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.
  • The submission has not been previously published, nor it is before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
  • I have read and agree with journal's copyright and License agreement on behalf of myself and my co-authors.
  • I have uploaded an IRC/IRB approval letter along with the manuscript.
  • 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 at provided as separate files.
  • The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines.
  • I certify that all funding, other financial support, and material support for this work are clearly identified in the manuscript. Also, competing interests are mentioned in the text.
  • The Manuscript is plagiarism free and similairy index at acceptable level (less than 15 %)

Author Guidelines

These guidelines are based on recommendations of ICMJE and COPE.

  1. Types of manuscript
  2. Manuscript
    1. Format
    2. Style
    3. Sections
      1. Title Page
      2. Main Text
        1. Abstract
        2. Introduction
        3. Methods
        4. Results
        5. Discussion
        6. Conclusion
      3. Figures and Images
      4. Tables
      5. Citations and References
        1. Citations
        2. References
        3. References Examples
      6. Supplementary material
      7. Patient Consent
      8. Conflict of Interest 
  3. Data Availability
  4. Permissions
  5. Copyright Notice
  6. Ahead of Print
  7. Archiving Policy
  8. Deposit Policy
  9. Preprint Policy
  10. Correction Policy
  11. Retraction Policy

Types of an article:

International Journal of Orofacial Research (IJOFR) encourages the authors to submit their esteemed work, in English, concerning fundamental and clinical aspects of all areas under the following sections. The sections of articles that are published in the Journal are listed and described below. Please select the section that best describes your paper. If your paper does not fall into any of these categories, please contact the Editorial Office.

The manuscript should be in English and related to dental science or dental auxiliary. It should be original in authorship and must provide knowledge to the dental field. The author should select the type of article during submission; however, the editorial board will decide the category under which the article will be published.

The following are the types of articles accepted by IJOFR.

  1. Editorial:
    1. It is usually written by a member of the editorial board or invited. It is unstructured and has no words or references limitation.
  2. Review article:
    1. It is a structured comprehensive article that is based on previously published articles. IJOFR gives priority to “systematic review article” over a “narrative review article”. There is a limitation on words (3500) and references (40). Systematic reviews may or may not be followed by a Meta-analysis section.
  3. Original research article:
    1. It has a structured format with a limitation of words (3000) and reference numbers (30). If the results of an article are presented only in terms of frequencies and percentages, it may not be published as "Research article" but as "Clinical audit".
  4. Case reports:
    1. It is a structured article (1500 words) with a short report of a condition or management of one or a few individual cases. IJOFR recommend CARE guidelines for reporting of case report(s). Please visit CARE Case Report Guidelines (care-statement.org) for more information.
  5. Special article:

    1. This is a special category /section dedicated to dental undergraduate students to exposure to research writing and shows undergraduate level research to the scientific research community and academician. Article on any research, hypothesis, idea, a concept developed by undergraduate students with help of mentor faculty will be accepted. It should be limited to 1500 words (the structured article is encouraged), should contain only 2 table / figure, 20 references.

    2. The undergraduate dental students must be perusing the dental degree recognized in India or aboard and he/she must have parent institute post-graduate degree holding faculty as mentor. ONLY undergraduate students up to 3 and mentoring faculty up to 2 will be given authorship. First Authorship must be given to undergraduate students only.

  6. Letter to the editor:
    1. It is a short and unstructured article with opinions (including criticism) of published articles. Sometime it may discuss matters of general interest without the opinion of published articles.
  7. Technical Note:

    1. A technical note article presents a technique, instrumentation, exploration method, or an assessment method that is truly new compared to earlier publications. Surgical techniques should be supported by sufficient experience and contain substantial illustrations, including videos. An evaluation or measurement method should specify how it was validated. A technical note should be no longer than 1500 words and include an abstract no longer than 250 words.

 
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Manuscript format

English is the official language of IJOFR. We prefer American to British English.

The manuscript should be submitted online as a Word (MS, OpenOffice or any other) document.

