Submission Guidelines for Chinese Journal of Experimental Traditional Medical Formulae

Chinese Journal of Experimental Traditional Medical Formulae is a professional academic journal supervised by the National Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine, jointly sponsored by the Institute of Chinese Materia Medica of China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences and the China Association of Chinese Medicine. It is dedicated to reporting and introducing traditional Chinese medicine formulas, as well as exchanging research achievements and latest developments in formulas and their main constituent drugs. The target readers are senior and intermediate-level practitioners engaged in the research, medical treatment, teaching, and production of Chinese and Western medicine, especially in formula research, as well as senior students in Chinese medicine colleges. It was first published in October 1995. Standard publication number: ISSN 1005-9903, CN11-3495/R. Currently, it is a biweekly journal with an annual publication volume of approximately 800 articles.

This journal has been successively awarded the titles of "China Excellent Journal of Traditional Chinese Medicine" and "China Academic Journal (CD-ROM Edition) Excellent Journal of Implementation Standards". It has been selected as "China Core Journal of Chinese Language" (Peking University), "China Source Journal of Scientific Papers" (China Core Journal of Science and Technology), "CSCD Source Journal Core Journal", and "RCCSE Authoritative Journal (A+)". It has also been included in international authoritative databases such as Scopus, "Chemical Abstracts" (CA), the Japan Science and Technology Agency database (JST), "Ulrich's Journal Guide" (UPD), and "WHO Western Pacific Region Medical Index" (WPRIM). It is exclusively full-text indexed and prioritized for publication by "China CNKI". The latest impact factor ranking places it 3rd among 134 journals in the category of Traditional Chinese Medicine, with a composite impact factor of 5.474 and a total citation frequency of 31,359 (CNKI data, 2025 edition).

This journal accepts online submissions only. Please submit your articles via http://www.syfjxzz.com. Paper submissions are not accepted. Priority will be given to the following types of articles: ① Papers with significant new discoveries that can be submitted for awards after publication. ② Papers by academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences or Chinese Academy of Engineering. ③ Articles with important guiding significance and broad application value. ④ Research projects funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, national, provincial, or ministerial-level key projects, or open laboratory research projects.

1. Set Columns

The regular columns of the Chinese Journal of Experimental Traditional Medical Formulae include: Special Topics, Classic Prescriptions, Compatibility, Pharmacology, Toxicology, Clinical, Drug Metabolism, Fundamentals of Pharmacy, Data Mining, Reviews, and related special topics. Please read the published issues of our journal to understand the content scope and formatting of articles published in each column.

2. Submission Guidelines

1) Authors are required to submit manuscripts online via the journal's website in Word format. Manuscripts must be categorized by the discipline of the paper and uploaded accordingly. Please note that submissions should not be sent to individuals (including the editor-in-chief). The research topic must be cited in the lower left corner of the title page, and a scanned copy of the first page of the relevant grant proposal must be attached. This journal does not collaborate with any institution for manuscript solicitation. Any claims of cooperation with this journal for manuscript collection constitute infringement, and the journal will pursue legal action to protect its legitimate rights.

2) This journal does not accept multiple submissions of the same manuscript or duplicate publication of the same article. When submitting, it is required to indicate whether the manuscript has been published in a non-publicly distributed journal or presented at an academic conference. If the manuscript has been published in another language, a written consent document from the original journal must be provided.

3) The submitted manuscript must be an academic paper authored by the author based on the latest academic research findings. The content should demonstrate scientific rigor, innovation, and practical applicability, with accurate data, well-defined arguments, concise language, clear structure, and proper statistical processing. The manuscript must ensure authenticity, free from data fabrication or false information, and must not involve acts of plagiarism or other intellectual property infringement.

4) In accordance with the Copyright Law of the People's Republic of China and considering the journal's operational requirements, manuscripts submitted to this journal without receiving a processing notice within one month will remain under review. Authors wishing to submit to other publications must first contact this journal to confirm the manuscript has been withdrawn from the submission system, and must not submit the same manuscript to multiple journals. The editorial office may make textual revisions or deletions to submitted manuscripts. Any modifications that preserve the original intent will be considered by the author. Manuscripts not returned for revision within three months after submission will be deemed automatically withdrawn. The journal's online priority publication cycle typically ranges from 5 to 90 days. After priority publication, the title, author names and order, and author affiliation cannot be modified, while other text, data, figures, and references may still be appropriately revised.

