Manuscript Submission

Welcome and thank you for considering Journal of Human and Clinical Genetics to submit your work.

By submitting a manuscript to the journal, authors ensure that they strictly follow guidelines and ethics of the journal.

Manuscripts must be submitted by one of the authors of the manuscript, through online submission. If authors face any technical problem with online submission, they can send the article through an email attachment to the editorial office at editor@humangeneticsjournal.com. The submitting author takes responsibility for the article from submission until publication (during peer review and in-house process).

The documents of new manuscript submission should comprise of:

  • Cover letter
  • Manuscript file (Including title page, full manuscript body text, conflict of interest statement, funding information and references)
  • Article table of contents mentioning all levels of headings
  • All tables and table legends (in order of citation within the manuscript text)
  • All figures and figure legends (in order of citation within the manuscript text)
  • Supplementary materials (if any)
  • The name and e-mail address of the contact author who will check the proof of the paper.

A Cover Letter that explains the main purpose of the work, must accompany the manuscript. It should explain the suitability of the manuscript to this particular journal based on topic, theme, and methodological or theoretical approach. It should briefly describe the research that is being reported in the paper, why it is important, and why the readership of the journal would be interested in it.

Authors may suggest 3-6 potential peer-reviewers for the manuscript, provided, they should not be the current collaborators and should not be the members of same research institution. The suggested peer reviewers should not have published with any of the authors of the manuscript within the past five years. Suggested reviewers may be considered along with potential reviewers recommended by Sectional Editors.

Once the manuscript is modified/corrected according to the reviewer’s suggestions and finally approved for publication, there will be no further opportunity to edit it. Any essential changes after this point will be published as corrigenda. After acceptance of the article and before its publication, the corresponding author must sign License to Publish Form. Our editorial staff will respond to any submission inquiry within two working days. On publication of the article, all authors of the manuscript will receive a web link, which directs you to the published article on the Journal website.

Manuscript Categories

Journal of Human and Clinical Genetics requires authors to carefully choose the appropriate article type for their manuscript.

  1. Research Article
  2. Case Report
  3. Editorial
  4. Review Article
  5. Mini Review Article
  6. Conference Proceedings
  7. Corrigenda
  8. Short Communication
  9. Book Review
  10. Letter to the Editor
  11. Commentaries and Opinions

1. Research Article: A Research article reports the new results of original scientific research within the journal’s scope. Research papers deal with its subject in depth. Generally these papers are expected to include Title, Abstract, Keywords, Background/Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results and Discussion, Conclusions, List of abbreviations used (if any), Competing interests (if any), Authors' contributions, Authors' information, Acknowledgements, Funding, Endnotes (if any), References, Illustrations and figures (if any), Tables and captions (if any), and Additional supplementary files (if any). Papers that are exclusively methodological or that the editors of the journal present models or hypothesis unsupported by original data are not acceptable. Research papers are generally expected to include 3000 – 6000 words excluding abstract and references.

2. Case report: A case report is the descriptive study of a single individual (case report) or small group (case series) that includes signs, symptoms, diagnostic studies, treatment course and outcome. Case reports often describe unique cases that show an unexpected variation of a disease or condition and that cannot be explained by known diseases or syndromes. Journal of Human and Clinical Genetics gives priority to the cases with clinical significance. A case report is generally of one or two pages in length.

3. Editorial: An editorial is a brief article, written by editors, associate editors, assistant editors, or invited guests, that expresses views on the current topical issue. These are generally of one page in length.

4. Review Article: A review article accumulates and summarizes the results of many different articles on a particular topic and re-presents previously published literature, rather than reporting new facts or analysis. They generally provide a recent review of the subject matter. All review articles undergo the same peer-review and editorial process as original research reports. Review articles must include an abstract of 100-200 words and a maximum of 100 references. There is no required page limit for a review article.

5. Mini-Review Article: It is similar to that of review article except in terms of word limit & References. The word limit of mini-review article is 1500-2000 words and it can include a maximum of 50 references.

6. Conference Proceedings: Conference Proceedings are the short summaries of findings presented at many important Scientific Meetings, International Conferences, Seminars, Congresses and Scientific Events around the world. They provide an early picture of current research that is likely to appear later as a published article in any journal. Journal of Human and Clinical Genetics enables fast dissemination of conference papers in dedicated online issues and offers authors, institutions and conference organizers a fast and cost-effective way to provide maximum online exposure for their papers.

7. Corrigendum: Corrigenda are published to correct any significant errors within the text of an earlier published article. The title of the manuscript is read as ‘Corrigendum to "TITLE" published in JOURNAL, VOLUME, PAGES, YEAR’. Corrigenda discuss errors of only preceding papers and not the errors of the corresponding discussion paper.

