General Instructions
About the Journal
Modern Rheumatology is a peer-reviewed journal that publishes 6 issues per year online.
Once a paper is accepted, Modern Rheumatology will publish a precopyedited, preproofed version of the paper online within 1 week. This is replaced by a copyedited, proofed version of the paper as soon as it is ready.
Please read these instructions carefully and follow them closely. The Editors may return manuscripts that do not follow these instructions.
Scope of the Journal
Modern Rheumatology publishes original papers in English on research pertinent to rheumatology and associated areas such as pathology, physiology, clinical immunology, microbiology, biochemistry, experimental animal models, pharmacology, and orthopedic surgery.
Occasional reviews of topics which may be of wide interest to the readership will also be accepted. In addition, concise papers of special scientific importance that represent definitive and original studies will be considered.
Letters should be limited to commentaries on previous articles published in Modern Rheumatology, subjects related to rheumatology, or topics of potential interest to members of the Japan College of Rheumatology. Rapid Communications should be very short reports of research findings, with no abstract.
Other types of articles may be published at the discretion of the Editorial Board.
Contents
- About the Journal
- Editorial Policies
- Submission
- Production
Editorial Policies
Details of Oxford University Press’s editorial policies are available.
Peer Review
This journal uses single blind peer review. Full details about the peer review process are available. Articles should not be under review by any other journal when submitted to Modern Rheumatology.
Papers are subject to peer review by at least two referees and the Editors, and to editorial revision of the language and contents. The Editorial Board is responsible for the acceptance, rejection, and order of publication of papers. If authors are requested to revise and resubmit the paper, it should be completed within 2 months. Failure to do so will constitute a withdrawal from publication.
Plagiarism
Modern Rheumatology has a strict policy against plagiarism. We define plagiarism as the use of extracts from another person's work that are not placed in quotation marks, without the permission of that person, and without acknowledgement to that person (using the appropriate reference style), with the result that your article presents these extracts as original to you. By submitting your work to Modern Rheumatology, you warrant that it is your original work, and that you have secured the necessary written permission from the appropriate copyright owner or authority for the reproduction of any text, illustration, or other material. If any article submitted to Modern Rheumatology is found to have breached any of these conditions, the Editorial board reserves the right to reject that article and any others submitted by the same authors. The Editorial board may also contact the authors' affiliated institutions to inform them of its findings.
Preparing Your Paper
Modern Rheumatology is a signatory journal to the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, issued by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE Recommendations), and to the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) code of conduct for editors.
Authors should certify that no part of the work described has been published before (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture, review, or thesis) and that the work is not under consideration for publication elsewhere. If the inclusion of direct quotations, tables, or illustrations that have appeared in copyrighted material is absolutely necessary, they must be accompanied by written permission in English for their use from the authors and copyright holder.
The editors reserve the right to reject manuscripts that do not comply with the above-mentioned requirements. The author will be held responsible for false statements or failure to fulfill these requirements.
Compliance with Ethics of Experimentation
Manuscripts submitted for publication must contain a statement to the effect that all human studies have been reviewed by the appropriate ethics committee and have therefore been performed in accordance with the ethical standards laid down in an appropriate version of the WMA Declaration of Helsinki-Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subject. It should also be stated clearly in the text that all persons gave their informed consent prior to their inclusion in the study. Details that might disclose the identity of the subjects under study should be omitted. Reports of animal experiments must state that the “Principles of laboratory animal care” (NIH publication No. 86-23, revised 1985), as well as specific national laws where applicable, were followed.
Registration of clinical trials
All clinical trials, in particular those involving pharmaceuticals, devices, or aspects relating to nutrition, should be registered prospectively in publicly accessible databases (ClinicalTrials, ClinicalTrialsRegister, UMIN-CTR , jRCT, etc.) and the paper should include registration numbers and the name of the register. Clinical trials must be reported according to CONSORT guidelines.
Data Policy
Where ethically feasible, Modern Rheumatology strongly encourages authors to make all data on which the conclusions of the paper rely available to readers. We suggest that data be presented in the main manuscript or additional supporting files, or deposited in a public repository whenever possible. Information on general repositories for all data types, and a list of recommended repositories by subject area, is available on the Research Data Policy page.
