Instructions to authors - Revista Brasileira de Ginecologia e Obstetrícia

Instructions to authors

Scope and policy

Responsibilities of the Editor-in-Chief (EIC – editor-in-chief)

• Ensure the publication of the periodical within the established deadlines.
• Ensure the quality of selected texts that are appropriate to the interests of readers.
• Establish the policy for manuscript submission, peer review, opinions and resubmission.
• Ensure that articles are reviewed and accepted solely based on scientific merit, and not based on any influence, whether commercial or personal relationships.
• Maintain transparency throughout the manuscript analysis and editing process.
• Investigate all complaints and/or questions related to submissions to the journal, whether accepted or not, and give authors the opportunity to respond whenever necessary.
• Provide input to members of the journal’s editorial board to define the types of publication and selection criteria for manuscripts accepted by the journal.
• Develop policies and procedures to attract manuscripts of scientific quality;
• Examine the magazine’s graphic proofs, ensuring their quality.
• Adopt procedures safeguarding ethical issues, conflicts of interest and compliance with the policies adopted by the Brazilian Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics Associations, to which it is affiliated.
• Treat all individuals with respect, impartiality, and without discrimination based on gender identity, race, sexual orientation, religion or political beliefs, and geographic region.
• Maintain impartiality and clarity when publishing sponsored supplements and/or any other type of sponsorship/funding.
• Ensure open access and describe in all articles the Creative Commons license modality that the journal has adopted.
• Ensure the organization of all documents related to the journal submission process.

Associate Editor (EA) Responsibilities

• Receive, read and evaluate the scientific quality of manuscripts received from the EIC.
• Properly choose reviewers for the manuscripts under your responsibility.
• Speed ​​up the progress of assessments made by reviewers and maintain the analysis process within the schedule established by the EIC.
• Analyze the opinions issued by reviewers and assist them in preparing recommendations to authors.

Responsibilities of Reviewers

• Reviewers have the responsibility to review the manuscript objectively and fairly.
• Critically analyze manuscripts, offering suggestions to improve quality and contribute to the decision-making process.
• Maintain the confidentiality of any information provided by the editor.
• Maintain strict confidentiality during the review process. O revisor não deve compartilhar informações de um manuscrito antes da conclusão da revisão e antes da aceitação e publicação.
• Informar o editor sobre qualquer semelhança dos artigos em análise com estudos publicados ou em andamento que possam ser considerados plágio.
• Divulgar quaisquer potenciais conflitos de interesse (financeiros, institucionais, colaborativos ou outros relacionamentos entre o revisor e o autor). Se houver conflito de interesse ou se o revisor não tiver a expertise necessária para a análise, o manuscrito deve ser imediatamente devolvido ao editor para escolha de outro revisor.

Responsibilities of the Author(s)

• Attest to the originality of the submitted study and confirm the article is not being considered elsewhere, nor accepted for publication in another journal.
• Ensure approval by the Research Ethics Committee of the institution where the study was developed.
• Participate sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for its content. Authors’ contributions can be made in different ways: conceptual, intellectual, experimental and analytical, and by participating in the writing and review of the manuscript. The final approval of the version to be submitted must be approved and signed by all authors responsible for all aspects of the work (typed or printed name is not acceptable).
• Ensure that studies including humans or animals comply with national and international requirements and guidelines (Declaration of Helsinki [2013], Declaration of Human and Animal Rights [Unesco, 1978]). This information must be stated in the manuscript, and the protocol number or exemption status of approved protocols must be stated in the manuscript at the time of submission for review.
• Inform the registration number referring to the research approval report at the National Council for the Control of Animal Experimentation (Concea). Studies involving animal experiments must comply with Law No. 11.794, of October 8, 2008, which establishes procedural rules for the scientific use of animals in Brazil. International manuscripts must submit local ethical documentation to proceed with the submission process. Any manuscript involving animal or human experiments submitted without proof of approval by institutional or local research committees will not be reviewed and will be returned to authors.
• Inform potential conflicts of interest in a written statement signed by all authors.
• Inform the journal editor when a major error is found in the study and provide all necessary information for publication correction, errata and retraction.
• Provide data records associated with the study when requested by the editor.
• Provide the definitive list of authors and their order at the time of original submission, containing the author registration with the respective Open Researcher and Contributor Identifier (ORCID). Any addition, removal or rearrangement of authors’ names in the authorship list should be done only before the manuscript is accepted and only if approved by the journal editor. If that is the case, the corresponding author must obtain agreement of the other authors in writing, justifying the reason for alteration (addition, removal or rearrangement), and send the request by letter or e-mail. The editor will consider adding, deleting or rearranging authors after acceptance of the manuscript only in exceptional circumstances. If the manuscript has already been published in an online edition, any requests approved by the editor will result in rectification.
• Meet the deadlines for corrections and clarifying answers to questions made by reviewers.
• Use language that promotes social inclusion. The manuscript content must respect readers and not contain anything that could imply that an individual is superior to another because of age, sex, race, ethnicity, culture, sexual orientation, disability or health condition. Writing must be free from prejudice, stereotypes, slang, references to the dominant culture and/or cultural assumptions. The recognition of diversity is sensitive to differences, promotes equal opportunities and expresses respect for all people.

