Submissions

Author Guidelines

Article Submission:

All manuscripts must be submitted online through the website  https://www.banglajol.info/index.php/UpDCJ/login. First-time users will have to register at this site. Registration is free but mandatory. Registered authors can keep track of their articles after logging into the site using their user names and password. Authors do not have to pay for the submission, processing, or publication of articles. If you experience any problems, please contact the editorial office by email at updcj@hotmail.com 

Conditions for submission of a manuscript:

• All manuscripts will be published under the Open Access policy                                              

• All manuscripts are subject to peer review.
• All manuscripts will be checked for plagiarism with commercial plagiarism software.
• Manuscripts are received with the explicit understanding that they are not under simultaneous consideration by any other publication.
• Articles in Update Dental College Journal are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License CC BY-4.0. (Click here to know details)
• Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgment of its initial publication in this journal.
• It is the author's responsibility to obtain permission to reproduce illustrations, tables, etc. from other publications.
• Full affiliation with an e-mail address, contact details, and ORCID ID (Optional) of each author ( https://orcid.org/) should be submitted. 

Ethical aspects and ethical approval:

• Authors should explicitly mention the ethical approval of their work by concerned authorities.
• Manuscripts based on studies involving human subjects should have been conducted in accordance with the ethical standards laid down in the ‘1964 Declaration of Helsinki’ revised in the year 2000.
• Studies involving trials on animals should also get appropriate ethical approval.
• Authors should disclose a conflict of interest if any exists.

• Ethical aspects of the study will be carefully considered.
• Any manuscript that includes a table, illustration, or photograph that has been published earlier should accompany a letter of permission for re-publication from the authors of the publication and editor/publisher of the Journal where it was published earlier.
• Permission of the patients and /or their families to reproduce photographs of the patients where identity is not disguised should be sent with the manuscript. Otherwise, the identity will be blackened out.

Authorship Criteria:

UpDCJ Follow the ICMJE recommends that authorship be based on the following 4 criteria:

• Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
• Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and
• Final approval of the version to be published; and
• Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Contribution Details: Contributors should include a detailed description of their contributions to the work. Concept, design, the definition of intellectual content, literature search, clinical studies, experimental studies, data acquisition, data analysis, statistical analysis, article preparation, manuscript editing, and manuscript review should all be included in the description. 

Non-Author contributor: Contributors who meet fewer than the criteria ((According to the ICMJE recommends)  for authorship should not be listed as authors, but they should be acknowledged. Examples of activities that alone (without other contributions) do not qualify a contributor for authorship are the acquisition of funding; general supervision of a research group or general administrative support; and writing assistance, technical editing, language editing, and proofreading. Those whose contributions do not justify authorship may be acknowledged individually or together as a group under a single heading (e.g. "Clinical Investigators" or "Participating Investigators"), and their contributions should be specified (e.g., "served as scientific advisors," "critically reviewed the study proposal," "collected data," "provided and cared for study patients", "participated in writing or technical editing of the manuscript").

• Because acknowledgment may imply endorsement by acknowledged individuals of a study’s data and conclusions, editors are advised to require that the corresponding author obtain written permission to be acknowledged from all acknowledged individuals.

Manuscript submission step: 

A.Title Page/ covering letter:

This file should provide

1. The type of manuscript (original article, case report, review article, Letter to editor, etc.) title of the manuscript, running title, names of all authors/ contributors (with their highest academic degrees, designation, and affiliations), and name(s) of the department(s) and/ or institution(s) to which the work should be credited, ORCID id is optional but appreciated to submit. All information that can reveal your identity should be here. Use doc files. 
2. The total number of pages, total number of photographs, and word counts separately for abstract and for the text (excluding the references, tables, and abstract), word counts for introduction + discussion in case of an original article;
3. Source(s) of support in the form of grants, equipment, drugs, or all of these;
4. Acknowledgment, if any. One or more statements should specify 1) contributions that need acknowledging but do not justify authorship, such as general support by a departmental chair; 2) acknowledgments of technical help; and 3) acknowledgments of financial and material support, which should specify the nature of the support. This should be included in the title page of the manuscript and not in the main article file.
5. Conflicts of Interest of each author/ contributor. A statement of financial or other relationships that might lead to a conflict of interest, if that information is not included in the manuscript itself or in an authors' form
6. The name, address, e-mail, ORCID Id (Optional), and telephone/mobile number of the corresponding author, who is responsible for communicating with the other authors about revisions and final approval of the proofs, if that information is not included in the manuscript itself.

