Instructions for Authors

Journal of Clinical Medicine of Kazakhstan (J Clin Med Kaz) is a multidisciplinary, scientific and practical medical journal that publishes original articles, case reports, short communications, reviews, and letters to the editor on various aspects of clinical medicine. J Clin Med Kaz welcomes submissions on clinical or experimental studies, unusual syndromes and diseases, recent advances in medical science, and other topics relevant to the field of medicine.

Before submitting your manuscript, please carefully read the instructions below. The journal follows a rigorous peer-review process, and final decisions on publication are made by an editorial board and two independent external reviewers. Manuscripts should be in English and must not have been previously published or submitted elsewhere. Authors are required to disclose any previous oral or poster presentations of their work at scientific conferences. The journal is published bimonthly (6 issues per year), and the language of publication is English. We look forward to receiving your contribution to the Journal of Clinical Medicine of Kazakhstan. The full responsibility for the articles published in the journal lies with the authors. If a paper is not submitted in accordance with the instructions for writing, it will be evaluated by members of the editorial board.

All correspondence (manuscript submissions, follow-ups, reviewer reports, revision files, and acceptance forms) regarding J Clin Med Kaz must be made online. The rules for manuscripts submitted are as follows:

WRITING INSTRUCTIONS

Submitted manuscripts should be prepared using Microsoft Word. All manuscripts, figures and images must be submitted electronically in Word (DOCX) and PDF format via an online submission page Authors should ensure that, apart from the title page, the manuscript contains no clues about the identity of the author or the institution where the research was conducted.

All articles should be arranged on the basis of the following sequence:

1. Title page

2. English abstract

3. The text of the article in English

4. References

5. Table(s)

6. Figure legend(s)

7. Figure(s) and illustration(s)

Review articles should include an English title and an abstract. The abstract should not contain more than 250 words. Review articles can include a maximum of 6 tables and/or figures (or images). The abstract should be written in a paragraph format.

Original articles should also include an English title, abstract, and body. The body of the article should not exceed 4,000 words (excluding the abstract, references, tables, figures, and legends). The maximum number of references is 40. Tables and figures should not exceed a total of 10. Abstracts should follow a specific structure, including an introduction, methods, results, and conclusion, as well as a list of keywords.

Case reports should include an English title and abstract. They should be organized in the following order: introduction, case presentation, discussion, and references. The number of typed pages should not exceed eight, and there should be no more than three pictures in the report. In the abstract, the number of words should be limited to 200, and it should be written in a paragraph format.

Letter to the editor, short communications, image report should not exceed 2 typed pages. They should also include an English title and an abstract (50 words or less).

PREPARATION OF MANUSCRIPT

The general requirements for reporting within sections of all study designs and manuscript formats should follow the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors.

Title Page

The title of the article should not exceed 100 printed characters for original research articles and 80 printed characters for case reports. The title should be written in English, and all authors' names, affiliations, and departments should be clearly stated. Additionally, the address of the institution where the research was conducted should be clearly indicated. If the research has been previously presented at a scientific conference, the name of the conference and the date should also be included. At the bottom of the page, the corresponding author should include their name, email address, ORCID number, and “Author Contributions” subsection displaying how each co-author contributed to the preparation of the article. The Author Contributions should follow the example provided below:

Author Contributions: Conceptualization, J. S.; methodology, J. S. and Z. D.; validation, J. S., Z. D. and A. C.; formal analysis, A.C.; investigation, J. S., Z. D. and A. C.; resources, J. S.; data curation, A. C.; writing – original draft preparation, J. S., Z. D. and A. C.; writing – review and editing, J. S. and Z. D.; visualization, A. C.;  supervision, J. S.; project administration, J. S.; funding acquisition, J. S. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

If there are some steps that are not part of the article's preparation process, it should be indicated by using “not applicable”" instead of initials. For example, “funding acquisition – not applicable”.

Finally, there are two additional subsections (Acknowledgments and Funding) that are not included in the previously mentioned 100 (80) character limit due to their optional nature. These sections can indirectly reveal the personality of the author, which contradicts our double-blind peer review approach.

