Author Guidelines

JOURNAL POLICIES

Authors are requested to be aware of the journal's policies before making the submission. These policies are designed in accordance with the ICMJE and COPE's best practice guidelines. Please follow the links to move to the policy page.

SCOPE OF THE JOURNAL

International Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Drug Research (IJPSDR) is a bimonthly (6 issues per year), international published online Journal devoted to Pharmaceutical and allied Sciences. Please read the journal’s aims & scope for further details.

MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSION

Manuscripts should be submitted by any one of the authors of the manuscript (preferably the corresponding author) through the online manuscript submission and peer-review system. All manuscripts received are duly acknowledged. Before submission authors should ensure the manuscript format as per the IJPSDR guidelines. Articles that are not written as per the journal's guidelines will be declined.

Please upload a cover letter, article front page, graphical abstract, main article file (without any identification information), figures and tables, conflict of interest form, authorship contribution form, and supplementary material (if any). 

For technical help, please write to editor@ijpsdronline.com

EDITORIAL PROCEDURES AND PEER-REVIEW

Initial Checks

  • All the submitted manuscripts will be checked by an experienced editor to determine whether the submitted manuscript is properly prepared and whether they follow the ethical policies of the IJPSDR and contain all the necessary disclosures.
  • All the submitted manuscripts will be checked for the correctness of the references. The incomplete, inappropriate, or vague/misleading references may lead to desk rejection.
  • All the submitted articles will be checked for the English language at this stage and authors may be asked for language editing by any native or professional English language editor.
  • The submitted articles will be screened for plagiarism using Turnitin (online plagiarism detection software). Please read plagiarism policies for further details.
  • Manuscripts that are not properly prepared will be returned to the authors for revision and resubmission.
  • Manuscripts with insufficient originality, serious scientific or technical flaws, or lack of a significant message, or if not prepared as per journals instructions are rejected without a formal peer review.

PEER-REVIEW

The manuscript that passes the initial check/desk review, is subjected to double-blinded peer review. The manuscript will be reviewed by a minimum of two suitable experts (whose identities will remain anonymous to the authors) in the respective subject area. Please refer to our peer-review policies for details.

EDITORIAL DECISION AND REVISION

The reports of all the reviewers will be considered while making the decision on a submitted manuscript. Editor-In-Chief will make the final decision, based on the reviewer’s comments. The journal may consult the different experts and editor(s) in order to reach an appropriate decision.

Authors are required to respond to all the reviewers and submit the point-wise clarification for the comments of the reviewers and handling editor. Authors must provide a clear response in their rebuttal letter wherever they disagree with a reviewer or editor.

APPEALS

The authors may appeal against the negative decision with suitable arguments if they feel that there is a major misunderstanding over a technical aspect or failure to understand the scientific advance shown by the manuscript. Appeals requesting a second opinion without sufficient justification will not be considered. Please write to the journal via email in order to submit an appeal. Appeals will only be considered from the original submitting author.

GALLEY PROOFS AND PUBLICATION

Manuscripts that are accepted for publication are subjected to copy edited for grammar, punctuation, print style, and format. Page proofs are sent to the corresponding author. The corresponding author is expected to return the corrected proofs within three days. The whole process of submission of the manuscript to final decision and sending and receiving proofs is completed through the online submission and peer-review system. To achieve faster and greater dissemination of knowledge and information, the journal publishes articles online on acceptance.

ARTICLE TYPES

The journal will consider the following article types;

Research Articles

The articles that present the results of the original research study are considered as research articles. These manuscripts should describe how the research project was conducted and provide a thorough analysis of the results of the project. The research articles should include the following in the order given below:

  • Abstract,
  • Keywords
  • Introduction
  • Materials and Methods
  • Results including Tables and/or Figures
  • Discussion
  • Conclusion
  • Acknowledgments
  • References
  • Appendixes [if necessary]
  • Abbreviations used [if necessary]

Systematic reviews may be submitted as research articles.

Reviews and mini-reviews

A review article provides an overview of the published literature in a particular subject area. A review article should contain an abstract, keywords, introduction, methods (including data sources, study selection, and data extraction), results and conclusion, acknowledgment, and references.

Short Communication

Short Communications are brief reports that present original and significant research and need to be published quickly. It may focus on a hot topic or may have new findings that are expected to have a significant impact on a current problem. Short communications are expected to have a higher-than-average impact.

Case reports

New, interesting, and rare cases can be reported. They should be unique, describing a great diagnostic or therapeutic challenge and providing a learning point for the readers.

MANUSCRIPT PREPARATION

The language of the journal is English. Each manuscript should be typed double-spaced on A4 (8.5" × 11") paper size with 1-inch margins.

Title Page

The title page should contain a clear, concise, and informative title of the article followed by the names and affiliations of the authors. The affiliation should comprise the department, institution, city, and state (or nation) and should be typed as a footnote to the author's name. The Corresponding Author must indicate his or her complete mailing address, office/cellular phone number, fax number, and email address at the lower left of the Title Page.

