Author Guidelines & Peer Review Process

Peer Review Process

All submitted papers are firstly checked by the editor-in-chief to ensure that they’re suitable for peer review, including plagiarism scanning and other ethical, legal, and quality assessments. If the paper is considered appropriate for this journal, then it will be reviewed anonymously by at least two outside reviewers. The practice of peer review is to ensure that only good science with high standards is published at the Canadian Journal of Clinical Nutrition, as it is carried out by all reputable scientific journals. The Editor reserves the right to make any necessary changes in the papers, or request the author to do so, or reject the paper submitted. A copy of the edited paper along with the first proofs will be sent to the author for proofreading. They should be corrected and returned to the Editor within seven days. Once the final version of the paper has been accepted, authors are requested not to make further changes to the text. 

All manuscripts submitted to the Canadian Journal of Clinical Nutrition are peer-reviewed following the procedure outlined below:

1. The Editor-in-chief (or occasionally an academic editor drawn from the editorial board) first evaluates the submitted manuscripts. Those rejected at this stage are insufficiently original, have serious scientific flaws, have poor grammar or English language, or are outside the aims and scope of the journal.  Those that meet the minimum criteria are passed on to experts for review. Authors of manuscripts rejected at this stage will be informed within 2 weeks of receipt.
2. The journal employs a double-blind review, where the reviewer and authors remain anonymous throughout the process. The submitted manuscripts are reviewed by a minimum of two peer reviewers. Reviewers are matched to the submitted manuscript according to their subject areas of interest and expertise. A further expert opinion will be sought, if the reviewers’ reports contradict one another or a report is unnecessarily delayed. Revised manuscripts are usually returned to the editor-in-chief within two-four weeks 
3. The completed peer reviewers’ reports are made available to the editor-in-chief who arrives at a decision to accept, accept subject to the authors responding satisfactorily to the recommendations made in the peer review report, or reject.
4. If the editorial decision to accept a manuscript (based on the reviewers’ evaluations),  review comments will be sent to the author of correspondence and requests for a revised manuscript. The author will send a revised manuscript with all changes indicated in a point-by-point response to the peer review report.
5. The editor-in-chief will verify the resubmitted/revised manuscript and the decision would be either accepted for publication or returned to the author for further changes.
6. Before typesetting commences, the managing editors will revise each manuscript for English language and grammar and implement it based on the American Medical Association (AMA) manuscript style.
7. The accepted paper is subject to several stages of quality control, after typesetting, as it has to be:  active voice throughout, specific and concise, free of flowery or figurative language, vary in sentence length and complex to add interest.
8. A galley PDF proof (the preliminary version of publication) will be sent to the author and asked to proofread and to revise the typeset proof until the paper is ready for publication.
9. Before the final publication, all authors are asked to provide signed copyright approval of their accepted paper.

Author Guidelines & Manuscript Preparation

Manuscripts (5000 words at maximum) should be divided into the following sections;

• • Title Page
  • Abstract
  • Introduction
  • Materials and Methods
  • Results
  • Discussion
  • Conclusions
  • Acknowledgment
  • Conflict of Interest Statement
  • References
  • Appendices: Figures/illustrations, tables, list of abbreviations (if any),  ethical approval, and chemical structures (if any).

• • COVER LETTER: The corresponding author is required to submit a Covering Letter along with the manuscript, on behalf of all the co-authors (if any). The author (s) will confirm that the manuscript (or any part of it) has not been published previously or is not under consideration for publication elsewhere. Furthermore, any illustration, structure or table that has been published elsewhere must be reported, and copyright permission for reproduction must be obtained.

• • TITLE PAGE: The title should be precise and brief and must not be more than 120 characters. A short ‘running title’ of 50 characters at maximum should be included. The authors will be required to provide their full names, the institutional affiliations and the location, with an asterisk in front of the name of the principal/corresponding author. The corresponding author should be designated and his/her complete address, business telephone, and fax numbers and e-mail address must be stated to receive correspondence and galley proofs.

• • ABSTRACT: The abstract should not exceed 200 words, summarizing the essential features of the article.

• • MAIN TEXT: The manuscript should be written in either American or British English. The manuscript style must be uniform throughout the text and 12 pt Times New Roman font should be used.  All pages must be numbered sequentially, facilitating in the reviewing and editing of the manuscript. The text may be subdivided further according to the areas to be discussed. The main text should be divided into separate sections as Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusions, Acknowledgment, Conflict of Interest and References. The full term for an abbreviation should precede its first appearance in the text unless it is a standard unit of measurement. Italics should be used for Binomial names of organisms (Genus and Species), for emphasis and for unfamiliar words or phrases. Non-assimilated words from Latin or other languages should also be italicized e.g. in-vivo, in-vitro, per se, et al. etc. All references should be numbered sequentially in parentheses, throughout the text, tables, and legends. For example; colorectal cancer has been considered as a global health problem (1-3) and its prevalence was strongly associated with diet and sedentary lifestyle. (4,5)  Recommendations come from international organizations state that  “it is important to early screen the disease at the ages of 40.”(6). If the same reference is used again, re-use the original number.

