For Authors

Instructions to Authors

The main interests of The Journal of Pathology lie in the pathophysiological and pathogenetic mechanisms of human disease and in the application of such knowledge to diagnosis and prognosis. In determining content, the primary considerations are excellence, relevance and novelty.

The Journal welcomes investigative studies on human tissues, experimental studies in vitro and in vivo , and investigations based on animal models with a clear relevance to human disease, including transgenic systems. Methodological improvements in investigative and diagnostic pathology are also of interest. Correlative studies of pathological data and clinical outcomes are considered but purely descriptive papers on diagnostic pathology are not considered central to the Journal's purpose. In general, studies that appropriately employ multiple investigative techniques are preferred over those that rely on a single methodology. Illustrations must be of the highest quality to be acceptable for publication. As well as original research papers, the Journal seeks to provide rapid publication in a variety of other formats, including editorials, review articles and other features, both contributed and solicited. Papers covering significant developments in teaching methods and in the practice of pathology may be acceptable if they are of international scope and relevance. Correspondence from readers will be published if it is of general interest.

In summary, the Journal aims to serve as a bridge between basic biomedical science and clinical medicine with particular emphasis on morphologically based studies. As the journal of The Pathological Society, it seeks to reflect the broad scientific interests of the Society's membership, but its ethos, authorship, content and purpose are those expected of a leading publication in the international scientific literature.

Manuscripts are assigned sequentially to Associate Editors. An Associate Editor solicits reviewers (typically, two external reviews are sought). The reviewers’ evaluations and Associate Editor’s comments are compiled by the Editor-in-Chief for disposition and transmittal to the authors. A decision is made usually within six weeks of the receipt of the manuscript.

The Editor-in-Chief will advise authors whether a manuscript is accepted, should be revised or is rejected. Minor revisions are expected to be returned within four weeks of decision; major revisions within three months. Manuscripts not revised within these time periods are subject to withdrawal from consideration for publication unless the authors can provide extenuating circumstances.

A number of manuscripts will have to be rejected on the grounds of priority and available space. A manuscript may be returned to the authors without outside review if the Editor-in-Chief and Associate Editor find it inappropriate for publication in the Journal. Similarly, the Editors may expedite the review process for manuscripts felt to be of high priority in order to reach a rapid decision. Such ‘fast-track decisions’ will normally occur within one week of receipt of the manuscript.

Authors may provide the Editor-in-Chief with the names, addresses and email addresses of up to three suitably qualified individuals of international standing who would be competent to referee the work, although the Editor-in-Chief will not be bound by any such nomination. Likewise, authors may advise of any individual who for any reason, such as potential conflict of interest, might be inappropriate to act as a referee, again without binding the Editor-in-Chief.

The Editor-in-Chief ’s decision is final. If, however, authors dispute a decision and can document good reasons why a manuscript should be reconsidered, a rebuttal process exists. In the first place, authors should write to the Editor-in-Chief.

Submission of a manuscript will be held to imply that it contains original unpublished work and is not being submitted for publication elsewhere at the same time. This should be confirmed to the editor in the covering letter. The author must supply a full statement to the Editor-in-Chief about all submissions and previous reports that might be regarded as redundant or duplicate publication of the same or very similar work.

Authors are responsible for disclosing all financial and personal relationships between themselves and others that might bias their work. To prevent ambiguity, authors must state explicitly whether potential conflicts do or do not exist. Investigators should disclose potential conflicts to study participants and should state in the manuscript whether they have done so. Authors should describe the role of the study sponsor(s), if any, in study design, in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data, in the writing of the report and in the decision to submit the report for publication. If the study sponsor(s) had no such involvement, the authors should so state. A conflict of interest statement must be included in the manuscript (on the title page) that details any conflicts that exist for each author, or declares the absence of conflict for each author. For further information and guidance on disclosing conflicts of interest, please visit our conflicts of interest page

A statement describing explicitly the ethical background to the studies being reported should be included in all manuscripts in the Materials and Methods section. Ethics committee or institutional review board approval should be stated. When reporting experiments on human subjects, indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional or regional) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 1983. Do not use patients’ names, initials or hospital numbers, especially in illustrative material. When reporting experiments on animals, indicate whether the institution’s or a national research council’s guide for, or any national law on, the care and use of laboratory animals was followed.

