Author Agreement

The Editor of UroToday International Journal welcomes original contributions on topics of interest and importance to urologists, whether written by urologists, nephrologists, oncologists, radiologists, nurses or basic scientists.

We are able to offer fast and free publication and encourage authors to cite the articles they publish with us. Instructions on referencing are included with each article. To help us help you and avoid delay, we would be grateful if authors would comply with the following requirements.

Please submit your contribution online at http://uij.edmgr.com. Authors will need their entire manuscript in an electronic format. The manuscript itself MUST be a Microsoft Word document (.doc). Full instructions, and the required user ID and password can be obtained by visiting the site. Support is provided through Editorial Manager's Help section.

All manuscripts should start with a title page detailing: (1) the title of the article, (2) full first names, middle initials and surnames of each author, (3) the name(s) of their institution(s), and (4) any financial, research, or writing contributors. Correspondence during submission will be with the submitting author. A maximum of five authors can be listed on the Editorial Manager submission screen. However, all authors should be listed with their institutions on the title page of the manuscript. An e-mail address is essential.

A cover letter and author agreement are required with each submission. The cover letter should confirm that neither the paper itself nor any of its sections or original data have been submitted elsewhere. The Author Agreement is comprised of the necessary Submission form, Conflict of Interest form and License form. There are three options to submit the form:

1. Fill out PDF and upload via submission portal (digital signatures required)
2. Print and Scan the form, then upload into the online submission portal
3. Print and Fax the form to the Journal Office +1-510-540-0930

Manuscripts must conform to the standards of the International Conference of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). A complete breakdown of the ICMJE requirements, as well as manuscript preparation tips, can be accessed at:

www.icmje.org

Editorial correspondence should be sent to:

The Editor
UroToday International Journal
1802 5th Street
Berkeley, CA 94710, USA
Fax +510-540-0930
E-mail This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it

Open Access

Open access publishing proposes a new model for scholarly journal publishing that provides immediate, worldwide, barrier-free access to the full-text of all published articles. Open access allows all interested readers to view, download, print, and redistribute any article without a subscription, enabling far greater distribution of an author's work than the traditional subscription-based publishing model. Many authors in a variety of fields have begun to realize the benefits that open access publishing can provide in terms of increasing the impact of their work.

UroToday International Journal DOES NOT CHARGE article processing fees to authors. Authors who publish in our open access journals retain the copyright of their work, which is released under a “Creative Commons Attribution License,” enabling the unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction of an article in any medium, provided that the original work is properly cited.

Submission Form

The submission form is within the Author Agreement and should confirm that the paper has not been submitted elsewhere. It should be signed by all the authors on the paper.

Copyright Information

Papers accepted must be licensed for publication in the Journal. The License form is included in the Author Agreement form. Authors will be required to license copyright in their paper to UroToday, Inc. Copyright licensing is a condition of publication, and papers will not be passed to the publisher for production unless copyright has been licensed. To assist authors, an appropriate exclusive license form will be supplied by the Editorial Office.

Conflict of Interest

The Editor requires that authors provide a statement of ANY conflicts of interests. A complete description of what constitutes a conflict of interest can be found here on the ICMJE web page. The Conflict of Interest form is included in the Author Agreement. Although the Editor will not reject a paper simply because of a conflict of interest, he will publish a statement of declared interests. In the event of no declared interests, the Editor will publish: 'Conflict of interests: None declared'.

Medical Ethics

Informed consent is required for all studies where there is a question of maintaining patients' anonymity. All studies must adhere to the Helsinki Declaration on human experimentation and institutional and national guidelines for animal experimentation. Please refer here to the ICMJE guidelines for a complete discussion of researcher responsibility.

Peer Review

The Editor in Chief will assign papers considered for publication to one Associate Editor who will communicate with the author and expert reviewers. Any statistics included will be analyzed by a statistician. Other experts may be invited to comment where appropriate. Similar procedures may be used for other contributions to the Journal. All manuscripts are subject copy-editing and formating to conform with UIJ standards.

If a manuscript is sent for revision to an author, whether major or minor, the revised manuscript must be returned within 30 days. If it is not received at the Editorial Office within this time frame, it will be treated as a new submission and sent out for review to different reviewers.

