Author Guidelines

Before you start – is this journal right for you? Please check the journal’s scope, and if you have any questions, contact [email protected] or the editor of this journal at [email protected].

Author responsibilities

We want to provide you with an easy and professional experience at every stage of your publishing journey.  

To help us achieve this goal, you as the author also have some responsibilities. These include:

  • Responding quickly to queries during the review and publication process
  • Taking responsibility for all aspects of your work, including ensuring copyright is not violated and permissions are obtained, and swiftly resolving any issues relating to the integrity and accuracy of your research should any arise
  • Familiarising yourself with our ethical policies for authors and complying with all of our guidelines, including acknowledging everyone who has made a substantial and meaningful contribution to the submitted manuscript

Research and publishing ethics

At KnE Publishing, we aim to ensure that everything we publish is ethically sound and complies with the leading authorities' policies and principles in this arena. Please see our Ethics pages for more details.

Copyright permissions

Before submitting a manuscript, you must ensure that you have applied for and received written permission to use any third-party materials included in your manuscript that are under copyright.

Permissions we require:

  • Non-exclusive rights to reproduce the third-party material in the article
  • Print and electronic rights
  • The right to use the material for the life of the published work (i.e., no time restrictions on the permission granted)

By submitting an article to us for consideration, you are confirming that you have obtained all the necessary copyright permissions required to publish your article.

Open Access

This journal is a platinum Open Access journal. This means the journal is published Open Access and if your article is accepted for publication, you will not have to pay an article-processing charge (APC). All published articles are freely available on the journal website without any charge.

Authorship

The Journal of Spine Practice follows the ICMJE Recommendations for the Criteria of Authors. All of the following criteria must be fulfilled to be considered an author:

  • Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
  • Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
  • Final approval of the version to be published; AND
  • Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved

The Journal of Spine Practice has implemented the following policies to ensure transparency around who contributed to the work and in what capacity:

  • All authors must sign an authorship declaration, rather than just the corresponding author
  • Individuals’ contributions are elicited and listed
  • Receipt of a submission is acknowledged by emailing all authors, rather than just the corresponding author
  • Each author is required to submit an ORCID iD during the submission process
  • Acknowledging individuals who do not fulfil the authorship criteria is encouraged, including those who provided writing assistance
  • Ghost, guest and gift authorship is not allowed

The Journal recommends reading the COPE guide for researchers on how to prevent and resolve authorship disputes among them. The Journal implements the strategies suggested by COPE to recognize potential authorship problems. More specifically, the Journal follows the corresponding flowcharts suggested by COPE for different scenarios of author disputes:

Preparing your submission

We offer a full array of manuscript preparation services to help improve the quality of your manuscript, save time, and maximise the impact of your research. Our easy-to-use platform connects authors with relevant experts in language support, translation, editing, statistical review and more. More details are available here.

Please note, this is an optional service, and does not guarantee acceptance.

Manuscript requirements

Before submitting your manuscript, please read the guidelines below and make sure your work complies with them all. Please note that manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned. Only manuscripts of sufficient quality that meet the aims and scope of Journal of Spine Practice will be reviewed.

Types of publications

The Journal of Spine Practice accepts the following types of research focusing on spine disorders: original research, systematic reviews and meta-analyses, review articles, clinical practice guidelines, evidence-based reviews, technical reports, surgical techniques, case reports, editorials, letters to the Editor, and videos.

The Journal of Spine Practice has no restrictions on the length of manuscripts, provided that the text is concise and comprehensive. Full experimental details must be provided so that the results can be reproduced. The Journal requires that authors publish all experimental controls and make full datasets available where possible.

Manuscripts submitted to the Journal of Spine Practice should neither have been published before nor be under consideration for publication in another journal.

The main article types are as follows:

  • Articles / original research manuscripts: The journal considers all original research manuscripts provided that the work reports scientifically sound experiments and provides a substantial amount of new information. Authors should not unnecessarily divide their work into several related manuscripts, although Short Communications of preliminary, but significant, results will be considered. Quality and impact of the study will be considered during peer review.
  • Reviews: The journal considers all original research manuscripts that provide concise and precise updates on the progress made in a given area of research. Systematic reviews should follow the PRISMA guidelines.
  • Clinical studies: A clinical study presents the methodology and results of a study that was performed within a clinical setting. These studies include both clinical trials and retrospective analyses of a body of existing cases. In all cases, clinical studies should include a description of the patient group that was involved, along with a thorough explanation of the methodology used in the study and the results that were obtained.