B. Article file: 

The main text of the article, beginning from Abstract till References (including tables) should be in this file. The file must not contain any mention of the authors' names or initials or the institution at which the study was done or acknowledgments. Page headers/running titles can include the title but not the authors' names. Use doc files. Limit the file size to 2 MB. If the file size is large, graphs can be submitted as images separately without incorporating them in the article file to reduce the size of the file. The pages should be numbered consecutively

C. Images: 

Submit good quality color images. Each image should be less than 2 MB in size. The size of the image can be reduced by decreasing the actual height and width of the images (keep up to 1600 x 1200 pixels (300 dpi or more) or 5-6 inches). Images can be submitted as jpeg files. Legends for the figures/images should be included at the end of the article file. 

Manuscript Style & Format: 

Language: Manuscripts must be submitted in English.

File Format: Manuscript files can be in the following formats: DOC, DOCX. Microsoft Word documents should not be locked or protected.

Font: Use Times new roman, Arial or Calibri font. 

Layout and spacing: Manuscript text should be double-spaced. Do not format text in multiple columns.

Manuscript Organization: 

Abstract- 

The Abstract (Up to 300 Words) Should be structured and Follow IMRaD Format - 

• Introduction shall contain-  Context (Background), Aims, Settings, and Design,
• Methods and Material, Statistical analysis used,
• Results and
• Discussions.

Abstracts should not include: Citations, Abbreviations, if possible

Keywords: 

Below the abstract should provide 3 to 5 Keywords. 

Type of article and main body: 

Original articles: These include randomized controlled trials, intervention studies, studies of screening and diagnostic tests, outcome studies, cost-effectiveness analyses, case-control series, Cross-sectional study and surveys with high response rates. The text of original articles amounting to up to 3000 words (excluding Abstract, references, and Tables) should be divided into sections with the headings Abstract, Key-words, Introduction, Material and Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusion, Acknowledgement (If needed), Conflict of interest, References.

• Introduction/Background and Aim: State the purpose and summarize the rationale for the study or observation. The introduction should give a general overview of the study and explain why it is important.
• Materials and Methods: A description of experimental procedures including applicable statistical evaluation.
• Results and Discussion: A summary of the new, previously unpublished data and results.
• Statistics: Whenever possible quantify findings and present them with appropriate indicators of measurement error or uncertainty (such as confidence intervals). Authors should report losses to observation (such as dropouts from a clinical trial). When data are summarized in the Results section, specify the statistical methods used to analyze them. Avoid non-technical uses of technical terms in statistics, such as 'random' (which implies a randomizing device), 'normal, 'significant', 'correlations', and 'sample'. Define statistical terms, abbreviations, and most symbols. Specify the computer software used. all P values include the exact value and are not less than 0.05 or 0.001. Mean differences in continuous variables, proportions in categorical variables and relative risks including odds ratios and hazard ratios should be accompanied by their confidence intervals.
• Results: Present your results in a 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, and specify the statistical methods used to analyze them. 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. Where scientifically appropriate, analyses of the data by variables such as age and sex should be included.

• Discussion & Conclusion: Include a summary of key findings (primary outcome measures, secondary outcome measures, results as they relate to a prior hypothesis); Strengths and limitations of the study (study question, study design, data collection, analysis and interpretation); Interpretation and implications in the context of the totality of evidence (is there a systematic review to refer to, if not, could one be reasonably done here and now?, what this study adds to the available evidence, effects on patient care and health policy, possible mechanisms); Controversies raised by this study; and Future research directions (for this particular research collaboration, underlying mechanisms, clinical research).
• Do not repeat in detail data or other material given in the Introduction or the Results section. In particular, contributors should avoid making statements on economic benefits and costs unless their manuscript includes economic data and analyses. Avoid claiming priority and alluding to work that has not been completed. New hypotheses may be stated in the Conclusion if needed, however, they should be clearly labeled as such. About 30 references (Include 70-80 % Pubmed & Scopus Index Journals & should be within 10 years) can be included. These articles generally should not have more than six authors.
• Tables should be so constructed as to be intelligible without reference to the text. The approximate location of tables and figures in the text must be clearly indicated. Every table should be provided with an explanatory caption, and each column should carry an appropriate heading.
• Acknowledgments should appear at the end before the section on References
• Referencing

References should follow the methods written below.

