Instructions For Authors

Scope of the Pakistan Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences: Pakistan Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences (PJPS) is a peer reviewed multi-disciplinary pharmaceutical and medicinal publication scheduled to appear bi-monthly serving as a means for the exchange of scientific information at international level. All manuscripts are evaluated for their scientific content and significance by the Editor-in-Chief and at least two independent reviewers one of which will be from technologically advanced country. All submitted manuscripts should contain unpublished, original research not under consideration for publication anywhere else. In order to avoid unnecessary delay in publication, authors are requested to strictly comply the guidelines.

Online submission: Authors should ensure that papers conform to the scope of the journal. To expedite the publication process, the Journal encourages online submission through pjps@uok.edu.pk, pakjps@hotmail.com. The manuscript should be e-mailed in MS Word 2000 or later format as a single file including all items, i.e. figures, graphs, illustrations and tables. Chemical formula or equation should be prepared in size of single column (3.25 inches) with equation number.

Types of manuscripts: Articles are comprehensive accounts of significant experimental or theoretical work, authors are asked to write their manuscripts in a clear and concise manner and to only include the data crucial for arriving at final conclusion.

The transmittal letter should designate one author corresponding indicated by a superscript *(e.g., Shah*). Authors are responsible for all statements made in their work and for the accuracy of the bibliographic information. The right is reserved to incorporate any change deemed necessary by the editorial board to make contributions harmonize with the editorial standards of the journal.

Suggested reviewers: Authors submitting manuscript are required to suggest at least two reviewers, one of them from technically advanced country. Detail contact information of the reviewer should be mentioned.

Structure of article: All manuscripts should be in English and prepared in size of A4 paper with one inch (2.5 cms) margin around the text, pages should be numbered consecutively. It should not exceed 15 pages, excluding tables, references and figures. There should be no more than 45 references in an original article (no more than 100 in a review article). Brief reports contain less scientific data than the original articles and should not have more than one figure and/or table. The original manuscript should include the original inked drawings or photographs of structural formulas for direct use. High-quality output from laser printers is acceptable. General information on the preparation of manuscripts may be found through pjps@uok.edu.pk, pakjps@hotmail.com

Title: Title of the manuscript should cover the aim, object and comprehensive accounts of significant experimental or theoretical work.

Authors’ citation: Name of authors must be given as per their contribution and their participation clearly must be mentioned in Undertaking Form. Name of authors will not be increased and replaced with other names after initial submission in any stage i.e. modification, revision and galley proof.

Abstract: An abstract should be concise (80-200 words) self- contained summary, should include the background/objective, purpose of the study (including its statistical significance), methods, results and conclusion.

Keywords: For indexing purposes each submitted article should include three to five key words chosen from the medical subject heading (MeSH). In addition to facilitating indexing of articles, our keyword system assists in the assignment of qualified reviewers for your manuscript.

Abbreviations: Standard abbreviations should be used without periods throughout the manuscript. All nonstandard abbreviations should be kept to a minimum and must be defined in the text following their first use.

Materials and Methods: The experimental procedures should be described in sufficient detail to enable others to repeat the experiments. Names of products and manufacturers should be included only if alternate sources are deemed unsatisfactory. Novel experimental procedures should be described in detail, but published procedures should merely be referred to by literature citation of both the original and any published modifications. The purity of key compounds and descriptions(s) of the method(s) used to determine purity should be included in this section.

Ethical approval: Manuscripts containing data generated from animal and/or human studies must specify the committee and the institution that approved the experimental protocols used to generate these data.

Statistical analysis: Authors should mention the software and version used in research article with test applied for analysis.

Results: Concise tables and figures should be designed to maximize the presentation and comprehension of the experimental data. The same data should not be presented in more than one figure or in both a figure and a table. As a rule, interpretation of the results should be reserved for the discussion section of an article.

Discussion: The purpose of the discussion is to interpret the results and to relate them to existing knowledge in the field in as clear and brief a fashion as possible. Information given elsewhere in the manuscript should not be repeated in the discussion. Extensive reviews of the literature should be avoided.

Conclusion: To conclude the whole work at least 2 to 3 sentences or one paragraph which provide the points of evidence to readers/scientists.

Conflict of interest: Authors will include statement about no conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments: This section should acknowledge financial support, technical assistance, advice from colleagues, gifts, etc. Permission must be received from persons whose contribution to the work is acknowledged in the manuscript.

References: References should be assembled alphabetically on a separate sheet. In the text, they should be referred by name and year (Harvard system). When referring to more than one paper of a same author and same year, the alphabets a, b, c, etc. should be placed next to the year of publication. In the text, when referring to a work by sole author, the name of author should be given like (Robinson, 1998) and (Robinson, 1999; Jeong, 2000). When referring to a work by two authors, the name of authors should be given like (Robinson and Jeong, 2001). When more than two authors, the name of the first author should be given followed by et al. such as (Robinson et al., 2002). Literature references must consist of names and initials of all authors, title of the paper referred to, abbreviated title of the journal, the volume, and page numbers of the paper. List submitted manuscripts as “in press” only if formally accepted for publication; otherwise, use “unpublished results” after the names of authors. The style and punctuation of the references should confirm with the following examples:

For journals: Yoneto K, Li SK, Higuchi WI, Jiskoot W and Herron JN (1996). Fluorescence probe studies of the interactions of 1-alkyl- 2-pyrrolidones with stratum corneum lipid liposomes. J. Pharm. Sci., 85(5): 511-517. For edited books: Rall TW and Schleifer LS (1985). Drugs effective in the therapy of the epilepsies. In: Gilman AG, Goodman LS, Rall TW, Murad F editors. The pharmacological basis of therapeutics, 7th ed., MacMillan Publishing Co., New York,   pp.446-472.

