Research Area
Research Papers and Articles may be from one of the following broad areas:
Category Of Manuscript
> Original Research Articles
- > Short communications
- > Review Articles
- > Case report/study
- > Case Series
- > Letter to the Editor
Manuscript Preparation & Submission Guidelines
- Authors are requested to choose category of article (Original Research Article, Short Communication, Review Article, Case report/study, Case Series, Letter to the Editor) under which they want to publish.
- Page number should appear in the lower left corner of each page, beginning with the title page.
- Author’s / Co-author’s name or any other identification should not appear anywhere in the body of the manuscript to facilitate blind review.
Word Limit
The manuscript should be within the word limit according to the category of article as mentioned below. This word limit does not include Abstract and referencing.
- Original Research Article: From 2500 to 3000 words (excluding references and abstract)
- Short Communication: upto 2000 words
- Review Article: From 3000 to 6000 words (excluding references and abstract)
- Case Report/Series/Study: 3000 words
- Letter to editor: 1500 words
Manuscript preparation Instructions
Please communicate with us electronically and send your manuscript as an attachment in MS word. Don’t send article in PDF format. Our electronic submission system will be notified very soon through which the authors can submit their articles step by step electronically without any attachment through email.
Manuscripts should be prepared using font size 12, Times New Roman, Single Spacing;
Page Layout: Margins (Normal- 1” from all sides), Size A4 and aligned left.
All pages should be numbered sequentially. Page number should appear at lower left corner of each page.
Manuscripts should be written in good scientific language, nomenclature and standard international units should be used.
Authors are requested to write category of article (Original Research Article, Short Communication, Review Article, Case Report) under which they want to publish it.
Originality: All articles submitted for publication in JABLM should be original material. The submission should have been made exclusively to JABLM and must not have been published or submitted for publication elsewhere. The corresponding author should certify to this effect. Any author/s found to falsify or mislead the editors will be disqualified from future submissions to JABLM.
Original Research Article
Original Research Article should be submitted under following headings in one file.
- Title
- Name of Authors (write FULL NAME in sequence)
- Affiliation Details (Present working address with post along with the institution where the work has been undertaken. Email ID of all the authors.
- Abstract
- Key words
- Running Title
- Introduction
- Methods including statistical methods
- Result
- Discussion
- Conclusion
- Acknowledgement(if applicable)
- References
Title page:
The title should be a brief phrase describing the contents of the paper. The Title Page should include the authors’ full names and affiliations along with the institution where the work has been undertaken, the name of the corresponding author along with contact number and e-mail information. Present addresses of authors should appear as a footnote. Each authors contribution should be mentioned as a footnote under the following categories on the Title page:
Conceptualization, study design, literature survey, planning for statistical analysis, data interpretation and conclusion, preparation of the draft. Mere sample collection or performance of laboratory tests should not entitle a person as an author. All authors should finally accept the final draft and authorship order.
Abstract
The Abstract should be informative and completely self-explanatory, it should be briefly presented and structured as Background, stating the scope of the experiments, Methodology, Results and Conclusions. The Result section should include the major statistical outcome data like P values in exact. The abstract should have a maximum length upto 300 words. Abstract should be written in the past tense. Standard nomenclature should be used and abbreviations should be avoided. No literature should be cited.
Key Words
Following the abstract, a maximum number of six relevant key words that will provide indexing references should be listed.
Running Title
A running title of maximum 50 characters should be provided.
Introduction
The Introduction should be concise and define the scope of the work in relation to other work done in the same field. It should contain the lacunae in the existing knowledge, the research question and hypothesis suggested thereof.
Methods
Study design, sample selection process, place of the study and study period should be mentioned clearly. Materials and Methods should be complete enough and clearly describe the experiments and techniques used in the study so that the other researchers can reproduce them. However, only truly new procedures should be described in detail; previously published procedures should be cited, and important modifications of published procedures should be mentioned briefly. Names of companies and their countries from which the major reagents and equipments are procured should be mentioned.
Statistical Methods
The details of statistical tests used and the level of significance with confidence intervals should be stated. If more than one test is used it is important to indicate which groups and parameters have been subjected to which test. If any software in used, its name and version should be mentioned.
Results
Results should be combined and presented with clarity and precision. Tables and Figures can be used in such way so that they can be clearly visible. The results should be written in the past tense when describing findings in the author(s)’s experiments. Previously published findings should be written in the present tense.
Discussion
The Discussion should interpret the findings in view of the results obtained in this and in past studies on this topic.
