Instructions for Authors
1. Editorial Policies
Journal of Zoonotic Diseases is an authoritative, peer-reviewed journal providing basic and applied research on diseases transmitted to humans by invertebrate vectors or non-human vertebrates. The Journal publishes original research and review articles focusing on all aspects of zoonotic diseases including geographic, seasonal, and other risk factors that influence the transmission, diagnosis, management, and prevention of this group of infectious diseases, and identifies global trends that have the potential to result in major epidemics. Journal of Zoonotic Diseases coverage includes:
- New knowledge on pathogens (viruses, bacteria, protozoa, helminthes, fungi and prions) and on host-pathogen interactions. Papers elucidating molecular mechanisms of interactions between hosts and disease agents are highly appreciated.
- Immunity to pathogenic micro-organisms and systemic and mucosal immunology of infected organisms. This topic encompasses fundamental studies on the immune system of animals. The development and evaluation of new vaccines against pathogens will be considered.
- Epidemiological papers should provide new knowledge on pathogen-host interactions and/or host-population interactions related to infectious diseases. Manuscripts dealing with spread and/or transmission dynamics of infectious diseases will be favored. Studies using mathematical modeling and developing or applying new epidemiological methods will be welcomed if they are based on a biological application. Descriptive epidemiological studies, meta-analyses and studies providing information of geographically limited interest will be considered.
The audience of this journal might be veterinary and medical scientists, infectious disease specialists, virologists, public health researchers among others working in research institutes, universities, governmental organizations, private agencies, and pharmaceutical industry.
2. Submission of Manuscripts
As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines. Manuscripts submitted for publication should describe original work and accompanied by a covering letter to the Editor-in-Chief containing title and author (s) name and a statement ensuring that the manuscript has not been totally or partly published or submitted elsewhere. Manuscripts must be submitted online via Journal's web address (URL:http:/jzd.tabrizu.ac.ir). Our online submission system guides you stepwise through the process of entering your article details and uploading your files. All correspondence, including notification of the Editor's decision and requests for revision, is sent by e-mail. Manuscript must be in English, written according to sound grammar and proper terminology and in Microsoft Word format (.doc/.docx). Manuscripts should be arranged as follows: title page, abstract (150-300 words), introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion, acknowledgments, references, table and figure legends. The title page of the paper should contain the title of your paper, all authors’ names (initial, middle and last name), affiliations and full addresses (Tel, Fax, and e-mail). If an author's affiliation has changed since the study was performed, the author's new affiliation should be identified. The name of the corresponding author should also be included on the title page. Please note that the names of the authors and their affiliations should not be included in the main document. Authors are required to provide the names, affiliations, and contact information (full mailing and e-mail addresses) of two potential reviewers related to their manuscripts; though choice of reviewers is at the discretion of the Editor-in-Chief.
Resubmission
Your paper has been placed back in the menu of the submitting author. We hope to receive your revised manuscript within 2 days from the receipt of this email.
3. Submission declaration and verification
Submission of an article implies that the work described has not been published previously (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis or as an electronic preprint), that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, that its publication is approved by all authors (all must sign the cover letter accompanying the manuscript) and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other language, including electronically without the written consent of the copyright-holder.
4. Authorship and Authors contribution
All authors should have made substantial contributions to all of the following: (1) the conception and design of the study, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data, (2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual contents, (3) final approval of the version to be submitted.
5. Changes to authorship
Authors are expected to consider carefully the list and order of authors before submitting their manuscript and provide the definitive list of authors at the time of the original submission. Any addition, deletion or rearrangement of author names in the authorship list should be made only before the manuscript has been accepted and only if approved by the journal Editor. To request such a change, the Editor must receive the following from the corresponding author: (a) the reason for the change in author list and (b) written confirmation (e-mail, letter) from all authors that they agree with the addition, removal or rearrangement. In the case of addition or removal of authors, this includes confirmation from the author being added or removed. Only in exceptional circumstances will the Editor consider the addition, deletion or rearrangement of authors after the manuscript has been accepted. While the Editor considers the request, publication of the manuscript will be suspended. If the manuscript has already been published in an online issue, any requests approved by the Editor will result in a corrigendum.
