Cover Submission Letter Checklist

	The submitted manuscript must be accompanied by a cover letter stating that neither the manuscript nor any significant part of it is under consideration for publication elsewhere, or has appeared elsewhere in a manner that could be construed as a prior or duplicate publication of the same, or very similar, work. Should there be a possibility of doubt concerning such prior publications, the title page and abstract of such material should be included with the submitted manuscript. When appropriate, the cover letter should contain disclosures of any potential conflict of interest arising from associations with commercial or corporate interest in connection with the work submitted.
	The cover letter must be signed by all authors and must indicate that the manuscript has been read and approved by all authors.
	The cover letter should list a word count for the manuscript (refer to specific journal guidelines for limitations on number of words).
	Authorship and Copyright: The manuscript cover letter must stipulate that all persons listed as authors have contributed to preparing the manuscript, and that no person or persons other than the authors listed have contributed significantly to its preparation. The intent of this requirement is to forestall the participation of outside parties ("ghost writers") who may stand to benefit by attempting to influence the content of a study or its results. Some journals require authors to transfer copyright of articles accepted for publication. Check individual journal web sites for information on this requirement.
	When appropriate, authors should specify the subspecialty section for which their submission is intended (e.g., Cardiovascular, Ambulatory, Critical Care, etc.).

BACK TO TOP

Sample Submission Letter

Dear (name of editor):

On behalf of my co-authors, I am submitting the enclosed material for possible publication in (name of journal). It has not been submitted for publication nor has it been published in whole or in part elsewhere. I attest to the fact that all authors listed on the title page have read the manuscript, attest to the validity and legitimacy of the data and its interpretation, and agree to its submission to (name of journal).

Possible conflicts of interest, sources of financial support, corporate involvement, patent holdings, etc. for each author are disclosed on the attached Checklist or in an accompanying letter.

Copyright transfer and the signatures of all authors will be requested prior to publication of accepted manuscripts.

Signature(s) Date

BACK TO TOP

Electronic Manuscript Submission

Lippincott Williams & Wilkins strongly urges authors to submit electronic versions of manuscripts in conjunction with the traditional paper version. Note: While electronic submission is not imperative prior to acceptance, it will be required upon acceptance.

	The preferred storage medium is a 31/2-inch disk in an MS-DOS-compatible format. Files in a Macintosh-compatible format will also be accepted.
	Files should be submitted in one of the following standard word processing formats: Microsoft Word, WordPerfect, WordStar, or XYWrite. While we can convert from other word processing formats, the vagaries of the conversion process may introduce errors. Do not submit ASCII text files.
	Each submitted disk must be clearly labeled with the name of the author, item title, journal title, type of equipment used to generate the disk, work processing program (including version number), and file names used.
	The file submitted on disk following approval must be the final corrected version of the manuscript and must agree with the final accepted version of the submitted paper manuscript. The disk submitted should contain only the final version of the manuscript. Delete all other material from the disk.
	Please follow the general instructions on style/arrangement and, in particular, the reference style as given in individual journal Author Guidelines.
Note, however, that while the paper version of the manuscript must be presented in the traditional double- spaced format, the electronic version will be typeset and should not contain any extraneous formatting instructions. For example:
	Use hard carriage returns only at the end of paragraphs and display lines (e.g., titles, subheadings).
	DO NOT use an extra hard return between paragraphs.
	DO NOT use tabs or extra space at the start of a paragraph or for list entries.
	DO NOT indent runover lines in references.
	Turn off line spacing.
	Turn off hyphenation and justification.
	DO NOT specify page breaks, page numbers, or headers.
	DO NOT specify typeface.
	Care should be taken to correctly enter "one" (1) and lower case "el" (l), as well as "zero" (0) and capital "oh" (O).
	Please observe the following conventions concerning dashes. Use a single hyphen with space before it for a minus sign; use a double hyphen (with space before and after) to indicate a "long dash" in text; and use a triple hyphen (with no extra space) to indicate a range of numbers (e.g. "23---45").
	Illustrations and tables will be handled conventionally, not electronically. However, figure legends should be included at the end of the electronic file.
	Nonstandard characters (Greek letters, mathematical symbols, etc.) should be coded consistently throughout the text. Please make a list of such characters and provide a listing of the codes used.

BACK TO TOP