Instructions for Authors
Scope
Surgical Laparoscopy, Endoscopy & Percutaneous Techniques seeks to provide surgeons with current information on the latest developments in therapeutic and diagnostic laparoscopic or thoracoscopic surgery, and on advances in flexible endoscopy of the gastrointestinal and biliary tracts. In addition to reports on technical advances in the field, the Journal includes articles on descriptions of operative procedures, clinical and basic research, review articles, and editorials. Letters to the Editor and comments on the Journal's policies or content are welcome.
In general, it is highly recommended to include an edited, narrated video for any case report or technical report in order to increase the likelihood of publication. Case reports without accompanying video would need to have broad impact to be considered.
Please also note that the journal is no longer accepting articles with genito-urinary, gynecology, or pediatric topics unless significant overlap with general or oncology surgery topics so that appropriate reviewers can be identified.
Manuscript Submission
A submitted manuscript must be an original contribution not previously published (except as an abstract or preliminary report), must not be under consideration for publication elsewhere, and, if accepted, must not be published elsewhere in similar form, in any language, without the consent of Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. Each person listed as an author is expected to have participated in the study to a significant extent. Although the editors and reviewers make every effort to ensure the validity of published manuscripts, the final responsibility rests with the authors, not with the Journal, its editors, or the publisher.
Please note that Surgical Laparoscopy, Endoscopy and Percutaneous Techniques publishes only select manuscripts in the print journal. Most Case Reports, Technical Reports, Videos and some Original Studies will be published on the web only. The article title, and authors(s) will be listed in the Table of Contents of the print journal. Access to the abstract and complete article will be available on the journal website to those with institutional or personal subscriptions. The advantages of electronic publication include the ability to accommodate more articles and ease of incorporation of color illustrations. Authors will receive the same credit and PubMed citation as in the print journal. Web publications will not incur additional cost to authors for reproduction of figures in color.
All manuscripts must be submitted on-line through the Web site at http://slept.edmgr.com.
First-time users: Please click the Register button from the main menu and enter the requested information. On successful registration, you will be sent an e-mail indicating your user name and password. Print a copy of this information for future reference. Note: If you have received an e-mail from us with an assigned user ID and password, or if you are a repeat user, do not register again. Just log in. Once you have an assigned ID and password, re-registration is unnecessary, even if your status changes (that is, author, reviewer, or editor).
Authors: Please click the login button from the menu at the top of the page and log in to the system as an Author. Submit your manuscript according to the author instructions. You will be able to track the progress of your manuscript through the system. If you experience any problems, please contact the journal office at SLEPT@WoltersKluwer.com.
Word Count
Word counts are determined based on article type. Please ensure that your manuscript fits within the word limit as outlined below. A manuscript's word count includes only the body of the text, and does not include abstract, references, acknowledgements, or the title page.
Article Type
Word Limit
Maximum Tables/Figures
Additional Notes
Retrospective Study
3,500
10
Prospective Study
3,500
10
Technical Report
1,500
10
Should include supplemental video
Review Article
4,500
10
Letter to the Editor
1,500
10
Conflicts of Interest
Authors must state all possible conflicts of interest in the manuscript, including financial, consultant, institutional and other relationships that might lead to bias or a conflict of interest. If there is no conflict of interest, this should also be explicitly stated as none declared. All sources of funding should be acknowledged in the manuscript. All relevant conflicts of interest and sources of funding should be included on the title page of the manuscript with the heading “Conflicts of Interest and Source of Funding:”. For example:
Conflicts of Interest and Source of Funding: A has received honoraria from Company Z. B is currently receiving a grant (#12345) from Organization Y, and is on the speaker’s bureau for Organization X – the CME organizers for Company A. For the remaining authors none were declared.
Copyright: In addition, EACH author must complete and submit the journal’s copyright transfer agreement, which includes a section on the disclosure of potential conflicts of interest based on the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, “Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals” (www.icmje.org/update.html). The form is readily available on the manuscript submission page (http://www.editorialmanager.com/slept/) and can be completed and submitted electronically. Please note that authors may sign the copyright transfer agreement form electronically. For additional information about electronically signing this form, go to http://links.lww.com/ZUAT/A106.
