Manuscript Submission	Basic Criteria	Categories of Articles	Manuscript Preparation
The Editorial and Peer Review Process	Preparation for Publication		Publication Charges and Reprints

Copyright

Dermatologica Sinica aims to publish high quality scientific research in the field of dermatology, with the goal of promoting and disseminating medical science knowledge to improve global health. Articles on clinical, laboratory and social research in dermatology and other related fields that are of interest to the medical profession are eligible for consideration. Review articles, original articles, brief reports, case reports, correspondence, and resident’s forum are accepted. The Journal is published every 3 months, with a total of 4 issues a year.
These Instructions to Authors will be revised by the Editorial Committee as needed. Authors should consult a recent issue of the Journal or visit http://www.dermatol-sinica.com for the latest version of the instructions. Any manuscript not prepared according to these instructions will be returned immediately to the author(s) without review. The Editorial Board requires authors to be in compliance with the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals (URMs); current URMs are available at http://www.icmje.org.

Manuscript Submission

Manuscripts should be submitted online through Elsevier's Editorial System (EES). This system can be accessed at http://ees.elsevier.com/dsi. This site will guide authors stepwise through the submission process. If assistance is required, please refer to the tutorials and/or customer supports that are available on the website, or you may contact the Editorial Office.

Editorial office
Dermatologica Sinica
10F 1, 321 Changchun Road, Jhongshan District,
Taipei City 10479, Taiwan (R.O.C.)
E-mail: dermatol.sinica@gmail.com

Supporting documents
Whichever method of submission you choose, please ensure that the following documents are also included. Please note that items 1–4 are required for all manuscripts. Forms for items 1–4 can be downloaded at http://www.dermatol-sinica.com:

1. Checklist (required). A completed checklist signed by the first author must be submitted along with the manuscript submission.
2. Authorship Statement (required). The form stating that all authors qualify for authorship, have read and accept responsibility for the manuscript. Submitted manuscripts are considered with the understanding that they have not been published previously in print or electronic format (except in abstract or poster form) and are not under consideration in totality or in part by another publication or electronic medium.
    
3. Conflict of Interest Statement (required). All authors are required to sign and submit the financial disclosure statement at the time of manuscript submission. Each author’s name must be listed under one or the other of the two paragraphs on the form as appropriate. For any authors with potential conflicts, please list the details for each author separately in the space indicated. Any non-financial conflicts should also be disclosed.
    
4. Copyright Transfer Agreement (required). The form agreeing to transfer copyright to Dermatologica Sinica upon acceptance of the manuscript must be signed by all authors.
    
5. Ethics Statement. For human or animal experimental investigations, appropriate institutional review board or ethics committee approval is required, and such approval should be stated in the methods section of the manuscript. For those investigators who do not have formal ethics review committees, the principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki should be followed (World Medical Association. Declaration of Helsinki: Ethical principles for medical research involving human subjects. Available at: http://www.wma.net/en/30publications/10policies/b3/index.html).
    
6. Privacy and Confidentiality. Articles where human subjects can be identified in descriptions, photographs or pedigrees must be accompanied by a signed statement of informed consent to publish (in print and online) the descriptions, photographs or pedigrees from each subject who can be identified. Such persons should be shown the manuscript before its submission. Omitting data or making data less specific to de-identify patients is acceptable, but changing any such data is not acceptable.
    
7. Reproduction. Where material has been reproduced from other copyrighted sources, the letter(s) of permission from the copyright holder(s) to use the copyrighted sources must be supplied.
    
8. Claims of Priority. If claiming that your report is the first of a particular entity, a detailed description must be provided in a separate letter of the search strategy and database(s) used, languages of the literature searched, and whether secondary sources such a bibliographies of published works were searched.

Basic Criteria

Articles should be written in English and meet the following basic criteria: the material is original, the information is important, the writing is clear and concise, the study methods are appropriate, the data are valid, and the conclusions are reasonable and supported by the data.

Categories of Articles

Dermatologica Sinica publishes the following types of articles:

1. Review Articles: This category of article is not subject to the usual peer review and the contributing authors will be invited by the Editors. These should aim to provide the reader with a balanced overview of an important and topical subject in the field, and should be systematic and critical assessments of literature and data sources. The text should not exceed 4,500 words.
    
