Submission guidelines

Types of papers

The Journal of Medical Toxicology publishes original articles, illustrative cases, review articles, and other special features. Please note that JMT only accepts manuscripts written in proper English.

For details of the types of paper we publish, see below.

For any and all other manuscript inquiries, please contact jmtinfo@acmt.net.

Original Articles

include toxicology investigations and other relevant studies. A statement of institutional review board (IRB) approval or exemption from full review is required for all research involving human subjects or their data.

Reports of original research studies should follow the "general guidelines" format when applicable and should be between 2500 and 4000 words in length and up to 50 references and 5 figures or tables. A structured abstract is required (250 words or less). A statement of institutional review board (IRB) approval or exemption from full review is required for all research involving human subjects or their data. Please follow EQUATOR Reporting Guidelines.

Research Letters

This section is for brief reports of original research with one or two novel findings of interest to the medical toxicology community. We will consider original reports of preliminary data and findings or studies with small numbers demonstrating the need for further investigation. Case reports will not be considered for this section. The Research Letter should follow the “general guidelines” format, be limited to 1200 words or less, with a maximum of 15 references and a total of 2 tables and/or figures. The submission should include a title page but no abstract. A statement of institutional review board (IRB) approval or exemption from full review is required for all research involving human subjects or their data.

Toxicology Reviews

Review articles may be solicited by the Review Editor, but uncommissioned material is encouraged. Please contact the Editor (jmtinfo@acmt.net) before writing a review for the Journal to ensure that the topic is appropriate for the Journal and does not conflict with another pending or published review. Guidelines for Reviews have been published in the journal and must be followed (see Murphy CM. Writing an effective review article. J Med Toxicol. 2012 Jun;8(2):89-90. doi:10.1007/s13181-012-0234-2.PMID: 22552738; http://www.springer.com/cda/content/document/cda_downloaddocument/10.1007%252Fs13181-012-0234-2.pdf?SGWID=0-0-45-1364947-p173916204).

Preliminary Research: Research Concepts

This section is peer-reviewed and allows expedited review of papers in an attempt to aid in securing extramural funding. For further details, see Bird SB, "Research Concepts, Collaboration, and JMT," JMT 6.1:1-2.

Submissions are limited to 5000 words or less

Authors must recommend two reviewers with experience as principal investigators of extramurally funded research or NIH scientific reviewers

Submissions require a paragraph describing the NIH or other extramural program announcement or request for application to which the submission responds

Before submitting to this section, please contact the Editor, (jmtinfo@acmt.net).

Toxicology Observations (Case Reports)

1. The title should reveal the unusual aspect of the case.

2. The case should describe a unique or rare clinical finding or toxicological disease process of interest and value to JMT readers. Cases describing unique pharmacokinetic data, analytical methods, diagnostic tests, or therapeutic modalities are also appropriate.

3. The introduction should provide a brief background on the topic and explain why the report is of value.

4. The case must be well documented and include all relevant clinical information. Most important, there should be laboratory confirmation of the agent ingested whenever possible, with an attempt to exclude other possible causes of the finding or disease process. Credible corroborative evidence should be presented in all cases. Reports relying solely on patient history or proximity to a toxin (e.g., presence of pill bottles) are not generally acceptable. For fatalities, postmortem examination and forensic toxicology results are highly desirable.

5. The discussion should focus on the unique aspect of the case being presented. Plausibility should be addressed, with potential mechanisms for the clinical finding or drug effect provided. If the finding or condition is not consistent with what we already know about the toxicological agent involved, this should also be addressed in the discussion.

6. Include a concise review of other relevant medical literature or similar case reports in the discussion. This should not be a review of all available literature.

7. Address limitations of the report, including other possible causes of the finding or condition, if they exist.

8. Toxicology Observations should be approximately 1500 words with 10 references and no more than 3 figures or tables.

For an expanded discussion of a well written toxicology case report, please see "Ruha AM: The Case Report: A Tool for the Toxicologist. Journal of Medical Toxicology 2009; 5:1-2.