• • FIGURES: Figures must be placed at the end of the manuscript. All used figures must be original or being used with written permission from the copyright holder as evident by the copyright holder’s citation instructions. All diagrams, photographs, illustrations and charts (not tables) are to be referred to in the text as Figures and should be numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals. These figures must be supplied as separate electronic files.

• • TABLES: Tables are numbered consecutively.  Each table should have a brief title, and give each column a short heading.  Be sure that the table is mentioned in the text.  Please keep vertical (portrait) tables a maximum of 5.5 inches wide if possible. If width is a problem, use the landscape layout with section breaks on both sides if MS Word is being used.  For notes use the following symbols in this sequence:  *, +, **, ++, etc.

• • ETHICAL APPROVAL: For human or animal experimental investigations, it is a prerequisite to provide a formal approval by the institutional review board (IRB) or ethics committee and should be documented in your paper.

• • LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS: If abbreviations are used in the text either they should be defined in the text where first used, or a list of abbreviations can be provided.

• • REFERENCES: References must be listed in the Vancouver Style,  which is adopted by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) for databases such as Medline.  List all authors, except for references that have more than 6 authors, then list the first 6 authors followed by et al.

Below a few examples of references listed in the correct Vancouver style:

Journal article:

Waly MI, Al-Bulushi IM, Al-Hinai S, Guizani N, Al-Malki RN, Rahman MS. The
Protective Effect of Curcumin against Nitrosamine-Induced Gastric Oxidative
Stress in Rats. Prev Nutr Food Sci. 2018 Dec;23(4):288-293. doi:
10.3746/pnf.2018.23.4.288. Epub 2018 Dec 31. PubMed PMID: 30675457; PubMed
Central PMCID: PMC6342541.

Organization as an author :

Royal Adelaide Hospital; the University of Adelaide, Department of Clinical Nursing. Compendium of nursing research and practice development, 1999-2000. Adelaide(Australia):Adelaide University; 2001.

 Book, editors:

Berkow R, Fletcher AJ, editors.  The Merck manual of diagnosis and therapy.  16^th ed. Rahway (NJ):  Merck Research Laboratories; 1992.

Chapter in a book:

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

Dictionary entry:

Dorland’s illustrated medical dictionary. 29th ed.Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders; 2000. Filamin; p. 675.

Newspaper article:

Tynan T. Medical improvements lower homicide rate: study sees drop in assault rate. TheWashingtonPost. 2002 Aug 12;Sect. A:2 (col. 4).

Legal material:

Regulated Health Professions Act, 1991, Stat. Ontario, 1991 Ch.18, as amended by 1993, Ch.37:  office consolidation. Toronto:  Queen’s Printer for Ontario; 1994.

CD-ROM:

AndersonSC, Poulsen KB.Anderson’s electronic atlas of hematology [CD-ROM].Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins; 2002.

Journal article on the internet:

Abood S. Quality improvement initiative in nursing homes: the ANA acts in an advisory role. Am J Nurs [serial on the Internet]. 2002 Jun [cited 2002 Aug 12];102(6):[about 3 p.]. Available from: http://www.nursingworld.org/AJN/2002/june/Wawatch.htm.

Open access books:

Foley KM, Gelband H, editors. Improving palliative care for cancer [monograph on the Internet]. Washington: National Academy Press; 2001 [cited 2002 Jul 9]. Available from: http://www.nap.edu/books/0309074029/html/.

Encyclopedia on the internet:

A.D.A.M. medical encyclopedia [Internet].Atlanta: A.D.A.M., Inc.; c2005 [cited 2007 Mar 26]. Available from: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/encyclopedia.html.

 Internet homepage/website:

 Canadian Cancer Society [homepage on the Internet]. Toronto: The Society; 2006 [updated 2006 May 12; cited 2006 Oct 17]. Available from: http://www.cancer.ca/.

Part of an Internet homepage/website:

American Medical Association [homepage on the Internet]. Chicago: The Association; c1995-2002 [updated 2001 Aug 23; cited 2002 Aug 12]. AMA Office of Group Practice Liaison; [about 2 screens]. Available from: http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/1736.html.