Submissions

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Submission Preparation Checklist

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.
  • The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
  • The submission file is in OpenOffice, Microsoft Word, or RTF document file format.
  • The text is single-spaced; uses a 12-point font; employs italics rather than underlining (except with URL addresses); and all illustrations, figures, and tables are placed within the text rather than at the end.
  • Where available, URLs for the references have been provided.
  • The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines.
  • List the names, affiliations and email addresses of all authors.
  • We strongly encourage authors to list (or create) an ORCID ID, to facilitate transparency and easy identification of authors.
  • All authors have signed and submitted the Authorship Declaration Form.
  • The corresponding author has completed and submitted the Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest form.
  • For peer-reviewed manuscripts (articles & critical commentaries), we welcome suggestions for external reviewers with whom you do not have a conflict of interest; please submit names and emails.

Author Guidelines

Submission Process
The Canadian Journal of Bioethics accepts papers written in either French or English. Papers are published free of charge and in the language of submission. The journal welcomes manuscripts of the following types:

Articles (3500-15000 words; peer-reviewed): original empirical, theoretical or conceptual research; review articles

Critical commentaries (2000-3000 words; peer-reviewed): timely critical reflection on current issues; clear and concise

“Response to” commentaries (1000-2000 words): well-articulated reflections on the perspectives or arguments advanced in published manuscripts

Book Reviews (750-1200 words): summary analysis of recent books in bioethics (broadly construed)

Conference Proceedings (1000-2000 words): summaries or proceedings of conferences or other academic events

Case studies (750-1200 words): based on a real or fictional case, enabling one or more ethical problems to be identified and analysed

Perspectives (2000-3000 words): opinion pieces on an issue of importance for bioethics based on constructive criticism

Art, Culture & Creative Works: Artistic/creative works and essays of significance to bioethics (all mediums that can be presented online will be considered)

Letter to the Editor (250-500 words)

Other types of manuscript that do not fall into the above mentioned categories will be considered by the Executive Board.

Structure
Text should be submitted in Word (.doc or .docx) or Real Text Format (.rtf).

Title: Titles should be no more than three typeset lines (generally 135 characters including spaces) and should be comprehensible to a broad audience.

Author affiliation: Include department, institution and complete address, for each author. Use superscripts to match authors with institutions.

Corresponding author and guarantor: The name, complete address, and e-mail address of the author to whom correspondence and proofs should be sent.

Abstract: For articles, please provide a 250 word abstract. For all other submissions (e.g., commentaries, case studies, book reviews), please provide a 1-2 sentence summary. Abstracts should explain to the general reader the major contributions of the article. References are not necessary in the abstract.

Keywords: Please provide 5-8 keywords

Headings & Sub-headings: Use headings and subheadings (i.e., Introduction, major headings, Conclusion) where appropriate to structure your text.

Citations: Use Numbered reference style for in-text citations – e.g., (1) or (3-7) – and place references at end of text in List of References. For direct in-text quotations, cite with page number, e.g., (4, p.23). Do not use footnotes or endnotes for referencing, but for clarification. Citations in the footnotes should follow in order with those in the main text.

References: Use a numbered List of References, in order of appearance in text, following the Vancouver system citation style. Give complete reference information, i.e., all author names and full journal name. Provide inclusive page ranges for journal articles and book chapters. Where possible, add static links to documents that are publicly accessible online. Cite databases in the text. Only published or in-press papers and books may be cited in the reference list. Unpublished abstracts of papers presented at meetings or references to "data not shown" are not permitted.

Footnotes: Use (numbered) footnotes sparingly, and only to provide clarifying information that does not fit in the main text.

Tables/Figures: Tables and Figures should be embedded in the body of the text, with a brief Title and legend.

Acknowledgments: List acknowledgments and all funding sources, or the absence of funding. Any contributions to the research phase or manuscript writing should also be acknowledged.

Conflicts of Interest: Disclose any association that poses a conflict of interest in connection with the manuscript. Authors must acknowledge all funding sources supporting the work.

Post-submission responsabilities
Authors should respond to all comments and/or questions raised by Editors or peer-reviewers during the review process (e.g., in a Response to Reviewers summary document), explaining where they agree or not (with justification), and detailing all modifications.

