1. Title

1.1 The title should reflect the most important specific content in the article with accurate and concise words. Generally, phrases that fully reflect the content of the thesis topic should be used, instead of complete sentences with subject, predicate and object structure.

1.2 The English title of the paper with an English abstract should be consistent with the Chinese title in meanings.

1.3 The use of characters, symbols, abbreviations, and colloquial names shall be avoided in title, nor shall the original words and abbreviations be listed together.

1.4 There is generally no subtitle. If necessary, it is advisable to use a font or font type different from the title to type the subtitle or prefix the subtitle with the dash “--”.

2. Authors

2.1 The author should be the person or organization that has made substantial contributions to the paper, that is, the author are persons who should participate in the topic selection and design, or modify the key content of the paper, be able to make revisions on editing opinions of the editorial office, defend the thesis academically, and finally agree with publication of the paper.

2.2 Authorship. The author’s name is placed below the title, separated by a comma “,” if there are multiple authors.

2.3 Multiple authors usually rank their names in order of their contributions. The order is jointly agreed by the signed authors before submitting their papers, and in principle it cannot be changed after submitting their papers. When it is really necessary to change, the written document signed by the paper unit and all the authors is required to be submitted.

2.4 Corresponding author refers to the person in charge of the research project, who is primarily responsible for the advancement and originality of the topic, the rationality of the experimental design and method, the credibility and rigor of the conclusion, etc., and is the person primarily responsible for contacting the journal during the processes of submission, peer review, and publication.

2.5 The corresponding author shall be determined by all the signed authors before submission. In accordance with international practice, the first author of a paper without the corresponding author is the corresponding author.

2.6 When a group is signed, the name of the author member can be indicated at the end of the article.

2.7 The authors’ affiliations shall be recorded in sequence according to the author’s signature order, and the full name of the affiliations and the name of the province (autonomous region), city (county) and postal code shall be indicated.

2.8 When more than one author belongs to different units, put the Arabic numerals in the upper right corner of the authors’ name, and then indicate the affiliations with the corresponding number. Use a semicolon between affiliations. The same author belongs to different affiliations, which should be indicated in the upper right corner of the name in Arabic numerals according to the order of appearance, followed by the corresponding serial number indicating the affiliations.

2.9 The corresponding author should provide the full name of his/her affiliations, address and postal code. In order to facilitate readers to contact, the corresponding author’s telephone number and e-mail address can be recorded.

2.10 If the special identity of the author needs to be marked, it can be indicated at the foot of the first page of the paper or at the end of the paper, such as “The first author of this paper is a doctoral candidate of × university”.

2.11 The authors’ names and affiliations of English abstract should be indicated in English.

3. Abstract

3.1 In order to facilitate readers to quickly obtain information, The original articles in the Journal are typesetted with Chinese and English abstracts.

3.2 Abstract is a short passage which provides the main content of the paper. It should reflect the innovative content of the research and the original viewpoints of the author, without comments or explanations. Details can be decided according to the type of paper and content of the actual needs.

3.3 The Chinese and English Abstracts should be placed after the title and the author and before the text, and should be preceded by “Abstract”.

3.4 Abstract of research papers is generally written as a structured summary under the headings of “Objective”, “Methods”, “Results” and “Conclusion”, generally within 200-400 words.

3.5 The names and dose units of Traditional Chinese medicines, prescriptions and patent medicines in the English abstract shall be subject to Pharmacopoeia of the People’s Republic of China, Terms of Traditional Chinese Medicine formulated by the National Committee for The Examination of Scientific and Technological Terms and the translations issued by the World Federation of Chinese Medicine Societies.

4. Key words

4.1 Key words refer to the characteristic words or phrases that can best reflect the topic information in the paper. Keywords include subject words and free words.

4.2Key words should be selected from MeSH database of the US National Library of Medicine (NLM) (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/mesh), Corresponding Table of (MeSH) Medical Norms and Subject Terms compiled by Institute of Medical Information, Chinese Academy of Medical Science, and Keywords of Chinese Medicine published by Institute of Information of Chinese Medicine, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences. 

