Instructions for Authors

Last Update February 1, 2024

About the Journal
Journal Cover Submissions
Policies and Procedures for Peer-Reviewed Publications
- Ethical Scientific Publishing
- Peer Review Process and Decisions
- Copyright, Reuse, Sharing, and Access
- Article Amendments
Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Diabetes Care
Manuscript Categories

Manuscript Format and Style
Forms and Checklists
- Manuscript Submission Form (Copyright Transfer)
- Pre-Submission Checklist (.doc download)
Submitting a Manuscript
- Submission Website
- Plain Language Summary
- Revisions
Accepted Manuscripts
- Publication Online Ahead of Monthly Issue
- Copyediting and Proofreading
- Article Processing Charges
- Open Access (Open Choice Option)
Financial Obligations for Accepted Manuscripts
ADA Professional Publications Personnel and Contacts

About the Journal

Diabetes Care is a journal for the health care practitioner that is intended to increase knowledge, stimulate research, and promote better management of people with diabetes. To achieve these goals, the journal publishes Original Articles on human studies in the following categories:

Clinical Care/Education/Nutrition/Psychosocial Research
Epidemiology/Health Services Research
Pathophysiology/Complications
Cardiovascular and Metabolic Risk
Emerging Technologies and Therapeutics

The journal also publishes clinically relevant review articles, letters to the editor, and commentaries. Topics covered are of interest to clinically oriented physicians, researchers, epidemiologists, psychologists, diabetes educators, and other health professionals. The journal does not publish descriptions of study designs without data, papers on in vitro studies, or studies involving animals.

The Editor in Chief of Diabetes Care is Steven E. Kahn, MB, ChB, of the University of Washington and VA Puget Sound Health Care System. Dr. Kahn and team began reviewing new submissions on July 1, 2022. A complete list of the editorial team can be found at About the Editors.

For more information about the journal, including average acceptance rate and current lead times, please refer to About the Journal.

Journal Cover Submissions

Diabetes Care accepts artwork submissions for consideration to be used on the cover of a monthly issue of the journal. Artwork submission and review are independent from manuscript submission. For complete information, including requirements and where to send your image, visit Submit Artwork for the Cover of Diabetes Care.

Policies and Procedures for Peer-Reviewed Publications

The American Diabetes Association's peer-reviewed publications follow the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), and the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) for guidance on policies and procedures related to publication, peer-review, and ethical standards in the conduct and reporting of research and other material published in ADA titles. Comprehensive information related to the editorial and ethical policies of Diabetes Care can be found in Publication Policies and Procedures for ADA Journals. This page includes extensive information on ADA’s overall policies related to the following topics:

Responses to Possible Scientific or Publishing Misconduct
Reporting Concerns Related to Scientific Misconduct
Peer Review
Manuscript Extenders
Editorial Decisions
Financial Obligations for Accepted Manuscripts
Prepublication of Accepted Articles
Copyright, Reuse, Sharing, and Access
- Copyright
- Reuse
- Reuse by authors
- Posting and sharing
Public access
- Free article types
- Access icons
- NIH Public Access Policy
- ADA Open Choice
Permanency of Published Content
Article Amendments
Media Embargos
Advertising
Supplements

Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Diabetes Care

Diabetes Care follows the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), particularly its universal requirements related to the “Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals”; the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME); the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE); and the Joint Commitment for Action on Inclusion and Diversity in Publishing. The requirements highlighted below are intended to help Diabetes Care and its authors with the development and reporting that are transparent, unbiased, and ethically sound.

The following manuscript requirements are based on the recommendations and best practices of the organizations mentioned above. They have been widely adopted in some form by established biomedical research journals, and they address the information needed to ascertain whether a submitted manuscript should be considered for publication in Diabetes Care. Therefore, any submitted manuscript that does not meet or address the following requirements will be returned to the author(s) as an incomplete manuscript, along with a request to provide any missing components to complete the manuscript. Authors are encouraged to refer to Diabetes Care’s pre-submission checklist [Diabetes Care Pre-Submission Checklist] to ensure that their manuscript submissions meet the journal’s requirements.

Originality and Prior Publication

Diabetes Care only publishes original work that has not been previously published, unless otherwise specified below. All authors of manuscripts submitted to Diabetes Care must declare whether the manuscript or any part of it, regardless of the language in which it was originally written or published, has been published or is under consideration for publication elsewhere. The American Diabetes Association (ADA) does not consider the previous presentation of a study at a meeting, previous publication of an abstract affiliated with the proceedings of meetings, or prior posting of a study on a recognized preprint server (e.g., medRxiv or bioRxiv) to constitute prior publication. At the time of submission and in the Acknowledgments section, authors should disclose whether the study described in the manuscript has been previously presented at a meeting, published in abstract form in the proceedings of a meeting, or posted on a preprint server.

Any reference to or use of previously published material protected by copyright must be explicitly acknowledged in the manuscript. Posting of submitted material on a website may be considered prior publication and should be noted in the comments to the editor upon submission. Redundant publication—when multiple papers, without full cross-reference in the text, share the same data or results—is not permissible. At the time of submission, authors should disclose details of related papers they have authored, even if authored in a different language; similar papers in press; and any closely related papers previously published or currently under review at another journal.

Study Design

Research submitted to Diabetes Care should be well justified, well planned, and appropriately designed so that it can properly address the research objective of the study described in the manuscript. Statistical issues, including power calculations, should be described to avoid futile studies that produce subject risk without enrollment sufficient to address the research objective. Outcomes should be prespecified at the start of the study. Research should be conducted to high standards of quality control and data analysis. Data and records, including the original versions of manuscripts, the original source files for figures and graphics, and other files and supporting materials, must be retained by authors and must be able to be produced for review, if requested by the editors.

Diabetes Care requires documented review and approval from a formally constituted review board (institutional review board or ethics committee) for all studies involving people, medical records, and human tissues. For those investigators who do not have access to formal ethics review committees, the principles outlined in the World Medical Association's Declaration of Helsinki should be followed. If the study is judged exempt from review, a statement from the committee is required; authors should provide this statement at the time of manuscript submission. Informed consent by participants (or assent in the case of youth) must be attained. If not possible, an institutional review board must decide if this is ethically acceptable; review board approval must be attested to and described in the comments to the editor upon manuscript submission and in the Research Design and Methods section of the manuscript itself.

Studies and experiments using animals require full compliance with local and national ethical and regulatory principles, and local licensing arrangements.

Reporting standards for studies involving humans categorized by race, ethnicity, national or social origin, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, political or other beliefs, age, disease, (dis)ability, socio-economic status, or other socially constructed or socially relevant groupings, are further described in the section titled Reporting Standards and Guidelines.

Fabrication, falsification, concealment, deceptive reporting, or misrepresentation of data constitute scientific misconduct. Information on how ADA reviews potential instances of scientific or publishing misconduct is detailed in ADA Policies and Procedures for Peer-Reviewed Publications.

