Instruction to Authors
Acknowledgements:
Acknowledgements of general support, grants, technical assistance, etc., should be indicated. Authors are responsible for obtaining the consent of those being acknowledged.
References guide:
The Medical Journal of Malaysia, follows the Vancouver numbered referencing style. Citations to someone else's work in the text, should be indicated by the use of a number. In citing more than one article in the same sentence, you will need to include the citation number for each article. A hyphen should be used to link numbers which are inclusive, and a comma used where numbers are not consecutive. The following is an example where works 1.3,4,5.have been cited in the same place in the text.
Several effective drugs are available at fairly low cost for treating patients with hypertension and reducing the risk of its sequelae.1,3-5
The list of all of the references that are cited in the article should be presented in a list labelled as ‘References’. This reference list appears at the end of the paper. Authors are responsible for the accuracy of cited references and these should be verified by the author(s) against the original documents before the manuscript is submitted. It is important that the author should never place in the list of references a document that he or she has not seen. The Journals names should be abbreviated according to the style used in the Index Medicus. All authors when six or less should be listed; when seven or more list only the first six and add et al.
If you are citingthe author’s name in your text, you must insert the citation number as well. Jewell BL (8) underlined that as focus in the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic shifts to the emergence of new variants of concern (VOC), characterising the differences between new variants and non-VOC lineages will become increasingly important for surveillance and maintaining the effectiveness of both public health and vaccination programme. If you are citing more than one author’s name in your text and you want to cite author names in your text, use ‘et al.’ after the first author. Example: Rampal et al. (9) highlighted that the. disregard of the manuscript guidelines and instruction to authors of the journal you submit, is one of the common reasons for ‘Rejection’ of the article.
Example references Journals:
Standard Journal Article
Rampal L and Liew BS. Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. Med J Malaysia 2020;75(2): 95-7.
Rampal L, Liew BS, Choolani M, Ganasegeran K, Pramanick A, Vallibhakara SA, et al. Battling COVID-19 pandemic waves in six South-East Asian countries: A real-time consensus review. Med J Malaysia 2020; 75(6): 613-25.
NCD Risk Factor Collaboration (NCD-RisC). Worldwide trends in hypertension prevalence and progress in treatment and control from 1990 to 2019: a pooled analysis of 1201 population-representative studies with 104 million participants. Lancet 2021; 11; 398(10304): 957-80.
Books and Other Monographs:
Personal Author(s)
Goodman NW, Edwards MB. 2014. Medical Writing: A Prescription for Clarity. 4th Edition. Cambridge University Press.
Chapter in Book
McFarland D, Holland JC. Distress, adjustments, and anxiety disorders. In: Watson M, Kissane D, Editors. Management of clinical depression and anxiety. Oxford University Press; 2017: 1-22.
Corporate Author
World Health Organization, Geneva. 2019. WHO Study Group on Tobacco Product Regulation. Report on the scientific basis of tobacco product regulation: seventh report of a WHO study group. WHO Technical Report Series, No. 1015.
NCD Risk Factor Collaboration (NCD-RisC). Rising rural body-mass index is the main driver of the global obesity epidemic in adults. Nature 2019; 569: 260–64.
World Health Organization. Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) Situation Report 85, April 14, 2020. [cited April 2020] Accessed from: https://www.who.int/docs/defaultsource/coronaviruse/situationreports/20200414-sitrep-85-covid-19.
Online articles
Webpage: Webpage are referenced with their URL and access date, and as much other information as is available. Cited date is important as webpage can be updated and URLs change. The "cited" should contain the month and year accessed.
Ministry of Health Malaysia. Press Release: Status of preparedness and response by the ministry of health in and event of outbreak of Ebola in Malaysia 2014 [cited Dec 2014]. Available from: http://www.moh.gov.my/english.php/database_stores/store_view_page/21/437.
Other Articles:
Newspaper Article
Panirchellvum V. 'No outdoor activities if weather too hot'. the Sun. 2016; March 18: 9(col. 1-3).
Magazine Article
Rampal L.World No Tobacco Day 2021 -Tobacco Control in Malaysia. Berita MMA. 2021; May: 21-22.
Tables:
All tables and figures should have a concise title and should not occupy more than one printed page. The title should concisely and clearly explain the content of the table or figure. They should be numbered consecutively with Roman numerals (e.g Table I) and figures with Arabic numerals (e.g. Figure 1), and placed after the sections of the manuscript which they reflect, particularly the results which they describe on separate pages. Cite tables in the text in consecutive order. Indicate table footnotes with lower-case letters in superscript font. Place the information for the footnote beneath the body of the table. If a table will be submitted as a separate document, the filename should contain the surname of the first author and match its label in the manuscript (e.g., SMITH Table 1).Vertical lines should not be used when constructing the tables. All tables and figures should also be sent in electronic format on submission of the manuscript as supplementary files through the journal management platform. Clinical Photographs should conceal the subject's identity. Tables and flow-charts should be submitted as Microsoft Word documents. Images should be submitted as separate JPEG files (minimum resolution of 300 dpi).
Photographs of Patients:
Proof of permission and/or consent from the patient or legal guardian must be submitted with the manuscript. A statement on this must be included as a footnote to the relevant photograph.
Colour reproduction:
Illustrations and diagrams are normally reproduced in black and white only. Colour reproductions can be included if so required and upon request by the authors. However, a nominal charge must be paid by the authors for this additional service; the charges to be determined as and when on a per article basis.
Abbreviations:
Use only standard abbreviations. The full-term for which an abbreviation stands should precede its first use in the abstract, article text, tables, and figures, unless it is a standard unit of measurement. Abbreviations shall not be used in the Title. Abbreviations should be kept to a minimum.
Formatting of text:
Numbers one to ten in the text are written out in words unless they are used as a unit of measurement, except in figures and tables. Use single hard-returns to separate paragraphs. Do not use tabs or indents to start a paragraph. Do not use the automated formatting of your software, such as hyphenation, endnotes, headers, or footers (especially for references). Submit the Manuscript in plain text only, removed all ‘field codes’ before submission. Do not include line numbers. Include only page number.
Best Paper Award:
All original papers which are accepted for publication by the MJM, will be considered for the ‘Best Paper Award’ for the year of publication. No award will be made for any particular year if none of the submitted papers are judged to be of suitable quality.
