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Submission guidelines

Contents

Instructions for authors

Manuscript submission

Legal requirements:

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.

Permissions:

Authors wishing to include figures, tables, or text passages that have already been published elsewhere are required to obtain permission from the copyright owner(s) 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 manuscripts to the International Journal of Clinical Oncology online. No manuscripts will be accepted by mail or fax. Please log in directly at: http://www.editorialmanager.com/ijco and upload your manuscript following the instructions given.

Potential conflict of interest

Authors must indicate whether or not they have a financial relationship with the organization that sponsored the research. They should also state that they have full control of all primary data and that they agree to allow the journal to review their data if requested.

Therefore the manuscript must be accompanied by the "Conflict of Interest Disclosure Statement”. This form at the download below.

The corresponding author also should include a summary statement in the text of the manuscript in a separate section before the reference list, that reflects what is recorded in the "Conflict of Interest Disclosure Statement" forms.

IMPORTANT:

Upon receipt of the COI form, manuscripts are officially recognized as submissions

Conflict of Interest Disclosure Statement (Download pdf, 294 kB)

Manuscript preparation

Types of articles:

Articles may be in the form of original articles, letters to the editor, review articles, and editorials.

  • Original articles should not exceed 3,000 words, not including the abstract, references, tables, and figure captions. The text should be arranged in accordance with the format described below in “Text”. Acceptance of an original article is based primarily on the originality of the work and its potential clinical influence. For reports of randomized controlled trials, authors should refer to the CONSORT statement of guidelines (http://www.consort-statement.org). For studies of the diagnostic accuracy of tests, authors are encouraged to refer to the STARD statement (http://www.stard-statement.org/).
  • Letters to the editor may offer criticism of published material. They must be objective, constructive, and educational, and should not exceed 500 words, not including references, tables, and figure captions.
  • Review articles provide an overview of the state of the art in an area or an update in an area of current interest in clinical oncology. They should be approximately 3,000 words not including the abstract, tables, figure captions, and have a maximum of 75 references.
  • Editorials may be published as viewpoints of the editor(s) of the journal on current, relevant topics.

Manuscript form:

The abstract, text, references, tables, and figure captions must be typed double-space with wide margins. Incomplete or improperly prepared manuscripts will be returned to the authors without review. A separate cover page should be provided. The abstract, text, acknowledgments, references, tables, captions, and figures should begin on separate sheets and follow in that order. Standard abbreviations and units should be used. Abbreviations should be defined at first appearance, and their use in the title and abstract should be avoided. Generic names of drugs and chemicals should be used.

All manuscripts must be written in English. Authors who are not fluent in English must seek the assistance of a colleague who is a native English speaker and is familiar with the field of the work.

Cover page:

The cover page should contain the title, the full names of the authors, and the street address of the authors’ academic affiliations. Please supply a fax number, telephone number, and e-mail address for the proofs.

Abstract:

The abstract should be comprehensible without reference to the text, and the use of abbreviations should be avoided whenever possible. The abstract should not exceed 250 words and should be arranged under the following subheadings for original articles: (1) Background (the problem being addressed and the purpose of the study); (2) Methods (study design/methods and materials); (3) Results (research findings), and (4) Conclusion(s) (summary of the main findings obtained and the conclusions drawn).

Key words:

3-6 key words should be listed below the abstract.

Text:

The text should be arranged as follows: (1) Introduction; (2) Patients and methods, or Materials and methods; (3) Results; (4) Discussion; (5) Acknowledgment(s). The sections should describe: (1) the problem being addressed and the purpose of the study with reference to previous findings; (2) materials and methods used in the study in concise yet sufficient detail to allow the study to be replicated; (3) main findings obtained; (4) conclusions drawn from the findings and implications for further research and clinical application, with a review of relevant published literature and other evidence.

Text formatting:

Manuscripts should be submitted in Word.

• Use a normal, plain font (e.g., 10-point Times Roman) for text.

• Use italics for emphasis.

• Use the automatic page numbering function to number the pages.

• Do not use field functions.

