Instructions for Authors

The Journal of the American Chiropractic Association Online (JACA) is a peer-reviewed, primary source journal and is an official journal of the American Chiropractic Association, Inc. JACA is dedicated to the advancement of chiropractic health care principles and practice and seeks to fulfill this purpose by:

• Informing doctors of chiropractic about the latest developments affecting their practices, their profession, and their role as leaders in national health care issues.
• Providing timely and useful information on chiropractic education, clinical topics, research, and technological innovation.
• Serving as an active and effective advocate of professional and ethical standards.

JACA is indexed in MANTIS, CINAHL, the Index of Chiropractic Literature, and SPORTDiscus. JACA is published 9 times a year.

JACA seeks high-quality manuscripts for consideration for publication in upcoming issues.

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JACA publishes original contributions, reviews, brief reports, special communications, commentaries, practice management articles, wellness and patient education articles, and many other categories of articles. Topics of interest include all subjects that relate to the practice of chiropractic: biomechanics and clinical anatomy; epidemiology and public health; manual therapy; medical humanities and ethics; nutrition; occupational health; orthopedics; neurology; physical therapy; physiological therapeutics and rehabilitation; physiology; sports and exercise physiology; radiology and imaging.

A special blinded peer-reviewed Research and Science section publishes research articles on all aspects of chiropractic practice. The most frequent categories of the Research and Science articles are:

Original Contributions. Reports of new research findings into the enhancement factors of health, causal aspects of disease, and the establishment of clinical efficacies of related diagnostic and therapeutic procedures. Typical length: 2000-4000 words (not including tables, figures, and references).

Literature Reviews. Systematic, critical assessments of literature and data sources pertaining to clinical topics, emphasizing better correlation, pointing out ambiguities or areas that may constitute hypotheses for further study. Meta-analysis is included here. Typical length: 2000-4000 words (not including tables, figures, and references).

Case Reports. Accounts of the diagnosis and treatment of unusual, difficult, or otherwise interesting cases that may have independent educational value or may contribute to better standardization of care for a particular health problem when correlated with similar reports of others.

Case Reviews. A retrospective comparative assessment of the diagnosis and treatment of several cases of a similar condition, i.e., the comparative evaluation of two or more (perhaps hundreds of) case reports.

Technical Reports. The reporting and evaluation of new or improved equipment or procedures, or the critical evaluation of old equipment or procedures that have not previously been critically evaluated.

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Manuscripts for Research & Science section should be e-mailed to Lori Burkhart at LBurkhart@acatoday.org. All other manuscripts should be sent to the Editor, JACA, 1701 Clarendon Blvd., Arlington, VA 22209; telephone: (703) 276-8800; fax: (703) 243-2593; e-mail: cmkline@acatoday.org. Please see submission instructions below. When submitting by e-mail, print mail address and telephone and fax numbers also should be included. When submitting by mail, please include a disk with the text of the article. Manuscripts submitted by e-mail should not also be submitted by mail or fax.

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Previous Publication or Duplicate Submission. Manuscripts are considered with the understanding that they have not been published previously in print or electronic format and are not under consideration by another publication or electronic medium. Copies of possibly duplicative materials that have been previously published or are being considered elsewhere must be provided at the time of manuscript submission.

Author Information. Designate a corresponding author and provide a complete address, telephone and fax numbers, and e-mail address. The corresponding author will be identified as such in the published article.

Review Process. All manuscripts are subject to blinded (without author or institutional identification) critical review by 2 or more experts in the related field to assist the editor in determining appropriateness to JACA objectives, originality, validity, importance of content, substantiation of conclusions, publishability, and possible need for improvement. Reviewers' comments will be returned with manuscript if rejected or if strong recommendations for improvement are made. All authors and reviewers remain anonymous.

All other manuscripts are reviewed by the Publications Editorial Board and may undergo additional peer review.

We assess a paper's eligibility for publication based on the following criteria: material is original; writing is clear; study methods are appropriate; the data are valid; conclusions are reasonable and supported by the data; information is important; and topic has general chiropractic interest.

Acceptance for Publication. Acceptance of a manuscript for "consideration to publish" and subsequent review processing does not necessarily imply acceptance to publish, even though it may be found to be well compiled and within JACA editorial objectives. Aside from rejection for uncorrectable faults, a well-compiled manuscript may also be rejected because it adds little new information to work that was previously published in JACA or addresses a new topic that deserves more in-depth reporting. In either case, the editor will usually provide the author of a rejected manuscript with recommendations that may be helpful to submission elsewhere.

Author Responsibility. Manuscripts accepted for publication are subject to such editorial modification and revision as may be necessary to ensure clarity, conciseness, correct usage, and conformance to approved style. However, insofar as authors are responsible for all information contained in their published work, they will be consulted if substantive changes are required and will have further opportunity to make any necessary corrections.

Conflict of Interest. Authors should indicate relevant conflicts of interest, including specific financial interests relevant to the subject of their manuscript, in their cover letter. Authors without relevant financial interests in the manuscript should indicate no such interest. Please submit the Conflict-of-Interest form with your manuscript.

Unauthorized Use. Published manuscripts become the permanent property of the ACA and may not be published elsewhere without written permission. Upon acceptance of the manuscripts for publication, the authors will be asked to sign a copyright transfer form. Unauthorized use of the JACA name, logo, or any content for commercial purposes or to promote commercial goods and services (in any format, including, but not limited to, print, video, audio, and digital) is not permitted by JACA or the ACA.

