Instructions for Authors – Zamzam University College

Zamzam Medical Journal (ZMJ) · ISSN 1858-9758 · 20 October 2026

ZMJ registers a permanent DOI for every article it publishes through Crossref. Your part is to give us exact metadata and a verified reference list. ZMJ registers the DOI for you; you do not apply for it or pay for it. These instructions apply to authors of Vol 1, Issue 1 (June 2026), who must confirm their details now, and to all future submissions.

1 · What a DOI Is and Who Does What

A Digital Object Identifier (DOI) is a permanent link to your article that keeps working even if the journal website changes. Indexing services, citation databases and Google Scholar use it to match your article to its citations. A DOI is only as accurate as the metadata registered with it: errors in names, affiliations or references spread to indexing services before they are corrected.

Task	Who
Supply and verify article metadata	Corresponding author
Provide an ORCID iD for each author	Each author
Check the reference list and add DOIs	Corresponding author
Register the DOI with Crossref	ZMJ editorial office
Confirm that the DOI opens your article	ZMJ editorial office, then the author

2 · What to Submit with an Accepted Article

Send all of the following to the editorial office with your final accepted version. An article is not registered until the list is complete.

Article title in English (and in Arabic if the article is bilingual)
Full author list in the order it will appear, with each author's given name and family name written separately
Affiliation for every author: department, institution, city, country (the place where the work was done, as well as the current institution)
ORCID iD for every author (format 0000-0000-0000-0000)
Corresponding author's name and institutional email
Article type: Original Article, Clinical Trial, Review, Case Report, Short Communication, Editorial, or Letter (clinical trials also need the registry name and registration number)
Abstract (English; Arabic if bilingual) and 3 to 6 keywords
The statements in section 3 below (ethics, consent, conflicts of interest, funding, acknowledgements, data availability)
ICMJE criteria and CRediT roles for every author (Part B of the form at the end of this page)
Reference list with DOIs added (section 6)
Signed confirmation that the metadata is correct (form at the end of this page)

3 · Authorship and Required Statements

Every author must meet all four ICMJE criteria. A person who does not meet all four is named in the Acknowledgements, not as an author.

Substantial contribution to the conception or design of the work, or to the acquisition, analysis or interpretation of data.
Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content.
Final approval of the version to be published.
Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work.

Contribution roles. State each author's role using the CRediT taxonomy: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Software, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing (original draft), Writing (review and editing).

Statements the article must contain. Research on human participants must follow the Declaration of Helsinki, and the article must include:

the ethics committee (name, institution, country), the approval number and date, or the reason approval was not required;
how consent, or a waiver of consent, was handled (for studies using the records of deceased persons, state the basis for the waiver);
the study sites and the period of data collection;
conflicts of interest of every author;
funding, or the words "no funding received";
acknowledgements, including people who contributed but do not meet the ICMJE criteria;
a data availability statement.

Affiliations. List the institution where the work was done for every author, not only the institution of the corresponding author.

The author list is fixed at acceptance. If it must change after publication, the change is made as a corrigendum, printed in a later issue and linked to the article online. We make no change until we receive the Authorship Change Form signed by all authors, the reason for each change, and completed ICMJE and CRediT details for every author. Avoid this by agreeing the author list, its order and the spelling of every name before you submit.

4 · Format and Criteria by Article Type

Each article type has its own structure, length and acceptance criteria. The type you register decides the metadata we send to Crossref, so choose it before you submit. The limits below are proposed defaults for the Editor-in-Chief to confirm.

Type	Words (excl. abstract, references)	Abstract	References	Figures and tables	Reporting guideline
Original Article	3,500	Structured, 250 words	Up to 40	Up to 6 combined	CONSORT, STROBE, STARD or equivalent
Clinical Trial	4,000	Structured, 300 words	Up to 50	Up to 6, plus the flow diagram	CONSORT (SPIRIT for protocols)
Review Article	5,000	Unstructured, 250 words	Up to 100	Up to 8 combined	PRISMA for systematic reviews
Case Report	1,500	Unstructured, 150 words	Up to 15	Up to 4 combined	CARE
Short Communication	1,500	Unstructured, 150 words	Up to 20	Up to 2 combined	As for Original Article
Editorial	1,000	None	Up to 10	None	None
Letter to the Editor	500	None	Up to 5	1	None

Original Article

Structure: Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusion. Abstract: Background, Methods, Results, Conclusion.
Accepted if the question is clear, the design suits it, the methods can be repeated from your description, and the conclusions follow from the data.
Required: the statements in section 3, and the sample size and statistical methods used.

