Indian Journal of Forensic and Community Medicine
Official Publication of Innovative Education and Scientific Research Foundation
Official Publication of Innovative Education and Scientific Research Foundation
Innovative Publication is a publisher of open-access journals. All submitted manuscripts are managed by Manuscript Peer-Review Process called MPRP as a rapid and rigorous double-blind peer-reviewed, manuscript handling, and editorial process. In this platform, all authors, reviewers, editors, and editorial office works on a single platform.
A manuscript submission checklist is necessary during the final submission of an article before sending it to the journal for the peer-review process.
The author has obtained copyright material permission.
Manuscript Submission Process
All manuscripts must be submitted online at www.mprp.in. The submitting author, who is generally the corresponding author, is responsible for the manuscript during the submission and peer-review process. The submitting author must ensure that all eligible co-authors have been included in the author list read the authorship qualify criteria and that they have all read and approved the submitted version of the manuscript, To submit your manuscript, first-time users click the register button from the submission portal. On successful registration, you will receive an email verification mail and after confirmation, you will be able to log in as an author you can directly log in by using your credentials (Username-Registered mail ID & Password) or you can directly Sign in with Google or ORCID ID.
After successful registration, log in as an author and post your manuscript for further processing. While submitting, the author is required to provide information on payment and possible funder agreements. During submission of the funder, details ensure you meet all your funder requirements.
Manuscript Preparation
Cover Letter
Cover Letters must be included with each manuscript submission and it should be concise and explain why the content of the paper is significant and find the context of existing work. It should explain the manuscript is suitable for the scope of the journal. The cover letter should prove the following details:
Title Page Information
The Title page should carry
Structured Abstracts: The abstract should be provided with a maximum of 150 -250 words with subheadings: Background, Methods, Results, Conclusion, and Keywords.
Background: The background for the study should state the study’s purpose, basic procedures, main findings and principal conclusions. It should emphasize new and important aspects of the study and observation.
Methods: Methods describe briefly the main methods or treatments applied and include relevant preregistration numbers and species and strains of any animals used.
Results: Results are presented in logical sequence in table, text, and figures, giving the main and most important findings. Emphasize or summarise only the most important observations, do not use replicate all the data, tables, figures, and text. Summarize the article’s main findings only.
Conclusion: conclusion indicates the interpretations with the goal of the study but avoids unqualified statements and the abstract should be an objective representation of the article. It must not consider results that are not presented and substantiated in the main text and should not exaggerate the main conclusions.
Keywords: Keywords need to be added after the abstract and we recommended that the keywords are specific to the article and within the subject discipline. Keywords are used for indexing purposes and abbreviations established in the field may be eligible.
Acknowledgements: Acknowledgement of grants, funds, person, and support in a separate section at the end of the article before the reference and include them on the title page as a footnote to the title or otherwise.
Introduction: The introduction should `be briefly placed in a broad context and highlight why it is important. It should define the purpose of the work and its significance including specific and previous studies in the area. The current state of the research clearly described the purpose of the study, the tested hypothesis, and its aim and scope. Finally, briefly mention the main aim of the work and highlight the main conclusions. Keep the introduction comprehensible to scientists working outside the topic of the research paper.
Materials and Methods: The Methods section should only include information that was available at the time the study was planned or the protocol written; all information obtained during the conduct of the study belongs to the results section. New methods and protocols should be described in detail while well-established methods can be briefly described and appropriately cited. Give the name and version of any software used and make clear where the computer code used is available. A statement indicating that the research was approved by an independent local, regional and national level.
Results: Provide a concise and precise description of the experiment results and data on all primary and secondary outcomes, identified in the materials and method part and do not include methods, discussion and conclusions. All Charts, figures, and Tables are cited in text in numerical order and include a brief description, consider using supplement material to use and major findings.
Discussion: The author should discuss the results and how they can be interpreted from the perspective of previous studies and of the working hypotheses. The finding and their implications should be discussed in the broadest context possible and limitations of the work highlighted and further research directions may be mentioned. Explore the implications of findings for further research and policy and combined them with results.
Conclusions: This section is crucial and required as it summarize the key points and findings of your paper. It determines overall conclusions of the study and the future research directions.
Patents: It is not mandatory but may be updated if there is patent work reported in this manuscript.
Manuscripts submitted to the Indian Journal of Forensic and Community Medicine that is not original articles must come into one of the following categories:
It is expected that review articles are written by individuals who have done substantial work on the subject or are considered experts in the field. Review articles should address a focused topic, issue, or question. They should be balanced and up-to-date. They should not simply restate the literature but rather interpret and integrate the findings to provide a framework for understanding the literature on a particular topic. A short summary of the work done by the authors in the field of review should accompany the manuscript. The author submitting a review article should include a section describing the methods used for locating, selecting, extracting, and synthesizing data. Methods should be summarized in the form of an abstract.
