Advice to contributors

PJ Online

Please read the community agreement and our general guidance before contributing to PJ Online 

The Pharmaceutical Journal

The Pharmaceutical Journal aims to provide comprehensive news coverage of all aspects of pharmacy and to publish original research and articles on pharmaceutical and related subjects. Material should be e-mailed to editor@pharmj.org.uk (except letters and original papers, see below) or sent to The Editor, The Pharmaceutical Journal, 1 Lambeth High Street, London SE1 7JN.

Clinical Pharmacist

Clinical Pharmacist publishes articles, reviews, reports and papers about any aspect of clinical pharmacy. Material should be e-mailed to clinicalpharmacist@pharmj.org.uk or sent to The Editor, Clinical Pharmacist, 1 Lambeth High Street, London SE1 7JN.

PJ Business Insight

PJ Business Insight focuses on the business aspects of community pharmacy. This includes the financial implications of running new services, employment issues, and developments affecting the whole community pharmacy team. Any readers who have an idea for an article or would like to suggest an area for us to investigate should e-mail editor@pharmj.org.uk or write to The Editor, PJ Business Insight, 1 Lambeth High Street, London SE1 7JN.

Tomorrow's Pharmacist

Tomorrow's Pharmacist is an electronic product of PJ Publications and provides information and resources about a career in pharmacy. Material should be e-mailed to tomorrowspharmacist@pjonline.com.

Prescribing and Medicines Management

Prescribing and Medicines Management depends on readers for information about the development of new services either run by pharmacists or closely involving them. If you have a story to tell, or have heard about a scheme that you would like to hear more about, send details to Prescribing & Medicines Management Suggestions, 1 Lambeth High Street, London SE1 7JN or by email to editor@pharmj.org.uk

General requirements

Material for publication should preferably be submitted electronically by e-mail in a text-only format.

If electronic submission is not possible, material should be typewritten in a form suitable for scanning (high-quality, black print on one side of the paper).

Submissions must be accompanied by the name and address of the sender and a daytime telephone number.

Authors are not required to assign us their copyright but must grant us an exclusive licence (or non-exclusive licence in the case of Government employees) to publish their material in PJ Publications, which include The Pharmaceutical Journal, Hospital Pharmacist, Prescribing and Medicines Management, Retail Round-up, Tomorrow’s Pharmacist and PJ Online.

The licence is available as a PDF file (30K).

Authors of all contributions except letters to the editor should include the following words at the end of the licence in their covering letter or send us an e-mail containing the text. The corresponding author should ensure that he has the permission of co-authors to declare on their behalf.

“I have read and understood the Terms of Licence to the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain to Publish in PJ Publications, a copy of which appears on PJ Online, and hereby (on behalf of all authors) grant, on acceptance of the attached Contribution, an exclusive worldwide licence in respect of the attached Contribution [or a non-exclusive licence for Government employees], to the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain and its licensees.”

Declaration of interest

Submitted articles, papers or letters should include a declaration of any financial, commercial, personal or occupational interest that readers should know about.

News items

Short reports of matters of general interest are welcomed.

Meeting reports

The Pharmaceutical Journal and Hospital Pharmacist welcome submissions about meetings and conferences. Please contact the editorial department before sending in a report, ideally before the meeting takes place, to check that it is not already being covered and to discuss the length of the report.

Photographs are also welcome, provided they are of publishable standard.

Timing and submission

Reports should be sent in by e-mail. If the meeting is newsworthy, the report should be sent in by the Tuesday immediately after it takes place to ensure early publication. All reports should be sent within two weeks of the meeting to guarantee publication within a month of the meeting. Reports submitted later than this will not always be published in full, although they will be considered for PJ Online.

How to prepare a report

Readers need to be encouraged to read reports, so start the report with the most interesting item, not with details of what, where and when the meeting occurred.

Concentrate throughout the report on the most newsworthy contributions to a meeting, such as valuable information that has not already been publicised or strongly worded opinions voiced by influential speakers. Reports that repeat what readers already know or cover old issues will not be interesting.

Write about what people actually said rather than what they talked about. Ask speakers for copies of their talks or notes. Do not submit reports that are just lists of speakers’ topics; they are of no value to the reader. Instead of writing “Professor Plum gave a fascinating account of continuing professional development,” readers will want to know exactly what Professor Plum said that was so fascinating.

Do not give every speaker an equal number of words. With the exception of keynote speakers if someone says nothing of interest, then do not report it, however well-known the person. If the keynote speaker says nothing of interest, consider how valuable a meeting report will be.

Advice for photographers

We are unlikely to publish more than two or three photographs from most meetings, so it is best to concentrate on the main speakers.

The ideal time to take photographs is at the beginning of each address, while the speaker is still involved in introductions and is likely to be looking out at the audience rather than staring down into his or her notes.

Take several shots of each speaker and always aim to be as close as possible to the podium, even if it means obstructing the view of the audience for a short time.

Broad Spectrum

The Pharmaceutical Journal will consider “Broad Spectrum” submissions from any writer. Contributions of no more than 1,100 words, commenting on topical issues, should be sent, preferably by e-mail, to managing editor Graeme Smith for consideration (graeme.smith@pharmj.org.uk).