Types of Contributions

Original Articles on various aspects of urology and its associated specialties should include the following.

1. Title Page
2. An Abstract, sub-divided into:
   • Background
   • Objective
   • Methods
   • Results
   • Conclusion
   • 3-6 keywords
3. Text, sub-divided into:
   • Introduction
   • Methods
   • Results
   • Discussion
   • Conclusion
   • Acknowledgements
   • References
4. Legends to Illustrations and Tables
5. Tables
6. Illustrations

Editorials and Commentaries are usually commissioned, but the Editor is happy to consider potential articles from authors who would like to contribute. They will only be acceptable if they are no more than 2500 words with a maximum of 20 references.

Letters: Questions or comments concerning published papers may be sent to the Editor, who will send them to the authors for comment. The readers' comments and authors' replies may be subsequently published together.

References

References should conform to the Vancouver style. The references in the text should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they appear and indicated by arabic numerals in parentheses (e.g. [1]). Except for review articles there should not be more than 30 references. Examples are given below.

1. Morris JA, Oates K, Staff WG. Scanning electron microscopy of adenomatoid tumours. Br J Urol. 1986:58(3):183-7
2. Wright FS, Howards SS. Obstructive injury. In Bremner BM,Rector FC eds, The Kidney, 2nd edn, Vol.II. Chapt 38. Philadelphia:Saunders, 1981: 2009-44

References in Articles

We recommend the use of a tool such as EndNote or Reference Manager for reference management and formatting. All references should be retrievable.

EndNote reference styles can be searched for here:

Endnote

Reference Manager reference styles can be searched for here:

Reference Manager

Illustrations

UroToday International Journal accepts the following formats for figure files:

• EPS (preferred format for diagrams),
• PDF (also especially suitable for diagrams)
• TIFF (for photographs and screen dumps, 300 dpi if possible
• PNG (for photos or images)
• JPEG
• BMP

All histological illustrations should be supplied in colour. Text within figures should usually be either Arial or Helvetica fonts; Courier may be used if a monospaced font is required. Text should be designed to be legible when the illustration is scaled to a width of 600 pixels. Quality should be sufficient for viewing on-screen and desktop printing. The top of the figure should be indicated. For histological sections, magnification should be given with a scale bar or in the legend; magnification values in caption should be correct for enlargement/reduction of the illustration. Any key should appear in the legend, as should details of staining techniques. Figures or tables reproduced from a published work must have the original source quoted and the permission of the author and publisher. Color photographs may be submitted and will be published free of charge.

Each figure should be submitted as a separate graphics file. If a figure consists of separate parts, it is important that a single composite illustration file is submitted that contains all parts of the figure.

Units / Abbreviations
Authors should follow the SI system of units (except for blood pressure which will continue to be expressed in mmHg) (see Grange RI.BJU 1996; 78: 961–963). Numbers are written in full up to nine; numerals are used from ten upwards. Authors should limit their use of abbreviations and they should be used consistently throughout the text. There is a list of standard (common) abbreviations published in each issue. These can be used without definition, but all others must be defined on first mention and listed at the end of the paper.

Proofs
Proofs will be sent by e-mail as an Acrobat PDF (portable document format) file. All manuscripts will have been formatted to conform with UIJ standards of content and style. Requests for corrections should be kept to an absolute minimum. Authors are asked to return their corrected proofs to the Production Editor within 3 business days of receipt. Manuscripts will not be published without final approval.

Offprints
Authors will be provided with electronic offprints of their article. Paper offprints may be ordered at prices quoted on the order form which accompanies the proofs, provided that the form is returned with the proofs.
Offprints are normally dispatched within three weeks of publication of which the issue in which the paper appears. Please contact the publishers if offprints do not arrive; however, please note that offprints are sent by surface mail, so overseas orders may take up to six weeks to arrive. Electronic offprints are sent to the first author at his or her first email address on the title page of the paper, unless advised otherwise; therefore please ensure that the name, address and email address of the corresponding author are clearly indicated on the manuscript title page if he or she is not the first author of the paper.