Dr Sameer Pradhan Memorial Award

Methods:

It should include and describe the following aspects (do not use the headings in the manuscript /article):

The methods section should start out describing the nature of the study (randomized / blinded / prospective / retrospective, etc). Selection and Description of Participants: Describe your selection of the observational or experimental participants (patients or laboratory animals, including controls) clearly, including eligibility and exclusion criteria and a description of the source population. Technical information: Identify the methods, apparatus (give the manufacturer's name and address in parentheses), and procedures in sufficient detail to allow other workers to reproduce the results. Give references to established methods, including statistical methods (see below); provide references and brief descriptions for methods that have been published but are not well known; describe new or substantially modified methods, give reasons for using them, and evaluate their limitations. Identify precisely all drugs and chemicals used, including generic name(s), dose(s), and route(s) of administration.

Reports of randomized clinical trials should present information on all major study elements, including the protocol, assignment of interventions (methods of randomization, concealment of allocation to treatment groups), and the method of masking (blinding), based on the CONSORT Statement (http://www.consort-statement.org).

Statistical Methods:

Start this section in a separate paragraph(without placing the heading “statistics”).Whenever possible quantify findings and present them with appropriate indicators of measurement error or uncertainty (such as confidence intervals). Authors should report losses to observation (such as dropouts from a clinical trial). When data are summarized in the Results section, specify the statistical methods used to analyze them.

Results:

Present your results in a logical sequence in the text, tables, and illustrations, giving the main or most important findings first. Do not repeat in the text all the data in the tables or illustrations; emphasize or summarize only important observations. Restrict tables and figures to a total of 6 only (preferable to have most relevant tables and figures), needed to explain the argument of the paper and to assess its support. Use graphs as an alternative to tables with many entries; do not duplicate data in graphs and tables. The legends must be brief and relevant and the units of measurement must be clearly mentioned in tables and graphs, with the group names also mentioned in the same fashion as in the Methods section.

Discussion:

Include summary of key findings (primary outcome measures, secondary outcome measures, results as they relate to a prior hypothesis):Confounding variables, strengths and limitations of the study. Interpretation and implications in the context of the totality of evidence (is there a systematic review to refer to, if not, could one be reasonably done here and now?, what this study adds to the available evidence, any new possible mechanisms etc):Controversies raised by this study; and Future research directions (for this particular research collaboration, underlying mechanisms, clinical research etc). Do not repeat in detail data or other material given in the Introduction or the Results section. In particular, contributors should avoid making statements on economic benefits and costs unless their manuscript includes economic data and analyses. Avoid claiming priority and alluding to work that has not been completed. New hypotheses may be stated if needed, however they should be clearly labelled as such. These articles generally can have 6-8 authors, with correct details of their contribution entered in the first page / cover page file.

References

References should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text (not in alphabetic order). Identify references in text, tables, and legends by Arabic numerals in square bracket after the punctuation marks.

Reference writing style:

• Standard journal article (for up to six authors): Shukla N, Husain N, Agarwal GG, Husain M. Utility of cysticercusfasciolaris antigen in Dot ELISA for the diagnosis of neurocysticercosis. Indian J Med Sci 2008;62:222-7.
• Standard journal article (for more than six authors): List the first six contributors followed by et al. Nozari Y, Hashemlu A, Hatmi ZN, Sheikhvatan M, Iravani A, Bazdar A, et al. Outcome of coronary artery bypass grafting in patients without major risk factors and patients with at least one major risk factor for coronary artery disease. Indian J Med Sci 2007;61:547-54.

General Instructions:

• UK English should be used uniformly throughout the text [e.g., anaesthesia (NOT anesthesia), haemoglobin (NOT hemoglobin), programme (NOT program), haemodynamics (NOT hemodynamics), etc].
• Use only universally approved abbreviations (e.g., hour, minute, kilogram can be written as h, min, kg and NOT as hrs or hr, mts, kgs etc. Similarly, microgram should be expressed by the appropriate symbol ‘µg’ and should not be represented by mcg or in any other form).
• Avoid starting a sentence with numerical. If it has to start with a number, write the numerical in words.
• Wherever single digit numbers are written in the write up, write in words and not in numbers unless the numbers are accompanied by units of measurement.
• All the points in the article should be written as running statement and should not be presented in bulleted / numbered format, except in review articles.