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Author Guidelines

Preface with Specific Reference to Image Quality & Figure Graphics

The IJTMB’s inclusion in PubMed Central (PMC) necessitates very precise manuscript preparation guidelines regarding Image Quality & Figure Graphics Requirements.  Those full-text PMC guidelines, inclusive of pertinent hyperlinks, are designated immediately below and are further reinforced in later sub-sections of the journal’s Author Guidelines:

Image Quality & Figure Graphics Requirements

Generally, Authors submit raw image data files to a publishing house in various formats (ppt, pdf, tif, jpg, xml, etc.). The files are then normalized to produce print or electronic output. PMC requires the normalized output, which is high-resolution, and of sufficient width and quality to be considered archival. Images generated at low resolution for display purposes are not acceptable.

All images MUST be at or above intended display size, with the following image resolutions: Line Art 800 dpi, Combination (Line Art + Halftone) 600 dpi, Halftone 300 dpi. See the Image quality specifications chart for details. Image files also must be cropped as close to the actual image as possible.

What we do not want are 72 dpi web-quality graphics in which colors are not realistic, text is illegible, or images are pixilated. These undesirable qualities are usually caused by applied compression from a jpg or gif format. Although tif and eps files are the most desirable formats for archiving, it is important to stress that the real objective is to obtain the highest quality images available, regardless of format.

Generic Publication Guidelines

Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals
Generic publication guidelines for this journal adhere to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors’ (ICMJE) Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals (see www.icmje.org/index.html). These requirements speak to the ethical and technical aspects of scientific research and publishing, and where appropriate are augmented at a more detailed level in (a) the AMA Manual of Style (10th ed.) and (b) subsequent sections herein labeled “Specific Author Guidelines/Instructions” and “Online Manuscript Submission Procedures.” Additional guidelines regarding ethical concerns for human participants and animal subjects involved in research, educational, and/or practice activities are available at the following sources: (a) World Medical Association’s Helsinki Declaration of 1975; (b) Associated Bodywork & Massage Professionals; (c) the American Massage Therapy Association; and (d) the American Psychological Association (see both http://www.apa.org/ethics/code.html and http://www.apa.org/science/anguide.html.

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License
Articles published in this journal are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License (see http://creativecommons.org/ and http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ ). Accordingly, the following conditions apply: (a) Copyright for articles published in this journal is retained by authors, with first publication rights granted to the journal. (b) By virtue of their appearance in this open access journal, articles are free to use, with proper attribution, in educational and other non-commercial settings. (c) Derivative works are not allowed in that a user may not alter, transform, or add additional content to an article published in this journal.

Public Knowledge Project’s (PKP) Open Journal system (OJS) Software Specifications
The journal adheres to an electronic and open access format based on the Open Journal System (OJS) software application package developed in conjunction with Canada’s Public Knowledge Project. Documentation for this software is available via a Public Knowledge Project publication titled OJS in An Hour (see http://pkp.sfu.ca/OJSinanHour.pdf).

Publisher’s Article Preparation Service for Authors Via Multimed, Inc.
The journal’s publishing firm, Multimed, Inc., provides an article preparation service to prospective authors. This service ensures compliance with the journal’s specific author guidelines/instructions, online manuscript submission procedures, and related OJS specifications for the entire publication process.

Authors' Professional Responsibilities

Authorship
Regarding authenticity of authorship, only those individuals who contributed directly to the intellectual content of the paper should be listed as such, with the implication that all of the following criteria have been met by the author(s) listed: (a) conceived and planned the work that led to the report; (b) wrote the paper, or reviewed successive versions and took part in the revision process; and (c) approved the final version. Holding positions of administrative leadership, contributing clients, and collecting and assembling data, are not, by themselves, criteria for authorship. Other persons who have made substantial, direct contributions to the work but cannot be considered authors should be acknowledged with their permission.

