Manuscript submission
Submission of a manuscript implies: that the work described has not been published before; that it is not under consideration for publication anywhere else; that its publication has been approved by all co-authors, if any, as well as by the responsible authorities – tacitly or explicitly – at the institute where the work has been carried out. The publisher will not be held legally responsible should there be any claims for compensation.
Permission
Authors wishing to include figures, tables, or text passages that have already been published elsewhere are required to obtain permission from the copyright owner for both the print and online format and to include evidence that such permission has been granted when submitting their papers. Any material received without such evidence will be assumed to originate from the authors.
Online submission
Authors should submit their manuscript online. Electronic submission substantially reduces the editorial processing and reviewing times and shortens overall publication times. Upload all of your manuscript files following the instructions given on the screen: http://nhj.edmgr.com. Authors may send queries concerning the submission process to: l.meester@bsl.nl.
First-time users must click ‘Register’ on the navigation menu at the top of the screen. The system will send an automatic e-mail with your user name and password. Detailed guidelines for authors are available on the submission site.
The published work will directly reflect the quality of the artwork provided. All electronic supplementary material will be published as received from the author without any conversion, editing or reformatting!
Title page
The title page should include:
- A concise and informative title (not longer than 120 characters, including spaces)
- The names of the authors
- The affiliations and addresses of the authors
- The e-mail addresses and telephone numbers of the corresponding authors
- Word count and number of tables and figures
Abstract
Please provide an abstract of maximum 200 words. The abstract should not contain any undefined abbreviations and no references or tables.
Keywords
Please provide 3 to 6 keywords which can be used for indexing purposes.
Text
Text formatting
- Manuscripts should be submitted in Word; save your file in doc format
- Use British English spelling (not American). We will not accept articles with a poor standard of English.
- Use normal, plain font (Times Roman pt 10) for text
- Use the automatic page numbering function to number the pages
- Do not use any field functions
- Use tab stops or other commands for indents, not the space bar
- Use the table function, not spreadsheets, to make tables
- Use the equation editor or Math Type for equations
- Authors must adhere to SI units
Headings
Please use no more than three levels of displayed headings.
Abbreviations
Abbreviations should be defined at first mention and used consistently thereafter.
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgements of people, grants, funds, etc. should be placed in a separate section before the reference list.
Article categories
- Original article: Maximum of 2200 words, 30 references, five figures and three tables.
- Review article: Maximum of 3500 words, 50 references, six figures and five tables.
- Special article: Maximum of 2500 words, 15 references, three figures and three tables.
- Case report: Maximum of 800 words, 15 references, three figures and three tables.
- Editorial: Maximum of 1200 words, five references and no figures and tables.
- Imaging: Maximum of 150 words, five references and no more than two figures.
- Rhythm puzzle: Please submit as two separate files: one for the question and one for the answer, with separate submitting numbers. Please choose ‘Report’ as category. Five references and two figures.
- Letter to editor: Maximum of 500 words.
References
- Authors are responsible for the accuracy and completeness of their references.
- Use the Vancouver style for all references.
- Reference citations in the text should be identified by numbers in square brackets. For example: This effect has been widely studied [1-3,7].
- In case of more than six authors the first three should be mentioned followed by et al.
- Do not use footnotes or endnotes as a substitute for a reference list.
- Personal communication and unpublished work should only be mentioned in the text.
- The entries in the list should be numbered consecutively. [layout]
- Svilaas T, Vlaar PJ, van der Horst IC, et al. Thrombus aspiration during primary percutaneous coronary intervention. N Engl J Med. 2008;358:557-67.
- Weinstein L. Infective endocarditis. In: Braundwald E, editor. A textbook of cardiovascular medicine. Philadelphia: Saunders; 2003: 1093-4.
- Gamelin FX, Baquet G, Berthoin S, Thevenet D, Nourry C, Nottin S, Bosquet L. Effect of high intensity intermittent training on heart rate variability in prepubescent children. Eur J Appl Physiol. 2009;105:731-738. doi: 10.1007/s00421-008-0955-8.
Tables
- Tables should be laid out in Word, using the table function. Other tables (e.g in pdf or ppt) will not be accepted.
- Do not use internal horizontal or vertical lines.
- Do not use spaces, tabs or hard returns in tables.
- Each piece of data must be contained in its own cell.
- Numbers and percentages are presented in the same cell.
- Tables should always be cited in the text in consecutive numerical order
- For each table, please supply a table title explaining the components of the table
- Footnotes to tables should be indicated by superscript.
- Tables should not exceed the printed area of the page (174x234mm)
Illustrations or artwork
For the best quality final product, it is essential that you submit all of your artwork – photographs, line drawings, etc. – in electronic format. The published work will directly reflect the quality of the artwork provided. All electronic supplementary material will be published as received from the author without any conversion, editing or reformatting!
Electronic art submission
- Indicate what graphics program was used to create the artwork
- Name your figure files with ‘Fig’ and the figure number, e.g. Fig1.eps
- Please remove all the patient information (especially names of the patients)
Line art
- Definition: Black and white graphic with no shading
- Do not use faint lines and/or lettering and check that all lines are legible at final size (your figure will be published exactly as you have made it!)
- All lines should be at least 0.1 mm (0.3 pt) wide
- Scanned line drawings in bmp format should have a minimum resolution of 1200 dpi.
Halftone art
- Definition: Photographs, drawings, or paintings with fine shading
- If any magnification is used in the figures, indicate this by using scale bars within the figures themselves.
- Do not use a background colour (even white is not possible)
- Halftone art should have a minimum resolution of 300 dpi
Combination art
- Definition: a combination of halftone and line art
- Combination art should have a minimum resolution of 600 dpi.
Figure lettering
- Use British English for all text in the figure
- To add lettering it is best to use Helvetica or Arial (sans serif fonts)
- Keep lettering consistently sized throughout your final-sized artwork, usually about 2-3 mm, 8 pt. Variance of type size with an illustration should be minimal!
- Do not use shading
- Do not include titles within your illustrations
Figure titles
- Each figure should have a concise title describing accurately what the figure depicts. Include the title in the text file of the manuscript, not in the figure file.
- Figure titles begin with the term Fig. in bold type, followed by the figure number, also in bold type
- No punctuation is to be included after the number, nor is any punctuation to be placed at the end of the title
- Identify all elements found in the figure in the figure title; ad use boxes, circles, etc. as coordinate points in graphs.
Figure placement and size
- Figures should be prepared to fit one column (84 mm width) or the whole page (174 mm width).