Scientific misconduct

Presenting results of animal or clinical research conducted without proper approval and written informed consent, as set out above, is considered unethical scientific behavior. Duplicate publication or when results are falsified, fabricated or plagiarized is also considered unethical. The RBGO allows the partialpresentation of data from a manuscript in another means of dissemination, although in these cases, the author must acknowledge the previous presentation and identify the source. The citation of the original publication is essential in the disclosure. Splitting data, analysis and presentation of the same study into smaller units (practice called “salami slicing”) should be avoided. Thus, the author must acknowledge in his or her cover letter any similar publications or manuscripts that have been submitted for publication based on the same material.

Investigation of scientific misconduct

Submission of an article implies that the work described has not been previously published, except in the form of an abstract, published lecture or academic thesis. Scientific misconduct may be suspected during the manuscript review process by reviewers. Thus, the RBGO may use additional resources to investigate the author’s unethical conduct in order to certify the originality or plagiarism of the article (examples: Crossref Similarity Check, iThenticate and others). All suspected cases will be investigated initially by the Editor-in-Chief and by the Ethics and Professional Defense Committee of the Brazilian Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics Associations. The author will be notified in writing of the allegations and asked to provide useful information to the investigation, including access to all original data, notes and copies of previous publications. The author’s affiliation may also be contacted.

Retraction policy

The retraction policy of the RBGO is based on COPE’s Retraction guidelines for advice and guidance for editors (DOI: https://doi.org/10.24318/cope.2019.1.4).

Editors will consider a publication retractable in case:

• It is plagiarism;
• It reports unethical research;
• It contains material or data without authorization for use;
• The copyright has been infringed or there is any other serious legal issue (e.g. defamation, privacy);
• There is clear evidence that results are unreliable, either as a result of a major error (e.g.miscalculation or experimental error) or as a result of fabrication or falsification of data and/or images, for example;
• Findings have been previously published elsewhere without proper attribution to prior sources or disclosure to the Editor, permission for republication or justification (i.e. cases of redundant publication);
• It has been published solely based on a compromised or manipulated peer review process;
• The author(s) have not disclosed a major conflict of interest which, in the Editor’s opinion, may have unduly affected the interpretations of the work or the editors’ and reviewers’ recommendations.

Retraction notices must:

• Be linked to the retracted article in all versions printed or online;
• Clearly identify the retracted article (e.g. including the title and authors in the retraction header or citing the retracted article);
• Be clearly identified as a retraction (i.e. distinct from other types of correction or comment);
• Be published promptly to minimize harmful effects;
• Be freely available to all readers (i.e. open access or available only to subscribers);
• Inform who is removing the article;
• Indicate the reason(s) for the retraction;
• Be objective and factual and avoid aggressive language.

Retractions are generally inappropriate if: 

• Authorship is disputed, even though there is no reason to doubt the validity of findings;
• The main conclusions of the work are still reliable and the correction can sufficiently address the errors or concerns;
• An editor has inconclusive evidence to support the retraction or is awaiting additional information, such as from an institutional investigation;
• Authors’ conflicts of interest were reported to the journal after publication, but in the editor’s opinion, they likely did not exert influence in interpretations, recommendations or conclusions of the article;
• The RBGO will follow the flowchart suggested by COPE (DOI: https://doi.org/10.24318/cope.2019.2.7) to track an undisclosed conflict of interest in a published article.

