PREPARING FOR SUBMISSION
Submitted manuscripts should be arranged according to the rules stated in "Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals" Ann Intern Med 1997; 126: 36-47, or JAMA 1997; 277: 927-34. The full document is available at www.icmje.org

When submitting a paper, the author should always make a full statement to the editor about all submissions and previous reports that might be regarded as redundant or duplicate publication of the same or very similar work.

Authors are requested to suggest up to 5 potential reviewers.

Manuscripts estimated to exceed 8 printed pages, including figures and tables, are generally not accepted. However, longer manuscripts may be published as a Supplement and will also undergo regular peer review.

Please note that case reports are only accepted in exceptional cases.

Page and colour charges: The first 4 pages are free of charge. Additional pages at present incur a cost of USD 200 per page. The expense for colour photos (USD 800 for the first colour page, USD 400 per each subsequent page) must be borne by the author(s).

Conflict of interest and funding: Authors are responsible for recognising and disclosing financial and other conflicts of interest that might bias their work. They should acknowledge in the manuscript all financial support for the work and other financial or personal connections to the work.

Statistic validity: If statistical data are provided the authors are requested to submit an official statement issued by a certified statistician (with a proper affiliation) regarding the validity of methods used.

Ethics and consent: When reporting experiments on human subjects, indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 1983. Do not use patients' names, initials, or hospital numbers, especially in illustrative material. Papers including animal experiments or clinical trials must be accompanied by an approval by the local ethics committee. Please give date of issue and registration number.

Identifying information should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, and pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or parent or guardian) gives written informed consent for publication. Informed consent for this purpose requires that the patient be shown the manuscript to be published.

SUBMISSION
Electronic Manuscripts All submissions should be made online at Acta Oto-Laryngologica's Manuscript Central site to facilitate rapid accessibility of your work to the readers. New users should first create an account. Once a user is logged onto the site submissions should be made via the Corresponding Authors Centre. Please use this simple guideline for preparing your electronic manuscript:

1. Please be consistent. The same elements should be keyed in exactly the same way throughout the manuscript.
2. Do not break words at the end of lines. Use a hyphen only to hyphenate compound words.
3. Enter only one space after the full-stop at the end of a sentence.
4. When emphasising words please use the italic feature of your word processor software.
5. Do not justify your text; use a ragged right-hand margin.
6. Use a double hyphen (--) to indicate a dash in text.
7. Do not use the lowercase l for 1 (one) or the uppercase O for 0 (zero).
8. The space bar should only be used as a word separator. Use TAB when identifying paragraphs or separating columns in tables.

Microsoft Word files are preferred. Please make sure that the paper has been spell-checked.

Please keep illustrations as separate files. Acceptable formats*: TIFF, EPS, JPEG, PDF, Word documents*, Excel, Powerpoint.

Manuscript layout Please observe that you need to prepare (a) a complete text and (b) complete text minus the title page, acknowledgements, correspondence address and any running headers of author names, to allow blinded review.

Double-space the entire manuscript -- even the reference list -- and leave generous margins. Organise the paper: title page, abstract page, introduction, material and methods, results, discussion, acknowledgements, list of references and after the last reference, title, name, and full address of corrsponding author including e-mail address and faxnumber(applicable for non-blinded version only).

Abstract: The abstract should be divided into four sections in the following order: Conclusion, Objectives, Method, and Results. Provide up to ten key words but please avoid words already used in the title.

References: The Vancouver system must be applied. No more than 20 references are accepted. Please cite all authors up to 6, if more than 6 authors cite 6 followed by et al. Number the references consecutively in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text. Identify references in the text and in the reference list by arabic numerals in square brackets. Papers accepted but not yet published should be designated as (in press). Information from papers in manuscript but not yet accepted should be cited in the text as "unpublished observation(s)" or "personal communication".

Abbreviations of journal titles; please consult the List of Journals Indexed in Index Medicus, published annually as a list in the January issue of Index Medicus, also accessible at www.nlm.nih.gov

[1] Stenqvist M, Anniko M, Pettersson . Effect of Pseudomonas aeruginosa exotoxin A on inner ear function. Acta Otolaryngol 1997;117:73-9.

[2] Busscher HJ, Geertsema-Doornbusch GI, Everaert EPJM, Verkerke GJ, van de Belt-Gritter B, Kalicharan R, van der Mei HC. 1996. Biofilm formation and silicone rubber surface modification in the development of an artificial larynx. In: Algaba J, editor. Surgery and prosthetic voice restoration after total laryngectomy. Amsterdam: Elsevier Science B.V. p 47-52.

For journal article in electronic format use the following style: Morse SS. Factors in the emergence of infectious diseases. Emerg Infect Dis [serial online] 1995 Jan-Mar [cited 1996 Jun 5]; 1(1): [24 screens]. Available from: URL: http:// www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/pastcon.htm

For further information and support, please send mail to actaoto@informa.com