General Guidelines | Medical Student Research Journal

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Publication Requirements

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission’s compliance with all of the following items. Submissions that do not adhere to these guidelines may be returned to the authors without review.

The submission has not been previously published, nor is it currently submitted to another journal for consideration.
The author has full permission to copyright of all text, figures, and tables submitted. Authors license MSRJ to edit and reproduce the submission with no time or number restrictions while maintaining copyright to their submission. MSRJ is an open access journal where anyone is free to copy, distribute, and transmit the work – given that the original author(s) is given credit, it is not for profit, and any reuse of the works must make the license terms clear.
The first author is a medical student enrolled in and in good standing with an accredited medical college. A copy of a letter of current enrollment or letter of good standing that is signed by appropriate faculty on school letterhead must be submitted, including year of anticipated graduation.
Authorship should be based upon the guidelines set by the Michigan State University– University Research Council found here: Authorship Guide For additional information regarding Health Research Reporting Guidelines, we recommend you visit The Equator Network. They provide reporting guidelines for multiple types of research.
The manuscript has been read and approved by all the authors, and the authors listed are the sole authors of this work. The requirements for authorship as stated in the Authorship Guide have been met, each author believes that the manuscript represents honest work of the highest integrity, and statements made in the manuscript are true to current scientific knowledge. All manuscripts will be screened for potential plagiarism.
The name, address, and telephone number of the corresponding author, who is responsible for communicating with the other authors about revisions and final approval of the proofs, is included on the title page.
If submitting to a peer-reviewed section of the journal, the authors should take care to follow the Ensuring a Blind Review guidelines.
Each author has completed ICMJE authorship conflict of interest forms and attached them as supporting documents to this submission. Available here:http://www.icmje.org/coi_disclosure.pdf. Please right-click and “save link as” to properly view the document.
Potentially identifiable patient information should not be included and violations of HIPAA regulations (http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/hipaa/understanding/summary/index.html) will result in rejection. Written permission must be obtained and submitted to MSRJ for any identifiable information or images. Please use this consent form to obtain written consent for every patient mentioned in a case report or case series. More information on patient consent requirements is available below in the Disclosures section.
If the study involved human subjects research, a copy of the approval letter or email of approval for the institutional review board (IRB) application should be attached, whether exempt, expedited, or full review. A sentence mentioning IRB approval should appear in the manuscript.

Text Formatting

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Use Times New Roman at 11 or 12 point font with double spacing for all portions of the manuscript, except tables and figures which may use single spacing. Pages should conform to 8.5 x 11 inches with 1 inch margins on all sides. Text should be left justified. New paragraphs should indent with the first line. Authors should number all of the pages of the manuscript consecutively, beginning with the title page, to facilitate the editorial process. The running title should appear in the header. The submission file must be in Microsoft Word (either .doc or .docx). Measurements of length, height, weight, and volume should be reported in metric units (meters, kilograms, or liters); if information is better conveyed using U.S. standards of measurement, such as height or weight of a patient, those should be in parentheses in addition to metric measurements. In addition, the use of American English should be utilized rather than British English (color instead of colour, orthopedics instead of orthopaedics, anesthetized instead of anaesthetized, tumor instead of tumour, etc); this does not apply to references or quotations.

Title Page

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The title page should carry the following information:

- Article Title (concise information about the study, limited to 100 characters)
- Author Names (Mark D. Smith B.S.^1*, Jeremy Michael Howes M.S.², Jessica P. Masters M.D. Ph. D.^1,2)
- Institutional Affiliations of all authors in order of appearance in author names (¹ College of Human Medicine, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA. ² Dept. of Internal Medicine, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA)
- Contact information for corresponding author(s) including address, email, phone, and fax. The corresponding author should indicate clearly whether his or her e-mail address can be published. Corresponding author(s) is indicated with asterisk by name in author listing; the medical students should be corresponding author.
- Short Title (50 character limit shorter title for headers)
- Key Phrases – Relevant words or short phrases that aid search engines or indexes in finding your work (use MeSH headings if possible). Use key phrases that are not present in the title. Maximum of 6, e.g. (Pemphigus, Bullous Skin Disorder, Autoimmune, Blistering, Skin Diseases, Monoclonal Antibody)
- Disclaimers, if any
- Word Count: Abstract and Body (excluding abstract, illustrations, and references)
- Table and Figure Count
- Source(s) of support in the form of grants, equipment, drugs, or all of these
- Conflict of Interest Statement

Abstract

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Abstracts are the only substantive portion of the article indexed in many electronic databases, and the only portion many readers read. Authors must be careful that they accurately reflect the content of the article in the abstract. They may be formatted differently and may have different content depending on the article type. This description should include:

- context or background for the study including description of literature search methodology
- purpose, basic procedures, main findings and principal conclusions
- Emphasis on new and important aspects of the study or observations
- No references, illustrations, or references to illustrations are allowed in the abstract
- The abstract should be structured with similar headings as in the main article (example for a case study: introduction, patient profile, interventions, conclusions)

Illustrations (Figures and Tables)

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Number tables and figures consecutively in the order of their first citation in the text. Supply a brief title for each, followed by a caption that describes the illustration, its components, and any pertinent information needed to interpret it. Letters, numbers, and symbols on figures should be clear and consistent throughout, and large enough to remain legible when the figure is reduced for publication. All graphs must have labeled axes and units. Measurements of length, height, weight, and volume should be reported in metric units (meters, kilograms, or liters); if information is better conveyed using U.S. standards of measurement, such as height or weight of a patient, those should be in parentheses in addition to metric measurements. Photomicrographs should have internal scale markers. Photographs of potentially identifiable people must be accompanied by written permission to use the photograph as mentioned in the publication requirements. Illustrations that are currently copyrighted are not allowed to be published in the journal unless express written permission from the copyright holder has been given, and a copy of the permission has been submitted to MSRJ; the authors are responsible for obtaining permission.
A sample form for requesting permission to reprint published material can be found here from the American Physical Society.

When referencing a figure or table in the text, refer to it as: fig. # or figure #, or table #.

Examples:

“As seen in figure 1A, the increase of mortality possessed a linear relationship to the amount of toxin ingested. However this strongly contrasted with the amount of anti-toxin administered (fig. 1B).”

“The patient population demographics were widely varied, seen in table 2.”