Letters to the Editor

Letters can be posted, faxed, or e-mailed to letters@pharmj.org.uk and should not normally be of more than 400 words. We reserve the right to abridge them. Pharmacist correspondents should supply their membership numbers. A contact telephone number should always be supplied.

The use of pseudonyms will be permitted at the discretion of the editor but only in exceptional circumstances.

Letters are considered for publication on the understanding that they have not also been submitted elsewhere. Where letters are critical of individuals, organisations or companies, details of the criticisms may be sent to the person or body concerned so that their response may appear in the same issue as the letter. In such cases, authors’ identities will not normally be disclosed.

Diary column

The local meetings section of The Pharmaceutical Journal’s Diary column is intended mainly for brief reminders of Royal Pharmaceutical Society branch meetings but can also include information about meetings of other pharmaceutical organisations. The Diary column covers the eight days from the Monday after the date of publication to the following Monday, inclusive.

Branch secretaries are asked to submit details of meetings as early as possible and certainly no later than the Tuesday morning preceding the date of publication. Branch programme cards are welcomed at the beginning of the season, but secretaries should remember to tell us about any subsequent amendments.

Death announcements

The Obituaries column is reserved for deaths of pharmacists, former pharmacists and non-pharmacists of importance in relation to pharmacy. Information must be submitted in writing and signed. Brief biographical details are welcomed, as are short personal tributes from professional colleagues. There is no charge for inclusions in the Obituaries column. Other death announcements can be inserted in the Personal column, for which there is a small charge.

Personal announcements

This column is intended for announcements of births, engagements, marriages, anniversaries, etc. The charge for an insertion is £25 for up to 30 words, and £10 for every additional 10 or fewer words. Personal cheques only (payable to The Pharmaceutical Journal) should be sent with the notice to the Editor, The Pharmaceutical Journal, 1 Lambeth High Street, London SE1 7JN. The sender’s address and membership number, if applicable, should be on the reverse of the cheque.

Future events

Details of future events of interest to pharmacists are published in The Journal whenever possible. We cannot guarantee publication of any particular announcement.

Papers and articles

Papers and articles are welcomed, but are accepted on the understanding that they are subject to editorial revision and that their content is not published elsewhere, except by agreement. Papers reporting original research or describing developments in clinical, scientific, practice or technological fields will be peer-reviewed.

Manuscripts

In the first instance, three copies of a manuscript should be provided, typed double-spaced with a 3cm margin on A4 paper. Authors should retain one copy of all material; the editor cannot accept responsibility for loss of, or damage to, manuscripts. Manuscripts will be acknowledged and a reference number given for future inquiries. Once a manuscript has been accepted for publication, authors will be asked to submit the paper on electronically. Manuscripts should conform to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors’ Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals.

Statement
Papers must be accompanied by a statement that they have not been and will not be published elsewhere, except by prior agreement with the editor. All authors must sign for their consent to publication.

Title page
A separate title page should give the full names of the authors, their posts at the time the work was carried out and their major degree and professional qualification. An address for correspondence should also be provided.

Abstracts
Abstracts of research papers should not exceed 250 words and should be structured under the headings: Aim; Design; Subjects and setting; Outcome measures; Results; Conclusions.

Statistics
Statistical procedures should be described in the methods section or be referenced.

Units of measurement
Units of measurement should generally be expressed as SI units, except for blood pressure, which should be expressed in mm Hg.

Names of medicines
Names of medicines should generally be given as generic names.

Ethics
Authors of papers concerned with human trials should indicate in the text that protocols have been approved by an ethics committee. Sources of financial support should be acknowledged.

References
References should be numbered in the order in which they appear in the text. A full list of references should be given at the end of the article. The names and initials of all authors should be given unless there are more than six. In this case, only the first six should be used followed by et al. The authors’ names are followed by the title of the article, the journal title, the year of publication, the volume and the first and last page numbers. Journal titles should be abbreviated according to the style used in Index Medicus. A full list is printed in the January issue of Index Medicus under “List of journals indexed”. For example:

1. Hepler CD, Strand LM. Opportunities and responsibilities in pharmaceutical care. Am J Hosp Pharm 1990;47: 533-43.

References to books should give the names of any editors, the place of publication, the publisher and the year. For example:

2. Edwards C, Stillman P. Minor illness or major disease? Responding to symptoms in the pharmacy. 3rd ed. London: Pharmaceutical Press; 2000.

Personal communications should be cited in the text only. This also applies to papers in the press, unless they have been accepted for publication, when the journal name should be followed in the listed reference by the words “in press”. Authors are responsible for checking the accuracy of their references.

Tables
Tables should be separate from the text of the paper. They should be kept as simple as possible and should not be ruled.

Figures
Graphs should be submitted with their data as they may be redrawn. Pie charts and histograms will usually be converted to tables.

Photographs
Photographs should be of the highest quality possible and may be submitted as prints or slides, preferably in colour. Electronic images must have a minimum resolution of 300dpi.

Copyright
With the exception of certain government employees, all authors will be required to grant an exclusive licence to PJ Publications. Readers may make single copies of articles for their personal use. Permission should be sought from the editor to make multiple copies or to republish material.