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Manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned.

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Manuscript Submission Guidelines: Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery Open Reports

 

The journal will consider submissions of manuscripts that have been posted on preprint servers.Please enter the preprint DOI in the designated field when submitting your manuscript. Note that you should not post an updated version of your manuscript on a preprint server while it is being peer reviewed. If your article is accepted, please then link your preprint to the published version in JFMS-OR.

 

Learn more about our preprint policy.

  1. Open Access
  2. Article processing charge (APC)
  3. What do we publish?
    3.1 Aims & scope
    3.2 Article types
    3.3 Writing your paper
  4. Editorial policies
    4.1 Peer review policy
    4.2 Authorship
    4.3 Acknowledgements
    4.4 Funding
    4.5 Declaration of conflicting interests
    4.6 Clinical and research ethics, and informed consent
    4.7 Reporting guidelines
    4.8 Research data
  5. Publishing policies
    5.1 Publication ethics
    5.2 Contributor’s publishing agreement
  6. Preparing your manuscript
    6.1 Formatting
    6.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
    6.3 Supplementary material
    6.4 Style guide
    6.5 English language editing services
  7. Submitting your manuscript
    7.1 How to submit your manuscript
    7.2 Information required for completing your submission
    7.3 ORCID
    7.4 Permissions
  8. On acceptance and publication
    8.1 SAGE Production
    8.2 Author Accepted Manuscript Express publication
    8.3 Online publication
    8.4 Promoting your article
  9. Further information
  10. Appealing the publication decision
  11. Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery Open Reports Practitioner Best Paper Award

This journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics.

This journal recommends that authors follow the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals formulated by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).

Please read the guidelines below and then visit the journal’s submission site https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jfms-or to upload your manuscript. Please note that manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned. You can log in to the submission site at any time to check on the progress of your paper through the peer-review process.

Only manuscripts of sufficient quality that meet the aims and scope of the Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery Open Reports will be reviewed. As part of the submission process you will be required to warrant that you are submitting your original work, that you have the rights in the work, that you are submitting the work for first publication in the journal and that it is not being considered for publication elsewhere and has not already been published elsewhere, and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you.

  1. Open Access

The Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery Open Reports is an open access, peer-reviewed journal. Each article accepted by peer review is made freely available online immediately upon publication, is published under a Creative Commons license and will be hosted online in perpetuity. Publication costs of the journal are covered by the collection of article processing charges, which are paid by the funder, institution or author of each manuscript upon acceptance. There is no charge for submitting a paper to the journal.

For general information on open access at SAGE, please visit the Open Access page or view our Open Access FAQs.

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  1. Article processing charge (APC)

If, after peer review, your manuscript is accepted for publication, a one-time article processing charge (APC) is payable before it is published. This APC covers the cost of publication and ensures that your article will be freely available online in perpetuity under a Creative Commons license.

The full APC is $850 USD*.

*The APC is subject to taxes where applicable. Tax-exempt status can be indicated by providing appropriate registration numbers when payment is requested. Please see further details here.

All Feline Veterinary Medical Association (FelineVMA) and International Cat Care (iCatCare) Veterinary Society members (including veterinarians specified under iCatCare Veterinary Society clinic memberships) are entitled to a substantial 75% off of the APC for JFMS Open Reports. At current rates, the membership fee and discounted APC combined is significantly less than the full APC. To become a member and take advantage of this saving, as well as a wide range of professional benefits, please see their membership pages: 

FelineVMA: go.jfms.com/FelineVMAmembership

iCatCare Veterinary Society: go.jfms.com/iCatCaremembership

The following discounts may alternatively apply:

  • Editorial Board members. A 75% discount on the APC applies if any of the authors are on the JFMS journals’ Editorial Board. The submitting author needs to answer the submission question asking whether any authors are an Editorial Board member accordingly in order to be eligible.
  • iCatCare Veterinary Society-or FelineVMA-affiliated group. A 50% discount on the APC applies if any of the authors are a member of an iCatCare Veterinary Society- or FelineVMA-affiliated group.* The submitting author needs to answer the submission question asking whether any authors are a member of an iCatCare Veterinary Society- or FelineVMA-affiliated group accordingly in order to be eligible.
  • Recent JFMS Open Reports A 20% discount on the full APC applies if any of the authors have reviewed for JFMS Open Reports in the 6 months prior to submission. The submitting author needs to answer the submission question asking whether any authors have reviewed for JFMS Open Reports in the last 6 months accordingly in order to be eligible.
  • Institution and consortia deals. Agreements with a number of institutions and consortia that contribute towards the APC are in place, and these are automatically applied at APC payment stage based on the author details provided during submission. The list of agreements can be found here; please consider when looking at whether a discount might apply that JFMS Open Reports is a Gold open access journal. Note that these agreements are solely between Sage and the institutions and consortia, and not the JFMS Open Reports Editors, Editorial Team, iCatCare Veterinary Society and the FelineVMA.
  • Pre-paid accounts. Some universities have prepaid accounts with Sage, which can be used to cover the APC. A list of universities can be found here but authors will also need to check with their librarian. To use a pre-paid account, once an article is accepted and the payment details have been received, the institution should be assigned as the Bill Payer.
  • Low-income countries. Authors who reside in countries listed by the Research4Life programme are eligible for discounts/waivers. The relevant waiver/discount will be applied automatically based on the corresponding author’s details provided during submission. More information can be found here.