Clinical Trial

Covers any study that assigns people to an intervention and measures health outcomes, whether randomised or not. Structure: Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusion, following the CONSORT checklist. The abstract ends with the trial registration number.
Registration is required. The trial must have been registered in a public registry before the first participant was enrolled, for example ClinicalTrials.gov, ISRCTN, the Pan African Clinical Trials Registry, or another registry in the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform. Give the registry name, the number and the registration date in the abstract and the Methods. A trial registered after enrolment began is considered by the editor case by case, and the late registration must be disclosed.
Methods must state: the design and allocation ratio; eligibility criteria; the intervention and comparator in enough detail to repeat; the pre-specified primary and secondary outcomes exactly as registered; how the sample size was calculated; the randomisation method, allocation concealment and who was blinded; and the statistical analysis plan, including any interim analyses. Report any change to outcomes, eligibility or sample size after the trial began, with the reason and the date.
Results must include the CONSORT flow diagram (screened, randomised, followed up, analysed), a baseline table for each group, effect sizes with 95% confidence intervals, and all harms and adverse events, including serious ones.
Also required: written informed consent from every participant; the ethics committee and approval number; the data safety monitoring board, if there was one; the trial protocol uploaded with the submission; a completed CONSORT checklist; a sponsor and funding statement; and a data sharing statement.
Accepted if the trial was registered in advance, the reported outcomes match the registered ones (or the differences are explained), harms are reported fully, and the conclusions stay within what the data show. Not accepted: trials without a registry number, or with outcomes switched without disclosure.

Review Article

Structure: Introduction, Methods (for systematic reviews: databases, search terms, dates, inclusion and exclusion criteria), Body sections, Conclusion.
Accepted if it synthesises the evidence rather than listing studies, covers recent literature, and states its limits.
Required: a statement of how the literature was searched. Systematic reviews also need a PRISMA flow diagram and the protocol registration number if one exists.

Case Report

Structure: Introduction, Case Presentation (with a timeline of the illness and treatment), Discussion, Conclusion.
Accepted if the case is rare, teaches something clinically useful, or reports an unexpected outcome, and the literature on similar cases is reviewed.
Required: written informed consent from the patient (or guardian) for publication, and removal of anything that identifies the patient.

Short Communication

Structure: Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion combined, Conclusion.
Accepted if it reports a preliminary or focused finding that needs quick publication. The ethics requirements for an Original Article apply.

Editorial

Structure: free-form argument with a clear position and a closing recommendation.
Accepted if it is invited by the Editor-in-Chief, or proposed and approved before writing, and addresses a current issue relevant to ZMJ readers.

Letter to the Editor

Structure: free-form text with a short title. A letter replying to a ZMJ article must cite it by its DOI.
Accepted if it adds evidence or a reasoned critique, is courteous, and is sent within 3 months of the article it discusses. The original authors may be invited to reply.

The general requirements in the other sections apply to every type: ORCID iDs, exact names and affiliations, a bilingual title and abstract where the article is bilingual, and a verified reference list with DOIs.

5 · Names, Affiliations and ORCID

Crossref stores exactly what we send, so check each item below before you submit.

Use one spelling of your name in every article. Pick a single form and use it in all your publications. Do not switch between initials, full names and transliterations.
Write given name and family name separately. Many Sudanese and Arabic names have several parts. State which part is the family name used for indexing, for example "Given: Mohamed Elamin; Family: Ahmed".
Spell the affiliation in full. Write "Zamzam University College, Khartoum, Sudan", not "ZUC". Give the department when relevant. If you moved institutions after the work was done, list both.
Provide your ORCID iD as a full link, for example https://orcid.org/0000-0000-0000-0000. It links your article to your record across Crossref, PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science. If you do not have one, register free at orcid.org before you submit.
Use an institutional email for the corresponding author. The address is published and used for reader queries.
Do not change the author list after acceptance without writing to the Editor-in-Chief (see section 3).

