Peer Review

This journal employs a highly rigorous peer-review process to evaluate manuscripts for scientific accuracy, novelty, and importance. The peer-review process often works to improve research while preventing overstatements of results from reaching physicians and the public. The Journal’s careful editing process often requires extensive revisions and involves detailed checking for accuracy.

Authorship

It is the responsibility of every person listed as an author of an article published in this journal to have contributed in a meaningful and identifiable way to the design, performance, analysis, and reporting of the work and to agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work.

Before publication, each author must sign a statement attesting that he or she fulfils the authorship criteria of the ICMJE Recommendations. At least one person’s name (or the names of writing committee members) must accompany a group name (e.g., Thelma J. Smith, for the Boston Porphyria Group). As part of the submission process, authors must indicate whether any writing assistance other than copy editing was provided to them.

CO-FIRST/CO-SENIOR AUTHORSHIP

The Journal will indicate when two authors contribute equally to a work. In print, this reads as, “Drs. XXX and YYY contributed equally to this article.” When submitting an equally coauthored paper, authors can indicate dual first or senior authorship with an asterisk on the manuscript title page.

CORRESPONDING AUTHORS

This journal permits only one corresponding author per manuscript submission. This person is solely responsible for all correspondence with the Journal and will receive all emails regarding forms, authorship issues, manuscript files, etc. The editors will speak only with authors regarding manuscript submissions. However, after acceptance for publication, authors may designate more than one person to be contacted by readers.

Conflicts of Interest and Financial Disclosures

We are committed to publishing the highest-quality research and reliable, authoritative review articles that are free from commercial influence.

For all research articles published, this Journal:

• Lists study sponsorship
• Posts online disclosure forms filed by all authors alongside the full text of each article
• May publish additional information about author contributions in the Methods section of research articles

A separate disclosure policy applies to review articles and editorials, which comment on published articles but do not present new research. The Journal expects that authors of such articles have no significant financial interests in any biomedical company relevant to topics and products discussed in the subject they are reviewing or the article on which they are commenting. When prospective authors do have financial ties to disclose, Journal editors decide whether they are relevant to the subject and whether they are de minimis.

This Journal’s policy requires that none of its editors has any financial relationships with any biomedical companies.

Manipulation of Figures

When submitting new and revised manuscripts, authors must describe and clearly indicate all modifications, selective digital adjustments, and electronic enhancements made to any digital images. Authors must also ensure that all submitted figures meet the following criteria:

• No specific feature in an image has been enhanced, obscured, moved, removed, or introduced
• Any adjustments to brightness, colour, or contrast have been made to an entire image and do not misrepresent any features of the original image
• No image has been duplicated within the manuscript or published elsewhere
• Original image metadata is available and can be provided to our editors on request.

Identifiable Patients

Authors should remove information from photographs and manuscripts that might identify a patient. Where this is impossible, submissions must be accompanied by a written release from the patient.

Clinical Trials Registration

The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and, therefore, this Journal require investigators to register trials in acceptable clinical trial registries before the onset of patient enrollment. Manuscripts describing the primary results of nonregistered trials will be turned away prior to peer review.

CLINICAL TRIALS

The ICMJE requires that “any research project that prospectively assigns human subjects to intervention and comparison groups to study the cause-and-effect relationship between a medical intervention and a health outcome” must be registered before the start of patient enrollment. To be acceptable, a registry must be owned by a not-for-profit entity, be publicly accessible, and contain the 20 fields required by the World Health Organization (WHO). View a list of acceptable registries on the WHO website.

Each manuscript will be checked on submission to determine whether the study needed registration, and, if registered, whether the registration is complete and meaningful. No manuscript will enter the editorial process until it has passed this screen.

PILOT TRIALS

Pilot (phase 1) trials that began on or after July 1, 2008, must be registered before the first patient enrollment.

ACCEPTABLE REGISTRIES

WHO maintains a list of acceptable registries. opens in new tab. In addition, ICMJE will accept registration in any of the primary registries that participate in the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP).

Diversity in Research Studies

This Journal is committed to fostering efforts to ensure that study participants are representative of the patients affected by the condition being studied. Clinical research studies published in the Journal must include in the Supplementary Appendix a table that provides background information on the disease, problem, or condition, and the representativeness of the study group. The table should be referenced within the paper, with comments (when appropriate) about the representativeness of the patient sample and the generalizability of the research findings.

Microarray Studies

Data obtained by microarray must be submitted to a repository such as the Gene Expression Omnibus or ArrayExpress before manuscript submission. Raw and transformed datasets for each microarray experiment must be provided through the repository, and the accession number for each experiment or series must be provided in the Methods section of the manuscript. If data are password-protected, the user name and password must be provided in both the cover letter and Methods section of the manuscript at the time of submission. A criterion of publication is full access to the relevant datasets through a publicly accessible repository.

Data Sharing

The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and, therefore, This Journal, require investigators to submit a data-sharing statement (2018) and register a data-sharing plan when registering a trial (2019). This Journal has not yet formulated a policy on which types of data-sharing plans are acceptable.

Statistics

NEJM recognizes that there are many ways to perform statistical analyses and solve statistical problems.

Preprint Posting

This Journal accepts the submission of manuscripts that have previously been posted on a nonprofit preprint server. Authors should notify the editor of any preprint related to manuscript submission.

No Prior Publication

When making manuscript decisions, the editors strongly consider the accuracy, novelty, and importance of the submission and strive to ensure that an independent peer review of the scientific findings occurs before public dissemination. This Journal will therefore not consider any manuscript that has been published elsewhere and any manuscript whose primary results have been released, except as indicated below.

The following activities do not violate This Journal’s embargo or no-prior-publication policies:

Embargo

This Journal employs a media embargo system, which allows journalists time to conduct interviews in the days before an article’s publication.

