Submissions

Author Guidelines

Author Guidelines

Aims & Scope:

Herbal Medicines Journal (Herb Med J), one of the official journals of the Lorestan University of Medical Sciences in Iran, is open access and quarterly peer-reviewed journal which publishes articles relating to herbal medicines and medicinal plants and their effects. There are no submission and publication fees. Herb Med J provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

Ethics in publishing:

The authors must follow national and international rules regarding animal experiments and clinical studies. Authors should specify whether they have obtained "prior informed consent" (PIC) of the patients or participants taking part in their studies. In other words, it is the sole responsibility of the authors to follow the principles of research ethics. Papers that do not respect these principles will not be accepted or considered for publication in Herb Med J.

The publication of an article in a peer-reviewed journal is an important building block in the improvement of a logical and appreciated net of knowledge. It is a direct consideration of the superiority of the work of the authors and the institutions that support them.

It is therefore essential to agree upon standards of estimated ethical behavior for all events involved in the act of publishing. In this case, the journal follows COPE (https://publicationethics.org/appeals) and ICMJE (http://www.icmje.org) ethical guidelines.

Complaints:

In this journal, complaints are handled according to the COPE guidelines by the Editorial Board of the journal.

Authorship criteria: 

The authorship criteria for Herb Med J are according to the ICMJE protocol or COPE guidelines.
http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html

Note: Co‐first and co‐corresponding authors are acceptable in Herb Med J.

Changes to authorship:

The list of authors and their order must be presented carefully. Any changes made to the list and order of authors must be done before the paper has been accepted and must be approved by the Editor. The corresponding author should explain the reason for the addition, removal, or rearrangement of the author(s). Written confirmation (e-mail, letter) from all the authors is also needed for these changes.

Conflicts of interest:

All authors must reveal any financial and private relations with other people or governments that could unsuitably effect (bias) their work base on COPE guidelines ((https://publicationethics.org/taxonomy/term/730). Cases of probable conflicting interests include employment, consultancies, normal proprietorship, scholarships, paid expert evidence, manifest presentations/registering, and grants or other funding. If there are no conflicts of interest, authors should state that there are none. Also, the potential conflicts of interest of editors (https://publicationethics.org/taxonomy/term/731)and reviewers (https://publicationethics.org/taxonomy/term/733) are handled according to COPE guidelines.

Submission declaration and verification:

By submitting your paper, you agree that your paper has not been published elsewhere or is not under consideration for publication. You also agree that all the authors approved the publication in Herb Med J. If accepted for publication in Herb Med J, you give your consent that it will not be published elsewhere in the same form in English or any other language, electronically or otherwise, without the approval of the copyright holder. The originality of the paper may be checked using originality verification services, but all the responsibility of any kind of plagiarism refers to the authors.

Policy against misconduct: In this journal, processes and policies for identification of/dealing with allegations of misconduct (eg, plagiarism, falsification/fabrication of data, etc.) are handled according to the COPE guidelines by the Editor in Chief of the journal. https://publicationethics.org/case/plagiarism-3.

Policy against plagiarism (for the author)

All manuscripts are checked for plagiarism, duplication of the titles, and similarities of the English abstracts. Also, self-plagiarism is very important to us.

Policy against plagiarism (for the reviewer)

All manuscripts are checked for plagiarism, duplication of the titles, and similarities of the English abstracts in the manuscript record.

Copyright policy:

This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons license (CC-BY). The license permits any user to read, copy, redistribute and make derivative the material in any medium or format for any purpose, even commercially. The copyright terms are added to all published articles.

Peer review process:

The Herbal Medicine Journal is a quarterly peer-reviewed journal. The Review process in Herb Med J is double-blind. The receipt of the papers will be acknowledged if they meet all the stated requirements. All articles submitted to the journal will be evaluated primarily by the Editors. If they are accepted initially, plagiarism will be checked. If plagiarism is found, the article will be returned to the author for correction. The review process is based on the comments of at least two reviewers and the corrections made by the authors accordingly. When the review process is over, an acceptance letter will be sent to the corresponding author. Authors can request that specific reviewers be excluded from the review process, due to conflict of interest. They can also recommend specific reviewers, but it is up to the editor to accept them. The review process will be completed within 2-3 weeks.

The editor mediates all interactions between reviewers and authors, peer reviews are not published and review is facilitated and owned by the journal. Manuscripts enter the review process anonymously. Acceptance of the article will be confirmed and notified to the author after making necessary changes in accordance with the rules of the journal. Throughout these steps, authors can be aware of their article’s status through the journal’s website. Invited manuscripts, letters, and commentaries are directly reviewed by the Editor-in-Chief.

Note: The Editorial Board of the journal retains the right to accept or reject the paper at any stage or time, or to remove any part of the paper, if necessary.

Proof Reading:

The Journal office sent a PDF file of the final version of the manuscript to the corresponding author for proofreading before publication in order to avoid any mistakes. Possible corrections should be marked clearly and sent immediately to the Journal office.

Online submission:

Authors should submit their papers online by following the instructions for the submission and uploading of manuscripts on the Herb Med J website.

Types of Manuscript Accepted in Herb Med J:

Short Communication (word limit: up to 2500 words): This type of paper can be used to present the results and details of small studies, new models or hypotheses, chemical isolation and identification, novel methods, techniques, and clinical trials. In the case of clinical trials, the study should have previously been registered in an authorized registry network.

Literature Reviews, Systematic Review, and Meta-analysis (word limit: up to 6000 words):  Reviews and viewpoints regarding topics of current interest can be submitted to Herb Med J. The publication of reviews is also subject to peer-review.

