Submissions

Author Guidelines

The New Zealand Journal of Physiotherapy is the official academic journal of Physiotherapy New Zealand Inc. The Journal invites authors to contribute papers relevant to any aspect of the science and practice of physiotherapy.

Manuscripts can be submitted under the following categories:

• Research report
• Scholarly paper: Clinical or professional perspective
• Literature review
• Case study
• Study protocol
• Letter to the editor

REVIEW PROCESS

All manuscript category types, with the exception of letters to the Editor, are subject to external peer review. Submissions are screened for suitability by the Editor and/or an Associate Editor and, if considered to be of interest to readers and potentially publishable in the Journal, are sent for review to at least two reviewers.

The Editor considers the reviewers’ reports and decides whether the manuscript is:

• Accepted in its present form.
• Accepted with minor revision.
• Accepted with moderate revision.
• Requires major revision. Reconsider if revised and resubmitted.
• Not suitable for publication in the Journal.

Authors are advised of the decision and reviewers’ reports are made available to the authors.

The Honorary Editorial Committee reserves the right to refuse publication of any material that it does not consider appropriate for the Journal, does not meet the required standards or fails to conform to the style guidelines for contributors. In some circumstances, the Journal may publish a retraction or issue a correction to an article, as outlined in the guidelines published by the Committee on Publication Ethics (http://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines).

SUBMISSION OF MANUSCRIPTS

Papers are accepted for consideration on the understanding that they have been offered to the New Zealand Journal of Physiotherapy alone and must be accompanied by a declaration to this effect.

Authors must complete the manuscript submission checklist and all submissions are to be accompanied by a cover letter stating:

• The title of the manuscript.
• The manuscript category under which the manuscript is submitted for review.
• The name of one corresponding author with complete contact details.
• The names, affiliations, qualifications and email addresses of all authors of the manuscript.
• A declaration that the manuscript is being offered to the New Zealand Journal of Physiotherapy alone and does not duplicate work that has been or will be published elsewhere. Please declare if the manuscript has been previously published as a conference paper, abstract or seminar, or if the paper is an adaptation of a presentation. State the name, date and venue of the conference or seminar.
• A statement acknowledging that the authors agree to execute a copyright transfer to Physiotherapy New Zealand, should their manuscript be accepted for publication.
• The names and contact details (including email) for at least two potential, appropriate reviewers for the manuscript.

A manuscript will be returned to authors if it does not meet the guidelines for publication in the New Zealand Journal of Physiotherapy or if the format for submission is not followed correctly.

PREPARATION OF MANUSCRIPTS

Please submit two word documents, with figures submitted as additional files (TIFF or JPEG preferred):

• Document 1: Unblinded title page.
• Document 2: Manuscript. Present the sections in the following order with each section beginning on a new page:
  • Blinded title page
  • Abstract and key words
  • Main text
  • Key points
  • Impact statement
  • Disclosures
  • Permissions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Contributions of authors
  • References
  • Appendices
  • Tables
  • Figure legends

General formatting

All manuscripts require an abstract and with the exception of study protocols, a numbered list of ‘key points’ and an ‘impact statement’. All manuscripts should be prepared with 2.5 cm margins. Beginning with the title page, pages should be numbered consecutively; each page should be line numbered. Arial, 12 point font size and double spacing should be used throughout, including references, tables and legends for illustrations. Use only one space after a full stop.

The New Zealand Journal of Physiotherapy endorses the use of bias free language, consistent with chapter 5 of the American Psychological Association (APA) Publication Manual (7th ed) (https://apastyle.apa.org). We prefer the use of person-first language (e.g. ‘woman with diabetes’ rather than ‘diabetic’ or ‘diabetic woman’) but if not possible, please provide justification for alternate language decisions. When known, use the language that people use to refer to themselves. In particular, use ‘they’ for a person who uses ‘they’ as their personal (singular) pronoun. Please note that, in this case, the verb should be plural (e.g. ‘They are a nurse.’ is correct for a single person who uses they/them as their personal pronoun).

Abbreviations should be used sparingly and only where they ease the reader’s task by reducing repetition of long, technical terms. Initially use the word in full, followed by the abbreviation in parentheses. Thereafter, use the abbreviation. Physiotherapists or physiotherapy must not be abbreviated to PT.

Measurements must be given in metric units. Statistics, measurements and ages should always be given in figures (e.g. 10 mm) except where the number begins a sentence. Numbers that do not refer to a unit of measurement or are less than 10 should be spelled out. Spelling should conform to the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English Usage.

Quotations including quotations from research participants within the manuscript should conform to APA style guidelines; quotations of less than 40 words are embedded within the text and denoted by quotation marks. If the quote is 40 words or more, then it is a block quotation and should be displayed as an indented block of freestanding text. Quotation marks should be omitted from block quotations. If you use a pseudonym to attribute a quote to a research participant, use quotation marks around the name the first time you use it. After the first use, do not use quotation marks for pseudonyms. Use quotation marks around linguistic examples rather than using italics for emphasis; eg “italics” rather than italics.

Document 1: Unblinded title page

This page needs to be prepared as a separate document and must contain the following:

• The title of the article, which should not exceed 20 words.
• The author(s) name(s) written in full.
• No more than three relevant professional and academic qualifications for all authors.
• Current position(s) and institutional affiliation(s) of each author.
• After the heading ‘Address for Correspondence’, provide corresponding author name, affiliation, postal address, telephone, email.
• A word count of the main text, excluding abstract, references, tables and figures.
• The number of figures and tables included in the manuscript.

All individuals listed as authors must qualify for authorship credit under the criteria defined by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals: Writing and Editing for Biomedical Publication (www.icmje.org) and all those who qualify should be listed.