Authorship and Contributions

ADA journals subscribe to the requirements stated in ICMJE’s Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals. Per these requirements, authorship implies:

Substantial contributions to conception and design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND

Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
Final approval of the version to be submitted to and published in the journal; AND
Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

All authors should meet the above conditions, and ADA requires all listed authors to detail their contributions to the study and/or manuscript in a section titled "Author Contributions" in the Acknowledgments of the manuscript. If the article is accepted for publication, this information will be included after the main text in the published version of the manuscript. If any editorial assistance was provided in the development of the manuscript, the person(s) doing so must be named, what their role was, and who supported them financially for the participation. In addition, if editorial assistance was provided, please be sure to identify the author who wrote the first draft of the manuscript in the Author Contributions paragraph.

Example: Author Contributions. A.B.C., D.E.F, and G.H.I. were involved in the conception, design, and conduct of the study and the analysis and interpretation of the results. A.B.C. wrote the first draft of the manuscript, and all authors edited, reviewed, and approved the final version of the manuscript. G.H.I. is the guarantor of this work and, as such, had full access to all the data in the study and takes responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis.

In addition, ADA has adopted the following ICMJE recommendations related to authorship and contributions:

When a large, multicenter group has conducted the work, the group should identify the individuals who accept direct responsibility for the manuscript. These individuals should fully meet the criteria for authorship defined above, and these individuals must complete the mandatory Manuscript Submission Form, which requires authors to outline contributions and relevant conflicts of interest.
When submitting a manuscript authored by a group, the corresponding author should clearly indicate the preferred citation and identify all individual authors as well as the group name; other collaborators should be listed in the Acknowledgments. The National Library of Medicine (NLM) indexes the group name and the names of individuals the group has identified as being directly responsible for the manuscript; it also lists the names of collaborators if they are listed in Acknowledgments.
Acquisition of funding, collection of data, collection of patient and/or samples from other species, or general supervision of the research group alone does not constitute authorship.
All persons designated as authors should qualify for authorship, and all those who qualify should be listed.
Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content.

All authors must take responsibility in writing for the accuracy of the manuscript, and one or more authors, such as the corresponding or lead author, must be the guarantor and take responsibility for the work as a whole.

Lastly, ADA has adopted and modified JAMA’s instructions for authors on the role of artificial intelligence and machine learning in creating content or assisting with writing or manuscript preparation. First, nonhuman artificial intelligence, language models, machine learning, or similar technologies do not qualify for authorship.

Second, if these models or tools are used to create content or assist with writing or manuscript preparation, authors must take responsibility for the integrity of the content generated by these tools.

Third, authors should report the use of artificial intelligence, language models, machine learning, or similar technologies to create content or assist with writing or editing of manuscripts in the Acknowledgments section or the Methods section if this is part of formal research design or methods, as well as in the comments to the editors at the time of submission.

This should include a description of the content that was created or edited and the name of the language model or tool, version and extension numbers, manufacturer, and (where relevant) the query or prompt to create or assist with the development of content. (Note: this does not include basic tools for checking grammar, spelling, references, etc.).

Conflict-of-Interest Disclosures

ADA journals require all participants in the peer-review and publication processes to disclose all relationships that could be viewed as potential conflicts of interest. Editors may use information disclosed in conflict-of-interest statements as a basis for editorial decisions.

For all manuscript submissions, regardless of article type, authors should include conflict-of-interest statements in both the comments to the editors at the time of submission and within the Acknowledgments section of the manuscript itself. If authors have no relevant conflicts of interest to disclose, this should also be declared in both sections. ADA Journals encourage authors to complete and submit ICMJE's Uniform Disclosure Form for Potential Conflicts of Interest with their manuscript submission.

Examples of potential conflict of interest include:

Employment, membership on the board of directors, or any fiduciary relationship with a third-party entity engaged in the development, manufacture, or sale of pharmaceutical or medical devices, supplies, or information;
Ownership of stock or receipt of honoraria, travel or meeting expenses, or consulting or review fees from a third-party entity, as described above;
Receipt of financial support or grants for research from a third-party entity, as described above;
Holding patents or receiving royalties related to the development of pharmaceutical or medical devices, supplies, or information;
Receipt of writing assistance, medicines, medical devices, materials, equipment, or administrative support from a third-party entity, as described above;
Membership on a scientific advisory panel or other standing scientific/medical committee;
Receipt of payment or honoraria for author contributions or author designation; and
Any other relationships that readers could perceive to have influenced, or that give the appearance of potentially influencing, the content of the submitted work.

Investigators must disclose potential conflicts of interest to study participants and should state in the manuscript whether they have done so.

If the study was sponsored by a third party, authors should describe the role of the study sponsor in study design; collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; writing the report; and the decision to submit the report for publication. If the supporting source had no such involvement, the authors should so state.

Data Access and Responsibility: Guarantor Statement

Diabetes Care has adopted the data access and responsibility policies developed by the Journal of the American Medical Association:

For all reports (regardless of funding source) containing original data, at least one named author (e.g., the principal investigator) who is independent of any commercial funder or sponsor must identify as the "guarantor" of the study (i.e., the person who had full access to all the data in the study and takes responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis). A statement identifying the guarantor should be included in the Acknowledgments section at the end of the manuscript. Modified statements or generic statements indicating that all authors had such access are not acceptable.

The statement should appear as follows:

A.B.C. is the guarantor of this work and, as such, had full access to all the data in the study and takes responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis.

For industry-sponsored studies, the editors reserve the right to request an analysis of the data (based on the entire raw dataset and evaluation of the study protocol, and prespecified plan for data analysis) by an independent statistician at an academic institution, rather than by statisticians employed by the sponsor or by a commercial contract research organization. In such cases, the independent biostatistician must be a faculty member at a medical school or academic medical center, or an employee of a government research institute, that has oversight over the person conducting the analysis and that is independent of the commercial sponsor. Details of this independent statistical analysis, the name and institutional affiliation of the independent statistician, and whether compensation or funding was received for conducting the analyses should be reported in the Acknowledgments section of the manuscript. The results of this independent statistical analysis should be the results reported in the manuscript.

Data and Resource Availability Statement

The ADA supports the efforts of researchers, funders, and agencies to make underlying research data and resources accessible, transparent, and easy to share. Diabetes Care encourages authors of original research studies to describe in their papers how readers can access the data and any critical resources supporting their reported findings, methods, and conclusions. “Data” is defined as the minimal dataset necessary to interpret, replicate, and build upon the methods or findings reported in the paper.

Data availability statements should be placed under the heading “Data and Resource Availability” at the end of the “Research Design and Methods” section and should include, where applicable, accession codes, other unique identifiers and associated web links for publicly available datasets, and any other conditions for access of non–publicly available datasets. Where figure source data are provided, statements confirming this should be included in data availability statements and figure legends. In cases in which data are embargoed, authors are required to state as such, to describe the reasons why data are not currently available, and to state when the data will be available.