Medical Meetings and Government Oversight

Presenting research at scientific meetings or submitting results to government oversight boards before publication does not violate this Journal’s no-prior-publication editorial policy.

Additional guidance is provided below:

• Media outreach. Authors will not jeopardize the publication of their manuscript by responding to media inquiries at a medical meeting or during the week following a meeting. However, authors are asked to refrain from indicating that their research has been submitted to or accepted for publication by This Journal.
• Meeting presentation. Meeting organizers may promote an author’s presentation in a press release, plan a press conference, publish an abstract in meeting proceedings, or post presentations on their websites. This Journal should not be mentioned in such instances.

Six months after publication in a print issue, This Journal makes the full text of all research articles available at https://journal.nmafct.org/.

Certain materials may be released sooner at the discretion of the editors. 

Depositing Peer-Reviewed Research Articles in Public Repositories

This Journal works with authors of articles that report research supported by funding bodies with open-access mandates.

Copyrights/Permissions

Material published in This Journal is covered by copyright. All rights are reserved under Nigerian and international copyright and other laws and conventions.

Unauthorized Use

This Journal is a trademark of the Nigerian Medical Association, FCT Chapter. Any use of these contents in connection with the sale, offering for sale, distribution, or advertising of any goods or services, which is likely to cause confusion, cause mistake, or deceive, is strictly prohibited.

Publication Ethics

In addressing concerns raised by readers,  This Journal is guided by the recommendations and policies related to research and publication ethics developed by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, the Committee on Publication Ethics, and the Council of Science Editors.

Prior to Publication

This Journal employs a media embargo system, which allows journalists time to conduct interviews in the days before an article’s publication.

Periodic print issues of This Journal have Thursday cover dates. Qualified journalists receive embargoed online access to coming issues on the preceding Fridays at 10:00 a.m. and may conduct interviews with authors and prepare stories. These reporters agree to neither publish nor broadcast their stories until after the embargo lifts at 5:00 p.m. on the Wednesday prior to publication.

Articles published on an accelerated schedule — in particular, those published to coincide with meeting presentations — may be assigned different embargo schedules, which will be communicated to relevant parties as needed.

This Journal does not issue pre-publication news or video releases to media subscribers but does provide information on how to reach article authors.

Authors may opt to direct media calls to their institutional press offices. Institutional press offices may also issue embargoed press releases after the media embargo period opens on Friday at 10:00 a.m. Senders of embargoed press releases are responsible for enforcing the embargo period with all press release recipients.

Authors are expected to refrain from discussing their research with reporters prior to publication except during the embargoed access period noted above.

Medical Meetings

Presenting research at scientific meetings or submitting results to government agencies before publication does not violate This Journal’s no-prior-publication editorial policy.

Additional guidance is provided below:

• Media outreach. Authors will not jeopardize the publication of their manuscript by responding to media inquiries at a medical meeting or during the week following a meeting. However, authors are asked to refrain from indicating that their research has been submitted to or accepted for publication by This Journal.
• Meeting presentation. Meeting organizers may promote an author’s presentation in a press release, plan a press conference, publish an abstract in meeting proceedings, or post presentations on their websites. This Journal should not be mentioned in such instances.

Guidance for Corporate Sponsors of Research

Corporate sponsors of research may make representatives available to answer incoming media inquiries during the embargo period. However, corporate sponsors of research must refrain from any promotion until after the embargo lifts.

If a study’s sponsor is required by law to release certain information before the time of publication, it should do only the minimum required and not name This Journal.

In conjunction with medical meetings that occur before (one month or more) an article’s publication in This Journal, a sponsoring company may:

• Post slides that were shown at meetings (and no more) on their website following the presentations.
• Issue brief press releases (sometimes called a “curtain-raiser”) about the presentation, stating only that a study met its primary or secondary endpoint and making no mention of This Journal.
• Hold satellite (sponsored) symposia at medical meetings if a study was included in an SEC-required press release or previously presented at a medical meeting. There should be no references to the manuscript’s status with This Journal.

However, if This Journal is published to coincide with a meeting presentation, sponsoring companies should not promote the study until after the embargo lifts.

The editors consider novelty when making manuscript decisions. If substantial publicity for a study occurs before or during the peer-review process, the priority for publication could be affected. The more said in a press release prior to publication, the greater the negative impact may be on priority for publication.

Following initial publication, this Journal is pleased to grant authors rights to reuse published versions of their articles as follows:

• Share with colleagues for educational use
• Include portions, such as figures and tables, in book chapters or other educational articles written by the author
• Include a copy, in full or in part, of the author’s thesis or dissertation
• Include in collections of the author’s educational writing
• Provide copies to students in classes taught by the author that have no commercial ties (i.e., those sponsored by academic institutions or scientific societies)
• Deposit for display at the author’s academic institution’s online repository six months after publication

Republication of This Journal’s articles should reference initial publication in This Journal and, if shared in digital formats, link to original articles to provide readers with access to any corrections, related correspondence, and digital features.

For additional permission-related inquiries or information about obtaining high-resolution files, contact us.

Depositing Peer-Reviewed Research Articles in Public Repositories

This Journal works with authors of articles that report research supported by funding bodies with open-access mandates.

For articles arising from research funded by other not-for-profit organizations that also require submission to publicly available, not-for-profit repositories, authors are permitted to submit digitally published versions (as supplied by This Journal in PDF format) on the following conditions:

• The author requests and the not-for-profit repository agrees, that public release of the PDF will not occur until six months after the article is published.
• To avoid confusion that might arise from multiple versions of the same article appearing in the medical literature, the author agrees to submit only the PDF version supplied by This Journal to any publicly available repository.