Sciences Submission Guidelines

Circus: Arts, Life & Sciences invites the submission of original research. Submissions should not have been previously published, either in a journal format or online, should not be under consideration at any other journal, and should be presented as original and novel research of potential interest to the editor and readers of the journal.

Authors must register and login before submitting manuscripts here:

 

Manuscripts

Manuscripts should be prepared, and research conducted, in accordance with guidelines of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts

A cover letter must be included for each submission. This letter should indicate the name of the corresponding author, as well as their relevant contact address, telephone number and e-mail address. In the cover letter, authors must disclose:

  • Any financial support or grants supporting this research, including the grantee's name, and identifying grant numbers.

  • Any financial arrangements or organizational affiliations that might constitute a conflict of interest or influence interpretation of their study results.

  • Any prior presentation or publication of the submitted document.

  • Statement of IRB (Institutional Review Board) or other agency approval (or waiver) if animal subjects or human subjects or tissues or health information were used.

Please note, the manuscript itself should be blinded, including the abstract, identifying references (e.g. “in our previous work…") and any tables and figures where they occur in the text. No identifying information should appear in the uploaded manuscript. Please remove author names, initials, and institutions. State or country names may be used, but do not include specific locations such as cities or regions.

 

Submitted manuscripts should be accompanied by the following:

  1. Author-suggested reviewers: Authors submitting papers to Circus Arts, Life and Sciences should include the names, contact details and institutional affiliations of 3 potential qualified reviewers for their paper along with the reason why they are an appropriate reviewer. Reviewers should have previous published expertise in the topic area, be from outside the author's institution, should not be a current or recent research partner, and should not have have other conflicts of interest, such as providing paid work (e.g. speaker series, webinar, employment) or working together in other professional or non-professional capacities.

  2. Ethical approval: A copy of the IRB, or other agency approval (or waiver), if animal subjects or human subjects or tissues or health information were used should be available and must be supplied if requested. For human studies, IRB approval is required and should be noted in the cover letter and article manuscript (Methods section), including IRB name and case number. This includes interventional studies, observational studies, surveys, and interviews. Participants must give written informed consent. Case reports require the subject's written permission, to be submitted with the manuscript and should include a statement confirming that they adhered to applicable health information privacy laws for their region. Where applicable, a letter from the relevant research ethics board waiving the need to undergo review from the research ethics board should be submitted with the manuscript.

  3. Authors Disclosure/Copyright: All persons designated as authors must meet the criteria for authorship (see International Committee of Medical Journal Editors Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts), have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for the paper, and have followed common ethical standards of the research community. Only those involved in writing the paper should be included in the author line. Other individuals contributing to the research project, but not the writing, should be listed in the acknowledgment section.

 

Accompanying the submission, a separate statement must be included that states:

 

"All authors certify that we have participated substantially in the conception, design, analysis, and writing of this study, and we have approved the manuscript and agree with its submission to Circus: Arts, Life and Sciences. This manuscript represents original, unpublished material and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, nor has it been posted on the Internet for public access. In consideration of Circus: Arts, Life and Science taking action in reviewing and editing my submission, the author(s) undersigned agree(s) to grant The Board of Regents of the University of Michigan (“Publisher”) a non-exclusive, perpetual license to publish the WORK as part of Circus: Arts, Life, and Sciences under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license, and to act on authors’ behalf to make the Work discoverable and accessible itself and via third-party indexes, catalogs, etc. Final publication through the Publisher is at the Publisher’s sole discretion. The author(s) grant the Publication and the Publisher permission to use their names in association with the Work in its published form and in any advertising and promotional materials. Authors understand that they retain copyright in the Work and that this Agreement does not prevent them from using this Work in any way that they lawfully wish.”