The authors have to register a free account on the Journal’s website following which they are able to submit the manuscript. By logging in to their account, they will be able to know the status of their submission. Contents of the journal can be accessed without registration or log in, but to upload or review a manuscript, registration is required.

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Style

  1. There should be no abbreviations in Title and abstract; however, universally popular abbreviations such as HIV, WHO may be used.
  2. Abbreviations should be fully spelled out at its first use.
  3. Do not use ‘&’, ‘@’ in the text. Do not bold or italicize the words.
  4. SI units should be used in the manuscript. BP should be in mm Hg, the temperature in °C.
  5. Always abbreviate units when reporting numerical information. Write in full in a non-numerical context. e.g. The mean height was 48.2 cm. The length was measured in meters.
  6. Write percentage as % without a space between the number and the sign. Write percentage to two decimal points if population size more than 100, one decimal if 10-100, and no percentage at all if the population is less than 10.
  7. When starting a sentence with a number and unit, both must be spelled out as words e.g. Eighty-three milligrams of …………..
  8. Put a space between number and unit e.g. 232.1 m.
  9. A sentence should begin with word (not numbers).
  10. Numbers less than 10 should be spelled out.
  11. Use 0 before the decimal point when writing numbers between -1 to 1.
  12. pH should be reported as “pH 7.4” (without the quotes).
  13. Drugs should preferably be written in generic name. If brand name has to be used, it should begin with a capital letter.
  14. Please make it clear what statistical test was used to generate every P value. Use of the word "significant" should always be accompanied by a P value; otherwise, use "substantial," "considerable," etc. P is always italicized and capitalized. Do not use 0 before the decimal point for statistical values P, alpha, and beta because they cannot equal 1, in other words, write P<.001 instead of P<0.001
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The manuscript should have the following in the given order

(Kindly read instruction carefully before preparing and submitting manuscript. Following file need to be submitted separately)

  1. Title page (a separate file, named as "Title page")
  2. Main text with following sections in the same order (also called IMRAD STRUCTURE) in a separate file, named as "Manuscript" :
    1. Abstract (including keywords)
    2. Introduction
    3. Methods
    4. Results
    5. Discussion
    6. Conclusion
  3. References in a separate file named as "References"
  4. Tables: (see ‘Table’ section below for details) All tables in a separate file named as "Tables"
  5. Figures/Image: (see ‘Figures and Images’ section below for details). They should be submitted as such. They should not be pasted in word file for submission.
  6. Institutional Review Board/Committee (IRB/IRC) approval letter is a must. (Though this is not a part of manuscript, it is mandatory)
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Title page

The title page should be on a separate page named "Title page" and should contain:

  1. Title of the article
    1. The title should be as brief as possible, but it should contain information about an independent and dependent variable, target population, control, and intervention.
    2. Study designs (particularly case-control, RCTs, systematic reviews, and meta-analysis) should be a part of the tile. It should be mentioned after the colon at the end of the title.
  2. Full name, highest academic degrees, name of the department(s) and institutions where they work, country, postal address, e-mail and telephone/mobile number of the corresponding author.
  3. ORCID of all authors (or ORCID of at least principal and corresponding author for time being). If you do not have an ORCID, you can get one at https://orcid.org for free.
  4. Full name, highest degrees, department, institution, city, and country of all co-authors.
  5. CRediT statements should be provided during the submission process and will appear above the acknowledgment section of the published paper as shown further below. For more information, please see the taxonomy website.

    An example of an Authors’ Contribution statement using CRediT with degree of contribution:

    ABC: review and editing (equal). DEF: Conceptualization (lead); writing – original draft (lead); formal analysis (lead); writing – review and editing (equal). GHI: Software (lead); writing – review and editing (equal). JKL: Methodology (lead); writing – review and editing (equal). LMN: Conceptualization (supporting); Writing – original draft (supporting); Writing – review and editing (equal).

