Guide to Authors

Welcome to the electronic manuscript submission website for Journal of Human Hypertension. The instructions below are structured so you can quickly and easily answer the following questions:

1. Is my manuscript suitable for Journal of Human Hypertension? (Scope + Editorial Note)
2. How do I format my manuscript for Journal of Human Hypertension? (Format of Papers)
3. How do I submit my manuscript to Journal of Human Hypertension? (Submission of Papers)

OTHER LINKS

• About the journal
• Format of papers
• Preparation of Original Articles
• House style
• Submission of papers
• Editorial policy
• Ethics and bioethics
• Peer review policy
• Corrections
• About npg online services

ABOUT THE JOURNAL

Scope

Topics Covered
Journal of Human Hypertension is exclusively concerned with all clinical aspects of human hypertension.

Editor	Dr Andrew Blann, University Department of Medicine, City Hospital, Birmingham.
Frequency	12 issues a year
Abstracted in	Current Contents Current Contents Clinical Medicine SCIExpanded Index Medicus/MEDLINE EMBASE/Excerpta Medica Chemical Abstracts

Editorial Note

FORMAT OF PAPERS

Article Types Table

Article Type	Description	Max Word Count
Original Article	Original Articles and Research Letters must include an extra table* to be named ‘Summary Table’, with two parts: firstly, the heading 'What is known about topic', and then secondly: 'What this study adds'. This should be two or three bullet points for each, with one or two short sentence for each bullet point. The objective of this is to provide the reader with a brief, quick and focused summary of your work in the perspective of other data [*Please note that this extra table is not required for clinical images/scans, reviews or Case Reports].
Review	Detailed and comprehensive overviews of the published literature. These should include a search strategy and Table(s) with a summary of the literature on a particular topic. Flow charts and figures illustrating mechanistic pathways and/or management strategies, as well as a section on 'clinical implications' should be included, where relevant. The Abstract (as for other articles) should not exceed 250 words and should state concisely the aim of the review, the main findings and the implications. Can be solicited or sent in directly
Research Letters	Brief reports of original data/observations, but can include case series, interesting clinical images/scans pertaining to hypertension and some Case Reports. After the title page (like original articles), the text commences with 2 or 3 sentences providing an overview of the whole paper. These 2 or 3 sentences should be in bold, and so serve as an ‘abstract’ - there is no separate formal abstract paragraph.	The text limit is 1,200 words, with one table or figure of your original data, up to 12 references, no acknowledgements, and continuous text with paragraphs but no sub-headings.
Correspondence	Pertaining to a current topic or a response to an article previously published

Preparation of Original Articles

Abstract and Keywords
The abstract should not exceed 200 words and three to six keywords should be included to aid web searches after publication.

References
Only papers directly related to the article should be cited. Exhaustive lists should be avoided. References should follow the Vancouver format. In the text they should appear as numbers starting at one and at the end of the paper they should be listed (double-spaced) in numerical order corresponding to the order of citation in the text. All authors should be quoted for papers with up to six authors; for papers with more than six authors, the first six only should be quoted, followed by et al. Abbreviations for titles of medical periodicals should conform to those used in the latest edition of Index Medicus. The first and last page numbers for each reference should be provided. Abstracts and letters must be identified as such. Papers in press and papers already submitted for publication may be included in the list of references but no citation is required for work that is not yet submitted for publication.

Journal article, up to six authors:
Gasowski J, Fagard RH, Staessen JA, Grodzicki T, Pocock S, Boutitie F et al. Pulsatile blood pressure component as predictor of mortality in hypertension: a meta-analysis of clinical trial control groups. J Hypertens2002; 20: 145–151.

Journal article, e-pub ahead of print:
He FJ, Marrero NM, MacGregor GA. Salt and blood pressure in children and adolescents. J Hum Hypertens; e-pub ahead of print 6 September 2007; doi:10.1038/sj.jhh.1002269.

Journal article, in press:
Yiu K-H, Tse H-F. Hypertension and cardiac arrhythmias: a review of the epidemiology, pathophysiology and clinical implications. J Hypertens (in press).

Complete book:
Nichols W, O’Rourke MF (eds). McDonald’s Blood Flow in Arteries: Theoretical, Experimental and Clinical Principles, 3rd edn. Edward Arnold: London, 1990.

