Juntendo Medical Journal Juntendo Medical Journal; an affiliated journal, Journal of Sports Medicine and Science (Sportology)

Instructions to Authors

Submit your manuscript via Online System

JUNTENDO MEDICAL JOURNAL  (Juntendo Med J)
Instructions to Authors   PDF

Aims and Scope
Manuscript Types
Journal & Ethics Policies
Peer Review Process
Copyright, Open Access and Fees
Manuscript Submission
Manuscript Preparation
Accepted Manuscripts
Contact

Aims and Scope

Juntendo Medical Journal (JMJ; official abbreviation Juntendo Med J) is the official peer-reviewed journal of the Juntendo Medical Society. JMJ aims to introduce achievements in the fields of basic and clinical medicine, sportology (a novel scientific field integrating sports and medicine), nursing, preventive medicine, and public health. JMJ is dedicated to the international exchange of knowledge to understand, treat and control diseases. The journal provides a platform for researchers to introduce, discuss and exchange novel achievements in biomedical science. JMJ invites original articles, review articles, case reports and other articles containing new insights into any aspect of biomedical sciences and health sciences that are not published or being considered for publication elsewhere. The journal, which is freely available online at J-STAGE, publishes articles continuously online and collates them into issues six times per year.

Manuscript Types

The journal welcomes six manuscript types, all of which are subject to peer review.
 
Authors should ensure that their manuscripts, including figures and tables, do not exceed the maximum number of printed pages:
  • Original articles should not exceed 10 printed pages
  • Reviews should not exceed 12 printed pages
  • Case reports should not exceed 4 printed pages
  • Study protocols should not exceed 10 printed pages
  • Perspectives should not exceed 4 printed pages
  • Abstracts should not exceed 4 printed pages
The total number of pages can be estimated as: text, 600 words per page; References, 20 per page; Figures, four 7×5 cm figures per page.

Original Articles

Articles describing original research presented in the standard format of Abstract, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion and References.

Reviews

Reviews cover recent discoveries or topics of current interest. Reviews are occasionally commissioned by the Editor-in-Chief, and the journal welcomes proposals from interested authors.

Case Reports

Articles reporting on the following topics: previously unreported or unusual side effects or adverse interactions involving medications, unexpected or unusual presentations of a disease, new associations or variations in disease processes, presentations, diagnoses and/or management of new and emerging diseases, an unexpected association between diseases or symptoms, or an unexpected event in the course of observing or treating a patient.

Study Protocols

Articles describing study objectives, design, methods, assessment types, collection schedules, or statistical considerations for analyzing data that help to improve the standard of medical research.

Perspectives

Perspective articles are opinion pieces. They must present objective facts and include references, but are not entirely bound to the scientific rigor demanded of original articles and review articles. Examples would include advocacy for medical- or sports-related policies, reflections on the practice of medicine, and comparisons of medical systems or medical education regimes between Japan and other countries.

Abstracts

Articles describing short reports that present significant discoveries, methods, and resources and have the potential for significant and immediate impact on the scientific community. These manuscripts communicate findings that editors believe will be interesting to many researchers, and that will likely stimulate further research in the field.

Journal & Ethics Policies

JMJ upholds the highest standards in scholarly publishing. The journal supports and adheres to the industry guidelines and best practices promoted by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and follow the procedures outlined by Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) when dealing with allegations of misconduct.
 
Before submitting a manuscript to the journal, authors must ensure that they have read and complied with the journal’s policies. The journal reserves the right to reject without review, or retract, any manuscript that the Editor believes may not comply with these policies.
 
The responsibilities of the journal’s authors, editors, reviewers and publisher regarding research and publication ethics are described in full below.
 
Corresponding authors must ensure that the submitted experimental results are unpublished and not under consideration for publication elsewhere.
 
Corresponding authors must inform the editors if any related manuscripts are under consideration, in press or published elsewhere. The availability of a manuscript on a publicly accessible preprint server does not constitute prior publication (see ‘Preprints’).
 
If authors choose to submit their manuscript elsewhere before a final decision has been made on its suitability for publication in JMJ, the corresponding author should first withdraw it from the journal.

