Authors' Guidelines

AUTHORS' GUIDELINES FOR MANUSCRIPT PREPARATION

Thank you for your interest in Annals of the College of Medicine Mosul (ACMM). Please read the complete Author Guidelines carefully before submission. Note that submission implies that the content has not been published or submitted for publication elsewhere. Authors should submit their manuscripts electronically through the Journal website submission system.

ACMM welcomes the following types of manuscripts: original research, case reports, and systematic reviews and meta-analyses (which are to be submitted in the Review article section).

Prior to submission, authors should consider the following:

  1. Aims and Scope: Annals of the College of Medicine Mosul (ACMM) is a peer-reviewed journal dedicated to publishing high-quality research in ALL disciplines of medicine, basic biomedical and medical education research. The journal prioritises research with high societal impact, particularly studies related to medical discoveries, innovations, and groundbreaking findings.
  2. Copyright and Licensing: ACMM is an Open Access journal. All published articles are freely accessible to the public, ensuring global reach and maximum visibility for authors. Authors preserve their copyright to their articles and license the journal to publish the article on a non-exclusive basis. The published work receives a Creative Commons license (e.g. CC BY 4.0), thereby permitting others to re-use and reference the work.
  3. Plagiarism and Ethical Misconduct: ACMM is plagiarism sensitive. At any stage of the peer-review and/or production process, all submissions are checked with a similarity detection program (iThenticate or Turnitin). Findings that would suggest plagiarism could lead to manuscripts being rejected. The journal has the right to forward the manuscript to the supporting institutions or other authorities to investigate in the event of any suspicion or allegations of scientific inadequacy or ethical violation. The journal does not accept manuscripts with a plagiarism rate exceeding 20%, or with AI-generated content exceeding 25% of the total submission.

Recommendations for Authors Prior to Manuscript Submission:

Manuscript submission to Annals of the College of Medicine, Mosul (ACMM) implies that:

  • The manuscript has not been published in another journal before.
  • The manuscript is not being considered by a different journal for publication.
  • All coauthors agree with the publication of the present version of the article.
  • Submissions must present new findings, recent discoveries, or innovative perspectives that advance knowledge in the field. Replication studies are considered only if they provide significant methodological improvements or address critical gaps.
  • All articles must be submitted in English language only.

Online Submission

To submit your manuscript, please use the hyperlink, Submit manuscript and upload all your manuscript files according to the instructions on the screen.

  1. Manuscript Formatting: your manuscript must be written in Microsoft Word (doc., docx.) using Times New Roman font, size; 12, 1.5 space. There should be a margin of at least 2.5 cm around the page. All pages must be numbered. The content of original articles must not go past 20 pages (including figures, tables, the abstract, and references); case reports, 4-5 pages; reviews, 22 pages, and book/media reviews and informative articles, 3 pages.
  1. Manuscript Preparation: Three Word files need to be included upon submission: A title page file, a cover letter and a blinded manuscript file that includes all parts of the manuscript, including tables and figure legends. Please use the templates provided by the journal to prepare your files.
  • The title page should contain the following information:
  1. Article title: A brief and informative title should be provided. Avoid abbreviations and formulae unless they are standard and sufficiently known (e.g. DNA). A running title must be uploaded into the system to be indexed and page headings.
  2. Author names: Give the first name(s) and last name(s) of every author. The sequence of the authors must be the same as in the submission system. Please be sure that all names are correctly spelt.
  3. Affiliations: provide the detailed affiliation for each author (full work address, along with a country name and email address). A lower-case superscript letter should appear at the end of the name of an author and at the beginning of the address to which the author is attached. If an author has changed institutions since the research was conducted, or if the author was a visiting researcher, a footnote may be added to the author’s name indicating their present address (or permanent address). The affiliation listed at the time the work was carried out must remain as the author’s primary affiliation in the manuscript. Such footnotes should be marked with superscript Arabic numerals and placed accordingly
  4. The ORCID ID is necessary for each author. It is important to attach your published paper to your ORCID profile.
  5. Corresponding author: the author responsible for correspondence of the article throughout the submission and publication process, and even after it has been published. In addition, is responsible for responding to any subsequent questions regarding article findings, data, procedure and materials. The contact information and email address of the corresponding author must be up to date and ORCID ID is obligatory.
  • A blinded manuscript file:

Contains the full text without mention of any names of authors or institutions related to the work. Tables and figures are inserted in their usual position within the text file, not as a separate file. All required sections should be contained in your manuscript, including abstract, introduction, methods, results, and conclusions. Your manuscript should be written in good English. It may be sent back to you for revision if the English language quality is poor.

