Information for Authors
2008

Information for Authors PDF

Submission Instructions PDF

Quick Links:

• Editorial Policy
• Required Forms for Authors
• Author Rights and Open Access
• Ethical Guidelines
• Registries/Database Reporting
• Journal Content
• Reprints
• Business Matters

The Oncologist is designed specifically for the busy, practicing oncologist and hematologist entrusted with the care of cancer patients. With its emphasis on clear interpretation rather than extensive data, this international peer-reviewed journal publishes original papers, reviews, and commentaries addressing the multimodality diagnosis and treatment of the cancer patient. The Journal covers all aspects of oncology:

EDITORIAL POLICY

The Oncologist is a communications platform for the introduction of new medical treatments and technologies that will impact the practice of oncology and bridge clinical trials with practice. The Oncologist therefore places a high priority on rapid publication. The peer-review process generally averages no more than 3 weeks; the entire process, from manuscript acceptance to publication, will take approximately 3 months.

Editorial review
The Oncologist abides by a policy of anonymous peer review. Acceptance of manuscripts is based on originality and importance to the field as assessed by the Editors. Manuscripts are reviewed anonymously by the Editorial Board with ad hoc assistance of external reviewers. Publication decisions are made by the Editorial Board. See the “Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals,” published by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and available at http://www.icmje.org/index.html, for further information.

Permissions and copyright
Submission of a manuscript to The Oncologist is predicated on the explicit understanding that it represents original work not previously published (with the exception of abstracts) and not being considered elsewhere for publication. Further, it is understood that all authors listed on a manuscript have agreed to its submission (see Authorship, below). Authors submitting a manuscript do so with the understanding that if it is accepted for publication, copyright, including the right to reproduce the article in all forms and media, shall be assigned exclusively to the publisher, AlphaMed Press. It is the author’s responsibility to obtain written permission to reproduce illustrations, tables, etc., from other publications. Procedures and policies for permission to publish borrowed material is available online at http://theoncologist.alphamedpress.org/misc/Permission_Form.pdf.

Sponsorship, authorship, and accountability
Authorship means both accountability and independence. A submitted manuscript is the intellectual property of its authors, not the study sponsor. We will not review or publish articles based on studies that are conducted under conditions that allow the sponsor to have sole control of the data or to withhold publication. We encourage investigators to use the revised ICMJE requirements on publication ethics to guide the negotiation of research contracts. Those contracts should give the researchers a substantial say in trial design, access to the raw data, responsibility for data analysis and interpretation, and the right to publish – the hallmarks of scholarly independence and, ultimately, academic freedom. By enforcing adherence to these revised requirements, we can as editors assure our readers that the authors of an article have had a meaningful and truly independent role in the study that bears their names. The authors can then stand behind the published results, and so can we. [From Sponsorship, Authorship, and Accountability statement of International Council of Medical Journal Editors, http://www.icmje.org/sponsor.htm.]

Disclaimer
While the publisher and Editorial Board make every effort to see that no inaccurate or misleading data, opinion, or statement appears in this journal, they wish to state that the data and opinions in the articles and advertisements in The Oncologist are the responsibility of the contributor or advertiser concerned. Accordingly, the publisher, the Editorial Board, and their respective employees, officers, and agents accept no liability whatsoever for the consequences of any such inaccurate or misleading data, opinion, or statement. While every effort is made to ensure drug doses and other quantities are presented accurately, readers are advised that new methods and techniques involving drug usage described within this journal should be followed only in conjunction with the drug manufacturer’s own published literature. It is the responsibility of the treating physician or other health care professional, relying on independent experience and knowledge of the patient, to determine drug dosages and the best treatment for the patient. This is particularly serious if the agent to be administered is a new one or one that is infrequently used. Because of the uniqueness of each patient and the need to take into account a number of concurrent considerations, this informa¬tion should be used by physicians only as a general guide to determining the best treatment for each patient.

REQUIRED FORMS FOR AUTHORS

The Corresponding Author must complete and submit the following forms and return them to the Editorial Office at the time of submission. Links to all required forms appear below:

Manuscript Submission Cover Sheet Form
The Corresponding Author must complete the Manuscript Submission Cover Sheet. This form must accompany all submissions, including revisions. The Manuscript Submission Cover Sheet is available online at http://theoncologist.alphamedpress.org/misc/TO_ManuscriptCoverSheet.pdf.

