Manuscript Submission Guidelines

Therapeutic Advances series

1. Correspondence and online submission

All correspondence, including notification of the Editor's decision and requests for revisions, will be by e-mail. All manuscript submissions should be made online at the journal’s respective SAGEtrack website:

- If you have not used the site before, please click the 'Create Account' link and follow the on-screen instructions.
- If you have previously used the journal’s SAGEtrack site, either as an author or a referee, please use your existing login details. If you do not know your login details, simply enter your email address in the 'Forgot your password' box and you will receive instructions on how to log in right away.

Once you have logged in to the site, please select 'Author Center', then 'Click here to submit a manuscript'.

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2. Publication categories

The Therapeutic Advances journals consider the following kinds of article for publication:

1. Research Reports, describing new experimental findings;

2. Review Articles. The Editors wish to encourage the following types of review, but request that authors contact them in advance:

(a) general reviews that provide a synthesis of an area that fits within the aims and scope of the journal;
(b) perspectives - brief overviews, which are 6-8 printed pages in length including references, that address important new areas of general interest;
(c) critiques - focused and provocative reviews that are followed by a number of invited commentaries, with a concluding reply from the main author;
(d) structured case reports - outlining an interesting case, and including a full review of the pertinent literature and a section on implications for clinical care;
(e) case series studies or clinical series – descriptive study of a small group of patients (with the same disease or receiving the same treatment) including a full review of the pertinent literature and a section on implications for clinical care;

3. Letters to the Editor; these also include brief case reports. These should be as concise as possible and up to 1000 words.

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3. Writing your manuscript

The Therapeutic Advances series subscribes predominantly to the editorial preferences expressed in the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals [ICMJE, 2007] issued by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Each page should be numbered and identified with a shortened version of the title.

Abstract - The abstract should accurately and concisely reflect the content of the article, and should be limited to 300 words. Original research articles should include structured abstracts, using the four headings Objectives, Methods, Results, and Conclusions. Please avoid reference citations and undefined abbreviations in the abstract.
Review articles do not require structured abstracts.
Key words (or key word phrases) 2-8 to accompany the abstract. They should, if possible, be drawn from the MeSH list of Index Medicus and be chosen with a view to useful cross-indexing of the article.

Main text - Subdivide your article with appropriate headings. Use no more than two levels of subheading.

Acknowledgements - Between the end of the main text and the start of the references section, please acknowledge sources of financial and material support, and those who have contributed intellectually, with their consent.
See guidelines for: Funding Acknowledgement

Tables must all be cited in the text, carry brief but complete titles, and be numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals. Keep rules (horizontal only) to a minimum.

Figures should be supplied as vector-based, separate .eps files (not as .tiff files, and not only inserted in the Word or pdf file), with a resolution of 300dpi (dots per inch). They should be used with discretion to clarify (not duplicate) the text. They should be cited in the text, using arabic numerals, and their approximate location in the paper clearly indicated [Figure 1 near here]. They should, for preference, be supplied at reproduction size (single- or double-column width), and lettering should be no smaller than 8pt type.
Legends should be explanatory but succinct. They should carry the arabic numerals applicable to the figures, and be provided as a separate typed list at the end of the paper, along with the figures themselves.

Units of measurement should be expressed in SI and metric units; older conventional units may be added in parentheses.

Nomenclature: Use the generic or chemical name of any drug, in lower case; the specific trade name (capitalized) may be given in parentheses after the first text reference.

Standard Abbreviations and symbols should be used, then defined in full in the first instance unless they are standard units of measurement. Avoid any use of abbreviations in the article title and abstract.

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4. Reference Style

The Therapeutic Advances series uses a modified Harvard reference style whereby we cite the first 6 authors in the reference section (examples below). If you use Endnote or Refman, you may download plug-ins (see below) so that you can format your references correctly. If you use the Open Source program “Zotero”, please use the style allotted to the Journal of Molecular Biology.