• Use tab stops or other commands for indents, not the space bar.

• Use the table function, not spreadsheets, to make tables.

Footnotes:

Footnotes can be used to give additional information, which may include the citation of a reference included in the reference list. They should not consist solely of a reference citation, and they should never include the bibliographic details of a reference. They should also not contain any figures or tables. Footnotes to the text are numbered consecutively; those to tables should be indicated by superscript lower-case letters (or asterisks for significance values and other statistical data). Footnotes to the title or the authors of the article are not given reference symbols. Always use footnotes instead of endnotes.

References

Citation:

Reference citations in the text should be identified by numbers in square brackets. Some examples:

1. Negotiation research spans many disciplines [3].

2. This result was later contradicted by Becker and Seligman [5].

3. This effect has been widely studied [1-3, 7].

Reference list
The list of references should only include works that are cited in the text and that have been published or accepted for publication. Personal communications and unpublished works should only be mentioned in the text. Do not use footnotes or endnotes as a substitute for a reference list. The entries in the list should be numbered consecutively. Give the names of the first three authors only, followed by “et al” if there are other coauthors.

Journal article

1. Smith J, Jones M Jr, Houghton L, et al (1999) Future of health insurance. N Engl J Med 965:325–329

2. Inoue T, Sue K, Nakano K, et al. (1991) A case report of long survival in a 17-year-old girl with gastric carcinoma treated by immunochemo-endocrine therapy (in Japanese). Shinyaku to Rinsho (New Med) 40:117–121

Article by DOI

3. Slifka MK, Whitton JL (2000) Clinical implications of dysregulated cytokine production. J Mol Med (in press). doi: 10.1007/s001090000086

Book

4. South J, Blass B (2001) The future of modern genomics. Blackwell, London

Book chapter

5. Brown B, Aaron M (2001) The politics of nature. In: Smith J (ed) The rise of modern genomics, 3rd edn. Wiley, New York, pp230-257

Online document

6. Doe J (1999) Title of subordinate document. In: The dictionary of substances and their effects. Royal Society of Chemistry. Available via DIALOG. http://www.rsc.org/dose/title of subordinate document. Accessed Jan 1999

Dissertation

7. Trent JW (1975) Experimental acute renal failure. Dissertation, University of California

Always use the standard abbreviation of a journal’s name according to the ISSN List of Title Word Abbreviations, see http://www.issn.org/2-22661-LTWA-online.php

Tables

• All tables are to be numbered using Arabic numerals.

• Tables should always be cited in text in consecutive numerical order.

• For each table, please supply a table caption (title) explaining the components of the table.

• Identify any previously published material by giving the original source in the form of a reference at the end of the table caption.

• Footnotes to tables should be indicated by superscript lower-case letters (or asterisks for significance values and other statistical data) and included beneath the table body.

Figures

Electronic Figure Submission:

• Supply all figures electronically.

• Indicate what graphics program was used to create the artwork.

• For vector graphics, the preferred format is EPS; for halftones, please use TIFF format. MS Office files are also acceptable.

• Vector graphics containing fonts must have the fonts embedded in the files.

• Name your figure files with "Fig" and the figure number, e.g., Fig1.eps.

Line art:

• Definition: Black and white graphic with no shading.

• Do not use faint lines and/or lettering and check that all lines and lettering within the figures are legible at final size.

• All lines should be at least 0.1 mm (0.3 pt) wide.

• Scanned line drawings and line drawings in bitmap format should have a minimum resolution of 1200 dpi.

• Vector graphics containing fonts must have the fonts embedded in the files

Halftone art:

• Definition: Photographs, drawings, or paintings with fine shading, etc.

• If any magnification is used in the photographs, indicate this by using scale bars within the figures themselves.

• Halftones should have a minimum resolution of 300 dpi.

Combination art:

• Definition: a combination of halftone and line art, e.g., halftones containing line drawing, extensive lettering, color diagrams, etc.

• Combination artwork should have a minimum resolution of 600 dpi.

Color art:

• Color art is free of charge for online publication.

