search for



Instruction to Authors

Enacted in February 1999
Recently revised in November 2024

The Korean Journal of Sports Medicine (Korean J Sports Med, KJSM) is the official journal of The Korean Society for Sports Medicine. The journal is a peer-reviewed journal which publishes scientific articles regarding all aspects of sports medicine & sports science including clinical practice, experimental and applied research, and education. The KJSM is published quarterly on the 1st day of March, June, September, and December.
Manuscripts submitted to KJSM should be prepared according to the instructions below. For issues not addressed in these instructions, the author should refer to the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals (https://www.icmje.org/icmje-recommendations.pdf) from the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).

CONTACT US

Editorial Office: The Korean Society for Sports Medicine
4F, 352, Banghwa-daero, Gangseo-gu, Seoul, 07592 , Korea
Tel: +82-2-3412-3733
E-mail: sportsmed@sportsmed.or.kr

RESEARCH AND PUBLICATION ETHICS

The KJSM adheres to the guidelines and best practices published by professional organizations, including ICMJE Recommendations, Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE; https://publicationethics.org/), and the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (https://doaj.org/bestpractice). Further, all processes of handling research and publication misconduct shall follow the applicable COPE flowchart (https://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts).

Statement of Human and Animal Rights

Clinical research should be conducted in accordance with the World Medical Association’s Declaration of Helsinki (https://www.wma.net/what-we-do/medical-ethics/declaration-of-helsinki/). Clinical studies that do not meet the Helsinki Declaration will not be considered for publication. For human subjects, identifiable information, such as patients’ names, initials, hospital numbers, dates of birth, and other protected health care information, should not be disclosed. For animal subjects, research should be performed based on the National or Institutional Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals. The ethical treatment of all experimental animals should be maintained.

Statement of Informed Consent and Institutional Approval

Copies of written informed consent should be kept for studies on human subjects. Clinical studies with human subjects should provide a certificate, an agreement, or the approval by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of the author’s affiliated institution. For research with animal subjects, studies should be approved by an Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC). If necessary, the editor or reviewers may request copies of these documents to resolve questions regarding IRB/IACUC approval and study conduct.

Conflict of Interest Statement

The author is responsible for disclosing any financial support or benefit that might affect the content of the manuscript or might cause a conflict of interest. When submitting the manuscript, the author must attach the letter of conflict of interest statement. Examples of potential conflicts of interest are financial support from or connections to companies, political pressure from interest groups, and academically related issues. In particular, all sources of funding applicable to the study should be explicitly stated.

Originality, Plagiarism, and Duplicate Publication

All submitted manuscripts should be original and should not be considered by other scientific journals for publication at the same time. No part of the accepted manuscript should be duplicated in any other scientific journal without the permission of the Editorial Board. The Editorial board checks manuscripts to confirm the originality of the text through Similarity Check (Powered by iThenticate). If the value of similarity index is unexpectedly high, the manuscript will be screened more precisely for plagiarism or duplicate publication. If duplicate publication related to the papers of this journal is detected, the manuscripts may be rejected, the authors will be announced in the journal, and their institutes will be informed. There will also be penalties for the authors.

Secondary Publication

It is possible to republish manuscripts if the manuscripts satisfy the conditions for secondary publication of the ICMJE Recommendations (https://www.icmje.org/icmje-recommendations.pdf).

Authorship and Author’s Responsibility

Authorship credit should be based on (1) substantial contributions to conception and design, acquisition of data, and analysis and interpretation of data; (2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; (3) final approval of the version to be published; and (4) agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. Authors should meet these four conditions.
• Correction of authorship: Any requests for such changes in authorship (adding author(s), removing author(s), or re-arranging the order of authors) after the initial manuscript submission and before publication should be explained in writing to the editor in a letter or e-mail from all authors. This letter must be signed by all authors of the paper. A copyright assignment must be completed by every author.
• Role of corresponding author: The corresponding author takes primary responsibility for communication with the journal during the manuscript submission, peer review, and publication process. The corresponding author typically ensures that all of the journal’s administrative requirements, such as providing the details of authorship, ethics committee approval, clinical trial registration documentation, and conflict of interest forms and statements, are properly completed, although these duties may be delegated to one or more coauthors. The corresponding author should be available throughout the submission and peer review process to respond to editorial queries in a timely manner, and after publication, should be available to respond to critiques of the work and cooperate with any requests from the journal for data or additional information or questions about the article.
• Contributors: Any researcher who does not meet all four ICMJE criteria for authorship discussed above but contribute substantively to the study in terms of idea development, manuscript writing, conducting research, data analysis, and financial support should have their contributions listed in the Acknowledgments section of the article.

