Australian Journal of Rural Health

Author Guidelines

Australian Journal of Rural Health is the official English journal of the National Rural Health Alliance Inc. and publishes papers on all aspects of rural health practice, research and education. The content of the journal includes papers of the following type: review articles, original research articles, clinical perspectives, invited comments, letters, book reviews, reports and meeting announcements in the broad area of rural health practice, research policy and education. The journal will also include a section called reflections on practice in which authors can detail aspects of their rural practice. While the content of reflections may be less formal than that of a research report, journal conventions for style and citation should be followed. Contributors are asked to specify the section for which they wish their manuscript to be considered. The Editor encourages new and inexperienced authors to contribute papers. Help and advice will be given to enable publication in this quality journal. The acceptance criteria for all papers are the quality and originality of the research and its significance to our readership. Except where otherwise stated, manuscripts are peer reviewed by two anonymous reviewers and the Editor. The Editorial Board reserves the right to refuse any material for publication and advises that authors should retain copies of submitted manuscripts and correspondence as material cannot be returned. Final acceptance or rejection rests with the Editorial Board.

SUBMISSION OF MANUSCRIPTS
All articles submitted to the journal must comply with these instructions. Failure to do so will result in return of the manuscript and possible delay in publication.  Manuscripts should be written so that they are intelligible to the professional reader who is not a specialist in the particular field. Where contributions are judged as acceptable for publication on the basis of scientific content, the Editor or the Publisher reserve the right to modify typescripts to eliminate ambiguity and repetition and improve communication between author and reader. If extensive alterations are required, the manuscript will be returned to the author for revision.

Original Research Papers
These should report original research relevant to rural health in a way that is accessible to readers of a general journal. They should follow the IMRAD style (introduction, methods, results and discussion) and should have a structured abstract (see abstract and keywords below). We know that people don't read long papers unless they’re very interested in the subject. So please try to make your paper concise and make every word count. Think hard about what really needs to be in the paper to get your message across and what can be left out. We ask for papers that are no longer than 2000 words, with a maximum of six tables or illustrations and 24 references (up to 50 for systematic reviews). Papers that are over the word limit will not be accepted because they will overwhelm (or, perhaps, bore) editors, reviewers and readers. The secret of readability is short words, short sentences, short paragraphs and white space.

These Papers May Be Recordable For DEST Higher Education Research Data Collection (HERDC)

Quality improvement reports
We are keen to publish interesting and important descriptive reports on how people try to change and improve health services. Such reports do not contain original science and do not fit easily into the standard IMRaD format for research papers. The reports are structured like this:

• Brief description of context: relevant details of staff and function of department, team, unit, patient group 
• Outline of problem: what were you trying to accomplish? 
• Key measures for improvement: what would constitute improvement in the view of patients? 
• Process of gathering information: methods used to assess problems 
• Analysis and interpretation: how did this information help your understanding of the problem? 
• Strategy for change: what actual changes were made, how were they implemented, and who was involved in the change process? 
• Effects of change: did this lead to improvement for patients – how did you know? 
• Next steps: what have you learnt/achieved and how will you take this forward?

Quality improvement reports should not exceed 1500 words and 24 references. They should have structured abstracts with these headings – problem, design, setting, key measures for improvement, strategies for change, effects of change, lessons learnt.

Short reports
These must not exceed 600 words and contain no more than one table or illustration and five references. Please provide a word count for the main text (excluding the references and the table or illustration).
The text of a short report has three parts:
• Introduction (untitled)  
• Participants, methods and results
• Comment.

Short reports have no abstracts so it can be hard for readers to discern from them the bottom line. To help readers, please give the main message of the paper in the first sentence of the comment section.

These Reports May Be Recordable For DEST Higher Education Research Data Collection (HERDC)

Letters to the Editor
We prefer to receive all letters electronically, sent directly to ajr.eo@wiley.com

If you don't have access to email please send your letter on disk. If it arrives on paper only we will consider it, but we may take longer to consider it. Letters should:
• Relate to articles published in the AJRH in the preceding issue
• Not exceed 400 words
• Have a maximum of five references, including one to the related AJRH article
• Be signed by all the authors
• Be accompanied by each author’s current appointment and full address, and a phone and fax number and email address for the corresponding author
• Letters will be edited and may be shortened. Unpublished letters may be sent to the author of the article to which they refer.

Did you know? Practical Practice Pointers
With the journals multiprofessional readership in mind, if you have something that would help others to improve practice, or make life easier, how about writing about it and letting the rest of us know? If you know of a colleague who could do this, persuade them to share it with us all. These articles have the same length and structure as short reports (up to 600 words).

Grazings
In Grazings we will publish short reflections, humorous or philosophical pieces, whatever you care to write. These should be around 450 words.

