WTM Wiener Tierärztliche Monatsschrift – Veterinary Medicine Austria

Instructions for authors (25 February 2022)

1. General

The Wiener Tierärztliche Monatsschrift - Veterinary Medicine Austria (Vet Med Austria) represents the scientific journal of the Austrian Society of Veterinary Medicine (Österreichische Gesellschaft der Tierärztinnen und Tierärzte, ÖGT). It is addressed at veterinary practitioners and scientists alike. From 2022, the journal is released as an online journal with open access.

Papers on all aspects of veterinary medicine (basic as well as applied clinical science) are suitable for publication, as well as manuscripts on topics in comparative medicine, food hygiene and public health with relevance for veterinary science.

Manuscripts may be submitted in German or English. All papers considered suitable for publication in Vet Med Austria are subjected to an independent, anonymous peer-review process.

2. Submission

Manuscripts should be submitted via email to wtm@vetmeduni.ac.at. Only the format .docx is accepted.

3. Types of manuscripts

Original articles: Original articles report the results of a scientific experiment, or of a prospective or retrospective study carried out to test a hypothesis. Original articles should be divided into the sections: summary, Zusammenfassung (in German), introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion and references.

Reviews: Vet Med Austria welcomes narrative and systematic reviews on current topics relevant to veterinary science. The editorial board reserves the right to invite experts to submit narrative state-of-the-art reviews, which will be subjected to the peer-review process. Reviews must give an unbiased, critical overview of scientific evidence. Reviews have to contain the sections: summary, Zusammenfassung (in German), introduction, methods and references. The remaining parts of the manuscript should be structured according to the content. Systematic reviews should fulfil the requirements of the PRISMA guidelines: http://www.prisma-statement.org/.

Case reports: Vet Med Austria encourages the publication of case reports on rare diseases, new knowledge on common diseases or new therapies. Case reports should contain the sections: summary, Zusammenfassung (in German), case description, discussion and references.

4. Copyright

Publication of manuscripts in Vet Med Austria is subject to the condition that the same manuscript or parts thereof have not been published elsewhere (including internet sources, with the exception of congress abstracts and monographic academic theses) and that the same or a substantially similar paper is not under consideration for publication elsewhere. The authors accept full liability for the content of their manuscript, and they confirm that they own the rights to text and figures. The authors must declare all conflicts of interests (financial, personal or otherwise). All methods used and all results obtained must be reported correctly and in sufficient detail to permit the experiments to be repeated.

Authorship will be based upon substantial contributions to the conception and performance of the experiment, to the acquisition, analysis and interpretation of data or to the drafting and revising of the article. Please provide a list to describe the contribution of each author. All co-authors must agree to the submission and to the revised version accepted for publication.

All copyright on the publication rests with the authors.

5. Ethical considerations

Manuscripts reporting the results of an animal experiment are only published if the animal experiment was undertaken in compliance with federal, state and local laws and regulations and in accordance with the internationally accepted principles and guidelines for the care and use of agricultural, laboratory or experimental animals. Compliance has to be stated clearly in the materials and methods section; any reference numbers for permissions and regulations must be given. The authors must further explain how the animal experiment was indispensable for the acquisition of new scientific knowledge and must declare that all possible measures were taken to ameliorate pain and distress in the experimental animals.

The editors reserve the right to reject manuscripts that indicate that animals were subjected to measures proven to cause pain or suffering if the author(s) cannot explain convincingly that the experiment was justified by the knowledge gained. The editors further reserve the right to reject manuscripts that fail to meet the ethical guidelines for the care and use of animals in Austria.

6. Guidelines on format

6.1. General

• Information should always be provided as concisely as possible. Vet Med Austria does not set a minimum length for manuscripts. The maximum length (counted from the first word of the introduction to the last word of the discussion, excluding title, authors’ names, affiliations, key words, summary, Zusammenfassung, acknowledgments, Fazit für die Praxis, references, legends) is 50,000 characters including spaces for original articles, 30,000 characters including spaces for case reports and 85,000 characters including spaces for reviews. Longer manuscripts may be submitted with the prior approval of the editorial board.
• British English spelling and grammar must be followed.

• If English or German are not your native language, we strongly recommend you to have your manuscript checked by a native speaker. Poor language is a reason for rejection. Manuscripts that have been positively evaluated but require revision of the language can be revised by the author(s) or by a professional editing service contracted by the author(s), or the WTM Board may offer the author(s) the possibility of having the Board organize the revision, with the costs to be covered by the author(s).

