Mini-Reviews in Medicinal Chemistry

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The length of a published comprehensive review article is from 6000-10000 words with 100 or more references excluding figures, structures, photographs, schemes, tables, etc .

Mini-reviews should be 3000- 6000 words with 75 or more references excluding figures, structures, photographs, schemes, tables etc.

Systematic Reviews include systematic updates on review protocols, methods, research and results from all relevant fields for any studies and updates on already published issues. The total number of words for a published systematic review is from 4000 to 6000 words with 100 or more references excluding figures, structures, photographs, schemes, tables etc. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses must be reported according to PRISMA guidelines; (www.prisma-statement.org).

Bentham Science Publishers supports retrospective registration of systematic reviews, in a suitable registry (such as PROSPERO). The registered systematic review must include the registration number as the last line of the manuscript abstract. etc.

Publishers are invited to first contact the reviews editor/editor-in-chief stating the title of the e-book, date of publication and e-book summary by email [email protected]

The title of the article should be precise and brief and must not be more than 120 characters. Authors should avoid the use of non-standard abbreviations and question marks in titles. The first letter of each word should be in capital letters except for articles, conjunctions and prepositions.

Authors should also provide a short ‘running title’. Title, running title, byline, correspondent footnote and keywords should be written as presented in original manuscripts.

Title page should include paper title, author(s) full name and affiliation, corresponding author(s) names complete affiliation/address, along with phone, fax and email.

The abstract of an article should be a clear, concise and accurate summary, having no more than 250 words, and including the explicit sub-headings (as in-line or run-in headings in bold). Use of abbreviations should be avoided and the references should not be cited in the abstract.

All the original research articles, systematic reviews and meta-analyses must be accompanied by a structured abstract. Ideally, each abstract should include the following sub-headings, but these may vary according to the requirements of the article.

The headings can vary, but must state the purpose of the study, details of the participants, measurements, methods, main findings and conclusion.

A graphic should be included when possible with each manuscript for use in the Table of Contents (TOC). This must be submitted separately as an electronic file (preferred file types are EPS, PDF, TIFF, Microsoft Word, PowerPoint and CDX etc.). A graphical abstract, not exceeding 30 words along with the illustration, helps to summarize the contents of the manuscript in a concise pictorial form. It is meant as an aid for the rapid viewing of the journals' contents and to help capture the readers’ attention. The graphical abstract may feature a key structure, reaction, equation, etc. that the manuscript elucidates upon. It will be listed along with the manuscript title, authors’ names and affiliations in the contents page, typeset within an area of 5 cm by 17 cm, but it will not appear in the article PDF file or in print.

Graphical Abstracts should be submitted as a separate file (must clearly mention graphical abstract within the file) online via Bentham's Manuscript Processing System.

You can view a few examples of the Graphical Abstracts on our website.

6 to 8 keywords must be provided. Choose important and relevant keywords that researchers in your field will be searching for so that your paper will appear in a database search. The keywords should be contained in the title and they should appear several times in the article.

The main text should begin on a separate page and should be divided into separate sections. The manuscript should be divided into title page, abstract and the main text. The text may be subdivided further according to the areas to be discussed, which should be followed by the Acknowledgements and Reference sections. The Review Article should mention any previous important recent and old reviews in the field and contain a comprehensive discussion starting with the general background of the field. It should then go on to discuss the salient features of recent developments. The authors should avoid presenting material which has already been published in a previous review. The authors are advised to present and discuss their observations in brief.

The manuscript style must be uniform throughout the text and 10 pt Times New Roman fonts should be used. The full term for an abbreviation should precede its first appearance in the text unless it is a standard unit of measurement. The reference numbers should be given in square brackets in the text. Italics should be used for Binomial names of organisms (Genus and Species), for emphasis and for unfamiliar words or phrases. Non-assimilated words from Latin or other languages should also be italicized e.g. per se, et al. etc.

In case there is a need to present lengthy, but essential methodological details, appendices must be used, which can be a part of the article. An appendix must not exceed three pages (Times New Roman, 10 point fonts, 900 max. words per page).The information should be provided in a condensed form, ruling out the need of full sentences. A single appendix should be titled APPENDIX, while more than one can be titled APPENDIX A, APPENDIX B, and so on.

We do encourage to append supportive material, for example a PowerPoint file containing a talk about the study, a PowerPoint file containing additional screenshots, a Word, RTF, or PDF document showing the original instrument(s) used, a video, or the original data (SAS/SPSS files, Excel files, Access Db files etc.) provided it is inevitable or endorsed by the journal's Editor.

Published/reproduced material should not be included unless you have obtained written permission from the copyright holder, which must be forwarded to the Editorial Office in case of acceptance of your article for publication.