Chapter in book:
Stanley JC. Renal artery aneurysms. In: Greenfield LJ (ed). Surgery: Scientific Principles and Practice. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins: Philadelphia, PA, 2003, pp 1729–1735.

Abstract:
Ochocka AM, Pawelczyk T. Expression of ARHGAP6 in human hypertension. Eur J Biochem2003; 1(Suppl 1): (abstract P3.2–67).

Correspondence:
Schreuder MF, Bokenkamp A, van Wijk JA. Salt intake in children: increasing concerns? [letter]. Hypertension 2007; 49: e10.

EndNote users should select the Journal of Human Hypertension output style for the correct reference style.

Personal communications must be allocated a number and included in the list of references in the usual way or simply referred to in the text; the authors may choose which method to use. In either case authors must obtain permission from the individual concerned to quote his/her unpublished work.

House Style

Drug Side Effects
Manuscripts reporting adverse drug reactions should be accompanied by evidence showing that the reaction has been reported on a 'Yellow card' or to the appropriate drug licensing authority, and to the drug manufacturer.

Abbreviations and Symbols
Must be standard and SI units used throughout. The following abbreviations are approved: ACE-Angiotensin-converting-enzyme; PRA-Plasma renin activity; PRC-Plasma renin concentration; BP-Blood pressure; SBP-Systolic blood pressure; DBP-Diastolic blood pressure; MAP-Mean arterial pressure; RAS-Renal artery stenosis; RAA System - Renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system and ANP-Arterial natriuretic peptide. Acronyms should be used sparingly and must be fully explained when first used.

Whenever possible drugs should be given their approved generic name. Where a proprietary (brand) name must be used, it should begin with a capital letter. Statistical analyses must explain the methods used. The use of footnotes is not permitted. Single quotation marks should be used and words to be italicised should be underlined. The concise Oxford English Dictionary is used as a reference for spelling and hyphenation.

SUBMISSION OF PAPERS

Journal of Human Hypertension open

Upon submission of an original research paper, authors can indicate within the manuscript tracking system whether they wish to pay a one off fee to allow their article to become freely available immediately upon publication. The fee is £2,000/$3,000/€2,400 (plus VAT where applicable) and can be paid via credit card or by requesting an invoice be raised.

By paying this fee authors are permitted to post the final, published, pdf of their article on a website, institutional repository or other free public server immediately on publication.

Upon acceptance, authors must fill out and send back a payment form. This is mandatory and failure to send in the payment form along with the Licence to Publish form will result in the article being published as a standard paper behind access control.

Authors must still sign and return the licence to publish form, which has been amended to offer authors the choice of which licence to use on their paper.

The first licence is the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported Licence which allows readers to download the article and share it with others as long as they mention the author and link back to the original article. The article cannot be changed in any way or used commercially.

The second option is the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial Share Alike 3.0 Unported Licence which allows readers to alter, transform, or build upon the article and then distribute the resulting work under the same or similar license to this one. The work must be attributed back to the original author and commercial use is not permitted.

For further information please see the Journal of Human Hypertension Open FAQs and payment form.

Colour charges

Further information
To find out who to contact for advertising, subscriptions, permissions, papers in production or publishing a supplement, please visit our publisher’s contacts page. Alternatively, you can write to: Journal of Human Hypertension, Nature Publishing Group, The Macmillan Building, 4 Crinan Street, London, N1 9XW, UK.

EDITORIAL POLICY

Statement of Ethics

Peer-review policy

Correction and retraction process

Non-Native Speakers of English
Researchers who are not native speakers of English who submit manuscripts to international journals sometimes receive negative comments from referees or editors about the English-language usage in their manuscripts, and these problems can contribute to a decision to reject a paper. To help reduce the possibility of such problems, we strongly encourage such authors to take at least one of the following steps:

• Have your manuscript reviewed for clarity by a colleague whose native language is English.
• Use one of the many English language editing services that are available, such as that offered by Nature Publishing Group Language Editing. An editor will improve the English to ensure that your meaning is clear and to identify problems that require your review.

Please note that the use of Nature Publishing Group Language Editing is at the author's own expense and in no way implies that the article will be selected for peer review or accepted by an NPG journal (or any other journal). The decisions that the editors of any NPG journal make based on the quality and suitability of a manuscript for that journal are entirely independent of whether that manuscript has been language-edited by Nature Publishing Group Language Editing.

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