4.3 Keywords should be full names, not abbreviations that are not known to the public.

4.4 Each paper selects more than 3 key words, with semicolon between them. e.g. Stroke; Buyang huanwu decoction; invigorating qi and activating blood circulation

4.5 For articles with English abstracts, English keywords should be corresponding to Chinese and be listed at the beginning of the line with “KEY WORDS” as the logo, and semicolon is used between the keywords.

5. Text

5.1 Original article

It generally includes Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion and Conclusion.

5.1.1 Introduction

It mainly summarizes the background, purpose, research idea, theoretical basis, research method, expected results and significance of the research. The research results of others used in the text should be marked with relevant references. Generally, Introduction should be no more than 300 Chinese characters .

5.1.2 Materials and Methods

1) If the subjects of the study are patients, the source and time range of the subjects and the control group should be noted, the diagnostic criteria, inclusion criteria, exclusion criteria and withdrawal criteria (the basis should be given and corresponding references should be noted), as well as the grouping method and baseline data of each group should be clarified.

2) According to the Ethical Review Method of Biomedical Research Involving Human Subjects published by the National Health Commission, when biomedical research involves human, the research report shall indicate whether the experimental procedure adopted has been evaluated and approved by the ethical committee established by the state or the institution, and the approval number shall be indicated.

3) If there is no formal institution’s ethics committee, the authors indicate whether the study conforms to regulations of International Ethical Guidelines for Biomedical Research Involving Human Subjects issued by the World Health Organization and the latest revision of the Declaration of Helsinki of the World Medical Association (www.wma.net/en/30publications/10policies/b3/index.html).

4) If the research objects are experimental animals, the name, pedigree, grade, source, license number, quantity, sex, age, body mass, feeding conditions, health status and sacrifice of animal in the experiment shall be indicated. Animal research ethics guidelines can be found in Consensus Author Guidelines on Animal Ethics and Welfare formulated by International Association of Veterinary Editors (http://veteditors.org/ethicsconsensusguidelines.html).

5) The generic names should be used for drugs and chemical reagents and the source, batch number, specification, dose and unit shall be noted. The instrument and equipment shall be indicated its name, model and manufacturer.

6) The innovation and improvement in the experimental methods section should be detailed for others to repeat. When using other people’s methods, the source of the method should be given in the way of quoting literature. The intervention methods used in each group should be specified.

7) When using Traditional Chinese medicine decoction and Chinese patent medicines, the name, dosage, processing method and taking method of the constituent drugs should be specified. For acupuncture and moxibustion and other non-drug therapies, the name of the acupoints taken (treatment site), acupuncture method, treatment frequency, or the relevant content of non-drug therapy, as well as the course of treatment should be clearly stated. For a case-controlled study, not simply should the methods of observation group be specified, but also the intervention methods of other groups.

8) Observational indicators should be listed separately, and special detection indicators and methods should be described in detail.

9) When describing statistical methods, state the name and version number of the statistical software used. If the data obey the normal distribution, the mean ± standard deviation is used; if the data do not obey the normal distribution, the median ± quartile distance is used. In parameter estimation, if the data obey normal distribution, the mean value and standard error will be used; if the data do not obey normal distribution, the percentile will be used, and the highest/lowest value will be given according to the actual clinical situation. When conducting hypothesis testing, the specific names of the statistical analysis methods used should be clearly stated (such as t-test of Two Independent Samples, ANOVA of two-factor factorial design data, etc.) and the test level should be clearly defined.

5.1.3 Results

The statement should be realistic and concise. The results should correspond to the observational indicators. When reflecting the results with data, not only should the relative number (such as percentage) be described, but the absolute logarithm of the data should be given at the same time; the statistical analysis results should be given with the specific value of the statistic (e.g., t = 3.450) and the specific P value (e.g., P = 0.023). When using table or graph, generally use the text to introduce table or graph, but should avoid overlapping of content of graph, table, text.