Supportive/Supplementary material intended for publication must be numbered and referred to in the manuscript but should not be a part of the submitted paper. In-text citations as well as a section with the heading "Supportive/Supplementary Material" before the "References" section should be provided. Here, list all Supportive/Supplementary Material and include a brief caption line for each file describing its contents.

Any additional files will be linked to the final published article in the form supplied by the author, but will not be displayed within the paper. They will be made available in exactly the same form as originally provided only on our Web site. Please also make sure that each additional file is a single table, figure or movie (please do not upload linked worksheets or PDF files larger than one sheet). Supportive/Supplementary material must be provided in a single zipped file not larger than 4 MB.

Authors must clearly indicate if these files are not for publication but meant for the reviewers'/editors' perusal only.

All potential conflicts of interest (competing interests) that could have a direct or indirect influence on the work must be disclosed by the authors. Even if an author does not have a conflict, disclosing affiliations and interests allows for a more comprehensive and open approach, which leads to a more accurate and objective evaluation of the work. Conflicts of interest, whether genuine or imagined, are a perspective to which the readers are entitled.

The publication of a conflict statement in the article itself, as well as the submission of the conflict disclosure form, is required for all types of papers. It is not necessarily the case that a monetary relationship with examination support or funding for counseling work is inappropriate. Even if the authors do not have any conflict of interest, they still need to provide a confirmation statement in their manuscripts, i.e., “The author(s) confirm(s) that there is no conflict of interest related to the manuscript.”

The following are some examples of potential conflicts of interest that are directly or indirectly related to the research:

Financial conflicts of interest can be personal as well as institutional. Personal conflict of interest occurs when a contributor involved in the publication process either receives an amount of money or expects to receive some financial help (including any other financial benefits such as patents or stocks, gifts or services) that may impact the work related to a specific publication. More importantly, in academic research, such financial relationships can lead to institutional conflicts of interest (COIs) because the economic interests of the institution or institutional representatives may unsuitably affect the decision-making process.

An institutional conflict of interest arises in a situation when financial interests of an institution or any institutional official (e.g., investments held by the university in a company) have the potential to unduly influence the research conducted by its employees or students, or pose an unacceptable risk to human subjects. Such conflicts usually arise in a state of affairs where a research project directly offers assistance or a benefit to an external entity via evaluation, validation, trial or test of an invention, product, drug, service or technology, and the institution holds a financial interest with the external entity. Such financial interests incorporate, but are not limited to, receipt of licensing payments or royalties from the external entity, or ownership interest with the external entity. When human subjects are involved in any research project, and the institution supports such a financial interest, the conflict of interest is speculated to be unreasonable.

Non-financial competing interests include (but are not limited to):

In addition, interests other than monetary and any funding (non-financial interests) should be declared if they are relevant to readers. Personal relationships or conflicting interests directly or indirectly related to research, as well as professional interests or personal opinions that may impact your research, are examples of these.

Intellectual property, in basic terms, refers to any intangible property that is the result of creativity, such as patents, copyrights, etc. Similarly, this section seeks to know about copyright and patent (licensed patent, pending or issued) and any payment received for intellectual property, such as:

All conflict of interest disclosure forms are collected by the corresponding author. It is sufficient for the corresponding author to sign the disclosure form on behalf of all authors in author collaborations when legal agreements for representation allow it. The templates of the form can be found here.

Before the reference list, the corresponding author will include a summary statement in the text of the article that reflects what is reported in the potential conflict of interest disclosure form (s). Author(s) may declare(s) names of reviewers who they think might have a potential conflict of interest; therefore, Editorial Office could avoid inviting such reviewers for an unbiased opinion.

Undisclosed conflict of interest cases before or after the publication of an article are dealt with as per the guidelines of COPE.

For more information on COIs, see the guidance from the ICMJE.

Bentham Science tries to conduct a transparent peer-review process with the help of the reviewers who do not have any conflict of interest with the authors. In this connection, reviewers who belong to the same institute or countries as authors are not invited to review manuscripts. However, it is not possible for the Editorial Office to be aware of all competing interests; therefore, it is expected from authors to submit:

The Editorial Office expects reviewers:

During the submission of review comments, reviewers are asked to reconfirm that they do not have any conflict of interest related to the article. After confirming the below statement, they can submit their comments.

“I hereby confirm that I don’t have any conflict of interest related to the manuscript.”

If, however, there are still any remaining interests, then reviewers must mention those in the ‘Confidential’ section of the review form.

Reviewers are not encouraged to contact authors directly regarding any of their conflicts of interest. Peer reviewers should follow journals’ policies in situations they consider to represent a conflict to reviewing.

If reviewers intentionally undisclosed any conflict of interest, then they will be blacklisted for any future peer reviewing activity of the journal.