Accepted file formats

Authors must use the Microsoft Word template or LaTeX template to prepare their manuscript in American English language. Using the template file will substantially shorten the time to complete copyediting and publication of accepted manuscripts. In case of technical problems, please contact the Journal’s Editorial Office at [email protected].

Accepted file formats are:

  • Microsoft Word: manuscripts prepared in Microsoft Word must be converted into a single file before submission. Please insert your graphics (schemes, figures, etc.) in the main text after the paragraph of its first citation.
  • Supplementary files: may be in any format, but it is recommended that you use common formats such as PDF, MS Word, MS Excel.
  • LaTeX: manuscripts prepared in LaTeX must be collated into one ZIP folder (include all source files and images, so that the Editorial Office can recompile the submitted PDF).

Manuscript formatting

We recommend that all manuscripts include line numbers and follow the structure below:

  • Manuscript title
  • Full author names: first name(s), surname(s)
  • Author affiliations: department, institution, city, country
  • ORCID iDs
  • Corresponding author: name, email address
  • Abstract and Keywords
  • Introduction
  • Methods
  • Results
  • Discussion
  • Conclusions
  • Conflicts of Interest
  • Source of Funding
  • Acknowledgments
  • Author Contributions
  • References

Your unique ORCID iD will be embedded in your published article linking it to the ORCiD registry, so that readers can identify you. If you don’t have an ORCID iD yet, register here for free to create one -- it only takes a few moments.

Abstract and keywords

The manuscript should contain an abstract. The abstract should be self-contained, citation-free, and should not exceed 400 words.

Keywords should be a minimum of 6 and a maximum of 8 words.

Introduction

This section should be succinct, with no subheadings.

Materials and Methods

The methods section should provide enough detail for others to be able to replicate the study. If you have more than one method, use subsections with relevant headings (e.g., different models, in vitro and in vivo studies, statistics, materials and reagents, etc.).

Results and Discussion

This section may be divided into subsections or may be combined.

Conclusions

This should clearly explain the main conclusions of the article, highlighting its importance and relevance.

Patents

This section is not mandatory but may be added if there are patents resulting from the work reported in this manuscript.

Data Availability (excluding review articles)

This statement should describe how readers can access the data supporting the study's conclusions and clearly outline why unavailable data cannot be released.

Conflicts of Interest

Authors must declare all relevant interests that could be perceived as conflicting. The authors should explain why each interest may represent a conflict. If no conflicts exist, the authors should state this. Submitting authors are responsible for co-authors declaring their interests.

Funding Statement

Authors must state how the research and publication of their article were funded, by naming financially supporting body(s) (written out in full), followed by associated grant number(s) in square brackets (if applicable).

Acknowledgments

All acknowledgments (if any) should be included at the very end of the manuscript before the references. Anyone who made a contribution to the research or manuscript, but who is not a listed author, should be acknowledged (with their permission).

Author Contribution

Authors are encouraged to list the contributions made by each author towards the manuscript.

References

The Journal of Spine Practice uses the Vancouver refencing style. Authors are responsible for ensuring that the information in each reference is accurate. All references must be numbered sequentially. All references mentioned in the references list must be cited in the text, and vice versa. Citations of references in the text should be identified using numbers in square brackets (e.g., “as discussed by Walker [4]”; or “as explained in [3, 8]”).

Units of measurement

Units of measurement should be presented simply and concisely using the International System of Units (SI).

Preparing figures and tables

  • All figures and tables should have a short explanatory title and caption
  • Authors should use the Table option of Microsoft Word to create tables
  • Authors are encouraged to prepare figures in colour
  • Ensure tables and figures are mentioned in the text (e.g., “As shown in Figure 4”)
  • All figures and tables should be inserted into the main text close to their first citation and must be numbered following their order of appearance (e.g., Figure 1, Table I, Table II, Figure 2, etc.)
  • Files for figures and tables must be provided during submission in a single Zip archive and at a sufficiently high resolution. Common formats are accepted; however, TIFF, JPEG, EPS and PDF are preferred
  • The Journal of Spine Practice can publish multimedia files (videos) in articles or as supplementary materials. Please contact the Editorial Office for further information

Supplementary materials, data deposit and software source code

Data availability

In order to maintain the integrity, transparency and reproducibility of research records, authors must make their experimental and research data openly available, either by depositing them into data repositories or by publishing the data and files as supplementary information in this journal. Authors will need to provide a Data Availability Statement.

