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 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Identifying information should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, and pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or parent or guardian) gives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.

Illustrations should be kept as separate files. Acceptable media: Zipdisk, 3.5 floppy disk, CD, Ftp service, e-mail. Platforms supported: Windows 95, 98 and 2000, Windows NT. The colour must be CMYK, not RGB; all fonts must be embedded, and the resolution of images should be of a quality suitable for printing (linework minimum 600 dpi, grey scale or colour images minimum 300 dpi). Files downloaded from web pages are not suitable, they will look good on screen but not when printed. Do not use colour files if black and white only output is required. The printers accept numerous formats for images, i.e. TIF, JPEG, EPS etc.

Preparation of diagrams, tables and illustrations: Tables (numbered in Roman numerals) and diagrams or illustrations (numbered in Arabic numerals) should be prepared on separate sheets. Please ensure that they are accompanied by table headings and figure legends. For the reproduction of illustrations, only good line drawings or original photographs (black and white, not colour) can be accepted; negatives or photocopies cannot be used. On the back of each table, diagram or illustration, please indicate the number, the author's name and “Top”.

Please note that a colour charge of 300/$600/€400 for the first colour page and 150/$300/€200 for any subsequent colour pages will be charged to the author(s). Images will appear in colour online without charge.

Begin each section, including figure and table legends, on separate sheets and type the page number in the upper right-hand corner of each page.

Title page should include: 1) title of manuscript, 2) name of author(s), 3) name and address of department(s) and institution(s), and 4) a 'running title' of no more than 50 characters. The name, address, telephone, fax number and e-mail address of the Corresponding author, to whom the proofs are to be sent, should appear at the bottom of the page.

Abstract: A structured abstract of no more than 300 words should be provided. Headings should be Objective, Study Design, Results and Conclusion. 

Key words: After the abstract, please include 3-4 key words (avoid words already used in the title), which may be used in an index.

References: The Vancouver system must be applied. More than 25 references should be avoided. Number the references consecutively in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text. Identify references in the text by Arabic numerals (1-3), (4). Papers accepted but not yet published should be designated as (in press). Information from papers submitted but not yet accepted should not be listed in the reference list, but be cited in the text as "unpublished observation(s)" or "personal communication".

For abbreviations of journal titles; please consult the List of Journals Indexed, published annually in the January issue of Index Medicus, also accessible at the library's web site: http://www.nlm.nih.gov

In all cases, please provide:

1. the first six authors' surnames and initials;

2. the full title of the article (if published in a journal) or of the chapter (if published in a book);

3. name and initials of the editor(s) (if an edited book)

4. the journal title abbreviated according to Index Medicus;

5. the year of publication, the volume number and page numbers of the journal (giving full page range);

6. the full title of the book;

7. the domicile and name of the publisher of the book, the year of publication, and the page numbers (if referring to a chapter in a book).

Examples are given below of the form the references should take:

1. Fitzpatrick E, Graham ID, Durieux-Smith A, Angus D, Coyle D. Parents' perspectives on the impact of the early diagnosis of childhood hearing loss. Int J Audiol 2007;46:97-106.

4. Katz J. Handbook of Clinical Audiology. 5th ed. Baltimore: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins; 2001.