5) No processing fee is charged for submitted manuscripts. After confirmation of publication, the manuscript author must pay the page fee as notified. Additional color printing fees apply for published color illustrations. Upon publication, a manuscript fee (including CD-ROM and online edition fees) will be granted, along with two complimentary copies of the current issue of the magazine.

3. About the Author

An author refers to any individual (natural person, legal entity, or organization) who has made substantive contributions to a research paper. The authorship order is generally determined by the level of contribution, agreed upon collectively by all authors prior to submission and generally not subject to change post-submission. If modifications are necessary, the editorial board must be informed of the reasons, and a written consent document signed by all authors must be submitted, bearing the official seal of the first affiliation or the corresponding institution of the corresponding author. By international convention, the first author of a paper without a designated corresponding author is automatically considered the corresponding author.

4. Manuscript Review Procedures

This journal implements a peer review system combining editorial evaluation with expert review. Peer reviewers are highly influential scholars in relevant disciplines. Each manuscript is evaluated by 2-3 selected experts, with review methods (double-blind) determined by content. Both the editorial team and reviewers maintain confidentiality regarding the authors' submissions. Authors may request reconsideration if dissatisfied with the review process, provided they submit a written appeal with supporting documentation.

5. Ethical Review and Subject Protection Matters and Clinical CONSORT Requirements

If the study primarily involves human subjects, the author must provide approval documents from institutional, regional, or national ethics committees (specifying the approval number) along with informed consent forms from the subjects or their relatives. For research involving laboratory animals, approval documents and approval numbers from institutional animal ethics committees must be provided. If the institution lacks an official ethics committee, the author must demonstrate compliance with the World Health Organization's International Ethical Guidelines for Human Biomedical Research and the World Medical Association's latest revised Declaration of Helsinki. Clinical research reports must include details on subject protection. Without obtaining informed consent, identifiable information such as patient names, initials, or hospitalization numbers should not be disclosed in written descriptions, photographs, or genetic pedigrees to protect patient privacy.

Self-assessment of the CONSORT protocol for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and randomized parallel control trials: Pay special attention to verifying the study flowchart and the International Traditional Medicine Clinical Trial Registry (ITMCTR) number.

6. Conflict of Interest Statement

When submitting manuscripts, authors must disclose any potential conflicts of interest related to the research, including financial or personal relationships that could influence the study's outcomes or paper's writing. They are responsible for the accuracy of these conflict-of-interest disclosures. Peer reviewers should openly report any conflicts that might bias their evaluation of the manuscript to the editorial office and, if necessary, recuse themselves from reviewing the submission.

7. Withdrawal of the manuscript

For confirmed cases of the following behaviors, published papers shall be retracted in accordance with relevant regulations and procedures, with a retraction notice published in both the print and online editions of this journal: ① Academic misconduct including plagiarism, data fabrication, or tampering. ② Research that violates medical ethics. ③ Repeated publication. ④ Publication ethics issues during the peer review process. ⑤ Unreliable findings or results due to intentional or unintentional errors by the author. ⑥ Violations of laws or regulations.

8. Assignment of Copyright in Academic Papers

Once the manuscript is accepted for publication, the author shall download the copyright transfer agreement from the homepage of this journal, sign it in person, and have it stamped by the author's institution. The agreement shall then be photographed and uploaded to the system. The exclusive usage rights shall belong to Chinese Journal of Experimental Traditional Medical Formulae. Chinese Journal of Experimental Traditional Medical Formulae has the right to publish the accepted papers in other forms such as electronic journals or CD-ROM versions. Without the consent of Chinese Journal of Experimental Traditional Medical Formulae, no part of the paper may be reproduced elsewhere.

9. Requirements for Manuscript Writing

1) Title: All submissions must include both Chinese and English titles. The titles should be concise and eye-catching, and accurately reflect the article's theme. Chinese titles should generally be limited to 20 Chinese characters or fewer. Avoid using non-standard abbreviations or acronyms, and subheadings are generally unnecessary. English titles should start with a capital letter, with all other letters in lowercase. Articles in English should avoid using articles whenever possible.

2) Authorship: Authors' names should be listed in order below the title, with the corresponding asterisk (*) indicating the corresponding author. The order may be finalized during the manuscript revision process and remains unchanged upon acceptance (the accepted manuscript must maintain the same authorship and order as specified in the copyright agreement). The affiliation and postal code of the author must be provided below the name, including the full organization name, province, city, and postal code. Authors must have participated in the topic selection and design, or contributed to data analysis and interpretation; drafted or revised key theoretical or other major content of the paper; approved the editorial revisions, defended the paper academically, and ultimately agreed to its publication. Collaborators or acknowledgments should be listed before the references at the end of the manuscript.