2. Original Articles: These may be randomized trials, intervention studies, studies of screening and diagnostic tests, laboratory and animal studies, cohort studies, cost-effectiveness analyses, case-control studies, and surveys with high response rates, which represent new and significant contributions to the field. Section headings should be: Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgments (if applicable), Conflicts of Interest (if any), References. The text should not exceed 3,500 words.
    
3. Brief Reports: These should clearly and concisely describe clinical or technical notes, preliminary experimental results or instrumentation and analytic techniques. Section headings should be: Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgments (if applicable), Conflicts of Interest (if any), References. The text should not exceed 2,000 words. The Editors reserve the right to decide what constitutes a Brief Report.
    
4. Case Reports: These are short discussions of a case or case series with unique features not previously described that make an important teaching point or scientific observation. Section headings should be: Abstract, Introduction, Case Presentation, Discussion, Acknowledgments (if applicable), References. The text should not exceed 2,000 words.
    
5. Correspondence: A section for a concise case report, or preliminary observation on a disease or treatment. The text should not exceed 1,200 words, 3 figures, and 8 references.
    
6. Resident’s Forum: These include descriptions of a typical presentation of a rare disease or an unusual presentation of a common disease and should not exceed 800 words, 3 figures, and 5 references.
    
7. Fast-track review: This is an expedited review process that may be requested by authors for any of the above article types at the time of their first submission. Authors will be charged NT$10,000 (US$350) for the process. Within 3 business days, the associate editors will make an initial assessment of the manuscript and assign appropriate reviewers. Once the reviewers accept the review request, they will send in their comments within 1 week. The Editorial Office will return the decision to authors within 2 days after all the reviewing processes have been completed. There is no guarantee that the article will be accepted. No further fee will be charged for the revised manuscript.

Manuscript Preparation

Text should be typed double-spaced on document size of A4 (297 ´ 210 mm), with outer margins of 2.5 cm. Each section of the manuscript should begin on a new page. Pages should be numbered consecutively, beginning with the blind title page.

1. Blind Title Page
The blind title page should contain the following information (in order, from the top to bottom of the page):

• category of paper
• article title

Please note that the names of authors and the institutions with which they are affiliated should NOT be present on the title page for the sake of a blinded review process.

2. Abstracts
Abstracts should be no more than 300 words in length. Abstracts for Original Articles should be structured, with the section headings: Background/Objective(s), Methods, Results, Conclusion. Abstracts for Brief Reports and Case Reports are unstructured, and should be no more than 200 words in length. No abstract is needed for Correspondence and Resident’s Forum articles. For all article categories, 3–5 relevant keywords (MeSH index terms) should be provided in alphabetical order.

3. Main Text
The text for Original Articles and Brief Reports should be organized into sections as follows: Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion. Sections for Case Reports are: Introduction, Case Presentation, Discussion. Each section should begin on a new page.

3.1. Abbreviations
Where a term/definition will be continually referred to, it must be written in full when it first appears in the text, followed by the subsequent abbreviation in parentheses. Thereafter, the abbreviation may be used. Restrict the number of abbreviations to those that are absolutely necessary.

3.2. Informed Consent
For investigations of human subjects, state explicitly in the Methods that informed consent was obtained from all participating adult subjects and from parents or legal guardians for minors or incapacitated adults, together with the manner in which informed consent was obtained (i.e., oral or written).

3.3. Units
Système International (SI) units must be used, with the exception of blood pressure values which are to be reported in mmHg. Please use the metric system for the expression of length, area, mass, and volume. Temperatures are to be given in degrees Celsius.

3.4. Drug Names, Devices and Other Products
Trade names and brand names of drugs, devices and other products may not be used in the article title. The generic term for all drugs, chemicals, devices and other products should be used, unless the specific trade name is directly relevant to the discussion. Generic drug names should appear in lower case letters in the text. If a specific proprietary drug needs to be identified, the brand name may appear only once in the manuscript in parentheses following the generic name. Manufacturers and their location (city, state, country) should be identified the first time a device or other product used in the study is mentioned.

3.5. Statistical Requirements
Statistical analysis is essential for all research papers except case reports. Use correct nomenclature of statistical methods (e.g., two sample t test, not unpaired t test). Descriptive statistics should follow the scales used in data description. Inferential statistics are important for interpreting results and should be described in detail. All p values should be presented to the third decimal place for accuracy. The smallest p value that should be expressed is p < 0.001, since additional zeros do not convey useful information; the largest p value that should be expressed is p > 0.99.

