Submissions

Author Guidelines

General Information

International Dental Research (IDR) is an international, open-access journal published in accordance with independent, unbiased, double-blind peer-review principles. IDR publishes original articles, review articles, case reports, case series, case reports with literature review, editorials, and letters to the editor in all fields of dentistry.

IDR follows a continuous publication model: articles are published online as soon as the production process is completed and are compiled into a single yearly volume. (Volumes 1–15 were published three times a year.)

IDR is a fully open-access journal. No fees are requested from the authors for the submission and publication process (no article processing charge). All articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), and authors retain the copyright of their work. The journal archive is available free of charge at www.dental-research.com.

The publication language of IDR is English, and manuscripts should be written in American English spelling and terminology. The Editorial Board encourages submissions from international authors.

The Manuscript Preparation Template should be used to prepare the manuscript file. The signed Copyright and Publishing Agreement should be uploaded with the submission.

Editorial Policies and Publication Ethics

The editorial and publication processes of the journal are shaped in accordance with the guidelines of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), the Council of Science Editors (CSE), the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the European Association of Science Editors (EASE), and the National Information Standards Organization (NISO). The journal conforms to the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing.

Ethics committee approval. Approval of the research protocol by an ethics committee, in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki (as revised in 2024) and the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals, is required for experimental, clinical, and drug studies and for some case reports. The ethics committee approval document should be uploaded to the system. The name of the ethics committee and the approval number and date must be stated in the Materials and Methods section. For animal studies, the measures taken to prevent pain and suffering of the animals should be stated clearly.

Informed consent. Manuscripts reporting studies on human participants must state in the main text that the participants were informed in detail about the procedures and that their written informed consent was obtained. Written consent is also required for the publication of any identifiable patient information or clinical photograph; images that could identify a patient (eg, full-face photographs) must be anonymized or accompanied by specific consent for publication.

Clinical trial registration. In line with the ICMJE Recommendations, clinical trials must be registered in a public trial registry (eg, ClinicalTrials.gov or a WHO-recognized registry) before the enrollment of the first participant. The registry name and registration number must be provided at the end of the abstract and in the Materials and Methods section.

Authorship. All authors must meet the ICMJE authorship criteria. Individuals who contributed to the work but do not meet these criteria should be listed in the Acknowledgments. Once a manuscript is accepted for publication, the author list cannot be altered.

Use of artificial intelligence (AI). AI-assisted technologies (such as large language models and chatbots) cannot be listed as authors. Authors who used AI tools in the writing process or in the collection or analysis of data must disclose the tool and the purpose of its use in the Declarations section and remain fully responsible for the accuracy and integrity of the content. Please see the journal's Artificial Intelligence (AI) Policy for details.

Preprints. Posting a preprint of the manuscript on a recognized preprint server before submission does not prevent consideration by IDR. Authors should state the preprint server and DOI in the cover letter and, once the article is published, link the preprint to the published version.

Submission

Manuscripts can only be submitted through the journal's online submission and evaluation system at www.dental-research.com. Manuscripts submitted by any other means will not be evaluated. ORCID identifiers are required for all authors.

Manuscripts are evaluated on the understanding that they are original contributions and do not contain data that have been published elsewhere or are under consideration by another journal. Authors are required to make a full statement at the time of submission about all prior reports and submissions that might be considered duplicate or redundant publication and to mention, in the cover letter, any previously published abstracts or meeting presentations containing partial or similar material. Such publications must be referenced in the manuscript.

Authors must obtain written permission from the copyright holder to reproduce previously published figures, tables, or any other material in both print and electronic formats and must present this permission at submission. The original source should be cited in the references and below the reproduced material.

The following files are required at submission:

• Title page (separate file),
• Blinded main document,
• Figures (separate files),
• Copyright and Publishing Agreement,
• Author Contributions Form, and
• ICMJE Disclosure of Interest Form (to be completed by every author).

Blinding. Because the journal uses double-blind peer review, the main document, figures, and supplementary files must not contain any information that could identify the authors or their institutions (names, affiliations, acknowledgments, grant numbers, self-identifying citations, or file properties). This information should appear only on the title page.

Manuscript Preparation

Manuscripts should be prepared in accordance with the most recent version of the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals (available at www.icmje.org).

Original Investigations and Reviews should be presented in accordance with the following guidelines: randomized study – CONSORT, observational study – STROBE, study on diagnostic accuracy – STARD, systematic reviews and meta-analysis PRISMA, nonrandomized behavioral and public health intervention studies – TREND.

