Expanding on the Instructions for Authors, this comprehensive guide will assist you in preparing your manuscript for submission to JMIR Publications journals. Follow these instructions carefully to ensure your manuscript meets the journal’s standards.
Table of Contents
Conflicts of Interest (required)
Authors’ Contributions (recommended)
Word Count and Length Guidelines
Article Type
Before you begin, determine the appropriate article type for your manuscript. Consult our help article to ensure your submission aligns perfectly with the specific requirements of the journal you've chosen.
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Additional guidelines: |
Article Title
Provide a clear and concise title that accurately reflects the content of your manuscript.
- Be descriptive: Clearly communicate what your study is about using the right keywords and a clear study design.
- Avoid revealing results: The title should introduce your work, not give away your findings.
- Target a broad audience: Ensure your title is understandable to a wide range of readers.
- Preferred format: "Issue/Intervention: Method/Study Design”
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Additional guidelines: |
Authorship Information
Accurate and complete author information is essential. Enter all details directly into the metadata form on the article submission page. Here’s what you need:
- Full names, highest academic degrees, ORCIDs, and affiliations for all authors.
- List affiliations in the order: Department, Institute/University, City, Country.
- Complete contact details (email, telephone, full address) for the corresponding author.
It's important to note that changes to authorship (such as adding or removing authors, or altering the author sequence) after round 1 of peer review are strongly discouraged and are strictly subject to journal approval.
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For additional help with author information, consult these articles: How should I enter author affiliations? Which degrees should be included in the metadata, and how do I format them? |
Abstract and Keywords
Your abstract provides a brief, high-level overview of your research.
Length: Keep it concise, with a maximum of 450 words.
Structure: For most article types, a structured abstract is required. This can be organized using the “BOMRC” framework.
- Background: Briefly describe the context and significance of the research.
- Objective: State the specific aim(s) of the study in a complete sentence.
- Methods: Outline the research design, study sample, data collection, and analysis procedures.
- Results: Present key findings, including relevant statistics (sample sizes, response rates, P values, confidence intervals). Be specific.
- Conclusions: Summarize the main findings and their implications.
Trial Registration: If applicable, include details of trial registration or (systematic) review registration in the journal’s prescribed format.
Keywords: Choose 5-10 keywords or key phrases, separated by semicolons. Preferably use MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) keywords.
Formatting the Main Text
All manuscripts must adhere to JMIR House Style and Editorial Guidelines and the 11th edition of the AMA Manual of Style: A Guide for Authors and Editors. We also strongly recommend the use of inclusive language throughout your submission.
Most articles use an IMRD structure (Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion). Font and size are not critical at this stage, use Word's default heading styles without bolding to organize the content.
Note that certain article types may permit a narrative format, deviating from the standard IMRD structure.
Introduction
The Introduction should define the research problem, provide background information, state research questions/hypotheses, and conclude with a clear statement of the study's aims. Subheadings may include Background, Prior Work, and Study Objectives, or more tailored subheadings.
Methods
Provide a comprehensive description of the research methodology used. This includes detailed information about the study design, recruitment, participant demographics, data collection procedures, statistical analysis, and ethical considerations.
Ethical Considerations
For studies involving human subjects research, it is mandatory to provide a statement summarizing the ethics board review assessment and outcome (approval, waiver, or exemption), including a case or application number if available. This section should also detail information on informed consent, privacy, confidentiality, and participant compensation, if applicable. Alternatively, if an ethics review was not sought, briefly explain the authors' rationale, citing relevant institutional or local policies.
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Full Policy on Ethics and Informed Consent: Institutional Research Board / Research Ethics Board and Informed Consent |
Results
Present the research findings clearly and objectively. Data should be presented clearly and adhere to journal guidelines on statistical reporting.
While not mandatory, it is highly recommended that the Results section's subheadings align with those in the Methods section. This parallelism creates a stronger connection between the procedures and the findings, ultimately contributing to a clearer presentation of the research.
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Familiarize yourself with the journal's formatting requirements: |
Tables and Textboxes
Use Word's in-built Table feature to create tables in portrait orientation; tables created in Excel or saved as PDFs are not permitted in the main text.
Captions for tables and textboxes should be clear, logical, and informative. Number them sequentially and place each one directly following the paragraph that first mentions it. Define abbreviations used in captions or footnotes. Shading or coloring within tables is not permitted.
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Specific instructions on formatting tables and textboxes: |
Figures
Captions for figures should be descriptive, self-explanatory, and should define any abbreviations, colors, or symbols used. Colored figures are encouraged.
- File Format: Submit your figures as high-resolution PNG files with minimal compression. This ensures they display clearly online.
- Permissions and acknowledgments: If any figures contain identifiable information or are reproduced from external sources, you must obtain necessary permissions from the copyright holder. Be sure to include any required acknowledgments.
