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Author Guidelines

Submission of Manuscript

Manuscripts for submission should be complete in all respects, original in content, and have not previously published or being considered for publication elsewhere. All manuscripts must be written in English, complete with tables and/or figures, and should be submitted to the MJHR manuscript submission website. The preferred format is as a MS Word (Windows) document. If accepted, the manuscript must not be published elsewhere in the same form, either in English or another language, without the consent of the Editor and Publisher. Upon acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to complete a Journal Publishing Agreement (JPA).

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Style of Manuscript

Manuscripts must be on A4 paper, with margins of 2.5cm on all four sides, the font should be12-point Times New Roman and double-spaced. Manuscripts should be ordered as follows:

  • Page 1 must contain a complete and succinct title; first name, middle initial, and surname of each author; affiliations, mailing address, phone number, fax number, and email addresses of all authors for editorial correspondence regarding the manuscript and reprint requests.
  • Page 2 should contain the ‘Abstract' with no more than 200 words. The abstract should be structured and include the background, methods, results, and conclusions. The abstract should be followed by 3 to 6 keywords.
  • Page 3 onwards should include the following sections: Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusions, Acknowledgments (if any), Funding, Conflict of Interest Statement, References, Tables, and Figures. Begin each section on a new page and ensure page numbers are visible in the centre at the bottom of each page, with the title page numbered as 1. All pages should be numbered consecutively and submitted as a single document. All statistical methods used for analysis should be described in detail in the methods section of the manuscript. Avoid relying solely on statistical hypothesis testing, such as p-values, which may fail to convey important information about study outcomes. Define all statistical terms, abbreviations, and symbols and specify which computer software was used.

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Figures and Tables

Each illustration should be numbered consecutively using Arabic numbers and accompanied by a legend describing it. All illustrations must be submitted in a format suitable for reproduction across either a single column or an entire page. Each table should be clearly titled and labelled with a comprehensive legend. Tables should be numbered separate to illustrations using Arabic numbers i.e. Table 1, 2 etc. Statistical measures of variation such as SD and SEM etc. should be identified. Tables and graphics should be provided separately from the main text. Captions for the graphic content should be written below each figure and the title should be written above the table. Written permission must be obtained to reproduce any graphics content from another author and their publisher. Colour figures are accepted in certain circumstances, provided that the author is willing to cover the cost of publication.

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References

References should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they appear in the text, and should be kept to an appropriate minimum. References should include the beginning and end page numbers of the journal in which it is cited from. References used in the text, tables, and figures should be identified with Arabic numbers. Abbreviations of journal names should conform to the Index Medicus guidelines and manuscripts written in languages other than English should be limited. List all authors names if there are six or less; when there are seven or more authors list the first six authors followed by et al. Websites are not to be cited in the reference list but may be cited within the text or in the table as a footnote. The authors are responsible for correct citation of the references used within their article. Examples of acceptable references are given below:

Journal article

  1. Chu CH, Lo EC, You DS. Clinical diagnosis of fissure caries with conventional and laser-induced fluorescence techniques. Lasers Med Sci. 2010;25:355-62.
  2. Maharani DA, Rahardjo A. Mothers' Dental Health Behaviors and Mother-Child's Dental Caries Experiences: Study of a Suburb Area in Indonesia. Makara Journal of Health Research. 2013;162:72-6.
Others
  1. Meshitsuka S. The influence of aluminium on the expression of genes. Proceedings of the world medical conference; Valletta, Malta, Valletta: WSEAS Press; 2001. p.20-21.
  2. Larsen CE, Trip R, Johnson CR. Methods for procedures related to the electrophysiology of the heart. US Patent No. 5529067, 1995 Jun 25.
  3. American Osteopathic Association (USA). Foundations of osteopathic medicine. 3rd ed. Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams and Wilkins; 2010.
  4. World Health Organization. World health report - health system financing: the path to universal coverage. New York: World Health Organization, 2010.

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Use of Abbreviations and Acronyms

Acronyms and abbreviations are words that use either the first letter of multiple words, or a shortened form of the original word. They are commonly used to help readers understand more complex terms in a scientific document and for ease of reading; a commonly used acronym is WHO for the World Health Organisation. To help authors in the use of abbreviations and acronyms in their articles, the Makara Journal of Health Research adheres to the following guidelines:

  1. Do not use abbreviations or acronyms in the title of your article unless the subject is widely known and the abbreviation is commonly used, such as HIV or AIDS.
  2. Always explain or spell out the acronym or abbreviation the first time it is used in the body of your paper.
  3. Standard abbreviations for units of measurement or chemical names that a widely accepted within the scientific community do not need to be spelled out at any point in the paper.
  4. Avoid using abbreviations or acronyms in the abstract of your paper unless you use it multiple times. If you do use an acronym in your abstract be sure you define it in the abstract and define it again the first time it is used within the body of the paper.
  5. Only define the abbreviation or acronym once within the body of the paper.
  6. Acronyms and abbreviations should be kept to a minimum in figures and image captions. It is best to spell out the names entirely for readers who may be scanning the document before deciding on reading the whole paper.

