Author Information for Residents’ Journal Submissions

General Policies

To submit a manuscript, please visit the ScholarOne manuscript submission site and select a manuscript type for AJP Residents’ Journal.

Learn more about using the ScholarOne online manuscript submission system (PDF).

The requirements stated below are in accordance with the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. See “Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals” at icmje.org.

Unless specifically mentioned below, all policies follow those of the American Journal of Psychiatry listed here.

PRIOR PUBLICATION
Manuscripts are accepted for consideration with the understanding that they represent original material, have not been published previously, are not being considered for publication elsewhere, and have been approved by each author. Any form of publication other than an abstract of no more than 400 words constitutes prior publication. This includes components of symposia, proceedings, transactions, books (or chapters), invited articles, or reports of any kind, regardless of differences in readership, as well as electronic databases of a public nature. (Clinical trial registration does not constitute prior publication and will not preclude consideration for publication in the Residents’ Journal.)

Authors submitting manuscripts containing data or clinical observations already used in published papers or used in papers that are in press, submitted for publication, or to be submitted shortly should provide this information and copies of those papers to the Editor. An explanation of the differences between the papers should be included. You should submit your Certification of Authorship, Disclosure of Financial Relationships, and Copyright Transfer Forms ONLY after you have been notified that your article has been provisionally accepted for publication.

AUTHORSHIP
The Residents’ Journal considers manuscripts authored by medical students, resident physicians, and fellows; attending physicians and other faculty members cannot be included as authors.

REVIEW PROCESS
All manuscripts receive a review by the editorial board to determine the originality, validity, and importance of content and conclusions. Authors will receive reviewer comments with their decision letter.

Manuscript Types

See table below for word limits and other specifications.

Article
Reports of novel observations and research. May include meta-analyses and quality improvement projects. A single-paragraph abstract of approximately 100 words is required, written in the active voice and in the third person. If the article reports Methods and Results, the abstract should be structured and include the following headings: Objective, Methods, Results, Conclusions. Otherwise, the abstract may be unstructured, without embedded headings.

The contents of the text should include four major sections: introduction, method, results, and discussion. The method section should provide a comprehensive description of the nature of the study group, methods for recruitment, measurement and evaluation techniques (including information about reliability as appropriate), and data analysis. At the end of the section describing the study subjects, it should be clearly stated that subjects provided written informed consent after receiving a complete description of the study. Strengths and weaknesses of the study should be presented in the discussion.

Drug Review
A review of a pharmacological agent that highlights mechanism of action, efficacy, side effects, and drug interactions.

Case Report
A presentation and discussion of an unusual clinical event. All patient information must be adequately disguised, with written consent of the patient described.

Commentary
Generally includes descriptions of recent events, opinion pieces, or narratives.

History of Psychiatry
Provides a historical perspective on a topic relevant to psychiatry.

Arts and Culture
Includes introspective pieces, poetry, and reviews of books and films. All submissions must be relevant to the field of psychiatry.

Letters to the Editor
Comments on articles published in the Residents’ Journal will be considered for publication if received within 1 month of publication of the original article.

Manuscript Organization and Format

All parts of the manuscript or letter to the Editor, including case reports, quotations, references, and tables, must be written in 12-point font and double-spaced throughout. The manuscript should be arranged in the following order, with each item beginning a new page: 1) cover letter, 2) title page, 3) text, 4) references, and 5) tables and/or figures. All pages must be numbered.

COVER LETTER
The cover letters should include statements regarding Authorship, Disclosure, and Copyright Transfer.

TITLE PAGE

Word count. The number of words in the manuscript (main text only) and the number of tables and figures should be noted in the upper right-hand corner of the title page. Abstract, references, key points, tables and figures are not included in the word count.

Title. The title should be informative and as brief as possible. Residents’ Journal style for titles is not to use declarative sentences.

Byline. See instructions for Authorship. Authors’ first names are preferred over initials. Degrees should be included after each author’s name. For each author, please include the following statement on the title page: “Dr./Mr./Ms. ___ is a ___-year resident/fellow/student in the (department or program) at the (institution)”

Previous presentation. If the paper has been presented at a meeting, give the name of the meeting, the location, and the inclusive dates.

Location of work and address for correspondence. Provide the department, institution, city, and state where the work was done. Include an e-mail address for the author who is to receive correspondence.

Disclosures and acknowledgments. In a separate paragraph, all potential conflicts of interest and financial support for all authors must be disclosed, whether or not directly related to the subject of their paper. Such reporting must include all equity ownership, profit-sharing agreements, royalties, patents, and research or other grants from private industry or closely affiliated nonprofit funds. For income from pharmaceutical companies, the purpose must be specified, e.g., speakers bureau honoraria or other CME activity, travel funds, advisory panel payments, research grants. It is the author’s responsibility to disclose anything in addition to the above that might be construed as potentially affecting the reporting of the study. If an author has no interests to disclose, this must be explicitly stated and will be acknowledged in print as “Dr. X reports no competing interests.” Drug company support of any kind must be acknowledged.

