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Instructions for Authors
Enacted in October 1977
Most recently revised in October 2018
ABOUT THE JOURNAL
The Korean Journal of Legal Medicine (Korean J Leg Med; KJLM) is the official journal of the Korean Society for Legal Medicine (KSLM). KJLM aims to present up-to-date coverage of researches and practices in forensic medicine and science. This journal is published quarterly, on February 28th, May 31st, August 31st, and November 30th.
Manuscripts for submission to KJLM should be prepared according to the following instructions. KJLM follows the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals: Writing and Editing for Biomedical Publication (http://www.icmje.org/) if not otherwise described below.
Anyone who deals with forensic medicine and science throughout the world can submit a manuscript if the academic and ethical range of the manuscript is appropriate.
COPYRIGHT AND CREATIVE COMMONS LICENSE
A submitted manuscript, when published, will become the property of KSLM. Copyrights of all published are owned by KJLM. The journal also follows the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial License (http://creativecom-mons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) as an open access journal.
ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS
The journal adheres to the ethical guidelines for research and publication described in Good Publication Practice Guidelines for Medical Journals and Committee on Publication Ethics Guidelines (COPE). Experiments conducted on human and subjects should be performed according to the Declaration of Helsinki (adopted in 1964 and amended in 2004) and approved by the Research Ethics Committee or the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of the institution where the experiment was performed. Written informed consent should be obtained from all subjects, when necessary.
In the case of an animal study, it should be mentioned that the experimental processes such as breeding and the use of laboratory animals were approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the institution where the experiment was performed or that these processes complied with the rules of the Research Ethics Committee of the institution or National Institutes for Health (NIH) Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals (1996, Institute of Laboratory Animal Resources (ILAR) Committee on National Research Council). In the study which uses human, animal and cells, sex or gender should be reported. If the study is applicable, analysis and discussion about sex or gender should be conducted.
Conflict of Interest
The corresponding author must inform the editor of any potential conflicts of interest that could influence the authors’ interpretation of the data. Examples of potential conflicts of interest are financial support from or connections to pharmaceutical companies, political pressure from interest groups, and academically related issues. In particular, all sources of funding applicable to the study should be explicitly stated.
Authorship
Authorship credit should be based on 1) substantial contributions to conception and design, 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; and 4) agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. Authors should meet conditions 1-4. When a large, multicenter group has conducted the work, the group should identify the individuals who accept direct responsibility for the manuscript. When submitting a manuscript authored by a group, the corresponding author should clearly indicate the preferred citation and identify all individual authors as well as the group name. Journals generally list other members of the group in the Acknowledgments. Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group alone does not constitute authorship.
Redundant Publication and Plagiarism
Redundant publication is defined as “reporting (publishing or attempting to publish) substantially the same work more than once, without attribution of the original source(s)”. Characteristics of reports that are substantially similar include the following: 1) “at least one of the authors must be common to all reports (if there are no common authors, it is more likely plagiarism than redundant publication),” 2) “the subject or study populations are often the same or similar,” 3) “the methodology is typically identical or nearly so,” and 4) “the results and their interpretation generally vary little, if at all.” When submitting a manuscript, authors should include a letter informing the editor of any potential overlap with other already published material or material being evaluated for publication and should also state how the manuscript submitted to KJLM differs substantially from this other material. If all or part of your patient population was previously reported, this should be mentioned in the Materials and Methods, with citation of the appropriate reference(s).
Secondary Publication
It is possible to republish manuscripts if the manuscripts satisfy the condition of secondary publication of the “Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals”.
Process for managing Research and Publication Misconduct
When the journal faces suspected cases of research and publication misconduct such as redundant (duplicate) publication, plagiarism, or fabricated data, changes in authorship, an undisclosed conflict of interest, ethical problems with a submitted manuscript, a reviewer who has appropriated an author’s idea or data, complaints against editors, and so on, the resolution process will follow the flowchart provided COPE. The discussion and decision on the suspected cases are carried out by the Editorial Board.
