Instructions for Authors

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I. General Information

1. Journal of Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery & Technique (JMISST®, eISSN 2508-2043) is the official journal of the Korean Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery Society (KOMISS), Minimally Invasive Spine Surgeons Association of Bharat (MISSAB), Taiwan Society of Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery (TSMISS), and Brazilian Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery Society (BRAMISS). This Journal publishes important papers covering the whole field of minimally invasive spinal surgery, including studies in pain intervention and peripheral nerve disease or trauma and related surgery, neuroscience, neurology, molecular biology and biomechanics.
2. Papers will include original work (clinical and laboratory research), case reports, technical notes, review articles, letters to the editor, book reviews, special drafts, etc. Review articles and special drafts can be published upon specific request by the journal.
3. It should be assured that authors must not simultaneously submit an identical or similar paper for publication elsewhere. Multiple publications are acceptable only in the case of meeting the criteria of Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals (Ann Intern Med 108:258-265, 1988).
4. Clinical and laboratory research should be approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) or research board of the affiliated institution. Editorial board may request the approved number of IRB.
5. All submitted manuscripts will be reviewed for appropriateness by at least two peer reviewers who are experts in the field. The decision to accept or reject a manuscript will be made according to their review.

II. Language

1. All manuscripts should be written in English.
2. Authors should minimize the use of English abbreviations. Spell out all abbreviations at first occurrence, and then introduce them by placing the abbreviation in parenthesis after the term being abbreviated. When spelling out loanwords, it should follow loanword orthography (Notification No. 85-11 of the Ministry of Education), and when spelled out into foreign words, should conform to the Romanization rule (Notification on Jul 7, 2000). Terms should be noted in English when used in tables, figures, or illustrations.
3. All units should be in the metric system (The international system of Units: SI units).

III. Submission and Revision of Manuscript

1. Authors are requested to submit their papers electronically by using online manuscript submission available at http://www.jmisst.org.
2. Corresponding author is responsible for submission and revision of the manuscripts. ID is required for processing and can be generated at the homepage.
3. All authors should sign on the copyright release, Author agreement and conflict of Interest form to certify that the contents of the manuscript have not been published and are not being considered for publication elsewhere. If any research grant has been given by any private company or group, this information should be described on the form. All authors must sign their autograph by themselves. All the related forms can be downloaded in the middle of the submission process (Step 3 'File upload', http://www.jmisst.org) and should be submitted.
4. Regarding author information, the list of the authors in the manuscript should include only those who were directly involved in the process of the work. Authors can refer to the guideline by Harvard University in 1999 to find details on authorship ( http://www.hms.harvard.edu/integrity/authorship.html).
5. The acceptable manuscript should be supplied as a file made by Hangeul Word Processor or Microsoft Word. The manuscript should be composed of no more than 6,000 English words for clinical and laboratory studies, 3,000 English words for technical reports and case reports. It should be composed of no more than 600 English words for letters to the editor. Manuscript should be typed in 11 point font and double spaced (200%) with margins of 3cm. Typeface should be Times/Times New Roman or similar serif typeface.
6. Decision for the publication of the submitted manuscript will be made solely by the editorial board.
7. All fees regarding the review, publishing and re-printing of the manuscript will be determined by the editorial board and should be deposited as stated.
8. Non–Native Speakers of English. Authors who are not native speakers of English who submit manuscripts to international journals often receive negative comments from referees or editors about the English–language usage in their manuscripts, and these problems can contribute to a decision to reject a paper. To help reduce the possibility of such problems, we strongly encourage such authors to take at least one of the following steps:

• Have your manuscript reviewed for clarity by a colleague whose native language is English.
• Use a grammar editing service.
• Note that the use of such a service is at the author's own expense and risk and does not guarantee that the article will be accepted. JMISST® accepts no responsibility for the interaction between the author and the service
provider or for the quality of the work performed.

Editorial board may request the certificate of grammar edition.