  • A cover letter is required with each submission and must contain:

(1) A statement confirming the paper has not been published or submitted for publication elsewhere; (2) An acknowledgment that all authors have contributed significantly in producing the manuscript, each author’s contribution to the paper is to be described, i.e., what role each author participated in; (3) a statement confirming that all authors are in agreement with the content of the manuscript; (4) Authors must explicitly indicate whether the submission should be treated as a Research article, Case report or Review article.

Parts of the manuscript:

Abstract

The author must present a short (less than 300 words), self-sufficient and factually structured abstract. The Abstract must be in the form of summarising the Background, Purpose of your work (Aim), Methods, key Results and main Conclusions. Do not use any non-standard or unusual abbreviations (should one be necessary to include, make sure you specify them in your abstract the first time you reference them).

Keywords

The author must submit 3 to 5 indexing keywords. The keywords must be in English. Use commas between words. Insert in alphabetical order

Manuscript main text for original articles:

The introduction is a brief explanation of the problem outlined in the manuscript and aim of the study. One should state only the references that are directly related to a problem introduced in the manuscript. Keep the chain of reasoning and end the part with a brief statement of the purpose of the research.

Materials, patients and Methods (three subheadings): Basic procedures and selection of study subjects or laboratory animals, observation and analysis methods should be succinctly and methodically stated (Patients/Materials and study design, Methods, Statistical analysis). Do not list common/irrelevant methods (use a reference instead). The key information on the patient traits should be presented here and not under the result section.

Statistical Analysis: Statistical analysis details and their correctness are an integral component of the Materials and Methods section. Authors should list all applied statistical methods and all used statistical tests. They are encouraged to report all statistical methods clearly, including effect sizes with confidence intervals, the name and version of the software used. Statistical significance (Р-value) accepted in research should be specified. For example, it could be stated as follows: The significance level was set at 0.05. The Р value should be specified in each case (e.g, not simply P < 0.05 or P > 0.05 but P = 0.015 or P = 0.271).

Results: must reflect a list of your simple results without any introduction. In brackets, only the necessary statistical significances must be included. Conclusions not yet to be drawn: they fall into the next.

Figures: must be placed within the text. Number all figures consecutively. Figures should be mentioned in the text. Titles of figures should be given in English. TIFF or JPG files of color line drawings are accepted; the resolution of the image must be 300 dpi. Compression can be LZW or other. Each figure should be of high quality with a title and a caption. In figures, the abbreviations must be explained in the caption.

Tables: Tables must be placed within the text. Number all tables consecutively. Tables should be mentioned in the text. Titles of the tables should be given in English. The number of the table is positioned above the table title. Table numbers must match table numbers in the text and should be statistically processed. The tables are not to be put on separate pages.

Discussion: Explore the significance of results rather than repeating them, and involve the interpretation of the findings and results of the study in the context of results in other studies that were reported in the literature. Avoid extensive citations and overly detailed literature discussion.

Conclusion: The conclusion must be clear, brief, simple and based directly on the results presented in the paper. Conclude out of them, not a summary.

Acknowledgements: Please be sure to add a note of credits to people or institutions who assisted in the work but do not qualify to be considered as authors.

Funding: Authors have to state any source of funds, i.e. information about any funding sources or professional assistance to write a work, as follows: ''This work was supported by.....' with the complete official name of the funding agency and its reference number. When no particular funding has been obtained, then this should also be made clear: Funding: No particular funding was obtained to conduct this study.

