Chinese Herbal Medicines (CHM) is an official international journal sponsored by Tianjin Institute of Pharmaceutical Research and Institute of Medicinal Plant Development, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences. The purpose of CHM is to provide a forum for the studies on Chinese herbal medicines, phytomedicines, and natural products as well. The journal will accept the following contributions: letters, original articles, review papers, short communications, book reviews, conference announcements, information, etc. The journal involves the studies on active ingredients and complex formulations of herbal medicines in medicinal resource, phytochemistry, pharmacology, toxicology, pharmacokinetics, and therapeutic function by experiment and clinical trials. It is the interest of this journal to introduce the latest development in pharmaceutical sciences to readers.

The journal is included in the following databases: ESCI, PubMed Central, Scopus, DOAJ, CAB ABSTRACTS, CAS, EMBASE, IC, UPD, Global Health, etc. Since 2013, CHM has been selected as one of the Chinese Core Periodicals of Science and Technology for nine consecutive years. In 2019, CHM was successfully selected by China Association for Science and Technology for the China Science and Technology Journal Excellence Action Plan. The journal has been awarded the distinction of Excellent International Impact Academic Journals of China in 2016, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022.

 

1.       Submission of manuscripts

 

Authors could submit their manuscripts through online submission http://mc03.manuscriptcentral.com/chm. The following should be complied with: size of character 12 point, double-spaced, consecutive numbering of the lines and pages. The text should be in Word document for Windows.

 

2.       Structure of manuscripts

 

2.1  Title

 

Please provide a title that is concise, informative, and relevant, ideally it should contain no more than 30 words.

 

2.2  Authors and affiliation

 

Please clearly indicate the given name(s) and family name(s) of each author and check that all names are accurately spelled. Capitalize the first letter in the surname(s) and spell out the given name(s) in full-name form. The corresponding author should be indicated by an asterisk (*) to the right of the name and the e-mail address given in the footnote. The affiliation of each author should be provided, including complete address information (city, zip code, and country). Indicate all affiliations with a lower-case superscript letter immediately after the author's name and in front of the appropriate address.

Any change in authorship must be approved in writing by all authors. Authors who have contributed equally should be marked with a superscript symbol (1). The following statement added in the footnote: “These authors contributed equally to this work”. The equal roles of authors should also be adequately disclosed in the authors’ contributions statement.

 

2.3  Abstract

 

The paper should contain an abstract with 200–300 words in English. The abstract should summarize the main points of the article. The structure form of the abstract should consist of Objective (purpose of the study), Methods (basic procedures), Results (final findings with main data), and Conclusion (potential possibility on the result).

 

2.4  Key words

 

Please provide 5–8 words as key words which are separated with semicolons and should be arranged in alphabetical order. The key words should represent the core content of the paper. These keywords will be used for indexing purposes.

 

2.5  Format of text

 

The format of article should be structured as follows: 1. Introduction; 2. Materials and methods; 3. Results; 4. Discu- ssion; 5. Conclusion; 6. Authors’ contributions; 7. Declaration of Competing Interest; 8. Acknowledgements; 9. References.

 

2.6  Introduction

 

A brief explanation of the investigation purpose should be given taking into consideration of the current state of knowledge and referring to the required theoretical fundamentals.

 

2.7  Materials and methods

 

Please provide sufficient detail to allow the work to be reproduced. Previously published methods can be briefly described and appropriately cited; New methods and protocols should be described in detail. Explanation of the study such as, group formation/ stratification, interdisciplinary studies, and experimental conditions, detailed information about the volunteers/patients, particulars referring to the test drug as in the summary including batch number and manufacturer; apparatuses and devices indicating the names and domiciles of the manufacturers/suppliers in the brackets; detailed information about the experimental animals provided with a source or cell lines along with keeping culture conditions; explanation of mathematical symbols and formulas; and description of the statistical method used should be introduced. Animal experiments should adhere to instructions for the care and use of animals provided by the appropriate Ethics Committee. Human experiments may be performed only in accordance with the ethical standards and permission of the responsible committee of the institution at which the work was carried out. Clinical studies must meet the requirements specified in the Declaration of Helsinki. The approval by an ethics committee must be documented.

 

2.8  Results

 

Provide a concise and precise description of the experimental results, their interpretation as well as the experimental conclusions that can be drawn. Use equations, figures, and tables only where necessary for clarity and brevity. Simultaneous presentation of the same results both in figures and tables should be avoided. Supplementary material can be published with your article, please submit your material separately together with the article and supply a concise, descriptive caption for each supplementary file.

 

2.9  Discussion

 

To avoid repeating results in this section, instead of providing an interpretation of them, discussing their significance, drawing conclusions, and emphasizing any new and important aspects especially in relation to other current knowledge. In addition to outline any shortcomings in your experiments. New hypotheses and recommendations could be proposed. To end with a brief conclusion ought to relate to the goal stated in the introduction. The findings may be compared with the results from other studies (referring to the respective literature).

