Editorial policies

Dermatology Online Journal is a refereed journal. Original manuscripts will be considered for publication. Information that has been published or is being considered for publication elsewhere will not be accepted. Manuscripts that appear to meet the goals of the Journal will be reviewed by two independent Reviewers before a decision is made on publication (Case Presentations, Photo Vignettes, and Letters may sometimes be reviewed by one independent Reviewer). Authors have the option of submitting their work for blind peer review when uploading their manuscript. This ensures that all identifying Author information is removed from the text before being sent to Reviewers. Otherwise, an open peer review process will be conducted. The Journal charges no fees for submission, publication, or processing. Authors who have a new concept for on-line presentation are invited to contact the Editors to initiate a dialog.

Please refer to our Policies page for additional information.

Features of Dermatology Online Journal

• Case Reports: More detailed individual case reports of unusual interest.
• Case Presentations: Patient presentations with interesting clinical course or findings.
• Photo Vignette: Brief demonstrations of information with the use of images. Images are much better than words in the demonstration of subtle clinical findings.
• Letters: Brief letters to the Editor that comment on previous articles or that involve brief patient presentations.
• Review: In-depth up-to-date literature review and discussions on topics of interest to the teaching and practice of dermatology.
• Commentary: Discussions on topics of interest to the teaching and practice of dermatology.
• Original Articles: Original in-depth clinical and investigative laboratory research articles.

Pre-submission instructions

Before you begin, please download the applicable Microsoft Word Template, depending on the category of your article.

There are 3 Templates available. Please ensure you have downloaded the applicable Template from the links below. All sections within the Template are to be populated, including the complete contact information for Corresponding Author.  Please choose a Corresponding Author with a permanent email address. Article publication can be greatly delayed if email addresses change or Corresponding Author changes institutions.

Template 1: For Case Reports, Case Presentations, Photo Vignettes, and Letters

Template 2: For Reviews and Commentary

Template 3: For Original Articles

All Case Reports, Presentations and Photo Vignettes require both clinical and histological images. Please be sure that images are not blurry and are large enough to clearly see the condition. Submissions may be rejected without full review for poor quality images. Images should be in good focus and submitted in JPEG format of file size no larger than 150 KB. Histological images may include a scale bar.

Formatting your article

After downloading the applicable Template, populate your manuscript contents into the Template. Please do not reformat your manuscript draft to the Template style. Instead, we require that Authors enter the contents of their manuscript into the Template that has been downloaded. This will be the submission file.

Please ensure that Figures and Tables are submitted as separate files. Figure Legends, however, should be entered as directed by the Template format.

It is crucial to select the correct Microsoft Word Template to prepare your submission. Articles not submitted in the Template will be returned to the Author.

Transmitting your work to the Journal and copyright information

Once you have finished populating your manuscript contents into the Template, please follow the submission form at http://escholarship.org/uc/doj. You will receive an email confirmation once your submission has been successfully submitted.

To assist in preparation of your manuscript download, complete, and submit the Journal submission checklist

By submitting your article for publication, you grant The Regents of the University of California the right to publish it and associated images in electronic format (on the Internet or as a CD-ROM version of the Internet site) or in paper format of the digital version in the Dermatology Online Journal. Please refer to the Policies page for detailed copyright information.

Original articles may be submitted in English, Spanish, or Portuguese.

Image Requests

Requests to use any images from our website can be found here. Please email your completed form to Destiny Turner at dalturner@ucdavis.edu for review.

Style

Manuscripts should conform to acceptable language usage. The Authors may offer a parallel translation to another language, but the editorial review will be done on the primary language of the manuscript, English, Spanish, or Portuguese. Abbreviations must be used minimally and be limited primarily to those in general usage. Generic drug names must be used. If a trade name is included, it should follow the generic name in parentheses the first time mentioned. Thereafter, only generic names should be used. Weights and measurements should be expressed in metric units and temperatures in degrees centigrade. Patient descriptions, as in case reports, should not contain identifying information. 

We discourage sentences that begin with most abbreviations, initializations, and numbers/symbols. For example, following the first time Lichen planus is used in an article, it can be placed in parentheses (LP) so that LP is used in the remainder of the article. However, when there is a sentence that begins with the phrase it should be written out as Lichen planus and not LP.