If you still cannot afford to pay the APC, you can get in contact with Sage to discuss any possible further options; please visit Sage’s (Gold) Open Access article processing charge waivers page for more information.

Note that:

  • Only one discount can be applied per paper, but the greatest discount available will be used.
  • All of the billing and discounts applied on the APC are handled by the Sage Journals Licensing & Payment system. Instructions about how to pay the APC through this system can be found here.
  • All discounts/waivers are handled by Sage (or the FelineVMA/iCatCare Veterinary Society solely in the case of their waivers) without any involvement of the Editors, in order to ensure editorial independence.
  • Articles are not published until the APC has been paid.

*iCatCare Veterinary Society- and FelineVMA-affiliated groups are: The Asociación Argentina de Medicina Felina (AAMeFe); Australian and New Zealand College of Veterinary Scientists (ANZCVS); Catvets; Chinese Feline Medicine Specialty Committee (FMSC); Pancyprian Veterinary Association; Czech Association of Feline Medicine (CAFM); Estonian Society of Feline Practitioners (ESFP); Finnish Society of Feline Medicine Catus; Groupe de reflexion et d’intérêt félin (GRIF); Société Francophone de Médecine Féline (SFMF); Deutsche Gruppe Katzenmedizin (DGKM); Hellenic Veterinary Medical Society (HVMS); Irish Association of Feline Medicine (IAFM); Associazione Italiana Veterinari Patologia Felina (AIVPaFe); Società Italiana di Medicine Felina (SIMEF); Japanese Society of Feline Medicine (JSFM); Korean Society for Feline Medicine (KSFM); Latvian Society of Feline Medicine (LSFM); Feline Vet Friends; New Zealand Veterinary Association (NZVA); Norsk Forening for Kattenmedisin; Grupo de Interesse Especial em Medicina Felina da APMVEAC (GIEFEL); Societatea Românǎ de Medicinǎ Felina (SRMF); Russian Society of Feline Medicine (RSFM); Slovak Society of Feline Medicine (SSFM); Medicat; Grupo de Especialidad de Medicinea Felina de AVEPA (GEMFe); Swedish Veterinary Feline Study Group (Jamaren); Taiwanese Society of Feline Medicine (TSFM); Thai Society of Feline Practitioners (TSOFP); Kedi Hekimligi Dernegi (KHEDI); The Uruguayan Association of Feline Medicine (AUMeFe)

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  1. What do we publish?

3.1 Aims & scope

Before submitting your manuscript to the Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery Open Reports, please ensure you have read the Aims & Scope.

3.2 Article types

The Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery Open Reports considers the following article types:

  1. Case Reports (must be original and include genuinely novel information that would be of value to practitioners and/or clinical researchers; they should contain a description and critical assessment of any diagnostic treatment and process)
    • Main text word limit: 1750 words (excluding abstract, plain language summary [optional], end statements, references, tables, legends and supplementary material)
    • References, figures and tables: as many is as needed/relevant
  2. Case Series (up to three cases; must be original and include genuinely novel information that would be of value to practitioners and/or clinical researchers)
    • Main text word limit: 1750 words (excluding abstract, plain language summary [optional], end statements, references, tables, legends and supplementary material)
    • References, figures and tables: as many is as needed/relevant
  3. Short Communications (studies reporting valuable national or regional data on well-recognised aspects of feline veterinary healthcare [eg, disease prevalence or other relevant regional findings]; they must provide novel information relevant to veterinary practitioners and/or clinical researchers)
    • Main text word limit: 1750 words (excluding abstract, plain language summary [optional], end statements, references, tables, legends and supplementary material)
    • References, figures and tables: as many is as needed/relevant
  4. Letters to the Editor (the letter should be commenting on a paper recently published in the journal; note that the Editors may send the letter to the authors of the original paper for comment so that both letter and reply may be published together)
    • Word limit: 800 words (including references, tables and legends)
    • References: no more than five references

All abstracts should be 250 words. Please see 6.1 Formatting for important further information per article type in regards to headings and article structure.

