Global Spine Journal

This Journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics.

This Journal recommends that authors follow the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals formulated by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).

Please read the guidelines below then visit the journal’s submission site to upload your manuscript. Please note that manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned. Remember you can log in to the submission site at any time to check on the progress of your paper through the peer review process.

Only manuscripts of sufficient quality that meet the aims and scope of Global Spine Journal will be reviewed.

As part of the submission process you will be required to warrant that you are submitting your original work, that you have the rights in the work, that you are submitting the work for first publication in the Journal and that it is not being considered for publication elsewhere and has not already been published elsewhere, and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you.

If you have any questions about publishing with Sage, please visit the Sage Journal Solutions Portal

1. Open Access
2. Article processing charge (APC)
3. What do we publish?
   3.1 Aims & scope
   3.2 Article types
   3.3 Writing your paper
   3.3.1 Making your article discoverable 
4. Editorial policies
   4.1 Peer Review Policy
   4.2 Authorship
   4.3 Acknowledgements
   4.4 Funding
   4.5 Declaration of conflicting interests
   4.6 Research ethics and patient consent
   4.7 Clinical Trials
   4.8 Reporting guidelines
   4.9 Research Data
5. Publishing policies
   5.1 Publication ethics
   5.2 Contributor's publishing agreement
6. Preparing your manuscript
   6.1 Word processing formats
   6.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
   6.3 Supplemental material
   6.4 Reference style
   6.5 English language editing services
7. 6.6 ICMJE Form
8. Submitting your manuscript
   7.1 How to submit your manuscript
   7.2 Title, keywords and abstracts
   7.3 ORCID
   7.4 Information required for completing your submission
   7.5 Permissions
9. On acceptance and publication
   8.1 Sage Production
   8.2 Continuous publication
   8.3 Promoting your article
10. Further information

1. Open Access

Global Spine Journal is an open access, peer-reviewed journal. Each article accepted by peer review is made freely available online immediately upon publication, is published under a Creative Commons license and will be hosted online in perpetuity. Publication costs of the journal are covered by the collection of article processing charges which are paid by the funder, institution or author of each manuscript upon acceptance. There is no charge for submitting a paper to the journal.

For general information on open access at Sage please visit the Open Access page or view our Open Access FAQs.

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2. Article processing charge (APC)

If, after peer review, your manuscript is accepted for publication, a one-time article processing charge (APC) is payable. This APC covers the cost of publication and ensures that your article will be freely available online in perpetuity under a Creative Commons license.

The current APC of the journal is $2,650. The APC for AO Spine members is $0.

As a member benefit for AO Spine members, the APC is waived for all manuscripts where at least one author listed on the paper is an active AO Spine member. If none of the authors are members, you can either pay the fee of $2,650 or choose to join AO Spine and pay their membership fee which is significantly less than the APC. Once you join AO Spine and as long as you remain a member, you will not have to pay any fees for all future articles that you submit. The fee for one year of membership with AO Spine is currently $105. For more information on AO Spine membership, please email membership@aospine.org.

Please note that at least one author must be an active member at submission of the manuscript. Purchasing or renewing membership after submission will not result in a fee waiver and the authors will be responsible for paying the APC in full. 

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3. What do we publish?

3.1 Aims & scope

Before submitting your manuscript to Global Spine Journal, please ensure you have read the Aims & Scope.

3.2 Article types

When submitting your manuscript, please indicate which section you will be submitting to (see the article types below). GSJ publishes Original Research and Review articles. GSJ no longer accepts Case Reports. Please do not submit your manuscript to any Special Issue article types unless your manuscript is part of an invited Special Issue.

Abstracts are limited to 250 words. Please include 4-8 keywords.

