Instructions for Authors

Manuscript Preparation Guidelines

The Journal of Pediatric Academy (JPA) was established in 2020 as open access and peer-reviewed journal that accepts articles in English. J Pediatr Acad (JPA) is published 4 times a year. Articles submitted should not have been previously published or be currently under consideration for publication elsewhere and should report original unpublished research results. The journal does not expect any fees for publication. All articles are available on the website of the journal for all readers.

Instructions for Authors

Scope

Journal of Pediatric Academy (JPA) reports on major advances in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases in children. Each issue presents informative original research articles, review articles, case reports, image corners, and letters to the editor from leading clinicians and investigators worldwide.

Ethical/Legal Considerations

A submitted manuscript must be an original contribution not previously published (except as an abstract or a preliminary report), must not be under consideration for publication elsewhere, and, if accepted, must not be published elsewhere in a similar form, in any language. Each person listed as an author is expected to have participated in the study to a significant extent. Although the editors and referees make every effort to ensure the validity of published manuscripts, the final responsibility rests with the authors, not with the Journal, its editors, or the publisher. All manuscripts must be submitted online through the journal's web site at info@jpediatricacademy.com

Use of Large Language Models and Generative AI Tools

AI tools cannot meet the requirements for authorship as they cannot take responsibility for the submitted work. As non-legal entities, they cannot assert the presence or absence of conflicts of interest nor manage copyright and license agreements. Authors who use AI tools in the writing of a manuscript, production of images or graphical elements of the paper, or in the collection and analysis of data, must be transparent how the AI tool was used and which tool was used. Authors are fully responsible for the content of their manuscript, even those parts produced by an AI tool, and are thus liable for any breach of publication ethics.” COPE Position Statement on Authorship and AI tools. Detailed information about the statement can be accessed at https://publicationethics.org/cope-position-statements/ai-author

After reviewing the COPE statement, the editors of the Journal of Pediatric Academy have decided that papers should include a statement in a section called “Declaration Regarding the Use of AI and AI-Assisted Technologies” to let readers know if AI or AI-assisted tools were used in the writing process. It's important to remember that all authors are responsible for the content of their work. This declaration does not apply to the use of basic tools for checking grammar, spelling, or references (such as Mendeley, EndNote, Zotero, and others). If there is nothing to declare, there is no need to add a statement.

It is suggested that authors follow this format when preparing their statement:

During the preparation of this work, the author(s) utilized [NAME OF TOOL(S) USED] to [DESCRIPTION OF HOW THE TOOL(S) WERE UTILIZED AND HOW THE VALIDITY OF THE OUTPUTS WAS EVALUATED]. After carefully reviewing and editing the content as necessary, full responsibility for the publication's content is taken by the author(s). This incorporation of AI tool usage primarily impacted [SPECIFY WHICH ASPECTS OF THE STUDY, ARTICLE CONTENTS, DATA, OR SUPPORTING FILES WERE AFFECTED/GENERATED].

Example:

During the preparation of this work, the author(s) utilized OpenAI's ChatGPT to generate summaries of research articles related to the topic. These summaries were evaluated by comparing them to manually written summaries by experts in the field. Upon confirming the accuracy and relevance of the generated summaries, they were integrated into the literature review section of the manuscript. After carefully reviewing and editing the content as necessary, full responsibility for the publication's content is taken by the author(s). This incorporation of AI tool usage primarily impacted the efficiency of literature review process and the comprehensiveness of the gathered research insights.

Journal metrics:

External peer review of manuscripts is completed within 8-10 weeks of submission, and accepted papers are typically published within 8 months. The journal publishes editorial comments, original articles describing experimental and clinical research, reviews, case reports, image corner, and letters to the editor. JPA is published in print and online and distributed free of charge.

JPA publishes 4 issues per year in March, June, September and December.