Computer code and software

For work where novel computer code was developed, authors should release the code either by depositing it in a recognised, public repository or uploading it as supplementary information to the publication. The name and version of all software used should be clearly indicated.

Supplementary material

Additional data and files can be uploaded as Supplementary Files during the manuscript submission process. These will be available to the reviewers as part of the peer-review process. Any file format is acceptable; however, we recommend that common, non-proprietary formats are used where possible.

Unpublished data

Restrictions on data availability should be noted during submission and in the manuscript. "Data not shown" should be avoided: authors are encouraged to publish all observations related to the submitted manuscript as Supplementary Material. "Unpublished data" intended for publication in a manuscript that is "in preparation" or "submitted but not yet accepted”, should be cited in the text and a reference should be added in the References section.

Large datasets

Data may be deposited with specialised service providers or institutional/subject repositories, preferably those that use the DataCite mechanism.

References in supplementary files

Citations and references are permitted in Supplementary Files provided that they also appear in the reference list of the main text.

Reporting guidelines

The Journal of Spine Practice follows the following EQUATOR guidelines:

English corrections

To facilitate proper peer reviewing of your manuscript, it is essential that it is submitted in grammatically correct English. If you are not a native English speaker, we recommend that you have your manuscript professionally edited before submission or read by a native English-speaking colleague. The Publisher offers Language Editing Services.

Qualification for authorship

Each author is expected to have made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data; the creation of new software used in the work; and/or writing or substantively revising the manuscript. In addition, all authors must have approved the submitted version (and any substantially modified version that involves the author’s contribution to the study); AND agrees to be personally accountable for the author’s own contributions and for ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work, even those in which the author was not personally involved, are appropriately investigated, resolved, and documented in the literature. Note that acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group do not, by themselves, justify authorship. Those who contributed to the work but do not qualify for authorship should be listed in the Acknowledgements section.

More detailed guidance on authorship is given by the International Council of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). The journal also adheres to the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) standards that "all authors should agree to be listed and should approve the submitted and accepted versions of the publication. Any change to the author list should be approved by all authors including any who have been removed from the list.”

Submission checklist

Submitting your manuscript is simple with our online submission system. But to make sure the process is as easy as possible, read through the below checklist to ensure you have everything you need ready.

  • Always double check your manuscript before submitting it, as it is your responsibility to ensure that it is complete and meets the journal’s criteria, and has no spelling or typographical errors
  • Have a final read of the journal’s scope and aims and make sure your article is a good fit and that your research is presented in a suitable way to match the scope
  • Does the manuscript comply with all of the stated ethics policies?
  • Have you acquired all the necessary copyright permissions?
  • Ensure that all authors have approved the content of the submitted manuscript
  • Make sure you have removed all information that would allow the peer reviewers to identify you and thereby compromise the blind peer-review process. (Also, if quoting your previous work do not state it explicitly as ‘my / our’)
  • Keep acknowledgements and author biographies as separate documents
  • Manuscripts must not have been published elsewhere or submitted simultaneously for review anywhere else

Submission process

Manuscripts should be submitted via our submission system by the corresponding author.

You will be asked to create a personal account. Please remember to note down your username and password as you will need these to check on the status of your manuscript and to respond to editorial enquiries.

The submitting author, who is generally the corresponding author, is responsible for the manuscript during the submission and peer-review process. The submitting author must ensure that all eligible co-authors have been included in the author list.

Workflow and what happens next

  • The author receives an automated email noting receipt of submission
  • The editor reads and decides whether to send the manuscript to peer review or to reject it if it is not a fit with the journal aims and scope or the quality is not high enough for the journal
  • If the editor thinks it is suitable for publication, the manuscript is sent to two independent reviewers for double-blind peer review
  • The reviewer reports are returned to the editor
  • The editor decides whether to reject, return with minor or major suggestions for improvements and resubmission, or accept
  • If the editor decides that improvements are needed, the paper is sent back to the authors
  • The authors make the suggested corrections
  • Authors receive a decision

If accepted, the manuscript will then undergo the following steps:

  • Proofing and typesetting
  • Author checks
  • Editor checks
  • Galley proof preparation
  • Final checks
  • Publishing online

How to share and promote your paper

This journal is listed with a range of indexes and bibliometric databases. We also promote published papers through social media and content alert emails.

KnE Publishing also partners with Kudos, a free service we offer all our authors to help them increase the accessibility and visibility of their work, to reach a wider audience. More details can be found here.