Submission

JMJ welcomes manuscript submissions from authors based anywhere in the world.
Submission of a manuscript to the journal implies that all authors: have approved it, warrant it is factual, have agreed to its submission, and have the right to publish it.

Originality

Submission to the journal implies that the manuscript is original work. The journal may use Crossref’s Similarity Check plagiarism software to screen manuscripts for unoriginal content. By submitting a manuscript to the journal, authors agree to this screening. Any manuscript with an unacceptable level of unoriginal material may be rejected or retracted at the Editors’ discretion.

Preprints

To support the wide dissemination of research, the journal encourages authors to post their research manuscripts on community-recognized preprint servers, either before or alongside submission to the journal. This policy applies only to the original version of a manuscript that describes primary research. Any version of a manuscript that has been revised in response to reviewers’ comments, accepted for publication or published in the journal should not be posted on a preprint server. Instead, forward links to the published manuscript may be posted on the preprint server.
 
Authors should retain copyright in their work when posting to a preprint server.

Scooping

When assessing the novelty of a manuscript submitted to the journal, the editors will not be influenced by other manuscripts that are posted on community-recognized preprint servers after the date of submission to JMJ (or after the date of posting on a preprint server, if the manuscript is submitted to the journal within 4 months).

Authorship

Submission to the journal implies that all authors have seen and approved the author list. Changes to the author list after manuscript submission – such as the insertion or removal of author names, or a rearrangement of author order – must be approved by all authors and the editor.
 
Authors are encouraged to consider the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) Recommendations on ‘Defining the Role of Authors and Contributors’. The ICMJE recommends that authorship be based on four criteria: making a substantial contribution to the conception or design of the work, or the acquisition, analysis or interpretation of data for the work; drafting the manuscript or reviewing it critically for important intellectual content; approving the final version of the manuscript for publication; and agreeing to be held accountable for all aspects of the work. Any contributor who has met all four criteria should be an author on the manuscript. Contributors who do not meet all four criteria should not be authors of the manuscript but may be included in the Acknowledgements section instead.   

Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)-Assisted Tools/Technologies

In consonance with the COPE’s position statement, WAME’s recommendations, and ICMJE’s Recommendation, JMJ does not allow artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted tools/technologies such as Large Language Models (LLMs), chatbots, or image creators to be listed as author or co-author. As described in the ICMJE, those tools cannot be responsible for the accuracy, integrity, and originality of the work, thus they do not meet the ICMJE’ criteria for authorship listed above.
 
The authors (humans) are fully responsible for any materials of the submitted work, including the use of AI-assisted tools or technologies. Authors should carefully review and edit the result because AI can generate authoritative-sounding output that can be incorrect, incomplete, or biased. Authors should not list AI and AI-assisted technologies as an author or co-author, nor cite AI as an author. Authors (humans) are also responsible for plagiarism including in text and AI-produced images.
 
Authors must disclose, upon submission and in the Methods (or similar section), any use of AI-assisted tools or technologies in the writing of a manuscript, production of images or graphical elements of the paper, or in the collection and analysis of data.

For example, if AI was used for writing assistance, describe this in the acknowledgment section. If AI was used for data collection, analysis, or figure generation, authors should describe this use in the methods.

Image integrity

Authors may digitally manipulate or process images, but only if the adjustments are kept to a minimum, are applied to the entire image, meet community standards, and are clearly described in the manuscript. All images in a manuscript must accurately reflect the original data on which they are based. Authors must not move, remove, add or enhance individual parts of an image. The editors reserve the right to request original, unprocessed images from the authors. Failure to provide requested images may result in a manuscript being rejected or retracted.

Reproducing copyrighted material

If a manuscript includes material that is not under the authors’ own copyright, the authors must obtain permission from the copyright holder(s) to reproduce it.
 
If a manuscript includes previously published material, the authors must obtain permission from the copyright owners and the publisher of the original work to reproduce it. The authors must cite the original work in their manuscript.
 
Copies of all reproduction permissions must be included with the manuscript when it is first submitted.

Availability of data and materials

Authors must disclose the source of publicly available data and materials, such as public repositories or commercial manufacturers, by including accession numbers or company details in their manuscript, as appropriate.
 