Project Funding
Sources of outside support for research, including funding, equipment, and drugs, must be named in the contributed manuscript. The role(s) of the funding organization, if any, in the collection of data, its analysis and interpretation, and in the right to approve or disapprove publication of the finished manuscript must be described in the Methods section of the text.

Previous or Duplicate Publication
In Comments to the Editor, give full details on any possible previous or duplicate publication of any content of the paper. Previous publication of a small fraction of the content of a paper does not necessarily preclude its being published, but members of the Editorial Board need information about previous publication when deciding how to use space in the journal efficiently; they regard failure of full disclosure by authors of possible prior publication as a breach of scientific ethics. Please send a copy of any document that might be considered a previous publication via email to the Executive Editor, or provide this document during the submission process as a Supplementary file.

Conflict of Interest Notification
Conflict of interest exists when an author, reviewer, or editor has financial or personal relationships that could inappropriately bias or compromise his or her actions (such relationships are also known as dual commitments, competing interests, or competing loyalties). More specifically, the following considerations are illustrative and would need to be addressed: (a) Authors should identify individuals who provide writing or other assistance and disclose the funding source for this assistance. (b) Investigators must disclose potential conflicts to study participants and should state in the manuscript whether they have done so. (c) Authors should describe the role of the study sponsor(s), if any, in the study design; in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of the data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the report for publication. If the supporting source had no such involvement, the authors should so state. (d) Editors may request that authors of a study funded by an agency with a proprietary or financial interest in the outcome sign a statement such as, “I had full access to all of the data in this study and I take complete responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis.”

Such perceived conflicts--or their absence in a study-- must be disclosed by the author via the Comments to the Editor route when the manuscript is submitted. Additionally, either the presence or absence of perceived conflicts must be addressed on a Conflict of Interest Notification Page that follows the manuscript’s title page.

Informed Consent
The requirement for informed consent as needed must be accommodated in a study’s design and indicated explicitly in the published article.

Specific Author Guidelines

As indicated earlier, the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors’ (ICMJE) Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals (see www.icmje.org/index.html) provide the over-arching context in which the following specific author guidelines are detailed.

For Research-Specific Manuscripts
Manuscripts submitted for consideration in the journal’s Research Section may represent any of the recognized research methodologies included in the quantitative, qualitative, and integrative research categories. Accordingly, the so-called “IMRAD” general structure is required with the manuscript’s four major sectional headings designated as follows: Introduction, Method, Results, and Discussion. The complete range of manuscript components required for a submission is as follows:

Title Page—
Inclusive of the following: information in the title that facilitates appropriate electronic article retrieval; authors’ names, highest academic/professional degree(s), and institutional affiliation; appropriate contact information for the corresponding author(s); source(s) of support for the work presented in the article; running head or foot line of approximately 40 characters; and number of figures and tables.

(Nota Bene: Given the double-blind nature of the peer-review process used for manuscript consideration, the Title Page (page one) must not be included with the original submission. It should be placed at the beginning of the manuscript only after it has been accepted and the author is instructed to upload a version containing the Title Page.)

Conflict of Interest Notification Page —
As characterized earlier in the “Generic Publication Guidelines” sector, a Conflict of Interest Notification Page must immediately follow the manuscript’s title page. To prevent ambiguity, authors must state explicitly whether potential conflicts do or do not exist.

Abstract—
Structured abstract of no more than 300 words. For reports of original data, the following format applies: Background, Purpose, Setting, Research Design, Participants, Intervention, Main Outcome Measure(s), Results, and Conclusions. (For clinical trials, also include Trial Registration information such as trial registry name, registration, & url of the registry.) For reports of systematic reviews & meta-analyses, adhere to the following structure: Background, Purpose, Data Sources, Study Selection, Data Extraction, Results, and Conclusions.