• The ÖGT uses gender-neutral language but authors may decide whether they prefer to avoid emphasizing gender in a manuscript to improve readability.
• Use a clearly legible font type (such as Arial or Times New Roman in font size 10–12)
• Use double spacing
• Number lines and pages consecutively
• Do not number headings
• To improve readability, the sections ‘materials and methods’ and ‘results’ may be divided into subsections
• At the end of the discussion, give a take-home message in German (‘Fazit für die Praxis’) addressing veterinary practitioners (2–3 sentences, max. 1,000 characters including spaces).

6.2. Title page

• In the first line, give the affiliation of the author(s) in italics, including name of the institution, department, university or organization, city, state/province (if applicable) and country. If different authors are from different institutions, associate authors and affiliations by means of superscript numbers.
• The title should not exceed 200 characters (including spaces) and should describe the topic as precisely as possible.
• Give the name(s) of the author(s), abbreviating first names by means of the first letter (or the first letters, if customary in the language of the author). Indicate the corresponding author with *. Add the ORCID (if applicable) of the authors below the authors´ names.
• The e-mail address of the corresponding author has to be given in a footnote, in the format: E-Mail: xxx@yyy
• Add up to six keywords/Schlüsselwörter in English and German. We recommend using terms that do not appear in the title.
• The summary should not exceed 2,000 characters including spaces and should contain information on hypothesis, materials and methods, results and conclusions.
• Original articles in English must include an extended summary in German (‘Zusammenfassung’), which must contain the title in German and the sections Einleitung (introduction), Material und Methode (materials and methods), Ergebnisse (results) and Schlussfolgerung (conclusion). The German Zusammenfassung should not exceed 2,500 characters including spaces. For reviews and case reports, the German Zusammenfassung should be structured according to the content.

6.3. Abbreviations and spelling

• The use of abbreviations should be kept to a minimum. The first use of an abbreviation must be explained by giving the unabbreviated term, followed by the abbreviation in parentheses.
• All abbreviations must be listed after the summary/Zusammenfassung.
• Abbreviations that are common in the English language need not be explained (e.g., etc., i.e., approx., fig., tab.). The following abbreviations may also be used without explanation: s.c., i.m., i.v., i.p., p.o., DNA, RNA, ECG, EEG, PCR, GC-MS, ELISA, EDTA and abbreviations for common blood parameters.
• When reporting data in percent, insert a hard space (shift+strg+spacebar) between number and percent symbol.
• Do not insert a space before or after a slash, i.e. ‘semester 2022/23’.
• Numbers from zero to twelve should be written out in full; numbers above twelve are given as digits. Numbers in connection with units are always written as digits (‘three weeks’ but ‘3 kg’). Numbers at the beginning of a sentence must be written in full.
• A hyphen - is used for compound nouns or names: omega-3 fatty acid, Dr. Hofer-Lang.
• A dash (Ctrl & minus) – is used in the meaning of ‘from...to’ and in the reference list (2–4 ml, p. 100–104).
• Latin expressions, if not abbreviated, should be italicized: ad libitum, in vitro

6.4. Units and nomenclature

• All units of measurement must follow the SI system. Concentrations of solutions should be given as mol/l, all other concentrations as percentages, activity of enzymes in IU.
• Use a non-breaking space between the number and the unit.
• All biological, medical, chemical and other names should be given in keeping with the latest international nomenclature.
• Scientific names of bacteria, plants and genes must be italicized.
• When mentioning animals, plants or bacteria by their scientific name for the first time, the name should be written out in full. Thereafter, the genus name may be abbreviated (E. coli).

6.5. Statistics

Details of all methods for statistical evaluation, including the software used, must be provided, in particular with regard to significance tests and the reasons for their use. Please provide references for statistical methods that cannot be assumed to be known to veterinary researchers.

The level of significance should not be given as <0.05 and >0.05 but with absolute values. A level of significance below 0.001 may be reported as p<0.001. Always report means with the corresponding standard deviations and medians with the corresponding quartiles.

6.6. Description of drugs, products and equipment

• When referring to a drug, the generic name must be given, followed by the dosage, route of application, trade name, manufacturer’s name and head office of the manufacturer in parentheses, e.g. Meloxicam (0.2 mg/kg once a day i.v., Metacam®, Boehringer Ingelheim-Vetmedica GmbH, Ingelheim, Germany).
• When describing a product or item of equipment, use the generic name and provide information on trade name, manufacturer’s name and head office of the manufacturer in parentheses, e.g. blood clotting analyzer (Coag Dx®, Idexx Austria, Austria).
• If more than five drugs, products or items of equipment need to be mentioned, list them in a separate paragraph ‘sources of supply’ at the end of the materials and methods section including information on manufacturer’s name and head office of the manufacturer. To improve readability, give only the generic names in the text in this case.