Obituaries
Obituaries are really important. Readers like to hear of rural lives and being health professionals. ‘Self-written obituaries’ (written in the first person) are welcome. In all obituaries we need to know the full name of the deceased, main job title, date of birth, date and place of qualification and exact date of death. We also encourage authors to include the cause of death. Obituaries should be around 250 words and will be considered by an editorial committee and may be shortened.

Fillers
We welcome articles of up to 600 words (we also like much shorter ones) on topics such as:
• A patient who changed my practice
• A memorable patient
• A paper that changed my practice
• The person who has influenced me most
• My most informative mistake
• Five things I wish I knew before
• Any other story conveying instruction, pathos or humor

Reviews
Contributions such as book and multimedia reviews are welcome, but should be discussed with the editor beforehand. The attraction of a review for most of our readers is that it tells them something new and interesting about the subject. We would like the review to be an essay written around the material: although you should comment on the scope and quality, we do not need a detailed account of the material’s good and bad points. Reviews should be about 400 words long without references. Please rate the material with up to four stars (four being truly outstanding).

Covering letter
Papers are accepted for publication in the journal on the understanding that the content has not been published or submitted for publication elsewhere. This must be stated in the covering letter. Authors must also state that the protocol for the research project has been approved by a suitably constituted Ethics Committee of the institution within which the work was undertaken and that it conforms to the provisions of the Declaration of Helsinki in 1995 (as revised in Tokyo 2004). All investigations on human subjects must include a statement that the subject gave informed consent and patient anonymity should be preserved.

Authors should declare any financial support or relationships that may pose conflict of interest.

Submission
Manuscripts should be submitted online at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ajrh
Authors must supply an email address as all correspondence will be by email. Two files should be supplied: the covering letter and the manuscript (in Word or rich text format (.rtf)). The covering letter should be uploaded as a file not for review.

All articles submitted to the Journal must comply with these instructions. Failure to do so will result in return of the manuscript and possible delay in publication.

For further assistance please contact the editorial office:
Australian Journal of Rural Health
155 Cremorne Street
Richmond
Victoria 3121
Australia
Email: ajr.eo@wiley.com
Tel: ( 61) 3 9274 3118; fax: ( 61) 3 9274 3390.  

Pre-submission English-language editing
Authors for whom English is a second language may choose to have their manuscript professionally edited before submission to improve the English. A list of independent suppliers of editing services can be found at http://authorservices.wiley.com/bauthor/english_language.asp  
Japanese authors can also find a list of local English improvement services at http://www.wiley.co.jp/journals/editcontribute.html. All services are paid for and arranged by the author, and use of one of these services does not guarantee acceptance or preference for publication.

Copyright
Papers accepted for publication become copyright of the National Rural Health Alliance Inc. and authors will be asked to sign an Exclusive Licence Form. In signing the form it is assumed that authors have obtained permission to use any copyrighted or previously published material. All authors must read and agree to the conditions outlined in the form, and must sign the form or agree that the corresponding author can sign on their behalf. Articles cannot be published until a signed form has been received. Authors can download the form from http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/pdf/ajr_elf.pdf

Author material archive policy
Authors who require the return of any submitted material that is accepted for publication should inform the Editorial Office after acceptance. If no indication is given that author material should be returned, Wiley-Blackwell will dispose of all hardcopy and electronic material two months after publication.

PREPARATION OF THE MANUSCRIPT
All pages should be numbered consecutively in the bottom right-hand corner, beginning with the title page. Indent new paragraphs. Turn the hyphenation option off, including only those hyphens that are essential to the meaning.

Style
Manuscripts should follow the style of the Vancouver agreement detailed in the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors’ revised ‘Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals: Writing and Editing for Biomedical Publication’, as presented at www.ICMJE.org/.
The journal uses Australian spelling and authors should therefore follow the latest edition of the Macquarie Dictionary.
Use s-spellings: minimise, organisation, capitalisation.
All measurements must be given in SI units as outlined in the latest edition of Units, Symbols and Abbreviations: A Guide for Medical and Scientific Editors and Authors (Royal Society of Medicine Press, London).
Abbreviations should be used sparingly and only where they ease the reader’s task by reducing repetition of long, technical terms. Initially use the word in full, followed by the abbreviation in parentheses. Thereafter use the abbreviation.
Drugs should be referred to by their generic names, rather than brand names.

Parts of the manuscript
Manuscripts should be presented in the following order (i) title page, (ii) abstract and keywords (see heading below for further information), (iii) “what this paper adds” (see heading below for further information), (iv) text, (v) acknowledgements, (vi) references, (vii) figure legends, (viii) tables (each table complete with title and footnotes) and (ix) figures. Footnotes to the text are not allowed and any such material should be incorporated into the text as parenthetical matter.