 

Format

Manuscripts should be presented in accordance with the International Committee of Medical Editors Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts (icmje.org). Papers are to be submitted in standard word-processing format (e.g., MS Word) via https://journals.publishing.umich.edu/circus/submissions/

Manuscript pages should be double-spaced with consecutive page numbers and continuous line numbers. In general, follow the standard IMRD (Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion) format for writing scientific articles. All main headings (Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgements, Contributions, Disclosures, References, Appendices) should be Bold Title Case, paragraph starts the line below. Secondary headings should be Bold, sentence case, paragraph starts the row below. Tertiary headings should be Italicized, sentence case, paragraph starts the line below. Quaternary headings should be Italicized, sentence case, ending with a period. Paragraph starts on the same line.

All photographs of subjects that disclose their identity must be accompanied by a signed photographic release granting permission for their likeness to be reproduced in the article. If this is not provided, the subjects’ eyes must be occluded to prevent recognition.

To ensure that studies are described in enough detail to be evaluated in peer-review and by readers, authors should follow accepted reporting guidelines for different study designs, as outlined in the NLM Research Reporting Guidelines and Initiatives: https://www.nlm.nih.gov/services/research_report_guide.html

  • For observational studies, consult STROBE checklists: 

  • Review manuscripts, including systematic reviews, must describe the methods used for locating, selecting, extracting, and synthesizing data, following PRISMA guidelines: 

  • Case reports should follow the CARE guidelines and must include a signed patient consent form (and for US authors, a statement about compliance with HIPAA requirements).

  • Qualitative research should follow the COREQ guidelines

  • Randomized controlled trials must follow the CONSORT guidelines and the should be registered with clinicaltrials.gov 

  • Guidelines for other article types can be found at Equator Network.

Manuscripts should be prepared following these guidelines:

Original research, reviews (including conceptual frameworks), brief reports (including case reports), and letters will be accepted to the sciences section. To discuss the suitability of other types of submissions, please contact the editors at cals@enc.qc.ca. 

Article type

Max words* 

Max # Figures/Tables

Original article

3000

10

Review article

6000

10

Brief Report

1500

5

Letters

500

0

*Max words not including title page, abstract, acknowledgements, contributions, disclosures or references

  • Title page should include the following: title; authors, with highest earned degrees, titles, and institutional affiliations; name, mailing address, telephone numbers, and e-mail address of the corresponding author; acknowledgment of grants or funding, any conflicts of interest, and prior presentation. Manuscript word count (not including title page, abstract, tables, figures, acknowledgements, contributions, disclosures or references), Abstract word count.

  • An abstract not exceeding 250 words that summarizes the objective, methods, results, and conclusion of the study, followed by 3-7 keywords.

  • IRB approval, and participants' informed consent, must be noted in the text (Methods).

  • Borrowed materials must be fully identified, and written permission provided from both the author and publisher. Please include copies of permission letters when submitting the manuscript.

  • Figures, Tables and Illustrations Figures, Tables and Illustrations should be numbered consecutively and should appear in the body of the paper near the place where they are mentioned. High-resolution images should also be uploaded separately as Figure files, professionally prepared or generated by spreadsheet or presentation software (e.g., Excel, PowerPoint, etc.). Figures should be submitted as high-resolution digital or electronic files (JPEG or TIFF format, 300 dpi/ppi or higher preferred) or in native format. 

  • Figure captions use bold text below the figure.

  • Table captions use bold text above the table.

  • All image files for figures should be labelled with the Figure number (label each part if figures include multiple parts, eg, 2A, 2B). The figure legend should be placed below each figure and should include descriptions of each figure part and identify the meaning of any symbols or arrows. Terms used for labels and in the legend must be consistent with those in the text

  • All figures must be accompanied by alternative text (Alt text). Please see the Guidelines for Describing Visual Resources, which describes the basic principles of alt-text and provides some examples.

  • Acknowledgements should include funding sources and anyone who the authors wish to acknowledge whose contributions did not meet the criteria for authorship

  • Contributions should detail how each author contributed to the study/manuscript as per International Committee of Medical Journal Editors Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts

  • Disclosures should disclose real or perceived conflicts of interest.

