Journal of Ocular Pathology - Instruction for Authors

The Journal of Ocular Pathology encourages manuscripts relating to the basic science and pathology of disease affecting the cornea & conjunctiva, uvea, lens, retina/vitreous, orbit, adnexa, optic nerve, anterior chamber & trabecular meshwork, and sclera. These categories are broad because the study of ocular pathology encompasses all disease processes and tissues of the eye. The Journal is interested in publishing original basic science research, reviews, case reports, and clinicopathological correlations. If there are questions about our journal policies or issues not addressed here, then please email the Editor.

The advantages of submitting a manuscript to the Journal of Ocular Pathology are:

There is no financial cost to the authors;
The journal is free and accessible to the world;
The Journal's peer-review process implements an anonymous review process where author names and institutions are not provided with the manuscript to the reviewers; thus, the paper will be judged purely for its scientific and scholarly merit;
Electronic publishing facilitates rapid publication of manuscripts;
The Journal's peer-review process is performed by an expert panel of scientists and clinicians in the field of ophthalmology.

Please follow these guidelines carefully to assist the editorial staff. Careful preparation of manuscripts reduces the amount of work for our staff and prevents delays in publishing.

Manuscripts should present original, unpublished content not being considered for publication in another journal or elsewhere. If accepted, the text, figures, and data shall not be published elsewhere without the consent of the Editors and Publisher of the Journal. There is no limit on the length of the manuscript; however, the manuscripts are to be concise.

Research Article: an original, unpublished work covering a positive or negative finding of significance in ophthalmology. Reports of negative results should add to the current scientific knowledge. A research article must include these sections: Title Page, Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, and References. Figures, Tables, and Acknowledgements should be submitted with the manuscript.
Clinicopathological Correlation: an original, unpublished work covering a disease process of the visual system accompanied by pathological findings. A clinicopathological correlation article must include these sections: Title Page, Abstract, Introduction, Findings, Discussion, and References. Figures, Tables, and Acknowledgements should be submitted with the manuscript.
Reviews & Editorials: The Editors invite comprehensive reviews of current topics in the field of ophthalmology. The Editor should be contacted via e-mail in advance with topics. Reviews and Editorials are still subject to peer review, and publication is contingent upon acceptance by the reviewers and the Editor. Reviews consist of the following sections: Title Page, Abstract, Introduction, Discussion, and References. If the review consists of Results, then the manuscript should include a Methods and Results section. Figures, Tables, and Acknowledgements should be submitted with the manuscript.
Other Types of Articles: Authors must submit proposals via email to the Editor before submission.

Authors must clearly label each section of the manuscript (e.g., Abstract, Introduction, Methods, etc.). Include Figure legends and Tables after the References section. If any Figures or Data was previously published, then written permission from the publisher of the previous material must be included with the manuscript. It is the authors’ sole responsibility to obtain this permission, and the Journal cannot publish a manuscript until authorization has been acquired.

Do not use unnecessary text styles.
Italics are used for genus and species names, gene symbols, and the first three letters of restriction enzymes.
Bold text is applied only for headings.
Do not use underlining.
Read your manuscript carefully for spelling and grammar error.
Write for a general audience.
Send the manuscript in Microsoft Word, Rich Text, or HTML format and all documents via email or FTP to the Editor.

All manuscripts should include the title, the names of the authors, the authors’ institutional affiliations, and contact information of the corresponding author. Each author may also include an email address or a web address.

Abstracts should be concise and summarize the work presented. Research Articles must be structured with these subsections: Purpose, Methods, Results, and Conclusions. All other articles will have descriptive abstracts summarizing the topics covered in the paper.

Be concise and provide a general introduction discussing the relevance of the manuscript. Do not use subheadings. Use of relevant literature is essential.

The Methods should be written with sufficient detail to facilitate replication of the work presented. Non-proprietary names should be used, and the name of the supplier of items used in the research should be denoted along with their full company name and location (city, state/country).

Research using animals should include a statement that animal care guidelines comparable to those published by the Institute for Laboratory Animal Research or the US Public Health Service were followed. If human subjects were used, then a statement indicating that an appropriate institutional review board (IRB) has approved the project. If an IRB is not available, then the authors should follow the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki.

The research findings should be presented in the Results without interpretation or discussion. In short manuscripts where the interpretation of the data is relatively simple, the data may be discussed in a combined Results and Discussion section.

The discussion should consist of interpretation and commentary on the data, results, and findings presented within the scope of the investigation presented in the manuscript.

Acknowledgements for individuals making significant non-authorship contributions to the manuscript are stated in this section. Funding support for the research should be listed. Authors should also disclose any commercial interest or companies presented in the manuscript. All prior presentations of the work at meetings should be listed. Do not include these presentations as manuscript references.

