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Guidelines for authors

From Volume 50, Issue 11, December 2023 | Page 976

Authors

Article

Dental Update is read by general and specialist practitioners, hospital dentists, and an increasing number of dental students and hygienists. The principal aim of the journal is to offer the general dental practitioner (and specialists in other subdisciplines of dentistry) a source of continuing education and a forum for discussion.

Types of articles

Dental Update publishes a range of articles including reviews, case reports, commentaries, letters to the editor, commissioned articles and other articles on topics that authors feel could be valuable to the readership. All content, bar editorials, is peer reviewed before publication. We do not generally publish research. Articles are highly illustrated and good quality images are necessary for acceptance.

If you have an idea for an article, but would like to find out whether it would be of interest to the journal, please email the editorial office with your query

Manuscript preparation

Please supply a Microsoft Word file or equivalent. If you are not using Microsoft Word, please save the document as an ASCII or text file. The document can be in any format or layout that will be easily read by reviewers when evaluating your manuscript. To maintain anonymity during the review process, author identification should appear only on the title page.

Figures and tables, and their captions, should be embedded at the point of citation in the manuscript and need only be of high enough resolution for reviewing purposes. If permission to reproduce figures or tables is required from a copyright holder, please seek it before submission, and include a full reference to the source in the caption.

Please ensure that you have documented consent for the use of photographs and any personal information about patients that has been included.

Articles should be no longer than approximately 3000 words (not including the references). Where articles are longer, they may be cut or published in two or more parts. While there are no strict formatting guidelines for submissions, all manuscripts should have the following essential elements:

  • A proposed generic heading, such as Orthodontics, Oral Medicine or Restorative dentistry;
  • Article title;
  • Author(s) name(s), post-nominals, job title, affiliation(s) or (in the case of GDPs) location of practice (on first page only);
  • A concise abstract giving a summary of the article, up to a maximum of 100 words, but depending on the length of the article;
  • A single-sentence clinical relevance statement;
  • A single-sentence objectives statement;
  • A conflicts of interest statement disclosing any financial or personal relationships that could be a source of bias;
  • A statement that informed consent has been given for the use of any images or personal information for individuals included in the article. Where appropriate, institutional review board approval must have been obtained.

    • Other points to note are:

  • Tooth annotation should use the alphanumeric style (eg LR2).
  • Generic names for drugs or products should be used, with, if pertinent, the proprietary name and manufacturer's details in brackets. For more than one brand, give those you believe to be the most widely used.
  • References should be in the Vancouver style (numbered sequentially with the numbers placed outside punctuation). Only published (or in press) references should appear in the reference list. When an article is accepted, references will be checked and formatted to the Dental Update style. Some examples are as follows:
  • Johnson EL, Smith J, Arwel CF, Pancholi R. The tooth about Nightingale: a reflection on redeployment to Nightingale Hospital London. Dent Update 2020; 47: 565–568. 10.12968/denu.2020.47.7.565.
  • World Health Organization. Mental health and psychosocial considerations during the COVID-19 outbreak. 2020. Available at: www.who.int/publications/i/item/WHO-2019-nCoV-MentalHealth-2020.1 (accessed January 2021).
    •

    Manuscript submission

    When your manuscript is ready, please send it by email to the editorial office, or, from January 2024, use our online article submission service. Multi-author articles should be accompanied by a letter signed by all authors to indicate that all have seen and approved the manuscript. Please don't hesitate to get in touch with the editorial office if you have any queries.

    Peer review and acceptance

    All contributions are initially assessed by the Editor for suitability for the journal. If deemed suitable, articles undergo rigorous double anonymized peer review by experts in the field. The Editor in Chief makes the final decision about acceptance of the manuscript. Please allow 6–8 weeks for this process.

    Authors are informed once a decision has been made. If revisions have been requested before final acceptance, please provide a separate and clear description of the changes made, or a rebuttal to the reviewers' comments.

    On acceptance of the article, high-resolution images and a photograph of the lead or corresponding author will be required.

    Proofs

    Proofs are sent to authors for approval. Authors are asked to return any corrections within a few days.

    Terms of publication

    The Publisher has the first international serial rights only. Although copyright remains with the author, the Publisher reserves the right to reprint the article in another journal, or in translation, or as part of a book, or to use the material in other media, and with acknowledgement to the author. Unless otherwise stipulated by the author, articles may be reprinted, without prior notice, in other franchised journals. A small fee will be paid on publication of the issue in which the reprint appears.