Acknowledgments (optional): All contributors who do not qualify as authors should be listed in the acknowledgments section.

Funding (if any).

Abstracts

Abstracts should be provided on separate pages and written in English. They should not exceed 250 words for original articles and 200 words for case reports. At the bottom of each abstract page, authors should list English keywords, which should not be longer than 5 words each. When selecting keywords, authors are encouraged to strictly refer to the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) list provided by the Index Medicus. Abbreviations should not be included in the abstract.

Text

The text must be written in English and include the following sections: Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, and Discussion.

Introduction: Clearly define the topic and purpose of the study. Provide a background or context for the research. State the specific research objective or hypothesis being tested in the study. Cite only relevant references and do not include data or conclusions from unpublished papers or works.

Materials and Methods: This should include the date and design of the study, the setting and type of participants or materials involved, a clear description of all interventions and comparisons, as well as the statistical analysis. Clearly describe the selection of observational or experimental participants (healthy individuals or patients, including controls), including eligibility and exclusion criteria, and a description of the source population. Specify the study's primary and secondary outcomes, as well as identify methods, equipment, and procedures in sufficient detail to allow others to reproduce the results. Define statistical terms, abbreviations, and symbols, and specify the statistical software packages and versions used. Describe statistical methods with enough detail for a knowledgeable reader to judge their appropriateness and verify the reported results, given access to the original data.All information obtained during the study should be included in the "Results" section.

Results: In this section, you should outline the collected data and the results of the statistical analysis. Present your findings in a logical order, using text, tables, and figures. Give the main or most significant findings first. You don't need to repeat all the data from the tables and figures in the text. Instead, emphasize or summarize the most important observations. Provide data on all primary and secondary outcomes that were identified in the Methods section. It's good practice to separate reporting of data by demographic variables like age and sex. This will help you pool data for subgroups across studies. However, if there are compelling reasons not to stratify your reporting, you should explain them.

Discussion: The discussion section should include an interpretation of the study's findings, and the results should be considered in the context of other relevant studies reported in the literature. All written content should be prepared in accordance with grammar and punctuation rules, emphasizing the novel and significant aspects of the research and the conclusions that can be drawn from it based on all available evidence. Whenever possible, avoid repeating detailed data or information from other sections of the manuscript, such as the introduction or results section. If abbreviations are necessary, they should be defined in parentheses for the first time they are used. Figures, tables, and illustrations should be numbered consistently in the order in which they appear in the text, and all measurements should be reported using international standards. Link conclusions to the objectives of the study, but avoid making unsupported statements or drawing conclusions that are not sufficiently supported by the evidence. Also, please avoid claiming priority or referencing work that has not been completed yet.

Conclusions: Conclusions should include the main findings of the study, as well as its limitations and possible directions for future research. This section should contain at least several sentences, rather than just one.

References

References should be given in a separate sheet with double-spaced. References should be consecutively numbered in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text using Arabic numerals [square brackets]. The reference number should be placed at the end of the sentence before the period. If there are multiple references number use “,” between them, and “-” should be inserted between digits when three or more consecutive references are used (e.g. [1,2], [1-3]).

The reference list should include all and only those references you have cited in the text. Journal references should include the following information: Authors, Journal name (in italics) year, volume, first and last pages of the article. Book references should include the only year and first and last pages of the article. Authors in the references should be cited with last names and first initials. Abbreviate journal titles in the style used in the NLM Catalog. For additional information, you may wish to consult Citing Medicine, 2nd ed. The digital object identifier (DOI) is a unique identifier and should be provided in the reference where it is available.