• If black and white will be shown in the print version, make sure that the main information will still be visible. Many colors are not distinguishable from one another when converted to black and white. A simple way to check this is to make a xerographic copy to see if the necessary distinctions between the different colors are still apparent.

• If the figures will be printed in black and white, do not refer to color in the captions.

• Color illustrations should be submitted as RGB (8 bits per channel).

Figure lettering:

• 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 (8–12 pt).

• Variance of type size within an illustration should be minimal, e.g., do not use 8-pt type on an axis and 20-pt type for the axis label.

• Avoid effects such as shading, outline letters, etc.

• Do not include titles or captions into your illustrations.

Figure numbering:

• All figures are to be numbered using Arabic numerals.

• Figures should always be cited in the text in consecutive numerical order.

• Figure parts should be denoted by lowercase letters (a, b, c, etc.). If illustrations are supplied with uppercase labeling, lowercase letters will still be used in the figure legends and citations.

• If an appendix appears in your article/chapter and it contains one or more figures, continue the consecutive numbering of the main text. Do not number the appendix figures, "A1, A2, A3, etc." Figures in online appendices (Electronic supplementary Material) should, however, be numbered separately.

Figure captions:

• Each figure should have a concise caption describing accurately what the figure depicts. Include the captions in the text file of the manuscript, not in the figure file.

• Figure captions 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 caption.

• Identify all elements found in the figure in the figure caption; and use boxes, circles, etc., as coordinate points in graphs.

• Identify previously published material by giving the original source in the form of a reference citation at the end of the figure caption.

Figure placement and size:

• When preparing your figures, size figures to fit in the column width.

• Figures should be 39 mm, 84 mm, 129 mm, or 174 mm wide and not higher than 234 mm.

The publisher reserves the right to reduce or enlarge figures.

Accessibility:

In order to give people of all abilities and disabilities access to the content of your figures, please make sure that

• All figures have descriptive captions (blind users could then use a text-tospeech software or a text-to-Braille hardware)

• Patterns are used instead or in addition to colors for conveying information (color-blind users would then be able to distinguish the visual elements)

• Any figure lettering has a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1.

Electronic Supplementary Material

Electronic supplementary material will be published in the online version only. It may consist of

・ Information that cannot be printed: animations, video clips, sound recordings

・ Ιnformation that is more convenient in electronic form: sequences, spectral data, etc.

・ Large original data, e.g. additional tables, illustrations, etc.

Submission:

・ Supply all supplementary material in standard file formats.

・ Please include in each file the following information: article title, journal name, author names; affiliation and e-mail address of the corresponding author.

・ To accommodate user downloads, please keep in mind that larger-sized files may require very long download times and that some users may experience other problems during downloading.

Audio, Video, and Animations:

Always use MPEG-1 (.mpg) format.

Text and Presentations:

・ Submit your material in PDF format; .doc or .ppt files are not suitable for long-term viability.

・ A collection of figures may also be combined in a PDF file.

Spreadsheets:

・ Spreadsheets should be converted to PDF if no interaction with the data is intended.

・ If the readers should be encouraged to make their own calculations, spreadsheets should be submitted as .xls files (MS Excel).

Specialized Formats:

Specialized formats such as .pdb (chemical), .wrl (VRML), .nb (Mathematica notebook), and .tex can also be supplied.

Collecting Multiple Files:

It is possible to collect multiple files in a .zip or .gz file.

Numbering:

• If any supplementary material is supplied, the text must make specific mention of the material as a citation, similar to that of figures and tables.

• Refer to the supplementary files as “Online Resource”, e.g., "... as shown in the animation (Online Resource 3)", “... additional data are given in Online Resource 4”.

• Name the files consecutively, e.g. “ESM_3.mpg”, “ESM_4.pdf”.

Captions:

For each supplementary material, please supply a concise caption describing the content of the file.

Processing of supplementary files:

Electronic supplementary material will be published as received from the author without any conversion, editing, or reformatting.