Depending on the data described in the publication, data availability statements may take one of the following forms or may be a composite of the statements below:

“The datasets generated during and/or analyzed in the current study are available in the [NAME] repository, [DOI or PERSISTENT WEB LINK TO DATASETS].”
“The datasets generated during and/or analyzed in the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.”
“All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in the published article (and its online supplementary files).”
“The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are not publicly available due to [REASON(S) WHY DATA ARE NOT PUBLIC] but are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.”
“The data that support the findings of this study are available from [THIRD PARTY NAME] but restrictions apply to the availability of these data, which were used under license for the current study and therefore are not publicly available. Data are however available from the authors upon reasonable request and with permission of [THIRD PARTY NAME].”
“No datasets were generated or analyzed during the current study.”

Authors are also encouraged to include formal citations to datasets in reference lists where deposited datasets are assigned digital object identifiers (DOIs) or persistent web links by a publicly available data repository. Commonly cited data repositories include Figshare, the Dryad Digital Repository, GigaDB, and GenBank. A global registry of research data repositories can be found at the Registry of Research Data Repositories.

The citation format for datasets in reference lists is as follows:

Author(s) Last Name and First Initial. Title of the dataset. Name of the Repository. Date of Posting (Day Month Year). DOI or Persistent Web Link.

Reporting Standards and Guidelines

To encourage the transparent reporting of research submitted to and published in Diabetes Care, authors are recommended to adhere to the minimum reporting guidelines hosted by the EQUATOR Network when preparing their manuscripts. The following sections outline specific requirements related to research on human populations and the reporting on race, ethnicity, sex, and gender; clinical trial registration; randomized controlled trials; systematic reviews and meta-analyses; scoping reviews; observational studies; Mendelian randomization studies; and genetic association studies.

Research on human populations

The ADA and Diabetes Care stand for the equal treatment of all people, irrespective of sex, gender identity, race, ethnicity, age, disability, socioeconomic status, or geographic location. Diabetes Care shares ADA’s vision and priorities for improving the health of all people, and is committed to recognizing and addressing the disparate impacts that social determinants have on the health outcomes of specific populations. The editors of Diabetes Care believe this can only be realized by ensuring that justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion are firmly rooted in the journal’s organizational structure, volunteer composition, and reporting guidelines and requirements.

As such, all manuscripts submitted to Diabetes Care should be respectful of the dignity and rights of individuals and human groups. Authors should use inclusive, respectful, and person-centered language. Authors are strongly encouraged to refer to and adopt the best practices described the American Psychological Association’s guidelines for inclusive and bias-free language.

Cultural assumptions, social stereotypes, or any language that stigmatizes people with diabetes or any other group will not be tolerated in manuscripts submitted to Diabetes Care. Authors should avoid the use of descriptors that refer to the socially constructed attributes mentioned above unless they are relevant.

Diabetes Care has adopted Nature’s policies for reporting on studies involving humans categorized by race, ethnicity, national or social origin, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, political or other beliefs, age, disease, (dis)ability, socio-economic status, or other socially constructed or socially relevant groupings. For such studies, authors should:

Explicitly describe their methods of categorizing human populations
Define categories in as much detail as the study protocol allows
Justify their choices of definitions and categories, including for example whether any rules of categorization were required by their funding agency
Explain whether (and if so, how) they controlled for confounding variables in their analyses

Specific guidelines regarding race, ethnicity, sex, gender, and gender identity are provided below.

Race and ethnicity

Diabetes Care uses the standards for reporting on race and ethnicity presented in the AMA Manual of Style section 11.12.3 and described in Flanagan et al. JAMA 2021;326(7):621-627. Specifically:

In studies that report on race and ethnicity, the method for ascertaining these variables should be described. Self-identification by study participants is the preferred ascertainment method.
Terminology describing the race and ethnicity of study participants should be free of bias. The names of races, ethnicities, and tribes are capitalized. The adjectival form is preferred (i.e., White people or Black people instead of Whites or Blacks).
Race and ethnicity should be treated as social, rather than biological, constructs. In genetic studies, precise terminology that reflects distinctions between race and genetics is required. In all manuscripts, the conflation of race and ethnicity with genetics should be avoided.
When health outcomes differ by race or ethnicity, it is necessary to consider the sociocultural context, including the possible effects of structural racism.
Papers that describe studies that, by design, excluded individuals belonging to historically marginalized racial and ethnic groups must describe the rationale for this design decision.

Sex and gender

The term “sex” should be used when reporting biological factors and “gender” should be used when reporting gender identity or psychosocial/cultural factors. In the “Research Design and Methods” section of manuscripts submitted to Diabetes Care, authors should describe the methods used to obtain information on sex, gender, or both (e.g., self-reported, investigator observed or classified, or laboratory test).

Researchers are encouraged to follow the “Sex and Gender Equity in Research” (SAGER) guidelines and to include sex and gender considerations where relevant. The SAGER guidelines are a comprehensive set of recommendations for reporting sex and gender information in the study design, data analysis, results, and interpretations of findings (in both clinical and animal research studies). The general principles of the SAGER guidelines are as follows:

Authors should use the terms “sex” and “gender” carefully in order to avoid confusing both terms.
Where the subjects of research comprise organisms capable of differentiation by sex, the research should be designed and conducted in a way that can reveal sex-related differences in the results, even if these were not initially expected.
Where subjects can also be differentiated by gender (shaped by social and cultural circumstances), the research should be conducted similarly at this additional level of distinction.

The SAGER guidelines also provide specific recommendations for reporting on sex and gender in the primary sections of original research articles (i.e., Introduction, Research Design and Methods, Results, and Conclusions), as well as working definitions related to sex, gender, gender identity, and gender presentation.

Generalizability in epidemiological studies

Diabetes Care receives a large number of submissions with an epidemiological foundation. These largely, but not exclusively, come from population-based studies, community samples, surveys, or data derived from electronic medical records. Adequate description of the study population and efforts to describe the generalizability of the findings are required. More information can be found above under "Research in Human Populations."

Clinical trials

ADA journals adhere to ICMJE’s clinical trials registration policy, which is summarized in section III-L of ICMJE’s Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals. ICMJE defines a clinical trial as "any research study that prospectively assigns human participants or groups of humans to one or more health-related interventions to evaluate the effects on health outcomes." All clinical trials submitted to ADA journals must be registered with an ICMJE-approved clinical trial registry (such as clinicaltrials.gov) before patient enrollment. If your manuscript is considered a clinical trial but has not been registered, it will not be considered for publication in the journal. ADA accepts registration of clinical trials in any of the primary registries that participate in the World Health Organization International Clinical Trial Registry Platform. Authors must include the unique clinical trial number, the name of the registry, and the URL to the registration on the manuscript’s title page.

Randomized controlled trials

Authors of reports on randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are required to complete the checklist outlined in the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) Statement. The instructions and checklist are designed to ensure that information pertinent to the trial is included in the study report. ADA requires that the CONSORT checklist is submitted with RCT manuscripts, whether they are reporting primary and/or major secondary outcomes; CONSORT information must be posted with accepted manuscripts either within the manuscript or as online-only supplementary materials.