6 · Reference List and DOIs

Crossref expects member journals to use DOIs in reference lists, so every cited work that has a DOI should carry it in your reference list. This makes your citations clickable and lets the cited authors see that you cited them.

Add the DOI to every reference that has one, written as a full link: https://doi.org/10.xxxx/xxxxx. Journal articles, book chapters and most books published after 2000 have DOIs.
Look up missing DOIs at https://search.crossref.org by pasting the full reference. Accept a match only when title, authors, journal, year and pages all agree with your source.
Check every DOI by clicking it. It must open the article you cited. A DOI copied with a typo can point to a different paper.
Do not invent or guess DOIs. If a work has no DOI, leave it out and give the journal, volume and pages and, for web sources, the URL and access date.
Keep one reference style throughout, following the ZMJ style sheet, and number references in order of first citation.
Cite only works you have read. Check each reference against the original, not against another paper's list.

Format (replace the placeholders with your own source's details; the DOI must come from the real record):

Family Initials, Family Initials, Family Initials. Title of the article. Journal Abbreviation.
Year;Volume(Issue):Pages. https://doi.org/10.xxxx/xxxxx

7 · Your Article's DOI

A ZMJ DOI has the form https://doi.org/[ZMJ prefix]/[suffix]. The prefix is assigned by Crossref when ZMJ's membership is activated, and the suffix identifies the article. The editorial office will send you the final DOI before it is printed on your article.

How to cite your own article. Always use the full DOI link, never the journal website address, which can change.

What happens after publication:

The DOI appears on the first page of the PDF, in the table of contents and on the article's web page.
The DOI opens the article's landing page, which shows the full citation details and gives access to the full text.
Crossref passes the metadata to indexing services. Google Scholar and similar services pick it up over the following weeks; inclusion in other databases depends on their own review and is not guaranteed by the DOI.

Corrections and retractions. The DOI never changes. If you find an error in the published metadata, write to the editorial office with the correction; we update the Crossref record and the DOI stays the same. A formal correction or retraction notice is linked to the original article rather than replacing it.

8 · Timeline and Contact

Authors of Vol 1, Issue 1 (nine articles) should complete steps 1 to 3 within 7 days of receiving this guide, so the editorial office can register all articles together once the DOI prefix is active. Dates for future submissions follow acceptance.

Step	Author action	Deadline
1	Complete the metadata form below and confirm ORCID iDs	7 days from receipt
2	Add DOIs to the reference list and click-check each one	7 days from receipt
3	Return the signed confirmation	7 days from receipt
4	Check the proof showing your DOI and metadata	3 days after the proof is sent
5	Report any metadata error after publication	Any time

Send completed forms and questions to the Editor-in-Chief, Prof. Mohamed E. Elamin, at rector@zamzam.edu.sd.

Author Metadata Form

Complete one form per article. Add one row per author, in the order they appear on the article.

Part A · Article Details

Field	Your entry
Title (English)
Title (Arabic, if bilingual)
Article type
Volume / Issue	Vol 1, Issue ___
Page range
Keywords (3 to 6)
Trial registry and number (clinical trials)
Funding statement
Ethics approval (committee and number)
Conflict of interest
Data availability statement

Part B · Authors, ICMJE Criteria and CRediT Roles

Tick each ICMJE criterion (1 to 4) the author meets, and write the CRediT roles. Anyone who does not meet all four criteria is named in the Acknowledgements.

#	Given name	Family name	Affiliation (department, institution, city, country)	ORCID iD	Email	ICMJE 1 2 3 4	CRediT roles
1						☐ ☐ ☐ ☐
2						☐ ☐ ☐ ☐
3						☐ ☐ ☐ ☐
4						☐ ☐ ☐ ☐
5						☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

Add further rows on a separate sheet if the article has more than five authors.

Part C · Confirmation

I confirm that the names, affiliations, ORCID iDs and reference DOIs above are correct, that every author meets all four ICMJE criteria, and that I have checked each DOI in the reference list.

Corresponding author	Signature	Date

Publisher: Zamzam University College, P.O. Box 6223, Postal Code 11113, Khartoum, Sudan |
Editor-in-Chief: Prof. Mohamed E. Elamin, rector@zamzam.edu.sd |
Web: www.zamzam.edu.sd