Corresponding Author's Responsibilities and Agreement Form
The Corresponding Author must complete the Responsibilities and Agreement Form to ensure compliance with the publisher's submission policies. The Corresponding Author's Responsibilities and Agreement Form is available online at http://theoncologist.alphamedpress.org/misc/TO_AuthorAgreement.pdf.

Potential Conflict of Interest Disclosure Form
All authors are required by The Oncologist to reveal any financial commitment or obligation with a company or its competitor who manufactures products that are discussed within the manuscript or with a company making a competing product. Additional relationships that might be considered competing interests, such as holding equity or paid consultancy, must be stated in the manuscript cover letter. All information concerning potential conflicts of interest will be kept confidential until provisional acceptance (and on file thereafter). The authors are obligated to sign a Potential Conflict of Interest Disclosure Form. The Editorial Office will work with the Corresponding Author to formulate a disclosure statement for publication, should the manuscript be accepted. The Potential Conflict of Interest Disclosure Form is available online at http://theoncologist.alphamedpress.org/misc/TO_COIDisclosure.pdf. Each author on the manuscript is required to complete, sign, and return this form to the Editorial Office.

Authors should note that The Oncologist does not consider peer review submissions from authors whose work was supported by tobacco funding.

Copyright Transfer Form
The Corresponding Author is required to sign and submit a Copyright Transfer Form on behalf of all authors, with the exception of U.S. government employees whose official duties are financed with federal money. If a manuscript is accepted, the copyright in the article, including the right to reproduce the article in all forms and media, shall be assigned exclusively to AlphaMed Press. The Copyright Transfer Form is available online at http://theoncologist.alphamedpress.org/misc/TO_CopyrightTransfer.pdf.

Author Contribution Form
The Corresponding Author must have obtained permission from all authors for the submission of each version of the paper and for any change in authorship. Authorship should be limited to those who have contributed substantially to the work. Contributors that do not meet sufficient criteria for authorship should instead be noted in an Acknowledgments section. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for the content. The Author Contribution Form is available online at http://theoncologist.alphamedpress.org/misc/TO_AUContribution.pdf.

The nature of the contribution of every author should be made clear. If an article has been substantially written by a contracted writer different from those whose names appear at the beginning of the article, this fact needs to be acknowledged on the Author Contribution Form. All authors, including contracted authors, must submit a Potential Conflict of Interest Disclosure Form (as described above).

Every submission must include the Author Contribution Form(s). The Corresponding Author must submit this form on behalf of every author.

Completed forms must be faxed to the Editorial Office at 919-680-4411 or emailed to Submissions{at}TheOncologist.com.

AUTHOR RIGHTS AND OPEN ACCESS

Author rights
As an author, you are granted rights for a large number of author uses, including use by your employer (institution or company). These rights are granted and permitted without the need to obtain specific permission from the copyright holder, AlphaMed Press, provided a full credit line is prominently placed (i.e., author name(s), journal name, copyright year, volume number, inclusive pages, and copyright holder). These author rights are granted and apply only to articles for which you are named as the author or co-author. The author rights include:

• the right to make copies of the article for your own personal use, including for your own classroom teaching use;
• the right to make copies and distribute copies (including via email) of the article to research colleagues, for the personal use by such colleagues (but not commercially or systematically, e.g., via an email list or listserv);
• the right to present the article at a meeting or conference and to distribute copies of such paper or article to the delegates attending the meeting;
• for the author’s employer, if the article is a “work for hire,” made within the scope of the author’s employment, the right to use all or part of the information in (any version of) the article for other intracompany use (e.g., training);
• patent and trademark rights and rights to any process or procedure described in the article;
• the right to include the article in full or in part in a thesis or dissertation (provided that this is not to be published commercially);
• the right to use the article or any part thereof in a printed compilation of works of the author, such as collected writings or lecture notes (subsequent to publication of the article in the journal);
• the right to prepare other derivative works, to extend the article into book-length form, or to otherwise reuse portions or excerpts in other works, with full acknowledgment of its original publication in the journal; and
• the right to self-archive the work by posting the work as the final peer-reviewed author’s manuscript (but not published layout) on their own website and their institution’s website (website only, NOT repository) no earlier than 6 months after print publication in The Oncologist provided that a link is made to the AlphaMed Press version.

