GENERAL INFORMATION

The American Journal of Oral Medicine invites submissions of high-quality research in the field of clinical and basic science in oral medicine.

Authors must adhere to the below-mentioned guidelines before submitting their manuscripts and comply with the journal's requirements and standards.

The journal is published electronically. Manuscripts that do not conform to the guidelines given here may be returned to authors before being reviewed.

Submission of a manuscript implies that the work has not been published before, it is not being considered for publication elsewhere and its submission has been approved by all co-authors. Any special circumstances should be explained in the cover letter submitted with the online submission.

Authors are responsible for disclosing financial support from industry or other support that might bias the interpretation of the results.

The submitting author, also known as the contact author, will be the principal contact for editorial correspondence throughout the peer review and proofreading process, if applicable. The submitting author is responsible for securing the initial approval of the submission by the co-authors and for ensuring that co-authors are informed of the manuscript’s progress following submission. 

1. PREPARATION OF MANUSCRIPT

Style
Manuscripts must be written in English language.

Abbreviations and symbols must be standard. SI units should be used throughout, except for blood pressure values, which should be reported in mm Hg. Drugs, should be given with their approved generic name. When acronyms are used, they must be fully explained when first used.

Set uniform margins of 1 inch (2.54 cm) on the top, bottom, left, and right of every page that must be justified on a 8.5”x11” or A4 paper size. Use double-spaced Arial or Times New Roman font with 12-point size. Documents must be submitted in word format (.doc or .docx).

Cover letter
Your cover letter should inform the Editor of any special considerations regarding your submission, including but not limited to:

* What is already published in the literature by the same author(s) or someone else, in the same field of their research.

* Reason why the paper should be considered by the Journal.

Cover letter should also contain details of the manuscript (type of article, word counts) as well as a statement about conflict of interest, funding source and previous publication of the contents (Congress, Oral Presentation, Poster). If never presented, authors must declare that contents of the manuscript have not been previously published or presented in a congress and are not currently submitted elsewhere.

Authors may suggest reviewers in their cover letters. Suggested reviewers should not share an institutional affiliation with any of the authors. They should not have co-authored articles with any of the authors or have any other close professional or personal association with them.

Title page
On the title page, include the title of the manuscript, authors' first and last names, and institutional affiliations and locations. Include category of article (e.g. original article, review article), word count for the followings: abstract, manuscript, references, figures, and tables (if applicable). The title page must also include a statement of all funding sources for the work as well as a publishable conflict of interest statement. Designate the corresponding author/s (provide address, telephone and fax numbers, and e-mail address) to receive communications from the Editorial Office. The corresponding author should promptly inform the editorial office (info@ajomonline.com) of any change in e-mail or mailing address.

The aim is not to impress readers with prestigious affiliations but rather to provide information so that readers can contact authors. Orcid ID numbers may be included, if any (optional).

Names of universities and other institutions, departments, laboratories and so on should be given in English. If there is a strong reason to use the non-English name—for example, a funding agency or employer requires it—the editor should be informed. Omit acronyms in addresses.

Abstract
The abstract explains the topic of the paper, the problem or question that the paper seeks to address, what methods were used in the study, what the most important results were and what they mean.

Original Articles, Review articles and Short Communications must be accompanied by a typed, double-spaced abstract possibly not exceeding 250 words and be structured as follows:

* Background: What is the major problem that prompted the study?

* Objective: What is the purpose of the study?

* Methods: What type of study was done (case series, case-control, cohort, cross-sectional, randomized controlled trial, etc)? How was the study done? What techniques were used?

* Results: What are the most important findings? Numeric values need to be included as well as statistical significance.

* Conclusion: What is the most important conclusion?

Abstracts for Systematic Reviews must be structured, whereas for Narrative Reviews can be unstructured at the discretion of the author. Abstracts are not required for Editorials, Challenging Cases, Opinion Articles, Commentaries, Letters to the Editor, Images in Oral Medicine.

Keywords
Choose up to six keywords/phrases. Do not borrow words from the title: keywords are meant to supplement information given in the title. Consider using larger issues or phenomena as keywords, such as climate change or biodiversity.

