Submissions

Author Guidelines

Authors are invited to submit original research, review papers and short communications in the pharmaceutical, clinical and biomedical sciences to the Dhaara Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences (DJPS), an international, peer-reviewed quarterly publication. DJPS covers Pharmaceutical Technology, Pharmaceutics, Biopharmaceutics, Pharmacokinetics, Pharmaceutical/Medicinal Chemistry, Computational Chemistry and Molecular Drug Design, Pharmacognosy and Phytochemistry, Pharmacology, Pharmaceutical Analysis, Pharmacy Practice, Clinical and Hospital Pharmacy, Cell Biology, Genomics and Proteomics, Pharmacogenomics, and Bioinformatics and Biotechnology of pharmaceutical interest.

Before you submit

DJPS considers only manuscripts that have not been published previously and are not under consideration elsewhere. All submissions are screened by an editor for scope, completeness and quality, then sent for double-blind peer review by subject experts. An editor may desk-reject a submission that is out of scope, incomplete, or below minimum quality standards. Submitted manuscripts are expected to demonstrate: validity of the data, clarity and conciseness of the material, reproducibility of the results, compliance with the typescript requirements below, and a clear conclusion establishing the novelty of the work.

• Obtain permission to publish any third-party material (figures, images, datasets or previously published content).
• Ensure every listed author has contributed meaningfully and has consented to authorship.
• Where required, obtain ethics committee / IRB approval and report it in the manuscript in line with applicable laws and institutional rules.
• Disclose conflicts of interest and funding sources.
• Complete and sign the copyright form and submit it along with your manuscript.

Article processing charges

DJPS charges an article processing fee of US $100 for foreign authors and INR 2,500 for authors based in India. Authors may arrange for this to be invoiced to their company, institute or university once the paper has been accepted for publication.

Copyright and licensing

Copyright of any article published in DJPS is retained by the author(s). Authors grant DJPS a licence to publish the article and to identify itself as the original publisher, and grant any third party the right to use the article freely as long as its integrity is maintained and its original authors, citation details and publisher are identified. The completed and signed copyright form must be submitted online together with the manuscript.

Plagiarism policy

• Copying verbatim text, tables or illustrations from any source (journal article, book, monograph, thesis, internet or other published or unpublished material) and presenting it as one’s own is considered plagiarism, whether or not the copied portion is referenced.
• Listing a copied source under “References” does not absolve the authors of plagiarism.
• Where a few lines of text are reproduced from another source, the author and source must be clearly indicated in the text; the reproduced lines must be italicised, quoted, and indented if they form a paragraph. Reproducing larger portions of text requires permission from the copyright owner, to be submitted with the manuscript.
• Reproducing tables or illustrations requires permission from the copyright owner, submitted as a permission letter, with the source clearly acknowledged below the table or illustration.
• In line with UGC guidelines, the plagiarism/similarity index for a submitted manuscript should be less than 10%.

Manuscript preparation

Prepare your main file as an editable document (Microsoft Word or Adobe InDesign), double-spaced, without hyphenation or automatic word wrap. Type consistently and carefully, distinguishing easily confused characters (for example the numeral “1” and the lower-case letter “l”). Manuscripts lacking linguistic clarity will not be considered for publication. Research articles should be divided into the following sections: title page; abstract with keywords; introduction; materials and methods; results; discussion; conclusions; acknowledgements; references; tables; and figure legends.

Title page

The title page should carry a short title of no more than 45 characters, the full title, and the name, affiliation and address of every author, with the corresponding author clearly identified. Include phone numbers and email addresses, and give the addresses of all authors in a footnote.

Authors’ names and affiliation

List every author’s full name (first, middle and last), department, academic qualifications and job title, numbering each author with a superscript that ties them to their affiliation, and marking the corresponding author with an asterisk (*). Provide the corresponding author’s email address and ORCID iD. Co-authors are encouraged to provide an ORCID iD as well.

Example:
Corresponding Author^1*, First Author², Second Author^1,2 [First Name Middle Name Last Name]
¹Department, University Name, City, Country, Pincode, ORCID iD
²Department, University Name, City, Country, Pincode, ORCID iD
Corresponding author e-mail: corresponding.author@example.com
ORCID iD: 0000-000X-XXXX-XXXX

If you do not already have an ORCID iD, you can register for one, free of charge, at orcid.org/register. It gives you a unique identifier that ties you to your published work.

Abstract and keywords

The abstract should be concise and self-contained, giving a clear indication of the objective, scope and results of the paper so readers can judge whether the full text will interest them, and providing terms for indexing, abstracting and retrieval. Spell out every abbreviation in full the first time it is used in the abstract. Immediately after the abstract, provide up to six keywords for indexing; only established abbreviations may be used as keywords.

Title

The article title should be concise but informative. Authors are also required to supply a short running title.

Introduction

Give a concise review of the problem being addressed, the relevant methodologies, and a clear statement of the goal(s) of the study.

Materials and methods

Describe the objective of the study and the experiment step by step. Specify:

• The original names of instruments and reagents used;
• The manufacturer’s name (company and country); and
• The source from which any biological strain was obtained.