The format for the English author names is: GE Haiyan¹, SHEN Mingqin^2*, LI Juan¹

Format for the author's affiliation: Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, Beijing 100029, China. The institution name should match the one on the official website.

The lower left or upper left corner of the title page must be labeled in the following format:

[Date of Submission] 2023-01-01

[Fund Project] Fund Project Name (Number)

[First Author] Name, Degree, Title, Research Focus: XXX, Tel: XXX, E-mail: XXX

[Corresponding Author] *Name, Degree, Title, Research Focus: XXX, Tel: XXX, E-mail: XXX

3) Abstract and Keywords: The manuscript must include a 500-word abstract in both Chinese and English, along with 5-8 keywords. For experimental research papers, the abstract should be structured into four sections: purpose, methods, results, and conclusions. Review papers should provide a concise overview while highlighting the paper's innovative contributions. The abstract must be written in the third person, avoiding pronouns like "this paper." Keywords should be separated by semicolons. All manuscripts must list Chinese and English keywords, with English terms corresponding to their Chinese equivalents. Except for special and proper nouns, all keywords should be in lowercase.

4) Font and formatting requirements: The initial draft may use any font or format. In the revised draft, all Chinese text must be in Song typeface and all English text in Times New Roman, both set at 5-point font. The entire document should be printed with single-line spacing and 18 mm margins on all sides.

5) Main text formatting and structure: Pharmaceutical experimental research papers typically comprise four sections: Introduction, Materials, Methods and Results, and Discussion. Pharmacological experimental research papers generally include five sections: Introduction, Materials, Methods, Results, and Discussion. Clinical research papers usually consist of four sections: Introduction, Data and Methods, Results, and Discussion. The numbering follows the 1, 1.1, 1.1.1 format. Numbered headings are placed at the left margin, followed by one Chinese character before the title. All headings should be concise and clearly defined.

6) Experimental materials: The sources and batch numbers of drugs and control substances should be specified. In the paper, the names of the original plants (animals, minerals) used in the experimental herbs should use the standardized names in the current edition of the "China Pharmacopoeia", and the identifier (name, title) and their affiliated institution should be provided. For experimental animals, the license number should be provided. For compound preparations, the complete drug composition, main preparation process, and internal quality control methods should be provided. The experimental subjects in pharmacological research papers may include active ingredients, active parts or groups of active parts, and compound preparations with internal quality control methods for the main medicinal ingredients. The names, models, manufacturers, and specifications of the main instruments and equipment, as well as the reagents, should be specified.

7) Methods: For methods already documented in the literature, citations are generally acceptable. For novel or substantially improved methods, the improvements should be explicitly described. If the method is an original innovation, it should be detailed to facilitate replication by others.

8) Medical terminology: The "Medical Terminology" published by Science Press and approved by the National Committee for the Standardization of Scientific and Technical Terminology shall be the standard. The terms used in the manuscript should be consistent throughout. For new terms without a unified translation, the original term should be noted in parentheses after its first appearance. Drug names should adopt the current edition of the "China Pharmacopoeia" compiled by the Pharmacopoeia Committee of the Ministry of Health, using international generic names instead of trade names. The orthographic and case usage of Latin names of medicinal materials should strictly follow the current edition of the "China Pharmacopoeia". For medicinal materials of unconfirmed varieties, their English names should be used in the English abstract, not Latin names.

9) Abbreviations: In the abstract and main text, if the original term is too long and appears multiple times, the full Chinese name should be written first when it appears for the first time, followed by the English full name and abbreviation in parentheses, separated by a comma. Subsequent occurrences should use the abbreviation. When citing the names of Chinese people in the text, the full name should be written.

10) Statistics: The specific names of statistical methods used (e.g., t-test for grouped design data, analysis of variance for two-factor factorial design data, etc.) and the exact values of statistical measures (e.g., t=3.45) should be clearly stated, with the P-value provided whenever possible (e.g., P=0.023). Statistical symbols should be written in italics as per relevant regulations.

