Author Guidelines

Template File

Manuscript Template Copyright Transfer Agreement Endnote Style

Life Cycle is an international, peer-reviewed, open access journal that publishes clinical-focused internal medicine, pediatrics, and healthy ageing research. Building on the foundation of Life Cycle as a champion of medical health research, this journal is committed to publishing high-quality and cutting-edge Original Research Articles, State-of-the-Art Reviews, and Letters that contribute to advancing healthly life from birth to old age.

The broad research remit aims to encompass all medical disciplinary research at any stage of life, including epidemiological and societal research, meta-analysis study, clinical trials, and clinical guidelines. The Journal will also publish clinical and policy research which aim to shape and contextualize the debate on this-fast-growing discipline.

The journal welcomes articles of general interest to medical researchers especially when they contain original information. When an article is written in a language other than English and has not been propagated in any international information services (abstract journals), secondary publication of the article is negotiable.

The Journal does not allow the usage of abbreviations.

The Publication fee (article processing fee) for authors is waived until 2023.

A. Manuscript submission

Authors should submit manuscripts via the electronic manuscript management system for Life Cycle (http://submission.elifecycle.org). Manuscripts should be submitted by the corresponding author, who should indicate the address, phone number, and e-mail address for correspondence in the title page of the manuscript. The revised manuscript should be submitted through the same web system under the same identification numbers.

First submissions to Life Cycle should include:

1. Covering Letter
2. Manuscript
   1. Abstract and Keywords
   2. Capsule summary
   3. Main text
   4. Footnotes
   5. References
   6. Table
   7. Figure legends
3. Figures
4. Graphical Abstract for all research and review papers
5. Copyright Transfer Agreement

B. Categories of publications

Life Cycle publishes Editorials, Original Research Articles, State-of-the-Art Reviews, and Letters.

	Abstract	Main text	Figures and/or Tables	References
Editorials	N/A	≤ 1,000 words	≤2	≤10
Original Research Articles	≤ 350 words; structured	≤ 4,000 words	≤5	≤35
State-of-the-Art Reviews	≤ 350 words; unstructured	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited
Letters	N/A	≤ 1,000 words	≤2	≤10

The word count for the main text does not include the abstract and keywords, capsule summary, footnotes, references, tables, or figures

Editorials are invited perspectives and Editorials on an area of medical science, dealing with very active fields of research, current medical interests, fresh insights and debates. Editorials are commissioned by the Editorial board. Submissions can be considered after consultation with the Editors-in-Chief only. The manuscript for original articles should be organized in the following order: Title page; Main Text; Footnotes; References; Tables; Figure Legends; and Figures.

Original Research Articles are papers reporting the results of basic and clinical investigations that are sufficiently well documented to be acceptable to critical readers. The manuscript for original articles should be organized in the following order: Title page; Structured abstract and keywords; Capsule summary (<100 words); Introduction; Methods; Results; Discussion; Conclusion; Footnotes; References; Tables; Figure legends; Figures; and Graphical Abstract.

State-of-the-Art Reviews provide a concise review of a subject of importance to medical researchers written by an invited expert in medical science. Review articles should have following structures: Title page; Unstructured abstract and keywords; Capsule summary (<100 words); Introduction; Body text; Conclusion; Footnotes; References; Tables; Figure legends; Figures; and Graphical Abstract.

Letters are breif reports that can be preliminary, but may represent original observatrions that may have a substantial impact. It will undergo peer review with the main manuscript. They should begin with the salutation “To the Editor”. Letters should have following structures: Title page; Keywords; Body text; Footnotes; References; Tables; Figure legends; and Figures.

C. Format of manuscript

The entire manuscript should be in a standard font such as Times New Roman and size 12. Each manuscript component should be attached as a separate submission item, be double-spaced and have a one inch margin on all sides.

All pages should be numbered consecutively, starting with the title page as page 1. The last name of the first author and the page number should appear in the upper right corner of each page.

Page numbering should begin with the manuscript file. Line numbers should be displayed in the left-hand margin of the manuscript file. Line numbering can be added from the File/Page Setup menu of word processing programs and should be continuous throughout the manuscript file. Do not restart numbering from each page.

The Journal does not allow the usage of abbreviations.

The Publication fee (article processing fee) for authors is waived until 2023.