The citations in the text are identified by numbers in brackets (e.g., [1,5, 12, 20-25]). For users of Endnote, the Journal uses reference formatting consistent with the journal Biology of Reproduction. Citations are numbered in the order of appearance in the manuscript. The references are listed in the References with corresponding numbers to the citations in the text. References to unpublished work should be made parenthetically in the body of the text and not listed in the References section.

Gasymov OK, Abduragimov AR, Yusifov TN, Glasgow BJ. Structural changes in human tear lipocalins associated with lipid binding. Biochim Biophys Acta 1998; 1386: 145-156.
Yanoff M, Fine BS. Ocular Pathology. 5 th ed. St. Louis, MO: Mosby; 2002. p. 311-329.
Doe J, Doe J. Incidence of shrinking keratocytes in patients with granular corneal dystrophies. J Ocular Pathology 2005; 0:1 <http://journal-ocular-pathology.com/2005/09/vol-0-1.html>

Each figure should be numbered with Arabic numerals and corresponds to their sequence of appearance in the manuscript, e.g., “Figure 1”. The Figure legends should be included after the References section. Each Figure legend should have a title and caption with sufficient detail to explain the figure without referring to the main text. Labels and abbreviations must be explained in the caption. Because this is an electronic publication, we encourage the authors to use color figures if this will facilitate better communication of their results. Figures that are composites of several images should have white spacing between the different images.

All patient identifiers must be removed from photographs and figures before submitting to the Journal or a written release from the patient is submitted with the manuscript.

Tables may be submitted in word processor or HTML format, and tables should be numbered with Arabic numerals corresponding to their sequence of appearance in the manuscript, e.g., “Table 1”. Each table should have a title and caption. The caption should have sufficient detail to explain the table without referring to the main text.

Text should be submitted in Rich Text Format (.rtf), Microsoft Word Format (.doc), or HTML (.htm or .html). All manuscripts will be published in Journal of Ocular Pathology style; thus, any special formatting used by the author(s) may be lost.

Figures may be submitted in the following digital formats: TIFF (.tif), JPG (.jpg), and Photoshop (.psd). Figures submitted in Microsoft PowerPoint format are unacceptable and will be returned to the authors for reformatting into one of the accepted formats. When preparing figures, diagrams, and charts, the resolution should be at least 150 dots per inch. If you use Photoshop format, then you may create additional layers to mark your figures but do not flatten the images. These figures will be mostly viewed on computer monitors. Images wider than 800 pixels will be difficult to view. All figures should be less than 800 pixels wide.

Animation and Movies may be submitted in MPEG-1 (.mpeg) or in Windows Media Format (.wmv). Please keep the movies short to reduce the file size but long enough to convey the message. The Journal of Ocular Pathology reserves the right to compress the movie into another format to allow reasonable download times without significant degradation in video quality.

Please use Stuffit (.sit) or Zip (.zip) to reduce the size of digital files and add the appropriate suffix to the file’s name after compression.

The Journal of Ocular Pathology will remove all external links embedded within the text during the galley process. The Editors will add links to all GenBank accession numbers and references in PubMed. The Journal of Ocular Pathology reserves the right to add external links to companies, organizations, and entities discussed in the paper per the discretion of the Journal's editorial staff.

The Journal of Ocular Pathology does not accept submissions in hard copy format. All submissions must be done electronically, via email or FTP to our server (email the Editor for FTP instructions). Each submission must include a letter from the corresponding author, manuscript, supporting documents/releases, and transfer of Copyright. All communications between the authors and the Journal will be handled by the corresponding author.

Each part of the manuscript must be submitted in a separate file (e.g., text, figures, and tables). DO NOT embed figures or tables into the main text of the manuscript. Use the last name of the author and the date (month/year) of submission to name the files. Do not use abbreviations for “Journal of Ocular Pathology” to name the files.

The letter should detail the clinical and/or scientific importance of the manuscript. The title, authors, and corresponding author should be indicated along with the contact information for the corresponding author. The names of the files submitted and the section of the manuscript should be given. Please indicate the format of the files (PC or MAC, software, and version). The authors may recommend reviewers for their manuscript and may also request particular reviewers to be excluded from the pool of potential reviewers. Please explain briefly why particular individuals should be excluded from the reviewer pool.

All authors should read and sign the “Copyright Agreement”. Authors who prepared a manuscript as part of their official duties as employees of the US federal government should read and sign the section referring to the “US Government Employee Copyright Statement”. The signed forms must be mailed to the Journal of Ocular Pathology (Medrounds Publications, Inc., 941 25th Avenue, #101, Coralville, IA, 52241) or signed, scanned, and sent electronically via e-mail or FTP to the Editor.