References should include all authors when there are less than seven authors, each must be listed in the citation. When seven or more authors, list the first six followed by “et al.” after the name of the sixth author. J Clin Med Kaz referencing follows to modify the Vancouver-NIH method of a reference citation. Using EndNote's bibliographic management tools, you can search bibliographic databases, build and organize your reference collection, and then instantly output your bibliography in J Clin Med Kaz style. Representative examples are as follows:

Journal references:

1. Author AA, Author BB, Author CC, Author DD. Title of article. Abbreviated title of the journal. YYYY; volume number(issue number):page numbers. DOI

2. Czira ME, Lindner AV, Szeifert L, Molnar MZ, Fornadi K, Kelemen A, et al. Association between the Malnutrition-Inflammation Score and depressive symptoms in kidney transplanted patients. Gen Hosp Psychiatry. 2011;33(2):157-165. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.genhosppsych.2011.01.012

Book references:

3. Author AA. Title of book. # edition [if not first]. Place of Publication: Publisher; Year of publication. Pagination.

4. Carlson BM. Human embryology and developmental biology. 4th ed. St. Louis: Mosby; 2009. 541 p.

Chapter in book references:

5. Author AA, Author BB. Title of chapter. In: Editor AA, Editor BB, editors. Title of book. # edition. Place of Publication: Publisher; Year of publication. p. [page numbers of chapter]

6. Blaxter PS, Farnsworth TP. Social health and class inequalities. In: Carter C, Peel JR, editors. Equalities and inequalities in health. 2nd ed. London: Academic Press; 1976. p. 165-78.

Non-English references

If the language of reference is other than English, the language of origin should be added after the title of references:

7. Pak NV, Chentsova EV, Zueva MV. Transplant of neural stem cells in experimental retinopathy [in Russian]. Vestn Oftalmol. 2004;120(6):21-24

Non-Roman script references

If the cited reference is in another alphabet than Roman, this reference should be transliterated to the Roman alphabet. For more information, please visit http://translit.net

8. Marshakova-Shaikevich I.V. Bibliometricheskii analiz nauchnykh zhurnalov (Bibliometric analysis of scientific journals) [in Russian]. Sotsiologiya nauki i tekhnologii. 2014;3(5):38-48

Tables

Tables should be printed on a separate page, with double spacing. Each table should have a number that corresponds to the order in which it is mentioned in the text, and a title that summarizes its contents. All abbreviations used in the table should be listed alphabetically, with definitions provided below the table (for example, PS – pulmonary stenosis; VSD – ventricular septal defect).

Figures and Illustrations

Figures and illustrations should be clearly labeled and numbered. They should have a minimum resolution of 300 dpi in JPEG format to ensure clarity. Figures must be submitted electronically during the manuscript submission process. If authors wish to include colored illustrations, they may do so at an additional cost. Otherwise, all illustrations will appear in black and white. All abbreviations used in the figures should be listed alphabetically and defined in the footnotes. The technique and magnification ratio for photomicrographs should also be indicated. The editorial board reserves the right to edit the manuscript if necessary, as long as such changes do not interfere with the scientific content of the data presented.

REVISION AFTER REFEREE REPORT

Authors should point-by-point reply to the items that require revision, as per the referee's report, in the designated box in the online system, and should upload any additional files. They should also make the necessary changes to the article, highlight them, and resubmit it online.

FINAL CHECKING

1. All pages have been numbered starting from the first page of the document.

2. The copyright form has been correctly filled out and signed.

3. The abstract should not exceed 300 words for original articles and 200 words for case reports.

4. The title is written in English.

5. The references are in accordance with the instructions.

6. All abbreviations used in tables, figures, and illustrations have been defined.

ONLINE STEPS

At the online submission page of the journal

Before submitting your manuscript, please make sure that it has not been published previously or is not currently under review by another journal. If it has been submitted elsewhere, please provide an explanation in the comments section. The submission file should be in Microsoft Word format. If possible, please include DOIs and URLs for any references cited in your manuscript.

- New Submission Steps:

* - mandatory places to fill

A policy of screening for plagiarism: Plagiarism and self-plagiarism are not allowed and they will be dealt with according to the COPE guidelines.

PERMISSIONS: All inquiries regarding copyright material from this publication should be directed to the Journal of Clinical Medicine of Kazakhstan.

Contact to the editorial office

If you have any questions about your submitted papers, please kindly indicate paper code number and journal-title in your correspondence and send your inquiries to Editorial e-mail: editor@clinmedkaz.org

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