Note that Case Series with four or more cases should be submitted to the Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery. Other Short Communications, for example those involving small studies providing valuable data, also fall within the scope of the Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery.

Plain language summaries 

A plain language summary (PLS) can be provided for all article types that require an abstract. The plain language title (approx. 50 words) and plain language summary (approx. 300 words) should describe the article using non-technical language, making it accessible to a wider network of readers. More information and guidance on how to write a PLS can be found on our Author Gateway.

The PLS publishes directly below the scientific abstract, and are open access making it available online for anyone to read (including on PubMed). Peer review of the PLS will be conducted following our PLS reviewer guidelines. When submitting, authors should enter their plain language title and plain language summary into the box provided in the submission system when prompted. The PLS does not need to be provided in the manuscript text or as a separate file. If you are not submitting a PLS with your submission, please enter ‘N/A’ in each box. 

3.3 Writing your paper

The SAGE Author Gateway has some general advice and on how to get published, plus links to further resources. More information on preparing an article can be found in section 6.

3.3.1 Making your article discoverable

For information and guidance on how to make an article more discoverable, visit the Gateway page on How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online

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  1. Editorial policies

4.1 Peer review policy

SAGE does not permit the use of author-suggested (recommended) reviewers at any stage of the submission process, be that through the web-based submission system or other communication. Reviewers should be experts in their fields and should be able to provide an objective assessment of themanuscript. Our policy is that reviewers should not be assigned to a paper if:

  • The reviewer is based at the same institution as any of the co-authors.
  • The reviewer is based at the funding body of the paper.
  • The author has recommended the reviewer.
  • The reviewer has provided a personal (e.g. Gmail/Yahoo/Hotmail) email account and an institutional email account cannot be found after performing a basic Google search (name, department and institution).

If the Editors or members of the Editorial Board ever submit their own manuscripts for possible publication in the journal, then the peer-review process will be managed by the other Editor/alternative members of the Board and the submitting Editor/Board member will have no involvement in the decision-making process.

All manuscripts are reviewed as rapidly as possible, while maintaining rigor. Our policy is to have two independent reviewers for each manuscript. Reviewers make comments to the author and recommendations to the handling Editor who then makes the final decision. Generally the Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery Open Reports does not allow more than one round of major revisions and not more than two rounds of revisions in total during the peer-review process.

The Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery Open Reports operates a strictly double-anonymized peer-review process in which the reviewers’ names are withheld from the author and the authors' names from the reviewers. A reviewer may at their own discretion opt to reveal their name to the authors in their review, but the journal’s standard policy practice is for their identities to remain concealed.

To ensure fair and anonymous peer review, your manuscript must be fully anonymised. Please ensure identifying information is replaced with ‘xxx’ in the main manuscript document and included on the Title Page instead. Do not include any author names in the manuscript file name and remove names from headers and footers. This version of the manuscript will be sent to the peer reviewers. The Title Page will not be sent to peer reviewers. See the Sage Journal Author Gateway for detailed guidance on making an anonymous submission

The Title Page should include:

    • Article title (which should be concise [20 words maximum])
    • The full list of authors including names and affiliations of each
      • The listed affiliation should be the institution where the research was conducted. If an author has moved to a new institution since completing the research, the new affiliation should be included in a note in the Title Page.
      • All persons eligible for authorship must be included at the time of submission (please see the authorship section for more information).
    • Post-nominals and contact information for the corresponding author: name, institutional address, email address
    • Acknowledgments
    • Declaration of conflicting interest
    • Funding statement
    • Any data availability statement
    • Any other identifying information related to the authors and/or their institutions, funders, approval committees, etc, that might compromise anonymity.

The Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery Open Reports has partnered with Web of Science (previously Publons). Web of Science is a third-party service that seeks to track, verify and give credit for peer review. Reviewers for the Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery Open Reports can opt in to Web of Science in order to claim their reviews or have them automatically verified and added to their reviewer profile. Reviewers claiming credit for their review will be associated with the relevant journal, but the article name, reviewer’s decision and the content of their review is not published on the site. For more information visit the Web of Science website. 

4.2 Authorship

Papers should only be submitted for consideration once consent is given by all contributing authors. Those submitting papers should carefully check that all those whose work contributed to the paper are acknowledged as contributing authors.