Accessibility:

In order to give people of all abilities and disabilities access to the content of your supplementary files, please make sure that

・ The manuscript contain a descriptive caption for each supplementary material

・ Video files do not contain anything that fl ashes more than three times per second (so that users prone to seizures caused by such effects are not put at risk)

Permissions

If you include figures that have already been published elsewhere, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner(s) for both the print and online format. Please be aware that some publishers do not grant electronic rights for free and that Springer will not be able to refund any costs that may have occurred to receive these permissions. In such cases, material from other sources should be used.

After Acceptance

Upon acceptance, your article will be exported to Production to undergo typesetting. Once typesetting is complete, you will receive a link asking you to confirm your affiliation, choose the publishing model for your article as well as arrange rights and payment of any associated publication cost.

Once you have completed this, your article will be processed and you will receive the proofs.

Article publishing agreement

Depending on the ownership of the journal and its policies, you will either grant the Publisher an exclusive licence to publish the article or will be asked to transfer copyright of the article to the Publisher.

Open Choice

Open Choice allows you to publish open access in more than 1850 Springer Nature journals, making your research more visible and accessible immediately on publication.

Article processing charges (APCs) vary by journal – view the full list

Benefits:

  • Increased researcher engagement: Open Choice enables access by anyone with an internet connection, immediately on publication.
  • Higher visibility and impact: In Springer hybrid journals, OA articles are accessed 4 times more often on average, and cited 1.7 more times on average*.

  • Easy compliance with funder and institutional mandates: Many funders require open access publishing, and some take compliance into account when assessing future grant applications.

It is easy to find funding to support open access – please see our funding and support pages for more information.

*) Within the first three years of publication. Springer Nature hybrid journal OA impact analysis, 2018.

Open Choice

Funding and Support pages

Copyright and license term – CC BY

Open Choice articles do not require transfer of copyright as the copyright remains with the author. In opting for open access, the author(s) agree to publish the article under the Creative Commons Attribution License.

Find more about the license agreement

Open Choice publication:

In addition to the normal publication process (whereby an article is submitted to the journal and access to that article is granted to customers who have purchased a subscription), Springer provides an alternative publishing option: Springer Open Choice. A Springer Open Choice article receives all the benefits of a regular subscription-based article, but in addition is made available publicly through Springer’s online platform SpringerLink. We regret that Springer Open Choice cannot be ordered for published articles.

Springer Open Choice http://springer.com/openchoice

In cooperation with the Japan Society of Clinical Oncology and the publisher, one year after the date of print publication, articles will become publicly available through SpringerLink regardless of whether the Springer Open Choice option is chosen initially.

Copyright transfer:

Authors will be asked to transfer copyright of the article to the Japan Society of Clinical Oncology. This will ensure the widest possible protection and dissemination of information under copyright laws.

Offprints:

Offprints can be ordered by the corresponding author.

Color illustrations:

Publication of color illustrations is free of charge.

Proof reading:

The purpose of the proof is to check for typesetting or conversion errors and the completeness and accuracy of the text, tables and figures. Substantial changes in content, e.g., new results, corrected values, title and authorship, are not allowed without the approval of the Editor. After online publication, further changes can only be made in the form of an Erratum, which will be hyperlinked to the article.

Online First:

The article will be published online after receipt of the corrected proofs. This is the official first publication citable with the DOI. After release of the printed version, the paper can also be cited by issue and page numbers.

Research Data Policy and Data Availability Statements

This journal follows Springer Nature research data policy. Sharing of all relevant research data is strongly encouraged and authors must add a Data Availability Statement to original research articles.

Research data includes a wide range of types, including spreadsheets, images, textual extracts, archival documents, video or audio, interview notes or any specialist formats generated during research.

Data availability statements

All original research must include a data availability statement. This statement should explain how to access data supporting the results and analysis in the article, including links/citations to publicly archived datasets analysed or generated during the study. Please see our full policy here.

If it is not possible to share research data publicly, for instance when individual privacy could be compromised, this statement should describe how data can be accessed and any conditions for reuse. Participant consent should be obtained and documented prior to data collection. See our guidance on sensitive data for more information.

