Submissions

Author Guidelines

Notice to Authors

The Malaysian Journal of Human Genetics welcomes articles on all aspects of human genetics in the form of original research, case report, short report and review articles . Articles are accepted for publication on condition that they are contributed solely to the Malaysian Journal of Human Genetics. Neither the Editorial Board nor the Publishers accept responsibility for the views and statements of authors expressed in their contributions.

To avoid delays in publication, authors are advised to strictly adhere to the instructions given below. Manuscripts, which do not conform to the required format, shall be rejected.

Originality and copyright policy:

Manuscripts are reviewed with the understanding that they represent original material, have never been published before, are not under consideration for publication elsewhere, and have been approved by all authors. The article must be original and free from plagiarism. Authors are required to provide evidence of a Turnitin report showing a similarity index of less than 20%. 

Prior publication constitutes any form of publication other than an abstract and includes invited articles, proceedings, symposia, and book chapters. Authors must fully inform the Editor during the online submission process if the submitted manuscript contains data and/or clinical observations that have been published or submitted for publication elsewhere, supply copies of such material, and explain the differences between the previous and submitted works. All accepted manuscripts become the property of the Malaysian Journal of Human Genetics and may not be published elsewhere without written permission from the Malaysian Journal of Human Genetics.

Manuscript Format and Style

Download template sample for manuscript HERE.

Download template sample for title page HERE. 

Categories of Papers

Original articles: This category is intended for full-scale basic or clinical studies. Original articles should be around not exceed 5,000 words (not including structured abstracts of up to 250 words, 3-5 key words, references, tables, and figures) with a maximum of 5 figures and 5 tables in total.

Review articles: This category is for scholarly, comprehensive reviews that summarize and critically evaluate research in the field addressed and identify future implications. Review articles should not exceed 5,000 words (not including structured abstracts of up to 250 words, 3-5 key words, references, tables, and figures) with a maximum of 5 figures and tables in total.

Short reports: This category is for smaller, self-contained laboratory or clinical studies, including preliminary reports and case series. Single cases will not be considered in this category and should be submitted as Case reports. Manuscripts in this category should contain no more than 3,000 words (not including structured abstracts of up to 200 words, 3-5 key words, references, tables, and figures).

Case reports: These should briefly report single experiments and cases of clinical interest. Manuscripts in this category should contain no more than 2,000 words (not including structured abstracts of up to 200 words, 3-5 key words, references, tables, and figures).

 Title page:

The title page should carry the following information:

Title, which should be concise but informative without using acronyms.
Authors, including first name, middle initial, and last name along with two highest academic degree(s) and institutional affiliation(s) of each author.
A running head of 45 characters or less (count letters and spaces).
A corresponding author with full address and email address, telephone and fax numbers.
Statistical summary of the manuscript, including the total number of words, the number of words in the abstract, and the numbers of references, tables, and figures.

Abstract:

An abstract not exceeding 250 words should include: Objective: purpose of the study or research question; Methods: study design, sample selection, setting, subjects, interventions(s) if any and main outcome measure(s); Results: main findings (giving their statistical significance, if possible); and Conclusions. New and important findings are emphasized in the summary.

Below the abstract provide 3 – 5 key words that will assist indexers. Invited and review articles should have an unstructured abstract of no more than 200 words, while brief reports (case reports included) should have an abstract of not more than 200 words.

Text:

Introduction: Provide a context or background for the study (i.e., the nature of the problem and its significance). State the specific purpose or research objective of, or hypothesis tested by, the study or observation. The main and secondary objectives should be made clear, and any pre-specified subgroup analyses should be described. Give only strictly pertinent references and do not include data or conclusions from the work being reported.

Methods:The Methods section should include only information that was available at the time the plan or protocol for the study was written; all information obtained during the conduct of the study belongs in the Results section.

Selection and description of participants Please state if the study has received an approval from the local institution Ethics committee. Describe your selection of the observational or experimental participants (patients or laboratory animals, including controls) clearly, including eligibility and exclusion criteria and a description of the source population. The guiding principle should be clarity about how and why a study was done in a particular way.

Technical information: Identify the methods, apparatus (give the manufacturer's name and address in parentheses), and procedures in sufficient detail to allow other workers to reproduce the experiment. Give references to established methods, including statistical methods (see below); provide references and brief descriptions for methods that have been published but are not well known; describe new or substantially modified methods, give reasons for using them, and evaluate their limitations. Identify precisely all drugs and chemicals used, including generic name(s), dose(s), and route(s) of administration. Authors submitting review manuscripts should include a section describing the methods used for locating, selecting, extracting, and synthesizing data. These methods should also be summarized in the abstract.