11) Units and Symbols: Adhere to the provisions of the "Legal Units of Measurement of the People's Republic of China" and the national standard GB 3100~3102-1993 "Quantities and Units" of the People's Republic of China. Correctly use and write the names and symbols of quantities and units, and express them with the international symbols of the units, leaving one natural space between the number and the symbol without adding a period. For example, length units: 1 m, 3 dm, 3 cm, 4 mm; time units: 1s, 2 min, 3 h, 4 d; concentration units: mol·L^-1; rotational speed: r·min^-1; RSD (relative standard deviation) should not use cv (coefficient of variation); A (absorbance) should not use OD (optical density); abbreviations may be used for intravenous injection (iv), intramuscular injection (im), intraperitoneal injection (ip), subcutaneous injection (sc), intracerebral injection (icv), intravenous injection (ia), oral administration (po), and gastric perfusion (ig). To reduce typographical errors, English capitalization, superscript and subscript, Hebrew, and italics should be clearly written in the text. Statistical letters should be italicized, such as F, T, t-test, P, (xˉ±s，n=6), etc. In factor design, elements such as A2B1C3; variables in regression equations like X, Y, R2, r; substituent positions; and chiral compound configurations represented by S, Z; compound labeling letters including O- (ortho), p- (para), m- (met); and formula variables (e.g., equilibrium constant K, rate constant k) are all in italics. However, constant values like e, π, and abbreviations such as RSD, AUC, MRT are in normal font. Latin names for medicinal materials are in normal font, while botanical Latin names are in italics. Terms for in vivo and in vitro are also in italics. Additionally, s (seconds) should not be written as S, kg (kilograms) as Kg, mL (milliliters) as ML, pH as PH, t_1/2 as t1/2, V_max as Vmax, C_max as Cmax, tR as RT, and μ as the English letter u.

12) Numerals: Arabic numerals must be used wherever applicable and appropriate. Gregorian calendar elements (centuries, decades, years, months, days, and times) must be expressed in Arabic numerals. Years should be written as four-digit numbers (e.g., 1994, not 94). Avoid temporal pronouns like "this year" or "last year." Hours are denoted by "h," minutes by "min," and seconds by "s." For numbers with four or more digits before or after the decimal point, group digits into three-digit blocks separated by a 0.25-character space (e.g., "23 465.378 97"). However, ordinal numbers, years, page numbers, unit codes, instrument models, and standard numbers are not separated by spaces. For percentages, the percentage symbol cannot be omitted (e.g., 5%~95% should not be written as 5~95%).

13) Figures and Tables: Whenever possible, avoid using charts or graphs when explanations can be provided in text. If both figures and tables are included, remove the figures and retain the tables. All figures and tables should have Chinese and English captions, which must be self-explanatory. Tables should generally use a concise three-line format, and figures and tables should be interspersed appropriately within the text (immediately following the main narrative) rather than being listed as appendices. Figures and tables should be numbered sequentially using Arabic numerals, corresponding to their order of appearance in the text, and marked accordingly. Each figure or table should be labeled with a figure or table title. Data within a table must maintain consistent significant digit count for the same indicator. Line graphs should have a height-to-width ratio of 5:7. Pathological photographs must specify the staining method and magnification. For HPLC and similar figures, vertical axes should be omitted, and horizontal axes should be labeled in units of t/min (HPLC). For general preparations, sample, negative, and control figures should be provided; for single-herb preparations, sample and control figures should be provided.

14) Discussion: The discussion section should be concise and focused, highlighting the study's key findings, analysis of results, and existing issues. Avoid repeating content from the introduction or results, and refrain from making premature conclusions. Typically, the discussion should cover: What conclusions were drawn from this study? What insights do these findings provide? How do the results differ from previous studies? What limitations or shortcomings exist in your work? Summarize the main discoveries and suggest potential future research directions.

15) References: List references in numerical order (Arabic numerals in square brackets) according to their citation sequence, excluding internal documents. Chinese references must correspond to English versions without additional numbering. Authors listed as 1-3 are fully cited; for three or more authors, only the first three are listed followed by ", et al.". Each journal reference must include complete year, volume, and issue, with start and end pages specified. All references must be cross-checked against the original text. The final section of the document should list references in numerical order, with each type identified by a single-letter code. The formatting follows the "Rules for Bibliographic Description of Information and Documentation" (GB/T 7714-2015).

10. Others

This journal does not designate individuals to accept remittances related to business operations. For financial matters, please confirm the official account of the journal's sponsor, the Institute of Chinese Materia Medica, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences.