Submissions

Author Guidelines

Guidelines for authors
Ø Quarterly Publication
Ø Abstracts published in French language
Ø Fast Double blind Peer Review Process
Ø Manuscript Plagiarism Assessment
Ø Respectable Editorial Board
1. Name of Journal: Research Journal of Health Sciences (RJHS)
The Research Journal of Health Sciences is published quarterly
(March, June, September and December).

2. Authorship
With regard to authorship guidelines, the RJHS subscribes to the recommendations of the
International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). Guidelines based on those of
the ICMJE are as follows: All persons designated as authors should qualify for authorship,
and all those who qualify should be listed. Each author should have
participated sufficiently in the work to take responsibility for appropriate portions of the
content. One or more authors should take responsibility for the integrity of the work as a
whole, from inception to published article.
Authorship credit should be based on 1) substantial contributions to conception and
design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; 2) drafting the article
or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and 3) final approval of the
version to be published. Conditions 1, 2 and 3 must all be met. Acquisition of funding, the
collection of data, or general supervision of the research group, by themselves, do not
justify authorship.
In the case of publications arising from research conducted by students, and where the
student has done the majority of the work, the student will normally be the first author.
Second authorship is appropriate for the supervisor provided the conditions outlined in
the preceding paragraph are met. Second authorship is not acceptable if the supervisor
only provides encouragement, physical facilities, financial support, critiques or editorial
contributions.
Authors should be able to provide a description of what each contributed. All others who
contributed to the work who are not authors should be included in the
“Acknowledgements section”, and what they did should be described.
Authorship of multi-centre studies is attributed to a group. All members of the group who
are named as authors should meet the authorship criteria listed above. Group members
who do not meet these criteria should be listed, with their permission in the
“Acknowledgements section”.
The order of authorship should be a joint decision of the co-authors. Authors should be
prepared to explain the order in which authors are listed.

3. Article arrangement and style. The text file should be arranged as enumerated
below: Title Page
The title page should contain:
· the full title (bold, lower case, font size 12, Times New Roman), ≤ 20 words
· details of each author: last name and initials, degrees, and affiliation
· corresponding author's e-mail address
· proposed running title
Abstract
· an abstract of 150 words which should summarize the objective(s), methodology,
major findings and conclusions
· three to six keywords
Others
· the next pages should contain the text file divided into:
Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgements,
References, Tables and Figures.

4. Conflict of Interest and Acknowledgments
Authors are required to disclose any potential conflict of interest.
Acknowledgments should list brief statements of assistance, financial support, and prior
publication of the study in abstract form, if applicable.

5. Copyright
By submitting manuscripts to RJHS authors of original articles are assigning copyright to
the College of Health Sciences, Osun State University. Authors may use their own work
after publication without written permission, provided they acknowledge the original
source. Individuals and academic institutions may freely copy and distribute articles
published in RJHS for educational and research purposes without obtaining permission.

6. Ethics
Papers based on original research must adhere to the Declaration of Helsinki on "Ethical
Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects", and must specify from which
recognized ethics committee approval for the research was obtained. Authors must
i n d i c a t e e t h i c a l c o n f o r m i t y w i th t h e H e l s ink i Dec l a r a t i on 1975 (as
amended). The institution’s Ethics Committee must have approved studies on human
subjects. Informed consent of human subjects must be clearly stated in the manuscript.
Animal experiments must be in conformity with international norms guided by relevant
laws and the guidelines of the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC). The
intent to publish in this journal must be supported by all authors and the manuscripts
must not have been previously published or being considered for publication by any other
journal. The use of trade names is unacceptable for medicinal products.

7. Manuscript Submission process
It is the policy of the RJHS that authors must conform to standards of good scientific
practice and responsible authorship. Authors must accept responsibility for the entire
contents of the submitted manuscript, and provide their significant contributions to the
work. Submission of a manuscript implies that the work described has not been published
previously; that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere; that its publication
has been approved by all co-authors, if any, as well as by the responsible authorities at the
institution(s) where the work has been carried out. All statements and opinions expressed
in the manuscripts and published in the journal are strictly those of the author(s) and not
necessarily those of the Editor(s) or Publisher. The Publisher disclaims any responsibility
or liability for such materials. In addition, the Publisher is not liable and do not provide
guarantee or endorsement for services or products advertised. The appearance of such
advertisements in this journal does not constitute a guarantee or endorsement by the
editorial board or the College of Health Sciences, of quality or value of any advertised
product or service, or the claims made for them by advertisers.
Abstracts of Accepted manuscripts shall be published in French language. Finally, in a bid
to reach a wider audience as well as relevant stakeholders, summaries of all publications
shall be made available in simplified version on our webpage (www.rjhs.org).
All manuscripts must be submitted in Microsoft Word format.

All manuscripts for the RJHS should be submitted online through our submission system at  www.rjhs.org

8. Formatting guidelines
The word processing program should be Microsoft Word. The text should be typed using
the font Times New Roman, size 12 points, and organized on A4 format (21 x 29.5 cm).
Italicize common and standard Latin words, abbreviations or phrases such as «et al.»,
«e.g.» or «in vivo». Italicize the names of genes (e.g. Arpl gene), genera and species.

Tables
Tables must be placed on a separate page, below the list of references. All tables are to be
numbered using Arabic numerals. Tables should always be cited in the text in consecutive
numerical order. For each table, authors must supply a table caption (title) explaining the
components of the table. Footnotes to tables must be placed below the body of the table
and should be indicated with superscript lowercase letters. Ensure that the data presented
in tables do not duplicate results described elsewhere in the article.