3.6. Personal Communications and Unpublished Data
These sources cannot be included in the references list but may be described in the text. The author(s) must give the full name and highest academic degree of the person, the date of the communication, and indicate whether it was in oral or written (letter, fax, e-mail) form. A signed statement of permission should be included from each person identified as a source of information in a personal communication or as a source for unpublished data.

3.7. Acknowledgments
General acknowledgments for consultations, statistical analysis, etc., should be listed concisely at the end of the text, including the names of the individuals who were directly involved. Consent should be obtained from those individuals before their names are listed in this section. All financial and material support for the research and work from internal or external agencies, including commercial companies, should be clearly and completely identified. Ensure that any conflicts of interest (financial and/or non-financial) are explicitly declared.

4. References
4.1. In the Main Text, Tables, Figure Legends

• References should be identified using superscripted numbers, in numerical order.
• References cited in tables or figure legends should be included in sequence at the point where the table or figure is first mentioned in the main text.
• Do not cite uncompleted work or work that has not yet been accepted for publication (i.e., “unpublished observation”, “personal communication”) as references. Also see Section 3.6.
• Do not cite abstracts unless they are the only available reference to an important concept.

4.2. In the References Section

• References should be limited to those cited in the text and listed in numerical order, NOT alphabetical order.
• They should include, in order, author names, article title, journal name, year, volume and inclusive page numbers. The last names and initials of all the authors up to 6 should be included, but when authors number 7 or more, list the first 3 authors only followed by “et al”. Abbreviations for journal names should conform to those used in MEDLINE.
• If citing a website, provide the author information, article title, website address and the date you accessed the information.
• Reference to an article that is in press must state the journal name and, if possible, the year and volume.

Authors are responsible for the accuracy and completeness of their references and for correct text citation.

Examples are given below.

Journal articles

• Chen Z, Fan M, Bian Z, Zhang Q, Zhu Q, Lu P. Immunolocalization of heat shock protein 70 during reparative dentinogenesis. Chin J Dent Res 2000;3:50–5.
• Kaplan NM. The endothelium as prognostic factor and therapeutic target: what criteria should we apply?  J Cardiovasc Pharmacol 1998;32:S78–80.
• Kawai H, Ishikawa T, Moroi J, et al. Elderly patient with cerebellar malignant astrocytoma. No Shinkei Geka 2008;36:799–805. [In Japanese]

Books

• Bradley EL. Medical and surgical management. Philadelphia: Saunders; 1982, p. 72–95.
• Greaves M, Culligan DJ. Blood and bone marrow. In: Underwood JCE, editor. General and systematic pathology. 4th ed. London: Churchill Livingstone; 2004, p. 615–72.

Conference proceedings
Pacak K, Aguilera G, Sabban E, Kvetnansky R, editors. Stress: Current neuroendocrine and genetic approaches. 8th Symposium on Catecholamines and Other Neurotransmitters in Stress, June 28–July 3, 2003, Smolenice Castle, Slovakia. New York: New York Academy of Sciences; 2004.

Website
Glueckauf RL, Whitton J, Baxter J, et al. Videocounseling for families of rural teens with epilepsy–project update. Telehealth News 1998;2. Available at: http://www.telehealth.net.subscribe/newslettr_4a.html#1 [Date accessed: July 4, 2007]

5. Tables
Tables should supplement, not duplicate, the text. They should have a concise table heading, be self-explanatory, and numbered consecutively in the order of their citation in the text. Information requiring explanatory footnotes should be denoted using superscripted lowercase letters (a, b, c, etc.), with the footnotes arranged under the table in alphabetical order. Asterisks (*, **) are used only to indicate the probability level of tests of significance. Abbreviations used in the table must be defined and placed after the footnotes in alphabetical order. If you include a block of data or table from another source, whether published or unpublished, you must acknowledge the original source.

6. Figures
6.1. General Guidelines
The number of figures should be restricted to the minimum necessary to support the textual material. They should have an informative figure legend and be numbered in the order of their citation in the text. All symbols and abbreviations should be defined in the legend in alphabetical order. Patient identification should be obscured. All lettering should be done professionally and should be in proportion to the drawing, graph or photograph. Photomicrographs must include original magnification and stain. Figure files should be named according to the figure number and format, e.g., “Fig1.tif”, “Fig2.jpg”.