(Nota Bene: The original submission begins with the Abstract (page two) and contains no author identification. Page 2 should include the title of the article, centered in 18-point normal font, followed by an abstract. Abstracts are obviously not required for entries in the Commentaries and News/Announcements parts of the journal. Begin the section with the word “Abstract” in bold font, 10-point type, followed by a colon. Start the abstract text (not in bold) two spaces after the colon, using 10-point font. Indent left and right margins 1.27 cm (0.5 in.). Alignment should be double (left and right) justified. )

Key Words—
Include 3 to 10 key words or short phrases, with reliance on the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) of the National Library of Medicine.

Introduction—
This first of four parts comprising the main body of the report provides the literature-based background or context of the research problem area, the significance of the problem, the purpose of the study couched in terms of the research question or objective, and the rationale for and statement of the research hypothesis.

Method—
This part of the report’s main body includes information pertinent to the selection and description of the participants; technical information regarding the operational methods, apparatus/instrumentation, and procedures so as to allow replication of the study; and sufficiently-detailed statistical methods, inclusive of confidence interval and effect size calculations when possible to augment null hypothesis significance testing.

Results—
This part of the report’s main body provides quantitative results via descriptive and/or inferential statistics as well as qualitative results where appropriate. The results should adhere to a logical and coordinated sequencing of text, tables, and illustrations, with an effort to avoid unnecessary repetition in the narrative of the data displayed in the tables and illustrations.

Discussion—
This fourth and final part of the report’s main body focuses on new and important features of the study as well as the justifiable conclusions that follow from them. Rather than repeating data or other information from the earlier Introduction or Results sections, this section provides the following coverage: summarizing succinctly the main findings of the study; exploring plausible explanations or mechanisms of the findings; comparing and contrasting the results with other pertinent studies acknowledged earlier in the report; stating the limitations and delimitations of the study; and exploring the implications of the study’s findings for future research and clinical practice.

References—
This part of the report immediately following the manuscript’s main body provides the bibliographic information for each and every source cited. As alluded to earlier, the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals is the stylistic standard used in the IJTMB. This Uniform Requirements style is based to a large extent on a standard adapted by the National Library of Medicine for its databases. Sample references for citation formats of the most prevalent types of material cited are available at the following sources: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/uniform_requirements.html , http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/formats/internet.pdf, and http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/pubcat.html#R. Abbreviations of journal titles are in accordance with the MEDLINE indexing style and can be accessed at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/tsd/serials/lji.html and, particularly, ftp://nlmpubs.nlm.nih.gov/online/journals/ljiweb.pdf (pages 11-139 in this latter source lists all abbreviations). References should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text. Arabic numerals in parentheses serve to identify references in text, tables, and legends.

The IJTMB strongly encourages authors to use professional literature citations from recognized genres of scholarly publications such as peer-reviewed journal articles and authored or edited books. In so doing, the reliance on reputable primary rather than secondary sources is obviously preferred. The appeal to electronic encyclopedias and/or online knowledge-sharing tools should be made only in those circumstances where more generally recognized scholarly sources are unavailable and/or incompatible with the author’s intent. When such is the case, these citations must be embedded parenthetically in the manuscript’s narrative as opposed to being included as entries in the References section.

(Nota Bene: With the double-blind nature of the peer-review process in mind, author identification must be removed from all parts of the submission. It is not necessary to substitute the term “Author” in place of the author’s surname in bibliographic citations and footnotes; however, this relaxing of an earlier demand on authors makes it even more imperative that authors refrain from using the first person singular or plural voice in the manuscript’s narrative.)

Recap on References:
DO:

For source citations in text, use Arabic numerals as superscripts in parentheses.

Number references (using Arabic numerals without parentheses) in the order in which they are first cited in the text.

Use the reference style of the Uniform Requirements as based largely on the standard adapted by the National Library of Medicine for its databases.

Provide complete data for each reference

Include an “available from” note for documents that may not be readily accessible.

Cite symposium papers only from published proceedings.

When citing an article or book accepted for publication but not yet published, include the title of the journal (or name of the publisher) and the year of expected publication.