Systematic reviews and meta-analyses

All systematic reviews submitted to Diabetes Care should be registered in a publicly accessible database (e.g., PROSPERO, Open Science Framework, or Research Registry). If your systematic review has not been registered, it will not be considered for publication in the journal. Authors must include the registration number, the name of the registry, and the URL to the registration on the manuscript’s title page.

Authors of reports on systematic reviews and meta-analyses are required to complete the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) Statement. The PRISMA Statement consists of a 27-item checklist and a 4-phase flow diagram that have been developed to help authors improve the reporting of systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Diabetes Care requires that the completed checklist and diagram are submitted with systematic reviews and meta-analyses; PRISMA information may be posted with accepted manuscripts as online-only supplementary materials at the request of the editors or the authors.

Scoping reviews

All scoping reviews submitted to Diabetes Care should be registered in a publicly accessible database (e.g., Open Science Framework). If your scoping review has not been registered, it will not be considered for publication in the journal. Authors must include the registration number, the name of the registry, and the URL to the registration on the manuscript’s title page.

In addition, authors of scoping reviews much complete the PRISMA-Scr checklist. PRISMA-Scr stands for “PRISMA Scoping Reviews,” which is an extension to the PRISMA guidelines. Authors of scoping reviews are required to complete the 20 essential reporting items and 2 optional items. This checklist was developed to help authors improve the reporting of scoping reviews. PRISMA-Scr information may be posted with accepted manuscripts as online-only supplementary materials at the request of the editors or the authors.

Observational studies

Reports of observational studies (cohort, case-control, or cross-sectional designs), nonrandomized clinical studies, and human interventional studies should include items detailed in the STROBE checklist(s). STROBE is an international, collaborative initiative of epidemiologists, methodologists, statisticians, researchers and journal editors involved in the conduct and dissemination of observational studies, with the common aim of “STrengthening the Reporting of OBservational studies in Epidemiology.” Diabetes Care requires that the completed checklist is submitted with observational studies (cohort, case-control, or cross-sectional designs), nonrandomized clinical studies, and human interventional studies; the STROBE checklist may be posted with accepted manuscripts as online-only supplementary materials at the request of the editors or the authors.

Mendelian randomization studies

STROBE-MR stands for “STrengthening the Reporting of OBservational Studies in Epidemiology using Mendelian Randomization.” Inspired by the original STROBE checklist, the STROBE-MR guidelines were developed to assist researchers in reporting their Mendelian randomization studies clearly and transparently. Diabetes Care requires that the completed checklist is submitted with Mendelian randomization studies; the STROBE-MR checklist may be posted with accepted manuscripts as online-only supplementary materials at the request of the editors or the authors.

Genetic association studies

The “STrengthening the REporting of Genetic Association studies” (STREGA) initiative builds on the STROBE statement and provides additions to 12 of the 22 items in the STROBE checklist. The purpose of the STREGA checklist is to enhance the transparency of reporting of genetic association studies, regardless of choices made during design, conduct, or analysis. Diabetes Care requires that the completed checklist is submitted with genetic association studies; the STREGA checklist may be posted with accepted manuscripts as online-only supplementary materials at the request of the editors or the authors.

Genetic and other 'omic studies

The rapidly dropping costs of genotyping and sequencing platforms, the ease in obtaining germline DNA from peripheral blood, the widespread dissemination of analytical methods and tools, and the growing availability of large genomic datasets have led to a proliferation of studies that make use of genetic data. Similar advances are taking place in the high-throughput profiling of epigenetic marks, RNA transcripts, circulating proteins, small metabolites or microbial species. The following are some guidelines on study design and scope intended to help investigators decide whether their paper is appropriate for submission to Diabetes Care. These guidelines are not meant to be prescriptive or absolute, but they will be used by our editors and reviewers in evaluating the suitability and quality of submitted manuscripts. Please refer to the Genetics and 'Omic Studies Guidelines for specific information regarding focus; sample size, statistical power, and multiple testing; replication and reproducibility; context; negative studies, Medelian randomization; dissemination an data sharing; and generalizability.

Manuscript Categories

See Manuscript Format and Style, for detailed instructions on formatting documents.

Original Articles

Original Articles should be arranged in the following order: title page, structured abstract, introduction (no heading), Research Design and Methods, Results, Conclusions, Acknowledgments, References, tables, and figure legends.

A structured abstract is required for all Original Articles. Abstracts for an Original Article should not exceed 250 words. (This is not to be confused with abstracts submitted to the Annual Scientific Meeting, for which the word limit is higher.) The abstract must be self-contained and clear without reference to the text and should be written for a general journal readership. The abstract format should include four sections: Objective (the purpose or hypothesis of study), Research Design and Methods (the basic design, setting, number of participants and selection criteria, treatment or intervention, and methods of assessment), Results (significant data found), and Conclusions (the validity, limitations, and clinical applicability of the study and its results).
The article Research Design and Methods section contains the study design, definitions of terms used in describing the research, population or samples used for the study, measurements obtained and methods used for making them, statistical analysis plan, and any features of the methods used that are specific to this particular research. It should be as concise as possible but provide sufficient detail that a reader can understand all critical aspects of the study without consulting prior publications or supplementary material.
The article Results section describes the main objective data and the results of the statistical analyses performed using them. Neither further information on the methods used nor interpretation of the implications of findings should appear among the results—these belong in the Methods and Conclusions sections, respectively.
The article Conclusions section should briefly summarize the study’s main findings and place them in context of past research related to the topic of the article. In particular, it must describe how the present observations add new information. Possible clinical relevance of the findings can be discussed but should avoid claims of superiority beyond the study’s context, particularly when modest but statistically significant differences are found that are of uncertain clinical significance. It is desirable to identify both the strengths and limitations of the study and its findings.
The word count limit for Original Articles is 4,000 words, excluding words in tables, table legends, figure legends, title page, acknowledgments, and references.
The article should contain no more than 40 references and the reference section should be single spaced with justified margins.
The article should contain no more than a combination of 4 tables and/or figures.
A conflict-of-interest statement for all authors must be included in the Acknowledgments section of the main document, which should follow the main text and precede the references. If there are no relevant conflicts of interest to disclose, authors should indicate as such in the Acknowledgments section.
In the case of multicenter studies, authors should provide a list of participating investigators in an appendix to the paper. Papers will not be reviewed if this information is not included.
Randomized Clinical Trial Reporting. Authors of reports on randomized controlled trials are required to use the instructions and checklist in the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) Statement. The instructions and checklist are designed to ensure that information pertinent to the trial is included in the study report. CONSORT information must be included in a supplemental material online-only file so that it does not affect word count limitations.
All clinical trials submitted to Diabetes Care for consideration of publication must be registered with a clinical trial registry approved by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). Please see Clinical Trials for more information.