Use gene names approved by the Human Gene Organisation. Novel gene sequences should be deposited in a public database (GenBank, EMBL, or DDBJ), and the accession number provided. Authors of microarray papers should include in their submission the information recommended by the MIAME guidelines. Authors should also submit their experimental details to one of the publicly available databases: ArrayExpress or GEO

Statistics:Describe statistical methods with enough detail to enable a knowledgeable reader with access to the original data to verify the reported results.

Results: Present your results in logical sequence in the text, tables, and illustrations, giving the main or most important findings first. Do not repeat in the text all the data in the tables or illustrations; emphasize or summarize only important observations. When data are summarized in the Results section, give numeric results not only as derivatives (for example, percentages) but also as the absolute numbers from which the derivatives were calculated. Restrict tables and figures to those needed to explain the argument of the paper and to assess its support. Use graphs as an alternative to tables with many entries; do not duplicate data in graphs and tables.

Discussion: Emphasize the new and important aspects of the study and the conclusions that follow from them. Do not repeat in detail data or other material given in the Introduction or the Results section. For experimental studies it is useful to begin the discussion by summarizing briefly the main findings, then explore possible mechanisms or explanations for these findings, compare and contrast the results with other relevant studies, state the limitations of the study, and explore the implications of the findings for future research and for clinical practice. Avoid claiming priority and alluding to work that has not been completed.

Acknowledgements: This section may include: i) acknowledgements of financial and material support; ii) contributions that need acknowledging but do not justify authorship; iii) acknowledgement of technical help; and iv) indications of previous presentation.

References: Authors are responsible for the accuracy and completeness of the references. Do not use abstracts as references. References to papers accepted but not yet published should be designated as "in press" or "forthcoming". Information from manuscripts submitted but not accepted should be avoided but, if necessary, may be cited in the text as "unpublished observations". Avoid citing a "personal communication" unless it provides essential information not available from a public source, in which case the name of the person and date of communication should be cited in parentheses in the text.

Only relevant references cited in the text should be included. Identify references in text, tables, and figure legends by using Harvard referencing style. The titles of journals should be abbreviated according to the style used in the Index Medicus.

Example citations:
1. In-text citation:
i. A partial reference to the source you are citing in the text of your work, including the author surname and date of publication in brackets, e.g. (Robinson, 2017)
ii. For articles with 2 authors, names are separated by a comma in the end reference but by “and” in the in-text reference, e.g. (Fulda and Lykens, 2006)
iii. For articles with 4 or more authors. The surname of the first-listed author followed by ‘et al.’(and others), e.g. (Takashima et al., 2018)

2. The reference list: a list containing the full bibliographic details of all the sources cited in your work. It is usually placed at the end of the document. Entries in the reference list must be in agreement to the in-text citations;
Robinson, H. M. (2017). Increasing the involvement of diverse populations in genomics-based health care-lessons from haemoglobinopathies. J Community Genet, 8(4), pp 311-318.
Fulda, K. G. & Lykens, K. (2006). Ethical issues in predictive genetic testing: a public health perspective. J Med Ethics, 32(3), pp 143-7.
Takashima, K., Maru, Y., Mori, S., Mano, H., Noda, T. & Muto, K. (2018). Ethical concerns on sharing genomic data including patients' family members. BMC Med Ethics, 19(1), pp 61.

Tables: Tables capture information concisely, and display it efficiently; they also provide information at any desired level of detail and precision. Including data in tables rather than text frequently makes it possible to reduce the length of the text. Type or print each table with double spacing on a separate sheet of paper. Number tables consecutively in the order of their first citation in the text and supply a brief title for each. Do not use internal horizontal or vertical lines. Give each column a short or abbreviated heading. Authors should place explanatory matter in footnotes, not in the heading. Explain in footnotes all nonstandard abbreviations. For footnotes, use the following symbols, in sequence: *,†,‡,§,||,,**,††,‡‡. Identify statistical measures of variations, such as standard deviation and standard error of the mean. Be sure that each table is cited in the text. If you use data from another published or unpublished source, obtain permission and acknowledge them fully.

Figures: Figures should be numbered consecutively according to the order in which they have been first cited in the text. Type or print out legends for illustrations using double spacing, starting on a separate page.