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Author Guidelines

General

Please ensure that your manuscript is formatted using the eCM Microsoft Word template.

Title

The title should contain no more than 20 words.

Authors list

Use first name initial, followed by a period and last name of all authors separated by commas. Do not add titles (e.g. Prof., Dr, PhD etc.). Different affiliations should be marked by superscript numbers (1, 2 etc.) immediately following the author's name. The corresponding author(s) should be designated by an asterisk (*). Note: only one author should be designated as the contact person when submitting your manuscript in ProPub. However, two corresponding/ senior authors can be defined in the manuscript 

Affiliations list

Each affiliation should include department, institution, city and country, preceded by the appropriate number in superscript (1, 2 etc.).

Abstract

The abstract should be no more than 250 words long. It should contain the purpose of the work, the main methods used, as well as the main results and conclusions, but not in separate sections. Abbreviations may be used in the abstract, but they must be defined in parentheses the first time they are used, e.g. "...transmission electron microscopy (TEM) was used to...". References should not be included in the abstract. The clinical relevance of the work must also be mentioned within the abstract.

Keywords

Up to 10 keywords.

Corresponding author(s) details

Full name, full mailing address, telephone number(optional), fax number (optional) and e-mail address.

Introduction

A clear and concise statement of the purpose of the paper and the relationship of this paper to what is already in the literature (along with relevant references).

Graphical abstract

The graphical abstract is one single-panel, horizontal (landscape orientation) rectangular image that is designed to give readers an immediate understanding of the take-home message of the paper. It will be requested only for accepted manuscripts.

  • Technical requirements are as follows:
    • Size: 858 × 229 pixels (X-Y axes) at 400 dpi.
    • Font style: Arial/Times New Roman
    • Font size: 10-16
    • Accepted file type: PNG, JPG
    • Content: the abstract should summarise the findings of the manuscript
    • Colours: Effective use of colour is encouraged for increasing the aesthetic quality of the graphical abstracts and directing the reader's attention to focal points of interest

  • Content
    The graphical abstract should:

    • Have a clear start and end, "reading" from left to right
    • Emphasise the take-home message of the paper
    • Not include data items of any type; all the content should be in a graphical form
    • Use simple labels
    • The use of text should be limited

Materials and Methods

1. Detail

All eCM reviewers are asked a simple question: ‘Is the Materials and Methods section described in sufficient detail to allow repetition of the work?’ This section must have complete information (even if already published) for all areas of the study so that others could duplicate the work. This section should carefully describe the materials and methods used, including sample size and statistical approaches. Sequence and source of unique constructs etc. should be made available.

2. Sources

Provide the supplier/manufacturer’s name, city, country and product code (or URL; only if city, country and product code are not available) of all non-generic products used in the work. If the suppliers/manufacturers are international companies, with common website and local agents, the company name is sufficient.

3. Collaboration

The role of any outside organisation in the collection of data, its analysis and interpretation must be described in this section.

4. Animal studies

When animal studies are submitted, Animal Ethics Committee permissions must be mentioned. Authors must also submit a completed ARRIVE checklist with their manuscript (the file must be submitted in the same section with the manuscript files, e.g. figures, tables and word file). The ARRIVE Essential 10 constitutes the minimum requirements for reporting animal research and include information allowing reviewers and readers to assess the reliability of the findings.

5. Human material

When using human material, the ethics permission must be mentioned. If patient consent forms were used, these must be mentioned. The minimum number of human donors should be 3. Note: the use of pooled human donor cells should be avoided. When unavoidable, the use of fewer than 3 or pooled donors needs to be justified convincingly within the manuscript.

6. Cells

Please state the origin of cells in detail, such as the author bought from which company/lab or extracted by the author, and it needs to be stated whether these cells are of human or animal origin.

1)If they are extracted from human, mycoplasma testing, STR analysis, the ethic approval, consent to participate, cell surface marker identification results and morphological observation results are needed；

2)If they are of human and bought, mycoplasma testing, STR analysis, specific suppliers and catalog numbers are needed;

3)If they are extracted from animal, mycoplasma testing, ethic approval, cell surface marker identification results and morphological observation results are needed;

4)If they are of animal and bought, mycoplasma testing, specific suppliers and catalog numbers are needed.

Results

This section should succinctly state the results without lengthy discussion or interpretation of individual data. Conclusions should not be stated in the Results section. Tabular data should not repeat what is already shown in graphical format. eCM offers the possibility to host Omics data (e.g. genomic sequences) on the same web page as the manuscript.

Discussion

Should summarise, but not repeat, the Results; distinguish between logical explanations of the results and extrapolations or hypotheses drawn from the results; show how each result advances the overall conclusions of the study; relate the results to the literature (along with relevant references). The Discussion should highlight the potential clinical relevance of the work.