The Editorial Office always ensures that an author, if added after peer review activity of a manuscript, is not part of the reviewers’ list who have conducted a peer review of the same manuscript.

Editors must not review submitted manuscripts if they have any personal, professional or financial involvement/conflict of interest with the authors of the manuscript. Every participant involved in the peer review process, including editorial board members, reviewers, and editors, must declare any potential conflicts of interest to ensure a transparent and unbiased review activity.

Editors-in-Chief or Editors who are responsible for the initial and final decision should recuse themselves to review or take decisions on any manuscript that is written by authors affiliated to the same institute as of editor, or if they have been a family member, competitor, collaborator, or have published any manuscript in last 3 years with the authors associated with the manuscript. They can however nominate someone else on the Board who could provide a neutral opinion on the manuscript.

The Editorial office recommends editors to follow COPE and WAME guidelines to process such manuscripts which involves their personal relationship.

Manuscripts submission by an Editor/Editor-in-Chief

The initial and final decision on the manuscripts submitted by an Editor/Editor-in-Chief will be taken by any other member of the Board. The Editorial Office will identify members who do not have any potential conflict of interest with the Editor or Editor-in-Chief.

Different reference formats have different rules for citation. See below for some common format examples.

The minimum required information for a journal article reference is author, abbreviated journal title, year, publication, volume number, and initial page of cited article, though complete pagination is possible. Journal abbreviation and volume are italicized. Year of publication is bold. All authors must be cited and there should be no use of the phrase et al. Journal abbreviations should follow the Index Medicus/MEDLINE.

Some important points to remember

Different reference formats have different rules for citation. See below for some common format examples.

The required information for a journal article is author, abbreviated journal title, year, publication, volume number, and initial page of cited article, though complete pagination is possible. It is necessary to list all authors if the total number of author is six or less and for more than six authors use three authors and then et al (the term "et al." should be in italics). Journal abbreviations should follow the Index Medicus/MEDLINE. 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.

Some important points to remember

Illustrations must be provided according to the following guideline:

Line Art image type is normally an image based on lines and text. It does not contain tonal or shaded areas. The preferred file format should be TIFF or EPS, with the color mode being Monochrome 1-bit or RGB, in a resolution of 900-1200 dpi.

Halftone image type is a continuous tone photograph containing no text. It should have the preferred file format TIFF, with color mode being RGB or Grayscale, in a resolution of 300 dpi.

Combination image type is an image containing halftone, text or line art elements. It should have the preferred file format TIFF, with color mode being RGB or Grayscale, in a resolution of 500-900 dpi.

For illustrations, the following file formats are acceptable:

Bentham Science does not process figures submitted in GIF format.

If the large size of TIFF or EPS figures acts as an obstacle to online submission, authors may find that conversion to JPEG format before submission results in significantly reduced file size and upload time, while retaining acceptable quality. JPEG is a 'lossy' format, however. In order to maintain acceptable image quality, it is recommended that JPEG files are saved at High or Maximum quality.

Files should not be compressed with tools such as Zipit or Stuffit prior to submission as these tools will in any case produce negligible file-size savings for JPEGs and TIFFs, which are already compressed.

Please refrain from supplying:

There are many software packages, many of them freeware or shareware, capable of converting to and from different graphics formats, including PNG.

Good general tools for image conversion include GraphicConverter on the Macintosh, PaintShop Pro, for Windows, and ImageMagick, which is available on Macintosh, Windows and UNIX platforms.

Note that bitmap images (e.g. screenshots) should not be converted to EPS, since this will result in a much larger file size than the equivalent JPEG, TIFF, PNG or BMP, with no increase in quality. EPS should only be used for images produced by vector-drawing applications such as Adobe Illustrator or CorelDraw. Most vector-drawing applications can be saved in, or exported as, EPS format. In case the images have been originally prepared in an Office application, such as Word or PowerPoint, then the original Office files should be directly uploaded to the site, instead of being converted to JPEG or another format that may be of low quality.

Note for authors To maintain publication quality, figures submitted in colour will be published in colour only.

[As according to the ACS style sheet]

Activities such as the acquisition of funding, general supervision of a research group or general administrative support, writing assistance, technical editing, language editing, and proofreading alone do not qualify any contributor for authorship. Such contributors may be acknowledged individually or together as a group in the acknowledgement section. Further details for writing acknowledgements are available here. Persons not meeting authorship criteria can be acknowledged in the acknowledgement section of the article rather than being enlisted as authors.

All contributing authors should contribute substantially to the article and sign the copyright letter. Bentham Science Publishers discourages authorship based solely on position (e.g., a research supervisor or a departmental head). We use COPE guidelines for identifying any suspected ghost, guest or gift authorship.