preparation of the manuscript
The journal is currently in the process of transferring to the new publisher – Elsevier, and we will be using the Digital Commons platform.
This is related to our constant striving to improve the quality of the journal and its publication services.
The journal’s website address – www.balticsportscience.com – will remain unchanged. The current issue will be published very shortly, and all previous issues can be found at the website.
Regrettably, the submissions system ScholarOne is not working anymore.
We have launched the new system at temporary website https://dcgdansk.bepress.com/journal/
The papers that have already been submitted via ScholarOne by the end of December 2021 will be processed in the meantime outside the system, naturally keeping all publication and ethical standards.
PREPARING THE MANUSCRIPT
The text should be written in a 12-point font with one-and-a-half spacing and margins of 2.5 cm (1 inch) on all four sides, A4 paper size.
The editors reserve the right to edit the article for formatting.
Original and viewpoint papers should not exceed 6,000 words, review papers - 8,000 words.
MAIN TEXT
The main text of the article must be submitted without the title page, acknowledgments, and any running headers with author names, to allow blinded review, and the authors must not compromise their anonymity in any Supporting Information files or Additional Files for Review uploaded.
NOTE: an article (Main Document) should be anonymised (any personal data should be removed from the Main Document and be only included in the file tagged as Title Page).
TITLE PAGE
The author must prepare a separate document “Title Page” containing the following information:
• the full name of each author (without academic titles),
• the organizational affiliation of each author (workplace),
• the full title of the article,
• 3-6 key words in English,
• the corresponding author's full name, address, telephone and/or fax number, and e-mail address if available, for purposes of correspondence,
• the sources of any material or financial support, in form of grants, subventions, major donations, etc., if any,
• information on authors’ contribution according to the following code: A – study design, B – data collection, C – statistical analysis, D – data interpretation, E – manuscript preparation, F – literature search, G – funds collection.
It is unacceptable to mention as authors persons whose contribution to the research has been scanty or actually non-existent (the so-called “guest authorship”). It is likewise inappropriate to conceal information on the contribution of persons who have actually participated in the creation of the publication. This should be recognized in form of acknowledgements at the end of the text or by including this person as a co-author.
“Ghostwriting” and “guest authorship” are manifestations of scholarly unreliability.
ABSTRACT
The abstract should be in a structured form, not exceed 200 words, and it should consist of four paragraphs of 1-3 sentences each, labelled as follows:
Background (Introduction): the purpose of the article or research, the primary thesis.
Material and Methods: a brief description of the research; in the case of a review or opinion article, a characterization of the literature; for a case study, a brief description of the subject; the main parameters measured, etc.
Results: the most significant results achieved.
Conclusions: the most important 1-2 conclusions derived by the authors from the research presented in the article.
The preceding structure does not apply in detail to review or viewpoint articles.
Please note that the ScholarOne system will not accept abstracts exceeding 200 words.
STRUCTURE OF THE TEXT
The text of the article should be divided into six sections labelled as follows: Background (Introduction), Material and Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusions, References. Before References, if appropriate, the authors may insert Acknowledgements; an Appendix may be attached at the end, if needed. Each section should be clearly designated by a title in boldface. When circumstances require, depending on the content and nature of the article, a different structure may be used, provided, however, that the structure of the article is clear, transparent and self-consistent. The editors reserve the right to return a manuscript to its authors for correction of structure.
Background (Introduction) should give the scientific rationale for researching the given topic, the primary issues and controversies, an explanation of the aim of the study and the primary thesis.
Material and Methods should contain essential information regarding how the experiment or research was conducted, including the essential characteristics of the experimental and control groups (age, gender, etc.), inclusion and exclusion criteria, and the randomization and masking (blinding) method used. The protocol of data acquisition, procedures, investigated parameters, methods of measurements and apparatus should be described in sufficient detail to allow other scientists to reproduce the results. In the case of published methods, the names with appropriate references should be given. References and a brief description should be provided for methods that have been published but are not well known, whereas new or substantially modified methods should be described in detail. The rationale for using such new or unknown methods should be discussed, along with a balanced evaluation of these methods, not omitting their limitations. The statistical methods should be described in detail to enable verification of the reported results. Results concisely and reasonably summarize the findings in form of text, tables and figures arranged in a logical and internally self-consistent manner. The number of tables and figures should be limited to those absolutely needed to confirm or refute the thesis. Data given in graphs and tables should not be automatically repeated in the text.
Discussion should deal only with new and/or important aspects of the results obtained, without repeating in detail data or other material previously presented in Background or Results. The Discussion should focus on theoretical implications and/or practical consequences of the findings, including suggestions for further research. The Discussion should compare the results of the present study to those obtained by other researchers mentioned in the text.
Conclusions must be linked with the goals of the study. New hypotheses with recommendations for further research should be advanced only when fully warranted and explicitly justified.
Recommendations may be included when appropriate. Unqualified statements and conclusions not supported by the data obtained should be avoided.
Acknowledgements list all those who have contributed to the research but do not meet the criteria for authorship, such as assistants, technicians, or department heads who provided only general support. Financial and other material support should be disclosed and acknowledged.
References, chosen for their importance and accessibility, are numbered consecutively in the order of their occurrence in the text. References first cited in tables or figure legends must be numbered in such a way as to maintain numerical sequence with the references cited in the text, by Arabic numerals in square brackets, e.g. [5]. The style of references is that of National Library of Medicine (US) (Vancouver).
As a rule, the ratio of texts published in non-congress languages (including in Polish) should not exceed 30% of all entries in References.
When an article has six or fewer authors, all should be listed; when there are seven or more, only the first three are listed, followed by "et al."
