جامعة أم القرى
For Authors
Author Guidelines
Publishing Rules
Saudi Toxicology Journal (STJ) is a peer-reviewed journal published three a year and includes articles covering all areas of toxicological sciences. Contributions reporting original research demonstrating the structure, function, and mechanism of agents that are toxic to humans and/or animals, ranging from the molecular scale to the organismal level, as well as risk assessment, safety evaluation, and environmental health. STJ addresses research on the analysis of toxic substances in biological fluids with an emphasis on its application in clinical and forensic toxicology. Further, STJ reports clinical advances in clinical toxicology, adverse health effects resulting from medications and studies on drugs of abuse, doping agents, chemical warfare agents, designer drugs and postmortem in forensic toxicology and could be published as Original Articles, Review Articles, Short Communications, and Case Reports. The STJ target audience includes undergraduates to full professionals in academic, medical, forensic, industrial and regulatory settings.
Original Research: The research study describes the original results of broad appeal with sufficient information to be critically evaluated. Sections must be presented in the following order: Title page, Abstract, Text, Acknowledgments, References, Tables, Figure Legends, and Figures. The full manuscript should not exceed 6000 words (including figures and their legends).
Review Articles: They should be concise and can include controversies in the field and abundant bibliography; specific viewpoints may be included as long as they are well-founded. Their primary purpose is to provide up-to-date information about a topic by an expert in the field. Review articles must contain no more than 10,000 words.
Short Communications: For the title page, follow the same guidelines as for original research articles.
Abstract: Provide a brief structured abstract (maximum 150 words) summarizing the essential aspects of the study.
Introduction: Briefly introduce the research problem and objectives.
Methods: Concisely describe the research methods. Highlight any innovative or novel aspects.
Results: Present the main findings clearly and succinctly.
Discussion: Discuss the significance and implications of the results.
Conclusion: Summarize the study's main contributions and findings.
Case Report: These are short discussions of a case or case series with unique features not previously described and make an important teaching point or scientific observation. The Case Report should include statements of the problem, patient history, diagnosis, treatment, outcome, and other information pertinent to the case(s). Section headings should be Abstract, Introduction, Case Report, Discussion, Acknowledgments (if any), and References.
Journal accepts manuscripts written proficiently in scientific English in any country. Once manuscript submission requirements are checked as complete, the work will be accepted for submission, and a letter acknowledging receipt of the manuscript will be sent to the corresponding author.
Before you submit
When you submit a manuscript, you confirm that it contains the original work and has not been published anywhere else. If it gets accepted for publication, you must not publish it elsewhere without the Journal's consent. The submission should include a cover letter signed by the corresponding author, which explains the significance of the research. Additionally, you should download and fill out the template stating the specific contribution of each author.
Authors are required to provide the complete names, affiliations, and e-mail addresses of five internationally recognized experts in the scientific area of the manuscript. These experts will be used as peer reviewers at the discretion of the Editorial Board of the Journal.
Ethical approval and consent to participate
Manuscripts reporting studies involving human participants, human data, or human tissue must:
▪ Include a statement on ethical approval and consent (even where the need for approval was waived)
▪ Include the name of the ethics committee that approved the study and the committee’s reference number if appropriate
Studies involving animals must also include a statement on ethics approval. If your manuscript does not report on or involve the use of any animal or human data or tissue, please state “Not applicable” in this section.
Consent for publication
If your manuscript contains any individual person’s data in any form (including any individual details, images, or videos), consent for publication must be obtained from that person or, in the case of children, their parent or legal guardian. All presentations of case reports must have consent for publication from the subject concerned. An institutional consent form could be used. The form should not be sent to us on submission, but we may request to see a copy at any stage in the publication process (including after publication). If your manuscript does not contain data from any person, please state “Not applicable” in that section.
Acknowledgments
Please acknowledge anyone who contributed to the article who does not meet the criteria for authorship. In addition, if the project/study presented in the manuscript was supported by specific research grant funding, please complete the following statement: The author(s) is/are grateful for the financial support for (Name of the project), (Funding Source), (Research project No.)
Manuscript Preparation
Please be advised that to prepare your manuscript, it is necessary to obtain the appropriate template. We kindly request that you download and utilize the template provided to ensure the utmost accuracy and relevance of your work. We appreciate your adherence to this protocol and look forward to reviewing your submission.