Authors may make their own data and materials available by linking from their manuscript to relevant community-recognized public databases or digital repositories. All data sets must be made available in full to the editors and reviewers during the peer review process, and must be made publicly available by the date of publication. Authors commit to preserving their data sets for at least three years from the date of publication in the journal.
 
The journal encourages authors to grant reasonable requests from colleagues to share any data, materials and experimental protocols described in their manuscript.
 
Also JMJ encourages authors to disclose any data which is the source of their manuscript, in J-STAGE Data, a data repository developed and managed by the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST). When publishing available data and materials from J-STAGE Data, authors must submit them to the Editorial Committee for peer review, and all research data should be distributed as open under the Creative Commons licensing.

Animal/human experimentation

Authors of manuscripts describing experiments involving humans or materials derived from humans must demonstrate that the work was carried out in accordance with the principles embodied in the World Medical Association’s (WMA) Declaration of Helsinki, its revisions, and any guidelines approved by the authors’ institutions. For Japanese research institutions, the applicable statute is the Ministry of the Environment’s notification ‘Criteria for the Care and Keeping of Laboratory Animals and Alleviation of their Suffering’. Where relevant, the authors must include a statement in their manuscript that describes the procedures for obtaining informed consent from participants regarding participation in the research and publication of the research.

In addition, the manuscripts must include a statement that the research was approved by the IRB of the authors’ affiliated institutions and the approval code issued by the IRB and the name of the institution, which granted the approval, and be prepared to provide documentation when requested by editors.
 
Authors should respect the privacy of patients and their families. 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 difficult to achieve, and informed consent should be obtained if there is any doubt.
 
Authors of manuscripts describing experiments involving animals or materials derived from animals must demonstrate that the work was carried out in accordance with the guidelines approved by the authors’ institution(s), and this must be stated within the manuscript.

Clinical trial registration

A clinical trial is defined as any research project that prospectively assigns human participants to intervention or comparison groups to study the cause-and-effect relationship between an intervention and a health outcome. The journal adheres to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) policy on Clinical Trials Registration, which recommends that all clinical trials are registered in a public trials registry at or before the time of first patient enrollment as a condition of consideration for publication. Manuscripts describing clinical trials must include the registration number of the trial and the name of the trial registry.
 
The following items are to be stated in the Methods section: how informed consent was obtained from the study participants (i.e., oral or written), the approval number from the institutional review board or ethics committee, a registration ID for the trial, and the trial’s start and end dates.

Various reporting guidelines have been developed for different study designs. Authors are encouraged to follow published standard reporting guidelines for the study discipline.
 
CONSORT for randomized clinical trials
CARE for case reports
STROBE for observational studies
PRISMA for systematic reviews and meta-analyses
STARD for studies of diagnostic accuracy
SAGER for reporting of sex and gender information
 
Please access https://www.equator-network.org/ to find the guideline that is appropriate for your study.
 
It is extremely important that when you complete any Reporting Guideline checklist that you consider amending your manuscript to ensure your article addresses all relevant reporting criteria issues delineated in the appropriate reporting checklist. The purpose of a reporting guideline is to guide you in improving the reporting standard of your manuscript. The objective is not to solely complete the reporting checklist, but to use the checklist itself in the writing of your manuscript. Taking the time to ensure your manuscript meets these basic reporting needs will greatly improve your manuscript, while also potentially enhancing its chances for eventual publication.

Reporting guidelines

The journal requires authors to follow the EQUATOR Network’s Reporting Guidelines for health research. Study types include, but are not limited to, randomized trials, observational studies, systematic reviews, case reports, qualitative research, diagnostic and prognostic studies, economic evaluations, animal pre-clinical studies and study protocols.

Author competing interests and conflicts of interest

In the interests of transparency, the journal requires all authors to declare any competing or conflicts of interest in relation to their submitted manuscript. A conflict of interest exists when there are actual, perceived or potential circumstances that could influence an author’s ability to conduct or report research impartially. Potential conflicts include (but are not limited to) competing commercial or financial interests, commercial affiliations, consulting roles, or ownership of stock or equity. A Conflicts of Interest statement must be includes in the manuscript (see the ‘Manuscript Preparation’ section below for more details).
 
Authors should list all funding sources for their work in the Funding section of their manuscript.

