Anti-Jo-1 Syndrome presenting as cryptogenic organizing pneumonia

AbstractA 50-year-old Chinese lady presented with subacute onset of dyspnoea, bilateral infiltrates on chest X-ray and type I respiratory failure. There were minor symptoms of arthralgia and myalgia. Subsequent investigations confirmed that she had organizing pneumonia, polymyositis and serum anti-Jo-1 antibody. Treatment with corticosteroids resulted in prompt improvement of the respiratory condition and myositis

Publication ethics and scientific misconduct

To maintain the readers' trust and to uphold the journal's reputation, it is paramount for the entire research, peer reviewer and publication process to follow ethical principles and decisions. Studies involving humans, animals, medical records and human tissues/organs need to be conducted ethically, and the appropriate approvals obtained. The privacy and confidentiality of patients, authors and reviewers should be respected. When required, rights and permissions should be sought. Common forms of scientific misconduct include misappropriation of ideas, violation of generally accepted research practices, failure to comply with legislative and regulatory requirements, falsification of data, and inappropriate behaviour in relation to misconduct. Authors can expect editorial action to be taken, should duplicate publication, plagiarism and other forms of scientific misconduct be attempted or detected

Getting to know journal bibliographic databases.

A bibliographic database is an organised digital collection of references to published literature. A bibliographic database may be general in scope or may cover a specific academic discipline. There are many types of medical and general bibliographic databases. They cover biomedical and scientific literature, morbidity and mortality statistics, therapeutic regimens, medical records, images and reviews of evidence-based medicine. Getting to know these databases will help researchers and authors to enhance their writing and publishing endeavours

Conflict-of-interest, copyright and other declarations

Declarations of exclusive publication, author contribution, conflict-of-interest and copyright transfer are important formalities required by most biomedical journals. Conflict-of-interest may be personal, commercial, political, academic or financial. It is particularly important for authors to provide a full and complete disclosure of any financial relationship with a commercial organisation that may have an interest in the contents of the submitted manuscript. Editors, editorial board members and reviewers should also declare any possible conflicts-of-interest. The handling of conflict-of-interest during manuscript preparation, peer review and editorial decision-making impacts the credibility of published articles and scientific research in general

Writing an invited commentary

An invited commentary is a short article that describes an author's personal experience of a specific topic. Unlike a review article, the author gives his own opinions and perspectives. It typically addresses a current, hot and often controversial subject. It may take two formats, namely, provide an expert author's personal views of and insight into a current hot topic, or add balance to another paper being commented upon, with addition of the author's own perspective

Preparing effective illustrations. Part 1: graphs

Illustrations (also known as figures) are visual representations of the results obtained from a scientific study. Graphs are a common type of illustration that are often used in scientific papers to present information clearly and effectively, as well as to demonstrate relationships between variables in the data. Graphs also serve to reveal trends or patterns in the data. This article provides some basic guidelines to assist authors in preparing effective graphs for their papers

Writing a pictorial essay

A pictorial essay is a type of educational article that aims to provide both textual and visual portrayals of a topical issue. It usually consists of a short unstructured abstract, brief introduction, subheadings to organise the material and a summary. The number of references is limited to a few key articles, typically, eight to 15, or fewer. The text is usually short, often approximately 1,000 to 2,000 words in length, with much of the message contained in the figure legends. This type of article allows for a large number of figures, typically up to 20 figures or 30 figure parts. The main criteria for publication are currency, educational value and high quality of illustrations

Writing an invited review

An invited review provides a detailed and comprehensive narrative analysis of recent developments in a specific topic, and highlights important points that have been previously published. It usually consists of a short unstructured abstract, introduction, subheadings to organise the topic, and a summary. The text is usually relatively long compared to other paper categories, typically up to 15 manuscript pages or 4,000 words. The reference list is expected to comprehensively cover all the major published work, with up to 50-75 references being typical. The ideal invited review should be topical, current, balanced, accurate, quotable and easily understood, with clear take-home messages

Writing a technical note

A technical note is a short article giving a brief description of a specific development, technique or procedure, or it may describe a modification of an existing technique, procedure or device applicable to medicine. The technique, procedure or device described should have practical value and should contribute to clinical diagnosis or management. It could also present a software tool, or an experimental or computational method. Technical notes are variously referred to as technical innovations or technical developments. The main criteria for publication will be the novelty of concepts involved, the validity of the technique and its potential for clinical applications

Dealing with proofs

After submission and acceptance of a scientific paper by a journal, the final stages in the publishing process are copy-editing and proofreading. The primary purpose of this step is to ensure accurate and quality production of scientific papers. Authors are responsible for checking their proofs properly and in detail, ensuring that everything is correct as this is their last chance to make any changes before their work is set in print forever