Submissions

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Submission Preparation Checklist

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.
  • Editorial Fees are due after your paper has been accepted. (Editorial Fees: $1,155.00)
  • The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration.
  • The submission file is in Microsoft Word document format.
  • Where available, URLs for the references have been provided.
  • The text is single-spaced; uses a 12-point font; employs italics, rather than underlining (except with URL addresses); and all illustrations, figures, and tables are placed within the text at the appropriate points, rather than at the end.
  • The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines shown below.
  • If submitting to a peer-reviewed section of the journal, the instructions in Ensuring a Blind Review have been followed.
  • All tables will be uploaded as separate Microsoft Word or RTF files
  • All figures are in JPEG or TIFF file format and will be uploaded as separate, supplemenatary files.

Author Guidelines

Rapid Submission Process

The Heart Surgery Forum® requires that all new submissions be uploaded to our online submission and review portal as Microsoft  Word documents.

All manuscripts should be divided into the following key sections, separated only by a blank line:

  1. Title
  2. Authors (listed as First, Middle, Last Name) by order of contribution to the paper
  3. Institutions of each author (listed in order of priority) with their degrees  (MD, PhD, etc.)
  4. Keywords
  5. Abstract (with Background, Methods, Results, and Conclusion sections)
  6. Introduction
  7. Materials and Methods
  8. Results
  9. Discussion
  10. References (in alphabetical order of authors last names)
  11. Figure Legends
  12. Tables
  13. Abbreviations
  14. Reprint the address, phone, and email address of the corresponding author

Case reports may substitute a section called “Case Report” for the Materials/Methods and Results sections listed above. The format for Editorials and Collective Reviews is open and unstructured.

To facilitate easy submission, several common steps should be avoided when submitting to the HSF:

  1. Do not double space.
  2. Do not separate sections onto individual pages. Only place a blank line or two between sections.
  3. Do not indent paragraphs; just separate them by a blank line.
  4. DO NOT CAPITALIZE in an attempt to create emphasis.
  5. Avoid fancy fonts, sizes, special kerning or leading in the text.
  6. Avoid superscripts or subscripts, and include any such information within square brackets.
  7. Do not attempt to make your document “photo-ready” or create any special formatting, pagination or page layout. All this will be reformatted for the Web and your special layouts will be discarded.

Formatting Your Reference List

References should be formatted according to the American Medical Association Manual of Style. A sample reference would appear as follows:

  1. Lu EX, Chen SX, Yuan MD, et al. 1997. Preconditioning improves myocardial preservation in patients undergoing open heart operations. Ann Thorac Surg 64:1320-4.

A sample reference should not be as follows:
 

EX Lu, SX Chen, MD Yuan, TH Hu, HC Zhou, WJ Luo, GH Li, LM Xu. Preconditioning improves myocardial preservation in patients undergoing open heart operations. Ann Thorac Surg Volume 64, Issue 5:1320-4, Nov. 1997.

Authors should be listed by last name followed by their first and middle initials. All subsequent authors are separated by a comma. For an article with six or more authors, list the first three authors and annotate the remaining authors with the abbreviation et al. For articles with up to six authors, list each author. Only the first letter of each sentence in the title should be capitalized.

In-text citations

When citing articles from other authors, a citation in the manuscript text should be notated with a superscript number corresponding to its number in the reference list. For example:

Diabetes mellitus is associated with a high risk of foot ulcers.1-3

Figures, Photographs, and Artwork

Figures, photographs, and any artwork must be submitted with the manuscript as separate “supplemental files” via our online submission and review portal. When preparing images for submissions, it is important that the authors save the images at 300 dots per inch (dpi) or greater. If less than 300 dpi, images can only be used in the web component of the HSF journal. These files can be saved as .tiff or .jpg file formats.

Since the HSF publishes images in color (on the web), authors are encouraged to take color photographs of their surgical cases or techniques. The patient’s name must not appear on any submitted photo, x-ray, or angiogram.

Tables

Tables should be submitted electronically via our online submission and review portal as separate supplemental files in either .rtf or .doc file formats.

Author's Photographs

The lead author may send a color portrait-style photograph of him/herself along with the manuscript. This photograph is used in the masthead of the manuscript and serves to identify the author in a more personal manner to the readership. Casual photographs are not acceptable. Please use a business appearance suitable for a scientific publication.

Privacy Statement

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