C-1) Original Research Articles

Title page

This should contain the title of the article and the full names and affiliations of all authors. The title should be concise and descriptive, should comprise fewer than 150 characters, and should appear in bold font with the initial letter of the first word capitalized. A running title of fewer than 50 characters should be included. For authors with different affiliations, place an Arabic number as a superscript after each author's last name and before the name of the corresponding affiliation. Place an asterisk (*) after the name of the corresponding author and provide this author's name, degree, address (institutional affiliation, city, state/province, zip code, and country), telephone and fax numbers, and email address at the bottom of the title page. Information concerning sources of financial support should be placed as a footnote.

Abstract

The abstract should be concise, should contain fewer than 350 words, and should be organized in a structured format: Objective, Methods, Results, and Conclusions.

Key Words

List three to nine key words from the list provided by Index Medicus or the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/MBrowser.html

Capsule Summary

The Key Message should be accompanied by a highlighted box and be no longer than 100 words.

Text

The text must contain the following sections: (1) Introduction, (2) Methods, (3) Results, (4) Discussion, and (5) Conclusion. The total text should not exceed 4,000 words (excluding the Abstract, References, and Figure/Table Legends).

References

References should not exceed 35.

Footnotes

1. Ethics statements

In studies involving human subjects, a statement describing approval by the appropriate institutional review board is required. Studies involving experimentation with animals must include a statement indicating which guidelines were followed for the care and use of the animals.

Examples of Format: The study protocol was approved by the institutional review board of ### University (protocol No: 123) and was conducted in accordance with principles of the Declaration of Helsinki.

2. Patient and Public involvement

Please state if and how patients and the public were involved in the research you are describing. For more information, please see the specific guidance on mandatory reporting of patient and public involvement above. If patients and the public were not involved this information should be formally documented in the Patient and Public Involvement statement.

Examples of Format: Patients and/or the public were not involved in the design, conduct, reporting or dissemination plans of this research.

3. Data availability statement

Examples of Format: Data are available on reasonable request. Study protocol, statistical code, and data set: available from corresponding author.

4. Transparency statement

Examples of Format: The leading author (Dr. ###) is an honest, accurate, and transparent account of the study being reported; that no important aspects of the study have been omitted; and that any discrepancies from the study as planned (and, if relevant, registered) have been explained.

5. Acknowledgements

The authors can list the names of persons, who helped the study but are not eligible for authors, in this section. Funding sources, which are informed in the title page, should not be written in this section.

6. Author contribution

The Journal participates in the CRediT standard for author contributions. The contributions of all authors must be described using the CRediT Taxonomy of author roles. For each of the categories below, please enter the initials of the authors who contributed in that category. If no one contributed in a category, you may leave that box blank. The corresponding author is responsible for completing this information at submission, and it is expected that all authors have reviewed, discussed, and agreed to their individual contributions prior to submission.

Examples of Format: DKY had full access to all the data in the study and take full responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis. All authors approved the final version before submission. Conception and design: DKY. Analysis and interpretation of the data: YHS. Drafting of the article: YHS and DKY. Critical revision of the article for important intellectual content: YHS and DKY. Final approval of the article: all authors; Statistical expertise: DKY. Administrative, technical or logistic support: YHS, LC, and DKY. Collection and assembly of data: YHS, LC, and DKY. DKY is the guarantor.

7. Funding

Please include in the manuscript a statement giving the details of all sources of funding for the study. As appropriate, the statement must include a description of the role of the study sponsor(s) or funder(s), if any, in the study design; in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the article for publication. In addition, the statement must confirm the independence of researchers from funders and that all authors, external and internal, had full access to all of the data (including statistical reports and tables) in the study and can take responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis is also required.

8. Competing interests

It should be disclosed here according to the statement in the Research and Publication Ethics regardless of existence of conflict of interest. If the authors have nothing to disclose, please state: “The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare for this study.”

9. Trial registration for intervention research papers.

C-2) State-of-the-Art Reviews

Review articles are mostly solicited by the Editor-in-Chief. Authors should contact the Editor-in-Chief in advance to determine the appropriateness of any proposed review articles.

C-3) Letters

Letters should not exceed 1,000 words (excluding the References and Figure/Table Legends). They should begin with the salutation “To the Editor”. The manuscript should consist of title page, structured subdivisions, footnotes, references, Tables, and Figures

C-4) References

All references must be identified in the text by superscript Arabic numerals and numbered in consecutive order, as they are cited in the text. The list of references, in numerical order, should be included at the end of the article. Authors are responsible for the accuracy and completeness of their references and the correct text citations. List all authors if there are less than or equal to six authors; however, if there are more than six authors, please list the first six authors followed by "et al.". Abbreviate journal names according to the examples used in Index Medicus and PubMed.