  • References should be cited consecutively and listed numerically as they appear in the text. For reference style, please see the National Library of Medicine "Citing Medicine": https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK7256/. Material from online sources should list the URL and date accessed. DOI numbers should be included for all references.

  • In-text citations should use superscript numbers (e.g.1,2,3) in the order they appear through the text. Superscript numbers should be placed directly after the word or punctuation (no space)

    • E.g. If the citation1 is in the middle of a sentence.

    • E.g. If the citation is at the end of a sentence.1

  • Multiple references for the same citation should be separated by a comma with no space

    • E.g. If there are multiple citations.1,2,3 

  • Examples are shown of a journal article, book, and website citation:

Kenny DT, Driscoll T, Ackermann BJ. Is playing in the pit really the pits? Med Probl Perform Art 2016;31(1):1-7. https://doi.org/10.21091/mppa.2016.1001

Sataloff RT, Brandfonbrener AG, Lederman RJ (eds): Textbook of Performing Arts Medicine, 3rd ed. Narberth, PA; Science & Medicine, 2010

Noise and hearing loss prevention [webpage]. Atlanta, GA: Centers for Disease Control; updated 17 Sep 2015. Available at: www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/noise/stats.htm. Cited 22 Oct 2015.

 

Video submissions are to be submitted in MPEG-4 (.mp4), Quicktime (.mov), or AVI (.avi).

  • Video files should not exceed 2 GB each

  • Resolution: 1280x720 (720p)

  • Framerate: 30 fps

  • Video birate: 1500 kbps, Audio birate: 125 kbps

  • Video codec: H264, Audio codec: AAC

  • Video transcripts: WebVTT format; timecodes should be provided in this format: 0:00:15.160 --> 0:00:18.480

  • Video length should not exceed 1 minute

Authors are required to provide alt-text for any images and videos published to increase the accessibility of their research. Please see the Guidelines for Describing Visual Resources, which describes the basic principles of alt-text and provides some examples. Regarding alt-text for videos, please see the comprehensive Audio/Video Guidelines document created by the Fulcrum team.

 

Review Process

All manuscripts submitted are read by the section editor for initial assessment as to suitability for publication in Circus: Arts, Life and Sciences. If deemed of appropriate interest, the manuscript is then subject to peer-review by the editorial advisory board and/or other experts in the field. Manuscripts are judged on their originality, methods, presentation, and overall interest and appropriateness for the journal. Circus: Arts, Life and Sciences, adheres to ICMJE and COPE guidelines.

Accepted manuscripts are copyedited for grammar and clarity, to conform to journal style, and to meet space limitations. Prior to publication, the corresponding author will receive a PDF proof of the edited article. Once an article is accepted and typeset, authors will be required to carefully read and correct their manuscript proofs that have been copyedited by the publisher. Authors are responsible for all statements made in their work, including changes made by the copyeditor and authorized by the corresponding author. After publication, articles will be posted on the journal's website and no further changes will be accepted.

 

Copyright

In submitting to CALS, the author or authors agree to license the work under the Creative Commons license (Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 Unported), under which the author retains full copyright while allowing CALS and other noncommercial entities to print or repost the work, provided attribution is made. CALS, at its pleasure, may republish the work in forms such as anthologies, books, electronic formats and other possible emerging technologies for the purpose of promoting the journal and its authors work. All accepted material, including images or song lyrics, that does not conform to fair use policy must be accompanied by the appropriate letters of permission from rights holders prior to publication. In submitting to CALS, the author or authors warrant that a) he/she/they will not submit the contribution for possible publication elsewhere while under review; b) the submission is original material; and c) appropriate credit has been given to and permission has been granted from others when the work includes copyrighted material beyond standard fair use limits.

 

Open Access

All articles published in CALS are made available to the world free of charge as part of the open access movement. By submitting, authors agree to participate in this community by offering their article and visual content free of charge on the journal’s site. There are no submission nor article processing fees for authors.