This section should deal with the interpretation, rather than recapitulation of results. It is important to discuss the new and significant observations in the light of previous work. Discuss also the weaknesses or pitfalls in the study under the limitations of the study section. Outcome of the hypothesis and research question stated in the Introduction part should be discussed in this portion. New recommendations can be put forth. Avoid unqualified statements and conclusions not completely supported by the data. Repetition of information given under Introduction and Results should be avoided.
Conclusion
State the conclusions in a few sentences in lucid manner at the end of the paper. Conclusions must be drawn considering the strengths and weaknesses of the study.
Acknowledgement(s)
Acknowledgment should be brief and made for specific scientific/technical assistance and financial support only and not for providing routine departmental facilities and encouragement or for help in the preparation of the manuscripts (including typing or secretarial assistance).
Financial support and Funding: The information about any funding received from state, national or international funding agency should be mentioned here.
Tables and Figures.
Tables should be kept as minimum as possible and placed at appropriate place in the text and be designed to be as simple as possible. Tables should be self-explanatory. All the tables/figures should be kept at appropriate place in the text of article where you have mentioned about these tables/figures. All the tables/figures should be mentioned in text of article. All the Tables and figures to be numbered by Arabic numericals in the chronology of their appearance. Figures can be attached as JPEG or MS word file.
References
The references are to be cited in Vancouver style for books and journals. Each reference should be assigned a number, consecutively in the order of mention in the text.
References are to be cited in the text by superscribed number and should be in the order in which they appear. The original number should be reused each time the same reference is cited in the text. The number should be placed in the text inside bracket and in bold like [1]. When multiple references are cited at a given place in the text, use a hyphen to join the first and last numbers that are inclusive and use commas to separate non-inclusive numbers (eg, 2-5,7,10).
No reference should be given in the ABSTRACT.
The list of references should be given at the end of the paper. If there are 3 or less authors, mention name of all the authors. Where there are more than 3 authors, use et al after the third author.
References mentioned in text of article must be shown in REFERENCE section and vice-versa.
General Instructions
Papers must be submitted with the understanding that they have not been published elsewhere (except as part of a published lecture/presentation, or thesis) and are not currently under consideration by another journal.
The Corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that the article’s publication has been approved by all the other co-authors.
It is also the authors’ responsibility to ensure that the articles emanating from a particular institution are submitted with the approval of the necessary institution.
Electronic submission of manuscripts is mandatory. Further correspondence and proofs will be sent to the corresponding author before publication.
It is a condition for submission of a paper that the authors permit editing of the paper as and when decided by the editorial board.
The inclusion and deletion of author(s) name will not be permitted after the preparation of proofs.
All enquiries concerning the publication of submitted/accepted papers should be addressed to the Editorial Board.
Authors are encouraged to provide their ORCID ids
Ethics & Disclosure Of Conflict Of Interest
1. All articles must be strictly in line with institutional code of ethics and all potential areas of conflict of interest to be declared at time of submission
2. If the work involves the use of human subjects, the authors should ensure that the work described has been carried out in accordance with The Code of Ethics of the World Medical Association (Declaration of Helsinki) for all experiments involving humans. The manuscript should be in line with the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals and aim for the inclusion of representative human populations (sex, age and ethnicity) as per those recommendations. The terms sex and gender should be used correctly.
3. Authors should include a statement in the manuscript that informed consent was obtained for experimentation involving human subjects. The privacy rights of human subjects must always be strictly observed.
4. All animal experiments should comply with the ARRIVE guidelines and should be carried out in accordance with the U.K. Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act, 1986 and associated guidelines, EU Directive 2010/63/EU for animal experiments, or the National Institutes of Health guide for the care and use of Laboratory animals (NIH Publications No. 8023, revised 1978) and the authors should clearly indicate in the manuscript that such guidelines have been stringently followed. The sex of animals must be indicated, and where appropriate, the influence (or association) of sex on the results of the study.
5. Informed consent:Investigations on human subjects must include a statement indicating that informed consent was obtained after the nature and possible consequences of the studies had been fully explained to the subjects.
6. Animal welfare:Authors using experimental animals must state that their care was in accordance with institutional guidelines. For animals subjected to invasive procedures, the anaesthetic, analgesic and tranquilizing agents used, as well as the amounts and frequency of administration, must be stated clearly.
7. Availability of Materials:Publication of an article in JABLM is taken to imply that the authors are prepared to freely distribute materials used in the published experiments (e.g. antibodies, cell lines, reagents, kits etc) to academic researchers for their own use.
Declaration of conflict of interest:
All authors must disclose any financial and personal relationships with other people or organizations that could inappropriately influence (bias) their work. Examples of potential conflicts of interest include employment, consultations, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent applications/registrations, and grants or any other mode of funding. Authors should complete the declaration of interest statement using this template and upload to the submission system at the Attach/Upload Files step. If there are no interests to declare, authors should choose: ‘Declarations of interest: none’ in the template. This statement will be published within the article if accepted.