Plagiarism
STJ uses the iThenticate software to detect overlapping and similar texts already published in the submitted manuscripts. Manuscripts that are found to have been plagiarized from a manuscript by other authors, whether published or unpublished, will incur plagiarism sanctions. In JSTJ academic papers, not counting references or methods (parts of which can often be very similar to what has already been published in other papers), a detection of similar text overlap of less than 15% is acceptable.
Manuscript Submission
Online Submission: Manuscripts should be submitted electronically through our online submission system which can also be accessed from the homepage of our website. If you encounter any technical difficulties, please contact our editorial office at [email protected]
When a manuscript is submitted, it is assumed that the work has never been published before, that it is not being considered for publication elsewhere, and that the responsible authorities and any co-authors have given their tacit or explicit approval for it to be published.
The hyperlink “Submit manuscript” should be followed and upload all of the manuscript files following the instructions given on the screen.
Permissions
Authors wishing to include figures, tables, or text passages that have already been published elsewhere are required to obtain permission from the copyright owner(s) for both the print and online format and to include evidence that such permission has been granted when submitting their papers. Any material received without such evidence will be assumed to originate from the authors.
Source Files
All relevant editable source files at every submission and revision should be provided. Failing to submit a complete set of editable source files will result in the article not being considered for review. For manuscript text please always submit in common word processing formats such as .docx or LaTeX.
Title Page
Title page should contain the following information:
Title: The title should be concise and informative.
Author information
The name(s) of the author(s)
The affiliation(s) of the author(s), i.e. institution, (department), city, (state), country
A clear indication and an active e-mail address of the corresponding author
If available, the 16-digit ORCID of the author(s)
If address information is provided with the affiliation(s) it will also be published.
Large Language Models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, do not currently satisfy our authorship criteria. Notably an attribution of authorship carries with it accountability for the work, which cannot be effectively applied to LLMs. Use of an LLM should be properly documented in the Methods section (and if a Methods section is not available, in a suitable alternative part) of the manuscript.
Abstract
An abstract of 150 to 250 words should be provided. The abstract should not contain any undefined abbreviations or unspecified references.
Keywords
About 4 to 6 keywords should be provided which can be used for indexing purposes.
Statements and Declarations
The following statements should be included under the heading "Statements and Declarations" for inclusion in the published paper. Submissions that do not include relevant declarations will be returned as incomplete.
Competing Interests:
Authors are required to disclose financial or non-financial interests that are directly or indirectly related to the work submitted for publication.
Additional Note for Author information
Affiliation should appear as: (Department of…, Faculty of…….. ,University….., City, Country).
Text
Text Formatting
Headings
Apply the decimal system of headings with no more than three levels.
Abbreviations
Abbreviations should be defined at first mention and used consistently thereafter.
Footnotes
Footnotes can be used to give additional information, which may include the citation of a reference included in the reference list. They should not consist solely of a reference citation, and they should never include the bibliographic details of a reference. They should also not contain any figures or tables.
Acknowledgments
Acknowledgments of people, grants, funds, etc. should be placed in a separate section on the title page. The names of funding organizations should be written in full.
Reference list
The list of references should only include works that are cited in the text and that have been published or accepted for publication. Personal communications and unpublished works should only be mentioned in the text.
The entries in the list should be numbered consecutively.
If available, include DOIs as full DOI links in your reference list (e.g. “https://doi.org/abc”);
Journal article
Ideally, the names of all authors should be provided, but the usage of “et al” in long author lists will also be accepted:
Article by DOI
Althobaiti, F. M.; Alsanosi, S. M.; Falemban, A. H.; Alzahrani, A. R.; Fataha, S. A.; Salih, S. O.; Alrumaih, A. M.; Alotaibi, K. N.; Althobaiti, H. M.; Al-Ghamdi, S. S.; Ayoub, N., Efficacy and Safety of Empagliflozin in Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus Saudi Patients as Add-On to Antidiabetic Therapy: A Prospective, Open-Label, Observational Study. J Clin Med 2022,11(16).https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm11164769
Book
Brown B, Aaron M (2001) The politics of nature. In: Smith J (ed) The rise of modern genomics, 3rd edn. Wiley, New York
Book chapter
South J, Blass B (2001) The future of modern genomics. Blackwell, London
Online document
Saito Y, Hyuga H (2007) Rate equation approaches to amplification of enantiomeric excess and chiral symmetry breaking. Top Curr Chem. doi:10.1007/128_2006_108
Dissertation
Trent JW (1975) Experimental acute renal failure. Dissertation, University of California
Statements & Declarations
The following statements must be included in your submitted manuscript under the heading 'Statements and Declarations'. This should be placed after the References section. Please note that submissions that do not include required statements will be returned as incomplete.
