Guidelines for commenting and writing for O&G Magazine

We encourage readers to comment on articles. Comments are moderated prior to publication. O&G Magazine welcomes submissions of letters to the editor and case reports. All articles thus submitted are subject to approval by the O&G Magazine Advisory Group prior to publication.

 

Each issue of O&G explores a theme, with themed articles directly commissioned by the O&G Magazine Advisory Group. Outside submissions are not accepted for this section.

 

Themes for upcoming O&G Magazines are tentatively planned by the O&G Magazine Advisory Committee a year in advance, allowing for changes as necessary. A theme may be brought forward, delayed or changed, for example, to allow coverage of topical issues.

The themes for 2024 are:

  • Autumn issue: Optimising surgical outcomes
  • Winter issue: Sustainability
  • Spring: Informed birth
  • Summer: Education - 'learning, teaching and everything in between'

 

It is important that you submit your article by the copy deadline (approximately two months before publication) and follow the below guidelines.

Length

Articles of between 1000 and 1500 words are preferred and encouraged. Some clinical articles may be longer, but should not exceed 2000 words. Ideally, references or further reading lists should be included in the word count.

If an article exceeds these word limits, the editors of O&G reserve the right to edit the article to a suitable length or request that the author rewrite it.

Formatting

Please submit your article as a Word document. Any font and font size is acceptable. Please reserve the use of bold for headings and use italics only where necessary – the use of text formatting for emphasis will not carried over into publication.

References

O&G Magazine uses the Vancouver referencing system. You may view examples here. Please note that three authors can be included before the use of et al.

Please do not use automatic footnotes or Endnote.

References are best kept to a minimum, while ensuring that the author’s opinion is distinguishable from an evidence-based statement. The editors of O&G Magazine do not check the accuracy of references and recommend that authors proofread these thoroughly before submission.

House style

To maintain the consistency of O&G Magazine, all articles are edited according to the College’s house style. In most cases, this refers to spelling, grammar and tone.

Proofs

Pre-print proofs will be sent to authors as a pdf file before publication. This is a final opportunity to make any necessary edits and to provide any missing details.

Content

O&G Magazine adopts an accessible style, with the aim to be easy to read and informative. You may wish to view examples of published articles on related topics in the archive.

Subheadings serve well to break up text and draw the time-poor reader into the article.

Inclusion of tables, figures and other images are encouraged where appropriate.

While authors are encouraged to convey their opinions, these should be within the framework of accepted medical fact and claims should be appropriately referenced. All material should be objective and explanatory.

RANZCOG reserves the right to refuse articles or letters of comment that are written in an offensive or confrontational manner, or contain claims that cannot be substantiated with suitable evidence or data. An article should not be used to denigrate peers, patients, other professionals or professional groups.

Images

Please advise whether an included image has been used before or reproduced from another source. It is the responsibility of the author to ensure that they have permission to reproduce visual material in their work. The image will then be captioned and appropriately credited.

If you feel that inclusion of an image is important for your article, but permission has been refused, we may be able to work with you on an alternative.

Images may be supplied as a JPG, EPS or TIFF file and must be at a high resolution of 300dpi.

Author Details

Each author must have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for the content. This participation must include: (i) conception of the article, or analysis and interpretation central to the article, or both; (ii) drafting the article or revising it for critically important intellectual content; and (iii) approval of the final ‘to be published’ version. All authors must take responsibility for the integrity of the work. Overseeing without contributing does not justify authorship.

For each author, please provide a title, name, postnominals, position and institution as per the following example:

Dr Alice Example
BSc, MD, FRANZCOG
Department of O&G
Royal Women’s Hospital, Melbourne

If you wish for a photo to appear with the author details, please provide a head shot. Images may be supplied as a JPG, EPS or TIFF file and must be at a high resolution of 300dpi.

In addition to the details included in the print magazine byline, authors are encouraged to supply a brief (50–150 word) professional profile for inclusion on their O&G Magazine website contributor page.

Case Reports

Case reports are intended to highlight interesting or novel obstetric or gynaecological cases. They may report a single patient, or a series of up to five similar cases. Patients are expected to be de-identified and authors must include signed consent from all patients who are the subject of the report.

Reports will be a maximum of 1200 words, divided approximately equally between a concise factual description of the case, and a brief discussion including literature review and lessons learned from the case.

Appropriate subheadings are:

  • Case description
  • Discussion
  • Conclusion

A maximum of six references may be included.

Submission of a report does not guarantee publication. In the first instance, prospective authors may send proposals here.

Claiming CPD Hours

(a) Fellows of the College

Provided an article is accepted for publication and is printed in O&G Magazine, Fellows of the College may claim CPD hours for contributing articles.

RANZCOG Fellows who write articles are eligible to claim five (5) CPD hours per article in the Academic Abilities Domain of the CPD Online Program or in the Educator Activities category of the paper-based CPD Program.

(b) Associates (Procedural and Adv. Procedural) of the College

Associates (Procedural and Adv. Procedural) of the College should check with their relevant CPD program (e.g. with the RACGP or ACRRM) to ascertain if they are able to claim hours by making a contribution to O&G.