• GSJ-Original Research: Original Research articles submitted to regular GSJ section. Includes technical reports, basic science and clinical research manuscripts.
• GSJ-Narrative Review
• GSJ-Literature Review
• GSJ-Systematic Review
• Letter to the Editor: should consist of one or two paragraphs totaling no more than 500 words, no abstract, no subheadings and fewer than 8 references (one author, et al., no titles). If an abstract is included, it will automatically be made the first paragraph. Letters should not include figures or research material. Letters to the Editor are not charged an APC. A letter to the editor is a brief communication that addresses the contents of a published article. Its purpose is to make corrections, provide alternative viewpoints, or offer counter arguments. Avoid logical fallacies and ad hominem attacks. Letters to the editor must be written in a professional tone and include references to support all claims if appropriate. 

Registered Reports, Pre-Data or Post-Data:  There are two types of Registered Reports:  

• Registered Reports – Pre-Data, i.e., before any data have been gathered
• Registered Reports – Post-Data, i.e., before already existing data have been examined and analysed.   

These submissions are reviewed in two stages. In Stage 1, a study proposal is considered for publication prior to data collection and/or analysis. Stage 1 submissions should include a complete Introduction, Methods, and Proposed Analyses. High-quality proposals will be accepted in principle before data collection and/or data analysis commences. Once the study is completed, the author will finish the article including Results and Discussion sections (Stage 2). Publication of the Stage 2 submission is guaranteed as long as the approved Stage 1 protocol is followed and the conclusions are appropriate. Full details can be found here. The Journal’s manuscript requirements should be adhered to for the stage 2 submission.

3.3 Writing your paper

The Sage Author Gateway has some general advice and on how to get published, plus links to further resources. Sage Author Services also offers authors a variety of ways to improve and enhance their article including English language editing, plagiarism detection, and video abstract and infographic preparation.

3.3.1 Making your article discoverable 

For information and guidance on how to make your article more discoverable, visit our Gateway page on How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online

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4. Editorial policies

4.1 Peer review policy

The journal’s policy is to have manuscripts reviewed by three expert reviewers. Global Spine Journal utilizes a double-anonymized peer review process in which the reviewer and author’s names and information are withheld from the other. All manuscripts are reviewed as rapidly as possible, while maintaining rigor. Reviewers make comments to the author and recommendations to a Deputy Editor. The Deputy Editor then makes a recommendation to the Editor-in-Chief who then makes the final decision. Once the Editor-in-Chief makes a decision the paper is then returned to the author with all of the comments. Due to the high volume of submissions, all manuscripts go through a pre-screening process upon submission and prior to review. All articles are checked by a Deputy Editor before either proceeding with review or being desk rejected.

The Editor or members of the Editorial Board may occasionally submit their own manuscripts for possible publication in the journal. In these cases, the peer review process will be managed by alternative members of the Board and the submitting Editor/Board member will have no involvement in the decision-making process.

4.2 Authorship

All authors must be noted at the time of submission. Additional authors will not be added after acceptance.

Papers should only be submitted for consideration once consent is given by all contributing authors. Those submitting papers should carefully check that all those whose work contributed to the paper are acknowledged as contributing authors.

The list of authors should include all those who can legitimately claim authorship. This is all those who:

(i) Made a substantial contribution to the concept or design of the work; or acquisition, analysis or interpretation of data,
(ii) Drafted the article or revised it critically for important intellectual content,
(iii) Approved the version to be published,
(iv) Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content. Authors should meet the conditions of all of the points above. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content.

When a large, multicentre 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. Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group alone does not constitute authorship, although all contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in the Acknowledgments section. Please refer to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) authorship guidelines for more information on authorship.

Please note that AI chatbots, for example ChatGPT, should not be listed as authors. For more information see the policy on Use of ChatGPT and generative AI tools.

4.3 Acknowledgements

All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an Acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, or a department chair who provided only general support.

4.3.1 Third party submissions
Where an individual who is not listed as an author submits a manuscript on behalf of the author(s), a statement must be included in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript and in the accompanying cover letter. The statements must:

• Disclose this type of editorial assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input
• Identify any entities that paid for this assistance
• Confirm that the listed authors have authorized the submission of their manuscript via third party and approved any statements or declarations, e.g. conflicting interests, funding, etc.