Brief Reports

Brief Reports are designed to provide new and exciting findings in clinical research or clinical care in one or more of the following areas:

the feasibility of a "proof of concept" principle or idea
a novel or innovative finding considered as a pilot study when planning for a larger trial
results from early phase human investigation from a small number of subjects including “first in human” studies
new technical advances (i.e., early research on artificial pancreas, glucose monitoring) or advances in diagnostic testing
studies defining a novel molecular target
studies that challenge current thinking for clinical management or novel approach to behavioral management
case report/case studies that represent a unique or novel finding on disease presentation or treatment effects

Brief Reports are not intended to be short reports on studies that are not powered for larger trials or to simply confirm findings from other studies.

A structured abstract of no more than 150 words is required. The abstract must be self-contained and concise, without reference citations, and written for a general journal readership. The abstract should be followed by a short introduction (2–3 sentences) and four concise sections: Research Design and Methods, Results, Conclusions, and References. References are limited to no more than 20. In addition, Brief Reports may contain a combination of 4 tables/figures.

The format of the title page, margins, text, table, figure, and font size for Brief Reports is the same as for Original Articles. Manuscripts should be double spaced, written in Arial or Times New Roman 12-point font, and saved as a .doc, .txt, or .rtf file.

The word count limit for Brief Reports is 1,500 words, excluding the 150 word abstract. Tables, figures, legends, the title page, acknowledgments, and references are not included in the word count.

Author contributions, statement of guarantor, and conflict-of-interest disclosures for all authors must be included in the Acknowledgments. If authors have no relevant conflict of interest to disclose, it should be indicated as such.

Letters

All letters are published online only. Letters are listed in the table of contents of the print version and are assigned an E-page number. Each letter is assigned a unique DOI; when citing a letter, include the DOI (e.g., 10.2337/dcXX-XXXX).

Letters do not have abstracts and should not exceed 500 words for comments and responses or 750 words for Observations (excluding a maximum of 5 references). As with all submissions, letters should be double-spaced and include a title page.

Diabetes Care accepts three types of letters:

Comment Letters comment on a recently published article and should include the cited paper as reference 1 in the reference list. It should be submitted within 3 months of the article's issue publication. Comment letters do not have tables or figures.
Response Letters are an invited letter from the cited author that replies to the comment letter and should include the comment letter as reference 1 in the reference list. Response letters do not have tables or figures.
Observation Letters comment on a relevant finding related to clinical care or research or present a case report/case study. Observation letters are allowed either one table or one figure.

All letters require a signed manuscript submission form from the author(s). A conflict-of-interest statement for all authors must be included in the acknowledgments section of the main document. If there are no relevant conflicts of interest to disclose, authors should indicate as such in the acknowledgments section.

All letters are freely accessible to readers upon publishing.

Commentaries

Commentaries normally accompany an original article and are invited by the editors. Instructions will be provided at the time of solicitation.

Images and Reports

Images and Reports are intended to provide modern views on the pathogenesis of diabetes or its complications, with the aim of linking the clinical course of diabetes and related pathologies with their underlying physiological mechanisms. By presenting highly novel clinical summaries regarding one to no more than three patient descriptions per article, Images and Reports serves as a valuable educational tool to better understand the pathophysiology of diabetes, enhance disease diagnosis, and offer guidance for optimized clinical treatments.

Importantly, although often presented within the context of a case(s), the Images and Reports section is not intended as a primary vehicle for traditional case reports where novel insights and the use of cutting edge diagnostic/treatment tools are lacking. All submissions must include original images or videos as well as useful insight. Images may include, but are not limited to, histopathological specimens, MRI or CT scans, or other radiological imaging techniques.

All submissions will be subjected to rigorous peer review, with novelty and reader interest a high priority for editorial decisions. All submissions will also be evaluated based on how the contribution adheres to the intent of Images and Reports by judging how it advances understanding of underlying pathophysiological mechanisms.

Submissions should include 1–2 figures or videos. All figures must meet the quality standards outlined in Figures. Video submissions are encouraged and may be submitted in any of the standard formats (e.g., .avi, .mov, etc.). Please submit a separate still image for each video file. More information on video submissions can be found in Video. Figures, videos, and still images should be uploaded as separate files.

Note: Any information that might identify a patient or hospital, including a date, should be removed from the image or video. Written permission from the patient, or parent or guardian of a minor child, is required for publication of recognizable images in all forms and media.

The written portion of the submission should include the following:

A standard title page with no more than four authors
A bulleted summary of 5–10 points (200 words or fewer) summarizing the main narrative and including information such as diagnosis, patient characteristics, biological markers, etc.
A main narrative of 800 words or fewer
A standard acknowledgments section
A reference list with 10 or fewer citations
A legend for each figure and video

All authors should consent to the standard ADA copyright and authorship form (manuscript submission form). Standard page charges and fees for color figures will be applied.

Reviews

Reviews are solicited by the Editors. In general, Reviews contain a 5,000 word limit, with 100 or fewer references, and a combination of 7 figures/tables.

Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses

Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses follow the same requirements as Original Articles.

The word count limit for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses is 4,000 words, excluding words in tables, table legends, figure legends, title page, acknowledgments, and references.
The article should contain no more than 40 references, and the reference section should be single spaced with justified margins.
The article should contain no more than a combination of 4 tables and/or figures.
A conflict-of-interest statement for all authors must be included in the Acknowledgments section of the main document, which should follow the main text and precede the references. If there are no relevant conflicts of interest to disclose, authors should indicate as such in the Acknowledgments section.

Editorials

Editorials are generally solicited by the Editors. If you wish to submit an unsolicited editorial, please query first and provide an outlined proposal that includes the following:

Cover letter explaining why the author(s) are suited to write the article and their area of expertise and bios
Brief background of the topic/problem
Major issue to be discussed
Strengths and weaknesses
Why this is an important topic for the journal
Potential future directions

Please send the proposal to Shannon Potts ([email protected]), Director of Peer Review Operations. Submission guidelines will be provided if approved for submission.

Perspectives

Perspectives are solicited by the Editors or approved for submission after a proposal query. A Perspective highlights recent exciting research, not primarily that of the author(s), and may provide context for the findings within a field or explain potential interdisciplinary significance (similar to that of a Review Article).

Please format proposals as outlined in Proposals for Perspectives Submitted to Diabetes Care. Send formatted proposals to Shannon Potts ([email protected]), Director of Peer Review Operations. Submission guidelines will be provided if approved for submission.

Supplemental Issues

Supplemental issues must be approved prior to submission. A proposal for a supplemental issue should first be submitted to the Publications Department of the ADA ([email protected]) and must specify the following:

The name of the organization(s) sponsoring and funding the supplement (not merely the name of the public relations agency handling its publication).
If the supplement is based on a symposium, where and when the symposium was held and how the speakers and papers were selected.
Whether authors will be paid and, if so, how much.

If the proposal is approved, it will be forwarded to the Editor of Diabetes Care. Initial approval by the ADA does not commit the Editor to accept a proposal in whole or part. All manuscripts are subject to the same peer review as other manuscripts in the journal.