5.1.4 Conclusion

The Conclusion should be focused on discussing the innovation of the research results and drawing the conclusions from them, including the theoretical value, practical application value, limitations, and its implications for further research. Suggestions, ideas or suggestions for improvement can also be made through discussion. The results of this study should be compared with other relevant studies and the similarities and differences between the results of this study and those of other relevant studies should be pointed out. The conclusions of the study should be discussed in relation to the purpose and the data or information that has been detailed in the Introduction and results sections should not be restated.

5.2 Experience summary

It is advisable to briefly introduce the author’s practice process, i.e. the background of obtaining experience.

If the experience of famous old Chinese medicine practitioner is sorted out, the introduction of famous old Chinese medicine practitioner and the academic inheritance relationship and academic origins between the author and the introduced famous old Chinese medicine practitioners are required. The introduction of typical cases should highlight the treatment process of syndrome differentiation.

5.3 Case report

Based on clinical cases, the author comments should be made in the form of “commentary”. The medical record should be detailed and accurate, including the date of visit, the data of the four diagnostic methods of Traditional Chinese medicine and physical and chemical examinations of Western medicine (if any), diagnosis, dialectical thinking, treatment process and outcome. Comments should be focused on the key points in the case and be worth reading.

5.4 Review and theoretical discussion

The manuscript of this type should be written in accordance with GB 7713-1987 format of Scientific and Technical Report, Dissertation and Academic Paper, GB/T 7713.1-2006 Rules for Dissertation Writing, and GB/T 7713.3-2014 Rules for Scientific and Technical Report Writing.

6  References

6.1 Research papers should be attached with references.

6.2 The references cited by the author shall be those that have been personally read and published in official publications. Avoid using references such as abstracts and newsletters.

6.3 Note the references in the text

6.3.1 Code in sequence according to the order in which the document appears, and put the Arabic numeral number in square brackets after the relevant text.

6.3.2 In the figure, if references are quoted, citation serial numbers are marked in the figure notes or in the figure title according to the order in which they appear in the full text. No citation annotation appears in the figure.

6.3.3 In the table, if the references are quoted, the citation serial numbers are marked in the table notes or on the table title in the order in which they appear in the full text, or the sources are indicated in a single column in the table in which the name of the first author of the literature should be listed, with a citation number in the upper right corner of the name.

6.4 Bibliographic references

6.4.1 The description form of bibliographic references follows GB/T 7714-2015 Rules for documentation of Information and Bibliographic references.

6.4.2 All the references should be listed in sequence according to the serial number of the text. The serial number shall be in [Arabic numerals] and shall be in the same format as the serial number in the text. When there is only 1 reference, the serial number is “[1]”.

6.4.3 Each bibliography item should be complete.

7  Foundation item

7.1 Foundation item refer to the financial support background of the paper output, such as National Natural Science Foundation of China, National Key Basic Research and Development Plan, etc.

7.2 The paper that has obtained the funded should be marked with the word “Foundation item” at the foot of the first page of the paper, with the source of the fund project and the project number in parentheses indicated.

7.3 The source of the foundation item should be consistent with the project description, and a semicolon should be used between the funds. e.g. Foundation item: National Natural Science Foundation of China (30271269); National Science and Technology Support Plan (ba719A10, 2011). When there are two serial numbers of the same fund, the numbers should be separated by a comma “,”, e.g. National Natural Science Fund (30271269, 30273027).

7.4 The English translation of the foundation item shall be consistent with the name issued on the official website of the financing body.

8  Acknowledgments

8.1 A brief note of thanks may be given to the collaborators who participated in some of the work, and to those who contributed to the work but were not fit to be authors. In principle, acknowledgments may be made only with the written consent of the person being thanked.

8.2 Acknowledgments should be placed after the text and before the references list.