Anti-Plagiarism Policy
Plagiarism is an unethical and illegal act of copying someone else’s prior ideas, processes, results or words without explicit acknowledgement of the original author and source leading to violation of ethics and copyright rules. Journal of Applied Biochemistry & Laboratory Medicine always encourages submission of original matters with original contents and strictly condemns any act of plagiarism. The editorial board will take necessary actions against it strictly if found either before or after publication of any material sent to it.
The journal in accordance with the international norms and regulations considers following violations as acts of plagiarism:
a. Full Plagiarism: When it is found that any previously published matter has been copied without any changes to the text, idea, content and grammar it is considered as full plagiarism. If detected before publication, the journal will outright reject the paper and will take further necessary actions against the authors as enlisted below.
b. Partial Plagiarism: If the sent material is found to contain a partial copying of contents from a single source or a mixture from multiple different sources, then it is known as partial plagiarism. Plagiarism from 5 to 30 percent will be not considered at the initial submission, marked at the plagiarized parts and will be resent to authors for removal of the plagiarized parts. More than 30 percent plagiarized will be outright rejected as in these cases mostly the authors are not able to bring the plagiarized contents below 5 percent without changing the major implications of the submitted matter.
c. Self-Plagiarism: When an author reuses complete or portions of their pre-published research without any appropriate references then it is known as self-plagiarism. The journal strongly discourages it and will follow the same steps against this exactly in the same way as mentioned against the partial plagiarism above.
The holistic mission of JABLM against plagiarism is as follows:
i) Checking for plagiarism: The journal uses the Grammarly anti-plagiarism software to check any sort of plagiarism as described.
ii) If plagiarism is detected before publication: If any plagiarism is detected by the editorial board members, reviewers or editors at any stage of article processing before its final acceptance, it will be judged on its merit depending on the extent of plagiarism as mentioned above. The manuscript will not be given any ID number from the journal and will be sent back to authors as rejected or with appropriate instructions depending on the extent of the plagiarism.
iii) If plagiarism is detected after publication: If by any means, plagiarism is detected or reported after publication the journal reserves the right to act strongly against it by:
a. Forming a fact finding committee and setting up a preliminary investigation for the verification of plagiarism. If plagiarism is found the paper containing the plagiarism will be marked on each PDF page. The journal may also retract the published paper depending on the extent of plagiarism.
b. If plagiarism is proved, the journal will furnish a statement, both way linked online to and from the original publication, for noting the plagiarism providing a reference to the plagiarised matter.
c. If plagiarism is proved, the Director, Principal or Dean of the Authors’ institution(s) will be conveyed about it and will be asked to take strict disciplinary actions as permissible by rules and regulations.
d. The journal may put the authors’ name on its website if plagiarism is proved and may prohibit submission of any materials from them for a certain time period as determined by the editorial board.
iv) What the authors can do to avoid plagiarism and for a smooth publication process:
a. Avoidance of copying or downloading exact contents, including text, tables or figures from other sources including those belonging to self.
b. If any material or information is used from any source, then proper acknowledgment or reference and citation must be given in appropriate spaces. Permissions for the copyrighted materials like data tables, figures or diagrams must be obtained from appropriate authorities.
c. For a publication of a submitted material that was originally published in another language, the title, date and journal of the original publication must be identified by the authors, and the copyright must be obtained from them. If copyright is received, the editor may accept such a translated publication to bring it to the attention of a wider audience.
Contributions by individual authors & authorship changes:
i. Contributors: Each author is required to declare his or her individual contribution to the article: all authors must have actively and materially participated in the research and/or article preparation, so roles for all authors should be described. The statement that all authors have approved the final article should be true and included in the disclosure.
ii. Role of the funding source: Authors are requested to identify who provided financial support for the conduct of the research and/or preparation of the article and to briefly describe the role of the sponsor(s), if any, in study design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the article for publication. If the funding source(s) had no such involvement, then this should be stated clearly.
iii. Authorship: All authors should have made substantial contributions to all of the following: (1) the conception and design of the study, or acquisition of data, or analysis as well as interpretation of data, (2) drafting the article or revising it critically for vital intellectual content, (3) final approval of the version to be submitted.
iv. Changes to authorship: Authors are expected to consider carefully the list and order of authors before submitting their manuscript and provide the definite list of authors at the time of the original submission. Any addition, deletion or rearrangement of author names in the authorship list should be made only before the manuscript has been accepted and only if approved by the Editorial Board .