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Conclusions

Conclusions should be written in a short paragraph.

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Acknowledgements

Personal acknowledgements should be limited to appropriate professionals who contributed to the paper, including technical help, and general support by a department chairperson.

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Funding

All sources of funding for the research reported should be declared.

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Proofs

Proofs will be sent to the authors by e-mail. Only minor changes are allowed and printer's errors must be corrected; no change or additions to the edited manuscript will be allowed at this stage. The corrected proofs must be returned within 2 (two) days of receipt, preferably by e-mail. If the Editor receives no reply after 1 (one) week, they will assume that there are no errors to correct and the article will be published after in-house revision.

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Reprints

Ten copies of the journal will be given to the corresponding author free of charge. The author will be charged for any additional copies.

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Author's Digital Identifier

From January 1, 2017, it's compulsory for all authors submitting papers to MJHR to provide (preferred sequence): Scopus Author ID (scopus.com) or ORCID iD (orcid.org) or LiveDNA iD (livedna.net) or Google Scholar Citation public profile or Researchgate profile (researchgate.net) before final publication of their articles. These digital identifiers shall provide profiles of author's research activities and publications to distinguish themselves.

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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.

  1. The authors' attest that the manuscript, or portions of the manuscript, has not been previously published and that they have not released publishing rights of the article to a third party.
  2. If the study involves human subjects, the authors declare that they have carried out their research in accordance with the ethical standards of the Helsinki Declaration. Similarly, if animals are involved in the research process, the authors have followed the guidelines relating to experiments on animals.
  3. The authors have checked that their manuscript thoroughly complies with the guidelines set by the MJHR.

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Copyright Notice

The copyright of the received article shall be assigned to the journal as the publisher of the journal. The intended copyright includes the right to publish the article in various forms (including reprints). The journal maintains the publishing rights to the published articles.

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Privacy Statement

Names and email addresses submitted to the MJHR will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.

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Gen AI Policy

Makara Journal of Health Research (MJHR) is referring to the Elsevier's Generative AI policies for journals. These policies were initially triggered by the rise of generative AI and AI-assisted technologies, which were expected to increasingly be used by researchers and have now been updated to reflect evolving good practice. These policies aim to provide greater transparency and guidance to authors, reviewers, editors, readers and contributors.

For authors

The use of generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in manuscript preparation - an overview MJHR recognizes the potential of generative AI and AI-assisted technologies (“AI Tools”), when used responsibly, to help researchers work efficiently, gain critical insights fast, and achieve better outcomes. Increasingly, these tools, including AI agents and deep research tools, are helping researchers to synthesize complex literature, provide an overview of a field or research question, identify research gaps, generate ideas, and provide tailored support for tasks such as content organization and improving language and readability.

Authors preparing a manuscript for MJHR can use AI Tools to support them. However, these tools must never be used as a substitute for human critical thinking, expertise, and evaluation. AI Tools should always be applied with human oversight and control.

Ultimately, authors are responsible and accountable for the contents of their work. This includes accountability for: • Carefully reviewing and verifying the accuracy, comprehensiveness, and impartiality of all AI-generated output (including checking the sources, as AI-generated references can be incorrect or fabricated). • Editing and adapting all material thoroughly to ensure the manuscript represents the author’s authentic and original contribution and reflects their own analysis, interpretation, insights, and ideas. • Ensuring the use of any tools or sources, AI-based or otherwise, is made clear and transparent to readers — for the use of AI Tools, we require a disclosure statement upon submission. • Ensuring the manuscript is developed in a way that safeguards data privacy, intellectual property, and other rights, by checking the terms and conditions of any AI Tool that is used.

Responsible use of AI Tools

Authors must check the terms and conditions of any AI Tool that they use to ensure that the privacy and confidentiality of their data and inputs, including their unpublished manuscripts, is maintained. Particular care should be taken with any personally identifiable data. Images that duplicate or refer to existing copyrighted images, real people, or others’ identifiable products or brands must not be generated, nor any likeness of an individual’s voice. Authors should check for factual errors and for any potential bias.

Authors should also check the terms and conditions of any AI Tool they wish to use to ensure that, they only grant to the AI Tool the right to use their materials to provide the service to them and that they do not grant to the AI Tool any other rights to the materials that they input into the AI Tool (including without limitation the right to train the AI Tool on those materials). They must also ensure that the AI Tool does not impose constraints on the use of outputs from the AI Tool in a way that could restrict the subsequent publication of the relevant article.