Editorial responsibilities
Editorial board will continuously work for monitoring/safeguarding publication ethics: guidelines for retracting articles; maintenance of the integrity of the academic record; preclusion of business needs from compromising intellectual and ethical standard; publishing corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies when needed; no plagiarism, no fraudulent data. Editorial board check manuscripts to confirm the originality of text through Similarity Check. If the value of similarity index is unexpectedly high, it will be screened more precisely on plagiarism or duplicate publication. Editors are always keeping following responsibilities: responsibility and authority to rejection/accept; acceptance of a paper when reasonably certain; promoting publication of correction or retraction when errors are found; preservation of anonymity of reviewers.
MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSION
All manuscripts should be submitted online via the journal’s website (http://submit.kjlm.or.kr) by the corresponding author. Please log in first as a member of the system and follow the directions. Submission instructions are available at the website. All articles submitted to the journal must comply with these instructions. Failure to do so will result in return of the manuscript and possible delay in publication. Before submission, check list at the website should be checked by authors. All authors must sign and submit the journal’s “Copyright Transfer” form and the corresponding author must sign and submit the journal’s “Conflict of Interest” to the journal’s website on submission. Send all correspondence regarding submitted manuscripts to:
Editor-in-Chief
Yoo, Seong Ho, M.D.
Tel: +82-2-740-8360
E-mail: yoosh@snu.ac.kr
Mail address: Institute of Forensic Medicine and Department of Forensic Medicine, Seoul National University College of Medicine, 103 Daehak-ro, Jongno-gu, Seoul 03080, Korea
CATEGORIES OF PUBLICATIONS
KJLM publishes original articles, review articles, case reports, brief case reports, forensic figures, and letter to the editors.
1. Original articles are papers reporting the results of original experiment or study in all fields of the forensic medicine and science.
2. Review articles are a concise review of a subject of importance to researchers of the forensic medicine and science written by an invited expert in the forensic medicine and science.
3. Case reports deal with original content of forensic medicine and science cases.
4. Brief case reports are concise report about forensic medicine and science cases.
5. Forensic figures deal with core and fundamental figures or paintings about forensic medicine and science.
6. Letter to the editors are limited to the manuscript of recent trends in the forensic medicine and science, statistical data, short articles for case reports, readers’ comment and authors’ opinion for the published articles within a year.
EDITORIAL AND PEER REVIEW PROCESS
KJLM reviews all manuscripts received. A manuscript is first reviewed for its format and then sent to two most relevant reviewers who are selected by recommendation of the Editorial Board members or from the Board’s specialist database. Authors’ name and affiliation are removed during peer reviews.
Acceptance of the manuscript is decided based on the critiques and recommended decision of the reviewers. A reviewer may recommend “acceptance without revision,” “acceptance after minor revisions,” “review again after revisions,” or “rejection.” If there is a marked discrepancy in the decisions between two reviewers or between the opinions of the author and reviewer(s), the editor may send the manuscript to another reviewer for additional comments and a recommended decision. Three times of “review again after revision” are regarded as a “rejection.” The reviewed manuscripts are returned back to the corresponding author with comments and recommended revisions. Names and decisions of the reviewers are masked. A final decision on acceptance or rejection for publication is forwarded to the corresponding author from the Editorial Office.
The usual reasons for rejection are topics that are too specific and target an audience that is too limited, insufficient originality, serious scientific flaws, poor quality of illustrations, or absence of a message that might be important to readers. The peer review process takes usually 4 weeks after the manuscript submission.
Revisions should be made reflecting comments made by reviewers. The revised manuscript should be resubmitted via the web system. Failure to resubmit the revised manuscript within 1 month without any notice from the corresponding author is regarded as a “withdrawal.” The corresponding author must indicate clearly what alterations have been made in response to the reviewer’s comments point by point. Acceptable reasons should be given for noncompliance with any recommendation of the reviewers.