6. Funding
Financial disclosure
Financial disclosure should apply for all manuscript submissions. Authors are expected to provide detailed information about any relevant financial interests or financial conflicts within the past 5 years and for the foreseeable future.
Authors who have no relevant financial interests are asked to provide a statement indicating that they have no financial interests related to the material in the manuscript.
7. Acknowledgements
Collate acknowledgements in a separate section at the end of the article before the references and do not, therefore, include them on the title page, as a footnote to the title or otherwise. List here those individuals who provided help during the research (e.g., providing language help, writing assistance or proof reading the article, etc.).
8. Animal rights
All animal studies must have been approved by the appropriate institutional review board(s), and a specific declaration of such approval must be made in a stand-alone paragraph at the end of the Methods section. All research studies involving animals must have been performed with great respect to the animal welfare. The precise genotype, strain, source, number of backcrosses, sex, and age of animals studied must be provided in the manuscript. Any unnecessary manipulation or stress should be strictly avoided. If animals were euthanized, the method of euthanasia must be indicated.
Conflict of Interests
All authors of submitting articles to the journal must disclose any conflict of interest they may have with an institution or product that is mentioned in the manuscript and/or is important to the outcome of the study presented. Authors should also disclose conflict of interest with products that compete with those mentioned in their manuscript. The Editor will discuss with the authors on an individual basis the method by which any conflicts of interest will be communicated to the readers.
9. Style
For anatomic terms, use anglicized versions of official terms listed in the Nomina Anatomica Veterinaria. Refer to the latest editions of the American Drug Index and USP Dictionary of USAN and International Drug Names for proper spelling of chemical and drug names and to the latest edition of Dorland's Illustrated Medical Dictionary for proper spelling and use of medical terms. Refer to Bergey's Manual of Determinative Microbiology for spelling and correct taxonomic classifications of microorganisms. Use of abbreviations should be kept to a minimum. Except for standard abbreviations and units of measure, all abbreviations used three or more times in the text, figures, and tables of a manuscript should be listed at the beginning of the manuscript, along with their definitions. Abbreviations that appear in the figures or tables should be defined in the table or figure legend. In addition, abbreviations in the abstract must be expanded at first mention, with the abbreviation given in parentheses after first mention of the expanded term. Abbreviations should not be used to begin a sentence. Products, equipment, and drugs should be identified by chemical or generic names or descriptions. A trade name may be included in a lettered footnote if that specific product, equipment, or drug was essential for the outcome. Follow internationally accepted rules and conventions: use the international system of units (SI). If other quantities are mentioned, give their equivalent in SI. Body weights and temperatures must be reported in metric units. All dosages must include route of administration and interval (e.g., 10 mg kg-1, IV, q12h). The manufacturer name with the city, state, and country must be provided for any brand name drugs.
10. Categories of Manuscripts
Original Article: should report the results of research that comprises one or a series of experiments. The paper should contribute to increasing our understanding of the biology and/or manipulation of reproduction in animals. The material should not have been previously published elsewhere, except in a preliminary form. Original research manuscripts should not be less than 3000 and exceed 5,000 words and must be presented in the standard format described below.
Invited Review Article: should cover subjects falling within the scope of the journal which are of active current interest. In review articles, the results of published research are closely evaluated, the strong and weak points are stated, and suggestions for further improvement may be made. Review research manuscripts should not be less than 7000 and exceed 10,000 words They may be submitted or invited and should not be less than 7000. Reviews commonly cite approximately 70-100 primary research articles. Mini Reviews are peer-reviewed, have a word count of 4000-7000 and may contain no more than 2 Figures/Tables. Mini Reviews commonly cite approximately 50-70 primary research articles.
Invited reviews will normally be solicited by the Review's Editor, but suggestions for appropriate review topics may be sent to the Editor in Chief of JZD.