Include references to unpublished material in the text, not in the references [for example, papers presented orally at a meeting; unpublished work (personal communication and papers in preparation)], and submit a letter of permission from the cited persons to cite such communications.

Cite in parentheses in the text the name of the person and the date of communication when a reference to “personal communication” is used.

Obtain written permission of author(s) and publisher(s) to use any previously published materials (figures, tables, or quotations of more than 100 words) and attach as Supplementary files.

Do not use ibid. or op cit.
The generic and specific sample references below of prevalent document types are based on the style specified by the Uniform Requirements agreement and the National Library of Medicine.

Generic Samples & Minimum Acceptable Data for Basic References:
Journals:
Print: Author(s). Article title. Journal Name [using National Library of Medicine abbreviations]. Year;vol(issue No.): inclusive pages.
Online: Author(s). Article title. Journal Name [using National Library of Medicine abbreviations]. Year;vol(issue No.): inclusive pages. URL. Published [date]. Accessed [date].

Books:
Print: Author(s). Book Title. Edition number (if it is the second edition or above). City, State (or Country) of publisher: Publisher’s name; copyright year.
Online: Author(s). Book Title. Edition number (if it is the second edition or above). City, State (or Country) of publisher: Publisher’s name; copyright year. URL. Accessed [date].

Website: Author (or, if no author is available, the name of the organization responsible for the site). Title (or, if no title is available, the name of the organization responsible for the site). Name of the Web site. URL. Published [date]. Updated [date]. Accessed [date].

Specific Sample References:
Journals: List all authors when six or fewer; when seven or more, list only the first six and add et al.
1. Standard article (continuous pagination across issues).
Moyer CA, Rounds J, Hannum JW. A meta-analysis of massage therapy research. Psychol Bull. 2004; 130(1): 3-18.
(Nota Bene: For journals having discontinuous pagination across issues, i.e., pagination begins anew with each and every issue, simply omit the issue number in parentheses.)
2. Corporate author.
The Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand. Clinical exercise stress testing: Safety and performance guidelines. Med J Aust. 1996; 164:282-284.

Books: List all authors or editors when six or fewer; when seven or more, list only the first six and add et al.
1. Author(s)
Piantadosi S. Clinical Trials: A Methodologic Perspective. 2d ed. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons; 2005.
2. Editor(s)
Rich GJ, ed. Massage Therapy: The Evidence for Practice. St. Louis, MO: Mosby/Elsevier; 2002.
3. Chapter in an edited book
Clarke GN. Improving the transition from basic efficacy research to effectiveness studies: methodological issues and procedures. In: Kazdin AE, ed. Methodological Issues and Strategies in clinical Research. 3rd ed. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association; 2003:569-587.

Specific Samples of Electronic Source References:
Online Journal Articles:
1. Duchin JS. Can preparedness for biological terrorism save us from pertussi? Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2004;158(2):106-107. http://ardchpedi.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/158/2/106. Accessed June 1, 2004.

Web Sites:
1. Sullivan D. Major search engines and directories. SearchEngineWatch
Web site. http://www.searchenginewatch.com/links/article.php/2156221.
Updated April 28, 2004. Accessed December 6, 2005.

Tables—
Tables should be centered and numbered consecutively on a separate page(s) following the References. Create the table using the tools in the word processor. Do not create tables using spreadsheet or other software packages and embed the table into the manuscript. Each table should be numbered in sequence using Arabic numerals (e.g. Table 1,2,3 etc.) Tables should also have a title that summarizes the whole table, maximum 15 words. Short table headings (10 point font) should be centered above the table. Longer headings should have margins that match the table width. Use horizontal lines in tables to delimit the top and bottom of the table and column headings. Where appropriate, tables should display confidence intervals and effect sizes to augment the reported test statistic p values. Detailed explanations or table footnotes should be typed directly beneath the table. Footnotes to a table should be indicated by superscript, lowercase letters. Leave three line spaces between the bottom of a table and the following table heading. Authors are asked to keep each table to a reasonable size; very large tables packed with data, simply confuse the reader. Each table and every column should be provided with an explanatory heading, with units of measure clearly indicated. The same data should not be reproduced in both tables and figures. Tables (along with their footnotes or captions) should be completely intelligible without reference to the text. Original text (not a graphics or picture file) should be submitted.

