Dental Hypotheses

Dental Hypotheses is a forum for new, challenging and thought provoking ideas in the field of dental sciences. The journal will consider radical, speculative and non-mainstream scientific ideas provided they are coherently expressed.

Most dental journals will publish ideas only in papers which also report observations. As the best scientists have repeatedly emphasized, this gives a misleading impression of the process of discovery. Dental Hypotheses can therefore form a bridge between cutting-edge theory and the mainstream of dental scientific communication, which ideas must eventually enter if they are to be critiqued and tested against observations.

Guidelines of Dental Hypotheses for authores are based on the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) Uniform Requirements for Submission of Manuscripts to Biomedical Journals. Dental Hypothesesendorses the philosophy that the Equator Network has adopted for reporting health research.

Publication Charges

Dental Hypotheses does not charge any cost to the authors for published articles.

Title page 
This should list the title of the article. The full names, institutional addresses, and email addresses for all authors must be included on the title page. The corresponding author should also be indicated.

Abstract 
This should not exceed 350 words and should be structured into separate sections headed e.g. Introduction, The hypothesis, Evaluation of the hypothesis. Please do not use abbreviations or references in the abstract. At the end of abstract up to 10 keywords should be given.

Expected content, by article type

• Hypothesis

Roughly speaking, a hypothesis should be an organized logical structure (or model) that accounts for (some) known facts, and which has real world consequences that are (in principle) observable. 
The consequences of a hypothesis constitute predictions that may be tested against observations and experiments to determine whether some of them are (apparently) fulfilled.

Hypothesis articles should present an untested original hypothesis backed up solely by a survey of previously published results rather than any new evidence. Hypothesis articles should not be reviews

 Manuscript sections for Hypothesis articles

 Introduction

The introduction should to be a concise introduction to the scientific area to be addressed, supported by appropriate references and should set the scene for the hypothesis. The introduction should not be an attempt to review the evidence in detail, unless review of specific pieces of evidence is central and critical to why a new hypothesis is needed.

 The hypothesis

The hypothesis needs to be set out in explicit detail. Typically it should be clear why and how the hypothesis is different from current thinking, how the idea has evolved, and why it is important.
The scientific logic of the hypothesis should be clearly evident (eg. the steps in its causal assumptions).

 Evaluation of the hypothesis

The proposed hypothesis should be evaluated in the light of known and published information. Generally, this entails an evaluation of both evidence in support and evidence (apparently) against the hypothesis. Only relevant, and critically evaluated, papers should be cited. 
A hypothesis should, if correct, have implications and make predictions. These predictions are (in principle) amenable to further observation and experimentation that could tend to confirm or refute the hypothesis. Typically, authors would be expected to indicate how their hypothesis might be tested.

• Review

Dental Hypotheses accepts review of the challenging and thought provoking ideas, dental hypotheses and newly issued dental patents. Reviews should take a broad view of the field. Reviews should be written according to the PRISMA statement and should be approximately 3500 words with 100 references or fewer.

• Special Report

They are miscellaneous robust, radical, speculative and non-mainstream scientific articles of special interest to the dental scientific community. They are limited to 2700 words.

• Perspective

These articles will discuss important, emerging issues in clinical dental practice. They will cover a wide variety of topics of current interest in dental health care, clinical dentistry, and the intersection between dentistry and society. Perspective articles are limited to 1000 to 1500 words and usually include a maximum of 25 references.

• Commentary

These articles will discuss important controversial issues in clinical practice, dental public health policy, or dental health in general. It is also a forum in which colleagues can respond, with room for speculation, to previously stated opinions or observations. A successful Opinion piece will make a compelling case for a particular point of view, but will do so, mindful of existing controversies or alternative views, and will make an effort to integrate these into the discussion. These articles should be no more than 1700 words with 3 figures and a maximum of 30 references.

• Case Study

Dental Hypotheses only accepts entrepreneurial case studies. These articles will discuss Success Stories of new and innovative dental products and services. Several stages of developing of a new dental products and services from an idea to prototyping, pre-clinical and clinical testing, patenting, licensing, manufacturing, marketing, etc. should be discussed. Most case studies have three parts including Background, Case Study and Discussion.   

• Book Review

Short summaries of the strengths and weaknesses of a book, evaluating its overall usefulness to the intended audience. We are willing to consider proposals for book reviews

• Editorial

Unsolicited editorials will be reviewed for publication of any subject within the journal's scope. Editorials should be 1,200 words and a maximum of 20 references or fewer.

• Letter to the Editor

These can take three forms: a substantial re-analysis of a previously published article, or a substantial response to such a re-analysis from the authors of the original publication, or an article that may not cover 'standard hypothesis' but that may be relevant to the journal's scope. Letters should be limited to 500 words and a maximum of 10 references or fewer.