Confidentiality

The journal maintains the confidentiality of all unpublished manuscripts. By submitting their manuscript to the journal, the authors warrant that they will keep all correspondence about their manuscript (from the Editorial Office, editors and reviewers) strictly confidential.

Self-archiving (Green Open Access) policy

Self-archiving, also known as Green Open Access, enables authors to deposit a copy of their manuscript in an online repository. JMJ encourages authors of original research manuscripts to upload their article to an institutional or public repository immediately after publication in the journal.  

Long-term digital archiving

J-STAGE preserves its full digital library, including JMJ, with Portico in a dark archive (see https://www.portico.org/publishers/jstage/). In the event that the material becomes unavailable at J-STAGE, it will be released and made available by Portico.

Peer Review Process

Editorial and peer review process

JMJ undertakes single-anonymized peer review. When a manuscript is submitted to the journal, it is assigned to the Editor-in-Chief, who performs initial screening. Manuscripts that do not fit the journal’s scope or are not deemed suitable for publication are rejected without review. For peer reviewing, the manuscripts that pass through the initial screening are assigned to two external reviewers by the Editor-in-Chief. Reviewers are selected based on their expertise, reputation and previous experience as peer reviewers. The deadline for submission of the reviewers’ reports is basically 3 weeks.
 
Upon receipt of the two reviewers’ reports, the Editor-in-Chief makes the first decision on the manuscript. If the decision is to request revision of the manuscript, authors are requested to re-submit their revised manuscript within one to six months, depending on the comments of the reviewers. Revised manuscripts submitted after this deadline may be treated as new submissions. The Editor-in-Chief may send the revised manuscripts to peer reviewers for their feedback or may use his or her own judgment to assess how closely the authors have followed the Editor-in-Chief’s and the reviewers’ comments on the original manuscript. The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for making the final decision on each manuscript.
 
If a manuscript satisfies the journal’s requirements and represents a significant contribution to the published literature, the Editor-in-Chief may recommend acceptance for publication in JMJ. If a manuscript does not meet the journal’s requirements for acceptance, but it has a high probability of acceptance after minor or major revision, the Editor-in-Chief may ask the authors to revise it accordingly. Revised manuscripts must be submitted within one to six months, depending on the comments of the reviewers; otherwise they will be treated as new submissions. If a manuscript does not meet the journal’s requirements for acceptance or revision, the Editor-in-Chief may recommend rejection.

Reviewer selection, timing and suggestions

Reviewers are selected without regard to geography and need not belong to the journal’s Editorial Board. Reviewers are selected based on their expertise in the field, reputation, recommendation by others, and/or previous experience as peer reviewers for the journal.
 
Reviewers are invited within 2 weeks of an article being submitted. Reviewers are asked to review the manuscript based on the Acceptance criteria, described below, and submit their first review reports within 3 weeks of accepting the invitation to review. Reviewers who anticipate any delays should inform the Editorial Office as soon as possible.
 
When submitting a manuscript to the journal, authors may suggest reviewers that they would like included in the peer review process. The Editor may consider these suggestions but is under no obligation to follow them. The selection, invitation and assignment of peer reviewers is at the Editor’s sole discretion.

Reviewer reports

It is the journal’s policy to transmit reviewers’ comments to the authors in their original form. However, the journal reserves the right to edit reviewers’ comments, without consulting the reviewers, if they contain offensive language, confidential information or recommendations for publication.

Acceptance criteria

If a manuscript satisfies the journal’s requirements and represents a valuable contribution to the published literature, the Editor-in-Chief may recommend the acceptance for publication in JMJ.