Structure: Abstract, Keywords, Introduction, Discussion, Conclusion and References
The discussion part of the review should be managed into sub-division headed by informative sub-titles. We welcome review articles on journal subjects but the above topics' content should be discussed with the Editors prior to submission indicating how this manuscript would be different from recent review manuscripts in the field.
Authors should submit new, interesting, and rare case reports/case series. They should be unique, describe a great diagnostic or therapeutic challenge, and provide a learning point for readers. Cases with clinical significance or implications will be given priority. Case reports do not require extensive patient details and should be submitted as Correspondence. Correspondence should not contain more than 800 words.
Letters to the editor should be focused on news or on an article that has been published in a journal within the previous year. The letter should focus on an important aspect of the paper that is in the author’s opinion and its comments.
Editorial, Short Communication, Commentary, and other: as mentioned below.
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Article Types: |
Detail Descriptions |
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Original Research Article |
Words limit: 2000-4500 (Excluding references) Structured Abstracts: Aim & Objective, Background/Introduction, Material & Methods, Results, Conclusion, and Keywords (150 -250 Words) Keywords: (3-10) References: Minimum - 15 and Maximum – 70 Maximum Number of Figures: 8 (Quality: Pixel 300 DPI) Maximum No of Table: 8 Article explanation: Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusions |
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Review Article |
Words limit: 2500-6000 (Excluding references) |
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Headings: Abstract, Keywords, Introduction, Discussion, Conclusion, and References |
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Maximum Number of Figures: 8 (Quality: Pixel 300 DPI) Maximum No of Table: 8 |
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References: Minimum - 15 and Maximum - 100 |
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Case Report/Case Series |
Words limit: 1000- 2500 Excluding references |
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Main Headings: Abstract, Introduction, Case Presentation/Series, Discussion, Conclusion, and Reference |
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Figures: 5-15 (Quality: Pixel 300 DPI) Table: 3-8 |
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References: In between 8-25 |
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Letter-to-Editor |
Words limit: Up to 300-600 words |
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Short Communication/Commentary |
Words limit: Up to 600-1500 References: In between 5-15 |
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Editorial/Guest Editorial/others |
Words limit: Up to 300 – 1000 |
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Author Ethical Responsibilities |
Provide Supplementary materials, Acknowledgements, Conflicts of Interest, Funding Source, Data Availability Statement, and Citations, Acknowledgments |
Manuscript Presentation and Formatting: All manuscript content should follow the given formatting style
Measurement of Units: Internationally accepted rules, regulations, policies, and conventions use the International System of Units (SI). If any other units are mentioned please provide their equivalent SI
Supplementary Materials: It describes any supplementary material published online alongside the manuscript (figure, table, spreadsheet, video, etc.). The author should indicate the name and title of each element as follows Figure S1: title, Table S1: Title, etc.
Funding and Acknowledgments: This may include administrative and technical support or donations in kind of people, grants, funds, etc. should be placed in a separate section on the title page of the manuscript and repeated before references.
In addition please provide the funding information in a separate step while submitting of manuscript process. If the funding institution you need is not listed, it can be entered as text. Funding information will be published as searchable metadata for the accepted article, where acknowledgments are published on the page.
Author Contributions: Authors are required to include a statement of responsibility, to have made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work, or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of the data or drafting the work and substantively revising it. Authorship must include and be limited to those who have contributed substantially to the work.
Data Availability Statement: Provide details regarding where data supporting reported results can be found, including links to publicly archived datasets analysed or generated during the study or you might choose to exclude this statement if the study did not report any data.
Conflicts of Interest: Authors must disclose any financial and personal support or interest that may be recognized and determine the representation or interpretation of reported research results. Potential conflicts of interest include employment, consultation, ownership, honorarium, patent application, testimony, etc. Any project funded by the industry must pay special attention to the full declaration of funder involvement. If there is no role, please state the sponsors had no role in the design, execution, recognition, or writing of the study. According to The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), authors should avoid signing into any agreements with study sponsors, both for-profit and non-profit, that interface with the author’s access to all of the study’s data or that interface with their ability and interpretation of data and publish manuscripts independently when they select. For more details visit Conflict of Interest.
The statement should reflect all the collected potential conflict of interest disclosures in the form. If no conflicts exist, the authors should state.
Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
References: Reference must be numbered in order of appearance in the text (including figure, captions table, and legends) and listed individually at the end of the manuscript. The reference style can be learned from reading past issues of this journal. Text citation of the reference in number at the end of a sentence or at the end of a clause that requires a literature citation. Original research is limited to 35 references and there are no limits in the number of references for review articles. We recommended preparing the reference with bibliography software like Zotero, EndNote, etc. to avoid typing mistakes and duplicated references. We encourage citations to data, other citable and research material.
Citation: Reference and Citation in supplementary files are permitted and provided that they also appear in the main text and in the reference list in order
Journal is committed to accepting open scientific exchange and enabling our authors to achieve best practices in sharing and archiving research data. We encourage all authors of articles published with Innovative Journal to share their research data. Every journal guideline can be found in the journal “Instructions for Authors” Policy of data sharing concerns the minimal dataset support and findings of a published study. Collected data should be publically available and cited in accordance with the guidelines of the journal.
Publication data policies
Before submission of research datasets as electronic supplementary material, authors should read the journals. We encourage research data to be archived in data repositories wherever possible. The author should ensure that the data shared are in accordance with the consent provided by participants on the use of confidential data. Availability of data statement provided regarding where the data reporting and supported result can be found including publically archived dataset analyzed and generated during the study.
Data availability and suggested statements are mentioned below:
Data presented in the study are openly available in (repository name e.g. Fig Share) at (DOI), reference number (reference number).
A data repository may be cited in the reference list. Data citations should include the minimum information recommended by DataCite: Authors, title, publisher (repository name), and identifier.
Presentation of data in this study is available on request from the corresponding author, the data are not publicly available due to (mention the reason).
Restrictions apply to the availability of these data. Data were obtained from (third party) and are available (from the authors/website) with the permission of (third party).
New data sharing was created or analyzed in this study is not applicable to the article.
Data Citation:
Supplementary Material and References
While submission of the manuscript additional data and files can be uploaded as “Supplementary Files”. Supplementary files will also be available to the referees as part of the peer-review process. Any additional files and format is acceptable. We recommend that non-proprietary and common formats are used where possible. References and citations in supplementary files are permitted provided that they also appear in the main text and in the reference list.
Unpublished and Research Data Policy
Data restrictions availability should be noted during submission and in the manuscript. Authors are encouraged to publish all observations related to the submitted manuscript as supplementary material as Unpublished data. Data submission to the journal implies that materials described in the manuscript, including all relevant raw data, will be freely available to any researcher wishing to use them for non-commercial purposed, without breaching participant confidentiality. We encourage authors to ensure that their datasets are either deposited in publically available repositories or presented in the main manuscript or additional supporting files.
Journal accepts all sequence names and the accession numbers provided by the databases must be provided in the material and methods section of the article.
Research Ethics Involving Human, Animal, and Plants
When reporting studies on human subjects indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional or regional) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000 (available at https://www.wma.net/what-we-do/medical-ethics/declaration-of-helsinki/doh-oct2000/). Do not use patients’ names, initials, or hospital numbers, especially in illustrative material. Written consent for publication must be signed by participating patients with information. Related data to participants must be explained in detail, and personal information of patients need not be disclosed unless it is an identifiable matter is of relevance to the research like patients' photographs, or faces that show particular complications. Patients’ particulars or other identification need not appear in any form of images.
A manuscript that includes any case details, like personal information and images of patients, authors must obtain signed informed consent for publication from patients or relatives/guardians before submitting to Innovative Publication journal. Details of the patient must be anonymous as for as possible, e.g. do not mention age, ethnicity, occupation, or relations if they are not relevant to the conclusions. An available Patient Permission Template form for Download. A plain version of the form used to obtain permission without the patient's name or signature must be uploaded with your submission. The editor reserves the right to reject any submission that does not meet these criteria.
The author may refer to using our sample form and provide an appropriate form after consulting with your affiliated institution for the purposes of publishing with us. Journal and Consent, permission, or release form should include unlimited permission for publication in all formats like online, print and online, and print format, in sublicensed and reprinted versions and other works and products under open access license. The publisher does not prescribe the kinds of contributions that all license authorship. It is recommended that authors adhere to the guidelines for authorship that are applicable in their specific research field.
The submitted manuscript will be checked by the editorial office or on request of documentary evidence related to discuss documents. When studies describe groups by race, gender, disability, disease, religion, etc., an explanation regarding why such categorization was needed must be clearly stated in the article.
Statement on the Welfare of Animals Rights
When animals used for research must be respected in reporting experiments on animals, authors should indicate where the national and international institutional guidelines for the care and use of animals have been followed, and that the studies have been approved by a research ethics committee at the institution or practise at which the studies were conducted. Please provide the name of the ethics committee and the relevant permit number.