References are numbered in the order in which they appear in the text. At the end of the article, the full list of references should give the names and initials of all authors (unless there are more than six when only the first six should be given followed by et al). The authors' names are followed by the title of the article; the title of the journal abbreviated according to the style of Index Medicus (see "List of Journals Indexed," printed yearly in the January issue of Index Medicus); the year of publication; the volume number; issue number in parenthesis and the first and last page numbers. References to books should give the names of editors, the title of the book, and place of publication, publisher, and year. Use crossref reference linking site for reference link up with Pubmed Id (Optional)

Examples:

Journal

Standard Journal Article

Al-Sibassi A, Niazi SA, Clarke P, Adeyemi A. Management of the endodontic-periodontal lesion. Br Dent J. 2025 Apr;238(7):536-44. doi: 10.1038/s41415-025-8327-x. Epub 2025 Apr 11. PMID: 40217036; PMCID: PMC11991900.

Aoki J, Zaitsu T, Oshiro A,et al. Association of stressful life events with oral health among Japanese workers. J Epidemiol. 2024;34(1):16-22. doi:10.2188/jea.JE20220225.

If there are more than six authors; write et al. after the 6^th author.

Corporate author

Diabetes Prevention Program Research Group. Hypertension, insulin, and proinsulin in participants with impaired glucose tolerance. Hypertension. 2002;40(5):679-86.

Books and other monographs

Personal author(s)

Murray PR, Rosenthal KS, Kobayashi GS, Pfaller MA. Medical microbiology. 4th ed. St. Louis: Mosby; 2002.

Chapter in a book

Meltzer PS, Kallioniemi A, Trent JM. Chromosome alterations in human solid tumors. In: Vogelstein B, Kinzler KW, editors. The genetic basis of human cancer. New York: McGraw-Hill; 2002. p. 93-113.

If there are more than six authors; write et al. after the 6^th author.

Journal article on the internet

Abood S. Quality improvement initiative in nursing homes: the ANA acts in an advisory role. Am J Nurs [Internet]. 2002 Jun [cited 2002 Aug 12];102(6):[about 1 p.]. Available from: http://www.nursingworld.org/AJN/2002/june/Wawatch.htm.

Details guideline for reference writing: https://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/uniform_requirements.html

Note: At least 60% of the total references should be of the last 5 years at the time of manuscript submission.

Conflict of interest  All authors of the submitted manuscript are requested to disclose any actual or potential conflict of interest including any financial, personal or other relationships with other people or organizations that could inappropriately influence, or be perceived to influence, their work.

Informed Consent Guidelines

The research article related to a clinical trial must have a statement that an informed consent document was filled up by the volunteer/patient. The subjects in the study must participate willingly, having been adequately informed about the research.  In the case of children, the researcher must first obtain the permission of parents in addition to the consent of the children. Informed consent documents should be written at a level appropriate to the subject population, generally at an 8th-grade reading level. A best practice is to have a colleague or friend read the informed consent document for comprehension before submission with the IRB application.

Review article: 

Should be submitted as per SANRA (Scale for the Assessment of Narrative Review Articles) guidelines. Should have structured abstract which should explain the importance and aim of the narrative review. It is expected that these articles would be written by individuals who have done substantial work on the subject or are considered experts in the field. A short summary of the work done by the contributor(s) in the field of review should accompany the manuscript.

The prescribed word count is up to 3000 words excluding tables, references, and abstract. The manuscript should have a Structured/unstructured Abstract (250 words) representing an accurate summary of the article. The section titles would depend upon the topic reviewed. Authors submitting review articles should include a section describing the methods used for locating, selecting, extracting, and synthesizing data. These methods should also be summarized in the abstract.

Case reports:

New interesting and rare cases can be reported. They should be unique, describing a great diagnostic or therapeutic challenge and providing a learning point for the readers. Cases with clinical significance or implications will be given priority. These could be of up to 1000-1500 words (excluding Abstract and references) and should have the following headings: Abstract (unstructured), Keywords, Introduction, Case report, Discussion, Reference, Tables, and Legends in that order. Submit good quality color images. Each image should be less than 2 MB in size. The size of the image can be reduced by decreasing the actual height and width of the images (keep up to 1600 x 1200 pixels (300 dpi) or 5-6 inches). Images can be submitted as jpeg files.

The manuscript could be of up to 1000-1500 words (excluding references and abstract).

Letter to the Editor & Correspondence:

These should be short and decisive observations. They should preferably be related to articles previously published in the Journal or views expressed in the journal. They should not be preliminary observations that need a later paper for validation. The letter could have up to 500 words.

Publication Fee

There are no article processing charges (APCs) or article submission fees.

Privacy Statement

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