Instructions for Authors

World Journal of Pediatricsis a peer-reviewed journal published by Children's Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, China. The journal gives priority to reports of outstanding clinical and experimental works as well as important contributions related to common problems of infants, children and adolescents worldwide.

Submission

Manuscripts should be submitted via the submission system athttps://www.editorialmanager.com/wjop. The address of the editoria is as follows: Children's Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, 3333 Binsheng Rd, Binjiang District, Hangzhou 310052, China. Email: wjpch@zju.edu.cn.

Acceptance

Manuscripts should meet the following criteria: original material, clear writing, appropriate study methods, valid data, and reasonable conclusions supported by the data. In short, they should contain important information or topic of general medical interest.

Peer-review process

All the manuscripts that adhere to its style andInstructions for Authorsare referred to peer-review. Some of them are rejected immediately after an in-house review. The rejection at this stage is message. The remaining articles are sent to at least two reviewers expert in the subject. Manuscripts are reviewed with due respect for authors'confidentiality,and the identity of peer reviewers is also kept confidential.A decision is made from 6 to 12 weeks according to the response from reviewers, revision by the author(s) and reappraisal on the revision.

The accepted manuscripts are subjected to editorial revision to comply with the requirements on language and style of the journal. The copyright of the accepted and published articles is held by the journal and all the published materials can not be reproduced or published elsewhere, in whole or part, without the written permission from the editor.

Duplicate submission

Manuscripts are considered with the understanding that they have not been published previously and are not under consideration by another publication. The author should alert the editor if the work includes subjects about which a previous report has been published. A research paper submitted to this journal should not overlap by more than 10% with the previously published work or work submitted elsewhere, which would be considered as duplicate publication. If in doubt, authors may forward copies of the published work or material submitted elsewhere to this journal for decision-making.

Proofs and reprints

Upon acceptance of the article, the corresponding author will receive a link to the special Author Query Application at Springer’s web page where you can sign the Copyright Transfer Statement online and indicate whether you wish to order OpenChoice,offprints,or printing of figures in color.Once the Author Query Application has been completed, your article will be processed and you will receive the proofs. Corrections on the proof should be restricted to errors only and no substantial additions/deletions should be made. No addition or deletion in the names of the authors is permissible at this stage. A copy of the issue carrying the article is supplied free of charge to the authors. Reprints may be ordered on payment in advance.

Categories of Articles

Articles can be considered for publication as editorials, original articles, review articles, special communications, brief reports, letters to editor, commentaries, or clinical image.

Original article

Original articles should report original research relevant to basic and clinical pediatrics including randomized trials, intervention studies, studies of screening and diagnostic tests, cohort studies, reporting randomized controlled trials (RCT), authors must attempt to be in conformity with the consolidated standards of reporting trials (CONSORT) statements.[1]Each manuscript should be accompanied with a structured abstract (divided into background, methods, results and conclusions) in no more than be provided in alphabetical order along with the abstract. The text should be divided in sections on introduction, methods, results and maximum of 5 and 3 respectively. The typical text length for such contributions is 2500-3500 words (excluding title page, abstract, tables,figures,acknowledgements and references)/

Research letter:Short accounts of original articles will also be considered for publication as research letters. These focused research letters must not exceed 1500 words, 3 illustrations or tables and up to 20 references, preferably recent publications. No abstract should be included. Research letters will be peer reviewed in a manner identical to original articles.

Review article, Systematic review & Meta-analysis

Review articles or systematic, critical assessments of literature are also published. Normally, a review article on a subject already published in theWorld Journal of Pediatricsis not accepted for a period of 3 years. The typical length for review references. Authors submitting review manuscripts should include a structured abstract of around 250 words describing the need and purpose of review, methods used for selection, extraction and synthesis of data, and main conclusions. While reporting systematic reviews and meta-analyses, authors must attempt to be in conformity with the PRISMA statement (http://www.prisma-statement.org/); a completed PRISMA checklist and ow diagram should also be submitted as and ow diagram can be downloaded from the PRISMA website (http://www.prisma-statement.org/statement.htm).

Correspondence

Letters commenting upon a recent article in theWorld Journal of Pediatricsare welcome. Such letters should be received within 6 months of the article's publication. At the editorial board's discretion, a letter may be sent to authors/experts for comments and both letter and reply may be published together. Letters may also relate to other topics of interest to pediatricians and others, and/or useful clinical observations. Letters should not be more than 400 words. The number of authors should not exceed 2, including the authors' reply in response to a letter commenting upon an article published in this journal.