EDITORIAL POLICY
The Editor assumes that all authors listed in a manuscript have agreed with the following policy of KJLM on submission of manuscripts. Except for the negotiated secondary publication, manuscripts submitted to the Journal must be previously unpublished and not be under consideration for publication elsewhere. Under any circumstances, the identities of the reviewers will not be revealed.
If a new author should be added or an author should be deleted after the submission, it is the responsibility of the corresponding author to ensure that the authors concerned are aware of and agree to the change in authorship. KJLM has no responsibility for such changes.
Minimum page charges and additional fees for reprints can be due for every manuscript. Costs for printing color illustrations can be charged to the authors. All published manuscripts become the permanent property of the KSLM and may not be published elsewhere without written permission.
MANUSCRIPT PREPARATION AND FORMAT
All manuscripts must adhere to the following instructions.
General Guidelines
1. The main document with the manuscript text and tables should be prepared with in an MS Word or Hangul Word format in English (Korean manuscript text is temporarily available until new notice). Abstract, tables, figures and references should be written in English. The medical terms are followed in accordance with the glossary the most recently published by Korean Medical Association.
2. The manuscript should be written in 10-point font with double line spacing on A4 sized (21.0 × 29.7 cm) paper with 2.5 cm margins on the top, bottom, right, and left. Shinmyungjo style for Korean and Times New Romans for English are recommended. Page number must start from the abstract page at the bottom, middle section of the page. Author’s names and institutions must appear only on the title page but not in any other sections.
3. The use of acronyms and abbreviations is discouraged and should be kept to a minimum. When used, they are to be defined where first used, followed by the acronym or abbreviation in parentheses.
4. Drug and chemical names should be stated in standard chemical or generic nomenclature.
5. Units of measure should be presented according to the International System (SI) of Units. All units must be preceded by one space except percentage (%), angle (°) and temperature (℃).
6. Descriptions of genes or related structures in a manuscript should include the names and official symbols provided by the US National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) or the HUGO Gene Nomenclature Committee.
7. Statistical expression: mean and standard deviation should be described as mean±SD, and mean and standard error as mean±SE. P-values should be described as P<0.05 or P=0.003.
8. Generic and brand name of medicine: for medicine, use generic names. If a brand name should be used, insert it in parentheses after the generic name.
Reporting Guidelines for Specific Study Designs
For the specific study design, such as randomized control studies, studies of diagnostic accuracy, meta-analyses, observational studies, and non-randomized studies, it is recommended that the authors comply with the following reporting guidelines:
● CONSORT Statement (reporting of randomized controlled trial)
● STARD (reporting of diagnostic accuracy studies)
● STROBE (reporting of observational studies in epidemiology)
● PRISMA (reporting of systematic reviews): http://www.prismastatement.org
● MOOSE (reporting of meta-analyses of observational studies)
ORIGINAL ARTICLES
Manuscripts will not be acceptable for publication unless they meet the following editorial requirements. Manuscripts must include 1) Title page, 2) Abstract and Key words, 3) Main text (Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion), 4) Conflict of interest, 5) Acknowledgements and Funding, 6) References, 7) Tables, and 8) Figure legends. Each component should begin on a new page in the following sequence.
1) Title page
A running title, manuscript title, and each author’s full name and affiliation including the name of the country, should be provided. The manuscript title, name of authors and affiliation of all authors should be described both in English and in Korean. The manuscript title should be concise and informative. Phrase or sentence title is eligible. The title should be less than 30 words. Avoid abbreviations and formulae where possible. The running title of less than 50 characters should be in English, not be a declarative or interrogative sentence. The first letter of a running title should be capitalized. For a multicenter study, indicate each individual’s affiliation using a superscript Arabic number (1, 2, 3…). All persons designated as authors should be qualified for authorship. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for the content. A ‘corresponding author’ for reprints should be indicated, and full contact information (including address, telephone number, fax number, and e-mail) should be provided.