Illustrations (Figures) —
(See Preface to Author Guidelines) Each figure must be provided as a separate Supplementary file in the submission process. Files should be titled and numbered consecutively. Figures should be professionally drawn or photographed. All photographs must be in digital form in a standard graphics format. Monochrome images should be saved in grayscale mode; color images should be RGB. The size of a figure should be commensurate with the amount and value of the information conveyed by the figure. Only single layer images are acceptable; this is to prevent skewing if the images need to be resized.

Legends for Illustrations (Figures)—
Legends should be typed in 10-point font, double-spaced, and numbered with Arabic numerals corresponding to the illustrations and submitted on a separate page. Center the figure captions on the page. Longer figure captions should be indented 1.27 cm (0.5 in) on both margins. The abbreviation “Fig.” for figure should appear first followed by the figure number and a period. A short title of the figure follows the figure number. A detailed legend may follow the figure title, with a maximum length of 300 words. When symbols, arrows, numbers, or letters are used to identify part of the illustrations, each should be explained clearly in the legend. The legends should permit the figures to be understood without reference to the text. If the figure has been previously published, the author should include a credit line with the figure. In addition, the author should attach a permission letter as a Supplementary file to the submission.

Acknowledgments—
This part of the manuscript recognizes any non-authors who made substantial contributions to the work, including any advisors, colleagues, or contributors. Authors should obtain permission to acknowledge from all those mentioned in the Acknowledgments

Particular Issues in Research-Specific Manuscripts:

Recommendation to Register Clinical Trials—
As designated in the Uniform Requirements (Section III.J.), “the ICMJE believes it is important to foster a comprehensive, publicly available database of clinical trials. The ICMJE defines a clinical trial as any research project that prospectively assigns human subjects to intervention or concurrent comparison or control groups to study the cause-and-effect relationship between a medical intervention and a health outcome. Medical interventions include drugs, surgical procedures, devices, behavioral treatments, process-of-care changes, and the like” (www.icmje.org/index.html). This source goes on to advocate that (a) the public trials registry used include a minimal registration data set spanning 20 criteria (see World Health Organization Technical Consultation on Clinical Trials Registration) and (b) the trial registration number be designated at the end of the manuscript’s abstract. Additional guidance regarding this recommended registration process for prospective authors of clinical trial manuscripts is available at the following sources: ICMJE’s “Questions about Clinical Trials Registration” and ClinicalTrials.gov.

(Nota Bene: The IJTMB considers massage and bodywork interventions to be included in the aforementioned definition.)

Recommended Reporting Guidelines for Randomized Controlled Trials—
As per the recommendation of the Uniform Requirements, authors are advised to use the CONSORT (Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials) reporting guidelines for randomized controlled trials. This ensures the inclusion in the manuscript of a list of items on which to report as well as a client/patient flow diagram.

Recommended Reporting Guidelines for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses—
The Uniform Requirements likewise recommend the use of the QUORUM (Quality of Reporting of Meta-Analyses) reporting guidelines to accommodate essential features that should be presented in reports of systematic reviews and meta-analytic studies.

Specific Author Guidelines: Continued

For Education- & Practice-Specific Manuscripts
Manuscripts submitted for consideration in the journal’s Education Section and Practice Section represent expository descriptions, conceptualizations, interpretations, or disputations of issues in the massage and bodywork profession. The approach taken in these manuscripts may be theoretically and/or experientially based; however, in either case, considerable attention must be given to the necessity for critical reasoning in and professional literature support of one’s assertions. To the extent that it is feasible and consonant with the topic addressed, the so-called “IMRAD” general manuscript structure addressed earlier is strongly recommended with (a) the four major sectional headings of Introduction, Method, Results, and Discussion and (b) the follow-up sections of References, Tables, Figures, etc. If the manuscript’s topic does not lend itself conveniently to the IMRAD structure, then a deductive, inductive, or hybrid narrative development is encouraged.