Clinical image

A short text of about 150 words depicting the condition with color photographs (vide infra) is needed. Normally only clinical photographs are accepted but accompanying skiagrams or pathological images could also be considered for publication. Photographs should be of high quality, clearly identify the condition and preferably add to the existing knowledge.

Personal viewpoint

Such articles are published on topical pediatric issues including social aspects. It is expected that the authors have

sufficient credible experience on the subject for giving

viewpoints. These should not exceed 1500 words.

Preparing Manuscripts

Manuscripts should be prepared in accordance with theUniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals.[2]A summary of technical requirements for preparing the manuscript is provided below:

· Double-space throughout the maintext including abstract, text， acknowledgements， references， figure legends. Start each of these sections (in same order) on a new page, numbered consecutively in the upper right hand corner.

· Use at least 11 point font size (Times New Roman or Arial).

· Conventional units are preferred with SI units in parenthesis, if available. The metric system is preferred for the expression of length, area, mass and volume.

· Use nonproprietary names of drugs, devices and other products.

· Tables， figures or crafts should be prepared and submitted in separate files.

Manuscripts not fulfilling the technical requirements shall be returned to the authors without initiating the peer-review process.

Title page

The page should contain (i) the title of the article: which should be concise but informative (simpler the title the better; preferably it should contain all the key words to help electronic retrieval reliably); (ii) a short running title of less than 40 characters; (iii) initials and surname of each author with the highest academic degree(s) and designation at the time when the work was done; (iv) name, address, telephone, fax, email address of the corresponding author; (v) funding source; (vi) ethical appproval; (vii) conflict of interest for all authors. If none， say "No financial or non-financial benefits have been received or will be received from any party related directly or indirectly to the subject of this article."; and (viii) contributors' statement.

Authorship

All persons designated as authors should qualify for the authorship. Authorship credit should be based on substantial contributions to (i) concept and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; (ii) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and (iii) final approval of the version to be published. Conditions 1， 2 and 3 must all be met. Participation solely in the acquisition of funding or the collection of data does not justify authorship. All such people who contributed to the work but do not satisfy all the conditions should be listed in the acknowledgements. Authors are responsible for obtaining written permissions from everyone acknowledged by name. One of the authors shall act as guarantor of the paper and he/she should take the responsibility for the integrity of the work as a whole, from its inception to published article. Authors should provide a description of what each author contributed on the title page. Subsequently, no names can be added or deleted without written permission of the editor. Written consent of authors whose names are being deleted should be obtained. This journal reserves the right to satisfy itself regarding the specific role of each listed author to justify authorship. All authors must give signed consent to publication (please download from WJP website).

Conflict of interest

Conflict of interest for a given manuscript exists when the author has ties to activities that could inappropriately influence his or her judgment, whether or not judgment is in fact affected. Financial relationships with industry—for example， through employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, expert testimony, either directly or through immediate family, are usually considered to be the most important conflict of interests. However， conflicts can occur for other reasons, such as personal relationships, academic competition and intellectual passion. If any of the authors have accepted reimbursement for attending symposium, a fee for speaking, fee for organizing educational activities, funds for research， funds for a member of the staffor consultation fees from an organization that may in any way gain or lose financially from the results of the study， review， editorial or letter， a conflict of interest would be deemed to exist. If any of the authors had been employed by an organization that may in any way gain or lose financially from the publication， or if any of them hold stocks or shares in such an organization， conflict of interest would be deemed to exist. The manuscript must be accompanied by the ICMJE Form for Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest.

Abstract and key words

The second page should carry an abstract in case of original article (250 words or fewer), review article (250 words or fewer), brief report (100-150 words), respectively. For original article and reviews, the abstract should be structured as detailed earlier. For brief reports, the abstract should state the purpose of the study， basic methodology， main findings (giving specific data and statistical significance) and key conclusion(s). Below the abstract, authors should provide 3-5 key words for indexing; terms from the Medical Subject Headings (MESH) list ofIndex Medicusshould be used.

The basic structure of a paper follows the well known acronym IMRAD, which stands for Introduction (what questions was asked), Methods (how was it studied), Results (what was found) and Discussion.[2]