Patient anonymity and informed consent: It is the author's responsibility to ensure that a patient's anonymity be carefully protected and to verify that any experimental investigation with human subjects reported in the manuscript was performed with informed consent and following all the guidelines for experimental investigation with human subjects required by the institution(s) with which all the authors are affiliated. Authors should mask patients' eyes and remove patients' names from figures unless they obtain written consent from the patients and submit written consent with the manuscript.
Open access
Authors of accepted peer-reviewed articles have the choice to pay a fee to allow perpetual unrestricted online access to their published article to readers globally, immediately upon publication. Authors may take advantage of the open access option at the point of acceptance to ensure that this choice has no influence on the peer review and acceptance process. These articles are subject to the journal's standard peer-review process and will be accepted or rejected based on their own merit.
The article processing charge (APC) is charged on acceptance of the article and should be paid within 30 days by the author, funding agency or institution. Payment must be processed for the article to be published open access. For a list of journals and pricing please visit our Wolters Kluwer Open Health Journals page.
Authors retain copyright
Authors retain their copyright for all articles they opt to publish open access. Authors grant Wolters Kluwer an exclusive license to publish the article and the article is made available under the terms of a Creative Commons user license. Please visit our Open Access Publication Process page for more information.
Creative Commons license
Open access articles are freely available to read, download and share from the time of publication under the terms of the Creative Commons License Attribution-NonCommerical No Derivative (CC BY-NC-ND) license. This license does not permit reuse for any commercial purposes nor does it cover the reuse or modification of individual elements of the work (such as figures, tables, etc.) in the creation of derivative works without specific permission.
Compliance with funder mandated open access policies
An author whose work is funded by an organization that mandates the use of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license is able to meet that requirement through the available open access license for approved funders. Information about the approved funders can be found here: http://www.wkopenhealth.com/inst-fund.php
FAQ for open access
http://www.wkopenhealth.com/openaccessfaq.php
Permissions: Authors must submit written permission from the copyright owner (usually the publisher) to use direct quotations, tables, or illustrations that have appeared in copyrighted form elsewhere, along with complete details about the source. Any permissions fees that might be required by the copyright owner are the responsibility of the authors requesting use of the borrowed material, not the responsibility of Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
Preparation of Manuscript
Manuscripts that do not adhere to the following instructions will be returned to the corresponding author for technical revision before undergoing peer review.
Style: Pattern manuscript style after the American Medical Association Manual of Style (9th edition). Stedman's Medical Dictionary (27th edition) and Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (10th edition) should be used as standard references. Refer to drugs and therapeutic agents by their accepted generic or chemical names, and do not abbreviate them. Use code numbers only when a generic name is not yet available. In that case, supply the chemical name and a figure giving the chemical structure of the drug. Capitalize the trade names of drugs and place them in parentheses after the generic names. To comply with trademark law, include the name and location (city and state in USA; city and country outside USA) of the manufacturer of any drug, supply, or equipment mentioned in the manuscript. Use the metric system to express units of measure and degrees Celsius to express temperatures, and use SI units rather than conventional units.
Title page: Include on the title page (a) complete manuscript title; (b) authors' full names, highest academic degrees, professional titles, affiliations, and locations of affiliations; (c) name and address for correspondence, including fax number, telephone number, and e-mail address; (d) address for reprints if different from that of corresponding author; (e) sources of support that require acknowledgment; and (f) a short title not exceeding 45 characters including letters and spaces. The title page should also include a brief description of what each author contributed to the manuscript.
The title page must also include disclosure of funding received for this work from any of the following organizations: National Institutes of Health (NIH); Wellcome Trust; Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI); and other(s).
Structured abstract and key words: Limit the abstract to 400 words. It must be factual and comprehensive. Please use the accepted medical abstract structure: Background, Methods, Results, Conclusions. Limit the use of abbreviations and acronyms and ensure any needed acronyms are defined in parentheses. Avoid general statements (e.g., "the significance of the results is discussed"). Make sure all pertinent methods and data are included, as well as a actionable conclusion made. List up to six key words, will improve results of search functions.
Text: Organize the manuscript into four main headings: Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, and Discussion. Define abbreviations at first mention in text and in each table and figure. If a brand name is cited, supply the manufacturer's name and address (city and state/country). Acknowledge all forms of support, including pharmaceutical and industry support, in an Acknowledgments paragraph.
Abbreviations: For a list of standard abbreviations, consult the Council of Biology Editors Style Guide (available from the Council of Science Editors, 9650 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, MD 20814) or other standard sources. Write out the full term for each abbreviation at its first use unless it is a standard unit of measure.