 

2.10  Conclusion

 

The purpose of the conclusion section is to put the interpretation into the context of the original problem. Do not repeat discussion points or include irrelevant material. Your conclusions should be based on the evidence presented.

 

2.11  Authors’ contributions

 

We advise authors to provide an author statement file detailing their unique contributions to the paper using the appropriate CRediT roles in order to be transparent (More details of CRediT author statement at: https://www.elsevier.com/authors/policies-and-guidelines/credit-author-statement).

 

2.12  Acknowledgements

 

Acknowledgments should be gathered into a paragraph before the reference. This section should provide information of financial support: complete funding information..For example: This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health [grant No. xxxx, yyyy].

 

2.13  References

Text: Citations in the text should follow the referencing style used by the American Psychological Association (APA). Please ensure that every reference cited in the text is also present in the reference list (and vice versa).

All citations in the text should refer to:

Single author: the author’s last name and the year of publication; eg. (Liu, 2020).

Two to five authors: authors’ last names and the year of publication; eg. (Liu & Xiao, 2021) and (Liu, Xiao, Chen, & Guo, 2021).

Six or more authors: first author’s last name followed by ‘et al.’ and the year of publication; eg. (Liu et al., 2021).

Citations may be made directly (or parenthetically). Groups of references should be listed first alphabetically, then chronologically.

List: References should be arranged first alphabetically and then further sorted chronologically if necessary. More than one reference from the same author(s) in the same year must be identified by the letters ‘a’, ‘b’, ‘c’, etc., placed after the year of publication.

Examples:

Reference to a journal publication:

Van der Geer, J., Hanraads, J. A. J., & Lupton, R. A. (2010). The art of writing a scientific article. Journal of Scientific Communications, 51-59.

Reference to a journal publication with an article number:

Van der Geer, J., Hanraads, J. A. J., & Lupton, R. A. (2018). The art of writing a scientific article. Heliyon, Article e00205.

Reference to a book:

Strunk, W., Jr., & White, E. B. (2000). The elements of style (4th ed.). Longman (Chapter 4).

Reference to a chapter in an edited book:

Mettam, G. R., & Adams, L. B. (2009). How to prepare an electronic version of your article. In B. S. Jones, & R. Z. Smith (Eds.), Introduction to the electronic age (pp. 281-304). E-Publishing Inc.

Reference to a website:

Powertech Systems. (2015). Lithium-ion vs lead-acid cost analysis. Retrieved from http://www.powertechsystems.eu/home/tech-corner/lithium-ion-vs-lead-acid-cost-analysis/. Accessed January 6, 2016

Reference to a dataset:

[dataset] Oguro, M., Imahiro, S., Saito, S., & Nakashizuka, T. (2015). Mortality data for Japanese oak wilt disease and surrounding forest compositions. Mendeley Data, v1. https://doi.org/10.17632/xwj98nb39r.1.

Reference to a conference paper or poster presentation:

Engle, E.K., Cash, T.F., & Jarry, J.L. (2009, November). The Body Image Behaviours Inventory-3: Development and validation of the Body Image Compulsive Actions and Body Image Avoidance Scales. Poster session presentation at the meeting of the Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Therapies, New York, NY.

 

2.14  Corresponding author responsibilities

 

Serves as the primary contact on behalf of all coauthors. Ensures that the Conflict of Interest/Disclosure Section and the Acknowledgment Section of the manuscript is complete and up-to-date for all authors. Includes all persons who have contributed to the manuscript but are not authors and obtains permission from each person listed in the Acknowledgment section. If the paper is accepted for publication, obtains signatures from all authors on the copyright transfer agreement. If an author is not able to sign, then obtains their written permission to execute this agreement on their behalf.

 

3.       Illustration

 

3.1  Plant and animal names

 

All official Latin names of plants (including Chinese herbal medicines), animals, bacteria, and fungus must be italicized throughout the text and full written with nomenclator in the first citing, then the appears below or in all tables and figures, the genus name abbreviation with an abbreviation point needs to be cited only for the plant, animal, bacteria, or fungus name, etc. But the genus name in italics with the designation in block letter should be written totally in every citing of the paper. e.g. Cirsium setosum (Willd.) MB. Subsequent citings of the same name can be abbreviated to: “C. setosum”; and the genus name should be Vallaris Burm. f.

 

3.2  Name of novel compound

 

The trivial name of the novel compound should be given by the author except the chemical name, e.g. charantadiol A [5β,19-epoxycucurbita-6,23(E),25(26)- triene-3β,19(R)-diol]. For the number of compounds, it’s advisable to use bold fonts in text, tables and figures, for example, Compounds 1 and 2. 