As of 1 July 2015, JMT will require informed consent for submitted case reports. Please see our 2014 commentary on informed consent. Neavyn M, Murphy C. Coming to a consensus on informed consent. J Med Toxicol 2014;10(4):337-9. DOI 10.1007/s13181-014-0421-4

Instructions for Obtaining Informed Consent

1. Attempt to obtain consent to publish for all case reports. Consent is required for case reports with highly identifiable patient information/characteristics or cases of child abuse, elder abuse, or those involving criminal investigation. If consent is unobtainable (not refused), please make every effort to anonymize the case report and include a formal statement regarding the circumstances making consent unobtainable in a cover letter to the editor with your submission. The section editor and editor-in-chief will make decisions regarding these cases.

2. Consent forms from the primary author(s) institution are acceptable. Authors that do not have access to an institutional consent form should use the appropriate template provided by the World Health Organization found here: http://www.who.int/rpc/research_ethics/ informed_consent/en/

3. Authors are to obtain consent, provide a statement in the manuscript documenting patient consent obtained, and maintain copies of the signed consent form for a period of 7 years. In an effort to maintain patient privacy, copies of actual forms will only be requested for submission at the discretion of the editor-in-chief.

Beginning July 1, 2015 all Case Report submissions must be accompanied by a signed consent form. Click below to download form:

Case Report Consent Form - Template (Download docx, 22 kB)

Toxicology Case Files

Toxicology Case Files

Section Editor: Jeffrey Suchard, MD

Introduction:

"Case Files” is a recurring feature of JMT in which Medical Toxicology fellowship programs present clinical cases that highlight important, interesting, and/or controversial issues in the diagnosis and management of poisoned patients. Each “Case Files” article is an extended case report; as the case unfolds, various issues arise, which are discussed in a “question & answer” format that is intended to read like an erudite discussion between a Medical Toxicology fellow and their attending physician. Case Files are generally solicited by the Section Editor, Jeffrey Suchard (jsuchard@uci.edu). Please contact him directly before submitting to this section.

Case Selection:

Any case that highlights important, interesting, or controversial issues in the diagnosis and management of poisoned patients could potentially be used as the basis for a “Case Files” article. The cases don’t have to be particularly amazing, like CPC cases often are. In fact, cases involving more common toxins may be preferable, because more commonly-encountered clinical questions can be posed (and discussed), and more published research will be available to use as references.

Authorship:

Each “Case Files” manuscript will be a co-authored manuscript. The authors will include one Medical Toxicology fellow and one Medical Toxicology attending physician associated with the same fellowship program. Additional authors may occasionally be included, if justification is provided and pre-approval by the Section Editor is granted. The order in which the authors will be listed may be decided by the authors, although it is recommended that the first author be the fellow. Although the discussions within each “Case Files” article are written in a “question & answer” format, it is not necessary that the questions will be written by the fellow and the answers by the attending. Actually, it is expected that both authors will be involved in determining the questions to be asked and in developing the responses to these question, including appropriate references from the literature.

Format for Submission:

See (Case files template) for a template of the requested submission format. The overall length of text (excluding title page, tables, figures, and references) should be in the 2500-5000 word range.

Editing:

Since the opportunity to write a “Case Files” manuscript is by invitation, it is expected that each submitted manuscript will be published. However, the editors reserve the right to reject grossly inadequate submissions and/or require revisions of varying extent.

Each submitted (and accepted) manuscript will be edited initially by the Section Editor and returned to the authors for revisions/corrections. Additional editing may occur after the Section Editor has submitted the “finalized” manuscript to the Features Editor.

Case files template:

[Insert title here]:Case Files of the [Insert fellowship program name here]:

[Insert authors here, with affiliations]

Corresponding author:

[Insert corresponding author info here, including mailing address and email address]

Key words: [Insert key words here]

CASE PRESENTATION

[Insert initial component of case here, in italics. Indent each paragraph.]

[Insert first “question” here, in bold. e.g., What are the unique characteristics of suicide attempts by physicians?]

[Insert discussion of first question here, normal font. Indent each paragraph.]

[Insert second “question” here {assuming there is a second question before the case continues}, in bold.]

[Insert discussion of second question here, normal font. Indent each paragraph.]

CASE CONTINUATION

[Insert additional case details here, in italics. Indent each paragraph.]

