide an overview of relevant literature. The description of the literature should be clear, accurate, and complete. Be sure to include a critical review of the literature;
  • Indicate what is known and not known about the topic and how your paper contributes to previous knowledge and existing relevant literature. Indicate the professional/scientific contribution;
  • Make note of controversies or disagreements within the field of study;
  • Present your aim(s) / research question(s) at the end of the Background section.

 

Methods: The methods section should be described in great detail in such a manner that the research can be reproduced by the readers. Describe the study design, setting and samples, measurements/instruments, data collection/procedure, ethical considerations, and data analysis used. If it is a qualitative research, instrument can be omitted. If you use the instrument/questionnaire in the article, your instrument should be an appropriate and reliable tool for your respondents. Provide information on the reason for choosing your instrument and the procedures of preparation and application of the instrument, such as: information on the author of the original instrument and his permission for your adaptation and application of the instrument, translation procedures of the instrument, sociocultural adaptation, reliability and validity values tested in your sociocultural environment. data collection methods, how to use the instrument on your sample, scoring the instrument item, etc. Ensure correct use of the terms sex (when reporting biological factors) and gender (identify, psychosocial or cultural factors), and, unless inappropriate, report the sex and/or gender of study participants, 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, justify why. Define how you determined race or ethnicity and justify the relevance. 

 

Example of an ethical statement in the Methods section: “All subjects/participants gave their informed consent for inclusion before they participated in the study. The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, and the protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee of XXX (Project identification code – IRB approval number).

 

Results: A detailed description of the study results should be clearly arranged in a logical manner. The results must offer clear answers to the research objectives, ie research questions. When tables are used, the content presented therein should not be redundantly described in the main text; instead, important trends and data points should be emphasized. Note levels of statistical significance and confidence intervals where appropriate. Insertion of references with previously published data is not allowed in the Results section. Descriptions of previously reported data and personal opinions should be included in the Discussion section. In tables, figures, and virgule constructions and within parentheses, the units of minutes and hours should be abbreviated as ‘min’ and ‘hr’, respectively, and no ‘s’ should be added to them.

 

Discussion: Authors should discuss the results and how they can be interpreted from the perspective of previous studies and of the working hypotheses. New and important observations should be emphasized. A redundant description of the results is not acceptable. The findings and their implications should be discussed in the broadest context. In the Discussion section or in a separate section, the significance and limitations of the studies should be described. Also, future research directions should also be mentioned, as well as the possible implications of research findings on clinical practice and education.

 

Conclusions: Relate your conclusions to the goals of the research. State the concluding remarks, resulting from the findings and discussed implications of the study. Avoid unqualified statements and unrealistic conclusions that are not based on relevant data. Avoid referring to unfinished / unreviewed papers. Decisions made by the NES editorial board are not reliant on the perceived significance or impact of a study and as such the overstatement of concluding remarks should be avoided.

 

If your paper takes another form, theoretical or qualitative for example, you should use the appropriate headings, but do bear in mind that headings should facilitate reading and understanding. 

 

Data references: This journal encourages you to cite underlying or relevant datasets in your manuscript by citing them in your text and including a data reference in your Reference List. 

 

Reference style: References follow the NLM style. Reference should be numbered serially in the order of appearance in the text, with numbers in brackets [ ] (e.g., “In the study by Morton et al. [23]...”). When multiple references are cited together, use a hyphen to indicate a series of inclusive numbers. Use commas to indicate a series of non-inclusive numbers. A citation with these references [4, 5, 6, 14] is abbreviated to [4-6, 14]. If a reference is cited more than once, use the original reference number. 

 

The reference list should be given at the end of the document, after the main text. Original articles are limited to 50 references.

 

ournal names should be abbreviated according to the journal list of United States National Library of Medicine (NLM) available from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db= journals 

If a DOI has been assigned to the article that authors are using, authors should include this after the page numbers for the article, preceded by https://doi.org/ – see http://www.doi.org for more information.

 

References should be listed according to the examples below. For citations from other sources, refer to “The NLM Style Guide for Authors, Editors, and Publishers”. 2nd Edition, 2007. (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/citingmedicine). Samples of Formatted References for Authors of Journal Articles are available at: https://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/uniform_requirements.html

 

 

Reference Examples

 

Journals

Journal Articles: For six or fewer authors, list all authors: Author– Family name and initials. Title of article. Abbreviated journal title. Publication year; volume(issue):pages.

 

Morton PG. The Doctor of Nursing Practice: A Recap of Resources. J Prof Nurs. 2018;34(3):147-48. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.profnurs.2018.04.003

 

Authors separated by commas – Family name and initials. Title of article. Abbreviated journal title. Publication year; volume (issue):pages.

 

Pucer P, Trobec I, Žvanut B. An information communication technology based approach for the acquisition of critical thinking skills. Nurse Educ Today. 2014;34(6):964-70. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2014.01.011

 

Journal Articles: For more than six authors, list the first six followed by et al.

Dobrowolska B, Jędrzejkiewicz B, Pilewska-Kozak A, Zarzycka D, Ślusarska B, Deluga A, et al. Age discrimination in healthcare institutions perceived by seniors and students. Nurs Ethics. 2019;26(2):443-59. https://doi.org/10.1177/0969733017718392

 

Journal article - in press (forthcoming journal articles): Authors separated by commas – Family name and initials. Title of article. Abbreviated journal title. Publication year; volume (issue). Forthcoming - year of expected publication.

 

Lovrić R, Milutinović D, Žvanut B. Psychometric evaluation and cross-cultural adaptation of the Croatian version of Nursing student perceptions of dishonesty scale. J Prof Nurs. Forthcoming 2020. 

 

Journals on the Internet: Happell B. The influence of education on the career preferences of undergraduate nursing students. Aust Electron J Nurs Educ [Internet]. 2002 Apr [cited 2007 Jan 8];8(1):[about 12 p.]. Available from: http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/nhcp/aejne/vol8-1/refereed/happell_max.html.

 

 

Books

 

Reference to an Entire Book: Author(s) – Family name and initials, multiple authors separated by a comma. Title of book. Edition of book if later than 1st ed. Place of publication: Publisher name; Year of publication. 

 

Oermann M, Hays JC. Writing for Publication in Nursing. 4th ed. New York: Springer Publishing Company, LLC; 2018.

 

Chapter in an Edited Book: Author(s) of chapter - Family name and initials, Title of chapter. In: Editor(s) of book - Family name and initials, editors. Title of book. edition (if not first). Place of publication: Publishe namer; Year of publication. p. [page numbers of chapter]. Note:- multiple authors/editors always separated by commas.

 

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.

Entire Books on the Internet: Richardson ML. Approaches to differential diagnosis in musculoskeletal imaging [Internet]. Version 2.0. Seattle (WA): University of Washington School of Medicine; c2000 [revised 2001 Oct 1; cited 2016 Nov 1]. Available from: http://www.rad.washington.edu/mskbook/index.html.

 

Scentific and Technical Reports: Page E, Harney JM. Health hazard evaluation report. Cincinnati (OH): National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (US); 2001 Feb. Report No.: HETA2000-0139-2824. Barker B, Degenhardt L. Accidental drug-induced deaths in Australia 1997-2001. Sydney (Australia): University of New South Wales, National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre; 2003.

 

Dissertation: Author - family name followed by initials. Thesis title [type of thesis∗]. Place of publication: Publisher; Year. 

∗ Insert “dissertation” for a PhD and insert “master’s thesis” for a master’s degree.

 

Barać I. Personal, organizational and professional characteristics as predictors of nurses’ job satisfaction [dissertation]. Osijek: Faculty of Medicine Osijek; 2019.

 

 

Conferences

 

Conference paper published: Author(s) of paper – family name and initials. Title of paper. In: Editor(s) Family name and initials, editor(s). Title of conference; Date of conference; Place of conference. Place of publication: Publisher’s name; Publication year. p. Page numbers.

 

McGonagle I, Nelson D, Kane R, Scott E, Tsuro T. Self-Management Following Cancer Treatment: a Mixed Methods Study of Rural and Urban Populations in the East Midlands of England. In: Lovrić R, Včev A, editors. Proceedings of the International Scientific Conference Contemporary Nursing; 2018 September 21 – 22; Osijek, Croatia. Osijek: Faculty of Dental Medicine and Health Osijek; 2018. 48-9.

 

 

Web

 

Webpage with author: Author/organization’s name. Title of the page [Internet]. Place of publication: Publisher’s name; Publication date or year [updated date - year month day; cited date - year month day]. Available from: URL.

∗ If the place, publisher or date is unknown use [place unknown], [publisher unknown] or [date unknown]

∗ If neither the date of publication nor a date of copyright can be found, use the date of update/revision or date cited.

 

Diabetes Australia. Gestational diabetes [Internet]. Canberra (ACT): Diabetes Australia; 2015 [updated 2015; cited 2017 Nov 23]. Available from: https://www.diabetesaustralia.com.au/gestational-diabetes

 

Webpage - no author: Title [Internet]. Place of publication (if available): Publisher’s name (if available); Publication date or year [updated date (if available); cited date]. Available from: URL

 

The family impact of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) [Internet]. 2009 Nov 1 [updated 2010 Jan 1; cited 2010 Apr 8]. Available from: http://www.virtualmedicalcentre.com.au/healthandlifest yle.asp?sid=192&title=The-Family-Impact-of-Attention- Deficit-Hyperactivity-Disorder-%28ADHD%29page=2

Optional files (tables, figures, videos, schemes, etc.)

 

Tables: Please submit tables as editable text and not as images. Tables should be presented in separate files (titled Table 1, Table 2, etc.). The recommended font size in tables is 10 (minimum size is 8). Each table needs a short descriptive title above it, and a clear legend or key and, if necessary, suitably identified footnotes below. When drawing up the tables take care to include all the units of measurement. Make sure that each table is cited in the text. Number tables consecutively in accordance with their appearance in the text. Please avoid using vertical rules and shading in table cells. Be sparing in the use of tables and ensure that the data presented in tables do not duplicate results described elsewhere in the article. 

 

For footnotes to appear in the legend, use roman superscript alphabets. Asterisks (*, **) should be reserved for P-values. Also, in the footnote below each table, it is mandatory to indicate the applied statistical test (if appropriate). All units of measurements and concentrations should be abbreviated using the International System of Units.

 

When reporting decimal numbers, the significance level shall be shown up to three decimal places; means, standard deviations, and a test statistic, to two decimal places; and percentages, to one decimal place (e.g, P=0.004, 21.44±2.31, 32.6%). Only if the value can be more than 1, 0 shall be placed in front of the decimal point (e.g., t=0.31, F=0.89, r=0.18, R2=0.46).

 

When reporting p-values, which refer to significance probability, footnotes shall not be used but the actual p-values shall be provided. If a P-value is 0.000 and 1.000, it shall be indicated as P < 0.001 and P > 0.999, respectively. If P-values have to be reported using footnotes, *, ** shall be used (e.g. *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01).

Figures and Schemes: File for Figures and Schemes must be provided during submission in a single zip archive and at a sufficiently high resolution (minimum 1000 pixels width / height, or a resolution of 300 dpi or higher). 

It is recommended that you export charts, sketches, schemes, etc. from the appropriate computer programs (e.g., Excel, SPSS, etc.) to common preferred high-resolution formats such as EPS, TIFF, JPEG, and PDF, and submit them as separate files (e.g. Figure 1, Figure 2, etc.).

Cover Letter

 

A cover letter must be included with each manuscript submission. It must be concise and explain why the content of the article is significant, placing the findings in the context of existing work and why it fits the scope of the journal. Also, the cover letter must contain statements and confirmations that the listed authors are sole owners of the submitted manuscript and that the manuscript has been approved by all co-authors; that it is original and unpublished; that the work has not been published previously in print or electronic format and is not under consideration by another publication or electronic medium; that the work has not been previously transferred, assigned or otherwise encumbered; that the authors have full power to grant such rights; and that the authors will do their best to comply with all the requests of the Editors and reviewers in regard to improving the paper for publication.

Supplementary files/materials

 

As appropriate, submit separate files, e.g.:

 

  • Copy of statement of informed consent and institutional review board approval; 
  • Signed approval of the author of the original version of the questionnaire/instrument;
  • Professional language editing certificate
Manuscript preparation using NES templates

 

All parts of your article (Title Page, Manuscript, Table (s), Figure (s), Cover Letter and Supplementary Materials) must be prepared and submitted as separated files.

 

To prepare and submit your article, it is recommended to use structured separated Microsoft Word templates:

 

 

Once you download the necessary templates to your computer, you can write or copy the text directly to the template. Templates are already technically prepared and offer additional instructions that will significantly facilitate and speed up the process of preparing and submitting your article. The instructions in the templates are written in red and should be deleted before submitting your article. When your article is complete, submit the templates according to the NES instructions.