For Commentary-Specific Manuscripts
As characterized earlier, reader commentaries are encouraged in the form of (a) letters to the editor regarding any feature of the journal, (b) book reviews, and (c) reactions to published articles, with the opportunity for author response provided. Where applicable, the previously-cited need for critical reasoning and literature support of one’s position is essential. The format here is open-ended.

Further Technical Specifications for Manuscript Preparation

Word Processing Specs—
(See Preface to Author Guidelines) To facilitate the review process, manuscripts must be in Microsoft Word format (.doc version 2 and above) or Rich Text Format (.rtf). This applies to both Windows and Macintosh platforms. If you are using any other word processing program, you must save the file as .rtf. As indicated earlier, do not embed figures or tables into the text.

Paper size should be US Letter, 21.202 cm x 27.83 cm (8.5 in. x 11 in.). The printing area should be set to 13.28 cm x 21.54 cm (5.25 in. x 8.5 in.). The top margin on the title page should be 5.08 cm (2 in) deep; all other pages, the top margin should be 2.54 cm (1 in.). The other (right, left, and bottom) margins should all be 4.11 cm (1.625 in.). All fonts or text should be some version of Times New Roman. Text should be 10 point, the title should be 18 point, the authors’ names should be 10 point, and the affiliation and references should be 10 point. Do not hyphenate at the end of a line. Use double spacing throughout, including the references and figure legends.

Organize the manuscript in the order as indicated earlier, with each component beginning on a separate page. Use bold font to show headings and subheadings throughout the manuscript. Sections in the main body of the manuscript do not need to begin on a separate page. Figures must be submitted as separate Supplementary files. Monochrome images should be saved in grayscale mode; color images should be RGB. The size of a figure should be commensurate with the amount and value of the information conveyed by the figure. Only single layer images are acceptable; this is to prevent skewing if the images need to be resized.

Units of Measurement, Abbreviations, & Symbols—
Use the International System of Units (SI) throughout the manuscript. If you indicate units other than the SI units, they may be shown in parentheses after the SI unit. Do not use abbreviations unless necessary, and do not explain abbreviations for units of measurement (e.g., 3mL, not 3 milliliters (mL)) or standard scientific symbols (na, not sodium (Na)). Avoid abbreviations in the title. The full term for which an abbreviation stands should precede its first use in the text unless it is a standard unit of measurement.

Online Manuscript Submission Procedures

Overview
Please note that the guidelines below contain information pertaining to online manuscript submission. The following information will help you prepare your manuscript for electronic submission to the International Journal of Therapeutic Massage & Bodywork’s web-based peer review system. Submit manuscripts to http://journals.sfu.ca/ijtmb. You will be able to monitor the progress of your manuscript through the peer review process.

Formatting and Submitting Online

User Account Information—
Log on to the International Journal of Therapeutic Massage & Bodywork at http://journals.sfu.ca/ijtmbl. Select the “Login” page. All authors, reviewers and editors must log in to use the system. If you are already registered with the system, you may login with a username and password. Select “User” on the upper bar, and under Function, select “Author” to submit an article or track the status of your current submissions.

If you want to submit an article and do not have a username and password, you must select the “Register Here” link to log in. Under Online Submissions, you should select “Go to Registration” link to register your username and password. After this, follow the instructions above to begin article submission.

Submission Steps—
After selecting “Author”, you may submit an article by selecting “Submit” under the Function column. If you wish to track articles already submitted, select “Track” under the Function column. If “Submit” is selected, the next page begins a five-step process to submit a manuscript online.

Step 1: Start Submission. Under “A. Journal Section”, a drop down menu allows the selection of type of article. The author should complete the submission checklist indicating the article is prepared in the proper format and has not been previously published. “Comments to the Editor” about aspects of this article may be offered, but this is optional. Select Save/Continue to proceed to the next section.