References should follow the styles shown below, according to the sequence: authors, title of paper, journal name, year published, volume, inclusive page numbers. For citations from sources not listed below, refer to the NLM Guide for Authors, Editors, and Publishers (2007), 2nd ed., National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, MD, USA, (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/citingmedicine). Papers in press may be listed among the references with the journal name and tentative year of publication. Unpublished data or personal communications can be listed only with the author’s written permission.

EndNote: A reference style for our journal can be downloaded here. Please put the style file in Windows C:\Program Files (x86)\EndNote X?\Styles ('?' is EndNote version number.) Then open MS Word. In the EndNote tab, select Style: Life Cycle.

Examples of Format:

1) Journal article

Lee SW, Yang JM, Moon SY, Yoo IK, Ha EK, Kim SY, et al. Association between mental illness and COVID-19 susceptibility and clinical outcomes in South Korea: a nationwide cohort study. Lancet Psychiatry. 2020 Dec;7(12):1025-1031.

2) Book

Maunsner JS, Kramer S. Epidemiology. 2nd ed. Philadelphia: W B Saunders Co.; 1985, p. 156-166.

3) Chapter in Books

Cullen MR. Multiple chemical sensitivities. In: Last JM, Wal lace RB, editors. Maxcy-Rosenau-Last public health & preventive medicine. 13th ed. East Norwalk: Appleton & Lange; 1992, p. 459-462.

4) Internet Data

Collins SR, Kriss JL, Davis K, Doty MM, Holmgren AL. Squeezed: why rising exposure to health care costs threatens the health and financial well-being of American families; 2006 [cited 2013 Nov 2]. Available from: http://www.cmwf.org/usr_doc/Collins_squeezedrisinghltcarecosts_953.pdf.

C-5) Tables and Figures

Use of tables, figures, and photographs that supplement the text is recommended, but should not duplicate material found in the body of the manuscript. Tables and figures should be prepared with separate files. They should be numbered in Arabic numerals, in the same sequence in which they appear in the text, and their approximate locations should be marked in the manuscript body (Table 1). Particular care should be taken in order to make tables and figures self-explanatory with adequate headings and footnotes. The first letter of a title should be in upper case, with the rest of the letters in lower case. The same principle applies to the content of a table or figure. Explanations for and abbreviations used in tables and figures should be included as footnotes. For footnotes, the following symbols should be used in this order: *, †, ‡, §, ∥, ¶, **, ††, ‡‡, etc. The significance of observations must be indicated by appropriate statistical analyses. All numbers should be expressed to 2 digits to the right of the decimal points after rounding, unless specified otherwise. Figures are to be cited consecutively, using Arabic numerals. Recommended fonts within figures are Times New Roman and Arial. Figures that are drawn or photographed professionally should be sent as JPG (300 dpi) or PPT files. Authors should review the images of the files on a computer screen to ensure that they meet their own quality standards.

C-6) Supplementary Materials

If there are any supplementary materials to help the understanding of readers or too great amount of data to be included in the main text, it may be placed as supplementary data or appendix. Whole manuscripts, questionnaire forms in local or regional languages, or raw data is the example of data in appendix. They should be numbered in the manuscript by the numerical order in which it is cited. Supplementary material(s) will be published as submitted without editing.

C-7) Graphical Abstract

A graphical abstract is required for original articles, review articles, special articles, cohort profiles, brief communications, and perspectives. The graphical abstract should clearly represent the topic of the article in a pictorial form designed to capture the attention of a wide readership. Image size: Please provide an image with a minimum of 531 × 1328 pixels (h × w) or proportionally larger. The image should be readable at a size of 6 × 11 cm using a regular screen resolution of 300 dpi. Preferred file types: PPT, TIFF, JPEG, GIF, or EPS files. Authors must provide one image according to the guidelines in the section of Tables and Figures.

D. Journal publication policies and procedures

The Life Cycle adheres to the guidelines of research and publication ethics described in the ICMJE Guidelines (http://www.icmje.org) and the Guidelines by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE; http://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines).

E. Authorships and Contributorship

Each author is generally considered to be someone who has made substantive intellectual contributions to a published study. According to the ICMJE guidelines, authorship credit should be based on:

1) Substantial contributions to conception and design, acquisition of data, and/or analysis and interpretation of data; AND

2) Drafting the manuscript or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND

3) Final approval of the version to be published; AND

4) 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.