Supporting Information: The Supporting Information format of this journal can accommodate and make readily available almost any type of supplementary figures or data (e.g., reproductions of spectra, experimental procedures, tabulated data, expanded discussion of peripheral findings, etc.). The author should include a Supporting Information Available statement that describes the material at the end of the printed manuscript text. Consult a current issue of the Journal for the proper wording of this statement. Supporting Information should be clear and of high contrast (suitable for direct photoreproduction) and submitted in quadruplicate on 8.5- × 11-in. paper. All pages of supporting information must be consecutively numbered. Captions or legends for figures, spectra, etc., must appear directly on the figure.

Spectral Data: It may be desirable to include such data for representative compounds in a series, for novel classes of compounds, and in structural determinations. Usually, it is not desirable to include routine spectral data for every compound in the manuscript. Papers where interpretations of spectra are critical to structural elucidation and those in which band shape or fine structure needs to be illustrated may be published with spectra included. When such presentations are deemed essential, only pertinent sections should be reproduced.

Biological Data. Biological test methods must be referenced or described in sufficient detail to permit the experiments to be repeated by others, detailed descriptions of methods should be placed in the experimental procedures section. Data may be presented as numerical expressions or in graphical form, statistical limits (statistical significance) are usually required, if these cannot be provided, the number of determinations and some indication of the variability and reliability of the results should be given and references of calculation should be included. Doses and concentrations should be expressed as molar quantities (e.g., mmol/kg, mM) when comparisons of potencies are made on compounds having large differences in molecular weights. The routes of administration of test compounds and vehicles used should be indicated.

Tables: Tabulation of experimental results is encouraged when this leads to more effective presentation or to more economical use of space, tables should be numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals with a brief title and a brief heading for each column. Clearly indicate the units of measure (preferably SI) and preferred in *.doc format.

Illustrations: Electronic submission of illustrations is encouraged, preferred formats for graphics and artwork are TIFF (tagged image file format) and EPS (Encapsulated PostScript). If not submitted electronically, the chemical structures, graphs, photographs, or other illustrations you send with your paper will be scanned into the journal page using a digital scanner. The scanner is very sensitive; it will faithfully copy all flaws such as smudges, uneven lines, incomplete erasures, etc.

Chemical structures: Structures should be produced with the use of a drawing program such as ChemDraw. Authors using the current versions of ChemDraw, ChemIntosh, and ChemWindows will find the necessary parameters incorporated into these programs (“DOC Document” under the Windows menus for ChemDraw and “Reduce 60% for JOC Style” under the Options menu for ChemIntosh/ChemWindows). In ChemDraw version 4.5, files should be saved in TIFF format to allow use of electronic files in production (see journal home page “Information for Authors” for further guidelines).

The chemical names for drugs should be used. If the terminology is unwieldy, nonproprietary names of drugs may be used throughout the manuscript after the first mention and identification. Formally adopted nonproprietary names listed in USAN, INN or approved by the World Health Organization, should be used. Trade names and laboratory codes should not be used except as additional information.

Pictures: To ensure the highest print quality, must be submitted in TIF/JPEG format with high resolutions.

Proofs: Proofs are sent to the corresponding author of the manuscripts through e-mail. Proofs should be verified against the manuscript and appropriate corrections made. Substantial changes in a manuscript after composing has been done require editorial approval and in some cases may be the cause for re-reviewing.

Confirmation of manuscript content must accompany initial submission: Manuscripts submitted to the Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences should contain significant, unpublished and original data not being considered simultaneously for publication elsewhere. All authors should be aware of and in agreement with the submission of this manuscript and share responsibility for its content. The manuscript should provide full and appropriate credit to those who contributed to the underlying hypothesis and the generation and interpretation of the experimental data. Related research in the field should be acknowledged in the manuscript through appropriate literature citations. Manuscripts should be devoid of any forms of plagiarism with respect to ideas, words, graphic materials or other forms of communication. Protocols used to generate animal and/or human experimental data were approved by an authorized Institutional Animal Care Committee and/or Human Experimentation Committee. Authors who violate any of these basic rules of scientific ethics may be barred from publishing in the Journal at the sole discretion of the Editors.

Anti-Plagiarism Policy: Manuscripts should not be plagiarized, if plagiarized material is found more than 20% in the manuscripts, the concerned authors are required to modify the submitted manuscript. Manuscripts having more than 20% and above similarity are not processed further.

Submission of undertaking: The all concerned authors are bound to submit an undertaking duly original signed by them, which shows that this paper has not been submitted elsewhere and is also not plagiarized according to the policy of Higher Education Commission, Islamabad, Pakistan, contributors of all authors are also required to mention against their names.

Special/Supplementary/Additional issue: To demand of quick publication of research articles, PJPS can arrange publication of Special/Supplementary/Additional issue which can be published after each regular issue, comprising of twenty research articles at-least. Contributors who need urgent publication of their research articles can get this opportunity. Rs.10,000/- or US$125 will be charged on each rejected/withdrawn paper in account of processing charges in Fast Track.

Publication charges (per page):

Regular issue Rs.2500/- (Pakistan)

US$ 60.00 (Foreign)

Special/Supplementary/Additional issue

Rs.12,000/- (Pakistan)

US$ 150.00 (Foreign)

The charges can be deposited through on-line banking within a month for regular issue and within a week for fast track. Details of bank account: Pakistan Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences, United Bank Limited, University Campus Branch, University of Karachi, A/c No.1146-010-1731-3, Swift Code: UNILPKKA, IBAN – PK10 UNIL 0112 1146 01073 13

How to order: To purchase a copy you can deliver order at Office of the Editor-in-Chief, PJPS, Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Karachi, Karachi-75270, Pakistan

e-mails: pjps@uok.edu.pk, pakjps@hotmail.com