Instructions to Authors

Scholarly writing follows a scholarly process using expert knowledge and caters to adding new knowledge to expand your professional field. This is ascertained through a Peer Review Process where your professional peers review your manuscript to judge the value addition you are creating through your manuscript. You are welcome to submit your manuscript under the following areas of focus and submit them as per one of the Manuscript types that best fits them (read details about types of manuscripts to come to a decision):

Areas of Focus

  1. Humanities: Fostering Hope & Healing with Compassion , Value-Building, Professionalism and Ethics
  2. Discipline & Specialty related: Adding new evidence-based knowledge of practical use to the fraternity
  3. From the Mission fields & Community: Sharing of mission experiences ; projects that work , health & developmental interventions,
  4. Students , Learning and Medical Education: Insights from teaching and learning and experiences from the classroom, hospital & the field
  5. Continuing Professional Development and Quality Improvement: fostering improvement in professional practice & health systems

Types of Manuscripts

  1. Editorial and invited articles
  2. Original Research
  3. Review Article
  4. Letters to Editor
  5. Short Communication
  6. "Outside the Box" ideas and Good Practices

Brief Description of "Types of Manuscripts":

Editorial and invited articles

These are manuscripts on contemporary issues of interest to the audience of the journal and are meant to provide thought leadership and critical thinking for transformation of professional practice , standard of care and professional education. The Editors would invite eminent health care professional and leaders from related field to serve the above purpose.

Original articles:

These use data generated by the researcher to provide evidence and new knowledge to extend the field and includes randomized controlled trials, intervention studies, studies of screening and diagnostic test, outcome studies, cost effectiveness analyses, case-control series, and surveys with high response rate. The text of original articles amounting to up to 3000 words (excluding Abstract, references and Tables) should be divided into sections with the headings Abstract (up to 250 words), Key-words, Introduction, Material and Methods, Results, Discussion, References, Tables and Figure legends.

Review Articles:

It is expected that these articles would be written by individuals who have done substantial work on the subject or are considered experts in the field. The prescribed word count is up to 3000 words excluding tables, references and abstract. The manuscript may have up to 90 references. The manuscript Abstract word count could be up to 250 words. The section titles would depend upon the topic reviewed. The authors should describe the details of methods used to review the literature. These methods should also be summarized in the abstract.

Case reports:

New, interesting and rare cases can be reported. They should be unique, describing a great diagnostic , therapeutic or Public Health challenge. These communications could be of up to 1000 words (excluding Abstract and references). The case report should have an unstructured abstract (up to 250 words) , Key-words, Introduction, Case report, Discussion, Reference, Tables and Legends in that order. The manuscript could be of up to 1000 words (excluding references and abstract) and could be supported with up to 10 references.

Short Communication:

Short Communications are short papers that present original and significant material for rapid dissemination. They may focus on a particular aspect of a problem or a new finding that is expected to have a significant impact. Short articles include, but are not limited to: discovery or development of new materials, cutting-edge experiments and theory, novelty in simulation and modeling, elucidation of mechanisms. As Short Communications are expected to have higher than average impact on the field rather than report on incremental research, they will receive prioritized and rapid publication. Short Communications are limited to 2000 words and are not subdivided, should contain an abstract (up to 250 words), main body and references, and contain no more than 4 figures or tables, combined. The abstract is limited to 100 words.

Images and Quiz:

Interesting and teaching images can be submitted that add to the professional knowledge. Two to three images are acceptable with a short write-up of up to 150 words

Letter to the Editor:

These should be short and decisive observations. They should preferably be related to articles previously published in the Journal or views expressed preliminary observations that need a later paper for validation. The letter could have up to 500 words and 5 references.


Authorship Guidelines

A Manuscript is a result of scholarly work done in a systematic and scholarly way and involves team-work with complementary talents for successfully carrying out the work from conception, design, execution, analysis, interpretation and communicating it and its implications to practice effectively. This collective effort needs to be reflected in the way authors are listed in the manuscript. International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) under the subheading "Why Authorship matters" states: Authorship confers credit and has important academic, social, and financial implications. Authorship also implies responsibility and accountability for published work.

There is lot of misconception (and because of that lot of rancor & heartburn) among colleagues in the department who are associated with the routine department work but not with the research part related to the routine work. Hence to avoid confusion, it is better to understand and follow the "Authorship Guidelines" stated by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). On its web-page, makes the following recommendations with the intent to ensure that contributors who have made substantive intellectual contributions to a paper are given credit as authors, but also that contributors credited as authors understand their role in taking responsibility and being accountable for what is published. "Defining the Role of Authors and Contributors" (click here ) , it clearly states "Who is an Author?" based on the following 4 criteria:

    1. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
    2. Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
    3. Final approval of the version to be published; AND
    4. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.


What about those who do not fulfill ALL the above mentioned 4 criteria?

ICJME states "Authorship being associated with accountability related to the accuracy or integrity of the work being reported through the manuscript, all those designated as authors should meet all four criteria for authorship, and all who meet the four criteria should be identified as authors. Those who do not meet all four criteria should be acknowledged under "Acknowledgement" . Examples of activities that alone (without other contributions) do not qualify a contributor for authorship are acquisition of funding; general supervision of a research group or general administrative support; and writing assistance, technical editing, language editing, and proofreading. Those whose contributions do not justify authorship may be acknowledged individually or together as a group under a single heading (e.g. "Clinical Investigators" or "Participating Investigators"), and their contributions should be specified (e.g., "served as scientific advisors," "critically reviewed the study proposal," "collected data," "provided and cared for study patients", "participated in writing or technical editing of the manuscript")."

Formatting of Manuscript before submission

BeMJ follows the guidelines given by International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (click here) to guide you in the preparation of your manuscript. Detailed recommendations are given for you to prepare your manuscript for submission.

After you have finished formatting as given in the above resource, then look up the BeMJ Checklist available on the Tab "Submission of Manuscript" on this BeMJ website or click here

Forms you may need before submission

Authorship Guidelines and The Contributing Authors Declaration form , Patient Photo consent forms are available on separate web-page. To access them click here