Supplemental Digital Content
Supplemental Digital Content (SDC): Authors may submit SDC via Editorial Manager to LWW journals that enhance their article's text to be considered for online posting. SDC may include standard media such as text documents, graphs, audio, video, etc. On the Attach Files page of the submission process, please select Supplemental Audio, Video, or Data for your uploaded file as the Submission Item. If an article with SDC is accepted, our production staff will create a URL with the SDC file. The URL will be placed in the call-out within the article. SDC files are not copy-edited by LWW staff, they will be presented digitally as submitted. For a list of all available file types and detailed instructions, please visit http://links.lww.com/A142.
SDC Call-outs
Supplemental Digital Content must be cited consecutively in the text of the submitted manuscript. Citations should include the type of material submitted (Audio, Figure, Table, etc.), be clearly labeled as "Supplemental Digital Content," include the sequential list number, and provide a description of the supplemental content. All descriptive text should be included in the call-out as it will not appear elsewhere in the article.
Example:
We performed many tests on the degrees of flexibility in the elbow (see Video, Supplemental Digital Content 1, which demonstrates elbow flexibility) and found our results inconclusive.
List of Supplemental Digital Content
A listing of Supplemental Digital Content must be submitted at the end of the manuscript file. Include the SDC number and file type of the Supplemental Digital Content. This text will be removed by our production staff and not be published.
Example:
Supplemental Digital Content 1. wmv
SDC File Requirements
All acceptable file types are permissible up to 100MB. For a list of all available file types and detailed instructions, please visit http://links.lww.com/A142.
NOTE: For videos more than 10 MB up to 100 MB maximum, only .swf, .flv, .mpg, .mpeg, and .mpg-2 are accepted.
References:
The authors are responsible for the accuracy of the references. Key the references (double-spaced) at the end of the manuscript. Cite the reference in text in order of appearance. Cite unpublished data—such as papers submitted but not yet accepted for publication and personal communications, including e-mail communications—in parentheses in the text. If there are more than three authors, name only the first three authors and then use et al. Refer to the List of Journals Indexed in Index Medicus for abbreviations of journal names, or access the list at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/tsd/serials/lji.html. Sample references are given below:
Journal article
1. Jacobs LK, Shayani V, Sackier JM. Determination of the learning curve of the AESOP robot. Surg Endosc 1997;11:54-5.
Book chapter
2. Shuman B. Endoscopic surveillance programs for premalignant lesions. In: Barkin J, O'Phelan CA, eds. Advanced therapeutic endoscopy. New York: Raven Press, 1990:245-9.
Entire book
3. Johnson KA. Surgery of the foot and ankle. New York: Raven Press, 1989.
Software
4. Epi Info [computer program]. Version 6. Atlanta: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; 1994.
Online journals
5. Friedman SA. Preeclampsia: a review of the role of prostaglandins. Obstet Gynecol [serial online]. January 1988;71:22-37. Available from: BRS Information Technologies, McLean, VA. Accessed December 15, 1990.
Database
6. CANCERNET-PDQ [database online]. Bethesda, MD: National Cancer Institute; 1996. Updated March 29, 1996.
World Wide Web
7. Gostin LO. Drug use and HIV/AIDS [JAMA HIV/AIDS Web site]. June 1, 1996. Available at: http://www.ama-assn.org/special/hiv/. Accessed June 26, 1997.
Figures:
A) Creating Digital Artwork
Learn about the publication requirements for Digital Artwork: http://links.lww.com/ES/A42
Create, Scan and Save your artwork and compare your final figure to the Digital Artwork Guideline Checklist (below).
Upload each figure to Editorial Manager in conjunction with your manuscript text and tables.
B) Digital Artwork Guideline Checklist
Here are the basics to have in place before submitting your digital artwork:
Artwork should be saved as TIFF, EPS, or MS Office (DOC, PPT, XLS) files. High resolution PDF files are also acceptable.
Crop out any white or black space surrounding the image.
Diagrams, drawings, graphs, and other line art must be vector or saved at a resolution of at least 1200 dpi. If created in an MS Office program, send the native (DOC, PPT, XLS) file.
Photographs, radiographs and other halftone images must be saved at a resolution of at least 300 dpi.
Photographs and radiographs with text must be saved as postscript or at a resolution of at least 600 dpi.