  6. Any disclaimers, for e.g.:
    1. That the views expressed in the manuscript are their own and not those of the institution or funder.
    2. Sources of supports like grants, equipment, drugs, other supplies
    3. Any conflict of interest
    4. Acknowledgment
      • Those who contribute but do not meet all four criteria for authorship should not be listed as authors, but they should be acknowledged at the end of the text. Only the names of the persons but not their role should be written under the acknowledgement section
  7. Counts
    1. Word count for article's text (excluding abstract, acknowledgments, tables, figures and references)
    2. Word count for the Abstract (excluding keywords)
    3. Number of figures and tables
    4. Numbers of references
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Main Text:

Abstract:

    1. A structured abstract not exceeding 250 words excluding keywords.
    2. It should be divided into the following headings (NOT applicable for case report, letter to editor, editorial):
      1. Introduction, Methods, Results, Conclusion.
    3. Keywords:
      1. Keywords should be placed at the end of the abstract but it will not be included in the word count for the abstract.
      2. The author should add keywords (not exceeding five) relevant to the article.
      3. Keywords should be arranged in alphabetical order, separated by comma (,).
      4. Use medical subject heading (MeSH) only; visit this site to search your MeSH terms.

Introduction Section:

  1. Provide background or context (problem and its significance) of the study.
  2. Do not write the subject extensively.
  3. Write the
    1. Rationale or purpose of the study
    2. Objective; general and specific
    3. Hypothesis
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Methods Section:

  1. This section should be explained in detail so that other people can replicate your study to reproduce similar results.
  2. Write down the type of study design.
  3. Write the period of study. In case of a retrospective study, write both
    1. The period during which the original records were made
    2. The period during which the records were reviewed (secondary data collection)
  4. Describe the study population in detail (including controls if appropriate).
  5. Describe the selection of participants including inclusion and exclusion criteria.
    1. If participants of a certain age are only selected, authors should write the reason for doing so.
    2. If race, ethnicity, income, etc. are recorded, authors should explain how they measured them.
  6. If you use any apparatus, write the name and address of the manufacturer.
  7. If you apply established criteria or methods, give proper references.
  8. If you use any drug, write its generic name, brand name starting with a capital letter, dose, frequency, and route of administration.
  9. For review articles, authors should write in details about locating, selecting, extracting, and management of data. It should also be presented in the abstract.
  10. Describe statistical methods in detail.
    1. We encourage authors not only to present P-value while testing hypothesis, but also present a confidence interval to give a sense of effect size.
    2. State software used.
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Results section:

  1. Write your results in a logical sequence. Results with important findings should be present first.
  2. When you present results in a table or figure, do not repeat all those contents in the text. Present only the summary in the text.
  3. If you present age as age-group, there should be a rationale for that age-group.
  4. When you write percentage, write the corresponding frequency and the sample size for calculating that percentage.
  5. When you present a mean, you need to write a standard deviation as well. Similarly, for the median, you need to write range.
  6. When you write the results of statistical tests like the Chi-square or Student t-test, you need to write the value of test statistics (Chi-square or t value), the sample size for that test, degree of freedom, and P-value.
  7. We encourage to write a confidence interval where appropriate.

Statistics:

Describe statistical methods in the methods section. In the results section, always present mean with standard deviation, median with range, frequencies with percentages as described above. When you apply statistical tests, make sure you present test value (eg chi-square value, t-test value), the sample size for that calculation, degrees of freedom and P-value. Always present the exact value of P and not as >0.05, <0.05, or significant.

