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Submitting an article for publication in the PTJ

Find out everything you need to know.

Journal content

The Journal welcomes clinical and managerial contributions which are of interest to health services professionals involved with leadership and management aspects of pharmacy. These can be specific for secondary care and primary care separately or address issues relevant to both.

Journal distribution

The normal method of distribution for the Journal is to make it available in as an ebook formats, via a link distriobuted in an email. It will also be availabe to members on the APTUK website. In certain cases it may be printed and made available in hard copy.

Length of papers

The preferred length for an article is approximately 800 to a maximum of 2400 words (1 - 3 pages).

Authorship and Acknowledgements

Persons named as authors should have made a substantial contribution to the development of the article. Persons who do not meet this criteria but who provided general support should be listed in an ‘Acknowledgments’ section.

Patient confidentiality

Information that identifies a patient,  or which could be used to identify a patient, must not  appear in the article.

How to set out your article

Present your article in a typewritten form and number the pages.

A short title of up to eight words is preferred but can be longer to suit the article as appropriate (in upper and lower case – house style is for each word to commence with a capital letter) and the name of the author (Christian name and Surname – house style is to use post nominals) with the job title, department, address of organisation and email contact details should also appear (upper and lower case).

The format of Introduction with aims/objectives, Method, Results, Discussion and Conclusion is a commonly used approach but should be seen as a broad guide only. Alternative headings may be used and the format should be adapted as appropriate for specific articles.

Use frequent short subheadings to help continuity. Start the first word with a capital and then use lower case for the remainder. If there are any abbreviations in your article, place them in brackets after the full title on the first occasion they are used.

 'pharmacy technician' and other job titles should be in lower case throughout.

The house style for quotation marks is to use single, not double marks.

Send your article as an electronic version in word ‘.doc’ format (not PDF – this is so that that comments can be marked on it electronically and/or it can be edited as appropriate) attached to an e-mail to editor@aptuk.org.

Illustrations

The use of photographs, diagrams, charts, etc as illustrative components of an article can greatly enhance any printed page. These can be provided as jpeg, bmp, tiff documents, Excel files or Word documents.  Photographs will be selected from copyright free sources by APTUK to illustrate articles. Authors may, however, provide photographs which might be used at the discretion of the Editor. These should be provided electronically and can be sent after the article is accepted for publication but the Editor should be informed at the time of submission if it is the intention to provide such material.

Photographs must only be provided on the basis that you are the owner and that you have obtained permission from anyone shown in the photograph that their image may be published in the Journal. Written confirmation must be provided that anyone identifiable has given their permission for the image to be used in the Journal and that they are aware of how the Journal is distributed and made available.

Ensure the photo has a clean, uncluttered background - simple is best. It is important to portray a professional image. Look out for untidy desks, irrelevant objects on desks or walls (e.g. scruffy posters, promotional material), grubby white coats, etc, etc!

To avoid unintended promotion of products, names on containers should not be capable of being read in the photograph.

For a portrait photo

1) Select a photo where the subject's face is positioned towards the top of the frame (but not cut off!).

2) Cutting a picture of the subject out of a larger photo is acceptable, so long as the head size is 2cm or more.

3) Check any harsh lighting since this can be unflattering. Any outdoor portrait shots are best taken on an overcast day (the sun causes dark shadows on faces).

For group photos

1) Ensure that all the subjects are aware that the photo is being taken and are looking alert and interested.

2) Ensure that no-one is in a distracting or inappropriate pose eg yawning, eyes shut!

3) Ensure that the subject is not too far away. Make sure it is in good focus.

Above all, think ‘Is this the image you want to promote for the profession of pharmacy?’

References

The Vancouver style of using a number in the text should be used

References in the paper must be numbered as unbracketed superscript in the order in which they appear in the text.

References should be to original works and abstracts and ‘personal correspondence’ should be avoided wherever possible.

The list of references at the end of the paper should give all the authors’ names and initials (Surname followed by initials of Forenames without any punctuation or spaces between the initials) unless there are more than 3, in which case 'et al' is used for subsequent names. This is followed by the title, abbreviated according to the 'List of Journals Indexed' in Index Medicus, the year of publication, the volume number and the first and last page numbers (no spaces between the year of publication, the volume number and the page numbers). See the examples in ‘Help and advice below.

References to books should give the names of any editors, place of publication, publisher and year, in place of the journal information.

Links to references on websites should be given by stating ‘Available at:’ or ‘Available from:’ as appropriate followed by the URL address. This should then be followed by square brackets containing the word ‘Accessed’ followed by the date on which the reference was accessed on the web.

Useful reading lists or websites may be quoted where appropriate. In the case of websites, it should be made clear if these are subject to restricted access.

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