Where appropriate, Sage reserves the right to deny consideration to manuscripts submitted by a third party rather than by the authors themselves.

4.3.2 Writing assistance

Individuals who provided writing assistance, e.g. from a specialist communications company, do not qualify as authors and so should be included in the Acknowledgements section. Authors must disclose any writing assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input – and identify the entity that paid for this assistance.

It is not necessary to disclose use of language polishing services.

Please supply any personal acknowledgements separately to the main text to facilitate anonymous peer review. Also, please note that your title page with author information should be uploaded as a separate document in order to ensure an anonymize review process. Please do not put any personal information in the file names or anywhere else other than the title page.

4.4 Funding

Global Spine Journal requires all authors to acknowledge their funding in a consistent fashion under a separate heading. Please visit the Funding Acknowledgements page on the Sage Journal Author Gateway to confirm the format of the acknowledgment text in the event of funding, or state that: This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Please provide a statement disclosing any funding received in the title page or at the end of the paper. If there was none, this also must be stated in the title page or at the end of the paper

4.5 Declaration of conflicting interests

It is the policy of Global Spine Journal to require a declaration of conflicting interests from all authors enabling a statement to be carried within the paginated pages of all published articles.

Please ensure that a ‘Declaration of Conflicting Interests’ statement is included at the end of your manuscript, after any acknowledgements and prior to the references. If no conflict exists, please state that ‘The Author(s) declare(s) that there is no conflict of interest’.

For guidance on conflict of interest statements, please see the ICMJE recommendations.

4.6 Research ethics and patient consent

Medical research involving human subjects must be conducted according to the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki.

Submitted manuscripts should conform to the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, and all papers reporting animal and/or human studies must state in the methods section that the relevant Ethics Committee or Institutional Review Board provided (or waived) approval. Please ensure that you have provided the full name and institution of the review committee, in addition to the approval number.

For research articles, authors are also required to state in the methods section whether participants provided informed consent and whether the consent was written or verbal. All retrospective studies need informed consent; please declare explicitly if your study was deemed exempt from this requirement.

Information on informed consent to report individual cases or case series should be included in the manuscript text. A statement is required regarding whether written informed consent for patient information and images to be published was provided by the patient(s) or a legally authorized representative. Please do not submit the patient’s actual written informed consent with your article, as this in itself breaches the patient’s confidentiality. The Journal requests that you confirm to us, in writing, that you have obtained written informed consent but the written consent itself should be held by the authors/investigators themselves, for example in a patient’s hospital record. The confirmatory letter may be uploaded with your submission as a separate file.

Please also refer to the ICMJE Recommendations for the Protection of Research Participants

All research involving animals submitted for publication must be approved by an ethics committee with oversight of the facility in which the studies were conducted. The Journal has adopted the ARRIVE guidelines.

4.7 Clinical trials

Global Spine Journal conforms to the ICMJE requirement that clinical trials are registered in a WHO-approved public trials registry at or before the time of first patient enrolment as a condition of consideration for publication. The trial registry name and URL, and registration number must be included at the end of the abstract.

4.8 Reporting guidelines

The relevant EQUATOR Network reporting guidelines should be followed depending on the type of study. For example, all randomized controlled trials submitted for publication should include a completed CONSORT flow chart as a cited figure and the completed CONSORT checklist should be uploaded with your submission as a supplementary file. Systematic reviews and metaanalyses should include the completed PRISMA flow chart as a cited figure and the completed PRISMA checklist should be uploaded with your submission as a supplementary file. The EQUATOR wizard can help you identify the appropriate guideline.

Other resources can be found at NLM’s Research Reporting Guidelines and Initiatives.

4.9 Research Data

The journal is committed to facilitating openness, transparency and reproducibility of research, and has the following research data sharing policy. For more information, including FAQs please visit the Sage Research Data policy pages.