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Discussion section:

  1. Describe only new and important aspects of your study.
  2. Do not repeat all information from the results section or any section above.
  3. First, summarize the main findings, then
    1. describe the possible explanation or mechanism of those findings
    2. compare your results with other similar studies
    3. write the clinical implication of the findings
  4. present limitations of the study
  5. write the issues that are new or unsolved, for future research
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Conclusion section:

  1. The conclusion should be linked with the title and objectives of the study.
  2. Do not make statements not adequately supported by your findings.
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Figures and Images:

  1. Figures must be added as separate files.
  2. All figures must be numbered and cited in the main text in numerical order.
    1. Legends should be added at the end of the main text.
  3. Color figures and pictures will be accepted as such for the online version. 
  4. They must be submitted in JPEG files with a minimum resolution of 300 dpi (dots per inch).
  5. Figures should be large enough to read easily (between 8 points and 14 points font with Times New Roman typeface) and convey only essential information. The preferred typeface in figures is 12-pt Times New Roman.
  6. The histogram should be submitted in a simple 2-D form with a plain background.
  7. Remove or black out the details of patients from the figure/pictures where applicable. If the identity of the patients cannot be removed, a written consent from the patient is necessary.
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Tables:

  1. Prepare tables in Word format. Do not embed the table as Excel files or submit as photographs. Copy and paste them into the Word manuscript.
  2. Do not merge table cells, do not color the table, keep it as un-formatted as possible. In case of a complex table, submit two copies of tables; one as un-formatted as possible without merging cells an another processed, formatted table.
  3. Use tables for the purpose of simplifying text. A table with 2 or fewer columns and rows should be presented in text format.
  4. Place them at the end of the main text.
  5. They must be numbered and cited in the main text in numerical order.
  6. Do not duplicate the data in the table in the text or figures. Tell the reader what to look for, but only mention the major points of the table.
  7. In text, refer to every table e.g. As shown in Table 2, the …... Do not write “the table above” or “the table below.”
  8. The title is placed above the table. The title should follow legend “Table x: ” without quotes. Ensure that your table title is brief but explanatory.
  9. Ensure each column has a heading. Capitalize only the first letter of the first word of all headings. If a word is a proper noun, however, be sure to capitalize the first letter anyway.
  10. Standard abbreviations and symbols, such as % or no. may be used in headings without further explanation.
  11. Notes are placed below the table and preceded by * sign.
  12. If P-value is to be used, its real value should be used; not as >0.05, <0.05 or significant.
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Citation and References:

  1. Responsibility for the accuracy and completeness of citation and references rests entirely with the author.
  2. References should be in NLM/Pubmed (National Library of Medicine) format. The name of the journal should be abbreviated in accordance with the Index Medicus. If the journal is not listed in Index Medicus then it should be written out in full. Details of reference style can be found HERE.
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Citations:

  1. Only published or in press articles should be cited and included in the reference list.
  2. The citation should be consecutive starting from one.
  3. The citation in the text should be identified by Arabic numerals in superscript (with no word spacing) - for example2 .
  4. If in the text, an author cites a piece of work more than once, the same citation number should be used.
  5. With more than one reference in a sentence, they should be separated by a comma without spaces.
    1. eg: Several studies have examined the effect of ...................6,7,8,9,13,15 or ......1-4
  6. Citing the author's name in the text: One can use the author's name in the text, but s/he must insert the citation number as well. If a work has more than one author, use 'et al.' after the first author.
    1. eg: Simons et al. state that ....................
  7. Corporate Author: If one needs to cite a piece of work that does not have an obvious author, s/he should use what is called a 'corporate' author. The Vancouver style doesn't need the author's incitation in the text, but one still needs to include an author in the full reference at the end of the work.
    1. eg: The Department of Health advocates a national strategy for .................5
  8. Citing from chapters written by different authors: the author who wrote the chapter should be cited, not the editor of the book.
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References:

  1. References should be as recent as possible. We recommend references newer than three years old but not older than five years. Older references may be used if absolutely necessary.
  2. The number of references should be in consecutive order in which they are first mentioned in the text.
  3. References should be at the end of the manuscript.
  4. List all authors when six or less; when seven or more, list only first six and add et al.
  5. Use one space only between words up to the year and then no spaces.
  6. References should include DOI (Digital Object Identifier) if they have one. Those who do not have both should contain a web-link to the page containing that article.
  7. You use simple DOI finder tool from Crossref (Simple Text Query) which can fetch DOI for the references.
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Reference style examples:-

