Systematic reviews should not exceed 4500 words including the abstract, excluding references and figure legends. The authors are advised to limit the number of references to 45 unless absolutely necessary.
Title Page
Each submission should have a separate title page containing the following information:
The title of the should be chosen to best describe the work and its conclusions. Try to avoid using a question such as “What is the role of PRP injections in osteoarthritis ?”; instead use a title to best describe your outcomes/conclusions such as “PRP injections provide limited symptomatic benefit in osteoarthritis” .
If the study is the joint effort of a society or study group, this should be mentioned in the running title.
• Full name(s), highest academic degrees and affiliations/institutions of all the authors.
• Institution / University of where the work was done. Mention the institution of the primary author first in multi-centric studies but acknowledge all contributing institutions/scientific societies.
• Full address & e-mail address of the corresponding author; current e-mail’s of all the other authors.
• Open Researcher and Contributor Identification (ORCID) id’s of the authors if applicable.
Information on all funding, grants, industry and third party support including drugs/equipment and disposable materials, travel assistance and writing assistance should be pointed out in detail.
Contribution of each author to the manuscript should be described. ICMJE criteria for authorship are as follows
- Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
- Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
- Final approval of the version to be published; AND
- Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
Contributors not meeting the above criteria should not be listed as authors and be mentioned in the Acknowledgements section.
An example of author contributions is listed below
RNT co-designed the study, conceived the protocols, performed the surgical operations, contributed to data analysis and interpretation, wrote the manuscript. MP performed all measurements and collected patient outcomes data, contributed in the writing of the article. TB co-designed the study, contributed to data analysis and interpretation and critically reviewed the paper. EK selected and performed the appropriate statistics and critically reviewed the final manuscript. AK performed surgeries, critically reviewed the final manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
All financial and non-financial competing interests must be disclosed. This includes payment or services from a third party (government, industry, private foundation, etc.) for any aspect of the submitted manuscript. You should also include any financial relationships (regardless of amount) with third parties not directly related to the work in the manuscript in the last 36 months.
Click here to download the ICMJE conflict of interest statement. http://www.icmje.org/conflicts-of-interest/ Once you have filled out the form, store the document in PDF format in your computer and submit this form for each author with your manuscript.
Acknowledgments of support and contributions that do not qualify for authorship should be mentioned
Details of the ethics committee/ institutional review board approval should be stated with information on the approving body, scope of the approval, review date and number. Consult the Ethical guidelines in the Before Submission Section in this web site.
Blinded Manuscript
The manuscript should start with the title of the study without any reference to author(s) names and institutions. All references to author identities (such as ethical committee names, references to previous studies) should be blinded with XXXX, this information should only be visible in the title page.
The abstract is the only part of the article indexed in electronic databases, therefore should accurately reflect the content, relevance and conclusions of the manuscript. A structured abstract not exceeding 350 words should be provided for original research papers. Avoid citation of references in the abstract. The structured abstract should include the following:
Purpose : Define the purpose and the hypotheses of the study. Describe what this study adds to what is already known on the subject.
Methods: Outline your methods so that the readers can understand the basics.
Results: Describe the main outcomes of your study with concise numerical data. This part should be the longest and should convey your most important findings for readers who do not have access to the full text of your manuscript.
Conclusions : Describe in two sentences your conclusions and clinical relevance based on your findings. Avoid sentences like “more studies are needed…” or “findings will be reported in this paper..”
Key words: Provide up to 5 key words relevant to your topic. Choosing the right key words will improve the visibility of your paper for search engines. Use of Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) at https://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/meshhome.html may be helpful.
Level of Evidence : Provide your level of evidence using Oxford Centre for Evidence-based Medicine (CEBM) guidelines at www.cebm.net
The CONSORT guidelines for what to include in the abstract can be reached at http://www.consort-statement.org/downloads/extensions
The introduction should be concise, one-page section describing the purpose and hypotheses of the study. Briefly describe what is already known on the subject and what this study aims to accomplish. Point out why this study is needed and where it differs from the published literature. Avoid a long general discussion on the subject. State your main hypotheses at the end.