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Manuscripts should be prepared in accordance with the Declaration of Vancouver "Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals." (available at http://www.icmje.org/index.html).

• Send manuscript by e-mail as a Word document to LBurkhart@acatoday.org.
• Double-space throughout, including title page, abstract, text, acknowledgments, references, figure legends, and tables. Start each of these sections on a new page, numbered consecutively, beginning with the title page.
• Use only 10- or 12-point font size.

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Title Page should carry:

1. the title of the article, which should be concise, but informative
2. first name, middle initial, and last name of each author with highest academic degree(s)
3. names of department(s) and institutions(s) to which work should be attributed
4. disclaimers, if any
5. name, address, and telephone number of author responsible for correspondence, proofreading of galleys, and reprint requests (usually principal author)
6. sources(s) of support in the form of grants, equipment, if any.

Abstract and Key Words

• Include an abstract of no more than 150 words.
• The abstract should be structured depending on the type of paper. E.g. case report abstracts should contain Objective, Clinical Features, Intervention & Outcome, and Conclusion.
• Below the abstract, list 3 to 5 key indexing terms or short phrases that will assist in cross-indexing your article and that may be published with the abstract.

Text Pages
The text of observational and experimental articles is usually - but not necessarily - divided into sections with headings: Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, and Conclusions. Long articles may need subheadings within some sections to clarify or break up content. Other types of articles, such as case reports, reviews, editorials and commentaries may need other formats. For example, case reports' text should be divided into Introduction, Case Report, Discussion, and Conclusion.

Introduction: Clearly state the purpose of the article. Summarize the rationale for the study or observation. Give only strictly pertinent references and do not review the subject extensively; it should only serve to introduce what was done and why.

Materials and Methods: Describe your selection of the observational or experimental subjects (patients or experimental animals, including controls) clearly. Identify the methods, apparatus (manufacturer's name and address in parentheses) and procedures in sufficient detail to allow others to reproduce the work for comparison of results. Give references to establish methods, provide references and brief descriptions for methods that have been published, but may not be well known. Describe new or substantially modified methods and give reasons for using them and evaluate their limitations.

Include numbers of observations and the statistical significance of the findings when appropriate. Such details as statistical analyses and mathematical derivations may sometimes be presented in the form of one or more appendixes.

Results: Present your results in logical sequence in the text, tables, and illustrations. Do not repeat in the text all the data in the tables, illustrations, or both; emphasize or summarize only important observations.

Discussion: Emphasize the new and important aspects of the study and conclusions that follow from them. Include the implications of the findings and their limitations, and relate the observations to other relevant studies

Conclusions: The principal conclusions should be directly linked to the goals of the study. Unqualified statements and conclusions not completely supported by your data should be avoided. Avoid claiming priority and alluding to work that has not been completed. State new hypotheses when warranted, but clearly label them as such. Appropriate recommendations (for further study, etc.) may be included.

Acknowledgements: Acknowledge only persons who have made substantive contributions to the study itself. This would ordinarily include support personnel, such as statistical or manuscript review consultants, but not subjects used in the study. Authors are responsible for obtaining written permission from persons being acknowledged by name because readers may infer their endorsement of the data and conclusions.

References:

1. Number references consecutively as they are first used in the text.
2. List the references in that order (not alphabetically) in the References section after the text pages.
3. Each literature source should be included in the References section only once. The number it receives in the references section should be used each time the source is referred to in the text.
4. In the reference list, italicize the names of the journals for article sources and the book titles for books.
5. Include only those references that actually provide support for a particular statement in the text, tables, and/or figures. Avoid excessive use of references; normally, one or two authoritative references to support a particular point are adequate.
6. Verify the references against the original document.
7. Abstracts, "unpublished observations" and "personal communications" may not be used as references, although reference to written (not verbal) communications may be inserted (in parentheses) in the text.
8. Manuscripts accepted, but not yet published, may be included in the references with the designation "in press" (in parentheses).
9. For the most part, sources of information and reference support for a bioscientific paper should be limited to journals (rather than books) because that knowledge is generally considered more recent and (in the case of refereed journals) more accurate.
10. For references format and additional information, please download the Publications Reference Guide.

Table Pages: Type each table on a separate sheet. Double-space all data. If applicable, identify statistical measures of variation, such as standard deviation and standard error of mean. If data are used from other published or unpublished sources, obtain permission and acknowledge fully.

Illustration Legend Pages: Double-space legends for illustrations, starting on a separate page, following the table pages. Identify each legend with Arabic numerals in the same manner and sequence as they were indicated in the text in parentheses (i.e., Fig. 1). Do not type legends on artwork copy or on pages to which illustrations may have been mounted; they must be typed on separate pages from the illustrations themselves.

When symbols, arrows, numbers, or letters are used to identify parts of the illustrations, identify and explain each one clearly (if necessary) in the legend.

Illustration Preparation: Illustrations must be of professional quality and of sufficient size so that when reduced for publication, all details will be clearly discernible. All illustrations (including x-rays) are best submitted in a graphic file (JPG, TIFF, BMP) with the resolution of 300 dpi or higher. Cite each figure in the text (generally in parentheses) in consecutive order. If a figure has been published, acknowledge the original source and submit written permission from the copyright holder to reproduce the material. Permission is required, regardless of authorship or publisher, except for documents in the public domain.

If the figures for your articles are photographs on which people can be identified, please ask them to sign the figure permission form and submit it with your article.

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