Process for Managing Research and Publication Misconduct

When KJSM faces suspected cases of research and publication misconduct, such as redundant (duplicate) publication, plagiarism, fraudulent or fabricated data, changes in authorship, undisclosed conflict of interest, ethical problems with a submitted manuscript, appropriation by a reviewer of an author’s idea or data, and complaints against editors, the resolution process will follow the flowchart provided by COPE (https://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts). The discussion and decision on the suspected cases are carried out by the Editorial Board.
If the procedures involve an investigation at the authors’ institution, the editor should seek to discover the outcome of that investigation, notify readers of the outcome if appropriate. If the investigation proves scientific misconduct, publish a retraction of the article. There may be circumstances in which no misconduct is proven, but an exchange of letters to the editor could be published to highlight matters of debate to readers. Expressions of concern and retractions should not simply be a letter to the editor. Rather, they should be prominently labelled, appear on an electronic or numbered print page that is included in an electronic or a print Table of Contents to ensure proper indexing, and include in their heading the title of the original article.
Online, the retraction and original article should be linked in both directions and the retracted article should be clearly labelled as retracted in all its forms (Abstract, full text, PDF). Ideally, the authors of the retraction should be the same as those of the article, but if they are unwilling or unable the editor may under certain circumstances accept retractions by other responsible persons, or the editor may be the sole author of the retraction or expression of concern. The text of the retraction should explain why the article is being retracted and include a complete citation reference to that article. Retracted articles should remain in the public domain and be clearly labelled as retracted.

Editorial Responsibilities

The Editorial Board will continuously work to monitor and safeguard publication ethics: guidelines for retracting articles; maintenance of the integrity of academic records; preclusion of business needs from compromising intellectual and ethical standards; publishing corrections, clarifications, retractions, and apologies when needed; and excluding plagiarized and fraudulent data. The editors maintain the following responsibilities: responsibility and authority to reject and accept articles; avoid any conflict of interest with respect to articles they reject or accept; promote the publication of corrections or retractions when errors are found; and preserve the anonymity of reviewers.

COPYRIGHTS, DATA SHARING, AND ARCHIVING

Copyright

Copyright in all published material is owned by the Korean Society for Sports Medicine. Authors must agree to transfer copyright (https://www.kjsm.org/file/copyright_agreement_form.pdf) during the submission process. The corresponding author is responsible for submitting the copyright transfer agreement to the publisher.

Open Access Policy

KJSM is an open-access journal. Articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Author(s) do not need to permission to use tables or figures published in KJSM in other journals, books, or media for scholarly and educational purposes. This policy is in accordance with the Budapest Open Access Initiative definition of open access.

Registration of Clinical Trial Research

It is recommended that any research that deals with a clinical trial be registered with a clinical trial registration site, such as Clinical Research Information Service (CRIS; https://cris.nih.go.kr/cris/index/index.do), WHO International Clinical Trials Portal (https://www.who.int/clinical-trials-registry-platform), or NIH ClinicalTrials. gov (https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/).

Data Sharing

KJSM encourages data sharing wherever possible, unless this is prevented by ethical, privacy, or confidentiality matters. Authors wishing to do so may deposit their data in a publicly accessible repository and include a link to the DOI within the text of the manuscript.
• Clinical Trials: KJSM accepts the ICMJE Recommendations for data sharing statement policy. Authors may refer to the editorial, “Data Sharing statements for Clinical Trials: A Requirement of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors,” in the Journal of Korean Medical Science (https://doi.org/10.3346/jkms.2017.32.7.1051).