The questions addressed when considering a manuscript for publication in JMJ are as follows:
Relevance:
  • Is the work within the journal’s Aims and Scope?
Reproducibility:
  • Do authors show sufficient information to reproduce their experiments or data?
Written quality:
  • Is the manuscript clearly presented?
Title:
  • Does the Title accurately reflect the contents of the manuscript?
Abstract:
  •  Does the Abstract adequately describe the background or context of the work, the objectives of the research project and the methods used?
Introduction:
  • Does the Introduction provide adequate background and context for the work?
Materials and Methods:
  • Have the authors described the methods in enough detail to allow others to replicate them?
  • Have the authors adhered to established codes of practice and ethics if human/animal experimentation has been undertaken?
  • Did the authors use appropriate methods?
Results:
  • Have the authors explained their results clearly and adequately?
Discussion:
  • Is the Discussion supported by the results?
  • Have the authors considered any alternative explanations for their results?
  • Have the authors made unsupported claims or inappropriate speculations?
General:
  • Are all cited references relevant and necessary?
  • Has any relevant literature been omitted?
  • Have the authors cited the data described in the manuscript adequately?
  • Is each table and figure necessary?
  • Are any potentially useful figures or tables missing?
  • Are the tables and figures complete and interpretable?
  • Is the manuscript clearly written in English?
  • Have the authors adhered to established codes of publication ethics?
  • Are there any errors in fact, methodology, or analyses?
  • Has the manuscript been published previously, in part or in whole, in any language?
 
If a manuscript does not meet the journal’s requirements for acceptance or revision, the Editor-in-Chief may recommend rejection.

Editorial independence

As the journal owner, the Juntendo Medical Society (JMS) has granted the journal’s Editorial Board complete and sole responsibility for all editorial decisions. The JMS will not become involved in editorial decisions, except in cases of a fundamental breakdown of process.
 
Editorial decisions are based only on a manuscript’s scientific merit and are kept completely separate from the journal’s other interests. The authors’ ability to pay any publication charges has no bearing on whether a manuscript is accepted for publication in the journal.

Appeals

Authors who believe that an editorial decision has been made in error may lodge an appeal with the Editorial Office. Appeals are only considered if the authors provide detailed evidence of a misunderstanding or mistake by a reviewer or editor. Appeals are considered carefully by the Editor-in-Chief, whose decision is final. The guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) are followed where and when relevant.

Confidentiality in peer review

The journal maintains the confidentiality of all unpublished manuscripts. Editors will not:
  1. disclose a reviewer’s identity unless the reviewer makes a reasonable request for such disclosure
  2. discuss the manuscript or its contents with anyone not directly involved with the manuscript or its peer review
  3. use any data or information from the manuscript in their own work or publications
  4. use information obtained from the peer review process to provide an advantage to themselves or anyone else, or to disadvantage any individual or organization.

Conflicts of interest in peer review

A conflict of interest exists when there are actual, perceived or potential circumstances that could influence an editor’s ability to act impartially when assessing a manuscript. Such circumstances might include having a personal or professional relationship with an author, working on the same topic or in direct competition with an author, having a financial stake in the work or its publication, or having seen previous versions of the manuscript.
 
Members of the journal’s Editorial Board undertake to declare any conflicts of interest when handling manuscripts. An editor who declares a conflict of interest is unassigned from the manuscript in question and is replaced by a new editor.
 
Editors try to avoid conflicts of interest when inviting reviewers, but it is not always possible to identify potential bias. Reviewers are asked to declare any conflicts of interest to the Editor, who will determine the best course of action.

Errata and retractions

The journal recognizes the importance of maintaining the integrity of published literature.
 
A published article that contains an error may be corrected through the publication of an Erratum. Errata describe errors that significantly affect the scientific integrity of a publication, the reputation of the authors, or the journal itself. Authors who wish to correct a published article should contact the editor who handled their manuscript or the Editorial Office with full details of the error(s) and their requested changes. In cases where co-authors disagree over a correction, the Editor-in-Chief may consult the Editorial Board or external peer reviewers for advice. If a Correction is published, any dissenting authors will be noted in the text.
 
A published article that contains invalid or unreliable results or conclusions, has been published elsewhere, or has infringed codes of conduct (covering research or publication ethics) may be retracted. Individuals who believe that a published article should be retracted are encouraged to contact the journal’s Editorial Office with full details of their concerns. The Editor-in-Chief will investigate further and contact the authors of the published article for their response. In cases where co-authors disagree over a retraction, the Editor-in-Chief may consult the Editorial Board or external peer reviewers for advice. If a Retraction is published, any dissenting authors will be noted in the text.
 
The decision to publish Errata or Retractions is made at the sole discretion of the Editor-in-Chief.

Editors as authors in the journal

Any member of the journal’s Editorial Board, including the Editor-in-Chief, who is an author on a submitted manuscript is excluded from the peer review process and from viewing details about their manuscript.
 
