Articles are accepted on the basis of significance, scientific merit and applicability. Authors are requested to base their reports on the basis of original work carried out by themselves or their groups. Manuscripts should not be submitted to more than one journal at a time.

All articles are processed through a system of peer-reviewing. Each article is assessed independently by one or two referees and comments sent back to the authors for revision, as required. The final decision lies with the Editor.

Original research articles are preferred. In order to widen the scope of communications, the following formats are made available: Editorials, original articles, case reports, clinical reviews, practical applications, clinical problem series, clinico-pathological conferences, commentaries, pictures, anecdotes, medical humanities, general perspectives, correspondence column and so on.

All articles should be submitted online at he journal website (www.lungindia.com) Presentation of manuscripts should conform with the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts submitted to Bio-medical Journals (See Ann Intern Med 1997; 126:36-47).

SALIENT FEATURES OF THESE RECOMMENDATIONS ARE AS FOLLOWS:

Preparation of manuscript
Manuscripts should be prepared suing any standard word processing software and should have following segments;

Title page
The title page should carry

• The title of the article
• The name by which each author is known, with his or her highest academic degrees(s) and institutional affiliation
• The name of the department(s) and institution(s) to which the work should be attributed
• Disclaimers, if any
• The name and address of the author responsible for correspondence about the manuscript
• The name and address of the author to whom requests for reprints should be addressed
• Source(s) of support in the form of grants, equipment, drugs, or all of these
• A short running head or foot-line of no more than 40 characters (count letters and spaces) at the foot of the title page.  

Abstract and key words
The second page should carry an abstract (of no more than 150 words for unstructured abstracts or 250 words for structured abstracts). The abstract should state the purpose of the study or investigation, basic procedures (selection of study subjects of laboratory animals; observational and analytical methods), main findings (giving specific data and their statistical significance, if possible), and the principal conclusions. It should emphasize new and important aspects of the study or observations. Below the abstract, authors should provide and identify as such, 3 to 8 key words or short phrases that will assist cross-indexing the article and may be published with the abstract.

Introduction
State the purpose of the article and summarize the rationale for the study or observation. Give only strictly pertinent references and do not include data or conclusions from the work being reported.

Methods
Describe your selection of the observational or experimental subjects (patients or laboratory animals, including controls) clearly. Identify the age, sex, and other important characteristics of the subjects. The definition and relevance of race and ethnicity are ambiguous. Authors should be particularly careful about using these categories. Identify the methods, apparatus (give the manufacturer’s name and address in parentheses), and procedure in sufficient detail to allow other workers to reproduce the results. Give references to established methods, including statistical methods. Provide references and brief descriptions for methods that have been published but are not well known; describe new or substantially modified methods, give reasons for using them, and evaluate their limitations. Identify precisely all drugs and chemicals used, including generic name(s), dose(s), and route(s) of administration. Reports of randomized clinical trials should present information on all major study elements, including the protocol (study population, interventions or exposures, outcomes, and the rationale for statistical analysis), assignment of interventions (methods of randomization, concealment of allocation to treatment groups), and the methods of masking (blinding). Authors submitting review manuscripts should include a section describing the methods used for locating, selecting, extracting, and synthesizing data. These methods should also be summarized in the abstract.

Ethics
When reporting experiments on human subjects indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional or regional) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975 as revised in 1983. Do not use patients’ names, initials, or hospital numbers, especially in illustrative materials. When reporting experiments on animals, indicate whether the institution’s or a national research council’s guide for, or any national law on, the care and use of laboratory animals was followed.

Statistics
Describe statistical methods with enough detail to enable a knowledgeable reader with access to the original data to verify the reported results. When possible, quantify findings and present them with appropriate indicators of measurement error or uncertainty (such as confidence intervals). Avoid relying solely on statistical hypothesis testing, such as the use of P values, which fails to convey important quantitative information. Discuss the eligibility of experimental subjects. Give details about randomization. Describe the methods for and success of any blinding of observations. Report complications of treatment. Give numbers of observations. Report losses to observation (such as dropout from a clinical trial). References for the design of the study and statistical methods should be standard works when possible (with pages stated) rather than to papers in which the designs or methods were originally reported. Specify any general use computer program used.

Results
Present your results in logical sequence in the text, tables, and illustrations. Do not repeat in the text all the data in the tables or illustrations; emphasize or summarize only important observations.

Discussion
Emphasize the new and important aspects of the study and the conclusions that follow from them. Do not repeat in detail data or other material given in the introduction or the results section. Include in the discussion section the implications of the findings and their limitations, including those for future research. Relate the observations to other relevant studies. Link the conclusions with the goals of the study but avoid unqualified statements and conclusions not completely supported by the data. In particular, authors should avoid making statements on economic benefits and costs unless their manuscript includes economic data and analyses. Avoid claiming priority and alluding to work that has not been completed. State new hypotheses when warranted, but clearly label them as such. Recommendations, when appropriate, may be included.

Acknowledgements
At an appropriate place in the article (the title page footnote or an appendix to the text, see the journal’s requirements), one or more statements should specify:
 

• Contributions that need acknowledging but do not justify authorship, such as general support by a department chair
• Acknowledgements of technical help
• Acknowledgements of financial and material support
• Relationships that may pose a conflict of interest. Persons who have contributed intellectually to the paper but whose contributions do not justify authorship may be named and their function or contribution described - for example, “scientific adviser,” “critical review of study proposal,” “data collection” or “participation in clinical trial”. Such persons must have given their permission to be named. Authors are responsible for obtaining written permission from persons acknowledged by name, because readers may infer their endorsement of the data and conclusions. Technical help should be acknowledged in a paragraph separate from that acknowledging other contributions.
   