Data Citation
Modern Rheumatology supports the Force 11 Data Citation Principles and requires that all publicly available datasets be fully referred to in the reference list with an accession number or unique identifier such as a digital object identifier (DOI). Data citations should include the minimum information recommended by DataCite:
[dataset]* Authors, Year, Title, Publisher (repository or archive name), Identifier
*The inclusion of the [dataset] tag at the beginning of the citation helps us to correctly identify and tag the citation. This tag will be removed from the citation published in the reference list.
Preprint Policy
Authors retain the right to make an Author’s Original Version (preprint) available through various channels, and this does not prevent submission to the journal. For further information see our Online Licensing, Copyright and Permissions policies. If accepted, the authors are required to update the status of any preprint, including your published paper’s DOI, as described on our Author Self-Archiving policy page.
Modern Rheumatology is a signatory journal of the recommendations of ICMJE. Please see the section Duplicate and prior publication of the ICMJE recommendations for the preprint policy.
If the submitted articles will raise that any preprint has already published and has an individual DOI number assigned, please add a declaration in the Acknowledgements section that this article was already published as a non-peer reviewed article in [insert name of preprint server] and include DOI.
Self-Archiving Policy
You may self-archive versions of your work on your own webpages, on institutional webpages, and in other repositories. If you want more information about the reuse rights you retain if you publish with us, please visit our Author Self Archiving Policy page.
Conflict of Interest
When submitting a paper, you and your co-authors must declare any potential conflicts of interest. You must do this by including a Conflict of Interest statement in your submitted manuscript. Authors must disclose any financial or personal relationships that may pose conflicts of interest.
A detailed definition of conflicts of interest is available.
Copyright Transfer
It is a condition of publication that authors assign copyright or license the publication rights of the contents of their articles, including abstracts, to the Japan College of Rheumatology. This enables full copyright protection and dissemination of the article and the Journal, to the widest possible readership. A document to verify this will be sent upon acceptance for publication. This document should be signed by the corresponding author and returned to the publisher for archiving.
Submission
We will consider your manuscript as long as
- it is your own original work and does not duplicate any previously published work, including your own;
- it is not under consideration, in peer review, or accepted for publication in any journal other than Modern Rheumatology;
- it has not been published in any other journal; and
- it contains nothing abusive, defamatory, libelous, obscene, fraudulent, or illegal.
- for acceptable secondary publication, authors should consult the ICMJE Recommendations.
Authors should observe high ethical standards and obey publication best practices. The following are all unacceptable:
- data falsification or fabrication
- plagiarism, including duplicate publication of your own work without proper citation
- misappropriation of work
We treat any case of ethical or publication malpractice very seriously. We will address them in accordance with the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines. Further information about OUP’s ethical policies is available.
Authorship
All persons designated as authors should qualify for authorship. The entitlement to authorship should be based on all of the following criteria: (1) substantial contributions to conceptions and design, execution or analysis and interpretation of data; (2) drafting the article or revising it for important intellectual content; (3) final approval of the version to be published. Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group alone, does not justify authorship. All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in the Acknowledgements. The order of authorship should be a joint decision between the co-authors. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for the whole or part of the content. After manuscript submission, no authorship changes (including the authorship list, author order, and who is designated as the corresponding author) should be made unless there is a substantive reason to do so. The editor and all co-authors must agree on the change(s), and neither the Journal nor the publisher mediates authorship disputes. If individuals cannot agree on the authorship of a submitted manuscript, contact the editorial office. The dispute must be resolved among the individuals and their institution(s) before the manuscript can be accepted for publication. If an authorship dispute or change arises after a paper is accepted, contact OUP’s Author Support team. COPE provides guidance for authors on resolving authorship disputes. For the avoidance of doubt, changing the corresponding author in order to access Read and Publish funding is not permissible. For more information on Read and Publish funding, see the Open access charges section.