Patient Anonymity and Informed Consent: It is the author's responsibility to ensure that a patient's anonymity is carefully protected and to verify that any experimental investigation with human subjects reported in the manuscript was performed with informed consent and following all the guidelines for experimental investigation with human subjects required by the institution(s) with which all the authors are affiliated. The authors should mask patients' eyes and remove patients' names from the figures. Photographs with bars placed over the eyes of patients can not be used in publication unless they obtain written consent from the patients and submit written consent with the manuscript.

Copyright: The corresponding author will complete and sign the authorship verification questionnaire within the submission steps.

Conflicts of interest

Authors must state all possible conflicts of interest in the manuscript, including financial, consultant, institutional, and other relationships that might lead to bias or a conflict of interest. If there is no conflict of interest, this should also be explicitly stated as none declared. All sources of funding should be acknowledged in the manuscript. All relevant conflicts of interest and sources of funding should be included on the title page of the manuscript with the heading “Conflicts of Interest and Source of Funding:”. For example:

Conflicts of Interest and Source of Funding: A has received honoraria from Company Z. is currently receiving a grant (#12345) from Organization Y, and is on the speaker’s bureau for Organization X – the CME organizers for Company A. For the remaining author's none were declared.

Permissions: Authors must submit written permission from the copyright owner (usually the publisher) to use direct quotations, tables, or illustrations that have appeared in copyrighted form elsewhere, along with complete details about the source.

Manuscript Submission 

Online Manuscript Submission: All manuscripts must be submitted online through the Web site at info@jpediatricacademy.com.

First-time users: Please click the Register button from the main top menu and enter the requested information. Your account will be activated after the approval of the Editorial board.

Authors: Please click the login button from the menu at the top of the page and log in to the system as an Author. Submit your manuscript according to the author's instructions. You will be able to track the progress of your manuscript through the system. If you experience difficulties using the system, please contact info@jpediatricacademy.com. Requests for help and other questions will be addressed in the order received.

Preparation of Manuscript: Manuscripts that do not adhere to the following instructions will be returned to the corresponding author for technical revision before undergoing peer review.

Title Page: Include on the title page (a) complete manuscript title; (b) authors' full names, highest academic degrees, affiliations, and ORCID numbers; (c) name and address for correspondence, including fax number, telephone number, and e-mail address; (d) address for reprints if different from that of the corresponding author; and (e) all sources of support, including pharmaceutical and industry support, that require acknowledgement. The title page must also include a disclosure of funding received for this work.

Highlights: Highlights are mandatory for original articles, and invited reviews as they help increase the discoverability of your article via search engines. They consist of a short collection of bullet points that capture the novel results of your research as well as new methods that were used during the study (if any).  Highlights should be submitted in a separate editable file in the online submission system. Please use 'Highlights' in the file name and include 3 to 5 bullet points (maximum 85 characters, including spaces, per bullet point).

Unstructured Abstract and Key Words: Limit of the abstracts are given in the table. It must be factual and comprehensive. Limit the use of abbreviations and acronyms, and avoid general statements (eg, “the significance of the results is discussed”). List three to five keywords or phrases.

Text: Organize the manuscript into four main headings: Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, and Discussion. Define abbreviations at first mention in the text and each table and figure. If a brand name is cited, supply the manufacturer's name and address (city and state/country). All forms of support, including pharmaceutical industry support, must be acknowledged in the Acknowledgment section.

Abbreviations: For a list of standard abbreviations, consult the Council of Biology Editors Style Guide (available from the Council of Science Editors, 9650 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, MD 20814) or other standard sources. Write out the full term for each abbreviation at its first use unless it is a standard unit of measure.

Manuscript Types

JPA publishes the types of articles briefly described below.

Editorial Comment:

Editorial comments aim to provide a brief critical commentary by reviewers with expertise or with a high reputation on the topic of the research article published in the journal. The authors are selected and invited by the journal to provide such comments. The text should contain 1500 words or fewer. it includes 5 figures and/or tables or fewer and 15 references or fewer.

Research Articles: 

This is the most important type of article since it provides new information based on original research. The main text of original articles should be structured with an Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusion, and References subheadings. Please see Table 1 for limitations for Research Articles.