8. Short Communication: Short Communication is a concise research article that aims to present new ideas, recent advances and key points that will have a major impact on Immunology. It has a strong limitation on the size of the paper and are generally limited to 4,000 words, and may also include the abstract, introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion, references and figure legends. Short communications may also report the research that extends previously published research article, including the reporting of additional controls, confirmatory results etc. Authors must clearly acknowledge any published work upon which they are building.

9. Book Review: Book review is a critique of a book in which book is analyzed based on its content, merit and style. The title of the paper is read as “Book Review on: title”. A book review contains fewer than 1000 words.

10. Letter to the editor: Letter to the Editor is submitted to the Editor of  the Journal of Human and Clinical Genetics through the online submission system. It is intended for raising or clarifying issues of specific interest to the Immunology community. It is expected to provide substantive comments on papers published in the Journal of Human and Clinical Genetics, in the six months prior to the submission of a letter. It also shares opinions or comments on the subjects that are of broad interest to the Immunological science research community. If appropriate, both the letter and a reply are published together. Unpublished data is not permitted to be included in a letter to the editor. Letter to the editor will be reviewed prior to acceptance. Letters are limited to one published page and must include up to 10 references.

11. Commentaries and Opinions (1000-1500 words): Commentaries accompany the published literature. They may be written either on one's own paper or on someone's work, providing insight, interpretation and evaluation of specific issues within the scope of the journal. Commentaries explain the implications of the article and put it in context. Commentaries submitted to this journal should describe most important conclusions of the paper they are commenting on, highlight controversial issues, if relevant mention the strengths and weaknesses of the paper, highlight the presenter's omission of key facts and mention supporting arguments that would create a stronger presentation. The title of the manuscript must read as “Commentary: Title of the original article”. Commentaries on a paper must be written only after constructively analyzing the entire piece of literature. Rebuttals may be submitted in response to commentaries. Commentaries have no set format beyond the basic building blocks of a regular article i.e., title, manuscript text, subheadings as needed, references, and author information. The journal is looking to encourage active discussion and communication among readers, authors and editorial board members with an aim to continue publishing interesting and informative Commentary articles. Opinions are also welcome as long as they are factually based.

Manuscript Submission Checklist

  1. Manuscripts must be prepared in a clear font (12 pt) and the text must be double-spaced.
  2. Title Page: The title page should contain the title of the paper, the author's name, and the institutional affiliation. The title should not have more than 12 words and it should not contain abbreviations or words that serve no purpose. Author's name includes first name, middle initial(s), and last name. Do not use titles (Dr.) or degrees (Ph.D.). All the authors must meet authorship criteria. Institutional affiliation should indicate the location where the author(s) conducted the research.
  3. Abstract: An abstract summarizes the paper describing the scope of the investigation, results obtained and major conclusions. An abstract should contain a minimum of 150 words and a maximum of 250 words.
  4. Keywords: Keywords can be taken from the title and abstract. Keywords should not be less than six.
  5. Text: Type the text double-spaced with all sections following each other without a break. Avoid poetic language and rhyming schemes. Use simple, descriptive adjectives and plain language that does not risk confusing your meaning. Each source you cite in the paper must appear in your reference list; likewise, each entry in the reference list must be cited in your text. In the text, reference numbers are given in superscript.
  6. Example for Reference Citations in Text:
    The author has discussed the implications of these proposals on the National Health Service in another paper1. Other writers have commented on related issues, notably Lane2,3 and Lewis4.
  7. Acknowledgment: Acknowledgment, including financial supports along with the numbers of grants and funding information, should be stated after results and discussion part of the text.
  8. A Conflict of Interest statement is included in the main manuscript file and appears before the reference listing.
  9. Tables: Number all tables sequentially as you refer to them in the text (Table 1, Table 2, etc.). Label tables with an Arabic numeral and provide a title. The label and title appear on separate lines above the table. Title of the table is written in italics. Cite the source of the table in a note below the table. Include an explanation of every abbreviation and special symbol (except the standard statistical symbols and abbreviations). To indicate specific notes, use superscript lowercase letters (e.g. a, b, c), and order the superscripts from left to right, top to bottom. Each table’s first footnote must be the superscript a.
  10. Figures: Number your figures consecutively as they are referenced in the text. If a figure has multiple panels, refer to parts of the figure as (a), (b), (c), etc. Label figures with an Arabic numeral and provide a title. The label and the title appear on the same line below the figure. The label must be in italics i.e., Figure x. Title of the figure must be in sentence case. If the figure has a title in the image, crop it. The text in a figure should be in a san serif font (such as Helvetica, Arial, or Futura). The font size must be between eight and fourteen points. Follow the title with a legend that explains the symbols in the figure and a caption that explains the figure. Cite the source below the label and the title.
  11. References: A list of references must be provided at the end of the scientific text. This list must include the full information for all the works cited in the running text. The entries in the reference list are placed in the same order in which they were cited in the text.Basic form of reference:
    1. Standard Format for Journal Articles:
      Author Surname Initials. Title of article. Title of journal, abbreviated. Date of Publication; Volume Number(Issue Number): Page Numbers.
    2. Standard Format for Books:
      Author Surname Initials. Title: subtitle. Edition (if not the first). Place of publication: Publisher; Year.
    3. Standard Format for Websites:
      Author Surname Initials (if available). Title of Website [Internet]. Place of publication: Publisher; Date of First Publication [Date of last update; cited date]. Available from: URL