The list of authors should include all those who can legitimately claim authorship. This is all those who:

  1. Made a substantial contribution to the concept and design of the work and/or acquisition of data (e.g. in a multicentre paper, contributing more than 10% of the cases) and/or analysis and interpretation of data; and
  2. Drafted the article or revised it critically for important intellectual content; and
  3. Approved the version to be published; and
  4. Have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content.

Authors should meet the conditions of all of the points above. When a large, multicentre group has conducted the work, the group should identify the individuals who accept direct responsibility for the manuscript. These individuals should fully meet the criteria for authorship.

Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group alone does not constitute authorship, although all contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an Acknowledgments section (see section 4.3). Please refer to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) authorship guidelines for more information on authorship.

Please view our authorship policies, which includes information on criteria for authorship, who should be the corresponding author and more.

Please note that AI chatbots, for example ChatGPT, should not be listed as authors. For more information see the policy on Use of ChatGPT and generative AI tools.

4.3 Acknowledgements

Any contributor who does not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an Acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, or a department chair who provided only general support.

Per International Committee of Medical Journal Editors recommendations, it is best practice to obtain consent from non-author contributors who are being acknowleded in a paper.

4.3.1 Third-party submissions

Where an individual who is not listed as an author submits a manuscript on behalf of the author(s), a statement must be included in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript and in an accompanying cover letter. The statements must:

  • Disclose this type of editorial assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input
  • Identify any entities that paid for this assistance
  • Confirm that the listed authors have authorized the submission of their manuscript via the third party and approved any statements or declarations (e.g. conflict of interest, funding)

Where appropriate, SAGE reserves the right to deny consideration to manuscripts submitted by a third party rather than by the authors themselves.

4.3.2 Writing assistance

Individuals who provided writing assistance (e.g. from a specialist communications company) do not qualify as authors and so should be included in the Acknowledgements section. Authors must disclose any writing assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input – and identify the entity that paid for this assistance. It is not necessary to disclose use of language polishing services.

4.4 Funding

The Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery Open Reports requires all authors to acknowledge their funding in under a separate ‘Funding’ heading in the Title page. Please visit the Funding Acknowledgements page on the SAGE Journal Author Gateway to confirm the format of the acknowledgment text in the event of funding, or state that ‘The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

4.5 Declaration of conflicting interests

It is the policy of the Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery Open Reports to require a declaration of conflicting interests from all authors enabling a statement to be included in all published articles. Examples of a conflict of interest that should be declared on submissions to Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery include if a product manufactured by (or a particular, perhaps unusual, technique performed at) the institution/company/practice of an author is mentioned in the article.

Please ensure that a ‘Conflict of interest’ statement is included in the Title Page. If no conflict exists, please state that ‘The authors declaresd no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article’.

For guidance on conflict of interest statements, please see the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors recommendations.

4.6 Clinical and research ethics, and informed consent

Authors should read the below guidelines before undertaking their study and prior to submitting their manuscript to the Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery Open Reports  in order to ensure requirements have been adequately met. Failure to meet these guidelines could result in rejection of the manuscript at any stage, including potentially after peer review.

Circumstances relating to the use of animals in clinical and experimental studies should consider the international standards as set out in:

In addition to the above, for manuscripts submitted to the Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery Open Reports, the Editors would not support publication of:

  • Any experimental studies directly resulting in euthanasia of the cats.
  • Studies using non-experimental (eg, client-owned) cats that may cause the cat a level of pain, suffering, distress or harm higher than that induced by inserting a hypodermic needle, and/or where the procedure is not part of ‘Recognised Veterinary Practice’. Recognised Veterinary Practice would include investigations, procedures and therapies that are part of normal clinical practice and that would be of direct benefit for the individual cat (or potentially to the group to which it immediately belongs). Where investigations, procedures or therapies are unproven, or where there is deliberate exposure of cats to procedures or interventions that might be deleterious to their welfare (physical, cognitive and emotional) without direct clinical benefit to them, it is highly likely that experimental cats should be used with appropriate attention to their welfare, with the requisite ethical approval (see below). If authors are in any doubt, they are encouraged to contact the Editors prior to manuscript submission.