Receipt of articles deposited in preprint repositories

Manuscripts submitted and coming from preprint repositories will necessarily be peer-reviewed and receive the definitive DOI issued by the RBGO if approved. Manuscripts submitted for analysis by the RBGO editorial board cannot contain references to articles that have not been published in scientific journals and that have fully complied with the peer review process.

Instructions to authors for manuscript submission

The material sent for analysis must not have been submitted simultaneously for publication in other journals or previously published. The selection of manuscripts for publication involves evaluation of originality, relevance of the topic, quality of the methodology used, its updating and whether it is appropriate and interesting to readers, in addition to adequacy to the editorial standards adopted by the journal.

Evaluation of manuscripts

Manuscripts in English submitted to the journal are received by the editorial office that checks the mandatory documentation and analyzes if the editorial rules contained in instructions to authors have been complied with. If the process is in accordance, the manuscript is sent to the editor-in-chief, who will make an initial merit assessment of the submitted manuscript. If the editor-in-chief concludes the work is in favorable scientific and technical conditions, the manuscript will be forwarded to associate editors, who, in turn, will appoint reviewers (double mind process) to evaluate the work. The reviewers’ opinions and the editor’s instructions will be sent to authors so they are aware of the editor’s decision, criticism and eventual changes to be introduced. Authors must resubmit the text with the suggested changes within the requested deadline. When resubmitting the manuscript, the requested corrections must be highlighted in the text (marked in yellow). In cases of disagreement with the suggestions, the authors must include the justifications and observations in comment balloons. Authors must be assertive and punctual with the inquiry, supporting the hypothesis with references. IMPORTANT! Authors must comply with the deadlines. Failure to do so will result in a delay in their publication or even in the shelving of the process. Authors can request the suspension of the process and withdrawal of the work at any point in the process of analyzing and editing the text, except when the manuscript is accepted for publication. The concepts and statements contained in the articles are the responsibility of the authors.

Preparing a manuscript for submission

Mandatory documents for submission
When submitting a manuscript to the RBGO, documents listed below must be attached to the ScholarOne submission platform. Note that failure to submit or incomplete documentation will result in cancellation of the submission process. Mandatory documentation for online submission:

• In accordance with chapter XII.2 of CNS Resolution No. 466/2012, in Brazil, research involving human beings needs to inform the registration number referring to the Certificate of Presentation for Ethical Assessment (CAAE) or the number of the research approval report (CEP/Conep) in the Research Ethics Committee. In the case of manuscripts involving animal experimentation, it must be indicated if it complies with Law No. 11.794 of 8 October, 2008, which establishes procedures for the scientific use of animals in Brazil, informing the registration number referring to approval of the research at the National Council for the Control of Animal Experimentation (Concea). International manuscripts must submit local ethical documentation to proceed with the submission process;
• The cover letter must be written with the purpose of justifying the publication. Authors must be identified with the respective Open Researcher and Contributor Identifier (ORCID), the authors’ affiliation institution and the intention of publication. The qualification/title of the corresponding author must be included.

Title page:

• Title of the manuscript in English with a maximum of 18 words;
• Full name of authors without abbreviations (include a maximum of 8 authors per article, except in the case of multicenter studies, consensus, guidelines and position statements of societies or research groups);
• Corresponding author (full name, qualification/title and contact e-mail);
• Institutional affiliation of each author. Example: Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics, Faculty of Medicine of Ribeirão Preto, University of São Paulo, Ribeirão Preto, SP, Brazil (Departamento de Ginecologia e Obstetrícia da Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto da Universidade de São Paulo, Ribeirão Preto, SP, Brazil); 
• Conflicts of interest: authors must inform any potential conflict of interest, whether of resources, political, economic for developing the study or of intellectual property;
• Acknowledgments: acknowledgments are restricted to people and institutions that contributed in a relevant way to the development of the study. Any financial support, whether from funding agencies or private companies, must be mentioned in the Acknowledgments section. For Brazilian authors, RBGO requests that funding from the agencies Conselho Nacional de Pesquisa (CNPq), Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (Capes), or any other state research support agency (eg. Fapesp), should be mentioned with the number of the research process or grants awarded;
• Contributions: according to the criteria for scientific authorship of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), authorship credit should be based on three conditions that must be fully met: (1) substantial contributions to conception and design, data collection or analysis and interpretation of data; (2) article writing or relevant critical review of intellectual content; and (3) final approval of the version to be published.