EndNote Users: Click here to download the journal's style file (.ens).
Reference Manager Users: Click here to download the journal's style file (.os).
In the main text, place each author in square parentheses, throughout the text, tables, and legends: [Author A, 2004]; [Author A and Author B, 2006]; [Author et al. 2007]

In the reference list, all references appear alphabetically. Please list up to 6 authors, or 6 authors followed by et al
Authors: List each author's last name and initials; full first names are not included. For books with chapters written by individual authors, list the authors of the chapter first, then the chapter title, followed by 'In', the editors' names, and the book title, the publisher, and the location.
Book titles, chapter titles: Capitalize the first letter of the first word in the title. The rest of the title is in lower-case, with the exception of proper names (see example 3 below). Do not underline the title; do not use italics.

Example - Journal citations

Abduljawad, K.A.J. and Langley, R.W. (2001) Article title here. J Psychopharmacol 15: 237-242.
Smith, H., Miller, M., Agarwal, S., Sinetti, M., Yan, C., Long, T. et al. (2000) Article title here. J Psychopharmacol 15: 237-242.

Example - Book citations

Lader, M. (1977) Effects of psychotropic drugs on auditory evoked potentials in man. In Desmedt, J.E. (ed), Auditory evoked potentials in man: psychopharmacology correlates of evoked potentials, Karger: Basel.

4.1 Corresponding Author Contact details

Provide full contact details for the corresponding author including email, mailing address and telephone numbers. Academic affiliations are required for all co-authors. These details should be presented separately to the main text of the article to facilitate anonymous peer review.

Please also provide the email addresses for ALL authors.

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5. Research Ethics

When reporting experiments on human subjects, indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional or regional) or with the Declaration of Helsinki 1975, revised Hong Kong 1989. Do not use patients' names, initials or hospital numbers, especially in illustrative material. When reporting experiments on animals, indicate whether the institution's or the National Research Council's guide for, or any national law on, the care and use of laboratory animals was followed.

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6. Publication Statement

Papers submitted to this Journal for publication are considered on condition that they have been neither submitted elsewhere, nor published elsewhere other than in abstract form. The Editors do not enter into correspondence about papers considered unsuitable for publication; their decision is final. Requirements for publication in the Journal are in accordance with the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors' Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals [ICMJE, 2007].

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7. Peer review statement

The Therapeutic Advances series adheres to a blinded peer review process in which the reviewers' names are routinely withheld from the author unless a reviewer requests a preference for his or her identity to be revealed. Authors are invited to suggest the names, affiliations and contact information of up to six individuals who may be suitable to serve as referees, but the Editors are under no obligation to use all or any of these individuals as reviewers. All manuscripts are reviewed initially by the Editors and only those papers that meet the scientific and editorial standards of the journal, and fit within the aims and scope of the journal, will be sent for outside review. Each research article and review manuscript is reviewed by at least two referees. All manuscripts are reviewed as rapidly as possible, and a first editorial decision is generally reached within 3 weeks of submission.

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8. Journal contributor’s publishing agreement

Before publication SAGE requires the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement. SAGE’s Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement is an exclusive licence agreement which means that the author retains copyright in the work but grants SAGE the sole and exclusive right and licence to publish for the full legal term of copyright. Exceptions may exist where an assignment of copyright is required or preferred by a proprietor other than SAGE. In this case copyright in the work will be assigned from the author to the society. For more information please visit our Frequently Asked Questions on the SAGE Journal Author Gateway.

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9. Declaration of conflicting interests

Within your Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement you will be required to make a certification with respect to a declaration of conflicting interests. It is the policy of the Therapeutic Advances series to require a declaration of conflicting interests from all authors enabling a statement to be carried within the paginated pages of all published articles.

Please include any declaration at the end of your manuscript after any acknowledgements and prior to the references, under a heading ‘Declaration of Conflicting Interests’. If no declaration is made the following will be printed under this heading in your article: ‘None Declared’. Alternatively, you may wish to state that ‘The Author(s) declare(s) that there is no conflict of interest’.

When making a declaration the disclosure information must be specific and include any financial relationship that all authors of the article has with any sponsoring organization and the for-profit interests the organization represents, and with any for-profit product discussed or implied in the text of the article.

Any commercial or financial involvements that might represent an appearance of a conflict of interest need to be additionally disclosed in the covering letter accompanying your article to assist the Editor in evaluating whether sufficient disclosure has been made within the Declaration of Conflicting Interests provided in the article.

For more information please visit the SAGE Journal Author Gateway.

