The following guidelines will help authors to correctly prepare and submit papers to the Smile Dental Journal. They are general instructions that apply to all types of papers in the Smile Dental Journal (SDJ). Please read this information carefully before submitting any papers to the SDJ.

Important Preliminary Information

The SDJ accepts manuscripts either on-line or via the mail. Please see the appropriate section below. It is a condition of acceptance of manuscripts that they are the work solely of the author or authors stated and that they have not been previously published elsewhere (either in print or electronic format) nor are they under consideration by any other periodical.

Criteria for Acceptance

Manuscripts and general items should meet the following criteria:

- They should be original, clearly written, relevant to dentistry, reader-orientated (in other words written to appeal to the readership of dentists) and designed to inform, add to discussion or debate, or entertain.

- Research papers should also have appropriate study methods, valid data and conclusions that are supported by the data

- The main author (named as the corresponding author on the manuscript) should be prepared to communicate with the editorial office and with all other authors (where appropriate) regarding the submission and preparation of the paper (assuming acceptance). All authors of research papers should have some involvement in at least one of the following: intellectual content of the paper by involvement in the design of the study, the collection of data and/or the analysis and interpretation of data the drafting and editing of the manuscript the statistical analysis of the manuscript substantial involvement in obtaining funding, administrative and/or technical support or supervision of the study.

Manuscript Submission

- Electronic submission: Authors are encouraged to submit manuscripts online at www.smiledentaljornal.com  or email manuscripts@smile-mag.com

- Acknowledgement of receipt is sent for all articles meet the submission guidelines  with a reference number for future correspondence.

- Peer Review: All papers undergo initial screening for suitability for theSDJ by the Editorial team. Suitable papers are then peer reviewed by two or more referees. Additional specialist advice may be sought if necessary, before a final decision is made by the Editorial director.
 
Manuscript format

- Manuscripts should be word processed and double-spaced with a margin of at least 4 cm on the left-hand side. The pages should be numbered consecutively at the top of each sheet. Page 1 of the manuscript should give only the title of the article, the authors' names, qualifications and address/es.

- Length of contributions: Ideally contributions should be no more than 3000 words, including tables and figures. Tables count as 100-500 words depending on size and figures represent the same.

- Titles must be descriptive and concise. Research articles must have a structured abstract; Practice articles (including Case Reports), Education, Opinion and General articles should be introduced with a short abstract.

- Abstracts should be able to stand alone. Do not insert references in the abstract and use few abbreviations. Abstracts may be up to 200 words in length, depending on the paper's complexity.

- Data or Tables may be submitted in Excel format or included at the end of the Word document.

- Illustrations: If possible, please submit the original photographs/slides via e-mail.  Please note that figures and photos should be in TIFF, JPEG or EPS format in either greyscale or colour. Please ensure that photographs are not embedded in Word or PowerPoint but are individual files at a high resolution of 300 pixels per inch. making sure that they are of high resolution, and sent in a separate file.

- If a person is recognisable from a photograph, written consent of the patient to publication must be obtained by the author and a copy sent to the SDJ.

- References must be in the Vancouver style. They should be numbered in the order in which they appear in the text, and these numbers should be inserted as superscripts each time the author is cited (Smith3-5 reported similar findings). Other references to the paper should be given in the same way after punctuation (Other studies have shown this to be true.4,5 Joneset al.6 demonstrated...).

- At the end of the article the full list of references should give the names and initials of all authors unless there are more than six, in which case only the first three should be given followed by et al. The authors' names are followed by the title of the article; the title of the journal abbreviated according to the style of Index Medicus and Index to Dental Literature; the year of publication; the volume number; and the first and last page numbers in full. Titles of books should be followed by the place of publication, the publisher, and the year.

Examples of Reference Styles

Reference to an article
1. Esposito M, Grusovin MG, Felice P, Karatzopoulos G, Wor- thington HV, Coulthard P. Interventions for replacing missing teeth: horizontal and vertical bone augmentation techniques for dental implant treatment. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2009;4:CD003607.

Reference to a book
4. Hargreaves I A, Craig J W. The management of traumatised anterior teeth of children. 2nded. Edinburgh: Churchill Livingstone, 1981.

Reference to a book chapter
7. Harding S R, Fryer J I. Recurrent oral ulceration in Greenland natives. In Casselli G (ed) Coeliac diseases. 3rd ed. pp 307-324. London: Stoma Press, 1982.

Reference to a report
2. Committee on Mercury Hazards in Dentistry. Code of practice for dental mercury hygiene. London: Department of Health and Social Security, 1979, publication no. DHSS 79-F3 72.

- The author is responsible for the accuracy of the reference list at the end of the article.

- Acknowledgements should be grouped in a paragraph at the end of the text and before the references. Permission and approval of the wording must be obtained from the person thanked. Where the research project was supported by industry, this should be acknowledged in the covering letter to the Editor on submission of the manuscript.