Manuscript

The Revista Brasileira de Ginecologia e Obstetrícia(RBGO) publishes the following categories of manuscripts:

• Original articles: full prospective, experimental or retrospective works.
• Case reports: They are of interest if well documented from a clinical and laboratory point of view and should contain new or unexpected aspects in relation to cases already published. Authors should indicate this information in the referral letter. The text of Introduction and Discussion sections must be based on an up-to-date literature review.
• Review articles: Spontaneous contributions are accepted, including integrative, scoping, or systematic reviews with or without meta-analyses. Narrative reviews will only be accepted exceptionally, given the questionable scientific evidence they represent. The methods and procedures adopted to obtain data inserted in the text must be described and based on recent references, including the current year. As this is still subject to controversy, the review should discuss trends and lines of investigation in progress. In addition to the review text, the synthesis and conclusions must be presented.
• Letters to the Editor: Must address editorial matters or not, but present relevant information to readers. The letters may be summarized by the editorial board, always keeping the main points. In the case of criticism or comments on published works, the letter is sent to the authors of the cited article so their response can be published simultaneously. All data presented in the letter must be fully citable and cited in the supporting reference list (unpublished data should not be described in the letter).
• Editorial: By invitation of the editor only.

OBS. Manuscripts containing results of original clinical or experimental research have priority for publicationManuscript structure

Title
When writing a scientific article, the researcher must pay attention to the title of the manuscript. The title is the business card of any publication. It should be prepared with great care and preferably be written only after the article is finished. A good title adequately describes the content of the manuscript. It is usually not a sentence, as it does not contain the subject or arranged verbs and objects. Abbreviations, chemical formulas, excess of adjectives, names of cities and institutions, among others, should be avoided in titles. The titles of manuscripts submitted to the RBGO must contain a maximum of 18 words.

Abstract
The abstract must provide the context or basis for the study, establish the objectives, basic procedures of the methodology used, main results and main conclusions. It should emphasize new and important aspects of the study or observations. As abstracts are the only substantive part of the article that is indexed in many electronic databases, authors must ensure they accurately reflect the content of the article and highlight the research contribution/innovation to the topic. Abbreviations, symbols and references should not be used in the abstract. In case of original articles from clinical trials, the authors must inform the registration number at the end of the abstract.
1. Abstract: for original articles
Abstracts of original articles submitted to the RBGO must be structured in four sections and contain a maximum of 250 words:
Objective: Retrospective on the topic and the question posed by researchers.
Methods: How it was done; the method employed, including the material used to achieve the objective.
Results: What was found; the main finding and, if necessary, the secondary findings.
Conclusion: What was the conclusion; the answer to the question asked.
2. Abstract: for systematic review articles
Abstracts of systematic review articles submitted to the RBGO must be structured in six sections and contain a maximum of 250 words:
Objective: State the main objective of the article.
Data sources: Describe the data sources examined, including dates, indexing terms and limitations.
Study selection: Specify the number of studies reviewed and criteria used in their selection.
Data collection: Summarize the conduct used in data extraction and how it was used.
Data synthesis: Present the main results of the review and the methods employed to obtain them.
Conclusions: State the main conclusions and their clinical utility.
3. Abstract: for integrative/scoping reviews
It must contain the essence of the article, covering the purpose, method, results and conclusions or recommendations. Expose enough detail so readers can decide on the convenience of reading the entire text (word limit: 150).
NOTE: An abstract in Portuguese may be optionally added by the authors.

Keywords
The keywords of a scientific work indicate the thematic content of the text they represent. The identification of thematic content, the indexing of the work in databases and the quick location and retrieval of the content are considered the main objectives of the mentioned terms. The keyword systems used by the RBGO are DeCS (Health Sciences Descriptors – Lilacs Indexer) and MeSH (Medical Subject Headings – MEDLINE-PubMed Indexer). Five descriptors that represent the work must be chosen on these platforms.

Manuscript body
Manuscripts submitted to the RBGO should have a maximum of 4,000 words. Tables, charts and figures in the Results section, as well as references, are not counted.

Introduction
This part of the article prepares the reader to understand the investigation and the justification for its development. It should include the current state of knowledge on the subject, offering only strictly relevant and up-to-date references. The content to be reported in this section should provide context or background for the study, that is, the nature of the problem and its importance, and state the specific purpose, research objective, or hypothesis tested in the study or observation. The research objective is the final part of the introduction and both the main and secondary objectives must be clear and any analyzes in a pre-specified subgroup must be described. The introduction should not include data or conclusions from the work being reported.

Methods
The Methods section of a scientific work aims to present the study in a clear and concise way so that it is understandable and can be replicated. It should state how, when and where the study was developed. The method comprises the material and procedures adopted in the study in order to be able to answer the main question of investigation. The Methods section should be structured starting with the type of study design, to show if it is appropriate to achieve the research objective; the research setting (the place and time in which it was developed); the data collection; the intervention to be performed and evaluated (if any) and also the alternative intervention; the statistical methods used and the ethical aspects of research.

NOTE: the RBGO joined the initiative of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and the EQUATOR Network, aimed at improving the presentation of research results. Check related interactive guides:
Randomized clinical trial
Systematic reviews and meta-analyses
Observational studies in epidemiology
Qualitative studies

Results
The purpose of the Results section is to show the findings of the research. These are original data obtained and synthesized by the author in order to provide an answer to the question that motivated the investigation. Results should be presented in a logical sequence in the text, tables and illustrations, mentioning the most important findings first. Whenever appropriate, the statistical significance of results should be indicated. All information in tables or illustrations should not be repeated in the text, and only important observations should be emphasized or summarized. Additional or supplementary materials and technical details may be placed in an appendix, accessible via a link, that will not interrupt the flow of the text. When data are summarized in the Results section, numerical results must be presented not only in derived values (e.g. percentages) but also in absolute values from which the derived values were calculated, and specify the statistical methods used to analyze them. Only the tables and figures necessary to explain the argument of the work and to assess its basis should be used. When scientifically appropriate, analyzes of data with variables such as age and sex should be included. The limit of a maximum of five tables, five charts or five figures must not be exceeded. Tables, charts and/or figures must be included in the body of the manuscript and do not account for the requested limit of 4,000 words. For clarification on the resolution of figures, please check https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/pub/filespec-images/.

Discussion
In the Discussion section, new and important aspects of the study and the conclusions derived from them should be emphasized. Data or other information presented in the Introduction or Resultssections should not be repeated in detail. In experimental studies, it is useful to start the discussion with a brief summary of the main findings, compare and contrast the results with those of other relevant studies, state the limitations of the study and explore the implications of the findings for future research and clinical practice. Claiming precedence and alluding to incomplete works should be avoided, as well as discussing data not directly related to the results of the research presented. New hypotheses may be proposed when justified, but they must be clearly qualified as such. The last paragraph of the Discussion section should include the information of the study that relatively contributes to new knowledge.

Conclusion
The Conclusion section is intended to relate the conclusions to the objectives of the study. Authors should avoid unsubstantiated statements and conclusions not appropriately supported by their data. In particular, authors should avoid making claims about economic benefits and costs unless their manuscript includes economic analysis and appropriate data.

References
In manuscripts submitted to the RBGO, authors must number references in order of entry in the work and use these numbers for citations in the text. An excessive number of references should be avoided, selecting the most relevant for each statement and giving preference to more recent works. Do not use citations of difficult to access, such as abstracts of works presented at conferences, theses or publications with restricted circulation (not indexed). Cite primary and conventional references (articles in scientific journals and textbooks). References such as “unpublished observations” and “personal communication” should not be used. Authors’ publications (self-citation) should only be used if there is a clear need and they are related to the topic. In this case, include only original works published in regular journals (do not cite chapters or reviews) among the bibliographic references. The number of references should be limited to 35, except for review articles. Citations of references must be placed after the period in superscript, without space after the last word (sequential and numerical citations). Authors are responsible for the accuracy of data contained in the references. To format your references, check Vancouver: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK7256/

Submission of papers

Articles must be submitted electronically, according to instructions available on the website: http://mc04.manuscriptcentral.com/rbgo-scielo.

Brazilian Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics Address: Av. Brigadeiro Luís Antônio, 3.421, sala 903, Jardim Paulista – 01401-001 – São Paulo, SP, Brazil Telephone: + 55 (11) 5573-4919
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