Vocabulary

Sentence case

Sentence case is the conventional way of using capital letters in a sentence. That is, you only capitalise the first letter of the first word – like you would in a sentence. Proper nouns (including abbreviations, gene names, journal titles, scientific databases, etc.) have initial capitals as well.

Examples:
The cat sat on the mat.
London is a capital of The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Title case

Title case is the conventional way of using capital letters in a sentence. That is, you capitalise all principal words. Articles, conjunctions, and prepositions do not get capital letters unless they start the title.

Examples:
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
Seven Habits of Effective People.

Plain text
“Normal” text which does not have any special text formatting (i.e. it has default font, size and is not styled into bold or italics).

Mononym
Person who has only last name (no first name or middle name(s)).

Group authorship

Group Authorship is a large numbers of investigators working under a single group name. Group-author articles involve the following parties: the overall group, members of the group who take responsibility for authorship of the article (named individual authors), and members of the group who do not take responsibility for authorship of the article but have contributed to the work that led to the article (nonauthor group members).

Examples:
Cancer Genome Atlas Research Network
North Central Cancer Treatment Group Study N0177

En dash

The en dash (–) is slightly wider than the hyphen (-) but narrower than the em dash (—). The typical computer keyboard lacks a dedicated key for the en dash, though most word processors provide a means for its insertion.


How to check whether term, keyword, etc is in correct case?
  1. Search article text for the term in question. Most likely you will find a few instances, which will give you understanding regarding correct capitalization. If this is not the case, check next points.
  2. Search PubMed site for the term in question.
  3. Search Google for the term in question.

Optional sections for Editorials
There are optional sections for Editorials that can appear after Keywords section and before Copyright section in this order: Abbreviations, Acknowledgments, Conflicts of Interest and Funding.

Shortened format for page number ranges
Ending page numbers should be shortened to the greatest changed digit.
Examples of properly formatted page ranges:
5–9 (cannot be shortened)
1–17 (cannot be shortened)
10–8 (shortened from 10–18)
12–22 (cannot be shortened)
132–9 (shortened from 132–139)
303–27 (shortened from 303–327)
342–423 (cannot be shortened)

Notes

Accepted variations for China
  • China
  • People’s Republic of China
  • PRC (or P.R.C.)
  • PR (or P.R.) China
Accepted variations for Taiwan
  • Taiwan
  • Republic of China
  • ROC (or R.O.C.)
  • Taiwan, Republic of China
  • Taiwan, ROC (or R.O.C.)
Accepted variations for Hong Kong
  • Hong Kong
  • Hong Kong SAR

Note

Taiwan and Hong Kong can optionally include China (or any of its allowed variations) as the ultimate country as long as consistency is maintained throughout the affiliations.

US State abbreviations
State Abbr.
ALABAMA AL
ALASKA AK
ARIZONA AZ
ARKANSAS AR
CALIFORNIA CA
COLORADO CO
CONNECTICUT CT
DELAWARE DE
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA DC
FLORIDA FL
GEORGIA GA
HAWAII HI
IDAHO ID
ILLINOIS IL
INDIANA IN
IOWA IA
KANSAS KS
KENTUCKY KY
LOUISIANA LA
MAINE ME
MARYLAND MD
MASSACHUSETTS MA
MICHIGAN MI
MINNESOTA MN
MISSISSIPPI MS
MISSOURI MO
MONTANA MT
NEBRASKA NE
NEVADA NV
NEW HAMPSHIRE NH
NEW JERSEY NJ
NEW MEXICO NM
NEW YORK NY
NORTH CAROLINA NC
NORTH DAKOTA ND
OHIO OH
OKLAHOMA OK
OREGON OR
PENNSYLVANIA PA
RHODE ISLAND RI
SOUTH CAROLINA SC
SOUTH DAKOTA SD
TENNESSEE TN
TEXAS TX
UTAH UT
VERMONT VT
VIRGINIA VA
WASHINGTON WA
WEST VIRGINIA WV
WISCONSIN WI
WYOMING WY