NIH-funded articles
Effective May 2, 2005, The National Institutes of Health (NIH) initiated its ''Public Access Policy'' which requests that NIH-funded authors voluntarily submit their peer-reviewed author manuscripts to PubMed Central (PMC) after final publication, noting that such submission will qualify as reporting for NIH administrative purposes. NIH has made it clear that it will not penalize NIH-funded authors who choose not to meet the NIH’s request. AlphaMed Press has implemented a policy that allows The Oncologist authors to comply with the NIH Public Access Policy.

AlphaMed Press authorizes NIH-funded investigators to submit an electronic version of their final, accepted manuscript to the NIH for publication on PMC no earlier than twelve months after the print or online publication in The Oncologist. The authorization is a nonexclusive license only for the purpose stated in the NIH Public Access Policy (70 Federal Register 6899-6900, February 9, 2005); AlphaMed Press reserves all rights not specifically granted in this nonexclusive license. Further information on the NIH Public Access Policy is available at: http://publicaccess.nih.gov/.

Wellcome Trust-funded articles
Since October 1, 2006, Wellcome Trust grantees are required to submit an electronic copy of the final manuscripts of their research papers to PMC or UKPubMed Central (UKPMC). The Wellcome Trust requires that the author’s work be made available to the public via PMC and PMC mirror sites no later than six months after final publication. AlphaMed Press has established a policy that will allow authors who publish in The Oncologist to comply with these requirements.

AlphaMed Press authorizes Wellcome Trust-funded authors whose papers are accepted and published in The Oncologist permission to deposit the author’s peer-reviewed manuscript (but not published format) in PMC and UKPMC no earlier than six months after the print publication in The Oncologist. Additionally, the author is authorized to replace the peer-reviewed author manuscript with the final published version 12 months after print publication in The Oncologist. Further information on the Wellcome Trust policy is available at: http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/node3302.html.

Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI)-funded articles
AlphaMed Press complies fully with the HHMI requirements that its funded articles be deposited in PMC and also made publicly available online within six months of publication, as The Oncologist articles are freely available online upon publication. Further information on the HHMI policy is available at: http://www.hhmi.org/about/research/papp.html.

ETHICAL GUIDELINES

Human subjects
All studies that involve human subjects must abide by the rules of the appropriate Internal Review Board and the tenets of the World Medical Association’s Declaration of Helsinki (http://www.wma.net/e/policy/b3.htm).

For manuscripts reporting on studies involving human subjects, signed consent statements from persons, parents, and/or legal guardians of minors who can be identified from the text or photographs must accompany the manuscript at the time of submission. If a pedigree or family tree is depicted, a statement must be included verifying that written informed consent was obtained from each living individual represented and that the authors have not modified the pedigree or family tree in any manner to avoid identification of the subjects.

No published studies that involve human subjects should mention subjects' identifying information (e.g., initials) unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or parent or guardian) gives written informed consent for publication. See Section II (Ethical Considerations in the Conduct and Reporting of Research) of the "Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals" at http://www.icmje.org/index.html for further information.

Data sharing
The Oncologist supports the efforts of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to encourage the open sharing of publication-related data. The Oncologist adheres to the beliefs that authors should include in their publications the data, algorithms, or other information that is central or integral to the publication, or make it freely and readily accessible; use public repositories for data whenever possible; and make patented material available under a license for research use. For more information, see the NAS website (http://books.nap.edu/books/0309088593/html/1.html).

Guidelines for stem cell research
Research with embryonic stem cells should adhere to the guidelines established by the National Academy of Sciences, as published in the National Academies Press, at http://nap.edu/books/0309096537/html.

Appropriate institutional review committee approval must be stated in the Materials and Methods section for human or animal subjects involved in experimental investigations. This statement should also show how informed consent was obtained for human subjects. Such manuscripts must include a statement verifying that the human investigations were preceded by local institutional review board approval and, if appropriate, in accordance with an assurance filed with and approved by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Recombinant DNA research guidelines
Any recombinant DNA research must follow the National Institutes of Health Guidelines for Research Involving Recombinant DNA Molecules (available at http://www4.od.nih.gov/oba/rac/guidelines/guidelines.html) and should be described within the manuscript.

Animal welfare
Manuscripts reporting on studies that involve experiments with animals must include a statement verifying that care of animals was in accordance with institutional guidelines.

