Diabetologia

• General information
• Editorial Board
• EASD

• What does an Editor look for?
• Instructions to Authors
• Guidelines for genetic association studies
• Clinical trials
• How to submit
• Acceptance: what next?
• Rejection: what next?

• Guidance for reviewers
• Referees 2008−2009

• View our cover gallery

• Style guide

Instructions to Authors

• General information
• Organisation of full-length papers
• Approved abbreviations and units of expression for use without definition
• Types of articles
• Electronic Supplementary Material
• Supplements
• Revised manuscripts
• Resubmitted manuscripts
• Proofs
• Offprints
• Permissions
• Copyright

Diabetologia publishes reports of clinical and experimental work on all aspects of diabetes research and related subjects, provided they have scientific merit and represent an important advance in knowledge. The Editor-in-Chief will consider papers from any country whether or not the author(s) is a member of the EASD. Manuscripts must be written in English (according to the Concise Oxford Dictionary). There are no page charges. A word count must be provided both for Abstracts (a maximum of 250 words) and the main text (exclusive of references, tables and figure legends). Diabetologia expects authors of accepted manuscripts to keep original data available for a minimum of 5 years.

Exclusivity

Diabetologia does not publish material that has been printed previously or is under consideration for publication elsewhere. When submitting an article all authors are asked to sign a declaration stating that the manuscript is not under consideration elsewhere (author signed statement). They are also asked to disclose any conflicts of interest that might bias their work. Authors should acknowledge in the manuscript all financial support for the work and other personal connections.

Redundant publication

In their covering letter authors should notify the Editor of any potentially overlapping papers in preparation, submission or published. Failure to disclose such information is considered grounds for automatic rejection. Where the author has any doubt as to the significance of any overlap, copies of papers should be included with the submitted manuscript to allow the Editor to make an informed decision.

Salami slicing

Data should not be sliced to the size of the smallest publishable unit but must be a complete documentation of a study.

Papers rejected by other journals

There is no obligation to state that a manuscript has previously been submitted to another journal, but credit will be given to authors who include referees’ reports and their own responses to these. Referees who have already seen a paper will not be sympathetic if they find that their previous comments have been ignored.

Clinical trials

In line with requirements of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (http://www.icmje.org/, http://www.icmje.org/faq.pdf), Diabetologia requires authors to have registered their trial in a registry at the time of conception. The registry must:

• be accessible to the public at no charge;
• be open to all prospective registrants and managed by a not-for-profit organisation;
• be a mechanism to ensure the validity of the registration data;
• be electronically searchable.

Acceptable trial registries include:

• Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (www.actr.org.au)
• ClinicalTrials.gov (www.clinicaltrials.gov)
• International Standard Randomised Controlled Trial Number Register (http://isrctn.org)
• UMIN Clinical Trials Registry (www.umin.ac.jp/ctr/index.htm)
• Nederlands Trial Register (www.trialregister.nl/)
• or any registries accepted by WHO as primary registers (see http://www.who.int/ictrp/network/primary/en/index.html)

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In this section:

• a) Title page
• b) Abstract
• c) Introduction
• d) Methods
• e) Footnotes
• f) Results
• g) Discussion
• h) Acknowledgements
• i) Duality of interest
• j) References - including Endnote style template
• k) Tables
• l) Figures
• m) Legends for figures

a) Title page

This page should state: (1) title of paper (including animal species if appropriate); (2) authors’ names (initials and surname only – no qualifications); (3) institution(s) of origin; (4) corresponding author plus his/her address, telephone and fax numbers and e-mail address; (5) word count (both of Abstract and main text).

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b) Abstract

The Abstract should be no more than 250 words. Abstracts are to be structured into four paragraphs as follows: (1) Aims/hypothesis; (2) Methods; (3) Results; (4) Conclusions/interpretation. The Abstract should not contain unexplained abbreviations.
For clinical trials, the trial registry number should be included at the end of the Abstract.
For randomised control trials (RCTs), abstracts should include the checklist items set out in the CONSORT guidelines (see http://www.consort-statement.org/index.aspx?o=1190)
Keywords. Up to ten keywords (suitable for Index Medicus listing) should be provided at the end of the Abstract.
Abbreviations. Excluding Diabetologia’s standard abbreviations, please define abbreviations used throughout the manuscript, in alphabetical order, after the keywords.

c) Introduction

The Introduction should contain a clear statement of the aim and novelty of the study. It should include neither results nor conclusions.