The Editors would also expect that for all manuscripts submitted:

  • Where appropriate, analgesia, sedation and/or anaesthesia must have been used and the authors should have adequately discussed the use of analgesia for the welfare of the cats involved.
  • Where antibacterial agents have been used, their use should be justifiable and follow current recommendations (including measures to minimize the development of antibacterial resistance) and/or the use of antibacterials should be critically discussed.
  • Any drugs or therapeutic agents used must have been obtained legally and ethically, following all relevant locally applicable regulations. The off-label use of drugs or the use of unlicensed/compounded/reformulated drugs should be acknowledged and justified. In addition, where unlicensed/compounded/reformulated drugs are used, authors should provide details of what quality control measures were used in their production. The Editors may request additional specific information in such circumstances.
  • Research involving experimental animals must always have received prior approval from an appropriate ethics committee with oversight of the facility in which the studies were conducted, and this may also apply to some studies involving client-owned animals (see 4.6.1 Ethical approval).

If you are in any doubt as to whether your article would be suitable for consideration based on the above, please contact jfms-or@icatcare.org. The Editors reserve the right to reject manuscripts on ethical or welfare grounds when, in their opinion, studies involve unnecessary pain, distress, suffering, harm or potential harm to animals; and where the above guidelines have not been followed.

4.6.1 Ethical approval

All material published in the Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery Open Reports must adhere to high ethical standards concerning animal welfare and meet the above guidelines. Irrespective of the nature of the work (eg, prospective, retrospective or experimental studies, case series or review), authors are required to make an ethical approval declaration in an ‘Ethical approval’ section in the end matter of the main manuscript using one of the statements below. The exact wording of the statements below must be used; no further information should appear in this section but should instead be included in the main body of the article itself (ensuring, however, that any identifying information is replaced with an ‘xxx’ in the main document and then listed in full on the Title page).

  1. The work described in this manuscript involved the use of non-experimental (owned or unowned) animals. Established internationally recognized high standards (‘best practice’) of veterinary clinical care for the individual patient were always followed and/or this work involved the use of cadavers. Ethical approval from a committee was therefore not specifically required for publication in JFMS Open Reports. Although not required, where ethical approval was still obtained, it is stated in the manuscript.
  2. The work described in this manuscript involved the use of non-experimental (owned or unowned) animals and procedures that differed from established internationally recognized high standards (‘best practice’) of veterinary clinical care for the individual patient. The study therefore had prior ethical approval from an established (or ad hoc) committee as stated in the manuscript.
    • This statement might, for example, apply to randomized and/or controlled trials (including where established interventions are being compared with each other), as well as studies where novel medications, techniques, devices or interventions established as safe but not currently part of ‘Recognised Veterinary Practice’ are used.
    • Authors must state in the main document (typically the Materials and methods, but alternatively the Case description or Case series description) the nature of the institutional, national or international ethical review body used and, if available, the ethical approval number. (If any of this information could give away your identity as an author, please replace this with ‘xxx’ and include the identifying information on the Title page.)
    • If an existing ethical review body was not available, authors should state why (typically in the Materials and methods, but alternatively in the Case description or the Case series description), and should describe the nature of an ad hoc committee that was used (which must have included at least some individuals independent of the institute[s]/clinic[s] involved in the work). (If any of this information could give away your identity as an author, please replace this with ‘xxx’ and include the identifying information on the Title page.)
  3. The work described in this manuscript involved the use of experimental animals and the study therefore had prior ethical approval from an established (or ad hoc) committee as stated in the manuscript.
    • Authors must state in the main document (typically the Materials and methods, but alternatively the Case description or Case series description) the nature of the institutional, national or international ethical review body used and, if available, the ethical approval number. (If any of this information could give away your identity as an author, please replace this with ‘xxx’ and include the identifying information on the Title page.)
    • If an existing ethical review body was not available, authors should state why (typically in the Materials and methods, but alternatively in the Case description or the Case series description), and should describe the nature of an ad hoc committee that was used (which must have included at least some individuals independent of the institute[s]/clinic[s] involved in the work). (If any of this information could give away your identity as an author, please replace this with ‘xxx’ and include the identifying information on the Title page.)
  4. This work did not involve the use of animals and therefore ethical approval was not specifically required for publication in JFMS Open Reports.
    • Authors may select this option if, for example, the manuscript reports on questionnaire or in vitro findings.

For any queries regarding the best-fit statement, please contact jfms-or@icatcare.org

4.6.2 Informed consent and informed consent for publication

The Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery Open Reports requires all authors to make informed consent declarations regarding (1) informed consent for use of animals within a study and (2) informed consent for publication where any animal or person may be identifiable as a result of the publication (eg, a recognizable photograph, description or unique identifiable feature). Authors must therefore in an ‘Informed consent’ section in the end matter of the main manuscript provide the appropriate informed consent statements from below. The exact wording of the statements below must be used; no further information should appear in this section but should instead be included in the main body of the article itself (ensuring, however, that any identifying information is replaced with an ‘xxx’ in the main document and then listed in full on the Title Page).