Research Ethics
Research involving human participants must have been approved by the author’s institutional research ethics board (REB/IRB) or relevant authority. Authors must include in their Methods section a brief statement identifying the institutional committee approving the research. Authors must also include a statement confirming that informed consent was obtained from all human participants. Participant’s personal information, identifiers, illustrations and photos, etc. should be anonymized as far as possible. Research must have been conducted according to the principles expressed in the Canadian Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans or similar international policies on research ethics (e.g., Declaration of Helsinki, US Common Rule, CIOMS). Further specifications regarding Publication Ethics and Responsible Conduct of Research and/or disclosure of Conflict of interest may apply.

Language-Editing Services
Prior to submission, authors who believe their manuscripts would benefit from professional editing are encouraged to use a language-editing service. The journal reserves the right to demand language correction of a manuscript, if necessary. Manuscripts not meeting academic standards of French or English will not be accepted for publication.

Digital Figures
File types with extensions JPG, PNG, TIFF, EPS, and high-resolution PDF will be permitted for inclusion in the online journal.

Movies: Supply Audio Video Interleave (avi), Quicktime (mov), Windows Media (wmv), Animated GIF (gif), or MPEG files and submit a brief legend for each movie in a Word or RTF file.

Still images: Authors must provide a still image from each video file. Supply TIFF, EPS, high-resolution PDF, JPEG, or GIF files.

Appendices: Authors should submit individual source files to ensure readability. If this is not possible, supply a single PDF file that contains all of the supporting information associated with the manuscript. This file type will be published in raw format and will not be edited or composed.

ORCID
We strongly encourage authors to create an ORCID ID, to facilitate transparency and easy identification of authors (create an ORCID ID)

Articles

Section Editors: Aliya Affdal

Peer-reviewed

  • papers of approximately 3500-15000 words
  • original empirical, theoretical or conceptual research
  • review articles

Peer-reviewer responsibilities

Reviewer evaluations are given serious consideration by the editors and authors in the preparation of manuscripts for publication. Nonetheless, being named as a reviewer does not necessarily denote approval of a manuscript; the editors take full responsibility for final acceptance and publication of an article.

Critical commentaries

Section Editor: Aliya Affdal

Critical commentaries are peer-reviewed, and provide timely critical reflection on current issues. They should be clear and concise, 2000-3000 words.

"Response to" Commentaries

Section Editor: Aliya Affdal

“Response to” commentaries permit the publication of well-articulated reflections on the perspectives or arguments advanced in manuscripts published in the journal. They should be clear and concise, 1000-2000 words.

Art, Culture & Creative Work

Section editor: Jacques Quintin

We seek submissions of artistic, creative and essay-type works that are significant to bioethics. All media that can be presented online will be considered, including but not limited to the following:

  • Literary works (in the form of poetry, fiction, drama, song and essays);
  • Testimonials and experience-sharing;
  • Photographs, drawings, animations/caricatures, digital paintings.

Case studies

Section Editor: Julien Brisson

(approx. 750-1200 words)

Case studies enable the identification and analysis of one or more ethical problems. They can be based on real or fictional events, while respecting the principle of confidentiality. The case study should contain a detailed description and a brief ethical analysis followed by questions to stimulate and develop discussion.

Conference Proceedings

Section Editor: Hazar Haidar

(approx. 1000-2000 words): summaries or proceedings of conferences or other academic events

Book Reviews

Section Editor: Patrick Gogognon

(approx. 750-1200 words): summary analysis of recent books in bioethics (broadly construed)

Perspectives

Section Editor: Hazar Haidar

Perspectives and testimonies present the author's point of view on a topic of importance in bioethics. It may be a subject that the author is passionate about or a personal experience related to his or her position or life experience. These are texts that can be descriptive, generally based on constructive criticism and contributing to bioethical reflection, of about 2000 to 3000 words.

Letter to the Editor

Section Editor: Hazar Haidar

(approx. 250-500 words)

Editor's Soapbox

Section editor: Hazar Haidar

The Editor’s Soapbox is a platform where members of the Editorial Board provide critical comment on current affairs or other issues in bioethics about which they are passionate. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the journal.

Copyright Notice

The Canadian Journal of Bioethics applies the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License to all its publications. Authors therefore retain copyright of their publication, e.g., they can reuse their publication, link to it on their home page or institutional website, deposit a PDF in a public repository. However, the authors allow anyone to download, reuse, reprint, modify, distribute, and/or copy their publication, so long as the original authors and source are cited.

Privacy Statement

The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.