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d) Methods

Sufficient information should be given to permit repetition of the experimental work.

Randomised control trials Authors should follow the CONSORT statement (see http://www.consort-statement.org/index.aspx?o=1011) and also include a patient flow diagram.

Description of patients The terms type 1 diabetes mellitus and type 2 diabetes mellitus should normally be used. Detailed descriptions should be provided of the patients’ clinical characteristics upon which the classification was made. Note: diabetic should not be used as a noun, i.e. use 'diabetic patients' not 'diabetics'. Relative body weight should be expressed in terms of body mass index, i.e. (weight in kg)/(height in metres)² (not % ideal body weight).

Informed consent and ethics committee approval A paper describing experimental work in humans must (1) indicate that informed consent has been obtained from patients where appropriate, (2) include a statement that the responsible ethics committee (institutional review board) has given approval, and/or indicate that the reported investigations have been carried out in accordance with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki as revised in 2000. Do not use patients’ names, initials or hospital numbers, especially in illustrative material. Uniform requirements should be followed for ethical standards [http://www.wma.net/en/20activities/10ethics/index.html].

Experimental animals Age, sex, source and, where appropriate, the genetic background of the animals used should be given. The Editorial Board will pay particular attention to the ethical aspects of animal experimentation. Reports of animal experiments must state that the ‘Principles of laboratory animal care’ (NIH publication no. 85–23, revised 1985; http://grants1.nih.gov/grants/olaw/references/phspol.htm) were followed, as well as specific national laws where applicable. The editors reserve the right to reject manuscripts that do not comply with the above-mentioned requirements. The authors will be held responsible for false statements or for failure to fulfil the above-mentioned requirements. Animals should be described as being killed rather than sacrificed.

Abbreviations A list of accepted abbreviations to be used without definition is available here. Please use other abbreviations only when necessary and define them in a separate list given after the keywords. Abbreviations should not normally appear in the title or Abstract. Endocrine pancreatic cells should be designated as beta cells (not ß cells or b cells), alpha cells, delta cells or PP cells.

Equipment Manufacturer, city, state (if applicable) and country must be given.

Chemical substances must be properly identified. Except for standard laboratory chemicals, the source of supply must be given. Drugs must be identified by the generic or official name wherever possible. Proprietary names should be avoided.

Genes Italic characters should be used for gene symbols including genotypes, alleles etc. For further details see the guidelines recommended by the Human Gene Nomenclature Committee, (http://www.genenames.org) or by the Jackson Laboratory,
(http://www.informatics.jax.org/mgihome/nomen/gene.shtml).

Radioisotopes Isotopically labelled chemicals should be identified by the atomic number and symbol of the isotope and its location in the molecule. The specific activity of the starting material should be given in terms of becquerels (Bq: disintegrations/second) per molar weight.

Bioassays and radioimmunoassays An appropriate measure of the precision in terms of standard deviation (SD), standard error of the mean (SEM), coefficient of variation or 95% confidence intervals should be given. Reference to the original technique should be included.

Buffers and incubation media Compositions of incubation media should be described, or a reference supplied, together with the pH. Concentrations of solutions should be described in molar terms (mol/l and subunits thereof), equivalents or percentage weight/volume or weight/weight. Mass concentration should be expressed as g/l (or subunits thereof – mg/l or µg/l). It should always be made clear whether concentrations in a mixture are final concentrations or those of solutions added. In the case of insulin, mU/l is acceptable.

