Author Guidelines and Editorial Policies

Guidelines for Authors

Women’s Health Care: A Practical Journal for Nurse Practitioners is a quarterly, peer-reviewed journal that is indexed in CINAHL. It focuses on topics of interest and importance to women and nurse practitioners (NPs) and other advanced practice nurses. Women’s Health Care: A Practical Journal for Nurse Practitioners is distributed free as a membership benefit to NP members of the National Association of Nurse Practitioners in Women’s Health. Manuscripts concerning clinical practice, healthcare delivery, health policy, critical issues or trends, continuing education, pharmacoeconomics, or research will be considered. However, all topics should apply to women and clinical NP practice and should provide current and useful information in a clear, concise format using charts, tables, photographs, and algorithms when appropriate. Research-related manuscripts should include the purpose, methods, results, discussion, and conclusion.Manuscripts submitted toWomen’s Health: Care A Practical Journal for Nurse Practitioners must not have been published previously or be under consideration for publication in another journal. Those selected for possible publication will be subject to peer review. Authors may wish to have their manuscripts reviewed by experts in the field before submitting them, and should inform Women’s Health: Care A Practical Journal for Nurse Practitioners in writing of such review. All manuscripts will be copyedited and forwarded to the author for approval. The author assumes responsibility for all content. Once a manuscript is accepted for publication in Women’s Health Care: A Practical Journal for Nurse Practitioners, it becomes the property of NP Communications, LLC.

Text Format

The title sheet of the manuscript must include the title and the author’s name, credentials, mailing address, email address, telephone number, and fax number. The corresponding author should be designated if there is more than one author. The author’s name will be removed during the peer review process.

Manuscripts, which should include an abstract, are to be double-spaced, in 12-point Times New Roman font, using 1-inch margins (maximum, 4500 words, including references). Manuscripts (Microsoft Word only) are to be submitted electronically via email to Dawn Citron (see below).

References (no older than 5 years if possible) should be cited using a superscript1 in the text, and then listed in the reference section in the order presented. If cited, Internet websites must be reliable resources (original articles are preferred). References should be styled in AMA format. See recent issues of Women’s Health Care: A Practical Journal for Nurse Practitionersfor guidance.

Authors are responsible for the accuracy of all information, including citations and references.

Preferred Graphics

TIFF, EPS, or JPEG formats are required (no word documents or power point slides for figures or photos). Line art should have a minimum resolution of 1000 dpi, halftone art (photos) a minimum of 300 dpi, and combination art (line/tone) a minimum of 500 dpi. Color figures should be submitted actual size. Multiple figure files can be compressed into a Stuffit or Zip file.

Alternatives:

Photos and Slides

Physical photos and slides, preferably in color, are acceptable. Glossy black and white photographs should be submitted unmounted. Authors must obtain written permission from photographers and from all persons identifiable in photographs. NP Communications and Karen Spencer Design take no responsibility for the quality of images submitted by authors.

Digital Photos:Images must be prepared so that they may be printed at 4 x 6 with a resolution of 300 dpi. They must be at least 200KB in size. File sizes >10MB must be submitted on a CD (they cannot be emailed).

PowerPoint Images:

All logos and images must be embedded in the PowerPoint file, and photographic images must be saved at 300 dpi at 4 x 6. PowerPoint charts cannot be reproduced; they will be redrawn by our art director.

Tables, Figures, Graphs, and Illustrations

Tables:Up to six tables (containing actual tabular material; simple lists should be incorporated into the text) are welcome. Tables should be cited in the text in numerical order, but they should be physically placed in numerical order after the reference section. Authors must obtain permission to reproduce a previously published table, which must also include a credit line stating the original source.

Figures, Graphs, and Illustrations:These should be professionally prepared in black ink or produced on a high-quality laser printer. They should be cited in the text in numerical order, but they should be physically placed in numerical order after the reference section. All explanatory material and legends should be placed in captions beneath the figure, graph, or illustration to which they pertain. 

Student Authors

Women’s Health: Care A Practical Journal for Nurse Practitioners encourages NP faculty members to submit manuscripts of excellence on behalf of student authors. It is expected that faculty members will have reviewed the manuscript for content, format, and accuracy before submission, and that the manuscript will adhere to the format described above. Student papers must meet Women’s Health: Care A Practical Journal for Nurse Practitionerscriteria for publication, and will be peer reviewed if considered for publication. Names of the student author and faculty advisor should appear on the title sheet.

Case Studies

These should exemplify the clinical decision-making process in NP practice, and should be written in such a fashion as to challenge readers to "solve" the cases. Case studies should present background information and the patient’s chief complaint, associated problems, and personal and family history. They should discuss the differential diagnosis, diagnostic tests performed (if any), the management plan, and the outcome. Risk factors, cost/benefit ratios, and pertinent legal and ethical issues should be discussed if relevant. Decisionpoint questions should be posed throughout the case study to provide a rationale for each step in the clinical decision-making process. Decisions should be supported by the literature and by case-specific data. In fact, authors are encouraged to present a case-specific decision-making algorithm, chart, or table that reflects the process required to "solve" the problem.

Additional Topics

Women’s Health: Care A Practical Journal for Nurse Practitionerswelcomes short reports on late-breaking news, notices about upcoming continuing education events or professional update meetings, easy-to-follow tips for patients, and other information of interest to NPs.

How to Contact Us:

For questions related to topics for articles and manuscript text, contact executive editor Dory Greene at.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). 

Submit manuscripts to editorial assistant Dawn Citron, NP Communications, LLC, 5 Jefferson Ct., Monroe Township, NJ 08831, 732-641-2113,.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).