Patients have a right to privacy that should not be infringed without informed consent. Identifying information should not be published in written descriptions, photographs and pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or parent or guardian) gives written informed consent for publication. Informed consent for this purpose requires that the patient be shown the manuscript to be published. Identifying details should be omitted if they are not essential but patient data should never be altered or falsified in an attempt to attain anonymity. Complete anonymity is diff icult to achieve and informed consent should be obtained if there is any doubt. For example, masking the eye region in photographs of patients is inadequate protection of anonymity.

All persons designated as authors should qualify for authorship and all those who qualify should be listed. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content. One or more authors should take responsibility for the integrity of the work as a whole, from inception to published article.

Authorship credit should be based only on 1) substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; 2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; 3) final approval of the version to be published. Conditions 1, 2 and 3 must all be met. Acquisition of funding, the collection of data or general supervision of the research group, by themselves, do not justify authorship. All others who contributed to the work who are not authors should be named in the Acknowledgements section.

As a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), adherence to these submission criteria is considered essential for publication in The Journal of Pathology; mandatory fields are included in the online submis- sion process to ensure this. If, at a later stage in the submission process or even after publication, a manuscript or authors are found to have disregarded these criteria, it is the duty of the Editor-in-Chief to report this to COPE. COPE may recommend that action may be taken, including but not exclusive to, informing the authors’ professional regulatory body and/or institution of such a dereliction.

The website for COPE may be accessed at: http://www.publicationethics.org.uk

The text of observational and experimental articles is divided into sections with the headings: Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion. Long articles may need subheadings within some sections (especially the Results and Discussion sections) to clarify their content. Other types of articles, such as reviews and commentaries, still need a title and abstract and should adhere as closely as possible to the guidelines.

Research reports must not omit any important information, raw data necessary for review must be made available (as Supplementary Material) and submission to the journal is taken to indicate agreement to share novel reagents that are not commercially available with other researchers. Authors are encouraged to consult reporting guidelines relevant to their specific research design, in particular:

• For reports of randomised controlled trials, follow the CONSORT statement http://www.consort-statement.org .
• For reports of tumour studies, adhere to the REMARK guidelines http://www.cancerdiagnosis.nci.nih.gov/assessment/progress/remark.html .
• For microarray analyses, follow the MIAME guidelines http://www.mged.org/Workgroups/MIAME/miame.html and submit your data to the GEO or Array Express database prior to submission (release embargos until acceptance are permitted), quoting the accession number/s in your manuscript.

Format a Word document to A4 paper with margins of at least 20 mm all round. Ensure page numbering is included in either the header or footer and aligned right. Use a standard widely used font such as Times or Arial with Symbol for special characters. Each table should be on a separate page in landscape orientation if necessary. Figures and illustrations must not be included or embedded into the document but uploaded as separate files.

The title page should carry 1) the full title and a suggested short title of the article; 2) the name by which each author is known and institutional affiliation; 3) the name of the department(s) and institution(s) to which the work should be attributed; 4) disclaimers, if any; 5) source(s) of support in the form of grants, equipment, drugs or all of these; 6) an accurate word count of the text from the start of the introduction to the end of the discussion; 7) a conflict of interest statement.

The second page should carry an abstract, in prose form (not structured), of up to 300 words. The abstract should state the purposes of the study or investigation, the basic procedures, the main findings and the principal conclusions. It should emphasise new and important aspects of the study or observations. It should be understandable without reference to the rest of the paper and should contain no citation to other published work.

Below the abstract authors should provide and identify as such 3 to 10 key words or short phrases to assist indexing the article and that may be published with the abstract. At least 3 of the keywords should refer to the anatomical site, disease and techniques used in the study.

There are approximately 900 words on a full printed page of journal text. Full articles should not exceed 3000 words from the beginning of the Introduction to the end of the Discussion, which is approximately six journal pages, when tables, figures and references are also included. Short articles should not exceed four journal pages, including tables, figures and references. Review articles and special features may exceed these limits by arrangement with the Editor-in-Chief. Succinct articles are likely to make a greater impact on readers than long ones and are more likely to be accepted for publication without delay.

State the purpose of the article and summarise the rationale for the study or observation. Give only strictly pertinent references and do not include data or conclusions from the work being reported.