Running title
Provide a short version of the manuscript title.

Abbreviations
Provide a list of abbreviations used in the manuscript, along with their explanations. This list will appear on the title page, to the right of the abstract. This replaces the spelling out of abbreviations in the main body of the paper and in the table/figure captions. However, in the abstract, which is often read as a stand-alone piece, abbreviations should be spelled out.

When a phrase or term only appears a few times in the paper, its abbreviation is usually not warranted. Authors should carefully consider whether use of an abbreviation serves to help readers (for example, by improving visual flow) or whether it adds clutter to the manuscript.

A few abbreviations do not need to be included in the list. These include DNA, GPS and abbreviations for common units of measurement, such as mm and g.

Manuscript structure
For Original articles, Systematic reviews and Short communication, the manuscript should be presented with the following headings: Title page, Abstract, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgments, Conflict of Interest, References, Tables, Legends and Figures.

Authorship of Manuscript
Only those who have contributed significantly to the research can be listed as an author. Authorship is based on the following criteria:

* Conception and design of the study

* Data acquisition and analysis

* Data interpretation

* Draft of the manuscript

* Critical revision for important intellectual content

Conflict of Interest
Financial or personal conflict of interest for authors should be clearly disclosed in the manuscript under the heading "Conflict of Interest." If no conflicts exist, please use the standard phrase, "The authors have no conflict of interest to declare."

The corresponding author on behalf of all authors will declare all the potential conflict of interests by each single author, if any, and sign the cover letter. A scanned copy of the signed cover letter must be submitted as separate file, upon submission.

Funding
This section acknowledges sources of financial support. Institutional names should be given in full (preferably in English) unless the acronyms have already been explained in the paper.

Acknowledgments
Contributors who provided help during the research but whose contributions do not qualify them as authors should be listed under this section.

Reference style, Tables and Figures
The format for the reference list must adhere to APA style. For a complete guide see the following website: http://www.bibme.org/citation-guide/apa/ or https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl

In the Main Text:
(a) Single author: the author's last name and the year of publication. For example: Taylor (1999) wrote….
(b) Two authors: both authors' last names and the year of publication. For example: Taylor and Brown (1999) wrote…
(c) More than two authors: only the first author's last name followed by “et al.” and the year of publication. For example: Taylor et al. (1999) wrote…

For a group of references in the main text, citations should be ordered chronologically. For example: The methods were used in many areas (Brown, 1998; Taylor et al., 1999; Thomas and Evans, 2002)

In the Reference List:
Citations in the reference list should be ordered alphabetically first.

For references with the same authors in the same order, they should be listed chronologically.
If there is more than one reference from the same author(s) in the same year, “a”, “b”, "c", etc can be used after the year of publication for differentiation in both the main text and the reference list.
In the reference list, the last name and the initials of the first and middle names (if available) of all authors should be listed. Please refer to the following examples:

Journal publication:
Author, A. (Year of Publication). Article title. Periodical Title, Volume(Issue), pp.-pp. (IN PRINT)
Jung, A.Y., Kang, E.Y., Lee, S.H., Nam, D.H., Cheon, J.H., Kim, H.J. (2015). Factors that affect the rehabilitation duration in patients with congenital muscular torticollis. Ann Rehabil Med, 39(1):18-24.

Author, A. (Year of Publication). Article title. Periodical Title, Volume(Issue), pp.-pp. DOI:XX.XXXXX or Retrieved from journal URL (ON LINE)

Jameson, J. (2013). E-Leadership in higher education: The fifth “age” of educational technology research. British Journal of Educational Technology, 44(6), 889-915. DOI: 10.1111/bjet.12103

Book:
Author, A. (Year of Publication). Title of work. Publisher City, State: Publisher

Finney, J. (1970). Time and again. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster.

Book chapter:
Author, A. A. (Year of publication). Title of chapter. In A. A. Editor & B. B. Editor (Eds.), Title of book (pp.-pp). Location: Publisher

Jursinic, P. A. (1979). Photosynthesis and fast changes in light emission by green plants. In Photochemical and Photobiological Reviews (pp. 125-205). Springer US.