- Declaration of interests: Please ensure that you declare any possible conflicts of interest in your paper. This includes matters such as: funding from an organisation or company directly for the research; funding you have received (or payment in kind) for any work you have been involved in from an organisation or company that could be linked to the research; consultation or advisory positions you may hold in an organisation or company involved in the research or an organisation involved in similar research; any other situation that could be construed as a conflict of interest.

- Saving files with Microsoft Office 2007: Microsoft Office 2007 saves files in an XML format by default (file extensions .docx, .pptx and xlsx). Files saved in this format cannot be accepted for publication. Please save Word documents using the file extension .doc.

Important Notes

- Confidentiality: The existence and content of all manuscripts under review is kept confidential within the offices of the SDJ. All referees are requested to respect that confidentiality. Following acceptance all information relating to a paper will be kept confidential within the SDJ offices.

- Ethics: Articles involving clinical research should conform to the guidelines issued in the Declaration of Helsinki where applicable, and in general should have received ethical committee approval. For further review of the subject see the British Medical Journal, 1991, volume 302, pages 338-341.

- Copyright: All authors assign copyright of their articles to the Smile Dental Journal upon acceptance. Single copies of papers can be made for personal use free of charge. Multiple copies can be made only after permission has been granted by Smile Dental Journal.

- The Editor reserves the right to edit manuscripts for clarity of expression and to conform to acceptable style and the limits of space available. Proofs are supplied for the correction of misprints only — materials should only be added or removed at this stage in exceptional circumstances.
 
- Withdrawal: Manuscripts may be withdrawn at any stage prior to acceptance by submitting a request to the Editors-in-Chief. Withdrawal is not possible after the acceptance letter has been released

- Publication: Final publication of accepted manuscripts occurs within four months of acceptance; the accepted, peer-reviewed version is published online as soon after acceptance as possible. Accepted manuscripts are subject to light copy editing to correct grammar and impose standard journal style.

- Retraction: If a published paper must be retracted, a complete explanation must be submitted to the Editors-in-Chief. If it is found that the paper must be retracted, the editorial staff will include the statement of retraction in the next available issue.

Specific Guidlines:

Case Reports, Practice Papers & Education Papers:

• Case Reports are short reports up to 1500 words in length, with one table or two illustrations or diagrams, and ideally no more than four references.
• Education papers are articles with a focus on dental education. This includes all areas of dental education, eg both educators and providers, postgraduate and undergraduate education, vocational training and continuing professional development.

The format of the case report  or practice/education paper should be as follows:

• Abstract (no more than 50 words)
• Case report (to include short relevant history of patient, examination and investigations)
• Treatment (to include clear instructions of procedure and to include materials used, dosage and approved names of drugs)
• Differential diagnosis (to mention points of interest and a few alternatives of importance)
• Comment (to include report of progress, lesson to be learnt from case).

- Research Papers:
Research manuscripts should be formatted and submitted according to the guidelines for papers, with the following additional guidelines taken into account:

- Abstracts: should be no more than 200 words long and structured under the following headings:

- Objective: The abstract should begin with a precise statement of why the study was done, usually in one sentence. It should be possible to make a connection between the conclusion and the objective.

- Design: A few words describing the type of study — for example, 'double blind trial', 'prospective random control trial', 'retrospective analysis', 'open study', and whether the study was single or multi-centre.

- Setting: To assist readers to assess the applicability of the study to their own circumstances this paragraph should state whether the setting was the community, a university department, a hospital, or general practice. The country and year of the study should be given.

- Subjects (materials) and methods: This should state whether and how subjects were selected and from what population. This will give the reader an idea of the generalisability of the results.

- Interventions: This should include a description of any intervention. Generic names of drugs are preferred but trade names may be given as well in case there is some difference in the formulation from country to country.

- Main outcome measures: Methods by which patients were assessed or the success of experiments judged should be mentioned, and those that may be unfamiliar to readers should be described. The outcome that was sought should be stated.

- Results: The main results should be given, including the number, gender and age of the subjects, together with a note of the fate of exclusions and withdrawals. Numerical results should be stated as mean (SD) or mean (SEM) in the case of normally distributed data, and median (range or interquartile) if the data are skewed; 95% confidence intervals (CI) and the level of significance of differences should be indicated. If the differences in the main outcome measures between two (or more) groups are not significantly different the 95% CI for the difference should be given and any clinical inference stated.

- Conclusion(s): Only those conclusions supported by the data that are presented should be given, followed by a short statement on the clinical applications of the results, if any, bearing in mind the limitations implicit in the study — for example, size of sample, number of withdrawals, or length of follow-up.

- Sub-headings: Authors should try to use the same headings that are used in the structured abstract. If the text needs subdividing further within these sections, then a second level of headings can be used. If this approach is used, the hierarchy of the subheads should be made clear with the use of block caps or bold text.

- Tables should be typed on pages separate from the text. Please do not send manuscripts with tables inserted into the main body of text. Each should have a caption which will explain the table without reference to the text. Authors may wish to consider presenting their tables in pie- or bar-chart form.