Submission information
The review process assumes a high standard of English at submission (American spelling). Typically, submitted manuscripts considered to have a potential for acceptance and publication are sent to 2 outside expert reviewers and, if relevant are also reviewed by our Statistical Editors. Acta Orthopaedica applies an open review process; authors’ and reviewers’ names are mutually disclosed. Reviewers who agree to be named are acknowledged in the published papers. Few manuscripts are published without 1 or more revisions.
Authors submitting a paper do so on the understanding that the work has not been published before in any language, is not being considered for publication elsewhere, and has been read and approved by all authors.
We encourage disclosure of correspondence with other journals if previously rejected, knowledge of earlier criticism and your response facilitates our evaluation.
Previous or parallel publications on the same subject by the author(s) should be stated with the manuscript. This is necessary for 2 reasons: to avoid double publications, and to provide the reviewers with essential information.
Although reviewer selection is ultimately the decision of the Editor, authors are encouraged to provide the names and email addresses of potential reviewers.
All documents with original data of relevance to the submitted manuscript should be stored and be retrievable on request for a minimum of 10 years.
Acta Orthopaedica does not publish studies that only assess completeness, coverage, accuracy, and validity of data in registers. Such studies are considered part of normal register administration, and the results should be presented on the register's website.
Acta Orthopaedica does not publish studies reporting merely the existence or organization of a new register. Furthermore, to qualify for publication an epidemiologic/register study must include a question assessed by use of the register data, for example: outcome related to different treatments, treatment changes over time, or incidence changes over time.
Acta Orthopaedica does not publish studies on validation of translated scoring systems; such studies are best presented on the respective scoring systems websites.
Preprint publication
If you have uploaded your original manuscript to a non-commercial preprint server, you can subsequently submit the manuscript to Acta Orthopaedica. We do not consider posting on a preprint server to be duplicate publication and this will not jeopardize consideration for publication in Acta Orthopaedica. Allowing submission does not, of course, guarantee that an article will be sent out for review and perhaps be accepted; it simply reflects that availability on a preprint server should not be a disqualifier for submission.
If accepted in Acta Orthopaedica, we ask you to acknowledge that the article has been accepted for publication as follows: “This article has been accepted for publication in Acta Orthopaedica. After publication update your preprint, adding the following text to encourage others to read and cite the final published version of your article (the “Version of Record”): “This is the original manuscript of an article published by Acta Orthopaedica on [date of publication], available online: https://doi.org/[Article DOI].”
Registered reports
Acta Orthopaedica welcomes registered reports, i.e., the methods and proposed analyses of planned clinical trials to be published as a journal article after peer-review has confirmed a meaningful trial applying appropriate methods. Once the study is completed – and adheres to the initially approved proposal – publication in Acta Orthopaedica is guaranteed irrespective of the study outcome.
Benefits of this 2-stage approach are:
- Avoidance of a completed study being refused because of poor design disclosed only after the study is completed.
- Peer-review of the research proposal which may improve the study design.
- Reduction of publication bias; negative results will not prevent publication.
Study protocols
Acta Orthopaedica will consider publishing, after peer review, study protocols that reports started, but not completed trials which are based on protocols that have formal ethical approval and funding from recognized, major research-funding bodies. The finished study will in principle be accepted for publication if completed according to protocol and conclusions are based on results.
Metaanalyses
Metaanalyses should preferably be based on a reasonable number of randomized clinical studies. Observational studies are most often not suited for metaanalyses because of their heterogeneity and greater risk of bias, precluding definition of validity.
Video
Acta Orthopaedica encourages the submission of videos (via a link to YouTube) to summarize, supplement or enhance articles. All videos will undergo peer review. Please include the link in the manuscript.
