Instructions to Authors

Article types

Categories and word limits

Listed in the same order, and under the same names, as the Article type list on the submission page.
*Word limits exclude references and abstract. These are the journal's own limits, aligned with common biomedical practice and ICMJE recommendations.

# Student Research Report. The faculty mentor is named as a co-author. IEC approval — or a stated exemption — and the ICMR-STS reference number must both be given. Up to 4 tables and figures, and no more than 20 references.

Manuscript structure

How to organise your submission

Submission is by pasting from Word, not by uploading files. The submission page gives you a separate box for each part, so nothing has to be assembled into one document beforehand.

• Blinded manuscript: one box for each section. The boxes change with the article type, and every box shown for your type must be filled before the form will accept the submission. No author name, affiliation or institution anywhere inside.

  Article type	Boxes, in order
  Original Article · Student Research Report (ICMR-STS)	Introduction · Aims and Objectives · Materials and Methods · Results · Discussion · Conclusion
  Short Communication	Introduction · Materials and Methods · Results · Discussion · Conclusion
  Review Article	Introduction · Search Strategy · Review · Discussion · Conclusion
  Case Report	Introduction · Case Presentation · Discussion · Conclusion
  Drug Safety / Pharmacovigilance Report	Introduction · Case Presentation · Causality Assessment · Discussion · Conclusion
  Educational Forum	Introduction · Learning Objectives · Main Text · Key Learning Points · Conclusion
  Drug Update	Introduction · Pharmacology · Clinical Evidence · Safety and Adverse Effects · Place in Therapy · Conclusion
  Letter to Editor · Editorial · Perspective / Commentary · Book Review	A single box, no fixed headings

• References: their own box, and they are not counted in the word limit.
• Abstract: a box for each part — Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Conclusion — joined into one paragraph, with the Conclusion beginning a new one. Letters, editorials, perspectives and book reviews carry no abstract. The abstract carries no separate Aims or Objectives heading: state the study objective in the final sentence of the abstract's Introduction, so that the words are spent on the study rather than on a repeated label. Reports of clinical trials should follow CONSORT for Abstracts.
• Keywords: three to six, one in each box, MeSH terms preferred.
• Title page: its own box — title, all authors with affiliations, corresponding author details. It never reaches reviewers, so the manuscript stays blinded.
• Figures and tables: paste them within the text where they belong. Copy each picture from Word one at a time; each must be under 500 KB. An Excel chart must be pasted into Word first, then copied from Word. Every figure needs a legend and every table a caption.

Formatting

Preparation

Write in Word as you normally would. Bold, italics, headings, lists and tables are all carried across when you paste, so there is no need to strip your formatting. Because the manuscript is pasted rather than uploaded, page size, line spacing and line numbering do not apply.

• Abbreviations defined at first use; SI units throughout.
• Word limits count the manuscript text only — the abstract, references, legends and captions are excluded.
• The submission page shows a live word count against your article type and will not accept a manuscript over the limit.

References

Citation style

References follow the Vancouver style (ICMJE), numbered in the order they appear in the text. List all authors up to six; for seven or more, list the first six followed by "et al." Journal names abbreviated per Index Medicus.

Ethics & consent

Mandatory declarations

• Institutional Ethics Committee (IEC) approval number for all studies involving humans or animals.
• Written informed consent statement; for case reports, consent for publication.
• Clinical trials must be registered (e.g. CTRI) with the registration number stated.
• ICMR-STS submissions must state IEC approval or exemption, name the faculty mentor, and give the STS reference number.
• Conflict of interest is required from every author, in its own box on the submission page. Write "None declared" if there is none.
• Acknowledgements and funding or grant support have their own boxes and are withheld from reviewers, because they usually name the institution or the grant and would break the double-blind review. Editors see them; reviewers do not.
• Studies should follow the Declaration of Helsinki and applicable national guidelines.

Plagiarism

Similarity screening

All manuscripts are screened for similarity before review. Submissions with a similarity index above 15% (excluding the reference list, correctly quoted and attributed material, and standard boilerplate phrasing such as common methodological and statistical-reporting expressions) are returned to authors before review. Plagiarism, data fabrication, and duplicate submission are handled per COPE flowcharts. Full details are given in the Peer Review Policy.

Authorship & disclosures

Requirements

• All authors must meet the four ICMJE authorship criteria.
• The submitting author must provide the name and institutional email address of every co-author.
• Declare all conflicts of interest and sources of funding.
• Any use of AI tools in preparation must be disclosed.

Licensing & charges

Open access

The Journal of Clinical & Applied Pharmacology (JCAP) is fully open access. Articles are published under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY 4.0) licence, and authors retain copyright.

Article processing charge

There is no charge to publish in JCAP. There is no submission fee, no article processing charge, and no publication fee of any kind. Colour figures, supplementary files and the PDF are all included.

Should any charge ever be introduced, it will be announced on this page before it takes effect and will never be applied to a manuscript already submitted.

Peer review

How manuscripts are handled

• Double-blind review — author and reviewer identities are mutually concealed.
• Initial editorial screening for scope, plagiarism, and ethics.
• At least two qualified external reviewers for every research article; a third on disagreement. An editor's or board member's reading is not one of the two. Target first decision within 15 days.
• Decisions: accept, minor revision, major revision, or reject. Appeals go to the Editor-in-Chief.
• Reviewer comments reach you by email as soon as they arrive, with a private link — you need not wait for the formal decision to begin work.
• The fifteen days are the journal's own working time. The clock stops while a manuscript is with you for revision and starts again when your revision arrives, so time spent on your own corrections is never counted against us, nor against you.
• If a revision is not received, we send three reminders — after 3, 7 and 15 days. If we still do not hear, the manuscript is closed as withdrawn after a further week. That is not a rejection: nothing is judged, no refusal is recorded, and you may submit the work afresh at any time. One line asking for more time is always enough to prevent it.

After acceptance

What the journal may change in your manuscript

Accepted manuscripts are copy-edited. The journal may:

• set the title in sentence case, keeping proper nouns and recognised abbreviations capitalised;
• correct spelling, grammar, punctuation and obvious slips;
• apply house style to headings, numbers, units, drug names and abbreviations;
• put references into the journal's format, and query any that cannot be traced;
• place a table or figure caption above the item it names, and renumber where the order requires it;
• shorten an abstract or a section that exceeds the stated limit, without altering its sense;
• lay out tables and figures to fit the page.

The journal does not alter the meaning of a sentence, the data, the analysis, the interpretation or the conclusions. It does not add or remove a reference of its own accord, and it does not change the author list, the affiliations or the declarations. Where a change would touch meaning, we ask you.

You see the article as it will appear before it is published, and you remain responsible for its content.

After review

Revising your manuscript

You do not resubmit a whole new document. Your private link opens your own manuscript with each reviewer's remarks marked in colour on the exact words or figure they refer to.

• Correct the text directly on the page, as you would in Word.
• To change a picture or a table, use the Replace picture or Replace table button on it.
• Answer each remark in the reply box beside it — a line is enough. These are gathered into the point-by-point Response to Reviewers automatically; you do not write that document yourself.
• Every remark must have either a correction or a reply before the revision can be sent. Nothing may be passed over in silence.
• Each version is kept — Original, Rev-1, Rev-2 — and you may return to the same link as often as you need.
• Reviewers are identified only by a code name, and that code name stays the same for that reviewer throughout.