The Editors encourage the use of more than one pathway of presentation of the material which might allow the reader greater flexibility in viewing. Items may link back to the primary manuscript path or link to additional supplemental content.

If a manuscript is in Spanish or Portuguese, please include English translations of the Abstract and all figure and table legends.

Images and tables

Images/Figures and Tables must be submitted separately from the manuscript and submitted as individual files. Please label files appropriately (i.e. Figure 1, Table 1). Figures and/or Tables must be referenced within the main text, and must be accompanied by figure legends or table titles.  Indicate within the main text where each Figure and/or Table could be located with the following characters on a single line:  /Figure1  or  /Table1.

The use of images is required for some Article Categories (please see above in Pre-Submission Instructions). Manuscripts must include in-text references to Figures and Tables; Authors may indicate the appropriate location of the figures within the text. Clinical photographs should be saved in JPEG compression format. The standard size for images is 768*512 pixels, but images should be no larger than 150 KB in size.  Please compress so that none of the individual images is greater than 150 KB. Larger files are difficult to handle for some Reviewers, particularly when there are several images.The journal edits the images to arrange them in-line with text; accordingly, do not include text labeling of subpanels (e.g. 'A,' 'B,' etc) in a figure montage. 

A signed consent form must be included in any submissions containing patient photographs or videos. Identifying personal features, such as jewelry or tattoos, should be cropped from photographs. No photographs with identifiable features will be published unless there is specific permission granted in writing for this use and included with the submission. 

Tables should be submitted separately as a Word text document in Table format and not as an image.

Human and animal rights

Any work involving the use of human subjects or animals requires formal review by a institutional review board or ethics committee. This should be detailed in the Methods section.

Conflicts of interest

All Authors must disclose any financial or personal affiliations or relationships with individuals or organizations that could potentially influence (bias) the Authors' work/manuscript. Examples include employment, consultant positions, stock ownership, honoraria, expert testimony, patents, grants or other funding sources. Please include this statement in the Title Page.

References

Please refer to our specifications below for formatting references or download the EndNote style for Dermatology Online Journal.

Authors are responsible for the accuracy of citations. Reference citations within the article should be in numerical order and noted with square brackets followed by punctuation, like this [2, 3, 6] or [1-3]. If necessary one may also place a citation in the middle of a sentence (The sentence may need to pinpoint the citation to a specific comment [5] and not link it to the subsequent remarks). The same format should be applied to Tables and Figure/Table legends. If the bibliography output does not show abbreviated journal names, an appropriate journal name list will need to be installed in your database. Search for "journal terms list" in EndNote help and select "Loading Supplied Journal Abbreviations" for instructions. A YouTube video describing the procedure is available.

In the Reference section, list the references in order of in-text citation and by a simple number at the start of a line, followed by a period and tab mark. Citations with more than 5 Authors/Editors should list the first 3 followed by 'et al.' Use the citation format of PubMed, including the PMID number, but no doi  information:

Example References:

Five Authors, or less:
1. Saleem MD, Oussedik E, Schoch JJ, Berger AC, Picardo M. Acquired disorders with depigmentation: A systematic approach to vitiliginoid conditions. J Am Acad Dermatol. 2019;80:1215-1231.e6. [PMID: 30236516].
2. Callen JP. Neutrophilic dermatoses. Dermatol Clin. 2002;20:409-19. [PMID: 12170875]. 
More than five Authors:
3. Saez M, Garcia-Bustinduy M, Noda A, et al. Drug-induced Sweet's syndrome. J Eur Acad Dermatol Venereol. 2004;18:233. [PMID: 15009320]. 

4. Lee C, Koo J. Psychocutaneous Diseases. In: Dermatology. Bolognia J, Jorizzo J, Schaffer J, editors. 3rd ed. Elsevier Limited; 2012. p. 127-34.
5. Howlader N, Noone AM, Krapcho M, et al. (eds). SEER Cancer Statistics Review, 1975-2009 (Vintage 2009 Populations). 2012. http://seer.cancer.gov/csr/1975_2009_pops09/. Accessed on April 1, 2001.

In the absence of an identifying PMID for a citation, a DOI tag is to be inserted in its place, as in [DOI: 10.1109/5.771073].

Errata and corrigenda

Contact the Editors for corrections to submitted manuscripts. Changes may be made to manuscripts at the Editor's discretion.