Guidelines for Authors

Kindly read the following instructions carefully before submitting a manuscript.

SUBMISSION

Authors should note that submitting their manuscript to AJB implies that it had not been previously published or submitted for publication elsewhere. An exception to this requirement includes the submission of parts of the manuscript as a conference, meeting, forum, or symposium abstract. 

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Manuscripts submitted to the AJB should not exceed 10,000 words (excluding references and footnotes, and tables).

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The AJB accepts submissions in the following languages: English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese.

 

Authors are not required to do any pre-formatting during the submission process. Accepted manuscripts will be formatted in the journal's style by the Editorial Team. 

 

The AJB does not charge any submission or publication fees. 

 

Kindly check the aims and scope of the journal before submitting your manuscript. Upon receipt of your manuscript, a confirmation email will be sent. If you have not received a confirmation email, kindly contact the journal. Each submitted manuscript will be assigned peer-reviewers according to the domains explored in the paper. 
 

WHAT WE PUBLISH 

• Reviews 

• Literature reviews

• Systematic reviews

• Research articles reporting original and secondary data 

• Preprints 

• Guidelines for ethical research conduct 

• Guidelines for ethical healthcare

WHAT TO INCLUDE IN YOUR MANUSCRIPT

Authorship

• The full names of the authors;

• The author's institutional affiliations, and the city and country where their institution is based.

Conflict of Interest Statement
Authors are kindly asked to declare any conflicts of interest or lack thereof.  
 

Title, abstract, and keywords
Titles should not include any more than 20 words. Abstracts should not exceed 300 words. Do not include any citations in your abstract. Add between 3-5 relevant keywords that would help your article be more visible in search engines.
 

Main Text
Make sure your main text includes the following sections:

• Background

• Methodology

• Results

• Discussion

• Conclusion

• Figures, tables, or appendices, of any

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References
References should follow the Vancouver, MLA, Chicago 6th ed, or APA 7th ed. citation styles. 

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Acknowledgements
This section shall mention technical, material, and financial contributions to the submitted work.

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THIRD-PARTY MATERIALS 

You must obtain the necessary permission to reuse third-party material in your article. The use of short extracts of text and some other types of material is usually permitted, on a limited basis, for the purposes of criticism and review without securing formal permission. If you wish to include any material in your paper for which you do not hold copyright, and which is not covered by this informal agreement, you will need to obtain written permission from the copyright owner prior to submission. 

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ETHICS COMPLIANCE 

Please ensure that all research reported in submitted papers has been conducted in an ethical and responsible manner, and is in full compliance with all relevant codes of experimentation and legislation. All original research papers involving humans, animals, plants, biological material, protected or non-public datasets, collections or sites, must include a written statement in the Methods section, confirming ethical approval has been obtained from the appropriate local ethics committee or Institutional Review Board and that where relevant, informed consent has been obtained. For animal studies, approval must have been obtained from the local or institutional animal use and care committee. In settings where ethics approval for non-interventional studies (e.g. surveys) is not required, authors must include a statement to explain this. In locations where there are no ethics committees in place to provide ethical approval, authors are advised to contact the EditorS to discuss further.

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CONSENT

All authors are required to follow the ICMJE requirements on privacy and informed consent from patients and study participants. Authors must include a statement to confirm that any patient, service user, or participant (or that person’s parent or legal guardian) in any type of qualitative or quantitative research, has given informed consent to participate. For submissions where patients or participants can be potentially identified (e.g. a clinical case report detailing their medical history, identifiable images or media content, etc), authors must include a statement to confirm that they have obtained written informed consent to publish the details from the affected individual (or their parents/guardians if the participant is not an adult or unable to give informed consent; or next of kin if the participant is deceased). The process of obtaining consent to publish should include sharing the article with the individual (or whoever is consenting on their behalf) so that they are fully aware of the content of the article before it is published. 

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HEALTH AND SAFETY

Please confirm that all mandatory laboratory health and safety procedures have complied with the course of conducting any experimental work reported in your paper. Please ensure your paper contains all appropriate warnings on any hazards that may be involved in carrying out the experiments or procedures you have described, or that may be involved in instructions, materials, or formulae.

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Please include all relevant safety precautions; and cite any accepted standard or code of practice.

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Please note that The African Journal of Bioethics uses Crossref™ to screen papers for unoriginal material. By submitting your paper to The African Journal of Bioethics you are agreeing to originality checks during the peer-review and production processes.

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On acceptance, we recommend that you keep a copy of your Accepted Manuscript.

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FEES

This journal charges no submission fees, publication fees or page charges.