Title page. A separate title page should include:

• The full title of the manuscript and a short title (running head) of no more than 50 characters,
• Names, affiliations, highest academic degrees, and ORCID identifiers of all authors,
• Grant information and detailed information on other sources of support,
• The name, address, telephone number, and email address of the corresponding author,
• Acknowledgment of individuals who contributed to the preparation of the manuscript but who do not meet the authorship criteria.

Abstract. An English abstract is required for all manuscript types except Letters to the Editor. The abstract of Original Articles should be structured with the subheadings Aim, Methodology, Results, and Conclusion. For clinical trials, the trial registration number should be given at the end of the abstract. See Table 1 for word limits.

Keywords. Each submission must be accompanied by three to six keywords, listed at the end of the abstract, written in full without abbreviations and selected from the National Library of Medicine Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) database.

Declarations. The following statements should be given at the end of the main text, before the references (in the blinded main document, identifying details should be replaced with placeholders and supplied on the title page):

• Ethics approval – name of the ethics committee, approval number and date (or the reason approval was not required),
• Informed consent – consent to participate and, when applicable, consent for publication of patient images,
• Conflict of interest – declared by all authors, consistent with the ICMJE Disclosure of Interest Forms,
• Funding – all sources of funding, or a statement that the study received no specific funding,
• Author contributions – described using the CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) roles,
• Data availability – where and under what conditions the data supporting the results can be accessed,
• Use of artificial intelligence – any AI tool used and its purpose, or a statement that none was used.

Manuscript Types

Original Articles. This is the most important type of article, as it provides new information based on original research. The main text should be structured with Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, and Conclusion subheadings. The limitations of the study should be stated in the Discussion before the concluding paragraph.

Review Articles. Reviews prepared by authors who have extensive knowledge of a particular field, reflected in a substantial body of publications with high citation potential, are welcome. Such authors may also be invited by the journal. Reviews should describe, discuss, and evaluate the current level of knowledge of a topic in clinical practice and should guide future studies. The main text should contain Introduction, Clinical and Research Consequences, and Conclusion sections.

Case Reports, Case Series, and Case Reports with Literature Review. There is limited space for case reports in the journal. Reports on rare cases or conditions that pose challenges in diagnosis and treatment, those offering new therapies or revealing knowledge not included in the literature, and interesting and educational cases are accepted for publication. The text should include Introduction, Case Presentation, Discussion, and Conclusion subheadings.

Letters to the Editor. This type of manuscript discusses important, overlooked, or missing aspects of a previously published article. Articles on subjects within the scope of the journal that might attract the readers' attention, particularly educational cases, may also be submitted as a Letter to the Editor. Readers can also present their comments on published manuscripts in this form. An abstract, keywords, tables, figures, and other media should not be included. The text should be unstructured, and the manuscript being commented on must be properly cited.

Table 1. Limitations for each manuscript type

Tables

Tables should be included in the main document, presented after the reference list, and numbered consecutively in the order in which they are referred to in the main text. A descriptive title should be placed above each table. Abbreviations used in the tables should be defined below the tables in footnotes, even if they are defined in the main text. Tables should be created with the "insert table" command of the word processing software and arranged clearly for easy reading. Data presented in the tables should support, not repeat, the data in the main text.

Figures and Figure Legends

Figures, graphics, and photographs should be submitted as separate files (in TIFF or JPEG format) through the submission system and should not be embedded in the main document. When a figure has several parts, each part should be submitted as a separate file and should not be labeled (a, b, c, etc.). Thick and thin arrows, arrowheads, stars, asterisks, and similar marks may be used on the images to support the figure legends. Like the rest of the submission, figures must be blinded: any information that may identify an individual or institution should be removed. The minimum resolution is 300 DPI and the minimum size 100 × 100 mm. Figure legends should be listed at the end of the main document.

Statistics, Units, Abbreviations, and Products

Statistical analysis to support the conclusions is usually necessary. Statistical analyses must be reported in accordance with international statistical reporting standards (Altman DG, Gore SM, Gardner MJ, Pocock SJ. Statistical guidelines for contributors to medical journals. Br Med J (Clin Res Ed). 1983;286(6376):1489-1493). Information on the statistical analysis should be given under a separate subheading in the Materials and Methods section, and the statistical software used must be specified.

Units should be given in accordance with the International System of Units (SI).