Ghost/Gift authorship
The Journal does not allow ghost authorship, where an unnamed author prepares the article with no credit, or guest/gift authorship, where an author who made little or no contribution is listed as an author. The Journal follows Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidance on investigating and resolving these cases. For more information, please see the OUP Publication Ethics page.
AI tools
Natural language processing tools driven by artificial intelligence (AI) do not qualify as authors, and the Journal will screen for them in author lists. The use of AI (for example, to help generate content or images, write code, process data, or for translation) should be disclosed both in cover letters to editors and in the Methods or Acknowledgements section of manuscripts. Please see the COPE position statement on Authorship and AI for more details.
How to Submit
You must submit your paper via our web-based submission system, which may be found at https://www.editorialmanager.com/morh/default.aspx. If you have not published with Modern Rheumatology before, you will need to create an account. Questions about submitting can be sent to the editorial office at [email protected].
Article Types
This journal publishes several different article types. For all articles:
Manuscripts must be typed double spaced with normal margins in A4-size format. Manuscripts must be submitted as Word documents (editable files), not pdfs.
Original Articles/Review Articles—Maximum 30 submitted pages in Word format
- abstract—maximum word count: 200; for original articles, structured abstract required, using subheadings “Objectives”, “Methods”, “Results” and “Conclusions.” Review articles should use unstructured abstracts.
- keywords—10, in alphabetical order
- tables and figures—each figure or table should be counted as one manuscript page
Each experimental article must contain the following sections: introduction, materials and methods, results, and discussion.
Letter/Rapid Communication—Maximum 4 submitted pages in Word format
- keywords—10, in alphabetical order
Third-Party Permissions
If you wish to reproduce any material for which you do not own the copyright—including quotations, tables, or images—you must obtain permission from the copyright holder. The permissions agreement must include the following documents:
- nonexclusive rights to reproduce the material in your article in Modern Rheumatology
- both print and electronic rights, preferably for use in any form or medium
- lifetime rights to use the material
- worldwide English-language rights
Further information on obtaining permissions is available.
Manuscript Preparation: Format, Structure, and Style
Pre-submission Language Editing
If you are not confident in the quality of your English, you may wish to use a language-editing service to ensure that editors and reviewers understand your paper. Oxford University Press partners with Enago, a leading provider of author portal. Prospective authors are entitled to a discount of 30% for editing services at Enago, via the Specialist English Editing Services for Oxford University Press Authors page.
Enago is an independent service provider, who will handle all aspects of this service, including payment. As an author you are under no obligation to take up this offer. Language editing is optional and does not guarantee that your manuscript will be accepted. Edited manuscripts will still undergo peer review by the journal.
Title Page
Please include the following:
- the type of article
- the title of your paper
- all authors’ full names, postal addresses of academic affiliations, email addresses, telephone numbers, and affiliations
- mailing address and email address of one corresponding author
- the number of text pages and figure legends
- the number of tables and figures
Note that authors’ affiliations are the affiliations where the research was conducted. If any of the named co-authors moves affiliation during the peer review process, the new affiliation may be given as a footnote. Please note that no changes to affiliation can be made after your paper is accepted.
Abstract
Abstracts have a maximum length of 200 words and must not contain reference citations or abbreviations.
Graphical and Video Abstracts
Authors of Original Articles and Reviews are encouraged to submit a graphical abstract or video as part of the article, in addition to the text abstract. The graphical/video abstract should clearly summarize the focus and findings of the article, and will be published as part of the article online and in PDF (videos will appear in PDFs as stills). The graphical/video abstract should be submitted for peer review as a separate file, selecting “Graphical/Video Abstract” file-type designation in the journal’s online submission system. The file should be clearly named, e.g. graphical_abstract.tiff, video_abstract.mp4. See Figures section for graphical abstract on appropriate file format and resolution and our handy guide for creating graphical and/or video abstract.
For graphical abstracts, a figure legend should be included for the graphical element, which should define any abbreviations.
Video abstracts should be submitted as an .mp4 file-type, at the highest possible resolution, and include a still image to represent the video in the print PDF. Videos should be no longer than 4 minutes.