A manuscript authored by an editor of JMJ is subject to the same high standards of peer review and editorial decision making as any manuscript considered by the journal.

Responding to potential ethical breaches

The journal will respond to allegations of ethical breaches by following its own policies and, where possible, the guidelines of COPE.

Reviewer Confidentiality

As part of their responsibilities, reviewers agree to maintain the confidentiality of unpublished manuscripts at all times. By accepting the invitation to review a manuscript, reviewers agree not to:
  1. disclose their role in reviewing the manuscript
  2. reveal their identity to any of the authors of the manuscript
  3. discuss the manuscript or its contents with anyone not directly involved in the review process
  4. involve anyone else in the review (for example, a post-doc or PhD student) without first requesting permission from the Editor
  5. use any data or information from the manuscript in their own work or publications
  6. use information obtained from the peer review process to provide an advantage to themselves or anyone else, or to disadvantage any individual or organization.

Use of AI-Assisted Tools/Technologies in the Peer Review Process

Reviewers are prohibited from uploading the manuscript to software or AI-assisted tools/technologies where the confidentiality is not assured. It is required to disclose to the journal if any AI-assisted tools or technologies are used to facilitate the review. Reviewers should be aware that AI can generate authoritative-sounding output that can be incorrect, incomplete, or biased.

Reviewers must request permission from the journal prior to using AI technology to facilitate their review.

Copyright, Open Access and Fees

Copyright and licensing

JMJ is fully Open Access and uses the Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 (Attribution 4.0 International). This license allows users to share and adapt an article, even commercially, as long as appropriate credit is given.
 
Authors are required to assign all copyrights in the work to the Society, who then publish the work under the CC BY 4.0 International license.
 
Some funding bodies require articles funded by them to be published under a specific Creative Commons license. Before submitting your work to the journal, check with the relevant funding bodies to ensure that you comply with any mandates.

Article Processing Charge

There are many costs associated with publishing scholarly journals, such as those of managing peer review, copy editing, typesetting and online hosting. To cover these costs in the absence of journal subscriptions, authors (or their representatives) are asked to pay article processing charges (APCs). There is no submission fee.
 
All articles, with the exception of those requested by the Editorial Board, attract publication expenses which must be borne by the authors. Authors will be notified of the exact sum.
 
The APC depends on the article type and the total number of typeset pages. The table below indicates how many pages are free of charge for each article type. Each page over this limit attracts a fee of 24,000 JPY/printed page.


JMS Members All others
Original articles The first 5 pages The first 3 pages
Reviews The first 5 pages The first 3 pages
Case reports The first 2 pages The first 1 page
Study protocols
The first 5 pages
The first 3 pages
Perspectives
The first 2 pages
The first 1 page
Abstracts
The first 2 pages
The first 1 page
Color printing charges: 30,000 JPY per page
Reprint charges: All reprints will be charged according to the actual printing costs.

Waiver policy

Waivers for APCs are provided automatically when the corresponding author is from a “Group A” Research4Life country. In cases of demonstrated financial hardship, the journal will consider a pre-submission application for a waiver from any corresponding author to [provide email address of person to contact]. Applications cannot be made after the peer review process has begun.
 
The ability of an author to pay the APC does not influence editorial decisions. To avoid any possibility of undue influence, editors involved with the decision-making process on submitted manuscripts are not involved in any deliberations on waivers.

Manuscript Submission

Manuscripts should be submitted online via the Juntendo Medical Journal online submission and peer review page on ScholarOne Manuscripts (https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jmj).
Simply log on to ScholarOne Manuscripts and follow the onscreen instructions for all submissions. You will need to register before your first submission to Juntendo Medical Journal. If you have any technical problems or questions related to the electronic submission process, please contact our Editorial Office:
 
Juntendo Medical Journal Editorial Office
c/o International Medical Information Center
2F Shinanomachi Rengakan,
35 Shinanomachi, Shinjuku-ku,
Tokyo 160-0016, JAPAN
Phone: +81-3-5361-7089
E-mail:jmj@imic.or.jp

Manuscript Preparation

Style

Manuscripts should be prepared in Microsoft Word or other appropriate software using double line spacing throughout, page numbers on the lower right, and with margins of at least 2.5 cm.