Tables
Create tables in .doc or .docx format and upload them as one single separate file. Include one table per page. Number them sequentially (1, 2, 3) and cite them in chronological order in the text. Each table should include an informative title and a legend (if applicable).

Figures
Figures should be labeled sequentially (1, 2, 3) and cited in the text, but uploaded as individual image in one of the following format: .jpg, .bmp, .tiff, supplied at a minimum resolution of 600 DPI or greater. Do NOT submit as .pdfs. eps, .ppt or any other format.

Figure legend must be included in the main text after references. Do not put titles in the figures
Figures should be referred to in the style of “Figure 1” or “Figures. 1 and 2” in the text.

Figure Labeling
Multipanel figures are allowed. Each panel should be labeled with the letters of the Latin script (A, B, C, etc.) in Upper case Verdana font and placed at the corner of each panel.

Rounded parentheses ( ) rather than square brackets [ ] are preferred, e.g., ‘Length (mm)’ rather than ‘Length [mm].’ Preferably in an upper corner, parts of composite figures should be labelled (a), (b) and (c) rather than (A), (B) or (C) or A, B or C or [A], [B] or [C].

Photomicrographs
A scale bar (not magnification) must be placed on micrographs, indicate “measurement units” below the scale bar. Use Verdana font.

In the manuscript, figures and tables should be referred to in the order in which they are numbered.

Acronyms and other abbreviations that appear in a figure or table must be included in the abbreviations list on the title page or explained in the caption.

To publish illustrations borrowed (and possibly modified) from other sources, AJOM’s Editorial Office must receive formal permission from the copyright holder. This may be the author of the original work from which the figure is borrowed, or it may be the publisher. It is the responsibility of the author to ensure that all necessary permissions are sought and obtained.

Supplementary Material
For review purposes, Supplementary Material is provided at the end of the main document. If the paper is accepted and published, supplementary files are not typeset and are available to readers alongside the main article. They can include large quantities of text, graphs, photographs, videos, data tables and so on. If there are citations, the supplementary file must include a Reference section. References that are cited in the supplementary material but not in the main paper should not appear in the Reference section of the main paper.

English Editing
Authors for whom English is a second language should consider having their manuscripts professionally edited before submission. Services providers include Cambridge Language Consultant, Write Scientific Right, Editage, ManuscriptEdit, Cambridge Proofreading LTD, Proofreadmyessay.co.uk, Regent Editing, Quality Proofreading by PSUK and Scribendi.com: English Editing and Proofreading Services. Other editing service providers can be found on the internet. All services are paid for and arranged by the author. Use of one of these services does not guarantee acceptance or preference for publication.

2. MANUSCRIPT TYPES ACCEPTED

Editorial: article for editorial board members only, including analyses or opinions on any topic of interest for the AJOM, linked or not to an article published in the Journal. Editorials should not exceed 1,500, with up to 20 references, 2 tables or 2 figures.

Original Article: article reporting unpublished data of completed scientific clinical or basic science research, confirming or refuting a clearly defined research hypothesis. An Original Article should not exceed 3,500 words (excluding Abstract, tables, figures and references). No more than 75 references, and 8 tables and/or figures are allowed.
If the original article include a clinical trial, a copy of the trial protocol including the complete statistical analysis plan, a flow diagram, and a completed trial checklist should be submitted. Authors are encouraged to register their trial at an appropriate online public registry (Trial Registration requirements). For additional guidance on preparing manuscripts based on a different trial methodology, including different design aspects (e.g., cluster), interventions (e.g., herbals) and data (e.g., harms), see Extensions of the CONSORT Statement. The clinical trial registration number and name of the trial register will then be published with the paper.

Review Article: article including narrative review, systematic review and meta-analyses, focusing on the current state of knowledge on a given issue or on a specific disease. Review articles on current controversies, management, and recent advances in the field of oral medicine are also welcome. A Review article should not exceed 5,000 words (excluding Abstract, tables, figures and references). No limitations for references, but no more than 10 tables and/or figures are allowed.