Journal Article (including review articles):

  • Patil M, Sardar M, Sinha A. A substantiate comparative study of the mandibular canine index method of gender assessment using two decedent Maharashtra population. Int J Orofac Res. 2022;6(1):5-10. doi: https://doi.org/10.56501/intjorofacres.v6i1.143

Journal Article (Ahead of print, Epub):

  • Patil M, Sardar M, Sinha A. A substantiate comparative study of the mandibular canine index method of gender assessment using two decedent Maharashtra population. Int J Orofac Res. 2022;6(1):5-10. Epub 10 April 2017. doi: https://doi.org/10.56501/intjorofacres.v6i1.143 Accessed on 15th of August, 2022.

Book

  • Oslen OW. Animal parasites - Their Life cycles and Ecology. 3rd ed. Baltimore: Univ Park Press; 1974.

Chapter in a book

  • Nimmannitya S. Dengue and dengue hemorrhagic fever. In: Cook G, ed(s). Manson's Tropical Diseases, 5th ed. London: WB Saunders; 1996:721-9.

Abstract/supplement

  • Add [abstract] along with the square brackets at the end of title before the period for abstract as in a journal article.
  • Add (Suppl 1) along with brackets after issue or volume (if the issue is not applicable) for a supplement.

Papers accepted for publication:

  • Write (in press) after the name of the journal. There will be no information on year, volume, issue, and the page number.

Websites:

  • Websites are referenced with their URL and access date, and as much other information as is available.
  • Morse SS. Factors in the emergency of infectious diseases. Emerg Infect Dis. 1995;1(1). www.cdc.gov/nciod/EID/vol1no1/morse.htm (accessed 5 Jun 2022).
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Supplementary Material

To enrich your content, you can include supplementary materials such as applications, images, and videos. Submitted supplemental materials are published precisely as submitted. This material will not be edited or formatted; thus, authors are responsible for the accuracy and presentation of all such material. Please submit your material together with the article and supply a concise, descriptive caption for each supplementary file. If you wish to make modifications to supplemental materials at any point during the process, please submit an updated file.

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Informed Consent

Authors should ensure that the individual rights of all the participants who are involved in the study are protected. Identifying details (eg, names and dates of birth) of the participants that were studied should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, and genetic profiles unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the participant (or parent or guardian if the participant is incapable) gave written informed consent for publication. 

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Conflict of Interest

All authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial and personal relationships with other people or organisations that could be viewed as inappropriately influencing their work. Examples of potential conflicts of interest which should be disclosed include employment, consultancies, stock ownership, paid expert testimony, patent applications/registrations, and grants or other funding.

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Data Availability

All published manuscripts reporting original research in journal must include a data availability statement. for more detail check HERE.

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Permissions

It is the author's responsibility to secure all permissions prior to publication. If you are using any material e.g., figures, tables or videos that have already been published elsewhere, you must obtain permission to reuse them from the copyright holder (author or publisher) and include any required permission statements in the figure legends. This includes your own previously published material if you are not the copyright holder.

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Copyright Notice

  • The International Journal of Orofacial Research (IJOFR) publishes open access articles under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License license. This license lets author retains copyright and allows for others to remix or otherwise alter the original material (with proper attribution), provided that they are not using it for any commercial purpose..
  • IJOFR requires an exclusive licence to publish the article first in its journal in online.
  • The corresponding author should read and agree to the following statement before submission of the manuscript for publication,