Archiving Policy

KJSM provides electronic archiving and preservation of access to the journal content in the event the journal is no longer published, by archiving in the National Library of Korea. Authors can archive the publisher’s version/PDF.

SUBMISSION AND PEER-REVIEW PROCESS

Submission

All manuscripts should be submitted online via the journal’s website (https://www.kjsm.org/submission/Main.html) by the corresponding author. Login the system by typing your existing ID (registered e-mail address) and password. If you aren’t registered at the electronic submission system, make your ID by clicking the JOIN button. In case of any trouble, contact the editorial office of the KJSM.

Submission Application & Copyright Transfer

All submitted manuscripts must be accompanied by the official Submission Application & Copyright Transfer Form of the Korean Society of Sports Medicine, in which the authors declare that the submitted manuscript has not been previously published nor will it not be submitted elsewhere, acknowledge that the Korean Society of Sports Medicine will review and edit the manuscript, and authors agree to transfer copyright of the paper to the Korean Society of Sports Medicine when published in the KJSM. The Submission Application & Copyright Transfer Form must contain the title of the manuscript, date of submission, names of all authors, authors’ affiliations, and written signatures.

Peer-Review Process

• All manuscripts are peer-reviewed by more than 3 accredited experts (2 reviewers and 1 editor) in the respective field.
• The journal uses a double-blind peer review process: the reviewers do not know the identity of the authors, and vice versa.
• The publication decision is based on the comments and recommendations of the reviewers, which is sent to the corresponding author for manuscript improvement. The Editor is responsible for final decisions when there is disagreement among reviewers. The corresponding author is notified as soon as possible of the editor’s decision. When the final revised manuscript is completely acceptable according to the KJSM format and criteria, it is scheduled for publication in the next available issue. Rejected papers will not be peer-reviewed again.
• Authors should revise the manuscript according to the reviewers’ comments. When submitting a revision, authors should provide detailed responses to the reviewers’ comments. A revised paper should be submitted within 90 days of the decision notice unless otherwise indicated. If a revision is not submitted within the deadline, the manuscript will be considered withdrawn. Manuscripts accepted for publication are generally published in order of submission, depending on the category of the manuscript and the date of acceptance for publication.
• The editorial committee has the right to revise the manuscript without the authors’ consent, unless the revision substantially affects the original content.

Appeals of Decisions

Any appeal against an editorial decision must be made within 2 weeks of the date of the decision letter. Authors who wish to appeal a decision should contact the Editor-in-Chief, explaining in detail the reasons for the appeal. All appeals will be discussed with at least one other associate editor. If consensus cannot be reached thereby, an appeal will be discussed at a full editorial meeting. The process of handling complaints and appeals follows the guidelines of COPE available from (https://publicationethics.org/appeals). KJSM does not consider second appeals.

MANUSCRIPT PREPARATION

Categories of Manuscripts

Manuscripts include Original articles, Case reports, Review articles, Editorials, Short communication, and Letter to the editor. Original articles should report basic experimental and clinical investigations that are well-documented and acceptable to critical readers. Case reports are considered for publication when at least one of the following criteria is met (1) a rare condition is reported, (2) atypical symptoms and signs are observed, (3) new diagnostic or therapeutic methods are introduced. Review articles contain a comprehensive review of a subject of importance to the readers, and are commissioned by the Editorial Board to an invited expert in the field.

Language of Manuscript

All manuscripts must be written in Korean or clearly understandable English. Correct medical terminology should be used, and jargon should be avoided. Use of abbreviations should be minimized and restricted to those that are generally recognized. When using an abbreviated word, it should be spelled out in full on first usage in the manuscript followed by the abbreviation in parentheses. Numbers should be written in Arabic numerals, but must be spelled out when placed in the beginning of a sentence. Measurements should be reported using the metric system, and hematologic and biochemical markers should be reported in SI units (SI: International System of Units; https://www.nist.gov/pml/owm/metric-si/si-units). Genus, species, and Latin-derived words (Ex: in vivo, in vitro, ad libitum) should be Italicized.