If articles do not contain studies with human participants or animals by any of the authors, the statement should be as below:
The reference list should include the full title, as recommended by the ACS style guide. Style files for Endnote and Zotero are available. Reference should be described and depending on the types of the work, which is mentioned as below:
For Journal Article
The surname is followed by the first initials. (et al. after six authors). Article title. Title of the journal with a standard abbreviation. Year of publication; Volume (Issue number): Pages.
Example:
For Book
The surname is followed by the first initials. Book title. Edition (if applicable). Place: Publisher; Year.
Example:
For Book Chapter
The surname is followed by first initials. Title of the chapter. In: Surname editor Initial(s), editor. Book title. Edition (if available). Place: Publisher; Year. Pages.
Example:
For E-Book
The surname is followed by first initials. Book title [Internet]. Place: Publisher; Year [cited date]. Available from: URL.
Example:
Conference Proceeding Papers
The surname is followed by first initials. Title of paper. In: Surname editor Initial(s), editor. Title of the conference. Place: Publisher; Year. Pages.
Example:
Newspaper Articles
The surname is followed by first initials. (if available). Title of article. Title of newspaper. Date: Pages (if available).
Example:
Thesis Unpublished:
Author; The surname is followed by first initials. Title of Thesis (Type of Thesis). Location of University: University Name; Year.
Example:
Thesis Published:
Author; The surname is followed by first initials. Title of Thesis (Type of Thesis). Place of Publication: Publisher Name; Year of Publication.
Example:
Website
Author; The surname is followed by first initials. Title [Internet]. Place: Publisher; Date of publication [updated date; cited date]. Available from: URL.
Example:
Donovan R. Everything You Need to Know About Heart Disease. [Internet]. New York: Healthline; Updated on 2020 February 27. Available from: https://www.healthline.com/health/heart-disease
Always use the standard abbreviation of the journal’s name according to the ISSN number and list of titles Word Abbreviations check. If you are unsure, please use the full journal title.
We recommend that clinical trials are prospectively registered in a public domain database and clinical trial registration numbers should be mentioned in all papers that report their results. Authors are asked to provide the name of the trial register and the clinical trial registration number in the manuscript. If a clinical trial is not registered or registered retrospectively, the reason must be provided at the time or before the time of the patient first enrolment as a condition of consideration for publication.
Journal follows the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) guidelines. We strongly encouraged authors to pre-registration clinical trials with international clinical trials register and cite a reference to the registration in the method section. A suitable database must be included and requires a complete consolidation of standard reporting trials as per CONSORT minimum guidelines for publication. Suitable databases include http://ctri.nic.in/Clinicaltrials/login.php and those listed by the World Health Organization International Clinical Trials Registry Platform
Authors are required to submit approval to conduct a study from a local and independent, regional, national authority. Journal reserves the right to reject a paper without trial registration for further peer-review process. Reports of randomized clinical trials should present information on all major studies, including the protocol, assignment of interventions, based on the CONSORT statement.
Specific Study Designs and Reporting Guidelines
Journal requires a complete CONSORT 2010 Checklist key document and CONSORT 2010 flow diagram, as a condition of submission of reporting the results of the randomized clinical trial. The author can find templates of these reporting guidelines on the CONSORT website www.consort-statement.org. Authors are also referred to the EQUATOR network for further information on the available reporting guidelines for health research. Various other checklists are available for various study designs. We encourage our authors to follow the guidelines of SAGER's “Sex and Gender Equity in Research” rationale for the SAGER guidelines and recommend use whenever it is relevant. Authors should describe in the background, whether sex and gender differences may be expected. If sex and gender analysis were not conducted, the rationale should be given in the discussion part. Journal suggest the author follow full guidelines of SAGER.
The journal will follow the COPE guidelines on how to handle the potential acts of misconduct of publication ethics.
Authors must follow the submission guidelines of the journal.
Plagiarism is not acceptable including copyright, text ideas, image from another source, or even from your own published content without giving any credit to the original source. To steal and pass off the ideas or words of another as one’s own, use another’s production without crediting the source” or “present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source”. We consider “self-plagiarism” as a form of plagiarism. Self-plagiarism would be when an author borrows from his or her own previously published work without the proper citation within the newly submitted manuscript. We use iThenticate software to check plagiarism. If plagiarism is found or noticed from other sources, the editorial board should check the status. If the plagiarism is confirmed as an intentional thing, then the following actions will be carried out. This should be reported to the editorial board, authors and corresponding authors and all authors' names will be marked as the blacklist.