6.2. Formats
Regardless of the application used, when your electronic artwork is finalized, please “save as” or convert the images to one of the following formats (note the resolution requirements for line drawings, halftones, and line/halftone combinations given below):
• EPS: Vector drawings. Embed the font or save the text as “graphics”.
• TIFF: Color or grayscale photographs (halftones)—use a minimum of 300 dpi.
• TIFF: Bitmapped line drawings—use a minimum of 1000 dpi.
• TIFF: Combination of bitmapped line/half-tone (color or grayscale)—use a minimum of 600 dpi.
• DOC, XLS or PPT: If your electronic artwork is created in any of these Microsoft Office applications, please supply “as is”.
Please do not:
• Supply files that are optimized for screen use (like GIF, BMP, PICT, WPG) as the resolution is too low;
• Supply files that are too low in resolution;
• Submit graphics that are disproportionately large for the content.

A detailed guide on electronic artwork is available at http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions. Please note that the cost of color illustrations will be charged to the author.

7. File format

• Articles submitted by disk or e-mail should be in Microsoft Word document format and prepared in the simplest form possible. We will add in the correct font, font size, margins and so on according to the journal’s style.
• Authors may use automatic page numbering, but do NOT use other kinds of automatic formatting such as footnotes, endnotes, headers and footers.
• Put text, references, tables, figures, and legends in one file, with each table and figure on a new page.
• Figures must also be submitted as separate picture files (JPEG, EPS or TIFF), at the correct resolution; also see Section 6.2.

The Editorial and Peer Review Process

As a general rule, the receipt of a manuscript will be acknowledged within 2 weeks of submission, and authors will be provided with a manuscript reference number for future correspondence. If such an acknowledgment is not received in a reasonable period of time, the author should contact the Editorial Office.
Submissions are reviewed by the Editorial Office to ensure that it contains all parts. The Editorial Office will not accept a submission if the author has not supplied all the material and documents as outlined in these author instructions.
Manuscripts are then forwarded to the Associate Editors or Editor-in-Chief who makes an initial assessment of the manuscript. If the manuscript does not appear to be of sufficient merit or is not appropriate for the Journal, then the manuscript will be rejected. Rejected manuscripts will not be returned to authors unless requested.
Manuscripts that appear meritorious and appropriate for the Journal are reviewed by at least two Editorial Board members or experts assigned by the Associate Editor. The Editor may seek additional comments from the Consultant Editor or International Board members. The reviewers’ opinions are summarized and forwarded to the Editor-in-Chief for a final decision. Authors will usually be notified within 10 weeks of whether the submitted article is accepted for publication, rejected, or subject to revision before acceptance. However, do note that delays are sometimes unavoidable.

Preparation for Publication

Once a manuscript has been accepted for publication, the authors should submit the electronic files that contain the final version of their manuscript and all signed statements (not in electronic form) to the Editorial Office. The final version should be in MS Word format, with all tables and figure legends as applicable. The figure(s) should be submitted as separate files (JPEG, EPS or TIFF).
Accepted manuscripts are copyedited according to the Journal’s style and the galley proofs in the form of a PDF file are e-mailed by the Publisher to the corresponding author for final approval. Authors are responsible for all statements made in their work, including changes made by the copyeditor.

Publication Charges and Reprints

Authors will be charged for the cost of publication and the peer review process at NT$2,000 (US$70) for each accepted manuscript. Authors will also be charged NT$2,500 (US$80) per illustration, figure or table that is in color. For manuscripts that require extensive English editing, authors will be charged for the service. Please note that authors of reviews or accepted original studies are exempt from these editorial as well as color figure printing fees. This policy is aimed at encouraging more submissions of original studies and will remain unchanged until the next revision of these instructions.
Authors receive an electronic copy of their articles free of charge, which will be sent by the Editorial Office to the corresponding author. Professional paper reprints (which include a cover page for the article) may be ordered at prices based on the cost of production. A reprint order form can be downloaded from the Publisher’s website at http://www.derm-sinica.com/.

Copyright

Published manuscripts become the permanent property of the Taiwanese Dermatological Association and may not be published elsewhere in any form without written permission.