Original Article

Manuscript of type Original Article must contain the following sections;

Abstract:

A structured abstract of not more than 250 words. The abstract should state the Objective: purposes of the study or investigation; Methodology: study design, place and duration of study, basic procedures as selection of study subjects or laboratory animals, observational and analytical methods; Results: main findings giving specific data and their statistical significance, if possible and Conclusion: the principal conclusions. It should emphasize new and important aspects of the study or observations.

Keywords:

Below the abstract authors should provide, and identify as such, 3 to 10 key words or short phrases that will assist indexers in cross-indexing the article and may be published with the abstract. Terms from the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) list of Index Medicus should be used. If suitable MeSH-terms are not yet available for recently introduced terms, present terms may be used.

Check list for abstract;

  • Structured abstract up to 250 words
  • Divided into Objectives, Methodology, Results, and Conclusion
  • 3-6 Keywords provided
  • Provides concise snapshot of the study conducted

Main Article Text

The main manuscript of original article is divided into subsections according to “IMRAD” structure, with the headings Introduction, Methodology, Results and Discussion.

Introduction: State the purpose of the article and summarize the rationale for the study or observation. Give only strictly pertinent references and do not include data or conclusions from the work being reported.

Check list for introduction;

  • Subject introduced in sufficient detail with latest references
  • Rationale of study provided
  • Objective defined in last paragraph

Methodology: Describe your selection of the observational or experimental subjects (patients or laboratory animals, including controls) clearly. Identify the age, sex, and other important characteristics of the subjects. Because the relevance of such variables as age, sex, and ethnicity to the object of research is not always clear, authors should explicitly justify them when they are included in a study report. The guiding principle should be clarity about how and why a study was done in a particular way. For example, authors should explain why only subjects of certain ages were included or why women were excluded. Authors should avoid terms such as "race," which lacks precise biological meaning, and use alternative descriptors such as "ethnicity" or "ethnic group" instead. Authors should specify carefully what the descriptors mean, and tell exactly how the data were collected (for example, what terms were used in survey forms, whether the data were self-reported or assigned by others, etc.). Identify the methods, apparatus (give the manufacturer's name and address in parentheses), and procedures in sufficient detail to allow other workers to reproduce the results. Give references to established methods, including statistical methods (see below); provide references and brief descriptions for methods that have been published but are not well known; describe new or substantially modified methods, give reasons for using them, and evaluate their limitations. Identify precisely all drugs and chemicals used, including generic name(s), dose(s), and route(s) of administration. Reports of randomized clinical trials should present information on all major study elements, including the protocol (study population, interventions or exposures, outcomes, and the rationale for statistical analysis), assignment of interventions (methods of randomization, concealment of allocation to treatment groups), and the method of masking (blinding). Authors submitting review manuscripts should include a section describing the methods used for locating, selecting, extracting, and synthesizing data. These methods should also be summarized in the abstract.

Ethics: When reporting experiments on human subjects, indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional or regional) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 1983. Do not use patients' names, initials, or hospital numbers, especially in illustrative material. When reporting experiments on animals, indicate whether the institution's or a national research council's guide for, or any national law on, the care and use of laboratory animals was followed.

Statistics: Describe statistical methods with enough detail to enable a knowledgeable reader with access to the original data to verify the reported results. When possible, quantify findings and present them with appropriate indicators of measurement error or uncertainty (such as confidence intervals). Avoid relying solely on statistical hypothesis testing, such as the use of P values, which fails to convey important quantitative information. Discuss the eligibility of experimental subjects. Give details about randomization. Describe the methods for and success of any blinding of observations. Report complications of treatment. Give numbers of observations. Report losses to observation (such as dropouts from a clinical trial). References for the design of the study and statistical methods should be to standard works when possible (with pages stated) rather than to papers in which the designs or methods were originally reported. Specify any general-use computer programs used. Put a general description of methods in the Methods section. When data are summarized in the Results section, specify the statistical methods used to analyze them. Restrict tables and figures to those needed to explain the argument of the paper and to assess its support. Use graphs as an alternative to tables with many entries; do not duplicate data in graphs and tables. Avoid nontechnical uses of technical terms in statistics, such as "random" (which implies a randomizing device), "normal," "significant," "correlations," and "sample." Define statistical terms, abbreviations, and most symbols.

Check list for methodology;

  • Setting and duration described
  • Type of study mentioned
  • Inclusion & exclusion criteria mentioned
  • Randomization / blinding done (if applicable)
  • Data collection procedure described
  • Definitions and assessment criteria for the study variables are provided
  • Statistical analysis method / tests written and significance value mentioned
  • In related to human and animal subjects addressed with approval from Ethical & Research committee of the institute.
  • Informed consent was obtained

Results: Present your results in logical sequence in the text, tables, and illustrations. Do not repeat in the text all the data in the tables or illustrations; emphasize or summarize only important observations.

Check list for results;

  • Reflect the objectives
  • Comprehensively described
  • No more than 4 tables, charts or figures
  • Tables, charts & figures appropriate / relevant
  • Results not duplicated in text

Discussion: Emphasize the new and important aspects of the study and the conclusions that follow from them. Do not repeat in detail data or other material given in the Introduction or the Results section. Include in the Discussion section the implications of the findings and their limitations, including implications for future research. Relate the observations to other relevant studies.

Check list for Discussion;

  • Centered to subject under study with critical review of literature
  • Each aspect covered in separate paragraph
  • Interpretation of study findings are appropriate
  • Study limitations and future directions are provided

Conclusion: Link the conclusions with the goals of the study but avoid unqualified statements and conclusions not completely supported by the data. In particular, authors should avoid making statements on economic benefits and costs unless their manuscript includes economic data and analyses. Avoid claiming priority and alluding to work that has not been completed. State new hypotheses when warranted, but clearly label them as such. Recommendations, when appropriate, may be included.

Check list for conclusion;

  • Conclusion(s) reflects the study objectives
  • Study results support the drawn conclusion(s)
  • Conclusion(s) give concise take-home message of the study

References: References should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text. Identify references in text, tables, and legends by Arabic numerals in parentheses. References cited only in tables or figure legends should be numbered in accordance with the sequence established by the first identification in the text of the particular table or figure.

Check list for references;

  • Number of references not more than 30
  • Written in Vancouver style
  • Most (60%) are less than five years old
  • Pakistani literature included