Abstract

The abstract should not be more than 200 words and should provide brief details about the objectives of the study, materials and methods, Results, and Conclusions. The abstract should not be structured, it should be a single paragraph without subheadings. The abstract must be followed by four-six keywords.

Introduction

This should be brief and indicates the aim of the study and the essential background information. The introduction should clearly state the hypothesis or purpose statement, how and why the purpose or hypothesis was developed, and why the author deems it important.

Materials and Methods

Please provide concise but complete information about the material and the analytical, statistical, and experimental procedures used. This part should be as clear as possible to enable other scientists to repeat the research presented. The use of subheadings to divide the text is encouraged. Primary headings should be in BOLD CAPITAL LETTERS. Secondary or subheadings should be in Bold sentence case. Third-level subheadings should be in Italicized sentence Case. In the case of animal/human experiments or clinical trials, authors must give the details of ethical approval.

Result and Discussion

Data acquired from the research with the appropriate statistical analysis described in the methods section should be included in this section. In this part, the same data/ information given in a table must not be repeated in a figure or vice versa. Tables and Figures should be self-explanatory and it is not acceptable to repeat extensively the numerals from tables into text and give lengthy and unnecessary explanations of the Tables and Figures. The discussion should relate the results to the current understanding of the scientific problems being investigated in the field.

Conclusion

This should clearly explain the main conclusions of the work highlighting its importance and relevance.

Acknowledgements

Should be given after the text and not in the form of foot-notes.

References

The reference style of IJPSDR is NLM/Vancouver. All the authors submitting their articles should consider the following points before submitting their articles;

  • References should be numbered consecutively throughout the article, beginning with [1] for the first-cited reference. References should be cited in the text by numerals in superscript in a square bracket. References should be listed at the end of the paper in the order in which they appear in the text.
  • Please consult http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/uniform_requirements.html for the exact style of citing references.
  • List the first six contributors followed by et al. in all references.
  • References follow the ICMJE guidelines. The author’s surname is followed by the author’s initials in capitals without spaces or full stops. All references show page numbers in the format (117-25). Refer to the List of Journals Indexed in Index Medicus for abbreviations of journal names, or access the list from here https://www.nlm.nih.gov/archive/20130415/tsd/serials/lji.html.

Sample references are given below;

Journal Articles

Speroni E, Cervellati R, Innocenti G, Costa S, Guerra MC, Dall' Acqua S, Govoni P. Anti-inflammatory, anti-nociceptive and antioxidant activities of Balanites aegyptiaca (L.) Delile. J Ethnopharmacol. 2005 Apr 8;98(1-2):117-25. doi: 10.1016/j.jep.2005.01.007. PMID: 15763372.

A Book

Durbin R, Eddy SR, Krogh A, Mitchison G. Biological Sequence Analysis: Probabilistic Models of Proteins and Nucleic Acids. Cambridge University Press, 1999.

A Chapter in a Book

Nadkarni KM. Indian Materia Medica. Edn 3, Vol. I, Popular Prakashan, Mumbai, 2000, pp. 242-246.

A Report

Makarewicz JC, Lewis T, Bertram P. Epilimnetic phytoplankton and zooplankton biomass and species composition in Lake Michigan, 1983-1992. U.S. EPA Great Lakes National Program, Chicago, 1995, IL. EPA 905-R-95-009. Conference Proceedings: Stock A, Signal Transduction in Bacteria. In the Proceedings of the 2004 Markey Scholars Conference, 2004, pp. 80-89.

Conference Proceedings

Stock A, Signal Transduction in Bacteria. In the Proceedings of the 2004 Markey Scholars Conference, 2004, pp. 80-89.

A Thesis

Strunk, JL. The extraction of mercury from sediment and the geochemical partitioning of mercury in sediments from Lake Superior, M. S. thesis, Michigan State Univ., East Lansing, MI, 1991.

Tables and Figures

Tables and figures should not be embedded in the text but should be included at the end of the manuscript on separate pages. Tables should be created with a word processor and cited consecutively in the text. To ensure the highest print quality, your figures must be submitted in TIF/JPG/JPEG format with a minimum 300 dpi or higher resolutions. Captions/legends will be placed below figures and adjusted to 10 font size.

AUTHORSHIP AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Authorship

All the authors in a manuscript are equally responsible for the technical information communicated to the IJPSDR. Thus, it is necessary that all authors must read and approve the final version of the manuscript before submitting it to the IJPSDR. All named authors must have made an active contribution to the conception and design and/or analysis and interpretation of the data and/or the drafting of the paper and all must have critically reviewed its content and have approved the final version submitted for publication. Participation solely in the acquisition of funding or the collection of data does not justify authorship.