References
References should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text. Identify references in text, tables, and legends by Arabic numerals in parentheses. References cited only in tables or figure legends should be numbered in accordance with the sequence established by the first identification in the text of the particular table or figure. Use the style of the examples below. The titles of journals should be abbreviated according to the style used in Index Medicus. Avoid using abstracts as references. References to papers accepted but not yet published should be designated as “in press” or “forthcoming”; authors should obtain written permission to cite such papers as well as verification that they have been accepted for publication. Information from manuscripts submitted but not accepted should be cited in the text as “unpublished observations” with written permission from the source. Avoid citing a “personal communication” unless it provides essential information not available from a public source, in which case the name of the person and date of communication should be cited in parantheses in the text. For scientific articles, authors should obtain written permission and confirmation of accuracy from the source of a personal communication. The references must be verified by the author(s) against the original documents.

Download a PowerPoint presentation on common reference styles and using the reference checking facility on the manuscript submission site.

Articles in Journals
Standard journal’s article List the first six authors followed by et al. Vega KJ, Pina 1, Krevsky B. Heart transplantation is associated with an increased risk for pancreatobiliary disease. Ann Intern Med 1996; 124:980-3. Organization as author The Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand. Clinical exercise stress testing. Safety and performance guidelines. Med J Aust 1996; 164:282-4.

Books and other Monographs
Personal author(s) Ringsven MK, Bond D. Gerontology and leadership skills for nurses. 2nd ed. Albany (NY): Delmar Publishers; 1996. Editor(s), complier(s) as author Norman IJ, Redfern SJ. editors. Mental health care for elderly people. New York: Churchill Livingstone; 1996. 5. Chapter in a book Philips SJ, Whisnant JP. Hypertension and stroke. In : Laragh JH, Brenner BM, editors. Hypertension : pathophysiology, diagnosis, and management. 2nd ed. New York : Raven Press: 1995. p. 465-78. 6. In Press Leshner AI. Molecular mechanisms of cocaine addiction. N Engl J Med. In Press 1996..

Electronic Material
Journal article in electronic format Morse SS. Factors in the emergence of infectious diseases. Emerg Infect Dis [serial online] 1995 Jan-Mar [cited 1996 Jun5]; 1(1):[24 screens]. Available from URL : http://www.cdc.gov/ ncidod/EID eid.htm. Accessed on (date).

Tables
Type or print out each table with double spacing on a separate sheet of paper. Do not submit tables as photographs. Number tables consecutively in the order of their first citation in the text and supply a brief title for each. Give each column a short or abbreviated heading. Place explanatory matter in footnotes, not in the heading. Explain in footnotes all nonstandard abbreviations that are used in each table.

Illustrations (Figures)
Submit the required number of complete sets of figures. Figures should be professionally drawn and photographed; freehand or typewritten lettering is unacceptable. Instead of original drawings, X-ray films, and other material, send sharp, glossy, black and white photographic prints, usually 127 x 173mm (5x7 inches) but no larger than 203x254mm (8x10 inches). Letters, numbers and symbols should be clear and even throughout and of sufficient size that when reduced for publication each item will still be legible. Titles and detailed explanations belong in the legends for illustrations, not on the illustrations themselves. Each figure should have a label pasted on its back indicating the number of the figure, author’s name at top of the figure. Do not write on the back of figures or scratch mark them by using paper clips. Do not bend figures or mount them on cardboard. Photomicrographs should have internal scale markers. Symbols, arrows, or letters used in photomicrographs should contrast with the background. If photographs of people are used, either the subject must not be identifiable or their pictures must be accompanied by written permission to use the photograph. Figures should be numbered consecutively according to the order in which they have been first cited in the text. If a figure has been published, acknowledge the original source and submit written permission from the copyright holder to reproduce the material. Permission is required irrespective of authorship or publisher except for documents in the public domain.

Legends for Illustrations
Type or print out legends for illustrations using double spacing, starting on a separate page, with Arabic numerals corresponding to the illustrations. When symbols, arrow, numbers, or letters are used to identify parts of the illustrations, identify and explain each one clearly in the legend. Explain in the internal scale and identify the method of staining photomicrographs.

Units of Measurements
Measurements of length, height, weight, and volume should be reported in metric units (meter, kilogram, or litre) or their decimal multiples. Temperatures should be given in degree Celsius. Blood pressure should be given in millimetres of mercury. All haematologic and clinical chemistry measurements should be reported in the metric system in terms of the International System of Units (SI). Editors may request that alternative or non-SI units be added by the authors before publication.

Abbreviations and Symbols
Use only standard abbreviations. Avoid abbreviations in the title and abstract. The full term for which an abbreviation stands should precede its first use in the text unless it is a standard unit of measurement.

General
Manuscripts must be accompanied by a covering letter signed by all co-authors. This must include:
 

• Information on prior or duplicate publication or submission elsewhere of any part of the work as defined earlier in this document.
• A statement of financial or other relationship that might lead to a conflict in interest
• A statement that the manuscript has been read and approved by all the authors, that the requirements for authorship stated earlier in this document have been met, and that each author believes that the manuscript represents honest work
• The name, address, and telephone number of the corresponding author, who is responsible for communicating with other authors about revisions and final approval of the proofs. The letter should give any additional information that may be helpful to the editor, such as the type of article in the particular journal that the manuscript represents and whether the author(s) would be willing to meet the cost of reproducing colour illustrations. The manuscript must be accompanied by copies of any permission to reproduce published material, to use illustrations or report information about identifiable people, or the name people for their contributions.