BeOnline ® Journal of the Center for Bioethics and Research: Announcements

Guidelines for Authors

2016-09-19T00:00:00+00:00

Main articles or essays should not exceed 7500 words, while commentaries should not exceed 2500 words, including any notes but excluding references.
Submissions are to be electronic only, (using Microsoft Word or RTF format) through the journalâ€™s home page and should contain:

A separate title page containing the name, address (including e-mail address) of each author.
An abstract of not more than 150 words followed by six key words before the main text.
Only graphics in TIFF or EPS format with a minimum resolution of 600dpi for Line art and 266dpi for halftones.
References (Author-Date style is preferred) or appropriate end notes and bibliography (i.e. Documentary style which is much less preferred) are to follow the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, 2003. (www.chicagomanualofstyle.org).
Double quotations set off all quotations less than two lines; otherwise quotations are to be set off separately with double indentation.
End notes are requested to be without extracts, graphs and paragraphing.
Separate accompanying documents at the time of submission are: a list containing each authorâ€™s important interests contributory to the article; the contributions of each author; and a declaration signed by each author that the essential substance of the submission has not been published before and is not being considered by any other journal.
On acceptance of a work, author(s) shall be required to sign a document relinquishing the rights of the publication to the publishers.

It is a principle of the journal to place emphases on articles with significant theoretical or social bioethical potential impact, backed by rigorous logic and presented in clear and delightful fashion. Articles in this category with global or cross cultural advantages will be given priority.

Publication of Papers

2016-03-23T00:00:00+00:00

All papers will be peer-reviewed and there will be no barriers to publication and dissemination of contents. We will use the open peer review and the traditional review system. In the open peer review system, all research papers submitted to the journal will be made freely available on the internet for anyone to comment on â€“ wiki or bulletin board technology will be used for this. The presence of papers will be advertised on listservs and to the bioethics community in general. During this period, authors can also contribute to the discussion in any way they want. Both named and anonymous comments will be allowed. After a fixed period (2 months), the editor will review the paper and the comments received. This will be used to judge whether the paper should be accepted or not. The author(s) will have the opportunity to revise the paper and re-submit if they like before a decision is made. The authors will also be given the option of sending their CV for posting on the website for interested reviewers to see. When the paper is accepted, the pre-acceptance work will be taken down from the journal website, the paper will be formatted in journal style and pdf will be created and published as the final published version. The date of publication will be determined by the Editor after final compilation of the paper and formatting in journal style.

In addition to this method, the editors will still have the option of sending papers out to 2 reviewers in the traditional closed anonymous peer review fashion and based acceptance or rejection on the opinion of these reviewers. Authors may opt for one or the other system. If the author does not indicate a choice, the open peer system will be used.

The journal will also include a press release unit which will be distributed press releases to Nigerian and international press highlighting major articles in the journalâ€™s issues.

Submission of Manuscripts

2016-03-23T00:00:00+00:00

Manuscripts shall be submitted by e-mail in MS Word formatted according to NEJM style (http://authors.nejm.org/Misc/NewMs.asp) with objectively structured abstract.
Articles in the electronic journal will be published under the Creative Commons license http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Commons
Authors will not be charged a fee for publication.
Submission of articles will be by e-mail only.
When an article is accepted, it shall be published online with citation reflective of its page status were it to have been published in a paper journal. So each article will have a publication year, volume and page numbers only for citation purposes
Contact address is journal@bioethicscenter.net