Provide of the Open Researchers and Contributors ID (ORCID) of all authors is recommended, that can be registered and obtained from:http://orcid.org/.
2) Abstract and Key Words
The abstract describe concisely, in a paragraph the purpose, methods, results and conclusions of the study in an unstructured format. It should not exceed 250 words. Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) authorized words should only be used for the key words, and up to 5 key words should be listed just after the abstract. The first letter of a keyword should be capitalized.
3) Main Text
Introduction: The purpose of the investigation, including relevant background information, should be briefly described.
Materials and Methods: The research plan, the materials (or subjects), and the methods used should be described, in that order. How the disease was confirmed and how subjectivity in observations was controlled should be explained in detail. When the experimental methodology is the main issue of the paper, the process should be described in detail so as to reproduce the experiment as closely as possible. The sources of the apparatus or reagents used should be given along with the source location (name of company, city, and country). If relevant, information on the IRB approval and informed consent should be included. Methods of statistical analysis and criteria for statistical significance should be described.
Results: The results should be presented in logical sequence in the text, tables, and illustrations. The text should not repeat all the data in the tables or figures, but describe important points and trends.
Discussion: Observations pertaining to the results of research and other related materials should be interpreted for your readers. New and important observations should be emphasized; the contents in the Introduction or Results should not be simply repeated. The meaning of the observed opinion, along with its limits, should be explained, and within the limits of the research results, the conclusion should be connected to the purpose of the research.
4) Conflicts of Interest
Conflicts of interest should be written in English. The corresponding author of an article is asked to inform the editors of the authors’ potential conflicts of interest possibly influencing their interpretation of data. A potential conflict of interest should be disclosed in the manuscript even when the authors are confident that their judgments have not been influenced in preparing the manuscript.
5) Acknowledgements and Funding
Acknowledgements and funding should all be written in English. Acknowledgements: the contributors who helped administrative work, assisted in the research process or participated in proof-reading etc. can be described. Funding: the financial support and its contents should be described. When there is a funding agency, the FundRef ID of that agency is recommended to be added of which information is available from: http://www.crossref.org/fundref/
6) References
References should be obviously related to the content of the submitted paper. References should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text. Each reference should be cited as [1], [1,4], or [1-3], at the end of the related sentence in the text. The abbreviated journal title should be used according to the List of Journals Indexed for MEDLINE (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nlmcatalog/journals) and the List of KoreaMed Journals (http://www.koreamed.org/JournalBrowser.php). If there are three or fewer authors in a reference, then all the names of the authors should be listed. If the number of authors is greater than three, list the initial three authors, and then abbreviate the rest of the authors with ‘et al.’
Unpublished observations and personal communication should not be used as references, although references to written, not oral communication may be inserted (in parentheses) in the text. Abstracts published in a citable journal may be cited. To cite a paper accepted but not yet published, state “in press” in the end of the reference or the paper’s DOI number if electronic publication. References must be verified by the author(s) against the original documents. Other types of references not described below should follow Citing Medicine: The NLM style Guide for Authors, Editors, and Publishers, 2nd ed. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK7256/).
If there is no English description from textbooks or papers in Korean, it should be written by author’s translation or Romanization of the Korean characters provided by the National Institute of Korean Language available at http://www.korean.go.kr/.
Sample references are given below:
Journal Article
1. Yoo SH, Lee SD. Experimental estimation of Widmark factor in a Korean male population. Korean J Leg Med 2006;30:14-24.
2. Lee HY, Park MJ, Chung U, et al. Haplotypes and mutation analysis of 22 Y-chromosomal STRs in Korean father-son pairs. Int J Legal Med 2007;121:128-35.
3. Wai KT, Gunn P, Barach M. Development of the MitoQ assay as a real-time quantification of mitochondrial DNA in degraded samples. Int J Leg Med 2018 Oct 24 [Epub]. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00414-018-1956-8.
