We recommend our authors to read the following carefully before submitting the manuscripts:

1. Manuscripts are accepted on condition that they have not been previously published or submitted for publication, and are not going to be sent to other journals. This restriction does not apply to works published in a form of abstracts or summaries. The "Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts (URM) Submitted to Biomedical Journals" is incorporated into our review and publication process. All of the submissions should meet the highest standards of publication ethics, which are: 1) Manuscripts should only report results that have not been submitted or published before, even in part, 2) Manuscripts must be original and should not reuse text from another source without appropriate citation, 3) For biological studies, the studies reported should have been carried out in accordance with generally accepted ethical research standards.

2. After admin processing, the corresponding author will receive a Manuscript ID Number. All of the manuscripts are subject to be under Review process. Authors can expect to receive the first round of reviewers' comments and the initial result of their submissions within 3-6 months for routine submissions, and within 3-10 weeks for fast Track submissions (depending on the availability of expert reviewers). However, if a manuscript does not meet the minimum requirements (such as poor language, unclear methods, inappropriate presentation of the findings, inappropriate research design), the manuscript is subject to "Immediate Rejection" within 1-2 weeks after submission.

3. Final decision on an article will be made by Editorial Boards after consideration of reviewers' evaluation. Possible decisions on a manuscript are: accept as is, minor revision, major revision, or reject; however, no one of the manuscripts have been accepted "as is" during our ten years of publishing.

4. Constructive reviewers' comments: All of the accepted manuscripts receive constructive reviewers' comments from our editorial office. Being constructive is one of the main features of peer-review process in Electronic physician. Our authors can consider the constructive reviewers comments as an educational class to improve the quality of the manuscript and they acquire new skills and knowledge that can use it to perform their future research in higher standards and quality of the methods and validity of the findings.

6. This journal is a member of Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and follows their flowcharts and guidelines for ethical publication of the medical research. The journal is also a member of World Association of Medical Editors (WAME).

Editorial workflow and review system in Electronic Physician Journal

Step 1. Manuscript submission

This means that the author of the paper submits the article to the journal. The authors should not ask others to submit the manuscript on their behalf. The authors should state their contribution to the work (the research proposal or idea, the research design, analysis, and writing or revising the manuscript) at the time of submission. Please refer to the criteria of authorship provided by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) on this link: http://www.icmje.org , and clearly state the individual contribution of each author in the cover letter.

Authors are required to submit three files, i.e., a cover letter, the manuscript, and a completed conflict of interest (COI) form. Please visit the section “Instruction for authors/ authors’ guidelines”, on our website for further information and to download the COI form and a sample cover letter. The authors need to attach a copy of ethical approval of the study for original works, and a letter from the hospital / university that clearly states the author is allowed to publish the results of a specific patient (for case reports). The clinical trials must be registered and received a unique clinical trial registration ID. The authors are invited to follow the standards of reporting biomedical research such as those recommended by National Library of Medicine (NLM), CONSORT check list, COREQ, PRISMA, CARE checfklist, SPIRITS checklist, STARD, STROBE statement. please click here to read and use the Research Reporting Guidelines and Supporting Documents for Authors.

An automated manuscript submission and review system is available on the website. Any authors who are not familiar with online manuscript submissions may submit their manuscripts by email, and we will add the manuscripts to the automated system. The journal is switching to the new manuscript submission system (Scholar One, a product of Clarivate Analytics). So, until the next update (around June 2019), the authors are required to submit the manuscripts only by email. However, our previous online submission system is still available . For more information about manuscript submission please click here.

Step 2. Acknowledgments of submission

By online submission system, the authors are notified of their submission automatically upon successful submission. By email submission, the author(s) will receive an email from the editorial office referring to the manuscript number and acknowledging receipt of the manuscript within 1-3 days.

If the acknowledgement email from the editorial office has not been received within one week, authors should contact us mentioning their email address, their names, and the title of manuscript.

Step 3: Review sessions

In this step, the editor will send the manuscript to the expert reviewers; however, the authors should suggest external reviewers to be considered for reviewing the submission. Manuscripts submitted to Electronic Physician are reviewed by at least three experts, and the number of experts who reviewed any manuscript is clearly stated on the first page of all of our published papers. Reviewers evaluate the quality of the manuscripts for: Originality/Novelty, Significance, Quality of Presentation, Scientific Soundness, Interest to the Readers, Overall Merit, and English Level. 

In our experience, most of the delays in peer review arise from inadequate communication between the associate editors of academic journals and the reviewers. Sometimes the invited reviewers forget to check their email or may not have time to open emails identified as “Invitation for manuscript review.” Sometimes, they do not inform the journal’s editors concerning whether or not they plan to review the manuscript. Sometimes, they agree to review a manuscript and forget to do so or do not provide their review comments in a reasonable amount of time. Therefore, beginning in December 2014, Electronic Physician Journal planned a new standard operating procedure (SOP) for its peer-review system.