Letter to the editor (word limit: up to 2000 words): Readers of Herb Med J can send letters for purposes of publication, commonly discussing issues of concern to the journal.

Original articles (word limit: up to 5000 words). In the case of clinical trials, the study should have previously been registered in an authorized registry network.

The journal may also consider manuscripts on “statistical notes” and “study protocols” for publication provided that the subject is useful in the field of medicinal herbs or related issues. Study protocols are considered only for clinical trials, cohorts, and other studies that provide sufficient and informative details. The study protocols can be only for proposed or ongoing researches. In the case of the clinical trial protocol, the study should have previously been registered in an authorized registry network; in addition, in the last section of the abstract under the heading “Trial Registration”, the trial registry network and related unique identifying code should be stated.

Manuscript Preparation:

All parts of the manuscript must be typed double-spaced using Times New Roman as the font. Any article written as a literature review should include an introduction, the main body, a conclusion, and finally suggestions for further reading. All original articles, systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and short communications should be written based on the following structure.

The title page: The title should be as concise as possible, and be relevant to the contents of the paper. The title page should contain the names and affiliations of the authors. The email address, phone, and fax numbers of the corresponding author should be included. The addresses of the authors should be presented in footnotes. 

Abstract: A clear and concise (no longer than 300 words) abstract should precede the main body of the manuscript. The abstract should contain information about the topic, the experiments, the obtained data, and the findings, and conclusion, structured under the subheadings of ‘Background and Aim’, ‘Materials and Methods’, ‘Results’, and ‘Conclusion’.  ‘Results and Discussion’ might be prepared in a section under the same title. Neither narrative review article needs to be structured. 

Keywords: Three to 6 keywords should follow the abstract for indexing purposes.

Introduction: The introduction must state the problem clearly, should present a literature review on the subject, and discuss the proposed approach or solution, and be understandable by colleagues from different scientific backgrounds.

Materials and methods: The description of the methods and materials should be so complete as to allow the experiments to be reproduced. However, if previously published procedures are used, the author could add the reference(s) and brief descriptions about the used procedures. Modifications of commonly used procedures or previously published procedures should be described briefly. Trade names and manufacturer names should be capitalized. The use of subheadings is required.

Statistical analysis is necessary for a separate subtitle at the end of materials and methods. The sample size in any group under investigation as well as the data analysis method should be provided.

Results: The results and findings should be presented simply and accurately, without extended interpretation, discussion, and speculation, which should be left to the discussion section.

Figures and Tables: The numbers of figures and tables vary from 2 to 5 (2 figures/tables for short communications and 5 figures/tables for other kinds of articles). 

Tables should be numbered and placed on separate pages. The table captions should be placed above the tables. Tables should not be presented as photographs. Any explanations should be placed in footnotes, not in the heading or caption. Only high-quality figures and graphs will be accepted (300dpi) and save with a form of jpeg, png, or tiff. They must be placed on separate pages and the captions should be placed below the figures. Note: Tables and figures should not present the same data. Regarding referring to the specific figure or table in the text of the article, please write Figure 1, Figure 2, ... and Table 1, Table 2, ... .

Discussion: The discussion section should be devoted to the interpretation of the findings in the present and previous studies on the topic. Conclusions should come at the end of the paper in a few sentences. Subheadings can be used. When proper, the results and discussion sections can be merged. Moreover, ‘Results and Discussion’ might be prepared in a section under the same title.

Acknowledgments: All participants who do not qualify for authorship should be covered in the acknowledgment part. It should include persons who have provided purely technical help, writing assistance, and general support. Financial and material support should also be recognized in the acknowledgments.

References: The references should be formatted according to the Vancouver style: the reference numbers should be placed within parentheses and consecutively in the order of citation in the text.

The number of references for original articles and short communications is limited to 45 and 30, respectively. Nevertheless, there is no limitation for review articles. The authors are responsible for the accuracy of the bibliographic information.  Personal communications and unpublished data including manuscripts submitted but not yet accepted for publication should not be used as a reference; nonetheless, they may be placed in parentheses in the text. Print surnames and initials of all authors when there are six or less. In the case of seven or more authors, the names of the first six authors followed by et al should be listed. Listed below, are references to a journal, a chapter in a book, and a book, respectively, incorrect style:

Journal Article:

• Gaydess A, Duysen E, Li Y, Gilman V, Kabanov A, Lockridge O, et al. Visualization of exogenous delivery of nanoformulated butyrylcholinesterase to the central nervous system. Chem Biol Interact. 2010;187:295-8.
• Javan S, Tabesh M. Action of carbon dioxide on pulmonary vasoconstriction. J Appl Physiol. In press 2005

Chapter in Book:

• Young VR. The role of skeletal muscle in the regulation of protein metabolism. In Munro HN, editor: Mammalian protein metabolism. Vol 4. San Diego; Academic; 1970. p. 585-674.

Complete Book:

• Guyton AC: Textbook of Medical Physiology. 8th ed. Philadelphia, PA, Saunders, 1996.

Abbreviations and Symbols:

Avoid abbreviations in the title and the abstract. Use standard abbreviations. Before the first use of an abbreviation, its full form must occur in the text. The full form of standard units of measurement need not be mentioned.

Reprints: 

Herb Med J is published freely online. The authors will have full access to the online published articles and can download the PDF version and print unlimited copies of their articles.

This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons license (CC-BY).  However, the license permits any user to read, copy, redistribute, and make derivative the material in any medium or format for any purpose, even commercially.