Step 2: Submission Metadata. The first, middle and last name of each author, affiliation, and email address are required for each author. An optional biographical statement may be added as well for each author. Spaces are provided for the Submission Title and Submission Abstract. A space is provided for the author to name Agencies that provided support for the work presented in the submission.

Step 3: Submission Upload. Four steps are required to submit the manuscript, which must be on the hard drive of the computer. 1. Click Browse which open a Choose File window for locating the file on the hard drive. 2. Locate the submission file and highlight it. 3. Click Open on the window, which places the address in the box on this page. 4. Click Upload on this page, which uploads the file from the computer to the journal’s website and renames it following the journal’s system. The file can be viewed by clicking on the file name. A new or revised file can be uploaded, deleting the one that currently appears. After clicking “Upload”, the upload window clears; click Save/Continue to move to the next step.

Step 4: Supplementary Files. An important feature of this publishing system is the ability to upload separate graphics files. Having graphics files separate facilitates the HTML markup of the article for online viewing. An additional advantage is its ability to post and index any number of supplementary files for each published investigation. These might include research instruments, data sets, information sources, etc. In addition, special permission to use figures, copyright release statements, may be included.

Step 5: Confirmation. This step allows the author to review the submission for completeness, note the file(s) name change in the system, note the submission file size, and upload date. The author should click “Finish Submission” to confirm the upload.

Revisions—
When you prepare a revised version of your manuscript, it is essential that you carefully follow the instructions given in the Editor's letter regarding preparation of the same, in particular preparation of the annotated copy. Failure to do so will cause a delay in the review of your revision and may result in return of the revision to you, without review, for proper preparation.

Revisions received more than 3 months after requested may be sent for another review cycle, at the Editor's discretion. If a revision is not received within 6 months after requested, your file may be closed.

Copyediting—
After final acceptance of your manuscript, it will be copyedited before publication to conform to the style and usage of the International Journal of Therapeutic Massage & Bodywork. (Nota Bene: The author must add page one, containing author identification, to the manuscript before the copy editing process.) This editing may be substantive. It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to read the copyedited manuscript he or she will receive and to answer all queries fully.

 

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 submission has not been previously published nor is it before another journal for consideration; or, an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor.
2. The submission file is in Microsoft Word or RTF document file format and uses Times New Roman font or its equivalent.
3. With Microsoft Office documents, author identification should also be removed from the properties for the file (see under File in Word), by clicking on the following, beginning with File on the main menu of the Microsoft application: File > Save As > Tools (or Options with a Mac) > Security > Remove personal information from file properties on save > Save.
4. All URL addresses in the text are activated and ready to click.
5. The text is double-spaced; uses a 10-point font; employs italics, rather than underlining (except for URL addresses); with figures and tables placed at the end of the text, rather than embedded within.
6. The text meets this journal’s formatting requirements as outlined in the Generic Publication Guidelines and the Specific Author Guidelines found earlier on the IJTMB’s web site. To ensure the integrity of the double-blind peer-review process, author identification has been removed. The author’s name has been removed from the document’s Properties, which in Microsoft is found in the File menu.
7. The submission provides figures to be uploaded as Supplementary Files in accordance with the previously-stated Image Quality & Figure Graphics Requirements. Monochrome images have been saved in grayscale mode; color images are in RGB.

Copyright Notice

Articles published in this journal are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License (see http://creativecommons.org/  and  http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ ). Accordingly, the following conditions apply: (a) Copyright for articles published in this journal is retained by authors, with first publication rights granted to the journal. (b) By virtue of their appearance in this open access journal, articles are free to use, with proper attribution, in educational and other non-commercial settings. (c) Derivative works are not allowed in that a user may not alter, transform, or add additional content to an article published in this journal.

Privacy Statement

The names and email addresses entered in this journal site 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.