Clearly describe your selection of the observational or experimental subjects (patients or laboratory animals, including controls). Identify the age, sex and other important characteristics of the subjects where appropriate. As the relevance of such variables as age, sex and ethnicity to the object of research is not always clear, authors should explicitly justify them when they are included in a study report. The guiding principle should be clarity about how and why a study was performed in a particular way. Authors should avoid terms such as ‘race’ which lacks precise biological meaning and use alternative descriptors such as ‘ethnicity’ or ‘ethnic group’ instead. Authors should specify carefully what the descriptors mean and tell exactly how the data were collected.

Identify the methods, apparatus (give the manufacturer’s name and address in parentheses) and procedures in sufficient detail to allow other workers 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 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.

Reports of randomised clinical trials should present information on all major study elements, including the protocol (study population, interventions or exposures, outcomes and the rationale for statistical analysis), assignment of interventions ( methods of randomisation, concealment of allocation to treatment groups) and the method of masking (blinding).

Authors submitting review manuscripts should include a section describing the methods used for locating, selecting, extracting and synthesising data. These methods should also be summarised in the abstract.

Describe statistical methods with enough detail to enable a knowledgeable reader with access to the original data to verify the reported results. When possible, quantify findings and present them with appropriate indicators of measurement error or uncertainty (such as confidence intervals) References for the design of the study and statistical methods should be to standard works when possible (with pages stated) rather than to papers in which the designs or methods were originally reported.

Restrict tables and figures to those needed to explain the argument of the paper and to assess its support. Use graphs as an alternative to tables with many entries; do not duplicate data in graphs and tables. Avoid non-technical uses of technical terms in statistics, such as ‘random’ (which implies a randomising device), ‘normal’, ‘significant’, ‘correlations’ and ‘sample’.

Present your results in logical sequence in the text, tables and illustrations. Do not repeat in the text all the data in the tables or illustrations; emphasise or summarise only important observations.

Emphasise the new and important aspects of the study and the conclusions that follow from them. Do not repeat in detail data or other material given in the Introduction or the Results section. Include in the Discussion section the implications of the findings and their limitations, including implications for future research. Relate the observa tions to other relevant studies.

Link the conclusions with the goals of the study but avoid unqualified statements and conclusions not completely supported by the data. In particular, authors should avoid making statements on economic benefits and costs unless their manuscript includes economic data and analyses. Avoid claiming priority and alluding to work that has not been completed. State new hypotheses when warranted but clearly label them as such. Recommendations, when appropriate, may be included. References to unpublished data should not be included.

List all contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship, such as a person who provided purely technical help, writing assistance or a department chair who provided only general support. Financial and material support should also be acknowledged.

Groups of people who have contributed materially to the paper but whose contributions do not justify authorship may be listed under a heading such as ‘clinical investigators’ or ‘participating investigators’ and their function or contribution should be described.

References should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text. Identify references in text, tables and legends by Arabic numerals in square parentheses. 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. All references should be complete and accurate.

Avoid using abstracts as references. References to papers accepted but not yet published should be designated as ‘in press’; authors should obtain written permission to cite such papers as well as verification that they have been accepted for publication. Copies of any papers cited as ‘in press’ must be included in the submission. Avoid using unpublished observations and information from manuscripts submitted but not accepted.

Avoid citing a ‘personal communication’ unless it provides essential information not available from a public source, in which case the name of the person and date of communication should be cited in parentheses in the text. Authors must supply written permission and confirmation of accuracy from the source of a personal communication.

The Journal’s reference style is modified Vancouver used by the NLM in Index Medicus. For articles with more than 6 authors, only the first 6 authors should be listed, followed by et al . The titles of journals should be abbreviated according to the style used in Index Medicus. Title abbreviations can be checked using the PubMed Journals database: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=journals&term= . Articles published online but not yet assigned to an issue may be cited using the DOI (see example 4). Online citations should include the date of access.