If the quality is not sufficient the editors reserve the right to reject the graphical/video abstract for publication, and publish a standard text abstract only.
Style
The journal follows Oxford SCIMED style. Please refer to these requirements when preparing your manuscript. More information on the style guide is available. UK spelling should be used throughout, except in quotations and in references.
Abbreviations
Please define nonstandard abbreviations at the first occurrence.
Tables
You must number all tables (e.g., table 1, table 2, table 3) and reference them in the text. You must place all tables at the end of the main text. Tables should be in an editable format (as a Word table or Excel file), and not embedded as an image file. Footnotes to tables should be indicated using superscript lowercase letters (or asterisks for statistical data/significance values) and listed beneath the table body.
References
The list of References should only include works that are cited in the text and that have been published or accepted for publication. References should be numbered consecutively in the order cited in the text, not alphabetically. Do not use footnotes or endnotes as a substitute for a reference list. The accuracy of reference data is the authors’ responsibility.
Personal communications and unpublished data should not be included in the reference list but may be cited in parentheses in the text, e.g., (A. Aoki 1999, personal communication). If such a citation is from someone other than the authors, a letter should be submitted in which the direct quotation is given with the signature of its author.
Unpublished papers accepted elsewhere may be included in the list by designating the journal followed by “In press”.
In the reference list, inclusive page numbers should be provided for all references and the names of the first six authors should be given, followed by “et al.” Journal titles should be abbreviated according to Index Medicus. For papers written in Japanese, the style of example 2 should be followed. In the case of journal articles cited by DOI, the style of example 3 should be followed.
Examples:
- Ames PRJ, Lupoli S, Alves J, Atsumi T, Edwards C, Iannaccone L, et al. The coagulation/fibrinolysis balance in systemic sclerosis: evidence for haematological stress syndrome. Br J Rheumatol. 1997,36:1045–50.
- Kamihara S. Case of Sjögren syndrome associated with idiopathic monoclonal IgA rheumatoid factor and pyroglobulinemia (in Japanese). Rinsho Ketsueki. In press.
- Mitchell AJ, Vaze A, Rao S. Clinical diagnosis of depression in primary care: a meta-analysis. Lancet. 2009. doi:10.1016/ S0140-6736(09)60879-5.
- Bengtsson S, Solheim BG. Enforcement of data protection, privacy and security in medical informatics. In: Lun KC, Degoulet P, Piemme TE, Rienhoff O, editors. MEDINFO 92. Proceedings of the 7th World Congress on Medical Informatics; 1992 Sep 6–10; Geneva, Switzerland. Amsterdam: North-Holland; 1992. p. 1561–5.
- Cassidy JT. Systemic lupus erythematosus, juvenile dermatomyositis, scleroderma, and vasculitis. In: Kelly WN, Harris ED Jr., Ruddy S, Sledge CB, editors. Textbook of Rheumatology. 5th ed. Philadelphia: WB Saunders; 1997. p. 1241–64.
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgements should be included at the end of your manuscript.
Funding
Please supply all details required by your funding and grant-awarding bodies as follows:
For single agency grants
This work was supported by the <Funding Agency> under Grant <number xxxx>.
For multiple agency grants
This work was supported by the <Funding Agency #1> under Grant <number xxxx>; <Funding Agency #2> under Grant <number xxxx>; and <Funding Agency #3> under Grant <number xxxx>.
Conflict of Interest
Authors must disclose any financial or personal relationships that may pose conflict of interest. All disclosures such as consultancies, employment, paid expert testimony, honoraria, speakers bureaus, retainers, stock options or ownership, patents or patent applications or travel grants should be inserted by the author in the “Conflict of interest”, which should be placed in a separate section before the reference list. If no conflict of interest is declared, then “None” should be inserted in this section.
LaTeX
Information on LaTeX files and formatting is available.
Equations
If you are submitting your manuscript as a Word document, please ensure that equations are editable.
Figures
You must include figure titles and legends within the manuscript file—they should not be included in the image file.
