Submission Guidelines

Updated April 2023

Submissions to Pharmaceutical Sciences are accepted through our online submission system. To streamline the process, the online submission system is designed to perform a series of automatic controls, promptly informing the user of any technical insufficiencies, and directing to the relevant instructions.

To start submission, please create an account and log in. The submitting author will take responsibility on behalf of all co-authors as the corresponding author of the submission, and is required to enter full details including a working e-mail address, phone number and address, in their online profile. All correspondence, including, but not limited to, the results of initial evaluation, Editor’s decision, and request for revisions or proofreading will be sent to the e-mail address of the corresponding author, which will be published with the article.

The submission or any subsequent revision is evaluated at the editorial office, and if corrections are necessary, it may be temporarily unsubmitted and returned to the authors, who are responsible for formatting their submission and providing the required information. Please see our editorial workflow for more information. For further help regarding submission, you may contact the editorial office.

We use iThenticate software in the processing of the submissions.

The conditions of submission

Open access license, copyright, and currently, there are no submission or publication charges applicable to the articles submitted to or published in Pharmaceutical Sciences, the open access publication of which is supported by Tabriz University of Medical Sciences Department of Vice Chancellor for Research.

The authors retain the copyright to their work without restrictions, licensing under the Creative Commons license 4.0 (CC-BY-NC). 

Full names and email addresses of all authors, as well as their affiliations and institutional addresses are requested during submission. Providing the unique identifier (ORCID or Scopus ID) of each co-author is optional, but preferred. Please see our editorial policies on authorship and unique identifiers for more information. If a collaboration group should be listed as an author, please list the group name as an author.

Cover letter

A cover letter is required for every submission. The authors will need to confirm the following conditions in the submission cover letter:

• That the submission is original, submitted solely to this journal, and not currently under consideration for publication or already published elsewhere, unless explained in the submission cover letter. See our editorial policies on duplicate publication.
• That no any sentence is copied from other sources. See our editorial policies on plagiarism and text recycling.
• That the submitting author takes responsibility for the submission on behalf of all authors as the corresponding author.
• That all authors have reviewed, approved, and consented to the submission, and they are accountable for all aspects of its accuracy and integrity in accordance with ICMJE criteria.

The submission cover letter should also include the following information, as well as any additional information requested in the instructions for the specific article type that the authors are submitting:

• An explanation of why the submitted work should be published in the journal (the novelty of the work).
• An explanation of any issues relating to journal policies.
• A declaration of any potential competing interests.
• The name of particular special issue that the submission should be published in.

The authors may also suggest potential peer reviewers for their submission by providing name, institutional email addresses, and an ORCID or Scopus ID. Please see our editorial policies for more information on suggesting peer reviewers and the use of unique identifiers.

The authors may also provide the details of anyone who they would prefer not to review their work.

Intentionally providing falsifying information, such as false names or email addresses, will result in rejection of the submission and may lead to further investigation in line with our misconduct policy.

Preparing the Submission

For general instructions, please see preparing the manuscript. Pharmaceutical Sciences publishes these article types:

• Research article: Original work resulting from research, constituting complete studies that contain all relevant information. Prepare the manuscript as follows: A Title, a Structured Abstract, Key words, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusion, References, Tables, Legend for figures, List of additional files.
• Short communication: Original work, but less substantial than the regular research article, presenting preliminary results, or results of immediate relevance. Prepare the manuscript as follows: A Title, a Structured Abstract, Key words, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusion, References, Tables, Legend for figures, List of additional files.
• Review: Narrative reviews or systematic review and/or meta-analysis on pharmaceutical sciences relevant topics. Prepare the manuscript as follows: A Title, an Unstructured/structured Abstract, Key words, Introduction, Subheadings in the manuscript as necessary, Conclusion, References, Tables, Legend for figures, List of additional files.
• Commentary: Comments or concerns on specific subjects; overall or pertaining to items published in the journal. Also, new or additional findings of original nature. Prepare the letter as follows: A Title, Text, References.
• Editorial: The Journal’s editors or top researchers in pharmaceutical sciences (invitation by editor) write the editorial.