Statistical analysis is usually necessary to support conclusions. Statistical analyses must be conducted by international statistical reporting standards (Altman DG, Gore SM, Gardner MJ, Pocock SJ. Statistical guidelines for contributors to medical journals. Br Med J 1983: 7; 1489-93). Information on statistical analyses should be provided with a separate subheading under the Materials and Methods section and the statistical software that was used during the process must be specified.

Units should be prepared by the International System of Units (SI).

Limitations, drawbacks, and shortcomings of the original articles should be mentioned in the Discussion section before the conclusion paragraph.

Clinical Trial Policy

All clinical trials, which are any research projects that prospectively assign individuals or a group of people to an intervention, with or without concurrent comparison or control groups, in order to study the relationship between a health-related intervention and a health outcome, must be registered in a public trials registry acceptable to the International Committee of Medical Journals Editors (ICMJE). Authors of randomized controlled trials must adhere to the CONSORT guidelines , and provide both a CONSORT checklist (for protocols, see the SPIRIT guidance) and flow diagram. We require that you choose the MS Word template at www.consort-statement.org for the flow chart and cite/upload it in the manuscript as a figure. In addition, submitted manuscripts must include the unique registration number in the Abstract as evidence of registration.  The Clinical Trial Registration Policy has been implemented in our journal as of September 2023. For more detailed instructions regarding clinical trials, please visit the guideline below:

Clinical Trials Guidelines

You can register for clinical trials by visiting the following link:
https://clinicaltrials.gov/

To register the relevant record in the system and learn more about the protocol to be followed, please review the link below:
https://classic.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/manage-recs/how-register

The other registries are accepted by ICJME:
www.anzctr.org.au
www.ISRCTN.org
www.umin.ac.jp/ctr/index/htm
www.onderzoekmetmensen.nl/en
https://eudract.ema.europa.eu/

Invited Review:

Invited reviews prepared by authors who have extensive knowledge of a particular field and whose scientific background has been translated into a large volume of publications with a high citation potential are welcomed. Submissions from such authors may also be invited by the journal. Reviews should describe, discuss, and evaluate the current level of knowledge of a topic in clinical practice and should guide future studies.   

Case Reports: 

Clinical observations may include case histories that demonstrate novel findings or associations, important clinical responses when a larger study is not needed to address a specific issue, or a unique laboratory observation linked to clinical care and/or practice. The text should contain 1500 words or fewer, with a brief abstract of 200 words or fewer. Abstracts outline background, observation(s), and conclusions. Include 5 figures and/or tables or fewer and 15 references or fewer.

Image Corner:

For educational purposes, the journal publishes original, interesting, and high-quality clinical images having a brief explanation (maximum 500 words excluding references but including figure legends) and of educational significance. The figure legend should contain no more than 100 words. It can be signed by no more than 5 authors and can have no more than 5 references and 3 figures. Any information that might identify the patient or hospital, including the date, should be removed from the image. An abstract is not required with this type of manuscript. The main text of clinical images should be structured with the following subheadings: Case, and References.

Letters To The Editor: 

Letters to the editor should pertain to articles published within the Journal of Pediatric Academy or highlight important new clinical or laboratory insights. The text should contain 1000 words or fewer.

  Table 1 Limitations for each manuscript type

Manuscript Type	Word Limit	Abstract Word   Limit	Reference  Limit	Table  Limit	Figure Limit
Editorial comment	1500	No abstract	15	2	5
Original Article	3500	300	50	6	6
Invited Review	5000	350	100	6	10
Case Report	1500	200	15	2	5
Image corner	500	No abstract	5	-	3
Letter to the Editor	1000	No abstract	5	1	1

References: 

The authors are responsible for the accuracy of the references. Key the references (double-spaced) at the end of the manuscript. Cite the references in the text in the order of appearance.

In-text Citations:

Assign a number to each reference within the text as you cite it. The citations are identified by Arabic numbers in superscript. The number must be used even if the author(s) is named in the text.

Example: In his study, Babbott¹¹ found that….