For meta-analyses of clinical trials, author should submit the PRISMA flow diagram and checklist, whereas meta-analyses of observational studies authors should submit the MOOSE checklist.

Short Communication: short papers of investigations (clinical or basic science research) organized as full-length articles and containing no more than 1,750 words (from introduction to discussion, but excluding abstract, references, tables and figures), with no more than 4 figures or 4 tables, and up to 30 references.

Opinion Article: articles reporting critical or alternative viewpoints on common or unusual topic, controversies, and opinions in the field of oral medicine, public health, research, ethics, and may or may not be linked to a specific article in the journal or published elsewhere. Authors are encouraged to provide their own argument that supports a clear point of view. They should not exceed 1500 words with no more than 2 figures or 2 tables and up to 20 references. No more than 2 authors are allowed.

Commentary: articles solicited by the Editor-in-Chief or the Associate Editors that accompany an article published in the Journal presenting an alternative or a complimentary viewpoint in light of the most relevant and recent international literature. They should not exceed 800 words, with up to 10 references, 1 table or 1 figure.

Letter to the Editor: this section may report one of the followings: 1) an exceptional case(s) (1-3 patients) of unique oral manifestations of common diseases or common oral manifestations of rare diseases; 2) a report of an adverse-drug reaction in the oral cavity (in this case Naranjo algorithm is mandatory for possible publication); 3) a letter on the content recently published in the journal. Letters should not exceed 1000 words, 2 figures and 2 tables, with up to 20 references. No more than 4 authors are allowed.

Challenging Case: articles describing in detail the diagnostic process of one or more patients (maximum 3), emphasizing the unusual and difficult diagnostic process or alternatively the difficult management of the patient/s. A challenging case should not exceed the 1,500 words and should be structured as follows: Case presentation. Challenge in diagnosis and/or therapy. Discussion. with no more than 3 figures and 3 tables, and up to 25 references. No more than 4 authors are allowed.

Image in Oral Medicine: One photo (with no more than 4 panels) of unusual clinical and/or radiological abnormalities. This section should contain a brief description of the case with medical history, physical examination, clinical/radiological work-up, and outcome, if applicable. Clinical images should not exceed 300 words and 5 references. The photo should have a resolution of at least 600 DPI. No more than 2 authors are allowed. Clinical images must be accompanied by a statement of consent signed by the patient, even though the eye region of patients in photos is masked, as this is not considered an adequate protection of anonymity.

3. PEER REVIEW PROCESS

The American Journal of Oral Medicine is a peer-reviewed journal which follow stringent steps before publication of a manuscript.

After submission via the online system, the manuscript will be evaluated in compliance with the journal’s Author Guidelines. If not compliant, the manuscript will be returned the corresponding author in order to make the appropriate changes.

The manuscript will be initially assessed by the EIC who will decide to immediate reject the paper if not within the scope of the journal or not sufficiently original and interesting or send to either an Associate Editor or directly to external peer-review.

The external reviewers are usually 3, single-blind and are allowed 4 weeks to return their review. Comments from the Associate Editor and the Associate Editor for Statistics may also complete the review process.

Based on the recommendations of the external reviewers and Associate Editor(s), the EIC can decide to: accept the manuscript, request major revision, request minor revision, reject with resubmission possible or reject the manuscript. An additional reviewer for an extra opinion can be sought by the EIC in case reviews widely differ.

The entire process should last between 6 and 8 weeks. The decision will be communicated via email to the corresponding author including any relevant reviewer and editorial comments.

4. AFTER ACCEPTANCE

Once accepted, the manuscript will be forwarded to the Production Editor to fabricate the Galley proofs, which will be sent to the corresponding author via e-mail. The corresponding author must provide a working e-mail address.

Change of authorship
After a paper is accepted, the author list can be changed only if agreed by all authors before the paper is published. A formal request with a written consent form all authors must be sent to the Editorial office via email at info@ajomonline.org with reasons for the change.

Errors in Published Papers
The corresponding author should notify the journal editor if there is a significant error or inaccuracy in his or her work.

5. DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Duties and Responsibilities of the American Journal of Oral Medicine (AJOM):
* The American Journal of Oral Medicine is committed to the highest ethical standards to ensure high quality research and professional judgment from the editors on manuscript submissions.

* The AJOM is committed to ensure a review process within 3-4 weeks from submission and 4-6 weeks for final decision, maintaining the integrity of academic records.

* The AJOM will monitor the publishing ethics along with any readers of the Journal.

* The AJOM will monitor plagiarism and/or fraudulent data upon submission and even after publication. If plagiarism and/or fraudulent data are proved, articles will be rejected or retracted.

* The AJOM will also publish corrections, clarifications, retractions, and/or apologies involving its publications when needed

Duties and Responsibilities of the Editor-in-Chief (EIC):
* He is the only one responsible for rejecting/accepting a manuscript and he is fully independent in his decisions.

* The final decision of accepting or rejecting a manuscript cannot be appealed and must be based on the quality of the manuscript and its suitability for the journal in agreement with reviewers’ comments.

* He has to ensure the confidentiality of manuscripts under review and preserve the anonymity of reviewers.

* The EIC must avoid any conflict of interest and maintain academic integrity.

* The EIC is also in charge of checking manuscripts for plagiarism and/or fraudulent or incorrect data and publishing corrections, clarifications, retractions, and/or apologies when needed

Duties and Responsibilities of the Reviewers:
* Reviewers are responsible to provide reviews by the deadline established by the editors and inform the editorial office if they need an extension of the deadline.

* They are asked to provide professional, objective, unbiased assessment of the manuscript or reject the possibility of reviewing the manuscript, should any type of conflict occur. Their comments are aimed to raise important points to improve the quality of the manuscript and ultimately help editors make the final decision.

* Reviewers must maintain confidentiality, submit comments to the editor and authors separately, and must not disclose the content of the manuscript to anybody. They must also fill the confidential review forms, along with their comments to the editor and authors.

* If reviewers should detect any plagiarized or incorrect data, or a substantial change in the materials/methods (mostly in revising a revised version of a manuscript) thereby resulting in a fraudulent manipulation of the results of the research, they should immediately inform the Editor at editor@ajomonline.org

* Reviewers are forbidden to contact anyone, including the corresponding author, for their review, use the data of the manuscript they are reviewing for personal gain and/or manipulate these data for a similar research they are performing or have intention to perform. They must also not suggest authors to cite their own work to increase the amount of citations of reviewers’ work.

* Failing to comply with these duties will result in cancellation from the list of potential reviewers for the AJOM.

Duties and Responsibilities of Authors:
* Authors are responsible to submit original, previously unpublished work that must not violate any copyrights, laws, or third-party rights.

* Authors are responsible of complying with the guidelines of the Journal and checking the accuracy of submission.

* They have to ensure that all data presented in their manuscript are true and not illegal nor vilifying, as well as they must ensure that no damage, illness or injury can be caused to anybody by their research, and that no violation of any contract, confidentiality agreement, or commitment of secrecy will take place, should the manuscript be published.

* Authors must be aware that their research will undergo to an initial editorial screening before being sent out for an external peer review process. Manuscript can be rejected by the initial editorial screening, if not considered suitable for the Journal.

* In case of retractions and/or corrections of errors and/or clarifications and/or apologies, a written and signed statement must be submitted to the editor at editor@ajomonline.org.

* Each of the manuscript’s authors should meet all three of the following criteria: (1) has made a substantial contribution to the design of the study, the collection of the data, or the analysis or interpretation of the data; (2) has drafted the manuscript or helped revise it, shaping its intellectual content; (3) has approved of the submitted manuscript. Each author should be able to take public responsibility for a portion of the paper’s content and should be able to identify the co-authors who are responsible for the remaining material.

* Contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in the Acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help or writing assistance and a department chairperson who provided only general support. Financial and material support should be acknowledged in a section called Funding, which follows the Acknowledgements.

* Authors agree to publish in the AJOM with the Open Access Model (i.e., authors retain the copyright).