Conclusions

Authors should state the conclusions and potential implications of the verfindings.

Availability of Data and Materials

Authors are strongly encouraged to provide all data underlying the conclusions of the manuscript in this section for original research articles, unless these data are already fully accessible to readers as part of the submitted article. Detailed information on accessing the data supporting the reported findings, including links to publicly archived datasets analyzed or generated during the research, should be provided. If the study does not contain any data, this statement may be omitted.

Author Contributions

Contributions of each author should be accurately listed in this section based on four criteria.

Ethics Approval and Consent to Participate

This section should include the Institutional Review Board Statement, date of approval, and approval number for studies involving humans or animals.

Acknowledgements

Authors should acknowledge all support received for the work: funding, equipment, materials, technicians or anyone who has contributed but has not been listed as an author. Any conflict of interest should also be stated here.

Funding

In this section, all financial and material support for the research and the work should be clearly and completely identified. Grant numbers, if applicable, should also be included. At the time of submission, information on the funding source (including grant identification) must also be completed via the online manuscript submission and review system.

Conflict of Interest

This section is mandatory for all papers. Authors should declare any conflicts of interest using the provided wording. The text in this section should match the provided Declaration of Interests form in the publishing agreement. Authors should use the eCM_Letter of Submission template to state any potential Conflict of Interests.

Supplementary Materials

Authors may provide related supplemental data to be published online with the manuscript. This may include figures, tables, or appendices but excludes large datasets, which should be deposited in appropriate repositories. Results essential for supporting conclusions should be in the main body of the article, not in supplementary materials. Supplementary files will be available to referees during the peer-review process. Common, non-proprietary file formats are recommended.

References

1. The reference list should be sorted numerically. The reference list should be limited to only those citations essential to the presentation.

2. Please verify the accuracy of all references and check that all references have been cited in the text.

3. Please list all authors' names in the reference if the authors number fewer than six. For more than six authors, please list the first six authors' names, then use "et al.".

4. Please list the standard journal title, do not omit abbreviate the page number.

5. Use [number] for references in the text.

6. The use of Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) is recommended, as they provide a permanent link to the referenced electronic article.

Sample reference citation(EndNote)

(1) Journal:

①Less than 6 authors

[1] Boyden EA. A critique of the international nomenclature on bronchopulmonary segments. Diseases of the Chest. 1953; 23: 266-269. https://doi.org/10.1378/chest.23.3.266

② More than 6 authors

[2] Truong M, Dreier T, Wassélius J, Sundius L, Persson A, Lovric G, et al. Sub-micrometer morphology of human atherosclerotic plaque revealed by synchrotron radiation-based μCT-A comparison with histology. PLoS One. 2022; 17: e0265598. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0265598

(2) Book:

[1] Su QY, Lu J, Huang XY, Yao JG, Wu XM, Huang BC, et al. CBX4 expression and AFBl-related liver cancer prognosis. In Lemamy GJ (ed.) Cancer Prognosis (pp. 51-67). Ist edn. InTech: London. 2018.

(3) Patent:

[1] Cho ST, inventor; Hospira, Inc., assignee. Microneedles for minimally invasive drug delivery. USA: United States patent US 6,980,855. 27 December 2005.

(4) If there are non-English journals in the reference, please insert the journal language as the ending:

[1] Zhou Y, Liu M, Liang WN. Progress on the epidemiological study of epilepsy. Zhong Hua Journal. 2007; 28: 92-94. (In Chinese)

(5) Website:

[1] Miech RA, Johnston LD, Patrick ME, O'Malley PM, Bachman JH, Schulenberg JE. Monitoring the Future national survey results on drug use, 1975-2022: Secondary school students. 2022. Available at: https://monitoringthefuture.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/mtf2022.pdf (Accessed: 29 September 2023).

Formatting Requirements 

Text

For the correct use of tenses please check here.
Examples
Present tense is used to talk about general background information, e.g. "Osteoinduction by CaP bone grafts is material-dependent", "The structure of the bovine disc is similar to the young healthy human IVD" and "Rod-shaped nanoparticles have high affinity for endothelial cells".
Past tense is used to talk about actual results and procedures used, e.g. "A panel of 36 specific proteins was measured", "IVDs from the lumbar region were harvested" and "A staining diminution of around 60 % was observed". When referring to the content of a specific paper, past tense can be used, e.g. "Zhang et al. (2012) developed a composite HA-agarose material" and "Collins and Birkinshaw (2011) studied a series of HA scaffolds"; however, when referring directly to the publication e.g. “Zhang et.al. (2012) describe a composite…” the present tense is more appropriate. In order to avoid confusion, it is essential that a clear distinction is always made between what is published information (present/present perfect tense) and that which represents a description of the current work being reported (past tense).
Present perfect tense is used when previous research is being discussed in general terms, e.g. "A number of groups have focused on".
The accepted convention for scientific writing should be used, where the text is written in the third person, i.e. it should not contain phrases like "I/we described X", "I/we did X", "I/we performed X", etc.. In such instances, passive forms are to be used, such as "X was described", "X was performed" etc..