Short Communication or Case Study: is for a concise, but independent report representing a significant contribution to veterinary science and medicine and must report completed work, not preliminary findings: they are an alternative format for describing smaller pieces of work. Short communication and case studies should not less than 1,000 and not exceed 2,000 words. Short Communication or Case Study commonly cite approximately 20-30 primary research articles and one table or figure.
11. Manuscript Preparation
Manuscript structure
- Cover letter
- Title & Running Title
- Title page (Authors, Affiliations, Corresponding author contact details)
- Introduction
- Material and Methods (Statistics)
- Results
- Discussion
- Conclusion
- Acknowledgments
- Author's Contributions
- Conflict of Interests
- Financial Disclosure
- Ethical approval
- References
- Tables
- Figures / Images
Manuscripts should have numbered lines with wide margins and double spacing throughout, i.e. also for abstracts, footnotes and references. Every page of the manuscript, including the title page, references, tables, etc., should be numbered.
Authors should list 3 to 5 alphabetically ordered keywords which appropriately represent the contents of their manuscripts. The key words should not preferably are included in title of manuscript. Please avoid general and plural terms and multiple concepts (avoid, for example, 'and', 'of').
Use generic names for drugs where possible. If you wish to use a proprietary drug name, the first time it appears use the generic name followed by the proprietary name, manufacturer, and city in parenthesis. If propriety names must be used, include trademark information. Scientific names for species must appear with genus spelled in full on first occurrence and abbreviated thereafter. Family names should appear on first occurrence of uncommon species.
The manuscript (including references, and figure legends) must be double spaced, using 12-point Times New Roman font, 3.5 cm margins, and left justification. Each line and page of the manuscript must be numbered, beginning from the title page.
Summary
A concise and factual abstract is required of 150 to 250 words. The abstract should state briefly the purpose of the research, the principal results and major conclusions. Non-standard or uncommon abbreviations should be avoided, but if essential they must be defined at their first mention in the abstract itself.
Introduction
State the objectives of the work and provide an adequate background, avoiding a detailed literature survey or a summary of the results. The introduction "sets the scene" for your work. Do not over-reference statements; two or three key references should suffice unless each adds something specific. The introduction should not normally be more than 500 words (approximately two manuscript pages).
Materials and methods
Provide sufficient detail to allow the work to be reproduced. Methods already published should be indicated by a reference: only relevant modifications should be described.
Results
Results should be clear and concise.
Discussion
This should explore the significance of the results of the work, not repeat them. A combined Results and Discussion section is often appropriate. Avoid extensive citations and discussion of published literature.
Conclusions
The main conclusions of the study may be presented in a short Conclusions section, which may stand alone or form a subsection of a Discussion section.
Figures
Simple figures such as line drawings, bar graphs, and line graphs prepared in Excel should be saved as Excel files (.xls). Captions should be placed below the figures. Line drawings and graphs that were not prepared in Excel should be scanned on a flatbed scanner. Figures created with software programs that use proprietary graphic formats (e.g., SigmaPlot, Statistix) cannot be used; most such software programs have the capability to save figures in one of the aforementioned formats. Minimum resolution for line drawings and charts is 1,000 dpi. Figures that consist of images (e.g., photographs, photomicrographs, and radiographs) should be scanned on a flatbed scanner at a resolution of at least 300 dpi. Files should be saved as jpg. If images were obtained with a digital camera, please submit the electronic file, rather than printing out the image and scanning it. Color figures should be submitted in CMYK, rather than RGB, format to prevent color shift during production. Place explanatory matters in footnotes, not in the heading. The same data should not be presented in tables, figures and text, simultaneously.
Tables
Tables should not be embedded in the manuscript and they have to be saved as separate Microsoft Word files. Captions should be placed above the tables. Tables in limited numbers should be submitted. Number tables consecutively in accordance with their appearance in the text.
Note: You should submit a Word document with figures and tables placed in the body of the text where they are referenced. Also, please submit the figures and tables separately.
Manuscripts should be submitted in Word.
- Use a normal, plain font (e.g., 11-point Times Roman) for text.