6.7. Tables and figures

• The reporting of results as tables or figures is preferred, but do not present the same information in both.
• Tables and figures must be numbered consecutively according to their appearance in the text.
• Reference to a table/figure can be given in the running text ‘…as shown in Table/Figure 1’ or in parentheses ‘(see Tab./Fig. 1)’.
• The position of each table or figure within the manuscript should be indicated (‘insert table 1 here’).
• Legends should be concise but understandable without requiring reference to the relevant part of the text. All abbreviations used in tables or figures must be explained in a footnote.
• Legends to tables and figures must be given in English and German.
• Tables must be formatted in Microsoft Word.
• Tables should be submitted at the end of the manuscript, following the list of references. Place each table on a separate page, including the corresponding legend.
• Submit the figure legends together in consecutive order after the tables.

6.8. References

The number of citations should be kept to a minimum. References to articles in peer-reviewed journals are preferred. Papers that have been accepted for publication but have not yet been published may be cited as ‘in press’. If unpublished data are discussed in the manuscript, this must be clearly indicated (‘unpublished data’, ‘personal communication’).

Citations in the text must be given either with the author(s) followed by the year of the publication in parentheses: ‘the study of Zenker et al. (1991) showed…’, or with the whole reference in parentheses ‘(Zenker et al. 1991)’. If more than one reference is given, references are to be listed chronologically ‘(Libig & Haller 1989; Zenker et al. 1991; Artner 1994)’. If a paper has two authors, both names are written; if a study has more than two authors, the name of the first author is given, followed by ‘et al.’

In the list of references, citations are to be listed in alphabetical order by the name of the first author. If several publications of the same first author are cited, they are to be listed chronologically. If several publications of the same first author from the same year are cited, they are to be marked with small letters (e.g. 2010a, 2010b). For papers with up to six authors, the names of all authors should be given. For papers with more than six authors, the names of the first six authors are listed, followed by ‘et al.’. The full title of the paper should be given. Journal names should be abbreviated as in NLM Title Abbreviation: Pubmed, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nlmcatalog.

Vet Med Austria is to be cited as follows: Wien Tierarztl Monat - Vet Med Austria

Please use the following style in the reference list:

Original paper:
Borderas TF, Pawluczuk B, Passillé AM de, Rushen J. Claw Hardness of Dairy Cows: Relationship to Water Content and Claw Lesions. J Dairy Sci. 2004;87(7):2085–2093.

For journal articles published exclusively online or ahead of print, give DOI if available:
Barrera G, Williams T, Villamizar L, Caballero P, Simón O. Deletion genotypes reduce occlusion body potency but increase occlusion body production in a colombian spodoptera frugiperda nucleopolyhedrovirus population. PLoS ONE. 2013;8(10):e77271. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0077271

For journal articles with more than six authors:
Wolfesberger B, Fuchs-Baumgartinger A, Greß V, Hammer SE, Gradner G, Knödl K, et al. World health organisation classification of lymphoid tumours in veterinary and human medicine: A comparative evaluation of gastrointestinal lymphomas in 61 cats. J Comp Pathol. 2018;159:1–10.

Book:
Monlux WS, Monlux AW. Atlas of meat inspection pathology. Agriculture Handbook 367. Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of Agriculture; 1972. p. 70–78.

Book chapter:
Le Couteur RA, Withrow SJ. Tumours of the nervous system. In: Withrow SJ, Vail DM, editors. Small animal clinical oncology. 2nd ed., vol. 4, St. Louis, Missouri: Saunders Elsevier; 2007. p. 659–685.

Conference abstract:
Buller K, Ballantyne KC. Living with and loving a pet with behaviour problems: the impact on caregivers. In: Denenberg S, editor. 11th International Veterinary Behaviour Meeting; 14.–16.09.2017; Samorin, Slovakia. Wallingford: CABI; 2017. p. 128–129.

Diploma thesis/doctoral thesis/PhD thesis:
Illi J. Apparent digestibility of crude nutrients of raw and cooked rations in adult dogs [diploma thesis]. Vienna: University of Veterinary Medicine; 2002.

Web sites:
Zuniga K. FIV Felines Immunschwächevirus. 1996 [Last update (if known)] or [cited 2006 Jan 18]. Available from: http://www.cato.ch/fiv.htm

Legal regulations must be listed separately at the end of the reference list under the heading ‘legal regulations’:
EC - Regulation (EC) No 767/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of July 19 2009 on the placing on the market and use of feed.

For publication types not addressed in the examples above, please consult:
The NLM Style Guide for Authors, Editors, and Publishers:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK7256/; in particular the chapters 22, 24, 25. If in doubt, please feel free to contact the editorial staff of Vet Med Austria.