Subject to appropriate ethical and legal considerations, authors are encouraged to:

• share your research data in a relevant public data repository
• include a data availability statement linking to your data. If it is not possible to share your data, we encourage you to consider using the statement to explain why it cannot be shared.
• cite this data in your research

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5. Publishing policies

5.1 Publication ethics

Sage is committed to upholding the integrity of the academic record. We encourage authors to refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics’ International Standards for Authors and view the Publication Ethics page on the Sage Author Gateway.

5.1.1 Plagiarism

Global Spine Journal and Sage take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. We seek to protect the rights of our authors and we always investigate claims of plagiarism or misuse of published articles. Equally, we seek to protect the reputation of the journal against malpractice. Submitted articles may be checked with duplication-checking software. Where an article, for example, is found to have plagiarized other work or included third-party copyright material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgement, or where the authorship of the article is contested, we reserve the right to take action including, but not limited to: publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction); retracting the article; taking up the matter with the head of department or dean of the author's institution and/or relevant academic bodies or societies; or taking appropriate legal action. Please also note that self-plagiarism is considered plagiarism; even if you are using your own work as a source, it must be re-written and cannot be directly copied. Every new manuscript is run through a plagiarism software. If significant plagiarism is found, the article will be immediately returned to the author.

5.1.2 Prior publication

If material has been previously published, it is not generally acceptable for publication in a Sage journal. However, there are certain circumstances where previously published material can be considered for publication. Please refer to the guidance on the Sage Author Gateway or if in doubt, contact the Managing Editor at the address given below.

5.2 Contributor's publishing agreement

Before publication Sage requires the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement. Global Spine Journal publishes manuscripts under Creative Commons licenses. The standard license for the journal is Creative Commons by Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND), which allows others to re-use the work without permission as long as the work is properly referenced, the use is non-commercial, and the content is not changed in any way. For more information, you are advised to visit Sage's OA licenses page

Alternative license arrangements are available, for example, to meet particular funder mandates, made at the author’s request.

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6. Preparing your manuscript

6.1 Word processing formats

Preferred formats for the text and tables of your manuscript are Word DOC, RTF, XLS. LaTeX files are also accepted. The text should be double-spaced throughout and with a minimum of 3cm for left and right hand margins and 5cm at head and foot. Text should be standard 10 or 12 point. Word and (La)Tex templates are available on the Manuscript Submission Guidelines page of our Author Gateway.

6.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics

Images should be in .tiff or .jpeg format and uploaded as separate files after the references. All tables should be uploaded after the references as well. No figures/tables/images should be embedded into the main document.

Please provide a figure legend for all figures. This should be a Word document and should be uploaded after the references and before the figures.

Please flip all lateral images so that they are left facing.

6.3 Supplemental material

This journal is able to host additional materials online (e.g. datasets, podcasts, videos, images etc)
alongside the full-text of the article. For more information please refer to our guidelines on submitting
 supplemental files. 

6.4 Reference style

Global Spine Journal adheres to the AMA reference style. Please review the guidelines on AMA to ensure your manuscript conforms to this reference style.

If you use EndNote to manage references, you can download the AMA output file here.

6.5 English language editing services

Authors seeking assistance with English language editing, translation, or figure and manuscript formatting to fit the journal’s specifications should consider using Sage Language Services. Visit Sage Language Services on our Journal Author Gateway for further information.

6.6 ICMJE Form

All authors listed on the manuscript must fill out an individual ICMJE form and submit each one as a separate file as part of the manuscript upload. You can download the ICMJE form here.

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7. Submitting your manuscript

7.1 How to submit your manuscript

Global Spine Journal is hosted on Sage Track, a web based online submission and peer review system powered by ScholarOne™ Manuscripts. Visit http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/gsjournal to login and submit your article online.

IMPORTANT: Please check whether you already have an account in the system before trying to create a new one. If you have reviewed or authored for the journal in the past year it is likely that you will have had an account created. For further guidance on submitting your manuscript online please visit ScholarOne Online Help.

7.2 Title, keywords and abstracts

Please supply a title, short title, an abstract and keywords to accompany your article. The title, keywords and abstract are key to ensuring readers find your article online through online search engines such as Google. Please refer to the information and guidance on how best to title your article, write your abstract and select your keywords by visiting the Sage Journal Author Gateway for guidelines on How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online.