Figures
Figures must be placed in a separate section below tables. Ensure that each figure has a
caption. Supply captions in a separate section (not attached to the figure) below the
figures. A caption should comprise a brief title (not on the figure itself) and a description
of the illustration. Keep text in the illustrations themselves to a minimum however and
explain all symbols and abbreviations used.
Colored figures will appear in color on the web regardless of whether or not these
illustrations are reproduced in color in the printed version. The author(s) will bear the
extra costs involved in producing printed colored figures, if required. For color
reproduction in print, author(s) will receive information regarding the costs after
manuscripts have been accepted for publication.

Original Articles
Original Articles should be clinical or basic studies. Translational research that adds
new information to the aetiology, treatment, and outcomes of health conditions that have
not been published previously will be given accelerated editorial processing. Each
manuscript should not exceed 3,000 words (excluding tables, figures and references), and
not more than 30 references. Not more than 8 figures/tables (in total) are acceptable.
Cover letter, title page and abstract are required.

Case Reports/Case Series
Case reports should consist of unusual case(s) and a brief review of the literature
pertaining to the case(s) that add new information to the health knowledge. These case
reports should not exceed 1,500 words, 15 references, and 4 figures/tables in all. Cover
letter, title page and abstract are required.

Review Articles
All submitted review articles shall be subjected to the same peer-review and editorial
processes as Original Articles. The Journal shall not publish not more than one review
article per edition except the Editorial team decides otherwise. The text of Review Articles
must be limited to 3,500 words, with a maximum of 6 figures and tables (total) and up to
60 references. Cover letter, title page and abstract are required.

Referencing in the text
1. References must conform to Vancouver style. Journal title should conform to the
abbreviation in index medicus. Journal articles should be cited in this format: Author’s
name and initials, title of article, abbreviated name of journal, year of publication, volume
(issue) and pages.
2. Books: Mbagwu SM. A pictorial self-instruction manual on skin diseases, Lagos:
Longman, 2012.
3. Chapters in Books: Remington JS, McLeod R, Desmonts G. Toxoplasmosis. In: Remington
JS, Klein OJ, editors. Infectious disease of the fetus and newborn infant. 4th
ed. Philadelphia: WB Saunders Co, 1994; p. 141-267.
4. Akinwusi PO, Adeniji AO, Atanda OO, Adekunle AD. Hospital-based incidence of
maternal heart failure during pregnancy in Nigeria. Int J Gen Med. 2013; 6:201-7.
5. In-text citation is with standard numbers in brackets, e.g., (1,2). Authors are
responsible for completeness and accuracy of all citations. A maximum of six authors
should be quoted followed by et al. In the list of references, all references in the text are
numbered consecutively in the order they appear in the text.

9 Review Process
Double blind peer review process will be conducted in relation to scientific and
statistical contents. Three referees, active in the relevant field of the submitted
manuscript, will review manuscripts submitted for publication. Reviewers are
knowledgeable of the research area and will not have a conflict o f i n t e r e s t . Only
papers with favorable reports will be accepted for publication. The Editorial Board shall
decide the acceptance of manuscripts for publication. When the article is published the
corresponding author will be able to download freely the electronic reprint of the article in
Adobe’s PDF format from the Journal website.

10. Contact Information
Please ensure that contact information such as e-mail addresses and fax numbers, for all
authors are current to facilitate follow-up regarding manuscripts. The Editor should be
promptly notified of any changes in such information.

11. General Information
The Journal is institutional based (www.uniosun.edu.ng), with the editorial office at the
College of Health Sciences, Osun State University, Osogbo. The Editorial Team from the
outset ensure that the Journal is standardized and indexed appropriately. All manuscripts
will always be reviewed by at least three peer reviewers, and by our language / reference /
formatting editors. We also subject all accepted manuscripts to plagiarism software to
assess manuscripts for plagiarism. All accepted abstracts would be translated into French
language so as to reach the Francophone readers. Our goal is to make Research Journal
an outstanding health sciences journal within the sub-Saharan Africa.
One of the unique characteristics of the Journal website is to have a section where we can
display summary of research works in a language that the general population including
stakeholders and policy makers can understand. All authors of accepted manuscripts shall
be required to submit a 500 word summary (in simple language) structured as follows:
Title:
Manuscript Number:
Background:
Why Was This Study Done?
What Did the Researchers Do and Find?
Provide Top 10 references:
The summary shall be translated without any charges to the Authors.

12. Submission Checklist
Indicate type of article on title page (e.g. Original Article, Case Report, Review Article, etc)
Provide complete names, degrees, and contacts / affiliations for all authors
Designate a corresponding author, with complete mailing and email addresses and telephone
Provide a structured abstract of 250 words and 3-6 key words for subject indexing
Cite references, figures, and tables in recommended formats
Check all references for completeness and accuracy
Submit each table / figure on a separate page
Clearly number figures and indicate orientation. Submit each figure on a separate page
Identify and provide permission for reuse of any previously published material
Disclose any potential conflict of interest

13. Processing & Publication charges
To ensure regular production of the journal quarterly, there is a need to maintain the editorial
office, remunerate editorial staff, ensure French translation of abstracts, conduct plagiarism
assessments and printing of journal hard copies, there is a need to introduce payment of token
processing and publication fees, comparable to international standards.
a) A non-refundable processing fee of $30 or its equivalent should accompany the
 manuscript at submission. Once manuscripts are ACCEPTED for publication, authors are required to immediately pay a non-refundable publication fee of $100 or its equivalent.
b) However as stated under Formatting Guidelines (under Figures), author(s) will bear the extra cost involved in producing printed colored figures, if required. For color reproduction in print, author(s) will receive information regarding the costs after manuscripts have been accepted for publication.
c) Fees charged are subject to review as may be dictated by inflation and overhead running costs.