You must submit each figure as an individual image file. Submit all panels of a multipanel figure on a single page as one file. For example, if the figure has 3 panels, the figure should be submitted as one file. Each panel should be labeled as a letter (A, B, C, D, etc.) in the upper-left corner of each panel.
Images of photographs or paintings can be provided as raster images. Common examples of raster images are .tif/.tiff, .raw, .gif, and .bmp file types. The resolution of raster files is measured by the number of dots or pixels in a given area, referred to as “dpi” or “ppi.”
- minimum resolution required for printed images or pictures: 350dpi
- minimum resolution for printed line art: 600dpi (complex or finely drawn line art should be 1200dpi)
- minimum resolution for electronic images (i.e., for on-screen viewing): 72dpi
Images of maps, charts, graphs, and diagrams are best rendered digitally as geometric forms called vector graphics. Common file types are .eps, .ai, and .pdf. Vector images use mathematical relationships between points and the lines connecting them to describe an image. These file types do not use pixels; therefore resolution does not apply to vector images.
Figures prepared as .doc/.docx files will not be accepted.
Figures prepared as. jpg/jpeg files can be used. However, this format relies on ‘lossy’ compression; figures can lose quality each time they are opened, shared, or modified. Therefore we prefer not to receive jpg files.
Colour images should ideally be in CMYK. RGB colour is acceptable, but needs to be converted to CMYK for printing, and colour conversion may be imperfect. Please also note that use of red and green colour combinations in images should be avoided, as this is problematic for readers who are colour blind.
Figure accessibility and alt text
Incorporating alt text (alternative text) when submitting your paper helps to foster inclusivity and accessibility. Good alt text ensures that individuals with visual impairments or those using screen readers can comprehend the content and context of your figures. The aim of alt text is to provide concise and informative descriptions of your figure so that all readers have access to the same level of information and understanding, and that all can engage with and benefit from the visual elements integral to scholarly content. Including alt text demonstrates a commitment to accessibility and enhances the overall impact and reach of your work.
Alt text is applicable to all images, figures, illustrations, and photographs.
Alt text is only accessible via e-reader and so it won’t appear as part of the typeset article.
Detailed guidance on how to draft and submit alt text.
Certification Form
The Certification Form must be signed by all authors and submitted with manuscripts. This form must bear the handwritten signatures of all authors. In the Certification Form, authors must disclose any financial or personal relationships that may pose conflicts of interest. Upon receipt of the Certification Form, manuscripts are officially recognized as submissions. The Certification Form can be submitted to the journal’s Editorial Office in the following ways:
- A scanned file (PDF, TIFF, or JPEG) of the original signed Certification Form may be uploaded through Editorial Manager or sent as an attached file by e-mail.
- The signed Certification Form may be sent by fax or postal mail.
Supplementary Material
You must submit supplementary data or supplementary material at the same time as the main manuscript.
- Supplementary material must be cited in the text of the main manuscript.
- Supplementary material will be available online only and will not be copyedited or typeset.
- Style and formatting of supplementary material should be consistent with that of the manuscript.
- Supplementary material should be formatted to function on any internet browser.
- Supplementary material files should be no larger than 2MB each.
Production
Licence to Publish and Open Access Options
You will have the option to pay an open access fee so that your paper will be made freely available online immediately upon publication.
After your manuscript is accepted, you must sign a licence to publish agreement on our Author Portal website. You may choose between the open access options, which carry a charge and allow your paper to be freely accessibly to all users; or a standard licence, which does not carry a charge and makes your paper available to journal subscribers.
Your funding agencies may have specific requirements for what type of open access licence to use. Please see Creative Commons licences for more information, and please see the Licences, copyright and re-use rights page for more information about our standard licence to publish.
Open Access Charges
You can arrange payment of open access charges on the same Author Portal site you used to sign your licence to publish. You can pay immediately online or request an invoice. You may also refer the charges to an institutional prepayment account. Any applicable discounts can also be applied prior to payment.
The open access fee for Modern Rheumatology is as follows:
CC-BY-NC: $3,208
You can pay your open access charges immediately after you sign your licence.
Updated on 11 March 2025