Disclosure

Authors should disclose the use of AI Tools for manuscript preparation in a separate AI declaration statement in their manuscript upon submission, and a statement will appear in the published work. Authors should document their use of AI, including the name of the AI Tool used, the purpose of the use, and the extent of their oversight. Declaring the use of AI Tools supports transparency and trust between authors, readers, reviewers, editors, and contributors, and facilitates compliance with the terms of use of the relevant AI Tool. Basic checks of grammar, spelling, and punctuation need no declaration. AI use in the research process should be declared and described in detail in the methods section.

Authorship

Authors should not list AI Tools as an author or co-author, nor cite AI Tools as an author. Authorship implies responsibilities and tasks that can only be attributed to and performed by humans. Each (co-) author is accountable for ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved, and authorship requires the ability to approve the final version of the work and agree to its submission. Authors are also responsible for ensuring that the work is original and has not been previously published, that the stated authors qualify for authorship, and the work does not infringe third-party rights, and should familiarize themselves with MJHR’s Ethics in Publishing policy before they submit.

The use of generative AI and AI-assisted tools in figures, images and artwork

We do not permit the use of Generative AI or AI-assisted tools to create or alter images in submitted manuscripts. This may include enhancing, obscuring, moving, removing, or introducing a specific feature within an image or figure. Adjustments of brightness, contrast, or color balance are acceptable if and as long as they do not obscure or eliminate any information present in the original. Image forensics tools or specialized software might be applied to submitted manuscripts to identify suspected image irregularities.

The only exception is if the use of AI or AI-assisted tools is part of the research design or research methods (such as in AI-assisted imaging approaches to generate or interpret the underlying research data, for example, in the field of biomedical imaging). If this is done, such use must be described in a reproducible manner in the methods section. This should include an explanation of how the AI or AI-assisted tools were used in the image creation or alteration process, and the name of the model or tool, version and extension numbers, and manufacturer. Authors should adhere to the AI software’s specific usage policies and ensure correct content attribution. Where applicable, authors could be asked to provide pre-AI-adjusted versions of images and/or the composite raw images used to create the final submitted versions, for editorial assessment.

The use of generative AI or AI-assisted tools in the production of artwork, such as for graphical abstracts, is not permitted. The use of generative AI in the production of cover art may, in some cases, be allowed if the author obtains prior permission from the journal editor and publisher, can demonstrate that all necessary rights have been cleared for the use of the relevant material, and ensures that there is correct content attribution.

For reviewers The use of generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in the journal peer review process

When a researcher is invited to review another researcher’s paper, the manuscript must be treated as a confidential document. Reviewers should not upload a submitted manuscript or any part of it into a generative AI tool, as this may violate the authors’ confidentiality and proprietary rights and, where the paper contains personally identifiable information, may breach data privacy rights. This confidentiality requirement extends to the peer review report, as it may contain confidential information about the manuscript and/or the authors. For this reason, reviewers should not upload their peer review reports into an AI tool, even if it is just for the purpose of improving language and readability.

Peer review is at the heart of the scientific ecosystem, and MJHR abides by the highest standards of integrity in this process. Reviewing a scientific manuscript implies responsibilities that can only be attributed to humans. Generative AI or AI-assisted technologies should not be used by reviewers to assist in the scientific review of a paper as the critical thinking and original assessment needed for peer review is outside of the scope of this technology, and there is a risk that the technology will generate incorrect, incomplete, or biased conclusions about the manuscript. The reviewer is responsible and accountable for the content of the review report.

For editors The use of generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in the journal editorial process

A submitted manuscript must be treated as a confidential document. Editors should not upload a submitted manuscript or any part of it into a generative AI tool as this may violate the authors’ confidentiality and proprietary rights and, where the paper contains personally identifiable information, may breach data privacy rights. This confidentiality requirement extends to all communication about the manuscript, including any notification or decision letters, as they may contain confidential information about the manuscript and/or the authors. For this reason, editors should not upload their letters into an AI tool, even if it is just for the purpose of improving language and readability. Peer review is at the heart of the scientific ecosystem, and MJHR abides by the highest standards of integrity in this process. Managing the editorial evaluation of a scientific manuscript implies responsibilities that can only be attributed to humans. Generative AI or AI-assisted technologies should not be used by editors to assist in the evaluation or decision-making process of a manuscript as the critical thinking and original assessment needed for this work is outside of the scope of this technology, and there is a risk that the technology will generate incorrect, incomplete, or biased conclusions about the manuscript. The editor is responsible and accountable for the editorial process, the final decision, and the communication thereof to the authors.

MJHR states that authors are allowed to use generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in the manuscript preparation process before submission, but only with appropriate oversight and disclosure, as per our instructions. Editors can find such disclosure at the bottom of the paper in a separate section before the list of references. If an editor suspects that an author or a reviewer has violated our AI policies, they should inform the publisher.

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Article Template

Click here to download the template (MS Word).

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