Reporting Guidelines for Specific Study Designs

For specific study designs, such as randomized control studies, studies of diagnostic accuracy, meta-analyses, observational studies, and non-randomized studies, authors are encouraged to consult the reporting guidelines relevant to their specific research design. A good source of reporting guidelines is the EQUATOR Network (https://www.equator-network.org/) and NLM (https://www.nlm.nih.gov/services/research_report_guide.html).

General Requirements

• Manuscripts should be submitted as MS Office Word files and will be converted into PDF files on site. Authors should check converted files before final submission. The text should be typed in 10 point and double-spaced on A4 paper (210×297 mm). The margins should be 2.5 cm on all sides.
• Original articles should not exceed 10 pages from abstract to references and Case reports should not contain more than 5 pages.
• Each page should be numbered in the middle of the lower margin, and all sentences must be numbered sequentially throughout the entirety of the manuscript, starting with the Abstract.
• All papers must be accompanied by a Title Page. The Title Page should contain the title of the manuscript, the authors’ names, and respective affiliations, and ORCIDs. Provide a full title of the article, and full names and affiliations of all the authors. The surnames of the authors should be capitalized. If some of the authors are in different affiliations, place numbers as superscripts 1, 2, 3 ... after the surname of authors and before the name of their affiliations in English, after in Korean. The corresponding author must be identified, and his or her contact information (postal address, E-mail, telephone and fax numbers) should be listed.
• Titles should be short and descriptive. It is not advisable to use expressions like “clinical research on-” or “the study on-” in the title. All sources of funding for the study should be stated here.
• KJSM requires the corresponding author to sign a copyright transfer agreement on behalf of all authors. The letter should also include a statement that the manuscript is submitted by agreement of all authors, and that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere and will not be submitted elsewhere unless rejected by KJSM or withdrawn by the corresponding author’s written notification to the editor. Author check list and Copyright transfer can be found during the submission process via homepage.
• Use only standard abbreviations; the use of non-standard abbreviations can be confusing to readers. Avoid abbreviations in the title of the manuscript. The full form of a term followed by the abbreviation in parentheses should be used at the first mention, unless the abbreviation is a standard (e.g., DNA).
• The manufacturer names of equipment and non-generic drugs should be given.

Composition of Manuscripts
1. Original Articles

Original papers should be structured in the following order: Title page, Abstract and Keywords, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Conflicts of Interest, Acknowledgments (when applicable), References, Tables, Figure legends, Figures.

Abstract: An abstract succinctly describe the paper in 250 words or less in English. It has following headings: Purpose, Methods, Results, and Conclusion. It should deliver the main idea of the article and quotation of references is not available in the abstract. Use complete sentences and do not number the results. At the end of the Abstract in the alphabetical order, list up three to seven relevant words which are in accordance to the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) in the Index Medicus (https://meshb.nlm.nih.gov/search).

Introduction: Clearly present the objective of the study and its relationship to earlier work in the field. A brief background to inform the readers of the relevance of the study may be necessary. However, avoid extensive review of the literature.

Methods: Describe the participants or research materials of the study, and explain in detail the inclusion and exclusion criteria for both the experimental and control groups. Ensure correct use of the terms sex (when reporting biological factors) and gender (identity, psychosocial or cultural factors), and, unless inappropriate, report the sex and/or gender of study participants, the sex of animals or cells, and describe the methods used to determine sex and gender. If the study was done involving an exclusive population, for example in only one sex, authors should justify why, except in obvious cases (e.g., prostate cancer). Authors should define how they determined race or ethnicity and justify their relevance. Describe the experimental methods in a logical and systematic manner so that they can be reproducible by another investigator. Experimental drugs should be stated in the generic name. When proprietary brands are used, include the brand name and the name of the manufacturer in parentheses after the first mention of the generic name. When using experimental devices or other products, state the brand name then follow with the name of the manufacturer (e.g., Flow Cytometer, Coulter Electronic Inc.). To ensure anonymity during the peer review process, the authors’ affiliations or institutional setting of the study should not be revealed. Statistical analysis and criteria for determining significance should be described in enough detail to allow the knowledgeable reader with access to the original data to verify the reported results.