Distribution of reagents
In January 1998, the Editors of The Oncologist adopted the policy that any readily renewable resources mentioned in a Journal article not already obtainable from commercial sources shall be made available to all qualified investigators in the field. The policy stems from the long-standing scientific principle that authenticity requires reproducibility. Publication in The Oncologist constitutes a de facto acceptance of this policy. Included are reagents that can be easily provided—specifically, nucleic acid sequences, cDNA and genomic clones, cell lines, and monoclonal antibody clones. Small amounts (sufficient for the replication of any in vitro work reported) of novel protein reagents are also considered easily transferable.

Although the Editors appreciate that many of the reagents mentioned in The Oncologist are proprietary or unique, neither condition is considered adequate grounds for deviation from this policy. Suitable material transfer agreements can be drawn up between the provider and requester, but if a reasonable request is turned down and submitted to the Editor-in-Chief, the Corresponding Author will be held accountable. The consequence for noncompliance is simple: the Corresponding Author will not publish in The Oncologist for the following 3 years.

REGISTRIES/DATABASE REPORTING

Clinical trials registry
In accordance with the guidelines published by ICMJE, The Oncologist requires, as a condition of consideration for publication, that all clinical trials be registered in a public trials registry (for example, at http://www.clinicaltrials.gov). For more information, go to http://www.icmje.org and see Section III.J (Obligation to Register Clinical Trials).

Authors must comply with published CONSORT guidelines (http://www.consort-statement.org/). The completed checklist must be provided to AlphaMed Press along with the manuscript submitted. The recommended trial flow diagram should be presented as a figure.

Submission of sequences to GenBank^®
Original DNA sequences reported in The Oncologist must also be submitted to GenBank. Instructions for submission can be found at the following address: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Genbank/. An accession number should be supplied parenthetically at a relevant location in text.

Microarray databases
The Oncologist supports the efforts of the Microarray Gene Expression Data Society to standardize the presentation of microarray data, and we recommend that authors follow their guidelines and checklist (http://www.mged.org/Workgroups/MIAME/miame_checklist.html). In addition, the Journal strongly recommends the supplemental microarray data be deposited in a public database such as Gene Expression Omnibus (or GEO, at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo/) or Array Express (http://www.ebi.ac.uk/arrayexpress/) or submitted for peer review with the initial submission of the manuscript.

JOURNAL CONTENT

The following categories of submissions will be considered for inclusion in The Oncologist.

Please review the Submission Instructions for detailed submission information including how to prepare references and to review how and where to submit manuscripts. Submission Instructions are also available online at http://theoncologist.alphamedpress.org/misc/TOSubmissionInstructions.pdf.

Original articles
Original articles describing new findings of major importance should contain no more than 4,000 words of text (excluding abstract, tables, figures, legends, and references), and are limited to a total of seven figures/tables. If additional figures/tables are needed, they will be treated as supplemental data (see Supplemental data section below).

Review articles
Although most review articles are solicited by the Editors, unsolicited reviews will also be considered. Review articles should contain no more than 4,000 words of text and no more than seven figures/tables.

Commentaries
Editorial commentaries are most often solicited by the Editors, but unsolicited commentaries will be considered for publica¬tion. Commentaries may appear in any section of the Journal, depending on the content of the article. The Commentary format may be used for ongoing dialogues, pro-and-con discussions of controversial issues, or subjective articles of interest in any field of oncology.

Letters and eLetters to the Editors
Letters should comment on work previously published in The Oncologist and should contain fewer than 500 words of text.

Art, poetry, personal reflections
The Reflections section is reserved for the thoughts, feelings, and deep concerns of caregivers, their cancer patients, and their loved ones. The editors encourage our readers to share their art, poetry, and personal reflections.

Announcements
Announcements of meetings and conferences that are of interest to the readership of The Oncologist should be received by the Editorial Office at least 3 months before the event. These are posted online only.

REPRINTS

Reprints may be ordered on the form accompanying the proofs. Color reprints are available at a higher cost to the author(s). Charges are necessarily higher if orders for reprints are received after the issue has gone to press. Please allow 6 weeks from the date of publication for delivery of reprints. Air or expedited mail may be arranged at an additional charge.

BUSINESS MATTERS

Business correspondence and inquiries relating to advertising, subscriptions, bulk orders, back issues, or reprints should be sent to TheOncologist@AlphaMedPress.com.

 

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Telephone: 919-680-0011 • Fax: 919-680-4411 • E-mail: TheOncologist@AlphaMedPress.com
www.TheOncologist.com