- Study design flowcharts: standard flow charts like PRISMA or CONSORT diagrams should be presented within the Results section.
- Figure Types: Certain figure types, such as pie charts, word clouds, simple bar graphs, are not permitted. For graphs, data labels and axes labels must be clearly specified.
Discussion
Summarize the main findings and their significance, and suggest future research directions. Ensure that conclusions can be drawn based on the methodology and findings of the study.
Common subheadings include Principal Findings, Comparison With Prior Work, Limitations, Conclusions, etc.
End Sections
Acknowledgments (recommended)
This section is where you can formally recognize various contributions to your manuscript. While optional, it's highly recommended to include it. Include any other individuals or groups you'd like to acknowledge for their support or assistance.
Important note on generative AI: You must disclose whether generative AI was used in any part of your manuscript's creation. If no AI tools were used, you should attest to this during the submission or revision process (eg, in the cover letter).
Funding (required)
It is mandatory to disclose any funding information, including support for APF payment, in a dedicated Funding section.
Conflicts of Interest (required)
Disclose any potential conflicts of interest, financial or non-financial, related to the subjects discussed in the manuscript here. If none, indicate with “none declared”.
Data Availability (required)
Ensuring your research data is accessible is a key aspect of transparent science. A “Data Availability” statement is required for all submissions reporting original research data.
We encourage you to consider linking to data sets that may be deposited in publicly available repositories (where available and appropriate) as a reference citation (provide a functional URL and access date), or uploaded as multimedia appendix files. You may also consider submitting or publishing your open data sets in JMIR Data (https://data.jmir.org/).
If data access is restricted, you must still provide a Data Availability statement. In this case:
- State the reason for restricted access.
- Provide steps to request data access.
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Use one of our template statements: |
Authors’ Contributions (recommended)
Transparently outlining each author's contribution is a critical part of ethical publishing. This section allows you to detail the specific roles and responsibilities of every individual involved in your research and manuscript preparation.
Use the preferred CRediT taxonomy format (https://credit.niso.org/).
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Additional guidelines: |
Abbreviations (required)
- Any abbreviation used three or more times in your manuscript (initialisms or acronyms) must be listed alphabetically at the end of your manuscript.
- Avoid using abbreviations that are not commonly recognized in the literature or are author-invented (eg, person-centered abbreviations like "PwD" for "persons with dementia").
- The journal maintains a list of standard abbreviations that do not require definition; you may use these freely.
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See the list of standard abbreviations that can be used without definition: |
Multimedia Appendix
Present valuable, supporting information as multimedia appendices. Each appendix should have a clear and descriptive caption.
Examples include checklists (CONSORT, PRISMA, etc), presentations, additional screenshots of a website or app, generative AI prompts and responses, video/audio files, datasets, and questionnaires.
- Multimedia appendix files are not edited by the journal. Authors are responsible for ensuring these files are clear and accessible to the reader.
- Each multimedia appendix file must contain its own complete reference list, even if some references also appear in the main manuscript's reference list.
- Do not include copyrighted material without written permission. Such documentation should be uploaded as a supplementary file (not intended for publication).
- Reporting checklists are always uploaded as a Multimedia Appendix.
References
Accurate and consistent referencing is vital for academic integrity. If you wish to use a bibliographic reference management system, please choose one that allows you to output the PMID (PubMed ID) after each journal reference. You can download the EndNote output styles for all JMIR journals directly from the EndNote website.
- List all references in numerical order (1., 2., 3., ...), with the numbering corresponding to in-text citations (eg, [1], [2,3], [4-7]). Do not use the footnotes for the reference list.
- Provide at least one unique identifier for each reference (ie, DOI and PMID for journal articles, an ISBN for books, or a functional URL with an access date for online resources).
- Use sentence case for article titles (ie, do not capitalize the first letter of every word).
- Cite unpublished materials (personal communications, unaccepted manuscripts) only in the main text, with relevant permission.
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Additional guidelines and examples of reference types: |
Word Count and Length Guidelines
Exclusions: Word counts do not include author metadata, references, multimedia appendices, or figure content.
Limits & Fees: While there is no "hard" word limit, manuscripts exceeding 10,000 words incur additional editorial/production fees.
Optimization: Aim for a maximum of 10,000 words in the main body. For specific word count limits for special article types (e.g., Research Letter, Viewpoint, Case Report, and Implementation Report), please consult What are the article types for JMIR Publications journals? Move technical details, formulas, or lengthy data to Multimedia Appendices to maintain reader engagement.
Tables: Tables exceeding 1.5 pages in the final PDF (approx. 3 pages in Word) must be moved to a Multimedia Appendix. This is generally non-negotiable; authors should provide abridged versions in the main text if the data is essential.
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