Books
4. Spitz WU. Medicolegal investigation of death. 4th ed. Springfield, IL: Charles C Thomas Publisher; 2004. p. 255-75.
5. Costa M, Jery S. History of diarrhea. In: Smith JR, ed. Medical history and perspective. Vol. 1. 2nd ed. New York: Raven Press; 1987. p. 1-40.
Website
6. Korean National Statistical Office. 2010 Cause of Death [Internet]. Daejeon: Korean National Statistical Office; 2011 [cited 2014 Dec 1]. Available from: http://kostat.go.kr.
7) Tables
Tables should be typed double-spaced on separate pages within manuscript, and they should be titled and numbered in Arabic numerals in the order of their first citation in the text. Each column should be given a short heading. Only the first letter of the first word in each row and column should be capital letters. If numerical measurements are given, the unit of measurement should be included in the column heading. The statistical significance of observed differences in the data should be indicated by the appropriate statistical analysis. All nonstandard abbreviations should be defined in footnotes. Table footnotes should be indicated in sequence of lower case of English with superscript.
8) Figures
Each figure should be submitted in a separate file at a resolution of more than 300 dpi in TIFF (or JPG), EPS (or PDF), or MS office files for photos. Detailed explanations belong in the figure legends, not on the illustrations themselves. Figure legends should be described in English. Figure legends should not be included in the same file as the figure, but placed instead on a page at the end of the manuscript. The figures should be numbered in the form Fig. 1, Fig. 2, and Fig. 3. Only the first letter of the first word in the title and data should be capital letters. Related figures should be combined into one figure, with each subfigure denoted by the letters, A, B, C, and so on, following the Arabic number of the main figure (ex: Fig. 1A, Fig. 1B, C). Do not label in the corner using capital letters on each figure. The illustrations of pathological tissue should state clearly the type of stain (ex: H&E, × 400), and the main contents should be marked by signs or arrows on the picture. The Editorial Committee may request that hand-drawn illustrations be redrawn by a graphic designer.
REVIEW ARTICLES
Review articles are usually solicited by the Editosr-in-Chief. However, unsolicited reviews will be also considered. If submitted manuscript is not solicited, Editor-in-Chief decides whether publication of that manuscript considering the scope of journal. Review articles are prepared in the following sequence: title page, abstract and key words, main text (introduction, text, conclusion), conflict of interest, acknowledgments and funding, references, table, and figure legends. But the details of the manuscript format may be flexible according to the contents. Manuscripts are limited to 5,000 words of text and include a 250-word summary in the place of the unstructured abstract. References should not exceed 100.
CASE REPORTS
The manuscript should be in the following sequence: title page, abstract and key words, introduction, case report (description), discussion, acknowledgments and funding, references, table, and figure legends. Maximums: one-paragraph unstructured abstract, 200 words; word count from Introduction through Discussion, 2,000 words; number of references, 25; number of figure parts, 6.
BRIEF CASE REPORTS
The manuscript should be in the following sequence: title page, abstract and key words, case report (description) and discussion, acknowledgments and funding, references, table, and figure legends. Maximums: one-paragraph unstructured abstract, 200 words; word count from Introduction through Discussion, 1,500 words; number of references, 10; number of figure parts, 3.
FORENSIC FIGURES
Forensic figures deal with a manuscript including a small number of figures that can explain a core content in the forensic medicine and science fields. The manuscript should be in the following sequence: title page, figures and legends, discussion, acknowledgments and funding, references, Maximums: word count from figure legends through Discussion, 1,000 words; number of references, 10; number of figure parts, 5.
LETTER TO THE EDITORS
This section of the journal is set aside for critical comments directed to a specific article that has recently been published in the journal. Letters should be brief (800 words), double-spaced, and limited to a maximum of 5 citations and 5 figures. Illustrative material can be accepted only with the permission of the editor. The editor reserves the right to shorten letters, delete objectionable comments, and make other changes to comply with the style of the journal.
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