Title Page

Title - A concise and informative title directed at the general reader. Lengthy systematic names and complicated/numerous chemical formulae should therefore be avoided where possible. Do not capitalize all words; only the first word and proper nouns should be capitalized.
Authors’ names - Full names (First, Middle and Last) for all the authors of an article should be given and specified with superscript number(s) for the affiliation(s) (e.g., Mark Junior Smiths1). The name of the corresponding author(s) should be specified with an asterisk after name (e.g., Mark Junior Smiths*). Where the family name may be ambiguous (e.g., a double name), please indicate this clearly.
Affiliation - Affiliation of all the authors should be given and specified with superscripted number before address (e.g., 1 Faculty of …..).
Running title - A very short running title should be given.
Corresponding author - Full address, telephone and fax numbers (with country and area code) and email of the corresponding author(s) should be given.

Abstract

The structured abstract (maximum 350 words) is to contain the following major subheadings: Background, Methods, Results, and Conclusion. The Background subheading reflects the background as well as the purpose of the study, that is, the hypothesis being tested. The Methods should include the setting for the study, the subjects (number and type), the treatment or intervention, and the type of statistical analysis. The Results include the outcome of the study and statistical significance if appropriate. The Conclusion states the significance of the results. Clinical trials should include the trial registration number on the last line of the abstract.

The structured abstract for review articles is not necessary.

Keywords

Three to 6 keywords for each submission is necessary. They could be selected from the list of MESH words. List key words in alphabetic order, all lower case, except where necessary.

Introduction

The introduction contains a concise review of the subject area and the rationale for the study. More detailed comparisons to previous work and conclusions of the study appear in the Discussion section.

Methods

The methods section should describe in adequate detail the experimental subjects, their important characteristics, and the methods, apparatus, and procedures used so that other researchers can reproduce the experiment.

When reporting experiments on human subjects, authors should indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2008. If doubt exists whether the research was conducted in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration, the authors must explain the rationale for their approach and demonstrate that the institutional review body explicitly approved the doubtful aspects of the study. When reporting experiments on animals, authors should indicate whether the institutional and national guide for the care and use of laboratory animals was followed.

The methods section must indicate that the protocol was reviewed by the appropriate institutional review body and that each subject in the project signed a detailed informed consent form.

Results

Results should be presented in a logical sequence with reference to tables, figures, and illustrations as appropriate. If necessary, results and discussion sections can be combined in a single section.

Discussion

New and possible findings of the study should be emphasized, as well as any conclusions that can be drawn. The discussion should compare the present data to previous findings. Limitations of the experimental methods should be indicated, as should implications for future research. New hypotheses and clinical recommendations are appropriate and should be clearly identified. Recommendations, particularly clinical ones, may be included when appropriate.

Conclusion

The main question of the work should be very concisely stated and the final conclusions of the study may be presented in a short “Conclusion” section.

Preparing references, equations, tables, figures, and additional files

To correctly prepare the references, equations, tables, figures, or additional files for a submission, please follow these guidelines:

• For instructions on formatting the citations of the submission, please see preparing references.
  EndNote software can be used to arrange references as a numbered list at the end of the manuscript, using our Endnote style. To do so, please first download our EndNote style (ZIP file) here, and then unzip and copy the EndNote style (ENS) file into EndNote "Styles" folder on your computer, which should be accessible at Program Files [folder] > Endnote [folder] > Styles [folder]. Please use the following link to download the styles for EndNote: Styles for EndNote (To add Pharmaceutical Sciences reference style in EndNote, please download the zip file).
• For correct formatting of formulas, please see preparing formulas or equations.
• Smaller tables that are considered integral to the manuscript can be pasted at the end of the manuscript file in A4 portrait or landscape format. Tables may also be uploaded separately. Please see preparing tables for more instructions.
• Figures must be submitted separately in a proper format (and also embedded in the manuscript to expedite the review process). Please see preparing figures for more instructions.
• Datasets, large tables, videos, or other information must be submitted separately as additional files, which will be published along with the article. Please see preparing additional files for more instructions. 

The authors should have the required information below ready upon submission. The manuscript should not include this information to ensure a blind peer-review. Please see our editorial policies for more information regarding peer review policy. The supporting information will be reviewed by the editor.

Author Contributions

 Authors should provide the information related to the Authors' Contribution section (CRediT) when submitting the article. If the Authors’ Contribution section is not sent at the time of submitting the article, it must be submitted when sending the corrections requested by the reviewers. The corresponding author is responsible for the accuracy and validity of the information. The Authors' Contribution section will be included in the published article.