Results: Present the results concisely in logical sequence in the text. Tables and figures can be used in minimum, and their information should not be repeated in the text.

Discussion: The discussion section should provide an interpretation and explanation of the results in relation to existing knowledge. Emphasis should be given to important new findings and new hypotheses should be described clearly. The conclusive remark must be supported by facts and data. This section should not contain repetition of the Results section or reiteration of the Introduction section.

Acknowledgments: Specify contributions for the article, such as administrative support, technical assistance, critical reviews of the manuscript, and financial support.

ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID): Authors are recommended to provide an ORCID. To obtain an ORCID, authors should register in the ORCID website: https://orcid.org. Registration is free to every researcher in the world.

Author contributions: What authors have done for the study should be described in this section. To qualify for authorship, all contributors must meet at least one of the seven core contributions (conceptualization, methodology, software, validation, formal analysis, investigation, data curation) by CRediT (Contributor Role Taxonomy, https://credit.niso.org/), as well as at least one of the writing contributions (original draft preparation, review and editing). Authors may also satisfy the other remaining contributions; however, these alone will not qualify them for authorship. Contributions will be published with the final article, and they should accurately reflect contributions to the work. The submitting author is responsible for completing this information at submission, and it is expected that all authors will have reviewed, discussed, and agreed to their individual contributions ahead of this time. The information concerning sources of author contributions should be included in this section at submitting the final version of manuscript (at the first submission, this information should be included in title page).

Examples of authors’ contributions are as follows:
Conceptualization: THK. Data curation: DL. Formal analysis: YIA. Funding acquisition: JHA. Methodology: THK. Project administration: MYP. Visualization: MHC. Writing–original draft: DL. Writing–review & editing: THK.

References: The references should be listed in order of citation in the text. Cite only references which are quoted in the text. Limit the number of references 30. When quoting a reference in the text, identify references with Arabic superscript numerals in order of citation. Do not parenthesize the superscript numerals, and hyphenate (-) when citing two or more references in consecutive order (e.g., ---injury3. ---spine2-5,12, ---Kim and Woo1, ---Park et al.3). List all authors when there are 6 or fewer; when there are 7 or more, list the first 3, followed by “et al.” The journals should be abbreviated according to the style used in the list of journals indexed in the NLM Journal Catalog (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nlmcatalog/journals). The following are reference styles. Other types of references not described below should follow ICMJE Recommendations (https://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/uniform_requirements.html).

• Journal articles:
1. Li H, Choi WS, Lee BG, Lee JH, Park Y, Lee D. Humerus shaft fractures occurring in fly fishing boat riding: injury scene analysis. Korean J Sports Med 2019;37:134-9. 2. Dandona P, Nix D, Wilson MF, et al. Procalcitonin increase after endotoxin injection in normal subjects. J Clin Endocrinol Metab 1994;79:1605-8.
• Entire book & part of a book:
3. Townsend CM, Beauchamp RD, Evers BM, Mattox KL. Sabiston textbook of surgery: the biological basis of modern surgical practice. 20th ed. Elsevier; 2016.
4. Holschneider CH, Berek JS. Valvar cancer. In: Berek JS, Novak E, editors. Berek & Novak's gynecology. 14th ed. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins; 2007. p. 1549-80.
• Online sources:
5. Waddington GS. Twenty years of the Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport. J Sci Med Sport 2016 Nov 12 [Epub]. https://doi.org/0.1016/j.jsams.2017.10.024
6. National Cancer Center (NCC). Cancer Statistics: Cancer indidence in Korea, 2017 [Internet]. NCC; c2019 [cited 2020 Jan 20]. Available from: https://ncc.re.kr/main.ncc?uri=english/sub04_Statistics