English standards

Manuscripts should be written in clear, grammatically correct English. Authors whose native language is not English are strongly encouraged to have their manuscript checked by a native English speaker or by an editing service prior to submission; a certificate of English editing that accompanies submissions can be useful in many circumstances. If a manuscript is not clear due to poor English, it may be rejected without undergoing peer review.

Format

The first page of each manuscript should contain: Title, Authors’ full names, Affiliations, Key words, Running Title, and the name and full address (including telephone number, facsimile number, and e-mail address) of the corresponding author.
 
Manuscripts should be divided into the following sections and presented in this order: Introduction; Materials and Methods; Results; Discussion; Acknowledgements; Funding; Authors’ contributions; Conflicting interest statement; and References.
 
Manuscripts should be arranged in the following order: 1. Title page; 2. Abstract and keywords; 3. main text; 4. Acknowledgements, Funding, Author Contributions, Conflict of interest statements; 5. tables together with any accompanying legends; 6. figure legends; 7. other as required. Each of the numbered items should begin on a separate page.

Title page

The first page should include:
  1. The title of the manuscript in sentence case. No abbreviations other than gene names or in common use
  2. Full names of all authors and ORCID ID (https://orcid.org) if desired
  3. Affiliations of the authors; use numbers not symbols
  4. If authors make an equal contribution, indicated with an asterisk (up to 2 authors, including the first author) and a note indicating this under the author names
  5. Name, full postal address, including street number and name, and e-mail address of the corresponding author(s)
  6. Key words (no more than five key words). Refer to Medical Subject Headings in MeSH or Index Medicus
  7. Running title preceded by the first author’s name (maximum 120 characters with spaces, including the author’s name).

Title

The title should describe the content of the article briefly but clearly and is important for search purposes by third-party services. Do not use the same main title with numbered minor titles, even for a series of papers by the same authors. Do not use abbreviations in the title, except those used generally in related fields.

Footnotes

Footnotes, if any, should be typed in a separate sheet (the second page of the manuscript). Abbreviations should also be listed on this page.

Abbreviations

Each abbreviation should be defined in parentheses together with its non-abbreviated term when it first appears in the text (except in the Title and Abstract).

Units

SI or SI-derived units should be used. More information on SI units is available at the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (BIPM) website.

Abstract

The second (and, if necessary, the third) page of the manuscript should contain only the abstract (maximum 250 words). The abstract must be fully comprehensible without reference to the text. Abstracts should be divided into sections as follows:
  1. Objectives
  2. Materials (or “Design”)
  3. Methods (or “Interventions”)
  4. Results
  5. Conclusions

Introduction

The Introduction should provide sufficient background information to allow the reader to understand the purpose of the investigation and its relationship with other research in related fields, although it should not include an extensive review of the literature.

Materials and Methods

The description of the methods should be brief, but it must include sufficient details to allow the experiments to be repeated. The sources of unusual chemicals, animals, microbial strains or equipment should be described, and the location (city, country) of the company should be provided in parentheses. If hazardous materials or dangerous procedures are used in the experiments and the precautions related to their handling are not widely recognized, it is recommended that the authors provide the necessary details. 

Authors who used AI technology to conduct the study should describe its use in the methods section in sufficient detail to enable replication of the approach, including the tool used, version, and prompts where applicable.

Results

This section includes the results of the experiments. The Results and Discussion sections may be combined if this helps readers to understand and evaluate the study. Tables and figures, including photographs, can be used to present the experimental results (see below). Excessive explanations of the data presented in tables and figures should be avoided.

Discussion

The Conclusion or Discussion should be concise and should deal with the interpretation of the results. Novel models or hypotheses may be proposed in this section only if they are suggested by the results obtained in the experiments. Do not repeat the description of the experimental results in this section.

Acknowledgments

Contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in the Acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, or a department chair who provided only general support. If you do not have anyone to acknowledge, please write “Not applicable” in this section.