Processing Time

Average manuscript life cycle at Journal of Human and Clinical Genetics:

  • Rejection without Peer-review: less than one week
  • Peer-review process: less than two weeks
  • Revision of manuscript by the author: less than two weeks
  • Re-review of the corrected manuscript: less than one week

Average time taken for the manuscript to appear Online: Four to Five weeks

Publication Charges

Journal of Human and Clinical Genetics is an open access journal. In the open access publishing model, publication is considered as the last phase of the research process and the publication fee of an article is paid from the author's research budget, or by the grants of their supporting institution. The publication fee covers entire cost of the process of publication which includes

  • Peer-review management by the editorial staff and board
  • Preparation of manuscript in various formats for online publication
  • Hosting, Archiving and Maintaining the manuscript
  • Manuscript preparation such as copyediting, formatting, adjusting layout
  • Developing and maintaining electronic tools for peer review and publication
  • Immediate, worldwide open access to the full article text

Publishing an article in Journal of Human and Clinical Genetics requires Article Processing Charge of 750 USD that will be billed to the author after the acceptance of an article for publication. Journal of Human and Clinical Genetics provides a waiver to authors belonging to Low-income economies or Lower-middle-income economies (As per the classification of countries given by the World Bank as of July 2015). Author's who do not have funding may contact Mrs. Emily through editor[at]humangeneticsjournal.com for any available waivers. Note: These publication charges are applicable to invited authors also.

Multimedia

Science has always been an international pursuit. The Journal of Human and Clinical Genetics is committed to using modern communication methods such as video files, spoken audio files, audio files synchronized with a text Web page, and flash multimedia for conveying the scholarly content. Authors can create and submit review articles, research articles, experimental techniques, case reports, anatomic overviews, and more in visual format.  

All multimedia articles submitted to the Journal of Human and Clinical Genetics are peer-reviewed as part of the mainstream submission process and all published multimedia articles are accessible through the journal or through YouTube. The new mechanism allows videos to be cited in the same way as a written article in a traditional open access publication. Every multimedia article published in Journal of Human and Clinical Genetics will have an open discussion forum freely accessible to anyone.

Journal of Human and Clinical Genetics maintains certain standards for all multimedia files it publishes. The journal accepts playable multimedia files with the following file extensions:

Audio:   .aiff, .au, .midi, .mov, .mp3, .ra, .wav
Video:.asf, and .wma, avi, .gif, .mov

The author must include all the details of multimedia files such as size, type of the player etc. in a separate document. The authors must check for the following criteria before submitting their multimedia files so that they reach the widest possible audience.

  • Is it compatible with commonly used browsers and mobile devices?
  • Is the audio clear and easy to hear, especially the voices?
  • Is the picture focused with sufficient lighting?
  • Is the video clear and camera work steady?
  • Are images of sufficient quality and adequately captioned?

Online publication of multimedia articles opens up a whole new form of learning and the sharing of knowledge can occur even faster

Licensing and Copyright

The Journal of Human and Clinical Genetics publishes all its articles under the terms of Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) License which permits use, distribution and reproduction of the information in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Authors retain the copyright and grant the journal an exclusive license to publish.

Copyright aims to protect the specific way the article has been written to describe an experiment and the results. Journal of Human and Clinical Genetics is committed to its authors to protect and defend their work and their reputation and takes allegations of infringement, plagiarism, ethic disputes and fraud very seriously. Copyright on any research article is retained by the author(s). Authors grant the journal a license to publish the article and identify itself as the original publisher. Authors also grant any third party the right to use the article freely as long as its original authors, citation details and publisher are identified.