Education for Primary Care Contributing

Contributing

Publication policy

The aim of Education for Primary Care is to publish general articles, original contributions, news and review articles in the general areas of undergraduate, postgraduate and vocational training, and continuing education of healthcare professionals in the United Kingdom and overseas.

We welcome articles from authors who have had teaching experience, and who have evaluated new and successful teaching methods which they would like to share with their colleagues. These can be one-to-one or group teaching skills.

Contributions should be sent to: Dr John Pitts, Editorial Office, 39 Oak Road, Dibden Purlieu, Southampton, SO45 4PH, UK. Email: johnrpitts@btopenworld.com

Leading articles

Leading articles should be a fully referenced personal view on a topic in the field of medical and healthcare education or an overview (summary of work done) in an important or topical educational area. The length of a leading article should be 1500–2000 words.

Main papers

Four copies of each paper should be submitted. We do not require an electronic version initially, but the final version of accepted papers would be welcome on disk. Papers should be typed on one side of the paper and double spaced, with all pages of type numbered.

The general format is left to the author, who should try to use two types of headings only in the main text and where possible include references, either in support of statements which have been made or as a guide to further reading. Research papers will generally contain scientific evaluation. Where ideas of innovations have not been fully evaluated, the author should try to be self-critical and realistic.

Authors are encouraged to help the reader by using bullet points and summary tables.

Each paper should include a status box which summarises the author's work under the headings: what is already known in this area; what this work adds; suggestions for future research.

Review

Leading and main articles will be sent off for peer review.

Please click here to see review template.

Ethical issues

Education for Primary Care upholds the ethical principles of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) which are available at http://www.publicationethics.org.uk/guidelines/code.
Authors are referred to the need to conform to the Declaration of Helsinki and to provide confirmation that the study has been approved by a named Research Ethics Committee.
Authors are also asked to declare that the paper has not been submitted elsewhere for publication and that duplicate publication has been avoided.
The following declarations should be made at the end of the article before the references: ‘ethical approval(s)’, ‘acknowledgements’, ‘source of funding’ for the study, and any ‘conflict of interest’. This includes ownership of shares, consultancy, speaker's honoraria or research grants from commercial companies or professional or governmental organisations with an interest in the topic of the paper. If in doubt, disclose.
Authors are also asked to declare, where relevant, that patient consent has been obtained and that all reasonable steps have been taken to maintain patient confidentiality.
Once submitted authors are assured that the material under consideration will be kept confidential.
Authors have the right to appeal against editorial decisions. Once an appeal is lodged, this will be dealt with by an editorial board member who has not been involved in the editorial progress of the paper in question.
Misconduct is investigated and acted on according to COPE guidance.

References

These should be in the Vancouver style and their accuracy checked before submission.

References should be numbered in the text and listed consecutively at the end of the article in the order that they appear in the text. They should be assigned superscript numbers, outside any punctuation.

The list of references should include surnames and initials of all authors (unless there are more than six, in which case the first three should be mentioned followed by et al.). The format of references is as follows:

Example 1: author of whole book or other publication
1 Fentem PH (1992) Allied Dunbar National Fitness Survey: main findings. Belmont Press: Northampton.

Example 2: chapter in a book
2 Beaumont B and Janikiewicz S (1997) Working with other agencies. In: Beaumont B (ed) Care of Drug Users in GeneralPractice – a harm minimisation approach. Radcliffe Medical Press: Oxford, pp. 1–12.

Example 3: journal article
3 Bahrami J and Dwyer DM (1987) A method of selecting trainees. Journal of the Association of Course Organisers 1: 82–8.

Authors should note that the journal titles should be written in full, and volume numbers and end page numbers are required.

Information taken from unpublished papers, personal communications and observations should only be included in the text and not referred to as a formal reference.

Authors are responsible for the accuracy of their references.

Illustrations

Figures should not be inserted in the main text and should be numbered on the back with figure number, title of paper and name of author.

All graphs and diagrams should be referred to as figures and should be numbered consecutively in the text in Arabic numerals (e.g. Figure 3).

Tables

Tables must be typed on separate sheets. They should be numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals. Their approximate position in the text should be indicated.

Proofs

These will be sent to the author if there is sufficient time to do so. They are for making essential corrections and are not at this stage for general revision or alteration. Proofs should be corrected and returned within three days of receipt.

Offprints

Offprints may be ordered when proofs are returned. A copy of the relevant issue of the journal will be sent free to the authors of each paper.

Typeset by Acorn Bookwork, Salisbury, Wiltshire
Printed and bound by The Cromwell Press, Trowbridge, Wiltshire