Global Spine Journal requires a specific structured abstract. All abstracts must be structured as such:

• Study Design: (brief 2-3 words describing the article IE: Retrospective Cohort Study)
• Objectives
• Methods
• Results
• Conclusions

All manuscripts submitted without this specific structured abstract will be returned to the author so that it can be changed to conform to the GSJ required structure.

7.3 ORCID

As part of our commitment to ensuring an ethical, transparent and fair peer review process Sage is a supporting member of ORCID, the Open Researcher and Contributor ID. ORCID provides a unique and persistent digital identifier that distinguishes researchers from every other researcher, even those who share the same name, and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between researchers and their professional activities, ensuring that their work is recognized.

The collection of ORCID iDs from corresponding authors is now part of the submission process of this journal. If you already have an ORCID iD you will be asked to associate that to your submission during the online submission process. We also strongly encourage all co-authors to link their ORCID ID to their accounts in our online peer review platforms. It takes seconds to do: click the link when prompted, sign into your ORCID account and our systems are automatically updated. Your ORCID iD will become part of your accepted publication’s metadata, making your work attributable to you and only you. Your ORCID iD is published with your article so that fellow researchers reading your work can link to your ORCID profile and from there link to your other publications.

If you do not already have an ORCID iD please follow this link to create one or visit our ORCID homepage to learn more.

7.4 Information required for completing your submission

Provide full contact details for the corresponding author including email, mailing address and telephone numbers. Academic affiliations are required for all co-authors. These details should be presented separately to the main text of the article to facilitate anonymous peer review.

You will be asked to provide contact details and academic affiliations for all co-authors via the submission system and identify who is to be the corresponding author. These details must match what appears on your manuscript. The affiliation listed on the manuscript should be the institution where the research was conducted. If an author has moved to a new institution since completing the research, the new affiliation can be included in a manuscript note at the end of the paper. At this stage please ensure you have included all the required statements and declarations and uploaded any additional supplementary files (including reporting guidelines where relevant).

7.5 Permissions

Authors are responsible for obtaining permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. For further information including guidance on fair dealing for criticism and review, please visit our Frequently Asked Questions on the Sage Journal Author Gateway.

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8. On acceptance and publication

If your paper is accepted for publication after peer review, you will first be asked to complete the contributor’s publishing agreement. Once your manuscript files have been check for Sage Production, the corresponding author will be asked to pay the article processing charge (APC) via a payment link if no authors are AO Spine members, or if no authors choose to join AO Spine. Once the APC has been processed, your article will be prepared for publication and can appear online within an average of 30 days. Please note that no production work will occur on your paper until the APC has been received. For the papers that are written by AO Spine members, the paper will go into production immediately, as no APC will be required.

8.1 Sage Production

Your Sage Production Editor will keep you informed as to your article’s progress throughout the production process. Proofs will made available to the corresponding author via our editing portal Sage Edit, or by email to the corresponding author and should be returned promptly.  Authors are reminded to check their proofs carefully to confirm that all author information, including names, affiliations, sequence and contact details are correct, and that Funding and Conflict of Interest statements, if any, are accurate.

8.2 Online publication

One of the many benefits of publishing your research in an open access journal is the speed to publication. Your article will be published online in a fully citable form with a DOI number as soon as it has completed the production process. At this time it will be completely free to view and download for all. Check the ‘Online First’ tab on the journal website for the latest published content. Your article will later be assigned to a specific issue. Global Spine Journal currently publishes 8 paper issues per year.

8.3 Promoting your article

Publication is not the end of the process! You can help disseminate your paper and ensure it is as widely read and cited as possible. The Sage Author Gateway has numerous resources to help you promote your work. Visit the Promote Your Article page on the Gateway for tips and advice. 

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9. Further information

Any correspondence, queries or additional requests for information on the Manuscript Submission process should be sent to the following:

daniellel@seattlesciencefoundation.org. 

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