Contributing

Informatics in Primary Care welcomes correspondence and articles from all those involved in informatics. The instructions below give some information about how contributions should be presented. If any of these need clarification please contact the editor.

Email submissions are preferred and they should be sent to EditorIPC@googlemail.com

General

  • All material submitted for inclusion in Informatics in Primary Care should be related to aspects of information technology in this sector.
  • All papers submitted for publication will be subject to external open peer review.  Authors are invited to recommend two appropriate reviewers for their paper; it is at the Editor's discretion as to whether these will be used.  Papers are assumed to be submitted exclusively to the journal unless otherwise stated.  Please include an abstract of a maximum of 300 words, including three keywords.
  • All authors must give written consent to publication and declare any financial conflicts of interest.
  • The editor reserves the right to make minor adjustments and, if necessary, to shorten the article without changing the meaning.
  • One copy of revised articles is sufficient.  A covering letter should make it clear that the final manuscript has been seen and approved by all the authors.
  • All manuscripts should be typed in double line spacing, with a margin of three centimetres all round, pages should be numbered consecutively.
  • The first page of the paper should contain the title, the author(s) name(s) and an address for correspondence.  Each author should indicate his/her professional discipline, current appointment and qualifications.  The address of the corresponding author will be printed with the paper (if published) unless you request that is omitted.
  • When first using abbreviations in the text, the term author wishes to abbreviate should be spelt out in full with its abbreviation in brackets.  Thereafter the abbreviation can and should be used.  Abbreviations should be in capital letters and unpunctuated.
  • It would be appreciated if copy could be provided preferably via email or on a disk.  If sending a disk, please save the document in any version of Microsoft Word up to and including Word 2000.  Label the disk with the name of the first-named author and filename (s).
  • An acknowledgement of receipt of the manuscript will be sent to the corresponding author (s) by email.

Tables, figures and illustrations

  • As far as possible articles should be suitably illustrated but not contain more than three tables. 
  • Tables should not duplicate but rather supplement information given in the text. They should be typed on a separate sheet and have a caption. Do not use vertical rules in tables. 
  • Tables should only be used when data cannot be expressed clearly in any other form. Figures should not duplicate information provided in the text. 
  • Illustrations may be line drawings or black-and-white photographs of good quality, preferably with a gloss finish. Illustrations will not be returned after publication unless specifically requested. All illustrations are submitted at the owner’s risk, the publisher accepts no liability for loss or damage while in possession of the material.

Length of article

Articles should not normally exceed 3000 words. However, when authors are invited to submit a specific article, the editorial staff will, as a rule, specify the proposed length. 

Structural aids

Subheadings are encouraged, when suitable, to break up the text as well as to improve readability.

References

  • The style of referencing is the Vancouver system. 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: names 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.  Allied Dunbar National Fitness Survey: main findings. Northampton: Belmont Press, 1992.

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

Example 3: journal article
3 Davies A and Huxley P. Survey of general practitioners’ opinions of opiate users. British Medical Journal 1997; 314 (2013):1173–4.

Example 4: editors of a whole book or other publication
4 Law J, Parkinson A with Tamhne R (eds). Communication Difficulties in Childhood. Oxford: Radcliffe Medical Press, 1999.
  • 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.

Proofs

Proofs will be sent to the author submitting the paper and must be returned promptly. This will allow correction of printers’ and similar errors. Major changes will not be entertained and authors may be charged for excessive amendments at this stage.

Correspondence and enquiries

Email correspondence is preferred and should be sent to Simon de Lusignan, the Editor, at: EditorIPC@googlemail.com

Simon de Lusignan
Reader in General Practice and Biomedical Informatics

Division of Community Health Sciences

St George's - University of London

Hunter Wing

London, SW17 0RE
Email: EditorIPC@googlemail.com.