New sources are numbered consecutively as they occur in the text. If a source is repeated, so is the number originally assigned to it.

When multiple references are cited at the same place in the text, use commas without spaces to separate non-inclusive numbers.

Example: Multiple studies have indicated….^1,3,9,16 

If multiple references cited at the same place in the text are inclusive, use a hyphen to join the first and last numbers.

Example: Multiple studies have indicated that….^7-10 

Placement of the citation numbers is generally at the end of the sentence, unless there are two individual sets of citations in each sentence. Generally reference numbers should be placed outside of periods and commas, inside of colons and semicolons.

Cite unpublished data—such as papers submitted but not yet accepted for publication and personal communications, including e-mail communications—in parentheses in the text. If there are more than three authors, name only the first three authors and then use et al. Refer to the List of Journals Indexed in Index Medicus for abbreviations of journal names, or access the list at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/tsd/serials/lji.html. Sample references are given below:

Journal Article:

1. Ang KK, Price RE, Stephens LC, et al. The tolerance of primate spinal cord to re-irradiation. Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys. 1993;25:459–464.

Journal Article published in non-English Languages:

In the case of publications in languages other than English, the published English title should be provided if one exists, with an annotation such as “(in Turkish)”. If the publication was not published with an English title, provide the original title only; do not provide a self-translation.

2. Poyrazoğlu MH, Gürgöze MK, Akyıldız BN et al. Dialysis methods in poisoning treatment. Turkiye Klinikleri J Pediatr Sci. 2006;2:11-5. (in Turkish)

Book Chapter:

3. Dimery IW. Chemotherapy in head and neck cancer. In: Myerhoff WI, Rice DH, eds. Otolaryngology: head and neck surgery, 2nd ed. Philadelphia: WB Saunders, 1992:1027–1045.

Entire Book:

4. Virchow R. Cellular Pathology. Philadelphia: JB Lippincott, 1863.

Software:
5. Epi Info [computer program]. Version 6. Atlanta, GA: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; 1994.

Online Journals:

6. Friedman SA. Preeclampsia: a review of the role of prostaglandins. Obstet Gynecol [serial online]. January 1988;71:22–37. Available from: BRS Information Technologies, McLean, VA. Accessed December 15, 1990.

Database:
7. CANCERNET-PDQ [database online]. Bethesda, MD: National Cancer Institute; 1996. Updated March 29, 1996.

World Wide Web:

8. Gostin LO. Drug use and HIV/AIDS [JAMA HIV/AIDS Web site]. June 1, 1996. Available at: http://www.ama-assn.org/special/hiv/ethics. Accessed June 26, 1997.

URL (Uniform Resource Locator)

9. (J. M. Kramer, K. Kramer [jmkramer@umich.edu], e-mail, March 6, 1996).

Figures and Tables

Figures and tables should be numbered using Arabic numerals. The same information should not appear in both a figure and a table. Each table and figure must be cited in the text and should be accompanied by a legend on a separate sheet.

Authors are responsible for all statements made in their work, and for obtaining permission from copyright owners to reprint or adapt a table or figure or to reprint quotations from one source exceeding the limits of fair use.

Plagiarism Checking

All manuscripts are scanned with a plagiarism checker to deter and prevent plagiarism issues before submission. The similarity rate should be less than 20%.

Copyediting and Proofs

Manuscripts will be evaluated based on style as well as the content. Some minor copyediting may be done, but authors must take responsibility for clarity, conciseness, and felicity of expression. PDF proofs will be sent to the corresponding author. Changes of content or stylistic changes may only be made in exceptional cases in the proofs.

Prerequisites Requiring Special Attention

1. Discrimination based on age should be avoided.
2. High lights must be added to the manuscript.
3. Each table and figure must be cited in the text and should be accompanied by a legend on a separate sheet.
4. Each reference cited in the text should be listed in the References section.

Copyright Notice

The JPA offers members open access to reach all published articles freely within the framework of

“Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-

NC-ND 4.0)” license.

Privacy Statement

The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.