Scope of the Journal

The International Journal of Sports Medicine (IJSM) provides a forum for the publication of papers dealing with basic or applied information that will advance the field of sports medicine and exercise science. The following sections define the scope of the journal: physiology & biochemistry; training & testing; immunology; nutrition; clinical sciences; orthopedics & biomechanics; behavioral sciences.

General Policy

The journal publishes original papers, reviews, short communications and letters to the Editors. Manuscripts submitted to the journal must contain novel data on theoretical or experimental research or on practical applications in the field of sports medicine and exercise science. No substantial part of the submission should have been published elsewhere. If a part of the submission has been published or presented on a congress, symposium, or national meeting proceeding, the reference for that publication and/or presentation should be given in the manuscript acknowledgement section. Submitted papers undergo peer reviewing by two independent referees. Authors are encouraged to provide names of 3-5 potential reviewers (not recent co-authors or collaborators) who are familiar with the subject of the manuscript, together with their complete addresses, telephone and fax numbers as well as e-mail addresses.

Categories of articles accepted for review

Original articles: Theoretical or experimental (basic or applied) research or practical applications. Either original work or the replication of work that better establishes basic principles will be considered. Original articles should not exceed a total of 15,000 characters, including references.

Review articles: Review articles on topics of broad interest are desirable. Authors who wish to submit an unsolicited review article should correspond with the Editors-in-Chief to determine the timeliness of the proposed review article. The correspondence should include an abstract and a complete outline of the proposed review article, including figures and tables (if possible). Review articles should not exceed 30,000 characters, including references. Review articles are considered by the Editors and expert referees before a final decision regarding publication is made.

Rapid communications: Short manuscripts containing results of unusual scientific interest and importance, requiring rapid publication. Papers submitted for this accelerated process must require little or no revision. Accompanying the submission should be a letter from the authors stating why they feel the paper should be published as a rapid communication. The manuscripts must not exceed four journal pages (2500 words including figures, tables and references). The format is the same as for full papers. For articles submitted as Rapid Communications every effort will be made to make a decision within three weeks and publish it within two or three months. Manuscripts rejected as Rapid Communications are eligible for resubmission as regular articles.

Letters to the Editor are welcome and will be published if appropriate. Letters (maximum length 700 words) relating to material previously published in IJSM should be submitted within 6 months after publication of the material the letter is referring to. Such letters will be sent to the corresponding author for comment within six weeks. The original letter and any reply will be published concurrently.

Preparation of the submission

General: Each submission must come with a cover letter containing the following information:

• title of the article and authors' names;
• statement that the manuscript is not under consideration for publication by any other journal;
• statement indicating that each author has contributed substantially to the submitted work and has reviewed and agrees with the submission of the manuscript for review (please note: authorship may not change during review process);
• statement indicating that the corresponding author will cover the page charge starting from the fourth printed page;
• a signature by each author, or at minimum the senior author with the authority from the coauthors.
• If the reader is referred to previous work by the same authors, particularly in relation to methodology but also if a previous concurrent article is unpublished, copies or reprints of the other publications should be sent with the original submission.

Electronic Submissions

Send a disk to the Editorial Office, or send an e-mail with the manuscript attached. Tables and figures must be included, though print quality/high-resolution (color/grayscale 300 dpi, graphics/line drawings 800 dpi) will only be required for accepted manuscripts. We encourage all electronic submissions in PDF format; MSWord files will also be accepted. Please indicate the file type (and version) in the text of the e-mail. Maximum acceptable file size is 2 MB.

Paper Submissions

Format: Manuscripts must be typed legibly on standard paper no larger than 21x29.7 cm (DIN A4) with a 3 cm margin on the left, font 12 point, double spaced. The pages must be numbered in sequence beginning with the title page as page number one. The lines of each page must be numbered consecutively beginning with the title page.

Four copies of the manuscript are required, one original (with illustrations suitable for reproduction) and three complete copies including copies of illustrations and tables.

Style: Manuscripts may be rejected without review on the basis of poor English or lack of conformity to stated standards of style.

Title page: The title page of the manuscript should contain the following information:

• specification of the most appropriate section of the journal (as list„ed above under Scope of the Journal);
• concise but informative title;
• authors' names with first and middle initials (do not include degrees);
• short concise running title (not exceeding 45 characters including spaces) for presentation on the journal cover;
• name and location of the institution(s) where the work was undertaken;
• name and address of the corresponding author and author to whom official correspondence and reprint requests should be addressed that must include telephone and fax numbers and an e-mail address.

Abstract page: The abstract should be informative. It should be self-explanatory without reference to the text of the manuscript. It should include essential significant results that support the conclusion of the work. Three to six key words not used in the title should also be provided. Abbreviations should not be used in the abstract.

Introduction: Should be comprehensible to the general reader. Give a clear statement of the purpose of the paper and provide relevant context to support the basis for the paper and the significance of the work. Do not exhaustively review the literature.

Materials & Methods: Provide sufficient information in the text or by reference to other work to permit the submitted work to be repeated without the need to communicate with the authors. Relevant validity and reliability data should be provided for critical methods.

State the type of statistical tests used. Include the number of observations and the statistical findings when appropriate. Parametric and non-parametric statistics must be used as appropriate.