Authors wishing to make any changes to authorship will be asked to make and submit an official letter to the editor. Please note that changes to authorship cannot be made after acceptance of a manuscript.

F. Duplicate Publication

Any manuscripts submitted to the Journal must be original and the manuscript, or substantial parts of it, must not be under consideration by any other journals. Any suspected cases of covert duplicate manuscript submission will be handled and the editor may contact the authors’ institution.

G. Author Disclosure of Conflict of Interest

The Journal requires authors to declare all competing interests including financial or non-financial support related to their work. Financial competing interests include (1) research funds (including salaries, equipment, supplies, and other expenses) by organizations that may gain or lose financially through this publication, (2) recent, present or anticipated employment by any organization that may gain or lose financially through this publication, and (3) personal financial interests (including stocks or shares in companies, consultation fees or other forms of remuneration such as reimbursements for attending symposia) from organizations, and patents or patent applications (awarded or pending) filed by the authors or their institutions whose value may be affected by publication. Where authors have no competing interests, the statement should read “The author(s) declare(s) that they have no competing interests”. The editor may ask for further information relating to competing interests.

H. Preprint Policy

Life Cycle supports the posting of submitted manuscripts on community preprint servers such as arXiv, bioRxiv or similar platforms.

I. Clinical Trial

The Journal requires investigators to register their clinical trials (other than phase 1 or small device feasibility trials) in a public trials registry. The Journal has adopted the WHO's definition of a clinical trial: "any research study that prospectively assigns human participants or groups of humans to one or more health-related interventions to evaluate the effects on health outcomes." The Journal reserves the right to decline consideration or publication of papers if, in its discretion, it deems the disclosure to the registry to be incomplete or inadequate. The clinical trial registration number and place of registry should appear as the last sentence of the Abstract.

The Journal accepts the ICMJE Recommendations for data sharing statement policy (http://icmje.org/icmje-recommendations.pdf) and strongly recommends that all manuscripts reporting clinical trial results should submit a data sharing statement following the ICMJE guidelines from 1 July 2018.

J. Submission, Review Process, and Publication

Manuscripts can be submitted at any time. For manuscript submission, original files are required; PDF files are not accepted.

If the manuscript does not fit the aims and scope of Life Cycle, or does not adhere to the Instructions to Authors, it may be returned to the author immediately after receipt and without a review from the publisher.

Articles are reviewed by two or more experts including statistical review in the field. Life Cycle offers expedited reviews for all manuscripts. Life Cycle generally replies to Rapid Review requests within three business days and an initial decision on publication will typically be reached within two weeks.

Upon acceptance for publication, one file of the original manuscript should be submitted to the Journal office. The publication schedule is based on the order of submission of finalized manuscripts. Dates of submission, acceptance and published are provided on the Journal’s website. Page proofs are sent to the corresponding authors by e-mail as PDF files. Authors are responsible for the content of page proofs. All page proofs should be read carefully, corrected if necessary, and returned within 48 hours of receipt. Corrections should be restricted to typesetting errors. Changes or additions to the edited manuscript are not allowed at this stage. There is no submission fee for the submission of manuscripts to the publisher. However, article processing charges (APCs) are required for publication in Life Cycle.

The Publication fee (article processing fee) for authors is waived until 2023.

K. Article Processing Charge

There is no submission fee for the submission of manuscripts to the publisher. Furthermore, the Publication fee (article processing fee) for authors is waived until 2023.

L. Editorial Policy

Copyright

Acceptance of a copyright agreement will ensure the widest possible dissemination of an article. An e-mail (or letter) confirming receipt of the manuscript will be sent to the corresponding author, along with a Journal Publishing Agreement form. Upon acceptance of their article, the authors will be asked to sign the Journal Publishing Agreement (for more information on publishing and copyrights, see the Transfer of Copyright form).

Papers are accepted on the understanding that no substantial part has been or will be published elsewhere, in whole or part, and that after papers have been accepted, they remain the copyright of Life Cycle.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Identifiable Patients

Authors should remove information from photographs and manuscripts that might identify a patient. Where this is impossible, submissions must be accompanied by a written release from the patient.

Feedback after Publication

If the authors or readers find any errors, or contents that should be revised, it can be requested from the Editorial Board. The Editorial Board may consider erratum or a retraction

Editorial Office Contact Details

lifecycle.editor@gmail.com