We asked theEBMs of the monthofBMC心血管疾病the question:

‘’What is one piece of advice you would give to prospective authors as an EBM overseeing peer review ?“

Here are their replies:

• “I would advise authors to provide all relevant information in their manuscript. In particular, the methods section of a paper should provide sufficient detail on what was done, such that if the data were available one would be able to reproduce the authors’ results based solely on the information presented in the paper”.Dr Christiana Kartsonaki, senior statistician, Nuffield Department of Population Health at the University of Oxford, UK

• “Before submitting the manuscript, I recommend all authors to read it, exchange constructive advice and revise the manuscript together as all authors would be responsible to ensure questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. Try to put yourself into the shoes of the reviewers and re-read the article from another perspective, from the title to all figures and tables, from punctuation to grammar. Though the accuracy of tables and grammar may not be the priority when reviewers are deciding whether to accept the paper or not, it shows respect to the journals and reviewers. Treat your reviewers as you hope they will treat you”.Prof Guo-wei Tu, Chief Physician and Associate Professor of Critical Care Medicine of Zhongshan Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, China

• “I would advise authors to really highlight how their research is contributing to the specific field and how their findings fit in the wider picture. Authors should always consider statistical power and also consult an experienced analyst, when performing their statistical analysis and presenting their results for a manuscript. The Methods section is a vital part of each manuscript and should include enough details to enable the reviewers to ascertain the credibility of the experiment/study/analysis. Authors should make sure that they are as transparent as possible when describing the methods to avoid delays or unfavorable reviews”.Dr Stavroula Kanoni, Lecturer in Nutrigenetics and Cardiovascular Health in the Department of Clinical Pharmacology, at William Harvey Research Institute, Barts & the London Medical School, Queen Mary University of London, UK

• “Every author, including me, should be committed and adhered to principles of ethics and integrity in research. The authors should avoid misconduct in research in any form”.德黑兰医学科学大学儿童医学中心儿科心脏病学教授Elaheh Malakan Rad教授

• “I would always recommend looking in-depth at the existing literature. I see, especially in my field (digital health and telemedicine), that many authors are naïve and not well informed on the specific literature, and often they cannot discern the quality of the cited research”.意大利意大利远程医疗研究所主任，俄罗斯第一莫斯科州立医学院心脏病学的心脏病学教授Stefano Omboni教授

• “我退后一步，建议作者检查论文的科学健全性。如果您觉得它不健全，请再次对其进行处理，并修改声音不听的内容。当您提交论文时，请花时间仔细检查英语和错别字，因为这些可能会限制手稿对审阅者的吸引力，后者通常每周修改很多论文。此外，统计分析通常以表面的方式被忽视或覆盖，但这非常重要。错误的分析导致错误的结果。通常，尽管时间在研究中很重要，但请花时间仔细检查每个方面都是完美的，或者在提交之前几乎完美。”Dr Aldo Bonaventura, Division of Internal Medicine at the Ospedale di Circolo e Fondazione Macchi in Varese (Italy)

• “I am fostering high-quality fair perfectionism in science. It is typical for submitted papers to have many grammar errors and typos and sometimes the statistics’ superficial vision. It is very critical to write a paper transparent enough for peers and readers with the justification of the statistical power and with good English to avoid any misunderstanding. A solid statistical approach and ample clarity regarding the scientific approach’s design and content guarantee publication despite any limitations”.Dr John Alexander Kharlamov, De Haar Research Task Force, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, and Tallinn, Estonia

• “It is essential to read your manuscript twice and thrice before hitting the submit button. Manuscripts go over a lot of iterations and edits from the coauthors, and something is always missed. One good final read before submitting is crucial and makes it easy for you and everyone else involved. I would also advise authors to try as much as possible to comply with the journal’s guidelines, even the tiny details like word count or the abstracts’ subheadings. It is a long process to go back and forth to fix these small details”.Dr Michael Megaly, Interventional Cardiology Fellow and Clinical Instructor Faculty at Banner University Medical Center and UA College of Medicine-Phoenix, USA

• “In my opinion, the publication of negative results from studies is as important as the publication of positive results”.Dr Gaurav Sharma, early-career biomedical researcher at the Advanced Imaging Research Centre, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Centre, USA

• “When submitting an article, put yourself in the Editor’s and Reviewers’ shoes and try to understand if the main question that the paper is trying to answer is clear to the readership. If the scientific purpose of the paper is not crystal clear, the reviewers and editors will find it hard to understand the scientific importance of your paper and will likely fail to give it sufficient priority”.Dr Claudio Montalto, Cardiology resident at the University of Pavia, Italy and an Interventional Cardiology Fellow at the Oxford University Hospital NHS Trust, UK

• “虽然我坚信作者严格review and edit the manuscript before submission, additional editing is still required during the revision cycle until it’s finally published. Therefore, I would highly recommend authors to share the manuscript with their colleagues, other Professors, and scientific staff and get their honest feedback and additional eye-scan before final submission. I would encourage authors to mention additional scientific queries, limitations of their studies/methods used, any biased approach followed during analysis, and try to interpret and discuss all results. If English is not their first language, I would recommend authors utilize institutional/private creative writing and editing services. Authors should be careful about grammar, data analysis, data interpretation and make sure content in the title, abstract, results and the discussion is aligned”.Dr Gourav Bhardwaj, senior research investigator, Carver College of Medicine, University of Iowa, USA