Title page
The title page should contain (i) the title of the paper, (ii) the full names of the authors and (iii) the addresses of the institutions at which the work was carried out together with (iv) the full postal and email address, plus facsimile and telephone numbers, of the author to whom correspondence about the manuscript, proofs and requests for offprints should be sent. In keeping with the latest guidelines of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, each author’s contribution to the paper is to be quantified. The title should be short, informative and contain the major key words. A short running title (less than 40 characters, including spaces) should also be provided.

Abstract and key words
Articles must have a structured abstract of no more than 250 words that provides a structure that ensures that essential information is included in the abstract. They are used in all full length originals. Headings to be used are:
Objective – give the broad aim of the study.
Design – case control, randomised double blind etc.
Setting – primary care, outpatient clinic, tertiary referral centre.
Participants – numbers, sex, ethnic group if appropriate and clear definitions.
Interventions – delete this heading if there were none.
Main outcome measure(s) – This is often little more than a more specific restatement of the objective, and sometimes there may be multiple outcome measures. But if, for example, the objective was to determine whether drug x was effective in prophylaxis of asthma, then the main outcome measures might be peak expiratory flow measure and the presence of symptoms.
Results – give numerical data rather than vague statements that drug x produced a better response than drug y. Favour confidence intervals over P values and never give a lone P value without the numerical data on which it is based.
Conclusions – important because it is often all that people read. Make sure that it doesn’t make any claims that are not in the paper and that it reflects accurately the paper’s conclusions. The first few items – objective, design, setting – may be note-like and need not form full sentences. However, the limited data we have suggests that readers prefer reading proper narrative prose with verbs and articles, so the results and conclusion sections at least should be written properly.

No references in the abstract. See full guidelines at the Wiley-Blackwell web page for further details wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/AJR.
Five key words should be supplied below the abstract and should be words that are not in the manuscript title.

'What this paper adds' boxes
Please produce two boxes offering a thumbnail sketch of what your paper adds to the literature, for readers who would like an overview without reading the whole paper. It should be divided into two sets of dot points.

1: What is already known on this subject?
In two or three dot points explain:
• What the state of scientific knowledge was in this area before you did your study, and
• Why this study needed to be done.
Be clear and specific, not vague. For example you might say:
‘Numerous observational studies have suggested that tea drinking may be effective in treating depression, but until now evidence from randomised controlled trials has been lacking/the only randomised controlled trial to date was underpowered/was carried out in an unusual population/did not use internationally accepted outcome measures/used too low a dose of tea.’ or:
‘Evidence from trials of tea therapy in depression have given conflicting results. Although Sjogren and Smith conducted a systematic review in 1995, a further 15 trials have been carried out since then ...’

2: What does this study add?
In two or three dot points give a simple answer to the question ‘What do we now know as a result of this study that we did not know before?’
For example ‘This randomised study suggests that tea drinking has no overall benefit in depression’.
Be brief, succinct, specific, and accurate.
You might use the last dot point to summarise any implications for practice, research, policy, or public health. For example, your study might have:
asked and answered a new question (one whose relevance has only recently become clear) contradicted a belief, dogma, or previous evidence, provided a new perspective on something that is already known, in general provided evidence of higher methodological quality for a message which is already known.

Text
Authors should use subheadings to divide the sections of their manuscript: Introduction, Method, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgements, References.

Acknowledgements
The source of financial grants and other funding should be acknowledged, including a frank declaration of the authors’ industrial links and affiliations. The contribution of colleagues or institutions should also be acknowledged. Thanks to anonymous reviewers are not appropriate.

References
The Vancouver system of referencing should be used. We recommend the use of a tool such as Reference Manager for reference management and formatting.
Reference Manager reference styles can be searched for here: http://www.refman.com/support/rmstyles.asp

In the text, references should be cited using superscript Arabic numerals in the order in which they appear. If cited only in tables or figure legends, number them according to the first identification of the table or figure in the text.
In the reference list, the references should be numbered and listed in order of appearance in the text. Cite the names of all authors when there are six or less; when seven or more list the first three followed by et al.
Reference to unpublished data and personal communications should appear in the text only.
References should be listed in the following form.

Journal article
1 Alderman CP, Cosh DG, Peters PG Thompson CJ. Development of a pilot course in applied pharmacology for nurses working in rural settings. Australian Journal of Rural Health 1994; 2: 3–6.

Book
2 Jones KP. Rural Health and Welfare in Australia, 3rd edn. Brisbane: Mosby Williams, 1994.

Chapter in a book
3 Ried F. Mobility and safer handling. In: McMahon CA, Harding J, eds. Knowledge to Care: A Handbook for Care Assistants. Oxford: Blackwell Science, 1994; 53–69.