Results: Should be presented precisely and should not contain material that is appropriate in the discussion. Units, quantities, and formulas should be expressed according to the Système Internationale (SI units). All measurements should be given in metric units.

Discussion: Emphasize the new and important aspects of the study and conclusions derived from the study.

Acknowledgements: Reference to prior publication of the results in abstract form or in proceedings should be provided. Addresses of authors other than the laboratory acknowledged for the work should be provided. Financial support should be stated.

References: References should be cited in the text by number and compiled alphabetically at the end of the article and numbered accordingly. Titles of journals should be abbreviated according to the latest edition of Index Medicus. All authors should be named (do not use "et al."). Authors bear complete responsibility for the accuracy of the references.

Only published or "in press" papers or books may be cited in the reference list. Information from manuscripts submitted but not yet accepted should be cited in the text as "unpublished observations" in parentheses. Personal communications should be listed in the text in parentheses. Published abstracts must not be used as references. Use of a large number of abstracts or non peer-reviewed articles in the reference section will be grounds for rejection of the submission without review.

Examples of references

Journal article:

¹ Palmer GS, Dennis SC, Noakes TD, Hawley JA. Assessment of the reproducibility of performance testing on an air-braked cycle ergometer. Int J Sports Med 1996; 17: 293-298

Complete book:

¹ Dingle JT (ed). Lysosomes. New York: American Elsevier, 1972: 65

Chapter of a book:

¹ Zancetti A, Baccelli G, Guazzi M, Mancia G. The effect of sleep on experimental hypertension. In: Onesti G, Kim KE, Moyer JH (eds). Hypertension: Mechanisms and Management. New York: Grune & Stratton, 1973: 133-140

Figures: Figures, illustrations, or half-tones should be used when findings are best visually communicated. Figures should be numbered in Arabic numerals in the sequence as they appear in the text. Each figure should be accompanied on a separate sheet by a suitable short and concise legend. Abbreviations used in the figure must be explained in the legend. Figures should be labeled with the name of the first author and the figure number on the top left-had corner of the reverse side of the figure with a soft pencil. Reference to the figure should be made in the text.

Figures, illustrations or half-tones must be submitted that are clear, black and white, on glossy paper and must be sharp, high-contrast and suitable for reproduction also after reduction in size. Uniform typographical setup (font style & size, line thickness) of all figures in a paper is highly desirable.

Color figures, illustrations or half-tones will not be published unless the author requires color in the publication. In this case the author will be charged with the additional cost of printing. The use of photographs or equipment and experimental subjects should be avoided. Good line drawings are more informative.

Tables: Tables should be used to communicate information that is hard to present visually. Results whose interpretation is more easily comprehended by knowing the means and SEM (or SD) may be presented in a table(s). Tables should be self-explanatory and bear a short title. Table legends should be typed on the same sheet as the table as a header. A footnote to the table should explain all abbreviations used in the table.

Submitting the manuscript

• All manuscripts from the Western hemisphere (United States, Canada, South America) and from Pacific Ocean countries (Australia, Japan, New Zealand and Taiwan) should be addressed to: W. M. Sherman, PhD, HPER/Larkins Hall, The Ohio State University, 337 W 17th Avenue, Columbus, OH, 43210-1284, USA, Email: ijsm@osu.edu.
• Manuscripts from all other countries should be submitted to the Eu„ropean office journal secretary: Mrs. Louise Lehnen, An der Eiche 29, D-53937 Schleiden, Germany. Email: lehnen@online.de. Do not send submissions via express mail to this German address.

Electronic Manuscripts

Whenever possible, accepted manuscripts should be made available electronically. Please send diskettes to the publisher's address which is provided in the letter of acceptance. Widespread text processors should be used and the operating system, programme and version numbers should be indicated on the diskette. Please save your file in the standard format of your text processor and in one or several exchange format/s (for example, *.txt, *.rtf). If possible, the "endnote" function of the text processor should be used for the management of references. Figure legends and tables should be listed at the end of the document.

Please save figures as separate files. They should not be integrated into the text document. The following graphic file formats are preferred:

• For coloured and black-and-white bitmaps: *.eps, *.tif, *.jpg, *.wmf (resolution: 300 dpi).
• For diagrams and line drawings: *.eps (resolution: 800 dpi).

In addition to the electronic files, four paper versions of both text and figures must be submitted. In case of doubt, the paper version is given the higher priority.

Please provide a signed declaration that the paper and electronic versions are identical.

Galley proofs and proof-reading

Galley proofs will be sent to the corresponding author via email or in the form of a PDF file. Proof reading is for typesetting errors only. At this stage the manuscript cannot be changed. The galley proofs should be returned to the appropriate address within 48 hours so the publication of the submission is not delayed.

Page charge

Together with the galley proofs, if the manuscript is more than three printed pages, the corresponding author will be asked by the publisher to submit a check or purchase order to pay the cost of publication. Up to three printed pages of publication are without charge to the corresponding author. Each printed page beginning with the fourth printed page will carry a page charge of € 160.-- (including 16% VAT).

Reprints

The authors will receive 25 reprints free of charge. An order form for reprints will be sent to the authors enabling further reprints to be ordered at prices indicated on materials contained with the galley proofs.