Tables & Figure legends: Tables should be prepared separately from the text, and each table should be created in MS Word on separate pages. The title of the tables should be written in phrases, and capitalized only the first letter of nouns and adjectives. The title should be placed above the table, and abbreviations and footnotes are placed under the table. Number the tables in order of appearance in the text (e.g., Table 1, Table 2). All abbreviations used in the table must be spelled out in full under the table in the following order: abbreviation, colon, full word. Table footnotes should be indicated in superscripts in the following order: *, †, ‡, §, ∥, ¶, **, ††, ‡‡ (e.g., *p<0.05).
Figure and photo files made by PPT, JPG, or TIF are all acceptable. Submitted images must have a minimum resolution of 300 dpi (a minimum of 3 mega pixels when digital cameras are in use). Image files should be in JPEG or GIF format and no larger than 5 megabytes. If a paper is accepted, authors may be asked to submit higher resolution figure files. Legends should be submitted separately from the text, and each legend should be typed on separate pages. They should be written in full sentences to describe the content of the figure, and only the first letter of the legend should be capitalized. For lengthy legends continuing beyond one line, the left margin of the following lines should start at the same point as the first line. Any symbols, marks, or abbreviations made in the figure must be explained in the legend. Figures containing histologic slides should be accompanied by legends explaining tissue origin, stain method, and microscopic amplification.

2. Case Reports

General guidelines and order of manuscript preparation are the same as for the original article. Case reports are considered for publication only if they report rare conditions, atypical symptoms and signs, novel diagnostic or therapeutic approaches, or describe atypical findings for populations residing in Asia and the Pacific Rim. The Editorial Board will determine whether the case report fulfills the above criteria for acceptance of publication. The manuscript is structured in the order of Title page, Abstract, Introduction, Case report, Discussion, Acknowledgments (when applicable), References, Tables, and Figures. The abstract should be non-structured and limited to 150 words. The introduction should briefly state the background and significance of the case. The actual case report should describe measures taken. The discussion should focus on the uniqueness of the case and should not contain extensive review of the disease or disorder. Maximum word count is limited to 1,500 words including references and figure legends. Limit the number of references 10.

3. Review Articles

The invited review is a focused review of a specific topic written by an expert in the field nominated by the Editorial Board.

4. Short Communication

These are short papers that present original or significant material for rapid dissemination. The paper is limited to 1,500 words and should follow the format of Abstract, Main Text, and References, containing no more than two figures or tables combined.

FINAL PREPARATION FOR PUBLICATION

Final Version

After the paper has been accepted for publication, the author(s) should submit the final version of the manuscript. The names and affiliations of the authors should be double-checked, and if the originally submitted image files were of poor resolution, higher resolution image files should be submitted at this time. Symbols (e.g., circles, triangles, squares), letters (e.g., words, abbreviations), and numbers should be large enough to be legible on reduction to the journal’s column widths. All symbols must be defined in the figure caption. If references, tables, or figures are moved, added, or deleted during the revision process, renumber them to reflect such changes so that all tables, references, and figures are cited in numeric order.

Manuscript Corrections

Before publication, the manuscript editor will correct the manuscript such that it meets the standard publication format. The author(s) must respond within two days when the manuscript editor contacts the corresponding author for revisions. If the response is delayed, the manuscript’s publication may be postponed to the next issue.

Gallery Proof

The author(s) will receive the final version of the manuscript as a PDF file. Upon receipt, the author(s) must notify the editorial office (or printing office) of any errors found in the file within two days. Any errors found after this time are the responsibility of the author(s) and will have to be corrected as an erratum.

Errata and Corrigenda

To correct errors in published articles, the corresponding author should contact the journal’s Editorial Office with a detailed description of the proposed correction. Corrections that profoundly affect the interpretation or conclusions of the article will be reviewed by the editors. Corrections will be published as corrigenda (corrections of the author’s errors) or errata (corrections of the publisher’s errors) in a later issue of the journal.

NOTICE: These recently revised instructions for authors will be applied beginning with the March 2020 issue.