Funding
Please describe any sources of funding that have supported the work. The statement should include details of any grants received (please give the name of the funding agency and grant number).
Example statements:
“This work was supported by […] (Grant numbers […] and […]). Author A.B. has received research support from Company A.”
“The authors declare that no funds, grants, or other support were received during the preparation of this manuscript.”
Competing Interests
Authors are required to disclose financial or non-financial interests that are directly or indirectly related to the work submitted for publication. Interests within the last 3 years of beginning the work (conducting the research and preparing the work for submission) should be reported. Interests outside the 3-year time frame must be disclosed if they could reasonably be perceived as influencing the submitted work.
Author Contributions
Authors are encouraged to include a statement that specifies the contribution of every author to the research and preparation of the manuscript.
Example statement:
“All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by [full name], [full name] and [full name]. The first draft of the manuscript was written by [full name] and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.”
Tables
All tables are to be numbered using Arabic numerals.
Tables should always be cited in text in consecutive numerical order.
For each table, please supply a table caption (title) explaining the components of the table.
Identify any previously published material by giving the original source in the form of a reference at the end of the table caption.
Footnotes to tables should be indicated by superscript lower-case letters (or asterisks for significance values and other statistical data) and included beneath the table body.
Figure Lettering
To add lettering, it is best to use Helvetica or Arial (sans serif fonts).
Keep lettering consistently sized throughout your final-sized artwork, usually about 2–3 mm (8–12 pt).
Variance of type size within an illustration should be minimal, e.g., do not use 8-pt type on an axis and 20-pt type for the axis label.
Avoid effects such as shading, outline letters, etc.
Do not include titles or captions within your illustrations.
Figure Numbering
All figures are to be numbered using Arabic numerals.
Figures should always be cited in text in consecutive numerical order.
Figure parts should be denoted by lowercase letters (a, b, c, etc.).
If an appendix appears in your article/chapter and it contains one or more figures, continue the consecutive numbering of the main text. Do not number the appendix figures, “A1, A2, A3, etc.” Figures in online appendices [Supplementary Information (SI)] should, however, be numbered separately.
Figure Captions
Each figure should have a concise caption describing accurately what the figure depicts. Include the captions in the text file of the manuscript, not in the figure file.
Figure captions begin with the term Fig. in bold type, followed by the figure number, also in bold type.
No punctuation is to be included after the number, nor is any punctuation to be placed at the end of the caption.
Identify all elements found in the figure in the figure caption; and use boxes, circles, etc., as coordinate points in graphs.
Identify previously published material by giving the original source in the form of a reference citation at the end of the figure caption.
Submission
Supply all supplementary material in standard file formats.
Please include in each file the following information: article title, journal name, author names; affiliation and e-mail address of the corresponding author.
To accommodate user downloads, please keep in mind that larger-sized files may require very long download times and that some users may experience other problems during downloading.
High resolution (streamable quality) videos can be submitted up to a maximum of 25GB; low resolution videos should not be larger than 5GB.
Author identification
Authors are recommended to use their ORCID ID when submitting an article for consideration or acquire an ORCID ID via the submission process.
Compliance with Ethical Standards
To ensure objectivity and transparency in research and to ensure that accepted principles of ethical and professional conduct have been followed, authors should include information regarding sources of funding, potential conflicts of interest (financial or non-financial), informed consent if the research involved human participants, and a statement on welfare of animals if the research involved animals.
After acceptance
Upon acceptance, your article will be exported to Production to undergo typesetting. Once typesetting is complete, you will receive a link asking you to confirm your affiliation, choose the publishing model for your article as well as arrange rights and payment of any associated publication cost.
Once you have completed this, your article will be processed and you will receive the proofs.
Article publishing agreement
Depending on the ownership of the journal and its policies, you will either grant the Publisher an exclusive license to publish the article or will be asked to transfer copyright of the article to the Publisher.
Offprints
Offprints can be ordered by the corresponding author.
Open access publishing is also available for STJ