For complete instructions on submitting a supplement, please contact the Peer-Review Office.

ADA Standards, Statements, Reports, and Reviews

The ADA is actively involved in the development and dissemination of diabetes care standards, guidelines, and related documents. The ADA’s clinical practice recommendations are viewed as important resources for health care professionals who care for people with diabetes. Each ADA-authored and/or -endorsed report will be considered for publication in an ADA journal and will be reviewed at the discretion of the journal’s editorial team before publication. Each article type is expected to adhere to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editor’s uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to medical and scientific journals, as well as the relevant reporting guidelines for each article type.

Please visit the section titled ADA Standards, Statements, Reports, and Reviews on the Policies and Procedures for Peer-Reviewed Publications page for detailed information on the type of recommendations, statements, and reports authored, convened, or endorsed by the ADA.

Manuscript Format and Style

Articles must be in clear and understandable English. Nonnative English authors are encouraged to seek the assistance of an English- proficient colleague, or a communications agency, such as American Journal Experts, to help improve the clarity and readability of a paper before it is submitted to the journal.

For specific information on the parameters and limits for various manuscript categories (e.g., section headings, word limits, etc.), see Manuscript Categories.

Graphical Abstracts

Graphical abstracts are a visual summary of the article. The image should capture the main points in a simple visual format, offering a quick understanding of the research. Graphical abstracts are intended to encourage browsing and offer easy identification of papers relevant to a reader’s research interests.

Examples of graphical abstracts (click to enlarge):

Several free tools are available online to aide in the creation of graphical abstracts. ADA recommends BioRender, a web-based application for creating scientific figures using a library of life science icons. Create a free BioRender account at https://app.biorender.com/user/signup. If you're already a BioRender user, please refer to the instructions for linking your manuscript with ADA's account by following the guidelines provided in this link. Please note that this is solely for authors whose manuscripts have already been accepted for publication in an ADA journal.

Diabetes Care–branded graphical abstract templates are also available for download:
Graphical Abstract Template-2 columns (.ppt)
Graphical Abstract Template-3 columns (.ppt)

Graphical abstracts are required for Original Articles, Brief Reports, Images and Reports, Reviews, and Perspectives in Care and are published as part of the article online and the article PDF. They are excluded from the printed monthly edition of the journal. Authors should provide an original image clearly summarizing the focus and findings of the article. A landscape layout is preferred for image orientation. Graphical abstracts are uploaded to the submission website individually, and the file name should be simple and descriptive, e.g., graphical_abstract.tiff. Please use text sparingly and choose common fonts, such as Times, Arial, or Courier. Most image file types are acceptable. See Digital Art Guidelines for image specifications.

As with all materials submitted to ADA, the copyright is transferred to ADA via the manuscript submission form. See Forms and Checklists.

Main Document

The main document file includes the title page, abstract, main text, acknowledgements, references, tables, and figure legends, in that order. Please do not use headers, footers, or endnotes in your paper.

The main document should be in Word document format (not as a PDF). This will allow our Editorial Office to verify word count and our production staff to convert your paper (if accepted) into an article.

Title Page

All submissions, regardless of article type, require a title page. The title page should include the following: full title; a short running title (less than 47 characters and spaces combined); the first name, middle initial, last name, and highest academic degree of each author; each author's affiliation (in English) during the time the study was conducted; contact information of the corresponding author (name and email address); and the word count and number of tables and figures.

If two authors have equal authorship, it may be noted by * under the author list.

Twitter Summary. To help promote articles accepted for publication in Diabetes Care, authors are asked to include a <200-character Twitter summary of their article. The summary should highlight the key finding, insight, or significance of the paper and should be listed on the title page of the manuscript, below the corresponding author’s contact information.

Text Composition

Articles should be written in clear, concise English following the recommendations for scientific writing found in Scientific Style and Format, the Council of Science Editors (CSE) style manual (7th ed., 2006, Reston, VA, Council of Science Editors). All accepted manuscripts will be edited according to the CSE style manual and The Chicago Manual of Style (16th ed., 2010, Chicago, IL, The University of Chicago Press) by ADA professional publications staff. The authors are responsible for all statements made in their articles or editorials, including any editing changes made by staff. Proof pages will be sent to the corresponding author and should be read carefully.

The designations type 1 diabetes and type 2 diabetes should be used when referring to the two major forms of diabetes. Abbreviations for diabetes, such as T2D for type 2 diabetes, should not be used. The term diabetic should not be used as a noun.

All manuscripts should be double-spaced, in Arial or Times New Roman 12-point font, and saved as a .doc, .txt, or .rtf file. In addition, please do not lock or page protect your document, and avoid using footnote and endnote functions.

Article Highlights

Article Highlights are a list of four bulleted points summarizing the key findings and/or significance of the work described in the paper. Article Highlights answer the following questions:

Why did we undertake this study?
What is the specific question(s) we wanted to answer?
What did we find?
What are the implications of our findings?

Article Highlights are required for Original Articles, Brief Reports, Images and Reports, Reviews, and Perspectives in Care and should be placed immediately after the abstract. This section should be 75 to 130 words or fewer, including the questions, and should be written in complete sentences. Please include the bulleted questions along with your answers to the questions.

Abbreviations and Units

Abbreviations should be used only when necessary, e.g., for long chemical names (HEPES), procedures (ELISA), or terms used throughout the article. See the list of abbreviations that need not be defined; all others must be defined at first use. Abbreviate units of measure only when used with numbers. Abbreviations may be used in tables and figures. The American Medical Association style manual contains lists of standard scientific abbreviations.

Clinical laboratory values and units should be in Système International (SI) form. Kilocalories should be used rather than kilojoules.

HbA1c values should be dually reported as “% (mmol/mol).” Please use the NGSP’s HbA1c converter at https://ngsp.org/convert1.asp to calculate HbA1c values as both % and mmol/mol.

Font and Margins

Text, including title and author names, should be in 12-point Arial or Times New Roman. Please avoid using boldface font. Text in tables should be no smaller than 10-point font. Margins should be 1' at the top and bottom and 1" on the left and right sides.

Acknowledgments

The acknowledgments are located after the main text and before the reference list and should contain the following sections, in the order they appear below:

Personal Thanks. This section is reserved for personal thanks of technical assistance, advice, performance of special tests, manuscript preparation, and editorial or clerical assistance from individuals.

If any editorial assistance was received in the development of the manuscript, include the full name of each individual, the type of assistance they contributed, their primary affiliation, and any financial support provided for their participation.

For example, "The authors thank William Bell, National Institute on Aging, Bethesda, MD, for helpful discussions during the development of the study. Dr. Bell received no financial support for his participation."

Funding and Assistance. Acknowledge all financial support, including grant numbers where applicable, and provision of any supplies or assistance. For example, "This study was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health (DK-55433 and DK-55564). R.A.D. is the recipient of a grant-in-aid from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."