Results and discussion

Give a brief account of the experimental data obtained, supported by tables and figures. Submit tables on separate sheets, each numbered and titled, and figure captions on a separate page. Figures and photographs must be high resolution, with a proper reference given for each. Close the section with a conclusion that addresses the questions and problems raised in the introduction.

Tables

Number all tables consecutively and cite each one in the text in serial order. Table titles should be brief and informative, and each table should be presented individually on a separate page.

Figures and graphs

Submit illustrations as TIFF, JPEG, PDF, WMF or EPS (resolution-independent) files.

Acknowledgements

Placed immediately before the references, this section should name the individuals, organisations and funding agencies that supported the work being reported.

Conflict of interest

All authors must disclose any conflict of interest, including honoraria, grants, membership, employment, stock ownership, or any other financial or non-financial interest such as a personal or professional relationship, affiliation, or prior involvement with the research topic.

Funding source

State the source of any financial support received for the work.

Statement of informed consent

Patients have a right to privacy that must not be infringed without informed consent. Names, initials, hospital numbers or any other identifying information must not be published in text, photographs or elsewhere unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or parent/guardian) has given explicit written informed consent, having been shown the manuscript before publication. Individuals who provided writing assistance must be identified, together with the funding source for that assistance. Where identifying characteristics have been altered to protect anonymity (for example in a genetic pedigree), authors should confirm that the alteration does not distort the scientific meaning. Manuscripts that do not address informed consent where it is applicable will not be considered for publication.

Ethics of human and animal experimentation

Papers describing experimental work with humans must include a statement that the institution’s Ethics Committee approved the study and that subjects gave informed consent. Work with animals must comply with the legal requirements of the relevant local or national authority; procedures should avoid unnecessary suffering, and papers should give details of procedures and anaesthetics used. The editors will not accept papers where the ethical aspects are, in their opinion, open to doubt.

References

Number references consecutively in the order they are first mentioned in the text — not alphabetically — and identify them in text, tables and legends with Arabic numerals in superscript. References cited only in a table or figure legend should be numbered according to where that table or figure is first mentioned in the text. Abbreviate journal titles as in Index Medicus (use the full name for non-indexed journals) and avoid citing abstracts. Manuscripts that have been submitted but not yet accepted should be cited in the text as “unpublished observations”, with written permission from the source. A “personal communication” should be cited only where it provides essential information unavailable from a public source, naming the person and date of communication in the text; written permission and confirmation of accuracy should be obtained from that source. For reference types not covered below — electronic media, newspaper items, and so on — follow the ICMJE Recommendations.

Articles in journals

1. Devi KV, Pai RS. Antiretrovirals: Need for an Effective Drug Delivery. Indian J Pharm Sci 2006;68:1-6. (List the first six authors followed by “et al.” for more.)
2. Volume with supplement — Shen HM, Zhang QF. Risk assessment of nickel carcinogenicity and occupational lung cancer. Environ Health Perspect 1994;102 Suppl 1:275-82.
3. Issue with supplement — Payne DK, Sullivan MD, Massie MJ. Women’s psychological reactions to breast cancer. Semin Oncol 1996;23(1, Suppl 2):89-97.

Books and other monographs

4. Personal author(s) — Ringsven MK, Bond D. Gerontology and Leadership Skills for Nurses. 2nd ed. Albany (NY): Delmar Publishers; 1996.
5. Editor(s)/compiler(s) as author — Norman IJ, Redfern SJ, editors. Mental Health Care for Elderly People. New York: Churchill Livingstone; 1996.
6. Chapter in a book — Phillips SJ, Whisnant JP. Hypertension and stroke. In: Laragh JH, Brenner BM, editors. Hypertension: Pathophysiology, Diagnosis, and Management. 2nd ed. New York: Raven Press; 1995. p. 465-78.

Proof and corrections

Proofs are emailed to the corresponding author and must be returned within seven days of receipt. Please keep to this deadline — late corrections cannot be accepted.

Review articles

Review articles are written by researchers with considerable experience in the field, reviewing recent trends and advances of the last 3–5 years in light of their own work; authors are encouraged to search Medline and other databases in addition to conventional sources. Where an author has not done substantial original work on a topic but wishes to share a useful summary of recent trends for post-graduate students or junior faculty, this may be submitted as an Educational Forum piece instead. Review submissions should include a covering letter, title page, an unstructured summary, and keywords, written under appropriate sub-headings; the use of flowcharts, boxes, tables and figures is encouraged.

Short communications

Short communications report exciting findings or preliminary data that do not yet amount to a full paper. They follow the same format requirements as full papers but are limited to 15 pages in total, should not use subtitles such as Introduction, Materials and Methods, or Results and Discussion (these should be merged into the running text), and preferably include only 3–4 illustrations.

How to submit

Register (or log in), start a new submission from your dashboard, upload your files, enter metadata and co-author details, complete the checklist, then submit. You can save a draft and return later; after submission, track its progress from your author dashboard.

For peer-review timelines, open-access policy and general journal policies, see the journal’s About pages. Contact the editorial office if you need help before submitting.