When creating a data availability statement, authors are encouraged to consider the minimal dataset that would be necessary to interpret, replicate and build upon the findings reported in the article.

Further guidance on writing a data availability statement, including examples, is available at:

Data availability statements

Data repositories

Authors are strongly encouraged to deposit their supporting data in a publicly available repository. Sharing your data in a repository promotes the integrity, discovery and reuse of your research, making it easier for the research community to build on and credit your work.

See our data repository guidance for information on finding a suitable repository.

We recommend the use of discipline-specific repositories where available. For a number of data types, submission to specific public repositories is mandatory.

See our list of mandated data types.

The journal encourages making research data available under open licences that permit reuse. The journal does not enforce use of particular licences in third party repositories. You should ensure you have necessary rights to share any data that you deposit in a repository.

Data citation

The journal recommends that authors cite any publicly available data on which the conclusions of the paper rely. This includes data the authors are sharing alongside their publication and any secondary data the authors have reused. Data citations should include a persistent identifier (such as a DOI), should be included in the reference list using the minimum information recommended by DataCite (Dataset Creator, Dataset Title, Publisher [repository], Publication Year, Identifier [e.g. DOI, Handle, Accession or ARK]) and follow journal style.

See our further guidance on citing datasets.

Research data and peer review

If the journal that you are submitting to uses double-anonymous peer review and you are providing reviewers with access to your data (for example via a repository link, supplementary information or data on request), it is strongly suggested that the authorship in the data is also anonymised. There are data repositories that can assist with this and/or will create a link to mask the authorship of your data.

Support with research data policy

Authors who need help understanding our data sharing policy, finding a suitable data repository, or organising and sharing research data can consult our Research Data Helpdesk for guidance.

See our FAQ page for more information on Springer Nature's research data policy.

Ethical Responsibilities of Authors

This journal is committed to upholding the integrity of the scientific record. As a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) the journal will follow the COPE guidelines on how to deal with potential acts of misconduct.

Authors should refrain from misrepresenting research results which could damage the trust in the journal, the professionalism of scientific authorship, and ultimately the entire scientific endeavour. Maintaining integrity of the research and its presentation is helped by following the rules of good scientific practice, which include*:

  • The manuscript should not be submitted to more than one journal for simultaneous consideration.
  • The submitted work should be original and should not have been published elsewhere in any form or language (partially or in full), unless the new work concerns an expansion of previous work. (Please provide transparency on the re-use of material to avoid the concerns about text-recycling (‘self-plagiarism’).
  • A single study should not be split up into several parts to increase the quantity of submissions and submitted to various journals or to one journal over time (i.e. ‘salami-slicing/publishing’).
  • Concurrent or secondary publication is sometimes justifiable, provided certain conditions are met. Examples include: translations or a manuscript that is intended for a different group of readers.
  • Results should be presented clearly, honestly, and without fabrication, falsification or inappropriate data manipulation (including image based manipulation). Authors should adhere to discipline-specific rules for acquiring, selecting and processing data.
  • No data, text, or theories by others are presented as if they were the author’s own (‘plagiarism’). Proper acknowledgements to other works must be given (this includes material that is closely copied (near verbatim), summarized and/or paraphrased), quotation marks (to indicate words taken from another source) are used for verbatim copying of material, and permissions secured for material that is copyrighted.

Important note: the journal may use software to screen for plagiarism.

  • Authors should make sure they have permissions for the use of software, questionnaires/(web) surveys and scales in their studies (if appropriate).
  • Research articles and non-research articles (e.g. Opinion, Review, and Commentary articles) must cite appropriate and relevant literature in support of the claims made. Excessive and inappropriate self-citation or coordinated efforts among several authors to collectively self-cite is strongly discouraged.
  • Authors should avoid untrue statements about an entity (who can be an individual person or a company) or descriptions of their behavior or actions that could potentially be seen as personal attacks or allegations about that person.
  • Research that may be misapplied to pose a threat to public health or national security should be clearly identified in the manuscript (e.g. dual use of research). Examples include creation of harmful consequences of biological agents or toxins, disruption of immunity of vaccines, unusual hazards in the use of chemicals, weaponization of research/technology (amongst others).
  • Authors are strongly advised to ensure the author group, the Corresponding Author, and the order of authors are all correct at submission. Adding and/or deleting authors during the revision stages is generally not permitted, but in some cases may be warranted. Reasons for changes in authorship should be explained in detail. Please note that changes to authorship cannot be made after acceptance of a manuscript.

*All of the above are guidelines and authors need to make sure to respect third parties rights such as copyright and/or moral rights.

Upon request authors should be prepared to send relevant documentation or data in order to verify the validity of the results presented. This could be in the form of raw data, samples, records, etc. Sensitive information in the form of confidential or proprietary data is excluded.

If there is suspicion of misbehavior or alleged fraud the Journal and/or Publisher will carry out an investigation following COPE guidelines. If, after investigation, there are valid concerns, the author(s) concerned will be contacted under their given e-mail address and given an opportunity to address the issue. Depending on the situation, this may result in the Journal’s and/or Publisher’s implementation of the following measures, including, but not limited to:

  • If the manuscript is still under consideration, it may be rejected and returned to the author.
  • If the article has already been published online, depending on the nature and severity of the infraction:

    - an erratum/correction may be placed with the article

    - an expression of concern may be placed with the article

    - or in severe cases retraction of the article may occur.

The reason will be given in the published erratum/correction, expression of concern or retraction note. Please note that retraction means that the article is maintained on the platform, watermarked “retracted” and the explanation for the retraction is provided in a note linked to the watermarked article.

  • The author’s institution may be informed
  • A notice of suspected transgression of ethical standards in the peer review system may be included as part of the author’s and article’s bibliographic record.

Fundamental errors

Authors have an obligation to correct mistakes once they discover a significant error or inaccuracy in their published article. The author(s) is/are requested to contact the journal and explain in what sense the error is impacting the article. A decision on how to correct the literature will depend on the nature of the error. This may be a correction or retraction. The retraction note should provide transparency which parts of the article are impacted by the error.

Suggesting / excluding reviewers

Authors are welcome to suggest suitable reviewers and/or request the exclusion of certain individuals when they submit their manuscripts. When suggesting reviewers, authors should make sure they are totally independent and not connected to the work in any way. It is strongly recommended to suggest a mix of reviewers from different countries and different institutions. When suggesting reviewers, the Corresponding Author must provide an institutional email address for each suggested reviewer, or, if this is not possible to include other means of verifying the identity such as a link to a personal homepage, a link to the publication record or a researcher or author ID in the submission letter. Please note that the Journal may not use the suggestions, but suggestions are appreciated and may help facilitate the peer review process.

Authorship principles

These guidelines describe authorship principles and good authorship practices to which prospective authors should adhere to.

Authorship clarified

The Journal and Publisher assume all authors agreed with the content and that all gave explicit consent to submit and that they obtained consent from the responsible authorities at the institute/organization where the work has been carried out, before the work is submitted.

The Publisher does not prescribe the kinds of contributions that warrant authorship. It is recommended that authors adhere to the guidelines for authorship that are applicable in their specific research field. In absence of specific guidelines it is recommended to adhere to the following guidelines*:

All authors whose names appear on the submission

1) made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data; or the creation of new software used in the work;

2) drafted the work or revised it critically for important intellectual content;

3) approved the version to be published; and

4) agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

* Based on/adapted from:

ICMJE, Defining the Role of Authors and Contributors,

Transparency in authors’ contributions and responsibilities to promote integrity in scientific publication, McNutt at all, PNAS February 27, 2018

Disclosures and declarations

All authors are requested to include information regarding sources of funding, financial or non-financial interests, study-specific approval by the appropriate ethics committee for research involving humans and/or animals, informed consent if the research involved human participants, and a statement on welfare of animals if the research involved animals (as appropriate).

The decision whether such information should be included is not only dependent on the scope of the journal, but also the scope of the article. Work submitted for publication may have implications for public health or general welfare and in those cases it is the responsibility of all authors to include the appropriate disclosures and declarations.

