Manuscript Types

Research Papers
Articles reporting research may be full length or brief reports. These should report original research findings within the journal's scope. Papers should generally be a maximum of 4000 words in length, excluding tables, references, and abstract and key points of the article, whilst it is recommended that the number of references should not exceed 36.

Review Papers
Comprehensive, authoritative, reviews within the journal's scope. There are two types of review papers:
- systematic review papers: respond to a specific research question, accrue from criterion-based selection of sources, include a quantitative synthesis and a statistical method (meta-analysis).
Guidelines used for abstracting data and assessing data quality and validity should be noted in methods section.
- narrative review papers: the research question may be broad, and the scope of this review is to discuss a specific topic and keep the readers up-to-date about it. This type of review does not necessarily include a methodological approach and its synthesis is usually qualitative. Narrative reviews should include in a developments section, with details regarding data sources used, keywords applied, time restrictions and study types selected. Developments should be based on actual review articles.
All review papers should be generally less than 6000 words, excluding abstract, tables, figures and references. References should not exceed 50. Conclusion of the reviews should be specific and stem from the findings.
All systematic reviews should comply with the PRISMA guidelines:

PRISMA Checklist

PRISMA Expanded Checklist

Short Reports
Brief reports of data from original research. Short reports are shorter versions of original articles, may include one table or figure, should not exceed 1500 words, and it is recommended that the number of references should not exceed 15. Short reports are suitable for the presentation of research that extends previously published research, including the reporting of additional controls and confirmatory results in other settings, as well as negative results. Authors must clearly acknowledge any work upon which they are building, both published and unpublished.

Methodology Papers
Methodology papers will present different methodological approaches that can be used to investigate problems in a relevant scientific field and to encourage innovation. It is suggested that case studies or practical examples, which can be existing ones, are included to demonstrate the consistency and applicability of the methodology.
Methodology papers should be generally less than 6000 words, excluding abstract, tables, figures and references. References should not exceed 50

Policy Case Studies
The objective of this type of brief research article is to foster regional tobacco control activities and to provide a forum for sharing ideas, examples of policy activities, tobacco prevention activities (such as media campaigns, educational campaigns etc.) for people working in tobacco control policy to present their regional successes or challenges. Such brief articles should be accompanied by a high resolution picture or example of the material used or presented. The maximum word count for the text should not surpass 1500 words. Longer material may be accepted but must present the discussion of a significant policy activity at a multinational or international level.

Study Protocols
Articles describing a research protocol of a study. This article type can be for proposed or for ongoing research and should contain the background, research hypothesis, rationale a detailed methodology of the study. The SPIRIT 2013 Checklist guidelines ideally should be applied. Study protocols submitted for publication must have received ethics approval. Protocols of randomized trials should follow the CONSORT guidelines and must have a trial registration number, while observational studies should follow STROBE guidelines. The maximum word count for the text should not surpass 1500 words.

Tobacco Industry Monitoring Letters
These letters or brief articles describe, assess and comment on regional or international tobacco industry activities and strategies. Word count: Between 500-1000 words. Longer articles may be accepted after discussion with the editorial board.

Letters To The Editor
A letter to the Editor is a brief report that is within the journal's scope and of particular interest to the community, but not suitable as a standard research article. A maximum of ten articles may be included in the references. Letters to the Editor may be edited for clarity or length and may be subject to peer review at the Editors' discretion. To contribute, please contact the Editors. Letters intended for publication should be a maximum of 500 words, contain 10 references, and up to one table or figure. These rules apply for research letters, and letters that respond to articles published in the journal. Letters to the editor are subject to editorial editing so as to streamline the article with the journal's style. Corrections to published articles are also published as a letter and linked to the corrected version of the article.

Editorials
Editorials are written by members of the Editorial Board and may reflect current articles within Tobacco Prevention & Cessation or discuss significant national or international tobacco control projects or initiatives.

Editorial notes from the field
These are editorial articles written by relevant NGOs working on tobacco control that present regional or international work from the field. These usually are linked to full NGO reports that provide an interesting update or work performed on cross cutting tobacco control issues. NEW FOR 2020!