     1.Informed consent (verbal or written) was obtained from the owner or legal custodian of all animal(s) described in this work (experimental or non-experimental animals, including cadavers, tissues and samples) for all procedure(s) undertaken (prospective or retrospective studies).
     2. This work did not involve the use of animals (including cadavers) and therefore informed consent was not required.
    • Authors may select this option if, for example, the manuscript solely reports on questionnaire or in vitro findings, and does not involve the publication of any novel animal-specific data.

AND also one of the following (using the exact wording):

  1. For any animals or people individually identifiable within this publication, informed consent (verbal or written) for their use in the publication was obtained from the people involved.
  2. No animals or people are identifiable within this publication, and therefore additional informed consent for publication was not required.

4.7 Reporting guidelines

The relevant EQUATOR Network reporting guidelines should be followed depending on the type of study. It is recommended that randomized controlled trials submitted for publication include a completed CONSORT flow chart as a cited figure and the completed CONSORT checklist uploaded as a supplementary file. It is also recommended that systematic reviews and meta-analyses include the completed PRISMA flow chart and PRISMA checklist as a supplementary file. The EQUATOR wizard can help you identify the appropriate guideline.

Other resources can be found at National Library of Medicine’s Research Reporting Guidelines and Initiatives.

Guidelines for papers determining reference intervals in veterinary species can be found at: https://www.asvcp.org/page/QALS_Guidelines.

4.8 Research data

The journal is committed to facilitating openness, transparency and reproducibility of research, and has the following research data sharing policy. For more information, including FAQs please visit the SAGE Research Data Policies pages.

Encouragement (share, cite, and linking encouraged)

Subject to appropriate ethical and legal considerations, authors are encouraged to:

  • Share their research data in a relevant public data repository
  • Include a data availability statement linking to their data. If it is not possible to share the data, including a statement to confirm why it cannot be shared.
  • Cite this data in their research

If research data needs to be anonymized for peer review, the SAGE Research Data Sharing FAQs provide guidance.

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  1. Publishing policies

5.1 Publication ethics

SAGE is committed to upholding the integrity of the academic record and encourage authors to refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics’ International Standards for Authors and view the Publication Ethics page on the SAGE Author Gateway.

5.1.1 Plagiarism

The Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery Open Reports and SAGE take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. They seek to protect the rights of their authors and always investigate claims of plagiarism or misuse of published articles. Equally, they seek to protect the reputation of the journal against malpractice. Submitted articles may be checked with duplication-checking software. Where an article, for example, is found to have plagiarized other work or included third-party copyright material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgement, or where the authorship of the article is contested, they reserve the right to take action including, but not limited to: publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction); retracting the article; taking up the matter with the head of department or dean of the author's institution and/or relevant academic bodies or societies; or taking appropriate legal action.

5.1.2 Prior publication

If material has been previously published, it is not generally acceptable for publication in a SAGE journal. However, there are certain circumstances where previously published material can be considered for publication (such as prior presentation of study findings/results at conferences or meetings, which should be described in an ‘Author note’ section). Please refer to the guidance on the SAGE Author Gateway or, if in doubt, contact jfms-or@icatcare.org. 

5.2 Contributor’s publishing agreement

Before publication, SAGE requires the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement. The Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery Open Reports publishes manuscripts under Creative Commons licenses. The standard license for the journal is Creative Commons by Attribution Non-Commercial (CC BY-NC), which allows others to re-use the work without permission as long as the work is properly referenced and the use is non-commercial. For more information, you are advised to visit SAGE's OA licenses page. Alternative license arrangements are available, for example, to meet particular funder mandates, made at the author’s request.

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  1. Preparing your manuscript

6.1 Formatting

The preferred format for a manuscript is Word. The document should have continuous line numbering, use a standard font (eg, Calibri) and have all figures, tables and supplementary material cited in the text in numerical order.

As the Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery Open Reports operates a double-anonymised peer-review process, please ensure your manuscript is fully anonymised (ie, replacing any anonymising information with ‘xxx’ and including the identifying information on the Title Page instead). See the ‘peer review policy’ section above for further details. The article’s keywords (a minimum of four, not including ‘cat’ or ‘feline’) should be included at the beginning of the article. An abstract should follow, using the subheadings and word limits listed for each article type below; the abstract should not contain reference citations.

