The following information is intended for novice researchers presenting their first papers. For more experienced researchers, it can serve as a guide for mentoring individuals in their research groups or centers.
This guide includes information on the formal, practical, and ethical aspects of presenting and reviewing scientific communications.
Our conference offers the possibility of presenting your research in both clinical case and scientific communication formats. Clinical cases are limited to up to three cases on a pathology and must provide novel information relevant to conference attendees. Communications are clinical research projects, including clinical or experimental trials.
For clinical studies investigating new therapies or diagnostic techniques, it is necessary to verify compliance with the ethical requirements for animal research (see below).
What can I present?
Before considering presenting clinical cases, it is recommended to conduct a bibliographic search in databases such as PubMed to verify whether the data are already known. This is the first step the reviewers will take to determine whether the information is novel. Remember that abstracts already presented or accepted for other conferences cannot be submitted. We want the research results to reach the scientific community, but it is important to choose the audience where this information will be most relevant, and this includes choosing the conference or congress where you want to present the research.
Who presents?
Only those who have actively participated in the research should be considered authors, whether in the conception and design, the acquisition of data and interpretation of results, or the writing of the text. All authors must approve the submitted text. The first author is the person who has worked the most on the study, leaving the last author to the senior researcher or the person who performed the final review of the work before submission.
How do I submit it?
The presentation structure for clinical cases and communications is different. Please follow the instructions to ensure there are no formatting errors. The word limit for both is 1,000 words, excluding the bibliography.
Structure for clinical cases:
· Introduction. Briefly describe why the case is interesting.
· Case description. Describe the case using medical terms.
· Discussion and conclusions. Explain the findings and their relevance.
· References
Paper Structure
· Objective of the study. Why am I researching this? A brief introduction to the motivation for the research using relevant and current literature. End this section by stating the objectives of the study.
· Materials and Methods. How did I conduct my research? Given the word limit, describe the techniques used in general terms so that reviewers can understand the nature of the study. The poster can expand on these to explain the details of the experiment.
· Results. What did I discover? Describe your most important results. Expressions such as "results will be presented..." cannot be used. If you don't have any results yet, it's too early to present the paper.
· Conclusions. What are the implications of these data? Explain the results in the context of your research and hypotheses. Any statements made in the study that are not derived from your own results should be referenced. You may include future stages of the research.
· Bibliography
If you plan to expand the study and submit it for publication later, remember that some journals do not accept papers whose previously presented results have been longer than 250 words. If the research is good, we hope it can be published once it is complete. The conference is the place to present part of the results, and we do not want to close the door to future publications. In that case, send us your abstract, with a maximum of 250 words, briefly including the previous sections, as appropriate for a clinical case or presentation.
What title should I give it?
It should be between 10 and 12 words and reflect the content of the study. It can be informative (what type of study it is) or descriptive (partially previewing the result).
Is it an experimental study that includes animals?
If the study involves new diagnostic techniques or new therapies, it is necessary to justify their use in animals, whether they are experimental or pets owned by individuals.
It is necessary to justify the study, including preliminary data or other research that may justify its use, the potential benefit compared to current therapies or techniques, the lack of alternatives or models, and to try to obtain the results with the fewest possible cases.
If the study was conducted in a research or academic center that required review by an ethics committee, this authorization must be included.
If the animals belong to the owner, has the owner been informed of the study and its potential complications and signed an informed consent form?
Who and how will my work be reviewed?
Scientific publications are peer-reviewed (two people with experience in the subject) to determine whether or not it is suitable for the conference. This review is anonymous. The author does not know who is reviewing, and the reviewers do not know who the author is. Therefore, it is important to prevent the reviewer from identifying the authors as much as possible. Do not state in the paper that a case was submitted to service XXX of veterinary hospital YYY in city ZZZ. In some cases, this may be impossible (if you are the only one offering such a service), but maintain anonymity as much as possible.
The reviewers will check that the paper meets the formal requirements (structure, word limit, is well-written, structured, has a title that reflects the results, etc.) and also, among others, the following points:
Is it suitable for the conference audience? Remember that this is a conference for small animals (dogs, cats, and new companion animals), so we do not accept papers about horses, for example.
Does it contribute significantly to knowledge on the topic? Is it relevant? Is it novel? Does it corroborate previous results that were preliminary or contradictory? Is it a new line of research?
Scientific rigor. Does it use appropriate vocabulary, good methodology, and clearly explain the results? Does it meet ethical criteria for animal research?
Practical application. Single-case clinical cases are of limited interest, especially for assessing responses to therapies. Well-documented case series with medium- to long-term follow-ups offer more valuable information for clinical practice.
Ethics. Aspects such as animal welfare, potential conflicts of interest, authorship, or repetitive publication will be taken into account.
If both reviewers agree on whether or not to accept a paper, that will be the decision. In the event of a disagreement between them, a third person will review the paper, and the decision will be the majority decision. In general, papers that require major changes to the abstract will be rejected.