IJPSDR follows the definition of authorship given by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html. The ICMJE recommends that authorship be based on the following 4 criteria:

  • Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
  • Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
  • Final approval of the version to be published; AND
  • Agreement 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.

Authors should meet all four conditions. Please click here to download the Authorship Contribution Form, authors are required to upload the duly filled and signed form under the additional files section, during manuscript submission. They can also send it by email to editor@ijpsdronline.com. In addition to that, all the manuscripts should contain the Authors’ Contributions statement immediately before the Acknowledgments section.

Acknowledgments

All acknowledgments should be included at the very end of the paper before the references and may include supporting grants, presentations, and so forth. Contributors who do not qualify as authors should be mentioned under Acknowledgements.

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST  

All the authors must disclose the possible conflicts of interest/Competing Interests they may have with the publication of the manuscript or 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 conflicts of interest with products that compete with those mentioned in their manuscript. The Conflict of Interest statement should list each author separately by name. The ICMJE has developed a Disclosure Form to facilitate and standardize authors’ disclosures, please click this link to download the ICMJE COI form. Authors are required to upload the duly filled and signed form under the additional files section, during manuscript submission. They can also send it by email to editor@ijpsdronline.com. Please follow the link to read the detailed ICMJE recommendations for disclosure of financial and non-financial relationships and activities, and conflicts of interest http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/author-responsibilities--conflicts-of-interest.html.

FUNDING SOURCES

The authors must declare all sources of funding received for the research submitted to the journal. Authors should give the name of granting agencies and grant numbers, along with a short description of each funder’s role.  Only the funding related to the submitted work should be mentioned and authors are NOT required to provide the complete list of every single grant that supports them.

ORIGINALITY AND PLAGIARISM

Authors should ensure the originality of their content while preparing a manuscript draft. In case the authors have used the work and/or words of others this must be appropriately cited or quoted. All the articles submitted to IJPSDR shall be screened for plagiarism using Turnitin (online plagiarism detection software). In case, plagiarism is detected during the review/editorial process, such manuscript(s) will be rejected immediately. Please read our plagiarism policy for details.

REPORTING STANDARDS

Authors of the original research article must present accurate data of work performed during their research. Authors are also expected to discuss the objective of their work and the significance of their results. An article should contain sufficient information and references to ensure the reproducibility of the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements are considered unethical behaviour and are unacceptable.

DATA ACCESS AND RETENTION

Authors may be asked to provide the raw/supplementary data for a paper that is under editorial review. The authors should be prepared to provide the public access to these data (if practicable) and to retain such data for a reasonable time after the publication.

ETHICAL APPROVALS

Patient Rights

Patients have a right to privacy thus; all the studies should be conducted with informed consent. No identifying information should 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. When informed consent has been obtained, it should be indicated in the article. Investigations with human subjects must follow the ethical standards formulated in the Helsinki Declaration of 1964, revised in 2013. All the experiment should be approved by the institutional human experimentation committee or equivalent.

Animal Rights

Animal experiments must follow the ethical standards for the care and use of laboratory animals. The article involved animal experiments must seek approval(s) from the appropriate Ethical Committee in accordance with the "Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals" and CPCSEA guidelines. A statement on ethics committee permission must be included in all research articles.

Clinical trial registry

The journal recommends that the clinical trials should be registered in a publicly accessible database. Authors should include the clinical trial registration numbers on all papers that report their results. The authors must adhere to the minimum set of recommendations for reporting randomized trials as described in "The CONSORT (CONsolidated Standards of Reporting Trials) 2010 guideline".

ABBREVIATIONS

Standard abbreviations should be used throughout the manuscript. All nonstandard abbreviations should be kept to a minimum and must be defined in the text following their first use.

  • The journal allows the author(s) to retain the copyright of their work. Authors do not need to transfer the copyright of their work to the IJPSDR.
  • All the articles published in IJPSDR are distributed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 International license.
  • All the articles published in IJPSDR are made freely accessible online immediately after publication in an easily readable format, without any subscription or registration barrier.
  • The journal also allows the authors to self-archive the final accepted version of the articles on any OAI-compliant institutional/subject-based repository.

Use of third-party material

Authors must obtain the necessary permission to reuse third-party material in the article. If authors wish to include any material in their paper for which they do not hold copyright, and which is not marked as open-access, they will need to obtain written permission from the copyright owner prior to submission to IJPSDR. Please make an appropriate citation for the open-access material and follow the license terms.

Please read the Open Access and Copyright policies for further details.

ARTICLE PROCESSING CHARGES (APCs)

The authors are required to pay Rs. 8000/- INR (Indian Authors) or USD 100 (foreign authors) for APCs upon acceptance of the manuscript. APCs are applicable only to the accepted articles.

Note: These charges are calculated for a standard-length article with 20 pages in MS Word (1-inch margin on each side and two-line space), including tables and figures. Additional page charges of 300 INR per page (Indian authors) or 5 USD per page (foreign authors) will be applicable for the articles beyond this limit.