Data transparency

All authors are requested to make sure that all data and materials as well as software application or custom code support their published claims and comply with field standards. Please note that journals may have individual policies on (sharing) research data in concordance with disciplinary norms and expectations.

Role of the Corresponding Author

One author is assigned as Corresponding Author and acts on behalf of all co-authors and ensures that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately addressed.

The Corresponding Author is responsible for the following requirements:

  • ensuring that all listed authors have approved the manuscript before submission, including the names and order of authors;
  • managing all communication between the Journal and all co-authors, before and after publication;*
  • providing transparency on re-use of material and mention any unpublished material (for example manuscripts in press) included in the manuscript in a cover letter to the Editor;
  • making sure disclosures, declarations and transparency on data statements from all authors are included in the manuscript as appropriate (see above).

* The requirement of managing all communication between the journal and all co-authors during submission and proofing may be delegated to a Contact or Submitting Author. In this case please make sure the Corresponding Author is clearly indicated in the manuscript.

Author contributions

In absence of specific instructions and in research fields where it is possible to describe discrete efforts, the Publisher recommends authors to include contribution statements in the work that specifies the contribution of every author in order to promote transparency. These contributions should be listed at the separate title page.

Examples of such statement(s) are shown below:

• Free text:

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by [full name], [full name] and [full name]. The first draft of the manuscript was written by [full name] and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Example: CRediT taxonomy:

• Conceptualization: [full name], …; Methodology: [full name], …; Formal analysis and investigation: [full name], …; Writing - original draft preparation: [full name, …]; Writing - review and editing: [full name], …; Funding acquisition: [full name], …; Resources: [full name], …; Supervision: [full name],….

For review articles where discrete statements are less applicable a statement should be included who had the idea for the article, who performed the literature search and data analysis, and who drafted and/or critically revised the work.

For articles that are based primarily on the student’s dissertation or thesis, it is recommended that the student is usually listed as principal author:

A Graduate Student’s Guide to Determining Authorship Credit and Authorship Order, APA Science Student Council 2006

Affiliation

The primary affiliation for each author should be the institution where the majority of their work was done. If an author has subsequently moved, the current address may additionally be stated. Addresses will not be updated or changed after publication of the article.

Changes to authorship

Authors are strongly advised to ensure the correct author group, the Corresponding Author, and the order of authors at submission. Changes of authorship by adding or deleting authors, and/or changes in Corresponding Author, and/or changes in the sequence of authors are not accepted after acceptance of a manuscript.

  • Please note that author names will be published exactly as they appear on the accepted submission!

Please make sure that the names of all authors are present and correctly spelled, and that addresses and affiliations are current.

Adding and/or deleting authors at revision stage are generally not permitted, but in some cases it may be warranted. Reasons for these changes in authorship should be explained. Approval of the change during revision is at the discretion of the Editor-in-Chief. Please note that journals may have individual policies on adding and/or deleting authors during revision stage.

Author identification

Authors are recommended to use their ORCID ID when submitting an article for consideration or acquire an ORCID ID via the submission process.

Deceased or incapacitated authors

For cases in which a co-author dies or is incapacitated during the writing, submission, or peer-review process, and the co-authors feel it is appropriate to include the author, co-authors should obtain approval from a (legal) representative which could be a direct relative.

Authorship issues or disputes

In the case of an authorship dispute during peer review or after acceptance and publication, the Journal will not be in a position to investigate or adjudicate. Authors will be asked to resolve the dispute themselves. If they are unable the Journal reserves the right to withdraw a manuscript from the editorial process or in case of a published paper raise the issue with the authors’ institution(s) and abide by its guidelines.

Confidentiality

Authors should treat all communication with the Journal as confidential which includes correspondence with direct representatives from the Journal such as Editors-in-Chief and/or Handling Editors and reviewers’ reports unless explicit consent has been received to share information.

Open access publishing

To find out more about publishing your work Open Access in International Journal of Clinical Oncology, including information on fees, funding and licenses, visit our Open access publishing page.

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