- Use the automatic page numbering function to number the pages.
- Do not use field functions.
- All manuscripts must include an Abstract of 150 to 250 words.
- Use tab stops or other commands for indents, not the space bar.
- Use the table function (Insert/Draw table), not spreadsheets, to make tables.
- The manuscript can include a maximum of five figures and/or tables (i.e., any combination of tables and figures up to a total of five overall, not five figures and five tables).
- Submit figures in JPEG or TIFF formats with an acceptable resolution (at least 300 dpi).
- Use the equation editor or Math Type for equations.
References
From November 2023 all citations in the text should refer to the list of references as follows based on Vancouver style:
CHARACTERISTICS VANCOUVER CITATION STYLE
Special characteristics of the Vancouver style:
The Vancouver style is a numerical citation style: the references are numbered consecutively in order of appearance in the text
The reading list is presented in ascending numbers
The Vancouver style does not use the full title of the journal but uses an abbreviation instead:
Example: "New England Journal of Medicine" is abbreviated as "N Engl J Med".
The abbrevations that are used are the same as in Pubmed;
Search in the list used by PubMed.
Enter the full title of the journal and put it between inverted commas.
Select the matching journal
Another useful tool is the ISI abbreviations list
VANCOUVER: IN-TEXT REFERENCES
The Vancouver citation style is a numerical citation style.
The numbers are put in the text between (square) brackets.
Example:
Recent research (1) indicates that the number of duplicate papers being published is increasing.
If you want to cite several pieces of work in the same sentence, you will need to include the citation number for each piece of work. A hyphen should be used to link numbers which are inclusive, and a comma used where numbers are not consecutive.
The following is an example where works 6, 7, 8, 9, 13 and 15 have been cited in the same place in the text.
Several studies (6-9, 13, 15) have examined the effect of congestion charging in urban areas.
You can use the author's name in your text, but you must insert the citation number as well.
As emphasised by Watkins (2) carers of diabetes sufferers ‘require perseverance and an understanding of humanity' (p. 1).
If there is more than one author use ‘et al.' after the first author.
Simons et al. (3) state that the principle of effective stress is ‘imperfectly known and understood by many practising engineers' (p. 4).
VANCOUVER READING LIST: ARTICLE FROM AN (ONLINE) SCIENTIFIC JOURNAL
Last name initial. Title article: Sub title. Abbreviated journal title. Year Month Day; volume (issue); page.
Example:
Greenhalgh T. Publishing your medical research paper: What they don't teach you at medical school. BMJ. 1999 Feb 27; 318(7183): 610.
Sometimes there is more than one author, volume and issue is not always known, in most cases there are more pages. That is why we give some extra examples:
Examples:
Jagosh J, Macaulay AC, Pluye P, Salsberg J, Bush PL, Henderson J, et al. uncovering the benefits of participatory research: Implications of a realist review for health research and practice. Milbank Q. 2012 June; 90(2): 311-46.
Forooghian F, Yeh S, Faia LJ, Nussenblatt RB. Uveitic foveal atrophy: clinical features and associations. Arch Ophthalmol. 2009 Feb; 127(2):179-86. PubMed PMID: 19204236.
NB1: Only the first six authors are given: the rest is summarised by; 'et al.'
NB2: If there is a DOI (Digital Object Identfier) or a PubMed ID present, you could add it as a last element.
VANCOUVER READING LIST: BOOKS
Author initial(s) [no dots]. Book title. Edition. Place of publication: publisher; year of publication.
Example:
Wolf K, Allen R, Saavedra AP. Fitzpatrick's color atlas and synopsis of clinical dermatology. 7th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill; 2013.
In the case of books there may be no authors but you will see an organisation responsible for the publication. For instance: American Veterinary Medical Association. This comes instead of the author(s).
Or there is no author at all. For instance: The Oxford concise medical dictionary. In that case you leave out the authors.
NB1: No edition is given of first editions.
NB2: In the case of ebooks: put the word [internet] after the title . Put after publication year: [Accessed on: year-month-day]. Then put: Available via: ... (URL).
