Author Guidelines

Journal Aims and Scope

The Iranian Journal of Microbiology (IJM) is an international, multi-disciplinary, peer-reviewed journal that provides rapid publication of the most advanced scientific research in the areas of basic and applied research on bacteria and other micro-organisms, including bacteria, viruses, yeasts, fungi, microalgae, and protozoa concerning the development of tools for diagnosis and disease control, epidemiology, antimicrobial agents, clinical microbiology, immunology, Genetics, Genomics and Molecular Biology. Contributions may be in the form of original research papers, review articles, short communications, case reports, technical reports, and letters to the Editor. Research findings must be novel and the original data must be available for review by the Editors, if necessary. Studies that are preliminary, of weak originality or merely descriptive as well as negative results are not appropriate for the journal. Papers considered for publication must be unpublished work (except in an abstract form) that is not under consideration for publication anywhere else, and all co-authors should have agreed to the submission. Manuscripts should be written in English. The Editorial Board of the journal, reserves the right to accept or reject the article at any stage and any time or delete a part of the text, tables or figures, if necessary. All correspondences should be addressed to:

Iranian Journal of Microbiology Email: ijm@tums.ac.ir

Peer review process

All manuscripts will be acknowledged upon presentation to the Journal office, provided that all stated requirements are met. The manuscript is sent to two or more reviewers. The whole review process depends on receiving the referees' comments and revising the manuscripts based on these comments to the author. On receipt of the revised article from the author, and after final approval by the referees, the letter of acceptance is issued to the author. Authors have the right to communicate to the editor if they do not wish their manuscript to be reviewed by a particular reviewer because of potential conflicts of interest. The author can also suggest names of possible qualified reviewers, but it is up to the editor to accept recommendations. No article is rejected unless negative comments are received from at least two reviewers. 

BEFORE YOU BEGIN

Ethics in publishing

Ethics of human and animal experimentation: Manuscripts describing any experimental work with humans should include a statement that the Ethical Committee of the institution in which the work was done has approved it, and that the subjects gave informed consent to the work. Experiments with animals should be done in accordance with the legal requirements of the relevant local or national authority

For information on Ethics in publishing and Ethical guidelines for journal publication see

http://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines

Funding and Conflict of interest

All authors are requested to disclose any actual or potential conflict of interest including any financial, personal or other relationship with other people or organizations that could inappropriately influence, or be perceived to influence their work. A separate page should cover this proclamation and any further details can be mentioned in the cover letter.

Submission declaration and verification

Submission of an article implies that the work described has not been published previously (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis), that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, that its publication is approved by all authors, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere, in English or in any other language, without the written consent of the copyright-holder.

Contributors

All authors must have significantly participated in the research and/or article preparation. The statement that all authors have approved the final article should be included in the disclosure.

Cover Letter

Cover Letter and Signatures: The Manuscript must be accompanied by a cover letter (one page) to the Editor, containing the title and author(s) name and a summary of why your paper is a valuable addition to the scientific literature. In addition, lists are recommended (at least 4) or opposed reviewers. Your cover letter should not include requests to reduce or waive publication fees. When your manuscript is accepted, you will have the opportunity to include your requests at that time.

Submission process

IJM accepts only online submissions at http://ijm.tums.ac.ir

The Original manuscript should not exceed 12 printed pages (or 5000 words in length) including tables and figures.

Short communications should not exceed 4 printed pages (or 500-2000 words in length) including one table and two figures. Short communication is suitable for recording the results of complete small investigations or giving details of new models or hypotheses, innovative methods, techniques or apparatus.

A Case Report must include an abstract of no more than 50 words. It may be no more than 800 words long. The total number of tables and figures (combined) must not exceed

2.

Review articles are accepted (under certain circumstances and just by an invitation from IJM. Reviews should be concise and no longer than 4 to 6 printed pages. Reviews are also peer-reviewed.

Responsibility for the accuracy of the material in the manuscript, including bibliographic citations, lies entirely with the authors.

Manuscript files submission

All manuscripts must be typed double spaced and include line and page numbers.

• Graphical abstract

A Graphical abstract is optional and should summarize the contents of the article in a concise, pictorial form designed to capture the attention of a wide readership online. Authors must provide images that clearly represent the work described in the article. Graphical abstracts should be submitted as a separate file in the online submission system.