CD-ROM
4 Anderson SC, Poulsen KB. Anderson's electronic atlas of hematology [CD-ROM]. Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2002.

Journal article on the Internet
5 Smith DM. Barriers facing junior doctors in rural practice. Rural and Remote Health 2005; 5: 348. [Cited 22 Aug 2008]. Available from URL: http://www.rrh.org.au/articles/showarticlenew.asp?ArticleID=348

Tables
Tables should be self-contained and complement, but not duplicate, information contained in the text. Tables should be numbered consecutively in Arabic numerals. Each table should be presented on a separate sheet of A4 paper with a comprehensive but concise legend above the table.
Tables should be double-spaced and vertical lines should not be used to separate columns. Column headings should be brief, with units of measurement in parentheses; all abbreviations should be defined in footnotes. Footnote symbols: †, ‡, §, ¶, should be used (in that order) and *, **, *** should be reserved for P-values. The table and its legend/footnotes should be understandable without reference to the text.

Figures
All illustrations (line drawings and photographs) are classified as figures. Figures should be cited in consecutive order in the text. Each figure should be labelled on the back in very soft marker or chinagraph pencil, indicating name of author(s), figure number and orientation. (Do not use an adhesive label.) Figures should be sized to fit within the column (80 mm) or the full text width (170 mm).
Line figures should be supplied as sharp, black and white graphs or diagrams, drawn professionally or with a computer graphics package; lettering should be included. Photographs should be supplied as sharp, glossy, black and white photographic prints and must be unmounted. Individual photographs forming a composite figure should be of equal contrast, to facilitate printing, and should be accurately squared. Photographs need to be cropped sufficiently to prevent the subject being recognised, or an eye bar used. Written permission to publish must be obtained from the subject.
Magnifications should be indicated using a scale bar on the illustration. If supplied electronically, graphics should be supplied as high resolution (at least 300 d.p.i.) files, saved as .eps or .tif format. A high resolution print-out must also be provided. Digital images supplied only as low-resolution print-outs cannot be used.
If possible, authors should visit the Wiley-Blackwell website for authors at http://authorservices.wiley.com/bauthor/illustration.asp which details further information on the preparation of electronic figures.

Colour figures
Colour photographs should be submitted as good quality, glossy colour prints. A charge of A$1100/US$660/¥70 000 for the first three colour figures and A$550/US$330/¥35 000 for each extra colour figure thereafter will be charged to the author.

Figure legends
Legends should be self-explanatory. The legend should incorporate definitions of any symbols used and all abbreviations and units of measurement should be explained so that the figure and its legend is understandable without reference to the text. (Provide a letter stating copyright authorisation if figures have been reproduced from another source.)

Competing interests
We believe that to make the best decision on how to deal with a paper we should know about any competing interest that authors and reviewers of that paper may have. We will not reject a paper simply because of an author’s competing interest, but we do publish statements on such interests. See How to record competing interests at the Wiley-Blackwell web page: wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/AJR

WILEY-BLACKWELL AUTHOR SERVICES
Author Services enables authors to track their article, once it has been accepted, through the production process to publication online and in print. Authors can check the status of their articles online and choose to receive automated emails at key stages of production so they do not need to contact the production editor to check on progress. Visit http://authorservices.wiley.com/bauthor for more details on online production tracking and for a wealth of resources, including FAQs and tips on article preparation, submission and more.

PROOFS AND OFFPRINTS

Proofs
Notification of the URL from where to download a Portable Document Format (PDF) typeset page proof, associated forms and further instructions will be sent by email to the corresponding author. The purpose of the PDF proof is a final check of the layout, and of tables and figures. Alterations other than the essential correction of errors are unacceptable at PDF proof stage. The proof should be checked, and approval to publish the article should be emailed to the Publisher within 3 days of receipt, otherwise, it may be signed off on by the Editor or held over to the next issue. Acrobat Reader will be required in order to read the PDF. This software can be downloaded (free of charge) from the following Web site: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html
This will enable the file to be opened, read on screen and printed out in order for any corrections to be added. Further instructions will be available with the proof. Authors should therefore supply an email address to which proofs can be emailed. Proofs will be faxed if no email address is available. If absent, authors should arrange for a colleague to access their email, retrieve the PDF proof and check and return them to the publisher on their behalf

Offprints
A PDF offprint of each article will be supplied free of charge. Authors may order additional printed offprints at the author’s expense. These paper offprints may be ordered online. Please visit http://offprint.cosprinters.com/, fill in the necessary details and ensure that you type information in all of the required fields. If you have queries about offprints please email offprint@cosprinters.com

Note: The editorial office wishes to acknowledge the British Medical Journal as the source of inspiration for these instructions.