The title, keywords and abstract are key to ensuring readers find an article online through online search engines such as Google. Please refer to the information and guidance on how best to title an article, write an abstract and select keywords by visiting How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online.

The article should be structured with subheadings based on the article type; the subheadings that should be used are listed below. The journal’s recommended maximum word count, as well as any restrictions around figures, tables and references for each article type are also described below-

  1. Case Reports
    • Abstract word limit: 250 words
    • Main text word limit: 1750 words (excluding abstract, end statements, references, tables, legends and supplementary material)
    • References, figures and tables: as many is as needed/relevant
    • Abstract structured with ‘Case summary’ and ‘Relevance and novel information’ subheadings
    • Main text structured with ‘Introduction’ (optional), ‘Case description’, ‘Discussion’, ‘Conclusions’, ‘Acknowledgements’ (if applicable), ‘Author note’ (if applicable), ‘Ethical approval’, ‘Informed consent’ and ‘References’ headings
    • Plain language summary (optional): 300 words – to be included in the submission questions and not the manuscript itself
  2. Case Series
    • Abstract word limit: 250 words
    • Main text word limit: 1750 words (excluding abstract, end statements, references, tables, legends and supplementary material)
    • References, figures and tables: as many is as needed/relevant
    • Abstract structured with ‘Case series summary’ and ‘Relevance and novel information’ subheadings
    • Main text structured with ‘Introduction’ (optional), ‘Case series description’, ‘Discussion’, Conclusions’, ‘Acknowledgements’ (if applicable), ‘Author note’ (if applicable), ‘Ethical approval’, ‘Informed consent’ and ‘References’ headings
    • Plain language summary (optional): 300 words – to be included in the submission questions and not the manuscript itself
  3. Short Communications
    • Abstract word limit: 250 words
    • Main text word limit: 1750 words (excluding abstract, end statements, references, tables, legends and supplementary material)
    • References, figures and tables: as many is as needed/relevant
    • Abstract structured with ‘Objectives’, ‘Methods’, ‘Results’ and ‘Conclusions and relevance’ subheadings
    • Main text structured with ‘Introduction’, ‘Materials and methods’, ‘Results’, ‘Discussion’, ‘Conclusions’, ‘Acknowledgements’ (if applicable), ‘Author note’ (if applicable), ‘Ethical approval’, ‘Informed consent’ and ‘References’ headings
    • Plain language summary (optional): 300 words – to be included in the submission questions and not the manuscript itself
  4. Letters to the Editor
    • Word limit: 800 words (including references, tables and legends)
    • References: no more than five references
    • Either one table or figure

6.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics

For guidance on the preparation of illustrations, pictures and graphs in electronic format, please visit SAGE’s Manuscript Submission Guidelines. Tables should be provided in an editable format (eg, drawn in Microsoft Word or Microsoft Excel). The minimum image quality required is 300 dpi at 1000 x 1000 pixels (and images should be no larger than 2000 x 2000 pixels) and all figures should be uploaded as individual files.

6.3 Supplementary material

The Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery Open Reports is able to host additional materials online (e.g. datasets, podcasts, videos, images, etc) alongside the full-text of the article. These must be submitted along with the manuscript and will be subject to peer review. For more information, please refer to the SAGE guidelines on submitting supplemental files.

6.4 Reference Style and Style guide

The Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery Open Reports has its own style guide.

The SAGE Vancouver style is used for references; see the above style guide for more information. If those using EndNote to manage references, the SAGE Vancouver EndNote output file can be downloaded. NB: Please do not use footnotes.

6.5 English language editing services

Authors seeking assistance with English language editing, translation, or figure and manuscript formatting to fit the journal’s specifications should consider using SAGE Language Services. Visit SAGE Language Services for further information.

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  1. Submitting your manuscript

7.1 How to submit your manuscript

Submissions to the Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery Open Reports are handled on SAGE Track, a web-based online submission and peer-review system powered by ScholarOne™ Manuscripts. Visit https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jfms to create an account or log in and submit an article online.

IMPORTANT: Please check whether you already have an account in the system before trying to create a new one. If you have reviewed or authored for the journal since 2011 it is likely that you will have had an account created. For further guidance on submitting your manuscript online please visit ScholarOne Online Help.

7.2 Information required for completing your submission

Submitting authors will be asked to provide contact details and academic/practice affiliations for all co-authors via the submission system and identify who is to be the corresponding author. These details must match what appears in the Title Page. Please check to see if any co-authors already have an account in the SAGE Track system by searching for their email address at the ‘Authors & Institutions’ stage; for any co-authors added at this stage, note that a user account, containing their name, email address and institution/practice, will be created for them in the SAGE Track system. At this stage, please ensure all the required statements and declarations are included and any additional supplementary files (including reporting guidelines where relevant) are uploaded.