Conflict of Interest. Disclose all potential dualities of interest with for-profit entities OR include a statement indicating no potential conflicts relevant to this article. For example, "J.A.M. holds stock in Warner Lambert and Eli Lilly; has been a paid consultant for Pfizer and Eli Lilly; and has received laboratory funding from Warner Lambert. H.L.N. has participated on speakers bureaus for Novo Nordisk and AstraZeneca." More information is available in the section Conflict-of-Interest Disclosures.

Author Contributions and Guarantor Statement. List the contributions to the manuscript of each author, using their initials. For example, "J.D. and E.M. researched data, contributed to discussion, and wrote the first draft of the manuscript. C.G. reviewed and edited the manuscript. G.S.G., M.C., and E.K.M. researched data and reviewed and edited the manuscript. E.K.M., E.W., and J.M. contributed to discussion and reviewed and edited the manuscript. All authors approved the final version of the manuscript."

For all articles containing original data, at least one named author (e.g., the principal investigator) who is independent of any commercial funder or sponsor must be identified as the "guarantor" of the study (i.e., the person who had full access to all the data in the study and takes responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis). The statement should appear at the end of the Author Contributions paragraph. For example, "E.M. is the guarantor of this work and, as such, had full access to all the data in the study and takes responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis."

Prior Presentation. Prior presentation in abstract form or submission to a preprint server should be clearly identified. For presentation at an annual meeting or other conference, include the name and date of the event. For manuscripts on preprint servers, include a link to the preprint and the date preprint was submitted. For example, "A non–peer-reviewed version of this article was submitted to the arXiv preprint server (https://arxiv.org/abs/1234.02468) on 13 December 2020."

References

Please place the reference list after the main text and acknowledgments (if applicable). Original Articles are limited to 40 references. Letters are allowed 5 references. Review articles are allowed 100 references, and meta-analyses should have no more than 40 references.

Reference numbers in the text should begin at the Introduction and should appear in chronological order, within parentheses [e.g., "In the studies by Norton et al. (1,2)..."]. Please do not use the footnote or endnote function to cite studies or create a reference list. A reference manager must have the ability to customize the display of references. For example, the reference application should have the option to list the references at the end of the paper, as opposed to listing the references as endnotes or footnotes at the bottom of each page, and should not embed the list in the text as a series of endnotes/footnotes. When using a reference manager (e.g., Clarivate's EndNote), remember to generate the list as a bibliography in a style suitable to Diabetes Care, and then save and submit as the final step to creating the references. Otherwise, references should be manually inserted.

All authors must be listed by first initials and last name in each reference, and please provide inclusive page numbers. Journal titles should be abbreviated according to the National Library of Medicine's List of Journals Indexed for Medline; for unlisted journals, please provide complete journal titles. Material in press may be cited, but copies of such material may be requested. Authors are responsible for the accuracy of the references. For examples of ADA citation format, refer to References for ADA Publications.

Supplemental Material

Nonessential tables, figures, and/or videos may accompany articles as online-only supplemental material files, but authors are asked to include a comment to the editor at the time of manuscript submission that explains the rationale and justification for submitting and possibly posting the supplemental information.

All online-only supplemental material files should be uploaded during the submission process. The file must be clearly labeled as "Online-Only Supplemental Material." In addition, supplemental material online-only files must be referenced in the main text of the manuscript at least once (e.g., Supplemental Table S1).

All online-only supplemental material files are subject to peer review but will not be composed, copyedited, or proofread by production staff. As such, authors are encouraged to review supplemental material files carefully before submission.

Lists that include names of principal investigators or writing groups may appear in print or as online-only supplemental material. Lists of names exceeding 150 words should be submitted as online-only supplemental material. Names of principal investigators or writing groups should otherwise be included in an in-text appendix, located at the end of the main document before the references.

Supplemental material containing very large datasets should be cited in the text with a URL to the material hosted on an author-affiliated website or data repository or may appear with a note that the data is available upon request to the author.

ADA partners with Figshare to publish supplemental material online. All supplemental material files accepted for publication with the manuscript will be uploaded to Figshare by ADA production staff and linked to the article on Diabetes Care. View and search all supplemental materials for Diabetes Care on Figshare at diabetesjournals.figshare.com/Care.

Tables

Tables should be cited in numerical order in the text (Table 1, Table 2, etc.), and each table should be inserted after the References section, with the corresponding table number, a title, and a legend. Table legends should appear beneath the table, not within the table. Tables should be created using Word and the "Insert Table" command, with no hard returns. Please use Arial or Times New Roman font, no smaller than 10 points.

Tables with internal divisions (i.e., Tables 1A and B) should be submitted as separate tables (Tables 1 and 2). Please avoid using shading within a table. If a table includes data that require explanation in the legend, apply the following sequence of symbols, from top to bottom, left to right: *, †, ‡, §, ||, ¶, #, **, ††, ‡‡.

Figures

Figures should be cited in numerical order in the text (Fig. 1, Fig. 2, etc.), with a corresponding figure legend in a section labeled "Figure Legends" placed at the end of the manuscript.

Diabetes Care uses digital publishing methods throughout the production process. If your article is accepted, it will be published in both the print and online journal. The following sections provide information on how to format your figures to ensure the best possible reproduction of your images.

Font. At 100% size, fonts should be 8–10 points and used consistently throughout all figures.

Text. Information on the axes should be succinct, using abbreviations where possible. Key information should be placed in available white space within the figure; if space is not available, the information should be placed in the legend. In general, figures with multiple parts should be marked A, B, C, etc., with a description of each panel included in the legend rather than on the figure.

Line and bar graphs. Lines in graphs should be bold enough to be easily read after reduction, as should all symbols used in the figure. Data points are best marked with simple symbols, to ensure they are easily distinguishable, for example: . In the figure legend, please use words rather than symbols; e.g., "black circles = group 1; white squares = group 2; or black bars = blood glucose; white bars = C-peptide."

Formatting digital figures files for print and online reproduction. To meet ADA’s quality standards for publication, it is important to submit digital art that conforms to the appropriate resolution, size, color mode, and file format. Doing so will help to avoid delays in publication and maximize the quality of images, both online and in print. Please refer to ADA's Digital Art Guidelines when preparing your files. If you are unable to provide files that meet the specifications outlined in these guidelines, you may submit your original source files (files from the program in which they were originally created).

Reproductions. If materials (e.g., figures and/or tables) are taken from other sources, the author must provide written permission for reproduction from the original publisher and author at the time of submission. In addition, the source should be cited at the end of the figure legend. For more information, refer to Permissions: Help for Authors.

Please note that it is the responsibility of the author to seek and obtain permission from copyright holders for reuse of any materials for intended publication in Diabetes Care.

ADA has adopted and modified JAMA’s instructions for authors on the role of artificial intelligence and machine learning in reproducing and re-creating material for publication. In particular, the submission and publication of content created by artificial intelligence, language models, machine learning, or similar technologies is discouraged, unless part of formal research design or methods, and is not permitted without clear description of the content that was created and the name of the model or tool, version and extension numbers, manufacturer, and (where relevant) the query or prompt to create or assist with the development of content. Authors must take responsibility for the integrity of the content generated by these models and tools.