Document 2: Manuscript

The manuscript must include all of the following sections:

Blinded title page

On a separate page, include the full title of the manuscript. Please include a running title/short title of no more than six words for the journal cover.

Abstract and key words

All papers must include a brief but informative abstract of 250 words. The abstract should describe the purpose, basic procedures, main findings, and principal conclusions of the study. The abstract should be one paragraph and not contain subheadings, abbreviations or references. Please provide up to five key words to assist with indexing of the article. If possible, select your key words from the Index Medicus Medical Subheadings (MESH) (https://meshb.nlm.nih.gov/search).

Main text

For research papers, the main text must include the following section headings: Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion and Conclusion. All articles should include an introduction that provides the background to the paper and describes its purpose and relevance to physiotherapy. Reference should be made to an established theoretical background and/or background literature. The implications of this work for physiotherapy practice, and further research and/or conceptual development should be clearly described.

Key points

With the exception of study protocols, all manuscripts musts include a numbered list of no more than four key points, which reflect the main findings of the study and/or implications for the profession.

Impact statement

An impact statement of 100 words will be published in Physio Matters to promote the journal article. The impact statement should be a clear and short outline of the key findings of the article, understandable to a lay person. Please refer to https://www.elsevier.com/connect/authors-update/in-a-nutshell-how-to-write-a-lay-summary for further guidance.

Disclosures

• Funding source: Please acknowledge all sources of funding. If no funding was obtained for the study, then this should be stated.
• Conflict of interest: Any competing interests (financial, professional or personal) which may be perceived to interfere with or bias any stage of the writing or publication process should be declared. This includes, but is not restricted to, any factors that may influence full and objective presentation of the article, peer review and editorial decisions. If no conflicts of interest are present, please state explicitly.

Permissions

• Ethics: Research reports on human participants (including clinical audits and case studies) or animals must include a statement that the study was approved by a properly constituted ethics committee and provide the number allocated to the study. The statement should affirm that informed consent was obtained from human participants.
• Photograph release: If photographs of people are used, either (i) the participant facial features must be sufficiently obscured to conceal the participant’s identity) or (ii) if persons are recognisable, their pictures must be accompanied by written permission to publish. This statement must be signed by the participant, parent or guardian.
• Reprinting tables and figures: Authors must obtain and submit written permission from the original sources if reproducing previously published illustrations, photographs, figures or tables. Permission obtained must explicitly permit reproduction in the New Zealand Journal of Physiotherapy.
• If no permissions were required, this should be stated.

Acknowledgements

Substantial contributions by individuals or institutions, who do not qualify for authorship, can be acknowledged in this section.

Contributions of authors

Provide author contributions (initials only) using the following CRediT headings as appropriate: Conceptualisation, Methodology, Software, Validation, Formal Analysis, Investigation, Resources, Data Curation, Writing – Original Draft, Writing – Review and Editing, Visualisation, Supervision, Project Administration, Funding acquisition. See following example for formatting:

Design conceptualization and methodology, BJ, TRI, MP, HH and LWN; validation, TRI, MP, HH, RP and GB; formal analysis, BJ, GB, HH, PTK and RP; data curation, BJ, HH, GB, RP, TRI and PTK; writing—original draft preparation, TRI, BJ, MP and PTK; writing—review and editing, BJ, TRI, MP, PTK, GB, HH, RP and LWN; funding acquisition, BJ, TRI, MP and LWN.

References

All in-text citations and the reference list should conform to APA 7th style (http://www.apastyle.org/). All in-text citations are attributed using the name of the first author followed by “et al.” The only exception occurs where doing so would create ambiguity (e.g., when two papers have the same first author), in which case list as many names as needed to differentiate the authors.

The format for a journal in the reference list is:

Author, A., Author, B., & Author, C. (year). Title of article. Journal Title, x(x), xxx–xxx. https://doi.org/xxxxxx/xxxx

The reference list should include no more than 50 references.

Appendices

Appendices are used to provide essential material not suitable for figures, tables or text. These are labelled consecutively (A, B, C etc.).

Tables

• Tables capture information concisely and display it efficiently; they also provide information at any desired level of detail and precision. Including data in tables rather than text frequently makes it possible to reduce the length of the text.
• Each table must be on a separate page. Number tables consecutively in the order of their first citation in the text and indicate in the main text where the table must be inserted. Supply a brief title for each.
• Do not use internal horizontal or vertical lines. No outline border is required on the sides of the table. See Example
• The number of the table is to be in bold and situated above the table. Beneath this, include the title of the table in italic title case.
• Consider the length and size of the table; larger tables may be clearer when information is divided into two tables.
• Explanatory matter should be included as notes, not in the heading. Notes should be situated underneath the table – either general or specific as outlined in the APA 7th style guide.

Figures

• Figures must be provided in an electronic format that will produce high-quality images (e.g. TIFF or JPEG). Photo images need to be a minimum of 300 dpi and figures and line drawings 600 dpi.
• Figures should be submitted as separate files and not as part of the main manuscript.
• Letters, numbers and symbols on figures should be clear and consistent throughout and large enough to remain legible when the figure is reduced for publication.
• Figures should be made as self-explanatory as possible. Detailed explanations belong in the legend, not on the illustration itself.
• No border required surrounding the outside of the figure.
• No bold or italics to be used in the figure (unless at discretion of the Editor).
• Photographs of potentially identifiable people must be accompanied by written permission to use the photograph.
• Figures should be numbered consecutively (Arabic numbers) according to the order in which they have been cited in the text.
• When symbols, arrows, numbers, or letters are used to identify parts of the figure, identify and explain each one clearly as a note.

Table and Figure examples

MANUSCRIPT CATEGORIES