All acronyms and abbreviations should be defined at first use, both in the abstract and in the main text, with the abbreviation given in parentheses after the definition.

When a drug, product, hardware, or software program is mentioned in the main text, the name of the product, the manufacturer, and the city and country of the manufacturer (including the state if in the USA) should be given in parentheses in the following format: "Discovery St PET/CT scanner (General Electric, Milwaukee, WI, USA)".

All references, tables, and figures should be cited in the main text and numbered consecutively in the order in which they are cited.

References

References should follow the AMA Manual of Style, 11th edition. Preference should be given to the latest, most up-to-date publications, and authors are responsible for the accuracy of the references. In the main text, references should be cited with Arabic numerals in parentheses, eg, (1), (1,2), (3-5), and numbered consecutively in the order of citation. Journal titles should be abbreviated as in the NLM Catalog (PubMed) and written in italics.

Authors: list all authors when there are six or fewer; when there are seven or more, list the first three followed by "et al." Include the DOI whenever available (written as doi: followed by the number, without "https://doi.org/"). Examples:

• Journal article (up to six authors): Author AA, Author BB, Author CC. Title of the article in sentence case. Journal Abbrev. 2024;16(2):123-130. doi:10.xxxx/xxxxx
• Journal article (seven or more authors): Author AA, Author BB, Author CC, et al. Title of the article in sentence case. Journal Abbrev. 2024;16(2):123-130. doi:10.xxxx/xxxxx
• Article published online ahead of print: Author AA, Author BB. Title of the article. Journal Abbrev. Published online May 12, 2025. doi:10.xxxx/xxxxx
• Book: Author AA, Author BB. Title of the Book. 3rd ed. Publisher; 2023.
• Chapter in a book: Author AA. Title of the chapter. In: Editor AA, Editor BB, eds. Title of the Book. 2nd ed. Publisher; 2022:45-67.
• Conference paper: Author AA. Title of the presentation. Paper presented at: Name of the Meeting; September 12-14, 2024; City, Country.
• Website: Name of the organization. Title of the page. Updated March 3, 2025. Accessed June 1, 2025. https://www.example.org/page

Initial Evaluation and Peer Review

Manuscripts first go through a technical evaluation in which the editorial office checks that the manuscript has been prepared and submitted in accordance with the journal's guidelines. Submissions that do not conform to the guidelines are returned to the submitting author with technical correction requests.

All submissions are screened with Crossref Similarity Check (powered by iThenticate). Manuscripts with an overall similarity index greater than 20%, or a similarity rate of 5% or higher with a single source, are returned to the authors without further evaluation, together with the similarity report. If an ethical problem regarding plagiarism or duplication is detected, the Editorial Board acts in accordance with COPE guidelines.

Manuscripts that pass the technical and similarity checks are reviewed by at least two external and independent double-blind peer reviewers, selected from experts who have published and been cited in the international literature on the subject. Original research articles, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses are also reviewed by a biostatistician. Originality, high scientific quality, and citation potential are the most important criteria for acceptance. The section editor and the Editor-in-Chief are the final authority in the decision-making process. By submitting a manuscript, authors accept that the editors may make changes to the manuscript provided that its main idea is not altered.

Timeline: initial validation and a desk-review decision are made within 21 days of submission, and accepted manuscripts are published within 60 days of acceptance.

Revisions

When submitting a revised manuscript, the authors must provide a detailed point-by-point "Response to reviewers" (each reviewer comment followed by the authors' reply and the line numbers where the changes were made), an annotated (tracked-changes) copy, and a clean copy of the main document.

Revised manuscripts must be submitted within 30 days of the decision letter. If the revision is not submitted within this period, the revision option is automatically canceled by the submission system. Authors who need additional time should request an extension before the 30-day period ends.

Proofs and DOI

Accepted manuscripts are copyedited for grammar, punctuation, and format. After copyediting, the authors are asked to review and approve the changes, and after layout, to review and approve the PDF proof. Each article is assigned a DOI and, in line with the continuous publication model, is published online in the current yearly volume as soon as its production is completed.

Permissions and Reprints

Requests to reproduce material published in IDR are handled by the journal. Please complete the permission request form, available on the journal's website, and email a scanned copy to info@dental-research.com. Include the full reference of the material you wish to use (authors, title of the article, year of publication, volume and issue numbers, and figure numbers where appropriate) and a detailed description of how you intend to use it (eg, in a book).