Letter to the editor Unclear instructions to authors for length of original articles on the Journal’s website Dear editor, During the classes of the core subject ‘Scientific Communication’ in the 2013–2014 Master of Biomedicine, held at the University of Barcelona, in Barcelona, Spain, one of the exercises was to check the word limits for Original/Research articles of different journals, one of which was the International Journal of Stroke. In this particular journal, we were aware that information regarding the allowed number of words found in the English version of the Journal’s website states that the length of original articles should be between 3000 and 4000 words, including references and tables. However, in the translation of the guidelines into Spanish, the number of Correspondence: Marta Pulido*, Freelance Author’s Editor, Via Augusta 160, Barcelona E-08003, Spain. E-mail: [email protected] Conflict of interest: None declared. DOI: 10.1111/ijs.12251

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words is 4000–8000, including references. The same length of 4000–8000 words seems to be mentioned in the Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, and Vietnamese translations. Our professor (Marta Pulido, MD, PhD) encouraged the group (79 postgraduates) to write a letter to the Editor to clarify, and tentatively correct, this inconsistency in the Author Guidelines. We were discussing the possible reasons, including allowing extra space in case the International Journal of Stroke may had a Spanish version, which is not the case, or an inaccurate translation of the guidelines from English into Spanish (and possibly to the other languages). We would appreciate very much your attention to this point and hope that this letter would be of help to make the necessary amendments. By consensus, we agreed on the authorship of this report signed individually by seven of the attendees and our teacher as the corresponding author on behalf of the whole group of postgraduates. Eugènia Almacellas, Tatiana Altadill, Joan-Carles Escolano, Tania Paloma Quesada López, David Robles, Sara Sánchez-Úbeda, Néstor Vázquez-Bernat and Marta Pulido on behalf of the

postgraduate students of the subject ‘Scientific Communication’, 2013-2014 Master of Biomedicine, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain.

Eugènia Almacellas1, Tatiana Altadill2, Joan-Carles Escolano3, Tania P. Quesada López4, David Robles5, Sara Sánchez-Úbeda6, Néstor Vázquez-Bernat7, and Marta Pulido8* 1

Graduate in Biomedical Sciences, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain 2 Licenciate in Biology, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain 3 Graduate in Biotechnology, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain 4 Licenciate in Nutrition, Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro, Santiago de Querétaro, México 5 Graduate in Chemistry, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain 6 Graduate in Genetics, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain 7 Licenciate in Chemistry, Institut Químic de Sarrià (IQS), Universitat Ramon Llull, Barcelona, Spain 8 Freelance Author’s Editor, Barcelona, Spain

© 2014 The Authors. International Journal of Stroke © 2014 World Stroke Organization