Figure legends. Figure legends should be clearly numbered. For review and production processes, figure legends should be included beneath the image as well as in a section at the end of the manuscript, clearly labeled as Figure Legends.

Digital image manipulation. The American Diabetes Association has adopted the statement developed by the Journal of Cell Biology as its policy on the manipulation of digital images:

"No specific feature within an image may be enhanced, obscured, moved, removed, or introduced. The grouping of images from different parts of the same gel, or from different gels, fields, or exposures must be made explicit by the arrangement of the figure (i.e., using dividing lines) and in the text of the figure legend. Adjustments of brightness, contrast, or color balance are acceptable if they are applied to the whole image and as long as they do not obscure, eliminate, or misrepresent any information present in the original, including backgrounds. Without any background information, it is not possible to see exactly how much of the original gel is actually shown. Non-linear adjustments (e.g., changes to gamma settings) must be disclosed in the figure legend."

All digital images in manuscripts accepted for publication will be scanned using image forensics software for any indication of improper manipulation. Cases of questionable or inappropriate image alterations will be referred to the Association’s Subcommittee on Ethical Scientific Publications (ESP). The ESP may request the original data from the authors for comparison to the prepared figures. If the authors fail to provide the original data, the acceptance of the manuscript will be revoked. Cases of deliberate misrepresentation of data will result in revocation of acceptance, and will be reported to the corresponding author's home institution and/or funding agency as appropriate.

For examples of what constitutes improper digital manipulation (as well as other forms of scientific misconduct), ADA encourages authors to refer to the 2006 editorial by the Journal of Clinical Investigation titled "Stop Misbehaving!" In addition, authors are encouraged to refer to Adobe's white paper on using Photoshop CS3 Extended in biomedical imaging. The paper provides useful information on maintaining image integrity, editing nondestructively, and the medical and scientific image workflow.

Artificial intelligence and image development. ADA has adopted and modified JAMA’s instructions for authors on the role of artificial intelligence and machine learning on the development of images presented for publication. In particular, the submission and publication of images created by artificial intelligence, machine learning tools, or similar technologies is discouraged, unless part of formal research design or methods, and is not permitted without clear description of the content that was created and the name of the model or tool, version and extension numbers, manufacturer, and (where relevant) the query or prompt to create or assist with the development of content. Authors must take responsibility for the integrity of the content generated by these models and tools.

Video

Authors are encouraged to submit videos to be published in the online version of the article, with a still image from the video to appear in the PDF and print versions. Still images are encouraged, but not required, and should represent as best as possible the main subject of the video. Video files should be clearly labeled as "Video 1," "Video 2," etc., and still images should be named "Video 1 Still Image," etc.

Videos should be cited in numerical order in the text (Video 1, Video 2, etc.), and if a still image is supplied, please include a corresponding legend in a section labeled "Video Legends" placed at the end of the manuscript.

Videos can also be submitted as supplementary material and should be appropriately labeled, e.g., "Online Supplemental Video 1." Supplemental material videos are not required to have legends.

Most video formats are acceptable, including .avi, .flv, .mov, .mp4, .swf, .wav, .wma, .wmv, and more. For helpful information about creating videos, please visit the Video Creation Guide.

Forms and Checklists

Manuscript submission form addresses ADA's policies on 1) originality and authorship, 2) copyright assignment, and 3) potential conflict of interest, and outlines the Association’s permission policies related to reuse and postprints. ADA will also accept ICMJE's Uniform Disclosure Form for Potential Conflicts of Interest. The corresponding author may complete the electronic submission form on behalf of all authors and upload it with their article files during submission or send it by email attachment to the Editorial Office ([email protected]).

Download a pre-submission checklist at Diabetes Care Pre-Submission Checklist (.doc).

Submitting a Manuscript

Once you've read the complete Instructions for Authors, submit your manuscript to Diabetes Care at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/diabetescare.

Manuscripts should be submitted under the user account of the designated corresponding author (the contact person listed on the title page of the manuscript).

Revisions should observe all formatting requirements and word limits. When submitting a revision, access the Author Center, and select “Create a Revision” to ensure the revision is submitted with the same manuscript number as the original submission. When revising your manuscript, please show corrections by using the Track Changes function in Microsoft Word. Please be sure to respond to all reviewer comments on the original submission. Be sure to upload the complete set of files with your revision(s), including all tables and figures.

Plain Language Summary
ADA partners with Kudos to help increase article impact. Authors are encouraged to enter a plain language summary during article submission to be used for promotion of the article. The Kudos service allows authors to explain and share their latest articles and to access a comprehensive overview of article usage, altmetric, and other behavioral data in a dashboard view. Including a plain language summary is not required during article submission, and Kudos services are free for ADA authors. More about Kudos is available at info.growkudos.com.

For questions regarding submission or any part of the peer-review process, please contact the Diabetes Care Editorial Office.

Accepted Manuscripts

To make new research readily available to subscribers, Diabetes Care publishes original research articles online ahead of print. For detailed information on online ahead of print articles, see Prepublication of Research Articles.

The designated corresponding author will receive notification of availability of page proofs by email. Corrections should be returned promptly upon receipt of the proof. Failure to do so may delay the publication of the article.

Correspondence concerning the copyediting and proofreading of accepted manuscripts should be addressed to Tessa Cooper, Editorial Content Manager, at [email protected].

Correspondence concerning the production of accepted articles and availability of page proofs should be addressed to ADA Publications at [email protected].

Financial Obligations for Accepted Manuscripts

Article-processing charges are assessed for non-invited articles to help defray the costs related to the peer review, editorial production and publication, access and dissemination, and archiving and indexing of articles published in Diabetes Care.

For articles submitted on or after February 1, 2024, article processing charges will be assessed at $175 per typeset journal page.

In addition, Diabetes Care offers an “Open Choice” option for authors who wish to make their published article immediately accessible to nonsubscribers. By paying an additional article-processing charge of $250 per page, authors may elect to have their articles freely available on the journal's website immediately upon publication online. Upon receipt of payment and on behalf of the author, ADA will also deposit the final version of the published paper into PubMed Central.

Authors will receive an invoice for publication fees, as well as a reprint order form, when page proofs become available. Unless otherwise indicated, it is assumed that the corresponding author takes responsibility for payment. Questions regarding billing or payment should be directed to [email protected].

ADA recognizes that authors, their institutions, or their funding bodies, particularly those from low-income countries, may be unable to meet these financial obligations. In such cases, authors should submit requests for discounts or waivers of article-processing charges via the following online form: Publication Fee Request.

It should be noted that payment of publication fees or waiver status does not in any way influence the editorial decision-making process or the publication of any paper submitted to ADA journals.

ADA Professional Publications Personnel and Contacts

ADA professional publications include books, clinical compendia, scholarly journals, professional news, podcasts, and multimedia. Contact Us With Questions.

Last updated February 1, 2024