 

3.3  Numbers

 

Use numerals with units of time or measure, and use a space between the numeral and the unit, except % and ° (angular degrees). e.g. 15 d, 9 h, 6 min, 25 mL, 0.30 g, 180 °C, but 50% and 180°, and for all numbers greater than ten. With items other than units of time or measure, use words for cardinal numbers less than 10, use numerals for 10 and above. Spell out ordinals “first” through “ninth”, use numerals for 10th or greater. e.g. three flasks, 30 flasks, third flask, 12th flask, seven trees, and 10 trees. The exception is to use all numerals in a series or range containing numbers 10 or greater, even in non-technical text, e.g. 5, 8, and 12 experiments, 2nd and 20th samples, 5–15 repetitions. While beginning a sentence the numbers should be spelt out. When describing the units in a series of numbers, the use of the omitted form is preferred, only the last needs to be kept, for example 20, 40, and 60 mg/L (not 20 mg/L, 40 mg/L, and 60 mg/L); 20–60 mg/g (not 20 mg/g–60 mg/g), but the numberical percentage should be in full form, for example, 20%–60% (not 20–60%). For the molar concentration, it should be mol/L, not M or mol?L-1. The measured data should be consistent with the accuracy of the measuring instrument.

 

3.4  Abbreviations

 

Unavoidable use of these abbreviations in the abstract must be defined on first mention. Please ensure consistency of abbreviations throughout the article..

 

3.5  Figures and tables

 

All tables, figures and illustrations should be clearly legible. The tables and figures (e.g., Table 1, Table 2, etc, Fig. 1, Fig. 2, etc.) should be numbered consecutively as they appear in the text. Any notes or legends should appear at the bottom of the table or figure. Please be sure that the legend and notes enable the reader to understand the table or figure without need for referencing the text of the article.

 

Figures: For submission, TIFF, PSD, PPT and JPEG (with a 300 dpi/ inch resolution in the established format, less than 1MB) are recommended acceptable formats for the figures, which should be submitted separately. To ensure labels are legible, we suggest using the Arial font in your illustrations, sizing it according to final figure size. Please use uniform lettering and sizing in your original figures. Captions should be self-contained and consist of a brief title and a concise description of the illustration. All symbols and abbreviations used should be explained. Use capital letters for part labels in multipart figures (A, B, C, etc.), and it should be in the upper left hand corner of figures. Legend do not add the frame, using different lines or graphics legend to distinguish easily. And do not bold the text in the bar chart.

 

Photograghs: Photographs must be of the highest quality with good contrast. Color photographs are welcome.  With photomicrographs, only the essential parts should be shown. Scale markers (e.g. 1 μm) should be put inside the photomicrographs. Briefly explain the symbols, arrows, numbers, or letters in the illustrations. Identify the method of staining and magnification of the photomicrographs (e.g. HE stain, ×900). The resolution of each photograph should be 300 dpi (or higher).

 

Tables: Tables should have a descriptive brief title and be numbered consecutively in accordance with their appearance in the text, and the position should be marked obviously in the manuscript. Each column in a table should have a short or abbreviated heading with the unit in parentheses. All tables use three-line table (do not draw vertical lines, horizontal lines only retain the top line, bottom line and column line). If the table must exceed one page, don’t need to duplicate all headings on the second sheet.

 

4.       Review and publication process

 

Manuscripts are examined by editor and in most cases by at least two reviewers. Any material accepted for publication will be subject to copyediting. Authors will receive page proofs and should answer all queries before publication, and also carefully check all editorial changes at this point. The first author of each article will receive two copies of issue. Additional reprints and complete copies of the issue may be ordered directly from the publisher.

 

5.       Publishing conditions

 

Only manuscripts that have not yet been published may be submitted. The Copyright Transfer Statement is necessary. All researchers (authors), reviewers, and editors must abide by the medical ethical obligation and also must deter to the ethical obligation for publication. The authors assure that they are solely entitled to exercise the right of utilization in regard to their article including figures, tables, etc., if applicable, and that no rights of third parties are violated. The authors themselves are responsible for the permission to reproduce material previously published elsewhere, and sources must be acknowledged. The corresponding author acts on behalf of all co-authors. Authors are solely responsible for the contents of articles on principle. Papers submitted for publication are subject to review by the journal’s editorial advisory board. The editors inform the authors about the results of the review process making suggestions for a revision, if necessary. The publisher is entitled to permit any reprint to the third parties without indemnification to the authors.

 

6.       Copyright and publisher’s rights

 

All articles published in the journal are protected by copyright. According to Copyright Law of China, no part of this journal may be duplicated in any form, distributed or otherwise exploited or transferred into a machine-readable language or translated without prior consent in writing from the publisher. In particular, electronic digitization, storage or utilization by any means are prohibited.

 

Editorial office of CHM

Tel: +86-22-2300 6901

E-mail: chmtianjin@126.com 

       bjchmimplad@126.com

Website:

www.sciencedirect.com/journal/chinese-herbal-medicines

www.tiprpress.com/chmen/ch/index.aspx www.elsevier.com/locate/chmed