IV. Manuscript Preparation

1. Title page

1) The title pages must be composed of external and internal title pages.
2) The external title page must contain the article title, and full names of all authors with their institutional affiliations both. The type of manuscript (clinical research, laboratory study, case report) should also be addressed. When the work includes multiple authors with different affiliations, the institution where the research was mainly conducted should be spelled out first, and then be followed by foot notes in superscript Arabic numerals beside the authors' names to describe their affiliation in a consecutive order of the numbers. Running head must be included consisting of no more than 65 characters/spaces. The external title page must also contain the address, telephone and facsimile numbers, and e-mail address of the corresponding author at the bottom of the page, as well as information on the previous presentation of the manuscript in conferences and funding resources, if necessary.
3) The internal title page should only contain the article title. The internal title page must not contain any information on the names and affiliations of the authors.

2. Manuscript format

1) The article should be organized in the order of title, abstract, introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion, conclusions, references, tables, and figures or illustrations all in English.
2) In case reports, materials and methods and results can be replaced with cases. The number of references should be 20 or less and the figure number 5 or less for case report.
3) Manuscript format may vary in review articles and special drafts.

3. Abstract

1) All manuscripts must contain an abstract in English.
2) Objective, Methods, Results, and Conclusion sections should be included in abstract of clinical or laboratory research, but are not necessary in other types of studies
3) The abstract should include brief descriptions on the objective, methods, results, and conclusion as well as a detailed description of the data. An abstract containing 250 words or less is required for original articles and 200 words or less for case reports.
4) Abstract can be revised by the decision of editorial board, and some sentences can be modified as a result of revision.
5) A list of key words, with a minimum of two items and maximum of six items, should be included at the end of the abstract.
6) The selection of Key Words should be based on Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) of Index Medicus and the web site (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/MBrowser.html).

4. Introduction

1) The introduction should address the purpose of the article concisely, and include background reports mainly relevant to the purpose of the paper. Detailed review of the literature should be addressed in the discussion section.

5. Materials and Methods

1) The article should record research plans, objective, and methods in order, as well as the data analysis strategies and control of bias in the study. Enough details should be furnished for the reader to understand the method(s) without reference to another work in the study described.
2) When reporting experiments with human subjects, the authors must document the approval received from the local Institutional Review Board. When reporting experiments with animal subjects, the authors should indicate whether the handling of the animals was supervised by the research board of the affiliated institution or such. Approved number of IRB must be noted.
3) Photographs disclosing patients must be accompanied by a signed release form from the patient or family permitting publication.
4) Please state the IRB approval authority and approval details at the beginning of this session. If the IRB review is omitted, a description of the reason is required.

6. Results

1) The authors should logically describe their results of observations and analyses performed using methodology given in the previous section and provide actual data.
2) For biometric measurements in which considerable amount of stochastic variation exists, a statistical evaluation is mandatory. The results must be sorely from the findings of the current study and not refer to any previous reports.
3) While an effort should be made to avoid overlapping descriptions by Tables and by main text, important trends and points in the Table should be described in the text.

7. Discussion

1) Discussions about the findings of the research and interpretations in relation to other studies are made. It is necessary to emphasize the new and critical findings of the study, not to repeat the results of the study presented in the previous sections. The meaning and limitation of observed facts should be described, and the conclusion should be related to the objective of the study only when it is supported by the results of the research.

8. Conclusion

1) The conclusion section should include a concise statement of the major findings of the study in accordance with the study purpose.

9. References

1) References should be cited with Arabic numerals in square brackets. References are numbered consecutively in order of appearance in text.
2) References should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text.
3) Even though references are noted by reference management program in common use, the reference format should be checked by author to correct any error.
4) When a work has six or less authors, cite the names of all authors. When a work has over six authors, cite the first six authors' name followed by "et al." Abbreviations for journal titles should be congruent with the style of Index Medicus. A journal title with one word does not need to be written out in abbreviation. The styles of references are as follows :

<Journal>
1. Choi S, Lim WJ, Lee MK, Ryu KS. Lumbar interbody fusion using low-dose of recombinant human bone morphogenetic protein-2 (rh-BMP2): minimum 1-year follow-up results at a single institute. J Minim Invasive Spine Surg Tech 2021;6:2-8

<Book>
1. Conover WJ. Practical Nonparametric Statistics, 2nd ed. New York : Jon Wiley & Sons, 1971, pp216-8

<Chapter in a book>
1. Ojemann RG. Surgical management of bacterial intracranial aneurysms. In: Schmideck HH, Sweet HH (eds). Operative Neurosurgical Techniques: Indications, Methods and Results, 2nd ed. Orlando : Grune & Stratton, 1988, Vol 2, pp997-1001

<Electronic Reference>
1. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Devices@FDA [Internet]. Silver Spring, MD: FDA; cited 2010 Jul 21. Available from: http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/devicesatfda/ index.cfm?pmanumber=P040006.