1. Going JJ, Moffat DF. Escaping from Flatland: clinical and biological aspects of human mammary duct anatomy in three dimensions. J Pathol 2004; 203 :538–544.
2. Watson F, Herrington CS. Blotting techniques: Methodology and Applications. In Molecular Biology in Histopathology , (2nd edn), Crocker J, Murray PG (eds). John Wiley & Sons Ltd: Chichester, 2003; 1–15.
3. Stevens A, Lowe J. Pathology (2nd edn). Mosby: London, 2000;224–226.
4. L Strizzi, C Bianco, M Hirota, K Watanabe, M Mancino, S Hamada et al. Development of leiomyosarcoma of the uterus in MMTV-CR-1 transgenic mice. J Pathol 2006; DOI:10.1002/path.2083
5. Wright NA. The Standing of UK Histopathology Research 1997-2002 . www.pathsoc.org.uk/ [accessed 7 October 2004].

Type each table on a separate page at the end of the main document. Do not submit tables as photographs. Number tables consecutively in the order of their first citation in the text and supply a brief title for each. Give each column a short or abbreviated heading. Place explanatory matter in footnotes, not in the heading. Explain in footnotes all non-standard abbreviations that are used in each table. Identify statistical measures of variations, such as standard deviation and standard error of the mean. Do not use internal horizontal and vertical rules. Be sure that each table is cited in the text. If you use data from another published source, obtain permission and acknowledge fully.

Figures should be numbered consecutively according to the order in which they have been first cited in the text. If a figure has been published, acknowledge the original source. If the manuscript is accepted for publication, written permission from the copyright holder to reproduce the material will have to be supplied. Permission is required irrespective of authorship or publisher except for documents in the public domain. Permission request forms can be downloaded from the Journal's website on Wiley InterScience under 'For Authors': http://www.interscience.wiley.com/thejournalofpathology If photographs of people are used, either the subjects must not be identifiable or their pictures must be accompanied by written permission to use the photograph (see Ethics).

Figures should be professionally drawn, photographed and digitised; freehand or typewritten lettering is unacceptable. Letters, numbers and symbols should be clear and even throughout and of sufficient size that when reduced for publication each item will still be legible. Titles and detailed explanations belong in the legends for illustrations not on the illustrations themselves.

Figures should be scaled to fit either one or two column widths (83 mm and 170.5 mm respectively) with a maximum height of 251.5 mm. Figures should be supplied (uploaded) as tiff files in RGB or greyscale mode with no profile embedded and no layers. All illustrations must be supplied at the correct resolution:

• Black and white and colour photos – 300 dpi
• Graphs, drawings, etc – 800 dpi preferred; 600 dpi minimum
• Combinations of photos and drawings (black and white and colour) – 500 dpi

Authors should be careful to check that their colour images (especially fluorescence) will reproduce faithfully in CMYK print before submission (see additional resources in the Editorial: ‘The Journal of Pathology moves forward’ by C. Simon Herrington, Jeremy J Theobald, Simon D Newton and Martin A Smart ( The Journal of Pathology , Volume 204, Issue 5, Pages 507-509 ) with supplementary material at http://www.mrw.interscience.wiley.com/suppmat/0022-3417/suppmat/path.1678.html.)

We recommend that authors check the quality of their figures prior to submission using Sheridan's Digital Expert tool http://dx.sheridan.com/index.html.

Type legends for illustrations starting on a separate page with Arabic numerals corresponding to the illustrations. When symbols, arrows, numbers or letters are used to identify parts of the illustrations, identify and explain each one clearly in the legend. Do not indicate the magnification for light micrographs. Internal scale markers are recommended for electron micrographs. Indicate the type of stain used only if it is other than haematoxylin and eosin.

There is no page charge to authors. The cost of printing colour illustrations in the journal is currently £400 per colour page and will be charged to the author. In exceptional circumstances, if colour reproduction is considered essential by the referees and if the authors and their institutions or funding agencies are unable to meet the full cost, publication of colour may be made available at a reduced rate. The funds available for this purpose are limited and will be employed at the discretion of the Editor-in-Chief. Authors wishing to seek this subsidy should explain the circusmstance to the Editor-in-Chief on submission of the manuscript.

If authors wish their illustrations to be printed in black and white, figures must be supplied and reviewed in black and white with appropriate contrast and brightness adjustments made for the best possible reproduction.

Measurements of length, height, weight and volume should be reported in metric units ( metre, kilogram or litre) or their decimal multiples. Temperatures should be given in degrees Celsius. Blood pressures should be given in millimetres of mercury. All haematological and clinical chemistry measurements should be reported in the metric system in terms of the International System of Units (SI).