To request such a change, the Editorial board must receive the following from the corresponding author: (a) the reason for the change in author list and (b) written confirmation (e-mail or letter) from all authors that they agree with the addition, removal or rearrangement. In the case of addition or removal of authors, this includes confirmation from the author who is being added or removed.
Only in exceptional circumstances will the Editor consider the addition, deletion or rearrangement of authors after the manuscript has already been accepted. While the Editor considers the request, publication of the manuscript will remain suspended. If the manuscript has already been published in an online issue, any requests approved by the Editor will result in issue of a corrigendum.
Review Policy
i. Suggestions for potential reviewers: Authors are invited to provide the names, and e-mail addresses of three potential reviewers, of their choice. However, they must ensure that the reviewer (s) nominated by them have no input into the manuscripts submitted or any recent collaboration with any of the authors. It is to be noted, however that the editors may or may not take these suggestions into account during the reviewing process. Editorial board may choose any three reviewers, either from journal’s own panel or from author’s suggestions. In all cases, final designation of reviewer rests solely with the editorial board.
It is to be also kept in mind, that if any manuscript has involvement of any member of the Editorial Board or any Empanelled Reviewer, than that particular member will be kept totally exempted from the process of review or any kind of decision making regarding that manuscript.
ii. Review process: All contributions are read by three referees to ensure both accuracy and relevance, and revisions to the script may thus be required. On acceptance, contributions are subject to editorial amendment to suit in-house style. When a manuscript is returned for revision prior to final acceptance, the revised version must be submitted as soon as possible after the author’s receipt of the referee’s reports. Revised manuscripts returned after a period of four months will be considered as new submissions subject to full re-review.
iii. Peer review: This journal offers a double blinded review process in which neither the reviewer(s) nor the author(s) will will be aware of each other’s identity. All contributions will be initially assessed by the editorial board for suitability for the journal. Papers deemed suitable will then be sent to a minimum of three independent expert reviewers to assess the scientific quality of the paper. The Editor is responsible for the final decision regarding acceptance or rejection of articles.
Publication Charge
As of now no publication charge will be levied on authors for online or print versions of articles.
Publication charges may however be applied once the process of indexing is completed.
Average Duration Between Article Submission & Publication
Based on the submission process, review process, anti-plagiarism rules the average duration between article submission and its publication is 4 to 8 weeks.
Article Withdrawal Policy
i. Article withdrawal
Only used for Articles in Press which represent early versions of articles and may occasionally contain errors, or may have been accidentally submitted twice. less frequently, the articles may represent infringements of professional ethical codes, such as multiple submission, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data or such like. Articles in Press (articles that have been accepted for publication but which have not been formally published and will not yet have the complete volume/issue/page information) that include errors, or are discovered to be accidental duplicates of other published article(s), or are determined to violate our journal publishing ethics guidelines in the view of the editors (such as multiple submission, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data or the like), may be “Withdrawn” from JABLM.
Withdrawn means that the article content (HTML and PDF) will be removed and replaced with a HTML page and PDF simply stating that the article has been withdrawn according to the JABLM policy on Article in Press Withdrawal with a link to the current policy document.
ii. Article retraction
Applicable for articles harbouring infringements of professional ethical codes, such as multiple submission, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data or the like. Occasionally a retraction will be used to correct errors in submission or publication. The retraction of an article by its authors or the editor under the advice of members of the scholarly community has long been an occasional feature of the learned world and this practice is endorsed and adopted for article retraction by JABLM.
A retraction note titled “Retraction: [article title]” signed by the authors and/or the editor will be published in the designated part of a subsequent issue of the journal and listed in the contents list.
In the electronic version, a link will be made to the original article. The online article is preceded by a screen containing the retraction note. It is to this screen that the link resolves; the reader can then proceed to the article itself. The original article is retained unchanged save for a watermark on the .pdf indicating on each page that it is “retracted.”
iii. Article removal: legal limitations
In an extremely limited number of cases, it may be necessary to remove an article from the online database. This will only occur where the article is clearly defamatory, or infringes legal rights of others, or where the article is, or the journal has good reason to expect it will be, the subject of a court order, or where the article, if acted upon, might pose a serious health hazard. In these circumstances, while the metadata (Title and Authors) will be retained, the text will be replaced with a screen indicating the article has been removed for legal reasons.
iv. Article replacement
In cases where the article, if acted upon, might pose serious health risk, the authors of the original article may wish to retract the flawed original and replace it with an improved and corrected version. In these circumstances the procedures for retraction will be followed with the difference that the database retraction notice will publish a link to the corrected re-published article and a history of the document.