1. General provisions

☐ The authors should ensure that the contents of the present manuscript have not been published nor intended to be published in other journals.
☐ The manuscript should be formatted as follows: A4 paper, 12 point font, left-aligned, double-spaced.
☐ An original article should be presented in the following order: cover page, abstract, keywords, introduction, methods, results, discussion, references, and captions and legends for tables and figures.

2. Cover page

☐ This section should indicate the contact information of the corresponding author: postal code, address, phone number, fax number, and email address.
☐ A running title should be given in 10 words or less.

3. Abstract and Keywords

☐ The abstract should be divided into Background and Purpose, Methods, Results, and Conclusions; it should be written in one paragraph that is within 250 words.
☐ Three to six keywords should be included (preferably those recommended in MeSH of Index Medicus; the first letter of each key word should be capitalized).

4. Main text

☐ The title should not include abbreviations; all the words must be spelled out.
☐ Information regarding approval of an institutional review board and obtaining informed consent should be mentioned in the Method section.
☐ References should be numbered in Arabic numbers in the order they are cited.
☐ Superscript numbers should come after commas and periods according to submission rules.
☐ When using abbreviations, their full forms should be used at first mention; abbreviations/acronyms should then be used consistently in further occurrences.
☐ Units of measure should be written in accordance with submission rules (except for % and °C, a space should come between the number and the unit of measure).
☐ For numbers, a comma should be inserted after every third digit.
☐ All statistical methods used should be described accurately in detail.

5. References

☐ In-text citations should be numbered and should correspond to the numbers in the references.
☐ Up to six authors should be mentioned. In case there are seven or more authors, “et al.” must come after the primary author.
☐ Official abbreviations of quoted journals must be used.
☐ Year, volume, and start page–end page of the quoted literature should be accurately mentioned.
☐ The first letter of the title of the quoted article should be capitalized.
☐ Compliance with quotation styles should be observed.
☐ The manuscript should comply with quotation rules in case a book has separate authors by chapter.

6. Table

☐ Each table must have its own title and be given a separate page.
☐ All abbreviations used in the table should be spelled out.
☐ All superscript numbers used in the table should comply with the contribution rules.

7. Figures

☐ Each figure should be produced in a separate file and should not be included in the main text.
☐ The file name of each figure should be the figure number.
☐ Figures can be black and white or in color; they will be published as submitted.
☐ The titles and legends of the figures should be concisely drafted on a separate page in English.
☐ The figures should be explained in complete sentences, not phrases or clauses.
☐ All abbreviations should be written out.
☐ When a figure contains several pictures, the explanation of the figure should be followed by that of each picture, distinguishing them as A, B, C, etc.