• Describe the type of the study (retrospective, prospective randomized ect.) and give information on the design, timeline, primary and secondary outcome measurements.
• Clearly describe your sample, state sample size, inclusion and exclusion criteria. Sample size calculation needs to be presented in all clinical studies. Basic demographic data of the patients such as age, gender, BMI ect. can be given here.
• Use a CONSORT Flow Diagram (http://www.consort-statement.org/consort-statement/flow-diagram) to describe patient enrollment, intervention allocation, follow-up, and data analysis.
• The methods need to be clearly described to allow for other researchers to reproduce your results. Give a detailed description of the tests and experiments used for experimental studies. A thorough description of treatment and surgical techniques are needed for novel therapies. The description can be shorter if standard techniques are used. Define the primary and secondary outcome measures, describe when and how these were measured.
• ICC values for intra and inter-observer reliability should be reported if relevant.
• Describe informed consent procedure for clinical trials, even if not needed (such as retrospective database analyses). Give information on the local ethical committee or institutional review board approval.
• Clearly describe statistical methods, including the tests used parametric and non-parametric variables. Define the level of statistical significance (usually p<0.05)
• Clearly report your results in the main body of the text, tables and figures.
• Follow the sequence & structure of the materials & methods section to report your results in an orderly fashion.
• Do not repeat data already in the tables and figures again in the main body of the text. Use the text to highlight your main outcomes, leave most of the numerical data for the tables and figures.
• Do not comment on your results or use references in the results section.
• Start the discussion with your most important findings. Point out the novelty and clinical relevance of your findings.
• Avoid a lengthy background discussion on historical perspective and repetition of general knowledge. Do not repeat your results. Discuss only the literature relevant to your findings, describe how your study differs from what has already been done.
• Add a final paragraph on the strengths and limitations of your study. Point out what can be improved and areas for future research.
• Use two sentences to underline your main findings and conclusions. Describe the clinical relevance of your work.
• Base your conclusions on your findings. Avoid conclusions such as “Further studies are needed…”; and uncertain terms such as “seems to be …” “we hope that..”
• The references should be numbered in the order of appearance in the text. The references should appear in square brackets at the end of the relevant sentence in the main manuscript, such as [1,2]. Do not use superscript.
• Only articles, clinical trial registration records and abstracts that have been published can be used as references. Unpublished abstracts, data and personal communications should not be included in the reference list. These may be used in the main body of the text and described as unpublished data or personal communications.
• All web links and URLs should have a reference number and included in the reference list with the URL address and date accessed.
• Index Medicus/MEDLINE journal abbreviations should be used for journals in this database. Full name of the journals should be provided for journals not in the database.
• GRJ uses the Summary(text) format of PubMed for references. The first 5 authors should be listed, “et al.” can be used after the first 5 authors. Digital object identifier (doi) numbers are needed only for electronic and pre-print articles. Do not include doi numbers for published articles.
• Below are some examples for references. If your reference type is not listed below, use the link of for National Library of Medicine guidelines https://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/uniform_requirements.html
Davey MS, Hurley ET, Withers D, Moran R, Moran CJ. Anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction with platelet-rich plasma: a systematic review of randomized control trials. Arthroscopy. 2020 Apr;36(4):1204-1210.
Electronic Articles or Pre-print articles that have not been issued volume and page numbers
Belk JW, Kraeutler MJ, Houck DA, Goodrich JA, Dragoo JL, et al. Platelet-rich plasma versus hyaluronic acid for knee osteoarthritis: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Am J Sports Med. 2020 Apr 17:363546520909397. doi: 10.1177/0363546520909397.
Zhao J, Huang H, Liang G, Zeng LF, Yang W, et al. Effects and safety of the combination of platelet-rich plasma (PRP) and hyaluronic acid (HA) in the treatment of knee osteoarthritis: a systematic review and meta-analysis. BMC Musculoskelet Disord. 2020 Apr 11;21(1):224. doi: 10.1186/s12891-020-03262-w.
