Guidelines for manuscript preparation
Structure
Title
The title should be in the format 'Topic/question: design/type of paper'
Example 1: Is there an association between the number of nurses in a ward and the risk of nosocomial infections? A meta-analysis of observational studies. Example 2: Adherence to needle-stick injuries prevention guidelines in public hospitals: a survey of current practice.
Abstract
Abstracts should not exceed 300 words, and should not include references or abbreviations and must be structured under the following headings: Objectives; Design; Settings (give the number and types of centre and geographical location if important but do not name the sites); Participants (how they were selected, inclusion and exclusion criteria, numbers entering and leaving the study, relevant clinical and demographic characteristics); Methods; Results, report main findings and Conclusions. Abstracts for systematic reviews should provide a summary under the following headings, where possible: Objectives, Design, Data sources, Review methods, Results, Conclusions. Abstracts for discursive papers should provide a concise summary of the line of argument pursued and conclusions.
Key words
Provide between four and six key words in alphabetical order, which accurately identify the paper's subject, purpose, method and focus. Whenever possible use the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH®) thesaurus or Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health (CINAHL) headings. See: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/meshhome.html.
Statement
Each paper should prvide a statement of: "What is already known in this area?" And "What this paper adds?"
Main text
The structure of the main text should be as follows: Introduction (putting the paper in context and background literature); Objectives; Methods (design, data collection and analysis); Results; Discussion; Conclusion. If the research involves human subjects or information about human subjects, then the process of obtaining informed consent and permission to conduct the study should be described.
References
TJN adopts a modified Harvard referencing style. For in-text citation use the author’s surname (without initials) followed by year of publication (e.g. The study by Mpare (1999) demonstrated the association between under-fives malnutrition and the education background of the mother. This association is supported by other randomised controlled trials (Mbaga 2005, Kete 2009). For three or more authors use the first author followed by "et al", in the text.
All references cited in the text should appear in the list of references at the end of the manuscript. The list of references should be arranged alphabetically by authors' names thus:
Journal paper: Author (year): Title. Journal, Volume(issue), Pages. E.g. Friedrich JO, Adhikari NKJ, Beyene J (2008) The ratio of means method as an alternative to mean differences for analysing continuous outcome variables in meta-analysis: A simulation study. BMC Research Methods, 8:32.
Book: Author (Year) Title, Edition edn. Publisher, City. E.g. Field, AP. (2000). Discovering statistics using SPSS for Windows: advanced techniques for the beginner. Sage, London.
Book section: Author (Year) Title. In Book Title, Edition edn (Editor ed.) Publisher, City, Pages. E.g. Samson,C, (1970) Problems of information studies in history. In Humanities information research, S. Stone, ed. CRUS, Sheffield, pp. 44-68.
Websites: Author (Year) Title. Publisher, City. Available at. URL (access Date Access Year). National electronic Library for Health (2003) Can walking make you slimmer and healthier? (Hitting the headlines article). Available at. http://www.nhs.uk.hth.walking (Access date 10 April 2005).
Tables and figures
Table and figures should not exceed 6. If the manuscript especially required more tables/figure contact the editor.
Customised Word template
To help structure your manuscript to the requirements of TJN, download this word template customised to our format.
Endnote style file
If you use Endone to manage your references you can download a customised Endnote Style here.