All references should list: • the surnames of the six first authors of the cited work and their first name's initials, • the complete title, • the place of edition, • the publishing house and year of publication, cited pages, • titles of periodicals, the number of volume, year and page number of any article quoted. The abbreviations of the journal's title should be used according to the Medline standard, • in the case of a chapter, the chapter author, the chapter title, name of the editor, the book title, place of edition, the publishing house, year of publication and cited pages, • DOI (Digital Object Identifier) number if exists, • date of access in the case of Internet references.
Examples:
Book
Mines AH. Respiratory physiology. New York: Raven Press; 1993.
Edited book
Merode de A, editor. Foods, nutrition and sports performance. An International scientific consensus conference. 4th-5th February 1991, Lausanne, Switzerland; 1991.
Chapter in a book
Wilmore JH, Costill DL. Age and sex considerations in sport and exercise. In: Wilmore JH, Costill DL, editors. Physiology of Sport and Exercise. 3th ed. Champaign IL: Human Kinetics; 2004, 512-537.
Article in a journal
Allgrove JE, Gomes E, Hough J, Gleeson M. The effects of exercise intensity on salivary antimicrobial proteins and markers of stress in active men. J Sport Sci. 2008;26:653-661.
Internet source
World Health Organization. BMI-for-age (5-19 years). [Available at http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/bmi/childrens_BMI/about_childrens_BMI.htm] [Accessed on 6 January, 2013].
Publication in a language different from English, French, German, Spanish and Russian
The original language of the reference should be preserved along with the translation into English in square brackets. The original language should be given in the end of the line following the period, e.g.:
Hoffman K. Jazda konna dla poczatkujacych [Horse riding for beginners]. Warszawa: OW Delta; 1999. Polish.
Please do not translate the title of the journal or the name of the publisher. In case of an electronic publication, please provide, beside the URL, the date of access (e.g.: available at … accessed on …). Ignore diacritics, accents, and special characters in names and titles of non-English origin (e.g. Ç should be spelled as C, Ł as L, à as a, ę as e, etc.). Names in non-roman alphabets (Cyrillic, Greek, Arabic, Hebrew) should be Romanized (transliterated). More detailed information on preparing the references according to the Vancouver style (NLM) are to be found at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK7256/
Tables are numbered consecutively in the order of their first citation in the text, with a brief title. A short or abbreviated heading should be used for each column. The arrangement of the table should be as simple as possible, without adding unnecessary horizontal or vertical subdivisions.
Explanations, including the clarification of non-standard abbreviations, should be provided in footnotes under the table, and not in the table itself. The footnotes should be numbered independently for each table. Each table should be printed (not photographed) on a separate sheet of paper. Care should be taken that every table included with the manuscript is in fact mentioned in the text. The statistical measures of variations should be identified, such as standard deviation and standard error of the mean. If the data appearing in a table comes from another published or unpublished source, permission to reprint should be obtained and the appropriate reference provided.
Figures should be professionally prepared; freehand or typewritten lettering is unacceptable. Original drawings, and other original unprocessed materials will not be accepted. Letters, numbers, and symbols should be clear and even throughout and of sufficient size as to remain legible when reduced for printing. Numbers should be presented according to the English standard, i.e. dot is used to separate a decimal (e.g. 1.3%) and a comma to indicate numbers larger than one thousand (e.g. 2,342). Each figure should be tagged by the name of the file identifying the figure. The title of the figure and detailed explanations should be written in the caption/legend field, not on the illustrations themselves. The editors cannot accept photographs or illustrations with visible writing, scratching or marring caused by staples or paperclips, or cardboard mounting. Figures should be numbered consecutively according to the order in which they are first cited in the text. If a figure has been previously published, the original source must be acknowledged and a written permission should be obtained from the copyright holder to reproduce the material, except for documents in the public domain.
If photographs of people are used, either the identity should be masked or written permission should be obtained to use the photograph.
Measurements of length, height, weight, and volume should be reported in metric units (metre, kilogram, or litre) or their decimal multiples. Temperatures should be given in degrees Celsius. Blood pressures should be given in millimetres of mercury.
The recommended file formats for figures, except for these elaborated in Excel or Word, are: *.jpg, *.tif, *.bmp with an image resolution of 300 dpi. Graphic files (jpg, tif, bmp) should be attached (separately) in their original formats which are fit for editing. Also MS Word and Excel graphs should be active and be fit for editing.
Abbreviations and symbols are acceptable only when standard. Abbreviations should not be used in the title or abstract. The full term for which an abbreviation stands should precede its first use in the text, unless it is a standard unit of measurement.
A TEXT WILL BE ACCEPETED if processed with the use of a standard text editor. The use of standard 12-point fonts is advised. Tables, figures, drawings and photographs may be processed using any mode and software (preferably *.txt, *.doc, *.docx, *.wpd, *.xls, *.bmp, *.eps, *.tif).
NOTE: The editors accept articles in ONLY English, with abstracts and key words. All articles prepared by non-native speakers should be carefully translated and/or proofread by a native/bilingual speaker of English.
COPYRIGHT AGREEMENT FORM
The submission must be accompanied by the filled in Copyright Agreement Form signed by the corresponding author. The form is available in the “Instructions & Forms” section in ScholarOne or in the “Download” section on the Journal website at http://www.balticsportscience.com
SUBMITTING TO BJHPA
DUE TO THE TRANSITION PHASE THE JOURNAL IS IN, new submissions (the manuscript and related files, authors’ declarations, copyright statements, etc.) as well as all other correspondence should be sent directly to the journal’s email wydawnictwo@awf.gda.pl . The papers that have already been submitted via ScholarOne will be processed in the meantime outside the system, naturally keeping all publication and ethical standards.