• Highlights

Highlights are mandatory for this journal. They consist of a short collection of bullet points that convey the core findings of the article and should be submitted in a separate file in the online submission system. Please use 'Highlights' in the file name and include 3 to 5 bullet points (maximum 85 characters, including spaces, per bullet point).

 • Essential title page information

The title page of the paper should only contain the title, a running title with no more than 40 characters, name(s), degree(s) and addresses (Tel, Fax, and Email) of the author(s). Author names and affiliations. Present the authors' affiliation addresses (where the actual work was done) below the names. Indicate all affiliations with a lower-case superscript letter immediately after the author's name and in front of the appropriate address. Provide the full postal address of each affiliation, including the country name and, if available, the e-mail address of each author.

Corresponding author. Clearly indicate who will handle correspondence at all stages of refereeing and publication, also post-publication. Ensure that phone numbers (with country and area code) are provided in addition to the e-mail address and the complete postal address. Contact details must be kept up to date by the corresponding author.

Present/permanent address. If an author has moved since the work described in the article was done, or was visiting at the time, a 'Present address' (or 'Permanent address') may be indicated as a footnote to that author's name. The address at which the author actually did the work must be retained as the main, affiliation address. Superscript Arabic numerals are used for such footnotes.

 • Abstract

A concise and factual abstract is required (maximum 250 words). It should appear in a structured format as Background and objectives, Materials and Methods, Results and Conclusion. The abstract should be informative and completely self-explanatory, briefly present the topic, state the scope of the experiments, indicate significant data, and point out major findings and conclusions. References should be avoided, but if essential, then cite the author(s) and year(s). Also, non-standard or uncommon abbreviations should be avoided, but if essential they must be defined at their first mention in the abstract itself.

• Keywords

Following the abstract, about 3 to 5 keywords that will provide indexing references should be listed.

• Introduction

State the objectives of the work and provide an adequate background, avoiding a detailed literature survey or a summary of the results. Provide a background that puts the manuscript into context and allows the readers outside the field to understand the purpose and significance of the study. Define the problem addressed and why it is important, also, include a brief review of the key literature. It should be understandable to colleagues from a broad range of scientific disciplines.

• Materials and Methods

This section should provide enough detail to allow suitably skilled or less-skilled investigators to fully replicate your study. Specific information and/or protocols for new methods should be included in detail. If materials, methods, and protocols are well established, the authors may cite articles where those protocols are described in detail, but the submission should include sufficient information to be understood independent of these references. The Methods sections of papers on research using human or animal subjects and/or tissue or field sampling must include required Ethics statements of the relevant local or national authority. Cell lines must state the origin of the cell lines used. Submission of sequence data to databases: Novel nucleotide or protein sequence data must be deposited in the GenBank, EMBL or DDBJ databases and an accession number obtained before the paper can be accepted for publication. For each accession number cited in an article, authors should type the accession number in capital. Example: (GenBank accession nos. AA361117-AA361127). For statistical analysis, the authors should seek advice on data analysis prior to submission. If necessary, the manuscript may be sent to referees with particular expertise in statistics and modeling.

• Results

This section should be clear and concise. The results should be written in the past tense when describing findings in the author(s)'s experiments. Previously published findings should be written in the present tense. Results should be explained, but largely without referring to the literature. Discussion, speculation and detailed interpretation of data should not be included in the results but should be put into the discussion section.

• Discussion

      It should explore the significance of the results of the work, not repeat them. Avoid extensive citations and discussion of published literature.

• Conclusions

      The Conclusions Of the study may be presented in a short conclusions section, which may stand alone or form a subsection of a discussion section.

• Tables

They should be kept to a minimum and be designed to be as simple as possible. Use Arabic numerals to designate tables consecutively in accordance with their appearance in the text. Place explanatory matters in footnotes, not as heading. Ensure that the data presented in the tables do not duplicate results described elsewhere in the article. Tables are to be typed double-spaced and do not submit tables as photographs.