Fanouriakis A, Kostopoulou M, Cheema K, Anders HJ, Aringer M, et al. 2019 Update of the Joint European League Against Rheumatism and European Renal Association–European Dialysis and Transplant Association (EULAR/ERA–EDTA) recommendations for the management of lupus nephritis. https://ard.bmj.com/content/early/2020/03/27/annrheumdis-2020-216924, accessed 20 April 2020.
Plancher KD, Rivera AR. Lateral unicompartmental knee replacement and return to sports. In: Sports Injuries: Prevention, Diagnosis, Treatment and Rehabilitation. Doral MN, Tandogan R, Mann G, Verdonk R (eds). Springer-Verlag, Berlin Heidelberg, 2012, pp:945-954.
Wiesel SW. Operative Techniques in Orthopaedic Surgery. Wolters-Kluwer, 2015.
The pictures and figures should be submitted as separate files, and not pasted into the main text file. Each figure should be named with the primary authors name and figure number (eg. Figure 1 Johnson.jpg). The figures should be of high quality with adequate resolution, the journal reserves the right to ask for a better quality figure or reject the figure that does not meet publication standards. Individual file size should not exceed 5 MB. The following file types are accepted for figures:
- PNG (preferred format for images)
- TIFF
- JPEG
- BMP
- EPS
- PDF (preferred format for diagrams)
- DOCX/DOC (single page only)
- PPTX/PPT (single slide only)
Vector drawings should be converted to one of the above file types before submission.
Figures should be numbered in the order of appearance in the main body of the text with Arabic numerals (e.g. Figure 1: / Figure 2a: ). Figure legends should be placed at the end of the main text file after references in a separate page. A figure legend should not exceed 150 words.
Original pictures/figures created by the authors are preferred. It is the legal responsibility of the author(s) to obtain written permission from the copyright holder to reproduce figures or tables that have previously been published. These permissions should be submitted as separate files.If a figure has been reproduced from another publication, this should be clearly mentioned in the figure legend as “Reproduced/modified with permission from….”
Tables can be prepared your word processor’s table function or submitted as excel files. Use basic formatting for tables since this will be changed during publication. Tabular data too large to be fit a single A4 page can be sent as a separate excel file. This will be linked to your manuscript as supplement that is electronically accessible.
Tables should be placed after the figure legends in the main text document. Use a separate page for each table.
Tables should be numbered in the order of appearance in the main body of the text with Arabic numerals (e.g. Table 1: / Table 2a: ). Table legends not exceeding 50 words should be placed at the top of the table. Abbreviations and explanations can be placed as footnotes below the table and marked in the table with superscript numbers or asterisks. Use bold font types for statistically significant p values.
Videos should be submitted as MP4 (MPEG4) files to ensure cross-platform accessibility. These files should not exceed 25 MB with a duration of less than 5 minutes. Videos will be accessible in the electronic version of the manuscript. The link for the video should be placed in the main body of the text in its appropriate section and should be numbered consecutively in Arabic numerals (e.g. Video 1).
Supplementary Files and Open Data Policy
• GRJ supports (but does not enforce) open data policy for the submitted manuscripts. This makes it possible for others to validate, replicate, re-analyze the data and confirms the reproducibility of the study. This also makes it possible for the study to be included in meta-analyses and ensures that the data is archived.
• Raw data used for the main statistics should be made available in the supplementary files.
• Data can be stored in public depositories or can be sent as supplementary files. For data stored in public repositories, the name of the repository, digital object identifier (DOIs), accession numbers or codes, or other persistent identifiers (PID’s) should be made available.
• Data sent as supplementary files should be anonymized. No personal information including names, initials, physical addresses and IP numbers, full birth dates, e-mails and telephone numbers should be visible in these files. Data can be submitted as Portable Document Format (PDF) or Excel (.xls /.xlsx) files.