Funding

All articles should have a funding acknowledgement statement included in the manuscript in the form of a sentence under a separate heading entitled “Funding” directly after Acknowledgements section, if applicable. The funding agency should be written out in full, followed by the grant number in brackets. Multiple grant numbers should be separated by commas and spaces. Where the research was supported by more than one agency, the different agencies should be separated by semicolon, with “and” before the final funder. If the research is not funded by a specific project grant, please state in the manuscript as follows: “The author(s) received no financial support for the research” or “No funding was received”.

Author contributions

The individual contributions of authors to the manuscript should be specified in this section after Funding section. Please use initials to refer to each author’s contribution in this section, for example: “AU analyzed and interpreted the patient data regarding the hematological disease. KT performed the histological examination of the liver, and was a major contributor in writing the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.”

Conflicts of interest statement

All manuscripts must include a “Conflicts of Interest statement” in line with the ‘Author competing interests and conflicts of interest’ section above. If no conflicts exist, please state that “The Author(s) declare(s) that there are no conflicts of interest”. If the Editorial Board member(s) of JMJ is (are) included as author(s) of the manuscript, please state that "AUTHOR (the name of the member), one of the Editorial Board members of JMJ was not involved in the peer review or decision-making process for this paper.

References

References, including those given in tables and figure legends, should be numbered sequentially in the order they appear in the text and listed in numerical order at the end of the manuscript under the heading “References”. Including AI-generated material as the primary source in the reference is not allowed. In the text, citations should be indicated as superscript numbers with an end parenthesis character following each citation number. Three or more consecutive citations should be indicated as a range using a hyphen, e.g. “3)-5)”. Journal titles should be abbreviated as shown in Index Medicus and List of Journals Indexed. When there are six or fewer authors, all should be listed; when there are seven or more, include only the first three and add “et al.” Please note the following examples.
 
Example citation list entries:
Journal article
1) You WC, Blot WJ, Li JY, et al: Precancerous gastric lesions in a population at high risk of stomach cancer. Cancer Res, 1993; 53: 1317-1321.
 
Book
2) Matsumoto A, Arai Y: Hypothalamus. In: Matsumoto A, Ishii S, eds. Atlas of Endocrine Organs. Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1992: 25-38.

Tables

Tables with suitable titles and numbered with Arabic numerals should be placed at the end of the text on separate sheets (one table per page). They should be understandable without referring to the text. Column headings should be kept as brief as possible, with units for numerical information included in parentheses. Footnotes should be labeled a), b), c), etc. and typed on the same page as the table they refer to.

Figures

Figures should also be submitted online as separate files. They should be numbered in order of appearance with Arabic numerals (e.g. Fig. 1, Fig. 2). Author(s) must pay printing costs for color photographs. Electron micrographs should contain a scale. Individual figures may not exceed the size of a Journal page. Graphs or drawings containing typewritten characters are unacceptable. Numbers, letters and symbols must be large enough to be legible after reduction. In principle, figures should be suitable for publication, and jpg digital files preferred. Each figure must have an accompanying legend, which should be understandable without reference to the text. All figure legends are to be double spaced, and should be collected together as text page(s), rather than being attached to their respective figures.

Cover letter

Summarize briefly the important points of the submitted work including a brief description of the study to be submitted, that it is an original study presenting novel work, that it has not been previously submitted to or accepted by any other journal, that is has been approved by all authors, and explain whether any author has a conflict of interest.

Accepted Manuscripts

Manuscripts that are accepted for publication are copyedited and typeset by the journal’s production team before publication. The journal is published 6 times per year / continuously online. All communication regarding accepted manuscripts is with the corresponding author.

Proofs

Page proofs are sent to the corresponding author, who should check and return them within 48 hours. Only essential corrections to typesetting errors or omissions are accepted; excessive changes are not permitted at the proofing stage.

Reprints

Order forms for reprints are sent with the proofs to the corresponding author and should be returned with the proofs. The corresponding author will be sent a PDF of the paper on publication.

Contact

To contact the Editorial Office or the Editor-in-Chief, please write to:
 
Juntendo Medical Journal Editorial Office
c/o International Medical Information Center
2F Shinanomachi Rengakan,
35 Shinanomachi, Shinjuku-ku,
Tokyo 160-0016, JAPAN
Phone: +81-3-5361-7089
E-mail:jmj@imic.or.jp
 
Updated: 27 May 2024

Copyright © The Juntendo Medical Society