Units of measurement. Units should conform to the SI convention, except for blood pressure (which should be expressed in mmHg) and haemoglobin (g/l). Gas or pressure values should be given as mmHg with kPa in parentheses or vice versa. Where molecular weight is known, the amount of a substance should be expressed in mol or appropriate subunit (mmol etc.). Energy should be expressed in kJ. NB: The solidus may be used in a unit but not more than once (e.g. mmol/l is acceptable, but ml/min/kg is not acceptable and should be replaced with ml min^–1 kg^–1).

Statistical analyses Describe statistical methods in sufficient detail to enable a knowledgeable reader with access to the original data to verify the reported results. Computer software packages that are used for anything other than widely known standard statistical procedures should be identified by name or acronym and by author or organisation of origin. Reference for statistical methods should preferably be to standard works (with pages stated) rather than to papers in which designs or methods were originally reported. When variability is expressed in terms of the SEM or SD, the number of observations (n) must also be given. When possible, quantify findings and present them with appropriate indicators of measurement error or uncertainty (such as confidence intervals). Both the sample size and statistical significance should be predefined; p values should be given.

Common errors (1) Using one-tailed instead of two-tailed tests; (2) inappropriate use of parametric analyses; and (3) lack of p correction when using multiple comparisons. If necessary, professional statistical advice will be sought by the Editor-in-Chief.

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e) Footnotes

Footnotes should not be used.

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f) Results

The Results should be stated concisely without discussion and should not normally contain any references. The same data should not be presented in figures and tables. Do not repeat all the data that are set out in the tables or figures in the text; emphasise or summarise only important observations.

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g) Discussion

The Discussion should deal with the interpretation of the results and not recapitulate them. We encourage authors to write their Discussion in a structured way, as follows:

• statement of principal findings;
• strengths and weaknesses of the study;
• strengths and weaknesses in relation to other studies;
• discussion of important differences in results; meaning of the study;
• unanswered questions and future research.

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h) Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements should be as brief as possible. Any grant support that requires acknowledgement should be mentioned. The names of funding organisations should be written in full. Any editorial assistance should be acknowledged.

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i) Duality of interest

Authors are responsible for recognising and disclosing conflicts of interest that might bias their work. They should acknowledge in the manuscript all financial support for the work and other personal connections.

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j) References

References to the literature should be credited to the original findings and be in numerical order in the text, the number being given in square brackets on the line, and should be typed and numbered in the same order at the end of the manuscript. There must be only one reference per number. Reference may only be made to Abstracts published in the current or preceding year.

Reference list In accordance with Springer publishing policy, all references should be in the ELSE-Ciba style. The following formats should be used:

Articles in journals Names of up to six authors with initials (seven authors or more should be abbreviated to et al. after the third author’s name); (year); title of paper in full; abbreviated name of journal (according to Index Medicus see http://www.nlm.nih.gov/tsd/serials/lji.html); volume number; first and last page numbers, e.g.: Tanaka Y, Tran PO, Harmon J, Robertson RP (2002) A role for glutathione peroxidase in protecting pancreatic ß cells against oxidative stress in a model of glucose toxicity. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 99:12363–12368

Whole book Names of all authors with initials; (year); title of book; edition; name and city of publisher, e.g.: Ekoé JM, Zimmet P, Williams R (2001) The epidemiology of diabetes mellitus. An international perspective. Wiley, Chichester

Chapter from a book Names of all authors with initials; (year); chapter title; In: editors’ names with initials (eds); title of book; volume number; name and city of publisher; pp first and last page numbers, e.g.: Hopper JL (2000) Why ‘common environmental effects’ are so uncommon in the literature. In: Spector TD, Snieder H, MacGregor AJ (eds) Advances in twin and sib-pair analysis. Oxford University Press, London, pp 151–165

Letters to the Editor As for articles in journals: e.g.: t’Hart LM, Dekker JM, Heine RJ, Maassen JA (2003) Lack of association between gene variants in the ALMSI gene and Type 2 diabetes mellitus. Diabetologia 46:1023–1024

Abstracts As for articles in journals, with (Abstract) after the page numbers: e.g. Khalifah RG, Chen Y, Price DL, Booth AA (2002) Mechanism of inhibition of advanced glycation endproducts by Pyridorin™, a novel therapeutic for diabetic complications. Diabetologia 45 [Suppl 2]: A1222 (Abstract)