After submission of a manuscript, please suggest any two potential reviewers with the appropriate expertise to review the manuscript. The editors will not necessarily approach these referees. Please provide details information after the completion of the manuscript submission like Name, E-mail id, contact number and homepage. The proposed reviewer should be from a different institution to the authors or the author may identify appropriate Editorial Board members of the journal as potential reviewers. You may suggest reviewers from among the authors that you frequently cite in your paper.
It is necessary that the submitted manuscript is grammatically correct in the English language. We suggest authors facilitate proper peer-reviewing of your manuscript. If you need help with writing in English or are not a native English speaker, we suggest that you have your manuscript professionally edited before submission or read by a native English-speaking colleague. Using a professional English language editing service where editors will improve the English to ensure that your meaning is clear and identify problems that require your review. These services can be carried out by Innovative Author Services. Professional editing will enable reviewers and future readers to easily read and assess the content of submitted manuscripts. All accepted manuscripts undergo language editing, however, a fee will be charged to the author if very extensive English correction must be made by Editorial Office: Pricing is according to the services.
The journal and publisher assume all authors agreed with the guidelines International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) which state that all given explicit consent to the manuscript submission and that they obtained consent from the authors’ responsibilities at the institution where the work has been carried out. The publisher does not prescribe the role of contributions that authorship. Those who contributed to the work but did not qualify for authorship should be listed in the acknowledgements.
Any updates on the author list should be approved by all authors including any who have been removed from the list. The corresponding author should act as a point of contact between the editor and the other authors and should keep co-authors informed and involve them in minor decisions about the publication. The publisher reserve the right to request confirmation that all authors meet the authorship conditions.
Visit for more details about authorship check the Innovative Publication ethics website.
The author has the right to send an appeal to the editorial office of the journal by sending an e-mail. The appeal must provide a detailed justification, including all point-by-point responses to the reviewer's and or Editor's comments. Expert advisory recommendations on the manuscript may recommend acceptance, for further peer review, or uphold the original rejection decision. A reject decision at this stage is final and cannot be reserved.
Once the manuscript gets accepted, will process for a professional copy-editing team, English editing, proofreading by the authors, final correction, pagination and publication on the journal website www.ijfcm.org
Primary Scrutiny
All submitted manuscripts received by the manuscript submission portal will be scrutinised by the Editorial office to determine whether they are properly prepared and whether they follow the editorial policies of the journal, taking care of human, animal and plant experimentation. The manuscript that does not suitable with the journal's ethics policy or does not meet the standards of the journal will be rejected before peer review. The manuscript that is not properly prepared will be returned to the authors for revision and resubmission. After these checks, the Managing Editor will consult the journals, Editor-in-Chief or Associate Editors to identify whether the manuscript is suitable for the scope of the journal and whether it is scientifically acceptable. There is no judgement on the potential impact of the work that will be made at this stage.
Peer-Review
When the submitted manuscript crosses primary scrutiny, the editorial office team assigned to at least two independent experts for peer review. In the case of regular submissions, in-house assistant editors will invite experts, including recommendations by an academic editor. Potential reviewers suggested by the authors may also be considered. Reviewers should not be published with any of the co-authors during the past three years and should not currently work or collaborate with any of the institutions of the co-authors of the submitted manuscript.
All the submitted manuscripts, reviews and communication are managed by the Pre-Publication Portal of the journal/peer-review system. The manuscript peer-review process receives at least two reviews. The editorial office team will communicate the decision to editors and inform the author.
All review comments should be responded to via the pre-publication portal. When the author disagrees with a reviewer, they must provide a clear response.
Peer-Review Duration
The Journal follows the ideal average duration between the submission and publication of an article. The first decision after submission will be taken within 1–5 days and will be informed to the authors. We generally take 7–24 days for the peer-review process. Apart from this, the publication time is 45–60 days after the submission of an article by an author. It may vary on the basis of many factors like article type, the journal’s internal process, and the availability of peer-reviewers along with authors, reviewers, and editorial staff communications.
The corresponding author will receive one print copy of the issue. If the corresponding author or any other authors are looking for an additional hard copy they can order from the editorial office at the Individual price of a single issue. The publisher and the society are not responsible for providing additional copies if the original is lost.
To support the Author in the submission of articles, please visit the journal homepage. For details instructions on preparation of the submission of the manuscript. Please visit https://www.ipinnovative.com/contact-us, contact details for a query after acceptance of an article visit www.mprp.in, you can check our author FAQ at https://www.ipinnovative.com/content/FAQs/313 or write us: support@ipinnovative.com
visit for Training and Support
If you need assistance with the submission of your manuscript at our online submission portal, please contact editorialoffice@ipinnovative.com.