Please ensure that anything you submit to the BMJ conforms to the uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals, drawn up by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).

The ICMJE requirements are long and comprehensive, and the BMJ also has specific requirements for different types of articles and particularly detailed ones for research articles: we urge you to look carefully at all of these.

Here, however, is an overview of the requirements for all BMJ manuscripts:

• Title - All manuscripts
• Names, addresses, and positions of all authors plus email address for corresponding author - All manuscripts
• Copyright/licence for publication - All manuscripts - Our preferred way of receiving the granting of this licence is by a statement in the manuscript (“The Corresponding Author has the right to grant on behalf of all authors and does grant on behalf of all authors, an exclusive licence (or non exclusive for government employees) on a worldwide basis to the BMJ Publishing Group Ltd and its licensees , to permit this article (if accepted) to be published in BMJ editions and any other BMJPG products and to exploit all subsidiary rights, as set out in our licence (http://resources.bmj.com/bmj/authors/checklists-forms/licence-for-publication)”) We will also accept the above statement in an email. We no longer need to see a hard copy of the signed form.
• A competing interest declaration -  All manuscripts- 

  This should be composed after each author has filled in the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors' Unified Competing Interest form and the corresponding author should keep the completed forms in case they are required later. Please then add to the manuscript a statement in the following format:

  “All authors have completed the Unified Competing Interest form at www.icmje.org/coi_disclosure.pdf (available on request from the corresponding author) and declare that (1) [initials of relevant authors] have support from [name of company] for the submitted work; (2) [initials of relevant authors] have [no or  specified] relationships with [name of companies] that might have an interest in the submitted work in the previous 3 years; (3) their spouses, partners, or children have [specified] financial relationships that may be relevant to the submitted work; and (4) [initials of relevant authors] have no [or specified] non-financial interests that may be relevant to the submitted work.”

• Details of contributors and the name of the guarantor - All original research articles
• Signed patient consent form, which is available in multiple languages at http://group.bmj.com/products/journals/patient-consent-forms. Publication of any personal information about a patient in the BMJ, for example in a case report or clinical photograph or within a subsample described in detail in a research article, will normally require the signed consent of the patient. Please download and print the BMJ's consent form to give to the patient and then send to us. You can get the form to us by post, or scan it and send it as an email attachment or upload it at our online editorial office as a supplemental file to your article.
• For research we will need statements regarding ethics approval (or a statement that it was not required) and of seeking informed consent from participants; funding; the role of the study sponsor in study design and the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data and the writing of the article and the decision to submit it for publication; the independence of researchers from funders and sponsors; and the access of researchers to all the data - All original research articles
• For research articles we ask you to ensure that they include all the information recommended in the relevant reporting statement, for example CONSORT. We do not use reporting guidelines as critical appraisal tools to evaluate study quality or filter out articles. We're simply aiming to make research articles so clear that peer reviewers, editors, clinicians, educators, ethicists, policy makers, systematic reviewers, guideline writers, journalists, patients, and the general public can tell what really happened during a study.
• If you are submitting a report of a randomised controlled trial please send with your manuscript a completed checklist and flowchart in accordance with the appropriate CONSORT guidelines, the trial protocol, and the registration details of the trial. In accordance with ICMJE uniform requirements, trials commenced after July 2005 must have been registered prospectively before patient recruitment; for older trials retrospective registration will be acceptable but only if done before submission of the manuscript to the journal.
  
• If you are submitting a report of a:
• a systematic review or meta-analysis of randomised trials and other evaluation studies please follow the PRISMA guidelines (these have superceded the QUOROM guidelines)
• a meta-analysis of observational studies please follow the MOOSE guidelines
• a study of diagnostic accuracy please follow the STARD guidelines
• an observational study please follow the STROBE guidelines
• a health economics paper please follow our health economics checklist
• a clinical guidelines paper we would encourage you to follow the GRADE guidance for grading evidence, but will not insist on this

Because we aim to improve BMJ papers’ reporting and increase reviewers’ understanding we ask our research authors to follow such reporting guidelines and to complete the appropriate reporting checklist before submission (or before external peer review if not done sooner). We do not, however, use reporting guidelines as critical appraisal tools to evaluate study quality or filter out articles.

These and other reporting guidelines are collected together in one place: the website of the EQUATOR Network. This network seeks to improve the quality of scientific publications by promoting transparent and accurate reporting of health research.