Website Authors; (year); title; URL; date accessed, e.g.: Regional Office for the Western Pacific of the World Health Organization, International Association for the Study of Obesity and the International Obesity Task Force (2000) The Asia-Pacific perspective: Redefining obesity and its treatment. Available from http://www.obesityasiapacific.com, accessed 10 October 2003

Papers quoted as ‘in press’ Authors should provide an electronic version of any manuscripts cited as ‘in press’ when they submit their manuscript to Diabetologia. If an accepted paper contains references to a manuscript ‘in press’, written evidence that the manuscript has been accepted will be requested. Numbered references to personal communications, unpublished data and manuscripts either ‘in preparation’ or ‘submitted for publication’ are unacceptable. If essential, such references may be incorporated in parentheses in the appropriate place in the text, but written consent to publication must be provided.

The references are the responsibility of the authors. They must be written correctly and be rechecked by the authors in the proofs. References to abstracts (only current and preceding year), letters to the editor, congress proceedings, and non-peer-reviewed publications should be kept to a minimum.

EndNote style template:

A Diabetologia style template is now available for EndNote. It can be downloaded by clicking here. Save the file in the appropriate folder in your EndNote program directory, usually:
Windows—C:\Program Files\EndNote
or
Mac OS X—Harddrive:Applications:Endnote.
The style template will be available when you select 'Output Styles' in the Edit menu.

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k) Tables

Use the table function of your word processing program, not spreadsheets, to create tables. Tables should be numbered with Arabic numerals. Each table should have a short informative heading which is self-explanatory without reference to the text. Footnotes should be kept to a minimum. Describe the method used in the text of the Methods section and not in a footnote. Only conditions specific to the particular experiment can be stated. The units in which the results are expressed should be given in parentheses at the head of each column and not repeated on each line of the table. Avoid abbreviations. Superscripts ‘a’, ‘b’, ‘c’ should be used for footnotes (not asterisks or any other symbols). See a recent issue of the journal for examples. Large amounts of additional information can be submitted for publication electronically as supplementary material.

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l) Figures

Graphs and diagrams: See a current issue of Diabetologia for style and layout – wherever possible omit headings, keys to symbols and statistics (which should be included in the legend). Line drawings and graphs should be of professional standard. Freehand or typewritten lettering and numbering are unacceptable. Ruled lines, curves and symbols must be sufficiently bold to withstand reduction to one column width (8.6 cm). Curves should not be drawn beyond the experimental points, nor should experimental points extend beyond the scales of the axes. For scatter diagrams, solid symbols are preferred.

Halftone images: Whenever possible, prints should be cropped to be one column width (8.6 cm) or be capable of being reduced to such size. If grouping into plates is desired, the layout should be indicated as a diagram. Numbers, letters and symbols must be large enough to be read easily after reduction (final size 2 mm or larger for lettering and numbering). Magnification should be indicated in the legend and where appropriate by an internal reference marker on the photograph itself (as a horizontal line at least 1 mm thick after reduction). If photographs of patients are used, either the subject should not be identifiable, or the picture must be accompanied by written permission to use the figure.

Diabetologia offers its authors free use of colour

Please note that if your manuscript is accepted for publication you will be asked to provide figures as TIF, GIF or JPEG files. Scanned line drawings should be digitised with a resolution of 1000 dpi. For digital halftones and colour images, 300 dpi is usually sufficient. Colour illustrations should be stored as RGB (8 bits per channel) in TIFF format.

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m) Legends for figures

Legends should be short, self-explanatory and contain enough information to identify the figures and enable them to stand as a separate entity from the text. Legends, however, should not describe methodological detail. Keys to symbols and the statistical analysis should be included in the legend, not in the figure.

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Approved abbreviations and units of expression for use without definition

Types of articles

Electronic Supplementary Material (ESM)

Supplements

Revised manuscripts

Resubmitted manuscripts

Proofs

Offprints

Permissions

Copyright