7.3 ORCID

As part of their commitment to ensuring an ethical, transparent and fair peer review process, SAGE are a supporting member of ORCID, the Open Researcher and Contributor ID. ORCID provides a unique and persistent digital identifier that distinguishes researchers from every other researcher, even those who share the same name, and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between researchers and their professional activities, ensuring that their work is recognized.

The collection of ORCID iDs from corresponding authors is now part of the submission process of this journal. If you already have an ORCID iD you will be asked to associate that to your submission during the online submission process. Co-authors are also encouraged to link their ORCID iD to their accounts in SAGE Track by clicking the link in the email they will receive when their account is created and signing into their ORCID account. An ORCID iD will become part of an accepted publication’s metadata, making the work attributable to only that particular author. The ORCID iD is published within the article so that fellow researchers reading this work can link to the ORCID profile and from there link to the particular author’s other publications.

If you do not already have an ORCID ID, please follow this link to create one or visit the SAGE ORCID homepage to learn more.

Please note that only ORCID iDs validated in SAGE Track prior to article acceptance will be authorized for publication, and it is not possible to add or amend ORCID iDs at later stages (eg, at proof stage).

Once an ORCID account is set up, you are able to add papers manually to your account to ensure all your work is accounted for.

7.4 Permissions

Please ensure that you have obtained any necessary permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. For further information including guidance on fair dealing for criticism and review, please see the Copyright and Permissions page on the SAGE Journal Author Gateway.

  1. On acceptance and publication

If your paper is accepted for publication after peer review, you will first be asked to complete the contributor’s publishing agreement. Once your manuscript files have been checked for SAGE Production, the corresponding author will be asked to pay the article processing charge (APC) via a payment link. Once the APC has been processed, your article will be prepared for publication and can appear online within an average of 30 working days. Please note, however, that no production work will occur on your paper until the APC has been received.

8.1 SAGE Production

Your SAGE Production Editor will keep you informed as to your article’s progress throughout the production process. Proofs will made available to the corresponding author via the editing portal SAGE Edit or by email to the corresponding author and should be returned promptly.  Authors are reminded to check their proofs carefully to confirm that all author information, including names, affiliations, sequence and contact details are correct, and that Conflict of interest, Funding, Ethical approval and Informed consent statements are accurate.

8.2 Author Accepted Manuscript Express publication

The Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery Open Reports publishes Author Accepted Manuscripts (AAMs). An AAM is the final accepted version of a manuscript before it goes through the production steps (copyediting, typesetting and proofing). These ‘Express’ manuscripts are then replaced with the copyedited, typeset and proof-read versions once finalised. For more information, please see the FAQs page.

8.3 Online publication

Your article will be published online in a fully citable form with a DOI number as soon as the article processing charge has been paid and the article has completed the production process. At this point it will be completely free to view and download for all.

8.4 Promoting your article

Publication is not the end of the process! You can help disseminate your paper and ensure it is as widely read and cited as possible. The SAGE Author Gateway has numerous resources to help you promote your work. Visit the Promote Your Article page on the Gateway for tips and advice. In addition, SAGE is partnered with Kudos, a free service that allows authors to explain, enrich, share, and measure the impact of their article. Find out how to maximize your article’s impact.

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  1. Further information

Any correspondence, queries or additional requests for information on the manuscript submission process should be sent to the Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery Open Reports Editorial Office at jfms-or@icatcare.org.

  1. Appealing the publication decision

Editors have very broad discretion in determining whether an article is an appropriate fit for their journal. Many manuscripts are declined with a very general statement of the rejection decision. These decisions are not eligible for formal appeal unless the author believes the decision to reject the manuscript was based on an error in the review of the article, in which case the author may appeal the decision by providing the Editor with a detailed written description of the error they believe occurred.

If an author believes the decision regarding their manuscript was affected by a publication ethics breach, the author may contact the publisher with a detailed written description of their concern, and information supporting the concern, at publication_ethics@sagepub.com

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  1. Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery Open Reports Practitioner Best Paper Award

This award recognizes quality and excellence for veterinary practitioners who publish in the Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery Open Reports. Lead authors who are a practitioner in a first-opinion or referral practice at the time of submission of their paper will automatically be eligible for consideration for the award, subject to their paper’s acceptance for publication (those completing a residency programme are not eligible). Details about this award for practitioners can be found at: award.jfmsopenreports.com.

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