• Figures

Figures should be in limited numbers, with high quality art work mounted on separate pages. Use Arabic numerals to designate figures consecutively in accordance with their appearance in the text. The legends should be placed below figures with a title and include sufficient description so that the figure is understandable without reading the text of the manuscript. Information given in legends should not be repeated in the text. Graphics should be prepared in high resolution GIF, TIFF, JPEG or PowerPoint format.

• Acknowledgments

The Acknowledgments of people, grants, funds, etc should be brief. People who contributed to the work should be listed in the acknowledgments, along with their contributions. Authors must ensure that anyone named in the acknowledgments agrees to being so named.

• References

      It should be in limited numbers and up-to-dated, also numbered consecutively as they occur in the text (number in parentheses). Please also ensure that every reference cited in the text is also present in the reference list (and vice versa). Unpublished results and personal communications are not recommended in the reference list, but may be mentioned in the text. The references should observe the following style:

Article: Clarke SR, Brummell KJ, Horsburgh MJ, McDowell PW, Mohamad SA, Stapleton MR, et al. Identification of in vivo-expressed antigens of Staphylococcus aureus and their use in vaccinations for protection against nasal carriage. J Infect Dis 2006; 193: 1098-1108.

Chapter: Hillyer GV (1998). Immunodiagnosis of human and animal fasciolosis. In: Fasciolosis. Ed, JP Dalton. CABI Publishing, 1st ed. Oxon, Wallingford, UK, pp. 435-448.

Book: Salyers AA, Whitt DD (2002). Bacterial Pathogenesis: A Molecular Approach. 2nd ed. ASM Press. Washington DC.

On line references: As a minimum, the full URL should be given and the date when the reference was last accessed. Any further information, if known (DOI, author names, dates, reference to a source publication, etc.), should also be given

Abbreviations and symbols

Please use only standard abbreviations. Avoid using abbreviations and/or symbols in the title and the abstract. The full term for which an abbreviation stands should proceed in parentheses the first time it is used in the text. Only recommended SI units should be used. Authors should use the solidus presentation (mg/ml). Standard abbreviations (such as ATP and DNA) need not be defined. 

Submission checklist

Thank you for deciding to submit your paper to the Iranian Journal of Microbiology. All necessary files in DOC, DOCX , PDF , RTF (rich text format)  formats have been uploaded.

The following list will be useful during the final checking of an article prior to sending it to the journal for review:

• One author has been designated as the corresponding author with contact details, E-mail   address, full postal address, and phone numbers.
• Graphical abstract
• Highlights
• Cover letter
• Abstract
• Keywords
• All figure captions
• All tables (including title, description, footnotes)

Further considerations

• The Manuscript has been 'spell-checked' and 'grammar-checked'
• All sections of the manuscript must be typed double-spaced and all pages numbered starting from the title page.
• References are in the correct format for this journal
• All references mentioned in the Reference list are cited in the text, and vice versa

AFTER ACCEPTANCE 

Changes to authorship

This policy concerns the addition, deletion, or rearrangement of author names in the authorship of accepted manuscripts. Requests to add or remove an author, or to rearrange the author names, must be sent to the Editor from the corresponding author of the accepted manuscript and must include: (a) the reason the name should be added or removed, or the author names rearranged and (b) written confirmation (e-mail, fax, letter) from all authors that they agree with the addition, removal or rearrangement.

Article-processing charges

Authors are required to pay 1000,000 Tomans handling fee. This fee is 150 Euros for authors from countries other than Iran. The fee is non-refundable. The acceptance to pay the handling fee is not a guarantee that the paper will be accepted for publication.  

Copyright: Accepted manuscripts become the permanent property of the Journal and may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without the written permission of the Editor. Upon acceptance of an article, the authors will be asked to complete a Journal Publishing Agreement.

Proofs

Electronic proof will be sent in PDF format to the corresponding author to check for typesetting accuracy. Page proofs are considered to be the final version of the manuscript. With the exception of typographical or minor errors, no changes will be made in the manuscript at the proof stage. The IJM publisher will do everything to get your article corrected and published as quickly and accurately as possible. Therefore, it is important to ensure that all of your corrections are sent to us in one communication.

Reprints: The corresponding author will be provided with 2 issues.

Disposal of material: Once published, all copies of the manuscript, correspondence and artwork will be held for 6 months before disposal.