References

Authors are responsible for the accuracy of all references. The list of references begins on a fresh page in the manuscript, using the Vancouver format. References should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text. Identified references in the text should be sequentially numbered by Arabic numerals in parentheses, e.g., (1,3,9). Superscript in-text references are not acceptable in CDOE. For correct style, authors are referred to: International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals: writing and editing for biomedical publication. http://www.icmje.org.

Avoid reference to 'unpublished observations', and manuscripts not yet accepted for publication. References to abstracts should be avoided if possible; such references are appropriate only if they are recent enough that time has not permitted full publication. References to written personal communications (not oral) may be inserted in parentheses in the text.
We recommend the use of a tool such as EndNote orReference Manager for reference management and formatting.

Examples of the Vancouver reference style are given below:

Journals
Standard journal article
(List all authors when six or fewer. When seven or more, list first six and add et al.)

Kolahi J, Fazilati M. Bluetooth technology for prevention of dental caries. Med Hypotheses 2009;73:1067-8.

Corporate author
WHO Collaborating Centre for Oral Precancerous Lesions. Definition of leukoplakia and related lesions: an aid to studies on oral precancer. Oral Surg Oral Med Oral Pathol 1978;46:518-39.

Books and other monographs
Personal author(s)
Fejerskov O, Baelum V, Manji F, Møller IJ. Dental fluorosis; a handbook for health workers. Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1988:41-3.

Chapter in a book
Fomon SJ, Ekstrand J. Fluoride intake. In: Fejerskov O, Ekstrand J, Burt BA, editors: Fluoride in dentistry, 2nd edition. Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1996; 40-52.

For other kinds of citation sources please consult National Library of Medicine's Citing Medicine

Tables

Tables should be typed double spaced, presented on separate pages after the references, and numbered in the order in which they are cited in the text. Table headers should be fully descriptive of the contents, and whenever possible should be comprehensible without reference to the text. Tables should supplement, not duplicate, the text. Use only horizontal rules.

Figures, charts and images

During the initial submission, images may be send in separate supplementary files or all in rhe main submission file. Each file (including main and supplementary files) must not be larger than 2 MB in size, otherwise it will not be uploaded. After manuscript acceptance each image must be prepared as a high quality graphic file with high resolution suitable for print production. If any of these images is larger then 2 MB in size it should be saved on a disk and mailed to thejournal address. These images should be in a high resolution format in accordance with the Pubmed Central preferred image file specification. For the details of image file specifications please refer to the Pubmed Central documents. Failure to submit the required image format in time, may cause delay in the publication of the accepted papers. Keep wording on images to a minimum, with explanations written in the legends. Legends should not be part of the image proper. Legends for figures should be placed at the end of the main submission file.

Other kinds of figures such as bar charts, histograms, scattergrams and line graphs should be prepared using standard chart drawing software such as MS-Graph, or OpenOffice, and embedded in the main submission file. These figures must not be prepared as scanned images.

List of abbreviations 
If abbreviations are used in the text, either they should be defined in the text where first used, or a list of abbreviations can be provided, which should precede the competing interests and authors' contributions.

Conflicts of interests

This section should list specific competing interests associated with any of the authors. If authors declare that no competing interests exist, we will print a statement to this effect.

Declared conflict of interest will not automatically result in rejection of paper but the editors reserve the right to publish any declared conflict of interest alongside accepted. The following would generally be regarded as potential conflicts of interest:

• Direct financial payment to an author for the research or manuscript production by the sponsor of a product or service evaluated in an article.
• Ownership of shares by an author in the company sponsoring a product service evaluated in an article (or in a company sponsoring a competing product).
• Personal consultant with companies or other organizations with a financial interest in the promotion of particular health care products and services.

All authors should complete the ICMJE Uniform Disclosure Form for Potential Conflicts of Interest.

Authors' contributions

As stated in the Uniform Requirements, credit for authorship requires substantial contributions to (a) the conception and design or analysis and interpretation of the data, (b) the drafting of the article or critical revision for important intellectual content, and c) final approval of the version to be published. All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, writing assistance, or a department chair that provided only general support. Type and extent of contribution of each author should be explicitly stated in the Authors' Contribution section of the manuscript. Followings are some examples:

• Both authors made substantial contributions to conception, design, and analysis and interpretation of data, both have been involved in drafting the manuscript or revising it critically for important intellectual content, and have given final approval of the version to be published.
• CB participated in the sequence alignment. JH participated in the design of the study and performed the statistical analysis. EM carried out the molecular genetic studies, participated in the sequence alignment and drafted the manuscript. GV participated in the sequence alignment. EH conceived of the study, and participated in its design and coordination. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
• KSM and JVDO initiated the study; KSM performed sequence analysis and genome comparison; YIW devised and performed the statistical tests; KSM, JVDO and EVK interpreted the results and formulated the hypothesis; KSM and YIW wrote the first draft of the manuscript; EVK and JVDO wrote the final manuscript that was read and approved by all authors.