Use only standard abbreviations. Avoid abbreviations in the title and abstract. The full term for which an abbreviation stands should precede its first use in the text unless it is a standard unit of measurement.

To enable the publisher to disseminate authors’ work to the fullest extent, all authors must sign a Copyright Transfer Agreement, transferring copyright in the article from the authors to The Pathological Society of Great Britain and Ireland. An agreement with original signatures will be requested if a paper is accepted for publication. A copy of the agreement to be used (which may be photocopied) can be found in the first issue of each volume of The Journal of Pathology . Copies may also be obtained from the editorial office, from the journal website or the on-line submission website.

• Follow the correct sequence: Title Page, Abstract and Key words, Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion, Acknowledgements, References, Tables (each on a separate page), Legends.
• Begin each section or component on a new page.
• Illustrations should be no larger than 83 × 251.5 mm (one column width) or 170.5 × 251.5 mm (two column width) and reach the resolution standards set by journal policy (see above).
• Supply (upload) only one Word file and only high-resolution TIFF files as illustrations.
• Keep copies of everything submitted.

Submission to The Journal of Pathology is only via an online system at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jpath . Prepare your manuscript and illustrations in the appropriate format, according to these instructions. Please also be sure that your paper conforms to the scientific and style instructions of the Journal.

If you are unsure of your password, click ‘Forgot Your Password?’ If you have an account, you will be asked to enter your contact email and a temporary password will be sent to you so that you can access your manuscript. If you do not have an account, you can create one for yourself in the system at the submission site by clicking on the ‘Create Account’ button. Subsequently, to monitor the progress of your manuscript throughout the review process, just login periodically and check your Author Centre.

When you are ready to submit your manuscript, let the system guide you through the submission process. Online help is available to you at all times during the process by clicking “Get Help Now” in the upper right-hand corner of the screen. You are also able to exit/re-enter the process at any stage before finally submitting your work.

LATEX users. For your original submission you should upload a single .pdf that you have generated from your source files. You must use the File Designation "Main Document" from the dropdown box. When submitting a revision you must still upload a single .pdf that you have generated from your now revised source files. You must use the File Designation "Main Document" from the dropdown box. In addition you must upload your TeX source files. For all your source files you must use the File Designation "Supplemental Material not for review". Previous versions of uploaded documents must be deleted. If your manuscript is accepted for publication we will use the files you upload to typeset your article within a totally digital workflow.

All hard copy and emailed manuscripts sent to the Editor-in-Chief, the Editorial Office or The Pathological Society will be returned to authors with instructions to submit online.

A list of recommended English editing services is available for authors who want to have their paper checked and improved before submission. This list and further information on the service is available at http://www.wiley.co.jp/editservlist.html Please note that this is an optional service paid for by the author. For any queries please contact the Wiley Tokyo editorial office by fax on +81 3556 9763 or email editorial@wiley.co.jp.

The e-mail address for the Editorial Office is managing_editor@jpathol.org This email address is for correspondence and not for the submission of manuscripts.

Failure to abide by the guidelines for submission to The Journal of Pathology may result in undue delay in the submission, review or publication of your manuscript.

Proofs will be sent to the author for checking. This stage is to be used only to correct errors that may have been introduced during the production process. Prompt return of the corrected proofs, preferably within two days of receipt, will minimise the risk of the paper being held over to a later issue.

Twenty-five complimentary offprints of papers will be provided to the author who checked the proofs, unless otherwise indicated. Further offprints and copies of the journal may be ordered.

These are articles that have been accepted for publication in The Journal of Pathology and are currently being typeset. The full articles will appear on EarlyView in a matter of weeks.

EarlyView is Wiley’s exclusive service presenting individual articles online as soon as they are ready before the release of the compiled print issue. EarlyView articles are complete, citable and are published in an average time of six weeks from acceptance.

The validity of the data and the views expressed in articles in the Journal are the responsibility of authors and not of The Pathological Society of Great Britain and Ireland or the publisher, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The requirements set out here are in accordance with the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals. International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts submitted to Biomedical Journals. Ann Intern Med 1997;126:36-47. A digital version is available on the ICMJE web site.