14 CRediT groups are as follows:
Note: Each of the articles must complete the groups related to CRediT based on the type of article and research.
Conceptualization
Ideas; formulation or evolution of overarching research goals and aims
Methodology
Development or design of methodology; creation of models
Software
Programming, software development; designing computer programs; implementation of the computer code and supporting algorithms; testing of existing code components
Validation
Verification, whether as a part of the activity or separate, of the overall replication/ reproducibility of results/experiments and other research outputs
Formal Analysis
Application of statistical, mathematical, computational, or other formal techniques to analyze or synthesize study data
Investigation
Conducting a research and investigation process, specifically performing the experiments, or data/evidence collection
Resources
Provision of study materials, reagents, materials, patients, laboratory samples, animals, instrumentation, computing resources, or other analysis tools
Data Curation
Management activities to annotate (produce metadata), scrub data and maintain research data (including software code, where it is necessary for interpreting the data itself) for initial use and later reuse.
Project Administration
Management and coordination responsibility for the research activity planning and execution
Funding Acquisition
Acquisition of the financial support for the project leading to this publication
Visualization
Preparation, creation and/or presentation of the published work, specifically visualization/ data presentation
Supervision
Oversight and leadership responsibility for the research activity planning and execution, including mentorship external to the core team
Writing - Original Draft
       Preparation, creation and/or presentation of the published work, specifically writing the initial draft (including substantive translation)
Writing - Review & Editing
       Preparation, creation and/or presentation of the published work by those from the original research group, specifically critical review, commentary or revision – including pre-or post publication stages

Acknowledgments

In an “Acknowledgments” section, the authors are required to acknowledge anyone who contributed to the submitted work who does not meet the criteria for authorship. It is obligatory to state any support with translating or editing by third parties such as professional commercial writing/editing services. The authors should obtain permission to acknowledge from all those mentioned in the Acknowledgments section.
The authors are required to declare all sources of funding for the research reported. The role of the funding body in the design of the study and collection, analysis, and interpretation of data and in writing the manuscript should be declared.

Please see our editorial policies for further explanation of authorship criteria and acknowledgments.

Competing interests

The authors are required to declare all financial and non-financial competing interests with regard to the publication of their work during submission. Please see our editorial policies for more information on competing interests. If any of the authors are unsure whether they have a competing interest, they should contact the editorial office.

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Authors of submissions reporting studies involving human participants, human data, or human tissues are required to provide the following information:

• A statement on ethics approval and consent (even where the need for approval was waived).
• The name of the ethics committee that approved the study and the committee’s reference number if appropriate.

Submissions reporting studies involving animals must include a statement on ethics approval.

If the submission contains any individual person’s data in any form, consent to publish must be obtained from that person, or in the case of children, their parent or legal guardian. All presentations of case reports must have consent to publish. The authors may use their institutional consent form. The form is not to be sent on submission, but we may request to see a copy at any stage (including after publication).

Please see our editorial policies for more information.

Data Sharing

Pharmaceutical Sciences encourages authors to share the data and any other material associated with methodology and the results of the submitted articles, in an appropriate public repository, or as open access supplementary to the article. In line with ICMJE recommendations, a data sharing statement is required for manuscripts reporting the results of clinical trials, on whether and how the data will be available. For more information, please consult ICMJE recommendations (http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/publishing-and-editorial-issues/clinical-trial-registration.html)

Supplementary data

Supplementary data (figures and tables, video and etc) is peer-reviewed material that cannot be included in the printed version for reasons of space or medium. It is posted on the freely available part of our website at the time of publication. 

Finalizing submission

Before completing the process, the submitting author is required to review the submission proof (PDF) which will be automatically generated. The submission proof may be shared with co-authors for a final check and approval. The submitting author may go back and correct any parts as necessary, review the submission proof again, and then submit the work using the “Submit” button.

Revising the submission

Any subsequent revisions to the submission upon request from the editor will have to follow the same guidelines presented here.

Upon submitting a revised submission, the authors will be guided to provide a re-submission letter, attaching the revision details, based on the comments provided by the editor. The attached revision details should not include author information to ensure blind peer review.

Graphical Abstract

A graphical abstract must be included with the manuscript for display in the online table of contents. This graphic should be attractive to the reader and relevant to the manuscript title. Further, it should give the reader a prompt visual impression of the necessity of the manuscript with no specific results.

-It should be simple yet informative

-Colorful graphics are preferred.

-The originality of graphics is required.

-Use of graphics implying any bias to/against organizations or individuals should be avoided.

-Graphics should be clear enough and the labels used inside it should be readable even in a very small font.

-The graphical abstract file should be saved in TIFF with 300 dpi and 1200 dpi for respective color and black and white images.