       License agreement

    • In submitting an article to International Journal of Orofacial Research (IJOFR) I certify that:
      1. I am authorized by my co-authors to enter into these arrangements.
      2. I warrant, on behalf of myself and my co-authors, that:
        1. the article is original, has not been formally published in any other peer-reviewed journal, is not under consideration by any other journal and does not infringe any existing copyright or any other third party rights;
        2. I am/we are the sole author(s) of the article and have full authority to enter into this agreement and in granting rights to IJOFR are not in breach of any other obligation;
        3. the article contains nothing that is unlawful, libellous, or which would, if published, constitute a breach of contract or of confidence or of commitment given to secrecy;
        4. I/we have taken due care to ensure the integrity of the article. To my/our - and currently accepted scientific - knowledge all statements contained in it purporting to be facts are true and any formula or instruction contained in the article will not, if followed accurately, cause any injury, illness or damage to the user.
      3. I, and all co-authors, agree that the article, if editorially accepted for publication, shall be licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. If the law requires that the article be published in the public domain, I/we will notify IJOFR at the time of submission, and in such cases the article shall be released under the Creative Commons 1.0 Public Domain Dedication waiver. For the avoidance of doubt it is stated that sections 1 and 2 of this license agreement shall apply and prevail regardless of whether the article is published under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License or the Creative Commons 1.0 Public Domain Dedication waiver.
      4. I, and all co-authors, agree that, if the article is editorially accepted for publication in IJOFR, data included in the article shall be made available under the Creative Commons 1.0 Public Domain Dedication waiver, unless otherwise stated. For the avoidance of doubt, it is stated that sections 1, 2, and 3 of this license agreement shall apply and prevail.

Please visit Creative Commons web page for details of the terms.

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Ahead of Print

Articles published online under the Ahead of Print model are considered published and can be cited and quoted using the DOI as the reference source.

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Archiving Policy

The journal is committed to the long-term preservation of its content. All articles published by the journal are digitally archived in PKP Preservation Network (PKP PN). In addition, journals encourage authors to archive published versions of their articles on their institutional repositories and as well as other appropriate websites.

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Deposit Policy

Authors are encouraged to deposit the final published PDF as follows:

  • on public eprint server
  • on a non-profit server
  • on the personal website
  • on the company or institutional repository

Authors should provide a link from the deposited version to the URL of the journal's website.

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Preprint Policy

The journal accepts articles previously published on preprint servers. You are requested to update any pre-publication versions with a link to the final published article. You may also post the final published version of the article immediately after publication.

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Correction Policy

For maintaining the integrity of the scientific record and avoiding inconsistencies downstream, minor corrections that do not affect the scientific understanding of the paper (for example formatting or typographical errors or preference of wording) may be rejected if submitted post-publication.

The correction procedure depends on the publication stage of the article, but in all circumstances a correction notice is released as soon as possible:

Online First publication: International Journal of Orofacial Research will consider replacing the Online First version with an updated version which corrects the error and notes the changes that have been made and the date(s) on which the changes were made (in a correction notice at the end of the article).

Publication in an issue: If the article has already appeared in an issue, a correction notice will be released in the next available electronic and print issue. The online version of the article will link to the correction notice.

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Retraction Policy

Retractions are considered by journal editors in cases of evidence of unreliable data or findings, plagiarism, duplicate publication, and unethical research. All retraction notices explain why the article was retracted. A retraction notice will also be published in the next available electronic and print issue.

Editors should consider retracting a publication if:

  • They have clear evidence that the findings are unreliable, either as a result of major error (eg, miscalculation or experimental error), or as a result of fabrication (eg, of data) or falsification (eg, image manipulation).
  • It constitutes plagiarism.
  • The findings have previously been published elsewhere without proper attribution to previous sources or disclosure to the editors, permission to republish, or justification (ie, cases of redundant publication).
  • It contains material or data without authorization for use.
  • Copyright has been infringed or there is some other serious legal issue (eg, libel, privacy).
  • It reports unethical research.
  • It has been published solely on the basis of a compromised or manipulated peer review process.
  • The author(s) failed to disclose a major competing interest would have unduly affected interpretations of the work or recommendations by editors and peer reviewers.

Privacy Statement

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

Using Personal Information

Any personal information received by the journal will only be used to process and publish your manuscript. 
  • enable your access to and use of the website services;
  • process your manuscript;
  • publish your manuscript. 

If you have any questions about this privacy policy of your personal information, please send an email to ijofr.sdc@saveetha.com