[Insert additional “question” here, in bold, as above.]

[Insert discussion of additional questions here, normal font. Indent each paragraph.]

[Additional CASE CONTINUATIONs, and subsequent Q&As, may be inserted as needed.]

Letters to the Editor (Poison Pen)

Manuscripts submitted to The Poison Pen include commentary such as observations and opinions relevant to material appearing in JMT. These should be related to articles published in the previous issue of JMT or relevant to current issues in medical toxicology. These submissions are limited to 500 words, unless permission is obtained from the editor. A maximum of three authors and twelve references are suggested. Letters discussing a JMT article should be received within 12 weeks of the article's publication. Authors of articles about which letters are received will be given the opportunity to reply, which will not be shared with the letter writer prior to publication. Abbreviated case reports are not appropriate as letters.

JMT Appeals Process for Authors

General

Authors may request an appeal of publication decisions rendered by an JMT Decision Editor or the Editor-in-Chief. This policy defines the process, once the JMT Editorial office receives the appeal.

Qualifying Appeals

Appeals will be considered only if they assert that (1) an error of fact or substantial misunderstanding occurred and/or (2) a disqualifying conflict of interest exists on the part of a reviewer, the Decision Editor or Editor-in-Chief.

Appeals Process

All appeals must: (1) be made in writing to the Editor-in-Chief; (2) clearly state the basis for the appeal and provide substantiating information; and (3) be received by the JMT office within 30 days of the date of the letter of rejection.

The editorial staff will forward the appeal to the Editor-in-Chief or the Associate Editor within 5 business days. If unavailable, the Editor-in-Chief or Associate Editor may delegate this to another member of the Editorial Board not involved with initial decision.

The Editor-in-Chief, the Associate Editor, or their designee will receive the initial and revised (if applicable) manuscripts, all referee reports, and all correspondences relating to the manuscript.

The Editor-in-Chief, the Associate Editor, or their designee will choose a disposition within 30 business days of receiving the above materials. The decision may be: (1) to reaffirm the initial decision and take no further action; (2) to overturn the initial decision and accept the manuscript or write a specific revise/reconsider letter; or (3) to decide that additional information is required. If additional information is required, then the manuscript will be sent, with no other background material, to at least two reviewers not associated with the previous review, following usual manuscript review operations/timelines.

The Editor-in-Chief, the Associate Editor, or their designee will consider all referee comments at this point to choose final disposition. This decision is final and the author will be notified in writing per usual mechanisms.

Manuscript Submission

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.

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

Please follow the hyperlink “Submit manuscript” and upload all of your manuscript files following the instructions given on the screen.

Source Files

Please ensure you provide all relevant editable source files at every submission and revision. Failing to submit a complete set of editable source files will result in your article not being considered for review. For your manuscript text please always submit in common word processing formats such as .docx or LaTeX.

Title page

The title page should include:

Sources of funding for project.

Conflict delineations

Previous presentation of data at meetings or in abstract form

Word count of manuscript, not counting title page or abstract

Three to five “key words” acceptable for National Library of Medicine indexing

- The name(s) of the author(s)

- A concise and informative title

- The affiliation(s) and address(es) of the author(s)

- The e-mail address, telephone and fax numbers of the corresponding author

Abstract

All submitted manuscripts, with the exception of submissions to The Poison Pen, Editorials, and other Special Features, should be accompanied by an abstract limited to 250 words. It is important that the abstract is included into the main manuscript and not submitted separately. The abstract should be structured using the subheadings: Introduction, Methods, Results, and Conclusions (for original research); Introduction, Case Report(s), Discussion (for descriptive reports); or Introduction, Discussion, Conclusions (for reviews). References should not be cited in the abstract. Use of abbreviations and acronyms should be limited.

Keywords

Please provide 4 to 6 keywords which can be used for indexing purposes.

Text

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.

*Use the equation editor or MathType for equations.

*Save your file in docx format (Word 2007 or higher) or doc format (older Word versions).

*All submissions should be double-spaced for readability.

Manuscripts with mathematical content can also be submitted in LaTeX.

LaTeX macro package (zip, 182 kB)

Headings

Please use no more than three levels of displayed headings.

