Journal of Family Medicine · ISSN 2640-690X
Submit a Manuscript
Three ways to send your work to this journal, what to have ready before you start, and what happens once it arrives.
Nothing is payable to submit a manuscript or to have it reviewed. An article processing charge arises only on acceptance.
Step one
Choose a route
All three reach the same editorial office and the same review process. Authors must use only one submission route for the same manuscript.
Primary route
ManuscriptZone
The publisher’s online editorial manager. Create an account, follow its step-by-step instructions, and track the manuscript through review from the same place.
Alternative route
Submission form
A short web form, with no account to create. It opens with Journal of Family Medicine already selected; check that the journal field reads Family Medicine before you send.
Assisted route
Editorial office
Write to the editorial office and attach the manuscript, for authors who would rather submit by email or who need help with either route above.
Step two
Have these ready
- The manuscript as a single word-processor file, with tables and figures at the end, each on its own page, and the lines numbered.
- A cover letter of no more than 500 words, entered in the submission form itself rather than attached separately.
- Title and running title within 30 words and 60 characters.
- Abstract within 250 words, and five to twelve keywords.
- Author details for everyone listed: full name, affiliation, discipline, address and email, with the corresponding author identified and ORCID iDs where you have them.
- Declarations: competing interests, funding and the role of each funder, and any use of generative AI in preparing the manuscript.
- Ethics approval or documented exemption, with the committee name and reference, and consent where participants or identifiable individuals are involved.
- Trial registration details where the study is an interventional clinical trial: registry name, registration number and registration date.
- A data-availability statement for every empirical research manuscript.
- The reporting checklist for your study design — CONSORT, STROBE, PRISMA, CARE, STARD, SQUIRE, COREQ or ARRIVE.
Before that
Confirm the fit
Scientific fit rests on a substantive connection to family medicine care, research, education or the discipline itself, established by the research question or the contribution. If you can state that connection in a sentence, say it in the cover letter; it is the most useful thing an editor reads first.
Requesting double-blind review
Single-blind by default; double-blind review is available on request. To request it, remove author names, affiliations, acknowledgments, funding details, institution names, and other identifying information from the reviewer manuscript. Provide identifying information separately in the title-page file or submission form.
Step three
What happens next
Each stage below is a real step in the journal’s process. No stage carries a guaranteed duration, and none is affected by how the charge is settled.
- Acknowledgment. The corresponding author receives confirmation with a reference number for the submission.
- Editorial screening. All submissions undergo initial editorial screening, covering scope, the required declarations, ethics and consent, trial registration where it applies, the data-availability statement, and a similarity report read in context. A manuscript may be returned for correction at this stage rather than declined.
- Peer review. Manuscripts that meet the journal’s scope and minimum requirements proceed to independent peer review, and are normally evaluated by two to three independent subject-matter experts.
- Decision. Editorial decisions are based on scope, scientific quality, methodological rigor, ethical compliance, reporting quality, and relevance to the journal. You receive the decision with the reviewers’ comments and the editor’s guidance.
- Revision. Where revision is invited, return the manuscript with a point-by-point response to each comment.
- Acceptance and proofs. On acceptance the article is copy edited and typeset, and you review proofs before publication. The article processing charge is raised at this point and not before; payment instructions arrive by email.
- Publication. The article is published open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, with a registered Crossref DOI, in HTML, PDF and XML.
If you get stuck
Ask before you send
Questions about fit, about which format suits your work, or about any requirement on this page are answered by the editorial office at [email protected]. Asking first costs less than a returned submission.