Headings

Do not number headings. Major headings should be typed in bold upper and lower case. Subheadings: should be typed in bold and place flush with the left margin of the text on a separate line. Sub-subheadings: print italic and place flush with the left margin of the text on a separate line.

Equations

Each equation must be centred on a separate line, consecutively numbered. Equation numbers, in parentheses, should be flush with the right margin. The equation should normally be prepared using 'Microsoft Equation Editor' and embedded in the MS Word file.

Symbols and abbreviations

Define each abbreviation in parentheses the first time it is used (even if it has already been defined in the Abstract). For more than 10 symbols include a separate table in the text defining symbols (with units, as applicable). For more than 10 abbreviations, include a list of abbreviations.

Tables

Tables should be numbered and referred to sequentially in the text. Each table should have a short descriptive heading. Additional details, explanation of symbols, etc., should follow. All text contained in the table(s) should be in Palatino Linotype font. The style for the use of units must be consistent with that described below, under Units. Tables can be embedded in the main manuscript Microsoft Word file for review but must be provided as individual separate files in Microsoft Word table format upon minor review or acceptance of the manuscript.

Units

Only standard International System of Units (SI) and accepted non-SI units should be used (for guidance see: http://www.bipm.org/en/measurement-units/ and download their brochure).

Statistical tests

These should be clearly defined and statistical significance should be shown in both figures and tables by superscripts. Statistical terms (e.g. t, P, p, n etc.) must always be italicised.

Figures

eCM Journal does not accept supplementary data figures for publication – all figures must be included in the main figure sequence, i.e., extra figures, should have consecutive numbers following the figure numbers in the paper itself. The only exceptions are Omics data files and video files that are made available from the paper’s web page. In addition, all uncropped, original gel images (western, PCR, etc.) must be uploaded as supplementary figures for review purposes only. Number each figure (including line drawings) and refer to each figure in sequence in the text. Multiple illustrations within each figure must be designated (lower case bold, upper left side of the illustration) as a, b, c etc. and referred to as such in the figure legend. Such multiple illustration figures should be supplied already assembled as a single jpg/tif file that will fit onto a single A4 page at a minimum resolution of 400 dpi. Each figure must have a short descriptive heading and a comprehensive legend, all supplied as a list at the end of main text document. The style for the use of units must be consistent with that described above, under Units. All figures must be supplied in the form of jpg or tif files and named fig_1, fig_2. etc., as high resolution (at minimum 400 dpi). Figures can be embedded in the manuscript main MS Word file but must be provided as separate high-resolution images upon minor review or acceptance of the manuscript.

Figure legend

Each figure must have a separate legend. The legend should include: Fig. x. (in bold), a short descriptive heading (in bold), followed by the caption text. The text should provide a comprehensive description of the figure panel(s) and scale-line dimension(s), if it is not already included in the image. Use arrows or letters of sufficient size to point out features in figures.

Publication

Each paper has its own Web page with the paper title, DOI, authors and address listed. Abstract, graphical abstract and list of key words are also included. The final pdf version of the paper can be downloaded from this page. There is no paper-printed version of the journal. Authors may freely distribute the pdf file of their own paper, though we prefer that they refer any interested party to the paper on the open-access eCM Journal website. Starting from Volume 56 (2026), authors’ names in all articles published in eCM will be presented in their full form.

Note: eCM advertises published papers through social media avenues (such as, but not limited to LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter etc.).

Copyright

The copyright of each paper/manuscript remains with the author(s) (or author's employer). Authors must warrant that their work is original, has not been published by another journal and does not infringe any pre-existing copyright.

When a manuscript is accepted for publication by eCM Journal, the authors must agree not to submit the same material to another journal in any language. An exception is allowed if the published material appears as a part of a review article or book chapter. In such cases, the original paper/manuscript in eCM Journal must be acknowledged.

Since 2022, new papers have been published under the CC BY license. Older material is available under the CC-BY-SA License.

The paper/manuscript may also be stored on academic Digital Repositories, kindly asking for a URL to the original article web page (not direct to the pdf) to be included.

Figure reproduction from eCM Journal papers as a part of a review article or book chapter is allowed with kind acknowledgement of the source.