Abbreviations

Abbreviations should be defined at first mention and used consistently thereafter.

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.

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments of people, grants, funds, etc. should be placed in a separate section on the title page. The names of funding organizations should be written in full.

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.

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.

The entries in the list should be numbered consecutively.

If available, please always include DOIs as full DOI links in your reference list (e.g. “https://doi.org/abc”).

• Journal article

  Smith JJ. The world of science. Am J Sci. 1999;36:234–5.

• Article by DOI

  Slifka MK, Whitton JL. Clinical implications of dysregulated cytokine production. J Mol Med. 2000; https://doi.org/10.1007/s001090000086

• Book

  Blenkinsopp A, Paxton P. Symptoms in the pharmacy: a guide to the management of common illness. 3rd ed. Oxford: Blackwell Science; 1998.

• Book chapter

  Wyllie AH, Kerr JFR, Currie AR. Cell death: the significance of apoptosis. In: Bourne GH, Danielli JF, Jeon KW, editors. International review of cytology. London: Academic; 1980. pp. 251–306.

• Online document

  Doe J. Title of subordinate document. In: The dictionary of substances and their effects. Royal Society of Chemistry. 1999. http://www.rsc.org/dose/title of subordinate document. Accessed 15 Jan 1999.

Always use the standard abbreviation of a journal’s name according to the ISSN List of Title Word Abbreviations, see

ISSN.org LTWA

If you are unsure, please use the full journal title.

Artwork and Illustrations Guidelines

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. MSOffice 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 within your illustrations.

Figure Numbering

• All figures are to be numbered using Arabic numerals.
• Figures should always be cited in text in consecutive numerical order.
• Figure parts should be denoted by lowercase letters (a, b, c, etc.).
• If an appendix appears in your article 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 [Supplementary Information (SI)] 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

• Figures should be submitted within the body of the text. Only if the file size of the manuscript causes problems in uploading it, the large figures should be submitted separately from the text.
• When preparing your figures, size figures to fit in the column width.
• For large-sized journals the figures should be 84 mm (for double-column text areas), or 174 mm (for single-column text areas) wide and not higher than 234 mm.
• For small-sized journals, the figures should be 119 mm wide and not higher than 195 mm.

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.

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-to-speech software or a text-to-Braille hardware)
• Patterns are used instead of or in addition to colors for conveying information (colorblind users would then be able to distinguish the visual elements)
• Any figure lettering has a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1

Generative AI Images

Please check Springer’s policy on generative AI images and make sure your work adheres to the principles described therein.

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.

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Open Choice

Funding and Support pages

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Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts: “Preparing a Manuscript for Submission to Biomedical Journals” and “Authorship and Contributorship” accessible at http://www.icmje.org/urm_main.html. Although all manuscripts, except for selected editorial features, are subject to peer review, the responsibility for the accuracy and legitimacy of the scientific content of the manuscripts rests with the authors. It is also the responsibility of the authors to notify the editor in writing of all potentially perceived conflicts of interest, financial or otherwise (see also Conflicts of Interest below)

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Supplementary Information (SI)

Springer accepts electronic multimedia files (animations, movies, audio, etc.) and other supplementary files to be published online along with an article or a book chapter. This feature can add dimension to the author's article, as certain information cannot be printed or is more convenient in electronic form.

Before submitting research datasets as Supplementary Information, authors should read the journal’s Research data policy. We encourage research data to be archived in data repositories wherever possible.

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.
• High resolution (streamable quality) videos can be submitted up to a maximum of 25GB; low resolution videos should not be larger than 5GB.

Audio, Video, and Animations

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• Minimum video duration: 1 sec
• Supported file formats: avi, wmv, mp4, mov, m2p, mp2, mpg, mpeg, flv, mxf, mts, m4v, 3gp

Text and Presentations

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

Spreadsheets

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Specialized Formats

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Collecting Multiple Files

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Numbering

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• 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

• Supplementary Information (SI) 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 contains a descriptive caption for each supplementary material
• Video files do not contain anything that flashes more than three times per second (so that users prone to seizures caused by such effects are not put at risk)

Generative AI Images

Please check Springer’s policy on generative AI images and make sure your work adheres to the principles described therein.

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