Conflicts of Interest: Authors should report any conflict of interest with a company or an organisation in the manuscript. There should be a declaration of any competing interests, circumstances or relationships. Personal relationships can be considered in conflicts of interest (i.e. friend, spouse, family member, current or former mentor, adversary, etc.). Provided that the authors feel they have nothing to reveal they still need to include a statement.

Author contribution: All manuscripts must include a statement specifying the individual contributions of each author. Authors should clearly describe their roles in the research and manuscript preparation, such as conceptualisation, study design, data collection, statistical analysis, interpretation of results, drafting of the manuscript, and critical revision. Contributions should be listed in a standardised format (e.g., “1st and 2nd authors designed the study; 1st, 2nd and 3rd authors collected and analysed the data; drafted the manuscript and provided critical revisions”). This ensures transparency, accountability, and recognition of each author’s role in the work. Note that Authorship Changes (adding, removing, or reordering authors) are not allowed after the galley proof is approved or the article is published, except in cases where the error originated from the journal’s side.

REFERENCES: The reference style is Vancouver. Authors are expected to cite the most recent (within the last 5 years) and relevant literature.  Depending on the article type, we recommend citing no more than 40 sources (for original articles), no more than 70 sources (for systematic or literary review), or up to 15 sources (for case reports). The use of DOI within the reference is obligatory. We recommend using a reference manager (e.g., EndNote, Mendeley) to ensure accuracy. Please keep self-citations to a minimum and cite only when directly relevant. 

Cite sources by placing a number in square brackets within the text; e.g. as illustrated [3, 6]. The references will be referred to at the end of the manuscript in the order in which they have been used in the text. any reference with more than 6 authors, state only the names of the first 6 authors and then et al. The references to journal articles, books, chapters in books, etc., should be referred to as follows: 

Example:

  • Journal: Smith J, Brown K. The role of AI in microbial diagnostics. J Clin Microbiol. 2024;58(3):215–22. doi:10.1093/jcm/aqae107.
  • Book: Johnson M. Microbial Genomics and AI Applications. 2nd ed. New York: Springer; 2023.
  • Thesis: Ahmed S. The impact of AI on antimicrobial resistance prediction [PhD thesis]. London: University College London; 2023.

Abbreviations: Abbreviations must not be used unless they are referred to 3 or more times throughout the text, and they must be written in full form the first time they are referred to. This is true, individually, of the Abstract and of the remainder of the text.

Manuscript main text for Review Article:

The journal welcomes reviews written by authors with deep knowledge about a specific area and whose scientific experience is reflected by a high number of publications with high citations. All reviews in the scope of the journal will be considered by the editors; the editors may also seek a review in the field of the journal by any specialist and experienced authority in the field.

The abstract word limit is 250. The size of the review must not exceed 5000 words and cannot contain more than 6 tables, 10 figures, or a total of 20 figures and 70 references. The reference style is Vancouver. Use of DOI is obligatory.

Manuscript main text for Case Reports:

Important and rare clinical experiences should be provided in case reports. It should bring new and/or infrequent clinical information or knowledge to the literature. The case report must include an unstructured abstract (a maximum of 150 words) summary of the case. They must be divided into the following sections: introduction, case report, and discussion. The patient or the legal representative must provide informed consent, and this must be mentioned in the manuscript. References are limited to 15 references. The reference style is Vancouver. Use of DOI is obligatory.

Manuscript main text for Letters to the Editor:

This section introduces manuscripts talking about significant sections, missing sections or ignored sections of an already published article on this journal. Moreover, articles on topics covered in the journal which may include educative cases, can also be forwarded as a Letter to the Editor. The texts in this section are to be written in unstructured text with reference. The editor can ask people to respond to the letters. The text does not have individual sections. A letter to the editor must not exceed 700 words.

Reporting guidelines

Authors should adhere to the right rules of reporting, such as CONSORT (randomized trials), STROBE (observational studies), PRISMA (systematic reviews/meta-analyses), CARE (case reports) and other proper guidelines. The clinical trials are expected to be registered in an adequate registry (e.g., ClinicalTrials.gov or ISRCTN).