10. Tables, Figures, and Supplemental Content

1) Tables should be created using the table formatting and editing feature of Microsoft Word or Hangeul Word Processor. The title of the table must be noted. Tables cannot be submitted in a picture format.
2) The language for tables is English and the table should be prepared in detail, in order to understand the contents of the manuscript without further reference.
3) Tables should be submitted separately from manuscript. Do not include vertical lines in table, and refer to the table formats in formal papers in JMISST®.
4) Figures should have resolution of 300 dpi or above and should be submitted individually (Namely, if Figure 1 is divided into A, B, C and D, do not combine them into one, but submit each of them separately). Allowable file format for figures are JPG or TIF(TIFF) only.
5) Figures should be named according to figure name (example: Fig-1A.tif). If the quality of the photographs is considered as inappropriate for printing, re-submission of them can be requested by the journal.
6) Line art should have resolution of 1,200 dpi or more in JPG or TIF format.
7) Authors may submit supplemental digital content to enhance their article’s text and to be considered for online posting. Cite all supplemental digital content consecutively in the text. Citations should include the type of material submitted, should be clearly labeled as "Supplemental Content" or “Supplemental Video,” should include a sequential number, and should provide a brief description of the supplemental content.
Examples:
(see Video, Supplemental Video 1, which demonstrates the procedure of neuroplasty)
Provide a separate set of legends of supplemental digital content at the end of the text. List each legend in the order in which the material is cited in the text. e legends must be numbered to match the citations from the text.
Examples:
Supplemental Video 1. Video that demonstrates the procedure of neuroplasty, 5 minutes,
10MB.

8) Supplemental Content Size & File Type Requirements
Supplemental video files should be no larger than 100 MB each. • Supplemental files should be submitted following these requirements:
• .wmv, .mov, .flv, .qt, .mpg, .mpeg, .mp4 formats only
• Video files should be formatted with a 320 x 240 pixel minimum screen size.
• Videos must include narration in English.
• Authors interested in submitting video files over 100 MB should first query the Editorial Office for approval. Pending editorial approval, high-resolution videos may be submitted according to the following criteria: no longer than 1 GB; .wmv, .flv formats only.

11. Letters to the editor or commentary letters

1) Authors can submit a sound critic or opinion for the specific article published in the journal, topic of general interest to spinal neurosurgeons, personal view on a specific scientific issue, departmental announcements or changes, conference schedules, or other information of the clinical fields.

12. Review articles

1) The authors and topics for review articles will be selected by the editorial board. Review articles should also undergo the review process.

13. Special articles

1) Special articles are devoted to providing updated reports by specialists in various fields or significant issues for the members of the society. The authors and topics of special drafts will be assigned and specially requested by the editorial board

14. Author check list

1) Before submitting the manuscript, authors should double-check all requirements noted in the agreement form regarding the registration and copyrights of their manuscript. A manuscript that does not fit the author instructions of the journal regarding format and references will be returned to the authors for further correction.
2) The page numbers in the manuscript should be counted from the page with the abstract, and the name and affiliation of the authors should not appear thereafter.
3) Author check list should be prepared, signed by corresponding author, submitted with manuscripts, and then registered on-line. Relevant forms can be downloaded at manuscript submission site.

15. Publication

1) Once a manuscript is accepted for publication by the journal, it will be sent to the press, and page proofs will be sent to authors. Authors must respond to the page proofs as soon as possible after making necessary corrections of misspellings, and the location of the photographs, figures or tables. Authors can make corrections for only typing errors, and are not allowed to make any author alteration or substantive changes of the text. Proofs must be returned to the press within 48 hours of receipt. No response from the authors within this time frame will lead the publication of the proof read without corrections, and the editorial board will not be responsible for any mistakes or errors occurring in this process.
2) Page proof should be returned with extra number (100 basic units) of separate volume inscribed.

V. Research and Publication Ethics