Publication ethics : The Journal adheres to the ethical guidelines for research and publication described in ¡°Good Publication Practice Guidelines for Medical Journals¡± (http://kamje.or.kr/publishing_ethics.html) and ¡°Guidelines on Good Publication¡± (http://www.publicationethics.org.uk/guidelines). All human investigations must be conducted according to the principles expressed in the Declaration of Helsinki. All studies involving animals must state that the guidelines for the use and care of laboratory animals of the authors¡¯ institution, or any national law, were followed.

Review process : The acceptance criteria for all papers are based on the quality and originality of the research and its clinical and scientific significance. An initial decision will normally be made within 4 weeks of receipt of a manuscript, and the reviewer¡¯s comments are sent to the corresponding authors by e-mail. Revised manuscripts must be submitted online by the corresponding author. The corresponding author must indicate the alterations that have been made in response to the referees¡¯ comments item by item. Failure to resubmit the revised manuscript within 8 weeks of the editorial decision is regarded as a withdrawal.

Copyright : All published papers become the permanent property of the Korean Association of Internal Medicine, and must not be published elsewhere without written permission. A copyright transfer form should be submitted to the editorial office by fax or regular mail on acceptance.

Alterations in proof : The Journal provides the corresponding author of accepted papers with galley proofs for final corrections. These corrections should be kept to a minimum. The editor retains the right to request minor stylistic and major alterations that might affect the scientific content of the paper. Errors found after publication are the responsibility of the authors. If the proof is not returned to the publisher within 3 days of receipt, its publication may be delayed.

Off-prints and charges : A minimum of 50 off-prints will be provided on request, at the author¡¯s expense. An off-print order form outlining the cost will be sent to the corresponding author with the page proofs. The cost of color illustrations will be charged to the authors.

Original articles : Original articles are reports of basic or clinical investigations. Although there is no limitation on the length of these manuscripts, the Editorial Board may abridge excessive illustrations and large tables. The manuscript for an original article should be organized in the following sequence: Title page, Abstract and Keywords, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgments, References, Tables, and Figure legends.

Reviews : Reviews are invited by the editor and should be comprehensive analyses of specific topics. Review articles should include abstracts with fewer than 200 words. Review articles should not exceed 7,500 words, excluding references, tables, and figures.

Editorials : Editorials are invited by the editor and should be commentaries on articles published recently in the Journal. Editorial topics could include active areas of research, fresh insights, and debates in all fields of internal medicine. Editorials should not exceed 2,000 words, excluding references, tables, and figures.

Case reports : Case reports should address issues of importance to medical researchers and preferably should have helpful illustrations. There should be no more than five figures, including tables, and no more than ten references.

Cover letter : The cover letter should inform the editor that neither the submitted material nor portions thereof have been published previously or are under consideration for publication elsewhere. It should state any potential conflict of interest that could influence the authors¡¯ interpretation of the data, such as financial support from or connections to pharmaceutical companies, political pressure from interest groups, and academically related issues.

Title page : The title page should list the title of the article and the full names and institutional affiliations of all authors, a short running title of less than 40 characters including spaces, and the contact information for correspondence, including the name, academic degree(s), address (institutional affiliation, city, zip code, and country), telephone and fax numbers, and e-mail address.

Abstract and keywords : The abstract of the original article should be no more than 250 words and divided into four subsections: Background/Aims, Methods, Results, and Conclusions. Abbreviations, if needed, should be kept to an absolute minimum and identified clearly. Case reports should include an unstructured summary of no more than 150 words. Up to five keywords should be listed below the abstract. For selecting keywords, refer to the Index Medicus Medical Subject Headings (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh).

Introduction : The introduction should include a brief background of the topic for general readers and should refer to the most pertinent papers and relevant findings of others in the field. The specific questions to be addressed by the study should also be described.

Methods : Methods should be described concisely, but in sufficient detail to allow other qualified investigators to repeat the experiments. The sources of special chemicals or reagents should be given along with the source location (name of company, city, state, and country). If needed, include information on the institutional review board/ethics committee approval or waiver and informed consent. Methods of statistical analysis and criteria for statistical significance should be described.

Results : The results should be presented in logical order using text, tables, and illustrations. Duplication of table or figure content should be avoided.

Discussion : The discussion section is a concise interpretation and discussion of the data and results. Speculation is permitted, but it must be supported by the presented data. Content already presented in the results should not be repeated in the discussion.

Acknowledgments : All persons who have made substantial contributions, but who have not met the criteria for authorship, are acknowledged here. All sources of funding applicable to the study should be stated here explicitly.

References : In the text, references should be cited with Arabic numerals in brackets, numbered in the order cited. In the references section, the references should be numbered and listed in order of appearance in the text. List all authors if there are fewer than seven authors. List the first three authors followed by et al. if there are more than six authors. If an article has been published online, but has not yet been given an issue or pages, the digital object identifier (DOI) should be supplied. Names of journals should be abbreviated in the style used in Index Medicus. Other types of references not described below should follow The NLM Style Guide for Authors, Editors, and Publishers (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/citingmedicine).

Examples of reference style :

1. Journal article: Ness RB, Grisso JA, Hirschinger N, et al. Cocaine and tobacco use and the risk of spontaneous abortion. N Engl J Med 1999;340:333-339.
2. Entire book: Gilman AG, Rall TW, Nies AS, Taylor P. Goodman and Gilman¡¯s the Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics. 9th ed. New York: Pergamon Press, 1996.
3. Book chapter: Costa M, Furness JB, Llewellyn-Smith IF. Histochemistry of the enteric nervous system. In: Johnson LR, ed(s). Physiology of the Gastrointestinal Tract. Volume 1. 2nd ed. New York: Raven, 1987:1-40.
4. Online publication: Suzuki S, Kajiyama K, Shibata K, et al. Is there any association between retroperitoneal lymphadenectomy and survival benefit in ovarian clear cell carcinoma patients? Ann Oncol 2008 Mar 19 [Epub]. DOI:10.1093/annonc/mdn059.
5. Online sources: American Cancer Society. Cancer reference information [Internet]. American Cancer Society c2009. Cited 2009 Feb 1. Available from: http://www.cancer.org/docroot/CRI/CRI_0.asp.

Tables : Tables should be constructed simply and should not duplicate information found in the figures. Each table should have a title, begin on a new page, and be numbered with an Arabic numeral in the order of its citation in the text. If numerical measurements are given, the unit of measurement should be included in the column heading. The statistical significance of observed differences in the data should be indicated by the appropriate statistical analysis. All nonstandard abbreviations should be defined in footnotes. When symbols are needed, use them as superscripts in the following sequence: *, ¢Ó, ¢Ô, ¡×, ||, ¢Ò, **, ¢Ó¢Ó, ¢Ô¢Ô.

Figures : Only high-resolution figure files (preferably 300 dpi for color figures and 900 dpi for line art and graphs) should be submitted. Figure images should be provided in EPS or TIF format, although the JPEG format is allowed for color figures. The smallest parts of a figure should be legible when they are reduced to the final print size. Each figure should be saved as a separate electronic file. Symbols, arrows, or letters used in photographs should contrast the background visually. The legend for each light microscopic image should indicate the stain used and the level of magnification. Electron micrographs should have an internal magnification scale marker. All types of figure may be reduced, enlarged, or trimmed for publication by the editor.