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10. Authorship

Authors should declare whether or not they had assistance with study design, data collection, data analysis, or manuscript preparation. If such assistance was available, the authors should disclose the identity of the people that provided this assistance and the entity that supported it in the published article. Financial and material support should also be acknowledged.

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11. Funding Acknowledgement

To comply with the guidance for Research Funders, Authors and Publishers issued by the Research Information Network (RIN), the Therapeutic Advances series additionally requires all Authors to acknowledge their funding in a consistent fashion under a separate heading. All research articles should have a funding acknowledgement in the form of a sentence as follows, with the funding agency written out in full, followed by the grant number in square brackets:

This work was supported by the Medical Research Council [grant number xxx].

Multiple grant numbers should be separated by comma and space. Where the research was supported by more than one agency, the different agencies should be separated by semi-colon, with “and” before the final funder. Thus:

This work was supported by the Wellcome Trust [grant numbers xxxx, yyyy]; the Natural Environment Research Council [grant number zzzz]; and the Economic and Social Research Council [grant number aaaa].

In some cases, research is not funded by a specific project grant, but rather from the block grant and other resources available to a university, college or other research institution. Where no specific funding has been provided for the research we ask that corresponding authors use the following sentence:

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Please include this information under a separate heading entitled “Funding” directly after any other Acknowledgements prior to your “Declaration of Conflicting Interests” (if applicable), any Notes and your References.

Important note: If you have any concerns that the provision of this information may compromise your anonymity dependent on the peer review policy of this journal outlined above, you can withhold this information until final accepted manuscript.

For more information on the guidance for Research Funders, Authors and Publishers, please visit: http://www.rin.ac.uk/funders-acknowledgement

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12. Informed Consent

Authors are required to ensure the following guidelines are followed, as recommended by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals. Patients have a right to privacy that should not be infringed without informed consent. Identifying information, including patients' names, initials, or hospital numbers, should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, and pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or parent or guardian) gives written informed consent for publication. Informed consent for this purpose requires that a patient who is identifiable be shown the manuscript to be published. Authors should identify Individuals who provide writing assistance and disclose the funding source for this assistance. Identifying details should be omitted if they are not essential. Complete anonymity is difficult to achieve, however, and informed consent should be obtained if there is any doubt. For example, masking the eye region in photographs of patients is inadequate protection of anonymity. If identifying characteristics are altered to protect anonymity, such as in genetic pedigrees, authors should provide assurance that alterations do not distort scientific meaning and editors should so note.
When informed consent has been obtained it should be indicated in the submitted article.

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13. Permissions

Authors are responsible for obtaining permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. For further information including guidance on fair dealing for criticism and review, please visit our Frequently Asked Questions on the SAGE Journal Author Gateway.
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14. After acceptance

14.1 Proofs
We will email a PDF of the proofs to the corresponding author.

14.2 E-Prints and Complimentary Copies
SAGE provides authors with access to a PDF of their final article. For further information please visit http://www.sagepub.co.uk/authors/journal/reprint.sp. We additionally provide the corresponding author with a complimentary copy of the print issue in which the article appears up to a maximum of 5 copies for onward supply by the corresponding author to co-authors.

14.3 SAGE Production
At SAGE we place an extremely strong emphasis on the highest production standards possible. We attach high importance to our quality service levels in copy-editing, typesetting, printing, and online publication (http://online.sagepub.com/). We also seek to uphold excellent author relations throughout the publication process.

We value your feedback to ensure we continue to improve our author service levels. On publication all corresponding authors will receive a brief survey questionnaire on your experience of publishing with SAGE.

14.4 OnlineFirst Publication
The Therapeutic Advances series benefits from OnlineFirst, a feature offered through SAGE’s electronic journal platform, SAGE Journals Online. It allows final revision articles (completed articles in queue for assignment to an upcoming issue) to be hosted online prior to their inclusion in a final print and online journal issue which significantly reduces the lead time between submission and publication. For more information please visit our OnlineFirst Fact Sheet

14.5 SAGE Choice
If you would like your article to be freely available online immediately upon publication (as some funding bodies now require), you can opt for it to be published under the SAGE Choice Scheme on payment of a publication fee. Please contact SageChoiceLicence@sagepub.co.uk to request a SAGE Choice License Agreement. For more information on SAGE Choice options please visit http://www.uk.sagepub.com/sagechoice/faq.sp.

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