VANCOUVER READING LIST: EDITED VOLUME
Last name initial(s). Title of artice. In: Last name initial(s), editors. Title of edited volume. Place of publication: publisher; year of publication. page numbers.
Example:
Meltzer PS, Kallioniemi A, Trent JM. Chromosome alterations in human solid tumors. In: Vogelstein B, Kinzler KW, editors. The genetic basis of human cancer. New York: McGraw-Hill; 2012. p.93-113.
NB1: Of first editions no edition is given
NB2: In the case of ebooks: Put [Internet] after the chapter title. Put after the page numbers at the end; [ Accessed on: year-month-day]. Then put; Available via: ... (URL).
VANCOUVER READING LIST: WEBSITE
Publishing body. Title. [Internet]. Available from: URL. [Accessed Date of access].
Example 1:
European Space Agency. ESA: Missions, Earth Observation: ENVISAT. [Internet]. Available from: http://envisat.esa.int/. [Accessed 3rd July 2008].
Example 2:
Nederlands Huisartsen Genootschap. Samenvattingskaart Anemie, in herziening 2003. [Internet]. Available from: http://www.nhg.org/standaarden/samenvatting/anemie. [Accessed 11th September 2013].
- Make sure that the links you include are working links! The best thing to do is to use a permanent hyperlink, for instance the DOI (Digital Object Identifier). Never use hyperlinks from searches. They often come with a (search) session code. Once the search session is over, the hyperlink no longer works.
VANCOUVER READING LIST: BLOGPOSTS
Last name Initial. Title of blogpost. Tittle of weblog. [Online]. Available from: URL [Accessed date of consultation].
Example:
Goldacre B. Trivial Disputes. Bad Science. Weblog. [Online]. Available from: http://www.badscience.net/2008/02/trivial-disputes-2/ [Accessed 19th June 2008].
12. Review Process
The Editor-in Chief assigns manuscripts to appropriate Associate Editors. Manuscripts may be rejected without external review if the Associate Editor, together with a Science Editor or the Editor-in Chief, determines that the study does not significantly advance the field or the subject material is inappropriate for the JZD’s readership. When papers are sent for external review, the choice of reviewers is made by the Editor-in Chief or Managing Editor and may include reviewers suggested by the authors. Requests by authors to exclude a specific potential reviewer will be honored to the greatest extent possible if a compelling reason is provided. At least two, and generally three, expert referees are asked to review the manuscript in a timely manner and to assign a priority based on content, originality, quality, relevance, and interest. Authors are informed of the final decision by e-mail, with applicable comments from reviewers and Editors included. Authors are expected to respond to reviewers comments and make appropriate revisions within 30 days. Authors should note that a previously rejected manuscript by JZD would not be re-evaluated
13. Misconduct
The Journal only accepts research papers that are original works, no part of which has been published or is being considered for publication elsewhere except as brief abstracts. Duplicate publication, falsification, plagiarism, or fabrication will be considered actionable misconduct. Misconduct does not include honest error or honest differences in interpretations or judgments of data. If scientific misconduct is confirmed by institutional review, the Editor-in-Chief will report this to JZD’s Publications and Communications Committee (PCC) Chair and the JZD Executive Director. Appropriate action will be decided in consultation with the VRF Office of Publications. Violations considered severe may warrant official withdrawal of a published article or rapid rejection of a manuscript at any stage before publication. If no scientific misconduct is found, the manuscript (if unpublished) will be scheduled for publication. For errors in a published article not deemed to be misconduct, an Erratum or Letter to the Editor will be published. If there is a disagreement about the results of the investigation, the Editor-in-Chief reserves the right to restrict the author(s) from publishing in the journal for a specified period of time.
14. Publication Fee
There are no charges for publication in this volume of Journal.
15. Disclaimer
The statements and opinions expressed in this journal are solely those of their respective authors and they do not necessarily reflect the views, nor are they endorsed by JZD. Journal of Zoonotic Disease and its publisher do not guarantee the accuracy of, and are in no way responsible for, any content on the papers.