Grant support should be acknowledged in a separate paragraph and should include the full name of the granting agency and grant number.

Data analysis. Adequate description of statistical analysis should be provided, including the names of the statistical tests and whether tests were one- or two-tailed. Standard deviations, rather than standard errors of the mean, are required. Statistical tests that are not well-known should be referenced. All significant and important nonsignificant results must include the test value, degree(s) of freedom, and probability. For manuscripts that report on randomized clinical trials, authors should provide a flow diagram in CONSORT format and all of the information required by the CONSORT checklist. When word limits prevent the inclusion of some of this information in the manuscript, it should be provided in a separate document submitted with the manuscript for posting online. The CONSORT statement, checklist, and flow diagram can be found at http://www.consort-statement.org. (See Supplemental Data for what types of data and formats are acceptable for posting online.)

Abbreviations. The Residents’ Journal is distributed to a broad psychiatric readership. Therefore, only a very small number of abbreviations are considered “standard” and thus acceptable for use. Spell out all abbreviations (other than those for units of measure) the first time they are used; idiosyncratic abbreviations should never be used.

Drugs. Generic rather than trade names of drugs should be used.

REFERENCES
The Residents’ Journal uses Vancouver style citations. References must be numbered in order of first citation within the text. Reference citations in tables and figures are numbered as though the tables and figures were part of the text. Type references in the style shown below. List the surnames and initials of the first three authors, followed by “et al:”. Abbreviations of journal names should conform to the style used in “NLM Catalog: Journals referenced in the NCBI Databases” (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nlmcatalog/journals); journals not indexed there should not be abbreviated. Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) are not needed for journal articles, and neither are URLs. Include both the first and last pages of the citation, separated by an en dash.

Journal article
• Mahon K, Russo M, Perez-Rodriguez M, et al: The neurobiology of bipolar disorder: neuroimaging and genetics update. Focus 2015; 13:3–11
• Fredriksen-Goldsen KI, Kim H-J, Barkan SE, et al: Health disparities among lesbian, gay, and bisexual older adults: results from a population-based study. Am J Public Health 2013; 103(10):1802–1809

Book chapter
• Beahrs JO: The cultural impact of psychiatry: the question of regressive effects, in American Psychiatry After World War II: 1944–1994. Edited by Menninger RW, Nemiah JC. Washington, DC, American Psychiatric Association Publishing, 2000, pp 321–342

Report (URLs or DOIs are welcome)
• Achieving the Promise: Transforming Mental Health Care in America. Pub no SMA-03-3832. Rockville, Md, Department of Health and Human Services, President’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health, 2003

TABLES
The Residents’ Journal does not publish tables that have been submitted elsewhere or previously published. Tables that duplicate material contained elsewhere in the manuscript (in text, figures, or other tables) will not be used. Authors should delete tables containing data that could be given succinctly in text. A copy of each table must be submitted with the manuscript and must be accessible for copyediting. Tables cannot be embedded within the document or provided as figure art. Authors providing tables in such a manner will be required to resubmit tables in a format that allows for copyediting. In terms of data presentation, values expressed in the same unit of measurement should read down, not across; when percentages are presented, the appropriate numbers must also be given. In preparing the tables, each cell should contain only one item of data. In rows, subcategories should be in separate cells; in columns, Ns and %s or Means and SDs should be in separate cells. For optimum readability and presentation, tables should not exceed 120 characters in width. For other guidelines, consult recent issues of the Residents’ Journal.

FIGURES
Please confirm that figures are original. If figures have been previously published or adapted from an earlier publication, please secure written permission from the holder of copyright for use. This permission release should include the attribution line that should accompany the figure to give appropriate credit to the original source. Any fees for re-use are the responsibility of the author.

As part of the resubmission upload, please note that we require specific file formats for different types of figure images. For photos or brain scans, .jpg or .tiff files are preferred. For charts and graphs, we require editable .eps or .pdf files. To generate the latter, please do not create .eps or .pdf files from .tiff files but rather go to the original software that was used to create the charts. Then save the files as .eps or .pdf (some software might let you “export” the files to those formats rather than “save as”).

Processing of Accepted Manuscripts

Manuscripts are accepted with the understanding that the Editor and the editorial staff have the right to make revisions aimed at greater conciseness, clarity, and conformity with Residents’ Journal style. Preliminary page proofs will be sent to the corresponding author. Authors who will be away from their offices for a long period or who change address after notification of acceptance should inform the Residents’ Journal staff.

If your manuscript is deemed to require revisions, please provide a point-by-point response to the editors’ reviews when you re-submit. Please copy and paste reviewers’ comments, alongside your response to them, in your re-submission letter. Revisions submitted without a detailed response to the review will be returned to the author for completion.

Reprints & Permissions
Contact the Editorial Office