Each figure must be saved and submitted as a separate file. Figures should not be embedded in the manuscript text file.
Remember:
Cite figures consecutively in your manuscript.
Number figures in the figure legend in the order in which they are discussed.
Upload figures consecutively to the Editorial Manager web site and enter figure numbers consecutively in the Description field when uploading the files.
Figure legends: Legends must be submitted for all figures. They should be brief and specific, and they should appear on a separate manuscript page after the references. Use scale markers in the image for electron micrographs, and indicate the type of stain used.
Color figures: The journal accepts for publication color figures that will enhance an article. Authors who submit color figures will receive an estimate of the cost for color reproduction. If they decide not to pay for color reproduction, they can request that the figures be converted to black and white at no charge.
Tables: Cite tables consecutively in the text, and number them in that order. Key each on a separate sheet and include the table title, appropriate column heads, and explanatory legends (including definitions of any abbreviations used). Do not embed tables within the body of the manuscript. They should be self-explanatory and should supplement, rather than duplicate, the material in the text. The Editors, upon acceptance of a manuscript, may recommend that additional tables containing important backup data too extensive to publish be deposited with an archival service, or made available by the authors. In that event, an appropriate statement will be added to the text. Submit such tables for consideration with the manuscript.
Language and Editing Services
Wolters Kluwer, in partnership with Editage, offers a unique range of editorial services to help you prepare a submission-ready manuscript:
Premium Editing: Intensive language and structural editing of academic papers to increase chances of journal acceptance.
Advanced Editing: A complete language, grammar, and terminology check to give you a publication-ready manuscript.
Translation with Editing: Write your paper in your native language and Wolters Kluwer Author Services will translate it into English, as well as edit it to ensure that it meets international publication standards.
Plagiarism Check: Helps ensure that your manuscript contains no instances of unintentional plagiarism.
Artwork Preparation: Save precious time and effort by ensuring that your artwork is viewed favorably by the journal without you having to incur the additional cost of purchasing special graphics software.
For more information (including pricing), please visit Wolters Kluwer Author Services
Peer Review
All manuscripts undergo a process of peer review. Manuscripts are reviewed by 2 to 3 reviewers, utilizing a combination of members and nonmembers of the Editorial Board with particular interest or experience in specialized areas. Reviewers are invited to submit specific comments and critiques for the authors (redacted for reviewer anonymity) and confidential commentary to the Editors. The co-Editors-in-Chief review the manuscript in concert with this commentary and issue their editorial decision. Revised manuscripts are generally reviewed only by the Editors-in-Chief, although they reserve the right to solicit reviews at this stage as well.
Revised Manuscripts
All manuscripts that undergo the revision process should be submitted with two manuscript documents attached. The first should be a version that highlights all changes made during revision. The second should be a "clean" version, without any markings, text highlighting, or tracked changes. When submitting these two documents, please be sure to select the correct submission item so that each file is properly labeled.
After Acceptance
Electronic page proofs and corrections
Corresponding authors will receive electronic page proofs to check the copyedited and typeset article before publication. Portable document format (PDF) files of the typeset pages and support documents (e.g., reprint order form) will be sent to the corresponding author via e-mail. Complete instructions will be provided with the e-mail for downloading and marking the electronic page proofs. Corresponding author must provide an email address. The proof/correction process is done electronically.
It is the author's responsibility to ensure that there are no errors in the proofs. Authors who are not native English speakers are strongly encouraged to have their manuscript carefully edited by a native English-speaking colleague. Changes that have been made to conform to journal style will stand if they do not alter the authors' meaning. Only the most critical changes to the accuracy of the content will be made. Changes that are stylistic or are a reworking of previously accepted material will be disallowed. The publisher reserves the right to deny any changes that do not affect the accuracy of the content. Authors may be charged for alterations to the proofs beyond those required to correct errors or to answer queries. Electronic proofs must be checked carefully and corrections returned within 24 to 48 hours of receipt, as requested in the cover letter accompanying the page proofs.
Reprints. Authors will receive an email notification with a link to the order form soon after their article publishes in the journal (https://shop.lww.com/author-reprint). Reprints are normally shipped 6 to 8 weeks after publication of the issue in which the item appears. Contact the Reprint Department, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 351 W. Camden Street, Baltimore, MD 21201; Fax: 410.558.6234; E-mail: authorreprints@wolterskluwer.com with any questions.