In the new system, if a reviewer does not respond within 1-2 weeks to the invitation to provide a review, someone from editorial office will call them by phone to ask if they received the invitation and whether they plan to provide a review or not. 

We ask all reviewers to perform their reviews as soon as possible, preferably within 2-6 weeks. However, we understand that, sometimes, reviewers will require additional time. In any case, members of our editorial office will contact the reviewers weekly to ensure that the reviews are received in the shortest possible time.

Authors can expect to receive the first round of reviewers' comments and the initial result of their submissions within 3-6 months for routine submissions, and within 3-10 weeks for fast Track submissions (depending on the availability of expert reviewers).

At Electronic Physician Journal, we do more than inform authors that their manuscripts have been accepted or rejected or simply ask the authors some questions about the manuscripts. While we do all of the routine reviews that other peer-reviewed journals do, we also have a higher level review system that provides authors some educational hints on the reviewers’ comments. Authors can use the reviewers’ comments and suggestions as well as the educational hints that we will provide to improve the quality of their manuscripts.

In this way, authors who wish to publish their manuscripts in Electronic Physician Journal will have access to useful guidance on research methodology, applied statistics, scientific writing, and research ethics, allowing them to organize their manuscripts in keeping with the highest standards. The review sessions will be more constructive and add value to each author’s manuscript, the review sessions also might generate some additional ideas that our authors may wish to consider in their future research. On that basis, we wish to introduce our new motto, ‘Excellence in Constructive Peer Review.’ 

Review procedure for manuscripts of our editorial board members

Please note that Editorial Board Members (EBM) does not have any advantage in publishing their own manuscripts on our journal. 

Our policy for EBM-authored articles is the same as other submissions, which is the fair blinded peer-review as transparent and rigorous as possible; so reviewer doesn't know the identity of the author, and vice-versa. To minimize any potential bias in the review process, we follow the advice of the Committee of Publication Ethics (COPE) that clearly suggests “having another associate editor handle the peer review procedure independently of the editor”. In reviewing manuscripts submitted by one of our editors we deliberately exclude the editor in question from all aspects of the review process. 

We believe that our policy is fair to other authors competing for journal space and to our editors and their colleagues. As a publisher of medical research, we strive to be thorough and honest to maintain standards for the peer-review system of our journal and to protect it from any potential / systematic abuse by anyone, including our editorial board members.

Step 4: Initial result of submission

After the first round of review, the manuscript may be rejected or accepted with minor or major revisions. It is possible that we also could accept a manuscript without revision, but this has never happened in the last 10 years. Thus, manuscripts that are initially accepted must be revised by the author(s) based on the reviewers’ comments and suggestions.

Step 5. Publication fee

Publishing in this journal is free of charges for all authors from low and middle income countries (more than 90% of our authors). Also, authors from high income countries are eligible to apply for 20-80% discount.  Click here to read more about our new scheme for a waiver of the publication fee.

Step 6. Screening the manuscript against plagiarism

In this step, iThenticate is used to check the manuscript for similarity index and probable plagiarism. The author will receive the report of iThenticate and the similarity index, and, if required, the author must paraphrase some sentences and paragraphs in the manuscript to make it plagiarism free. The journal may conduct plagiarism screening during any step in the review process.

Step 7. English editing

The manuscripts submitted to Electronic Physician should be written in English. All accepted manuscripts must go under advanced English editing by native editors from USA or Britain (such as AJE: https://www.aje.com, Editage https://www.editage.com, and MehrPub: http://www.mehrpublishing.com). The authors can use the editing service of any native language editor of their choice. Native English editors proofread and grammar check the manuscripts and perform the highest quality of advanced copy editing and re-writing of sentences and paragraphs to ensure that their meaning is clear and professional in tone. Native English editors proofread and grammar check the manuscripts and perform the highest quality of advanced copy editing and re-writing of sentences and paragraphs to ensure that their meaning is clear and professional in tone.

Since Native English editors provide numerous comments to the authors, we consider the editing step as the final reviewers' comments before preparing the pre-publication version of the manuscripts. The authors will find English editors' comments, suggestions, and corrections to be very valuable guidance for appropriate scientific writing for academic journals. Thus, our authors can use the skills they learn during this step to their own advantage in writing future manuscripts. 

Step 8. Galley proof

After revising the manuscript based on the reviewers’ comments and the English editor’s input, the final pre-publication version of the manuscript will be prepared and sent to the author(s) for final checking and approval. 

Step 9. Publication of paper

After receiving the final approval from the author(s), a digital object identifier (DOI) will be assigned to the article, and it will be sent for final layout design and publication.