Article structure
Sections
Structure your paper into clearly defined sections and subsections, each under a concise heading (such as Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, and Conclusions), with each heading in its own separate line. Headings will be used when referencing portions of the text.
Introduction
State the objectives of the work and provide an adequate background, avoiding a detailed literature survey or a summary of the results.
Material and methods
Provide sufficient detail to allow the work to be reproduced by an independent investigator. For methods already published a reference and a summary will be included. When quoting text, please enclose the citation in quotation marks, and reference the original source. If the reported methods have been modified, please include a clear description of the modifications involved.
Results
They must be clear and concise.
Discussion
Tis section must analyze the significance of the results obtained, not repeat them. A combined Results and Discussion section is sometimes appropriate. Avoid extensive citations and discussion of published literature.
Conclusions
The main conclusions of the study may be presented in a short, separate Conclusions section, or in a subsection of the Discussion — or Results and Discussion — section.
First page
•Title. Concise and informative. Titles are used in information-retrieval systems (indices). Avoid formulae and abbreviations whenever possible. A title in English must also be included.
•Author names and affiliations. Include the full name of each one of the authors, and ensure their correct spelling is used. Names in their original writing may optionally be included between parentheses following their English transliteration. Include the affiliation data of each author (name and address of the institution where the actual work was done) below the names. Indicate all affiliations with a lower-case superscript letter immediately after the author's name. The same letter must be placed in front of the appropriate affiliation data. Provide the full postal address of each affiliation, including the country name, and, if available, the e-mail address of each author.
•Author for correspondence. Clearly indicate who will handle correspondence at all stages of the review and publication process, as well as post-publication. This will include responding to questions about the Material and Methods section.
Keywords
Immediately after the abstract, provide a maximum of 6 keywords using British or American spelling and avoiding general and plural terms and multiple concepts (avoid, for example, using "and" or "of"). Only abbreviations firmly established in the field of the paper’s specialty may be used. Keywords will be used for indexing purposes.
Abbreviations
Define abbreviations that are not standard in your field of expertise in a footnote to be placed on the first page of the manuscript. Ensure consistency in the use of abbreviations throughout the article.
Acknowledgements
Place acknowledgements in a separate section at the end of the article before the references. Do not mention them in any other part of the paper. Include those persons who collaborated in the article’s preparation (for instance, providing help with writing or translation).
Funding sources
List your funding sources.
It is not necessary to include detailed descriptions on the program or type of grants and awards. When funding is from a regional or national grant, or from resources available to universities or other research institutions, please include the name of the institution or organization that provided funds for the study.
If no funding was provided for the research, please include the following sentence:
This research did not receive any specific support from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
Figure captions
Write a caption for each figure, and ensure every figure has a caption. Captions should include a brief title (not on the figure itself) and a description of their corresponding figures. Please try to keep text within figures to a minimum, and include in the caption a definition of all the symbols and abbreviations used.
Tables
Please submit tables as editable text and not as images. Tables can be placed either next to the relevant text in the manuscript or on separate pages at the end. Number tables consecutively in accordance with their appearance in the text, and place any relevant notes below them. Be sparing in the use of tables and ensure that the data presented in them do not duplicate results described elsewhere in the paper. Please do not use vertical rules or shading in table cells.
References
Citation in text
Please ensure that every reference cited in the text is also present in the reference list (and vice versa). Inclusion of personal communications or unpublished results in the reference list is discouraged, but these may be mentioned in the text. If included in the reference list, they should follow the standard reference style of the journal, replacing the publication date with either 'Unpublished results' or 'Personal communication', as appropriate. Citation of a reference as 'in press' implies that the manuscript has been accepted for publication.
Links to online references
Links to online references facilitate research dissemination and enhance the quality of the peer review system. In order to provide links to indexing or retrieval systems such as Scopus, CrossRef, and PubMed, the information provided in the references list must be accurate. Please bear in mind that errors in author names, publication titles, dates of publication, or page numbers may impede the creation of links to the manuscripts of interest. When copying a reference consider that it may contain errors. We strongly recommend using DOI codes.
DOI codes never cange, hence they may be used as permanent links to electronic articles. Bear in mind that these references must share the style and format of any other references according to the Journal guidelines.
Web references
As a minimum, the full URL should be given, as well as the date when the reference was last accessed. Any further information known (DOI, author names, dates, reference to a source publication, etc.) should also be provided. Website references may be listed separately after the standard reference list, or may be included in the reference list.
Data set references
We encourage you to cite any underlying or relevant datasets in your manuscript. To this end, you should cite them in the body of text and then also include them in the reference list at the end of the manuscript. Data set references include the following elements: author name(s), dataset title, data repository name, version (where applicable), year, and global persistent identifier. Add a [dataset] label immediately before the reference so we can identify it as a data reference. This identifier will not appear in the published article
Reference format
In text: Please provide in-text citations using superscript numbers. The authors may reference themselves if they wish, but a reference number is required.
Use of inclusive language
Medicina Paliativa wants to contribute to the promotion of egalitarian policies by
encouraging the use of inclusive language in texts:
Discriminatory expressions should be
avoided, and collective terms encouraged (for instance, use of “their” rather
than his or her) in addition to any resources that may ensure the path to
effective equality.
Similarly, study reviews should
avoid all discrimination based on race, gender, nationality, ethnicity, or sexual,
political or religious preference.
For further
information please refer to the United Nations Guidelines for gender-inclusive
language in English (https://www.un.org/en/gender-inclusive-language/guidelines.shtml).
Sex and gender in research
Manuscripts
submitted for review and potential publication in the journal Medicina
Paliativa must avoid gender stereotypes and biases.
Authors must report whether gender was
considered in the design and conduction of research and data analysis so that
potential differences may be identified and/or biases avoided.
In this regard, the following is required:
- Sample
composition by sex.
- Results
broken down by sex.
- Analysis
of differences within each sex.
For further information please see the
document “Gender in research”.